The Seismic Political Shift that is Health Care

According to the Daily Caller, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has urged her rank and file Democrats to walk the electoral plank for the health care bill when it arrives on the floor for a vote. Many have suspected that Speaker Pelosi might be willing to compromise her majority to obtain passage of landmark health care legislation.

Carefully considered, the apparent plan appears to be reasonable with the all-but assured impending defeat of a number of House Democrats in November. Rarely does the President's party pick up seats in his 1st midterm elections and rarely will a majority as large as the Democrats current on grow, especially in a year with such political tumult.

Speaker Pelosi is risking further losses but, in my estimation, feels that passage of health care reform is much more important than the additional seats her majority may lose. The question is whether this gamble will still be as appealing if the House is ruled by Speaker Boehner in 2011.

Another question one must ask is why health care legislation is so important to the Democrats. Given the benefit of the doubt, Democrats can set forth an image of doing what is right in the long run at the expense of their political majority - a noble image if I've ever witnessed one. However, the cynical side of me understands that the health care legislation currently being considered will alter the political discourse of America forever. Such tight government regulation of a private industry promises that the debate of health care in the future will take place on Democrats' terms. Arguments over who regulates industry better and who provides better government services is inheretly a battle of who is better at big government - conservatives don't will these battles.

Speaker Pelosi is willing to compromise her current majority for the sake of altering the political discourse in America to the point that one of the nations largest issues will always be debated on Democrats' terms, promising a political advantage for liberals far into the future.

All of these considerations are in addition to the even more cynical notion that health care legislation is so important to liberal Democrats because they are power hungry. Again, health care is a game changer because once the government is in control of your health care, government can usurp control over other parts of your life with the guise of saving money. "No, we cannot allow you to eat foods with trans fat, or smoke as much as you like or drink as much as you like because it's unhealthy and we, the government, cannot afford to pay for your treatment. We must control your habits to save you, the taxpayer, money."

It is for these reasons, the seismic political shift that liberal health care legislation will insure, that the current plans for health reform must be defeated. At state is our health and our liberty. Health care legislation must be argued predominently on philosophical terms. Democrats will pull at our collective heart-strings if we argue the finer points of policy but cannot defend their philosophical position of more government power over the lives of individuals and less liberty.

The American people understand the most fundamental of concepts, liberty and tyranny, and it it is only the American people that can stop liberal Democrat health care legislation. When Democrats make their final push in an attempt to shove health care down our throats, we must show these elitists who is in charge.