On Health Reform

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/business/economy/14view.html?ref=health I think this paragraph is key to the problem, and the main reason why reforms of the health system as a whole have yet to happen, despite the huge cost burden the system now inflicts: "Of course, we have not made such Medicare spending cuts yet, and there are few signs that we will. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 67 percent of Americans believe that they do not receive enough treatment and that only 16 percent believe that they have received unnecessary care. If the Obama administration covers more people with government-supplied or government-subsidized insurance, the political support will broaden for generous benefits, their continuation and, indeed, expansion of current expenditures." Essentially, people become dependents and develop a dependency psychology--they come to prefer safety and ease to freedom and power. At the end of the process, you get Europe, that is, stagnancy and weakness. Europe has been ripe for conquering and eager for submission ever since it was socialized in the 30's. Most of the continent transitioned directly from a class-determined social system in which the great majority had neither power nor responsibility directly to socialism in which the same basic conditions prevail--the lack of freedom and responsibility. Only America saved it from itself: we reversed the tide in WWII (which was a socialist tide), we held the line against full socialization during the Cold War, and the ongoing Muslim influx simply represents a new opportunity for Europe to surrender.