As the U.S. Senate works feverishly to further distort the marketplace and deprive Americans of even more of what remains of their liberty by “overhauling” the health care industry, I offer you these excerpts from a December 16th article run by CBS News:

“Obama repeated his demand for action, telling ABC News ‘the federal government will go bankrupt’ if the health care bill fails. He said Medicare and Medicaid are on an ‘unsustainable’ path if no action is taken.

“To make matters more complicated, the Senate stumbled into health care gridlock after a Republican senator forced the clerk to read aloud a 767-page amendment.

“GOP Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma had sought approval to require that any amendment considered by the Senate must be offered 72 hours in advance and with a full cost report.

“When he was rebuffed by Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, Coburn invoked his right to require that an amendment by another Democrat be read aloud. That sent the Senate into limbo, since the amendment by Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders was 767 pages long. It called for guaranteeing coverage to all through a public program similar to Medicare.

“Sanders withdrew his amendment some three hours later, after 139 pages had been read, with a broadside at Republicans. Pounding the lectern on his desk, his voice rising, he accused Republicans of trying to shut down the legislative process. ‘That is an outrage,” Sanders said. ‘People can have honest disagreements, but in this moment of crisis it is wrong to bring the United States government to a halt.’”

To Obama I would say that the federal government is not “going” bankrupt – it already is. The amount of federal debt is irresolvable, unpayable, and entirely beyond repair. What is even more outrageous about this statement is that Medicare, Medicaid, and so-called Social Security overall have been unsustainable for decades. What do you expect from a socialist system modeled after Otto von Bismarck’s 19th century Prussia? But Obama’s solution is pouring more money into the mouth of the monster, and further impinging upon individual choice – not necessarily health care provider, but whether one chooses to purchase health care or not. In Obama’s collectivist universe – along with most of his fellow statists – it’s okay, in terms of bureaucratically sanctioned progressive escalation of force, to ultimately kill people who choose to resist mandatory health care. Sick indeed.

Health care reform isn’t about making sure people are healthy. It never was. Like all actions of government, it is a justification for further control and enslavement of a population. It’s about non-productive fat cats living high off the hog at the expense of the politically unconnected working class. It’s about simple ruthless domination. It’s a cynical, insidious power play. If politicians and bureaucrats were truly concerned about people’s well-being (other than their own, of course), they’d resign their posts, find jobs that are actually useful and beneficial, and put government out of business forever.

This is where I need to address Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed and proud socialist directly: “’…in this moment of crisis it is wrong to bring the United States government to a halt.’”

No, Sanders, you just don’t get it. That is precisely what we need, and soon, and permanently. And since at least the time of Gustave de Molinari, market anarchism has been there, waiting only to point out the near-infinite ways in which that is possible.