Social Security and Forced Government Health Care
By Richard E. Ralston
April 29, 2005
When politicians proclaim that you have a “right” to health care,
they actually mean many other things. First, that they want
unlimited power to force others to provide you with health
care—whatever the cost. They also mean that you have no right to
manage and provide for your own health care, indeed no right to any
health care whatsoever but that which is provided and approved by
the government. They want the federal government to decide exactly
what treatments you can and cannot have. They also demand that your
doctor provide the government with all the personal details of your
health care—after all, they’re paying for it aren’t they? Whatever
this is, it is not protecting your “rights.”
The principle underlying all of this is government force. During
the present debate on Social Security reform, we should keep in mind
how the government uses Social Security as one more tool to force
retirees into government controlled health care.
After you and your employers have involuntarily paid into Social
Security for forty or fifty years—probably a quarter of a million
dollars or more—you may at least take a bit of consolation on some
fine morning when you walk into the Social Security Administration
to apply for your retirement payments. “Thank God,” you might think,
“at least I have lived long enough to get some of my money back.”
This assumption lies at the heart of the current social security
debate. What would be your reaction if you were told, “Sorry, you
don’t qualify. You get nothing.” If you think that can never happen,
you are mistaken. It is happening now—every day.
For many years the Social Security Administration has used a form
that requires anyone applying for Social Security retirement
benefits to also sign up for Medicare Part A (hospital) insurance.
Participation in Medicare is not compulsory, you see. There is just
no place on the form to opt out. Sign the form or you don’t get
social security retirement payments. What is the legal basis for
this? Without being able to establish a basis in law, the Social
Security Administration just does it.
What if you want to buy private insurance that provides better
coverage and additional treatment? According to Social Security
Administration regulations, if you withdraw from Medicare Part A,
you lose your retirement payments, you must return all hospital
benefits previously paid, and all Social Security retirement
benefits received.
This practice should not be unexpected. Compulsion and force are
the foundations upon which Medicare is based. Once you are part of
the Medicare system, you must submit to and accept only the health
care that Medicare approves. Any physician that accepts Medicare
patients is forbidden to give you any other treatment—even if you
ask for it and are willing to pay. A physician who accepts such a
payment from you is subject to prosecution. What if you have saved
up the funds in a Health Savings Account (HSA) to pay for the
treatment you want? That is unfortunate, because it is forbidden to
withdraw these funds for treatments covered by Medicare.
Doesn’t it seem a bit strange that the government goes to such
extremes to force you to accept a “free” government benefit of
hospital insurance? (“Free,” of course, means that you have already
paid for it.) Why do they take your Social Security payments away if
you withdraw from Medicare Part A? What is going on here? The answer
is government power and force for its own sake. The purpose for
collectivist politicians—in the guise of inventing a “right” to
health care—is to make you depend on them for your health care,
depend on them for your retirement income, depend on them for
everything. To make this happen, free citizens (and their
physicians) who want to take care of themselves must be singled out
and punished.
The really important issue in the current debate on Social
Security reform is freedom. Will changes create more freedom and
choices for individuals? Or more dependence on and power for
government?
Richard E. Ralston is Executive Director of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine.
Copyright © 2005 Americans for Free Choice in Medicine. All rights reserved.
For reprint permission, contact AFCM.
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