Now that the election is settled, all that remains to be seen is what promises are fulfilled by our new god-emperor of hope. One that I sincerely hope he does not fulfill is his promise regarding health care. As someone from a family with many health issues, including a little brother with Down syndrome and a cousin with Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP), this issue strikes very close to home. Nationalized health care would mean disaster for my family and for the nation. Allow me to demonstrate my point with two examples from other countries with nationalized health care systems.

I present you first with the case of a German doctor. He went to work in the rural Australian Outback because they had a shortage of doctors there. He worked and lived there for several years, made some friends, grew to like the place and decided to bring his family to settle there. He was refused permission to settle permanently because his son, who has Down syndrome, would be “too much of a burden” to the Australian national healthcare service, despite his long contributions to the people of Australia, the objections of several local community leaders and the doctor’s insistence that he could pay for his son’s healthcare with his own money.

For my second case, I present you the case of a British couple. The husband, a plumber — just like our friend, Joe — wanted to work in New Zealand, only to be refused a work visa because he was too obese. (Any person applying for a visa or citizenship must submit their health records and a Body Mass Index.) He got gastric bypass surgery, lost weight and was then able to get his visa. When his wife quite naturally wanted to go to New Zealand with him, she was told that she too was too fat. What do the Kiwis have against chubby people? Their national healthcare system doesn’t want to deal with the various health problems associated with obesity, so they force a man to get a painful surgery, lose weight and then tell him that he and his wife can’t live together unless she loses weight, too!

“Healthcare for everyone” is a nice idea. The reality is that it comes at a high price. With taxpayers all contributing to everyone’s healthcare, rather than each family or individual paying for their own, a nationalized healthcare system is forced to eliminate foreseeable expenses.

“Overweight?” they’ll ask. “Get to the back of the line! Disabled or retarded? Get back there behind the fatties!” And those seeking MRIs or other medical tests will be met with, “Sure, I’ll put ya on the list. We’re backed up until next year! Hope ya don’t keel over before then!” If not, “Y’know, it’d be better if you didn’t. I mean, if we found something, we’d probably just waste a bunch of money trying to treat ya, only for ya to die on us, anyway. This way, you’ll just drop dead and never know, and we won’t have to spend a dime!” So much for early detection.

I know firsthand that healthcare is very expensive. Why should my family — suffering from various ailments and the costs of treating them, as well as a sluggish economy and the prospect of higher taxes and more invasive government under comrade Barack Hussein Obama — be forced to pay for a system that will tell anyone with long-term problems to go to hell?