This invisible hand saves us from another hand, this one belonging to the government, that dips into our pockets and purloins our earned income in order to fund its own initiatives, converting our hard-earned money into the stuff of which bureaucracies are made. Michael Tanner, an analyst for the CATO organization and the director of research at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation notes that “A single-payer national health care system would come at enormous cost to American taxpayers... as high as $339 billion per year in additional taxes" (Tanner). And despite the enormous price tag, evidence suggests that we may not buy superior health care. The problem is simple: taxes differ between demographic groups, as different generations may have more or less members, with more or less income generation. This creates unique pressures, for as the high-volume Baby Boom generation lives longer and longer (thanks to growing life expectancies and better medications), the younger generations, which are far smaller, must foot the bill for any sort of universal coverage. The situation is ultimately self-destructive. Former presidential candidate Lew Rockwell explains. The fiscal problem results from the reversal of the numbers of young and middle-age taxpayers versus old people living on the dole. As the costs of paying for the costs of a non-working long life rise, the pool of the population working to pay the bills continues to shrink. The costs themselves continue to rise because the old-age health economy is increasingly immune from the competitive forces of market discipline... the system looks ever more like burning your house to stay warm. Some years after the boomers retire, there won't be any house left. (Rockwell).



Again, the utopia of universal care flounders on the harsh rocks of economic reality.

In addition, we should recognize that while universal health care might have institutional value in countries with more socialized economies, the rugged individualism that has fueled American hegemony since World War II should not be so quickly brushed aside. At the end of the day, our country can be only as strong as our values, and we have, for as long as this country has existed, prioritized the capacity for Americans to self-rule, to be free to make decisions about how to run their lives, even if those decisions turn out not to be the best ones. We value that sort of liberty, because we recognize that each intervention, no matter how loving or enlightened it appears, paves the way for another intervention, and then another intervention, and so on, until that thing we called liberty is but a phantasm of what it once was. The red menace of Soviet communism may be a distant memory, but its historical imprint remains, and should serve as a stark reminder of the problems posed by this slide towards socialism. And when the government begins its talk about the need for an increased, more pervasive role, we need to pause. Yes, health care is complicated, just like the medicine it uses and the biology it treats, but surely we do not simply throw our hands up in the air and quit every time something becomes complicated. Instead, we dig in, persevere, and do the best we can. The idea that our politicians have the answers, that they can make everything simple should ring out like a fire alarm, because these are precisely the sorts of claims that build the case for government authority over and above individual freedom. Political scientist Murray Edelman explains that “The language that constructs a problem and provides an origin for it is also a rationale for vesting authority in people who claim some kind of competence. Willingness to suspend one's own critical judgment in favor of someone regarded as able to cope creates authority" (Edelman 20). Thus, the future of health care should be understood as being about more than just the health of our bodies – it is also about the health of our values, our freedoms, and our ability to claim authority for ourselves as citizens, rather than to hand it over to the government.

In conclusion, this paper has demonstrated that, despite all the recent hype, our current health care system is the one most appropriate for the United States. Once one considers geographic, demographic, and cultural factors, it becomes clear that universal health care is not, and cannot be, a solution that is viable in the long-term for America – not, that is, if we want to keep America predicated on the values that founded it. Our current system provides superior care at superior cost, and it does so using uniquely American values. That should not be something we trade away lightly.