Is Health Care Bill Anti-Gun?

While Democrat progressives are going to call this Washington Examiner item a reach, the problem is, it's reaching the bill was designed to allow. As Senator Coburn went to some effort to point out on the Senate floor, hundreds of unelected government employees will ultimately get to determine what the proposed legislation actually means, as so much of it is open to interpretation. Libertarians and gun owner groups have noticed.

The simple question is this, if a bureaucrat decided that not having a gun in a household represented a "healthier" lifestyle, could gun ownershipeventually be regulated, or penalized under the bill? The simple answer is, yes. There is nothing to prevent it. In addition to that, previously private health care data could easily be incorporated into any gun licensing database. If a GP suggested you talk to a psychiatrist because you were feeling angry, or depressed, could that information ultimately be used to disqualify you for gun ownership?

Again, there is nothing in the bill to prevent it. That decision, as with the former, would fall to someone no one voted for in some department of the federal government somewhere. Whatever that is, it doesn't sound much like democracy.

"There is a broader issue here," said Dave Kopel, research director of the Independence Institute of Colorado, a libertarian think tank. "The more you socialize costs, the more you empower the argument that the government has the authority to control private behavior."

Kopel pointed to the Japanese health care system, where employee waistlines are measured and those who are overweight are put into special weight loss programs, as an example of where the U.S. health care system could be headed.

And gun control could become part of it, Kopel said.

Comments

[unseen]

Well its nice to see People in higher circles understand what the grassroots has known for months. Obamacare is a backdoor attempt to limit guns. this is one of the reasons you are seeing record gun and ammo sales. The people already understand this Dan.

[Al in St. Lou]

Geez, it looks like I woke up in Orwell's "1984"!

[Lala]

I believe I've read that pediatricians ask children if there are guns in their homes.