The blight of ObamaCare will not vanish.

• Author: Orient, Jane M.
• Position: Medicine & Health - Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

"We are moving toward the end-game of single payer.... The system wants citizens to trade their freedom for the illusion of 'health care/ but Americans soon will learn that freedom is of the greatest importance when life is at stake."

AS CONGRESS struggles with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act disaster, senators may be getting calls pleading, "Don't take my health care away," but the more influential voices will be whispering, "Don't take my ObamaCare dollars away." The American Medical Association (AMA), for example, is urging people to call about "cuts" (constrained growth) to Medicaid.

Let us get the terminology straight: the government cannot "take away" or "give" health care. Caring for your health is something you do--or do not do--yourself. It costs practically nothing; in fact, it saves you money. Nonsmokers save thousands of dollars a year. Walking around the block every day is free--and maybe you will meet your neighbor. Healthy foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, cost something, but less than a Starbucks Frappuccino or fast-food lunches. Being faithful to your spouse pays huge dividends.

You can go to a "health care provider," get counseled on smoking cessation, and have all of your bad habits, risk factors, and soon, probably your DNA and political views, recorded in an electronic data base, accessible to the government and thousands of other entities. They will score you constantly--on your value to society, eligibility to own a self-defense tool, suitability for a loan or a job, and eventually, perhaps, your qualifications to have a child.

Your health depends on basic necessities not included in the three trillion dollars poured into the "health care system" every year. Lacking a place to stay warm and dry, one homeless person lost his feet to frostbite, while Medicaid was paying someone $563 every month just to have him on a list of enrollees.

Last year, Nevada Medicaid paid managed-care companies as much as $213,000,000 for more than 30,000 people who received no care at all. Maybe that money was taken from housing or law enforcement.

Does the money given to Medicaid contractors perhaps pay safety-net hospitals to care for the needy who do require care during the year? We do not really know where all the money goes. A preliminary look at publicly available documents of Arizona's Medicaid system, allegedly the most efficient in the U.S., revealed that managed-care contractors made more than $225,000,000...