As ever, Thomas Sowell illuminates clearly in his column, Risky Business,  the hash politicians have made of health insurance even before we learn of the many ugly features of “Obamacare” that we will rue. Here, he distills the argument:

By passing laws to force insurance companies to cover things that have nothing to do with risk, politicians force up the cost of insurance.

Annual checkups, for example, are known in advance to take place once a year. Foreseeable events are not a risk. Annual checkups are no cheaper when they are covered by an insurance policy. On the contrary, they are one of many things that are more expensive when they are covered by an insurance policy.

Pooling all of the costs of foreseeable events and redistributing all of the costs only adds costs – those of bureaucracy, inefficiency, and the ever popular, “Waste, Fraud and Abuse,” a phrase so abusive it should be banned from usage. (Thank you Jesse Boomshackalacka Jackson.)

Our Progressive friends bristle at the charge that President Obama is a socialist, yet he can rarely find a behavior that shouldn’t be redistributed in some form by the federal  government.  Our Progressive friends even bristle at the notion that self-identified Socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders (I. Vt.) is a socialist. (Apparently Sarah Palin can be slurred as a C*** but don’t hurt a Progressive’s  feelings with the malignant charge of ‘socialism.'”  But, keep in mind that every time a politician orders a private citizen to pay for goods or services for the benefit of others, it is a form of socialism.

The question before the voters int this election is “How much socialism is too much?”