Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold detailing the penalty for failing to pay the new proposed “fee” for not buying health insurance.

Barthold said violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty.

The insurance industry should be properly regulated to prevent abuse such as the rescission game, but to argue that private insurance should be driven out of existence because of such “lowlife” practices is absurd.

Please don’t try to tell us that the government is more benevolent (less inclined to be “lowlife”) to those who use a lot of health care dollars than private insurers.  The government is in the choosing business too.  It’s criteria, will not be based just on who is using up the most health care, but also on who the patient voted for in the last election…or who will be alive to vote in the next one.

If the present government is allowed to choose, who will get a hip replacement? — the 20 year old illegal immigrant or the 80 year native american?  I’m betting on the illegal immigrant. False choice- you say? Well, there is only so much health care to go around. The government is not trying to increase the supply of health care, it simply wants to ration what exists based on its “wise and benevolent judgment” rather  than price.

In the video below (granted the clip used is rather dated), Obama explains how his health care plan would “eliminate” private insurance over time and that he is for a “single payer universal health care plan“: