Lin Zinser Letter in Rocky Mountain News

The August 7, 2007 online edition of the Rocky Mountain News posted the following letter from Lin Zinser:

Bill Scanlon's August 1 article, "Healthy Living May Pay Off," left out important facts about the plans.

Each plan creates new state bureaucracies, anticipates increased federal health care subsidies to Colorado, and call for new and/or increased taxes.

Moreover, these plans assume that government's role is to ensure that each individual has a doctor (a medical home) and that the patient is forced to seek medical care from that doctor as controlled by the plan.

Many today, even with insurance, choose not to go to doctors until they are so ill they end up in hospitals. The answer is force?

These plans assume that people cannot be informed about healthy lifestyles and alternatives. They assume that people must be forced to limit consumption of junk food, coffee, alcohol, or cigarettes -- or pay higher taxes. These taxes are intended to limit a person’s ability to make her own decisions about what is healthy, proper and good for her in the context of her life.

Civilization began when people used reason rather than force in human transactions. The mark of a developed civilization is the extent to which people are free and are not compelled -- by a king, the Gestapo, a Mafioso, a gang, or a nanny-state -- against their own values and choices. These plans assume government force is the only answer, and they are uncivilized and wrong.

Lin Zinser, Arvada