Those who herald Clintoncare as "empowering" lesbians and gay men should consider recent events in Florida. The principle behind those events, if applied to socialized medicine, would empower the federal government to oppress us on an unprecedented scale.
Acting under Florida's recently passed Medicaid Third Party Recovery Act, the state government is preparing to sue tobacco companies for expenses in treating smoking-related illnesses under Medicaid. Gov. Lawton Chiles, as quoted in the August/September issue of Reason, gave the following rationale for the statute: "The state does not buy that package of tobacco, so we don't read the warning on the side. We just pay for the carnage."
If you don't see the connection between tobacco-related illnesses and our freedom, "family-oriented" politicians will. Even now, the collectivist right appeals to "public health" to deprive us of our rights. With national health care in place, it will be hard to imagine a future Jesse Helms not saying the following slightly modified version of Gov. Chiles's words: "Congress does not get under the covers with that homosexual couple, so we don't assess the risks of various sexual practices. We just pay for the plague." Thus, well-meaning progressives will have handed the anti-freedom right the unholy grail of a nationwide sodomy law. So much for empowerment.