Fresh from taking over Chrysler and GM, the Obama administration now has set its sights on a takeover of the health care industry. While they talk about keeping health care costs low and not compromising the quality of care, details are beginning to emerge that paint a very different picture.

There are 3 key elements to this plan that absolutely must be defeated. One, the federal government would require insurance coverage for everyone and they would be able to set the conditions of that insurance. Two, the government would create a massive bureaucracy to run the so-called “government option” health insurance provider. Third, they have to find a way to pay for all of this government interference, which means new taxes, on your current health insurance or a new value-added tax on top of the current heavy taxes we all pay.

Given the way the government runs Medicare and Medicaid, which is poor at best, we shouldn’t expect them to do any better running a more general health insurance company. They would be in the driver’s seat for making decisions about who gets care, when, and how.

The “government option” is not really an option at all. Whenever the government gets involved as a competitor to private companies, they inevitably have an advantage; namely that they can compel all of us to finance their efforts through taxes. Quickly, employers would drop private insurance options and these companies would disappear, leaving almost all of us with only one “option” – the government option.

This is to say nothing of the enormous cost of this new entitlement program, at a time when we are already running record deficits and spending taxpayer money on stimulus projects that have not stimulated job growth.

A responsible congressman should be very concerned about government takeover of health care, and the Obamacare plan that is currently proposed. It’s certainly not something to rush through without careful consideration, as this Congress has been doing with legislation such as the stimulus bill.

More good insight on the health care bill is online here and here, and information about a good alternative is available here.