The biggest addiction in America today is Big Government. It costs trillions of dollars–and counting. It’s sacrificing the economic well-being of future generations with deficit-spending not yet seen in human history–not to mention the coming inflation for the present generationn; not to mention the punishing of productivity for the sake of politicians being able to preen before the cameras as if they really were somebody or something. Take the example of Medicare. What’s interesting is that NOBODY brings it up in the “debate” over the coming of nationalized medicine. People wonder: “Would nationalized medicine be a good or bad idea?” But we already have socialized medicine. Medicare is socialized medicine for the elderly. How well has it worked? Nearly 50 years ago, politicians promised it would be less expensive than private health care and it would fill all the health care gaps. It didn’t. In fact–as everyone agrees–things have become much, much worse in the practice and financing of medical care since then. You don’t even enjoy full coverage under Medicare unless you purchase a private, supplemental plan. Medicare is going bankrupt according to every single government report, and is unsustainable even without the additional, huge government expense of nationalized health insurance for everybody. So how well did Medicare work? Why are we not debating that? Why is private sector medicine on trial when government medicine has dominated for the last half a century? To even think of questioning the sanctity of Medicare is an obscenity to most people. This is akin to saying, regarding a crack cocaine addict, “Well, he’s become dependent on the drug and it has wrecked his life. But he’s such a mess–we can’t take him off his crack now!” That’s what I see and hear when I try to wrap my mind around this “health care debate.” It’s insanity in practice, and seemingly rational, definitely well-educated and articulate people are literally saying things just as insane. Politicians have made many Americans addicted to Big Government, and now they’re proposing to make everyone even more addicted. Instead of getting rid of the drug, they’re only going to give us more of it.