You gotta hand it to the Democrats – they never met a government program they didn’t embrace and want to shove down the throats of the American people. Oh sure, we’ve come to expect this from the likes of the money-grubbing trial lawyer and, of course, that queen of socialism, Hillary Clinton, but Barack Obama? Perhaps he sees his campaign starting to go stagnant in the polls, but today he came out with that old broken-down Trojan horse of liberalism, nationalized health care. As the AP’s Mike Glover reports:

Obama’s plan retains the private insurance system but injects additional money to pay for expanding coverage. It would also create a National Health Insurance Exchange to monitor insurance companies in offering the coverage.

Those who can’t afford coverage would get a subsidy on a sliding scale depending on their income, and virtually all businesses would have to share in the cost of coverage for their workers. The plan is similar to the one covering members of Congress.

Obama’s package would prohibit insurance companies from refusing coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

The plan doesn’t have the mandate that rival Democratic candidate John Edwards is proposing to ensure that all Americans get coverage. The 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee would require everyone to have health insurance, much like state requirements for auto insurance for every driver. Both candidates would require businesses to help cover their workers.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who oversaw a massive but unsuccessful project to overhaul the nation’s health care system while she was first lady, has promised universal health care but has yet to provide specifics.

No one is saying that our health system is perfect – there’s no such thing – but compared to any other in the world, its model fits best into the American free-market economy and everything it stands for. After all, one of the primary incentives for Americans wanting to improve themselves and their lot in life is to change jobs, or go to school, and/or learn new skills that will help them enter different fields of employment and/or climb the corporate ladder is better benefits and/or more income so they can afford better health insurance. Take away that incentive and burden small business employers with the task of providing free or inexpensive healthcare to people, and you remove that incentive. Do that, and watch the number of entry-level jobs available to young people provided by small-business owners disappear. Talk about your market economy wet blanket!

But it’s not just me who feels this way: Jim Addison of Wizbang! Politics hits the nail right on the head:

[Obama’s plan] supplies no details, but on the face of it, the accounting must have been done by Rosy Scenario. “Saving” an average of $2500 per year for consumers is nearly $40 billion right there, and that’s before even beginning to cover the estimated 45 million uninsured. You keep your private insurance, but pay less for it? How about free Cadillacs for everyone, too?

Oh, and he will also “ask all but the smallest businesses who don’t make a meaningful contribution to the health coverage of their workers to do so to support this plan,” he says. “Ask,” as in “mandate,” he means, of course. Might as well kill the economy while destroying health care, eh?

Of course, Obama is competing for the Democratic base voter, who likes nothing better than a “freebie” that someone else has to pay for. Only in such a party could a complete dismantling of the best health care system in the world be considered a worthy goal.

It’s my view that most Americans are basically lazy by nature and would be more than happy to let the government be their titty for everything – as if it were some distant and benevolent welcome wagon that somehow pays for itself. Well it doesn’t, and increasingly it is being supported by those who work the hardest to pay the most in taxes to keep it running. The government has a role in providing a safety net for the most needy of its people, but not everyone. Take away the incentive of working hard, and this country folds like a cheap bridge table. If the federal government had shown its ability to consistently and effectively deliver services through efficiently-run programs, that would be one thing, but the truth is, just about everything it tries to do, it fails at miserably. What makes the likes of Obama think it will be any different when it comes to providing effective and affordable health care?

Edwards, Hillary, and now Obama. You gotta hand to the Democrats – at least they’ve stopped being shy about showing their true colors.