Why health care?

Right now, the big issue is "health care", specifically, "government provided health care."  Why?  Why is it that suddenly people seem to expect that it is the responsibility of the government to provide health care?  I would say that food is more important than health care (you aren't very healthy if you starve to death)--should the government provide food?  Arguably, housing is more important than health care (you aren't very healthy if you freeze to death)--is the government going to provide homes for everyone?

Here's a hint--the government has no money!  The government does not produce anything--it only takes from the citizens.  So "government provided health care" really means "healthcare funded by taking money from those who earned it and paying for healthcare for those who didn't." 

I would REALLY like some senator or congressman to show me somewhere in the Constitution that says they can do that...

Great quote from Alfred S. Regnery

This quote comes from the February 2010 issue of the "American Spectator" in the article "Suicide Prevention" by Alfred S. Regnery:

Politics, in the final analysis, is the art of taking things away from people who don't support you and giving them to people who do.

There's a reason our Founding Fathers built a Constitution that didn't allow for transferring wealth from one person (or group of people) to another.  It's a very slippery (and seductive) slope that allows little hope of escape once you start down that path.  And we have long since started.

Check out this great article.  And also give a look at another resource mentioned in the article--the pamphlet "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt.  It's a 234-page lesson, but a great one.