Under Medicare for All, Government May Micromanage Your Pizza Order
6th January 2019
It sounds ridiculous. But look at what’s happening in the United Kingdom, where the government runs the health system.
To combat the country’s obesity epidemic, British officials just proposed limiting the number of calories permitted in thousands of foods sold in restaurants and grocery stores. A single-serving pizza would be allowed a maximum of 928 calories. A savory pie, no more than 695.
Invasive measures like these might sound like the stuff of a totalitarian dystopia. But when the government foots the bill for our medical expenses, it has a strong financial incentive to micromanage our health.
When the government is paying for your health care, then any decision that affects your health becomes the business of the government. This same overreach underlies the apparently universal power of the government under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. All it takes is five Harvard Law graduates in Washington and you’re screwed.