My mood...

I believe that this health care bill will unavoidably lead to a universal health care system because it is creating a perverted and pretend "free-market" system that is unsustainable. And at the point where government is responsible for health care in any meaningful and broad sense, it will fundamentally and irrevocably destroy the relationship between the individual and the State. Add in the fact that we're already screwed from our profligate spending and well...I don't see much to be hopeful for in our future.

I can't say I'm feeling angry right now. More just resigned and sad about what is to me another severing of the connection to the philosophy that has made our country unique and led to its greatness. And it's sadder still to see how happy so many people will be at the result of this bill. The lesson I take (and which Berchmans will not) is: Ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

And like Pandora's Box, it doesn't even matter if Republicans someday take control and repeal the stupidity of this reform. Some things once done, cannot be undone. Precedents are set and there is no return.

I see that Mark Steyn was feeling much the same as me, if in more stark terms (terms that opponents would call hyperbolic I'm sure; I just think those critics have their heads up their asses in utopian optimism):

Here's Steyn, on The Corner:

Happy Dependence Day! [Mark Steyn]

Well, it seems to be in the bag now. I try to be a sunny the-glass-is-one-sixteenth-full kinda guy, but it's hard to overestimate the magnitude of what the Democrats have accomplished. Whatever is in the bill is an intermediate stage: As the graph posted earlier shows, the governmentalization of health care will accelerate, private insurers will no longer be free to be "insurers" in any meaningful sense of that term (ie, evaluators of risk), and once that's clear we'll be on the fast track to Obama's desired destination of single payer as a fait accomplis.

If Barack Obama does nothing else in his term in office, this will make him one of the most consequential presidents in history. It's a huge transformative event in Americans' view of themselves and of the role of government. You can say, oh, well, the polls show most people opposed to it, but, if that mattered, the Dems wouldn't be doing what they're doing. Their bet is that it can't be undone, and that over time, as I've been saying for years now, governmentalized health care not only changes the relationship of the citizen to the state but the very character of the people. As I wrote in NR recently, there's plenty of evidence to support that from Britain, Canada and elsewhere.

More prosaically, it's also unaffordable. That's why one of the first things that middle-rank powers abandon once they go down this road is a global military capability. If you take the view that the US is an imperialist aggressor, congratulations: You can cease worrying. But, if you think that America has been the ultimate guarantor of the post-war global order, it's less cheery. Five years from now, just as in Canada and Europe two generations ago, we'll be getting used to announcements of defense cuts to prop up the unsustainable costs of big government at home. And, as the superpower retrenches, America's enemies will be quick to scent opportunity.

Longer wait times, fewer doctors, more bureaucracy, massive IRS expansion, explosive debt, the end of the Pax Americana, and global Armageddon. Must try to look on the bright side...