Limiting Salt in Health Care Reform

It seems that, among the minutiae of data buried within the recent health care reform package, the government will instruct companies as to how much salt they put in their foods. This admittedly rather small item should serve as a warning to what we may be getting into when we allow Big Brother in Washington to dictate our needs. For though something of a minor point, it nevertheless begs quite a few important questions, while opening up many more.

To begin with, it isn't rocket science to see the connection between a high sodium intake and certain health problems. But that really isn't the issue; the real point surrounds the idea of whether the government should attempt to regulate our use of salt. Healthy or not, to what degree does Washington have the right to tell us how much salt we want, or even need?

This question puts the whole idea of government controlled health care in precisely the right light, because the answer will tell us how the government, any government, views its people. If you believe that it is right for the government to tell you what to eat, then such measures become acceptable. If you do not, they are repugnant.

Within that framework, we can now see what direction that government mandates must eventually lead. If government can regulate salt, then government can regulate you. If you do not take care of yourself, then at some point the government will argue that it no longer has to take care of you. Health care benefits will be stopped because caring for you will become too much of a public burden. Your health will become a matter of public interest, which translates into public dollars which can be cut from use on you if you don't, in a bureaucrat's eyes, deserve it.

Yes, it hasn't gone that far. Yet. But now that health care has become Washington's province, it is only a matter of time.

We were asked during the course of the debates, how many people will die from lack of government mandated health care? As the course of our history plays out we must ask: how many people will die because of it?