the forgotten man of health care
The New York Times, in its article about the president signing the new health care bill, talked about a "select group of ordinary Americans" who attended the ceremony, who had become a "case in point for Mr. Obama" in his quest to destroy make scarce reform health care. One was an 11-year-old boy for whose mother's death a lack of health insurance is blamed. A sad story, to be sure, but here again we see decisions being made without regard for a key person: namely, the forgotten man. Let's call Obama "A," Congress "B," tax-paying Americans "C," and this boy's mother "X." Sumner describes this situation in The Forgotten Man:
As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X or, in the better case, what A, B and C shall do for X. As for A and B, who get a law to make themselves do for X what they are willing to do for him, we have nothing to say except that they might better have done it without any law, but what I want to do is to look up C. I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who never is thought of. He is the victim of the reformer, social speculator and philanthropist.
This forgotten man has his own needs and his own family, and instead of attempting to manipulate the federal government into taking care of him, he attempts to fulfill his responsibilities himself. He is hindered, however, by the burdens (taxes, inflation, and fees) put on him by A and B on behalf of X (who is not attempting to fulfill his responsibilities himself).
Obama and Congress did not do a good deed by passing this law. They refused to do a good deed (personally help people like the boy's mother, with their own time and money) and instead passed a law that forces other people to help people like the boy's mother. It is not moral to force others to do "good deeds," and indeed, "good deeds" done under threat of punishment are not "good deeds" anyway. Obama & Co. have chosen a path that precludes all moral action, and by threatening the use of force against the innocent forgotten man, have acted immorally themselves.