The health care reform debate will begin to rage again as Congress and the president return from their summer recess and vacation. Citizens on both sides will re-energize to reiterate their cases for and against the 1000-plus page bill that the Democratic leadership tried to push through in a two-week period prior to the recess - and before anyone could decipher the proverbially "devilish" details. 

The strategies employed by the two sides are remarkably different, however. Those against the plan, largely conservatives, site specific objections to items contained in the bill. Those in favor of the bill, especially those in favor of the so-called public option, resort to name-calling. Why? Why can't those in favor of government run health care make their case instead of trying to silence the opposition?  

The Left's desire to have the government control health care is nothing new in the United States. The first major candidate to campaign on the idea was Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. Subsequent tries were made under FDR, Truman, LBJ, and Clinton, to name the most prominent.  The ultimate goal of reaching the single-payer plan has yet to be reached, yet the government was able to incrementally increase its encroachment. With each cycle came a lessening of market forces, less interest on the part of the patient in the cost of a procedure and thus, escalating costs - inevitable when the recipient of a service has no interest in its price. (If your favorite restaurant offered free dinner on Sundays, would more customers choose steak or a hot dog?) 

So let's ask the question again. Instead of calling people swastika-carrying Nazis, why can't Nancy Pelosi explain how access to care will be increased by dumping millions into a system with a fixed number of providers?  

Instead of calling people at town hall meetings thugs and Brown shirts - accusing them of exactly the behavior exhibited by the SEIU thugs organized to shout down opposition - why can't Harry Reid explain how spending trillions to create a huge new bureaucracy will cut costs?

Instead of asking those who "made the mess" that this legislation is designed to clean up to quiet down and get out of the way, why cant President Obama explain how a citizen will keep their present insurance, once their employer realizes it can shed a great deal of cost by canceling their health coverage and dumping everyone onto the government plan? Do we not already have a precedent with pensions?

Supporters of universal health care could acknowledge that honest people may have a Constitutional objection to the Federal government running their healthcare, and explain why you won't have to go blind in one eye before the system will provide treatment for macular degeneration - as is the practice in England. Instead, they refer to people like that as racist, unable to accept a black president.

We could have an honest discussion of how increased government control, perhaps a complete takeover, will improve health care for all. We could compare it to auto insurance, where prices are low, competition is high, and consumers can pick and choose the coverage they need - across state lines if they choose. No crisis in that industry. Instead we shout down old ladies and get in the face of people at town hall meetings.

The ultimate problem is that architects of government-run health care know exactly what their legislation will do. They also know that if they presented it to us honestly that it wouldn't have a snowballs chance in hell of passing. It's sad that enough people will fall for the platitudes ("Health care for all", "Reducing costs", etc.) to give this insidious plan the chance at life that it has.