There has been a whole lot of discussion both online and offline about healthcare. Specifically, about government's role in healthcare and whether that role should be enlarged, redefined, etc.

Personally, I'd like to see the federal government get out of healthcare altogether. If things were done my way, there would no longer be any Medicare or Medicaid.

"But, Doran, what about all those people who depend on these programs for their healthcare?! Do you just want them to wither away and die?!"

No, but I have something I think many who are pushing for more government involvement in citizens' healthcare do not have: Faith. I have faith in the people of America to provide help to those who really need it. I have faith in the free market to find healthcare solutions.

The U.S. is, by far, the most giving population of any country on Earth. In the absence of government run, mandated, etc. healthcare, I believe the people will step forward.

I have a friend who recently received a kidney transplant and has since relied on a regular dose of anti-rejection medications and regular doctor visits. He also recently was laid off from his job and is now paying for C.O.B.R.A. coverage to maintain the health insurance benefits he had when he was employed.

My friend can not go out and buy individual or family health insurance coverage outside of an employer group because his condition places him in a precarious position called "uninsurable." Because I am an insulin-dependent diabetic, I am also in a similar position. To my knowledge, no health insurance company will provide coverage for me outside of an employer group either, regardless of how well I control my diabetes and lifestyle.

That's frustrating, but I know any program provided by the bureaucracy of the federal government will have the following attributes:

• Plan will provide a minimum baseline of coverage with few options
• Plan will result in my treatment being a paperwork nightmare
• Plan will restrict what medications and/or treatments are available to me regardless of doctor recommendations
• Plan may restrict what doctors I may consult
• Play may require ridiculous amounts of my time to see a medical professional and/or fulfill my obligations in seeing that bills are paid
• Plan will suffer from corruption, mismanagement and fraud

I know these things because this is par for the course for any kind of service provided by the federal government.

Now, imagine I am in a situation like my friend could be in if he does not soon find employment with a company that offers health insurance benefits. Imagine, also, that our government offers no assistance to people who find themselves in this position. Who would I turn to?

I would probably first turn to my church. My church has proven itself invaluable to many people in need for food, financial assistance, and other needs. Historically, this is one of the things churches have done in the past. I'm not familiar with people going to their church leaders to help with healthcare needs, but that could be because the government, in one form or another, has become the de facto first place people turn.

I am confident that assistance provided by my church through a church leader familiar with my specific issues and background would provide more than a minimum baseline of coverage and would provide more options that would benefit me. It certainly would not be a "Cadillac plan," but I'm confident that if my doctor recommended a procedure or a medication, I would not be told, "We're sorry, that is not covered."

I am also confident there would be a common sense amount of paperwork and I would definitely not be restricted in what doctor, hospital, etc. I see. And, most of all, I have an order of magnitude more confidence in my church's ability to run an assistance program that isn't plagued with corruption, mismanagement, or fraud.

If churches were not sufficient to fill the void, I believe other non-profit and charity organizations would appear to fulfill the need.

One such organization -- Volunteers in Medicine -- was mentioned in a recent General Conference talk by Thomas S. Monson, the president of the church I belong to. In this talk, President Monson describes the organization as follows:

[Volunteers in Medicine] gives retired medical personnel a chance to volunteer at free clinics serving the working uninsured. Dr. McConnell said his leisure time since he retired has "evaporated into 60-hour weeks of unpaid work, but [his] energy level has increased and there is a satisfaction in [his] life that wasn't there before." He made this statement: "In one of those paradoxes of life, I have benefited more from Volunteers in Medicine than my patients have." There are now over 70 such clinics across the United States.

Prior to the "Progressive Invasion" of the early 20th century, the people of the United States of America never thought of looking to the federal government to aid them in their individual or community concerns. Churches and other organizations ran all kinds of programs for people that would later be handled by government programs. There was a time when churches ran hospitals, schools, and more.

Some people have traced the first progressive shift in federal policy to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 when then commerce secretary Herbert Hoover convinced others in the Coolidge administration that the federal government needed to step in and provide on-the-ground assistance to those displaced and otherwise affected by the flood. Even then, Hoover wasn't spending federal money as much as he was directing the relief effort at a federal level -- telling people how things should be done.

This action got Hoover elected as the 31st president of the United States and under his administration, the country experienced the great stock market crash of late October 1929 that began an economic recession that grew to become the Great Depression and endured through Hoover's presidency and two terms of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency.

Hoover and Roosevelt both implemented federal programs to spend taxpayer money to provide assistance to those afflicted by the lackluster economy. The merits, effectiveness, and end result of these programs is still debated today, but some believe -- and I do -- that these programs only lengthened and amplified the recession that began with the crash of 1929 and made it "Great" while other countries' economies participating in the global marketplace at that time recovered within a couple of years.

Healthcare dictated, provided by, or otherwise governed by the government is perversion of the law as dictated by Frederick Bastiat, an early 19th century French political economist whose essay "The Law" explains.

Each of us has a natural right -- from God -- to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force -- his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right -- its reason for existing, its lawfulness -- is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force -- for the same reason -- cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

In the above excerpt, Bastiat defines the fundamental purpose of government. It is to defend and uphold our rights as individuals. It is to act on our behalf where we can not. It is not to interfere in our rights, something our current system of government increasingly does!

Bastiat continues:

Under such an administration, everyone would understand that he possessed all the privileges as well as all the responsibilities of his existence. No one would have any argument with government, provided that his person was respected, his labor was free, and the fruits of his labor were protected against all unjust attack. When successful, we would not have to thank the state for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful, we would no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune than would the farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The state would be felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided by this concept of government.

Bastiat later writes about the difficulty of reconciling this definition of the proper role of government with one that does things to help its citizens.

Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation.

But the government's participation in this socialism, Bastiat explains, is "legal plunder" and infringes on the citizens' ability to be FREE!

This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. We must choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be free and not free.

Patrick Krey, an attorney in New York, wrote a piece titled "Bastiat, Barack and Bail-Outs" for the John Birch Society site this last April talking about this very concept as it relates to our current administration.

How about some relevant quotes from founding fathers? Here are a couple from Thomas Jefferson:

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

John Adams:

Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.

And don't get me started with Benjamin Franklin!