Every time the topic of national health care comes up, the prophets of doom put on their black cloaks and start their chants of “Big Brother,” “socialism” and “move to Finland,” painting a picture of a bleak, Orwellian future where baritone-voiced Death Panels decide your fate on a punch card that then gets sent through a pneumatic tube to the waiting Euthanasia Agent. But our smarter, better-looking kin over at Consumer Reports claim it’s not all that bleak.

They point out that none of the proposed plans create any new government programs, meaning you’ll get your health coverage from exactly the same sources they do today.

All that’s being proposed is a “mixture of new public and private financing to help make private coverage affordable to the tens of millions who can’t pay for it today, and introduce important new consumer protections.”

Additionally, the government would provide new tax credits to help middle and lower income families purchase private insurance if they don’t have access to coverage from their employers.

If you are tempted to point to this as a government takeover of health care, be careful! You should know that employer provided coverage—the type of coverage most of us have—already enjoys a large government subsidy in the form of being excluded from taxable income.

In summation, Consumer Reports believes that the National Health Care Plan is merely an expansion of a system that is already in place that will open the door to adequate medical care for millions of currently uninsured and under-insured people.

Does that still sound as terrifying to you?

Will the government take over my health care? [Consumer Reports]

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