Let us take a moment to strip away the hysteria of death panels and year-long waits for treatment in order to do a fundamental analysis of the current health care direction.

The impetus of universal health care is a humanitarian one. The end goal is to make healthfulness an inalienable right granted to all from the common coffers. Ideally, no one will be left uncovered, and it will be provided at a reasonable expense to the taxpayer.

Unfortunately, reality is forced to interject.

Let us take a look at the public good that is most analogous to universal health care: public education.

Public education provides a basic level of services to everyone who cares to partake at the expense of the whole; much like universal health care is aiming to do. It has been marginally successful at providing this service at what appears to be a cost-effect rate — although there is little basis for comparison — for the average user, and stumbles at times when providing service for extraordinary cases of advanced and remedial students. Look for health care to perform in a similar fashion.

That is where the optimistic comparison ends.

The damning lesson from the public education analogy is this: when the government has a vested interest in something — read: when it pays the bills — it dictates how the resources will be spent.

As such, expect to see the government enact official policies to control: your level of fat intake, a la the trans-fat legislation represented in California’s Assembly Bill 97; your ability to smoke and drink; the amount which you engage in risky behaviors — in general, the things insurance companies ask about when deciding your coverage. In fact, the insurance company of yesterday and the government-funded health care that appears to be the inevitable choice of tomorrow are doing the same thing: protecting their financial interest.

The principle of the funding entity dictating priorities is perfectly respectable. It is pervasive throughout society; from your parents getting the ultimate decision on where to take you out to dinner, to T. Boone Pickens anointing coaches and picking brick colors at Oklahoma State University. I do not take any umbrage with the idea.

The wrinkle in the universal health care debate is that many people do not fully consider what “the government dictating priorities” will look like.

Much like your insurance has limits and acceptations, the universal option will as well. The only difference is that you have relatively little say in the matter. With health insurance, you can change providers. If the government is the sole provider of affordable health care — which is the end result of most universal systems — you are left trying to contact your congresswoman in order to achieve change.

Good luck with that.

In the end, then, the universal option limits personal choice in two distinct ways. First, it gives the government vested interest in what you eat, drink and do, and who you have sexual relations with. Second, it limits the ability of the average health care consumer to choose what insurance or health care option they want to pursue.

The next time you are faced with the idea of whether or not to support universal health care, remember the ever-timely words of the man behind the picture on your C-note, Benjamin Franklin: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”