The state of Oregon will be voting on an initiative next month that if passed would create free health care for all Oregonians.

Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

Well, all the initiative will do is overtax the people of Oregon as it weakens the state’s health care services.

According to an advocate Web site, www.healthcareforall-oregon.org, Measure 23 has four key concepts. The first is to ensure that all residents have health care. The second is to ensure security to the residents. They will not have to worry about losing insurance coverage if they retire, switch jobs or anything of that sort. The third is to offer a choice when deciding what doctor to go see. The measure states residents can visit any “health care practitioner” that is approved by the state. And the fourth is to make the industry affordable by ridding it of deductibles, premiums and co-payments.

The plan, if approved, will cover “all medically necessary health services.” This goes for prescription drugs, inpatient and outpatient care, mental health care, dental and vision centers, alternative care, and long term care. You name it, its covered.

It just sounds perfect. How much might something like this cost?

This is where it gets interesting. The state of Oregon is on a $16 billion annual budget. The cost for the state-run health care is estimated to hit $19 billion.

If Measure 23 is approved, the state will be doubling its budget. How will this get paid for?

Just like everything else the government funds, tax dollars. So, if the state is going to double its spending, guess what it has to do — double its taxes.

In order to fund socialized health care, the state is proposing two new taxes.

The first is a tax on employers’ payrolls that will be as high as 11.5 percent, depending on the size of the company, of course.

The second is a new personal income tax of up to 8 percent.

These are not the total taxes that will be paid in Oregon, they are additions to what they already pay in state and federal taxes.

All these tax hikes and the whole thing will flop anyway.

Think about it. What do people do after they retire? They migrate. Florida, Texas and Arizona tend to be popular destinations at this time.

But the No. 1 expense for the elderly is health care. We have all heard the horror stories Democrats tell us about how old people have to eat dog food in order to pay for their prescription drugs.

Well, where might these retirees start flocking to? That’s right — Oregon, where they will never have to worry about making another drug payment again. And let’s not forget, it’s all covered, whether it’s penicillin or Viagra, just as long as the doctor recommends it.

So we have new people coming in who did not pay taxes in that state, but there are also people who won’t stick around. So it will even out, right?

Wrong.

What are companies who now have to pay more going to do? They would be smart to get out of Oregon.

And will it really cost the government $19 billion?

It’s ironic how government projects somehow manage to go over budget all the time. With people coming and going, this is inevitable.

Aside from more who will pay nothing coming to live in Oregon and the people who pay the most leaving, the state is also offering to basically waste money. One of the services covered is alternative medicine.

There is a reason it is called alternative medicine — it has not been proven to work. And this could range from yoga to massages to some ancient Chinese secret. It involves no science; if a doctor recommends it, it’s paid for.

Socialized health care just doesn’t work — look at Canada.

According to an article published by Mackinac Center for Public Policy titled “Socialized Medicine Leaves a Bad Taste in Patients’ Mouths,” Canadians are far worse off than Americans when it comes to health care.

They have much longer waits when it comes to receiving medical attention and the quality is much lower than it is here.

The article cites that as the reason former Quebec Premier Bourassa left Canada and went to Cleveland to receive care when she was diagnosed with cancer.

That’s right, the people who have put this in place would rather not use it. Instead they go to the United States and pay for it.

Canada’s health care is failing, yet the supporters of Measure 23 ignore that. On the group’s Web site, they try to highlight the differences between the proposed measure and Canada’s health care system. It gives no real differences between the two and only makes false claims, such as “by maintaining our current level of spending per person, we can ensure that the quality of care will greatly increase.”

Really, and how might we go about all this? It doesn’t tell us.

One slight difference is pointed out — Canada’s legislature decides on funding. In Oregon, elected officials hire people to do that. And according to the Web site, because of this difference they “will easily have enough money to fund the health care cost of all Oregonians.”

Again, how can they ensure there will be enough money? They have yet to prove a thing.

The truth is Oregon got its idea from Hillary Clinton, who wanted something similar to Canada’s health care system. They will end up in the same place.

Socialized medicine has proven not to work on a national level. It will only prove to fail miserably on the state level, where there are additional factors to help ensure that it doesn’t work.

Zach Calef

is a junior in apparel merchandising, design and production. He is a member of the Daily’s editorial board.