I found an article that saddened me today.

A little girl was diagnosed with a rare medical condition from birth. For twelve years, she lived under the fear of losing her life because her body was weakened by her condition. But, through the use of doctors, she and her family put together a fairly effective treatment plan. For twelve years, it looked as if this cute girl would be able to live a normal life.

But then she moved. She went to a new hospital. She had new doctors. These doctors didn’t know her as well, and suggested a new treatment regiment. The parents refused — the original treatment plan had worked so well, and they were concerned for her health. They contacted her old doctors, who opposed changing the treatment plan, which they thought was dangerous for her.

The new doctors insisted on the new plan, and even threatened to call the police on the parents — they believed the parents were being unreasonable and preventing their daughter from receiving the treatment she needed. The parents had no choice but to go along with the new treatment plan.

The new treatment plan killed her. Her name was Francesca. She was twelve years old when she died of respiratory failure.

Perhaps the government should have done something, one might say. Perhaps the government should have taken them to court and decided which treatment was better? Perhaps the government should have set some sort of standard for the treatment of this disease?

Oh, but here’s the real kicker: this didn’t happen in America. This happened in Britain… where health care IS run by the government. Government officials decided they knew what was best for this little girl based on their regulations and guidelines determined by government bureaucrats. And it killed her.

You see, government regulation often tries to dictate what they think is best for us. They think we’re too stupid to choose correctly what’s best for us — oh, but they, the infallible regulators, somehow do. Never mind the fact that they’ve never met you or your doctor. They know what’s best for you, not you or your doctor.

Isn’t that at least a little bit insulting? For someone to come in and dictate to you your personal choices under the guise that somehow they have some god-given power to know what’s best for you. But government officials don’t know. They may know what’s best for the majority of people, but they can’t make all of these decisions on an individual basis.

Who better to make the decision than the individual? Yes, perhaps the average person knows little of medicine. But he knows who to ask, he knows where to find the information; he can ask a doctor for his own, personalized advice. But he can’t do that with a government official. Government officials don’t know him. The average person also knows little about cars and computers, but we still allow them to make personal decisions about what car or computer to buy.

The key thing in regulation of personal decisions is that the best course of action is different from person to person. Government officials cannot replicate those best decisions; they’re not in the shoes of every person, and therefore they cannot determine what the best course of action is. Imagine if we did that with food, if we decided de-individualize food choices. We’d just have the same thing every time, and some people would like it. But some people would hate it, and we would deny them the choice to choose their own lifestyle.

So government regulators take what’s best for most people and force it on everyone. Those  in the minority, like Francesca, suffer — greatly.