Health care, the Amish, and the story of Valentine Byler

It seems it's taken as a given these days that individuals in society could not successfully navigate life's challenges without at least some government assistance. After all, isn't that what Social Security, Medicare, and the current health care proposals are all about? It would thus seem a near impossibility to find a non-wealthy segment of our society that is getting by without government assistance. And yet we can do just that. I speak of course of the Amish.

The Amish have a religious opposition to commercial insurance, as well as an opposition to accepting money from government welfare programs. Yet you do not see a crisis of lack of medical care in the Amish community. According to one group of Amish bishops, "It has been our Christian concern from birth of our church group to supply those of our group who have a need, financial or otherwise." And according to Amish Country News, "the care of the elderly is seen as the responsibility of the family and community, not the government." The Amish pay for all medical costs themselves.

So the Amish won't purchase insurance and won't accept welfare. But isn't that exactly what Social Security, Medicare, and ObamaCare are by definition? True enough, and that's why – after a long fought battle (that is nicely summarized here) – the Amish are exempt from both Social Security and Medicare taxes and benefits. And, as I learned on the news this morning, from ObamaCare too.

The Amish's fight for exemption from these programs was not without resistance from the government. With the passage of Social Security, the government was insisting that the Amish buy into a program and accept assistance which they did not want – and were personally and religiously opposed to.

The fight culminated in 1960, when the IRS forcibly seized three horses from Amishman Valentine Byler while he was out plowing his field for spring planting, and sold them at auction to satisfy Byler's $308.96 in unpaid Social Security taxes. That's right – Mr. Byler's sole means of subsistence were forcibly confiscated from him, in order to ensure the government could care for him later in life – care which he did not want, or need.

A public relations disaster for the government ensued. The New York Herald Tribune editorialized, "What kind of 'welfare' is it that takes a farmer's horses away at spring plowing time in order to dragoon a whole community into a 'benefit' scheme it neither needs nor wants, and which offends its deeply held religious scruples?" The Ledger-Star in Norfolk, Virginia said the event marked "a milestone in the passing of freedom – the freedom of people to live their lives undisturbed by their government so long as they lived disturbing no others. It was a freedom the country once thought important."

The government finally gave in, and granted the Amish an exemption from Social Security. And when Medicare was passed in 1965, a line was inserted into the bill exempting the Amish from that program too. Now, with ObamaCare on the cusp of being passed, we learn the Amish will be exempted from that as well.

Valentine Byler's story is as clear an example as there can be of government forcibly taking away personal liberty – the ability of one to live their life as they see fit. But the most important lesson to take away from this entire saga is that it debunks the myth of the necessity of cradle-to-grave government welfare for our nation's citizens. Life is not easy, and sometimes people need help. The Amish have proven that help can be provided absent government intrusion. As one Amishman was quoted as saying in the November 1962 Reader's Digest: "Allowing our members to shift their interdependence on each other to dependence upon any outside source would inevitably lead to the breakup of our order."

Is that what we going to let that happen to our nation?