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Peggy Noonan is an author and columnist, and once was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. I can’t say I always agree with her, but she’s thoughtful and, in my opinion, basically on the right side of things. Her current editorial, appearing in the Wall Street Journal, is “Common Sense May Sink ObamaCare”.

There are several facets to the healthcare debate. Noonan succinctly gets to the heart of the economic and social angles. (There’s also the practical and moral note that government health care is in fact government health rationing, which is what makes it death care for those lacking adequate political pull and bureaucratic skills…and I don’t know about you, but I (Maynard) am sadly lacking in those areas.)

On the economic question, this is the commonsense chain of logic Noonan sees going through the heads of ordinary Americans:

Will whatever health care bill is produced by Congress increase the deficit? Of course. Will it mean tax increases? Of course. Will it mean new fees or fines? Probably. Can I afford it right now? No, I’m already getting clobbered. Will it make the marketplace freer and better? Probably not. Is our health care system in crisis? Yeah, it has been for years. Is it the most pressing crisis right now? No, the economy is. Will a health-care bill improve the economy? I doubt it.

Advocates of government healthcare will debate the foregoing, but I think most of us know in our bones that it’s a fundamentally solid argument. If Obama gets his way, we’ll pay more, have less access, and Obama will become party to our most intimate personal decisions.

On the social end, Noonan articulates the intrusiveness inherent in a government that “helps” us so much:

We are living in a time in which educated people who are at the top of American life feel they have the right to make very public criticisms of…let’s call it the private, pleasurable but health-related choices of others. They shame smokers and the overweight. Drinking will be next. Mr. Obama’s own choice for surgeon general has come under criticism as too heavy…

Okay, I’ve got nothing against shaming people, and in fact some people should be shamed. But if I shame (for example) a smoker, it carries only the weight of my own words. Unless you’re actually on my property, you can ignore me. When Obama doesn’t like your smoking, you’re punished by force of law.

…Only a generation ago such criticisms would have been considered rude and unacceptable. But they are part of the ugly, chafing price of having the government in something: Suddenly it can make big and very personal demands on you. Those who live in a way that isn’t sufficiently healthy “cost us money” and “drive up premiums.” Mr. Obama himself said something like it in his press conference, when he spoke of a person who might not buy health insurance. If he gets hit by a bus, “the rest of us have to pay for it.”

Under a national health-care plan we might be hearing that a lot. You don’t exercise, you smoke, you drink, you eat too much, and “the rest of us have to pay for it.”

It is a new opportunity for new class professionals (an old phrase that should make a comeback) to shame others, which appears to be one of their hobbies. (It may even be one of their addictions. Let’s stage an intervention.) Every time I hear Kathleen Sebelius talk about “transitioning” from “treating disease” to “preventing disease,” I start thinking of how they’ll use this as an excuse to judge, shame and intrude.

So this might be an unarticulated public fear: When everyone pays for the same health-care system, the overseers will feel more and more a right to tell you how to live, which simple joys are allowed and which are not.

Americans in the most personal, daily ways feel they are less free than they used to be. And they are right, they are less free.

Are you getting this, America? If you’re overweight, it’s none of my damn business…until I’m forced to pay for your bypass, and then your obesity is my business, and I’m morally entitled to harass you. This is not the pathway to a free and “tolerant” society; it’s exactly the opposite. We’re building a world that isn’t fit for grownups to live in.