The U.S. House of Representatives just passed a hulking health care bill bulging with burdensome new taxes and mandates. We can probably thank many well-attended Tea Party protests around the country that the vote was as narrow as it was, 220-215, mostly along party lines. Now it goes, weakly, to the Senate.

The New York Times says the legislation “would require most Americans to obtain health insurance or face penalties — an approach Republicans compared to government oppression.” Gee, I hope Republicans said such laws would be an example of oppression, not merely sorta like oppression.

All but one Republican and 39 Democrats voted No to the monstrosity. Maybe a few Democrats get the message that taxpayers are mad as heck and aren’t going to take it any more.

I like how the Cincinnati Tea Party activists are delivering this message. According to a participant’s report at InstaPundit, the group recently “organized an unprecedented four-day ‘We Surround Him’ demonstration” to show one Ohio congressman their commitment to liberty. For the first few days, the protestors strategically surrounded Congressman Steve Driehaus’s district to convey their message to voters.

Then they surrounded the congressman himself, stationing themselves around his office building. The protesters invited Driehaus to address them on the health care question, but he couldn’t be bothered. Perhaps he can be compared to a dead duck.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

We don’t have time to research everything. That’s why, in theory, citizens have political representatives. They are supposed to research the issues for us, learn from past mistakes, and make improvements. Better laws. Better programs.

Welcome to reality. Instead of doing their job, politicians tempt us over and over with the same old, disproven get-rich-quick, get-healthy-quick schemes.

Peter Suderman, writing in the Wall Street Journal, looked at “The Lessons of State Health-Care Reforms.” He did what our federal politicians should have. “Like participants in a national science fair,” Suderman writes, “state governments have tested variants on most of the major components of the health-care reform plans currently being considered in Congress. The results…?” Suderman puts it bluntly: “[D]ramatically increased premiums in the individual market, spiraling public health-care costs, and reduced access to care.… The reforms have failed.”

He discusses Maine’s public plan, “Dirigo Choice,” which I’ve talked about before. He traces the cause of Massachusetts’s individual mandate to its horrible effects: higher prices pushing businesses and individuals to bankruptcy. Tennessee’s 1990 reforms proved even more destructive.

One of the reasons we’re even talking about reform, now, is because of past reform failures. By our careless representatives.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The first casualty of war is truth. The first casualty of health care reform? Free speech.

While most health care insurers have gone along with reform proposals, even helping write the bills, a few insurance companies fall outside the insiders’ perimeter, fearful of more regulation. The regulatory environment is already oppressive, after all — though, for the insurance industry these regs come mainly from the states.

So, we now learn, at least one medical insurance provider, Humana, sent out a special letter to policyholders who also participate in the Medicare Advantage program, advising them of what the effects of new reforms on their coverage would likely be.

What happened next?

If you guessed “gag order,” you got it.

After Humana’s expression of First Amendment rights, the Department of Health and Human Services told all insurers participating in Medicare Advantage to zip it, stifle themselves, express their thoughts in no way about any proposed reform to their policyholders — even if all such expression amounts to is a list of facts.

Penalties include both fines and jail time.

Yes, folks, this is what unlimited government means. Increase government’s role and “hasta la vista” to some very basic freedoms.

Just as government micromanagement of markets leads to shortages and rising prices, so increased government has predictable consequences. We pay for big government in lost freedom as well as dollars.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.