Updated

Editor's note: FoxNews.com is pleased to present an excerpt from "Blacklash: How Obama and the Left Are Driving Americans to the Government Plantation" the new book by Fox News contributor Deneen Borelli. 

The Dangers of an Unhealthy Liberal Agenda

There has been a notable shift in our discussion about health care. We don’t talk about ways of using innovation and advanced technology to cut costs and improve the actual health of Americans. We don’t talk about free market approaches that would increase competition and cut costs. We don’t talk about malpractice reform that would reduce the volume of unnecessary tests that contribute to the unsustainable price tag of health care. Instead, we talk about the president’s plan—his backward vision that effectively keeps us under the government thumb, enslaving us to a cold and uncaring bureaucracy, while exploding the public debt.

ObamaCare isn’t about medicine for your children. It is not about improving the benefits you get at work. And it does not help prevent illness in order to limit health problems down the road. Rather, ObamaCare is about Obama’s overriding philosophy that decisions are better left to the government than with the individual and that the state is a better arbiter of how to allocate our health care dollars than the free market. Obama’s vision is one of a traditional liberal: to expand the entitlement state to cover health care coverage through an existing infrastructure. Once in control, however, Americans will be empowering bureaucrats to deny treatment and services, especially to the most vulnerable, in an effort to control costs.

The United States is an exceptional country—we are “a shining city upon a hill.” Americans are extremely compassionate and generous. When disaster strikes anywhere in the world, we are the first to jump into action, providing aid and our expertise. It doesn’t matter if it is on another continent or as close to home as New Orleans. We are there committed to helping people help themselves. We can do this because it’s part of our national character and because our free market economy has provided us with a degree of wealth that gives many of us disposable income that can be allocated to charity. Our economic strength has made us the single most powerful nation on earth.

But we are at a crossroads. Do we want to continue in this direction, or do we want to become a nation of people enslaved to our national debt, weakened by our country’s gross spending habits?

ObamaCare is also about spending money we don’t have and it will greatly contribute to our national debt. Sure, it has a nice ring to it—the government will be your health care backstop, ensuring that you and your kids will be safe and secure. The government will not be doing this. The government is going to be pouring money into unworkable, inefficient bureaucracies and in doing so, it will stake claim to the biggest entitlement expansion since the 1960s.

Make no mistake about it: The promises of ObamaCare are terribly misleading. Name just one government program that has delivered a cost-efficient and reliable service? The United States Postal Service? Amtrak? Compassion, caring, and fiscal efficiency are not characteristics of government enterprises—period. The care in ObamaCare is about Obama caring about a progressive legacy that will greatly expand government control over lives. Oh, yes, your care will suffer. If tragedy strikes and your child needs special medical treatment, how long will it take to get an appointment with a specialist—assuming there will be one to find?

By the time many of the adverse consequences of ObamaCare kick in, Obama won't be in office, but on the speaking circuit cashing in while the rest of us suffer.

Obama is an elite, and after his presidency he will never have to worry about money or not being able to buy the best health care for his family. Meanwhile, you will be struggling to figure out how to get quality medical services.

The liberal agenda is a double-edged sword. Sure, it always sounds nice. Clean and renewable energy from the wind and sun. Accessible, affordable, and quality health care for all regardless of your employment or health status.

It has a feel-good kind of ring to it. The government will always be there to take care of you. If times get tough: The government will pay for your health care. The government will protect your mortgage. The government will give you jobs, money, food, and housing. But the fact remains, the government can’t pay for this agenda. The liberal agenda is thick with sweeping generalizations and false promises of hope. The only consistency is its failure to deliver yet with such a dismal record. Too many Americans get lured into the progressive fantasy that through the grace of big government man can create heaven on earth.

Someone has to pay these ObamaCare bills. Sure, Obama will pay his personal share but he can afford it with his million-dollar-plus income. It is me, you, and our children and grandchildren who will pay. What we are paying today is only a down payment for the future cost of the program over the long term. Its cost will drain our economy, raise our taxes, and lower our standard of living and for all of that we will beg a bureaucracy for treatment.

That’s what I mean when I say Obama is ensuring we will always be slaves on the government plantation. We need to break these chains. We need to send those overseers packing. We need to become masters in our own homes and control our own destinies. We need to be responsible for buying our own health insurance and take responsibility for our lifestyle choices. And most of all, we need to recognize that the care in ObamaCare is an illusion, just like the rest of the progressive agenda.

Text copyright © 2012 by Deneen Borelli. Published by Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Printed with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.