PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Did presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren commit hara-kiri when she announced her plan for government to take ALL of health care?

Perhaps.

There is no big surprise here, but the more we know about Warren’s plan have the government make all of your health care decisions, the more it fails to impress.

The senator running for president on the Democrat side came under substantial pressure to say how she would fund here support for Medicare for All, as the Democrats like to call it. To appease those critics, she announced a plan.

William Galston, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, was among those who pilloried Warren’s effort, using colorful imagery-laden language, including the hara-kiri word above, the description of an old Japanese form of suicide.

“Warren should be commended for the wealth of detail in her plan, which allows voters to judge it for themselves. This said, she may well have penned the longest suicide note in recorded history. There’s no reason for the entire Democratic Party to sign it.”

The headline for Galston’s piece used the Japanese suicide phrase “Health Care Hara-Kiri” to describe Warren’s commitment.

“Is the country ready for the ‘big structural change’ that Warren is promising?,” Galston asked. “Would the Democrat Party be wise to bet that it is? The answers to these questions will shape the outcome of the nomination contest and the general election.”

More from Galstson.

“Since Warren made her plan public, analysts have sharpened their pencils and gone to work. Many believe she has underestimated the cost of her program and overestimated the revenue from the measures she would use to pay for it. But on one point there can be no doubt: Medicare for All would enroll everyone in the same government plan, whatever their preferences.

“Let’s be clear about what this would mean. According to the most recent government statistics, more than 218 million Americans now participate in private health care plans, of which 179 million are employment-based. As critics of Medicare for All have pointed out, many of these plans are the result of tough negotiations in which employees have compromised on wages and working conditions in return for more-generous health-insurance benefits. These workers would be asked to surrender their hard-won gains in return for a promise that they will prefer what they get from the government instead.”

So, like many of those on the far left, Warren wants bureaucrats to be in charge of your and my health care.

I say no.

Take ObamaCare – I had my own questions when it was first started several years ago – and make it better. Capitalize on the fact that it has had the effect of reducing the number of uninsured in this country.

To use another image, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

Doing the right thing will take a concerted on the part of both Democrats and Republicans. The Ds have to back away from their commitment to government-run stuff. The Rs have to find a way to say something other than “no.”

Meanwhile, Warren continues to insist that, if Democrats are willing to put up a fight, they can get Medicare for All done.

“As I recall,” Galston writes, “the Light Brigade was full of fight, but its charge into enemy lines still yielded an epic catastrophe.