Obamacare 101
Unraveling the lies to reveal the naked, ugly truth:
The Democrats oppose health insurance because it based on the idea that people are independent individuals who should be expected—and have the right—to pay their own way. It is a system in which people decide what level of coverage they want and how much they are willing to pay for it, and insurance companies balance an individual’s premiums against his health risks.
The left’s preferred model, by contrast, is welfare. Don’t be fooled by labels. The “public option” is not a form of insurance, because it is deliberately designed not to balance premiums against risk. Instead of choosing how much much coverage you are willing to pay for, everyone is forced into a plan designed by an Orwellian “Health Choices Commissioner.” And when you get sick, you don’t have a contract with a private company that you can enforce. You are dependent on benefits that are doled out uniformly to everyone by the government—no matter what your personal judgment about your health-care needs, and no matter how much you have paid into the system.
There are no independent individuals in this system. Instead, it is designed to make everyone dependent on the collective will of the government—which can decide to reduce your care when costs spiral and the Health Choices Commissioner decides that the treatment your doctor recommends is not really “cost-effective.”
The current legislation is a big step in that direction. Government regulations and enormous government spending have already distorted the health-care market for decades, but this legislation is the coup de grace. Its whole point—even in the watered-down form favored by the “Blue Dog” Democrats—is to force insurance companies to act as if they are government welfare agencies. And when the insurance companies collapse under that artificial burden, the government will drop the pretense and have the welfare agencies, under the banner of the “public option,” take over.
This is a war on health insurance. But it is more than that. The deeper issue is individualism versus collectivism.
Hey, he said welfare! RACIST!!
All kidding aside, this is about as simple and straightforward as it gets. Liberal screaming about how Tea Partiers are “shutting down the debate” is a smokescreen to help them avoid having to honestly answer the questions raised. For an example of this propagandizing, just check this out:
WASHINGTON – The Earth-scorching August firefight over health care has given rise to questions about the point at which stifling civil discussion damages the democratic process.
All across the country, conservative opponents are clamoring to disrupt town-hall meetings about the proposed overhaul of the nation’s health care system, using GOP-generated talking points to shout down Democratic congressmen who attempt to explain the plan.
The whole friggin’ problem here is that they aren’t explaining a damned thing, and you can bet this liberal hack (“has given rise to questions” – gee, I’m in awe of your subtle weasel-word finesse, Mr Objective Journalist) knows it. Protesters show up at town halls asking questions of their supposed “representatives,” who then dodge, obfuscate, refuse to answer honestly, and then run away and whine about “unruly mobs.” But the “mob behavior” these cowards are whimpering about consists entirely of protesters repeating the same questions the miserable worms will not and cannot answer honestly. As I’ve said so many times since the earliest days of this site, truth is to them what garlic is to vampires. Taranto has it right: “If the plan were good, you would expect its proponents to be staking their arguments on its merits. Instead, they are turning this into a debate about the plan’s opponents.” Which would be their usual MO when presenting one of their godawful big-government, liberty- or economy-killing boondoggles.
And I just had another thought here, regarding that last post below about the Supreme Leader and his henchmen enlisting union goons to harass citizens who dare to speak their minds in Obamerika. You all know what’s coming next, don’tcha? Think about it for a minute; think especially hard about organized-crime-controlled unions and their long history of inciting violence and then blaming their victims for it. Any bets on how long it’s going to be before a group of Obama’s jackbooted thugs viciously assaults some protester or other, and then claims the poor schlub attacked them first?
The liberal media will aid and abet this to the best of their ability, of course; in the immediate aftermath of any such government-sponsored attack on the citizenry, we’ll see scads of frothing reportage on “the growing threat of right-wing violence,” “insurrection,” and “terrorism,” just as the DNC is now spinning the justified outrage being expressed at town hall meetings as some kind of nefarious plot, an illegitimate campaign of intimidation by vicious “mobs,” instead of exactly what it is: ordinary citizens petitioning their so-called “representatives” at public gatherings that are ostensibly held for that precise purpose.
Yes, it would be the most unimaginably stupid move they could ever make, and would be bound to backfire on them horribly. Which, with this doltish, arrogant, clown-car regime, is why I can’t really come up with much in the way of persuasive argument against the likelihood of it happening.
The exercise of freedom of speech infuriates them. Expression of dissent terrifies them. The clear light of truth hampers and undermines them. The self-righteous drones of the Left want those things stopped. And they’ll stick at nothing to make it happen. Idiotic and self-defeating? Sure. Name me one aspect of the Left’s agenda that isn’t. Just one.
Obama’s ruling junta isn’t behaving anything like a legitimate government ought to. Its actions are little more than those of a criminal conspiracy against liberty and the Constitution. They’re lying about their intention to eliminate private health care and replace it with an inefficient and inhumane government system. They’re lying about the people exercising their First Amendment right to speak out against it, and audaciously claiming they have a monopoly on truth, when anyone with a lick of sense can see that it isn’t so. They’re encouraging their blind-sheep followers to snitch on anyone who expresses disagreement — and if you think those complaints won’t result in government databases and eventual state retribution, you’re kidding yourself. And now they’re mere steps away from surreptitiously declaring outright war on citizens who have the temerity to disagree with their totalitarian edicts.
They think thinly-veiled threats of violence — not to mention outright violence itself — from government-incited union thugs can silence the criticism of their authoritarianism. They’re in for yet another rude awakening.
Update! Crucial reminder from Allahpundit:
Let me remind you again: They can pass any bill they want any time they want. Conservatives can scream their heads off at these things and there’s not an ounce of good it’ll do if Democrats are united. This whole partisan “war” Obama and Axelrod have concocted is kabuki theater against an enemy they’ve already (momentarily) defeated; it’s the Blue Dogs’ fear that they’ll be thrown out of office if they vote for this travesty that’s put the left in the predicament they’re in. The cowardice they’re showing in not wanting to face their constituents is actually obscuring the deeper cowardice of the party stalling on a landmark bill they finally have the numbers to pass for no better reason than that doing so will jeopardize their hold on power next year. They want ObamaCare and they want their permanent majority, and if the only way they can get both is by calling conservatives Nazis then that’s what they’re a-gonna do.
Yep. Like I said yesterday: man up and get on with it, chickenshits. Stop lying, stop crying, drop the masks, and show us your true colors at last (Red, through and through)
And then brace yourselves for the price you know you’re gonna pay for it, you dirty sons of bitches.
- Entries
Some congresscritter had to let that happen, some high up congresscritter, how else could that hate-filled wench with painted hands have got there?
As for the bill, not only will they not explain it, I have yet to see anybody admit to having read the freaking thing.
How can they explain what they can't understand?
"Shut up", they explained.
That's how.
There's so many good quotes from old books, who would have thought Ayn Rand, George Orwell, Ring Lardner or Groucho Marx would be so relevant at this late date?
let us, for example, take a look at this post, which goes on and on endlessly without any evidence that the writer understands how insurance works: it is not an individual business! yes, there are ways under extreme circumstances to buy a custom-tailored insurance policy of one sort or another (super-cat insurance, for example, is almost always custom-written), but otherwise, insurance works by aggregating people into groups. if you don't know that, you shouldn't be writing about insurance, health or otherwise.
more broadly, this is why insurance exists: because group behaviors are easier to predict and project than individual behaviors. there is no way of knowing (yet) whether i'm going to break my arm this year, but it's relatively easy to know that out of a group of people with specific sets of characteristics, "x" bones will be broken at "y" cost.
and since the purpose of insurance companies is to make a profit, not to improve the health outcomes of their customers, insurers look to control the makeup of the groups of people (that's why you can be rejected in applying for health insurance), control what will be paid for (you can have this medication with insurance or pay full freight for that one, even if your doctor recommends that one), and can even throw you out of insurance coverage if you're too resource-intensive.
pretty amazing that y'all don't even seem to grasp these basic points with your imaginary individual health care customer wading into the marketplace to buy his or her insurance.
which takes us to something else not generally understood around here: health care does not meet the tests of a real free market. in a real free market informed buyers meet multiple sellers of a non-differentiated product with low barriers to entry. anything that doesn't meet those characteristics isn't a free market in the strict sense of the term, and indeed most of what we have in america are oligopolistic markets with high barriers to entry.
so which of those characteristics - informed buyer, multiple sellers of a non-differentiated product, low barriers to entry - describe health care? when i break my arm, do i know how to set it? am i in a position to get bids from three hospitals on my arm? if everyone in my community hates the only hospital we've got, is it easy to set up a new one?
in short, insurance doesn't work the way you think, the health-care field itself isn't well-suited for market solutions, and no one here appears to understand either of these things.
and i dare you tough guys to reopen comments on SOS, so that the ill-informed poretto person can learn something.
Perfectly true. Which is why most of us here are arguing for LESS government involvement in what OUGHT to be a free market, not more. My dad was in the insurance biz his whole life, and years and years ago -- decades, I must sadly admit -- I studied up on it with the intention of going into the business myself. I ended up not doing that, for reasons of my own. But you make a big mistake when you assume I or anybody else here knows nothing about insurance just because we disagree with you.
Most if not all of the health care problems we now face are a direct result of government meddling, and that same government meddling is NOT what this country is supposed to be all about. That's precisely why the proponents of government-run health care have such a tough time making an argument based on anything substantial: their position is simply impossible to reconcile with the ideas this nation was founded on, and plenty of us still think those ideals are worth defending, no matter how many sob-stories and lies the statists come up with to support their proposals.
As for "daring me" to do anything at all: until you start paying the bills and running this site, go piss up a rope. The "SOS" thread is now an old one, and I have a plugin that automatically closes comments after a certain number of days. I see no reason to have to run herd on it when there are new posts out here that are still open for discussion. And with that, I've freely given more of an explanation for it than I actually owe you.
I am under no obligation whatever to provide you a forum run according to rules you lay down. You want to run things, go get your own damned website. This is MY sandbox, which I established exclusively to provide MYSELF with an outlet, not you. You'd do well to remember that. I'll open comments, close comments, or ban commenters according to my own whim, just as it says right above this little box I'm typing in now.
no, it's true, you don't "owe" me anything, and so if i said "mike ol' buddy, you need to compensate me for closing comments before i could respond to the poretto personage," then you'd be right on track! but i didn't: i dared you to reopen comments in that thread given how tough you guys all are. your "rules" mean you didn't take the dare. so be it.
now, as for the substance here, perhaps you didn't understand: government involvement has nothing to do with why the field of health-care doesn't meet the test of a free market. government has nothing to do with the fact that very few of us are sufficiently well-versed in medicine to be informed consumers.
government has nothing to do with the fact that you don't have multiple suppliers of non-differentiated services in the field of medicine.
government has nothing to do with the fact that when you break you arm, you're not in a position to go out and get three bids on the work.
i will give you that government has something to do with barriers to entry, but not nearly as much as doctors do (since many things that doctors do could easily be done, much more cheaply, by nurse practicioners, but doctors have a stranglehold on the certification business).
so having less government involvement in health care is completely non-responsive to the fact that health-care isn't a good candidate for free-market solutions.
PS. i especially like the "you'd do well to remember that." or what, exactly? are you going to come punch me in the nose if i suddenly forget that this is your sandbox? lovely gift of gab you've got there.
PPS. you did support representative weiner's attempt to eliminate medicare, didn't you? i was looking around but didn't spot a post to that effect, but i could have missed it. not a single gop committee member was willing to go on the record on getting the government out of healthcare by eliminating medicare. i believe the term of art you like to use is this case is "pussies," but i could be mistaken.
PPPS. i'm really enjoying the way i've earned a a scarlet letter!
Nope. I'll just ban your arrogant, supercilious ass, you jerk, just like I said before. In fact, I just did; you're contributing nothing worthwhile as far as I'm concerned, and mine is the only opinion that counts, which is what I meant by the "you'd do well to..." crack. You're all done here. And anytime you care to come looking for me to discuss the issue further, tough guy, well, I ain't hard to find.
as for the serious matter at hand, i was going to wait until later in the debate, but since there won't be any more debate, i give you that known communist, hayek, in his pro-socialist screed, the road to serfdom:
There is no reason why in a society which has reached the general level of wealth which ours has attained the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom…there can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody…Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of the assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong….
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/10/tim_duy_in_defe.html
hayek, of course, was a sophisticated man of intelligence, so he was able to think sophisticated thoughts (such as that a strong safety net is in the interests of free market capitalism since a strong safety net makes it easier to stare down established centers of capital who otherwise would dominate and keep the market from functioning effectively). i doubt a solipsist such as yourself can handle his thoughts, but i figured i'd try.
and now, a fond adieu: one hardly likes to hang around where one has been banned, after all.
Despite what you said in your earlier attempt to comment about my ignorant, solipsistic self having used the word inaccurately, I'd say it's the mot juste.
Hayek's thoughts are no doubt generous and high-minded and all, but I reject his -- and your -- premise, seeing as how the fruit of those generous ideas can only purchased by the sweat from other men's labors -- rather, stolen at the point of the government gun. You, and he, may not think that sort of thing "endangers general freedom;" myself, I think it's the very definition of it. The rest of your argument is just haggling over price.
And since we strongly disagree over whether redistribution of wealth is the proper function of government, there's not much chance we're ever going to reach agreement on how we might best improve the efficiency of what to me is theft, and what to you is civic decency, and even less point in discussing it. The question here really is whether the machinery of the State will be used to level the gun at our heads, and whether we're going to meekly accept it, not how nice things would be if our basic needs were all taken care of by a wise and benevolent government, nor about how best to achieve that end.
And smart as he is, and as much as I enjoyed reading him years ago and agree with many if not most of his ideas, I don't recollect seeing Hayek's signature on any of our founding documents, and as such I reluctantly have to question holding him up as the last word on what American constitutional government is or ought to be. But then, I didn't agree with Reagan on every last thing either. I'm kinda ornery and independent like that. It was a nice try at an appeal to authority that you doubtless figured would leave me tied up in knots, though, I'll give you that.
so let's clarify a couple of points before i truly do bid you adieu.
i thought that you had a principled interest in markets and that's what underlay your opposition to a continued government role in health care (still am curious if you are upset with the gop reps who had a chance to vote no on medicare, which i take for granted you think should be eliminated), and therefore my appeal to authority was intended to reassure you on those lines (not to mention introduce you to the subtle notion that hayek promotes that the value of social insurance and the safety net is to enable markets to be less distorted), but it turns out you're just a knee-jerk anti-taxer!
what always astonishes me about right-wing knee-jerk anti-taxers who think their beliefs are rooted in the founding of the country: why do you think there is a taxing authority in the constitution? they obviously don't agree with you, and you can search the federalist papers for the rest of your life before you find someone claiming that taxation is just like depriving you of your freedom at the point of a gun.
i trust, in an equally principled anti-tax kneejerk you opposed borrowing the nearly $1T we have spent to date in iraq, which imposes a future tax obligation without question, and doubtless, you opposed the war itself, since taxes would have to be extracted from a therefore-less-free populous. but i digress!
the argument for a government role in health-care does not depend on civic virtue, although civic virtue is a perfectly legitimate value about which i'll say more in a moment. the argument, instead, is twofold: a.) health care, as i noted, is not well designed, so to speak, for market mechanisms to work within; b.) as a sheer matter of empirical fact, every other advanced industrial economy spends less on health care as a percentage of gdp with no discernible negative health-care impacts than we do, and so freeing up 2-3% of GDP for reallocation strengthens america, not weakens it.
as for the civic virtue side, look, the founders make their intentions 100% clear by writing the preamble to the constitution, and in it they said:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
they certainly would be very puzzled, in my estimation, if you explained to them that fulfilling their vision for a more perfect union meant maintaining the right of insurance companies to turn you down for a pre-existing condition.
so there's nothing wrong with the civic decency argument, since it is an argument the founders already settled in the affirmative.
but you're right: there is no common ground at all between someone who thinks that taxation is theft and anyone else, but i'm not sure ornery is the right term for that outlook (i am sure you must, in fact, despise reagan, tax raiser that he was, or else you're just not serious about your metaphors, which is also, i suppose, possible).
PS. as for supercilious, i demonstrated it to you by arrogantly writing as though you didn't understand a common latin phrase. i did not demonstrate it in, for example, wondering what a phrase like "you'd do well to remember" (redolent as it is of B movie thugs visibly straining with the effort of acting nice) is snarky but not supercilious.
as for solipsistic, i've spent some time on your site reading your work: it, too, is le mot juste.