“Congratulations, Democrats. Beginning now, you own the health-care system in America. Every hiccup. Every complaint. Every long line. All yours.”
I wish that were true. Here in Britain, where filthy wards in NHS hospitals, for example, have been a regular staple of the UK newspapers, the standard response is usually to demand even more money, more rules, and so forth. If you challenge the model of tax-funded healthcare free at the point of delivery, then you are political dogfood. And Mr Obama and his allies know that. As Mark Steyn has been putting since before Mr Obama’s election, Mr O. is counting on what the UK politician Sir Keith Joseph once dubbed the “ratchet effect”: ratchet socialism a little more, and make it harder and harder for anyone to push back.
Of course, sometimes this argument will be proven wrong. I do get the impression that a lot of Americans, including those middle-of-the-road voters who gave Obama a chance in 2008, are now very alarmed at the huge debt that his administration seems to be encouraging. So it may be that Mr Obama is a one-term POTUS. But his legacy might take a lot longer to reverse.
On a more philosophical line, here is what I wrote a while back about the bogus nature of healthcare “rights”.
I may be wrong but I don’t think that in 1947-1948 when the NHS was established the British people were in the streets rejecting it with the same passion we see over here. Back then, if I read my history correctly Brits were even more statist than they are now. After all, so the argument went if the government could win the war then it could ‘win the peace” .
Outside a few neighborhoods in Manhattan or San Francisco, no one really believes that the government can solve all or even most of our problems, as Ronald Reagan put it “The Government IS the problem.”
I’m optimistic that this is going to be repealed or otherwise gutted either in 2011 or in 2013. As a bonus this is going to wreck the Democrat’s hold on my former home state of Massachusetts. After all, the people voted for Scott Brown in order to stop this and the Dems went ahead and did it anyway.
I agree with Taylor above. I think the US people have the perfect example before them of what happens when the State becomes the monolithic health care provider here in the UK. If they have any sense (and Americans are well endowed with that) they will see where this wedge is headed and reject it as soon as possible. The Republicans must stand firm though, and oppose the entire scheme, and not change their tune at the next set of elections just because it has already been passed or partially implemented.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with Jim and Taylor. Obamacare is here to stay, and like most things socialistic, it will grow bigger, not smaller. The first thing we see is that abortion will be covered, essentially gutting the Hyde Amendment.
Why do I think this? Well, look at the way it was passed. Don’t bother reading the bill, just pass it, costs lowered 3,000 percent, new jobs, everyone gets a raise. Not a single paper in the MSM contradicted any of this, and Poltifact even claimed most of it “checked out.” The Dems can do anything at this point.
Yesterday, I went to change the name on my mother’s gas bill. Long line, saw three people, *then* I was told I needed the deed to the house, come back tomorrow. This is what my healthcare will be like.
This piece of dogfood is not ashamed of who he is – better than the piece of crap who lives in denial thinking monopolistic tax-funded Stalinism works.
FYI, the link doesn’t appear to be working.
Laird, I just tried to get onto the NRO Corner site. It appears to be broken at the moment but was fine when I put it up.
ObamaCare is already effectively dead. By law it has to be a voluntary program, much like medicaid/care are, and a significant number of states are already moving against it.
Virginia passed a bill some time ago rendering it moot, 3 more have a bill past at least one house, 25 have a bill filed and 6 have a bill pre-filed.
Its been a huge circlejerk and little else.
The danger with depending on repeal is that, having displaced the Democrats decisively come November, the Republicans won’t get rid of Obamacare but instead tailor it to the short-term benefit of their sponsors. I wish I could have more faith in them than I do, but the Republicans and Democrats are both dogs who know their own vomit well.
You very well might be correct, Person, but for what it’s worth Sen. DeMint (R-SC) has already announced that he will introduce a bill to repeal Obamacare. We’ll see how far that goes.
One very slim silver lining: Brits will soon be able to joke about American dental care!
The Libertarians and decent Republicans thinking they can overturn this monster are deluding themselves. The NHS was supposed to cost 2% of GDP at its conception. 60 years later the NHS now costs 9% of GDP and the two main political parties are committed to retain or increase this (unfunded*) cost.
Democrats just need to wheel out a few disabled folk (in their newly taxed wheelchairs) and say how heartless the Republicans are to deny these people healthcare – if that fails they’ll just get the state-run media to call opponents racists to auto-win the argument as they did over the past weekend.
The natural increase in premiums (from having to accept the uninsured after they become ill and keeping children on parent policies until 26) will be portrayed by Democrats as a disgraceful attempt by insurers to rob the American people and single-payer will be back on the agenda – it may be a slow process but it will begin – and it will happen.
Mark Steyn(Link) and Charles Krauthammer(Link) are spot on in their assessment.
*The NHS will spend £119bn this year compared with a deficit projected to be £178bn & £174bn for 2009/10 & 2010/11 respectively.
The lawsuits are already beginning. We may all be screwed, but at least we can enjoy the spectacle!
I’m not following how this is socialist. It seems to me to be a big example of regulatory capture: “you must buy insurance from one of our licensed providers” It is not the US NHS or OHIP.
I think both the left and the right are overestimating how left-wing this is. This uncertanty about what is in the bill has been helped along because until now we really didn’t know what was in the bill, and everyone has been assuming that their fears or dreams are a part of it. I think it is massively authoritarian, but I don’t understand how it is socialist.
Douglas2 wrote:
‘I’m not following how this is socialist. It seems to me to be a big example of regulatory capture: “you must buy insurance from one of our licensed providers” It is not the US NHS or OHIP.’
Here’s how it works.
You must buy insurance from one of our licensed providers.
(let’s leave discussions about the Constitutionality of a mandate, with penalties for non-compliance, for another day).
But, in order to be licensed, the provider must
– provide any and all services that a lobbyable legislature requires it to, regardless of what the customer wishes. Acupuncture? Homoeopathy? Mental-health treatment? Sure – so long as the obbyists for the practitioners of thhose forms of quackery can prevail upon the legislators.
– accept all comers, regardless of health status.
In other words, they must provide a limitless amount of any and all possible services to any and all comers.
This is not insurance – you cannot pool the risk, because it is limitless, and you cannot ameliorate the risk. And you must insure all.
How long do you suppose that an insurer, who will insure your house after the fire – would last?
Or an insurer who would insure you after your 6th DUI – at the same premium as a Methodist preacher?
That’s the endgame here – this is not insurance , they don’t want it to be insurance, so the first hurdle – the insurance companies – will be overcome by simply legislating their business to the point where it cannot be profitable.
And once they are all gone, but the population has grown accustomed to the entitlement of ‘insurance’ at low cost and regardless of risk – well, who’s your daddy?
That’s how it works. Socialism on the ratchet plan.
llater,
llamas
One thing I am noticing about the Healthcare debate is the use it makes of the word “can” as a synonym for “will”. We are being assured that it “can” be deficit-neutral, because it “can” squeeze a lot of waste out of the current system.
This reminds me of recent claims that Greece “can” reduce its deficit. Well, yes, that’s not completely impossible, but the evidence of the last decade is that Greece is permanently in a state of claiming that it “can” reduce its deficit, but somehow never seems to.
In the same way, New Labour throwing money at eduction and the NHS from 1997 was accompanied by claims that more money “can” improve outcomes, but somehow it never did.
The rhetorical trick here is that it’s quite difficult to argue against a claim that something “can” happen, when yes, it actually “can”. It’s just vanishingly unlikely, that’s all.
DOuglas2,
Have you ever heard of National Socialism?
Yet another opportunity at semantics; are you using socialism in its narrow sense or it’s broader sense? In the broadest sense socialism is Statism of any kind, and I can’t see how this is anything other than a Statist mechanism since it had to be by Law, which means by Force.
But I assume you intend to use socialism in its narrower, state owned means of production, sense. Such definition is outmoded as Statists are like a virus constantly changing its DNA programming. As you can tell a virus by its symptoms, you can tell socialism by its primary symptom – Force. Communism = Fascism = Socialism = Statism = Force. Left and Right are archaic. As I see it China and the US are moving toward a corporo-fascistic sameness – the one coming from a once-upon-a-time capitalist economy the other from a communistic economy.
Socialism is a centralization of the economy by Force. The particulars of how you catch the disease are secondary and ultimately inconsequential. If you fail to stop elitist reach-in into your life no matter what quarter it is coming from you are doomed. Worrying about left or right or republican or democrat or liberal or conservative or broader or narrower definitions of A or B is for coffee clutches and casual wine parties.
Unfortunately we’ve moved well beyond semantical exercises. You concede that it is authoritarian, and that is really all we need to worry about.
Not to get caught up in semantics, but if we’re talking about “socialism” in Brad’s “narrow” sense DOuglas2 may be right. (I say “may be” because no one yet really knows the particulars.) But if that is correct what it is, is fascism: nominal private ownership but actual State control. And of course, as Brad argues, it’s all authoritarianism, and it’s all evil.
Socialism or communism or regulatory capture, it doesn’t really matter: all corrupt systems boil down to a guy with his hand out. And dachas really are public housing, only different.
What *I* am wondering is, given how well it turned out in the US when voters decided that McCain was not a pure enough conservative to actually vote for hom (which then gave us Obama), will UK voters imitate that mistake, or will UK voters learn from the US mistake …
Think of it in terms of driving on the road … the Geo Metro dirver may be in the right when he knows that his Geo Metro has right-of-way over the fully-loaded container lorry – all the way up to being dead right … under such circumstances, the sensible path is to follow the closest one can safely get to one’s right-of-way – and just be right rather than dead right …
Personally, I like the idea, available as a back-up, after January, 2011 – at worst, the GOP then-majority can simply choose not to allocate funding for any aspect of Obamacare … after all, it’s how the Democrats “won the Voetnam War”, back in the day – by defunding the US-supported side …
Sorry, I’m just trying to puzzle out where in the world a Geo Metro would be likely to encounter a “container lorry” without the Atlantic Ocean intervening.
It is fascinating to note how the (non-pejorative) intellects (as opposed to “intellectuals”) here unravel the thread of an issue – all in good fun and for free.
Is there a way to help support this facility?
Let us be fair. Obama did not script or design this “Bill.”
It was crafted of bits and pieces by staffers in Harry Reids offices, not in committee.
It is structured to create potential futures for many of those staffers. However, because of its fragmented structure, it is not at all similar to the NHS undertaking in its legislative base and falls short of the ideological objectives of Obama & cohorts, but is the best they could expect out of the workings of the U S Senate.
It is that fragmented, or piecemeal structure that can be taken apart, and MAY, dependent on voter amnesia,
disintegrate as a number of its elements prove impossible to implement as written. The usual approach would be to take the Act apart by amendments to specific segments that would be difficult to veto.
Much does not go into effect until 2014, which is after the chance that Obama will be out. Again, depending on voter amnesia.
So much for the mechanics.
Now, I have begun some insidious commentary and needling to see if we can get a proposal brought out in the Senate as follows:
Many families are left stranded and become wards of the taxpayers as welfare burdens, because the breadwinners do not have and maintain life insurance.
Therefore, this Bill proposes to require that all adult persons shall be required to purchase and maintain insurance on the lives of each income producer [details to be provided].
Employers will be required to provide a certain level of life insurance under group policies, with that benefit being exempt from taxes to the employee and deductible by the employer.
Those earning less than a specified sum and when unemployed will be subsidized on a sliding scale.
All insurers will be required to issue insurance to any persons (guaranteed issue) without regard to medical or physical condition, and all premium rates shall be based exclusively on the standard actuarial tables, without regard to individual differences by sex, physical condition or variation in age grouping of more than twice the lowest actuarial rating for any age group.
All policies will provide for a rebate as a policy dividend computed every five years on a pro rata basis from the premiums in excess of those calculated and charged above those required for actual mortality experience.
I could go on – but, you get the drift – of what is in the “Senate Bill” for another type of insurance.
It is fragmentation, lack of integration, that will make an attack possible.
I spent last evening watching this mess unfold. I spent today making another hundred .303 cartridges for the lovely Lee-Enfields I’ve got. You know, the same rifles your own Government won’t trust you with.
For now, I’ll bide my time, but when they send the armed men to enforce this illegal and Unconstitutional clusterf*ck, you will truly see the reaction to this bill.
Majorly off topic, but Dale should have texted us about VSS Enterprize, and its’ successful test flight on Monday! Well done to all and let’s hope things work out well for Branson!
Am I the only one who’s OK with ObamaCare? Sure, I have issues with some of the details of implementation, but ideologically, I personally view unconditional access to basic levels of healthcare as a fundamental right of a citizen living in a developed country. It was a shame that 30 million in America had no physician to consult when they fell ill – but now, this problem has been fixed,
It makes sense like much else.
Almost all (if not all) American cities have sports arenas
and stadiums paid-for by tax dollars or other corporate
breaks. Then, people pay increasingly higher prices to go to them. (This makes sense, since a city is not a gov’t.,: it is a corporation)
American cities are falling-down. If property is maintained well, or improved, it is taxed higher. If it is let to rot, taxed less. Renters know this; and, encourage deteriorations to create lower rent.
There was a time when HMO’s and “health plans” weren’t needed. The same kind of thinking created those, leading to the new national health plan.
Al Gore was busy elsewhere.
“Am I the only one who’s OK with ObamaCare?”
Well no, lots of people who imagine that money grows on trees and who are indifferent to the financial consequences probably are in favour. Let’s get one thing straight here: US “private” medical care is very, very far from being a competitive system. The system is riddled with litigation-risks, restrictive practices, skewed purchasing powers, not to mention the inefficiencies stemming from how medical insurance was set up in the first place. I remember reading Milton Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom” some time ago in which he made a number of severe criticisms of the US medical system.
But just because some of the poorer parts of the population cannot afford health care as it currently is, hardly justifies socialisation of one-sixth of the US economy. In the UK, contrary to the narrative of the Labour movement, the country was already on the way to achieving broad health coverage before the Soviet-style NHS was created. Doctors routinely treated patients for free or a low rate.
The NHS is a costly monster and as former UK finance minister Nigel Lawson once pointed out, it is the nearest thing we have in the UK to a state religion, given that the Church of England stopped advocating belief in the Almighty some time ago. If the US wants to go down that route, then it had better be ready for the consequences.
“I personally view unconditional access to basic levels of healthcare as a fundamental right of a citizen living in a developed country.”
I have a lot of issues with the sentiment expressed in that sentence, but let’s start with the fundamental one: Sure, everyone has a right to “access” to healthcare, but that doesn’t give him the right to demand that others pay for it. Health care isn’t costless, and to demand it as a supposed “right” is to claim the right of theft. And unlike socialists, my political philosophy isn’t premised on the morality of theft.
And if you think “this problem has been fixed” you are delusional.
It was a shame that 30 million
The number trotted about included people on non-immigrant visas (temporary workers and visitors) as well as a large number of people who simply don’t want insurance. The highest reliable estimate for the number of people who don’t have insurance who should have it is around 10 million or 3.2% of the population.
in America had no physician to consult when they fell ill
People may not have had a PCP but they had access to treatment. If they show up to an ER they are already required, by law, to treat them. The basic plans the government is planning to sponsor will simply allow them to visit a PCP without having any significant impact on prescription cost which is the major cost they incur currently.
Also as pointed out previously this is going to become entirely unsustainable for insurance carriers in the long term. This is why they are not bothering actually increasing coverage, when the carriers start falling down the feds will be forced to step in and “save” the industry which will either move them directly to a single payer system or very very close to one.
Contra Andrew Ashworth:
And in amplification of Laird:
Rights, “fundamental, basic, natural or what have you” all exist only in a societal setting (family, clan, tribe, nation and abroad); are all basically defined by a relationship of the claimant to others.
,
On examination, all “rights” derive from the obligations of those others in the particular and general relationships. Some of those obligations are negative (thou shall not-s) in character. In our society is the obligation not to interfere with another’s mode of worship. In other societies is the obligation not to blaspheme another’s mode of worship.
There are no valid concepts of rights that are not based on obligations arising from relationships in a societal context.
So, what are the obligations that would support a “fundamental right to healthcare” or for that matter “care” of any kind? Within a family, within a circle of friends, we observe the establishment of obligations for care for others – within the relationship – in our social order. But, that does not extend to others abroad – unless – with missionary zeal one chooses to expand, voluntarily, one’s obligations by expanding one’s relationships. AND, that doesn’t always work out as hoped.
So, as noted by Laird, there would have to be a relationship, giving rise to an obligation, that would establish a “right” to healthcare.
There is a separate matter of how obligations are to be performed and best met in any societal context. But, we should not confuse that issue with the basic requirement for obligations, based on relationships to sustain the concept of a right.
“Am I the only one who’s OK with ObamaCare?”
I’m not going to pay for it, Andrew. Do you understand me?
You are “okay” with your own ignorance, son. You don’t fucking know what you’re talking about, but I do.
I will go straight to prison before I pay for this.
That is what you’re going to have to be “okay” with: putting innocent people in a cage because they simply won’t value what you do.
If you are “okay” with that, then you are an unregenerate barbarian, and I don’t mind saying so.
Surely the original quote is right? Instead of blaming doctors and hospitals when your new knee doesn’t work – you’ll blame Obama. Or they will. Just like the UK.
Healthcare and Education will be the same – stupid and ineffective, with people going outside the system for a better outcome and paying the extra costs.
Americans despise their own public education system and they will also despise this. A friend recently saw a post on facebook which applauded the healthcare vote but said something about how tenure was bad. This was a by a young man in his late 20’s so he has a long time to suffer the consequences of thinking this would be different.
I have hopes that it will be held up in court; gutted by the individual states; mocked into ineffectiveness before it is enacted; voted out of office in two years. All those stupid boomer voters who liked BO had better get off their lazy, self-satisfied butts in November. They will be the first ones euthanized if they don’t get this changed.
Andrew Ashworth said:
“Am I the only one who’s OK with ObamaCare? Sure, I have issues with some of the details of implementation, but ideologically, I personally view unconditional access to basic levels of healthcare as a fundamental right of a citizen living in a developed country.”
It seems that you would have few qualms if slavery were the consequence of your ideology. Any “right” that is dependent upon coercion of others ,has as one of its consequences, the enslavement of others. Are they, the medical providers, insurors, and patients, free to act absent coercion? The usage and acceptance of the use of force is all that is required to make your concept of “rights” the dominant one of the day.
The real issue is not of having access to health care. In America that issue is not relevent. No Hospital may deny treatment for emergencies, and there are abundant means of subsidized health care options. This “right” is nothing more than a power grab over the choices of individuals, replacing those choices with mandates by unnamed bureaucrats. If that concept of “rights” is one you still would defend, then I can only hope for your political defeat.
On that note, hope seems about all that is left to those like me, who think this Obamacare is pure poison. I don’t have much confidence that the republicans will learn the proper lessons from all this.
There is a bit of irony in the usual reference to the “requirement by law” that E Rs must treat all comers.
Is that not coercion? How is it the laws can require this. Must a church bless all sinners?
Now, if the electorate wish to decide that they will tax themselves to provide trhough various levels of governments for the service rendered at those E Rs, perhaps well and good, but, otherwise, must they serve without just compensation.
Or is the satisfaction of serving to be compensation enough?
RRS asked:
“Now, if the electorate wish to decide that they will tax themselves to provide trhough various levels of governments for the service rendered at those E Rs, perhaps well and good, but, otherwise, must they serve without just compensation.
Or is the satisfaction of serving to be compensation enough?”
I suppose the concept of just compensation may be argueable, but as a person who identifies strongly with capitalism, I’d consider any relation other than voluntary as immoral. If you produce, you are entitled to the fruits of your labor, voluntary altruism excepted.
So, in amplification of Laird, RRS and Michael Staab: if there is no voluntary relationship, one will be forced upon the unwilling party. In days bygone people used to go to jail for forcing themselves on others, no?
Not to appear ungrateful for all the flattering (?) cross-references here, but nowhere in anything I wrote was there a mention about “relationships”. All I said was that “unlike socialists, my political philosophy isn’t premised on the morality of theft.” I do agree that living within a society necessarily creates a form of “general” relationship with all the other inhabitants, but to the extent that creates any “rights” they are only negative in character: fundamentally, the right to be left alone. So no, Alisa, I don’t see that as “forcing” a “relationship” upon anybody.
Laird, I’ll certainly leave you out of this if you wish, but could it be that you have missed RSS’ point about relationships?
My apologies to Laird, since I seem to have taken the wrong implications about the necessity for relationships from his text.
However, many relationships that give rise to obligations are not “voluntary.” We are born into some; and of course we break off from some that engender obligations we can no longer bear or no longer want. Then, there are some relationships that one just can not escape.
No, I saw it, but I was going to let the misattribution slip by unremarked until you pounced on it!
Laird, by ‘missed’ I meant ‘misunderstood’…
Obamacare isn’t going anywhere for the same reason that Churchill didn’t repeal the NHS. Once it’s in place, all you can do is take away people’s benefits, and then they vote against you. They especially vote against you if the press stands ready to paint you as callous for it, which it unambiguously does at present in the USA. Of course, the Republicans could get out of this trap by putting forward a package that massively overhauled the actual system, rather than just handing out more money, as part and parcel of taking the benefits back. They could even sell it successfully to the public by telling the public that they very much agree that we need healthcare “reform,” broadly defined, and that Obama recklessly jumped the gun on this for personal glory at the expense of the citizenry. People would vote for that. But can you actually see the Republicans taking that line? Yeah, me neither. So I think Obamacare is here to stay.
Joshua – is it possible that the NHS was left in place simply because a healthy worker is able to be more productive than an unhealthy worker – and, as such, the NHS walked well alongside Capitalism ? And the socialist side would leave it in place anyway ?
In the Wikipedia entry for the ‘Beveridge Report’, the article points out that “While the Liberal Party and the Conservative party quickly adopted Beveridge’s proposals, the Labour Party was slow to follow. Labour leaders opposed Beveridge’s idea of a National Health Service run through local health centres and regional hospital administrations, preferring a state-run body.” – Conservatives and Liberals wanted healthy individuals whereas Labour wanted State-run healthcare …
Nowadays, it is the Dems pushing through the (UK) State-run /(US) Federal-run healthcare rather than having the (GOP and electorate-preferred) (UK version) “local health centres and regional hospital administrations/(US version) individual State-run equivalents …
In another almost-eery parallel with today’s situation, the same article also quotes Churchill in 1943, interestingly enough on 21 March – “Churchill gave a broadcast on 21 March, 1943 titled “After the War” where he warned the public not to impose “great new expenditure on the State without any relation to the circumstances which might prevail at the time” and said there would be “a four-year plan” of post-war reconstruction “to cover five or six large measures of a practical character” which would be put to the electorate after the war and implemented by a new government. “
What a concept – actually *asking* the electorate first ? Waiting until the economic crisis can be dealt with, before taking on significant new expenditures …
Would that the current US Government could have been as wise …
Andrew Ashworth: “I personally view unconditional access to basic levels of healthcare as a fundamental right of a citizen living in a developed country.”
This sentence is a just a treasure trough…
1) “I personally”: Indeed, it is you “personally”, but you do not want to pay for it personally, but want ME to pay for it do you?
2) “Unconditional access to basic levels of healthcare”: Your definition of “basic” would not happen to be “same for everyone”, would it? Basic healthcare in the US is already provided in emergency wards, for free. In Canada, you have unconditional access to a waiting list – I do not suppose you are against Canada’s healthcare system? And if you are… do you also want ponies for everyone? Might as well, as long as you are ignoring real-world budget constraints on decisions.
3) “Fundamental right”: How fundamental? Should one person go without food (which is what money buys, among many other things) in order for another to have healthcare? If your retirement account were sequestered in order to pay for someone else’s healthcare, are you hunky-dory with that?
4) “In a developed country”: It seems you are conflating development with wealth, as in “rich enough that someone can be robbed to pay for it”. The end result of this will be no “developed countries”. Are your “fundamental” rights conditional upon development? Is the right to life optional or moot/premature in an un(der)developed country?
You, Sir, have some serious economic and ethical issue to ponder and clarify for yourself, and, hopefully, for us too.
Sorry, guys — but most of us are simply missing the point.
Obama can sign any piece of paper he wants. Doesn’t matter. He does not have the money to pay for it, and nor does the United States of America.
The US greets every new resident, legal or not, with a $40,000 share of accumulated debt. And that number is growing rapidly. This year, Obama will spend $3 for every $2 he takes in.
The health insurance boondoggle is equivalent to someone on his way to bankruptcy court stopping in at the Ferrari dealer and ordering a matching pair for himself & his girlfriend. It may let him swagger a little as he walks into bankruptcy court, but he still has to walk in there.
In a recent discussion on Peak Oil, I heard someone use the term “Peak Government”. As soon as the market for government debt trembles, we will be there. And Obamacare will simply mark the high tide of an unsustainable way of life.
No government admits this, and governments have been doing this for years, alice, so why should the end be right now? I think that dinocracies last a long time, and take a long time to die, as well.
Now, Alice makes some good points. For instance, she writes:
This is already happening. I read an interesting article on Bloomberg yesterday which pointed out that corporate bonds were viewed as a much safer investment than US treasuries. They find buyers while yielding a lower rate of return.
I think those who are comparing this to Britains NHS or even the implementation of our own entitlement programs are missing a few essential differences.
Most Americans have health insurance, and they actually like the care they get. They don’t like the cost.
This bill will raise costs. The individual mandate won’t drive people who don’t have insurance and don’t want it into the system. The excise tax will still be far lower than the premiums they already don’t want to pay.
The only people who will have an easier time getting insurance due to pre-existing conditions before 2014 will be children. That’ll drive costs up. So will the mandates that preventative care & routine care be covered. And the elimination of lifetime caps on coverage.
Everyone’s premiums will go up, because you can’t opt to save money on premiums by choosing a higher deductible. People aren’t going to like that, or the fine for not having a qualifying policy.
That is if the companies can stay afloat. It’s hard to see how companies can make any sort of profit, especially if the HHS director gets to overrule “unreasonable” increases.
It isn’t going to cut government spending. Either they raise taxes or borrow more. I’m sure they do both.
Most people know this is just insane. Plus, despite the fact that none of our other major entitlements have been repealed, most people know we can’t afford those either. That was one of Obama’s main points; entitlement spending is out of control.
Of course, his solution is to create a massive new entitlement. Which is simply insane.
Anyway, this entitlement doesn’t do anything good for most of the people. It makes things worse for them. It’s not comparable to an entitlement that provides something people never had before, which they may learn to like.
It will do the opposite. And the script is already written. The government will sieze upon the “fixes” that will be required to address these complaints as a license to demand more spending, consequently more taxation and borrowing. This at a time when most people are appalled by the fact the government is doing too much of that already.
It may well be the one that gets repealed.
Alice: I broadly agree (with some caveats). In fact, I made a similar “peak government” point the height of the GFC, when governments across the world were going absolutely fucking bananas with bailouts galore, obscenely irresponsible stimulus packages and the like. I felt a lot better about the future at that point because I could finally see the scorched earth we all knew was inevitable coming a lot sooner and sharper than expected. The sooner it’s over, the sooner we can rebuild – hopefully with lessons learnt and statist instincts blunted.
Most in that thread disagreed with me, however. Call me an optimist.
Looking through the comments thread of that post (and sorry about the self-indulgence), I also said this:
I’m happy that my prediction is now a reality – for the time being, anyway, and let’s hope well into the future, too.
@ Waterton –
While I share your view of what should be important, the trends I have observed over the past 50+ years have led me to wonder if the “puplic’s” sense of need for other things and other conditions has not superseded the sense of need for Liberty.
That certainly occurred in my youth during the Depression, when there was a great sense of “helplessness.” There was a need for food, for work , for some kind of sense to see the future (even if dimly) – and all those other pressures dulled the importance of both personal freedoms (because you couldn’t do much with them anyway to get out of the box) and the preservation of the institutions of Liberty.
@All
I seem to have attracted more comments than I thought… I thought I could talk about implementation issues of ObamaCare, but it seems everyone here is opposed to it on purely ideological grounds.
I think our viewpoints are too far apart to even argue. Unlike many here, I do not deny the existence of positive obligations to strangers. In short, I believe there is culpability if a man allows others to die through inaction. This responsibility is much reduced compared to if one were to allow it to happen through direct action, but it exists none-the-less.
Because of this, I am OK with theft if it serves the purpose of furthering the development of the right to life. All men are entitled to three things: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – in that order of importance. And furthermore, I believe there exists some amount of life that can be traded for some amount of liberty (and vice versa). If liberty must be infringed for the purpose of pursuing life, then my only reservation is the degree of which one must be compromised for the other, i.e, the balance of this life vs liberty scale.
Which is basically my problem with ObamaCare – I don’t like some of the ways that it implements things, but I’m not ideologically opposed to the idea of the state ever regulating the industry. What the hell – it already does regulate it, piss poorly. I thought, all things considered, that it was a health plan even Bob Dole could get behind.
I hope that clears up my position.
Andrew, ideology aside, and on a purely practical note: there is no long-term life-vs-liberty scale, because life is ultimately dependent on liberty. Any reduction in liberty eventually harms life
@Alisa
You’ll have to justify that to me, because I have a hard time believing that you can have any liberty when you’re dead, which apparently should be possible because you stated that the right to life is derived from the right to liberty.
Andrew, sorry, but I never mentioned rights, as I don’t believe in any. As to death, we die as a consequence of the ultimate loss of our liberty. The fact that we don’t have liberty when we are dead is obvious, but beside the point, because when we are dead, there is no longer any ‘we’ to speak of.
“I’m not ideologically opposed to the idea of the state ever regulating the industry”
Andrew — you are missing the point. Obamacare is not just regulating the industry, it is taking from Peter to pay Paul.
Unfortunately, Paul is mostly the middle-class liberal bureaucrat, and Peter is the poor Chinese factory girl trying to find a place for her savings. And Peter has begun to realize she is getting taken for a ride.
In principle, Obama and the Kamikazes could increase taxes on the poor working American, if they can find where he is. But Obama and his crew have spent the last 40 years exporting industry, destroying their own tax base. There’s nobody but grievance lawyers and relators left, and their business is crumbling too. The Laffer Curve rules, and extra taxes & regulations (which are undoubtedly coming) will simply further reduce the funds Obama has to re-distribute.
So Obama has no choice but to get down on his hands & knees and crawl back to that poor Chinese factory girl and beg for her life savings. When she laughs in his face – Obama is toast.
The last choice for the Obamatrons is to cut government spending. Military spending first, then roads, then health care & education. Lastly, Obama will be forced to cut back the great overhead class of bureaucrats — and then Obama is burnt toast.
The Soviet Union bestrode the world — until it suddenly went away. Peak Government, coming to a jurisdiction near you. Soon!
This has been extremely revealing.
Ashworth has fallen among us anti-collectivists. But, his view is probably much the more the common view that it is the objectives that matter, not how the objectives are selected, nor by whom and how.
As to “implementation,” he and so many others are in for periods of dismay. Today, once the Legislation was enrolled as Law, I began a detailed study of the wording – as finalized. This even requires returning to the statutes a priori which are amended to incorporate the sections of H R 3590.
Let us all now return to The Pursuit of Happiness or so much of it as we may be permitted by those who know better what form we should pursue and how we should pursue it.
“I am OK with theft if it serves the purpose of furthering the development of the right to life.”
I appreciate the honesty; it’s more than you get from your run-of-the-mill leftist. And I agree with Andrew on one thing, anyway: we’re too far apart to even argue. For him, life, by itself, is the ultimate good, to be preserved at any cost. The problem I have with that is that we are all going to die eventually, so it’s a losing battle. That being the case, to me how one lives is more important than how long. Preserving one’s own life by theft isn’t a worthy human goal, but at least it’s marginally understandable. Claiming some moral right to preserve someone else’s life by theft is simply reprehensible. It’s a philosophy for non-thinkers.
“I am OK with theft if it serves the purpose of furthering the development of the right to life.”
That would suggest that a slave state is quite acceptable to you, as long as the slaves are kept alive and healthy enough to work for their masters.
Andrew, Laird has already responded very ably but I would add a slight twist of my own.
We say that Man has a right to pursue life, liberty and happiness. It does not say that we have a guaranteed right to any of these things, which is where you seem to get the idea that coercion is required to seize property and time from others to give it to those who, for whatever reason, think they “need” something. That is why the Marxian slogan: “To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability” is about as perfect blueprint for tyranny and slavery that has ever been penned.
In the specific case of the “right” to healthcare, what in practice that means is that if it is to be enforced, then someone else has a duty to work as a doctor, nurse, etc. Talking in general terms about the right to something that requires that someone give up resources or time is nothing more than empty posturing.
I should also repeat the point, which I made before, that many doctors in non-socialist systems nevertheless can and do give of their time for free to the poor and it is, of course, one of the notable features of the UK system that many of our hospitals were founded by charities, both religious and secular. Long may that tradition continue.
Johnathan Pearce wrote:
‘one of the notable features of the UK system that many of our hospitals were founded by charities, both religious and secular.’
And, in fact, it was of course the huge legacy insfrastructure of superb private, charitable and for-profit healthcare systems of all kinds which allowed the NHS to spring into being more-or-less fully-formed, and which allowed it to survive underfunded and unsupported long enough for it to become the ‘third rail’ of UK politics. If I recall rightly, it wasn’t until the ’60s that large parts of the UK healthcare system were taken into State ownership. For the first 20 years of life, the NHS lived entirely on accumulated human capital and infrastructure for which it had not paid a penny. It was only when they had pi**ed that away that they tax burdens and spending choices really began to bite – but by that time the voters were completely addicted to the NHS crack and no UK politician in his right mind would touch it with a 10-foot pole.
llater,
llamas
The regulations are one reason (along with the other government interventions – such as the spending programs) that American health care is so expensive.
Regulation (contrary to Bill O’Reilly – for all his “right wing” reputation) is not the alternative to a government takeover – on the contrary it is what leads to a government take over.
It leads to a government takeover because people (a minority but still many millions of people) demand that government “do something” about the high costs.
As for the additional regulation in this health Bill.
They will tip what is left of independent health care (it should be remember that just over half of American medical care is government funded ALREADY) into bankruptcy.
And this is MEANT to happen.
Glenn Beck is correct.
He was correct that the Bill would pass (which he maintained in periods where everyone else was saying it would go away) and he is right about how the Bill is structured.
One just needs to know who wrote the Bill (and what their backround is) to know what sort of thing they would write – then one knows what to look for in the thousands of pages.
“You will be saying they are Marxists next”.
When a person is on tape saying that he is a Marxist who I am to say that they are NOT?
Why is it alright for (for example) Jim Wallace (Barack Obama’s “spiritual” adviser since J. Wright was outed) to boast of his Marxism in little gatherings – and to then object to tape of himself being played live on air?
Surely he is PROUD of his beliefs and wants everyone to know about them.
If not WHY NOT?
These “social justice” pasters (people who worship the Collective rather than God) are phony to the core – and their deceit should be exposed to the public.
As should the nature of the man who they all serve – Barack Obama.
On this occasion, let the record show that I am absolutely, irrevocably 100% in agreement with Billy Beck. (It’s a rare enough occasion as to be worth noting.)
If I’m forced to pay for this, I will refuse; if I am fined, I will not pay the fine; if the payment is taken by a tax increase, I will underpay my taxes by that amount, and if threatened with prison, I will be imprisoned, but I do reserve the right to resist such efforts to imprison me.
Enough is enough.
Andrew, the problem is threefold.
The government isn’t a church, and a President or Prime Minister isn’t a Pope. It is the wrong institution through which to express our obligations to others.
“Pursuit of Happiness” as expressed in our Bill of Rights is meant to free us from exactly the sort of arrangement you are proposing. We were escaping the lands of Kings who ruled by divine right, or an official church, that could define our moral duties for us. We weren’t escaping to a land of the tyranny of a majority that could act in their stead. We could decide for ourselves, individually what our moral obligations were. a
Third, the danger in a democrocy is that too many people will decide they are the stranger owed the obligation, and proceed to band together to write down their list of goodies and then demand what’s owed to them at someone else’s expense.
In America it’s called “voting in your own self-interest.” That’s the problem with what we call the religious left in this country. Essentially they’ve written a Bible that excludes all the bothersome stuff about stealing or an 8th commandment.
It’s dressed up as charity, but using the language of Christian charity to deliver to strangers the laundry list of entitlements an interest group decides is owed to them is the exact opposite.
The impulse to satisfy the demands of conscience by voting to give away some third party’s money to the questionably needy isn’t far removed.
Our President exemplifies this kind of thinking. He kept spouting “I am my brother’s keeper” during the election. Except his half-brother lives in a Nairobi slum on $1 per month. Obama is a millionaire who spends more on ice cream for his kids on a Saturday than his brother lives on all year. What he means by the phrase is not that he ever helps the guy out personally. But now that he’s in office he intends to make everyone else his brother’s keeper through taxation and aid. That’s a lot of things, but one thing it isn’t is charity on his part.
Also, Obamacare has nothing to do with regulating an industry. It has to do with regulating people against their wills.
You seem like a decent guy. We differ in our outlooks. For something to qualify as an act of giving, I have to do it freely with my own money and property.
I am not acting generously if I vote for someone else to give on my behalf. And I can not make someone else good by voting to have them do something against their will.
Just to be clear, I meant moral obligations. As in matters of conscience.
Not civic duties related to such things as national defense or jury duty.
For certain things government is appropriate. For others, your preferred religious institution.
I don’t mean to be harsh toward you Andrew, or come across as angry. It’s just that one of the obstacles to repealing Obamacare are the number of young leftists who somehow believe that simply voting for Obamacare is a good deed, because it’s a nice thought. It doesn’t matter that millions of people remain uninsured. They showed they want them to have insurance. That’s enough. And they believe the fact that they don’t care if they bankrupt the country makes them somehow morally superior.
Basically, all good people believe in certain things. And believing in certain things makes people good.
MattP.
These young Obama supporters (what a recent book calls the “Obama Zombies”), I guess they do believe people who point out Obama’s Marxist background and associations.
If they do believe us and just think that Mao (the biggest mass murderer in human history) and “Che” (another mundering thug and – rich kid play boy to boot) and so on are “cool” then they need not concern us (they move from the department of words to the department of bullets).
Let us just consider the ones who do NOT believe what is said about Barack Obama’s Marxist background and associations.
How do they explain away his DECADES IN THE CHICAGO MACHINE?
They may not have read the (2008) “The Case Against Barack Obama” (which lays out his corrupt activities for the Machine), but surely them must know that no “nice” person could be part of the Chicago Machine for DECADES?
How can it be “nice” to vote for a corrupt scumbag like Barack?
As for our duty to our fellow man.
Look at how much of their income both Barack Obama and (the nonMarxist – because he is too ignorant to even know what Marxism is) “Joe” Biden gave to charity before they started to run for President.
They gave almost nothing.
They do NOT care about the poor, the sick and the old – they never have.
People like Barack Obama just use the poor, the sick and the old as politicial cannon fodder – as an excuse for an expansion of government power.
Government power (force and fear) is not the virtue of helping others.
And it is not, contrary to Jim Wallis, “spiritual” – unless we are talking about the spirituality of Hell.