“Healthcare for All” and Other Stupid Phrases
Nov 5, 2009 Current Events, History
We are on the cusp of socializing our very bodies. Government controlled healthcare is literally submitting to a far-away bureaucrat the power over your life and death in the arena of healthcare. Once the central government in Washington has the power over your life and you don’t like it or you think it is corrupted, what would you do? You have to beg, but not just about something like public schooling or building good roads. You have to beg for your life.
In terms of classical liberalism versus statism, with federal mandates on healthcare you are beholden to the state. Your life is in the hands of another to grant or not. What if a Stalin-like individual gets into government or the bureaucracies become so large and in-transparent that impersonal life/death decisions are the norm? How do you get back the power that you gave to government in a time when things looked like they’d be different? You are stuck along with your fellow citizens.
Healthcare is expensive as it is and will only get more so. But why is it expensive? Has it always been like this?
Many say that healthcare is expensive because of healthcare insurance companies taking huge profits. So what are their profits? According to Mark J. Perry, a professor of economics, the health insurance industry ranks number 86 in profitable industries, below garbage collection, cleaning products, personal hygiene products, and many other industry categories. The whole health insurance plans industry shows an average profit of 3.3%, less than 4 pennies for every dollar. Yet, healthcare insurance continues to rise at the rate of about 12% on average every year. How does an average profit of 3.3% translate into the cause of 12% yearly increase? It doesn’t.
But why should people profit off of the health of others? Many think even 3.3% is just greed over the misfortune of others. Profit is not greed. If it costs you $600 a month to travel to work, eat during the day, and use up your time to work for your employer, is it greedy to expect more from your employer than $600 in compensation? If you take home $1000 for the job you have a profit of $400, which is a 66% profit.
One might say that an individual’s profit for a job done is different than the profit of a company. How? A person desires profit from their job for all sorts of things that have nothing to do with just living hand to mouth. Even the very poor have things. Was it greedy for them to get more than what they needed to merely live? Well a company must do more than merely live. They have to prepare for the future and they do it through profits. When there is a downturn in the economy, a lack of investors, an epidemic health crisis, or whatever, the only thing standing between you continuing to get insurance through your company and the complete failure of that company is the 3.3% that they had in former years.
Of course governments are never greedy, right? Only people who admit they are out for a profit are greedy, right? Governments are greedy for money and power.
When bureaucrats spend all of the money that they had left in there budgets at the end of the year so that their records show they spent everything, they do so to make sure they are considered for an increase the next year. Spend what you can so you can get more? Is that not greed? It is more greedy than a profitable insurance company. That profitable insurance company can’t simply spend and charge what it likes as the bureaucracy does; it must compete in a market where their competition could exploit their inflated prices. Bureaucracy has no competition in that sense.
A politician may get into office raise spending and do so at the expense of others with out even asking them if they can afford the increase in taxes. That politician may have money in mind when taxes are raised, but for what end? Charity? No, if charity were the goal, then the politician could give funds to charities or even raise no taxes and use his position and popularity to encourage voluntary charity. The statist politician seeks public options, because ultimately those options give the statist politician power.
Perform a thought experiment. Obama says that he wants GM jobs to survive and uses the government loans used to “save” GM as an excuse to commandeer GM shares and property. He does so because he didn’t like the plan that GM had presented on its own to save the company. What was he seeking when taking over 48% of GM shares? He didn’t like what they were doing, thinks his own people and he know better, and therefore seeks control. What is control? Power.
Right now there are about 1300 health insurance companies in the US. Every American can only access those companies in his or her state by federal law. If insurance is too costly in California and not too bad in Wyoming, forget being able to buy insurance in Wyoming unless you move there.
Does it make sense to limit competition like that? If you think that a store in your area is charging too much for computers, you can go online and buy from somewhere else. Insurance is a service that is much more portable than computers. You can pay your premiums online and the company can pay claims across the country. Why would anyone limit your access to a service that can be performed from anywhere? Power. The statist had an opinion about cross-state competition and sought the power to prevent it because the statist wanted control. Statist politicians are greedy for power over others, no matter what else is their motivation.
The question still remains. Why is insurance so expensive?
BIG REASON NUMBER ONE: It isn’t insurance.
Insurance is a prearranged agreement for one person to pay upfront for a promise that the other will pay for greater unforeseen expenses should they occur in the future. Car insurance is insurance in the true sense for the most part. You pay a company and then try your darnedest (if you are smart) not to ever need that company’s service.
Examine the agreement of most health insurance plans. You pay part of the money against some catastrophe that you knock on wood to avoid, but the rest goes to paying for things that you actually expect to pay. It is not out of the norm for a person to see a doctor once a year. It costs you and the insurance company an average of $152 for that visit with the average co-pay share of that being $20. Health insurance costs and average of $13,000 a year and plans that provide for routine visits cost usually two or more times the price of catastrophic only coverage. So rather than pay the $152 out of pocket or savings, you payed someone else more to pay it.
So lets say, as was the case with me when shopping for insurance, you are presented with “Plan A” that only covers catastrophes at about $2100 a year and “Plan B” that covers catastrophes and all kinds of routine things like checkups, prescriptions for any ailment, etc. at a cost of $4200 a year. If I choose Plan B, then I have literally just payed twice as much money for things that I can reasonably expect that I may need to pay for during that year. Will all of the extra $2100 go straight to paying for the doctor visits or drugs? No. A large portion of it will go to pay for billing and other administrative costs by the insurance company, doctors office, and pharmacy. If you can reasonably expect to pay for routine things during the year, why pay someone else to pay them for you? You could have just chosen Plan A and used the saved $2100 during that year to pay directly to the doctor or pharmacist.
Most Americans have chosen Plan B when presented with it, because it sounds nice to not have to worry. That means that we are not paying extra money for healthcare, we are paying extra for worry-care.
BIG REASON NUMBER TWO: People most of the time have no clue how much they were charged.
If you had iTunes insurance that you pooled with 1000 other people that would pay for any possible iTunes expenses, all of the prices for each buy were unknown, there was only a fixed small co-pay for each buy, and you buy all you wanted as long as you had enough for all the small co-pays, what would happen to the price of the iTunes insurance for every participant? What an audiophile may have reasonably spent on straight purchases would increase rapidly and it would do it for every participant in such a ridiculous policy.
That is what we have chosen to do for health insurance. People have no clue how much visits cost, they have no clue how much drugs cost, they have no clue how much administration costs, but they pay it collectively every month in the form of a ridiculous scheme that is really not insurance—it’s concierge payment service. We have decided collectively act like we’re all contestants of Super-Market Sweep Healthcare Edition where the twist of the show is that the host gets to ring up the full baskets.
The excuse for healthcare cost rises is often said to be technological advances. If that is true then how come technological advances mostly cost more in the “I-have-no-clue-how-much-this-is-going-to-cost-me” model? La-sic eye surgery does not have the huge increases in costs that other innovations have even though the technology is better and better and the procedures are relatively new. Plastic surgery has come down from the enormous costs of its early days to where they continue to fall today—this occurring with greater and greater technological advances. However, anything in the “I-have-no-clue” model is more and more expensive.
Where else do we say technology makes things more expensive? Only in government endeavors and healthcare. Harvesting wheat is cheaper with technological advances. Manufacturing cars is cheaper with technological advances. Is it cheaper to have a machine and tech that probe your guts for a blockage or probe the old fashion way by opening you up with a staff of payed medical professionals, rented operating room, rented hospital room, etc, etc? The per-unit cost for a machine is more expensive if all you would ever have is one guy to use it on, but most medical machines are bought to perform on multiple patients. So, is it the technology or the fact that people have no clue of how much they are billed that made it expensive? They have no clue is the answer.
BIG REASON NUMBER THREE: Tort, tort, tort.
What product or service would not be expensive if the providers or sellers were to be shaken down by sharks in suits? If a sandwich shop had to pay half its income paying to protect itself from the occasional mobster coming in to break everyone’s kneecaps, how much would the sandwich cost?
People see former Senator John Edwards running for president with the money he made from suing doctors, nurses, and hospitals for a since disproved cause of cerebral-palsy, and only think he is a scoundrel when he cheats on his sick wife. He is a scoundrel on both counts and probably more.
more to come…
Tags: Consitution, Healthcare, Liberty
Spontaneous Combustion
Aug 6, 2009 Current Events
A famous rallying cry of the communists, “Workers of the world, unite!”, was written by Marx and Engels in the The Communist Manifesto. The assumption of the Manifesto was that communism would be an international movement spurred on by spontaneous revolts all around the world. In the end the communists all became National Socialist fascists because it turned out that spontaneity needed to be squelched to bring about the communist’s desired result.
Spontaneous opposition arises from the grassroots of a society in a democratic republic. From the extreme cases of the Boston Tea Party to the Contras of Nicaragua or from simple voter revolutions like the ascendancy of Andrew Jackson to the election of Ronald Reagan. In these cases, the people felt like they were having freedom taken away from them or their fellow citizens. They felt that they were being abused and that their nation was being destroyed.
We are seeing a spontaneous grassroots movement catching fire. President Obama is already, according to some of the more creditable polls, one of the most unpopular presidents at this time in his presidency since these running polls have been taken. He is more unpopular 6 months into his first term than the two Bushes, Carter, and Nixon. Though the legacy media will continue to slobber over Obama and make him out be the most popular president ever to fill the office, the grass is beginning to burn out here in the real America.
Hats off to Lee Cary, writing in the American Thinker “The Obama Resistance Grows”. He has clearly outlined the growing distrust of Obama. Many didn’t know him or what to expect and his empty rhetoric sounded sugary to them. Now, they have been shown what a true ideologue does with taxes, healthcare, global warming scares, and economic crisis. They have heard “We need it right now” too many times and are now suspicious of any such proclamation. So, they begin to investigate more the details of the “emergency legislation” and find the decaying skeletons in the closet.
The grassroots resistance sees politicians defaming their spirited opposition as an artificial movement payed for by lobbyists when they are making the effort to leave work early to attend events. They hear the speaker of the house literally say that she doesn’t care what they think—this in a free representative republic. They hear that their politicians are beginning to cancel town-hall appearances for fear to meet up with their own constituencies.
As their representatives become more aloof the Grass gets dryer and the fire spreads further and hotter throughout the population. Those of us that saw this socialism and elitism coming can only hope that this is the spontaneous combustion of the American will.
Update
Watch as an AARP representative, ignorant or a liar, proceeds to deny AARP’s official endorsement of the Obama healthcare plan. She is rude, condescending, and hypocritical. When the audience shows its passionate knowledge, she leaves the podium then later unplugs the microphone when she can’t simply talk over the audience at will. The outrage—if you can call it that, being very civil on the part of the audience—is a complete alignment of opposition of disparate people with disparate lives and it is completely spontaneous. Kudos to MichelleMalkin.com for pointing this YouTube video out…
Tags: Grassroots, Healthcare, Resistance, Tea Parties
Obama’s Waterloo or Ours
Jul 23, 2009 Current Events
There is a bill coming out of congress that purports to help with the healthcare situation in the country. About this bill, Senator Jim DeMint stated, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Well I say that it is either his Waterloo or the Waterloo of our American freedom.
As an aspiring independent person, I would like to go in to business for myself. There are many reasons for me to do this; I think that I have unique talent for what I do, I am tired of working for people who do not have my family interests in mind, and I love the free market in healthcare benefits. Right now the freest healthcare market is in the individual policy market. The inequalities in that market are more due to the employer-coverage dominance and government regulation than due to “evil insurance” providers.
Right now, if I want to get an HSA and Catastrophe coverage I can do so with a variety of providers. No employer or government can say no to me. This is because my state has elected to be liberal in the classic sense regarding healthcare administration. Other states have chosen to hurt themselves on this issue.
On page 16 and 17 of this healthcare bill, I have learned that freest market in healthcare will disappear. It clearly states that only current policies can be held and new policies will not be allowed. Despite the fact that this takes away liberty from me that government has no right to take, the result is bad as well. Those policies held prior to the law will discontinue as providers will withdraw and I will be left with only the government as an option.
I will not be sold on promises of great government care. Even though I do not trust these promises coming out on this bill, there is more to it than results for me. This is a question of rights. The government has no right to take from me the choices that God and nature grant me. This goes to the very heart of this nation’s founding.
Many will argue that liberties have already disappeared on this matter, because of prior laws and the monopolization of HMOs, etc. This scenario that has lead us to the precipice of this loss of liberty is entirely of government making. It was not a conspiracy, but what economist Thomas Sowell calls a “Conflict of Visions”. My vision and that of the founding fathers is a constrained vision: aggregate Human nature is fixed, but predictable. People are prone to corruption, waste, and abuse when granted power over others.
The “Un-Constrained Vision” that is the opposite, points to a false malleability over aggregate human nature. Human nature is only malleable, in my view and the view of our founding, on the individual level and this only in humility not unearned power. This bill is unearned power to unconstrained government. The results: withdrawal of former promises made to the old (cut backs in Medicare with no free replacement), high taxes to all brackets in the form of income taxes and “fees” that amount to the same thing, loss of liberty which is enough for me to not support this bill, and many many more negatives.
This is the waterloo of the American experiment. Fore, a loss of liberty on this issue will allow losses in so many areas and not just the atrocious loss in the area of provider choice alone. This will mean that any law that can be interpreted to lower “public healthcare costs” will be justified no matter what the loss of liberty.
This is our battle of the bulge for the independence of human freedom. Which Senators and Congressmen will be our Patton on this matter?
What we need:
- Freedom in choice at all costs (employers offering a policy must also offer a cash alternative with the same tax-protection)
- Freedom of group benefits outside of employer benefits (companies and individuals may pool risk as they choose)
- Expansion of HSA options (any bank may offer them and any plan may be coupled with them)
- Healthcare regulation be returned to its constitutional regulators in accordance with the 10th amendment (to the states and the people respectively)
- State providence of risk-pooling conditions for those un-coverable by regular market coverage (pre-existing conditions)
- Abolition of federal mandates on “concierge coverage” (3rd party payment of regular expenses that could just be payed by HSA money rather than through mounting higher premiums)
Liberty is the key here! Liberty is our heritage and Liberty is our solution. Let the virtue of the people be the solution and let them live or die by it.
Tags: Healthcare, Liberty
The Exclusion of Rights: Life, Liberty, and Happiness’ Pursuit
Jul 22, 2009 Current Events
In the declaration of Independence Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness are discussed as immutable and natural rights that are equal to all. These rights that cannot be taken away by any government are the rationale to throw off oppressive government.
Sadly the concept of rights has been lost among many Americans to the exclusion of the essential and basic rights. In our pursuit of a right to a home, we give up our liberty to keep what we earn as government moves to repair the damage of giving others the means to a home. We lose life at the most innocent level to have the right to choose well after the choice of abstinence was already declined. Over and over again we give more ground on the declaration’s basic rights of human individual sovereignty to allow for some marginal right.
But are these marginal “rights” actually defined properly as rights. The term right is where the deception and confusion lie. It is easy to understand the pursuit concept of the right to pursue happiness, because pursuit is defined easily as a personal endeavor. So, even though we often don’t understand happiness as understood by the signers of the declaration and as understood by Jefferson, we can understand that it is up to us to achieve it. Life and Liberty are as difficult to define as Happiness, but even more difficult to understand with a faulty definition of a right.
Take the right to Life in the declaration. Who grants life? We have a right to live and none can take from us our life without trespassing the natural law of human rights to it. Still, who grants to us the right to live? Is there a resulting government agency in charge of assuring that the right be granted? We do not receive food by assurance, birth quotas by mandate, or any other aspect of the granting of life. On the issue of life, government has only been commissioned to punish the seizure of life from one by another, but it does not grant the means of creation and maintenance of life.
Look at Liberty. Government must prevent the seizure of liberty from one to another without due process and just cause. It does not, however, enforce that one take liberty. If you may but will not choose to do something for yourself, government does not enforce that you take liberty and choose it and all other things. It would cease to be liberty and become merely diversity. It would be absurd to suggest.
Yet, it is this definition of right that we talk of marginal rights. You have a right to choose, so the means of the choice must be provided. You have a right to life, so you must wear your seatbelt. You have a right to work, so a job must be provided. You have a right to a home, so it must be provided. You have a right to transportation, so it must be provided. You have a right to education, so it must be provided. You have a right to health care, so health care must be provided and you must choose it.
Forget arguing whether each is a right or not, it is the definition of right that is faulty. It is not a definition in line with the American concept of rights as in our founding. It is a definition not inline with history beyond our culture. The sly definition of right in modern times means a providence and not pursuance. Providence and pursuance are mutually exclusive—unless one means that I need to pursue the providence of others. If I must pursue the providence of others than how is it a natural right?
I can pursue the retention or liberation of rights as the founders did in the revolutionary war or as the Union did for the slaves of the south or as Moses did by the hand of God. But I cannot call it a right that I have to request providence of it from another. It would not be a right; it would be a concession.
If we have a right to health care and then it must be provided, by whom is it provided. It is conceded by a politician and provided by the confiscated result of another’s labor through his or her taxes and the loss of the value of his or her savings through inflation as the inevitable debt is monetized.
So, the virtue of the “right” to health care is to exclude the natural true rights of our founding. Life may be rationed by bureaucracy. Its pursuit may be thwarted by shifting one’s resources by force. Liberty is traded for the providence of the “right”. If you want of get it yourself or don’t want it, you have no choice. If your pursuit of happiness leads you to risky behavior or to a trade-off of security for some other desired goal, you cannot choose it when providence of another “right” is forced. You have no liberty to choose to be charitable when your labor is confiscated to the concession of another’s “rights”. Your family’s life, liberty, and happiness are at stake when your wealth is confiscated irrespective of your needs.
We must reject any form of involuntary health care, provided health care, and the naming of it as a right under the fallacious definition. Rights are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness among others, by they are up to us to achieve and up to government to assure. A “right” defined differently excludes our true rights and is oppression.
Tags: Happiness, Healthcare, Liberty, Life, Rights