The Unanswered Question About ObamaCare: Why isn’t Barack Obama executing evil Republicans?

During a recent discussion with Biff, a pro-ObamaCare friend, I suggested that in a health care market untouched by the government­, one’s health insurance and employment would most likely not be inter-twined; they’d be completely separate matters.  I asked, Does your neighbor lose his auto insurance if he loses his job?

Biff said, “Huh” so I continued the quiz: Do you know the history of employees’ buying health insurance from/thru their employer?  Answer: Government wage controls in WWII made health insurance the coin of the realm for recruiters.

Then, as is typical in such a discussion, Biff criticizes and mocks our (not) free-marke­t health care system, as though that’s the only model we’ve ever had.  Unfortunately, I aver, that hasn’t been the case for decades.  Nonetheless, Biff suggests that the current system is an abysmal failure.  I reply, ‘not the most abysmal, but definitely in the ‘Top 10 Most Abysmal.’  He continues by saying that nothing short of a government take-over (but he denies he’d ever propose a government take-over) will solve the problems that the market, he says, has caused.

It’s damn near impossible to defeat that illogical logic.  So I continue channelling Socrates.  I ask few more questions:

Do you, Biff, really believe that Republican­s are so daft and evil that they want their fellow citizens to die of preventable disease?  Do you honestly think that the Republican­s and their financial supporters want to watch over a sea of poor men and women on their way to being dead bodies?  Don’t you suspect they’ll ask ‘EGADS, who will scrub the bottom of the yacht?’ before they let them ALL die?

Really?  Please, get a grip, Biff; and a real name, please.

If you think that it is true that Republicans, if you think that anyone opposed to ObamaCare, has a death wish for his fellow man, then you’re an irresponsible and immoral person for not killing me, on the spot, with a bullet shot squarely between my pensive brown eyes (well, yeah, only if I let you borrow my Charlton Heston autographed Smith & Wesson, which I offered to him).

Then, after my gun is removed from Biff’s trembling hand, I ask:  Biff and Barack, since neither of you really think such a bad thing about me or any of your Republican friends, please stop saying that you do.  It’s irresponsible to fuel that kind of vitriol [Biff hates it when I use that word without a reference to Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin].  Please find something to say about government’s role in the delivery of health care that is interesting, productive or original and that does not impugn my love of sick people or insinuate that I wish them continued sickness and suffering.

Or, be quiet and let the adults take care of making the laws.  And delivering health care in an open market.

Pink Ribbons, Health Care and Money

Who can argue with wanting the most affordable, high-quality health care for the most people? An abundant supply of a good thing is a desire that is unassailable by any one who wants to be a welcome participant in the public discourse. So, our challenge is to discover the best means of maximizing the supply of the unarguably good thing, right?

Regulation Revolution

Wall Street Journal is on the right trail.  Labor unions will win by regulation what they can’t get by democratic or other means of policy making that hinge on the merits of an argument.  (See Editorial here)

The democrats and their bosses/enablers (union leaders) know that regulatory control is their best, most effective weapon.  The GOP-controlled the House can’t stop actions taken and rules written by any of the innumerable commissions and agencies.  Parts of the Financial Regulatory Reform and Health Care Reform laws are going to be used against all of America’s businesses and individuals to revoke liberties and freedoms we thought were protected by the Bill of Rigths.

Those laws are littered with provisions that empower regulators to do whatever they deem to be “good” and “fair”. Put those laws together with BHO’s executive order of a few months ago (HERE) and you have an all-powerful government controlled exclusively by the unelected bureaucrats of the executive branch; and the legislature has rendered itself powerless to stop it.

Congress has passed laws that grant the POTUS enormous unchecked power.  Recent laws set “goals” and establish comissions with the authority to write rules (aka laws) to accomplish those ill-conceived goals. It’s plainly unconstitutional, but no one is watching.  Instead the focus is on who or what industry shall get the next tax credit or a grant or subsidy from Uncle Sam-ta Clause.  All the while Cass Sustein is busy, behind the fog, rewriting every regulation on the books and laughing at the food fight Paul Ryan and John Boehner are having with Harry Reid and Barack Obama.

Clarence Thomas recused from his LIFE

There is a move afoot to pressure Supreme Court Justice Thomas into recusing himself from hearing a case involving the health care law.  There is an apparent conflict of interest, because he has been seen in the presence of people who oppose the law, and his wife makes a living as an advocate for political views that are consistent with those held by people who oppose the law.  The highest standards demand that even the appearance of a conflict of interest requires recusal.  Guitly! I say.  Off with their heads.  OR, maybe we might take a minute to look at the facts from a different point of view.

President Obama’s first nominee to the high court, Sonia Sotomayor, was widely praised for her life experiences.  Indeed, her life experiences – primarily as a woman of hispanic origin – was, in some circles, more than a biographical datum.  It was not a small part of her qualification for office.  Her life experiences, we were told, shaped her views and made an impression on her thinking and her decision-making as a judge.  Her unique perspective was a praiseworthy addition, a valuable and substantive trait, that should be taken into account when determining her fitness to serve on the court.

OK.  To each his own.

Now, let’s think about Justice Thomas.  His life experiences include mingling with men and women who have opinions, some of them about matters involving the law and politics.  Some of those people agree with him, some must disagree and others are agnostic.  He has a life that involves thinking about things big and small.  He also has a wife who is active in public policy matters.  All of those things shape his views and make an impression on his thinking and his decision-making.

On the one hand, one’s life experiences make one uniquely qualified to serve on the Supreme Court.  On the other, one’s life experiences disqualify one from the Court.

Mr. Justice Thomas, it seems you have two options: either recuse yourself from cases that involve thinking about matters that affect anyone in your life who has an intellectually active life, or, well, recuse yourself from your life.  Your choice.

Death Panels – Revisited and Renamed

James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal gives a great history lesson and defense of Sarah Palin’s use of the term ‘death panel’ during the debate on health care reform (Link Here).  She is wrongly (and dishonestly) criticized for lying about the creation of “death panels” (HER quotation marks, clearly indicating that she was speaking figuratively).  Mr. Taranto, in a more lengthy treatment of the topic, sets the record straight.  Her point is/was quite simple:

All health care decisions are ultimately about [quality of] life and [delaying] death.   In those decision-making moments, substituting the whims of politicians in the place of free market forces will lead to a frightening form of rationing.  Absent government intervention, we ration health care and all finite, good things by letting millions of market players set a price for them.  Government intervention will put a disinterested “panel” in charge of matters that free men and women are capable of managing, and better.  To say, as many defenders of the new law have, “at least it will help control costs” is a lie, unless “costs” are only measured in dollars and cents.  If we put any value on our freedom and quality of life, the costs of this law are incalculably enormous.

The intent of the law is to make health care equally “affordable” for everyone.  The rich, the poor and everyone in-between (meaing YOU!) MUST be in the same system.  Consequently, for the law to work the way they intend it to work, it will be against the law to save grandma, even if you have the money to save her.  You see, the panel, the experts who will write the laws that will spread health care around evenly (rationing it) will have decided long before grandma gets sick that those health care dollars (i.e. her doctor’s time and attention) are better spent giving your next-door-neighbor’s daughter her annual check-up.  So, indeed The Life Panel (yeah, that sounds better) will decide who gets the hip replacement (lives) and who doesn’t (dies).

NOTE:  We’re not taking a position on Mrs. Palin’s views in general, just pointing out that the truth matters.  Taranto often serves the role of truth finder, and I recommend his work – he posts daily, usually late afternoon.

A Personal Note on government Health Care

A week or so ago, I replied to a comment posted to a blog by Don Boudreaux on his site, CafeHayek (LINK to his piece here).  In brief, Mr. Boudreaux made the case that the new health care law distorts markets and reduces freedom and choice, all at a cost of worse health care in general.  The comment was written by a Mr. Smith who suggested that the government should inject itself into the health care business, otherwise cures for deadly diseases might go undiscovered.  I wrote:

Mr. Smith:

Are you suggesting in your comment that the government has been the leading force in developing the ‘miracle’ drugs and processes that we’ve seen come out of the pharmaceutical industry in the last, say, 50 years?

My 15-year old son was born with severe club foot in both feet.  Had, for example, his 48-year old father been born with the condition, he’d have never walked.  Thanks to years and years of for-profit medical research that preceded his being born, my son is an accomplished wrestler, golfer and baseball player – and he stands up tall and hugs his father as often as I ask him for the favor.

No government agency did that for him.  In exchange for money, the highly-trained, for-profit staff at Georgetown Medical Center did it for him.  Keep your grimy hands off of that business, or move to Canada, sir.

We found the ‘free lunch’

It is reported that a US Senator has found either the perpetual motion machine or the free lunch.

Well, sort of.  [CLICK below to read MORE]

Constitutional Lesson and Informed Opposition

The February 1st WSJ editorial (link here) highlights the merits of yesterday’s court ruling on health care reform law.

Indeed, reading Judge Vinson’s ruling on health care reform law is a lesson in US Constitutional law.  It should be required reading for, say, the sitting POTUS, the Majority Leader of the US Senate, and maybe even Senator Scott Brown.

Indeed, I will go one more step – maybe ALL of the GOP members of Congress should spend a couple hours studying the ruling (we would not expect the Dems to have any serious respect for the Constitutional tenets so carefully articulated and defended in the decision).

My point is: had the GOP members of Congress mounted the proper opposition to the law while it was under consideration in the House and the Senate, I think the public’s opposition to its provisions would have been too much for even Harry Reid to ignore.  The anti-freedom, anti-individual rights provisions of the law are its very essence, and those provisions described as such would be anathema to all but a tiny minority of Americans.

Instead, the GOP spent most of the limited debate time on the bill debating the pros and cons of certain spending or taxing provisions and wasted time denouncing procedural tactics used by the Democrats to stifle opposition to the law.  Particularly in light of the CBO scoring rules, those were futile debates and distractions from the (only?) important questions that should be posed when considering ANY law – (1) Does this law make Americans more or less free AND (2) Did the [We the] PEOPLE grant to the government the power to do what is contemplated in the law?

Instead, our legislators ask only “Will this win or lose votes in my next campaign?”

WE CAN DO BETTER.