Government Run Health Care Part 4

Today, let's talk about tactics. In the mid 1990s, when the Clinton clan decided to save the world from freedom, they presented their health care reform as a complete package. All the details were available with all the flow charts, payment methods and new crimes defined fully. They were so proud of their monstrosity, they published a book with all the details.

Obviously, this gave the opposition the opportunity to read, understand and explain the contents. A lot of people thought it was unstoppable, so they started making plans to live through it. Several entrepreneurs announced plans to build floating hospitals several miles offshore all around the US to treat people who could not or would not wait for the system to care for them. The main lesson that Obama took from this was to go lightly on the details. Sell it as a somewhat vague concept and maybe you will get it through. It is very difficult to fight a phantom plan that can change or redefine terms as the opposition attacks.

That is why I feel we need to battle the basic assumptions, not the details. Let us stress the basic idea that some bureaucrat will decide if we get a particular treatment based on our life expectancy is a horrible idea and no matter how they laugh, rationing is inherent in any government run system. It cannot be otherwise because all our money has been placed in one pot and it is not bottomless. It is suddenly of no consequence that we scrimped and saved all our working lives to have a comfortable retirement with good medical care. Our resources got thrown into that same pot with the person who was a spendthrift all his life and we will get the same care, for better or worse. We might point out that this puts us in the position of pets brought to a vet. The vet and the owner decide if the treatment is cost effective or if the patient should be put down. Is that how you would like to be treated-like a pet or farm animal?

Another important issue for us is to decide what alternate we propose. We could take the position that the Status Que is far better than this plan. This is true but the Status Que is not great. I have seen alternate plans from so-called conservatives that astound me. I have seen plans that include full price controls and mandated purchase of insurance actually suggested by these so called conservatives. I have seen a Republican plan that is mostly double talk, i.e. platitudes about taking care of yourself.

My favored solution is, of course, individual freedom. We know that the system currently suffers under reams of state and federal regulation that drastically increase the cost of medical care and medical insurance. The direction to go is to undo those regulations.

One other thought. Have you all noticed the logical contradiction that we hear all the time from the politicians pushing this? We have to pass this to control costs but we also have to raise taxes to pay for this cost saving improvement. Makes by cognitive dissonance (BS) alarm sound.