GayPatriot

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Whew…Um, Can We Get An Answer?

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HUGE hat-tip to reader Ignatius who commented on my post yesterday about the death of private insurance for the following link:

In the video, a (very cute!) CU-Boulder Poli-Sci and Marketing major named Zach Lane asks the president a very simple question:

We all know the best way to reduce prices in this economy is to increase competition. How in the world can a private corporation providing insurance compete with an entitiy that does not have to worry about paying a profit, does not have to pay local property taxes, they’re not subject to local regulations? How can a company compete with that?

And I don’t want generalities, I don’t want philisophical arguments.

The president then goes on to give generalities and philisophical arguments and completely bypasses answering Zach’s question. Are the people who still support this liberty-killing plan even listening to the lack of defense?

Here’s a follow-up question for Zach to ask:

“Mr. President, it sounds as if you’re not intending for the ‘public option’ to operate any differently whatsoever from the example you gave of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which is also a non-profit entity. What then, would the point be, considering the hundreds of health insurance companies available in the United States, of having one more that is ostensibly no different?”

And another follow-up:

“Mr. President, are you willing to insist that your ‘public option’ abide by exactly the same regulations that every other insurance company in America currently does, derive NO benefit from being attached to the federal governemnt, and allow it to sink or swim on those merits?”

I’ll wait over here for those questions to be answered. Given how reticent he is to answer Zach’s very simple question, however, I’m not going to hold my breath.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

Comments

  2. How much more specific would you like him to be? I think it’s Congress’s job to actually craft specifics in legislation last time I checked and the President did a very good job explaining his concept of what health care reform should look like. You may not like his ideas, but I think he was clear about what he’d like to see happen.

    I’m personally very frustrated with this entire process in that we, as a nation, have a very specific problem that neither party wants to address fully. Millions of citizens are uninsured, underinsured or unable to use the insurance they have. This is a fact. Also a fact is how much more we spend for the overall care we received and the mediocrity of that care compared to so many other industrialized nations.

    Democrats are afraid to do the right thing and be unpopular. Republicans are happy to do the wrong thing if only to be obstructionist thinking it wins political points. And the problem continues to go unsolved. It’s another reason of why the first reform we need to make is in how the Congress does business.

    Term limits, cap on election funding and lobbyists kicked out of Washington. Anyone else with me?

  3. Obama is such a BS-er. If his public so-called “option” *isn’t* going to be subsidized or be given any structural advantage over private companies or be “backed by Uncle Sam” (his words), then what is the point of doing it? It would just be a government-owned company, that the Dear Leader has now supposedly pledged never to subsidize or even capitalize.

    No, the answer is obvious. The only reason to do a public so-called “option” is to have taxpayer largesse capitalize it and subsidize it, and probably to legislate its competition out of existence – as the government has, in fact, done for the USPS with regard to regular mail delivery (giving it a legal monopoly there).

    Obama is lying if he claims otherwise and those Americans who believe his lies are fools. Just like Obama is lying when he claims his socializing “reforms” will somehow cut costs while maintaining quality and avoiding rationing, will solve the age-old conflict between the sexes and between good and evil and all other manner of contradictory nonsense. Contradictions cannot be achieved in reality. Anyone who believes Obama’s promises that they can be, is a fool.

    Obama reveals his true agenda at the end of the clip, then covers it with another bald-faced lie:

    You have a bunch of countries that have systems in which government is involved but you still have a thriving private insurance market. The Netherlands being a good example. Everybody’s covered, everbody has care [ed: but how good, the Dear Teleprompter does not say], the government has regulations in there, but it somehow does not take over *the entire* private insurance market. [emphasis added] So I just want people to understand, nobody is talking about a government takeover of health care.

    Mr. Obama – your pants are on fire! YOU are talking about a government takeover of health care. That is precisely what laws and regulations which dictate how allegedly “private” companies and doctors and ordinary citizens must participate in the system, *are*. You’re simply destroying their freedom and making them all into agents of the State. Which is called FASCISM. And by the way: The Netherlands’ basic level of coverage is, in fact, paid partly from the government budget. And even if it weren’t – even if it were paid 100% by private actors as a result of government mandates – it is still government-subsdized, because the government is FORCING people to participate and leaving them no other option.

  4. (continued) – which again is rightly called FASCISM. Fascism is a left-wing economic system in which socialism is mixed with fig leaves of private property ownership and private choice is maintained, but it may as well not be, because the government burdens people with directives and mandates about what they must do.

  5. the White House is ready to drop the Public Option

    Good point, but as just explained, it makes little difference if the government’s plan is to burden all private actors with so many directives and mandates that they are effectively enslaved.

  6. Say Countervail, by what authority can the feds get into the health insurance business?

    I love this meme that the insurance companies “destroy people’s lives financially” as if the government never does.

  7. #5: Good point, ILC. Maybe this is how Obamacare will skirt the tort liability issue. If the primary machinery is left in the hands of the private sector, but is effectively being run by the US Government through draconian mandates and regulations, only the private entity gets sued for failing to provide care.

  8. Beware the trap phrase “Dropping public option”.

    They may just rename it, or restructure it in the legislation.
    That way when townhall or critics ask about the “public option” Obama just says we dropped it, when it’s only be renamed.

  9. Geena – Good point, and I think exactly that will happen. The Democrats are going to make us eat the crap sandwich, no matter what. They may simply need to delay it a few weeks or months while they put new lipstick on it. Much as I love the conservative activism on this, the only thing that can stop it is if the next financial crisis (which is inevitable, but that’s a topic for another time) happens sooner rather than later.

    Sean A – Yes, and which would be another reason for private insurers to charge ever higher prices. People are nuts if they think any of Obama’s “reforms” are going to reduce costs!

  10. Massachusetts and Tennessee both have a state-run health service. Why don’t folks like Countervail ever bring them up in support of their arguement that government-run health care is a Good Thing?

    Answer: because they suck and most citizens of both states are dissatisfied with them.

    PS_ Countervail, I’ll return your structure and loading back at you: Since we all agree that Democrats should quit betraying their oaths of office and their quest for personal power at the expense of the nation, when will they quit their asinie quest for a fascist and intrusive State-centric “health-care” system and concentrate on bringing the cost of health care down via the proven methods of tort reform, tax breaks and incentives for hospitals, removing the ‘duty to treat’ illegal aliens on the public dime, and an enhanced student-lassistance system to produce more doctors and nurses?

    Follow-up question: given the incredible support the Democrats get from the tort-lawyer associations, why haven’t people like YOU started to demand that your elected officials divest themselves of their support from a pressure group that creates such an appearance of corruption?

  11. Countervail:

    “How much more specific would you like him to be?”

    Hm. Perhaps I’m just not nuanced enough for him. Did you decypher from his response, and would you mind translating it into English, how he answered the question:

    “How in the world can a private corporation providing insurance compete with an entitiy that does not have to worry about paying a profit, does not have to pay local property taxes, they’re not subject to local regulations? How can a company compete with that?”

    Clearly you see his answer where I don’t. Please help me out.

    Ah, and yes, the common pabulum about how “neither party” wants to do the right thing. And, naturally, the Republicans are only interested in being a problem. Countervail, have you been paying any attention whatsoever?

    Try this on for size: THE ANSWER IS MORE LIBERTY! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Whether you or any other Leftists would prefer to listen (or just have us “get out of the way”, as the president would rather we do) is up to you. But don’t lie that we don’t care about fixing the problem. THAT is how the debate is being debased.

    Curious, too, that your solution for health care (government intervention leading to a loss of LIBERTY) is so similar to your solution to what you generally see as an issue with our representation (i.e., “Term limits, cap on election funding and lobbyists kicked out of Washington.”) are all also a limit on our LIBERTY. While conservatives and libertarians may agree with you that there are problems (on both accounts) and may even (to some varying degrees with either issue) agree as to the causes, our solutions widely differ because ours are based in LIBERTY while yours seem to be based in the restritcion of liberty.

    THAT’S where the real chasm exists in America these days.

  12. Say TGC, by what authority does the insurance industry direct government business?

    We have insurance firms funneling hundreds of millions of dollars regularly into lobbying efforts and election campaign funding. Republicans and conservatives keep harping on the meme that they don’t want government between them and their health care providers. The reality now is that insurance firms are currently between you and your health care provider. I guess I just distrust interests trying to make a buck off my health more than I distrust government intervention.

    If “the answer is more liberty” that means starting with the insurance industry first. Liberty from their influence in government, on elected officials and on the way health care providers do their work. Does it make more sense for Republicans to be afraid of the strawman of contraction of liberty when we’re fully subjected to the reality of insurance industry setting the policies of health care in the United States?

    If all of you could prove your interest in “more liberty” by opposing the real issue of the influence of the insurance industry in the first place, I think you’d find the left more willing to meet you part-way on the issue. Here’s a great idea. Like why don’t you start a private fund for yourself, like what was proposed for social security, and see how that goes providing for your own health “insurance.” That’s true liberty, correct?

    You all bark about having to fund a public option. You essentially do that already. The cost-overruns of the uninsured, underinsured, and those financially unable to truly use their insurance put the financial blowback back on you already.

    Here’s a good example. A state doesn’t require motorcycle riders to wear helmets because “the answer is more liberty.” That rider has a serious accident involving brain injury that may have been prevented with a helmet. If he’s uninsured, underinsured or unable to utilize his insurance, the cost my friends goes back to you because you’re either paying through federal funds, or taking the financial hit through the insurance company that subtly raise your policies and limit payouts to make sure they’re making a profit.

    It seems you want more of that, essentially less liberty, than having an interest in truly reforming the issue of health care. That’s all I can gather otherwise from how Republicans and conservatives are approaching the issue with fingers in their ears and no on their lips.

  13. Wow, Countervail. Astonishing. I’m currently re-reading Nineteen Eighty-Four, but could save the time and just read your comments online instead.

    Your contention that the path to liberty means denying the insurance industry to a voice in the political process is more representative of your contempt for liberty and duplicity in championing the remedy you seek than even Orwell could have conceived.

  14. Even with the White House, a filibuster proof senate majority, and a huge house majority, and a house leadership dominated by the far left of the party, and the full-throated cheerleading of the major news media … the Obamacrats are still backing down on the public option and the death panels.

    No wonder Countervail, Tardo, and the other Obamabots are frantically spamming.

  15. Countervail – let me be blunt. Please explain to me how it’s my obligation to pay for other people’s medical care/insurance. I worked hard to get where I am (and have to work damn hard to stay there). I make less than than six figures so I don’t see myself is rich but I already pay close to 40 percent of my income in taxes. I pay enough to be in the tiny minority of people that are net-payers and I’m tapped out.

    We pay through the nose to provide care to illegals who show up in the ER with colds (not kidding). We pay for people with minor ailments who use ambulance service as a taxi. We pay to care for people who shuck out more kids than they can begin to afford. We pay for criminals who shoot each other (ever thought how much is spent to treat a couple of gang-bangers who, once discharged from the hospital and jail, will go right back to what got them shot in the first place?). Do you know that some ERs have problems with gangsta’s showing up in the ER to finish the job?

    I have family in the medical business and I know it’s not uncommon for people hospitalized as a result of their criminal activities to run up bills well north of $100,000. I know for a fact that people will fill unneeded prescriptions simply because they are “entitled”.

    We pay for food/shelter/medical care/child care/you-name-it for people who willingly pissed away their chance at an education and who willingly piss away opportunities at work (e.g. can’t be trouble to even show up on time) and, somehow, those if us who play by the rules are the bad guys? Huh?

    Many (not all, obviously) of the uninsured are uninsured by choice. They’d rather spend their money on toys and recreation knowing that should the become ill or injured, they will get treated anyway.

    If anything, people need to pay more from their own pockets, not less. When I see obviously poor people on the train with iPhones, wheels on cars worth twice what the car is worth, $200 sneakers, standing in line at the cable office, and walking out of Best Buy with a 52″ television, I see people who should have a little more skin in the game.

    Do we need improvements in our health financing system? Certainly. But further separating people from cost is not the direction to be going.

  16. And contrary to what Countervail is spamming. It’s not the Republicans saying “Over my dead body” when it comes to health insurance reform. The Republicans have proposed practical, market-oriented solutions including HSAs, tax code revisions, ending regulatory barriers to increase competition, and … the big one… tort reform. However, the Democrats have dug in and refused to allow any of these into the bills… especially not tort reform.

  17. SoCalRobert, you are so right on. I know a guy on SSI and Medicaid. When he gets a cold, he goes to the doctor, gets tests done, gets a prescription to ease the symptoms… all paid for by public money… and he is sick for five days and then feels better.

    When I get a cold, I buy some Alka-Setzer cold medicine, tough it out, and feel better in five days… cost to society… zero.

    Now, as a person who doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t engage in unsafe sex, and doesn’t get into criminal activities, my medical needs are likely to be minimal. But under a socialized health care scheme, my taxes are increased (because I am also in the top quintile of wage earners who actually pay the bulk of the USA’s taxes) to pay for smokers, to pay for the obese, for drug users, for promiscuous sluts, and for your aforementioned gangbangers.

    In what way is this fair to me? My good choices are punished, and my freedom is diminished to ensure that those who make bad choices are insulated from the consequences of those choices?

  18. #10: “Massachusetts and Tennessee both have a state-run health service. Why don’t folks like Countervail ever bring them up in support of their arguement that government-run health care is a Good Thing? Answer: because they suck and most citizens of both states are dissatisfied with them.”

    DaveP, Hawaii ended its universal healthcare plan for children after only seven months. The reason? Budget shortfalls, of course.

  19. First of all, Countervail, thanks for not answering my question. Second, thanks for the bloviating bullshit instead. As to this:

    Here’s a good example. A state doesn’t require motorcycle riders to wear helmets because “the answer is more liberty.” That rider has a serious accident involving brain injury that may have been prevented with a helmet. blahblahblah yackety smackety.

    The state of Florida, at least, allows the option of riding without a helmet. However to do so, one is required to buy a certain amount of insurance. In other words, we give you the option to ride without a helmet, but YOU take responsibility if anything happens to you.

    I know, I know. RESPONSIBILITY is a scary word for the douchebag libs.

  21. VtK: I have a sibling who’s an RN – started out as a pharmacy tech in a retail drugstore that had a lot of Title 19 Medicaid “customers”… A book could be written.

    Some guy called Mark Levin a few weeks back griping about private healthcare. He’d not worked in a year or so and was on disability for hypertension and depression (neither of these being debilitating in most cases). I found myself yelling at the radio “what are you griping about… you’re paid to sit at home and call talk shows!”. I suspect most jobs cause those symptoms 😉

    Look, folks – there are truly some sad cases where people fall through the cracks. There are good people in crappy situations. An ex-BF long ago lost his mom to metastatic breast cancer – died in his arms during a Star Trek rerun. She was a prime example of “working poor” and was not treated aggressively. No trips to MD Anderson for her.

    Given the state of the art at that time, she may have been doomed no matter what but, well, who knows? At least she was receiving hospice care so, as much as possible, she was comfortable.

    For these cases, I have no problem kicking in… most doctors treat a certain number of patients pro-bono and drug companies have established programs to provide life-saving drugs at little or no cost to indigent patients. This sort of private-sector activity is to be encouraged – we just need a way of sorting the truly needy from the malingerers and frauds.

    We just don’t need political hacks and government unions running the show… why is this so hard to understand?

  22. Here’s why CP (and we) won’t get an answer. What ObamaCare is promising is impossible.

    Obama and the Obamacrats are claiming their health care reform is going to cover everybody, lower health care costs, and require only a small tax increase on the moderately-to-very rich to pay for.

    OK, so we the mob look at the bill and say, “The only way the numbers add up on that is if you drastically reduce the amount of health care available to people. Is that what you are proposing?”

    The Obamacrats answer. “We won’t do that either.”

    So, we the mob ask. “How are you going to do that then? Give us details.”

    That’s when Obama and his Obamacrats sputter off into vague platitudes and nonsense about “efficiency”… as if the Government has every achieved efficiency in anything.

    And Tardo and Countervail say, “We don’t need to know how they’re going to do it. We trust our president and our party. It offends us that anyone would question them.”

    It doesn’t matter that the bills proposed so far make no fiscal sense, they want to score an all-mighty “win” for their Earthbound God.

  24. The reality now is that insurance firms are currently between you and your health care provider. I guess I just distrust interests trying to make a buck off my health more than I distrust government intervention.

    Okay, so if insurance companies couldn’t make a buck off of your health, would there be insurance companies? If doctors couldn’t make a buck off of your health (to pay off their 15 years worth of student loans), would there be doctors? (Not including those people who would sacrifice of themselves to help heal people pro bono.)

  27. Countervail, if all this is so important to the Voiceless of America (or whatever), why did the Democrats vote against the amendment to place all Federal health insurance recipients (including Congress and the President) onto the same ‘health care plan’ the REST of us will be on? They could have garnered massive support by that simple act, and after all, it’s not like they’d be losing anything, right?

    They’d still be getting the same quality care that WE are, and that’s good enough..right?

    Second question: If insurance company support and funding is bad, why isn’t it also bad that the drug companies are offering over $150 million in advertisement money if the Obama Adminstration promises not to screw them on drug prices under the ‘health care’ bill? Isn’t that kind of collusion not just illegal and corrupt, but also the same kind of bad as an insurance company spending money to oppose the bill?

    Final question: How many poor children could have gotten free health care with the money spent on keeping Ted Kennedy alive? Isn’t it obscene that that money- Federal tax dollars, the money squeezed out of poor people- is being spent hand over fist to keep a hideously rich old white man alive?

  28. Are the people who still support this liberty-killing plan even listening to the lack of defense?

    I’m sure you’d find that those who support the plan are much less informed about it than those who oppose it. So a defense of the plan is really beside the point as far as they are concerned.

  29. Well of course we cannot get a brief, straight and honest answer. Just look at Obama’s attire and deportment. He drips “community organizer”, not President of the United States. Consequently he is going to beat around the bush and speak only in generalities very few, if any, of which will be truthful.

  30. #27 – “Final question: How many poor children could have gotten free health care with the money spent on keeping Ted Kennedy alive?”

    I dunno, but Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.

    Regards,
    Peter H.

  31. Can I get some clarification on the way people are throwing around the words like ‘fascism’ and ‘liberty’ please?

    Back to comment 19: Is being forced to take insurance so you can ride without a helmet really liberty? If so, then please clarify as I do not understand how that is still liberty.

    Comments 3 & 4: At what point do government mandates become FASCISM?

    Comment 12: Since industries are made of people, does restricting industry ability to influence government restrict the liberties of people in said industry?

  32. Obama and the left-wing of the Democrat Party thought they could ramrod this healthcare bill through before anyone took a look at it and started asking questions. Obama may have been a good campaigner but he’s lousy at giving hard answers off the cuff.

    DRH – here are some of the basics of fascism as taken from Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism:

    The militarization/mobilization of everyone in a society to achieve what we are told is a common goal.

    Fascism is when the state says to business “You may stay in business and own your factories. In the spirit of cooperation and unity, we will even guarantee you profits and a lack of serious competition. In exchange, we expect you to agree with – and help implement, – our political agenda.”

    Fascism is the cult of unity, within all spheres and between all spheres.”

    Hillary Clinton’s 1996 book It Takes a Village to Raise a Child as the example par excellence of modern-day fascist thinking. It’s very title, indeed, is about as fascist as you can get. If the motto of the Mussolini’s fascism was “everything in the State, nothing outside the the State, then the implicit motto of It Takes a Village to Raise a Child is “everything in the village, nothing outside the village.” The message is clear; your children belong to “everyone” which in the modern world means the state.

  33. Guys, I appreciate you sharing, but you’re offering up very subjective experiences that really don’t represent the larger issues of what’s going on.

    I take great offense that I’m somehow against business because in an industry like health care, the business of living and dying, I would like the insurance companies to put the care of the people they serve ahead of the profits they promise to their shareholders. During the Bush presidency we’ve seen unprecedented gains in profits to these sectors. In 2006, the insurance industry made $15 billion dollar profit representing a 1,084 percent increase in five years alone. In that same year, the pharmacy industry was the second most profitable industry in the United States with profits nearing 20%. Health care issues prey on our biggest fears and concerns and these industries, while providing valuable services, scare the bejeebus out of you to get top dollar for those services. That’s why compared to other industrialized nations we pay the most money for mediocre service.

    The health care sector also spends millions of dollars to ensure that profit keeps getting larger. The insurance industry alone spent $2.2 million on congressional campaigns since 2005, mostly to Republican lawmakers and Democratic lawmakers in key positions regarding health insurance regulation. Just in the last six months they’ve spent $11 million in campaign contributions. Health care spends nearly $1 billion annually on lobbying efforts. Our lawmakers are not uninterested parties. How do you think your couple hundred bucks premium per month compares to that? And while you can’t call it a cabal per se, you have to have health insurance from somewhere or face dire consequences should you truly get sick. Calling the insurance industry “competitive” is a bit of a stretch. A public option would simply highlight that fact.

    Now last time I checked, I didn’t see these industries going “hey, business is great so we could moderate more.” When’s the last time you saw a voluntary reduction in your premiums? Did you ever think of jumping ship from your company plan because the free market would surely be more competitive? You have a free market now. Is there any quantifiable information showing it’s actually competitive?

    Roughly 25 million people in the country are uninsured. This is national crisis and if the insurance industry refuses to accept competition in the form of a public option, I think it’s only fair that they at least have to subsidize the cost of insuring the uninsured or underinsured.

    Maybe that was the Obama plan all alone and you’re all getting duped. It’s not a great time to take on more debt for the country so let’s let the highly profitable health care industry underwrite it. It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. I realize that I subsidize health care for these individuals already and would be happy to shift that burden over to the insurance industries if it’s guaranteed it won’t affect my bottom line.

  34. Cv: ” if it’s guaranteed it won’t affect my bottom line”

    Now who’s in for the “blood money”? Your comment, frankly, disgusts me.

    I will absolutely be the first to admit that in the name of liberty from time to time some people may fall through the cracks. I believe we, as a society, should do all we can (within the limits of INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY) to help those folks.

    My argument is and has always been about liberty and has never been to take care of any individuals nor the society as a whole. I feel that humans, being born (CREATED!) as good souls will do all they can to help each other. As such, when left to their own human devices, LIBERTY allows citizens to help themselves and, therefore, others.

    Your argument, writ large in that insidious comment of yours (#33) speaks volumes. Let those who may die die, let those whose liberty must be subjugated go without freedom. So long as “my bottom line” is not affected.

    Disgusting. All I can say, really.

  35. “I feel that humans, being born (CREATED!) as good souls will do all they can to help each other. ”

    Now that’s interesting. Isn’t this exactly contrary to the fundamental conservative insight into human nature?

  36. No, Tano. And that you don’t understand that belies your very nature.

    Conservatives: Leave people to their own devices because they’re inherently good. Free markets and free people have as their nature to care for one another if left alone and allowed to.

    Leftists: Make sure you control and dictate to people, becuase left to their own devices, they’ll take care of only themselves and throw the rest to the wolves.

    Take ANY debate from Iraq to health care and you can boil it down to these two truths about the perspectives of the Right and Left in America today.

  37. I think Conservatism is a bit more nuanced, CP. It’s not that people are always inherently good, but that conservatives believe that with the largest degree of individual freedom, human beings will produce better outcomes than under a regime where liberties are restricted and decisions are made on behalf of the masses by oligarchs.

    History has validated this belief time and time again.

  38. I guess I should state that a different way, since the leftists are a bit thick: It’s not that free markets and free people will produce perfect outcomes; but they will produce better outcomes than those created by utopian socialist oligarchs. And this has been demonstrated time and time again.

  39. Well CP,
    I think it would be best for me to sit back and let your fellow conservatives educate you a bit about the philosophy that you think you follow. I’ll give you a little hint about where to start though – “the fallen nature of man”.
    Sound familiar?

    In fact you things completely backwards. It was the proto-lefties of the Enlightenment, like Rousseau, with his “noble savage’ who thought that human nature was inherintly good. That is why that tradition developed a lot of utopic ideas – all that was necessary to achieve heaven on Earth was to return humans to their original purity. Its a philosophy that can lead to opposition to progress (leading us further away from the garden), or to a revolutionary upheaval against the estabished order which has taken us so far from the garden.

  40. Cv – I’m repeating what’s been said ad nauseam but…

    Whatever the number people uninsured actually is, that’s not the same as saying that they don’t receive medical care.

    The reason that companies spend money on lobbyists and influence is because the government has the power to make and break industries… if the government had less involvement then there’d be less money floating around. PhRMA isn’t offering to spend $150 million to advertise Obamacare for altruistic reasons… it’s to buy a seat at the table (look up “rent seeking”). Government involvement seems to cause more problems than it solves (think mortgage meltdown).

    I also believe there are several drivers in the run-up in medical costs (about twice the rate of inflation since the late 60s). A few:

    1. Medicare/Medicaid and the resulting cost-shifting.
    2. Advances in care. Illnesses and injuries that were once death sentences (e.g. AIDS) are now treatable and many cancers can now be cured; once fatal traumas are now survivable. The first human-human heart transplant was in 1967; now they’re almost routine.
    3. Social decay: treating crack babies and all the rest isn’t free
    4. Malpractice awards. There are quacks and charlatans but Powerball-sized awards for bad outcomes (not due to negligence or incompetence) drives up costs (insurance and defensive medicine). John Edwards and his ilk didn’t get filthy rich from going after truly incompetent doctors – there just aren’t that many.
    5. Illegal immigration. I feel bad for these people but if we’re to treat anyone who makes it over the border then there are about 6 billion potential patients in the waiting room.

  41. CP,

    Your assertion that we should support a “free market” comprised of companies reaping incredible profits and ginning the system through campaign contributions and lobbying to take advantage of average Americans disgusts me. An industry that plays with the well-being of individuals, taking their hard-earned money when they’re well, and dropping them off the insurance rolls when they get sick, or refusing outright not to help those who can’t pay incredibly high premiums or those with pre-existing conditions doesn’t deserve any praise. Insurance is an industry, a business, one that you would promote in some abstract sense of “liberty” over the well-being of fellow Americans.

    I think you took my statement to mean that I don’t want to help the ill-fortuned from our country. Far from it. I’m mad as hell we’re institutionally being taken advantage of by the health care industry, the same one where making health care available to everyone is bad business. We’re already paying the cost of not helping out those who are unable to afford health care. But I don’t want any more of my money being spent to line the pockets of investors and CEOs of big business for a second-class solution for what has become a second-class of American citizens.

    If it takes a public option to truly regulate insurance, I’m all for it. Big money in our capitalistic country will always speak louder than our concern for the unfortunate. Is that the definition of liberty? When health care concerns have the financial resources to throw $1 billion dollars worth of lobbying at congress every year, how in the world are regular people who just want to get along in their lives supposed to compete with that? When politicians who are supposed to be looking out for the well-being of their constituents receiving millions of dollars in campaign donations, how are people who can’t even pay for a doctor visit supposed to have a voice in the debate?

    If you don’t care that you’re paying the highest amount of money for a mediocre level of care, that 25 million of your fellow Americans can’t even afford the basics of health care and want the insurance industry and the health care industry be able to have unregulated say over your health care choices in the name of liberty, I say continue to say no as loudly as you can. You will only reap what you sow.

  42. The insurance industry alone spent $2.2 million on congressional campaigns since 2005, mostly to Republican lawmakers and Democratic lawmakers in key positions regarding health insurance regulation.

    And interestingly enough, trial lawyers spent $16.6 million dollars in 2008.

    So put in perspective, you’re whining about the insurance industry spending $2.2 million over four years while completely ignoring trial and malpractice lawyers spending almost eight times that amount in one year.

    If you’re concerned about influence-buying, you’re aiming at the wrong sources. But then again, you’re not concerned about influence-buying; you’re merely concerned with demonizing private businesses because that’s what leftists do.

    In 2006, the insurance industry made $15 billion dollar profit representing a 1,084 percent increase in five years alone.

    Citations please, leftist. You need to present actual evidence instead of repeating talking points.

    You have a free market now.

    No we do not. We have a business in which 50 different states impose 50 different sets of regulations and 50 different sets of idiotic mandates. Not a single one of the five sites that I oversee on a daily basis has the same insurance plan — because they are in five different states. This is not because the insurance companies want it that way; on the contrary, they would be overjoyed to spread the risk over the five sites instead of on an individual basis. It’s because of ludicrous state laws and stupid mandates that require me to offer coverage that not a single one of my employees uses, but for which I have to be charged.

    That is not a free market. That is a stupidly-overregulated market that requires unnecessary administration and forces additional expense. But Barack Obama and his Obama Party don’t want to fix that problem; instead, they want to add expense.

  43. I think you took my statement to mean that I don’t want to help the ill-fortuned from our country. Far from it.

    Then reach into your own pocket instead of demanding that everyone else pay for it.

    But if you did that, you would have to spend your own money, and that’s not the point of liberalism. You don’t want to pay, so you try to use the law to force others to pay for you. It’s selfish, irresponsible, and childish, but that is what liberalism is. Selfish little boys like yourself don’t want to pay for their own health care or be responsible; instead, you pitch tantrums and scream how awful it is and how hateful anyone who thinks you should pay your own way are.

    If you don’t care that you’re paying the highest amount of money for a mediocre level of care

    Mediocre, indeed. I don’t see Americans fleeing across the border to Canada or Mexico to the socialized paradises there, but we sure as heck see people fleeing from everywhere else to places like the Mayo Clinic here.

    We have the best, most technologically-advanced, and most available medical care in the world — mainly because we pay for it. The ludicrousness of anti-business leftists like yourself who think we will improve care by getting rid of hospitals, getting rid of technology, requiring people to wait absurdly long times, and forcing doctors and health care providers to work for less under a crushing government regimen can only be laughed at heartily.

    And last but certainly not least:

    An industry that plays with the well-being of individuals, taking their hard-earned money when they’re well, and dropping them off the insurance rolls when they get sick, or refusing outright not to help those who can’t pay incredibly high premiums or those with pre-existing conditions doesn’t deserve any praise.

    What about people like yourself who won’t reach into their pockets to pay those peoples’ bills? Why don’t you do it? Why won’t you take responsibility, liberal?

    That’s right. You don’t want to help other people if it requires you to spend a dime. Instead you try to demonize and destroy private businesses so you don’t have to put your money where your pathetic blabbing mouth is.

  44. Back to comment 19: Is being forced to take insurance so you can ride without a helmet really liberty? If so, then please clarify as I do not understand how that is still liberty.

    Yeah. I figured personal responsibility would be lost on you. Essentially what the state of Florida is saying is that you’re free to choose whether or not you can ride with or without a helmet, but if something happens to you, you’re going to pay for it. It’s YOUR responsibility, not the rest of Florida. I can get a dictionary definition, if you’d like.

    Further, I find your insistence that insurance companies are in business to kill their customers despicable.

    We’re already paying the cost of not helping out those who are unable to afford health care.

    Au contraire. We’re already paying the costs OF HELPING out those who are unable to afford health care. One of the reasons why health care is so high is because we ARE paying for those who don’t have it for one reason or another.

    But I don’t want any more of my money being spent to line the pockets of investors and CEOs of big business

    So don’t. For now, anyway, you have the right not to have insurance. You don’t have to pay for it. Or, if you’druther, you have the freedom to select a non-profit like BC/BS. You’re an adult, I assume, so you can make that decision and you don’t need the government to make that decision for you.

    If it takes a public option to truly regulate insurance, I’m all for it.

    And government regulation is a major reason why health care and insurance is so high. Talk about folks wanting the status quo. You’re one of them.

  46. ThatGayConservative @44:

    “Yeah. I figured personal responsibility would be lost on you.” Really now? It’s not lost on me AT ALL.

    But look back at your explanation of the Florida law from your comment. It was not at all clear. It is still not. The option there is either wear the helmet or pay – I don’t see how that is an argument for liberty. Actually, it would seem to back up Countervails point. FL is forcing riders to take responsibility in one way or another. Helmet or insurance.

    And then this: “Further, I find your insistence that insurance companies are in business to kill their customers despicable.” I insisted no such thing!! Are you mixing up your commenters?

    Personally, I do not like all this nonsense about the government getting so involved in health insurance. But on the other side, I do find the incentives in the present system to be perverse, and in need of some cleanup.

  47. Obamateur (credit Ken@patdollard.com for the satirical name), definately has a tinge of truth to it. We got exactly what we elected.

    You know what burns my ass too, you know if the House had passed the bill exactly as it was presented and the Senate to follow Barry Soltero (sp) aka Barack Hussein Obama WOULD HAVE SIGNED IT AS IS. HOW REVOLTING!

  48. I do find the incentives in the present system to be perverse, and in need of some cleanup.

    All of liberalism is perverse incentives. The whole idea of the welfare state is to insulate people from the consequences of bad choices; and they do so by excessively taxing those who make good choices. The Obamacrat Health Plan is no different.

  49. Exactly, V the K. Patterico had a great post on this a few weeks ago which I shall repeat here in toto:

    Looks like the cash-for-clunkers program may be near an end. I don’t qualify; I made the mistake of buying a fuel-efficient car in 2000.

    Didn’t get any money for my house either. I made the mistake of getting a mortgage I could afford.

    I’d love to get my student loans paid off — but dammit, I paid them off myself.

    I’m trying to think if there’s some area of life where I can be stupid and irresponsible now, so I can get paid by Obama in the future. Because so far I’ve really screwed myself by doing things right.

    And my favorite comment from that thread:

    Why work for a living when you can vote for one instead?

  50. Are you mixing up your commenters?

    Yes, sorry. I wondered about that at one point later on, but was too tired to confirm it.

    Previously in Florida, you had no choice. The law was that you had to wear a helmet. Now, you have a choice. BUT, you have to own responsibility with your choice. It may not be total freedom, as you’re trying to point out, but you do have a choice now with a caveat that you won’t be a burden to other Floridians for that choice.

  51. ThatGayConservative, no worries on the mix-up.

    I’m just trying to tease out where the line is on ‘liberty’ as is used to frequently in these discussions. Much like a similar about ‘equality’ on another post here, where the definition used by multiple people was most definitely not the same. I hold no claim to a precise definition to these terms, and I suspect neither do many other people. As a result there seems to be to much talking past each other.