socialized healthcare

Why Pragmatism cannot win the Healthcare Debate

The debate over healthcare has raged for generations.  It has toppled at least one Congress, and threatens to topple another.  Through all of this, the pragmatists have been largely victorious, which means: They have sold us out again.  Healthcare remains a difficult issue for politicians, because of economic and moral questions that must be factored into any debate.  The first failure of 'pragmatists', and the worst, in fact, has been their unwillingness to deal honestly with the American people.  This has led to the abominable side-show of senior citizens, demanding in sincere indignation: "No government Healthcare! Keep your hands off our Medicare!"

From the moment one sees this abortive reasoning put forward, one very quickly becomes aware of the fact that somebody, somewhere in this argument, hasn't been playing it straight all these years with the American people.  To the assembled multitude, I shall now endeavor to do so, and almost nobody will like it, but none will be able to claim I've been anything less than truthful.

There are a few concepts we must cover before we can even begin to untangle healthcare.  The real question in healthcare, in the US, is not about the quality of the care, but instead how it is to be funded.   No other place on the planet offers so many healthcare options.  There is no place else on Earth to go if you cannot be made well in the US.  One can cite some exceptional procedure or treatment here or there, but these are merely the exceptions that prove the rule.  Let us not linger on the care itself, but instead turn to the meat of this issue, as it is and has been for all of the life of its public debate.

Healthcare will be rationed.  This is an explicit fact.  You can run circles trying to disprove it, but by any measure, healthcare, like toilet paper, or gasoline, or food, is rationed.  The question is, however: "Rationed how?" Or, "By what mechanism?" or "According to what standard?" Herein lies the real argument, the true crux of the matter, and it is a tempestuous thing for politicians, because it leaves them no wiggle room. For 'pragmatists' this is certainly uncomfortable ground.

Up until the advent of the 'Great Society' programs of the late 60s, the mechanism for rationing had remained what nature decreed: The free market.  The free market allocates resources in answer to only two questions, and they are interesting to consider: Who is providing a supply, and who is demanding how many units of care?

My argument, to which I will return in due course, is that this had been the most thoroughly moral thing about American healthcare financing until it was supplanted.  However, let us first examine the mechanisms then created in order to set aside the natural rationing provided by the free market.  Medicaid and Medicare were created to provide the mechanism for re-rationing some portion of the available care to those to whom the natural market would not provide it: The elderly, beyond their earning years and unable to afford it, just when they would need it most, and the poor, who couldn't afford it much at all.  The argument was successfully advanced that the rest of us should dedicate some portion of our earnings to pay for the care of these two classes.  More, the argument was successfully made that we should be compelled to do so.  Herein lies the ugly nature of government programs:  Coercion is the prerequisite for their enaction.  This is another fact from which pragmatists readily flee.  They will say "some coercion is necessary," painting the matter in terms of a necessary evil.

Suffice it to say that the concept of a 'necessary evil' is a deadly contradiction in terms, and while I shall leave that subject for another day, it is necessary that you understand the premise behind my argument here: If a thing is necessary, it means there was no other alternative.  In the absence of alternatives, the only available course of action becomes amoral; questions of morality are only in play where choice is possible. No choice? No morality. No morality? No evil. This then leaves you with a solitary and much easier question: Is there no alternative, in fact?

So here we have the moral plea of leftists, and other statists, along with their 'pragmatic' friends at the center stripe: "What should be done about the poor, the elderly, and the infirm?"

This, they leave you as your sole choice, but what have they craftily ignored? They have established a premise that in the name of morality, something must be done.  Really? According to what moral standard? By whose moral authority? The answer? By theirs.

You see, it was never asked if there was any moral authority to club you over the head for your wallet, or at least threaten to, on behalf of somebody who needed a bandage, an aspirin, or a hip replacement.  No, it was presumed from the outset that you exist solely to serve the needs of your fellow man.  Presumed by whom? Why, them, of course.

It would not have been so bad had they only decided to brow-beat you, to implore you like the ringing bell of a Salvation Army's kettle Santa, but instead, they took up arms against you, and leveled the guns of government and said: "Pay, or else. Besides, you'll feel better about it."

This is the same ploy that is being used now, as they push for some form of entrenched governmentally-redirected healthcare cost shifting.  The question isn't whether we should have some form of universal care, but only what particular form it should take.  In the end, they are still going to redistribute the wealth of some Americans at gunpoint, to the advantage of some others.

From there, it's a lose-lose for freedom, and the American people at large.  It is the avoidance of this question that makes the so-called 'pragmatists' dishonest.  It is their sell-out on the first moral premise that dooms us to failure.  By accepting the statists' view of that first premise, the outcome becomes one of inevitability and certainty.  They will get their way, with the help of the pragmatists, and it will be their morality that defines it.

Once you've let them get away with any claim to your wallet, by whichever moral standard, you've thrown open your wallet to all comers, with you as the beggar for your own means.

This is where the rubber meets the road in the debate over healthcare financing, and it is here we must fight it.

The Whitehouse has posted a request for their "brownshirts" to start snitching on their neighbors and friends. On August 4th 2009, the Whitehouse posted a request for information on anyone spreading opposition information on 'Government centric healthcare', meaning anyone opposed to government controlled healthcare.

From http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

They are calling on all of their Obamabots to become snitches and tattletales and informants on their neighbors and friends who simply oppose an Administration policy. This is what they called brownshirts in other administrations of the past.

Do you know an Obamabot? Be careful what you say around them, or you may end up on a Whitehouse list. If you spread the 2003 quote from Barack Obama regarding his ultimate plans for government control of health care :

“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”

You could be targeted by the 'brownshirts' amongst us for spreading 'disinformation'.

They don't say what they will do with the information gleaned from their Obamabots. You can picture it now, Obamabots lurking around groups of friends, neighbors or co-workers, listening and scurrilously writing down names. Gleefully slinking to their computer to email flag@whitehouse.gov with every sordid detail.

Dear Leader ZerO has been using the Marxist tutor Saul Alinsky method where overloading the welfare system was the surest way to bring down capitalism and bring about socialism. By adding more people to the all ready broke and broken government health care plans, the system would be overloaded and a pure socialist solution could be proposed. This is why he wants a plan that is deficit neutral and thus underfunded, to increase it's load and hasten it's implosion.

Now he calls forth another tactic of up and coming Dictators and asks his Obamabots to inform on his opposition. Well, let's use some Alinsky tactics. Overload flag@whitehouse.gov with the kind of information they deserve. Do your duty America. Send an email to flag@whitehouse.gov. Some sample content would be telling them about the pile of excrement your neighbors dog has deposited in opposition to the Health Care plan, or some simple ASCII art like :

Remember, Dear Leader ZerO has asked you to be a good citizen, email flag@whitehouse.gov with your report.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veAwjEaXWXs

The Messiah calls them from all over. The hopeful, sick from diabetes, arthritis, cancer, and every other disease and ailment known to mankind. All of them seeking the Messiah that can divine what ails them and cure them. But like any good Faith Healer or Medicine Man, there is something going on behind the curtain.

On July 1st, 2009, Dear Leader ZerO held an 'open, on-line' town hall meeting to get honest unscripted questions from the public at large about his Health-care plan. His staff prescreened the questions posed online through Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter. No doubt to make sure they gave Dear Leader ZerO the hard insightful questions asked about his health-care plan. Questions about the costs in money and debt. The queries about procedures and tests that would be rationed, forbidden or delayed to cut costs.

In the town hall audience, three lucky people where given a chance to ask their questions. Exhibit 'A' was Debbie Smith, from Organizing for America. The second was Jason Rosenbaum, who works for Health Care for America Now. The third was an unnamed Service Employees International Union employee.

Debbie Smith may be "unemployed", but that hasn't stopped her from working for the Obama campaign as a volunteer at Organizing for America. Organizing for America is the Obama election machine that used to be called Obama for Change. They renamed themselves and moved under the auspices of the Democratic National Committee. Debbie Smith has also identified herself as a worker for the Virginia Organizing Project. Perhaps if she spent less time working her two jobs for Dear Leader ZerO, she would have the time to get a job for someone that actually paid wages and benefits. Instead of trying to help someone steal money from other hard working people to pay for her unemployment and health benefits.

Among Debbie Smith's unemployed accomplishments she moderated "a community discussion on health care issues" in Appalachia, Va. during December 2008. She told the local paper at the time the meeting "would be reported back to former Sen. Tom Daschle". Forming a committee to report to on health-care issues was a prime directive given Senator Tom Daschle by then President-elect Barack Obama. He is in constant contact with Dear Leader ZerO's team. Daschle told The Associated Press in a recent media meeting on health-care reform, "We interact with them daily." This despite his failed Health and Human Services Cabinet-nomination. Since he can't be a Cabinet member, he can be a secret Health Czar.

Jason Rosenbaum works for the George Soros linked lobbying project in Washington, D.C. called Health Care for America Now (HCAN). This is a K Street Lobby Group with a $40 million budget to lobby Congress for government-run health care. Debbie Smith's second job, Virginia Organizing Project has been coordinating trips and healthcare forums with Jason Rosenbaum's HCAN.

The unnamed questioner was from Service Employees International Union. A former SEIU health-care lobbyist by the name of Patrick Gaspard is now White House director of the Office of Political Affairs. The SEIU president is Andy Stern who boasted gleefully of spending nearly $61 million in dues money paid by SEIU members to elect Barack Obama. No doubt a wise investment. Spending money that isn't yours to help Dear Leader ZerO get elected so that SEIU employees could get free benefits paid for by taxpayers. Not having to pay them from Union dues, Andy Stern would have more SEIU money to support more political cronyism.

No doubt this audience was not stacked with plants and shills at all and represents Americans and the questions they have 100%. We all are either volunteers for Dear Leader ZerO, or we are lobbyists working on Dear Leader ZerO's agenda, or we are employees of a Union that spends our dues to support Dear Leader ZerO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kcTcR4Zs-4

This The Hill article provides a glimpse of the probable Dem. strategy for enacting socialized healthcare: incremental legislation over the next two to four years.

A spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) predicted Monday that the House would “take a major step” toward comprehensive health reform this year, a comment that appears to contrast with a member of her leadership team.

Over the weekend, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said in a C-SPAN interview that he does not expect a health reform bill to pass Congress in 2009 and prefers to see the issue dealt with “incrementally.”

House Democrats are already taking “incremental steps” toward health reform, Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly wrote in an e-mail before suggesting more sweeping action in the near future.

The House already passed an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and is working on an economic stimulus bill that includes provisions to shore up the Medicaid program, facilitate displaced workers maintaining their private insurance benefits and allocate funding to other healthcare priorities, Daly noted.

“There are some incremental steps that we are taking — first we did SCHIP, then in our economic recovery package, we have money to help stem the tide of people losing health insurance — coverage for Medicaid and COBRA. There is also money for quality, Health IT, comparative effectiveness and wellness, and money for prevention,” Daly wrote.

“And we will take a major step forward this year to increase the number of people who have healthcare coverage,” Daly wrote.

 “Incremental” is an unwelcome and loaded term among would-be health reformers.

"Incremental" is an unwelcome word for advocates of a true free-market healthcare system, too. 

Medicaid, Medicare and SCHIP (I'm intentionally leaving veterans' programs out of this picture), once initially implemented, have continued to expand at an incremental basis. So long as Democrats continue to receive enough Republican votes merely to pass each upcoming spending increase, they will realize their ultimate goal: universal government healthcare.

We know the excuses GOP legislators will make, because we've heard them all before. Some Republican legislators will vote for an expansion of Medicaid benefits because it's "for the children."  Other Republicans will vote to expand Medicare so they aren't portrayed as kicking senior citizens to the curb. SCHIP is for working families, and so on.

The sector of the Republican Party in favor of Real-ID, NSA/TSA/(insert branch here) databases, etc. may indeed relish spending money on health care databases.  We shouldn't tell private companies how to operate, but with COBRA the end justify the means. 

Heck, Medicare Part D was even pushed by key Republicans. 

Perhaps we should follow Great Britian's example and spend more money on "wellness" by creating a Department of Food Police.  In a 2006 article about U.S. food police, the NY Times noted:

A look at what's happening on the state level confirms this. In Arkansas, for instance, children's report cards now include their B.M.I., or body mass index, along with their grades. The governor, Mike Huckabee recently lost more than 100 pounds and is passionate about stopping the "obesity epidemic." Maryland is considering a similar standard.

It doesn't take a majority of Republican votes to push us closer to a complete government takeover of our healthcare system.  It only takes a handful of votes here or there for the Dems to gain a bit more ground as each new expansion of government healthcare control passes through Congress.

I doubt the Democrats will try another Clinton-style heathcare grab.  Why should they?  They lost on Hillarycare but they'll continue to win new ground, year after year, with their incremental approach.

And there isn't a strong enough consensus inside the GOP to stop them.

"...the political survival of the Republican party probably depends on its defeating whatever health-care plan emerges from the scrum created by Messrs. Obama, Baucus, Kennedy, and Wyden.

"If the GOP fails, the beating it took in 2008 will pale in comparison to the decades-long drubbing that will follow." -- Cato's Michael Cannon, November 18, 2008

It seems that in recent national GOP debates, whether they are between presidential candidates or RNC Chairman hopefuls, there is a direct competition to see who can appear the most Reaganesque.

With respect to socialized healthcare, it seems that the GOP is divided into four factions: those really opposed to socialized healthcare, those who don't think socialized heathcare can be defeated, those who don't care that much about socialized healthcare but wish to gain as much political turf as possible over the issue, and those who actually favor additional government intervention into the healthcare marketplace.

I'd like to briefly address each of these four groups (after the jump).