What Is Seen And What Is Not Seen-The Real Effects Of Socialized Medicine
What will a government takeover of the healthcare industry do to the American economy? “It probably won’t mean very much.” An article published in this morning’s Wall Street Journal claims, further explaining that “[s]ocialism, or social democracy, or whatever else you want to call it, doesn’t seem to have hurt stockholders overseas too badly. As evidence, the article cites the fact that “[o]ver the past 10 years, according to MSCI Barra, stock markets across socialized Europe have produced total returns of about 2% a year in U.S. dollar terms, according to MSCI Barra. The figure for France is just over 2% and for left-wing Britain and Holland nearer to 3%. Pinko Denmark has boomed by 10% a year.”
Of course, corporate profit increases say nothing about a country’s economic health, which is measured by the overall prosperity of its people. In fact, corporate profits are often a direct result of oppressive socialist regulations that only fatten the pockets of select businesses through laws that discourage competition and create artificial monopolies. Conversely, the damage caused by socialism is easily recognized by anyone with enough common sense to trace its effects to their logical conclusion.
Government, by and through the force of law, either prohibits or compels. In the case of socialized healthcare, the federal government will compel its citizens to pay large amounts of money which it will then payout to doctors and hospitals so that they will treat patients. Unless doctors and hospitals comply with government regulations, they will be prohibited from receiving that money, and eventually, may be denied the right to practice medicine altogether. Consequently, only those doctors and hospitals that comply with government regulations will profit. Without the pressures inherent in market competition, innovation will die, and with it, the advances in the standard of living–which cannot be measured by corporate profits–will slow.
At its best, socialism produces economic stagnation. At its worst, socialism produces tyranny.
Doctor’s Bill-The Cost Of Healthcare Reform
The Washington Post reports that the House of Representatives, after deciding that it actually was ok to vote on the constitutionally questionable ‘deem and pass’ self-executing quasi amendment/bill, has unveiled its list of “changes to compromise health-care legislation” which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost “$940 billion over the next decade.” The bill will be “paid for by slicing nearly $500 billion from Medicare and other federal health programs.” And the other $440 billion, you ask? Well … that’s a really good question …
Irreconcilable Differences-How Bad Politics Creates Bad Policy
An article published in this morning’s Wall Street Journal details the process some house members are pursuing in order to pass the government-healthcare-industry-takeover bill proposed by the Senate. “Under the “reconciliation” process that began yesterday afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate’s Christmas Eve bill and then use “sidecar” amendments to fix the things it doesn’t like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation.” As the article explains “[t]his two-votes-in-one gambit is a brazen affront to the plain language of the Constitution, which is intended to require democratic accountability. Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says that in order for a ‘Bill’ to ‘become a Law,’ it ‘shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate.’ … As Stanford law professor Michael McConnell pointed out in these pages yesterday, ‘The Slaughter solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote. The senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill. But this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form …” thereby undermining senate rules, and flying in the face of the Constitution. Of course, for the bill to become to become law, fifty one senators would still need to vote in favor of the amendments proposed by the House, which would require some to abandon both the Constitution and their ‘core beliefs’ in exchange for the Harry and Nancy’s good graces.
The Cure for The Common Republican-A Pedagogical Argument Against Healthcare Reform
Republican resistance to healthcare reform (or, more appropriately, a federal takeover of the healthcare industry) has been, and continues to be strategically ambiguous, if not just plain quirky. Their latest tactic, as reported by Bloomberg, is “telling House Democrats they can’t rely on the Senate to approve the [desired] changes [in the healthcare bill], which congressional leaders are trying to navigate through a process called budget reconciliation.” By painting their constituents in the senate as untrustworthy, Republicans hope to … convince house democrats to give up healthcare reform altogether? Maybe? The problem with such political tactics is a lack of vision; Republican leadership has failed to effectively communicate what should be its central message–that any healthcare reform legislation that expands federal control of the healthcare industry, be it through regulations, subsidies, or social programs, is bad policy and will, inevitably, increase costs and stifle innovation. It’s a simple, empirically backed argument that speaks truth to the common sense of even the most uneducated american. Of course, taking such a position to its logical extreme would require opposition to not only healthcare reform, but Medicare as it now stands. And, like Social Security, many Republicans see Medicare as politically untouchable. Why? Who knows. The last true dismantling of a federal social program, in the form of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, worked wonders. The same could, and should be done for Medicare. De-regulation–now that’s a strategy.
Healthier Care
In an op-ed for today’s New York Times, Paul Krugman criticized Republican support for Medicare as hypocritical. He’s correct. An argument that condemns a federal takeover of the healthcare industry (let’s be clear about what’s really going on here), while at the same time defending Medicare, is as principally sound as a vegan cannibal. It just doesn’t make sense. All that whining about the lack of bipartisan cooperation is downright pathetic. The real problem isn’t the way that we’re reforming healthcare, the real problem is that we’re reforming healthcare at all. If we truly want better healthcare, we must cut regulations and restore freedom to both doctors and patients alike.
