Bad law is the worst sort of tyranny.
–Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Irish orator, philosopher, & politician.
From A Speech at the Guildhall in Bristol, 1780.
Where you find the laws most numerous, there you will find also the greatest injustice.
–Attributed to Arcesilaus (ca. 316-241B.C.) Greek Philosopher
The mania to control to control everything by law, the attempt to control every action of every individual from the cradle to the grave. This is an outrage upon human intelligence, individuality and liberty.
–Dr. Edward H. Ochsner, Social Security, 1936
I wish people would stop calling the new health care law Obamacare. It should be more properly nicknamed Democratcare. After all, it was passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress and not a single Republican voted for it. The Affordable Care Act is a partisan law crafted by liberal Democrats. They own it. The American people need to be reminded of this fact over and over again as the next election approaches.
Socialized medicine is every true liberal’s dream. They believe that if the government can just tax certain people “just a little bit more” that the government can then fund and run a health care system and provide “free” healthcare to everyone. These liberals never seem to want to give consideration to basic economics. Some actually think that doctors, pharmaceutical manufacturers and other health care providers should not be allowed to “profit off of sick people.” They do not understand that the potential reward of profit is one of the greatest drivers behind the innovation and improved technologies that we all benefit from.
A study of the last 250 years or so shows that in free market economies where the rule of law is respected, the selfish pursuit of profit has continually resulted in improved products and services in all areas of human activity. America is one of the greatest examples of this. It is the main reason why the U.S. rose to lead the world in innovation and technology. The benefits to society from the exercise of individual self-interest were masterfully explained by Englishman Adam Smith way back in 1776 in his book Wealth of Nations: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Liberals have had well over 200 years to study the truth of Smith’s concept of economic self-interest in a market economy, yet they stubbornly refuse to let the truth get in the way of their utopian fantasies. When governments hinder profit-making in the private sector they strip away an important incentive to produce things and improve things. This will be one of the most tragic consequences as the United States moves towards a single-payer health care system as liberals demand more and more government intervention.
Make no mistake about it – the Affordable Care Act of 2010, which we are now beginning to see the consequences of, is merely a step in the direction of this liberal dream of socialized medicine. But the people who rammed this bad law down our throats failed to mention their real intentions when they were selling the Affordable Care Act to the American people. These deceivers were relying on the gullibility and ignorance of a large body of the American public. And it worked!
As a result of Democratcare, we are now seeing health insurance premiums skyrocket and employer-sponsored health care plans disappear before our very eyes. According to the Health Policy and Marketplace Review website, out of 19 million individually insured people about “16 million (of these) are now receiving letters from their carriers saying they are losing their current coverage and must re-enroll in order to avoid a break in coverage and comply with the new health law’s benefit mandates––the vast majority by January 1(st, 2014). Most of these will be seeing some pretty big rate increases.” To any Affordable Care Act supporter who disputes this claim – I will gladly show them a letter to this effect that my wife and I recently received from our own health insurer.
No one thinks that the health care exchange rollout that officially began on October 1st has been a rousing success either. Actually, by almost all accounts (with the exception of those coming from a few silly propagandists), the rollout of the online exchange has been a complete disaster.
Advertisers are not the only ones who take advantage of human gullibility. A politician who appeals to “hope” manipulates emotions and discourages critical thinking.
What happened to all the warm and fuzzy promises made by President Obama and the Democrat leadership in Congress? You know, promises like, “If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep it,” or, “This law will save a family of four an average of $2500 per year.” Hogwash! Only dummies believed that. Only the “useful innocents” believed that. Some call them “low information voters.” Shame on them for believing it! When “Hope” replaced critical thinking, I knew we are all in trouble.
It is a big mistake to ever believe a politician that makes a promise that someone else will have to keep. That is exactly what Obama and the other Democrat leaders did. You see, this is their duplicitous way of being able to place blame at the feet of someone else when their health care scheme becomes recognized for the disaster that it is.
Here’s how it works: Obama, Pelosi, and Reid et al. promised that their new health care law would make decent health care available to everyone, make it more affordable, and save most people money. They pretended that they had the ability to control health care costs even though they have no personal expertise in the industry they proposed to regulate. They pretended that their 2000 page law would have no adverse effects on the health care industry. It was all sold to the American public like an all-purpose, good-time elixir off of the good Doctor Fuddystuff’s travelling miracle wagon.
Then they get their pet law passed and the technocrats begin the real work of writing the details into the federal code. (Oh, did I forget to mention the special treatment given by the Obama Administration to some of its allies in the form of waivers? How’s that for equal treatment!) Insurance and health care providers must conform to these new complicated regulations or the feds will simply put them out of business. These regulations now total more than 11,000 pages of fine print. How are people entrusted with delivering our health care supposed to make sense of a complex web of regulations like that?[i] It takes an incalculable amount of time and brain power to try to figure this whole mess out. Somebody please tell me – how does that keep costs down? If health care providers have to spend finite resources trying to conform to 11,000 pages of regulations, what resources will they have left to devote to actually doing things like diagnosing and treating sick patients?
Part of the problem is that schools apparently do not teach basic economics anymore. Every business has finite resources. If more resources must be devoted to onerous regulations and government-mandated paperwork, then fewer resources will be available for other things, like time spent treating sick patients or an upgrade to a new cancer-destroying technology.
The truth is we need less government intervention in our health care system, not more. No one in their right mind should want the body that created and hamstrings the U. S. Postal Service – Congress – to be in charge of “bringing down” health care prices. The Post Office recorded a $15.9 billion net loss last fiscal year and expects to record a loss of roughly $6 billion in the current fiscal year. One of the recent proposals made by the Post Office to close its revenue gap is to raise the price of a first class stamp from $.46 to $.49, which of course will only encourage more people to use fewer of the Post Office’s services because as everyone knows there are other alternatives available.
Another frightening thing about the Affordable Care Act is that the Internal Revenue Service will be the main enforcement arm of the law. God help us all.
Higher Revolution: 