The Promise of Something for Nothing
Even those who can believe that Obama can conjure up the money [to insure millions more people] through eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse" should ask themselves where he is going to conjure up the additional doctors, nurses, and hospitals needed to take care of millions more patients.
If he can't pull off that miracle, then government-run medical care in the United States can be expected to produce what government-run medical care in Canada, Britain, and other countries has produced-- delays of weeks or months to get many treatments, not to mention arbitrary rationing decisions by bureaucrats.
Con men understand that their job is not to use facts to convince skeptics but to use words to help the gullible to believe what they want to believe. No message has been more welcomed by the gullible, in countries around the world, than the promise of something for nothing. That is the core of Barack Obama's medical care plan.
~Thomas Sowell
11 Comments:
This is the basic problem with the President's proposal: It doesn't address the supply of health care providers. You can't increase demand and hold supply steady and expect lower costs. It is not possible. The only possible alternatve is price controls and/or rationing.
If we subsidized health care providers the way we subsidize lawyers or real estate, we wuld be swimming in heallth care proders and costs would be much lower.
Perfect example is States require prior approval before someone can build a hospital.
How about vouchers for med students? When they finish med school they have no debt. They won't have to charge their patients a lot more to pay off loans.
I think Sowell is overstating the demand increase that will occur under Obamacare. The uninsured already receive medical treatment through emergency rooms (which they abuse with non-emergency problems), where they cannot be turned away. The real demand increase will be for elective surgeries and other procedures they can't get done at the ER.
The 'confidence man' term has a stronger association to business than government.
Not that it would get in the way of his argument, but keep that in mind as well. See the various loopholes and weasel wording that's been standard practice. Add to that the relatively recent practice of 'customer dumping', where you can make a decision that is undesired by your customer/end user/consumer but you can always just write off complaints as an acceptable loss(even if it is still/more profitable w/ them).
The idea should be that private insurance can work, just without the dirty pool that drives people to have a government backed plan.
As Leonard Cohen sings, "Everybody Knows".
95% of Americans know that Obama/Democrats are lying about the tremendous virtues and the minimum effects their plan will have.
The difference in groups is that a majority know this and don't want the 'plan' whereas the rest know this also but think its just hunky dory that this subtrefuge will work and they'll liberal control over health care.
We need some new words in out vocabulary: How about "government greed"
"The 'confidence man' term has a stronger association to business than government"...
Are you lying (which is my guess) or do you have something credible to back up that statement?
"the various loopholes and weasel wording that's been standard practice"...
Yeah, we had a dose of weasel wording the other night...
Weasel wording by government has a long & strong tradition...
1 said...
That amounts to an op-ed and an article discussing some anti-FDR revisionism.
The negation of FDR(by itself) does not make the opposing argument valid.
Further:
At this point, most(if not all) talk about FDR is only valuable for determining ideological bent.
Norman said...
That doesn't mean you can blindly accept their opposition. If you want a "wind/water insurance dispute" for healthcare, feel free to let business interests to write more loopholes.
I don't want the public plan but I do want business held up to account. That doesn't mean you hand that to an entity that cannot be attacked.
"...eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse"
You don't need to pass a bill to start doing this part now. Why haven't they?
There is no doubt that rising health care insurance is making American business less competitive. Lighten up and contribute to a solution that will provide healthcare at a cost that is competitive with peer countries.
I don't believe that American Healthcare is the best in the world, but it is the most expensive.
Greg,
Health care does not affect international competitiveness. Larry Summers keeps making this claim which is contradicted by the CBO & most economists.
The other red herring in this debate is that preventive medicine will save money.
The nail in the coffin are the budget estimates from the CBO. President Obama is confabulating to suggest that any of the bills circulating in Washington will "save" money or lower the deficit.
Has Obama joined the Joe Biden school of economics?
"That amounts to an op-ed and an article discussing some anti-FDR revisionism"...
You never get tired of stepping in it do you sethstorm, right?
"Further: At this point, most(if not all) talk about FDR is only valuable for determining ideological bent"...
Proving yet again sethstorm that you refuse to do your homework...
Then again you already know the facts about both Obama and FDR since I've posted them more than once by different sources...
Turco says: "There is no doubt that rising health care insurance is making American business less competitive"...
You of course have something factual & credible to back that up right?
One could say the very samething about the lack of tort reform in this country...
One could say the very samething about the federal government and its imposition of high taxes and regulatory costs on private business...
"I don't believe that American Healthcare is the best in the world, but it is the most expensive"...
Hmmm, a Michael Moore believer?
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