Category Archives: Government

Update II: Messiah's Magical Medical Tour Ambles On

Barack Obama, English, Free Markets, Government, Healthcare, Political Economy, Propaganda, Regulation, Socialism

The so-called town halls set up for the propagandist-in-chief to peddle his policies are as alarming as the infomercials the networks avail him of. All the more so given that no forum airs any serious, substantive questions. There is something both mindless and eerie about the monolithic, collectivist nature of Obama’s “National Discussion on Health Care Reform.” Say after me, all together now, etc.

The guy is also flooding the Internet with his “message.” Is this propaganda? Heavens no. The toxic, and intoxicated journalistic profession would say this is but a savvy use of the new technology. And isn’t it all so very groovy and cool?

In last week’s “Obama’s Politburo Of Proctologists,” I explained one fundamental difference between the private market and the “public plan”: The latter “is a subsidized plan in which prices are artificially fixed below market level. As sure as night follows day, overconsumption and shortages always ensue. If he is as smart as he thinks he is, even the smarmy president must knows that, to compete with the state, private plans and insurers cannot offer services below their real cost for long.

Private practitioners who sell their wares at a loss—are not ‘too big to fail,’ and have yet to slip between the sheets with the derriere doctor-in-chief—will be waylaid. Conversely, because it enjoys a monopoly over force, the government is immune to bankruptcy. It covers its shortfalls by direct and indirect theft: by taxing the people, or flooding the country’s financial arteries with toxic fiat currency.

Other than to indenture doctors, the overall effect of forcing professionals to provide healthcare below market prices will be to decrease the supply and quality of providers and products.

My colleague Vox Day adds the following important points:

It would not be logical if the government were competing on anything remotely resembling a level playing field. However, that’s not the case with government, which has several advantages even when it doesn’t make use of its ability to assert a monopolistic position. First, a government agency has no need to make money. Subsidized by the taxpayers and public debt, it can run at a loss for decades. It can therefore undercut private competition by any amount it chooses, thus creating demand for its services even if they are inferior. Second, a government agency is allowed to exclude itself from regulations that apply to private competitors, giving it further competitive advantages that don’t necessarily show up on the balance sheets. For example, it is highly unlikely that one could successfully sue an employee at a government health care provider for malpractice. The Supreme Court upheld the Feres Doctrine in 1950, which prevents veterans from suing any Veterans Administration physician for malpractice. So, among other things, federal health care providers would not need to carry insurance due to their so-called sovereign immunity.

Obama and logic: never the twain shall meet.

An aside: My language-loving ears were stung when I heard the man, hailed for his literary skills, say in today’s portion of the week, “her and her husband …” It’s “she and her husband,” you doofus. And then, “One of the many options we have are….” It’s “one of the many options … IS.” Hint: One is singular. I’ll remind you that the fact the Obama speaks better English than Bush means nothing at all.

Update I: Chip Reid of CBS News and Helen Thomas skewer Obama’s cackling hyena of a press secretary, Robert Gibbs, over Obama’s town hall-by-invitation. Reid explains to the Mouth what a townhall is—a free for all. Both the public and the questions for the ostensible “National Discussion on Health Care Reform” were carefully preselected and screened. My sense that this was a convention of automatons was based on the fact that indeed it was. Thomas, a historical relic herself, says that this White House is the first to conduct itself in this manner: “The point is the control from here. We have never had that in the White House. And we have had some control but not this control. I mean I’m amazed, I’m amazed at you people who call for openness …” Imagine that: Thomas, who regularly gave Bush hell, might come to miss The Shrub, as we progress down the road to serfdom.

Update II (July 2): What Thomas told CNS News (via the Glenn Beck newsletter):

“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try. “What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”

Thomas said she was especially concerned about the arrangement between the Obama Administration and a writer from the liberal Huffington Post Web site. The writer was invited by the White House to President Obama’s press conference last week on the understanding that he would ask Obama a question about Iran from among questions that had been sent to him by people in Iran.

“When you call the reporter the night before you know damn well what they are going to ask to control you,” Thomas said. “I’m not saying there has never been managed news before, but this is carried to fare-thee-well–for the town halls, for the press conferences,” she said. “It’s blatant. They don’t give a damn if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.”

Asks Glenn (or his proxy): Does this mean Obama’s honeymoon with the press is coming to an end?

I answer (not that he’d know it): don’t count on it. The “parrot press” has a lot riding on that ass.

Update II: Medicine In The Missionary Position

Government, Healthcare, Hillary Clinton, Labor, Political Economy, Propaganda, Regulation, Socialism

During the recent ABC News Obama Health Care infomercial, Obama promised that his systems would work as the Mayo Clinic does, “where experts had figured out the most effective treatments and eliminated waste and unnecessary procedures.”

The key to Mayo, and many such private not-for-profits, is not its experts. Mayo clinic operates efficiently because it is a private clinic, where a mission and market forces are at play; and where entrepreneurs are still strongly motivated to make greater profits and avoid losses, so as to plow them back into an organization in which they are invested.

What’s the government’s mission? To get Americans into the missionary position?

Moreover, the institute of private property ensures that we have prices. Prices are like a compass: pegged to supply and demand they ensure the correct allocation of resources. Conversely, in a nationalized system there are no prices because there is no private property. Absent such knowledge, misallocation of capital is inevitable.

In freeing up medicine it is important, among other steps, to prohibit the American Medical Association from acting like a medieval guild, or a cartel, in curtailing freer entry into the medical profession, and thus reducing supply and pushing up prices.

The sick-making reality is that sixty-two percent of Americans support a so-called government insurance plan. Contrast that with the country that rejected Hilary Clinton’s Health Security Act (HAS) in 1993, lock-stock-and-barrel.

More on medicine in the missionary position in tonight’s WND column.

Update I: Roger, there are ample good products on the market for catastrophic insurance. We once had one. For the rest, we paid for our own very occasional routine visits, and because we paid cash, as you point out, it was always cheaper than the insurance price the doctors set. It’s sheer nonsense to say government must supply anything at all. I am always appalled by the lack of appreciation Americans show the marvelous markets. Not a day goes by when I don’t hear ads on the boob tube for affordable insurance. The last one I listened to was a $6 per-day offer for pretty comprehensive coverage. The problem is that the average immoral idiocrat believes that I should be taxed to pay for his care; the doctor ought to be enslaved in his service; and he ought to be able to spend the $6 on a six pack.

Keep your powder dry. There’s more to come tonight.

Update II (June 26): I appreciate the response in the Comments Section from the American Medical Association. However, in cahoots with the state, professional organizations, acting like trade unions, very often do act to protect their members by inadvertently limiting entry into the profession. Strong support for state licensure is one example.
The AMA draws up lists of approved schools and hospitals vis-a-vis internships, not so? It is instructive to note that lists of AMA and state-approved medical schools coincide. The AMA lays down the standards of practice and admission; the state enforces them, to mutual advantage.
It is this symbiotic, rent-seeking relationship that the AMA would have to relinquished for the sake of a proliferation of providers and products.
(Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982, in Block et al.)

Updated: Big Daddy’s Watching You (BAB’s Best Dad)

Affirmative Action, Barack Obama, Family, Feminism, Gender, Government

My thanks to the brilliant Dr. Thomas Szasz for alerting me to the sickening specter of Obama talking treacle in PARADE magazine. As the president vaporizes about his vision of fatherhood and his hopes for his girls, you get the sense that these kids must think they are at the center of the universe. In that, the president resembles most American parents.

“Too often, especially during tough economic times like these,” writes the country’s chief Idiocrat, “we are emotionally absent: distracted, consumed by what’s happening in our own lives, worried about keeping our jobs and paying our bills, unsure if we’ll be able to give our kids the same opportunities we had. Our children can tell. They know when we’re not fully there.”

In better times, before we began breeding self-absorbed brats, mom would say to the cherubs: “Kids, your father is worried. Let him relax a bit before you go in … ”

A world of wisdom was conveyed in the message Mr. Mindless urges against. Yes, children matter a great deal, but so does dad; he is not an extension of the kids, roped into making their world perfect at a cost to himself. (As we have established that mother is an entity entitled to her own fulfillment, why not father?) And yes, he bears a far greater burden than they can fathom. There is nothing wrong with a child having a sense of the weight of that fatherly responsibility.

Here’s Überdad, again:

“I came to understand that the hole a man leaves when he abandons his responsibility to his children is one that no government can fill.”

What does government have to do with fatherhood and family? In a better America nothing. In Obama’s America everything. The man starts from the premise that government can do pretty much everything. His own experience of state largess has not taught him to question his premise. Rather, Obama seems to have concluded that, affirmative action and racial privilege; the best jobs and career track the pigment burden can buy—these are all well and good, but not as good as being blessed with the love of a dad.

Its hackneyed message aside, Obama’s prose, which seems to thrill the low and high-brow alike, is uninspiring and mundane.

Update (June 22): Myron, a single dad, is BAB’s Daddy of the Year. I’ve seen a photo of the apple of Myron’s jaded eye, and she’s an absolute doll. Her daddy, moreover, is nothing like the country’s papa Stalin. Myron’s cherub looks truly happy.
Myron, you’ll be disqualified, though, if the young lady begins to paint her pretty face and talk in a mixture of Valley Girl and ungrammatical grunts (that’s a botched quote from “Idiocracy“). Also, do not deprive her of your unique humor and wit out of some sense of propriety. I inflicted mine on my daughter. The result: she’s the funniest girl I know. For your own sanity, you can’t cultivate a dull, deadpan kid, which is what the schools churn out.

For example: At my daughter’s primary school, back in South Africa, the women were in the habit of running what we called a tuck shop, “Brit for a shop in or near a school, where cakes and sweets are sold,” mainly to raise money. At least so I think. My girl, then only 7 or 8, wanted to know why I never made any cookies. I told her right away that I did, only my cookies were invisible. She was too small to appreciate the joke, and big enough to get furious at my poking fun at her. You should have seen the little Rumpelstiltskin stomp her little feet. Obama would disapprove of her mother big time.

You know how parents are always telling kids, “You are so cute I can eat you”? Well, in my home the well-worn expression got a bit of a twist. After telling her how cute she was, I’d get this serious look on my face, while looking her over, and say, “Hmmm… Juicy adorable kid. Maybe I should eat you, what do you say? Do you know how much time and money it’ll save me. Think about it….” Then I’d chase her all over the house trying to catch her. She’ll deny it today, but initially she was a bit nervous. Good fun.

Abuse in Obama’s book.

The joking had the tendency to backfire. When I read her Roald Dahl’s Enormous Crocodile, who sounded a lot like her mother as he discussed what kind of child was tastiest, she began to scold me, “Stop joking mommy; read the book.” I promised her that the text was real, but by that time I had lost all credibility. Each time the Enormous Croc expatiated on the hazards of eating children (“they give you tummy rot”), my child recoiled; she could not believe another character was as wacky as her mother. Good times.

Updated: Big Daddy's Watching You (BAB's Best Dad)

Affirmative Action, Barack Obama, Family, Feminism, Gender, Government

My thanks to the brilliant Dr. Thomas Szasz for alerting me to the sickening specter of Obama talking treacle in PARADE magazine. As the president vaporizes about his vision of fatherhood and his hopes for his girls, you get the sense that these kids must think they are at the center of the universe. In that, the president resembles most American parents.

“Too often, especially during tough economic times like these,” writes the country’s chief Idiocrat, “we are emotionally absent: distracted, consumed by what’s happening in our own lives, worried about keeping our jobs and paying our bills, unsure if we’ll be able to give our kids the same opportunities we had. Our children can tell. They know when we’re not fully there.”

In better times, before we began breeding self-absorbed brats, mom would say to the cherubs: “Kids, your father is worried. Let him relax a bit before you go in … ”

A world of wisdom was conveyed in the message Mr. Mindless urges against. Yes, children matter a great deal, but so does dad; he is not an extension of the kids, roped into making their world perfect at a cost to himself. (As we have established that mother is an entity entitled to her own fulfillment, why not father?) And yes, he bears a far greater burden than they can fathom. There is nothing wrong with a child having a sense of the weight of that fatherly responsibility.

Here’s Überdad, again:

“I came to understand that the hole a man leaves when he abandons his responsibility to his children is one that no government can fill.”

What does government have to do with fatherhood and family? In a better America nothing. In Obama’s America everything. The man starts from the premise that government can do pretty much everything. His own experience of state largess has not taught him to question his premise. Rather, Obama seems to have concluded that, affirmative action and racial privilege; the best jobs and career track the pigment burden can buy—these are all well and good, but not as good as being blessed with the love of a dad.

Its hackneyed message aside, Obama’s prose, which seems to thrill the low and high-brow alike, is uninspiring and mundane.

Update (June 22): Myron, a single dad, is BAB’s Daddy of the Year. I’ve seen a photo of the apple of Myron’s jaded eye, and she’s an absolute doll. Her daddy, moreover, is nothing like the country’s papa Stalin. Myron’s cherub looks truly happy.
Myron, you’ll be disqualified, though, if the young lady begins to paint her pretty face and talk in a mixture of Valley Girl and ungrammatical grunts (that’s a botched quote from “Idiocracy“). Also, do not deprive her of your unique humor and wit out of some sense of propriety. I inflicted mine on my daughter. The result: she’s the funniest girl I know. For your own sanity, you can’t cultivate a dull, deadpan kid, which is what the schools churn out.

For example: At my daughter’s primary school, back in South Africa, the women were in the habit of running what we called a tuck shop, “Brit for a shop in or near a school, where cakes and sweets are sold,” mainly to raise money. At least so I think. My girl, then only 7 or 8, wanted to know why I never made any cookies. I told her right away that I did, only my cookies were invisible. She was too small to appreciate the joke, and big enough to get furious at my poking fun at her. You should have seen the little Rumpelstiltskin stomp her little feet. Obama would disapprove of her mother big time.

You know how parents are always telling kids, “You are so cute I can eat you”? Well, in my home the well-worn expression got a bit of a twist. After telling her how cute she was, I’d get this serious look on my face, while looking her over, and say, “Hmmm… Juicy adorable kid. Maybe I should eat you, what do you say? Do you know how much time and money it’ll save me. Think about it….” Then I’d chase her all over the house trying to catch her. She’ll deny it today, but initially she was a bit nervous. Good fun.

Abuse in Obama’s book.

The joking had the tendency to backfire. When I read her Roald Dahl’s Enormous Crocodile, who sounded a lot like her mother as he discussed what kind of child was tastiest, she began to scold me, “Stop joking mommy; read the book.” I promised her that the text was real, but by that time I had lost all credibility. Each time the Enormous Croc expatiated on the hazards of eating children (“they give you tummy rot”), my child recoiled; she could not believe another character was as wacky as her mother. Good times.