Monday, August 31, 2009

In Which, While in my Underwear, I Critique a Nobel Prize Winner

Paul Krugman, in today's New York Times laments the absence of Richard Nixon in the White House today rather than the current office holder.

"But the Nixon era was a time in which leading figures in both parties were capable of speaking rationally about policy, and in which policy decisions weren’t as warped by corporate cash as they are now. America is a better country in many ways than it was 35 years ago, but our political system’s ability to deal with real problems has been degraded to such an extent that I sometimes wonder whether the country is still governable."

So, what was that era of American politics really like? It was a time when the Democrats had been in power for so long that the Republican party had acclimated so thoroughly to being the minority party that they mounted no real challenge to the Democrats in the House and the Senate. Instead, they sought to pick up a few crumbs here and there that the Democrats tossed their way after funding things like, oh, I don't know-the ultra successful War on Poverty. Republicans in that era weren't so much an opposition party as they were inside players, skilled at greasing the skids in order to maintain their own access to the public coffers. They didn't challenge the Democrats in either philosophy or the execution of that philosophy. So Krugsie laments the loss of a time when Republicans were compliant and easily manipulated with a few bread crumbs.

When you hear Krugman and others on the Left decry the lack of civility and bipartisanship in politics today, what they are really moaning about is that the Dems can't roll the Reps any more. Hell, they can't even roll the Blue Dog Dems any more. Somewhere along the line over the last 30 years, conservatives and libertarians found their voice and formed a clear understanding of those beliefs. And because these beliefs are principle-based, not desire based, they don't yield. In short, the Krugmans of the world can't stand the fact that the conservative side of the country dug in its heels and started to push back. For me personally, this crystallization of thought began about 3 years after I got out of college, in the time of Reagan.

Read this passage from Krugman:

"Right now, Republicans are balking at the idea of requiring that large employers offer health insurance to their workers;"

I don't know of anyone who is balking at that idea. In fact, many people in this health care debate would like to see employer-based health care come to an end. Further, the market for employees already dictates that large employers provide health insurance. It's a ludicrous statement for Krugman to make.

And then Krugman gets it completely wrong:

"So what happened to the days when a Republican president could sound so nonideological, and offer such a reasonable proposal?

Part of the answer is that the right-wing fringe, which has always been around — as an article by the historian Rick Perlstein puts it, “crazy is a pre-existing condition” — has now, in effect, taken over one of our two major parties."

How condescending. What an ass. The disagreement over health care reform, or health insurance reform, isn't based on a reasonable proposal from the Democrats. What the Democrats are proposing isn't reasonable to people who have a firm belief that health care, and the responsibility for it, is better left to the people who need it and the people who provide it. The socialist Left is dumbfounded that people wouldn't want a government provided program for everything (see "What's Wrong With Kansas"). The conservative/libertarian right is dumbfounded that some people believe the government should be their Sugar Daddy and parcel out everything we need to live.

Obamacare is a dangerous expansion of government, period. Neither I nor any clear-thinking person can see the benefit of that, never mind the anti-competitive nature of it. We simply can't see the wisdom or benefit in turning over so large a component of the private sector to the government. The socialist Left is seriously misjudging the anger being shown at town hall meetings these days. Obama and the crew are trying to ram something through with little if any debate or discussion. Elected representatives stand in front of these town hall meetings and read talking points designed to sell the plan rather than talking substantively about the bill at hand. People see this and quite rightly they go ballistic.

The hell of it is, there is quite a lot of agreement between the two sides about health care and, I believe, a real willingness to fix it. But when the party in power tries to shove something down our throats, we fight back. Areas of agreement include:

  • Health care costs too much
  • We should eliminate employer-provided health care. We need true portability.
  • We don't like having either insurance companies or the government between us and our doctors
  • Medical providers need relief from the administrative nightmare they face every day
  • The ultimate responsibility for one's health resides with the individual. People need to eat properly and get enough exercise. We should do more to encourage the acceptance of this responsibility.
  • Pre-existing conditions should be more limited in scope. The other side of this double-edged sword is that insurers will price for recent conditions, as they should. My ex-wife was recently denied coverage because the insurer thought that she had had a sprained knee within the last 30 days. A sprained knee. (She appealed and got the coverage.)

I am a big believer in the use of Health Savings Accounts coupled with major medical coverage. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods recently wrote about how his company uses these to control costs and places more responsibility in the hands of his employees and he was excoriated by his Volvo-driving, tofu-chewing customers. He was accused of being anti-healthcare reform, which was ludicrous. He just didn't care for Obamacare and has a workable, proven alternative. Since the Whole Foods plan works, there is no chance that Obama, Krugman or any of the fringe Left will adopt any of its methods.

Krugman goes on to whine about corporate lobbying in Congress. Blah, blah, blah.

So, I propose a compromise for health care. The socialist Left is bent on a giveaway, so let's do this. The government just handed as much as $4500 to everybody who purchased one of the government's preferred automobiles. Let's declare the Whole Foods plan to be the government's preferred plan, eliminate employer-provided health care and then give everyone $5000 (the annual limit) in a Health Savings Account. And then let the market do what it does best, wring the fat out of the market. This compromise would satisfy the right's desire to make the health care market function more like a free market and would satisfy the left's burning desire to give other people's money away.

Nah, better not. It might work.




1 comment:

  1. Back in 2008, this Whole Foods, CEO John Mackey (how old is this kid?), was caught posting negative comments (trash talk) about a competitor on Yahoo Finance message boards in an effort to push down the stock price. So now I am suppose to take this loser seriously? Please, snore, snore.

    It’s funny we hear Republicans say that they do not want “faceless bureaucrats” making medical decisions but they have no problem with “private sector” “faceless bureaucrats” daily declining medical coverage and financially ruining good hard working people (honestly where can they go with a pre-condition). And who says that the “private sector” is always right, do we forget failures like Long-Term Capital, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Enron, Tyco, AIG and Lehman Brothers. Of course the federal government will destroy heathcare by getting involved, Oh but wait, Medicare and Medicaid and our military men and women and the Senate and Congress get the best heathcare in the world, and oh, that’s right, its run by our federal government. I can understand why some may think that the federal government will fail, if you look at the past eight years as a current history, with failures like the financial meltdown and Katrina but the facts is they can and if we support them they will succeed.

    How does shouting down to stop the conversation of the healthcare debate at town hall meetings, endears them to anyone. Especially when the organizations that are telling them where to go and what to do and say are Republicans political operatives, not real grassroots. How does shouting someone down or chasing them out like a “lynch mob” advanced the debate, it does not. So I think the American people will see through all of this and know, like the teabagger, the birthers, these lynch mobs types AKA “screamers” are just the same, people who have to resort to these tactics because they have no leadership to articulate what they real want. It’s easy to pickup a bus load of people who hate, and that’s all I been seeing, they hate and can’t debate. Too bad.

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