Patterico's Pontifications

12/25/2009

“We The People”

Filed under: Humor,Politics — DRJ @ 8:46 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Ray Stevens has a message for Congress: “If you voted for ObamaCare, we’re gonna vote you out of there.”


“Tell Nancy Pelosi we’re gonna do the hokey-pokey: Put the Right ones in; Pull the Left ones out.”

We’ll see. It’s a long time until November 2010 and even longer until November 2012.

RELATED: Have we come to the tipping point of another Jacksonian moment?

— DRJ

74 Responses to ““We The People””

  1. Can we use the rule 7.62 yet?

    Oh and did ya’ll hear the won actually use the term “Insurance” reform, not Health Care Reform?

    TC (0b9ca4)

  2. The problem with the song, of course, is that he’s talking about getting rid of these clowns AFTER the damage has been done.

    Icy Texan (a68e3e)

  3. Every American needs to see this video. Thanks for posting. The Revival/Uprising is coming, like a storm, it is coming! Hot damn, it’s way overdue. The people are sick and tired of our elected “representatives” constantly and consistently violating the Constitution and the Oath they took to protect, preserve and defend our Constitution and the storm is a coming!

    J. Raymond Wright (e8d0ca)

  4. Not sure I want Ray Stevens as my spokesman.

    packsoldier (1671a5)

  5. I thought his named seemed familiar. Lots of cultural changes since this song of his back in the early 60s:

    Let me tell you about Ahab the Arab
    The sheik of the burning sand
    He had emeralds and rubies just drippin’ off ‘a him
    And a ring on every finger of his hand
    He wore a big ol’ turban wrapped around his head
    And a scimitar by his side
    And, every evenin’, about midnight
    He’d jump on his camel named Clyde, and ride

    Ah, the innocent days…inside every old person is a young person wondering what the hell happened? [shout out to Charlotte de Cape Town for that]

    political agnostic (50a057)

  6. I don’t need rule 7.62 when rule 5.56 applies just as well, and, in some instances, is much more readily applied.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  7. Oh and did ya’ll hear the won actually use the term “Insurance” reform, not Health Care Reform?

    Insurance reform misses the big picture.

    Why do we need insurance coverage to pay for health care, but not for auto repairs or home repairs. It is because health care is too expensive.

    Price controls will make health care cheaper for all. And the usual objection to price caps do not apply, because while people choose to buy food or gas, they do not choose to get sick.

    Michael Ejercito (6a1582)

  8. I thought that the usual objection to price caps was that an artificial cap on prices reduced the incentive for new entry to the (provider) market and thereby resulted in a supply shortage. I don’t understand why the fact that people don’t choose to get sick would reduce that tendency.

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  9. We’ll just add this to the long list of things you don’t understand.
    It would help if you took some Econ – perhaps cracking a few tomes by Thomas Sowell would help.
    It has nothing to do with whether or not people get sick, but has everything to do as to whether or not people will willingly work for “slave” wages.
    Some will, but the vast majority of them will not have the skill, education, and dedication that would prove to be worthwhile to those that are sick – just another day at the DMV.
    We will find that “health care” will end up drawing from the same pool of layabouts who now fill up the EdSchools, and we see how well that is working other than the increased membership for the AFT/NEA.

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  10. #6 Michael Ejercito:

    Price controls will make health care cheaper for all. And the usual objection to price caps do not apply, because while people choose to buy food or gas, they do not choose to get sick.

    On the contrary, they apply all the more as the demand is relatively inelastic.

    As aphrael notes, artificially capping prices doesn’t do anything to reduce demand, but it does reduce supply by limiting the number of providers entering the healthcare field, causing healthcare seekers to do without, seek alternative treatments, or search out blackmarket care.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  11. Close, Aph, but the real reason that price caps lead to shortages is because the market usually “fixes” supply/demand issues. If something is too cheap, more people are willing to buy it, and often that means there isn’t enough to go around. So a free market allows for prices to increase, thus removing potential buyers (“I’m not spending 400 dollars on a phone!!”), bringing the system to equilibrium. A price is reached where there are enough buyers to purchase the existing supply.

    The idea that price caps for medical stuff will lead to shortages comes from that idea. “I just have a cold, screw going to the doctor!” becomes “Hell, it’s only $20 to see the doctor, so I might as well have him check out this cold.”

    It isn’t that people choose whether or not to get sick, it’s that people choose whether or not to see a doctor when they get sick. Even with insurance, people don’t usually go to the doctor’s office for the cold or flu – if prices are capped too low, EVERYONE will go see a doctor for even the tiniest case of the sniffles.

    Or so the theory goes. I happen to agree with it.

    Besides, it defies logic that you can increase coverage, retain current levels of quality, AND spend less money to do it.

    Fast, Cheap, and Good. Pick two.

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  12. As aphrael notes, artificially capping prices doesn’t do anything to reduce demand, but it does reduce supply by limiting the number of providers entering the healthcare field

    Yer off. Lower prices don’t affect supply, they affect the people willing to demand a certain good or service, which leads to a shortage as usually supply can not be easily increased.

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  13. Comment by EW1(SG) — 12/26/2009 @ 11:27 am

    I disagree.
    Studies in the 70’s & early 80’s of Medicare demonstrated an explosion on the demand side of the curve as “patients” flooded clinics and doctors’ offices since they had no skin in the game.
    Got a runny nose, or the sniffles…Go see the Doc – Medicare’s paying for it;
    whereas, prior to Medicare, those ailments were cause for a trip to the drug-store to pick up some aspirin or a decongestant –
    if you went to see a doctor, you actually had to pay money out of your own pocket.

    I had thought that Dr.Mike had covered this ground for everyone?

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  14. AD – Rtr/OS: I have studied economics, actually; thank you for the recommendation. I got an ‘A’ in intermediate level macroeconomics (I skipped the intro class) and a ‘B+’ in introductory microeconomics (I was only allowed to take the intro class), and have done a fair amount of reading on the subject outside of the two courses I have taken.

    It seems to me that you’re focusing on something different than what I was discussing with Michael Ejercito. He was asserting that the fact that people don’t choose when to get sick means that a price cap won’t have a market distorting effect, probably because he thinks that not choosing when to get sick equates to not choosing when to seek the services of health care providers. My response was that this is silly because even if you assume that demand remains constant, a price cap still has a distorting effect on supply … which I combined with a somewhat passive-aggressively worded statement implying that Michael Ejercito should explain his theory.

    You seem to be talking about the question of will people be willing to work for the wages created by the price cap? In a way, that’s related to my point – the price cap will reduce the number of people willing to provide the supply – except that it’s intermingled with a fair amount of political posturing (“slave wages”).

    Even then, I think the wages are sort of beside the point – I suspect that you could design a price cap which guaranteed physicians compensation that was high enough to not be a “slave wage” but still had market-distorting effects. And, as a political matter, I think your complaint is not actually that the wages are too low; I think you would object to price caps no matter what price was set.

    Moreover, if that’s not the case, and the issue actually is the number rather than the process for setting the number, how can you possibly know what the number is going to be? And, without knowing that, how can you object to it?

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  15. Scott: lower prices can effect supply. When the price of oil drops precipitously, it causes oil companies to not invest money in bringing new fields, etc, online, resulting in lower supply several years out.

    Similarly, if the price of factor inputs rises but the price of the good does not, it reduces profit and causes less efficient producers to exit the market [thereby reducing supply], a problem which is exacerbated if the remaining producers can’t increase supply because the up-front cost of doing so (building new plants, for example) can’t be recouped at the given price level.

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  16. AD – maybe i’m an oddity, but … I hate going to the doctor; the entire process is obnoxious to me. So, even though my insurance is good enough that I basically don’t pay anything for a visit, I only go to the doctor when i’m seriously ill (except for my annual preventive checkup, which I only started getting after my best man had a heart attack and i was diagnosed with high cholesterol).

    I can imagine price pressure being important for the poor, but for anyone in the middle or upper class who has insurance, I have a hard time seeing the cost of a doctors’ visit mattering enough to dissuade them.

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  17. Moreover, if that’s not the case, and the issue actually is the number rather than the process for setting the number, how can you possibly know what the number is going to be? And, without knowing that, how can you object to it?

    Easy. Watch me. 🙂

    My problem is, artificially setting a price ALWAYS distorts the market – either by creating a surplus or a shortage. The only way for supply and demand to reach equilibrium is for price to be decided by the market itself.

    My issue isn’t with the process of deciding the price, or even the price itself. My issue is with anything besides the market deciding the price.

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  18. Scott – right, exactly. But AD is claiming that the problem is slave wages. I think that’s not his actual problem with price caps … and if it is, I wonder, how he knows that they’ll be slave wages?

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  19. aphrael, if that is what you meant to say, you should have said it.
    I object to all caps (or should I say: Wage & Price Controls), as they distort the market, and are anti-republican, anti-freedom, and cause more problems than they purport to solve.
    We only have to look back to the experiences during and after the last two attempts at serious W&P controls: WW-2, and Nixon.
    In the medical field, we are still trying to work our way out from under the distortions of WW-2 caused by Medical Insurance being granted an exemption from those controls;
    and the Nixon experience directly led to the Stagflation of the last half of the 70’s.
    BTW, your grades are immaterial to me, since most grades given in higher education seem to be only tangentially relevant to the actual educational attainment derived (another inflationary effect of the Nixon years, I suppose).

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  20. AD – Rtr/OS: sure. grades are on some level nothing more than a game, and are a bad marker of educational achievement; that’s why I went to an undergraduate school which didn’t, as a general rule, have grades — narrative evaluations when done well provide a much better insight into a student’s capabilities and achievements.

    That said, other than ignoring it, I’m not sure how to respond when someone asserts that I should study something which I have, in fact, studied.

    if that is what you meant to say, you should have said it.

    I would say that back at you: if you object to all price caps because they distort the market – which is, I would note, the position I said I thought was your actual position – why bring up the rhetoric of “slave wages”? It’s not the basis for your objection to price caps; it’s a red herring.

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  21. A “slave wage” is in the eye of beholder; or, more precisely, in the eye of the one receiving that wage.

    I hear “teachers” complaining of the slave wages that they have to work for after investing all of the time and energy to pile up a stack of degrees and certifications –
    and this in CA which IIRC is in the top five for teacher compensation.

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  22. The irony there is that public school teachers get paid more than most private school teachers, at least in the California market.

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  23. Who was talking about “private” school teachers?

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  24. AD – it’s ironic that public school teachers make more money than teachers selling their services on the open market and still complain about it. Here’s a case where the non-market price is higher than the market-price and the seller still complains that the price is too low.

    That’s not an indictment of the non-market price; it’s a statement about human nature.

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  25. …and, I only said something about Econ since I assumed from your comments that it was a subject that you were not that familiar with.
    Making a general assumption…
    Most Liberals (and I think you would self-describe yourself as one) seem to have a studied disregard for economics, except for the Marxian type, which historically, have been proven to be irrelevant to how the world actually works.

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  26. It seems to me that you’re focusing on something different than what I was discussing with Michael Ejercito. He was asserting that the fact that people don’t choose when to get sick means that a price cap won’t have a market distorting effect, probably because he thinks that not choosing when to get sick equates to not choosing when to seek the services of health care providers. My response was that this is silly because even if you assume that demand remains constant, a price cap still has a distorting effect on supply … which I combined with a somewhat passive-aggressively worded statement implying that Michael Ejercito should explain his theory.

    The “choosing” part of the question is a lot of the cost factor. The RAND Insurance Study of the 1980s looked at the effect of deductibles. They concluded that the deductible reduced the likelihood of the patient going to the doctor for minor problems and had little effect on health. It’s a long study and you are welcome to read it. It is still valid.

    The two ways you control excessive utilization is with price and queuing. Rationing is another term for queuing. When I ran sick call as a corpsman 50 years ago, we used queuing and the group that showed was called “the sick, the lame and the lazy.” Now, in civilian practice, they call them “the worried well.” They fill primary care offices. Price controls, like those Medicare uses now, make primary care docs lose money or see so many patients a day that they might as well not be seen. They don’t get much satisfaction so many are quitting and, like parents who send their kids to private school, are willing to make less money if they can practice the way they want to.

    Since so many doctors are coming to the same conclusion, the trend is going to really affect what Obamacare looks like. The parallel system that will grow alongside the government system is going to make the Obamies look bad so the next step will be to try to ban it the way the teachers’ unions tried to ban home schooling. It will be interesting to see what happens. It might even be violent. People are getting angry.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  27. #12 AD:

    Studies in the 70’s & early 80’s of Medicare demonstrated an explosion on the demand side of the curve as “patients” flooded clinics and doctors’ offices since they had no skin in the game.

    That’s true: because at the time, Medicare was paying the prevailing rate.

    We didn’t actually see the decline in providers until later when Medicare was no longer providing the market rate in compensation, and the increased time required to comply with the regulations stipulated also started catching up.

    I don’t think that Mike K and I are disagreeing about anything, I think we both lived through the same period of changes in healthcare, albeit from slightly different perspectives.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  28. And right queue, here’s Mike saying essentially what I said, although better.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  29. Well, we’re all three looking at this from about the same time perspective. Mike’s a few years older than myself, and sees this issue from the medical provider side. I see this from a conservative-libertarian viewpoint as an infringement upon the Liberty of the individual, on both the provider and providee.
    This issue may not cause “barricades” to be built, but it could be the straw that drives people to the “barricades”, Citizen!

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  30. Let me also note that there seem to be two separate discussions speaking past each other: one is the discussion of a market of patients seeking healthcare, and the other is a market of potential providers seeking compensation.

    In most economic discussions of markets, we talk about supply vs demand when all other factors are static: here we are discussing the interaction of two markets with different motivating factors affecting the players, each of whom interact with each other creating a much more dynamic market.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  31. #28 AD:

    an infringement upon the Liberty of the individual, on both the provider and providee.

    A viewpoint I share.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  32. This (29 & 30) is the result when government interferes in the free flow of goods and services.
    As government involvement increases, Liberty decreases.

    Or, as Ronald Reagan once said:
    Government works at a basic level:
    If it moves, tax it;
    if it continues to move, regulate it; and,
    if it stops moving, subsidize it!

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  33. AD – i’m a computer programmer and part-time law student whose undergraduate degree was in political science and whose first love was history; it’s difficult to make assumptions about where my interests lie. With respect to economics, I think (a) it’s hard to understand history without understanding the economic theories which motivated the actors at the time you are studying (I feel like I ought to study theology for similar reasons); and (b) it’s hard to understand modern political debate without understanding modern economic theory to some degree – so as a citizen I sort of have a duty to obtain at least some level of knowledge. 🙂

    As for liberals – there’s certainly a set of naive liberals who ignore economics because it’s just a tool by which the man rigs the system to help the powerful; there’s also a set of naive conservatives who ignore sociology because it’s just liberal propoganda. Both groups have chosen to disarm themselves, and both really shouldn’t have.

    Among those liberals who haven’t chosen to disarm themselves, I think it is a truthful statement that liberals and conservatives draw different things from economics – some of that can be summarized as a “children of keynes and galbraith vs. children of hayek and friedman” description, but it goes deeper; liberals are much more skeptical of the claim that people are rational actors (ironically, liberals have lost faith in the perfectability of human nature), and tend to be far more likely to view the transaction cost of information acquisition as undermining market theory.

    Certainly I would describe myself as a liberal: i support gay marriage, i think attempts to suppress social fads are doomed, i think that ‘ebonics’ is a legitimate dialect of english, i think global warming is a serious problem which we should make sacrifices now to resolve, i support a broader and stronger social safety net than the one in place in the united states, etc. But i’ve spent my entire adult life listening to and talking to conservatives online, because I think the failure of liberals and conservatives to listen to one another makes solving any of our problems much, much harder … and because I have faith that we can find common ground. 🙂

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  34. Mike K – I accept that studies have found this; I find it bizarre and counter-intuitive.

    That said, I think the development of a seperate boutique medical market is fundamentally no different than the development of the organic food market: when something becomes sufficiently cheap, more expensive niche markets develop along side them.

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  35. Except, historically, government will not allow an independent, niche market to compete (see the efforts of the NHS in GB, and in Canada, to suppress the free market in health care).
    Also, look at the history of the TVA and how it distorted the market for power in and around the Tennessee Valley.

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  36. here we are discussing the interaction of two markets with different motivating factors affecting the players, each of whom interact with each other creating a much more dynamic market.

    Right. One of my criticisms of economics is that focusing on single market behavior makes it easier to model and to predict outcomes, but that the other factors are never actually static and that all actually occuring markets are in fact complex composite markets which are therefore more difficult to analyze than you would assume from the economics that most people learn in high school or college.

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  37. All I can add is what I’ve witnessed going on up north for the last two decades when I first started traveling there regularly – it’s gone to hell, and it’s literally a joke of a healthcare system, both for the poor, the middle class and the rich.

    Dmac (a964d5)

  38. A classic example of denying how incentives/penalties change behavior is the marking of tax bills by the CBO, and its’ absolute refusal to use anything but a static analysis, which has distorted every piece of tax legislation in the last half-century.

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  39. BTW, Canada does not nearly have the number of indigent citizens per 1,000 that we have, and their immigration policies are extremely strict, unless you’re coming from the countries formerly associated with the British Crown (Australia, Britain, etc.). So to expect it to be a better experiment here is truly whistling in the dark.

    Dmac (a964d5)

  40. “…both (sic) for the poor, the middle class and the rich.”

    Well, the rich do derive some benefit:
    Though their costs increase when they are forced to fly South for care that is unavailable, either wholly or in a timely manner; they do rack up frequent-flier miles to use to go someplace nice during the Winter, such as Bermuda or the Azores.

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  41. AD – I’m not convinced that it’s possible to do a multilevel analysis of tax legislation in a way that doesn’t become politicized. That is to say, I think that any attempt to do so will get mired in a fight about what rules to apply for the second level of the analysis … much like any attempt to use statistical sampling to count the people missed by the census gets mired in a fight about whether or not such sampling is in fact neutral.

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  42. I noted elsewhere that a greater percentage of voters are in opposition to ObamaCare than the percentage of voters who voted for Obama. A liberal countered my statement was an argumentum ad populum fallacy. But he failed to notice ours is purportedly a Constitutional Republican form of government, where it is the people’s will, within the confines of the Constitution.

    The people soundly do not will this. And the Constitution does not allow this. And when we get down to it, that’s what really matters here.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  43. John Hitchock, I don’t think we can say with any certainty whether the people want this or not … because at this point I don’t know anyone who actually understands it. There are certainly elements of it that the people do want (end to pre-existing condition rules and recission, for example) and elements that people don’t want (cuts to medicare, higher taxes); but since almost nobody understands the bill well enough to know how the things they want balance against the things they don’t want in the actual bill, how can we accurately measure whether the bill represents the public will?

    As for the constitution: from what I know about the bill, I think that this comports with the way the courts have interpreted the taxing and spending clause. You can argue that that interpretation is wrong, but that argument would invalidate many things the government already does … and there’s very little sign that the argument is going to win substantial support in the appellate courts.

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  44. Aphrael, I respect you as a liberal (read “wrong-headed”) debater because you debate in honesty (even though you’re WRONG!!eleventy!!) so I hope my light-heartedness will allow me to ask you this important, non-light-hearted question:

    Which part of the Constitution allows the government to require everyone to buy something just because they’re alive and in the US?

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  45. Though their costs increase when they are forced to fly South for care that is unavailable, either wholly or in a timely manner;

    I’m sure you’re aware that one of the fastest – growing markets in healthcare is US citizens (mostly middle class) traveling to 3rd world medical centers to have both elective (i.e. plastic) and more serious surgical procedures performed. These medical centers have been exclusively set up to service foreigners who pay straight cash for their operations. Some are actually getting good reviews for their work – expect this trend to continue, while the poor will eventually receive only substandard care in our brave new world. We know that the Dems never grasp basic economics, so how can we expect them to realize what they’ve wrought here?

    Dmac (a964d5)

  46. I don’t know anyone who actually understands it.

    I agree, and that includes the idiot congresspeople who voted for it – and that’s precisely why this piece of crap was voted on in the dead of night, in order to make sure that no ordinary citizen could actually peruse it before it was too late. This was conducted in the least – transparent manner possible, which is why the anger against it has not begun to crest.

    Dmac (a964d5)

  47. John Hitchock – that’s certainly the most troubling part of the bill from a constitutional perspective.

    The argument is that, were Congress to pass a tax and then dedicate that tax to purchasing health insurance for people, it would be constitutional under the taxing and spending clause. If that is constitutional, a mandate – which has the same net effect on the taxpayer at a lower transaction cost – must also be constitutional.

    I have my doubts as to the legitimacy of this argument. That said, I think the courts will accept it, mostly because failing to accept it puts a lot of the already-existing regulatory state at risk.

    [That said, assuming the mandate is severable, I’m not sure I have a policy problem with the mandate being stricken. As a political matter, the mandate was a bribe to the insurance companies to get them to accept the abolition of pre-existing condition clauses. I accept the need for the bribe but have no enthusiasm for it.]

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  48. “… I don’t know anyone who actually understands it…”

    Is that a Pauline Kael-like statement?

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  49. Continuing on that thought, fundamentally the dispute over the constitutionality of the mandate is a dispute over whether or not two things which are functionally equivalent have the same constitutionality value if the process is different.

    My view of the way the law ought to work is ‘no’, that process matters, and that the supporters of the bill have the wrong argument here. That said, it seems to me that post-new-deal supreme courts have been more accepting of this sort of thing than I am, and my suspicion is the mandate will pass muster.

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  50. AD – who is Pauline Kael?

    My point is that I travel in well-educated and well-informed circles and nobody I know, including me, has read the bill; and none of our news sources seem to have, either.

    So, until I’m willing to read the bill (which I can’t bring myself to do until the conference report is out), or have a source who has done so, how can I judge the bill?

    I can judge proposals and ideas and the like, but I’m not willing to judge the legislation based on politically-motivated hearsay. 🙂

    aphrael (9e8ccd)

  51. It IS a Pauline Kael statement!

    “… I travel in well-educated and well-informed circles…”

    as did PK.

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  52. its easy to tell that this bill is no good: Congress isn’t subject to it.

    next issue please.

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  53. That said, it seems to me that post-new-deal supreme courts have been more accepting of this sort of thing than I am, and my suspicion is the mandate will pass muster.

    And this is a problem I and many other Conservatives, along with likely most Libertarians, have with leaving things up to the Courts. Since FDR’s SCOTUS (2nd or 3rd term FDR, not 1st term FDR), the Courts have had a revisionist interpretation of the Constitution. See McCain-Feingold. I know what’s clearly unconstitutional, the Courts notwithstanding.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  54. John – who would you leave it up to, then? The legislature? The executive? Neither of those seem like good choices; the legislature is the very body passing the laws you object to, and the executive has been the site of some of the most breathtaking unconstitutional power grabs.

    aphrael (73ebe9)

  55. AD – I note that you’re ignoring my substantive point while using it to make potshots at me. 🙂 Have you read the bill? Do you know anyone who has?

    It seems to me that there’s a great rush to judgment on both the left and the right among people who have heard reports that the bill includes things they like or dislike, but who have not actually read the bill, and who do not have any first- or second-hand sources who have read the bill … because the bill is enormous and hasn’t been around for long enough for anyone who isn’t a speed reader with nothing to do to have finished reading it.

    aphrael (73ebe9)

  56. Yes, FDR interning Japanese-Americans;
    Truman, nationalizing the steel industry;
    JFK, sending the FBI to roust the execs of that same industry when they had the temerity to raise prices;
    LBJ, (fill in your own pet outrage);
    Clinton, accreting the FBI files of political opponents.

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  57. “… do not have any first- or second-hand sources who have read the bill…”

    Since the new era of transparancy began on 20Jan09, quite a lot of what Congress does seems to be unavailable for perusal – I wonder whose fault that is (I blame Bush!).

    Some would question whether a complete, precise bill even exists; but, since there seems to be a plethora of commentary in the “new” media about the deficiencies of this legislation (both NancyCare, and PinkyCare), I think that there are competent, knowledgable, analysts looking and commenting on this subject, enough that an interested observer can form an opinion on the matter.
    I would think that if one were concerned about the direction this was going, one would wish to be informed of the items contained in each proposal, so that an informed opinion could be voiced as to which elements of each should be considered and/or discarded in the conference.
    Or, will we get a bill that is set out for a vote with it never having been put into finished form – like the Stimulus Bill, and is thus an unknown by those voting upon it?

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  58. The idea that price caps for medical stuff will lead to shortages comes from that idea. “I just have a cold, screw going to the doctor!” becomes “Hell, it’s only $20 to see the doctor, so I might as well have him check out this cold.”

    It isn’t that people choose whether or not to get sick, it’s that people choose whether or not to see a doctor when they get sick. Even with insurance, people don’t usually go to the doctor’s office for the cold or flu – if prices are capped too low, EVERYONE will go see a doctor for even the tiniest case of the sniffles.

    Or so the theory goes. I happen to agree with it.

    Besides, it defies logic that you can increase coverage, retain current levels of quality, AND spend less money to do it.

    So why do other countries have better medical care at a cheaper price?

    Michael Ejercito (6a1582)

  59. So why do other countries have better medical care at a cheaper price?

    Name five. Heck, name two.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  60. They don’t, and that’s the point.
    The costs are hidden in their VAT, and the rationing, and the abysmal conditions of their facilities.

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  61. Michael, if I’m not mistaken, you have been a consistent critic of what happened at King-Drew.
    King-Drew IS (or, was) European Health-Care!

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  62. John Hitchock – that’s not an answer. 🙂 My proposition is that, as bad as the courts have shown themselves to be, they are better at the job of protecting the constitution than are either the legislature or the executive. Absent some other guardians, they’re the best thing going.

    aphrael (07144e)

  63. A damning indictment for the preservation of Liberty.

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  64. I would say until very recently the legislature has done a far better job at protecting the Constitution, albeit accidentally, than the Courts. Because when the people rise up against a thing, a legislator votes against it because that legislator wants to get reelected… until very recently.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  65. Remember, the Courts are a last line of defense. In case of emergency, sue for redress. They are not the front line or even the reserves. They are the “when all else fails” line.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  66. When all else fails…
    Doesn’t that come under Rule-7.62?

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  67. Again, AD, rule 5.56 is much more readily available.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  68. AD-RtR/OS!,

    What economic expertise do you wield that aphrael lacks, which allows you to dismiss his views so flippantly (and disrespectfully)? At least Scott and John are debating in good faith.

    Or are you just puffing out your chest and asserting that conservatives (as a demographic) possess some automatic, genetic mastery of economics as a field?

    Leviticus (6d3881)

  69. “Put the Right ones in; Pull the Left ones out.”
    and do the hokey pokey ’til they all come out..thats what its all about

    drone (80c5ed)

  70. “…What economic expertise do you wield that aphrael lacks…”

    Fifty-years in the market-place, trying to survive!

    AD - RtR/OS! (3ace85)

  71. Leviticus, you raise a good point, but when was the last time our country has ever taxed themselves out of a recessionary environment? It’s never worked, and this is just another bad replay of failed policies.

    Dmac (a964d5)

  72. That said, I think the development of a seperate boutique medical market is fundamentally no different than the development of the organic food market: when something becomes sufficiently cheap, more expensive niche markets develop along side them.

    Ah, but the “boutique medical market” is the very essence of Free Market! It is Price Equilibrium made manifest, my friend!

    The cost for such frivolous medical procedures as botox and breast implants (and all other forms of elective cosmetic surgery) have seen great reductions in price since they were introduced. Now, even middle-class women can have a nip here, a tuck there, and a full course of “fuller and firmer”, where once it was only the mega-rich cougars who could afford to have the boobs of a 20 year old.

    Because it is paid out-of-pocket, providers of the services had incentive to reduce cost, since they couldn’t count on anyone (the government or insurance companies) footing the massive bill. Thus, they found ways to increase productivity – through innovation of new methods and technologies – and reduce cost so that many could afford to give them their money to improve the jiggle in their bounce.

    But had it been something covered by medicare? It would never have dropped in price.

    The Market works, if we let it. The problem with so many in congress is that they think they are smarter than The Market, and they simply aren’t. Never have we fiddled with the Free Market and had it end well. The Great Depression was extended by YEARS due to our meddling, and the same thing is happening now.

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  73. Michael, if I’m not mistaken, you have been a consistent critic of what happened at King-Drew.
    King-Drew IS (or, was) European Health-Care!

    To be blunt, L.A. County’s political culture is broken.

    What can anyone expect?

    Secret Squirrel (6a1582)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.1097 secs.