If I were you, I would go immediately to my favorite gas station and get in line now. Because if, as some (Many? Most?) Democrats desire, there is a government take over of the refinery business in America, we can be sure of only one thing; a lot less gas will be manufactured and at a higher price.
I would ask my lefty friends the following; name one – just one – government enterprise that was ever run so efficiently that it could compete with market driven companies? And what makes you think the government will suddenly acquire the wisdom found in the markets and be able to adequately supply 300 million people with enough refined petroleum products so that the economy doesn’t collapse in a heap at your feet?
I’ll say this, the Democrats sure are ambitious in implementing a plan to socialize America. You’d think they would have started with something easier – like, say, the banking industry. Banks don’t make anything tangible, they just have a lot of money.
If not banking, maybe the fast food industry. Now there’s a group of companies crying out to be taken over by government. Their products already suck so the government couldn’t ruin them. And anyone who has been to a Burger King around dinner time can attest to the gross inefficiency with which they deliver a meal to the customer. I have been going to Burger King for 40 years and have yet to get exactly what I ordered. Besides, with government in control at McDonalds, maybe they could finally lose the clown and get a decent mascot – like maybe a greasy french fry or frozen beef patty.
But no, the Democrats had to get ambitious and want to take over an industry where the margin for error is less than zero and the consequences for screwing up are life and death. Sorry everyone in the Northeast but we goofed ever so slightly and you are going to run out of heating oil about half way through the winter. Might we suggest having a lot of sex to keep warm? Great fun and very educational for the kiddies.
Mess up at a bank and it’s just a few million in taxpayer dollars. Screw the pooch at a fast food restaurant and someone doesn’t get their order of fries with their Happy Meal. But make a mistake in the refining industry about how much gas or heating oil will be needed down the road and you have something approaching catastrophe on your hands. One must possess breathtaking arrogance to believe that government could do as good or better than profit driven companies in determining the needs of the market at any given time.
But to our Democratic Socialist friends (Can we start calling them that now? Can we?), the point is not supplying the American people with gasoline or heating oil but rather control – control of the industry so that it functions for “the benefit of the people.”
How often have we heard that battle cry in history? And oh how miserably those who have uttered it have failed to deliver promised benefits. From Lenin to Castro to Mugabe, the nationalization of industry to benefit “the people” has been a spectacular economic disaster. In the end, production in nationalized industry always declines. In the end, the industry has always fallen into ruins.
Why Democrats want to experiment with nationalizing the most efficient, the most successful market based industry in the history of the world – the oil and gas industry – is beyond comprehension. It is almost magical that tens of billions of barrels of oil taken from the ground or the sea every year can be transported in a few days to refineries here in the US and through a complex process turned into gasoline and other products which are then whisked around a continental nation of 300 million people to fill up automobiles or trucks not to mention supply raw material for the tens of thousands of products from chemicals to plastics without which our economy would grind to an ignominious halt.
And Democrats want the government to take over this process? Sheer idiocy.
Goldstein draws the frightening – and depressing – conclusion:
The question then, is this: have the American people, either through progressive bromides or an educational system that has been battling to turn government into a secular godhead, become so dumbed down that they will fail to recognize explicit calls for communism when they see them? I honestly don’t know. But I will say that the fact that they’ve managed to pit Obama against McCain — two nannystatists with progressive tendencies — in the presidential election, makes me fear the worst.
For more than 100 years, a titanic struggle has been going on between those who worship at the altar of collectivism and those who wish to make freedom of the individual paramount. Even a cursory look around the western world today would tell you that collectivism is winning, that forced altruism, nationalization, and a retreat on individual freedoms has now taken hold in Europe.
Meanwhile, conservatives in this country have been fighting a rear guard action against the creep of socialism, promoted shamelessly now by both parties to the point, as Goldstein states, we now have two major party candidates for president who are enamored of the nanny state. Despite Goldwater, despite Reagan, despite a supposedly conservative takeover of the House and Senate, and despite 8 years of a “compassionate conservative” president, the slide toward collectivism has continued – aided and abetted by a Supreme Court that seems to be making things up as they go along rather than using the Constitution of the United States as a guide.
This open call for nationalizing a vital industry – something that if done at the height of liberalism’s power back in the 1960’s and early 70’s would have been laughed off even by most Democrats – sickens me.
I despair for the future. In 10 years time, will we be able to recognize anything of the United States after the Democrats have transformed it?
8:34 am
Hello Rick, do I qualify as one of your “lefty friends”? I assumed I was moderate, but whatever floats your boat!
Yes, I can certainly think of a very big business that government generally runs better that private enterprise. Its called water. That’s right, local governments with municipal water boards building reservoirs and water mains are far more capable of delivering a quality product to the consumer than private enterprise. Just ask the French, who have suffered with private companies providing brackish water at inflated prices for 200 years. Ever wonder why they don’t bathe daily? We wouldn’t either if we were paying up the ass for something we take for granted.
In my studies, private companies do better than government in 99% of types of businesses. However, that 1% is often composed of some of the biggest markets we have, such as water, electricity, national defense, and primary healthcare. In my opinion, its just a matter of deciding what are essential services and non-essential ones, then letting public and private forces do what they are best at. Does this make me a lefty?
8:35 am
Rick, the flashing red lights warning Americans that the Democratic Party was rapidly turning into the New Socialist Democratic Party of America have been there for a long time. I have called what they do “creeping socialism”. They think that socialism will work and the reason it has never truely worked before was because the right people were not in charge of it.
If anyone has any doubts, all they need to do is check out the website of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Click on “links and resources” and you will find direct links to MoveOn.org, Common Dreams and other far (really far) left associations. At one time, the Socialist Party of America linked to the Congressional Progressive Caucus although, after having that exposed, the SPA took it down.
Listen to Senator Obama and the words he says in his speeches. Americans are not employees, they are “workers”. Capitalism, technology and globalization are things that are destroying the worker forces. He is the standard bearer for the far left wing which has taken over a once great party that cared for the little man under the dictates of our Constitution.
We currently have a nation where half the populace still thinks of the Democratic Party in terms of FDR, Truman and JFK not realizing that the party has been restructured to represent the party elites (Rahm Emanuel, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, et al) as the politburo represented the prolitariat. No greater example can be given of this mindset than Al Gore, who calls for everyone to scacrifice, wearing sweaters and ridding bikes instead of driving a car, while he burns enough energy to fuel over 200 average American homes and flys around, spreading the message of global warming, in a private gas guzzling jet. You see, Gore is part of the elite politburo who are hell bent showing us the way but being exempt because he is the messanger and without him, we would all be doomed.
Advise your readers to read the Communist Manifesto and tell us where there is any difference between that and the New Socialist Democratic Party of America. Progressive taxes on income? Yep. Nationalization of industry? Yep.
Will Americans wake from their political slumber and realize that this latest power grab attempt (nationalizing the oil industry) is nothing short of the same tactics of Hugo Chavez and other socialist nations?
I have been here before when the Congress decided to bust up the BabyBell system and force competition in the market. But then, the Democratic held Congress made sure that monopoly laws didn’t affect one entity; municipal held utilities. If you purchase your electricity from the city where you live, PUC rules on rates don’t apply. My own small town owns the electric company and recently approved, through the city council, a rate hike that did not have to have PUC approval. This is the “nationalization” of utility companies. Needless to say, my election is 25% higher than my friends who live outside the city limits because they buy their power from a private company. This is just one example of “creeping socialism”.
Is it time to remember the first paragraph of our Declaration of Independence? That when a government becomes oppressive, it is time to dissolve the political bands from the oppressors?
8:48 am
[...] Over at Right Wing Nuthouse, our friend Rick Moran looks askance at government control of industry for “the benefit of [...]
10:03 am
It has always baffled me why so many people begrudge others making big profits. If you ask them if they would like to make those profits, they would affirm that they do- they just don’t want others to make them. I suppose they are simply envious that they were not savvy enough or smart enough to make the hard investment decisions that would have resulted in a winfall for themselves.
Also, for all the political talk about “don’t underestimate the intelligence of the American people”, I can tell you from vast experience that the “common man” is barely above mental retardation. Try this test… ask 10 “average” people you know if they know the name of their congressman. You may get one right answer, and 9 shoulder shrugs. Ask anybody that believes that the oil companies should be nationalized, why? There can be no cogent answer, but you’ll get a good laugh listening to what they come up with.
Ultimately, we have the following problem: stupid people get to vote, and Lord Tytler said it best when speaking of the fall of the Athenian Republic: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage”.
How old is our country? I’m with you, Rick… I despair for the future.
10:09 am
In my studies, private companies do better than government in 99% of types of businesses. However, that 1% is often composed of some of the biggest markets we have, such as water, electricity
You might want to do some additional studies on electricity to include parts of the city of Cleveland, where there’s competition between a municipal power system and a private utility. Despite the casuistry of Kucinich, who made a name for himself by shilling for the municipal system, the city’s plant was a major polluter (but avoided federal EPA scrutiny by being a city entity) before being permanently shut down. Now it exists because of the availability of wholesale power to buy and distribute to customers; if the national glut goes away so does its power. It exists as a patronage system, with work crews being objects of humor with the amount of people standing around while very little work gets done.
10:14 am
Surabaya asks: “Does this make me a lefty?”
Well, yes it does. I dont know anything about France’s water system, but to compare any private industry in France with US private industry is pretty ludicrous. No company in France can operate without 7 out of 8 of their octopus government’s tentacles reaching in and controlling almost every aspect of the business.
I have yet to see any government run health care anywhere in the world operate in an efficient manner. US Healthcare provides better care for more people than any total government controlled system. That’s why many Canadians pay extra to come into the US for healthcare.
Personally, I’m ready for a Mind Strike. We should be prepared to help the oil industry completely shut down the refineries when the inevitable day comes that the Fed takes them over.
10:15 am
@Surabaya Stew
“Yes, I can certainly think of a very big business that government generally runs better that private enterprise. Its called water. That’s right, local governments with municipal water boards building reservoirs and water mains are far more capable of delivering a quality product to the consumer than private enterprise.”
One MAJOR point that deserves being pointed out. You are talking about LOCAL government control and not national control. Can you imagine the cost and inefficiency if the federal government was in charge of water?
The key here is that water supply is essentially a natural monopoly, so there’s not really any benefit to having multiple players in the market. In that instance, whether it’s a city council or a private company really makes little difference.
But the petroleum industry is not a natural monopoly. You have a CHOICE about which filling station you go to. There are multiple methods of delivery of the good. And despite the essential fungibility of the finished product(s) – gasoline & diesel – there are some perceived differences between who sells it (i.e. – Some people trust the quality of gas from Exxon more than the E-Z Mart).
It is a fundamental economic truth that forcing a monopoly into existence results in higher prices, lower supply, and reduced efficiency. For something as vital as the petrol industry, I cannot think of a worse idea.
10:40 am
“name one – just one – government enterprise that was ever run so efficiently that it could compete with market driven companies”
The military (take a look at Rennaisance European history for a fun look at private military units). Intelligence gathering (eg: the Pinkertons). Fire companies. Also currency production and management. That is with 2 minutes thought. I’m sure I could find more.
But I do agree that taking over refineries would not be a good idea.
I see your point but private fire companies used to be the norm in the country and still dot the landscape. They may not be any better but I’ll be they’re cheaper.
As for currency production, no one has ever tried privatizing it so I guess we’ll never know. Remember, the challenge was a public entity DOING AS GOOD OR BETTER than a priviate one.
ed.
11:08 am
personally i think it is kinda screwy to compare water to oil, first off they don’t mix. second, have you ever compared what we pay (even at our current inflated prices) to what europeans pay. doubt it, just look it up.
problem is most of america is ignorant, either they don’t have a college education, or they refuse to think for themselves, the info is out there, just friggin google it. i am a geography professor, and when i was taking my undergrad classes 12 years ago, my professors where telling us the day would come when china and india would come on line and compete for natural resources, in honesty, they still are not completely on line, when that day comes we will really know about it.
as for water, do realize you pay for water twice? water is a utility, pretty much a necessity, our taxes pay for those systems (infrastructure, and people) that supply it to us (water in, water out) and then we pay again to get it, fine by me, better than out of a bottle. oil is not a utility, and we are getting oil and gas much cheaper than we should. i think your water argument is simply flawed from the get go.
as for medicine, can one really say that medicine in the US is not almost socialized? medicare, medicade for the elderly, sick, and poor. the only people that pay are those that have the means to pay for it. sure socialized medicine will let us all have routine check ups, but god help you if you get any interesting malady (ask canadians about that). the real problem is people do not live within their means and make sure they have paid for the necessities before they get the luxuries (american way, right!) which is bullsh%t, and that is truly what is being tested by the downturn in the economy, do i ride the bus and quit driving the expedition (lifestyle), do i pay my bills before i get the nintendo etc.
of course the wealthy should foot the bill, yeah right, what economist out there worth his salt will say that obama’s social plans can be paid for by increasing the taxes on the wealthy? flat tax is the only fair way, you shouldn’t be taxed more because you did things right, or where born into a family.
used to be a saying out there, if it seems to good to be true it probably is… should be the obama manifesto.
12:05 pm
This government that wants to socialize the oil companies, are these the same jackasses that recently concluded that they would have to privatize a restaurant, one restaurant, because they were too incompetent, ie. STUPID ! to run said restaurant without losing vast sums of money ? That government wants to run the oil business ? I wonder if I can modify my vehicles to run on coal, because the government will destroy the oil business overnight. Yes ,they are that stupid and incompetent.
12:08 pm
Thanks to all for posting; let me do some follow up. It’s always nice to get feedback when I haven’t properly explained myself
Chris, thanks for pointing that out about local government as opposed to national government control of water supply. Here in New York, our municipal water supply does a magnificent job, threatened only federal meddling in watershed and filtering “mandates” to be paid by us overtaxed Manhattanites. I should have been more clear; perhaps water was not the best example.
John Galt, have you never been without insurance. Just try going without it for a while and see if your feeling don’t change. What is the point of having the best health care in the world if you can’t afford it? If not wanting to feel vulnerable to sickness when one is out of a job makes me a lefty, then so be it. (BTW, I would never argue that France is the best model to follow, but since they are a First World country, it is impossible to conclude that they are doing everything wrong.)
Captain Hate, thank you for that example out of Cleveland, I shall look it up tonight. Kucinich has always stuck me as a naive figure; this looks like quite an interesting counter-point. (On a slightly different note, isn’t it interesting that the deregulation of the Telephone industry went quite well, while the deregulation of the Electricity industry is a complete clusterf*ck?)
I do agree with Rick’s point about oil refineries and distribution; it is way too complicated and will cost too much for the government to ever take over, so why even talk about it? Just a load of election-year hot air, me thinks. I would like to add that many of the private fire companies that still exist all over the USA are in all likelihood, volunteer organizations, which is quite a different thing all together. And to answer your question about a Public entity doing better than a private one doing the same task, my answer would have to be the US military vs. Contractors. If ever a company in this day and age deserved to be nationalized for the way it has ripped off the taxpayers and dishonored the nation, it is Haliburton.
12:27 pm
[...] Rick Moran whacks the Left like a good Sicilian. [...]
12:52 pm
Surabaya Stew: Thanks for keeping an open mind on this. If you want to discuss anything you subsequently discover offline, Rick can give you my email.
12:56 pm
I thought McDonalds got rid of the clowns in Jan 2007. They put them in charge of congress and it’s been a circus ever since. Gas up $2 a gallon in seventeen months (Up 66 cents per gallon in the previous ‘six years’). This from the party that promised to do something about gas prices. They didn’t say what they would do, so you get what you vote for.
2:02 pm
Absent any true leadership or vision, our politicians are adrift without direction, destined to become reactionary populists. Government; through drilling restrictions and obstacles is the cause of the oil problem, not the solution.
The early 20th century French philosopher and political economist Bertrand de Jouvenel said that “A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.” I fear that we are becoming a nation of sheep.
2:10 pm
Surabaya Stew says:
“John Galt, have you never been without insurance. Just try going without it for a while and see if your feeling don’t change. What is the point of having the best health care in the world if you can’t afford it? If not wanting to feel vulnerable to sickness when one is out of a job makes me a lefty, then so be it.”
I actually have been without insurance at times and you know what, I tried to do things with my life that made it so I was less likely to need medical care. I drove more carefully, ate better, stopped drinking beer, etc. That’s actually the point. The insurance industry in general is one of the leading causes of higher health care prices. When the individual no longer has to directly pay for health care, the individual no longer truly monitors the costs associated with that healthcare and when that happens, prices can easily rise. Also, when insurance is paying for the healthcare, people tend to take more risks in their life and not take as good care of themselves healthwise because they know they can always go to the doctor to get repaired. If the government takes over healthcare completely, that problem will compound because now, the individual will not even be responsible for his/her own insurance costs and have absolutely no incentive to make the right health choices in life (well, other than living longer). Its nice and all to have “free” healthcare for all, but what good is “free” if it can take 6 months or a year to get into see a doctor (as in the case in Britain and Canada). So even tho all folks in totally socialized medicine society have their bills payed for, they might not get access to a doctor when they need it. There are hundreds of stories coming out of Britain in which patients have died because they had to wait too long for healthcare. That does not happen in our country. Hospitals here will take patients in emergencies and treat them regardless of payment. There used to be a large charity hospital system in this nation as well. That is why I made the point that our system is able to care for MORE (that’s as a percentage) people than any other system in the world.
So, yes, advocating a total government takeover of healthcare is being leftist (at least on that issue). Providing healthcare is not a function granted to the federal government via the Constitution. Any attempt of the fed to take over an industry that is not spelled out in the constitution (eg, military, post offices) is a total power grab by the government. And that is facism. If you want government healthcare, its simple, just start the amendment process. Let’s see if its something that is truly desired by the people. By the way, the same thing goes for nationalizing the oil industry, the fed must ask for that authority thru the amendment process.
Now, if individual states wanted to provide total health insurance coverage for their citizens. Great, all the power to them. But not the fed.
4:40 pm
I’d like to address the moonbat who cited government controlled water resources as an example of what the government runs correctly. Actually its the perfect example of what happens when the government runs anything. In My community the water board is appointed but has the power to issue bonds-anyone see the problem with that. It bars anyone from digging a well and bars competion. It buys water from a neighboring jurisdiction and marks it up and sells it to the peons. But get this there is one rate in the off season and about an 80% higher rate in the high usage periods of the year.
This rate goes up if you use over a cretain amount each month. But this is based on your off season usage, so if you winter in Florida and have zero usage guess what-you’re screwed and pay extremely high rates. And do you think the kindly bureaucrats care?
Anyone who wishes the government to run anything only needs to examine the VA or our school systems. Who would end their kids to a public school if you could send them anywhere else (assuming you could use the same funds the government spends for your child’s education). In my community its over 11,000 a year per child. What a joke.
Anyone who thinks the government runs anything on a businesslike or efficient manner has to be a RINO or dhimmierat.
5:26 pm
excellent response john,
and please let us remember as Robert A. Heinlein once said “there is no such thing as a free lunch” the system is closed, the money has to come from somewhere, so in reality there is no such thing as “free” health care, such an ignorant misnomer, though the ignorant masses will go on believing it till it is too late, and even their taxes will be above 50%, c’est la vie…
7:47 pm
Will the government pay off the stock holders of the oil companies or will they just steal the company and screw the stock holders? Since my pension plan has oil stock will my pension plan take a big hit? What a bunch of idiots we have in Congress,mainly Dem’s and a few Republicans.
10:39 pm
Thank you all for the replies and counterpoints. A special thank you for Captain Hate; I try my hardest to keep an open mind, and I like coming to this site not to preach to the choir, but to get some real opinions; we will be sure to chat soon. As for the rest of you…
Rick, I didn’t reply to jambrowski in my last post because his comment had not posted at the time. What is the average delay between making a comment and seeing it posted? I understand that this is probably beyond your control, but is there a way to make posting more timely?
John Galt, I really agree with your point about the federal government not taking on more responsibilities than called out for it in the Constitution. To be honest, I really don’t care if achieving universal coverage in this country is accomplished entirely by the private or public sector or by some combination of the two. It seems like you and me had similar ideas about responsibility when we didn’t have insurance, and I commend you for taking that positive approach. However, this does not cover the catastrophic things that can happen to ones health, like cancer or a tumor, or disability. Who pay for that when one does not have insurance? We all do! It is that very real danger (and expense) that health coverage really is needed for. I suspect having the states mandate it the same way they mandate drivers insurance is probably the best way to achieve it; politically and culturally it is the most sensible course of action for America. (Why Romney couldn’t make this a winning issue is a whole other story!)
Thomas Jackson, I can only conclude that local government differs in its efficiency and fairness depending on which municipality and service one is talking about. Obviously, we have vastly different experiences when it comes to water!
By the way, I feel confident in stating that no child in Thomas Jackson’s community gets an “average” of 11,000 dollars per year in spending. A more likely breakdown of actual costs are:
Regular kids: 5,000
Gifted kids: 6,000
Bilingual Ed kids: 20,000
Special Ed kids: 40,000
Now try telling the parents of a Special Ed. child to educate their kid on 11,000 a year and to make up the difference through their own pocket. You may as well tell a person with a brain tumor to sell their house to pay for their operation.
This actually happened to my Aunt. She transfered title of the home to her kids and declared bankruptcy rather than do such a thing. As jambrowski reminded us, “there is no such thing as a free lunch” and to this day, we are all paying for my Aunt’s brain tumor, as well as millions of others who use our system and don’t pay for it.
Sorry to get off topic so much, but I really can’t get worked up about oil refineries. Obama or McCain won’t do much about it no matter what they say.
1:37 am
First of all, I am shocked and disappointed about your fast food failures. why do you keep seeking such heartbreak? Vote with your dollars. Has not In-n-Out Burgers not yet found your neck of the woods?
Second, there you go again stuffing a straw man. I guess you pushed my button.
Third, if you are so concerned about govt screwups, why not revive the Grace Comission report, a Reagan request? Sure, let’s privatize the Coast Guard. And re modern times, why cannot we farm off the mideast to Blackwater? Let me know about the IPO.
8:35 am
Surabayu Stew,
>>Just try going without it for a while and see if your feeling don’t change. What is the point of having the best health care in the world if you can’t afford it?< <
I guess that you have never been to a metropolitan Emergency Room.
Take this challenge, go to any metropolitan or inner city hospital Emergency room and ask any of the nurses that work there if their clientèle have health insurance. Then ask them what kinds of routine diagnostic tests are performed that anyone with health insurance has to get prior approval for or they may not get approval for, i.e., CAT scans, MRIs, other HIGH cost diagnostic tests.
My wife is an emergency room/ trauma nurse at a level 1 trauma center in an inner-city setting. The vast majority patients come into the emergency room with chest pains when they want a place to stay for eight hours and get food and a warm bed all for the inconvenience of having a CAT scan, numerous blood tests and other diagnostics that are VERY expensive and they don’t have a lick of health insurance. There are regulars that come in EVERY day with a variety of complaints, but they aren’t turned away and they are treated.
I have had the occasion to be without health insurance for a number of months and sometimes it was a choice of food or a visit to the doctor and then filling a prescription. In almost every instance, I told the doctor the situation and the doctor was willing to help by either reducing the fee or allowing me to pay it over time and the doctor provided drug samples for the medication. I for one don’t think the federal government can run anything efficiently, they can’t even run their own organizations.
10:55 am
Surabayu Stew wrote:
“Sorry to get off topic so much, but I really can’t get worked up about oil refineries. Obama or McCain won’t do much about it no matter what they say.”
It really isnt too much off topic. Both the healthcare issue and the refinery issue really stems from the same point. What should the federal government be in charge of? I believe most of us in this forum would like to see the fed stay Constitutionally bound (as they are supposed to). I like to take a simple view of things…If the federal government is truly better at spending the wealth of the economy better than the people are, then the Fed should take every single cent of our paychecks. Hey, if they spend things better, why not? If the fed is not as efficient as the people, then they should be limited to only providing the services that are explicity called forth in the Constitution so as not to have an adverse effect on economic growth.
When the fed does take over the entire healthcare system (and unfortunately, I do believe that it will happen), healthcare wont be free. It will end up costing more than it does now. I predict within 2 years of the takeover, healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP will increase by at least 50%. The money must come from somewhere. And when the inevitable arises that the fed really cant increase taxes anymore, rationing of health care will result. It is inevitable. The problem with Americans these days is that, as a whole, we expect a quick fix to things. It took socialism 70-90 years to get to the level of problems it has created. It will take some time to actually fix things. The true solution is to allow health care spending accounts that can grow tax free and can be utilized for your normal doctors visits and tests (or any health issues). Then, all you need insurance coverage for is the catastrophic stuff. Insurance rates would drop phenomenally and more money would be available in the general economy for growth. That growth will lift ALL boats and fewer folks would actually have difficulty providing their own health care. These accounts could also be passed on to your heirs, increasing the wealth and health of our legacies. Oh, if this would be the case, I’m betting insurance companies would start offering a more a la carte coverage. For example, I have no need for STD coverage. Why should I pay for it? However, many folks in San Francisco probably do need STD coverage so they should pay extra for it for the added risk they impose in their lifestyles. This basic idea will take time to work, BUT IT WILL WORK. For those that dont have the immediate money for care, there are plenty of places where you can get truly free healthcare. The charity of this nation’s people knows no bounds (well, outside of the democrats in Congress that is).
With the fed in charge of all healthcare, I’m willing to bet there will be nothing that the people will not be responsible for covering. I predict sex change operations will be covered. I predict nose jobs and facelifts will as well. After all, all it takes is a lobbyist to grease a politician and that politician slips these bogus things into a defense appropriations bill when the public isnt looking. We all know this will happen.
So, no, the Fed should not be responsible for healthcare, or refineries, or energy production, or a myriad of other things. The costs will just continue to rise until rationing, and thus NO healthcare, is the result.
11:10 pm
Thanks for a second round of replies, gentlemen. Since this thread is about to be declared over, I shall be brief.
DaleB, your wife must be a saint. The only thing worse than being a patient in a metropolitan Emergency Room must be working there! (This is speaking from a personal experience courtesy of King’s County.) I believe earlier points about there being no such thing as a free lunch have an especial relevance in your example. Surely the hospital that employes your wife makes up the money it looses on the uninsured from the rest of us; even charity costs something. The point that I was making is that we all pay for the uninsured to use the emergency room, in the form of higher insurance rates, higher fees, more taxes, more appeals for donations, etc.
John Galt, HSA’s are a great idea that have little chance of working for the simple reason that most Americans are unable to put aside money to take care of their health. To clarify, lets go through some basic things that hardly anybody saves for:
Houses
Cars
Education
Retirement
Please tell me if you know of an average American who put down 100% to buy their home. How many of us make payments of our cars every month? I think most of us have had student loans, am I nuts? Don’t even pretend that most of us save for retirement! And now saving for personal health care costs? Frankly, you are asking way too much from people! Not to rag on you, because you are correct when you describe the federal governments ability to manage health care. For some reason, the States seem to do a much better job of these things; perhaps because they understand this:
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Ok, so I lied about being brief. Thanks for putting up with me!
1:41 pm
Surabaya Stew said:
“Don’t even pretend that most of us save for retirement!”
WHAT
! There is no excuse to put away a few bucks a week once you start working. If the Fed didnt take almost 14% of your salary away from you for a bogus retirement fund, you would have even tons more money to invest. The Fed’s rate of return for retirement is about 2% and can be less than zero in many cases. Just imagine also if you could will that 14% to your offspring. The future generations would be wealthier. If a person is too dense to put that money into retirement and would instead party with it, I dont feel I should subsidize that person anymore.
What does paying for big items over time have to do with federal retirement or healthcare? Are you implying the fed should provide you with a house and car as well?
The reason the States do better than other nations on some things is precisely because the fed does not control 100% of healthcare (yet). Once the fed does, its all over, we will fall just like Europe. You think we pay a lot for healthcare now, we will pay more once the takeover is complete. It happens to every single item the fed gets its hands on. The only thing is all the costs will be hidden and just taken away in taxes, but it will cost more.
The issue with healthcare is NOT it being unavailable to people with little money. That is result of the true problem. The true problem is the COST. Totally federalizing healthcare WILL NOT lower the costs. It will increase them due to mismanagement, corruption, and political favoritism. HSA’s get the control of healthcare back to the individual. That WILL lower costs. I would prefer to have a few years hardship and ensure the future survival of my country than take a free ride today at the expense of my progeny.
I’m a charitable person. I give quite a bit every week. I fail to see why I should subsidize even further for someone that is unwilling to give anything back. Sure, I know many people receiving assistance do work hard, but with every federal giveaway, more and more people simply decide to live off the government. After all, if healthcare, education, welfare, retirement are all giving to someone for nothing, why work? One can live easy and sit at home and eat Fritos and watch Oprah every day.
11:37 pm
S. Stew:
I stand corrected as to educational costs-you are of course correct. As to community services I doubt very much that communities differ significantly when they retain a monopoly on services. One only need examine the role of cable companies that have de facto monopolies thans to municipalities. Whenever competion is permited costs drop.
In Washing DC various areas of the city have had to stand for tainted water and have zero recourse. A private company would have its back against the wall but a government has neither to explain nor compensate the citizenry.
Does anyone believe public education delivers the same bang for a buck as private or religious education? In Chicago 80% of public school teachers send their children to private high schools.