Health Care and capitalism a match made in heaven
Some people think this is the future - Unfortunately it is the present and it must change
Health Care and capitalism a match made in heaven – seriously if you believe that you are more likely to go to heaven sooner rather than later.
There are truly intelligent people out there who say things like “Our rights were correctly identified by the founders of the United States: we are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If we study these rights, we can see that they are negative rights. Essentially, we are granted the right not to have our lives, freedom, or property taken away. These are our moral rights. Period. The proper (and original) role of our government is to protect the rights, or true entitlements, of its citizens.”
They then follow up that logic with beauties like this “We are not entitled to the materials or services (labor) of another person without that person’s consent. In a free society, those providing a good or service are compensated for it by receiving fair market value. This is the value set by free exchanges in the open market place. To quote Leonard Peikoff in “Health Care is Not a Right,” http://www.bdt.com/pages/Peikoff.html “Health care in the modern world is a complex, scientific, technological service. How can anybody be born with a right to such a thing?” “You have the right to work, not to rob others of the fruits of their work, not to turn others into sacrificial, rightless animals laboring to fulfill your needs.”
So let’s take a minute and think outside of the wacko box. Let’s imagine a world where the government is not involved in health care at all. In this imaginary world government does not participate in research, grants, medicaid or medicare, city or state or county run health programs and each person and corporation is totally responsible for funding their health care.
Now almost no one can afford to have a hospital in their home. How often do even the super wealthy use a CAT scan machine? Not often enough to purchase their own in most cases, and to have a surgery center on hold just for you is also not logical, because how often do you actually need surgery. Additionally, not many people would want to go through the rigors of becoming a physician when so few people could actually afford to use their services. There would simply not be enough job openings to make the field attractive to the masses. The reduction in doctors would just be the start of the trickle down. Obviously there would be fewer medical devices built, so fewer people would be employed in these industries, and with no grant money available there would be very few research facilities at our universities and colleges.
Essentially with no government involvement in health care the industry would be virtually unsustainable. My guess is it would revert back to the early 20th century and 19th century type of service. Where your local doctor would work in your town and provide house calls. They would be able to tell you in large part what actually ailed you, but they would have to send you to a centralized hospital in order to receive “traditional” services, because local hospitals would be nothing more than doctors offices with very limited technology.
In this world no research would be done into drugs or treatments that do not effect large portion of the population, because any discoveries would not be profitable and pure capitalism will not support philanthropy just for the sake of philanthropy. Additionally, the truly wealthy would be the only ones who could afford most long-term care services.
Now this is all doom and gloom, and to some people this world will sound horrific, but here is the really scary point of this story.
For 40 million Americans this ridiculous scenario would probably offer better health care than they currently receive. The local doctor would probably be affordable, and the billing process would more than likely be reasonable, so you could pay a reasonable fee for the services you receive. Additionally, if the doctor gives you grave news, and informs you that you will need to pay for centralized medical care you can just thank them and die. This option is not much different for many people today.
Some people seem to believe those without health care are demanding health care services as a right, or an inherent right as a U.S. citizen. I the vast majority of cases this is not true. People do not believe health care is a right, just as they do not believe fire departments, police stations, libraries or city halls are built and staffed because it is a right. People believe these services are provided for the betterment of society, and to protect the people who can not afford to purchase and staff these facilities on their own. The truly ironic part, is no one is claiming we should stop funding these core services, because they just make since. Virtually no one can afford to purchase a fire engine, and most people do not want every Tom, Dick and Harry running around with a firearm keeping the peace.
As an educated society we have determined that “some” things are better handled by the People for the People, and it is time we add health care to that equation. We need to work on systematic reform. We need to address not only the process of dispensing health care, but the foundation must be rocked. We need centralized health care goals in research, infrastructure, personnel, disbursement and education. These goals should be centralized one four levels. There should be a national plan, a state plan, a county plan and a city plan. Individual citizens should have a say in the elected officials who oversee their health care priorities, and be able to help their local officials help prioritize health care issues that most effect them.
If someone is sick or needs counseling they should be able to go to their local health care facility and visit their local physician who will assist them in the next steps required in their health care process. Health care needs to be handled locally, but it must have the power of a nation behind it when that power is required. Such as with epidemics, natural disasters and other unforeseen major events that would overwhelm local communities and in some cases even states.
This goal, nay this requirement is not some belief or desire that one man is dreaming. This is something that a nation of great people must demand. We can not watch people suffer. We can not watch friends and neighbors go without treatment when treatments are available. This is not what made us who we are today. We are a great nation, and it is time we stopped putting dollars, and selfishness ahead of the common good.
I hope to readdress this issue in the near future, and I believe there are sound financial reasons for making these changes as well. I believe once these changes are implemented it will have a positive affect on the economy, and if the entire process is implemented it will save money for the vast majority of businesses and people, as well as generating great strides forward with major health care issues.
Give the coat tails a break for now
I get a lot of spam each day and I usually mass delete them all. But this one caught my eye: “From: Obama for America <info@barackobama.com>” Subject: “Your Victory T-shirt”. I’m all for a free t-shirt, I’ve got freebies in my closet from trade shows, gym promotions, 5k runs, and pro sporting events. I rarely wear any of them, but they’re free and you never know when you’ll need that bright orange shirt with a slight entrendre referencing a penetrated network.
I don't have any more CHANGE to give
But my Victory t-shirt wasn’t going to be free. I actually really didn’t think it would be FREEfree, I thought it might require a survey plus shipping fees or whatever. But I was wrong:
But before we take the next step, we need to get our house in order.
The Democratic National Committee poured all of its resources into building our successful 50-state field program. And they played a crucial role in helping Barack win in unlikely states like North Carolina and Indiana. We even picked up an electoral vote in Nebraska.
The DNC took on considerable debt to make this happen.
Make a donation of $30 or more now to help the DNC pay for these efforts, and you’ll get a commemorative 2008 Victory T-shirt.
…As we start laying the groundwork for real change, we need to help the DNC recover the resources it took to win. Please make a donation today and get your 2008 Victory T-shirt
Really? Is NOW the best time to begin that fund raising endeavor again? Have we not just been BOMBARDED with daily spam trying to get money from us for random campaign resources? It was not even a full week since the election and they decided it was appropriate to ask for more money.
It’s like you’d tell a teenager, if you’ve already spent your allowance, you’re not getting any more from me until next time.
I’m a Democrat and I’m thrilled with the newly elected Democrats for Congress and other positions, but please do not brag about the fruit of your efforts and then ask for more money to pay for them so soon. Why don’t we wait to make sure those newbies actually produce results, then you’ll have proof positive that the efforts paid off to get the right people in office and it will be easier to get people to come off with some money.
In today’s economy please don’t try to bleed me dry without showing me results. If these new members get the right things done, then I’ll see that the DNC’s efforts were worthwhile and worthy of financial help. Remember, it’s not like Congress’ approval rating was sky high before the election, so they don’t really have a good track record on which to base their request for more money….YET.
I have high hopes for this new government and truly believe that they can accomplish great things, but can we please wait at least a few months before asking for money to pay back the organization that got them elected?
What is Next for the GOP? Part II
In Part I of this series I laid out why I thought the GOP was headed for defeat. A lot of analysis will go into that in the next few months and I hope the conclusions are correct.
It is too late and I am too tired to write a lengthy piece, but let me just leave you with a few thoughts from the election tonight:
1) The key thing that jumped out at me in exit polls was the 65-70% of Hispanics that voted for Obama.
While hispanics make up only 15% of the national electorate, that number is growing and fast. In certain states which were key tonight, the % is much higher (NV, NM, AZ, FL and CA).
Any strategy the Republicans formulate for remaining a player in national elections going forward must contemplate both the overwhelming support Hispanics gave to Obama and the growing strength of that demographic group.
I call on the Republican Party to recruit and develop Hispanic candidates for the House of Representatives and the Senate in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida and California. The Republican Party has the potential to do very well with Hispanics, but it has been so enslaved to the neo-con, NRA, far right of the party that it risks making the party a rump of angry old white folks.
One of the long term benefits of developing Hispanic candidates and making a concerted effort to reach out to Hispanics is that the Republicans eventually might put California back “in play” (not any time soon mind you, but 8 to 12 years out).
2) The Republican’s will hold on to enough Senate seats that, if it needs to – I mean really needs to, it can impede a radical agenda. While I think some in congress will want to jam through all kinds of proposals which would be terribly disruptive to a fragile economy and represent long term major structural change to the nation – I think Obama recognizes the key failure of the first two years of the Clinton administration: reaching for too much, too fast in a way that created the backlash that led to Newt Gingrich and the “Contract with America”. Keeping this in mind, my advice is that Republicans should resist the temptation to try to thwart everything the Democrats want to do and look for ways to work with them.
Without question there are some things which need to be tackled. My top two are: fixing regulation of the financial system and health care. I think that both parties will be in relative alignment – with only degrees of difference – on the financial system. With respect to health care I think there will be wider difference.
I think that instead of trying to thwart altogether the type of health care reform the Democrats will want to push through, the Republicans should try to shape the policy to provide a base of health care coverage while reducing the aggregate amount spent by this nation on health care and keeping the incentive structure of the free market working to continue to promote the advancements in technology which this nations health care industry and the free market have created.
The next two years will be interesting. Let’s see what Obama is really made of.
What is next for the GOP?
I believe that most die-hard Republicans have written off 2008 and accepted the apparently inevitable election outcome: Democrat in the White House; Democrats in control of both Houses of Congress; and quite possibly, a super majority in both.
The announcement of Colin Powell’s endorsement of Sen. Obama and polling results in many states, that as recently as two months ago would have been considered solid “Red” states, suggest that a lot of people that in elections past have voted for the Grand Old Party are extremely dissatisfied with the status quo.
Before going further I want to make an admission in the spirit of full disclosure:
I am a Republican, indeed I have never voted for a Democrat for President
The reason I state this upfront is because I want the Republican party to find its bearings.
Now, a strong desire on the part of many in the Party core will be to cite some combination of the economy, a poorly run campaign with several obvious tactical and strategic missteps and/or Bush’s unpopularity as the causes of what is increasingly looking like a resounding defeat for Republicans this year.
Failure to look deeper will keep the Republicans a minority party for several election cycles, until they accept what I am about to say.
I believe the cause is something deeper. I think the Republican Party has gotten away from the core ideas that first attracted middle class moderate voters that historically voted with the Democratic Party.
These ideas include the notion of fiscal conservatism, family values, a strong national defense (one not oriented toward reshaping the world, simply protecting our interests in it) and low income tax rates.
These ideas have been mangled by the Party.
In Econ 101 professors usually discuss the old concept of “Guns and Butter” when talking about government fiscal policy. In essence, you can not have all of everything you want (What!). You can spend money on one but you must cut back on the other. During the Bush administration we have attempted to have all of everything we want. We (this being we as in the USA as represented by the current administration) want an expensive war – we got it – we want to keep taxes low – we got it – we want to avoid tackling the budget because we have our hands full with the aforementioned war and pushing through tax cuts – we got that too!
The problem with this is that it has left us in a situation where we find that our national financial situation has left us with huge commitments at home and abroad. Debt levels never before experienced outside of wartime (and I mean a war of the kind against the Third Reich). Huge current account deficits (a significant part of which is to pay for oil). A bubble in housing prices brought about by an orgy of deregulation, the collapse of which and ongoing financial and economic crises will likely serve as the catalyst for destroying the momentum of the Republican party in national and many key state elections.
Now Republicans are not to blame for all of this, there is plenty of blame to go around. But what upsets me is that I believe that the Republican party has lost focus and got away from many of these critical issues distracted by a mono-focus on the war on terror internationally while catering to extreme right wing groups within the party on domestic issues. In doing so, it has lost the man in the middle.
Family values are important. But I believe that for too long the Party has relied on the formula of an obsessive focus on social issues while cutting taxes. The Party needs to broaden the tent. It needs to accept that good people can disagree on moral and social issues, but if they agree on what I believe are grave challenges to our status in the world and the quality of life of future generations – they can work together to achieve those ends while disagreeing on other issues. Tax cuts are great. But if we want more government services – we have to pay for it (unless we want to leave that to our children, what an inheritance!).
It is time to change. It is time for the party to refocus on the critical issues that will allow us to hand a strong and prosperous country to our children.
It is time to balance tax policy with fiscal policy. I am not saying I want to go back to the confiscatory tax rates that hamstrung the economy in the ’70’s. But maybe tax rates are fine. Or maybe they do need to go up to some degree. But at the same time, we need to get serious about encouraging savings and cutting Federal spending.
It is time to look at some of the social causes within the Party and, while not abandoning them, to get some perspective and prioritize the degree to which the Party lets these groups dictate policy – particularly in light of the many challenges we as a nation face.
While I am an ardent free market capitalist, it is important to understand that reasonable regulation is important to preserving the system which has created the wealth of this nation. Yes, regulation can go to far (and due to the trauma cast upon the nation from the outdated regulations which were allowed to go unaddressed resulting in the recent catastrophe, it likely will in coming years) but lax regulation is equally damaging.
I believe in a robust national defense and have no problem getting involved internationally when our national interest in on the line. But the unilateral way in which we have conducted foreign policy has been a disaster. This issue has been covered thoroughly in the press so I need say no more.
Finally, it is time to take a look at key issues like health care. I did not like the attempt by the Clinton administration to re-make the industry. But one can not help but look at the sheer cost of health care at all levels – public and private – and acknowledge that something is badly wrong. Those of us with coverage are spending way too much and leaving too many with nothing.
I will not do it here, but in a later post I will make the case for a strong and comprehensive health care policy. But for now, I will say that addressing health care will require the Democrats to take on one of their most vile interest groups: tort lawyers. I will also add that I think the way R&D is financed needs to be completely re-evaluated. If drugs are a public good, then the expensive R&D should be publicly financed.
Now I know most Republicans will read that last sentence and declare me a socialist. I will in a future post put forth an idea that I believe keeps the incentive of private enterprise engaged in the process while using government money to fund much of the cost and thus allowing drug costs to be sharply reduced.
Enough for now – after writing all of this, I need a beer.
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