http://www.lewrockwell.com/cooper/cooper21.1.html

One sure way to tell which political lobbies stand to benefit from Obamacare is to note who is supporting it with expensive TV and online ads. I’ve seen commercials sponsored by big Pharma, trial lawyers and now today on Abcnews.com I saw a big fold-out banner ad at the top of the website sponsored by the American Association for Retired People (AARP).

Not being a senior citizen, I haven’t had much exposure to AARP, but when I saw and read the ad, I couldn’t help but think how irresponsible for them to use their influence over seniors to try and push something on them like this with big, bright, colorful, intelligent-sounding but misleading advertising.

Their ad consisted of 5 what they call "myths" about Obamacare that they want to clear up for their members and explain why they are false:

Health care reform will be a government takeover

The details of any healthcare bill are irrelevant. What needs to be considered is only the fact that the government is planning on regulating and hence distorting production and prices, in yet another industry and the historical precedents set by the federal government that never sees a government program die, but rather grow with time. If it won’t be a takeover at first, it will be eventually. Don’t call it a takeover then. Call it taking control, call it regulating, call it whatever you want, it’s government legislation that will force doctors and patients to make decisions about their healthcare that they normally would not make. It introduces the same moral hazard as any and all government regulation.

We can’t afford to fix healthcare in this economic crisis

I agree with AARP on this one. We can do something to address the high costs of healthcare even in hard economic times: get the government out of the healthcare business and address tort reform to prevent frivolous malpractice suites. Both of which would save the government and Americans money.

Healthcare reform will be the end of Medicare

Don’t know much about Medicare except that the U.S. government sold the program in the 1960’s with the lie that by 1990 Medicare would only cost the taxpayers $6 billion. By 1990 it had cost $67 billion in real dollars. If nothing else we can use this as factual historical evidence of government-run healthcare. What more does one need? The government is always wrong with their predictions about anything. Whether it be on purpose, otherwise known as lying, or ignorance. Either way, they need to stop making predictions.

Healthcare reform will lead to rationed health care

All economic goods, which is everything except for air and sunshine, are scarce and need to be rationed somehow. In a market economy that rationing mechanism is price. As an economist who has lived many years in European countries where healthcare is regulated, controlled, provided by the federal government, I can tell you unequivocally that YES, healthcare will end up being rationed not by price but rather by some commission of bureaucrats who will set "guidelines" for who can receive what care. That is in fact the whole purpose of this healthcare reform: to reduce costs, to make costs equitable across social lines. Those artificial costs imposed by government intervention of any kind, will be lower than the true market value and hence we’ll end up with a shortage and of course an excess demand for healthcare. Then healthcare will have to be rationed by other means than price. As with any economic good, as price goes down more of the good is demanded. Of course the cost to people won’t actually go down due to increased taxes, interest on the debt and inflation that will occur so the government can pay for it, but in people’s minds it will be cheaper. So people will go to the doctor for any and all ailments. Dr. offices will become overcrowded so they’ll start going to the ER which will become overcrowded. So the bureaucrats will ration it.

I’ve seen it firsthand. Not a single author of these bills, as far as I know, has ever lived in such a country. They don’t know what they are talking about, pure and simple.

Healthcare reform means the government will make life and death decisions for you

Absolutely, they will. They won’t look at it as such, but that’s what it will be. If someone needs medical care of any kind and they are not free to find a doctor of their choosing from the entire doctor pool but rather are given a list to choose from, and the doctor is forced to only provide a government-influenced schedule of services at set prices then again, the moral hazard issue dominates here. Doctors and patients will make decisions that they otherwise would not make without government intervention. And who’s to say whether they are life or death decisions? Maybe some decisions aren’t, maybe some are. Maybe a doctor would have treated a patient differently which could have prevented or detected early some life-threatening condition, but didn’t due to government regulations. Maybe the patient would have died anyway. Who can say? But one thing for sure, we’ll know that those decisions were not made by the free will of the doctor–patient relationship and so we cannot say that "everything was done to prevent it."

As with all government intervention, the government assumes the role of being our moral compass. They are in a position to dictate to an entire nation of 300 million plus, what is the "right thing to do." Of course they’re true objective is to get votes from people at election time while at the same time, getting as much money and power as possible from special interests, campaign donors and political parties.

September 11, 2009

Right on, Brotha'!!

I guess for me ...the hardest thing to understand is.... how anyone could possibly consider turning over anything to the care of our Govt. Doesnt anyone see the financial mess this country is in now??, and understand who created this mess???, doesnt anyone, if not themselves know anyone who has lost all that they have worked for?? Letting our Govt. have more of our money on thier false pretenses..(no matter how noble it may sound) is like finding a thief in your home and asking him to manage your bank account for you!
people always focus on what ever current administration is in place....the root of the problem is Congress and senate....which are a well oiled, organised crime group that makes the mafia look like kids stealing hubcaps.....WE NEED TO DEMAND TERM LIMITS FOR THE GOOD O'L BOYS!! DEMAND IT!!!!!

Term limits is a good start, but eliminating the federal government is even more effective. (Thomas Paine would approve!)

Before you jump on the Term Limits bandwagon...

Take a good look at what has happened in the Michigan Legislature since we voted in term limits.

We have had no success at balancing our budget, in part, because we have a whole lot of people in the legislature who have little experience in doing what it takes to act in a non partisan manner to get things done.

They come in with all their high ideals and refuse to budge from them in any way. We get a whole lot of the " my way or the highway " syndrome. They KNOW they are limited in their time in power, so they want to do everything they can to make absolutely sure that they wield that power to get things they WANT done and damn everything else that doesn't concern them.

There is a very definite line between Republicans and Democrats.

There's no significant difference in my experience. They get their money from the same corporate sponsors, and policies stay effectively the same no matter who's in office.

Your health is not a commodity to be traded on market terms. Health care is not a service that operates on a commodity-centered exchange, at least it really shouldn't be.
You speak of this as if healthcare is somehow equivalent to a 'presumably' value-laden good, such as an ipod. That's an intentional mis-identification of a service with a physical commodity, just to drive the point home. In proper terms you're equating healthcare to something like a 'happy-ending massage', claiming that if more people COULD afford it, we'd all be down at the parlor for HOURS after we clock out from work.

Reducing medicine and it's application to a dumb market exchange between a service provider (DOCTOR) and service consumer (PATIENT) is borderline insane. FIRST AND FOREMOST there are sick people and people who have decided to become trained to help the first group become healthy, THEN there are the subtleties of the rewards involved in the interaction.

Please explain to me where a private company that operates on a revenue-generating model, with it's representatives in hospitals getting to decide whether some treatment can or can not be administered, fits into the process of going from being sick to being healthy?

Healthcare reform good!!!! Get with the program people.

Free market forces (as demonstrated by nobel economist Hayek, et. al.) properly ration resources (in this case, medical care and supplies) most efficiently due to the supply and demand mechanism, among others. (in the health model, the health providers and patients would be in the best position to ration resources such as time, medicine, etc.) Since government interventions in the market have only weakened the economy (the dollar has lost 90% of its value since 1913, plus other interventions in the market), it has proven itself a parasite and should be removed.

Health care reform is needed badly in this country. My mom has insurance and is making life or death choices right now concerning her health because her insurance does not pay enough for her to be able to afford the tests to determine if she has a cardio blockage building. Well we should say how bad it is because they already know her circulation is compromised. She says she will just have to die because she cannot pay for the tests. Why should she be making this choice?

She cannot change insurance now because of a preexisting health condition.

I understand all the anti government folks concerns out there but this issue outweighs those concerns. We need universal healthcare so people will stop having to make these choices.

It would be pretty easy to dump the dollar.
With the debit system we could easily transfer to a points system.
That woud save printing, paper, minting and precious metals. No more counterfitting. Just have to have hackerproof security.

Sorry about your Moms condition.
It's a hard, cold world out there.
The sacrifice of a few outweighs the burden BHO wants to place on the majority.
Keep Gov. control to a bare minimum.

Since you are making the positive claim ("universal care is needed"), the burden of proof is on you. You still have not provided evidence that it works in reality, but I have pointed out instances and reasons why it DOESN'T. You have a long way to go before you'll convince any reasonable person. Aristotle would be ashamed. tsk, tsk.

We already have an option set up. Oregon has a Death with Dignity Program. Anyone who is suffering and wishes to opt out can check to see if they qualify.

Euthanasia is illegal in most of the United States. Attempts to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide resulted in ballot initiatives and "legislation bills" within the United States of America in the last 20 years. For example, the state of Washington voters saw Ballot Initiative 119 in 1991, the state of California placed Proposition 161 on the ballot in 1992, the state of Oregon passed the Death with Dignity Act in 1997, the state of Michigan included Proposal B in their ballot in 1998, and Washington's Initiative 1000 on the ballot in 2008.

How dare you say my mom is expendable or any human is expendable.

See this why I will work harder to make damn sure the healthcare bill gets passed so people with your ideals cannot govern others because you have deemed yourself unworthy at that level.

Shame on you for implying my mom should just die.

But you are doing the same thing, in a "softer" way. Obamacare inevitably rations medical resources and will prevent some people from getting treatment they need to survive. The only difference is that Obamacare puts on a "caring" facade while killing people (much like the "War On Terror").

I no way said anyone was expendable.
I said there are already options to suffering.
And get real.
Every day, in the ER, the Triage Staff holds the decision to either save a life or let them pass.

That is a propaganda lie told to scare people. So no I did not say that at all.

I am so pissed off right now.

Yes, you did and you are not right at all for that.

I guess I could say one of your family members should just die off with no care because of the good of all, huh?

Sick

Sick


Sick.