Republican Plan == Die Quickly?

Representative Alan Grayson (D-Florida) claimed today - aided by very simple visual aids, in case you were deaf, or had the TV on mute, or didn't get it the first time around - that the Republican healthcare plan is for you, the consumer, to die quickly, in the event you get sick.



Of course, this is sensationalism, not based in any sort of reality whatsoever - both his claims that the Republicans offer no plan, and that Democrats will leave everyone who's happy being happy, while opening up access to everyone else.

And yet, liberal bloggers eat this irrational slander up, and even praise and defend it. Why? What is admirable about this man - a grown man, a legislator - acting this way? How does this further us along in solving our problems?

Can we get back to real debate please? Can we start weighing the pros and cons of ideas, and agreeing about those that have logical merit?

Republican Plan == Die Quickly?

They Have No Ears With Which to Hear

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/september_2009/health_care_reform

Do I even need to say anything else? If this is a representative democracy, then why is Congress still deliberating over ideas the people clearly don't support? The only reform that needs to take place is removing government's tightening grip.

They Have No Ears With Which to Hear

Healthcare Reform Questions

As the debate rages on - or, rather, as the Statists try to silence dissenting voices through a variety of means (oh, let me count the ways), while Congress runs at breakneck speed to draft and vote on reform legislation, despite popular sentiment and overwhelming reason - a number of questions come to my mind. While my questions won't be asked by the people that "matter", or influence any great number of people, I feel that the questions need to be thrown out into the fray as a matter of principle. Silence will always be rewarded with a complete lack of credence, for there's nothing to heed; only squeaky wheels get the grease.

1. Why doesn't health insurance work like auto insurance? Or home or life or any other kind of insurance? Or, put another way - why aren't HSAs the norm? Normal preventative care, which is cheaper than major surgeries and treatments, obviously, would be paid for out-of-pocket, up to some certain maximum; the insurance would actually cover true emergency healthcare. You pay for automotive maintenance and care out of pocket, while the costs of relatively-rare collisions are covered by insurance -- why not the same with health insurance? This lowers the cost of insurance, making it more accessible to all. To continue the analogy, it would also cover people with pre-existing conditions, much as drivers with bad records can still have insurance; the stipulation, of course, is that those classes are greater risks, and hence have to pay more for the same coverage. They are more likely to utilize the insurance, so their premiums are higher to offset their risk.
   
2. Why aren't there any startup health insurance companies? There is always competition and innovation in a truly free market, because there isn't any external barrier to entry (laws, infringements upon the rights of the startup by other established market participants, etc.). Fair competition exists and thrives in a free market; the winners and leaders of such markets are those that offer the best value to their customers. Competition forces them to earn their success, with consumers benefiting through lower prices and increasingly better, more innovative services. This being true, then, we must conclude that our market is not free, when we have large, stodgy insurers that increase their prices over time. There must be very limited - or a complete lack of - competition occurring. There are only two ways this can be achieved: 1) there is no government, no social contract, guaranteeing fair dealings and an inviolate set of rights, allowing established companies to keep startups out; 2) the government and established companies work together for mutual benefit, by establishing regulation that make the cost to enter the market extremely high or prohibitive. In both cases, consumers lose; in both cases, these situations are created and enabled by government not performing its proper function, to guarantee the rights of the citizenry. Shouldn't we then be looking for ways to make sure that the corporate playing field is fair, and unraveling all of the state and federal regulation that helps create the situation we find ourselves in now? Maybe campaign finance reform should be first, so that we can rid ourselves of special interests, and foster a free healthcare market.
3. Who are these uninsured? What demographics are they? How many have pre-existing conditions? How many are illegal immigrants? How many are young people who choose not to purchase insurance? The 46 million number has been broken down and analyzed, and it was found that the number was actually around 8 million citizens who would qualify as being the "uninsured".
   
4. Would a public option be paid for only through the premiums of those using it? Would taxes be collected from me to pay for it? Would other government programs be cut to fund it? Would the public option even be viable in terms of the types and amount of care it funded, the government bureaucracy implicit in running it (it would be, by definition, a government program or department), the number of people who signed up for it, the composition of their income, and the amount of money they had to spend towards healthcare?
5. Is it moral to force every citizen to have or purchase health insurance? I have a clear answer to this one: the answer is no. There is nothing moral about the use of force driving involuntary action. It's against everything this country stands for, as a free country, where each person has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The expression and realization of these rights are not defined by anyone, person or government, for anyone else; and to threaten force for not performing an action that should be voluntary, according to our rights, is to infringe upon those rights. To make arbitrary laws that deny choice - deny liberty - when no one else's livelihood is threatened by the opposing choice, and then enforce them at the point of a gun (this is an expression folks, meant somewhat figuratively), is to do away with reason and the treatment of one another as rational human beings, resorting instead to thug rule.
6. Why do our "elected" leaders seem to push on with their own private agendas, rather than taking our opinions into account? Why are dissenters about government-run healthcare labeled as malcontents and liars? Are the claims actually examined? Are the premises followed to their logical conclusions? Why do we stand for government officials who don't seem to heed our voices and wishes? Better yet, why do we stand for such a government?
7. What really needs to be changed? How can we lower costs for everyone, and provide more access to healthcare for a greater number of people? Will increasing the power and role and size of government help us? History shows it won't. Universal healthcare schemes in a myriad of countries - even US states now, such as Massachusetts - are perfect examples of why not to adopt such a system, from their incredible costs, to how they overwhelm the health care providers, to how people have to wait for urgent care, to how care is rationed. One needs only to look and learn. The fact is, the free market is the only medium in which goods and services have actually become cheaper and more readily available to the masses. From it's beginnings in the Enlightenment, until today, there are incredible numbers of examples of this. However, all the examples we have of socialized systems show failure or mediocre stagnation. Not something I would trust my life to.
8. Is healthcare a right? Does the government have the power to provide it or for it? As defined by our Bill of Rights, healthcare is not a right. Nor should it be a right. Healthcare is provided directly by the labor of others, and as no man in this country has the right to another's life, or the other to their life, we have no claim on their labor. To claim that one does have a right to another's labor is to essentially destroy the right of private property, and to enslave the other. I have no right to demand that Peter's money be taken from him, in order to be given to me to pay a doctor; I have no right to demand that a corporation's money be taken from it, in order to be given to me to pay a doctor; I have no right to demand healthcare from a doctor, in exchange for nothing. These fancied rights, dressed up in language meant to disguise their true nature and logical consequence (e.g. "x number of people are uninsured!" "we have an obligation to help the poor and impoverished to get healthcare!" "it's those greedy insurance companies' fault; the government should regulate them to provide healthcare to all those who don't have it and can't afford it!), are really an attempt to render our defined and established rights - the ones that protect us from each other and the government - meaningless. And, of course, to get something for nothing. But you can only rob your neighbor for so long, when he and all your other neighbors are robbing you and each other too. Some will ignore these fairly obvious facts though, and will cite the "general welfare" clause of the Constitution as a rationale for the government to provide healthcare for the people. While the words could be construed this way if we had a "living Constitution", I don't believe we do; I believe the Framers never meant for services like healthcare to be provided by the government under this clause. That's because of the irrationality of doing so. For example, if the government is supposed to provide for the populace's general welfare, where is my free food? Most anything could be rationalized under the clause of "general welfare". If you think the government should provide those sorts of things, stop a moment to think. If everyone subsisted off of the government, where does the government get everything to give everyone? If everyone was in the employ of the government, or just received a check every month, how does the government fund this? For the government to provide services like this, it must tax - take away from - the actual productive members of society, outside the government sphere. It depends upon those people for its revenue, which it turns around and gives to others in a variety of means, or consumes itself. Those that actually produce something of value - those in the private sector - are the fuel of the public sector's fire. Without them, the public sector doesn't exist. So, then, I ask again - is healthcare a right? And should the government provide it? Doesn't that take a step in the wrong direction, trying to make the fire hotter and spending the fuel faster and faster?
   

That's it for now. More as I think of them.

I also must post a link to another great blog post I found about the healthcare issue: here.

Healthcare Reform Questions