Takeover
One of the biggest mistakes that people make when the think about government programs is to apply "normal" market or business ideas to the government program. In the debate over the government's involvement in the health care industry this has happened regularly. I was reading a summary of the legislation (here) and came across this passage:
"Its passage moves Congress closer to the biggest expansion of thesocial safety net since the Medicare insurance program for the elderlywas created in 1965. The measure spends $1.01 trillion over a decade toprovide health insurance to an additional 36 million Americans andcreates a new public insurance plan to compete with private insurers by2013."
Note terms like "social safety net" and government program to "compete" with private insurers. These are false implications. The goal of this program was to expand government. Watching this debate play out, I am increasingly convinced by the financial and auto bailouts - and the ensuing government actions - that this is about control and very little else. You disagree? Why then would the bill be pushed through so quickly ignoring even the 72-hour public notice pledge made by House Speaker Pelosi herself? Why were controversial provisions such as the "public option" put back in the bill in spite of clear public disapproval of such options?
Because it is about control. Power. A takeover. The financial industry has learned this (but they are bad people so we didn't care). The automakers have learned this (but they were high paid, out of touch people so we didn't care). Now the health care sector is targeted.
So the point of the "public option" is not to compete with private insurers (government doesn't compete) it is to drive people into a government run health care system. This is not as much a social safety "net" as it is a social safety "web".
More as this progresses.
For now we look to the Senate. But do pay attention to how your lawmaker voted. Locally, Zack Space voted for the bill (though he wouldn't publicly comment on how he was planning to vote beforehand). Pat Tiberi (my Congressman) voted against the bill.
Update: Freedom's Right has the list.
"Its passage moves Congress closer to the biggest expansion of thesocial safety net since the Medicare insurance program for the elderlywas created in 1965. The measure spends $1.01 trillion over a decade toprovide health insurance to an additional 36 million Americans andcreates a new public insurance plan to compete with private insurers by2013."
Note terms like "social safety net" and government program to "compete" with private insurers. These are false implications. The goal of this program was to expand government. Watching this debate play out, I am increasingly convinced by the financial and auto bailouts - and the ensuing government actions - that this is about control and very little else. You disagree? Why then would the bill be pushed through so quickly ignoring even the 72-hour public notice pledge made by House Speaker Pelosi herself? Why were controversial provisions such as the "public option" put back in the bill in spite of clear public disapproval of such options?
Because it is about control. Power. A takeover. The financial industry has learned this (but they are bad people so we didn't care). The automakers have learned this (but they were high paid, out of touch people so we didn't care). Now the health care sector is targeted.
So the point of the "public option" is not to compete with private insurers (government doesn't compete) it is to drive people into a government run health care system. This is not as much a social safety "net" as it is a social safety "web".
More as this progresses.
For now we look to the Senate. But do pay attention to how your lawmaker voted. Locally, Zack Space voted for the bill (though he wouldn't publicly comment on how he was planning to vote beforehand). Pat Tiberi (my Congressman) voted against the bill.
Update: Freedom's Right has the list.
You're right. It's about control and nothing else. They originally said it was to control costs. When the Office of Management and Budget proved that it would radically increase costs, did they drop the idea? No. They just came up with a new excuse for doing it. When that excuse was disproved, they came up with a third excuse. And so on.
They've forfeited their right to the public's trust:
"The essence of civilization is the orderly quest for truth, the rational perception of reality and all its facets, and the adaptation of man’s behaviour to its laws. So long as we follow the path of reason we shall not move far from the lighted circle of civilization. Its enemies invariably lie among those who, for whatever motive, deny, distort, minimize, exaggerate or poison the truth, and who falsify the process of reason. At all times civilization has its enemies, though they are constantly changing their guise and their weapons. The great defensive art is to detect and unmask them before the damage they inflict becomes fatal. “Hell,” wrote Thomas Hobbes, “is truth seen too late.” Survival is falsehood detected in time." -Paul Johnson
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