Advocates of healthcare "reform" love to trot out stories like President Obama's of a self-employed cleaning lady who dropped her insurance, then got leukemia. One is supposed to feel sorry for her, and then because one feels sorry for her, swallow ObamaCare, with its massive increase in government controls and taxes, whole. Obama asserts that "every argument has been made," and now it's time to show the real impact of not following his plan.
Well, yes, an awful lot of arguments have been made -- but the good ones haven't been answered. How can forcing insurers to cover anybody and everybody while limiting the price they can charge, do anything but steal from the young and healthy to pay for the old and sick? Why, when insurance mandates have failed spectacularly in Massachusetts, are they going to do better multiplied by fifty? How can one justify violating individual rights on an even grander scale than they already are?
Obama is trying to bypass logic and facts -- because they aren't on his side -- and go straight for feelings. Isn't it awful to see a hard-working human being who, because she could no longer afford insurance, now has a life-threatening condition and no way to pay for her treatment?
Yes. Yes, it is, and I do feel sorry for Natoma Canfield, the woman of the president's example. But it does not follow from that emotion that we must place health care under government control.
Emotions, as I'm learning in my OAC readings, are not tools of cognition. You can't just go from "I feel X" to "we need to do Y." You have to unravel all of the ideas that got you to that emotional reaction, because some of them may be true and some may be false -- and you have to act on your best rational assessment of the facts, not on that initial emotion.
Your average American, indoctrinated by altruism as we are, hearing about Natoma Canfield probably feels sorry for her out of a sense of benevolence (she's another human being; even strangers are of potential value to us because of that) and guilt (we are supposed to help others; I should do my part and help her), and Barack Obama can play on that unearned guilt to buy the federal government an unprecedented control over the U.S. economy.
I feel sorry for her out of benevolence to other human beings -- and because the very reason a self-employed person like her can't afford insurance coverage for catastrophic conditions like cancer is because government controls have priced her out of the market. My emotion of feeling sorry for Natoma Canfield will not lead me to support ObamaCare, not one whit -- because I understand that there are principles involved, and that the facts are what they are regardless of what I feel. In fact, my feeling sorry for her is a reminder to me of the fact that government intervention caused her desperate situation, and that we must fight against government intervention to prevent more cases like hers.
Don't let the president bamboozle you with sad stories. It's fine to feel sad for people like Natoma Canfield -- but then think about why she is in the situation she's in, and you'll come to a far different conclusion than Obama. Feel what you feel -- but act on the facts.
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7 comments:
SO nice to have found another pharmacist who understands ration and reason!
Found you at westandfirm.org blog.
This is a great post. I'm feeling inspired, like maybe the whole country has NOT gone insane!
Good job!
--another sympathetic pharmacist
Someone should ask Stella Zawistowski on which planet in the universe “a fully free market” exists?
rye parish
There isn't one, and never has been -- but we used to be an awful lot closer to one in the US prior to WWII. As I said in my letter, check the facts; the fewer controls there are in ANY industry, the greater the rate of progress has been. Even in areas of medicine where there is less regulation and little insurance company involvement, like LASIK and cosmetic surgery, you can see that new procedures start out costly and adopted by a few, and quickly become affordable for the masses.
More importantly, check the facts on a moral level -- there are facts about man's nature that lead us to the notion of individual rights, which government interference violates. The writings of Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, and others are the place to start.
Actually, the reading recommendations you suggest are the place to leave off from, not begin, as they are fantasy as much as the books of Heinlen.
As to the equation of fewer controls leading to a greater “rate of progress,” that is pure assertion on your part. Look at empirical studies on health care, arms development, educational levels, standards of living, financial stability and regulation.
In order:
health care - ranking by WHO of the US compared to countries with “socialized” systems.
weapons production - USA federal government (highly controlled and not an “open” market.
education - USA levels from elementary school through graduate schools are lower than in aggregate of all subjects than most European, Asian and even a handful of “socialized” South American countries.
Living standards - no contest here. Living standards in socialized, highly regulated Europe are so far ahead of USA standards that the USA will take decades, if ever to catch up. Infrastructure such as transportation equipment and highways, rail and air are all about 10-15 years ahead of the US. Communications deployment available to business and private consumers is cheaper faster and of higher quality than in the relatively unregulated USA.
If you want chapter and verse for MY assertions here, just ask. Or feel free to provide your own sources and figures in contradiction of mine. If you can find them.
As to “morality” being linked to Ayn Rand’s version of individuality (verses what? Community?), her moral equation comes down to “
everyone for himself.“ Winners and losers. And losers are “bad.” Calvin said so, long ago.
btw, prior to WWII, umm, we were in the Great Depression for over a decade. What a great free market that was. Oh, for the good old days, eh?
rye parish
How on earth would you call the Great Depression the cause of a free market, when Hoover's controls caused it?
Standard of living: By what measure? Because the trains run on time...at the price of far slower economic growth or stagnation than you see in economically freer countries like Singapore? At the price of a two-tier system, in which older workers are entrenched (because they can't be fired without huge government-imposed costs) and younger workers get screwed with contract employment because no company wants to hire someone they can't fire?
How about the US as the major source of medical innovation (check out how many Nobel prizewinners in medicine are Americans)? The more you get the government involved, the more you squash innovation. And I don't call waiting in line for treatment or having an office like NICE decide how much my life is worth, good health care.
You can continue to post comments here, but I'm done rebutting you; you clearly have a misconception of Ayn Rand's ideas, and as long as you spout a bunch of concretes without recognizing the principles at stake, I'm not interested in talking to you.
You made no rebuttal -- only more assertions. No need for me to make any further posts here, notwithstanding your kind invitation. Your last “rebuttal” speaks for itself.
rye parish
f18a-nightlander@stanfordalumni.org
What you mean is "my concretes are better than your concretes." Blog comments are not exactly conducive to an essay rebutting yours, but I have pointed out holes in them, which makes my rebuttal an actual rebuttal.
By the way, WHO's standards for "best health care" are not mine. Their criteria for ranking include total health expenditure as % of GDP, which tells you nothing -- after all, in 1800 total expenditure on computers was 0% of GDP, yet no one would argue that in 1800 America was technologically better off than it is now. "Health care costs a lot" does not mean "the system is broken." And life expectancy is a good sign of a country's overall HEALTH, not a sign of its health CARE. Here in America we have many more obese people throwing off the curve than in other developed countries. Again, not a sign that the system is broken -- just a sign that many Americans need to adopt a healthier lifestyle.
Argh. I SAID I wasn't going to spend any more time arguing with you. Done.
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