The “health care” bill
Pig in a poke. The original word was poche, French for ‘pocket.’ Or bag. The old trick was to sell someone a suckling pig, which was wriggling inside a sack. When the buyer gets home and unties the sack to inspect the family holiday supper, voila!, it’s a stray cat. Gotcha!
Obama’s health care bill is a pig in a poke.
The expansion of Medicare to 16million people is, on balance, a good thing… for now, and smart politics. That’s a lot of votes. Couple of other sops.
But overall, this is the pig in the poke. We can spice that cat up someway…
This bill legally compels people to purchase insurance. From private insurance companies. I hope this proves to be unenforceable. This is theft.
No caps on premiums.
No standardization of benefits.
No restrictions on benefit denials by insurance companies.
Taxing of health benefits.
Obama’s rejection of his pro-choice constituency with his executive order.
The list is very long, and the way it’s now set up, the states will be engaged by a race to the bottom, officiated by Big Insurance.
Bad news all round, but hey, the Dems lowered the bar until they could make the specious claim that they changed history. The leap over this bar was about two inches off the ground.
War and theft.
Vote.
Nothing changes that isn’t changed within arms reach.
Those people don’t care about you. They care about their positions and power, and they’ll eat shovels full of shit to keep their positions and power. That’s their secret.
JJ Holoubek:
Thanks for calling a spade, well, a spoon.
Best to you and yours, Stan.
27 March 2010, 12:47 amSkol:
Only some Dems lowered that bar. And even that bar was passed with only 3 votes in the House. The fact that they could change it at all was historic. The bill alone, not so much. I haven’t heard anyone argue that this is the best thing since sliced bread.
That was all they could get with the math they’ve got, and probably will ever have for a while. Got any other ideas?
27 March 2010, 6:05 amStan:
Yeah, but I’m not arguing that it is imperfect. I’m arguing that its net effect – overall – is malignant.
Sometimes… a lot of times… nothing is better than something.
When I was in the army, people were always complaining about their commanders. How could they not? But almost like a natural law, when the old commander’s time was up and the new ones came, they seemed to be even worse. Perhaps a bit of the “devil you know” there, but the other moral of the story is, be careful what you wish (work) for. The sub-moral can be stated two ways:
(1) Nothing can be a lot better than something.
(2) (If you don’t know how plans will turn out) don’t just do something, sit there.
With this bill, the insurance lobby just got stronger than it’s ever been, and only a Democrat Congress and executive would have made that happen.
27 March 2010, 7:08 amCurt:
Stan,
27 March 2010, 7:59 amI disagree with your point number two. If your just sit there you do not know how that will turn out either.
Harmon Killabrew struck out a heck of a lot of times. He was not very fast so I doubt he ever hit a triple. Because he was slow he probably also hit in the ball in a manner that resulted in more than his fair share of double plays against his team. When he came up to bat with two out and two men on base at the bottom of the 9th two runs behind how did the home fans react? How did the opposing pitchers react?
Of course in such a situation the home fans would have surely prefered that Rod Carew or Tony Oliva were up to bat but chances are they would have been the two men on base so that would have been an unfair wish.
A very confident and fresh pitcher would have gone for a stike out but most smart pitichers pitched four balls way outside to load the bases and bring up the 5th man in the batting order a man that usually had a batting average of around .260. The plan of the pitchers team would be to get a force out at second base.
So was Harmon Killabrew a blessing to his team or a curse?
Who knows what the long term consequences of making the insurance lobby stronger will be?
It may lead to some people asking questions about the whole economic system.
Curt:
No you can not score a goal without taking a shot. Now perhaps your shot will be wide of the net but then perhaps a teammate can deflect the puck in a new direction. Of course if you take the shot your team may loose control of the puck.
But when there is a wild scramble in front of the net everyone in the arena is on their feet. In hockey there is only one puck. In life we may not even be sure what the puck is. Are there few or many? Are we even all playing the same game?
I saw this movie a few days ago. It was not a very good movie but it did have an interesting part. Have I mentioned this already? I better check. I did not see it. There was some background noise in this movie in which someone said every event in you life is a parable in which God speaks to you and the art of life is to try to figure out the meaning of the parable. Well I think that is pretty darn interesting except I would change the word God to Dogshidz or at least other power.
28 March 2010, 1:45 pmMatt:
Felt compelled to write and say how relieved I was to read your opinion. Though I may not always agree with you, I’ve considered you principled since I first became aware of you in October of 2001 . . . if you could possibly give a sh-t. As this administration goes through its paces (as with the last), the list of those I consider principled shrinks steadily, with Dennis Kucinich being the most recently dismissed, and landing with the loudest thud. I think you’ve stated the truth accurately and succinctly, this is a hijacking and a power grab. I expect my leaders to sell me out, the frustrating part is looking around and seeing that most people still don’t realize who’$ running things.
29 March 2010, 1:48 amxenia:
I had socialist health care the first 16 or so years of my life. What do I remember from it? Occasionally waiting for an hour or two outside of the doctors office.
But I also remember people pouring oil on themselves while cooking and going to the doctor at 10 PM, no lines, no questions asked, immediate assistance and treatment. I was never afraid of my teeth. If I had toothache in the morning, I’d get to see the doctor by mid-day. Glasses, contact lenses: completely free. I almost never remember appointments. Point is: you have to be super-indoctrinated or a masochist to deny that in terms of health care, socialism, even of the ugly kind, is superior to capitalism. As long as people pay taxes, they should be entitled to some kind of health care, no questions asked.
Currently, I do not have any health care. I see this bill as a piece of garbage and yet another bailout to the insurance companies. There is nothing socialist about it: it’s just an extra tax so that you pay even more, and your boss and your state pay even less. It put pretty much a final stop to any thoughts of living in the US for me.
However, given all the other social dynamics at work, I don’t even think it will be really implemented. There will be more plunder and more paranoia, that’s all. Nasty.
29 March 2010, 9:41 am