As You See It: July 11, 2009

No Way wrote:

I actually used to believe this crap. Your very misinformed. How's the "free market" system working out for the financial system? The huge banks where all clamoring for our taxpayer money and we found out they are just a bunch of over rated morons like Enron. Health care is measured by things like infant death mortality and the US is ranked near the bottom but spends the most. The money is going somewhere, care to guess where? No the free market is broken and someone needs to redistribute the money. I hope the fear monger republicans can stop lining their pockets long enough to do whats right. After all we are already paying more then anyone else for crappy healthcare.<quoted text>

What a nitwit! Whatever shortcomings our health care system has is primarily due to past efforts of government to "Fix" it. Get a clue...government has never fixed anything. It only destroys efficient systems so it can then declare them broken in order to take power over them. But I'm obviously wasting my words on an Obama Kool-Aid drinker. I would recommend the grape.

No Way wrote:

I actually used to believe this crap. Your very misinformed. How's the "free market" system working out for the financial system? The huge banks where all clamoring for our taxpayer money and we found out they are just a bunch of over rated morons like Enron. Health care is measured by things like infant death mortality and the US is ranked near the bottom but spends the most. The money is going somewhere, care to guess where? No the free market is broken and someone needs to redistribute the money.
<quoted text>

As far being misinformed: Do you have first-hand experience in the health-care sector? I do, and I paid attention and took notes for ten years. Also, I have many years' experience in large, multinational corporations, and I have seen the bewildering extent to which they are subject to regulation. I'm calling things as I see them.

You bring up Enron (related to faux-deregulation I mentioned earlier) and the financial sector. Both industries were HIGHLY regulated all along, no matter what anyone who is trying to confuse you may claim. There were volumes of rules to follow for practically every contingency. However, in any tangled thicket of rules, some tricky operators can find a clear path to profit, especially if they are in cahoots with those who make the rules -- as Enron and the financial-sector players who made out especially well (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley) were. Once again, crony capitalism and mercantilism give us all the s*h^a)ft.

I doubt you really know what the free market is all about or the benefits it is actually capable of bringing, even though examples abound everywhere. You've been told that some poseur regime is "capitalism," and you've seen bad things come of it, so when anyone proposes true free-market solutions, you lash out in knee-jerk reaction, as you have here. It is a sad thing that, apparently, so many people are similarly misinformed.

It is very important for you and anyone else who distrusts "capitalism" to know that 1) what we have (especially in health care) really isn't capitalism -- certainly not of the free-market variety; and 2) the people running the show couldn't care less about any "-ism." They are interested in their own profit and power. Go back and look at your history: The wedding of government and business, pervasive "public/private partnerships," as well as "private ownership" under heavy levels of "public regulation," are hallmarks of national socialism, aka fascism.

True attempts at free-market solutions are often quashed by the government. For instance, a licensed, respected, experienced MD in New York recently tried to provide a package of commonly needed medical services via subscription, for an affordable monthly fee -- as Netflix makes DVDs available or 24HourFitness makes their gym facilities and trainers available to members. We don't think of those latter things as "entertainment insurance" or "workout insurance." But the State of NY claimed the fellow was trying to act as a health care insurance company without a proper permit, and ordered him to do business some other way, get licensed as an insurance provider, or quit entirely. Patients got the s&h%a)f$t, and the wrongheaded idea that "insurance" = "access to health care" was perpetuated.

I do agree with you that the money is going somewhere, but why not then let the people keep the money in the first place and spend it for themselves on the things they need, including health-care? Putting the government in charge of a whole sector of the economy is no better than putting big corporations in charge: Indeed, it is pretty much one and the same thing, because of the tight intertwining of big business and big government that we have today. If money is power, then letting people keep their own money and voluntarily decide where it goes is literally to give power to the people. Yet so many well-meaning people appear to be against that. Why?

I can see the advantages to government run health care, industry, banking, insurance, media and food distribution.

No need for the officer or virtually any employer to require those invasive blood, pee or hair samples anymore.

They'll just punch your medical records right up on their handy computer.