The Decision

I've had enough time and read enough analysis now that I think I can safely say this is exactly the kind of shit I can't stand. I'm talking about the written opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts on the constitutionality of the so called, Affordable Care Act.

This is exactly the kind of flawed logic that comes about when your task is to arrive at a predetermined end and the challenge becomes developing a path from point A to point B. This is exactly what I have condemned in the past as judicial activism. There was cleverness, there was nuance. He did manage to reign in the Commerce Clause by specifically stating that was not the legal basis. In fact he said that would have been unconstitutional. But then declared that if we call it a tax, it IS constitutional. The only problem there is that the actual language in the law says it's not a tax and is in fact compelling individuals into the market. See, I have a problem when in order to arrive at the "right" result, we have to redefine words so that they mean something other than what you thought they meant. That makes it very difficult when you try and apply that precedent to future cases.

Overheard Debate

Today I overheard an interesting discussion between a conservative and a liberal. It really seems to capture the give and take that is dominating today's heated political debates. it went something like this:

Conservative: "The other day, Obama said I didn't build my business. The gall of that guy! Who the hell does he think built it? It sure as hell wasn't him. First, he blames businesses for our economic woes and then threatens to raises our taxes. He cooks up a big health care plan that we will have to pay for one way or another and criticizes us for not hiring in the face of that massive tax hike. And it IS a tax, the Supreme Court confirmed that. The only way he could get his health care "reform" was to have it deemed a tax, and now he's got to live with that. Obama thinks he can win as long as he just keeps reminding everybody just how rich Romney is. You know, the number of houses he owns, an elevator for his cars. Who cares? That doesn't make him a bad guy! He helped a hell of a lot of businesses when he was at Bain Capital, that should be a source of pride, not derision."

Liberal: "Conservatives are bigots."

The Bane of Bain

Last week and all throughout the weekend, one could not escape the all out assault by Barrack Obama on Mitt Romney and the time he spent as the head of Bain Capital. There were millions of dollars worth of TV commercials along with an army of surrogates on every talk show possible. Romney hadn't just outsourced jobs, he might have done something illegal! He Might be a FELON.

But it wasn't those things that told me if this was a big deal or just another failed plan from the Dems trying to take out Romney completely. No, what made me realize this was a non issue with no legs were all the Obama cheerleaders in the main stream media telling me how important this really was. I think I've seen no lees than 5 articles titled something along the lines of: "Bain, Why It Matters so Much." When the press decides that you aren't quite getting it, or aren't taking it seriously and they need to explain it better, then you can rest assured that you understood it perfectly the first time. Move along, nothing to see here.

Is It Socialism?

Every time I make the statement that Obamacare is socialized medicine, I get a load from the liberals with comments like, "Oh, I suppose you're opposed to firefighters and cops too. What about the roads you drive on, who do you think built those?"

It's as if they think that since we have government do anything, we must have it do everything. The question they seem to have already addressed (to their own satisfaction, apparently) is whether or not health care is appropriately on the list of jobs that we want government to handle. I don't think is is or should be, but I'm amazed at how many others think it should be. And furthermore, they assume everybody else wants it too (or should, if they weren't a bunch of stupid hicks who act against their own best interests.) Then they'll mock you for calling it socialism. They'll explain that THIS isn't socialism. No, single payer would have been what they wanted, but that was too hard to get, so they settled for Obamacare even though it's not ideal, but it certainly isn't "socialism."

I usually like to ask them at that point if they understand who the "single payer" is. Surprisingly many of them DO know that it's the government, but for some reason fail to equate that with government run health care. They seem to believe that government's role in all this is just just providing some coordination. They aren't really running things. Trust me, if they are writing the checks, they are in control.

The NAALCP

The National Association for the Advancement of Liberal Colored People held their convention this week and in an election year, it's always closely watched. People want to know who went and who didn't, what they said and what they didn't say. It seems to me that over the past few Presidential election cycles, the focus has been on the Republican candidate, mainly with an eye on whether or not he would attend. This situation is by no means particular to the NAALCP. It's sort of a kabuki dance. A gathering of a particular group with very identifiable tendencies to vote one way, will extend an invitation to both candidates, presumeably to demonstrate their even handedness, objectivity and of course, an open mind. Now nobody on the planet believes they are actually objective or posses an open mind, least of all themselves. But they love to toss the ball to their despised opponent just to see what he'll do with it. Of course the best response from their point of view would be for the opponent to decline the invite. Then they get to shrug their shoulders and lament. "Well, we tried. It's a shame he felt he had nothing to say to us, we really would have liked to hear his ideas for our community, but it looks like he just doesn't care about people like us." So most politicians seem to have concluded that it's better to go and suffer the slings and arrows than it is to run away. So Romney went and spoke and was roundly criticized by the conventioneers.

I have heard quite the collection of quotes criticizing Romney. He was termed "disrespectful." They said he had no business coming there and talking about jobs to black people. The accusation was that he had talked about things like entrepreneurship and upper middle class jobs that were simply beyond the grasp of African-Americans. He stayed consistent and said he would repeal Obamacare, and got booed. I'm sure that didn't surprise him, but the left then accused him of wanting to get those boos so that the film clip could be shown to "certain racist precincts." A black Washington Post writer said the speech was "hollow." I left a comment on his column. I wasn't able to hear the Romney speech I said, so I asked him if he thought the speech that Romney gave was even more hollow that the one Obama didn't. Oh, I forgot to mention that Obama didn't attend this year's convention. He was of course roundly criticized for snubbing the oldest civil rights organization in the country, and it was suggested this might actually cost him the black vote. (Haha, I bet you got all the way to the end of that sentence before you laughed.)

Emergency Relief

We've all heard it a thousand times already. A young, healthy working person, with enough income to be able to afford health insurance, chooses not to do so. These are the people who are supposedly ruining our health care system because they are young, foolish and think they are bullet proof. Then, the story goes, they come up with an unexpected health crisis and promptly head to the emergency room where they will be treated regardless of their lack of insurance. They then skip out on the bill, leaving the cost to be swallowed by the hospital and eventually all the rest of us who have insurance and see that our bills get paid. "We're paying for it already!" is the hue and cry. And the solution is get that young person to begin substituting preventative health care for those trips to the emergency room. As a liberal blogger once admonished me, ".. what costs more? A birth or birth control? a mammogram or chemo and radiation? a blood pressure test or a heart attack?"

Well there's certainly no doubt those first options are definitely cheaper than the second ones, the problem however is that they are seldom available to trade off so perfectly. But beyond the difficulty of trading off these alternatives, exactly how much of this stiffing of the emergency room is going on? I heard David Axelrod claim to day that those young slackers who don't buy insurance are the problem. But how much can this happen? Their claim is that billions and billions will be saved. Wait, I thought these were the healthy ones!

I want to see some numbers. I don't believe it.

Just Being Social

My liberal friend sits down next to me and I ask him what he thinks about the Supreme Court's decision to uphold Obamacare. At first, he launches into his amateur lawyer act and begins dissecting John Roberts' opinion. I cut him off and restate that I just want to know what he thinks about it being upheld, not the reasoning why. I know he's a big liberal who supported Hillary 4 years ago, but I want to know if he likes the basic idea of socialized medicine. Of course you can't really say "socialized medicine" when you talk about it because liberals will then accuse you using that term in order to scare people. They much prefer their own euphemisms like "universal health care" or "single payer." Liberals are good at identifying terms that usually draw a poor reaction, and then changing them to a much nicer sounding word. (Examples? abortion - freedom of choice, illegal alien - undocumented worker, racial preferences - diversity, giving free stuff away - providing access.)

"It's great" he says. "My wife's a nurse and she says that they need to wrestle control of health care away from the doctors." Apparently she is of the opinion that doctors are at the heart of why an adequate amount of care is not being delivered. She is convinced they are the problem, but I don't see how Obamacare helps that aspect. So I pose the question in a more basic way. "Do you think that socialized medicine will be a good thing?"

"What are you talking about? We're not headed for socialized medicine, that's not happening here."

"It's not? I know it's not happening tomorrow, but you've got to see that's where it's headed don't you? All the incentives are designed to make businesses drop private health insurance as a benefit for workers, and force them into the public option. And the funny thing about monetary incentives is they usually work. Businesses are not going to quibble over morality when there is money on the table. First, providing health insurance for their employees is not their obligation, legally or morally. It has evolved that way out of a desire to compensate employees in a creative way. But they are under no obligation to continue doing so, and with all that money as motivation, they will have no problem doing as the government wishes. But the basic point is that once they put all the private insurers out of business, government will be in complete control of all medical payments and therefore in complete control of all health care. They will be deciding who gets what treatment, and who doesn't. The same people who run the Post Office, the IRS and the EPA will be running health care entirely. Doesn't that concern you?"

"Naw, that's not what's happening. We aren't headed for socialized medicine,"

Prices & Costs

Due to the pathetic state of affairs concerning the average persons' lack of economic acumen, politicians have long been able to demagogue many issues. But the greatest con they've been able to perpetrate is the one where they purposely confuse prices with costs. This is rather easily accomplished because most people haven't got a clue as to what the differences are. To them, the price they pay for something is the cost. But when accountants and economists use the term cost, they are talking about all the costs, not just what an individual pays out of their pocket.

The confusion is exploited by politicians who like to tell people that they will provide something to the voter at a lower price than he pays now. He says he'll lower the cost, but he's really just lowering the price.

When the average guy talks about the cost of health care, he's referring to what he pays, the price. He might be talking about what he pays for care, or he might be talking about the price he pays for health insurance. But the cost of health care contains things like $100,000 tuition for medical school for the doctor, or the estimated $800 million it takes in research and development cost to bring a single new drug to market. There ARE ways to lower some of those costs. For instance much of that $800 million bringing a drug to market has to do with FDA regulations that some consider restrictive. There's an argument that you might increase the possibility of approving a drug that's harmful if you ease those regulations, but it's debatable and it would hold the potential to actually lower costs. Subsidizing health insurance for private citizens does not lower costs, it lowers the price. And prices are what we use to cover costs. So what happens when the price is not enough to cover the cost? That's where the laws of supply and demand take over.

Let's say a guy borrows $100,000 goes to medical school and becomes a doctor just as the government takes over health care. He's got a lot of debt and is hoping to pay it off in 5 years. But all the doctors work for the government now and the starting pay isn't what it used to be. The prices are not covering the cost. That will lead to a reduction in supply. That can happen two ways, quantity or quality. If less and less people see doctoring as a lucrative career, you'll get a reduction in quantity. If the very best and brightest no longer see a medical career as desirable, you'll get a drop off in quality. Britain's health care system has been run by the government for decades now. They haven't been able to train their own doctors for some time and the majority now come from other countries where the training might not be up to the same level as in Great Britain. As you can imagine, such changes are very gradual and hard to measure. But the ones who really suffer the consequences, are those receiving substandard care without being aware of it.