Now You See It, Now You Don’t
That was then.
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
This is now. As it turns out, decisions are now going to be made by a government appointed board whose rulings can’t be overturned unless both Congress and the President agree. Listen to the Orszag at the video at the link.
I like the part where Orszag claims this was all made clear up front. Ed Morrissey writes:
If anything, Orszag might be underestimating the difficulty in changing the IPAB’s decisions on rationing. The bill required a supermajority of 67 votes in the Senate to override the IPAB, which made Jim DeMint irate and prompted a big “I told you so” from Sarah Palin.
If Orszag’s remarks make any sense at all, then they suggest that IPAB is going to provide a brake against the “quantity” that can no longer be afforded. That sounds like they will be allocating less than will in the nature of things be demanded. Is this “rationing”? Well it all depends on what “is” is. Certainly it is a form of resource allocation and one that has all the hallmarks of finality.
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“It’s not rationing, because we don’t call it that.”
I’m just wondering why people couldn’t have said. ‘Look, we have resource constraints. We can care for people up a total of this amount. Anything over that you have to pay extra.’ That way people would know where they stood. They might not like it, but it would be a true description of the situation.
Why is there this compulsion to tell anything but the truth?
Reasonable people know everything is rationed up to your ability to pay. It’s always been so and will always be, even if somebody else pays the bill.
“Why is there this compulsion to tell anything but the truth?” Because they’re politicians, silly.
That’s a very easy one to answer, Wretchard. To have admitted that would have been to admit that only people who had personal financial resources could receive the best health care, and that is *anathema* to the curent occupant of the Oval Office. Even if that was the truth, it could never be admitted.
And that brings us to the second obvious conclusion – this entire project was *Never* about providing better health care for anyone. This is about achieving political power and entrenching themselves into control of the system. Any kind of “Truth” would have been fatal to that goal, so it was something to be avoided.
Which is why the HHS cost estimate, delivered one week *before* the final vote, was hidden until long after the vote was safely taken. It is not about health care – it is about Power.
Why is there this compulsion to tell anything but the truth?
That is because virtually nobody in politics wants to admit they worship Sustainability. You might not ask me what that has got to do with it, so I’ll tell you.
As is the case in many countries like Canada today, you can be arrested for buying (patient) or providing (doctor) more access simply for seeking to save your very life. You may be fined and then allowed to die, or the system may even allow you to die behind bars — but you ain’t “legally” getting treated when some bureaucrat looks in his Rolodex and it comes up “nix.” (Siriusly)
I’m inclined to say that it’s tragic that Canadians with the ability to scrape together a little extra money today won’t any longer have the same escape-death in America haven come 2014. But that’s only because I am stuck with my Judeo-Christian moral code, and not the new morality as practiced by these devout Sustainability shamans. For them it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
Is it unfair to refer to the architects of this charade as death worshipers? You’ll may answer “No; because they won’t sacrifice human life directly.”
True, they’ll merely deny you your right to seek the means to extend your life if you are not sufficiently connected to the right people. Are you connected my friend? For how long?
“why is there a compulsion to tell anything but the truth?” Because the people only want to hear lies.
The only politicians I will listen to are the one who tell us that it will get worse before it gets better, that their policies will cause pain to many people, because there is no other way out of this mess. Right now, I’m not hearing that. Just the wind whistling through the brush.
What is this crap, a 51 vote majority could repeal the need for a 66 vote supermajority.
2. wretchard
Oops. So much for helping save the lives of those ‘poor folks’!
TELLING US LIES, WHAT A SURPRISE!
Death panels live
So sayeth Orszag
But with that we give
A cheery toe tag
A nice little note
From Obie and Nance
With this little quote
“You haven’t a chance.”
PS: I was denied entrance yesterday, and it was a shame, too, as the verse about Chicago’s Gardens for Gangsters plan was especially scintillating. If you want to see it you’ll just have to visit my blog. (End of shameless mendicity.)
That’s a snappy vid of double-think coming right at you!
The evident youth and plasticity of logic demonstrates that he’s not yet come of age.
I would love to see his CV and who his (de)mentors were.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_R._Orszag
Not bad, as CVs go.
The question is what you want there, an economist or a politician.
wretchard says:
Simple answer? Because they are disciples of the “Prince of the Air”. They CANNOT tell the truth. This frakkin’ creatures are EVIL, wretch. They is no other reasonable explanation. None. Apply Occam’s Razor and see where you come out.
Why is it so hard for supposedly rational, intelligent people to miss the obvious?
“why is there a compulsion to tell anything but the truth?” Because the people only want to hear lies.
Strange as it may seem there are people who take comfort in knowing what’s coming. Like the guy in Utah who wants to die by firing squad. It’s not the murderers and cheats I mind, but the ones who get all righteous about it. Like you owed them a favor for letting them roll you. That’s the last straw.
You can respect a man who’s just professionally shaking you down or selling you a pile of garbage. Hey, it’s a job. It’s the giggle in the voice; the half smile in the okey-dokey that I mind, because its adding unnecessary insult to injury. Because either they think you’re too stupid to notice or too scared to call them on it. If only they’d just say, “stick ‘em up”, or if you prefer “manos arriba”, things would be just fine.
It is apparent that the party of Death is running our country. Abortion(Infanticide in case I am not being plain spoken enough) for babies and death panels for the old, the infirm, the imperfect. And for those left in the middle, gradual removal of any means of survival except at the whim of the feudal lords and ladies.
Malevolent forces are crouching in the dark corners, becoming more bold every day. Corruption and greed are no longer hidden. Good and Evil no longer exist as existential concepts in the mind of modern man or woman, only pragmatic survival of the “me”.
Seven deadly sins, hah, who are you to judge? We’ve got penicillin, stomach stapling, gated communities.
I am beginning to believe that Whiskey is an optimist.
Why the compulsion to lie? I have pretty well concluded that Obama lies because he hates America, its history, its institutions, and it’s white majority. I’d say he lies because he thinks lies are more damaging to this nation that the truth, no matter the subject. This also explains why he insults allies and grovels to erstwhile enemies. He wants to destroy this nation and every action he takes only reveals that more clearly. Is this really what his supporters wanted from him, or did he fool them all along? What a shame there’s no independent press out there to go after this guy and all he stands for. F
Programmer at 15: It is apparent that the party of Death is running our country.
Well, you and I make two anyway. There are a scattered few others here who’ve agreed, but I’ve forgotten who. As for the rest, well, until our host makes a case for that assessment, I don’t expect to hear them say anything. Maybe they think it may bring on bad luck to comment.
There are two parts to the Obama plan;
1. rationing services available under Medicare,
2. restricting access to alternative medical services.
The problem is not just that the Obama plan will deny some services to cut cost. Doing so through a more market and less third party based system would probably reduce costs dramatically, divert more resource to private charity, increase research and result in a very small number of people not receiving care they cannot afford. Sometimes it turns out that it is cheaper to provide some preventive services that might get cut under an Obama plan. For example I use the VA. Unless you have service connected disability the VA does not include dental services. Any physician will tell you that good dental care prevents a host of medical problems that will be far more expensive to treat in the future. Another example is routine treatment by an otolaryngoligist to prevent infections. These services are not routinely available at the VA and will I am sure not be available under the Obama plan, with a resulting increased cost over time.
The second part of the problem is what makes the first part indefensible. The Obama plan is not intended to be a plan for universal emergency coverage, analogous to the way that Social Security was intended to be a plan to prevent destitution among the elderly, but is a plan for comprehensive universal care, analogous to how Social Security is now viewed as a general retirement plan. The plan is designed to eliminate all private competition. That will ensure that not only will people not have access to some services under the plan but that they will have no way, unless they are part of a small wealthy elite, of gaining access through alternative or supplementary plans.
As a side note I am currently in the clutches of the Census, which I will blog about, while preserving confidentiality, on some other occasion. It is as you might expect of fear. My regrets for my inability to participate more fully in the discussion.
“Why is there this compulsion to tell anything but the truth?”
That would be because the truth would be too ugly. Medical care is about to be politicized in this country as part of the Left’s drive to reshape America through creative destruction. When the Left talks up is down, good is bad, black is white. They use the same words as the rest of us only the meaning is reversed. They do not actually lie you just don’t understand the meaning of the words.
The Left really believes that if they can break the system and bring it to it’s knees that they will emerge from the chaos as the victors, not just the dominant political party but the only political party. These people are a cancer eating at the heart of representative government for the very reason that for them there are no rules or limits but only goals and the nirvana that awaits when those goals are reached. It is a religion without a God and a heaven without death or forgiveness.
Looking through his CV it is apparent that as recently as 2002 he thought that the GSE risk exposure to the Federal government was nil.
What a FOOL.
All the OTHER market participants figured correctly: GSE means Uncle Sugar is on the hook.
Why lie? Game theory.
If you tell the truth, you may be wrong, it incurs unknown future risk, and may cause present pain.
If you tell a lie, the moment you tell it, the risk is known. It’s a form of insurance, a known future cost, that may yet be avoided, for some small present benefit. Take the bird in the hand.
It’s a form of short-term optimization.
Other examples may occur to your imagination.
A general question:
If/When the Republicans become the majority in the House and Senate, can the Omanations Edicts be reversed and if so, how?
But lets game this out to the end, shall we. Me being the optimist.
What is the response to requiring 67 votes to over-ride the Orzagism (h/t Mickey Kaus) Rationing Board?
Why … KICKING EVERY NON-WHITE OUT! Now every White populist pol can tell fearful middle class ladies that they don’t need to die from cancer because of a death panel. All they need to do is kick out all the illegals, and descendants of illegals.
We can certainly pay for all the health care we can want, if we just get rid of say, poor Mexicans. Then of course it will be Blacks voted off the island, without remorse, because it’s an episode of Survivor that never ends. Then of course, various out-groups of Whites. Ending up with Bill Gates and Melinda Gates arguing over who gets health care. But as Keynes noted, in the long run we’re all dead.
In the short run, the best way to votes is by telling White voters they get unlimited, the “BEST” Health Care, and all it takes is kicking illegals and their descendants out. With a “living” Constitution courtesy of liberals and their “living” interpretation of the 10th and 2nd and 1st Amendments.
I told everyone this would happen. And it will.
There was no way we could cover 20 million illegals and 10 million ghetto folks. Period. So we won’t. That was also inevitable. We sure as hell can’t cover another 50 million from collapsing Mexico.
I dunno, blert, as recently as 2002 the GSE risk to the feds *was* a fraction of what it became by 2008.
It was always a bogus arrangement, but didn’t it balloon about 5x in size since about 2001, at the same time that the quality evaporated?
WSJ started their campaign against F&F circa 2003, I think.
amabo
amab
ama
am
a
Obamanation all gone!
wretchard
“Why is there this compulsion to tell anything but the truth?”
“You want answers? … You can’t handle the truth.”
Yep, LoTM: Reduced to a cliché.
25. Josh
amabo
amab
ama
am
a
Obamanation all gone!
++++++++++++
thanks for the chuckle
Off Topic:
Greek bonds were reduced to junk status by Standard & Poor’s this afternoon. Portugal was reduced two steps, from A+ to A-.
The long foretold slip into a downward spiral for the Eurozone may have just begun.
Here’s the article at Bloomberg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3myVNxY7eto&pos=1#
I think in the short term, it seems obvious a lot of folks are going to be fleeing investments in the PIIGS even faster now and moving their money to dollar investments. I think we’ll see a dramatic fall in the value of the Euro relative to the Dollar. Good for U.S. consumer spending on European stuff, good for export production in Germany and France in the short term. Awful for U.S. manufacturing which will now be undercut by European manufacturing on every level. Sorry Boeing!
What do you financial gurus say?
Greek bonds were reduced to junk status by Standard & Poor’s this afternoon. Portugal was reduced two steps, from A+ to A-. The long foretold slip into a downward spiral for the Eurozone may have just begun.
This is the fundamental reason why lies, however slick, are never going to work. If a rose by any other name smells as sweet a turd, however it may be polished, is still a turd. Reality always comes around in the end and hands out a check.
If the Europeans go under first it will be scant consolation. How long until the rest of the vessel heads for Davy Jones? So the problem, being universal, requires everyone to bail for their lives. In this respect America has had longer to prepare. The Tea Parties have been shouting the alarm for a while now. If some dreadful fate overtakes Europe’s finances it will be understood first and most clearly in America.
The recent post “Engagement Queue” was really about the problem of saturation. If a crisis starts to cascade, people like Orszag won’t have a clue. They’ll be gibbering the in studio when the generators wind down. Eventually it may be like that. But for the present, the Eurozone will patch it up; but the period between patches and a new leak will be shorter and shorter.
There once was a man named Orzag
For whom truth, man, just wasn’t his bag
But when the people found out
What his plan was about
He learned feathers and tar were a drag
—
While the Democrat’s new healthcare law
Passed with power oh so brutal and raw
Now the ruling class lies
And the middle class dies
But who cares? They’re just petit bourgeois
—
L3
OT Interesting Times ahead.
Greek 2-year Yields Hit 18% on S&P Cut; Contagion Hits Portugal; Credit Swaps on Sovereign Debt at Record Highs; Blind Panic?
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/04/greek-2-year-yields-hit-18-on-s-cut.html
Red Lights Flashing For UK Credit Spreads According To CDS Market
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/red-lights-flashing-uk-credit-spreads-according-cds-market
There is a spectacle going on this week in Los Angeles. A charitable group of doctors is offering free medical care, dental, optical … to all comers at the Sports Arena. A couple of thousand will be served.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/27/eveningnews/main6438064.shtml
It appears that a fair percentage of the customers are middle-class, or what passes for middle-class these days, but they seem well-dressed and well-spoken, and if they haven’t been spending $500/month on medical insurance, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t spend $500 out of pocket for medical treatment. Continuing my speculations based on a few seconds of TV coverage, it’s not that they can’t afford some medical coverage, but are just not engaged in the system, perhaps not as worried about their medical problems as they are about, oh, wardrobe. Until it’s free. So what am I raving about? I fear this medical spectacle isn’t really reaching needy people at all, and just spreads myths, not to mention wastes resources. It shows a problem, but not a solution – and exactly what problem *does* it illustrate?
They’ll be gibbering the in studio when the generators wind down.
That’s how Ayn Rand wrote it, fifty years ago.
I don’t think the Eurozone will patch it up. Wolfgang Munchau seems to think it will be cheaper for Berlin to bail out German banks than Greece. Likely true.
So why not simply have Germany threaten to leave the Euro unless Greece is kicked out?
Really, why will voters in Germany, scheduled to vote in NRW, say “hey soak me for Greece?”
German guilt is gone.
Likely: Germany throws its weight around (because it has to, regarding too delicate electoral politics — even and especially the SPD does not want to bail out Greece), Greece goes bye-bye from the Eurozone, and the EU, and so do the rest of the PIIGS. Leaving a core-Eurozone of Germany and France, with the Netherlands and some Eastern European and Scandi nations. That’s it.
Germans can’t be persuaded to bail out Greece. SPAIN? Which will require about 20 times the bailout? Puhlease!
Josh,
It shows a problem, but not a solution – and exactly what problem *does* it illustrate?
That if you don’t use a price mechanism to match supply and demand, you have to use a queue. Those are the only options. In other words, time = money.
Also shows that lowering price (in this case to zero) increases the quantity demanded by consumers. In other words, the laws of economics apply.
Imagine that.
Cheers,
L3
Germany probably won’t leave the Euro because its entire economy is built on exports, and destroying your customers’ economy ist nicht gut.
They’ll kick the can down the road, or Europe will crash. One possibility is that Germany will play brinksmanship with the US. If the Obama Administration thinks Europe will implode, they will step in to bail them out.
It’ll give ‘em practice for when they have to bail out California.
Good times.
L3
From my Twitter:
Der Bild” has been the words of the grund german opinion:
“Look How German Media Is Vilifying Little Old Greek Ladies”
http://bit.ly/9tmzRq
the retired old woman has rather a german look
Now, der Spiegel is trying to invert the german opinion:
“Hesitation and Patronizing Advice: How Germany Made the Greek Crisis Worse”
http://tinyurl.com/2udovtv
amazing article from Spiegel
Germany has been playing the Bismarckian game, it would have been OK in a 19th or 20th century configuration, not anymore, the return of the stick will hit her in the nowadays global configuration
“der Spiegel is trying to reverse… (sorry, the sound got me wrong)
Why Germany can’t play the solo game:
New Foreign Investment In China Has Actually Been Collapsing For Years
http://bit.ly/9J0deO
my comment on a german blog:
Germany surfes on its strengh, that a natural pragmatism generated, yes, I acknowledge that Germans are industrious, and that they are more encline to make sacrifices than nations that benefit from a generous sunny climate their easygoing way of life.
Though this german equilibrium is fragile, it depends largely on exportations, onto EU first, then onto Asia, and I read that China foreign investments have seriously decreased since 5 years, now China can make her proper investments and production of the very same goods and materials that we used to sell her, and that she can sell us back at lower prices now. Also if the Euro zone get broke, it will also benefit to China or to India, their products will be more attractive to these “broken” european countries.
That means that Germany will suffer of this unbalance too. Unless a global conflict happens, that will redefine the after 1945 world.”
Following on L3′s comments, we should be thankful for the warning that
Greece is providing. Perhaps the democratic socialism movement fails
from here as actors like Greece and their ilk finally hit the wall.
A bailout for you? Sorry, no money for that. Heard a stat today that
over half of the young people in Portugal don’t have a college education.
How is the Portugese govt going to get these people work if they have
a currency based on the strength of Germany and France? The Greeces and
Portugals are going to have to leave the EU in order to regain the power
to set their own currency values in order to get some of these people
back to work.
Not that our current administration has the humility to learn from the
failures of others, but hopefully it will demonstrate to many that
spending beyond one’s means does eventually have dire consequences.
“Germany’s exposure and vulnerability thus make it an extremely active power. It is always under the gun, and so its policies reflect a certain desperate hyperactivity. In times of peace, Germany is competing with everyone economically, while in times of war it is fighting everyone. Its only hope for survival lies in brutal efficiencies, which it achieves in industry and warfare.”
http://www.speroforum.com/a/27176/What-will-Europe-do-if-Greece-should-fail
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100315_germany_mitteleuropa_redux
While I agree with the “psychological” analyse of the Germany character, I don’t share the other assertions that Germany is only a EU contribuator,in the iceberg hidden face we can see that the german dream is effective, it has won the EU economical leadership, by the return of investment in it
The Germans like to say that they are the main contribuators of EU, not really true, they also received, as much as Spain, Portugal or Greece, from EU : Eastern Germany, was subventionned by EU, the accession of the eastern republics to EU were a winning plan for Germany too that sold them the majority of goods…
http://www.slate.fr/story/19293/lallemagne-nest-pas-le-tiroir-caisse-de-leurope
(in french)
The problems we got in EU, come mainly because of the selfish play of Germany, from the reunification, german mentality changed, Germans no longer think that they are “war loosers”, besides, the young generations have no memories of WW2, they don’t acknoledge the guiltiness of their elders, nor have respect for the victims.
This is why may be some old Brit conservatives are thinking to make a tighter cooperation with us, as far as Defense is concerned
http://bruxelles2.over-blog.com/article-pour-les-tories-l-avenir-de-la-defense-est-avec-la-france-49060698.html (in french)
“How is the Portugese govt going to get these people work if they have
a currency based on the strength of Germany and France?”
You ignore how people work in Europe, the Portugese work much more than the French or the Germans, as their salaries are much lower about (half lower) they have longer times of work, it’s not unusual that their day work is 10 hours
The Greek problem is different, it’s not that they don’t work less, it’s rather that lot of their work is “black”
LOTM 18:
“For example I use the VA. Unless you have service connected disability the VA does not include dental services. Any physician will tell you that good dental care prevents a host of medical problems that will be far more expensive to treat in the future. ”
Wouldn’t this provide the rationale for people who want to prevent those more expensive medical problems to attend to their dental care themselves, i.e., pay for it out of pocket?
I have a problem with the logic that says “Here is something very important that will benefit you, so you shouldn’t have to pay for it; we will”. We hear this for vaccines, birth control pills, mammograms, PSAs, cholesterol screening, etc, etc. If they are really so important, why do the beneficiaries of these interventions not want to pay for them? These are also the relatively inexpensive things, too, by the way, not huge out of pocket expenses like open heart surgery.
This is a puzzle that I can’t solve. Why am I supposed to cafe more about you than you care about yourself. Not you, personally, LOTM, I presume you get your teeth cleaned and won’t have endocarditis or premature heart attacks.
Orzag says we must decrease the QUANTITY of healthcare to save money while increasing the QUALITY of healthcare. (by having care distributed by committee)
To the extent that his belief that we have too much quantity is true, it is because of how people behave when a service is “free.”
Instead of reducing wasteful spending on healthcare by simply returning to having the consumer make choices based on costs, co-pays, etc, care will be doled out by edict from on high.
Are you worthy?
L3,
Those are not the only two options. There was no line in the Soviet Union you could wait in to get a sweet Dacha. There must be an allocation mechanism, but there are multiple possibilities. And when a politician wants to pretend there isn’t one…it is because he wants to be that allocation mechanism.
All of Congress is a giant ‘aristocracy of pull’
Building off my prior comment…
Right now a congresscritter can get you an earmark…or seize an industry. Or add a regulation to a bill, or even just call a bureacrat and explain how he/she/it wants an existing regulation interpreted. Maybe it crushes your whole business model. Maybe the tweak spares you, but hobbles your competitor. Maybe vice versa.
Look at the ‘Financial Reform’ legislation. Is there any doubt how Morgan Stanley fares compared to the First National Bank of Podunk?
But our politicians are never happy with the power they have. They want the power to select who lives and who dies. They are not quite there…but they will have the power to select who gets what medical care, and who doesn’t. Close enough for government work.
DM,
The Soviet system was a universal queue. Either demand waiting on supply, or supply waiting on demand. And of course there was a line for a sweet Dacha; you just had to be an apparatchik to get in line. A queue for the queue, kinda like airports these days.
The attractiveness of a queue to politicians is that they can exert control over who gets in, like the bouncer at a fancy nightclub – making “friends” along the way. That control can be monetized with extraordinary ease – thus the Wall Street extortion racket run by Messrs Schumer and Dodd.
Power to extract the money, money to protect the power.
Cheers,
L3
“Who sent you?”
If you don’t know the ‘correct’ answer to that question before you are asked, you won’t be ‘on the list’. That is the fear generator embedded in Obamacare.
When life or death decisions are remanded to the whim of bureaucrats, ‘honestly elected[appointed] bureaucrats’, I fear for my loved ones. It is not ‘what have you done to deserve this level of care’, it is “Who do you know? Whose palm have you greased?”
This is not the American Way. Having the thumb of the politician on the scale of medical decisions should put fear in the hearts of all. When a vote can get you care that would otherwise be denied, we have a problem.
There is the possibility of a sea change in the way things are done, nationwide. The ‘rule of law’ may lose its respect, the willingness to ‘pay your taxes’ voluntarily and the honesty to declare income may evaporate. A change where everything, from fixing potholes to getting your mail delivered, may require baksheesh payments, just like Greece, could come about if the abuse expected from the politicization of medical care takes place. It will be, as noted, “Who sent you?” for everything, just as in Chicago.
tom
W what happen to the video in previous post? Just got a chance to read post and video removed from post and also from the linked site?
I am a conservative who hates government funded health care but if we are going to have it I demand rationing. I hope to be able to utilize health tourism if the government denies me access to healthcare based on rationing.
Delia .9: Who says the poor people will be less cared for than they are now? Those who qualify for Medicaid do not face lifetime limits on payouts for medical care, unlike most – probably all – of those on private insurance plans. The same is currently true for Medicare recipients. To what degree that changes for either program will, I suppose, be determined on a treatment by treatment, if not case by case, basis in the future. I see no obstacle to the IPAB advising a differential in treatment regimes based on such things age, financial resources, and community. To a degree that’s done already with Medicare payouts, in part, determined by region and such qualifications as urban versus rural. There will be just as many ways for bureaucrats to justify differentials in service and treatment in future as in the past – except that it will be more centralized in DC.
Once again we are talking Militant Mediocrity here. It is more important for them to make sure that no one has any advantage over any other, regardless of not only luck but heritage and life choices – except, of course as Leo points out, those who are “sent” by some politician, Chicago style.
Health Care is a “right.” And since no one should have has any more “rights” than anyone else the first problem is planeing everything down. Public Health Care Facility No. 358 won’t be significantly different from Public Health Care Facility No.1358, so we are all Equal.
I wonder if the Left will turn on the lawyers when they no longer have anyone to sue but the Federal Government over some baby developing MS or cerebal palsy supposedly because a doctor did not perform a C-section
Lifeofthemind .18: Your second point is somewhat self-refuting as you expand upon it. If there remains a market, even if only for a wealthy elite, then competition is not stamped out. Also, I’m sure that the proponents of the plan will be able to explain all manner of “competition” among providers that will be encouraged – just not the competition that you may have in mind. However, there is an underlying point in what you write that is closer to the truth: The goal appears to be equality of result across all but the the wealthiest class, or, more broadly, a well-connected elite. The motivation behind a desire for this goal can be debated, but that this is the goal seems reasonably clear.
However, I suspect the result of all this will more closely approximate what exists in many other parts of the world where there is a mix of public and private hospitals and clinics. There will be a market for that.
This is somewhat off topic but not really. Walt’s Title –
““TELLING US LIES, WHAT A SURPRISE!”
fits today’s anniversary of the fall of South Vietnam like a glove, a glove slick with blood.
(Walt, you have a such a great talent. Thank you for being what and who you are. God Bless You.)
It’s difficult for me to even remember these events and the days, weeks and months that lead up to this and that followed. I have fought the guilt over this American and Vietnamese debacle and survivor’s guilt for decades.
But I want all those that were not there to know about it, and to learn from it.
My grandsons know. I have given them books to read and told them what I could about it. Which is not as much as I could but all that I could manage…
Here are a couple of links, not inclusive by any means but will give anyone that wants to know a start. And you should know, because there are lessons here. Lessons we may have forgot and that we should not repeat.
“Oh, Saigon”
“The Saddest Day”
There is much more I would like to say, but I just can’t do it.
Papa Ray
Something happened yesterday and today that convinces me that were are moving closer and closer to a final breaking point. The situation in Greece has come back with a vengeance, and of course we have covered it in this blog before. It’s not a new problem, but that’s the point – the fixes applied to the system are working for shorter and shorter periods of time.
Look at the Greek financial situation – in the past, an IMF bailout would work for a couple of years, even if the underlying situation was hopeless. But it was just a month ago when the latest, greatest fix was supposedly applied, and the crisis is back again. And each fix “works” for a shorter and shorter period of time. First, for years, then for months, then only for weeks, then for days – this, graphed, is an asymptotic curve, and the end of such a curve is always a singularity – a point that is defined only as a place where all of the previously accepted rules become void.
We are approaching a financial singularity, and the escalating failure in Greece is a clear sign that the final acceleration is approaching. Only radical surgery to cut off the bad and save what’s left has a chance of salvaging the situation, and even that isn’t guaranteed. In the case of Greece, radical surgery means expelling them from the EU and accepting a complete default on all of their bonds. That’s no panacea – that will almmost certainly mean the failure, or at least the nationalization, of many European banks, and it will probably bring about a collapse of the Greek government. But it may save the Euro.
L3,
In the scenarios you describe, it is not the line that is the allocation mechanism…it is the person deciding who can get into line. The bouncer at the door is the real allocation mechanism, or the party apparatchiks handing out favors to those it…favors.
Daedalus Mugged
Did anyone besides me notice that Orszag never mentions “the patient” in his diatribe?
Typical statists: to them the citizens have no volee , no say, and no diligence in the medical care they receive. To our social engineers, we are just so many walking zombies and bags of water, to be told by “boards, government and insurance companies” what treatments to take.
My guess is, once they take away the paying patient’s rights to diligence in her choice of treatments (which “single-payer healthcare” does indirectly by removing the payor’s duty to spend her money wisely), we will have been reduced to walking petri-dishes. This is exactly where the likes of Orszag want us.
This Orszag guy disgusts me!
“I think in the short term, it seems obvious a lot of folks are going to be fleeing investments in the PIIGS even faster now and moving their money to dollar investments.”
Well won’t that be peachy when the dollar goes way south, like into the ditch. We have just about a year, maybe two before the bottom falls out. Right around the time the fake housing (residential and housing markets) markets plummet and Russia, SA, Iran..(take your pick) decide that they want to blackmail the rest of the world.
Of course, along with the proposed Obama (and EPA) energy plans kicking in and other Nations, no telling what the hell will happen.
The real question is who is going to run out of ink and paper to print more money first. The rest of the world or us?
The Euro and the Dollar might be good for toilet paper, I think that I would prefer the Euro, it is bigger.
But there are others that are even larger.
Papa Ray
OT- Energy
A decision is to be announced today regarding the wind farm project off the Mass coast.
A simple thought occurred to me and that is, wouldn’t it be difficult and expensive to protect this type of project from terrorist attack, or would it’s sheer size (in this case 130 turbines) make the target too big to effectively do significant damage?
wws @ 55:
The New Fat Cats
The indefensible pensions of public-sector employees.
“The problems we got in EU, come mainly because of the selfish play of Germany, from the reunification, german mentality changed, Germans no longer think that they are “war loosers”, besides, the young generations have no memories of WW2, they don’t acknoledge the guiltiness of their elders, nor have respect for the victims.”
Also spracht the Latter Day Whore of Babylon. There it is in a nutshell; the smug revanchist French attitudes that helped precipitate WW2 and all the subsequent slaughter. And the poster spouts this kind of venom without the slightest clue that she is a classic and genuine French bigot of the first order.
When Martin Heidegger was asked to explain the root causes of the holocaust, he said that it was the logical result of the application of the principles of machine industry and modern agronomy to the problems of social engineering. He was roundly derided for this answer by the liberal intelligensia, since most of them greatly prefer the “Hitler was an evil racist” narrative to the facts. But the fact of the matter is that Heidegger was dead-on right, the liberals are full of it, and the world has not even begun to realize the evils that still await us in this vein. Everything about this health care reform is just Naziism redux.
55 WWS: “the fixes applied to the system are working for shorter and shorter periods of time.” and “We are approaching a financial singularity, and the escalating failure in Greece is a clear sign that the final acceleration is approaching.”
I think you may be right. Added to that, I don’t for a minute believe people will passively accept denial of health care because their quota is up. That’s like expecting people to accept starvation so the folks on the next block can eat. I don’t know how all this will play out, but it will not be pretty.
Santa Clara California has outlawed “Happy Meals tm””
If this is replicated across the land, the Death Panel matter will be rendered moot:
We’ll all enjoy Eternal Life.
As it turns out, decisions are now going to be made by a government appointed board whose rulings can’t be overturned unless both Congress and the President agree.
What I’m looking at is the underlying patterns of bureaucratic entities becoming laws unto themselves. The EPA gets to regulate carbon without Congress passing Cap & Trade, federal entities get to drastically restrict recreational fishing (and treat it like commercial fishing) without a direct vote of Congress, even though current management of recreational fishing is working just fine, thank you. The Education Dept needs a bunch of shotguns for its police force (when the Hell did that come about?), and so on. Major, monumental government laws and regulations are implemented without going through Congress.
The only possible result to the edict of “health care for everybody” (legal, illegal, whatever) is that decisions will be made and services doled out “appropriately” based on a limited and ever shrinking pool of resources.
But it’s not “death panels”! Heaven forbid. That crazy hayseed Palin is just an inbred retard, as we all know because Jon Stewart and Tina Fey showed us. No no. Nobody will decide that you must die. They will decide that you are no longer given access to what you need to live.
Now how could anybody call that a “death panel”? These hayseeds just don’t grasp the nuances.
Santa Clara California has outlawed Happy Meals tm.
Can we outlaw Santa Clara?
The now-cancelled Fox cartoon show King of the Hill had the fictional town of Arlen, TX outlawing transfats — in Texas. Hank Hill and his buddies got themselves an outlaw food wagon that deliberately sold goods fried in transfats, and the city council members were big customers. They finally overturned the ban. Sigh . . . if only that would happen in real life.
I just love it that the same kinds of people who exhibit an enthusiasm for “terminating” the innocent — both the very young and the very old — are also fanatical opponents of the death penalty. They are also against G’tmo and killing evil people who wish us (and do us) harm.
Talk about depraved moral inversion.
66 peterike, “Nobody will decide that you must die. They will decide that you are no longer given access to what you need to live.”
And then what? Those “hayseeds” are going to get very angry. You can forstall social chaos by extending unemployment benefits, but what do you give someone whose life won’t be extended? Talk about a prescription for disaster!
but what do you give someone whose life won’t be extended?
What will happen is that some such people will show up at a hospital, armed and with murderous intent. If they are to die by government edict, they will choose to make the system pay a high price for that decision. People have shot up hospitals for less.
“What will happen is that some such people will show up at a hospital, armed and with murderous intent.”
And what happens when there are tens of thousands of such people, to say nothing of their very pissed off families?
wretchard @ 2
I am reminded of something that Truman once said of Nixon, found at BrainyQuotes.com:
“Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he’d lie just to keep his hand in.”
44 sounds a lot like 37, eh?
steveaz @ 57
I noticed, too. These are like adolescents who think this is all a big game and it could never affect THEM, they are invulnerable or somehow immune.
Maybe a former President, but a former OMB Director?
Which is the basis of my fond wish that everyone who lied and connived to pass Obamacare have the pleasure of watching their loved ones die horrible, painful deaths, knowing there is nothing they can do to help. And when their friends and family are gone, they, too can die long, painful and LONELY deaths. And just before they die they can realize that but for ObamaCare there might have been new drugs or procedures to save them and their loved ones, but this is the whirlwind they reaped.
Every one of them.
All choices have “Unintended Consequenes”. It won’t be hospitals being shot up. Americans will only suffer so many insults and then they will “petition” the Mandarins for relief from the insults. Bet on it like your life depends on it. Because it will…
Morton Doochbag
you’re too lazy (but I guess it’s rather your partisanship for your Nazis like friends) to read the Stratfor links #41
Some of my german net relations aren’t saying anything else, but they aren’t the majority today, the “Bild” plebe is showing off !
some bigots (uh ? rather bitter nazillons)like you would still believe that we were the cause of WW2, que nenni ! it’s written in german soul, and Chamberlain had no intention to stop t’em, nor Roosevelt, one wonders why ? me thinks that their commun interest with Wall Street banksters was well shared in that time too.
Besides we didnt write the Treaty of Versailles conditions, they were by your dear Wilson
Should I recall you Clemenceau’s sentence ?
“We are going to have war in 20 years”
Matt Beck @ 62,
Along the same lines, the root of our current challenge – an out-of-control, ever-expanding, highly-corrupt Federal Government – is Bismarck. No, not the capital of North Dakota, but Otto von Bismarck, the First Chancellor of the German Empire.
Bismarck was the man who was primarily responsible for the original unification of Germany (which later metastasized into the Third Reich), the modern, progressive, welfare state (including universal health insurance, a professed pacifism in foreign affairs, and the first culture war, his Kulturkampf that was aimed at the Catholic Church), and his acolytes trained many of the American intellectuals who championed the Progressive Era in the US from 1890-1920.
He shaped Germany to be disciplined, obedient, and statist. He was no fan of individual freedom, but was the embodiment of the charismatic leader running things from the top down.
Bismarck’s vision did not end well for his beloved Fatherland. Ironic that his intellectual heirs are “ruling” the nation that exposed that vision for the lie that it was, first destroying and then (most remarkably of all) rebuilding it.
Ironic, and alarming.
Cheers,
L3
“We want doctors to make these decisions,” says the slickster. Translation: “we’re going to make all the doctors work for the government.” Like somebody once said, “the government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.”
http://tinyurl.com/2d9q8v7
Cette manie qu’ont les Allemands de vouloir tout controler
This habit that Germans have for controlling everything
“Authorities raid Deutsche Bank and 50 other firms “
#71 – “What will happen is that some such people will show up at a hospital, armed and with murderous intent.”
“And what happens when there are tens of thousands of such people, to say nothing of their very pissed off families?”
This is when the public hospitals shut down – obviously no one will show up to work under those conditions. The only reliable medical care will either be underground or inside the walled and armed enclaves that will spring up and which will function as refuge cities. I don’t mean individual buildings, I can think of several towns, away from the larger urban areas which would work well for this. The extra money (or it may just be barter by then) that would have to be paid for access to safe care should be enough to pay the wages of a fulltime militia which would guard the perimeter.
I plan to be on the inside.
Regarding why politicians always lie—
You have to understand that truth is like a very addictive drug. If you start doling it out to people they get to where they crave it constantly, and they may even get to the point where they act violently when they are denied their fix or someone attempts to feed them a placebo.
Its for our own good, as well as the children’s.
Truth kills.
☠ ☠ ☠
L3 @ 36: I think a more specific “problem” is much as Obama makes it out, that it doesn’t occur to many people, even many who could, to simply go to the doctor and pay out of pocket for medical care, to their detriment.
Now, say this is true, for whatever economic or psychological or cultural reasons. Is it really the function of the federal government to address it, and if so, is the way to address it to nationalize a couple of trillion dollars of more or less functional medical practices?
At the least, people don’t prioritize well around non-critical medical issues. So, ban salt in prepared foods, yada yada. Very nanny.
So, count the intrusive assumptions in the typical Obama/leftoid attitude.
Josh, notice that they don’t ban sugar. They ban something that you need instead. Salt makes you retain water, temporarily. Sugar makes you retain and expand fat cells, and often not just temporarily. (Even artificial sweeteners tend to fool body into producing reserve fat).
51. Odysseus,
The point I was haphazardly trying to make was that the poor won’t be treated ANY BETTER under 0bamacare which was one of the main premises of the whole lyin’ crap sammich.
Regarding why politicians always lie:
As I have said before, I found at the Pentagon that you have to lie. You have to lie because people are attacking you with lies and you have so little time to respond, or have so little hope of responding effectively to their lies because they cannot understand the truth, that coming up with a lie is the only answer.
So you get “Cut the funding for the facility upgrade because you have not needed it before.” and you respond with “Cutting the funding for the facility upgrade will result in program cancellation because the new upgraded spacecraft will not fit in the current facility.” Which was not exactly true but was closer to the truth than what they were saying. It was not just easier to lie; it was necessary.
Perhaps for some people that necessary lying enters your soul.
I came to realize that if you stayed in the DC environment more than 4 years you would either become utterly corrupted by it or become even more honest than before you came there. Which means of course, if you were not corrupted you left as soon as possible.
Heidegger was wrong, and Bismarck did not create the Holocaust.
Consider (which most people prefer to forget because of its lessons on human nature) Rwanda.
Auschwitz was open from around 1942 to January 1945. Nearly three years, and helped carry out the murder of about 900K to 1.1 million people, depending on estimates (the Soviets held the higher estimate, Western historians the lower ones).
Rwanda from April 1994, through June of that year, a mere three months, killed almost a million people. Not in camps, but individually and in small groups, almost exclusively by Machetes or rocks. You had to pay to be shot.
The Rwandans themselves were disorganized, chaotic, poorly educated, with a non-existent state, and nothing but tribal hatred. Where ordinary Germans could pretend to ignore Auschwitz, or other death camps, which were not the overt part of the regime, and hidden away, ordinary Rwandans WERE THE MEANS FOR THE KILLING. An ordinary Hutu picked up a machete and hacked his neighbor, and neighbor’s wife, and neighbor’s kids to death.
THAT was Rwanda — proving Africans can be when they put their minds to it, the all time per-capita genocide champs of the World.
No strong state, no state at all. No organized machinery, mechanized industrial setting — Rwanda was lucky to have domestic animals.
This is the ugly part of human nature (the beautiful exists also). That you can have more if you can just kill your neighbor and take it. That you’d like to kill the other tribe. It exists in all peoples, all the time, throughout history, regardless of race. Some cultural and social taboos, strictures, religions, and so on control that better than others.
But Heidegger was proven wrong by History, and Bismarck did not create the Holocaust. If you don’t like Rwanda, consider Hulagu Khan, who killed about 1 million Baghdadis.
I believe you’ve hit on something there, Whiskey. Perhaps genocide frightens and horrifies us so much because deep down we know we’re all capable of it, and not just capable – it would be easy for us if we let it be. For the tens of thousands of years that people existed before written history, this would have been the method whatever group our ancestors belonged to used to expand and grow. How do you get the good stuff from the people in the next valley when you’re running short? Easy, just get rid of all the people in the next valley. We are natural born killers, all of us, descended from the most successful killers our species produced, and none of us can completely excise that heritage. Civilisation is how we overcome it, but even that does not erase the memories completely.
From time to time, various intellectuals have fantasized about pure man in his natural state, unspoiled by civilisation. Pure, unspoiled man in his natural state is a Rwandan with a machete chopping his neighbors children to bits and enjoying it. We could all be there if we just let ourselves go, and somewhere deep anyone who’s honest about himself or herself knows that to be true.
The poet had it right:
Deep inside man’s inmost soul
do Demon’s dwell, and take their toll.
And there but for the Grace of God go we all.
Now Obama Is Making Emergency Calls To Merkel Over Greek Aid http://bit.ly/cqnpE7
It’s really going weird, and still Frau Bismarck is arguing, no money for the faul Fremden !
Spain is on the listing with Portugal, looks like it was a designed attack against the euro. Where is Soro ?
Somebody thinks that governments may run a Ponzi scheme, which is a financial organization with liabilities and no assets backing those liabilities. The scheme can last only as long as everyone believes the debt can be paid back and investors continue to buy those assets.
http://mgiannini.blogspot.com/2009/11/you-owe-money-or-when-unthinkable-had.html
http://mgiannini.blogspot.com/2010/03/money-creation-for-nothing-or-let.html
RagmarD @13: “Why is it so hard for supposedly rational, intelligent people to miss the obvious?”
Try this answer suggested to me by a friend:
Until the Right ceases projecting, it will continue to miss the obvious. I pray it isn’t unChristian to follow that recommendation. I fear too many believe it is wrong to see evil where evil exists.
Whiskey said:
Why … KICKING EVERY NON-WHITE OUT! Now every White populist pol can tell fearful middle class ladies that they don’t need to die from cancer because of a death panel. All they need to do is kick out all the illegals, and descendants of illegals.
————
You have it totally wrong. Almost no one under 30 needs regular health coverage. It’s not non-whites or illegals that are driving up costs, it’s people over the age of 50. Which includes many non-white, pink skinned, Americans.
:
You have it totally wrong. Almost no one under 30 needs regular health coverage. It’s not non-whites or illegals that are driving up costs, it’s people over the age of 50. Which includes many non-white, pink skinned, Americans.
OK I’m convinced, I’m changing my age back under 50.
Whiskey,
There are many flavors of genocide. Rwanda is certainly different than Nazi Germany.
But your very statement – ordinary Germans could pretend to ignore Auschwitz, or other death camps, which were not the overt part of the regime, and hidden away – demonstrates the sort of obedient, disciplined, trusting-of-the-state mindset that Bismarck promoted through his social reforms. Bismarck did not create the Holocaust; Hitler and his pack of rabid anti-Semites did. But the conditions under which Hitler rose to power were certainly the product of Bismarck’s political and social philosophy.
The point is that progressivism grew from the same philosophical trunk as fascism. This is not a new insight, of course (see Goldberg, Jonah). But pointing out that people of other nations and races are capable of horrifying crimes hardly invalidates this claim.
Cheers,
L3
Pascal (the derivative) (88) It isn’t unChristian to call out evil, even when we see it within the actions of the Holy. Remember Jesus admonition to Peter: “Get thee behind me, Satan!”. To see it does require that we fear God more than we fear the ridicule of our betters or the wrath of the mob. To be more afraid of not speaking than of keeping silent so that the truth comes out – even if blurted out in a panic. That’s the hardest thing in the world.
Having just one to stand up first is the most empowering act to forestall evil’s advance. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but it’s always the only hope.
Wretchard, about advancing one thing while planning the opposite, are you and folks here aware of this program, here evaluated and praised by the Migration Policy Institute?
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/IME-Jan2010.pdf
I must say I was not, and it changes things. I might not have believed some of the more serious things in it if the report didn’t come from such a highly respected source, funded by the US State Department, Fannie Mae and the US Census, as well as by several foreign governments and private foundations.
Relevant to nothing and everything.
Arizona immigrant law energizes Hispanics, Democrats
This is going to have a lot of “unintended consequences”.
Papa Ray
www @86: We could all be there if we just let ourselves go, and somewhere deep anyone who’s honest about himself or herself knows that to be true.
In his autobiograhpy, Malcolm Muggeridge wrote the following:
In the confessional, if I ever found my way there, I should have to confess that there is no crime, however unspeakable, that I have not either contemplated, or know myself to be capable of having committed.
Few of us are quite that honest with ourselves.
Whiskey,
As L3 says, there are many kinds of genocide. The universal human tendency toward brutality was not my point in bringing up Heidegger’s analysis. The point was simply to show that statism and its associated suite of ideologies always ends by encyphering human beings. On this view, it makes little difference whether the state decides to murder people or coddle them; they’re just sheep in either case. Livestock animals have all their needs abundantly met before their final appointment with the abattoir.
And as it so happens, Martin Heidegger gave the most trenchant and underappreciated analysis of statism to date. His thoughts are a veritable corpus of commentary on the times in which we live. Were it not for his unfortunate association with the Third Reich, perhaps more people would avail themselves of his perspicacity.
Relevant to nothing and everything.
Or as they say: Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste:
Massive spill prompts White House rethink of coastal plans
On our conference call this AM, it was mentioned that this “Crisis” is really very convenient to this Administration, not only in the wake of Obama’s promise (limited to his whim) of actually letting drilling be considered off the coasts of the U.S.
Which none of us believed in the first place.
Eleven dead, several injured, billions of dollars of equipment at the bottom of the ocean, and now…
Massive ecological damages looming over the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Coast of the U.S.A.
What result could be better for the democrats and Obama’s Mob?
I guess we will have to just stay tuned, because I don’t think that all of their handiwork has been played out yet.
Papa Ray