So, this should surprise exactly no one. The point of ACA was never to take care of sick people, or poor people. It was to line the pockets of rich campaign contributors to the Democrat Party. And it's working out very well, for them.
The amazing thing is that our President seems genuinely to be confused between insurance, and health care. I found this remarkable. Is he proposing a new program, actual provision of health care? Surely he recognizes that ACA is an insurance program, right? As more and more units drop out of the system, health care is going to be sharply rationed. Maybe that's a good thing. But you can't possibly believe that ACA is going to increase health CARE options. It will provide a way to pay for now sharply rationed* health care after all the private options disappear. Will that be good for poor people?
Why would it be? As usual, Frederic Bastiat had the model we need to understand what is going on. From Angry Alex:
"When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating." (Source)
*Yes, health care is rationed now, and has to be. But now it is rationed by price. Soon it will be rationed by queueing. If that were intentional, and had been explained, okay. It isn't, and it wasn't.
The amazing thing is that our President seems genuinely to be confused between insurance, and health care. I found this remarkable. Is he proposing a new program, actual provision of health care? Surely he recognizes that ACA is an insurance program, right? As more and more units drop out of the system, health care is going to be sharply rationed. Maybe that's a good thing. But you can't possibly believe that ACA is going to increase health CARE options. It will provide a way to pay for now sharply rationed* health care after all the private options disappear. Will that be good for poor people?
Why would it be? As usual, Frederic Bastiat had the model we need to understand what is going on. From Angry Alex:
"When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating." (Source)
*Yes, health care is rationed now, and has to be. But now it is rationed by price. Soon it will be rationed by queueing. If that were intentional, and had been explained, okay. It isn't, and it wasn't.
4 comments:
Is it rationed by price? It seems that the lack of rationing (by government or price) explains most of the runaway expenses in healthcare. If Grandma was footing the bill, would she get the hip replacement when she's 85? Of course, no one likes it when Grandma wants the hip replacement and can't afford it (or justify it), but we all feel better when experts just tell her no.
Don't forget the transfer of income from the young and relatively poor to the old and relatively rich. The exchanges entirely depend on the young and healthy to join.
Obama doesn't know the difference between offshoring and outsourcing. He doesn't know the difference between automatic weapons and semi-automatic weapons, or rifles and shotguns. He doesn't know the difference between health insurance and health care. Maybe he's not all that bright, or maybe he knows it just doesn't matter, as long as he's the one saying it and the media don't hassle him.
As for the ACA, it was NOT created to enrich wealthy donors. It was envisioned to concentrate power in the hands of government officials who will make sure the world runs better, according to their expert plan. The "enriching the donors" part is just grease for the skids, come-along money enabling the grand end game of a more just, centrally-controlled world where people get their fair share and give their fair share.
I gather you look at former Congressional staffers getting high paid jobs in health care lobbying and the like as corruption. Well ... so do I, more than a bit. Other hand:
(A) These clever people wouldn't be making such a nice living without a tremendously complex legal-social environment in which health care spending takes place. If you want to cut out most of that, design a much simpler health system, one that school kids can understand, not Harvard-educated PhDs. Note that "doing things just as we did in the good old days of George Bush or Richard Nixon" is NOT simpler -- odds are these new liberal "experts" are simply replacing older conservative experts who knew all about negotiating with freely competing insurance firms with thousands of different policies.
(B) Another way to see this is younger, brighter, better educated people who know their way around social networks of bright educated people, successfully managing their own careers in the new, open-to-talent American workplace. They're the winners in the brave new world Tyler Cowen predicts for us. They're our coming rulers and there's nothing for us plebes to do but duck our heads before them and thank them for the kindness they bestow upon us.
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