Sunday, January 24, 2010

Principles are the Missing Ingredient in the Health Care Debate

In a Guest Commentary in Sunday's Telegraph, Dr. James W. Squires lamented the failure of the 2009 Health Care “reform” effort due to a failure to engage in a meaningful dialogue free from language that he complained stifled discussion and debate.  He complained that a focus on the principles underlying the policy served only to end the policy discussion.

I would argue that the reason that the current Health Care bills passed by the House and Senate will never be reconciled is because we did not reach agreement on the principles upon which that policy would be built.

Imagine the discussion between two honest, principled people about what the Giants needed to do to reach the playoffs next year.  Without taking the time to agree upon the framework of that discussion what follows would be an incoherent, frustrated cross-talk which fails to find agreement.  One argues that the Giants need to work on their pitching and infield play and the other argues that they need to improve their secondary and pass rush.  Without an understanding of whether they were talking about the baseball Giants from San Francisco or the football Giants from New York, any attempts at collaboration and agreement of ideas would be frustratingly fruitless.

So it has been with the 2009 Health Care discussion.  We couldn’t have a meaningful, fruitful discussion about heath care reform without first agreeing on the core principles and morality upon which any policy would be built.

Every honest poll – and the recent Senatorial election in Massachusetts - shows that most Americans disapprove of the policy contained in the House and Senate health care bills.  For the sake of argument, even if we stipulate that the Democrat leadership is motivated only by the noble objectives that they share with the public, let’s agree that resistance to the current bills is not because of any disagreement with their noble goals. Let’s simply stipulate that we disagree with the means by which the bills would attempt (and ultimately fail) to achieve those noble goals because of the violation of the core principles held by most Americans.

One step that “reform” advocates could take to reduce the cross-talk would be to refrain from conflating the premise that most Americans are opposed to the current policy being negotiated with the conclusion that most Americans are against true health care reform.

The reason most Americans reject the current bills in the House and Senate is an unacceptable infringement upon our personal freedom.  “Freedom” is not an “incantation” designed to stifle discussion as Dr. Squires mentions in his commentary.  Quite the contrary.  Reasoned Americans seek to understand how any policy will impact their freedom. The problem the Democrat leadership has created with its 2009 Health Care “reform” is that it has not paid sufficient regard to the concern that most Americans feel regarding the risk to their freedom inherent in these bills.

Most Americans understand that the only power in the world that can strip Americans of their freedom is government.  For a people to enjoy hundreds of years of freedom as we have in America is a historical anomaly – an aberration in the normal march of human history.  Generations of Americans have willingly risked their lives and livelihoods to secure their freedom and the freedom of the next generation.  Most Americans view the policy contained in the two health care bills to be an unacceptable risk to that precious freedom.  Voters of all political leanings sent this message last Tuesday in Massachusetts.  They felt their cherished principle of freedom was under attack by the current health care bills.

We have seen the enormous capacity of Americans to solve any problem when we work together.  Health Care reform should be no different.  President Obama and the Democrat leadership can find their place in the annals of history by making a substantive, sustainable improvement to our Health Care system, but they must first spell-out the principles upon which this policy would be built such as:

•    The government has no moral authority to compel any American to buy an insurance policy involuntarily and with costly provisions he does not want.  The current bills would mandate all Americans to buy insurance or face a fine.

•    The government has no moral authority to intercede in a private, voluntary exchange of values between a patient and a doctor by limiting the amount the doctor may receive for providing a service to a patient.  The current bills would limit the amount that doctors and hospitals could receive for a given service.

•    The government has no moral authority to coerce young people to pay a higher insurance premium based on their lower-risk profile in order to subsidize the insurance cost of older people who are higher users of health care.  In order to gain the buy-in from insurance companies to provide insurance to people who have pre-existing conditions, the government promised to coerce every American to buy health insurance.

•    The government has no moral authority to tell any business, such as a health insurance company, with whom it must do business.  The current bills would require health insurance companies to issue policies to risks that would reasonably guarantee that the health insurance companies would lose money.

•    The free market, if unfettered by destructive government mandates, mis-incentives and other distortions, is better able to provide health care better than a government-run system.  The free market has shown that it is the best vehicle for increasing the availability and quality of products and services while reducing the cost to the consumer.  The fact that it hasn’t (yet) been used in the health care industry is due solely to government barriers.

•    Providing health care insurance is not the same as providing health care service.  Health care service is a product that must first be produced before it can be delivered.  A government-issued “coupon” for “universal foot protection”, for example,  does not, by itself, produce a single pair of shoes. Similarly, a government-sponsored “coupon” for health insurance does not produce health care service. 

•    If you pay doctors and hospitals less than it costs them to provide the service, you will have fewer doctors and hospitals providing that service. Setting a price-cap that each person who has a “universal foot protection” coupon must pay for a pair of shoes will not increase the number of shoes manufactured. Quite the contrary.  Price-controls will, theoretically and in historical practice, reduce the amount of a good or service whose price is artificially controlled.

•    If you have fewer doctors and hospitals producing health care service and we provide “free health care coupons” to every American, either costs will go up or delivery delays will be experienced and / or both.

If the Democrat leadership or any health care “reform” advocate could please address these reasoned and reasonable concerns, then we promise not to mention the corrupt methods (Louisiana Purchase, Cornhusker kickback, $60 billion union buy-off, no CSPAN, etc) by which these unprincipled bills have been crammed down our throats.

We are concerned by the over-reach of Democrats in this health care debate because of the violation to our principles this policy represents.  We are concerned that the Democratic leadership is indifferent to the core principles of Americans and that “might makes right”.  In Oct 2008, Hillary Clinton sent an email to her supporters that said, “Sixty is the magic number.  If we reach 60 Democrats in the Senate, then the days of Republican obstruction are over…there’s nothing we can’t accomplish.” Chilling.

Ayn Rand wrote, “Reason is not automatic.  Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it.  Do not count on them.  Leave them alone.”  Principled, independent Americans wish to have a reasoned discussion about health care policy with the leadership in Washington.  We are asking for a discussion based on objective reason.  We ask that they respect our principles and do not dismiss our concerns as those of unhelpful obstructionists.  A reasoned, principled policy will stand on its own merits and its virtues will be easy to discern and discuss.  A reasoned, principled policy will “sell-itself” when presented in the disinfecting light of day to reasonable Americans.  Expensive buy-offs of critical votes, as we have witnessed, would not be required if the bills aligned with the principles of Americans.  Americans will support any policy that they think will benefit them.  Let’s have that dialogue.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Diner Discussions – Week Ended 1/22/10

We at Hugh Akston’s Diner witnessed historic events this week that bode well for individual freedom.

Scott Brown elected to the US Senate in Massachusetts

The biggest news was the against-all-odds election, in the bluest-of-blue states Massachusetts, of Scott Brown to the US Senate.  With his election, Scott Brown has turned the political world on its head and stopped our Big Government enemies in their tracks.

The funniest explanation provided for the 31 point swing of independent voters in Massachusetts from the Democrat in 2008 (BHO) to the non-Democrat in 2010 was by Howard Dean, who appeared in the must-see 1/20 episode of “Hard Ball” with the distraught Chris Matthews.  Howard Dean said that the vote for Scott Brown was a “message” vote from independents that the Democrat platform in Massachusetts and in Washington was not liberal enough – that they want “real change”.  Even Chris Matthews had to ask Governor Dean what he was talking about.  This was a marvelously hilarious explanation for the election loss providing the lucky viewer an unambiguous view into the chaos and contradiction that is the liberal mind.

It came as no surprise to patrons here at Hugh Akston’s Diner that the Democrat Machine underestimated the moral strength of Americans in general and the capability of Scott Brown, in particular, to serve as a lightning rod for that moral strength.  234 years ago, we put the king of England on written notice that we, Americans, would not suffer the evils of the British Crown any further.

For the nation to understand what the election of Scott Brown meant, they need go no further than the Declaration of Independence, for this historic election result was no less significant than that first shot fired at Lexington.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Americans aren’t simply angry, as BHO and his spinmeisters believe. Instead, Americans are expressing the principles penned so eloquently in 1776.

Americans are not throwing an emotional temper tantrum.  Quite the opposite, actually.  Americans are making a reasoned assessment and action plan given the evils that have been forced upon them by their current government. Americans of all parties are removing their consent to the brand of Big Government being peddled by the current administration and Congress.  Americans believe that this form of government is destructive to their rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

On Tuesday, Massachusetts voters, supported by freedom-loving Americans from all over the country, used the most powerful weapon in the world – a vote in a free election – to take the first step toward abolishing the policies of this destructive government.  Tuesday’s results were nothing more and nothing less than the expression of the most solemn principle of the proper role or government and its necessary subservience to the People.

Some links to some stories  / videos about the historic election of Scott Brown:


Scott Brown pulls off historic upset

Democrats seek back footing after epic Mass. loss

Democrats play blame game for Senate loss

President Obama’s priority in danger Vote a ‘protest’ on health-care reform

Keith Olbermann apologies for not attacking Brown harder

Chris Matthews Can't remember Scott Brown's name

The fallout: Democrats rethinking health care bill

Exclusive: President Obama: We Lost Touch with American People Last Year


Obama gets voters' message: It's jobs, jobs, jobs

Americans will not be Ruled

We Americans will suffer the offenses of government…we always have and likely always will…but there is a limit to the evils we will suffer.  As stated in our Declaration of Independence:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

On Tuesday (1/19/10), we saw the limits to the evils we Americans will suffer at the hands of our elected servants.  Massachusetts’s voters weren’t angry.  Their votes for Scott Brown weren’t protest votes against anything.  Their votes meant one thing that Big Government should hear (and fear):  “Americans will not be ruled.”

The principle embodied in our Declaration of Independence and in our Constitution that all men are created equal is at the core of being an American.  You will not rule me because you claim to be a divine monarch.  You will not rule me because your father ruled my father.  You will not rule me because you are wealthier than me.  You will not rule me because my skin is a different color than yours.  You will not rule me because of my religious beliefs.  You will not rule me because you believe you are smarter than me.  You will not rule me because I elected you to serve me.  You will not rule me…because I will not be ruled. I am an American.

For the past year, every day witnessed the break-neck pace of the liberal administration and Congress in its efforts to rule each of us:  to increase our taxes, thereby extending the number of weeks we work solely to pay the mandatory taxes confiscated from us; to coerce us buy a healthcare policy, whether we want to or not; to coerce us to buy a health care policy that has provisions that we don’t want; to pay a made-up tax on a made-up commodity (CO2 emissions) in a made-up market that will further reduce the amount of money that I am able to keep; to force the most productive among us to pay for the least productive and most corrupt; to enslave our children with a mountain of debt to pay for the corrupt spending spree unleashed on Americans. To attempt to shame me with your hollow, populist rhetoric that if I do not sacrifice more, then I am somehow not worry or am un-American.  Be off with such drivel!

Our servants in Washington would be wise to view any policy to which they attach their name in 2010 through the prism of the post-Kennedy world in which we find ourselves.  Sign-onto a bill that reduces our freedom and you will be gone in November.  The dynamic is no more complicated than that.

Scott Brown's Acceptance Speech (Transcript)

The Re-emergence of the Populist Obama

BHO, reckoning, apparently, along the same lines as the chaotic Governor Dean, that America is angry at George W. Bush and his "failed policies" went back on the populist trail.  BHO had his own, "let them eat cake" moment on 1/17 after Air Force One made an emergency landing at Logan to help with the rescue efforts of the anemic Coakley campaign that had had its hamstrings cut by the Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker kick-back and the union-exemption from "Cadillac Health Care plan" taxes.  During a stump speech in a partially filled auditorium at Northeastern University, with tie removed and the shuck and jive tone and "ya knows" and "yawlls" in full voice, BHO flippantly derided Scott Brown's brilliant use of his beat-up old truck with this Maria Antoinette-ism:
 

What's ironically amusing is that BHO has chosen the populist-approach to counter the momentum lost by Democrats with the Brown victory, under the mistaken assumption that Americans are motivated by anger and not by the reason of their minds.  A populist strategy attempts to appeal to the emotional motivations of voters as opposed to their reasoned conclusions. Charles Blow writes in an Op-Ed in today's New York Times:
 "Welcome to the mob: an angry, wounded electorate, riled by recession, careening across the political spectrum, still craving change, nursing a bloodlust."
Democrat Governor Deval Patrick, further articulating the view held by Liberals of rational, energetic Americans arguing who argue against Progressive policy, patronized clear-thinking voters with the following statement made this week: 
"Be angry - but channel it in a positive direction. It's easy to be against something. It takes tough-mindedness and political courage to be for something."
I sense that BHO feels the same way.  Americans are nothing more than a mob.  If only the mob can be channeled...if only we can focus that anger. With that, BHO picked up his teleprompter, took off his tie, dusted off his hip-hop syntax and got back on the populist stump and overnight created an enemy toward which he would channel the mobs anger - Wall Street.

Just as it became clear at the end of last week that Massachusetts was a lost cause for the Democrats, BHO began the assault on Wall Street, just as FDR had on the utilities.  It's a simple strategy from Chapter 1 of the Populist Progressive Playbook:  Step 1: Find an enemy of the people and create the appearance you are "fighting" for the People against this Enemy.  Step 2:  If there is no such enemy of the People (except those in government who are always the enemy of the People) then create an enemy. Step 3:  Assign the reason for every conceivable evil in the world onto this enemy.  Step 4:  Step and repeat.

So, on Thursday 1/14, the story was reported that BHO plans to announce a new fee on banks because "we want our money back."  BHO went on to say, with perfect populist progressive pitch:
"If these companies are in good enough shape to afford massive bonuses, they are surely in good enough shape to afford paying back every penny to taxpayers,"
Yea!  Thank you Mr. Progressive President.  And who, pray tell, do you think is really going to pay for those fees and taxes that you would slather all over the big bad banks?  Of course, all Americans will.  We will see higher ATM fees, check fees, overdraft fees, and so on.  The Progressive mind is congenitally incapable of understanding this simple fact of economics:  THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A TAX ON BUSINESS.  All taxes levied on businesses result in higher cost to their customers and reduced capital to fuel innovation,  growth and job creation.  A tax on business is about the stupidist thing any government can do if it is committed to creating an environment in which the private sector can create jobs faster.  Jobs are created by businesses so why in the world would anyone wish to retard the ability of a business to create jobs?

Then Obama raised the ante, by taking another swing at banks using his new-found Populist Progressive voice:
"We have to get this done.  If these folks want a fight, it's a fight I'm ready to have."
Investors responding by dropping the DJIA by 5% this week.  I wonder how many hard-working Americans (you know, the kind that BHO will always "fight for") saw their 401K's whacked this week because of the reckless populist blather of our President.   Or has BHO forgotten that the capital that is harnessed through our free markets is created through the hard-work and innovative spirit of that portion of Americans who actually produce?

It's Still the Fault of George W. Bush

The "It's Not My Fault" tour by the Administration was alive and well this week, as we start the second year of BHO's administration.

In his first interview of 2010 given to George Stephanopolous on ABC, BHO blamed GWB for Martha Coakley's humiliating defeat in Massachusetts:  “The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office” 

Paul Krugman wrote in a piece on 1/17 entitled What Didn't Happen,
The Obama administration’s troubles are the result not of excessive ambition, but of policy and political misjudgments. The stimulus was too small; policy toward the banks wasn’t tough enough; and Mr. Obama didn’t do what Ronald Reagan, who also faced a poor economy early in his administration, did — namely, shelter himself from criticism with a narrative that placed the blame on previous administrations...He could have pointed out, repeatedly, that the continuing troubles of America’s economy are the result of a financial crisis that developed under the Bush administration, and was at least in part the result of the Bush administration’s refusal to regulate the banks. But he didn’t...Whatever the reason, Mr. Obama has allowed the public to forget, with remarkable speed, that the economy’s troubles didn’t start on his watch.
Are you kidding?  BHO is physically unable to utter more than three words on ANY subject without blaming GWB for something.  As we read above, he blamed GWB for the Coakley loss.  But don't take my word for it...

After Obama Rally, Dems pin blame on Bush (Hotline on Call, 1/17/10)
Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), speaking with a gaggle of reporters after the event, said that while state Sen. Scott Brown (R) offers voters a quick fix, in reality, the problems created by "George Bush and his cronies" are not so easily solved.

Obama Blames Bush for Brown's Win in Massachusetts (Human Events.com 1/21/10)
 BHO : “Here's my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts but the mood around the country: The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office. People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years but what's happened over the last eight years.”

Obama's New Tack: Blaming Bush President Points to Inherited Economy (The Washington Post, 3/14/09)  Over the past month, Obama has reminded the public at every turn that he is facing problems "inherited" from the Bush administration, using increasingly bracing language to describe the challenges his administration is up against. The "deepening economic crisis" that the president described six days after taking office became "a big mess" in remarks this month to graduating police cadets in Columbus, Ohio. "By any measure," he said during a March 4 event calling for government-contracting reform, "my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster." 





Obama Administration Blames Bush for Airport Secuity Failures (Examiner.com 12/28/09)
First she said "the system worked".  Now, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano admits the system failed miserably, but repeatedly points out it was a system put in place while George W. Bush was President.  White House spokesman Robert Gibbs made similar statements. The "Blame Bush" mantra helped get Obama elected and has been used as an excuse for his entire first 11 months as President.  Now they are using it as an excuse for allowing a Nigerian terrorist to almost blow up a U.S. bound plane on Christmas Day.


 Associated Press Analysis:  Obama's Buck-Stopping goes only so far (Associated Press 1/9/10) WASHINGTON – He says "the buck stops with me," but nearly a year into office, President Barack Obama is still blaming a lot of the nation's troubles — the economy, terrorism, health care — on George W. Bush... "I don't need to remind any of you about the situation we found ourselves in at the beginning of this year," Obama told people at a Home Depot stop last month.

 Yea, maybe BHO should be less subtle in his blame of Bush for everything.  :-)

Diners, remember.  When a house is on fire, regardless of the reason for the blaze in the first place, a fireman can do one of two things.  He can pick up a hose with water or he can pick up a hose with gasoline.  Yea, the house was on fire when BHO was sworn in a year ago, but since then he has done nothing but pour gasoline onto the fire with his recklessly Progressive policies.  We can argue in perpetuity as to the cause of the fire, but BHO's gasoline-like policies have only caused the inferno to burn hotter and to do more damage.  We may put this house fire out yet without sliding into a Depression, but that job has been all the more difficult by the BHO policies.

Some good readings for you below...enjoy.  See you soon under the sign of the $.

The New Political Rumbling  Massachusetts may signal an end to old ways of fighting  Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal 1/23/10

Air America Radio closing, filing for bankruptcy... certainly a harbinger of things to come for the Progressive movement.  Air America, the heavily subsidized radio program spewing liberal blather, finally reached a level of financial bankruptcy to match the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Progressive movement.

Obama's First Year:  By the Numbers... In his first year as president, BHO:
Speeches, comments, remarks: 411
Addresses or remarks dealing with the subject of health care: 52 ("The problem is we're not getting our message out on health care..."  Yea, right.  Your problem is that you ARE getting your message out!)
Trips to the Telepromter: 178
News Conferences:  42
Interviews: 158
Town Hall Meetings (including the two held with his constituents from France and China): 23
Domestic Trips: 46 out-of-town trips to 58 cities in 30 states
Foreign Travel: 10 foreign trips to 21 nations (a new record for the President in his first year)
Flights on Air Force 1:  160
Flights on Marine 1:  193
Political Fund Raisers:  28 (Bush did 6 his first year)
Campaign Rallies:  7 in NJ, VA and MA.  In each case, the Democrat lost.
Meetings with Foreign Leaders: 74 (GWB, ya know, the Cowboy who never worked to build consensus among world leaders, had only 115 such meetings in his first year.) 
National Debt:  Was $10.6 trillion when BHO was sworn in...one year later it has grown by $1.69 trillion to $12.32 trillion.

Some great YouTubes...

Scott Brown Acceptance Speech in Massachusetts (part I)

Scott Brown Acceptance Speech in Massachusetts (part II)

Ayla Brown sings "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Boston's Fourth of July celebration accompanied by the Boston Pops (originally aired 07/04/06).