This is what Change Looks Like...

And so Obama or at least his party passed health care 'reform'. There really was no doubt. The expansion of the state is eternal until the nation is bankrupt. The lies used to pass this program are really no different than any lie used by the government to spend any of its money. It is always about delivering something for nothing and how once it is delivered all of the cares and concerns of the public will be taken care of.

Here is the reality check. Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources. Health resources are finite. Care will always be rationed. It will be either rationed by price or by time. Right now we ration more monetarily, though we certainly are primarily socialized medicine now. The future will ration more by time.

For your reading pleasure here are some short field trips...

• Ron Paul
• Walter Williams
• Ann Coulter

For those of you who wanted this next step in the progression of national bankruptcy congratulations... enjoy your line. For those of you who abhor this action... too bad. You lost the war at least as far back as the early 1900's and certainly before the beginning of my life.

I leave you with these words from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Very appropriate for the times.

"I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago," said Dr. Hendricks. "Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward.

I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything - except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the 'welfare' of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only 'to serve.' That a man who's willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards - never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy.

I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind - yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn.

Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it - and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn't"

The Insuring of the 47 Million

I like the Kiplinger Letter. It provides nice concise information. In the letter dated 20 June 2008 they provide a breakdown of the oft cited 47 Million uninsured. I often wonder how you arrive at that number. It seems a little large to go out and talk to each one. Was there a phone number to call? Some statistical study? That rarely seems to be talked about if at all. However, assume the 47M is correct and then we can try to break it down.

- 70% are in families with at least one full time worker
- 10% are in families with at least one part time worker
- The rest retired or unemployed

-8.4M are already eligible for government programs
-10.2M are non-citizens
-9.2M have household incomes > $75k
-7.5M are between ages 19-24

I realize that health insurance generates some strong opinions in people, but looking at the above, what group should I feel terribly bad about? If you are going to use a number like 47M then you are dealing with groups.

We have 8.4M who are already eligible for programs... yet they choose not to insure or cannot manage to figure out the application?

10.2M non-citizens... while granting that some of these people are certainly contributors to the economy, I doubt their would be much clamoring for them from the greater part of the citizenry.

9.2M who earn greater than $75k. Can this really be an issue of cannot afford?

7.5M between the ages of 19-24. This hardly represents the highest risk group. And having talked to this group I can assure you that health insurance does not top their lists of interests.

Without a doubt you have cases of people with preexisting conditions and other dilemmas that give them more unique problems with obtaining insurance. But this number is significantly less than 47M. And handing the reigns over even more fully to the entity that created so much of the problem to begin with seems foolish in an attempt to deal with the margins.