no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics

Health Care Slavery

May 10th, 2010

The Texas Tribune reports that a growing trend among doctors (especially among specialists) is refusal to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. This is due in large part to the layers of bureaucracy and rolls of red tape which come attached to these patients — in other words real expenses in terms of time and labor — for which the health care providers are not compensated.

“In essence, physicians are donating their services every time they see someone on Medicare or Medicaid,” said Dr. Susan Bailey, a Fort Worth allergist and the incoming president of the Texas Medical Association. “It just becomes a matter of whether or not you can keep your bottom line healthy.”

…

“Why should I take [Medicaid or Medicare] patients who could be seen at a clinic, at [the public hospital]? My practice is full already,” Dr. William Jones said. “Nowadays, everyone thinks they’re entitled to health care — they want the same type of care Michael Dell gets, but for free.”

So, the doctors can’t bear the financial burden of the red-tape and some of them decide to stop admitting new medicaid/medicare patients, because they’re losing money on every single one of them.  Anyone with even a cursory understanding of economics could’ve told you that this is exactly what you were going to get when you start socializing health care.

I’m no omniscient, but I told you exactly that about Massachussets’ health care failure: the end result is a system which fails to provide the only thing it’s designed to provide, while permitting the government to exercise even greater amount of control over our lives, as our freedoms and our dignity are surrendered or usurped.

Well, guess what Massachusetts is mulling over as we speak?

At least one state is considering sticks, not carrots. Massachusetts, which has seen wait times for primary care doctors grow since the state made health insurance mandatory three years ago, is debating forcing doctors to accept Medicaid and Medicare.

Every state-socialized system ultimately succumbs to this.

Proponents of Obamacare or whatever you want to call this abomination straight-up mocked me when I presented the slippery-slope argument, that such a system doesn’t work, can’t work, and won’t work, and eventually the system will have to conscript primary care providers, physicians, etc. “Oh don’t be ridiculous,” they said.

When the doctors start turning down these programs, the Governments will start holding medical licenses for ransom (Texas is also toying with this concept), compelling doctors to perform services under threat of losing their license and consequently, their livelihood. This is more than a simple racket, this is slavery.

What else would you call it? Actually, I don’t care (a rose by any other name…).

This is what socialized medicine is all about: it denies people the choice and ability to take care of themselves, the absence of which is then touted as evidence that socialism is needed because people won’t take care of themselves (because they aren’t allowed to take care of themselves). And if that’s not bad enough, we now have evidence that they’re really going to try and enslave people to keep the charade alive.


Marx’s Circularity

January 5th, 2010

Aside from what I’ve previously written about Marx, I keep examining his peculiar brand of “economics”. After all, it laid the groundwork for most of the past century’s public policy (and subsequent catastrophes), and  pretty much all of what we’ll be forced to bear for the foreseeable future, as well. So I just can’t let it go.

Per Marx, exploitation is the result of primitive accumulation (a topic I’ve already thoroughly discussed). And over-accumulation is what ultimately leads to the exploitation of the proletariat.  But so-called over-accumulation depends upon exploitation, right?

As it stands, it’s an insoluble problem. If it were one or the other, we could resolve the root problem.

It can’t be both. Exploitation can’t be the cause of accumulation, if accumulation is a necessary condition for exploitation.  Don’t feel bad if you didn’t catch this before. I just noticed it. Until you see this as circular nonsense, Marxists will be able to use either one of those arguments or the other against you, depending on the situation.

c montgomery burnsFurthermore, Marx assumes, that the evil, cut-throat C. Montgomery Burns-style capitalists unwaveringly collude with one another, to the detriment of the proletariat, even though it is in their individual best interests to break these thieves’ pacts.

Circularity, again. How can the capitalists be so evil as to force less-than-subsistence upon the proletariat, but at the same time not evil enough to undermine, to wreck an economically precarious cartel (all cartels are economically precarious)?

By ignoring competition between capitalists and taking as a given collusion among capitalists, the “race to the bottom” maxim is a foregone conclusion setting the stage nicely for class warfare (where Marx is also wrong!).

When exercised, Marx’s ideas have resulted in super-states (cf. USSR, USA, etc.) and witch hunts, the likes of which put Salem to shame (Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I. The Gulag Archipelago Vol. 1).

If I could choose one man, whose ideas would be forever erased from the minds of men, from their libraries and records, it would be Karl Marx.

The Cost of Real Estate

December 1st, 2009

There is all sorts of land in the world, but precious little of it abuts world-class ski resorts like Park City Mountain Resort, in Park City, Utah. And there are all sorts of houses of all variety of quality in the world.

But a small house, adjacent the ski slopes or near the pedestrian Main Street in Park City might fetch a very handsome price, compared to say, a similarly appointed property in Algonac, Michigan. The house in Park City didn’t cost more to build. It doesn’t cost more to maintain, so why would anyone in their right mind pay the equivalent of one month’s mortgage payment to (gasp!) rent a house in Park City?

This apparent discrepancy can’t be reconciled without a functioning market*, where individuals are permitted to dispose of or otherwise reciprocally exchange their belongings (whether you call them property or possession is beside the point) with other individuals.

For some people the proximity to “the best snow on earth” is worth it. They will gladly pay twice or thrice the “cost” of a comparable house in another city, in order to enjoy the panorama, the hiking trails, the downhill skiing, etc. They are willing to give more in exchange (i.e., to produce more) for it, than they would for most similar houses in most other locales. Or, they are willing to forgo other comforts.  Of course, your mileage may vary.

All the talk about “cost” is a distraction: the only true costs are opportunity costs.

If you order beer with your dinner, you forgo soda. If you want a beer and a soda, you can’t eat as many slices of pizza without becoming quite uncomfortable. If you buy a house in the hills so you can have a pasture for your horses or a field for your dogs, you forgo a short commute to your job in the City. If you spend the afternoon raking your yard and cleaning your gutters, as I did two weekends ago, you forego sitting on the couch and reading a book, or taking the dog for a walk.

An individuals valuation of anything is based on his or her opportunity costs.

Never does he ask how much the house cost in the accounting sense, he concerns himself only with the asking price, and whether that price is above or below his value-threshold.

Any interference with this process is likely to result in queues, overuse, and neglect.

*NB: The arguments set forth above should not be read or interpreted to mean that the market for real property, currently and historically, has not been severely distorted by State violence. It has. And that’s a problem I’ll readily concede, but it is outside the scope of the present discussion.

no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics