no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics

There’s No Such Thing as Free Obamacare

September 12th, 2012

A friend of a friend who’s a hardcore Obama supporter through thick & thin and also a stay-at-home mom opines, “I like Obamacare because it means I’ll get free vaccines for my son.”

Oh. You wanted a lesson in life? Here goes:

For starters, no it’s not fucking free. You personally might not have to pay for it but that does not make it “free”. Everything has a cost, and the failure to grasp this concept is failure to grasp the fundamental laws of reality.

Now that we’ve gotten today’s lesson in metaphysics out of the way and we can agree that it’s not “free”, you have some explaining to do. 

You have to explain why someone else has to pay for the things you want, for instance explain why my wife and I (who both work) should be forced to pay to support your choice to not work? You would never dream of holding me as your slave and forcing me to provide for you, yet the policies you favor, and more specifically the political means by which you seek to effect your desired outcomes, are essentially just that.

And don’t give me any crap about the people who “can’t afford it” because:

  1. You’re not in that class and it’s an insult to anyone who is if you’re insinuating that, and 
  2. By and large people can or could afford things but they are prevented or otherwise forcibly deprived means of doing so (cf., Scratching by: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It, On Breaking Your Legs and Giving You Crutches: A Response To A Liberal) and/or 
  3. They just choose not to because they’ve been conned in to believing, just like you, that these things are “free” and that they are entitled to them without providing for them.

Also, you need to explain why this mentality of yours isn’t exactly the same as the “selfishness” you abhor when a libertarian wants to keep the whole of her own earnings in order to provide for her own family, well-being, needs, etc.

But I’m pretty sure what I’m hearing right now is the sound of deaf ears not listening.

Hell in a Handbasket

July 1st, 2012

Sometimes I read headlines and just shake my head. Lately this has been happening more often than not. Here’s a few…

Some people are more equal than others

The “Justice” Department has declined to press criminal charges against Eric Holder for refusing to release documents related to the “Fast and Furious” sting, in which nearly 2,000 small arms were lost across the Mexican border. One of these weapons was subsequently used to kill US Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

Lobbyists poised to hijack Obamacare

The WSJ expects a tsunami of lobbying as hospitals, medical-device makers, pharmaceuticals, insurers and other special interest groups scramble to divvy up the Obamacar pie in their favor.  Unless you are a special interest group, this is not going to work out to your benefit.

Student loan rates steady at 3.4%

Congress renewed $6B worth of funding to subsidize student loan rates at 3.4% as part of a $120B “transportation” package. Why is this part of a highway funding bill?

Army Leverages 100-Year Old “Technology”

Knows as the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV), it’s a blimp the size of a football field and is being contracted by military rent seekers extraordinaire, Northrop Grumman Corp. There is something to be said about going lo-tech; guerrilla tactics and improvised munitions tend to wreak havoc on organized forces expecting “conventional warfare.  But if your lo-tech solution costs half a billion dollars (Northrop Grumman was awarded a $517,000,000 contract to develop), you’re blowing it.

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.


no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics