In December 2005, the Washington Post and New York Times broke an article, stating that Bush Authorized Domestic Spying. Caroline Frederickson of the ACLU said:
“It’s clear that the administration has been very willing to sacrifice civil liberties in its effort to exercise its authority on terrorism, to the extent that it authorizes criminal activity.”
Hmmm … think the new version has greater respect for civil liberties to fight … er… not terrorism … but .. Americans who don’t like their policies?!
Roll forward to 2009 and a new President in office. Citizens exercising their first amendment rights to free speech protest against the health care “reforms” proposed by the new party in power.
And in August 2009 on http://www.whitehouse.gov, we are asked to snitch on fellow Americans:
“There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”
Let me see … Bush was fighting terrorism and intercepted calls to terrorist states … now American don’t like the health care proposal and the White House is asking you to spy on your neighbor.
Reactions
- Sen John Cornyn (R-Tex) wrote the President asking:
“I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed “fishy” or otherwise inimical to the White House’s political interests.”
- The Left has begun labeling Americans who come out and exercise free speech as “Republicans and their rightist allies“, “mob rule“, and “political terrorists“. (Ah, so the program is to fight terrorism, just like Bush was!)
- Bloggers are comparing the actions to Nazi Germany.
“He actually wants people to tell on those of us who oppose the healthcare “reform.” He wants his supporters to send his people (his SS enforcers, I assume) information about who and where his policies are being resisted.”
This is politics, Chicago-style. Don’t agree with the “chosen one”, and you will be spied on, smeared and then what?
This is a dangerous and ominous development.
When you read the health bills in Congress and the analysis of them, you have to ask, what the heck are we trying to accomplish?
- Is it to cover everyone? The so-called, Universal Coverage.
That raises 2 issues: 1. Do we cover people who freely choose not to have coverage? 2. Can we afford it?
Forcing people to play: We don’t need to force everyone into care, unless we assume that government will be the nanny for everyone, that people cannot make free decisions in a free society. Many people decide, for good and various reasons that are no concern of the state, that they do not want to pay for health care insurance. They pay for services as they use them. Personally, I would rather have a real “insurance” program that protects me against disaster (like my auto insurance), but leaves me to shop for regular services like a checkup (or an oil change).
Can we afford it? If we agree that the number of people that we will have to pay for is 15 million, then the annual cost to give them an $8,000 “insurance” plan would be $120 Billion per year, or $1.2 Trillion in 10 years. Given the financial state of the federal (and state and local) governments today, can we afford $1.2 Trillion OR MORE? Remember, the first estimates of the cost of Medicare have been exceeded by over 10 times. We can surely rest assured that any estimate of a government run program will be much higher than any conservative estimate.
- Is it to lower costs of health-care?
Hmm? What example (just give me one!!!) can we point to where government action has actually lowered the costs of anything? If the US Government ran Intel, we would still be using 286 chips that cost $500, instead of chips that run millions of times faster for $100.
Will the government be reforming tort law and reducing the costs of malpractice insurance (which by the way, costs more than the costs of covering those 15 million people we mentioned)? Nope! Aren’t trial lawyers the top contributor to Democratic PACs?
In a free market, the competitive forces of supply and demand will eventually drive prices down. Many argue that we do not have a free market in healthcare. As mentioned before, we don’t have insurance per se. We get a “unlimited pass” once we have paid our out-of-pocket, and we don’t have an incentive to shop. (Perhaps that is where we should focus reforms.)
Nope: the only way a government plan can control costs is to limit the supply of services, aka “rationing”. In the UK and Canada, that is exactly the way they control costs.
If you remember your basic economics courses, a market will clear when supply and demand are cleared by a market price for those services. When a government eliminates price, demand will be high … which requires a government to take control of all supply of services and limit them to the “affordable” budget.
When I was studying for my MBA (and was living in Canada at the time), I took a course in Political Economy under Professor John Crispo, an outspoken political commentator in Canada. A presentation from one of my fellow students was a sign of the coming future of healthcare in Canada.
Telling us in 1983 that she reflected Government healthcare ministry policy, she said that we had 3 cost problems: “Doctors, Doctors, Doctors”. That policy had its consequences. In the 1990′s, Canada was losing up to 771 doctors per year to the United States. Today, Canada has about 188 doctors / 100,000 population. The United States has 256, or 36% more. How long will it be before a government bureaucrat decides the problem with healthcare costs is doctors?
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. The bills presented in Congress do not accomplish even these objectives, but certainly will reduce our liberties. The examples of government success in this area are nil. The examples of government waste, corruption and bad outcomes are plentiful.
