Coyote Blog

Good points all around...

Coyote writes about something I was trying to stress to my father, who favors this sort of "health care reform". He's like a lot of Americans, he doesn't care much for most of Uncle Sam's absurdities but on this issue he's scared to be without "coverage" of any sort. So he's one of those who is willing to trade individual liberty for some "security". So instead of getting into the debate of "government mismanages everything and reduces liberty vs health care is a right" I tried showing him a chart of the Byzantine maze of bureaucracy that would be health care and also told him about the Trojan horse that's things like "home visitations". I don't know if that had any effect or not.

That said, the current HMO system is absurd. I can't afford to keep paying premiums that rise 10% or more every year but cover less and less. That's where the calls for "reform" are coming from and where they get their "credibility". But forcing me to buy it, either as an individual or business, isn't reform at all but the enslavement of Americans to a health care cartel. Also, it's unfair that Americans are paying for the full cost of developing the world's pharmaceuticals... and our patent and copyright system needs some enlightened reform because there needs to be more generic, i.e. affordable, prescription drugs rather than less.

But, none of these health care reforms - good or bad - are going to make much difference if we don't change our monetary policy and get rid of the Federal Reserve, and go back to honest hard money banking.

It's not so much that medical services are "more expensive" in so much as the dollar has lost purchasing power. And the money that is going to be used for this health care scheme? Most of it is going to be manufactured, i.e. printed out of thin air. In addition to higher income taxes we'll have the hidden tax of inflation and the banking cartel will just get richer at the public's expense.

That said, the current HMO system is absurd.

Does anyone really pick the HMO option anymore? Honestly, with all the bad pub HMO's have gotten, why would anyone favor that over a PPO?

Honestly, I can hardly see how Bush compares. I understand that indefinite detention of foreigners and preemptive war can be troubling from an "I don't want my leader to do that" perspective. I've heard a lot of whining about the Patriot Act, but I've yet to hear any actual stories of it negatively affecting a person's liberties. That doesn't mean it isn't troubling, but I'd expect there to be at least a few anecdotes.

But while Bush was President, there was no serious discussion of a carbon cap or even a carbon tax. There was no serious discussion of national health care plans. TARP and stimulus were discussed during the Bush administration, but that may or may not have resulted from the political environment and dealing with a Democratic Congress.

Obama's policies bother me much more than Bush's. Obama's are increasing the deficit enormously aren't even nominally related to increasing or protecting Americans' freedom.

Also look forward to your reduced choices and increased costs when the gov't starts suing fast food purveyors, soft drink makers, and candy companies, just like it did big tobacco, to recover its treatment costs.

I also think that Bush's "excesses" - especially from the 60's lefties point of view - are pretty minor and don't belong in this discussion. They got upset because they disagreed with his view of the level of danger of Islamofascim, and certain specific policies of his that harmed hardly any Americans (GITMO, for example).

Libertarians have more of a beef - with the Medicare prescription coverage - but even that is only folly if one plans to destroy Medicare. Otherwise it was a very necessary modernization to a system that evolved when drugs were cheap (and much less effective).

TARP was (contrary to my fellow Bush defender's comments) done by the Bush Administration.

I don't know if it was a terrible mistake or critically staved off a financial catastrophe. The economics of the situation are just not clear.

So... elections have consequences. The consequence of this one (listen up, libertarians who wouldn't vote for McCain) is to put an aggressively statist (even fascist) president and congress in power, and hand them the keys to our future.

John Moore:

Correct about TARP. I forgot to correct that in my post as I hit "submit."

My main point is that TARP wasn't a particular political vision of Bush, but rather a product of the political environment (which may or may not be true). Stimulus was also debated toward the end of his administration (we must do SOMETHING!), but again, I view that as a product of the political environment.

Bush was no great champion of individual liberty, but he expended a lot of political capital attempting (and failing) to reform social security.

Some of Bush's positions may have limited social liberty, but many of his actions were related to protecting Americans' (or others') life/liberty/property. Cap and trade, however, is very much a limit on liberty. Health care reform is a limit on liberty, and could cost some Americans their lives. Stimulus will at the least require a tax on property. These policies don't expand freedom much if at all, except for the freedom to spend other people's money. This is why I don't think Bush even belongs in this conversation.

I usually hear people talk about how Bush limited liberty, but I just don't see any significant amount of it. I heard lots of screaming about phone intercepts (international calls only, of course), but that wasn't really a limit on American liberty.

So why is it that people complain that Bush limited liberty?

Mishu,

Re: HMO vs PPO?

Either one, I was referring to private insurance options in general.

At the moment I do have a PPO, which is less premium than an HMO, and I have a HSA. The PPO is more like catastrophe insurance because it has a high deductible. So far, so good... and I do like it better than a HMO. But Methinks is right, the government often restricts choice and rising monthly costs are a problem.

Re: Bush and Liberty

Bush was no lover of liberty or real champion of free markets. But Obama is starting to scare me more than Bush... I never thought I would say something like that a few years ago.

I think people hated Bush because of the war in Iraq, allegations of torture, Gitmo, etc... Obama's election was a reaction to the shock of war and the disillusionment resulting from 9/11. I hated Bush for the war too. But Obama represents the sort of doctrinaire progressive orthodoxy that targets Americans, not Iraqi's. And he's not doing much to reverse some of the Bush foreign policy and WOT blunders either, other than sending Gitmo prisoners elsewhere.

I think Bush would have liked to set up a legal way of dealing with the people at Gitmo, but every leftwing legal group was suing him to control the process which is still going on.

I think it's interesting how some people here are writing about Bush like he's some misunderstood hero. Bush was a terrible President. His gangs nationalism, war profiteering, and bank bailouts did more to help usher in socialism than anything Obama is doing. Bush laid the foundation for Obama.

John Moore:
As I hear it, PATRIOT is used as a tool in the War on (some) Drugs. There are no significant liberties compromises looking through the terrorism lens, but the state enjoys magnified ability to meddle in other voluntary transactions.

As abhorrent as the current aggressively statist President is, McCain offered a trip down the same path. Barry is getting me to the revolution faster. Either way it was going to be ugly, and I have no regrets voting someone other than Country First. It’s still anti-individualism. With all McCain‘s “reach across the aisle” crapola, we would still have had a porkulous, cap-and-tax, and probably already passed some lousy health care reform.

Each generation has to learn for itself that politicians are liars, and that government cannot solve the calculation problem.

I agree (mostly) with DKH and John Moore, but would like to add:

The Angry Left confuses privacy with liberty. If I accept the loss of privacy that comes from this email being screened by NSA and that same screening system prevented the death of your family in the next 9-11 plot, then I don't really feel I have lost a lot of liberty. Maybe if I were selling meth or trading child porn then giving up my privacy would have a direct impact on my liberty- and those that seem to most adamantly equate privacy and freedom always seem to have some habits that would be considered at least reprehensible and often illegal.

Second, not sure how "W" slipped into some of the big spending - in percentage terms, not out of line, given the circumstances- but his execution of the prescription drug benefit was a brilliant application of free market reform to government health care. As our host often points out, government often layers more bad regulations on top of bad regulations in order to address the unintended consequences of the original bad policy (Sar-box, Freddy Fanny...) By structuring a large federal program around free market competition, Bush showed that nanny state objectives can be met more efficiently with free markets, without compromising the objectives or leading to profiteering.

Jason,

It is not only the angry left that confuse privacy with liberty. Libertarians are just as extreme in that regard.