After all, we are not communists

New at Reason: Who wants to socialize health care fastest: John Kerry, John Edwards, or George W. Bush? Ronald Bailey handicaps the plans.

Comments

[an irate voter]

Put that way, I'm not sure I want any of those bozos in the White House.

[Jim Greenleaf]

If we're lucky, we'll have divided government and the Republicans will conveniently pull out the 'small-government' card. Big if.

[Don]

Jason,

The federal '94 assault weapons ban is scheduled to go away this year. Of course, that leaves the '89 import ban (a reinterpretation of GCA '68 by Bush 1) still on the books, along with the likes of NFA '34. And of course, the state bans will remain in place. And the Repubs still might reinstate the '94 law (or similar), but that doesn't look likely.

[mudfoot]

Haha I get it.

"After all, we are not communists" is what Don Barzini said when describing how the bosses of the five families would reimburse the Vito Corleone for letting them peddle drugs in his turf.

[JimInNoVA]

Oh goody. I'll be able to buy guns that look dangerous again. Let's hope that anyone I have to pull one on bought the media hype and thinks it's an automatic too.

[Jason Ligon]

Don,

No way the left allows the '94 ban to sunset. They will scream in front of cameras about flooding the street with machine guns, and the elephants will cave. I'd be happy with just the bit about magazine capacity off the books.

[TM Lutas]

When you have a medical condition with two forms of treatment, medical management (inexpensive) and surgical (expensive) I do not see what is inherently free market enhancing about the government picking up the tab and poor people being shifted towards the more expensive surgical management.

I just don't get it. If we're ever going to privatize medical care, you're going to have to have a bidder, or at least a prayer of a chance that the system will survive on its own with a fat 'go away' payment from the treasury. From a libertarian policy standpoint, medicare drug coverage is a necessary step for incrementalist progress. Otherwise, you end up continuing to have a government system that no politician can palm off on the private sector, nor can he politically survive the consequences of dropping.

[Jason Ligon]

Kids, I'm afraid we've already lost this one. If there has ever been an acceptance of taking from few to give to many, what better example than when the many are 'dying in the streets'?

Like the assault weapons ban, it will never go away. As my father gets older, I hear every day how people are dying because 'we don't care'. I mention that his generation didn't care, which has no effect. I mention that people are consuming more healthcare than what was ever possible before, which has no effect. No matter how it came to be, any development in healthcare at any cost to someone else is a human right for his generation. They all vote - we lose.

[mak_nas]

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years." -- alexander fraser tytler, 1748-1813

the funny part about that, jl, is that you can accuse him of the same. i freely admit that i don't care that old folks are dying. they're supposed to, after all, as are all the young folks in time. what is there to care about?

what is more novel, is seems to me, is the lack of any care from the older generations for the younger. once it seemed to me that public fiscal responsibility was viewed as an heirloom of sorts; today, it seems rather more like something to be exploited in an effort to live one more year, one more month, one more day.

[joe]

Not that anyone cares, but Kerry's plan to cover catastrophic care is excellent policy, and can get a lot of health coverage bang for the buck. Catastrophic cases constitute a tiny percentage of medical cases, but a very outsized percentage of medical costs. So if the government is reimbursing for those costs, they're taking a large chunk out of the cost to employers of providing the coverage. At the same time, it takes a rare-but-expensive problem and pools the risk among the entire country - close to 300 million people.

I give Edwards a slight edge on policy in general, but this shows me that Kerry's got the chops, too.

[Jason Ligon]

joe,

Just let me in your bank account, and I'll buy myself a bunch of goodies. As long as I get a lot of bang for your buck, you should be happy.

[thoreau]

Why would the Democrats want a total public takeover of the health care system? Before you scoff at me, think about it:

If they just put a majority of the people on gov't healthcare, that's a majority of the people willing to vote for it. That's enough to keep the Democrats politically safe. But if they put everybody on it, well, that jacks up the bill.

Why not keep just enough people on gov't healthcare to keep the program popular at the polls, but keep about 40% of the population in private healthcare so that the public system stays solvent?

Mind you, I'm not advocating this sort of redistribution. I just don't understand why politicians would want to over-extend a program when doing so is not necessary to maintain popularity.

Put another way, why would 51% of the population vote to give something to everybody at the expense of everybody, when they could vote to give something to themselves at the expense of the other 49%?

[Jason Ligon]

"But if they put everybody on it, well, that jacks up the bill."

Answer: They don't care about the bill.

The Dem's ideal state is them being able to guarantee unlimited healthcare for everyone who would vote for them, funded by some who won't. The first call is to move to universal coverage because it is easy to sell, but, you are right, if the finances don't work out, they will absolutely argue that the program should be means tested so that only Dem voters benefit.

[joe]

kids getting regular checkups = stack of dvds and case of beer

Got it, Jason.

[sick and tired of the crap]

C'mon, Joe. Spare us the liberal bullshit. MY kids will be getting regular checkups because it is that important to me to spend MY money on them. If yours or any other Joe Blow's kids don't, tough. But I might spend money on DVDs and beer, too. Why not, it's MY money. I have the right to MY money because I earned it. You wanna help other kids get regular checkups because you think it's the right thing to do? Fine, pay for it, but don't ask me to subsidize your morality.

[passing through]

You may want to consider switching to decaf, sick and tired.

[joe]

As long as people like you are saying "tough" to kids not getting enough medical care, I am never going to spare you the liberal bullshit.

[thoreau]

Joe-

You make a good point about people who say "tough" to kids not getting medical care. I'm personally very much a free marketeer who's skeptical of government, but I can't stand when people present the free-market case as "Well, too bad for poor people." One can oppose various government programs without saying "who cares if poor kids suffer?"

Personally, if I had more confidence in government programs I'd be all in favor of national health insurance and whatnot. I have great sympathy for the poor, I routinely do volunteer work, and I donate to charity. I just fear the consequences of large-scale gov't meddling in medicine.

To me, the case for the free market has never been "Screw the rest of you! Poor people can rot!" It's always been "Well, nothing's perfect, but the alternatives to the free market are even worse."

Now, some will say "Gee, hardly a ringing endorsement." Well, I'm not here to be a cheerleader. Most people in this country are skeptical of the free market. By being unrealistic you merely discredit yourself. And by sounding as heartless as possible, you merely alienate people.

So, while I may not share Joe's conclusions, I share his concerns. If that means expulsion from the Pure Republic of Libertopia, so be it.

[Matt]

Joe:

All well and good. But the problem with the government being involved in insurance but not the medical industry is that there is unlimited demand for medical services and a limited supply. In order to control the costs of the government-run insurance system, the government has to start rationing or controling the price of the procedures and pharmaceuticals. They have to start micromanaging things like how many proctologists should be practicing in Massachusetts and how many pediatricians should be in Appalachia. The resulting hyper-regulation of the medical industry amounts pretty much to de facto nationalization.

[joe]

Will someone please expel thoreau already, so he can start calling himself a New Democrat and be done with it? 😉

thoreau, it's not about the government being involved in medicine. It's about the government being involved in insurance. I do not support the nationalization of the medical industry, as is the case in England.

[Famous Quote]

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free. -- P.J. O'Rourke

If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand. -- Milton Friedman

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. -- Mark Twain

Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others. -- Ayn Rand