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We Surround Rochester
Aug 28, 2010, Washington DC
In response to an article over at the D&C, a discussion followed over the role of government and health care. Someone posted, regarding government funding health care, that “This is NOT socialist economics this is ECONOMICS in the 21st century.”
I gave the following reply:
***
Frankly, it is socialist economics, though you can try to paper over that fact all that you want.
When a government intervenes in a market, it upsets the dynamics of a market and forces inefficiencies. In fact, I would strongly argue that government is responsible for the high health care costs today.
In a free market, I have the option to pick the best plan for me, from a range of suppliers, at the price I wish to pay. As soon as you get government involved, there are mandates of what plans have to include, it increases prices and consolidates supply. That is bad for the consumers of health care.
Not only that, but the government would require taxes to fund such programs. Lets think about that word. It has two meanings which are very closely related. On one hand, it means a government forcibly taking money from an entity. At the same time, it means to place an undue burden on an activity which ultimately limits it. In fact, taxation reduces your economic freedom, placing an undue burden on your ability to prosper while a parasitic government leeches from you. Time and time again has shown that a reduction in tax rates will stimulate the economy and a production of more revenue. Even JFK knew that.
The solution for the 21st century isn’t more government interference in your life and less freedom, it is less government interference and more freedom. Get government out of the health care business so that it can operate efficiently again. As it is now, people have no incentive to take care of themselves because their employer or the government will take responsibility for them. Throwing more money at the problem isn’t a solution, it only creates more dependence on the government and less individual responsibility.
Of course, the people we elect are more than happy to have more power over you and to be able to threaten to take away the things you’ve come to depend on. That is precisely why we have such a high incumbent retention level. If you support government control of any aspect of your life, you’re voting away your freedom one little bit at a time. Don’t be surprised when the wrong guy ends up in power and it dawns on you that you’ve become a slave to the government instead of the government being a slave to you.
PL
All POW-MIA
21 responses so far ↓
1 moparboy // Jan 27, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Great post. Frankly, I think we’re most of the way there, unfortunately. All indicators point towards a single payee system, if we have a Democrat in office, and a sympathetic Congress hungry for election year votes in, say, ’10 or ’12.
Friends of mine who live in Canada say their system sucks, in fact, Canadians in some Provinces are pushing for more privatization. They have antiquated equipment, going back to the post-WW II days, which is used for everyday procedures and whatnot. Less populated areas have to have fund raisers in order to purchase MRI and CT scan equipment, as there is no free market to guide such decision making, or, for that matter, profits to justify such purchases. The government otherwise steps in and puts hospitals and clinics on long waiting lists for such equipment, when funds become available. Which is never.
NY already regulates purchasing of specialized equipment such as that, so as to not allow too much competition, or specialization, in one metro area, or even at a specific hospital. Score another for NY style socialism! This is why companies such as IDE Imaging exist and have such a hold on those procedures; the hospitals are not allowed to have a “monopoly”, that is, one hospital cannot have all of the machines in one metro area and/or cannot have the latest equipment, while another might not have the latest and greatest. So, a group of rich physicians got together and started an imaging business, and created their own monopoly, fully within state guidelines.
One example a friend of mine from Winnipeg told me about a while back: There are approx. 100 Primary Care Physicians (PCP’s) for their metro area, which is almost identical to Rochester’s size. 100 PCP’s! The shortage of doctors in Canada is appalling. It’s already started in Rochester, with all the specialists whom have early retired or skipped town, due to the high liability costs, and ever dwindling reimbursements for even routine visits.
The reasons why health care costs so much are many and varied. It’s a terribly complex issue, complicated by special interests, regulations, high liability ins. costs, and, last but not least, massive administration costs. I’d rather see brass tacks de-regulation and reigning in of costs/special interests.
2 phantomlord // Jan 27, 2008 at 7:43 pm
I remember back in the 1993-94 HillaryCare era, Rochester was promoted as an ideal model of a regional health care system.
Hahahahaha.
Yeah, look at how well that panned out just a decade later.
Only when the government is in control, you have no alternatives to switch to. You’re mandated into a one size fits all program. Just like what is best for NYC might not be best for western NY, what’s best for NY might not be what’s best for Kentucky (ok, lets be honest, what is “best” for NY obviously wasn’t best for NY either).
Already, people are heading over the southern border to get dental work done in Mexico since it can be done for a fraction of the price as what is available in the US and with similar quality (just do your homework before picking your DDS). Just like Canadians and Europeans flock to the US for their medical care, we’ll have to head to another country to get ours as well if the left has their way.
The beauty of communism spectrum doctrine is that all people get to suffer equally. Of course, the political leadership will have their own plan* because sometimes, some people are a little “more equal.”
* See Congress, former Soviet leadership, Chairman Mao, Kim Jong-Il, etc.
3 Joe Guy // Nov 5, 2008 at 8:31 pm
So Deregulation is your flavor of destruction? Wall Street has done so well. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have done so well. God knows the trade deficits are doing this nation a great service.
Speaking of freedom, is it freedom to be considered guilty until proven innocent? Is freedom what you call it when phone taps, destructive searches and career ruining false allegations are all a result of the not-so-patriotic Patriot Act?
I understand the complexities and I agree it is not an easy set of problems to solve. I do know that the Right has had their opportunity to solve the problems and it has only become worse by the minute.
Pointing to Canada as what would happen to us is like pointing to that Purple Dino and saying if you like kids that is what you will look like. We do things differently in this country, regardless of what side you lean too. What ever our government comes up with may or may not be perfect when it is launched. We as a nation must continue to participate and vote for who we think will make things better.
At this time, everyone, for the most part, is tired of waiting on the trickle down socialism of the Reagan party to trickle down to China and back to the Americans. It isn’t going to happen that way.
I hope the Republicans come up with a new approach to our problems.
Personally I love this country and think everyone should pony up an extra 5% tax regardless of your tax bracket, or, stop wasting money on a war that should not have been fought and focus on the real war in Afghanistan.
I do not like our current health care system and I can afford it. I do think something should happen but I do not in any way trust the deregulation that has almost destroyed this country.
Reagan’s administration had a 28% Capital Gains tax and everyone lived through those days and we had enough money in this country for everyone to be strung out on Cocaine.
What amazes me is the the current agenda of the right shows me that they either are uneducated or they simply can not see past their own wallet to see what is best for the entire country including most of all the wealthy.
The reason we have regulation in the first place is to keep our markets fair. The reason we have to keep our markets fair is to keep illegal activity from taking place in every corner of our economic structure.
4 Joe Guy // Nov 5, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Take a look at Russia and see what your deregulation will bring you. Almost every sector of their country was over ran and controlled by criminals that took advantage of deregulation and they pushed back room deals and forced payola like protection schemes on every business owner in the entire nation because of the lack of regulation and enforcement of common sense, ethics and morals handed to them from the government.
Humans are humans. We will screw the next guy if we can get a hand up. It is our animal instinct and you are ignorant if you doubt this. Without regulation in the sectors that are so vital to our nation’s success both within our borders and on the global market place, we will be over run by the money hungry criminals that destroy things such as Wall Street, the Mortgage Industry, Global Trade and if you had it your way, the health care industry.
Again, I do not think that our current regulations and health care legislation is working but I know without a doubt that your concepts will only destroy the nation that we all love so much.
Beyond your wallet, consider this… Even if you view it as a service we all should earn and pay for at market prices and not a right for all citizens (health care that is) then what happens when a disease or virus spreads around the country that can not be cured and the only way to keep us all from dying is to have prevented it in the first place? That right to basic health care could have saved your life but, luckily you took our government into an unregulated health care policy that restricted some significant percentage of the country to not have the funds to keep themselves in basic preventative health condition for the betterment of our entire nation.
I hope I go fast when your world gives me the virus that will kill us all. Again, I guess that would be my choice in your world… I could simply elect not to pay for care and laugh as a contagious virus takes us all out.
5 Joe Guy // Nov 5, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Just to clear this socialism thing up. Both sides are equally guilty of it. The only difference is who the welfare goes to. The right bails out companies with corporate welfare while they post record profits. The left bails out the middle class working person who never gets their trickle down. The reason they never get the trickle down is because the companies are too busy taking advantage of the deregulated economy and screwing people out of their hard earned retirements.
6 phantomlord // Nov 5, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Here’s the thing… HMOs were created by the government in 1973 in response to the problems created by the government with the introduction of Medicare/Medicaid in the 1960s. They found health care was immediately leaving the mans of the average American not receiving public benefits and so they sought to change that through more government regulation.
Government regulation failed us in the first place. More government regulation created the current problem. Even more regulation will… what? Make everything perfect? Every time government interferes in the market, it makes things worse, not better.
Now, that’s not to say that government can’t have a role in regulating things like safety. I see nothing wrong with the government determining whether or not a particular medicine or treatment is safe for use, even if they screw that up too (see stuff like Vioxx or Avandia).
The SEC should regulate Wall Street to crack down on fraud. What it should not do, is interfere with the market by injecting itself like it did with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Then in 2005, when the Republicans wanted more oversight of those interfering agencies, the Democrat blocked them, declaring then and up through this summer that those institutions were fundamentally sound.
Regulation to ensure a safe and fair market isn’t socialism, it is protecting the market itself from manipulation. Government participation IN the market is very dangerous, however… we have no business with this whole bailout package and it’s already being abused in ways that it wasn’t mean to be used, like banks using the money to pay dividends rather than introduce loan liquidity.
And that’s the problem with socialism. It isn’t about government regulation to protect the markets, it’s about government manipulation OF the markets… and the government has proven it will always screw that up. Not just our government, but governments around the world, be they democratic or totalitarian.
No country with socialized medicine has the access to high end health care that many in the US enjoy. France has had riots because it can be impossible to become employed since they make it so hard to be fired. Even the Scandanavian countries that are the marquee of socialism done right are in the midst of their own banking crisis. And that’s the problem, socialism always fails because it lacks the efficiency of protected capitalism (versus lassiez-faire) and the governments act according to its own wishes rather than the economic realities.
7 rochester_veteran // Nov 6, 2008 at 6:31 am
Government mandated socialism has always failed. No matter how many times the socialists/communists (one and the same) have tried to create Utopia, it always collapses upon itself, quite often with a high mortality rate of its citizens, something like 100 million dead as a result of “Utopia”.
8 CubeNinja // Dec 26, 2008 at 10:16 pm
“Pony up and pay an extra 5% tax…”
You’ve got to be kidding me. I love this country, too, but paying more taxes is in no way more patriotic. I pay the taxes that are required of me, but it is NOT patriotic to throw money at people who have no sense of accountability for that money. If there is one thing we can count on from Washington, it’s that they will waste our money. I have worked as a government subcontractor and have personally seen that the government will spend 3 to 4 times what a project should cost on some great new program, only to abandon it 4 months later because someone higher up kaboshed it. It is apparent that many politicians think that lay American citizens have money trees in their backyard and it doesn’t matter how much they spend because they can always demand more.
Oh, and then there’s the matter that our politicians have sold us into economic slavery by accumulating a multi-trillion dollar debt. And you want more money for your social experiments? More taxes? I don’t think so.
9 Justin // May 19, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Just wanted to comment on one thing someone said
“Government regulation failed us in the first place. More government regulation created the current problem. Even more regulation will… what?”
So, your idea is, we tried once, it didn’t work so good and we didn’t get it perfect, and regulation (I assume you mean Fannie and Freddie) played one part in the economic clusterfuck today.
So, let’s stop trying and hope everything works out for the best with everyone looking out for themselves?
10 rochester_veteran // May 20, 2009 at 6:11 am
Justin,
Communism/socialism was tried over and over again in the 20th Century and the results were disasterous, resulting in the murder of over 100 million innocent people at the hands of their governments.
Communism/socialism doesn’t work and it’s failed every time it’s been implemented.
11 phantomlord // May 28, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Justin,
If regulation failed and more regulation failed the result is to remove the regulation, not to add more.
The current problems in the medical system primarily rose from the creation of Medicaid/Medicare, which undercut working class folks, raising their own medical costs and forcing them to pay for the medical bills of others (even if they had no type of insurance themselves). The solution was to create HMOs, operated privately but heavily managed by the government. HMOs further caused the cost of health care to go up.
Simultaneously, legal costs associated with health care increased exponentially, but the government continually refuses to address them even though it is costing Medicare, Medicaid and HMOs money, forcing costs up for both the consumers and taxpayers.
So, you tell me… how is more government going to solve the health care problem when it was the government that created it and later exacerbated it to begin with? What makes you think that the government won’t have to ration health care, reducing the quality of care people are used to? They have finite health care dollars just like HMOs do. If I don’t like my HMO’s care or doctors, I can switch. What if I don’t like my government care or doctors? Well, if I’m politically well connected or wealthy, I can buy the type of care average Americans have now, but if I’m not raking in the dough, like most people in the US, I’m screwed.
So again… you tell me, how is the government, the people that brought you the IRS, DMV, a bankrupt Social Security program, $11 trillion in debt on the books (with another $75 trillion in future owed obligations) and Walter Reed going to provide better care at a lower cost? It can’t.
12 Alex // Jun 13, 2009 at 11:47 am
Wow, this is an old post, kind of a time capsule… Look at where we’re at today, Government Motors, Chrysler is owned by a foreign company… They’re working on passing a bill that would create more than a trillion dollars in debt… They’re trying to pass government health care -_-
Keep pulling for american guys! As little of a chance conservatives have to try to change this at this point we need to figure out something…
13 rochester_veteran // Jun 14, 2009 at 10:46 am
Alex said:
Wow, this is an old post, kind of a time capsule…
Yeah, it is an old post, from Jan, 2008, a year and a half ago.
As little of a chance conservatives have to try to change this at this point we need to figure out something…
We still have a chance at turning things around, but we need to get active. Chances are, there’s a Tea Party group in your area. Join it and participate. Having “boots on the ground” is important. There’s a state-wide rally this coming Tuesday, the March on Albany. We’ve got a group from Rochester going.
There’s still time to turn this around and people are having their eyes opened by this huge power-play by the radical socialists! Their tactics are right out of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. We need to stop them!
14 EDEDDD // Jun 24, 2009 at 8:13 pm
If income was capped at $1,000,000 (which is more than enough for anyone) and the rest was taxed, we could take care of everyone who doesn’t have the ability to afford health care, food, or education. Seeing these people as being lazy and incapable is very ignorant, because these are the people who are working to keep you rich. They work much harder than you ever have. I don’t see how limiting someone’s income to a million dollars is possibly limiting their freedom, when people can’t afford food for their children, people can’t afford health care, we can’t afford anything. You work us to death and don’t give us any part of it, because it hurts your profit margins. THAT isn’t freedom, it’s fascism. Freedom for the rich. Death and misery for the poor.
15 phantomlord // Jun 24, 2009 at 9:09 pm
If income were taxed at $100,000 (which is more than enough for anyone)… If income were taxed at $10,000 (which is more than enough for anyone)… If income were taxed at $1,000… Over the years, incomes have risen dramatically due to inflation.
Who are you to judge what is or is not a fair compensation for someone to receive? Further, why do you have the right to forcibly take the fruits of someone else’s labor to distribute how you see fit? It’s that what liberty means to modern day liberals? That you have no economic freedom and you are simply a tool of the state, acting as a wealth transfer agent on those who aren’t willing to take care of themselves?
Oh, but you say I’m ignorant and those people work much harder than I ever have. My dad had a brain aneurysm and stroke when I was 21 and I’ve spent more than a decade taking care of him. I’ve sacrificed obtaining my degree, being able to have a decent career and have absolutely no social life because of it, but you’re going to lecture me on how I have too much. We live off my dad’s retirement, a whopping $25k a year. I choose not to have life insurance to save money since the odds are on my side. I’m rolling in it, aren’t I? I’m abusing your working poor that works for me even though I’m the one that is unemployed.
Some lessons on economic and political systems for you since you don’t seem to understand the word fascism or the origins of the income tax.
Fascism is government control of the means of production in the name of the nation. Comparatively, socialism is government control of the means of production in the name of the people and communism is government ownership of everything with everyone having an equal share (though not equal control or access, that is left up to the political elite).
Government control of the health care industry in the name of protecting the nation, government control of the automobile industry in the name of protecting the nation, government control of the banking industry in the name of protecting the nation, those are all tenets of fascism.
Capitalism allows anyone who is willing to work hard and use the assets (including non-monetary ones like intelligence) available to them to succeed. The vast majority of millionaires in the United States are self-made. While the person that drops out of high school to work at McDonalds gets to spend their teens and twenties partying, the people on the track of success are busy sacrificing to obtain years of extra schooling, often at a cost to themselves, and then scrimping and saving, delaying their social life, etc to allow themselves to succeed. Of course, in the worldview of the people that don’t want to sacrifice, that is unfair… It’s greed and envy alright, but not by those who worked hard to achieve their goals.
Finally, when the income tax was first instituted in 1861, it was only imposed on people making more than $800 a year (and only 3% at that). In 1894, it was adjusted to 2% of incomes over $4000. Today, federal income tax tops out at 35% (down from a peak of 94% under FDR).
Want to talk about death and misery for the poor? Wait until the people with the means and desire to hire you no longer choose to do so because the extra effort isn’t worth it with a salary cap. You think unemployment is high now? You think you have it so bad today? Good luck then.
16 bill h // Nov 14, 2009 at 1:35 am
Joe Guy you have some interesting ideas but we have to talk apples to apples. There is simply no better judge of what people need than a free market, the minute you you give the choice to one or a few people, human nature takes over. The market only cares about supply and demand, regulation distorts the natural flow. Words will not change this reality.
17 Stock Market Today // Jun 10, 2011 at 5:27 pm
I dont think modern, democratic socialism would allow the government to enslave us. While i do think you are right in some ways, I am not completely convinced that socialism is not compatible with good economics. After all, in a current era we are more and more depended on social currencies and not just on raw, financial gain. If you still doubt this watch the film called Economics of Happiness
Thanks for blogging this
Mina
18 spaovo // Dec 19, 2011 at 1:49 am
wheres everyine stand now almost 3 years later..Democratic Socialism is what we need ti get us out capitalize corruption. It has come to the point where money is speech.. ans as fine and dandy that seems corporations who have the prettiest penny gets what they want, thats why health as feel thru bc insurance companies wouldn’t benefit enough.
“Socialism is for lazy ppl which don’t want to work and bs” as thus is true in some cases there are still hard working, entreprenuers, once wealthy and dreamers out there who have fell below the poverty line. Socialism is NOT communism, SOC. is by the ppl for the ppl Occupy is the biggest socialize movement in the world..
Taxing the 1% &/or capping income is the only way to turn us around bc 1 more money for the 99% is more spending = economic growth 2 how does taxing ppl w/o the money help economic growth.. with forecloser and unemployment rates through the roof..
Its that the america dream.. wealth for everyone, helping our brothers in need.. instead capitalist has brainwashed everyone in ti an every man for himself.. and thats ultimately whatsweong with our country.. the tea party, GOP, and the how republican party..
It is time for a New World Order.. this is a fact
19 Jane // Mar 14, 2012 at 5:27 pm
I disagree spaovo.
You obviously know nothing of REAL American history. I think you have been braiwashed.
The socialists are trying to make our American founding fathers. I have seen video clips. Go do you own resaerch, think for yourself. and make an educated choice.
By the way, Socialism is the first step to Communism. It’s actually communism in tis early stages where it hasn’t been completly set up yet.
20 Jane // Mar 14, 2012 at 5:28 pm
Apologies for my spelling mistakes.
21 Jane // Mar 14, 2012 at 5:29 pm
As for the New World order I am ready to fight it!
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