64 Comments

1. MTL:

Who could miss the Austin Powers resemblance?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AustinPowers200px.png

Jul 7, 2009 - 6:59 pm 2. Insufficiently Sensitive:

The only cure for the pending “health care” bills in Congress is a Federal mandate that every member of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches (from the top right down to GS-1) shall have only the level of care that a civilian of age 65 is allowed.

Jul 7, 2009 - 7:00 pm 3. JMH:

And Boynton at 42 is pretty much at the peak of Herr Doktor Ezekiel’s utility social curve (from a couple posts ago). Oops, except of course that he was in the warmongering armed forces. Probably voted Tory. No teeth for you.

Yes, just remember Industrial Super Glue. It works the best.

How good is it at gluing a society back together after Progressive have smashed it apart?

Jul 7, 2009 - 7:01 pm 4. Walt:

Obama says he wants a health care bill with teeth in it. What you see is what we’ll get.

Doctor! Doctor! Will you please
Prescribe to ease my pain
I know they’ve lowered all your fees
And I can’t see you again
Until my ration card is stamped
Downtown at Barack’s place
So now that our health care’s revamped
I cannot show my face
But doctor! doctor! I hurt so
I can’t wait for my turn
To see why I am breathing slow
And why my eyes do burn
And why I cannot feel my toes
Or have a cup of tea
Without my wondering where it goes
Is something wrong with me?
What’s that you say, I’m now in line
For consultation when?
You say in six months I’ll be fine
And you can see me then?
All right if that’s the very best
That you can do right now
I’ll just go lay me down to rest
And hope indeed somehow
That I can last until that date
Obama says that I
Can see someone to medicate
Sometime before I die

Jul 7, 2009 - 7:19 pm 5. Leo Linbeck III:

More photos for The Big Book of British Smiles.

L3

Jul 7, 2009 - 7:29 pm 6. Fat Man:

You will notice that no one mentions dentistry in the Obama care proposals.

Jul 7, 2009 - 7:36 pm 7. Marcus Aurelius:

Come on Wretchard, “it’s just an anectdote, squawk!” Or at least so goes the cry of the Leftist Looney Bird.

Jul 7, 2009 - 7:39 pm 8. Boghie:

Anyone tell you folks – with Wretchard one of the worst – that you are all kinda sick…

Uuugggghhhhh….

The Future of American Dentistry!!!

Jul 7, 2009 - 8:02 pm 9. Boghie:

Looks like the Simpsons director could save some money by using actual footage (stock photos) of free British Dental Care!!!

Me thinks ‘free’ is a reletive word…

Jul 7, 2009 - 8:05 pm 10. Boghie:

These blokes just redefined ‘free’ and single plier insurance!!!

As a conservative, I have to respect their initiative.

Jul 7, 2009 - 8:11 pm 11. Doug:

Steyn’s folks still live there.
Said his dad regularly brings infections home from the hospital.

Told the story of a woman miscarrying in the waiting room with a pool of blood on the floor.
An orderly comes in with a dirty mop, swabs it around and then drags the mop out the door into the hallway!

Some ungodly number of women got an STD when an unclean speculum was re-used.

Maybe they should just be given a pain pill and told to stay home.

Worth a try.

Jul 7, 2009 - 8:16 pm 12. Doug:

Boghie:

For the elderly on the worthless end of that graph who are losing their grip,
Big Brother will provide Vice Grips.

Jul 7, 2009 - 8:20 pm 13. Boghie:

Doug,

That chap is 42.

42.

I think that says an awful lot about England’s NICE healthcare system. Maybe I’ll give up my citizenship RIGHT NOW and go Brit. Then I’ll get a couple more months of free gubmint service, eh!!!

Jul 7, 2009 - 8:31 pm 14. buddy larsen:

I bet Obam’s political hires
shall never heft a pair of pliers

so promptly with an aching tooth
are they berthed in dental booth

and zonked on twilight ‘mulsifiers

(*groan*)

Jul 7, 2009 - 8:34 pm 15. buddy larsen:

Doug, you mean ‘vise grips’ (vice grips are, like, booze, dope, hookers & such).

Jul 7, 2009 - 8:37 pm 16. Tamquam:

Vice grips work for me.

Jul 7, 2009 - 8:44 pm 17. buddy larsen:

one is for a toolkit fillin’
the other oft needs penicillin

Jul 7, 2009 - 8:54 pm 18. buddy larsen:

The Big Screen [Mark Steyn]

One of President Obama’s arguments for “reforming” health care is that “preventive” care – more tests, more screening – will help control costs. Really? A propos cancer, Professor H Gilbert Welch of Dartmouth Medical School notes:

For starters, the majority of folks who are screened receive no benefit. That’s because, despite scary statistics, most people will not get cancer. Let’s look at breast cancer as an example.According to government statistics, the absolute risk of a 60-year-old woman dying from breast cancer in the next 10 years is 9 in 1,000. If regular mammograms reduce this risk by one-third-a widely cited but by no means universally accepted claim-her odds fall to 6 in 1,000. Therefore, for every 1,000 women screened, three of them avoid death from breast cancer, six die regardless, and the rest? They can’t possibly benefit because they weren’t going to die from the disease in the first place.

Apply that across the system: How can testing 997 out of a thousand people for no good reason save money? As David Harsanyi writes:

A government policy that prods people into incessantly visiting medical offices for checkups, screenings, and tests will only raise costs even further. According to studies, preventive medicine thwarts little, though it does mean early diagnoses for relatively harmless ailments—and treatments for them.

One of the points I make in the current NR is that, if health care “systems” are so critical to your health, why is there an entirely negligible difference in outcomes?

Life expectancy in the European Union 78.7 years; life expectancy in the United States 78.06 years; life expectancy in Albania 77.6 years; life expectancy in Libya, 76.88 years; life expectancy in Bosnia & Herzegovina, 78.17 years. Once you get on top of childhood mortality and basic hygiene, everything else is peripheral – margin-of-error territory. Maybe we could get another six months by adopting EU-style socialized health care. Or we could get another six weeks by reducing the Lower 48 to rubble in an orgy of bloodletting, which seems to have done wonders for Bosnian longevity… Even within the United States, even within the Medicare system, there are regions that offer twice as much “health care” per patient – twice as many check-ups, pills, tests, operations – for no discernible variation in outcome.
(close quote from link)

Jul 7, 2009 - 9:11 pm 19. Doug:

OTOH,
Steyn often cites the better survival rate for women with Breast Cancer here compared with Canada, because of prompt, rather than Govt Issued Treatment.

Jul 7, 2009 - 9:34 pm 20. Poppabob:

Another overlooked point about preventive care and medical costs. Assuming preventive care is successful,we will have an increasingly ageing population. These larger numbers of aged patients will have more arthritic knees and hips, more cataracts, more hearing difficulties, and, of course, will all eventually suffer a fatal disease, requiring care. This most certainly will increase medical costs significantly. It is obvious that if everyone were to die at age fifty, there would be a marked decrease in the costs of medicine, but I doubt that anyone wants to go there.

Jul 7, 2009 - 9:48 pm 21. buddy larsen:

“Gov’t Issued Treatment”, or “GIT” –hmmm, a slogan.

Jul 7, 2009 - 9:55 pm 22. Marcus Aurelius:

Here is why we need to keep bringing the anecdotes on.

I know a woman, who about halfway through her insurance mandated mammogram exam period figure she needed one afresh. Well, the insurance company (with behind the scenes actuarys noting the probable value of the result too costly to the company) declined to pay for the exam, but they did end paying for the treatment of the breast cancer found. My friend is alive and well.

Now, if she were in a situation under govt health care ala Canada she would have had no recourse when her request was denied, and who knows her treatment. Sure, they are anecdotes but it is a lot easier than to talk about not treating X% off a group than it is to tell a person and their family they are being denied treatment.

I have a person in my circles who can be too fond of the juniper berry juice. A pro-Obama buddy notes that many private health insurance carriers are starting to deny funding for the treatment of self-induced maladies (e.g. damage to the liver due to the over-indulgence of juniper berry juice), well, why would a public policy behave any differently? In fact, there would be more pressure to not cover socially unacceptable risks under governmental health care. In fact, UK coverage can be very hostile to covering treatment for such affairs.

Jul 7, 2009 - 10:09 pm 23. JMH:

A pro-Obama buddy notes that many private health insurance carriers are starting to deny funding for the treatment of self-induced maladies…

Q: Will it count as a self-inflicted malady when a government health care petty-czar gets a baseball bat shoved up his exit ramp sideways by an irate person whom he just denied treatment?

Jul 7, 2009 - 10:22 pm 24. Contrarian:

I have a hard time sympathizing with this guy who could have gotten his crown fixed for about $160. But he chose super glue instead, and complains about the government program. This is a big part of the problem. People, Americans included, think they should get freebies from the government, rather than paying for their own medical care. This is a true welfare state mentality.

Jul 7, 2009 - 10:31 pm 25. wretchard:

He may think he’s already been charged for the crown, at least psychologically. He’s already “paid”, and maybe he hasn’t gotten anything left over to pay some more. Now this is probably not strictly true. The odds are that he spends ten or so pounds a week on beer or cigarettes. Logically, he can go down to the pawnshop, hock his TV and get his $160 for the crown. Then he could give up the for sixteen weeks until he could get his TV back from the pawnshop.

But I think a lot of people will think “free healthcare” is actually free, instead of “paid for by taxes”. And they’ll be disappointed and not a little surprised that it’s insurance, except you pay it to the government, and which unlike the an insurance company, has no competitors. Like any other policy if you get denied coverage you have to shell out extra; and when you’ve nothing left over for something you thought was already paid for, then its superglue time. People who live in public housing and from government benefits (which they may have paid into in taxes) tend to develop a kind of packrat mentality. Their value system changes. They’ll keep the faucet leaking until the public housing plumber shows up. In my case, if the washer wears out, I put in a new one. If I was in public housing, I might not. Maybe if I even tried, I’d get fined.

Jul 7, 2009 - 10:51 pm 26. JMH:

Gov’t Issued Treatment”, or “GIT” –hmmm, a slogan.

Well, you tried to get your Government Implemented Medical Proceedure, but it was disapproved by the Department (of) Expedited Automatic Denials, and you were referred to the folks from Hospital Executive Legislative Liaison (office of), who told you to get Federal Uninsured Coverage Kit Express Documentation.

Just another day in Obamistan.

Jul 7, 2009 - 10:59 pm 27. Beverly:

Johnny [Janie] Appleseed here. I just saw this website and was mightily impressed. This could be a way up and out.

Check these folks out. Their platform is astonishing.

http://theamericanconservatives.org/cms/
The American Conservative Party

“The American Conservative Party was founded by a group of people who grew disillusioned with the Republican party, and tired of saying “Someone should do something about it. We need a leader like Reagan or Thatcher.” Collectively, we finally decided that not only was there no Messiah of the Right, but there should not be such an icon.

“Given a hero to lead them, people would flock to his or her banner, and we’d march on to Washington, ready to smite our foes. Manna would rain from the heavens and we’d bask in our freedoms and economic prosperity.

“Just one problem. What happens when that hero dies?

“Well, for an answer to that, look at what happened to “Reaganism.” Look what happened to “Thatcherism.” Barely a generation has gone by, and the U.K. is selling its sovereignty to the bureaucrats in Brussels, and we have “sold our birthright for a mess of porridge.”

“We, the people, don’t need an icon — we need a firm political philosophy grounded in the 17th & 18th century Age of Enlightenment that produced this very country.

“The Republican party has failed to even address the need, let alone fulfill it. Instead, they engage in the politics of opportunism, voting for $700 billion bailouts when they are in power, and against them when they aren’t. Individual congressmen decry government spending one week and brag how much they brought to their district in the next.

“It has to stop. It has to be stopped at all levels. It can’t just be stopped in Washington, the rot is too deep. We must fight at the local, the county, the state, and the federal levels to revive the philosophy of a limited government unable to tax us into peonage, make us dependent upon government for our very subsistence, unable to interfere in our home and work, unable to be the father, mother, and keeper of our very lives and that of our children.

“This is why we collectively declared, “if there should be no one leader, then there must be a thousand. Our numbers will be legion and we shall not falter with the life of a single person. We few are but the beginning.”

“It’s a bit pompous sounding, but it expresses the sentiment nicely: We take back our government, or we sell our future generations into tax slavery to pay off the madness that has gripped our leaders — Democrat and Republican alike.

“Conservatives: Welcome to your new home. Let’s get to work.”

Jul 7, 2009 - 11:19 pm 28. sgi:

Chatting with a fellow from France the other day who was raving about France’s medical system while complaining about the American system, he suddenly exclaimed “And it’s free!”

I just had to remind him it wasn’t free, but paid for with taxes from the employed citizens of France.

That was the end of that conversation.

Jul 7, 2009 - 11:19 pm 29. Mad Fiddler:

Our local paper on the fourth of July ran an article about a woman DYING OF CANCER who had been helped by an ombudsperson [forgive me] to find a federal program providing some minimal financial aid for people in her fix.

The woman is within a few months of death, has made arrangements for someone else to raise her young son. And our compassionate and highly efficient government sends her a questionnaire evidently required for the complete processing of her application. I am NOT LYING about this! The questionnaire of many many pages offered such questions as:

Are you Left or Right Handed?

What will you spend the money on that you receive?

Please describe in detail your regular daily activities from the time you get up until you go to bed.

Does your condition affect your ability to prepare your own meals?

What are your favorite foods?

and on and on for page after page…

Well, I suppose I should be grateful that the government is making some attempt to determine whether the applicant really is dying, not just a run-of-the-mill welfare cheat.

Jul 7, 2009 - 11:22 pm 30. wretchard:

Beverly,

Interesting site. The best way to discover how good it is, I suspect, is to deal with them. Handsome is as handsome does.

Jul 7, 2009 - 11:40 pm 31. ledger:

Gad, this a ghastly look at our future under Obama. This stinks to high heaven.

Insufficiently Sensitive @ 2 makes a good point:

“The only cure for the pending “health care” bills in Congress is a Federal mandate that every member of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches (from the top right down to GS-1) shall have only the level of care that a civilian of age 65 is allowed.”

I agree.

Federal Employees have their cushy separate retirement and healthcare system (CSRS/FERS). I would suggest that CSRS and FERS employees be put into the Medicare/Social Security system. Then we may see “Change.”

Obama has turn the notion of a “civil servant” on its head.

Instead of government employees being servants to the Tax Payers Obama has made the Tax Payers servants of the Government Employees.

It is time to reverse the situation.

Jul 7, 2009 - 11:51 pm 32. JMH:

Federal Employees have their cushy separate retirement and healthcare system (CSRS/FERS). I would suggest that CSRS and FERS employees be put into the Medicare/Social Security system. Then we may see “Change.”

Have you seen the Bill Whittle PJTV bit about who is getting IOU’s from California and who is getting cash?

Hint: government workers and their cushy retirement plans aren’t the ones getting IOUs.

Jul 8, 2009 - 12:25 am 33. bob:

When I take a tooth out, I use vise grips hooked onto a come a long. Get a real good grip with the vise on the target tooth, hook the come a long to tree, and crank the handle. Pops ‘em right out.

Jul 8, 2009 - 12:35 am 34. rabidfox:

FERs employees are under the Medicate/Social Security System. Civil Service was converted about 20-25 years ago.

Jul 8, 2009 - 3:04 am 35. no mo uro:

“He may think he’s already been charged for the crown, at least psychologically. He’s already “paid”, and maybe he hasn’t gotten anything left over to pay some more. Now this is probably not strictly true. The odds are that he spends ten or so pounds a week on beer or cigarettes. Logically, he can go down to the pawnshop, hock his TV and get his $160 for the crown. Then he could give up the for sixteen weeks until he could get his TV back from the pawnshop.”

So true, Wretchard. This reminds me of some incidents.

A relative’s neighbor let it be known at a party recently that his tooth was killing him because ‘he can’t afford the dentist’. This as I looked across the street and saw his boat, his ATV, and his two covered snowmobiles in the front yard. The truth is, this guy can easily afford dental care, which is not all that expensive compared to medical care generally. He has CHOSEN to spend his money elsewhere. Regular dental care is not a priority for him, having fun is.

Another guy I used to work with back when I did entertainment ended up with an upper denture because of a lack of gum care. He was a pack a day smoker. When I suggested that he give up the smokes and use the money he saved to fix his mouth, he literally became enraged, told me that cigarettes made him happy, he was an addict and couldn’t quit, and it was none of my business how he spent his ‘fun money’.

At another gathering, a friend’s wife declared that employees of hourly wage earners should be required by law to pay for someone to miss an hour or two of work to go to the dentist ’so they didn’t have to lose any pay’. Never mind that the business owner loses two hours of productivity, screw him. The important thing is that the true cost of getting care does not accrue to the person who desires it. When I asked her about the possibility of using a vacation day to get all your medical/dental care done, she became incensed and said that that time was for fun and recreation, that a person shouldn’t have to ‘waste’ a day off for health care. The conclusion to be drawn is that for her, sitting on the beach sipping a drink is so much more important than maintaining dental health that the latter is considered a waste of time by comparison. Not very adult.

If any of these folks REALLY thought dental care was important, they wouldn’t behave this way, they’d allocate their money and time to get the care.

I know these are only for dentistry, but writ large they represent an attitude towards health care in general. I believe that health care, despite its bumps and warts, has become so good at treating so many ailments and in truth has become so accessible that it is taken for granted.

And not worth losing a precious vacation day or a few toys or fun events to acquire.

Keep in mind always that the impetus for socialized medicine (for most folks that want it) isn’t based on notions of health being a high priority, or worrying about ‘the children’ or ‘the needy’, but rather on the complete opposite, that it simply isn’t important enough that you would spend your disposable income purchasing it.

Jul 8, 2009 - 3:13 am 36. no mo uro:

That’s “employers of hourly wage”.

Jul 8, 2009 - 3:14 am 37. wretchard:

Another guy I used to work with back when I did entertainment ended up with an upper denture because of a lack of gum care. He was a pack a day smoker. When I suggested that he give up the smokes and use the money he saved to fix his mouth, he literally became enraged, told me that cigarettes made him happy, he was an addict and couldn’t quit, and it was none of my business how he spent his ‘fun money’.

I think one of the attractions of government dentistry in particular and public healthcare in general is that it will save people from themselves. By letting the government “take care of it”; by forcing us to pay taxes and (presumably) returning them in the form of “free” services, many people aren’t after the “free” part as much as the “assured” aspect of the arrangement. Some people know they can’t handle freedom and would be glad to have someone tell them what to do.

Naturally this incenses people who are quite capable of governing their own affairs. But for the dysfunctional — and there will always be some people in this category — freedom is a curse. They just know that when they get that paycheck the first stop will be the bar, followed by the shopping mall where they will spend more than they can afford for things they will never need. They know this. They are certain in their own minds that the next hundred dollar bill to cross their palms will be spent on a good time, not on dentistry. But deep down they realize they’ll need dentistry. Need it bad. The solution? To put things in the hands of the government. They’re willing to trade their future C bill for the promise that when the time for pulling teeth comes, a dentist will do it. And of course they’ll find any number of politicians who will make that promise. Not that they’ll necessarily keep it.

The real argument for public health care is that it reduces variance; equalizes outcomes between the grasshopper and the ant. Of course a prison does the same thing. But a welfare state, at least, in principle allows you to think you’re free. Health care for some is really about constraint; not freedom. Freedom, like capitalism, is a bad word for people who can’t handle it. A lot of people, more than one would imagine, are happy to fetter themselves for another shot of whiskey, another day at the mall, another afternoon on the beach. Now that’s not to say that there aren’t people out there (retardsincapable persons for example) who will never be able to choose between grasshopper and ant, because they won’t even know what the terms mean. For them, maybe government health care is the best thing. But for the others some will choose to be free, while others choose what they think is safety.

I guess voluntary servitude is a kind of a freedom too. And while I respect those who would thrust their arms into the manacles, it’s not my thing. But hey, majority wins.

Jul 8, 2009 - 3:48 am 38. no mo uro:

Reminds me of the woman who wanted the government to make cell phone use in autos illegal because if it weren’t she’d just keep doing it.

God save us from a society composed of such as that.

Jul 8, 2009 - 3:51 am 39. buddy larsen:

JMH/26; thnx for early a.m. laff!

bob/33; i just hammer in a piton, hook it to a steam cathead i happen to have in the drawing room, and spin up a loop –tooth comes right out!

Jul 8, 2009 - 4:23 am 40. Richard Aubrey:

The first HMOs planned to save lots of money by providing free physical exams and getting on top of problems early.
Seemed, however, that the basic reason not to get an exam was not the money–as has been pointed out most folks could afford one–but the reluctance to get an exam free or not.
And who’s going to determine what lifestyle issues deny coverage? Drinking and smoking, yes we can see some bluenoses opposing treatments for resulting problems.
Promiscuous sex and the STDs, the pregnancies…. Covered.

Jul 8, 2009 - 4:38 am 41. Lifeofthemind:

The juxtaposition of the weirdly inappropriate google ads and the content of these threads could provide a theme for some comment riff.

Jul 8, 2009 - 5:36 am 42. Herb:

JMH 26 Go Home And Die

Jul 8, 2009 - 6:15 am 43. Doug:

Free Our Health Care Now Online Petition

Jul 8, 2009 - 6:21 am 44. Hutsul:

Wait for the Obama “Life Centers” – Left door – fetal outcome testing; inappropriate fetal termination; tissue recycling – Right door (55 and older) – diagnosis/termination dating; termination procedure selection; procedure room; tissue recycling. There is no need for dentists because everyone will be happy, vibrant and young with white teeth.

Jul 8, 2009 - 6:41 am 45. Tcobb:

I guess the gentleman in question should count himself lucky that he wasn’t arrested for practicing dentistry without a license. Acts of self help are not condoned in any Progressive Society.

Jul 8, 2009 - 6:43 am 46. buddy larsen:

Hutsul/44; …and if grandma doesn’t want to go in for her annual, some escorts will come fetch her.

Soon the youth and high spirits of a new young vibrant nation will require ‘lebensraum’ –look out, Canada & Mexico!

“Anschlussiero?” Si.
“Anschluss, eh?” Yoop.

Jul 8, 2009 - 7:00 am 47. buckets:

Wretchard @ 37,

Agreed, and as has been discussed here before, perhaps the answer lies in the redefinition of citizenship and voting rights. I do believe in a “social safety” net – Social Security, some level of public aid, the American bankruptcy system – but I think we are getting close to the breaking point. It’s human nature to pursue short term benefit as opposed to long term, and right now the public/Congress seems intent on making sure many Americans will pay for nothing yet have everything – housing, public aid, health insurance, and now health care. I understand that people admit they are unable to function without state aid; whether because of disability, inability to find work, or even laziness, and I hesitate to penalize, but I’m not so sure that dependent wards of the State should retain all the rights of citizenship they currently exercise.

And I hate to chide, but “retard” isn’t a very kind word.

Jul 8, 2009 - 7:17 am 48. Urban B:

… five minutes to Carousel…

Jul 8, 2009 - 7:27 am 49. tRex:

Maybe the self-extractor thought $160 to glue a crown back on was excessive.

Jul 8, 2009 - 8:15 am 50. tRex:

Oops-mixed two guys up. The self-gluer.

Jul 8, 2009 - 8:16 am 51. Barry 0351:

National health care will treat us worse than dogs are treated.
There are laws against inhumane treatment of animals that are not as draconian as the laws planned for the masses.
I agree that when all members of Government get the same treatment as the masses this bullshit will stop.

Jul 8, 2009 - 9:22 am 52. Stan:

W @ #37 is the key… and from another thread days ago if the US goes the way of Europe where lies the last, best hope of mankind? Where in the world can those willing to shoulder the responsibility go?

The Emperor (O) is losing his clothes (market finally reacting, Debt and rate explosion predicted by the former Fed economist, Unemployment still climbing, AGW being disproved by reality etc…) A friend, Norm from Kirkland, reminded me of the movie Wizard of Oz and asked “who will be Toto?” – who will pull the curtain on this “wizard”? We thought of the rogues gallery of MSM types (Couric, Williams, etc) and journalist types everywhere proudly wearing t-shirts declaring: “I am NOT Toto!”

Walt Kelly in the old cartoon Pogo said it best: “We have met the enemy and they are us!”

Jul 8, 2009 - 9:23 am 53. Blindman:

“The real argument for public health care is that it reduces variance; equalizes outcomes between the grasshopper and the ant.”-Wretchard

I always thought it would get back to monetary policy. Why save if there is going to be inflation. We are all become grasshoppers.

Seriously though the topic and percent of GDP that health care consumes is just massive. You just can’t simply wing this kind of thing. Getting legislation out the door and fixing later is wrong. Assuming that it is all wrong in the first place is also a mistake. There are many good things in the health industry. The issue is that goods and services cost real dollars. The cost of treatment of common diseases has outpaced inflation now for many years. This is one example the off the books type of inflation that Allan Greenspan did not think it necessary to measure. The sad thing is that along with other pressures there will come a reckoning where there is no way to avoid inflation from a political calculus. Then check out the boomers on a fixed income and pray for peace and good teeth.

Jul 8, 2009 - 11:34 am 54. Contrarian:

The problem politically is that all these folks who refuse to be responsible for their own care also vote. One of my fondest dreams is a constitutional amendment denying the franchise to anyone directly receiving government money or benefits. This would mean that the productive, self-responsible folks would not be involuntarily robbed of their wealth by people who are essentially parasites.

Jul 8, 2009 - 11:43 am 55. ftl1087:

I had micro-fracture surgery on my knee last month. Setting up the surgery, getting approval from the insurance company, etc., went off without a hitch. My insurance coverage has a $5000 deductible, which I will have to pay this month. I knew that going in, and I have been budgeting for it.

Micro-fracture surgery recovery protocol calls for one month on crutches, so that there is no weight-bearing stress on the knee. A few weeks after surgery I got the go-ahead to drive my car, and my doctor gave me an application for a temporary handicap parking sticker from the DMV. I show up at the DMV on crutches- of course there’s no automatic door. I crutch over and get a number so that I can wait in the filthy, crowded waiting area. One hour and forty-five minutes later, I’m summoned to a window so that I can submit my application and pay my $5 processing fee. I received my temporary sticker, with a final “permanent” sticker to follow in the mail.

The private sector portion of my experience was effective, efficient, and the people were much more pleasant! The public sector portion of my experience was an annoying pain in the neck loaded with mind-numbing inefficiencies and indifferent state employees.

My favorite quote about government health insurance is from P.J. O’Rourke: “If you think your health care is expensive now, wait till you see how much it costs when it’s free!”

Jul 8, 2009 - 11:57 am 56. Doug:

Mona Leasea

Jul 8, 2009 - 12:02 pm 57. Unsk:

“Freedom is a curse” -Wretchard

I think Wretchard is on to something. There are millions of spoiled, middle age adolescents, living very self destructive lives, who yearn for a strong hand to keep them upright in the saddle. ‘ Life is just so hard” for these people, and they viscerally hate anyone who fully enjoys what freedom has to offer. It’s pure jealousy.

These people are the fodder for the authoritarian socialism that is driving the Western World into a totalitarian ditch.

Jul 8, 2009 - 12:20 pm 58. JMH:

Some people know they can’t handle freedom and would be glad to have someone tell them what to do…Naturally this incenses people who are quite capable of governing their own affairs. But for the dysfunctional — and there will always be some people in this category — freedom is a curse

Bingo, Wretchard. Bingo.

And as pathetic as these creatures seem to the rest of us, perhaps our mistake was to discount them, assume they were few in number and their concerns not important. But they are apparently large in number, and reeally all they’re doing is pursuing their own self interest as best they can. Unfortunately, the path they’ve taken creates a lot of collateral damage for the rest of us. But it
doesn’t have to be that way. If we rethink our voting rules, as Contrarian mentioned.

(warning, crackpot ideas ahead. Read with extreme caution)

Image if you will, a country that has a relatively generous welfareworkfare system, one that provides a safety net of food, clothing, shelter and medical care. It’s open to all citizens, but with one catch. You can’t vote if you’re receiving any public money. That includes government employees and government pension holders. Work for the government and you don’t get to vote (we make an exception for Military service). Take money out of the public treasury and you get no say in who runs the government – but you probably don’t want a say anyway, just the assurance you’ll be taken care of. Pay your own way in the world, taking all the risks and accepting the responsibilty associated with it, and you get to pick the government.

Now, some people may ask why would such an electorate have a generous welfare system? Why would the self-sufficient vote to tax themselves in order to support the dysfunctional?

Self-interest. We know now that the dysfunctional are larger in number than we thought. And really they’re not completely dysfunctional. They can be prefectly productive members of society as long as somebody else makes the more important decisions for them. They’re content, happy and valuable memebers of society with limited responsibility. Sure, it sounds horrible, proles or serfs, and in a way yes that’s what they are, but in the society I’m describing, it’s not an accident of birth that puts someone in one class or the other, it’s a personal choice everyone makes for themselves. And self-interest among those allowed to vote provides for them so as to avoid repeating the problems we’re going through now.

I think the last half century in the US proved that a large and prosperous economy can afford a generous welfare system. The problem is that if you let the welfare recepients become a political power block, they will eventually destroy the prosperity because of the corruption and pandering and exponential growth. If we could eliminate the corruption, pandering and growth but keep the welfare system, wouldn’t that be near-perfect? It would allow everyone to pursue happiness as they saw fit. If that involved striving for more, challenging yourself and shouldering responsibility, you’re the sort of person who should be included in decision making -you’ve shown that you take it seriously. If it involved avoiding responsibility as much as possible because that just isn’t something you’re good at, okay, there’s a place for you too, commensurate with your abilities, which means you’re not invited to the decision-making party, but that’s okay, you don’t wan’t or can’t handle the responsibility anyway.

The flaw in the old feudal system (which the Progressives would like to return to) is that it pigeonholed everyone as either a noble or a serf, regardless of what they wanted or what they were cut out for. Serfs who wanted more control over their lives were oppressed, and nobels who had no ability to handle responsibility ran society into the ground or let it wither away as manipulative con-men wormed their way into power. The flaw in the original American system that replaced it is that it made everyone nobles, even those who were better cut out to be serfs. Eventually the rent-seeking con-men found a way to exploit that, and that exploitation led us to the mess we have today.

Farfetched, isn’t it? But is it unthinkable? How many things that were unthinkable even 12 months ago are no longer so. Some eggs would have to be cracked to make that omlette, but I’m really worried that eggs are going to get cracked anyway.

Jul 8, 2009 - 12:27 pm 59. The Wobbly Guy:

Mencius Moldbug had an interesting government setup in his blogpost last week. He focused not on franchise-style democracy, but rather on running a nation like a joint-stock corporation, with shareholders having only the power to select/elect the CEO.
http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/secession-liberty-and-dictatorship.html

That’s a pretty good way to ensure the nation as a whole stays productive, but doesn’t do much for ensuring that the system isn’t abused. Perhaps in addition to owning shares, shareholders must also have served in the armed forces… hmmm… too restrictive, it seems.

I had a crazy idea about having some checks and balances, scrapping the CEO idea (how one can avoid the abuse of power in such a scenario is impossible) : shareholders wield political power in the form of being able to select members of a legislative lower house, in charge of passing bills, requiring a 2/3rds majority.

Military veterans who have completed their service, but still beholden to the constitution, whatever it might be, have the power to select members of a senate, who would have the power to strike down laws requiring only 1/3rds to succeed.

The franchise to elect a president with substantive powers would require a voter to have both military service AND being a shareholder.

The way I see voting nowadays is this: What gives a person the right to decide the fate of another, since that is essentially what voting is about? It’s not a born right; you have to earn it, through military service and personal wealth (may be inherited tho).

The upshot of this is that it automatically weeds out the unmotivated, the unproductive, the lazy (mostly). How the system may be abused by those who do have the power to vote may be a problem, though I think the shareholders and veterans will mostly be countervailing forces playing off each other.

Jul 8, 2009 - 1:30 pm 60. buddy larsen:

That is what Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is about –it’s said, he wrote it in a rush, in disgust at the brand new nuclear disarmament movement of the time.

Having noted that the movement was totally unconcerned with a nuked-up adversary-cum-potential enemy, he concluded that basic national security demanded that somehow the ‘ban-the-bomb’ folk must be provisionally disenfranchised unless & until such time as they were able to face national security as the fundamental existential reality.

It’s said, it was the “peace sign” that really got to him –at the time it wasn’t so much a broad ‘peace’ sign as a narrow ‘ban the bomb’ sign.

Jul 8, 2009 - 3:39 pm 61. buddy larsen:

i understand his frustration –it’s no different than owning a perfectly well-equipped fertile farm, and instead of using it to raise food, you instead burn the fields and equipment and attack your neighbors, waving “Food” placards in their faces while insulting their plenty and demanding it at the same time.

Jul 8, 2009 - 4:24 pm 62. Clemenceau:

I don’t know if anyone mentioned or caught it but the guest host on Rush Limbaugh’s show today (Mark something or other) mentioned our host Richard Fernandez by name and read excerpts from this post!

I was pretty surprised, I wasn’t paying much attention and then the name caught my ear and he started talking about pulling teeth with pliers and using super glue!

Jul 8, 2009 - 5:06 pm 63. elby:

JMH @58: Great ideas. I second the motion.

As to those who choose security over freedom, they should be aware that it is a false choice. Those who have given up their freedom in favor of a more ’secure’ life, have also eventually had their security taken away. The platform of the fascists seemed to offer more security, taking away decision making from the populace, but how secure were these people after a few years, and concentration camps and all out war took hold? How secure were the inhabitants (I hesitate to call them citizens) of the Soviet Union?

You can even see this effect in the lighter forms of socialism practiced in Europe today. People gave up their freedom in order to make health care more secure. But how secure are they if they have to pull their own teeth?

You cannot have security without freedom.

Jul 8, 2009 - 6:23 pm 64. Mad Fiddler:

Ten years ago Communist China (People’s Republic of China) acknowledged that it harvests the organs of approximately 10,000 (”TEN THOUSAND”) executed condemned Chinese prisoners, and makes those organs available to the Worldwide transplant market. About four years ago, several newspapers in the UK revealed that China had begun regularly harvesting the skins of freshly executed condemned prisoners, occasionally without patiently waiting until they’d quit squirming. The skins are processed to collect the collagens, which are then sold to European Cosmetics Manufacturers. [I apologize to those who have heard this all from me before… ]

By now that’s the organs from a HUNDRED THOUSAND Chinese subjects, probably more as things have progressed. The clearing of the villages for the recent Olympic events and structures probably added to the harvest. Ditto for the ongoing flooding of various valleys as a very aggressive hydroelectric dam construction program goes forward. The Chinese well tolerated the murder, starvation, execution, or otherwise untimely deaths of some 20 Million citizens in Mao’s power consolidation, the various Great Five-Year Plans, the upheavals of the Great Leap Forward, and the cultural revolution of 1960’s. A few hundred thousand persons butchered to create actual cash income is clearly no hardship to the STATE. By now, it is probably institutionalized, with timetables, quotas, and incentives for the most productive managers.

On the other hand, as the De Beers diamond folk noted, an over-supply of product tends to depress the market price, so somewhere in the Celestial Courts there is probably an anonymous department charged with tracking demand and reckoning the futures market for human organs of various sorts. Those now include, by the way, bone tissue, ligaments, cartilage, and various membranes, arteries, veins, valves, etc., in addition to the internal organs.

Some folks have always argued that, well, that’s just the inscrutable Oriental mind for you. They have such a different way of looking at the value of life…

The Left has the same attitude. The proletariat are fodder for their mill. The Worker’s Paradise was a prison in every country that went Communist. It was death or decades in the prison labor camps for any who tried to escape. Guards with machine guns, barbed wire fences humming with lethal current, and vicious dogs, and still people desperate for freedom risked all those to get out.

Even after the Soviet Union set up a “puppet” Communist government in East Germany, tourist and commercial traffic moved freely east and west. But As Stalin became increasingly paranoid and determined to keep western agents out and stop the loss of citizens heading to the West (remember the Berlin Airlift?) several million East Germans crossed the border into West Germany.

In Berlin – with portions administered by Britain, France and the U.S. despite its location within East Germany – the cross-border escapes were dramatic and highly visible, taking place in full view of watching citizens and news reporters. It was a humiliating public rejection of Communist rule, and represented a serious economic drain of some of its best trained and most productive citizens.

Uncle Joe didn’t like it.

The East Germans cleared a corridor SURROUNDING West Berlin, Built high concrete walls, set up barbed wire entanglements, land mines on posts, guard towers with machine guns, floodlights, sirens, and loud hailers.

I remember seeing news film showing people shot and left to bleed to death as they tried to scramble across the “no-man’s land.

These are reminders of how an authoritarian government treats its subjects. Screw them, punish and kill them for trying to escape, then once they’ve become meek subjects, slaughter them like hogs for market.

More people have been murdered in the last century by their own governments than have been killed by invading armies.

If we aren’t careful, this is where we will end up with the Supremacist-State-trending Ezekiel, a platoon of unelected “czars”, and an administration steeped in the unashamed criminality of the Chicago Political Machine.

The totally crazoid thing about those pathetic losers from Chicago is that they really think they can get away with the same college pranks on the international stage as have worked for them in stealing elections and blackmailing judges on the take in the City of Broad Shoulders. Urkle and his crew of pick-pockets, swindlers, and petty larcenists will find their low cunning just doesn’t cut it with actual ruthless murdering bastards who haven’t hesitated to slaughter, butcher, bomb, eviscerate, gas, incinerate, defenestrate, de-ball, and generally kill hundreds of thousands of their own people just to be able to enjoy a good cigar in a quiet suite of oaken paneled rooms overlooking a sparkling lake.

People in Chicago can tolerate a fair amount of graft and corruption so long as they’re able to generally enjoy the freedom that being an American has historically allowed.

When O’Bumble’s cheap crooks try to apply the same methods to destroying the country beyond the city limits of Chicago, while simultaneously expecting the respect of real international butchers, the contrasts are going to heighten dramatically.

Jul 10, 2009 - 10:30 pm

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