The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Saturday, March 29, 2008
HILLARYCARE AND THE ROAD TO SERFDOM
NYTIMES:
If Elected ... Clinton Details Premium Cap in Health PlanWhen the price of goods or services is set by the government - and is not based on costs in a free and competitive marketplace - then it is SOCIALISM.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said in an interview on Wednesday that if elected president she would push for a universal health care plan that would limit what Americans pay for health insurance to no more than 10 percent of their income, a significant reduction for some families.
In an extensive interview on health policy, Mrs. Clinton said she would like to cap health insurance premiums at 5 percent to 10 percent of income.
The average cost of a family policy bought by an individual in 2006 and 2007 was $5,799, or 10 percent of the median family income of $58,526, according to America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group. Some policies cost up to $9,201, or 16 percent of median income.
The average out-of-pocket cost for workers who buy family policies through their employers is lower, $3,281, or 6 percent of median income, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health research group.
It has never worked anywhere at anytime in any market.
- IF IT WORKED THAN NORTH KOREA WOULD STILL BE RICHER THAN SOUTH KOREA.
- IF IT WORKED THAN ZIMBABWE WOULD BE RICHER THAN RHODESIA.
- IF IT WORKED WE'D ALL BE DRIVING YUGO'S.
- IF IT WORKED THAN CHINA AND RUSSIA WOULDN'T HAVE LARGELY ABANDONED SOCIALISM - (OR AT LEAST CREATED PROSPERITY IN THE MARKETS WHICH THEY HAVE OPENED).
- IF IT WORKED THAN VIETNAM WOULD BE WEALTHIER THAN THAILAND.
- IF IT WORKED THAN BRITS WOULDN'T BE SO UPSET WITH THE INEPT NHS.
Hillary's policy will destroy our healthcare system. It is exactly the wrong medicine.
It is socialism and it is the road to serfdom.
VOTE ACCORDINGLY.
*******Update (with apologies to Hayek):
If Hillary and her leftist comrades think that CAPS (VISUAL PUN INTENDED!) would work for healthcare, then why wouldn't they use them elsewhere (as they DO with "carbon caps")?
Some parts of the USA have a housing crisis, so...
- Why not have RENT caps, and cap rent at 30% of income?
- Why not have EXECUTIVE PAY caps, and cap executive pay at 50x their lowest worker's pay?
- Why not have ENERGY USE caps, and cap individual energy consumption?
- Why not cap living space at 1000 sq ft/person?
- Why not cap tuition at 5% of income?
The reason not to do ANY of these things is NOT because some pundits call them leftist or socialist (which is what they are!).
It is because these policies have failed everywhere they have ever been employed.
They reduce the quality of the good or service and prosperity overall because:
- services and goods continuously improve in quality and value ONLY when there is an incentive,
- and only a free consumer can incentivize transactions. prosperity is a BY-PRODUCT of LIBERTY, of personal choice.
Leftists have a very hard time with this fact because it's counter-intuitive to "people who think they know better". These know-it-alls - these leftist elitists - have a hard time accepting the fact that a marketplace made up of millions of free people buying and selling things can more efficiently price things than a "kitchen cabinet" or a POLITBURO of well-intentioned geniuses.
Hillarycare's fundamental failure was not a result of her stupidity - she isn't stupid.
Hillarycare's fundamental failure was pre-ordained because no politburo can out perform a marketplace.
Perhaps this analogy can convince a few lefties of the superiority of the efficiency of the marketplace:
Imagine a single supercomputer program by a team of computer geniuses.
And imagine it's playing chess against ALL the PC's and APPLES and computer game systems, all hooked up in a massive network. Which would win? The network. (Scientists are actually using networked computer power - ps3's - to do calculations they'd otherwise not be able to accomplish in order to find a cure for cancer! - MORE HERE.)
And this is even MORE true in real life, in real markets because people in markets bring a vast and diverse set of knowledge to an issue, and they have a powerful incentive to be right: they're risking THEIR OWN capital.
Nothing is smarter or more efficient.
That's why marketplaces are the MOST efficient means of assessing value. In fact, it is the only means of doing it well.
And it's why privatizing things leads to better outcomes.
BEYOND THAT THERE'S THIS REASON:
Free marketplaces are really just an amalgamation of free people doing what they want - buying what they want, making what they want.
It is the social face of liberty.
Without liberty, not only is there now prosperity, but there is no room for the Human Spirit.
Those who advocate socialism advocate impoverishment and servitude.
Serfdom.
That's why socialism is the ROAD TO SERFDOM.
