Fables for Adults (Thomas Sowell)

Little-Acorn

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Sowell nails it again. The silliness of turning Health Care over to big government while 80% or more like the health care plan they already have... and EVERYONE has access to health care, bar none... is a wonder to behold.

The leftists have failed in their attempt to instill fear and panic, and get their plan passed in two weeks before anyone can read it and find out what's in it.

What will their next tactic be?

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http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/09/15/fables_for_adults?page=full&comments=true

Fables for Adults

by Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Many years ago, as a small child, I was told one of those old-fashioned fables for children. It was about a dog with a bone in his mouth, who was walking on a log across a stream.

The dog looked down into the water and saw his reflection. He thought it was another dog with a bone in his mouth-- and it seemed to him that the other dog's bone was bigger than his. He decided that he was going to take the other dog's bone away and opened his mouth to attack. The result was that his own bone fell into the water and was lost.

At the time, I didn't like that story and wished they hadn't told it to me. But the passing years and decades have made me realize how important that story was, because it was not really about dogs but about people.

Today we are living in a time when the President of the United States is telling us that he is going to help us take that other dog's bone away-- and the end result is likely to be very much like what it was in that children's fable.

Whether we are supposed to take that bone away from the doctors, the hospitals, the pharmaceutical companies or the insurance companies, the net result is likely to be the same-- most of us will end up with worse medical care than we have available today. We will have opened our mouth and dropped a very big bone into the water.

While I was told a story in my childhood to help me understand something about the real world, today adults are being told things to reduce them to childish thinking.

The most childish of all the things being said in the august setting of a joint session of Congress last week was that millions of people can be added to the government's health insurance plan without increasing the federal deficit at all.

If the President of the United States could do that, it is hard to imagine what he would do as an encore. Walking on water would be an anticlimax.

What is equally childish is the notion that the great majority of Americans who have medical insurance, and who say they are satisfied with it, should be panicked and stampeded into supporting vast increases in the arbitrary power of Washington bureaucrats to take medical decisions out of the hands of their doctors-- all ostensibly because a minority of Americans do not have medical insurance.

There was a time, within living memory, when most Americans did not have health insurance-- and it was not the end of the world, as so many in politics and the media seem to be depicting it today.

As someone who lived through that era, and who spent decades without medical insurance, I find it hard to be panicked and stampeded into bigger and worse problems because some people do not have medical insurance, including many who could afford it if they chose to.

What did we do, back during the years when most Americans had no medical insurance? I did what most people did. I depended on a "single payer"-- myself. When I didn't have the money, I paid off my medical bills in installments.

The birth of my first child was not covered by medical insurance. I paid off the bill, month by month, until the time finally came when I could tell my wife that the baby was now ours, free and clear.

In a country where everything imaginable is bought and paid for on credit, why is it suddenly a national crisis if some people cannot pay cash up front for medical treatment?

That is not the best way to do things for all people and all medical treatments, which is why most Americans today choose to have medical insurance. But millions of other people choose not to-- often young and healthy people, sometimes deadbeats who use emergency rooms and don't pay at all.

Is this ideal? No. But if every deviation from the ideal is a reason to be panicked and stampeded into putting dangerous arbitrary powers into the hands of government, then go directly to totalitarianism, do not pass "Go", do not collect $200.

And go ahead and drop your bone in the water, in hopes that you can get somebody else's bigger bone.
 
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Well, it'd certainly be funny if they got insurance reformed in such a way that they stripped out all the profit as well as the bulk of the ill-gotten gains from malpractice lawyers (like John Edwards). Of course... the backlash would be an instant drop in GDP. AND an instant drop in employment in the healthcare, insurance and legal professions. A (rather significant) drop in GDP would mean that the proportion of debt service would rise and the total is already about 3.75x GDP (from the FRB Z.1 report), which is already very bad... Kinda' looks like a recipe for absolute chaos, huh?
 
Sowell nails it again. The silliness of turning Health Care over to big government while 80% or more like the health care plan they already have...
....Primarilly, because....most people have Employer-provided health-care, and....most people have no IDEA what that coverage costs!!!!!

Let 'em try paying their own Premium$....and, watch their attitudes Change, BIG-Time!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Go find something more relevant to what I actually said......
Still havin' problems with that reading-comprehension-issue, huh?

How surprising.....

:rolleyes:

Pidgey said:
Well, it'd certainly be funny if they got insurance reformed in such a way that they stripped out all the profit as well as the bulk of the ill-gotten gains from malpractice lawyers.

"Blaming rising malpractice premiums on a litigationcrisis is a smokescreen by the insurance industry to cover for the industry's investment losses and price gouging,".....

Now.....do I NEED to explain litigationcrisis to you??????????????

:rolleyes:

Isn't there a teen-chat site, somewhere...where you'd feel a little-more competent?​
 
Still havin' problems with that reading-comprehension-issue, huh?

How surprising.....

:rolleyes:





Now.....do I NEED to explain litigationcrisis to you??????????????

:rolleyes:

Isn't there a teen-chat site, somewhere...where you'd feel a little-more competent?​
The comprehension crisis in this case is on you. I don't recall saying anything about there being a disproportional increase in malpractice awards--I'm referring to clearing out wrongful malpractice suits altogether like the ones that John Edwards gained his fortune on regarding Cerebral Palsy. Don't ascribe arguments or points to me that I didn't make. Maybe if you'd keep up on your rabies shots... :rolleyes:
 
Pidgey, never mud-wrestle with a pig. The only results are (1) you both get dirty, and (2) the pig likes it.

Back to the subject:
Insurance was supposed to spread the load only for large or catastrophic occurrances, not to pay for every last routine office visit or aspirin bottle. The sooner it gets back to its original purpose, the sooner its costs will come WAY down, and the sooner govt will get out of it except for contract enforcement.
 
When that happens, Acorn, and you are correct to say that it will happen if we do not pass this health care bill, people will begin to die from lack of treatment, and live shorter lives, because they will find their health care has become unaffordable.
 
When that happens, Acorn, and you are correct to say that it will happen if we do not pass this health care bill, people will begin to die from lack of treatment, and live shorter lives, because they will find their health care has become unaffordable.

Yes, if nothing is done, medical care will be out of reach for more and more Americans. We simply can't afford for the out of control costs of the past decade or so to continue. Moreover, employers will soon be faced with the choice of shifting most of the costs to employees (already happening, BTW), dropping coverage entirely, or seeing their bottom line go in the red.

Acorn does have a point, though, that what we really need is catastrophic coverage for everyone. Neither the insurance companies nor the government needs to be in the business of providing what the individual can easily afford to do for himself. On the other hand, the current situation is that more and more of us are at risk of losing everything in a serious injury or illness, and fewer and fewer can really afford adequate medical care.
 
When that happens, Acorn, and you are correct to say that it will happen if we do not pass this health care bill,

Is there some other Acorn on this board that you are addressing this to? It certainly bears no relation to anything I said.

PLC1 said:
Yes, if nothing is done, medical care will be out of reach....

It seems to be a typical tactic of the Left, to present a false choice: Either their big-govt way, or a nonsense way that no one has suggested. These are the only alternatives you can see? My sympathies.
 
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Is there some other Acorn on this board that you are addressing this to? It certainly bears no relation to anything I said.



It seems to be a typical tactic of the Left, to present a false choice: Either their big-govt way, or a nonsense way that no one has suggested. These are the only alternatives you can see? My sympathies.

How is it a false choice when the opposition is doing everything it can to make sure that no meaningful health care reform takes place? The status quo is hardly a "nonsense way that no one has suggested." Well, maybe no one is suggesting that nothing be done, just making sure that it doesn't get done.
 
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