Maggie's Farm

My plan, after today, is to stay away from the news until Labor Day. Not other interesting subjects, just news.

I'd never read the news if my American freedoms were not under daily threat by government (of any or either political party).

I need a short sabbatical (sitting by the pool hallucinating by watching the mermaids in my pool and letting my blood pressure return to normal) from my active membership in the highly-organized mob, from our secret cabal of hate-spewing, un-American evil ones who worry about too much Federal government power over our lives and who have the intolerable audacity of hope to say so, and to question our Dear Leaders.

(As I said the other day, in a mixed economy as the US has (if we can keep it), government becomes just one more special interest with their own goals and agendas, their own desires for money and power and chicks, their careerists, their criminals, their corruption, their cupidity, their influence-peddling, and their hordes of dependent bureacratic employees. Their only difference from most other organizations is that they do not have to show a profit and they do not have to be smart.)

However, given the attempted government take-over of medical care in the US (see list of their tactics, and dig this about how much they are spending on ads), this seemed an important cautionary tale:

Canadian Health Care "Imploding"-- Doctors Meet & Discuss Private Options

What a genius idea! A private option! As in freedom to pay for the medical care you want, and to buy whatever insurance you might want? Like in America?

Maybe the government-centric view of life isn't all it's cracked up to be. I am an adult. I am a man, I spell M-A-N. If government is supposed to be my parent, I prefer to be an orphan. Nor do I want a Philosopher-King. I am my own Philosopher-King of my own life, thank you very much. That's the whole point of America.

Our friend Ace has a remarkably serious post on the topic of medical insurance. I wish I had written it, but I was too busy having fun with the horses. He says - and I totally agree -

The reason that employees at companies that pay for insurance get most of this paid for is that their employer is merely paying them wages in a different form; i.e., rather than pay you an extra $10 a week or $500 per year, they'll pay $500 of medical expenses you would otherwise have to pay yourself.

They're not "insuring" you. You cannot be "insured" against a "risk" 100% guaranteed to occur.

They're just delivering wages in a roundabout fashion.

and

Individual mandates, for one.

To be perfectly honest with you, I personally am not completely opposed to this one, in principle, assuming it would take a tolerable form.

But I don't assume that. It will take an intolerable form. I assume it will take the form of the stupidest, vote-buyingest, most socialistic scheme possible, so I oppose it in fact.

So long as it's not greatly socialist -- e.g., young people, with barely any need for insurance at all (which is why they skip it) are overcharged ludicrously so they are forced to subsidize the elderly, who use a lot of insurance dollars. Or rich people are forced to pay money for the poor. In that case, I could kinda get behind it, or at least not bother myself to oppose it strenuously.

Or it covers anything except unpredictable, rare, catastrophic health crises.

This idea that taxpayers ought to pay for someone's eyeglasses or routine visits to the doctor or utterly-predictable need of antibiotics or flu immunizations is, well, two words; In. Sane.

As my final point on the topic for a few weeks, I see the WSJ is repeating what I always say: Who has a better use for their money than to treat their disease or to keep their health? It's what prosperous people do. One quote:

Though it hasn't been widely realized, the desire for shelter was a major driver of the U.S. economy during the second half of the 20th century and the first several years of the 21st. About one-third of the new jobs created during the latter period were directly or indirectly related to housing, as the stupendous ripple effect of the bursting housing bubble should make painfully obvious.

Once these material needs are substantially met, desire for health care—without which there can be no enjoyment of food, clothing or shelter—becomes a significant, perhaps a principal, driver of the economy. A little-noticed feature of the current recession is the role of the health-care industry as a resilient driver of the general economy.

Yes, spending on medical treatment is a wonderful thing and a great privilege. People should want to spend more on it. Just check out my dental implants, or read my (stainless steel) left hip. Good stuff, but not cheap - but worth every penny, and only easily available in the good old USA.