This isn’t us insisting that Obamacare supporters are the stupidest, dumbass, people but Senator Orrin Hatch. We would simply agree that if not the people then at least the plan is pretty stupid and dumbass. The point being that what ails American health care is an excess of government. Adding more government to American health care therefore isn’t the solution.
Orrin Hatch: ObamaCare supporters some of the ‘stupidest, dumbass people’
There is of course a joy in having a politician willing to call it like it is. Perhaps Trump’s motormouth is rubbing off a little to good effect.
Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch apologized Friday for saying those who support the Affordable Care Act are some of “the stupidest, dumb-ass people” he has ever met.
A pity he apologised of course.
“That was the stupidest, dumbass bill I’ve ever seen,” Hatch, 83, said of the Affordable Care Act. “Now some of you may have loved it — if you do, you are one of the stupidest, dumbass people I’ve ever met. And there are a lot of them up there on Capitol Hill from time to time.”
That last is entirely correct. There is no explanation for the current legal code other than that far too many villages have lost their idiots to politics.
The thing is though what ails American health care isn’t that government does pay for more of it, nor subsidise it. Quite the contrary, it’s the manner in which government does regulate and subsidise health care which causes the current problems.
Not to try and give a complete list but. First up is the non-taxable nature of employer provided health care insurance. This came about in WWII as a result of incomes caps – but health care insurance wasn’t subject to the cap. So, companies could raise pay by offering paid health care insurance. They did – so grew the whole system. The effect of this is that there’s near no connection between the wallets of those getting the health care and those providing it. This gives us Milton Friedman’s fourth way of spending money, the worst way.
Second we’ve the incredible restrictions imposed by the AMA and others on who may offer health care. It’s not just who may be a doctor, who a nurse and so on (with these restrictions also being state by state) we’ve actually got a system whereby in many places trying to build a new facility depends upon the permission of the owners of other, nearby, facilities. So much for free market competition there.
Adding another layer of government to this just isn’t the way to cure these ills – but that’s what Obamacare does. And it is possible to insist that those insisting it’s still a good idea are stupid. The worst part of the American health care system is the VA one. That’s the one that’s government financed, government provided and government regulated. Proof perfect that more government really isn’t the solution then.
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US Health Care seems somehow to elude many of the federal laws intended to prevent cartels and monopolies, and promote competition. Perhaps the US should experiment with enforcing its existing laws rather than contemplate passing more.
Yes, there are cartels and monopolies achieved with the active cooperation of state and federal lawmakers not to mention the FDA. The government itself pays as much of GDP as the UK govt does and then the people pay as much again in charges or premiums. But while it is easy to identify the faults, what adaptation of the current system could fix it? Don't say just the free market, you can't get there from here.
No adaptation of the current system can fix it; "affordability" will not be enhanced by lengthening the rulebook. So the current Republican shift from "repeal Obama-care" (we knew what that meant!) to "repeal and replace" to the current horrid "shore up Obama-care" (shovel taxpayer loot to insurers) is guaranteed to fail. Problems: (1) We never define "affordability," but like our recent discussion of welfare, whether you can "afford" something depends on all your other choices, including working evenings. (2) We never define "health care," nor decide where we want to draw the line between congenital, catastrophic defects versus tummy-tucks and stomach stapling to obviate dieting. Likewise, military veterans are to have all the "care" they want, at their choice of facility if the VA hospital is overbooked, though the VA is to continue to have a budget. (3) The Congressional Budget Office evaluates Obama-care and all alternatives according to the single value of maximizing the number of people who pay indirectly for "health care," and Republicans are terrified when their moves toward liberty get "scored" unfavorably. Yes, start over. To the good, more and more people are paying cash for routine care and getting back in the driver's seat.
This is how pervasive it is:
'Medical Loss Ratio / 80/20 Rule – Insurance companies have to spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on claims and activities to improve health care quality. 85% in large group markets.'
Leaving 15% for admin and profit. Max. Insenting insurance companies to push increased cost of goods and services.
"You can do that for 50 bucks? We'll give you a hundred."
Is VA Veterans Adminisitartion (or summut)? I was wondering how effective the pre-existing internal state healthcare was. The classic line: join the army, get out of the ghetto, get education and healthcare, shoot some foreigners.
My grandma and grandad both got demob teacher training, so I'm all for: serve the state, get a boosted class of citizenship, a la ancient Rome. But how effective is it?
While I agree with Sen. Hatch's comment, calling voters dumb-asses is as inadvisable as Miz Hillary's notorious comment that half Trump's voters are a basket of deplorables, or that of Ted Cruz, at the moment his own campaign reached its apogee, that there is something wrong with "New York values" (though there is). One poll suggests that Sen. Hatch is calling more than half the electorate dumb-asses, as support for Obama-care is increasing, given the widespread impression that the Individual Mandate has been killed for the 2018 tax year or will stay dead. (Dumb-asses.)
Of course the chief architects of Obamacare was foolish enough to point out that it only passed because of the stupidity of the American voter.
So you wonder why people were fine with that but outraged by this. I guess facts only matter if they further the media's narrative.
jgh,
According to an article in the week's Economist the VA healthcare system is OK:
"Free"--FFS like anything in this life is free--healthcare seems to rob folks of their grey matter. Perhaps they see themselves lying on the pavement taken ill. Although they never do that when indulging in all their bad habits. "Who will help me?"
The answer is of course those you pay to help you. Which remains true NHS or not, Obamacallousness or not. Their are sensible ways of paying for a better service and there are shit-stupid ways of paying for a shoddy service. The shoddy ones sneak upon their victims over time of course. Hopefully that piss-soaked pipecleaner man Obama's little plan to set America up to fall into its own NHS will fail.