Hillary Supporters: I’m Tired of Being Nice

As Hillary Clinton nears hysteria in forcing her healthcare plan down the collective throat of the US, she has finally admitted that she will do “whatever it takes” to get 100% compliance, whether you want it or not, even if that means garnishing wages.

In her own words to ABC This Week’s George Stephanopoulos, “about 20 percent of the people who don’t have health insurance in America today could well afford it… So what we’ve got to do is have shared responsibility. Everybody has to pay something, but, obviously, on a sliding scale.”

And she says it’s not socialized healthcare.  Somebody… anybody… please — if this is not socialism, what the hell is it?  And while you’re at it, just why the fuck does “everybody have to pay something?”  Who is Hillary Clinton, or her supporters, for that matter, to make the moral decision about other peoples’ money? 

Here’s the truth; ready?  I am willing to help out anybody, financially, spiritually, whatever, when I can.  It’s called charity.  But I don’t owe you a damned thing.  I don’t owe you a living.  I don’t owe you health insurance.  I don’t owe you a house.  And nobody owes me. 

For the government to play the role of Robin Hood (albeit a twisted and stupid Robin Hood) is the height of injustice.  Disagree if you want; it’s a free country.  But you’ll be wrong.  And I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t fuck up my country with your political ineptitude.

-Streu-

Hillarycare Supporter Calls It: It’s About Control

In order to give supporters more opportunity to answer this question (perhaps word it better than the response I’ve received), I’m going to continue to ask the question about mandating health insurance.  But the one person who has answered my question so far (a commenter on a blog at Hill’s official site) has given quite the telling response. 

I should note, before getting into it, a couple things.  First, I’ve asked this question so many times, in so many formats, on so many forums, that I’ve simply lost count.  Hillary herself, or anyone on her team, has yet to consider the question — perhaps because it hasn’t been asked publically by an opinion-shaper (perhaps because the opinion-shapers already have their horse, and don’t wish to confuse voters with things like facts).  The question, by the way, is simply: why mandates?  Why, in the course of creating healthcare legislation, do some politicians like Clinton insist on mandating insurance on individuals?

A commenter (as opposed to a blogger) on Hillary’s website has finally answered my question, somewhat.  And while it’s not the official answer, it is at least a peek into how some voters are thinking.  This commenter shares my wife’s name, ironically, but not, unfortunately, her intelligence.

“… the idea is you can only truly control costs in an environment where everyone participates.  However, you would not need to purchase private insurance, along with opening up the congressional pool, Hillary plans to allow anyone interested to purchase a medicare-type public health coverage.”

Now, at the very least, this statement represents the role some voters would like for the Federal Government to play in healthcare, and therefore, in our individual lives.  Two key words here: “control” and “allow.” 

Look, using the word “allow” in the context of Federal Government is the very antithesis of liberty.  My health insurance decisions ought to be mine — there should be no such thing as what the Federal Government “allows” in terms of my decisions about my health and that of my family.  “Allow” presumes “control.”  The statement I highlighted above, then, is one made by somebody who not only is resigned to, but actively welcomes government control over her life.  The word for this is “socialism,” and that is why I refuse to let Hillary remove the word “socialized” from her plan uncontested.

Actually, though, the assessment isn’t entirely accurate.  If the government mandates healthcare costs, they have no need to force participation by individuals.  Especially when they also offer a government-run alternative as competition.  Therefore, cost-control cannot be affected by forced participation.  If this is, in fact, the reasoning Hillary is using for her mandates, either she’s an idiot, or she assumes we are.

We already know she isn’t stupid.  Guess where that leaves us.

-Streu-

Hillary 2008 — ‘cuz, uh, she’s a woman, and stuff

It’s almost becoming not worth it to go to Hillary’s web site in search for answers on health care.  Not only do I specifically not get any answers (let’s be honest — should I really expect any?), but I have to sift through the koolaid drinker commentary.  Seriously, if I read “You Go Girl” one more time, I may slip into a sugar coma from an overdose of 40-something-white-girl psuedo-hipness. 

Honestly, do we want a president to whom the phrase “You Go Girl” can be uttered with a straight face?  (Of course, answering ‘no’ to this question also precludes John Edwards from a POTUS win.)  If we ever do elect a woman as president (a prospect I’m not at all uncomfortable with), I hope she at least has strength of character enough to say, “please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t call the Commander-in-Chief of the United States ‘Girl.'”

I would shudder to think of this within a foreign policy context, but to be honest, I doubt a President Hillary would ever have the cojones to have a “You Go Girl” moment in the World Theater.

Reading through the mindless tripe that is the Clinton Blog comment section, though, is rather illuminating.  It appears there’s an astounding number of people who would vote for Hitler, were he a woman, just for the high and lofty purpose of Making History. 

But, you know, it would almost have to be that reason.  People aren’t nearly gullible enough to believe that Clinton’s 8 years as First Lady qualifies as “experience,” right?  They’ve almost got to understand what a load of crap that is, don’t they?  I mean, they refuse to release her papers from those eight years, so that the only political “experience” we know about was a dismal failure (Hillarycare V.1.0).  Not only that, but it appears it may not have been her baby, after all.   Well, that, or the plan failed so horribly that she no longer wants to attach her name to it.  Which, since you can’t have your cake and eat it, too, means that Hillary has exactly no experience in the administration.  It’s called ‘math,’ kids.

I’m all for voting for a woman, should she be qualified.  But not a power-hungry woman who would do or say anything to gain the Presidency.  God only knows what such a person would do with it. 

-Streu-

A Missed Opportunity That Will Be Remedied: Ask Hillary

Damn. 

I’ve not been to Hillary’s website recently — being a bit focused on my own candidate, plus the rest of my life.  Partially, I think, the apathy that snuck in on me regarding Hill’s health plan is the fact that, no matter how I ask the question, the koolaid drinkers just seem not to get it.  And nobody’s answered the damn question. 

Well, as it turns out, as I spent time doing my own thing during the first New Hampshire debate (Facebook/ABC), Hillary opened up “Ask Hillary” and invited people to submit questions to be anwered within the next few days.  The perfect opportunity to finally get an answer to the mandate question — straight from the horse’s mouth?  Just maybe. 

Well… it turns out the opportunity still exists.  Therefore, the question will be asked again: Why an Individual Mandate?  If she deigns to answer this time around, you’ll be the first to know.  Trust me.  While I’m at it, Maybe I should ask Romney.  He seems to like them, too.

-Streu-

Hillarycare Update: Mandates

Hillary Clinton has recently given a talk in which she (kinda) explained her federal mandate for health insurance.  In order to save you the pain and suffering of going through the entire blog about it on her website, I’ll highlight her reasoning (then you have only to suffer through my blog about it). 

About having a federal requirement for all US citizens to carry insurance, Clinton said, “Now all Americans will have a responsibility to get and keep health insurance. I believe when you make this the law of the land, Americans will follow it and will purchase health insurance – far more than if we don’t have that requirement.”

So — it’s a requirement so that everybody will have it.  Makes sense.  Kind of obvious, actually.  It’s okay, though… she clarifies.  Actually, she cites Senator Obama’s Health Care Task Force to clarify: “…they made it very clear if you want to cover everyone, you need to require people to get health insurance. Otherwise, you will fail to cover 60-90% of the uninsured.”

So… according to the taskforce she’s citing, most Americans who don’t already have health insurance don’t want it.  However, she’s reiterating, this is why it’s important to require it.  Otherwise, people won’t get it.

But why?  Why is it so darned important that every American — even those that don’t want it — have health insurance?  Mrs. Clinton supplies only one answer for this question as well, multiple times.  I’ll only quote her once, though:  “…if anything, Democrats should stand for universal health care. That distinguishes us from the Republicans. ” (empasis mine)

There is some very, very odd reasoning going on here.  We need to ensure that every person has health care, so we’re going to mandate it… it must be mandated so that every person will have healthcare … every person having healthcare is important because it’s what makes us Democrats.  Great.

So, once again, I’ve asked the Clinton camp, very politely, why it’s so very vital that every American — even those with no desire to have insurance — have insurance.  When somebody can come up with an answer, I’ll let you know.  I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that if there is an answer, it will sound awefully close to these:  “we must have universal healthcare so that we have universal healthcare.”  And I suspect this is because, ultimately, the Democrats in favor of these measure aren’t willing to come right out and say it:  They need everyone to get it so that everyone can pay for it.  They’re going to tax you regardless — but this way, you can’t claim you’re not getting anything for it.

UPDATE, 12-4-07:
Though there is still no answer forthcoming from the Hillary camp on the subject of mandates (or on how to pay for the darn thing), I’m noting with some pleasure that there are now more people asking these questions than just myself… many of them also on Clinton’s campaign site (linked above).  We still aren’t getting answers, but the movement, inasmuch as there is one, is growing. 

Aside from the 4-6 of us asking questions on the Clinton site, there are, of course, the requisite koolaid drinkers who fervently believe the Senator is the Second Coming of Joan of Arc or some such.    And a self-proclaimed French guy who has it in his head that his opinion on American healthcare matters.

These questions need to come to light.  And, I believe, the answers.  The questions are the beginning.  Many of those asking are liberals and nanny-staters who appear more concerned with the issue of cost than that of freedom — but they are asking.  And at some point soon, Mrs. Clinton will have to face these questions and give a clear, concise answer.  An answer, I believe, that will expose the very limit of her beliefs about the intelligence and competence of the average American.

So, why is socialized healthcare such a bad idea, anyway?

(reposted from r2’s myspace, originally posted Oct. 18)
As a conservative, and a Libertarian, I despise the idea of socialized healthcare.  I know the Liberals putting out this idea don’t like the word “socialized,” but then, they also prefer to be called “Progressives”, even though their idea of “progress” is clearly a regression to tried and failed economic and governmental policies.  But, semantics aside, what’s so wrong with government money being used to assure healthcare for citizens. 

I mean, aside from the increased taxes that will be necessary to pay for the healthcare or the fact that, in essence, taxpayers will be forced to pay for both their own healthcare and that of non-taxpayers?  Oops!  I see that another quick digression may be necessary.  Didn’t Hillary say the government would provide tax refunds to offset any insurance premiums?  Well, sure.  But in order for there to be money there to do that, you see, there will have to be more taxation.  Money doesn’t just come from nowhere.  So, to make it simple, let’s say the government takes $20 in taxes, but pays $10 for your insurance.  You have been given back 10 bucks of your own money, but only to purchase something the government said you had to buy — and they still took another 10 bucks to offset the government’s expenditures for the non-taxpayer.  So, you see, the government is not giving most taxpayers anything.  They’re simply going to raise taxes, reappropriating some of that money to your health insurance, and more to cover others. 

Okay.  That’s out of the way.  So, apart from that, what, really, is wrong with socialized healthcare?  It seems perfectly reasonable that, as the wealthiest society in the world, there ought to be nobody who lacks healthcare.  And if somebody doesn’t want it, well — that’s their choice, isn’t it? 

Wait a minute… what about people who don’t want to invest money in health care?  What if they like their own way of doing things, and have chosen instead to just keep an emergency bank account, which accrues interest, to help them with unforseen medical expenses?  Don’t they get to make that decision?  Well… no.  And what really gets me here is that nobody is asking why, exactly, that is.  So I will.  I’ve asked before, and I can’t find a liberal with a coherent answer.  Why do I have to have health care if I don’t want it?  Or, let’s take me out of the equation, entirely.  Why shouldn’t a 28-year-old, single man with no dependents be allowed to make his own decision regarding whether or not to carry health insurance?  Why?

I will answer this for the liberals, since for the most part they don’t read my blog, and if they did, probably don’t know the answer to this.  I suppose you could ask Hillary to read this blog and answer the question… but she may want to get innocculated first.  The answer for this goes back to the point about taxation and coverage.  They need everybody to have insurance coverage so that there can be no complaints about not seeing any benefit for your taxes.  They are going to take the money.  No question.  But they want to give some of it back to you so they can prove to you the value of the tax they took.  Get it?

Okay, so aside from that pesky little annoyance about taxation without representation, and the fairly obvious bit of trickery to force you to recognize some sort of value in order to avoid said “taxation without representation” issue — what, really, is the problem with socialized healthcare?

Well, how about the obvious?  The New Democrats are responsible, in various states, for seatbelt laws, helmet laws, no smoking laws, attempts at legislating what and how we eat … do I really need to explain where this is going?  For those who are hypnotized by Hillary’s amazing escapes from difficult questions, I will spell it out:  If we put government in charge of our healthcare, we open the door for government to take charge of our health.  Ridiculous?  Perhaps I should explain health insurance.  Health insurance companies work by assuming the risk for your health issues.  The lower the health risk, the lower your premiums… the higher the risk, the higher the premiums.   They do this because to do otherwise would be to risk bankruptcy.  For example, many insurance companies won’t cover heart disease or cancer for smokers.  Why?  Simply put, it’s an unacceptable risk.  We know this.  We know this is how the health industry operates.  You might even say we’re primed for it. 

So, when government takes over health coverage, why wouldn’t they do risk assessment?  Of course they will.  Not to do so would be even more irresponsible than the plan already is.  What does this mean?  Who knows?  I can guarantee that, though they will be taxed exactly the same as nonsmokers, people who smoke will be monetarily penalized.  Not only by the increased cigarrette tax, which is a near-certainty, should a democrat take POTUS, but most likely, there would be a risk penalty enforced by the government.  In layman’s terms, smokers will pay more for insurance than nonsmokers.  Heavy people (obese, fat….. whatever), before long, would likely face the same types of penalties.  How long, then, until you are penalized by government because of genetics?

At this point, the astute Liberal (a contradiction?  Perhaps — maybe they wouldn’t ask this question if I failed to bring it up) is asking, “but Randy… don’t insurance companies already do those things?”  Yup.  They do.  But, not all companies assess risk penalties, and of those that do, they do so to varying degrees.  Not only that, but, at this juncture, should somebody find that any risk penalties from every company is simply unacceptable, he can always choose not to carry insurance.  In other words, the market offers solutions, without mandating a lifestyle. 

Now that same person is asking, “But how do you know the government would even assess risk penalties?”  The answer?  Economics.  At some point, the government will figure out that they are losing money on people with health problems (go figure!). 

So, in the long run, yes… federally mandated health care will necessarily become federal mandates on your lifestyle.

But, other than that, I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with socialized healthcare.  Except the intrusion on the Free Market, the illustrated negative effects on healthcare service in countries like Canada, Britain, etc, the negative impact on small business ………………………………