Republicans in Congress no longer call ObamaCare a “job-killing” bill; instead, they’re calling it a “job-destroying” bill. It may seem like a minor quibble, but it’s much more than that. It’s a concession. It’s a concession to those who argue that people who terrorize and shoot others are doing so because of views that are not politically left-wing in nature. Like I said, it’s a two-fer for liberals. They can excuse away responsibility for killing and, in the process, blame it on anyone who doesn’t share their political views.
Socialized medicine is absolutely a job-killing bill, and it should be unflinchingly called what it is. Government intervention in the economy undermines the private sector and in the process always kills jobs. But socialized medicine kills much more than jobs. It kills people, too. By turning doctors into employees if not slaves of the state, their ability and motivation is hampered and in the process patients suffer. Patients who would otherwise live will now die, and patients who would otherwise be treated well will be treated with less care and precision.
A majority of Americans would not authorize Congress to enable a government takeover of the airline industry, the grocery store business or the computer industry. This is because most Americans understand that food, airplanes and computers would not be as safe or as effective — nor as innovative in their improvements — if government were given monopoly control of these things. Somehow, health care gets a free pass — a reluctant one, but a free pass all the same. The best reason I can think of why ObamaCare passed is the comment of a reluctant Obama supporter I encountered in 2008: “It can’t get any worse under socialized medicine than what we already have.”
Oh, really? Watch and see.
Republicans are already caving. They’re conceding that provisions such as eliminating “preexisting conditions” should remain law. The problem is, if preexisting conditions are eliminated, most if not all private health insurance companies will go out of business. Or alternatively, premiums will rise so high that only a small number will purchase private insurance policies. What then? We’ll get what Obama, Pelosi and liberal socialists wanted all along: Single-payer health insurance, where all things medical are owned, operated and provided by the federal government.
Republicans refuse to acknowledge that the problem with preexisting conditions is a symptom of a marketplace hampered by government rules and regulations. The more rules and regulations governments (especially state governments) impose on health insurance companies, the more health insurance companies must raise their rates, and do other things, in order to stay profitable. One of the “other things” health insurance companies do is exclude new people from the insurance rolls of the particular company. This enables the insurance company to stay in business, stay profitable and — let’s not forget — pay the claims of all the people currently covered by their policies.
Socialists and liberals consider the free market evil and greedy. In their world, there should simply be no such thing as profit-making insurance companies. They ignore the fact that insurance companies, like any private company, only make a profit if they please their customers and stockholders. They cannot do this unless they provide rationally good service. Unfortunately, their ability to provide rationally good service while still making a profit has been hampered by years of federal as well as state regulation of the health insurance industry, not to mention all the rules and regulations created by Medicare. Once ObamaCare takes full effect in a few years, private health insurance will likely be history. Everyone (old and young) will have to be on some form of Medicare or Medicaid, because that’s all there will be. The only exceptions will be for a small minority of very wealthy or upper middle class people who can afford some elite private plans and private doctors — assuming the federal government still allows doctors to practice privately, on a fee-for-service basis. (I question that it will.) Think public school versus private school, applied to health care. The vast majority will be more or less forced to endure public medical care which does for the body what public schooling has done for the minds and attitudes of young people. You can observe and judge those results for yourself.
I didn’t expect Republicans in Congress not to waver. Wavering is what Republicans do, and what they have always done. I fully expected them to wobble and perhaps topple on the issue of ObamaCare and socialized medicine. What I didn’t see coming was their “little” concession on so big an issue as implying their own responsibility for high-profile violence that took place in Arizona recently. If they’re not even able to keep calling ObamaCare a job-killing law, then how can they possibly grasp that socialized medicine is a killer of people — no less than the shooter in Arizona?