Read Online Hostile Takeover: Resisting Centralized Government's Stranglehold on America by Matt Kibbe - Free Book Online
Authors: Matt Kibbe
Tags: Politics
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clinging to it, to the bitter end. By their own repeated admissions, the mandate is the law’s linchpin. Without it, their whole scheme unravels.
The mandate, in its essence, asserts a power on the part of the federal government to regulate you simply because you live and breathe . Think about the implications of such government powers over your individual freedoms.
So where exactly does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to tell us to buy health insurance? The law’s defenders point to the power to regulate interstate commerce . . . or wait, is it the General Welfare Clause? . . . the taxing power? . . . well, um, it’s probably in the Fourteenth Amendment somewhere. Hmm. Okay, they’re not really sure by what authority they’ve mandated it, but they just know it’s constitutional. In February 2012, Congresswoman Kathy Hochul, Democrat from the 26th district of New York, committed a classic gaffe—let the truth slip out—when she admitted to an astonished group of her constituents: “Well, basically, we’re not looking to the Constitution on that aspect of it.” 29
Arguably the most victimized constituency under Obamacare—and there are many potential victims—is the Millennial Generation, young people who showed up in droves to vote for Obama. They worked for hope and change, but what they got was the short end of a typical collusion between health insurance interests and the Obama administration that forces younger, healthier, poorer people to subsidize the health care consumption of older, sicker, wealthier folks. Young people, already saddled with record joblessness and unprecedented debt from student loans, will be forced into the system to prop up a financial house of cards. But hey, at least they’ll now get a free ride on their parents’ insurance policy until they’re twenty-six.
Know who deserves a waiver? All 310 million of us.
GOVERNMENT FAILURE, MARKET SUCCESS
A DVOCATES OF CENTRALIZED MEDICINE ARGUE THAT MARKETS HAVE failed to meet people’s needs, and (because, they’re always telling us, health care is different ) government must step in to do it. But this argument never holds up. Every alleged instance of market failure turns out, upon examination, to be an example of government failure. Whether it’s railroads, energy production, or health insurance, the culprit behind the flaws in the system will invariably be a misguided government regulation or benefit scheme that impedes competition and keeps consumers from making the right choices.
The price-signaling system works to allocate resources to those who need and want them. Where the price system appears not to be working, look closer: you’ll find the government behind the curtain, pulling levers and pushing buttons, trying to displace the personal knowledge of millions and millions of Americans regarding the best decisions for their families.
In top-down systems run by third parties who don’t know you and will never care about you, patients get lost, subjugated to someone else’s purposes.
HEALTHY COMPETITION
S URE ENOUGH, THERE IS AT LEAST ONE AREA IN HEALTH CARE TODAY where we can see patient freedom working effectively: cosmetic surgery. That’s because insurance companies don’t typically cover it; it’s a “self-pay” market. So third parties like insurers, employers, and governments aren’t meddling in the doctor-patient relationship. The result? Continuously falling prices and continuously rising quality. Exactly what we’d expect in freely operating markets where the patient (the customer) controls the dollars.
One of the best examples is laser eye surgery, more commonly called LASIK. At the time of its approval in the 1990s, it cost upwards of $2,000 per eye. 30 Today you can get it done for $1,800 per eye, on average, 31 and as low as $500 in some cases, with success rates approaching 100 percent. Faster lasers, larger spot areas, bladeless flap incisions, intraoperative pachymetry, and
The mandate, in its essence, asserts a power on the part of the federal government to regulate you simply because you live and breathe . Think about the implications of such government powers over your individual freedoms.
So where exactly does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to tell us to buy health insurance? The law’s defenders point to the power to regulate interstate commerce . . . or wait, is it the General Welfare Clause? . . . the taxing power? . . . well, um, it’s probably in the Fourteenth Amendment somewhere. Hmm. Okay, they’re not really sure by what authority they’ve mandated it, but they just know it’s constitutional. In February 2012, Congresswoman Kathy Hochul, Democrat from the 26th district of New York, committed a classic gaffe—let the truth slip out—when she admitted to an astonished group of her constituents: “Well, basically, we’re not looking to the Constitution on that aspect of it.” 29
Arguably the most victimized constituency under Obamacare—and there are many potential victims—is the Millennial Generation, young people who showed up in droves to vote for Obama. They worked for hope and change, but what they got was the short end of a typical collusion between health insurance interests and the Obama administration that forces younger, healthier, poorer people to subsidize the health care consumption of older, sicker, wealthier folks. Young people, already saddled with record joblessness and unprecedented debt from student loans, will be forced into the system to prop up a financial house of cards. But hey, at least they’ll now get a free ride on their parents’ insurance policy until they’re twenty-six.
Know who deserves a waiver? All 310 million of us.
GOVERNMENT FAILURE, MARKET SUCCESS
A DVOCATES OF CENTRALIZED MEDICINE ARGUE THAT MARKETS HAVE failed to meet people’s needs, and (because, they’re always telling us, health care is different ) government must step in to do it. But this argument never holds up. Every alleged instance of market failure turns out, upon examination, to be an example of government failure. Whether it’s railroads, energy production, or health insurance, the culprit behind the flaws in the system will invariably be a misguided government regulation or benefit scheme that impedes competition and keeps consumers from making the right choices.
The price-signaling system works to allocate resources to those who need and want them. Where the price system appears not to be working, look closer: you’ll find the government behind the curtain, pulling levers and pushing buttons, trying to displace the personal knowledge of millions and millions of Americans regarding the best decisions for their families.
In top-down systems run by third parties who don’t know you and will never care about you, patients get lost, subjugated to someone else’s purposes.
HEALTHY COMPETITION
S URE ENOUGH, THERE IS AT LEAST ONE AREA IN HEALTH CARE TODAY where we can see patient freedom working effectively: cosmetic surgery. That’s because insurance companies don’t typically cover it; it’s a “self-pay” market. So third parties like insurers, employers, and governments aren’t meddling in the doctor-patient relationship. The result? Continuously falling prices and continuously rising quality. Exactly what we’d expect in freely operating markets where the patient (the customer) controls the dollars.
One of the best examples is laser eye surgery, more commonly called LASIK. At the time of its approval in the 1990s, it cost upwards of $2,000 per eye. 30 Today you can get it done for $1,800 per eye, on average, 31 and as low as $500 in some cases, with success rates approaching 100 percent. Faster lasers, larger spot areas, bladeless flap incisions, intraoperative pachymetry, and
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