Duncan Hunter – October 27, 2009: On ObamaCare, RomneyCare and Americans!

Former Congressman Duncan L. Hunter was kind enough to interrupt his hunting and fishing vacation in Idaho once more to call in and answer a few more questions. Unfortunately, he has been mostly out in the woods and has paid scant attention to the political news of the last couple weeks. He’s actually enjoying that aspect almost as much as bagging elk and landing steelhead. This series will continue, whether he’s on vacation or not, during the weeks ahead. So without further adieu:

PA: They make their way up the Snake River, I assume. It’s amazing. I’m a steelhead fisherman myself, though I’ve never fished for them in Idaho. So how long you going to stay up in Idaho?

PA: So when he gets back, I’ll have to look him up. In fact the reason I even have your phone number is because of him.

DH: Well good. Listen, we’re always glad you’ve got it though. We appreciate you.

PA: Well OK. Since you have very limited time let me start off: Have you been able to keep up on the news?

PA: Well there’s some interesting dynamics in the New York, a special election in district 23. Have you heard anything about that.

PA: They had an opening when John McHugh, I believe is his name, accepted a postion with the Obama Administration.

DH: McHugh was my chairman of the personnel subcommittee on the House Armed Services Committee. He’s going to be the new Secretary of the Army.

DH: He replaces another friend who is Pete Garrett, who was a wonderful guy. Served in congress with me. A great friend. And before Duncan (DII) joined the Marines, Garrett and I built a log cabin, Duncan and I and Garrett, built a log cabin on top of the Blue Ridge.

DH: Yeah, he’s Texan, a Texas Democrat. A blue dog, conservative democrat, a wonderful guy. He’s going out, obviously leaving with the Bush Administration. He was a friend of the Bush’s, of the President, a real fine guy. He’s leaving and McHugh is coming in.

PA: The special election is coming up on November 3rd, and what happened was that the local GOP bosses got together and selected a candidate to run on the GOP ticket. There’s no primary, so the local NY party folks just selected, and they selected a woman named Dede Scozzafava. But anyway she’s very liberal, so another republican, a very conservative man named Doug Hoffman, went over to the Conservative Party – which New York has a tradition of 3rd parties - and they put him up on the ticket. So now it’s a 3-way race between the democrat, the republican and this Hoffman feller, the conservative. And of course, the RNC and Newt Gingrich immediately came out and endorsed the liberal republican. And lo and behold, within a few days, Fred Thompson, went over and endorsed Hoffman; then Palin endorsed Hoffman, now DeMint and all the conservatives – some of them in Congress, even your old pal Rohrbacher, have endorsed the conservative. And he’s leading the race now, on the Conservative Party ticket.

DH: Really? What’s funny about these conversations is that I’m getting more information from you, than you are from me (laughs). Like I said, I just came out of the woods. This is very interesting.

The sad thing is, as you know, is that typically, or historically, when a conservative party puts up a strong candidate, when the Conservatives and Republicans don’t run together, the democrats usually win. Looks like the democrats are licking their chops, from what you just told me.

PA: Well, they’re not, because the latest polls show, because of this whole “pissed off at Washington”, “pissed off at Obama”, Tea Party mentality, Hoffman is actually polling about 5 points ahead – of either of them.

PA: And he’s got money coming in now from all over the country, because people are fired up about this.

PA: So I just figured that would be a little news for you. But I know your history, Congressman, and I remember you had something called the Conservative Opportunity Society (COS).

PA: Where you would go out and find the conservatives to run against the liberal republicans in the primary.

DH: Of course. You know ironically, the COS, was founded by about five of us, and our first chairman was Newt Gingrich (laughing). I think I was the 3rd chairman. Newt was the first chairman, Bob Walker the second, myself the third, and Jon Kyl was the fourth…

DH: Yeah, right, Vin Webber. But I don’t think Webber wanted to be chairman. Let me see. I think it was Gingrich, Walker – it could have been Webber, Walker then me – but I was chairman after Walker. Yeah.

DH: Yeah, listen, I’m all for the fact that you need to have conservatives in those seats, but typically, it’d be much better if we had solidarity. But it looks like this guy (Hoffman) is pulling enough conservative and democrat votes.

DH: If the democrats get their act together can they win this thing? Numerically, don’t they have a third of the vote?

DH: I know, but only nominally. The problem is if the democrats get more than 1/3rd of the vote.

PA: In theory you are right. But Hoffman is beating Scozzafava now by such a large margin…

DH. That’s great. You know what’s interesting too, just to comment on it, is that Fort Drum is in that district.

DH: The 10th Mountain Division. You’d think with the war going on as long as it has, and with some real good leaders- we’ve had a lot of real stars – have emerged in the military. You’d think in a place like that you’d have a military leader running.

PA: You never know. But the good news is Doug Hoffman has had 8 years, I believe 8 years in the military long ago, he’s a very successful businessman, a grandpa, and he’s tired of the spending. And he’s not just talking about the spending of Obama, which is atrocious, but also the spending of the last couple of Bush years, with that horrendous TARP program that you fought hard against.

DH: Yeah. OK good. That’s real good news. Thanks for keeping me up to date on the news. So what else is new? What other good news do have for me? (laughing).

But now, I’ve got to go. We’re meeting some friends for dinner. But I’ve got a little more time to hear some news from you then take off! (laughing loudly)

PA: Well, that’s not fair (laughing). I don’t know if I have any more tidbits of news. But that kind of leads me to the questions I have. In terms of this healthcare, I don’t know if you know Dingy Harry Reid now supposedly has a version ready to go in the Senate on ObamaCare, that has the notorious “public option” government takeover of the insurance industry. And I wanted your two cents on that. I know during the campaign you had a pretty good free market program that…

DH: Yeah. Well the problem with all of the healthcare proposals that the democrats have made, that the administration has made, aside from being unconstitutional, is that the most efficient transaction in a free market economy, the one that provides the best cost to the consumer, is a direct line between the consumer and the supplier, in this case, the doctor.

And the more people, whether they’re bureaucrats from the government or even third parties in the private sector, ie insurance companies, lawyers, and other non-health providers who are injected between the consumer, the patient and the doctor, the more expensive the care is going to be.

So if you can imagine the American consumer extending a dollar to his doctor, in the old days, the doctor would receive that dollar. Today, there is a lawyer who stands between the doctor and the patient. Lawyers get a certain percentage of every medical dollar spent through lawsuits and through the recovery on malpractice cases. You have insurance agents who receive a certain portion of that dollar through their premiums, and where you have government programs, you have government bureaucrats who receive portions of that dollar. And for every government bureaucrat who basically applies regulations to the medical profession, to that relationship, you have a counterpart in the private sector – meaning doctors have people in their office who are essentially administrators and clerical people who are necessary now to fill out all the forms, do all the paperwork, and administer to the bureaucracy, and to react to and interact with the bureaucracy that is forced between the parties.

So instead of having a direct relationship between you and the doctor, you have, literally, a whole crowd of people who are grabbing part of that health care dollar. That is one reason while health care is so expensive. So the problem with any of these managed care proposals is they all become very inefficient because of the number of people and institutions interjecting themselves into the relationship between patient and doctor.

PA: In addition to the unconstitutionality of it, as you mentioned. Where is it even permitted that the federal government can even get into the health insurance business? Granted, they are already doing it with Medicare. But just because they did it once doesn’t mean they should be able to do it twice.

DH: Well listen, this is an attempt to socialize our country. And it is one that is attempted at what the architects of socialism and Marxism would view as being a “soft exposure” in the American fabric. That is, people are obviously concerned about health care. It is important to them, and they are concerned about having security with respect to health care. The problem is government healthcare doesn’t provide security. And in most of the cases we see around the world, it provides instead a system that is largely dysfunctional and provides inadequate care.

It’s an attempt by the socialists in government to take over a very large portion of one of our country’s most vital mechanisms, and that is the delivery of healthcare.

PA: Absolutely. When I was researching before, I dug up an old chestnut that you had given on the House floor, against Clinton’s attempt to socialize medicine. And that was - I don’t know if you remember it, it dates back to 1995 I believe – that was a humdinger. Do you remember giving a speech on the house floor against…

PA: You went through there and you listed all the different countries (Canada, Japan, England), and you said “we went out and looked at Canada and Japan and Britain, etc, and here is what we found..”. That was the most devastating rebuttal I’ve seen to….

DH: Yeah, we looked at the countries, the guys who had socialized medicine. And they all have major problems. In Canada, as I recall, they had major problems. They had hospitals that were closing down, they had long waits for operations. And the strongest reflection of that was the number of Canadians who were flocking to the United States for operations.

DH: The problem is that it is very difficult to imbue a bureaucrat with the same concern for your health, and your family’s health, that you have. If you compared this to the idea that maybe we should have government shop for people and provide their food. You can imagine what a horrendous situation that would be. If the government decided they were going to provide all the food, and provide food insurance for people. They would shop for the food and then deliver it to your home. They obviously would never be able to understand the unique tastes, the unique diets, and appetites of all the American people, and what they want. They’d be constantly delivering the wrong thing, it would be a mess.

And to some degree it’s the same with the insurance industry. Insurance companies are not nearly as egregious as government. But the idea that you need to have a 3rd party providing your care, rather than you directly purchasing that care, means that they are going to set certain standards. They are going to have gatekeepers. How many people do we know in this country that hate the fact that they have what they consider to be a consequential medical condition that needed redress, and then they found out their insurance company, thorough their gatekeepers – the people that decide whether or not your medical condition is “actionable”, number one, whether it “exists” or is actionable, were denied treatment. So here’s a guy that paid for a certain thing then he got treatment denied.

Another problem we had, for example in the Massachusetts plan, that Governor Romney had….

DH: Yeah, RomneyCare (laughs). One problem with that is that you end up with these insurance companies that are basically the captives of State government. And they hold them very jealously and consider them part of their own political domain. Those politicians have, those state controlled insurance companies attend their fundraisers and they make the rules that govern those particular insurance companies. And most state legislatures that I’m aware of would be very much adverse to allowing people to buy their insurance across state lines. And at one time we saw that the same health package, from one of our reports, that a health package that costs in excess of $700 per month in Massachusetts, that the same coverage could be purchased in Missouri for little more that $200.

DH: But now, you can’t buy across state line. And the second problem that happens is, since the insurance companies are controlled by the state legislature, and thereby the policies are controlled by the state legislature, they are lobbied by groups to mandate certain medical coverage. Coverage that the general population does not want! For example in Massachusetts, I think you have fertility treatment (laughs)...

DH: yeah, fertility treatment, it was mandated in Romney’s Massachusetts. Now take a look at that and see if it’s still mandated, but at one time it was. That HAD to be in every insurance package that you purchased. As I told Romney’s people: “what if you’re 90 years old??” (laughing)

DH: Now you also have in some states, you have alcoholism treatment. It is a mandated benefit! What if you don’t drink?? You still have to pay for alcohol treatment.

PA: Up here in Washington State, it’s not as bad as RomneyCare but they dictate…you have to include abortion coverage and all sorts of crap in the plan no matter what.

DH: And see the problem is according to the – you’ve seen the various studies on mandated coverage, that is not necessary, that most people don’t want? Of course, that was all lobbied in by these groups that went to the right fundraiser. They got the State legislature to mandate them.

Well, if you could buy your coverage across state lines what would happen is this: The company, for example in Massachusetts, would go to their state legislature and say “uh, we have a problem here”….

DH: Yeah, “everybody’s going to Texas because you mandated fertility treatment, alcoholism treatment, chiropractor treatment, mental health treatment, and nobody buys our plan anymore because it’s too expensive. You have to take the saddle off. Take all these unwanted mandates off; we don’t care how many fundraisers the fertility people came to. You gotta take ‘em off or we are going to go broke.”

PA: Just as his pro-homosexual indoctrination in the schools there in Massachusetts is a prime example of what not to do.

DH: Oh great, I haven’t seen that (laughs). What’s interesting is that when you go to Massachusetts, the people there look very normal. But they’ve had just extraordinary politics emanate from that state. It makes you wonder ‘where are all the nuts’?, because they have to be here, because they’ve done some darn nutty things. (laughing).

PA: (laughs) Well one of them left Massachusetts then proceeded to pretend that he was a conservative and was in the race against you. You remember that guy?

DH: (laughing) Well you know something though? I think Mr. Romney got tired of explaining his conversions. But he had every right to do it. You know, John McCain did not have a lot of great lines that I saw, but I thought one great line was (laughing hard) when Romney said “I’m the candidate of Change”, and McCain turned to him and said “You certainly are!” (still laughing)

DH: Yes. It’s very difficult to derive efficiency in a system in which the people, in which the participants do not have the same interest in the healthcare, nor the interest in the economics, the interest in having efficient delivery, don’t have the same interest as the people who are the recipients of the care.

I think we’d do well in a system where we offered to doctors, for example…Doctors pay, spend, at least the ones I’ve talked to, say that people pay 30% more than they should for their healthcare to pay for just the bureaucracy of Medicare. And I’m sure they pay quite a bit for the costs that accrue to or attach to the bureaucracy of the insurance companies, as well. Direct payment, and direct treatment, and hopefully some good malpractice reforms would go a long way to providing the most efficient, highest quality treatment.

One thing I thought would be a great thing is if you offered this to doctors: That they would not pay any taxes on direct payments – say $50 or $40 dollar visits. So at the end of the year they can say ‘OK, I’ve had 382, or whatever number, of $40 visits’ and they would not have to pay taxes on that. There are lots of doctors who are 50 or 60 years old that would want to keep their hand in it, continue to practice, and want to practice in a small town or community setting. Some would want to practice from home. One I stayed with up in New Hampshire was leaving a big hospital, and wanted to start up a little clinic in his home. He had one of those big old ancient homes and he wanted to set up a clinic there, a one man practice. If you had an incentive for people, to get a tax break for those direct pay visits, basically, you’d make the system less complicated, less bureaucratic, less regulated, with fewer middlemen.

The point is to pull middlemen out of the system. In any economic activity, the more middlemen you have projected between producer and consumer, the more expensive the product.

PA: Ok. I think even before you went on your weeks long hunting excursion to Idaho, the Obama administration declared war on Fox News. Had each of their henchmen, each of their spokesmen, whether it was Axelrod or Rahm Emanuel, or the Marxist himself, have come out and basically laid it on the line by saying ”Fox is not a news organization, we don’t want to talk to Fox, were not going to talk to Fox”. They are pulling the Saul Alinsky tactics on Fox News. Do you consider that to be a wise move on their part?

DH: I can’t attempt to guess what the long range strategy of that particular tactic is. I know republicans for years have denounced the NY Times and it really hasn’t worked. Typically people who buy ink by the barrel, or have millions of television screens are not going to be intimidated by any particular administration. In fact, it generally makes ratings go up when you create a controversy that provokes government. Conservatives, we’ve had the same problems. And of course what you get when you go after the news sources is more of the same.

PA: Pretty much. It’s funny, since the ‘War on Fox News’ started a couple weeks ago, their ratings have gone up 10%. And your friend Glenn Beck, his ratings are shooting through the roof. (Laughs) you do know he moved from CNN over to Fox….

You know the thing I think that makes us different from other people around the world, is I think Americans still have a strong streak of independence. And an even stronger streak of independence from government. And attempts to control things by government, tend to nettle Americans, and to draw resistance. And the liberals and democrats continue to think that the desire for security, and for comfort, and for assurance – all the things that you’re supposed to get from a socialistic system, that those factors are going to outweigh those streaks of independence and self reliance. And I think what the Obama administration is going to discover is that the desire for “security and comfort” will certainly not outweigh this strong streak of independence that the American people possess.

PA: I think you are right. More evidence of that, congressman, is you know, Mark Levin?

PA: Well he wrote a fantastic book, that came out earlier this year. It was #1 on the NY Times bestseller list – while NEVER getting a review from any mainstream media publication- but was # 1 for six or seven weeks. Beck, Michelle Malkin, Jim DeMint, all these guys have written books, books extolling the virtues of freedom, the virtues of our Constitution, and the virtues of independence that you’re talking about. And to see this flourish in the age of Obama is really quite reassuring to me, knowing that people are getting ready to dig in, and to fight this takeover.

DH: Yeah. I think when people are taking something from you, you tend to hold it more dearly.

And incidentally, with respect to Romney, let me tell you one thing that I did admire about Romney on the campaign. He had a great family. And his family was out there campaigning in every state for him. And you know, my son Duncan, who is now a member of Congress, just back from Iraq, he was helping me. And Sam, who is in Iraq right now, was helping me also. I had my nephew Cody and my nephew Travis and my whole family. So one thing I did admire about Romney was that he had his sons out there campaigning like sixty (??) for him. And it was very impressive.

PA: Yeah, yeah. He seems like a very personable and good family man and all that.

DH: His problem is that he became governor of a liberal state, and it was very tough to pivot out of positions that I think he felt were necessarily liberal. They were liberal positions that he thought were necessities, and it’s tough to pivot out of that into a primary that is traditionally dominated by conservative politics.

PA: But then again, look who won. He wasn’t exactly a stark raving conservative.

DH: (laughs) On the other hand, it was Mr. Romney, because of his liberal Massachusetts politics, that helped to “center” McCain.

PA: It may have. It was definitely an interesting race. We’ll talk more on that later.

DH: Well I just wanted to get that in. That he had to pivot out of liberal position to a conservative position, and that is always a tough stretch.

PA: Well, I’ve got to give you a compliment here, because on several of the issues, during that last campaign, including the necessity of strong illegal immigration control and the necessity to confront China. On both of those fronts, all of your competitors came towards your position. You didn’t move. They all moved from appeasing, both the open borders crowd, and the China appeasers to a position where even Romney was up in Michigan saying “hey, we can’t have our heavy industries taking off for foreign shores”.

PA: So obviously, even though you did not have the funds to do as well as you would have liked, you did drive some of the issues. Frankly, from the people I know that watched the debates, you did more than hold your own in the scant time they gave you.

DH: It was a lot of fun. And I think it was very worthwhile. Very worthwhile.

PA: Well, I think so too. The country got to know you a little bit, after hiding away in the cellars of the House Armed Services Committee. So you got some exposure. And it’s one of the reasons I’m on the phone with you today, is to help keep your exposure going out.

DH: That’s good of you. But listen, I just watched my wife walk out with her coat on, she’s ready to go out now, and I haven’t even shaved. I might have to change me shirt too.

DH: Well thanks so much for calling. And I’ll have Sam, when he gets back to Fort Lewis, get in touch with you.

PA: Yeah, absolutely. And of course I’d like to continue to have these weekly, or bi-weekly talks, because I got about two or three questions in out of my list of about 100.

Typically people who buy ink by the barrel, or have millions of television screens are not going to be intimidated by any particular administration. In fact, it generally makes ratings go up when you create a controversy that provokes government.

Well that theory didn't work out so well for the NYSlimes a couple of years ago, did it? IIRC, their readership went down, down, down and are now looking for a government bailout.

Had the Bush Administration charged the NYS with treason when they were giving aid and comfort to the terrorists, this crap may have ended.

Was looking for something in my old posts and came across this post from a couple of weeks ago. As this is one of my favorite Hunter quotes, I thought I would share it here.

When you were hungry the Americans brought you food
When you were sick the Americans brought you medicine
When you had tsunamis and earthquakes and landslides the Americans came
And when you were in danger the Americans left the safety of their own homes to come and protect you.
I WILL NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

Wow, I'M PUTTING THIS ON MY FACEBOOK PAGE, TOO!

Duncan Hunter even goes on way beyond the time he said he had to go, and...I'm re-posting this paragraph, because it is such a GREAT way to EXPLAIN it in PLAIN--EASY TO UNDERSTAND---LANGUAGE!!!

SOOOO many Congressmen do NOT know how to talk to regular people...they're all lawyers and when they finish talking you say...."What did they say???"

DUNCAN HUNTER RULES!!! - READ THIS AGAIN:

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