How Tom Daschle Might Kill Conservatism [Obamacare: make us dependent, then how to shrink gov’t?]
US News & World Report ^ | November 21, 2008 | James Pethokoukis
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2008/11/21/how-tom-daschle-might-kill-conservatism.html
Posted on Friday, November 21, 2008 7:15:41 PM by Mike Fieschko
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2136238/posts
“...and the Obamacrats certainly have the momentum: a near-landslide presidential election victory, at least 58 Democratic votes in the Senate, and a nasty recession that will make many Americans yearn for economic security. Already the health insurance companies seem set back on their heels. The industry’s trade organization now says it would accept new rules requiring them to cover pre-existing conditions as long as there was a universal mandate for all Americans to have health insurance. On top of all that, Obama clearly wants to make healthcare reform a priority in his first term, as evidenced by the selection of a heavy hitter like Daschle. And even if he wasn’t interested, Congress sure is, with Max Baucus and Ted Kennedy readying a plan in the Senate. A few observations:
1) Passage would be a political gamechanger. Recently, I stumbled across this analysis of how nationalized healthcare in Great Britain affected the political environment there. As Norman Markowitz in Political Affairs, a journal of “Marxist thought,” puts it: “After the Labor Party established the National Health Service after World War II, supposedly conservative workers and low-income people under religious and other influences who tended to support the Conservatives were much more likely to vote for the Labor Party when health care, social welfare, education and pro-working class policies were enacted by labor-supported governments.”
Passing Obamacare would be like performing exactly the opposite function of turning people into investors. Whereas the Investor Class is more conservative than the rest of America, creating the Obamacare Class would pull America to the left. Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute, who first found that wonderful Markowitz quote, puts it succinctly in a recent blog post: “Blocking Obama’s health plan is key to the GOP’s survival.”
2) Shrinking government would get exponentially tougher. Republicans would face the same problem with healthcare that they currently do with Social Security, persuading people to trade one in the hand (the current system) for two in the bush (a reformed system). And we see how well that has worked out.
Combine Obamacare with plans to take away the tax-advantaged status of 401(k) plans and IRAs and you would end up with government responsible for both healthcare and retirement. The big-government constituency would grow and deepen. And remember that fewer and fewer people are paying the incomes taxes that would help pay for increased government services.
That breakage of the linkage between taxes and government “benefits” creates toxic incentives for more of both — and an economy more shackled than ever by taxes, debt, and regulation.
3) Republicans better learn to competently talk healthcare. John McCain’s healthcare plan was perhaps the most provocative policy proposal of the entire 2008 campaign. Too bad he could neither fully explain how it worked nor persuasively argue why it was better than Barack Obama’s plan.
Also too bad since his plan would have smartly reduced healthcare costs by getting companies out of the healthcare benefits business and empowering individuals to buy insurance on their own.
This would have helped fix what economist Arnold Kling calls the insurance vs. insulation problem: :Insulation relieves the patient of the stress of making decisions about treatment. The patient also does not have to worry about shopping around for the best price. The problem with insulation is that it is not a sustainable form of healthcare finance.”
Another interesting healthcare reform option is highlighted by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam in the book Grand New Party. Uncle Sam would require individuals and families to put 15 percent of their income into health savings accounts. If you run out of money before year-end, the government steps in. If you don’t, you get the money back or it rolls over into a retirement account. Of course, any conservative alternative would be easier to implement if it doesn’t first have to kill an existing nationalized health plan. But thanks to Tom Daschle, that is just what might have to happen.
Again...before the 2008 election:
Excerpt:
“Curiously, one of Obama’s ideas for “change” — taxing 401k’s — tracks rather neatly with radical redistributionist Phather Phleger’s call for white people giving up their 401ks in the interest of racial justice.”
Obama: Let’s Pursue Reparations Through Legislation Rather Than the Courts
Ace of Spades HQ ^ | October 27, 2008 | Ace http://minx.cc/?post=276650
Posted on Monday, October 27, 2008 3:46:23 PM by Free ThinkerNY
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2116734/posts
Yup:
A caller, “Karen,” asked if it’s “too late for that kind of reparative work economically?” And she asked if that work should be done through the courts or through legislation.
“Maybe I’m showing my bias here as a legislator as well as a law professor,” Obama said. “I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way.”
“Reparative work.” Seems like the caller understood what Obama was saying, and Obama agreed.
It’s only now that they are furiously spinning that they meant something else.
While Obama isn’t “optimistic” about getting this “reparative work” done through the courts, he hasn’t entirely given up on them:
You can craft theoretical justification for it legally, and any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.
Obama’s Redistributionist Obsession: Racially-tinged economic justice.
This is astounding stuff from a man who is one election away from the presidency. In politer tones, he is saying things that would make his mentors Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, and William Ayers, not necessarily in that order proud as peacocks. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are probably beaming too.
....
I suggest henceforth that every time readers hear the word “change” from Team Obama, they insert the work “redistributive” in front of it.
Curiously, one of Obama’s ideas for “change” — taxing 401k’s — tracks rather neatly with radical redistributionist Phather Phleger’s call for white people giving up their 401ks in the interest of racial justice.