Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Sunday, March 21, 2010

The Future After Health Care

America, I come to you with a heavy heart and a dark cloud floating over my head, the kind with little flashes of lighting and rumbly noises. Do you know what happens when you elect a man who promises to reform health care and then makes some reforms on health care? You have failure, my friends! Failure! Have we no protection from the people we elected to reform health care actually reforming health care? Don't they care that we had an election in which the Democrats, who are for health care reform, were elected to reform health care? How long must we be ruled by our elected representatives? The scandal! The tragedy!

But you'll get yours, oh yes, you will. The Republicans will disagree with you! Will refuse to support you or do what you want! It is to laugh, the idea that the Republicans won't withhold their support! I laugh at your supposition of comity, mutual support, and bipartisanship!

My only consolation is that all the people who were elected to reform health care will be sent howling into the wilderness for supporting health care reform. How they hate the mouth-breathers who elected them to support health care reform. The best route to electoral success has never been to do what your constituents elected you to do.

I hope Obama enjoys his success. That'll teach him. He's sure to be rejected by the electorate for obeying their wishes. Not that it matters what the people think; nobody listens to me them anyway.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh the joy of Megan's implosion of rage the past week. Just wonderful.

Lurking Canadian said...

Everybody knows there's no such thing as an "electoral mandate". All that matters is opinion polls.

Unless you want to cut upper bracket taxes, privatize something, or (especially) start a war. In those cases, you are standing firm for your principles instead of pandering to an irresponsible public through wishy-washy flip-flopping.

That's in the Constitution, right?

Batocchio said...

She ignores that a) the public supports health care reform when they actually know what's in the bill versus all the death panel lies, and b) the Republicans already did all these stunts she's talking about. That's not to mention that the core bill passed in the usual manner, and it's only budget tweaking that's going through reconciliation.

Then this her WaPo chat. I plan to write a post on her misapplication of "begging the question" and making the fallacy of equivocation in the syllogism she cites, but check out this exchange:

Boston, MA: What do private health insurers contribute to the health care process?

Megan McArdle: They provide countervailing power to the health care providers; in markets where insurers aren't powerful enough, providers tend to have higher reimbursements. They also provide price discovery. If the private health insurance market didn't exist, Medicare would have to invent it, because it's the private health insurance market (including the non-profits), that figure out what things are worth buying in a competitive market place. It's certainly not a perfectly functioning market, but monopsonies (markets with a single buyer) tend to be less efficient than even sub-optimal markets with many players.


I don't think a single claim of hers is correct. The major problem with heath care in America is for-profit health insurance for basic care, which McArdle supports and most major nations have rejected. In both Japan and the U.K., the government sets reimbursement rates, which are lower than in the U.S. Germany has competitive insurance companies (much more regulated than here), but rates for basic procedures are set by region – and are lower than the U.S. The United States' health care costs are a staggering $7,290 per capita, while the next most expensive, Norway, is $4,763, and they cover everybody. France is at $3,601 and Britain is at $2,992, even though they cover everybody and their overall care is rated better than that in the United States. McMegan simply has no interest in reality, and no shame in lying.

Clever Pseudonym said...

I only gazed over that WaPo chat, because nothing Megan can say is worth the time, but I laughed at the person from "Galt's Gulch, CO" asking her if she's sorry that she voted for Obama now. Nowhere in her response does she bring up the fact that she didn't actually vote at all.

Another Luke said...

No! Not democracy!! Waaaah!

Susan of Texas said...

And she seems to believe her self-delusions--she wouldn't get so angry at disagreement if she didn't. Nothing penetrates the wall of self-regard and self-congratulation.