I haven’t much to say except to that what happened in Washington tonight has very probably set off a tinderbox, and we will now be in rebellion. May it be a non-violent one, but if violence is what it ultimately takes, we are a people whose nation is founded on such in the defense of human liberty.
[Monday morning update]
Professor Jacobson has a pep talk.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Paul Hsieh on the coming battles. And Victor Davis Hanson says that Obama has crossed the Rubicon. Fortunately, Julius Caesar he’s not.
[Update a while later]
Had enough?
As I have argued now for months – first, in August, here; then, in November, here and here; and, more recently, here, here, and here – a genuine political realignment may be in the offing. This has happened at irregular intervals in our nation’s past – most notably, in 1800, 1828, 1860, and 1932 – and on each occasion the political party benefiting from the upheaval was able to paint a plausible picture depicting their opponents as being parties to a conspiracy to overthrow the liberties possessed by their fellow Americans. This is what Thomas Jefferson did to the Federalists in and after 1800; it was what Andrew Jackson did to John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Nicholas Biddle, and the Whigs in and after 1828; it was what Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans did to the slave power conspiracy and its fellow travelers in the North in and after 1860, and it was what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did to Herbert Hoover and the business-minded progressives in and after 1932. When FDR claimed, at the 1936 Democratic convention, that “a small group” of his fellow Americans was intent on concentrating “into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives,” he was merely rephrasing the charges lodged in an earlier time by Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and their political allies.
Of course, one cannot plausibly advance such a claim except in circumstances where one has a great deal of help from one’s opponents. In 1800, Jefferson profited from the quarrel pitting Alexander Hamilton against John Adams, and by exhibiting secessionist propensities at the Hartford Convention, the New England Federalists destroyed their own party. Something similar can be said regarding Nicholas Biddle and the supporters of the Second National Bank. The same is true for the supporters of the slave power in and after 1860, and Herbert Hoover was in similar fashion a godsend for FDR.
If the Republicans have a comparable opportunity in 2010 and 2012, it is because of what I described in my very first blogpost as “Obama’s Tyrannical Ambition.” Barack Obama has a gift. He has told us so himself, and he is right, but he errs in supposing that his oratorical skill will enable him to fool all of the people all of the time, and over time he has, in effect, unmasked his own party as a conspiracy on the part of a would-be aristocracy of do-gooders hostile to very idea of self-government in the United States. There is no need for me to review the record of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress in the last fifteen months. It is enough to say that, in an administration that promised transparency, everything has been negotiated behind closed doors in a manner suggestive of tyranny and that, in an administration that promised to distance itself from the lobbyists, every major bill has been written by them and is loaded with special deals that give new meaning to the old phrase “corrupt bargain.” The stimulus bill, cap-and-trade, healthcare reform: with these Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid have brought home to the American people, as never before, the tyrannical propensities inherent in the progressive impulse. Thanks to them, everyone now knows that there is no such thing as a moderate Democrat.
I’m not sure that everyone knows it, but enough to now to make the whirlwind that they’ll reap pretty big in the fall. And perhaps years to come.
[Update a few minutes later]
Another pep talk, from Bill Whittle:
…in terms of limiting the practical and immediate damage, holding it here — just holding it — is important and essential. Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have an IQ of 130 — that would be combined between the three of them and you can get to 150 if you throw in Biden — and so they actually believe that a few months from now, they will be able to add single-payer to this goat rodeo, this bloodbath, this circus of incompetence conducted by this museum-grade confederacy of dunces. It got them a bill that requires people to pay for private insurance — which I am, of course, utterly opposed to on every level — but that is way short of single payer and we MUST hold the line here and not an inch further until reinforcements arrive in January. And they will. In numbers that will astonish and amaze the most optimistic among us.
We need to understand the great lesson we have learned about these people in this debate. Barack Obama is, to the liberal cause, a politician that comes not once in a decade, or once in a generation, or even once per century. Barack Obama is, to them, a once in history opportunity for progressives to control this country, and they will fall on a forest of swords to achieve those ends because this is the best chance they have ever had or ever will have to permanently shackle the people to the state. They know that this Health Care fiasco will cost them the House and now perhaps the Senate in November, but that new Congress will not seat until January and in the ten months between now and then they will, I predict, start an orgy of legislation that will make this Health Care circus look like a tea party.
But it seems to me that they have spent every dime of political capital in the bank and have done nothing less than awoken from it’s long and deep slumbers the American Giant, who in attempting to sit upright discovers the Lilliputian threads that have been staked into the ground with finishing nails and who looks around, blinking and disoriented, fatter and softer and much, much poorer than he was when he last opened his eyes back in 1941, but possessed now as then with a terrible anger and capable still of mighty exertions.
So, to the short term: everybody knows that Reid and Pelosi and The Lightworker himself, obviously, are all hoping to use this bill as the foot in the door for the stuff they really want: A single-payer National Health System, or at least the “public option,” which is simply single-payer on the installment plan. We can’t let them get that. Going forward, we can’t let them get single-payer, or cap and trade, or amnesty, or any of it.
We’ll see if their political tone deafness continues.
[Update mid morning]
Another pep talk, from Moe Lane: things we were told we couldn’t do.
[Update a few minutes later]
Jim Treacher says it’s not fair to call this a political Jonestown for the Democrats, because Jim Jones only killed 900 people.
Bad link. Bad! No click for you. Try this good link.
Ethan – The Jungle was not “liberal” propaganda, it was socialist propaganda. Upton Sinclair was a socialist activist.
Is his story supposed to be a great example of the horrors of laissez faire capitalism run amok? Can you show me how Chicago and the meatpacking industry was ever laissez faire? And can you then show me why the market could not solve the problem of poor standards on its own?
And the same goes for Jim:
“…suggesting that the problem isn’t with the government”
Care to explain why you think you can make this assertion? Considering how much influence the government exerts on health providers, I don’t understand why you think it is proper to assert that increasing costs of privately financed healthcare is the fault of a capitalist market. Especially when the more “capitalist” (i.e. less regulated) types of healthcare related services (lasik, cosmetic surgery, etc.) have decreased in cost per procedure.
In order to avoid the healthcare mandate, you have to pay a small fee.
So what you’re saying here, Ethan, is it’s ok for me to stick a knife in you as long as it’s a small knife. But of course, you don’t get to choose, I’m choosing the knife size for you. This is clearly not an infringement on your liberty because I’m a compassionate guy and would only make you bleed a little.
…from Fox News…
Court just ordered release of high level Gitmo Al Queda! I suggest the middle of the Pacific Ocean… from ten thousand feet… no parachute.
So an arbitrary list of things you want to control and an arbitrary list of things you don’t want to control. No principles involved.
Makes about as much sense as I anticipated.
Sorry Mr. Libertarian, but you fall into the same category with 99% certainty. I always find it interesting how you Libertarians usually defend a standing army, state police, court system, prison system, etc, while everything else must certainly be free from state interference. Guess what bud, you are a collectivist as well, by your own definition. Why should I pay so you can defend your corporation’s interests abroad with military action? Or when you get kidnapped abroad? Or even when you get kidnapped in the US? I mean it’s your problem right? I am not being kidnapped right now. Never was. If I do not travel abroad, I do not get kidnapped abroad either. Why should I be paying for a service I do not need?
There used to be a time where there were no standing armies, that people were expected to defend their own country with their own resources. This is certainly not true now. It is also interesting to note that the US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. You would think having the death penalty would take the edge off, but it sure does not seem to be working very well. The US is right there #1 in the Top 5 Countries With Most Incarcerations Per Capita List together with lovely countries such as Russia and Cuba. So is it preferable to pay to keep people in jail, rather than pay for their food, housing, medical expenses. Oh wait.
Sorry, but what separates you from us centrists (I consider myself one) or even, gasp, statists is a matter of degrees. There is a continuum from centrist to decentralized. Which is not to say there it is not important. But there is little I hate more than faux puritanism.
Let’s not go crazy now – that opens the floodgates to wholesale destruction of any and all rights we presently enjoy.
Keep in mind that the left is concentrated in just a few states, the majority are red (red doesn’t seem correct, does it?) The danger would be the introduction of social issues that don’t belong in the constitution.
It may be safer now than later, who knows?
Private health insurance carriers are going to be driven out of business
Nonsense, they’re getting 32 million new customers. Look at the stock prices for major insurers from January (when health reform looked dead) to today — they’re doing fine.
If you’re sure that you understand this better than the shareholders, and are willing to put your money where your mouth is, you could make a lot of money by shorting them.
Care to explain why you think you can make this assertion? Considering how much influence the government exerts on health providers, I don’t understand why you think it is proper to assert that increasing costs of privately financed healthcare is the fault of a capitalist market.
If government insurance were at fault for rising costs, you’d see costs rising faster in public insurance programs (like Medicare) than in private ones. Instead you see the reverse.
The costs are the same because the treatments are the same. The price paid is less, because the government has, again, by fiat declared that it’s willing to pay only so much for any given treatment, a value less than the cost of the treatment.
There is no such thing as the true price of a treatment, there is just what the payer is willing to pay and what the provider is willing to accept. Private insurers are only willing to pay a certain amount, and Medicare is only willing to pay a certain amount, and sometimes (usually?) Medicare is not willing to pay as much. That’s hardly an argument against the government’s ability to control health care spending.
“There is no such thing as the true price of a treatment, there is just what the payer is willing to pay and what the provider is willing to accept.”
There is a true *cost*, however. If you, as a small business owner, were directed by law to sell whatever it is you sell below what it cost you to provide it, the issues would suddenly become clear to you.
Since you and your kind have opened the door to such abuses, that may actually happen.
Trotsky was as gleeful as you and some of the others on this list at the discomfiture of the middle class after the Russian Revolution. But he wound up with an ice axe buried in his skull in Mexico — an official act of government. Be careful what powers you bestow on your government….
Mmmm… federal subsidies…. /homer
Looks like those “obscene” profits are about to get a little obscener…
“Private insurers are only willing to pay a certain amount, and Medicare is only willing to pay a certain amount, and sometimes (usually?) Medicare is not willing to pay as much. That’s hardly an argument against the government’s ability to control health care spending.”
Which one is a government agency? That should be a clue what happens to the rest of us. What part of artificially creating a shortage and limiting payment will create a shortage, is a bad idea don’t you understand? Do you think smart, well educated people are going to stay in medicine and watch their salaries go down?
Jim Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 5:02 pm
“If government insurance were at fault for rising costs, you’d see costs rising faster in public insurance programs (like Medicare) than in private ones. Instead you see the reverse.”
Or, you would expect to see costs rising faster in private insurance programs as medical practitioners try to recoup their loses from participating in the public program. Up to this time, more and more providers have been refusing to take new public plan patients. In the short term, there will be more attempts to do so, and more and more medical practitioners will retire early.
The next generation of medical practitioners will be fewer in number, as the incentive to practice after incurring a mountain of education debt is severely reduced. One can live large, for a time, by eating one’s seed corn, but the next harvest will be bleak.
” Private health insurance carriers are going to be driven out of business. Nonsense, they’re getting 32 million new customers.
And, you believe this will cost us less? There is only one way that increasing demand while discouraging supply will result in lower prices, and that is through government price controls, which inevitably produce rationing.
I am not against the ideal of making sure everyone has medical coverage. But, this approach is doomed to fail in the long run, and drive up our indebtedness and further depress the economy in the immediate term.
Private health insurance carriers are going to be driven out of business
Jim says: Nonsense
Using Jim’s method of rebuttal… I give you this.
“So what you’re saying here, Ethan, is it’s ok for me to stick a knife in you as long as it’s a small knife. But of course, you don’t get to choose, I’m choosing the knife size for you. This is clearly not an infringement on your liberty because I’m a compassionate guy and would only make you bleed a little.”
This is a textbook strawman argument. Where’s Rand now?
And Ryan, companies will do whatever they can to make profits. Their goal is to make money, not to worry about their employees or the quality of their products. If you think the free market would have done away with brutal working conditions and diseased product without state intervention you’re deluding yourself. Look at China’s new free market economy…putting lead in our children’s toys and dangerous chemicals in our baby formula. American products are better and safer because of government regulation, not despite it. Look at Toyota’s rapid growth…followed by massive recalls. They made their profits by cutting corners. Who’s making sure the parties responsible are held to account? That’s right…the government.
This is a textbook strawman argument.
No, it’s an analogy. A bad one I admit. A strawman is a way to avoid responding to an argument by substitution of an easy target. Try again.
No, a strawman argument is when you oversimplify someone’s argument, then refute that oversimplification, as though that refutes the original argument. Which is exactly what you just did.
If it was supposed to be just an analogy, then you’re right…it was a really bad one.
If you think the free market would have done away with brutal working conditions and diseased product without state intervention you’re deluding yourself.
Call me delusional. It’s a matter of sensitivity. Assume the state did not intervene. Would today’s consumers buy a product from an American company that used child labor in a sweat shop environment? Not if they knew about it, which they would. This is an example of consumer regulation. No government regulation required. If you are going to counter by saying using child labor they could make a lower cost product I’d have to say you’re wrong about that as well. Skilled adult labor is going to outproduce child labor even adjusting for the cost differential. In other words, the higher labor price of the adult will still produce the product at a lower cost than the child. Consumers would not stand for it; even when consumers find out about a foreign child sweatshop most will stop buying the product.
No, a strawman argument is when you oversimplify someone’s argument, then refute that oversimplification, as though that refutes the original argument. Which is exactly what you just did.
Which is exactly what I did not do. Your definition is correct. Now show me where in my analogy I refute the oversimplification?
“This is clearly not an infringement on your liberty because I’m a compassionate guy and would only make you bleed a little.” I thought you refuted the oversimplification quite nicely. Excellent use of sarcasm.
“Call me delusional. It’s a matter of sensitivity. Assume the state did not intervene. Would today’s consumers buy a product from an American company that used child labor in a sweat shop environment? Not if they knew about it, which they would. This is an example of consumer regulation. No government regulation required. If you are going to counter by saying using child labor they could make a lower cost product I’d have to say you’re wrong about that as well. Skilled adult labor is going to outproduce child labor even adjusting for the cost differential. In other words, the higher labor price of the adult will still produce the product at a lower cost than the child. Consumers would not stand for it; even when consumers find out about a foreign child sweatshop most will stop buying the product.”
Then why do countries without our sophisticated labor laws consistently employ children, and pay them next to nothing? Why are they working 16 hour days? I’d argue that the reason these things are considered repugnant today is that the government regulations and the media coverage of the controversy over them caused these things to be litigated in the public sphere, until people decided they had to stop. If people hadn’t stood up and said “We won’t work under these conditions,” and got the government to stand up for them, nothing would have changed.
In other words: Of COURSE today’s consumers wouldn’t stand for such things…because of the important decisions of our government in the past.
Thanks, I thought it quite clever.
Ethan: In order to avoid the healthcare mandate, you have to pay a small fee.
It appears you believe (and please correct me) that if the fee is small enough it’s not an infringement on liberty. What amount would that be? What amount if any would be an infringement?
It isn’t about the size of the fee, it’s about the purpose of the fee. I see it as no more an infringement on liberty than any other tax.
For instance, I’m a pack a day smoker, and I don’t see the $7 I pay per pack in NJ to be an infringement on my liberty…because I know it’s bad for me, and I know that it makes me a drain on the healthcare system. The “sin tax” I pay on every pack is going to fund healthcare for poor children, among other things. And it was the people I voted for who put these taxes in place, which makes them perfectly constitutional.
Then why do countries without our sophisticated labor laws consistently employ children, and pay them next to nothing?
Why are they working 16 hour days?
You answered your own question… the media coverage Which is my point about consumer sensitivity which I believe is the natural result of affluence. An affluent society becomes sensitive to child abuse. It’s not that the government made some laws. If we were as poor as some of these countries, we’d have child sweatshops today regardless of any laws the government tried to impose. Paying next to nothing would be much more powerful an influence than any law. Affluence gives us the ability to be sensitive to the issue.
I see it as no more an infringement on liberty than any other tax.
There you go. All taxes are an infringement. The assumption is that some we consent to, such as national defense. By no stretch of the imagination can forcing healthy people to buy insurance be considered consent.
Sorry I missed this…
it was the people I voted for who put these taxes in place, which makes them perfectly constitutional.
Read that again slowly. If you vote for them, anything they do is constitutional? Tell me you don’t believe that.
No, thank you for pointing that out actually, because as soon as I’d posted it I knew I’d made a mistake. What I meant was, the government has the constitutionally-granted power to levy taxes. We can speak out about taxes we don’t like. I, for instance, am not too happy about the trillions of dollars we’re going to have to pay for the Iraq war, or the bank bailouts. But our system is a representative democracy, so even while we might not agree with the decisions our representatives make, they are constitutional if they survive our system of checks and balances. Which, I suspect, this healthcare package will do. Just like Social Security and Medicare before it.
Jim said:
“Nonsense, they’re getting 32 million new customers.”
How many other customers will they lose once people realize it is much cheaper to pay the 2.5% penalty and go without insurance knowing that they can re-enroll at any time without penalty or added cost. I anticipate when the no pre-exising conditions clause is fully implemented in 2014 I’ll save over $10,000 per year by going that route.
Godzilla,
Interesting strawman you have there. It looks nothing like me. Nice guess, but I’m not a libertarian. Philisophically, I’m an objectivist and thus politically a laissez faire capitalist. My politics are based on the requirements for human life, i.e. fundamental principles that are never compromised. Go do a little reading on objectivism and you’ll find answers to your strawman questions. You might even discover that the difference between you and I is not a matter of degree, it is a matter of black and white.
For all the Statists out ther (you know who you are), an honest question:
Where is your personal tipping point on government power (or, How much government power is too much in your opinion)?
If you’ve already answered, pls point me in the proper direction. I am genuinely curious.
If you ask me, they’ve already crossed the line…but it isn’t with taxes and government programs. It’s the police force, consistently allowed to overstep their boundaries and harass innocent citizens. Every time I see a cop flip on his flashers just to avoid stopping at a red light I want to start throwing rocks. To quote the great poets of N.W.A…..well, you already know.
“Every time I see a cop flip on his flashers just to avoid stopping at a red light I want to start throwing rocks.”
That’s what gets your blood boiling? That a cop on patrol protecting your ass, who might be on alert to be directed to an unfolding emergency situation, delayed you a few seconds getting through a friggin’ traffic light?
Your priorities are way out of whack. Slow down. Leave the house a little earlier. Sheesh.
Well, Ethan, if you’re tripping cuz the popo roll through stoplights, then by all means ask them to nightstick anyone who fails to buy medical insurance. It’s only logical…
Sorry, G. Clark, but they’re probably not going to respond to your question. I already asked them that same essential question. Chris Gerrib gave some weaselly answer, probably to stall while checking if there’s already a pre-fab party-line answer to it. Jim, to his credit, actually gave a fairly honest answer, which was, in essence, for him there will never be a limit to statism. .Which I guess makes Jim a totalitarian. Keep that in mind when you read his posts.
Ethan probably wouldn’t comprehend the question; or at least pretend not to.
Hey, I’m all for the police protecting us and arresting people who break the law. But when they can harass you for a half an hour because they happened to stop you for having a blinker out on your car….maybe their priorities are out of whack, not mine.
Ethan said:
“Every time I see a cop flip on his flashers just to avoid stopping at a red light I want to start throwing rocks.”
Me too. Only, I’ve never actually seen that. I have seen plenty of police cars stopped at red lights. In all of my, admittedly very few, interactions with the police, they have been polite and professional.
I am reminded of a scene from the 1st season of Mad Men, when Donald Draper is at the apartment of some beatnics and everyone has gotten high. As Don leaves the apartment, one of the beats says, “The cops are outside, you can’t go out there.” “No,” says Don, putting on his suit coat and hat, “YOU can’t go out there.” Sure enough, when the police see him they just say, “Good evening, sir.”
Then you’re a lucky man, HAL. I’m a law-abiding citizen, I’m a safe driver with a clean driving record, and I’ve been condescended to and harassed more times than I can count. Maybe it’s just the police in Jersey, then? Hah.
Ethan said:
“Maybe it’s just the police in Jersey, then?”
Could be. I rarely leave the midwest, and the traffic stops over the last 2 decades from a variety of city police forces in multiple states have been uniformly professional.
Ethan, I don’t get your world view. The health care “reform” bill gives a lot more power to these sorts of people. There are consequences to giving government more power.
The police aren’t going to be harassing anyone who doesn’t buy health insurance, that’s just ridiculous. No one’s going to jail for failure to purchase health care. I see it as similar to laws requiring homeowners to buy smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Although I suppose it’s your constitutionally-granted right to burn alive in your home…
Ethan said:
“I see it as similar to laws requiring homeowners to buy smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Although I suppose it’s your constitutionally-granted right to burn alive in your home…”
I don’t get this analogy. As I’ve explained here multiple times, under the law I will be permitted to purchase the policy “at need”. I realize that isn’t the intent of the law, but it will be the result. Health insurance isn’t equivalent to a smoke detector, as it doesn’t detect anything. Rather it was originally intended to be more like fire insurance, the purpose of which was to insure against a catastrophic loss. As Rand has explained multiple times, now that I will be able to do the equivalent of canceling my fire insurance policy, and only re-purchasing it once the fire trucks arrive to extinguish the blaze. I don’t see that as beneficial for the industry, or the uninsured. As a matter of fact, it seems quite possible that many of those currently insured who don’t have much in the way of claims will be able to save a bundle by dropping their coverage, paying the 2.5% penalty, and only purchasing a policy at need, thus getting out of the risk pool. This will leave only the people with large claim costs in the risk pool.
“The police aren’t going to be harassing anyone who doesn’t buy health insurance, that’s just ridiculous.”
Right, and the EPA wouldn’t ruin a 50 million dollar agricultural economy and thousands of jobs to save a fish. Your problem is not enough imagination for how bad things can be when the government is involved.
If it takes standing in the way of a 50 million dollar development to keep a species from going extinct, then I’m all for it. I’d rather not have my country look like the surface of the moon, thank you very much.
Anyway: if you do drop your insurance you’re going to have to pay a $750 dollar fine, presumably annually. So either way you’re paying into the insurers’ pool, whether you’re using it or not. If there are loopholes that will allow people to “game the system” like that, I’m sure they’ll be closed quickly.
And it is very much like a smoke alarm, in that one of the big intentions of this bill is to increase the amount of preventive care people receive. It’s been shown that routine preventive care is cheaper in the long term than sudden catastrophic care when things crop up that could have been caught early. In other words, it’s cheaper to see your doctor every year and pay for a prescription for blood thinners than it is to spend a month in intensive care after a stroke.
If it takes standing in the way of a 50 million dollar development to keep a species from going extinct, then I’m all for it. I’d rather not have my country look like the surface of the moon, thank you very much.
If we let a species go extinct, it makes the country look like the surface of the moon? Really?
Species have been going extinct for eons. Earth hasn’t looked like the moon in billions of years (if ever).
It’s been shown that routine preventive care is cheaper in the long term than sudden catastrophic care when things crop up that could have been caught early.
Really? Do you have a credible citation? Because the research I’ve seen is that preventive care saves lives, but it doesn’t save money. In fact, it costs more, because you’re causing people to live longer.
That was hyperbole, Rand. Deciding to let one species go is a slippery slope, was my point. Making a big deal about one species of fish might look silly, but there’s a very good reason for it.
And it might cost more in the long run, but I mean in the annual-budget sense. And if it causes people to live longer, then I think you just provided another example of why it’s a good idea.
Making a big deal about one species of fish might look silly, but there’s a very good reason for it.
And there should be no cost-benefit analysis? Species preservation, no matter what the species, should trump all?
And it might cost more in the long run, but I mean in the annual-budget sense.
So you can’t provide a citation for your claim?
I’m sure there’d be plenty of money to be made cutting down the redwood forests of northern California and building homes and businesses on the land. If all it was subject to was a cost-benefit analysis.
And here: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/358/7/661
Essentially, the sweeping statement that preventive care saves money all the time, across the board, is not accurate. But targeted preventive care, of specific illnesses in specific populations, does save money.
I’m sure there’d be plenty of money to be made cutting down the redwood forests of northern California and building homes and businesses on the land. If all it was subject to was a cost-benefit analysis.
You didn’t answer my question.
Ethan said:
“if you do drop your insurance you’re going to have to pay a $750 dollar fine, presumably annually.”
To which I respond $750 < $14,000. I’m not aware of a mathematical symbol for “much less than”.
“It’s been shown that routine preventive care is cheaper in the long term than sudden catastrophic care”
And Rand said:
“Really? Do you have a credible citation? Because the research I’ve seen is that preventive care saves lives,”
I’m not even sold on this. I’ve read somewhere that every individual over the age of 50 has as many as 3 undiagnosed conditions which COULD result in death, but 2.99 of them will never manifest, meaning the individual will die for some other reason, never having any symptoms of the undiagnosed condition. Once these conditions are diagnosed, they will seek treatment for them because, after all, nobody know if the condition will manifest or not, and preventative care save lives. The treatments entail their own risk, and a certain portion of the population seeking treatment WILL actually experience a negative outcome as a result of the treatment, up to and including death. All this is to treat a condition which only MIGHT have manifested in the first place. Risk assessment and cost benefit analysis is never as straightforward as it might appear.
To answer Rand’s question more specifically: Yes. I can’t see there being a reason pressing enough to warrant knowingly wiping a species off the map.
And the way the fine works, now that I’ve looked into that aspect of the plan more specifically: If you can’t afford the health insurance, even with the offered subsidy, then you won’t have to buy insurance and there won’t be any fine. If you can afford insurance and don’t buy it anyway, then you’re fined the $750.