Healthcare and basic economics....

I can’t turn a news channel on lately without seeing yet another legislator getting angry at his constituents because they understand too much and won’t simply "agree" with their illustrious leader’s socialized healthcare debacle.

This is a perfect example of the federal government’s attitude towards its citizenship: how dare you question the all-powerful Oz? They act as if somehow they’re not our representatives but rather our lords. That somehow by being in Washington they’ve been blessed with some sort of insight and wisdom that the rest of us don’t posses. That they have been empowered with the ability to understand these complex issues when we can not and so therefore they will deal with them for us and we are to be thankful for it.

The necessary economic education to be able to understand this issue can be learned in a first-year business class at any university, or even in a high school civics class for that matter. The details of any healthcare bill are irrelevant because the economics of its implementation are the same regardless. President Obama’s lack of this knowledge, or worse, his conscience decision to ignore it, is irresponsible on his and his administration’s part.

The main points are:

* The 47 million number of supposed uninsured Americans come from a census and is grossly overstated.
* There is no constitutional nor moral authority for the government to tax Peter to pay for healthcare for Paul. If it does then Paul may be better off but Peter is worse off and the overall social welfare declines.
* The government does not have the incentive to work efficiently since it does not compete with anyone. Therefore the quality of any good or service that government provides will be far less than its complement in the private sector.
* The government is a bureaucratic behemoth. Everybody along the bureaucrat trail has to be fed. Therefore, any good or service that the government provides will cost significantly more than if provided in the private sector.
* The government will try and control healthcare costs causing a severe excess of demand and consequently a shortage of healthcare services. Healthcare will then be rationed. I mean, c'mon - how can you add another 25+ million people to the healthcare "rolls" and NOT increase the number of doctors & other providers, and then NOT expect demand to increase and still deny that shortages or waiting lines will therefore occur? Think about it; what happens if Dairy Queen starts giving away free ice cream? Think they might eventually run out?

President Obama and his lackeys continue to irresponsibly throw around the information that there are 47 million Americans who can’t afford healthcare. That’s simply not true. That number comes from census data. On the census they didn’t ask if people couldn’t afford healthcare but rather if they had healthcare. And if not then for what period of time haven’t they had healthcare etc… For purposes of trying to convince people that a grave situation exists in our country that simply doesn’t, the president is omitting information from those numbers (also known as lying to us dumb country folk).

Many of those people have incomes that are more than sufficient to afford healthcare but simply choose not to buy it. Many of those are young people who feel that their need for catastrophic healthcare coverage doesn’t warrant the cost. It includes illegal aliens as well as many who are in job transition and will have healthcare again within a few months. Many are people who are already covered by existing private and government indigent healthcare programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and others.

The actual numbers might be closer to half of Obama’s 47 million or even less.

Isn't it time they started being honest with those of us in the "great unwashed?"