Is Romney reneging on the individual mandate?

I haven't seen where Romney was criticizing the mandate. The article gave no reference. I heard him defending the Mass plan, although he says he was obligated to agree to aspects he didn't like. I do hear much negative about it, including major criticism from the Lt governor at the time, who is now running for governor. He was a Dem and has switched to Ind. All agree that coverage met expectations, but cost has increased, not decreased and the Mass budget is accordingly in big trouble. Furthermore payments have decreased and several hospitals are sueing the state because of it and may go out of business. I talked to one internist I know who is retired. He was not a supporter but says he hasn't heard much complaint from his doctor friends.

I do not think it inconsistant at all to have an overall positive attitude about this plan applied in Massachusetts but to be against a national plan with a mandate, although I'm sure all the libs will spin it that way. Mass did not have a true mandate ala Obamacare. The Mass plan says that you must have insurance or proof of available funds to cover yourself in case of emergency. I'm not sure the mechanism or the amount required to assure this. That's much more American. Obamacare says you must buy insurance and you must buy insurance with a particular type of coverage. This is not in keeping with American political ideas of personal freedom and that is one big reason why it's so unpopular.

Whether it is working in Mass or not, the medical environment there is drastically different there than in other parts of the country and this universal plan is foolishness. The program in Indiana for the state employees that is based on HSA's is supposed to be popular and working well, and saving money. If one has a business or residence in a state with regulations you consider oppressive, you can always move your business or residence. Obamacare is inescapable and is the stuff of Socialism. Another major, major difference is that Romney had real transparency and worked with input from all political segments to craft the plan. He obviously had to include the liberal Dem politicians but the Heritage Foundation was a major advisor. Obamacare is polarizing and unpopular. It is ignoring the will of at least 1/2 of the citizens. It is also experimental. Neither Obama, or Pelosi or anyone else knows how it is going to come out and it may contribute to major economic problems for the US. Obama and his friends theorize that it will not but they are taking a major risk with the welfare of this country and shame on them for doing it.

Romney has major executive experience, both inside government and in the private sector. He is smart and thoughtful and has his personal act together. Read his book. It is excellent and not just a political screed like all the other spate of political books from left and right. It is real political philosophy and not a navel-gazing autobiography like Obama's books. Objection to him because of his religion is ignorant and no different than opposing Kennedy because of his Catholicism.

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Marrch 24, 2010

Flashback of the Day

"Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate. But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on government is not libertarian."

-- Mitt Romney, defending the individual mandate to buy health care in the Wall Street Journal back in 2006. Romney now criticizes the same mandate in the recently passed national legislation.

The real meaning of Obamacare

Here is the reaction of one liberal Democrat with whom I debate, a physician unbelievably. It provides some insight into the mindset of these people. First of all how sick is the paternalistic view of the government and its relationship to the individual citizens, as if the government ever produced or provided anything that it doesn't take from us. The italicized part (my italics) tells you all you need to know about the intentions of this group to take over and control medical care. Watch out everyone else, you're next.

"We will no longer be the only nation in the first world that does not provide health coverage to its population. Now we can begin to weed out the practitioners who dupe their patients into demanding unnecessary and/or ineffective treatments at great expense to all of us. It will take time, but it will be worth it."

The fate of medicine under Obamacare

Subject: The fate of medicine

Looks like government controlled medical care is on the way. The Democrats are taking advantage of their temporary total control of the federal government to start a new "entitlement" and take another step toward their vision of the benevolent world of socialism. One has to hand it to them. They are more persistant and determined than the Republicans when they were in the same position. Of course Bush had the little problem of 9/11 to contend with.

I view the struggle of medicine to progress in the face of government control in the last couple of decades as a metaphor of a man trying to make his way across a bog with his feet mired in mud that sucks back with each step forward. We watch in horror as we begin to see him finally tire and falter.

Fixing healthcare

Insurance is a mechanism for controlling risk for unlikely but high cost events. Using insurance as a payment mechanism for low cost everyday occurrances such as doctor visits is preposterous and the only reason we do it is that someone else is paying the premium.

Medical insurers are not the problem. They are simply offering a product for which there is a demand. For their work they make a reasonable profit which is in line with other service industries. Profit is not a problem. It is what rewards a business for a good product and efficiency. The reason that just about any government service you can name is impersonal and inefficient is the lack of profit motive. Giving over control of payment for medical care to the government on the theory that elimination of profit will produce lower cost is nonsense. Non-profit medical insurance companies are certainly no more efficient or less costly than for profit companies and they do not provide lower cost policies. If we want to make insurers even more efficient we must arrange for more competition.

Whichever way you slice the problem, medical care costs money. Medical personnel, prodedures and treatments must be paid for. The public will pay the bill either through taxes or as part of their work compensation. If we continue to insist on paying indirectly through government or through "insurance" arranged by employers, there will be higher cost, more wasteful, less appropriate and more inefficient results.

Medical care is certainly a right. What is not a right is demanding that someone else pay for it. In a wealthy and generous country it is proper that we help those who are unfortunate and deserving get proper medical care. That can be done through private charity and through government assistance. That problem does not call for government involvement to any other extent.

Social "injustice"

"Social justice" means not that I contribute my wealth to the needy which all religions agree is laudable, but that I force you to contribute your wealth to the needy and that your contribution must go to the needy that I choose in the manner that I choose you to do it, and by the way, since I'm the one who forced you to do it, I get the recognition for your contribution as if it were mine and therefore become revered and powerful and wealthy. This is a distortion of religious teaching. When I hear a homily that is not telling me how to improve myself but instead is telling me how society should be ordered I construe this not to be Christian teaching but political discourse and I avoid further contact with that preacher.

Is Science the only way to knowledge?

Not having any expertise in physics my reading informs me that there are a series of fundamental forces in the universe. Among these are things like strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, gravity, etc and that these are extremely finely tuned such that a minor deviation in any would have resulted in a universe that could not have supported life, or even lasted very long. The marvelous coincidence of all this fine tuning is suggesting an intelligent plan to many because the odds against it happening by chance are infintesimally small.

More fundamental than all this however is the explanation of the origin of these forces and for that matter the origin of the universe. We now understand that the universe had a beginning and the date roughly has been calculated. In addition physicists speculating about the radically different state of the universe in those first couple of billion years state that there appears to have been exquisite fine tuning of the colossal initial forces to produce the universe that we know today rather than one that imploded on itself, etc. I'd have to look up my sources to be any more specific than that.

The big question then appears to be that if the universe had a beginning in a singular point of unimaginable power, what is the explanation of that event. In addition we know from einsteinian physics that space and time are not independent of the universe and do not exist apart from our universe. All of this suggests the common sense intuition that there is a reality outside of that which we presently understand that exists outside of space and time that is responsible for our universe. I can think of no other explanation.

Modern secularists and atheists divide truth and knowledge into scientific and supernatural. This seems to be a common presumption of those who hold up "science" as the only valid knowledge. They contend that the only possible knowledge or truth is that which we can perceive with our senses or with instruments that are extensions of our senses. That seems to me to be an extremely limited viewpoint and one which is doomed to result in major defects in knowledge. It is like the men in Plato's cave who see only shadows on the back wall and believe they have a real view of the world.

Science, philosophy and theology all seek universal truth and cannot contradict each other. All are valid. Einstein was just as much a philosopher as a scientist. He never conducted experiments except in his head and his philosophical experiments turned out to be true (at least as far as our present day understanding is concerned). Cosmology is half science, half philosophy. Einstein found that our presumptions of reality which seemed so obvious were incorrect. The same process in our acquistion of knowlege of the world around us has happened time and again in the past and will continue to happen in the future. What we know as "scientific fact" today will seem ridiculous to those a thousand years from now.

Let us suppose that it is true that the universe as we know it was created by an intelligent being who exists outside of time and space and who is unimaginably powerful. From all we know that is at least a reasonable possibility. If a "scientist" who is seeking an understanding of the origin of the universe excludes that possiblility from his consideration, then he is not seeking truth but is doing something else, perhaps forming his own religion. If he is really seeking truth he must accept this at least as one possibility and look for what evidence he can of this as an explanation. In my view he will find it. For those of us who are convinced by our "thought experiments" we can move on to the more important question of the meaning of creation and our relationship to the creator.

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About what Mormons and Catholics believe

For the life of me I can't figure out what people have against them. And I've heard both liberals and conservatives express negative opinions. I'll give you the problem with their doctrines and their history but what religion doesn't have that sort of thing. But their doctrines as far as I know aren't bad, just a little wacky. And their history is history. I know they're conservative generally. Is that what the problem is? I like people who are courteous and respectful and stick by their families and communities and try to help others. My family and I spent a night in O'Hare airport back in 2000 when my son got married. My 85 y/o mom was with us. We hung out next to a group of Mormon kids coming back from their 2 year service and they couldn't have been nicer, expecially to my mom. I had a Mormon student from the local medical school in my clinic this year. Same thing.

As far as Catholics believing what the Church tells them to believe, I think we've got a little contradiction in terms here. When you say the Credo, do you believe all those things. Well there's a lot of stuff in there that's hard to swallow. Is Christ God? Did He die for our sins? Was he born of a virgin? Did he rise from the grave? That's tough stuff that you'd never believe except that the Church tells you it's true. Can you at least accept the possibility? If you don't believe these fundamental things that the Church tells you are true, can you still be a Catholic? "And if Christ has not been raised, then empty is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. … You are still in your sins" (1 Corinthians 15:14,17).

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Medical Care Prices under government control.

Prices are the mechanism in the market for appropriate allocation of scarce goods with alternative uses such as medical services. If a central entity controls prices rather than letting price float freely this causes disruption in appropriate distribution and reduction in quality.

Prices (or fees or whatever you want to call them) for medical services in this country are largely set by Medicare. Look at any private insurance contract and you will see that it relates to Medicare prices. This phenomenon is producing misallocation of medical services and reduction in their quality in our country.

Democrats point out the obvious fact that those who are not in some way participating in this bizarre and stupid system have a problem when they require medical services. The answer is not to bring these people into the system but to let everyone else out of it.