Health Care Non-Reform

There is a world of difference between "You scratch my back; I'll scratch yours," and "we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." If you don't see the difference, or see it as only minor, then you are part of the problem with politics in this country, and you are by no means worthy of the right to vote.

I am absolutely disgusted that Ben Nelson agreed to the Cornhusker Kickback. As a resident of Nebraska, am I supposed to be grateful that he negotiated this concession? Sure, it means things are not as bad for Nebraskans as for people in many other states; in actuality, it takes what would otherwise have been a monumental catastrophe and improves it to being merely a major disaster. But hey, my wife and I both have family in other states where it is still a monumental catastrophe. And am I not supposed to care about other hardworking Americans in still other states? Gee, and all this time we've been told that it's the conservatives that try to divide this country.

As a pro-life conservative, am I supposed to be pleased that Nelson managed to get a compromise on the abortion language in the Senate health care bill? To be pleased with that would be like celebrating the fact that my team outscored the other team 10-7 in the third quarter, even though the other team was ahead 40-3 at halftime and is now close to another touchdown early in the fourth quarter. There is no guarantee what will happen in the fourth quarter, nor is there any guarantee that Nelson's abortion language will survive reconciliation with the House bill.

Celebrating that compromise would also be like believing that Planned Parenthood doesn't use federal funds for abortion. Sure, officially they don't. But federal grants subsidize their other activities. Which means that funding from non-governmental sources that might otherwise be required by those other activities can instead be diverted to promoting and providing abortion. So they are in effect being subsidized for abortion; to state otherwise is merely an accounting trick.

Little concessions here and there do not make this so-called health care reform bill any less of a major train wreck. The bill might make health care a little more accessible to a very small minority of Americans, but at the cost of making it worse for the vast majority; simply yet another handout in a long chain of wealth transfers from those who produce wealth to those who contribute nothing at all to society.

And despite spin to the contrary, this bill will do nothing to control costs. Rather, it restricts the amount that some people will have to pay for certain goods and services. That doesn't mean that those goods and services will actually cost any less, just that others will have to bear the brunt of the cost. Three guesses who those others are.

Even if the bill explicitly says that the cost of certain things cannot rise, those words will not be worth the paper they will be printed on. If words in signed legislation always caused reality to reflect those words, then why don't we just outlaw poverty and be done with it? From now on, nobody is allowed to be poor; everyone will always have plenty of everything, whether they bother to work for it or not. While we're at it, why not have the law also mandate that everyone be able to fly? Won't that be cool?

No, every time government tries to control costs by restricting prices, the only thing it accomplishes is reduction of supply, because those suppliers simply cannot remain in business while being forced to lose money on nearly every transaction.

Am I advocating doing nothing? No, but continuing with this so-called health care reform would be far worse than doing nothing at all. It's not that we want to go slower, and it's not that we don't want to go anywhere; it's that we want to go in a completely different direction. A direction in which people and not government bureaucrats control their own destiny, and in which people that work hard to provide for themselves and their families don't have to carry water for those who are too lazy to carry it themselves.