Health Care winners and Losers

People on the left of our political spectrum believe they get to pick winners and losers. Case in point, The Urban Institute believes we should tax food as has been done with done with tobacco and alcohol. They go on about the obesity epidemic causing increases in health care costs. I for one do not argue with the concept that we must combat obesity. I have struggled with this my entire life. Taxing certain foods simply won't do it.

If you want obese people to respond financially there are things that can be done within the private sector. The congressional health care overhaul bill bans refusing health care coverage for pre-existing conditions. This takes away any consequences for unhealthy behavior. I have been for most of my adult life around 300 pounds and now have diabetes and a heart disease risk in my family. I pay the same premium for health care insurance that my co-workers do even though most of them are slim and healthy. If my rates were based on my life circumstances I would be forced to take a harder look at my behaviors. As I get older I might even be refused coverage. I have been struggling to get healthier, if my health care costs went up astronomically I might be forced to get much more serious about it. Additional taxes on soda, doughnuts etc., not even close. To change the insurance market though government would have to rescind a good many mandates that are in place today. One size fits all insurance allows unhealthy behaviors to go on with no consequences as most left wing ideas do. Additionally if we add taxes to selected foods (no chance of that list being arbitrary based on political contributions at all is there?) we will also be taxes healthy people for the same foods. That doesn't seem fair to me. Who gets to decide what is unhealthy. The Adkins diet considers carbs unhealthy. Tax on pineapple. Other diets urge low fats. Olive oil anyone? Ok you say we would never tax those foods, they are healthy foods. The question is who gets to decide? Some smart person that works for the government. Once again they believe they know more than us.

While we in the taxing mood though, risky sexual behaviors cause huge medical costs (government coverage for children of single mothers, sexually transmitted diseases, long term care of HIV and AIDS). Maybe we can find a way to tax them as well. People who jump out of airplanes for pleasure have higher accident incidents than normal. Should we tax this? People who ice skate may have higher accident occurrences. (I broke my ankle a few years back). Tax them as well? Where does it end?

Government cannot be trusted to decide who is a winner and who is a loser. There is no way to remove human nature from the equation. Whoever goes on the committee will have a bias as to what is unhealthy and what is healthy. Using government to try to make people be healthy is like using a sledge hammer to drive a finishing nail. They can only impose broad based solutions. It cannot be successful. Real reform would actual let the market impose outcomes based on real life circumstances, not who has the best lobbyists.

If not for straw men ...

I think everyone understands the meaning of a 'straw man' in areas of debating or speech making. The definition on Wiki is "To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position." Increasingly President Obama defeats the straw man.

He refutes that doing nothing is not an option. No responsible Republican activist wants to do nothing. John McCain ran a terrible campaign for President but had a very responsible and prudent health care reform plan. President Bush tried encouraged congress continually to reform the tax favoritism currently in place for employer based health care. There is a belief on the right that if the tax benefits accorded to employer health care were given to non employer health insurance than companies would devise more plans that are more affordable for individuals and small businesses. Even if you don't believe this, it is not the same as doing nothing.

President Obama says that Republicans are trying to damage his presidency in combating his brand of health care reform. He charges that they are practicing politics. On its face this is ludicrous. Of course the Republicans are interested in their parties' performance. I suspect he didn't call it political when as a Senator he rejected every effort at reform proposed by former President Bush. I don't suppose he thought it political when his party rejected every attempt to reform Fannie Mae to regulate their madness and head off the housing crisis. As usual someone playing politics to President Obama is someone he doesn't agree with, just as a special interest is one that does not contribute to him. Let's say for argument that the Republicans don't have an ideological reason to oppose him and are just doing it 'for politics'. They have 40 Senators and less than two hundred House of Representative members. They couldn't stop a vote on what to have for lunch. The fact remains that the most powerful opposition is coming from his own party in the form of freshman and 'blue dog' Democrats.

He continues to make everyone a villain except himself. The doctors are villains, the insurance companies are villains, the opposition politicians are villains, the profit motive is villain. While he provides much clarity he provides no leadership. Only he is to be considered to be pure. He made the charge that doctors remove tonsils to make more money. If he has an instance of this, that sounds like medical malpractice to me. Maybe he should turn it over to the authorities. I know from my personal experience that both my doctor and my children's pediatrician would make nothing from a tonsillectomy since neither are surgeons. Straw man or outright lie?) His idea of changing the way business is done in Washington as he promised so much in his campaign is simply getting bi-partisan support only if they agree with him. While I don't necessarily fault him, after all his party won so they get to set the agenda. I do blame the voters who bought his bill of goods. They bought his song and dance about hope and change even though nothing in his past pointed to him being anything but a committed leftist.

Mr. President how about putting away the straw men and answering these questions:

- How exactly does your plan reduce costs?
- How exactly is it competition when the private competitors have to follow the rules set down by the government option?
- How is it competition when the government can print money but private enterprise cannot?
- If the opposition is the Republicans how can they stop this plan with such a small minority?
- if the government is so able to be more efficient how do we explain the deplorable Veterans Administration hospitals, the cost overruns of medicare and the cost overruns of Medicaid?
- Exactly what is the breakdown of the un-insured and shouldn't the plan find a way to attract those people instead of replacing the entire existing system?

I suspect those and other questions will not be addressed. After all anyone who disagrees with him is a tool of special interests so he doesn't feel the need to respond.