Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
With Progressives, never. They believe down to thier very cores that they are correct. I have a brother and two sisters that are Progressives, and they are all three like that.
May God save us from the “good intentions” imposed by the government, or their accomplices in the media, or of the liberal persuasion.
Give me the freedom to make stupid choices for myself. The voters already did.
Hell, even if Ezra’s correct (I’m pretty confident history has shown him otherwise though) I still prefer people being morally responsible for their own decisions and enjoying or suffering the consequences thereof without dragging me or the rest of the population into it.
As a catch-22, when people are responsible for themselves they learn. When they aren’t and the government coddles them through life, they might just become too stupid because they have never had to learn from their mistakes, arguing for more government coddling until you death spiral into a pathetic, weak, financially insolvent, nanny state version of totalitarianism.
Let me get this straight — the same government that is in debt to the tune of nearly 50% of the GDP, that has unfunded mandates approaching 20% of the GDP (and that’s every dollar in the country, not just the quarter or third they siphon off on the income tax, not to mention the other taxes they’ve burdened us with), that same government is better than I am at choosing what I need for health insurance coverage?
Now I live in South Dakota. Truth be told I’m now back in the credit card industry. I’ve never, not once, seen anybody hold a gun to somebody’s head to demand they accept a credit card and use it. Try not paying your taxes or, should it pass, not paying for your government-mandated health insurance and let me know what happens. I’m pretty sure people with badges and guns are going to figure prominently into your social schedule.
Nor have I ever seen an insurance benefits package that specified what treatments or diseases were covered, for the most part they only listed which things were not covered, such as alcoholism treatment or self-inflicted injuries. Even then, they hardly list exactly what’s allowed, what’s denied, or the appropriate fee that would be covered. The present system seems less than forthcoming with the information consumers would want if they could shop on their own, one wonders if a company allowed to attract consumers across state lines would be less forthcoming in the hopes of gaining market share?
I recently found that the New Tricycle Motor might not be covered for RSI (or RSV or whatever that immunization is for respiratory infections) because we don’t smoke and he’s not in day care. I offered to buy a pack of Camel’s if that’s all it took. The previous Little Tricycle Motor was fully covered by insurance but they based their payments on Delaware and New York costs. Apparently it costs $1500 in those states, but due to distance and lack of demand it’s closer to $3000 here. My insurance was through a company in Florida. Which, if I can be in South Dakota, insured by a company in Florida, and payment rates are determined by costs in New York and Delaware, can somebody please explain how being allowed to purchase a policy I want that conforms to the mandates of another state is somehow a step backwards from my present condition?
I find it telling that the article’s supporting evidence is that South Dakota removed usury laws from the books and invited Citibank to the state for credit card operations. The alternative choice was a state legislature that mandated the credit card industry charge interest rates below the prime rate. Which pretty much confirms the hypothesis that if you put a bunch of politicians who’ve never managed a business, never met a payroll, never even studied economics, and who think borrowing money at 18% and loaning it out again at 12% won’t lead to bankruptcy, you can be certain they’re going to ruin the economy and cost you jobs.
How’s that hopey-changey thing working for you, anyway?
– Max
What Klein implicitly agrees to, is that in the current private health insurance market, economic selection is already occurring. States, by mandating coverage, can set the bar higher than people may want to pay — thereby lowering participation. So, I thought he was in favor of broader coverage, nicht wahr?
And Lex, to correct your German, that would be “Small” Ezra. “Shorter” would be Kürzer. Pleased to join the brigade.
I think he meant shorter in the sense of he condensed Ezra Klein’s entire article into one sentence, not a play on the German meaning of his name.
Although the concept of a “small” person arguing for government to mandate your health insurance because you’re too stupid has a certain cache to it . . .
Seems to me that many leftists oppose the idea of insurance in principle, since many leftists generally oppose allowing individuals and businesses to treat different individuals differently. Klein frames it as forcing all insurers to cover lead poisoning. Other ways to frame it might be as forcing elderly women to subsidize auto insurance for young men, or forcing college students to subsidize health insurance for old people. Which arbitrary forced subsidization scheme should we choose? Klein doesn’t say, though he implies that the politically dominant constituency will decide. Most likely he would end up paying a lot more to subsidize the geezers, and everyone would pay more, indirectly, via higher taxes, crappy service, long waits and more-explicit forms of rationing. Smart fellow.
He also ignores the huge issue of first-dollar vs. high-deductible coverage. This is typical of many on the Left, who simply don’t understand the economics and can’t handle such complex issues as the tradeoff between broader, more expensive coverage and narrower, less expensive coverage.
I wouldn’t trust him to fix my brakes, much less decide what kind of insurance I should get.
Jonathan, you’re so right about the attitude of leftys and pvt insurance–it’s a very “European” statist, outlook. I remember years ago having lunch with a friend of mine in Louisville doing his residency in pediactrics at Norton’s Childrens who was newly married and had just had a new baby. I can remember it like it was yesterday us sitting out lunching on that little outdoor patio of Norton’s with him telling me that he thought he should buy some more cheap group-rate term life insurance thru the medical society, but that he was having a hard time convincing his wife, who was Dutch, who thought pvt ins was a capitalist evil and that the state should provide all the coverage. And hers’ is the typical European pov, trust me..
“I wouldn’t trust him to fix my breaks.” LOL!! How so very true…sad, but nonetheless oh so true..
I probably need someone to make that decision for me. My intelligence is obviuously suspect since I joined the Navy instead of doing something intelligent like VX did and choose the AF.
Alas, VX, I saw that Eurotude too many times among my German friends. very few thiought otherwise. For Germany it harks back to Bismarck who started their version of social security in the 1870s, iirc. It was sad to see how circumscribed German life was.