The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Fear and Loathing in Moocher Nation

Posted on | October 1, 2013 | 97 Comments

“Swing voters.” “Independent voters.” “Low-information voters.”

President Obama’s re-election campaign engaged in a sophisticated microtargeting effort that, among other things, aimed TV ads at viewers of late-night comedy, ESPN and the TV Land network.

In other words, the president’s campaign deliberately sought potential voters who were apathetic, disengaged from politics and current affairs, whose lack of interest in (and consequent ignorance of) the political process made them “persuadable” to Obama.

This is how you get weird exit-poll results like 18% of Ohio voters who described themselves as “conservative” voting for Obama.

Obama was re-elected with a hurricane-force tailwind of ignorance, by voters who don’t even know who Harry Reid is, which makes it rather difficult for them to blame Reid for the shutdown.

Stupid voters elect drunks to Congress — the House floor smelled like a distillery during last night’s 9 p.m. vote — and we are subjected to the pathetic spectacle of politics-by-opinion-poll:

CNN Poll: Will Obamacare help you?

Why is the media even asking questions like this? Are the people who answer polls like this fully-informed about the complex causation factors whereby government policy affects economics?

People who don’t currently have health insurance are likely to believe that ObamaCare will “help” them, if they think of it as a something-for-nothing giveaway — “Free Stuff!” — but as P.J. O’Rourke once observed about rent-control policies, the problem with something-for-nothing is that you quickly run out of something and end up with a whole lot of nothing. Demand for anything worth having will inevitably exceed the supply, and this is why we have prices. Attempts to evade the market mechanism of prices, whether through mandates or subsidies or some other government regulatory apparatus, tend to produce market distortions and shortages.

Federal and state governments have been interfering with the market mechanisms of the medical industry and health insurance for decades, and have “succeeded” in the way such interventions usually do, by making everything more complicated, and more expensive for everybody except for those who get health care “free.” Of course, someone must pay for “free” health care, and the transfer of this cost from the recipient of treatment to taxpayers has consequences.

If people need “free” health care because they are able-bodied but unemployed, wouldn’t we have more jobs and better jobs if the economy were prosperous and growing? And if we had lower taxes and fewer regulations, wouldn’t the economy be more healthy?

Furthermore, wouldn’t the economy be stronger overall — wouldn’t there be more demand for goods and services — if people had more incentive to work harder, work more efficiently and work longer hours, in order to make themselves so valuable as workers that employers would compete to hire them, offering health-insurance benefits as a bonus to secure their services? Yet if we establish a system where people receive health insurance whether they are working or unemployed, whether they are efficient and diligent or unproductive and slothful, haven’t we thereby removed a basic incentive to hard work? And, when you think about it, haven’t we removed an incentive to good health?

Have another donut, fatso! Don’t worry about the consequences, because the government will pick up the tab for your heart medicine, your diabetes treatments and therapy for your bad knees.

Also, they’ll pay for your Viagra, because fat guys need love, too.

What about malingerers and hypochondriacs? Everybody knows that some people fake illness, or use relatively minor maladies as an excuse to avoid work. And everybody knows people who are pathologically obsessed with their health, rushing to the doctor every time they get an ache or pain. Some people so enjoy the sympathy they get for being sick that they define their existence by their diseases. You meet these people and haven’t talked to them for five minutes before they start telling you about their “chronic fatigue syndrome” or bipolar disorder or whatever it is that keeps them going to the doctor every week to treat a problem that never gets better.

It would be unfair to say that all such people are suffering from psychosomatic illness or are merely too weak-minded to overcome minor difficulties, but this whiny victimhood attitude — “Feel sorry for me, I’m sick!” — seems far more commonplace now than it was 20 or 30 years ago, and excuse me for suspecting that malingerers and hypochondriacs enthusiastically support ObamaCare.

Subsidizing weaklings and whiners, by providing them “free” health care at taxpayer expense? Not just “no” — hell, no.

Not even the most conservative Republican in Congress is going to say this, because they don’t want to sound “mean-spirited,” but frankly I think we need more mean-spiritedness in Washington. We need politicians who aren’t constantly flattering the idiots who vote for them, who don’t pander to lazy moochers who look at government as if it were Santa Claus giving them Christmas presents.

What we have now is a government of the moochers, by the moochers, for the moochers, with subsidies and free stuff for all.

Or, at least, we had this government, before it shut down. And the idiots chattering on cable TV news shows seem to think this shutdown is a bad idea, for which somebody deserves blame.

ZOMG! THE STATUE OF LIBERTY IS CLOSED!

If you take that kind of frantic nonsense seriously, you should seek psychiatric treatment immediately. Send the bill to ObamaCare.

 

Category: Budget, Health Care

Comments

97 Responses to “Fear and Loathing in Moocher Nation”

  1. La Pucelle
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:02 pm

    It would be nice if we had Switzerland’s system rather than France’s, yes.

  2. rsmccain
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:02 pm

    RT @BobBelvedere: “I will not be a slave. I will either live free or die.” — Bob Belvedere http://t.co/ekV5mUax03 via @rsmccain

  3. tmitsss
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:03 pm

    RT @BobBelvedere: “I will not be a slave. I will either live free or die.” — Bob Belvedere http://t.co/ekV5mUax03 via @rsmccain

  4. ComradeArthur
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:04 pm

    RT @BobBelvedere: “I will not be a slave. I will either live free or die.” — Bob Belvedere http://t.co/ekV5mUax03 via @rsmccain

  5. jessnatmom
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:05 pm

    RT @BobBelvedere: “I will not be a slave. I will either live free or die.” — Bob Belvedere http://t.co/ekV5mUax03 via @rsmccain

  6. teapartypathq
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:12 pm

    RT @BobBelvedere: “I will not be a slave. I will either live free or die.” — Bob Belvedere http://t.co/ekV5mUax03 via @rsmccain

  7. RS
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:18 pm

    The Swiss system is the lone exception precisely because the end user has a stake in the system. Where the American system breaks down, is the end user has no idea what a medical good or service actually costs, because there is a third party paying the bill. As I implied above, health insurance used to be for catastrophic illness or injury. Office visits and routine tests were the responsibility of the patient and were not outrageously expensive. In my personal situation, I have (had) a high deductible policy. I used that as leverage to negotiate the cost to me of various tests, because I shopped around. I wound up getting an MRI for less than my insurance company would’ve paid. The company was so happy, it gave me credit for what it’s contract required against my deductible even though my actual cost was $150 less.

  8. Quartermaster
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:22 pm

    I can understand your unease Wombaticus. But, I’m a regular here and wish we could read a bit less about the talking wart. The other guy, OTOH, I can understand as RSM has been sued for a Meeeee-lion Dollars by him, and things might get interesting on that front.

    OTOH, I had a copy of an article about Ted Bundy’s execution with after pics and asked a woman in another cube if she’d like to see. “Ewwww, no….YES!!!” was what I got out of her. So I still read the posts on that schmal fella. It’s sortta like having to watch that crash.

  9. Quartermaster
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:23 pm

    It gets a bit wearing after while.

  10. La Pucelle
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:23 pm

    I’m not sure that I’d use the UK as an example of “stellar” dental work if you actually want to convince anyone. You’re probably better off getting a handyman with a pair of pliers and a bottle of cheap vodka. Sure, the vodka and perhaps the handyman will cost you a few bucks, but the result is basically the same. Meanwhile, if I were to need a root canal (which I don’t because I brush and floss) I don’t need to wait a week, and the work is done by an actual professional who got an actual degree in dentistry instead of animal husbandry.

    Furthermore, your friend in the UK there apparently didn’t quite get that it wasn’t actually “free”: he’d paid for it with the lovely sky high taxes the Brits have to pay even before they see their paycheck. Young children usually learn early on that nothing in this world is ever truly free, and I can only imagine it’s taken that erstwhile nation of alcoholics a considerable amount of ethanol to forget this very simple and basic fact of life.

    The fact of the matter is that our system is as broken as it is because of socialism. If you want to convince me that yet more of the same is going to magically make things better, you’re going to have to do better than a few simple anecdotes, some of which I can counter with my own personal experiences when I lived in Europe. Your desired “solution” is like throwing maidens down a well: it’s an appeal to magic. And the results will be as stupid and disappointing as the results of magic always are. Your ignorance about economics won’t shield you from the results,

  11. La Pucelle
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:24 pm

    I just wish he wouldn’t post Bill’s photo. No one wants to see that.

  12. La Pucelle
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:30 pm

    And outside London, you should see their “infirmaries”, even the supposed good ones. The wild dreams of hypochondriacs and those with germ phobias quickly turn into their worst nightmares. Outdated equipment, failure to follow proper sterile procedures, apathetic government staff posing as “health care providers”…just what I always wanted in a hospital.

  13. tmorgan275
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:33 pm

    Fear and Loathing in Moocher Nation http://t.co/87xPOCDALb

  14. PubliusNV
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:34 pm

    Brilliant! | Fear and Loathing in Moocher Nation http://t.co/S21LKh5DZ2

  15. Hot Arab Women Who Are Not Huma Abedin | Regular Right Guy
    October 1st, 2013 @ 3:52 pm

    […] Fear and Loathing in Moocher Nation […]

  16. richard mcenroe
    October 1st, 2013 @ 4:21 pm

    Concerned observers have been worried about the UK dental threat for some time now:

    http://tinyurl.com/4j2omdx

    (scroll down for chilling graphic)

  17. Obamacare Rewards Slackers | The Lonely Conservative
    October 1st, 2013 @ 4:28 pm

    […] The Other McCain also covered this topic today. […]

  18. Quartermaster
    October 1st, 2013 @ 4:53 pm

    Yeah, Reich is at least an honest idiot.

  19. Quartermaster
    October 1st, 2013 @ 4:55 pm

    That is pretty cruel. But, we, like the abused wives we seem to be, keep coming back.

  20. McGehee
    October 1st, 2013 @ 4:59 pm

    Stacy will take your suggestion under advisement, Neal.

    I mean, Jackie.

  21. Matthew W
    October 1st, 2013 @ 5:05 pm

    But it’s all connected.
    A package deal

  22. Matthew W
    October 1st, 2013 @ 5:18 pm

    It seems that the dimmest Americans (BHO voters) don’t understand that insurance does not equal health care.

  23. rmnixondeceased
    October 1st, 2013 @ 5:33 pm

    I cover most of this in my article publisher yesterday (and linked here at Live at Five Six this morning (Thanks again Wombat!). You can read it (it’s long) here: http://wp.me/p37Eto-4j

  24. Jackie
    October 1st, 2013 @ 6:42 pm

    Sure I know what freedom and liberty means, but sorry a universal healthcare plan does not equal tyranny. Obviously you don’t know what freedom means. Here’s what’s ironic too: a large portion of the country is already covered under a government administered universal health plan who decide what treatment they get through medicare. Do you think they feel like slaves? NO. In fact seniors love medicare and think of it as a Godsend. And really? Canada and the UK are under totalitarian hands? It’s too funny. And like insurance don’t deny you care sometimes? You’re outlook has been completely warped by propaganda.

  25. Jackie
    October 1st, 2013 @ 6:46 pm

    Of course it doesn’t when it’s the truth and contradicts your propaganda. As I said above we already have a universal, government system for seniors and I don’t hear any of them claiming they feel tyrannized by the government or under threat from rationing boards, regardless of how Reagan tried to fearmonger them into not accepting it back in the 60’s. He even admitted he was wrong about medicare. Fact is seniors love medicare and if you tried to get rid of it you would have a revolt of senior citizens. It’s much the same with universal coverage. No one in the UK wants to get rid of the NHS and Canadians do not want to see their system go either. Now do they love tyranny or perhaps you just have a warped idea of what freedom is?

  26. thatMrGguy
    October 1st, 2013 @ 6:59 pm

    Fear and Loathing in Moocher Nation http://t.co/NZ67fA74Lq

  27. BobBelvedere
    October 1st, 2013 @ 7:03 pm

    RT @thatMrGguy: Fear and Loathing in Moocher Nation http://t.co/NZ67fA74Lq

  28. Wombat_socho
    October 1st, 2013 @ 7:04 pm

    Occasionally.

  29. rmnixondeceased
    October 1st, 2013 @ 7:26 pm

    I hate medicare. My wife hates medicare. Almost every senior I know hates medicare. We live with it because there is nothing else that is affordable which covers all of us seniors pre-exsisting conditions.
    You are the deluded fool, drinker of Obama’s delusional kool-aid.

  30. GulfDogs
    October 1st, 2013 @ 8:12 pm

    ?Fear and Loathing in Moocher Nation?#2A #CCOT #TCOT?http://t.co/NLR2dIRj0x

  31. Bob Belvedere
    October 1st, 2013 @ 9:17 pm

    I’m too old; I’d probably hurt myself.

  32. rmnixondeceased
    October 1st, 2013 @ 9:34 pm

    Heh. At my age and condition, I’d probably dislocate a hip …

  33. sokeijarhead
    October 1st, 2013 @ 10:13 pm

    Fear and Loathing in Moocher Nation : The Other McCain http://t.co/hu4xPL8Pbd

  34. K-Bob
    October 1st, 2013 @ 10:35 pm

    “Stupid voters elect drunks to Congress — the House floor smelled like a distillery during last night’s 9 p.m. vote”

    “But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
    And we’ll not fail”

  35. rsmccain
    October 2nd, 2013 @ 12:11 am

    @ali Here’s the thing I wrote Tuesday morning I was telling you about. http://t.co/UssY8oFiVD

  36. robertstacymccain
    October 2nd, 2013 @ 12:15 am

    Indeed, it IS a “package deal,” as Matthew says. When the sealed discovery documents in Walker v. Kimberlin were illegally obtained by Kimberlin’s associate Neal Rauhauser, those documents were published by … Bill Schmalfeldt.

    Kimberlin denied being the source of the leak, but Kimberlin is a liar. So clearly Schmalfeldt is as much of a member of Team Kimberlin as Rauhauser is, and it was Rauhauser’s involvement that first interested me in the Kimberlin story.

  37. robertstacymccain
    October 2nd, 2013 @ 12:24 am

    Why did “Jackie” post two comments around noon from IP 173.220.130.198, then post a comment at 6:42 p.m. from IP 85.17.177.73 before posting another comment at 6:46 p.m. from IP 199.48.147.42?

  38. robertstacymccain
    October 2nd, 2013 @ 12:26 am

    You see what I’m talking about? Four comments, three different IP addresses, including a shift of IPs within three minutes.

    The concern troll “Jackie” is being watched closely, and I’ll alert Wombat to keep a close eye on the comments for a couple days, just to make sure we know who we’re watching.

  39. FoxNewsMom
    October 2nd, 2013 @ 12:42 am

    RT @rsmccain: “Obama was re-elected with a hurricane-force tailwind of ignorance …” http://t.co/UssY8oFiVD #tcot #shutdown

  40. genann61
    October 2nd, 2013 @ 12:43 am

    RT @rsmccain: “Obama was re-elected with a hurricane-force tailwind of ignorance …” http://t.co/UssY8oFiVD #tcot #shutdown

  41. cicecandy
    October 2nd, 2013 @ 12:46 am

    RT @rsmccain: “Obama was re-elected with a hurricane-force tailwind of ignorance …” http://t.co/UssY8oFiVD #tcot #shutdown

  42. chasthis
    October 2nd, 2013 @ 12:47 am

    RT @rsmccain: “Obama was re-elected with a hurricane-force tailwind of ignorance …” http://t.co/UssY8oFiVD #tcot #shutdown

  43. Sen_Claghorn
    October 2nd, 2013 @ 1:05 am

    RT @rsmccain: “Obama was re-elected with a hurricane-force tailwind of ignorance …” http://t.co/UssY8oFiVD #tcot #shutdown

  44. K-Bob
    October 2nd, 2013 @ 4:52 am

    But you have to cover the personalities of the game to maintain currency when you operate a trendy, sports blog.

    Otherwise you’re missing the details that make for a thrilling game of curling, or a few well played frames of snooker.

  45. » October 2, 2013
    October 2nd, 2013 @ 10:53 am

    […] » Fear and Loathing in Moocher Nation […]

  46. Quartermaster
    October 2nd, 2013 @ 11:12 am

    I understand where you are coming from. A wish for something is not the same as saying you won’t endure it, or that I don’t realize that something is necessary.

  47. dontfundit
    October 3rd, 2013 @ 7:07 pm

    Fear and Loathing in Moocher Nation http://t.co/L7qclQhCJZ