Fear and Loathing in Moocher Nation

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“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.

 

97 comments

  1. Once FDR let the genie out of the bottle by allowing increased benefits like health insurance for employees instead of wage increases, we were doomed to get to this point. The acceleration began in the ’60s when unions decided their members shouldn’t pay anything for health care, which started the rush to first dollar coverage. That in turn, seeped into the rest of the labor market, and now you have a substantial number of people who have never written a check for a doctor visit. These people cannot believe that health care is like food, water, energy or any other product. It is a commodity, driven by the same economics as pork bellies. First, people will pay what an item is worth, and no more. Second, as among 1) cheap or free, 2) unlimited and 3) state of the art the consuming public can only have two of those three things at any one time. Obamacare promises all three. It is not possible, and no amount of magical thinking will ever change that. One hopes the public will wake up before our health care delivery system is completely destroyed.

  3. Alright, this is totally off topic, but it was announced a couple hours ago that our very own R. S. McCain was named to the Top 100 Twitter List of DC. What is his ranking, you ask?

    69.

    There are many lessons to be gained from this. None of which I can post in the comment section of this blog. Not even I, who gets away with posting much naughty around here. But I would suggest that our illustrious host might consider changing his twitter handle to @rsmccain69.

    Yes…it is fitting.

    http://www.evancarmichael.com/Business-Coach/4492/September-2013-Top-100-Twitter-Users-in-Washington-DC.html

  8. The other infuriating thing about O-care is that it deliberately misuses the the word “insurance.” Insurance as known for everything other than health care is simply a risk pool. People throw money in the pot, on the off chance they need it, with the understanding that most people will not. What O-care has done is eliminate all incentives to minimizing risk, which incentives keep costs down. As I told a supporter of O-care, who was waxing about “fairness,” “then I suppose you’d be willing to have a whole bunch of drunk drivers join your auto insurance pool? That would be ‘fair,’ too, given that people with DWIs have a hard time finding affordable coverage.” Of course, said supporter immediately claimed there was a difference but couldn’t specify how. I think the conversation ended with her telling me I wanted to see little kids die or something.

  9. Such nonsense. The idea that people won’t work hard if they have universal healthcare has been refuted by the entire industrialized world. Time for the USA to catch up.

  10. It always does. People who have lost the argument have no other recourse than to call their opponents, “extremists”, “terrorists” and “murderers”.

    Waiter, I’ll have a piping hot cup of Godwin. Thank you.

  11. With that being said though I do like this blog. It’s witty and well written although I wish you wouldn’t spend so much time talking about that fat Bill guy and Brett Kimberlin.

  12. To which part of the “civilized” world are you referring. Britain’s NHS is a nightmare; Canadians flock across our northern border for simple tests which have a six month wait in Canada. France’s system is collapsing under its own demographic weight. Germany’s system necessitates most people buy private insurance if they wish top notch care. Simple googling reveals these facts.

    Further, no one has been refused heath care in this country in decades. The law is on the books. Look it up.

    Finally, given that the cost of insurance is doubling for crappier coverage for the vast majority of participants, what you see is that now, people are working hard for a product they do not want, which they will never use. Instead of working hard for themselves, they are sending money to a government which will parcel it out to their cronies, while giving the majority of the populace crumbs.

    Your dismissal of the facts readily apparent to anyone who takes the time to look is tantamount to tossing a virgin in a volcano. Know this. No amount of magical thinking will change the Truth, progressive dismissals of same notwithstanding.

  13. More nonsense. I have known, worked, and lived with so many people from Europe and Israel and the story they tell about THEIR healthcare system is not the one American conservatives tell and quite frankly they find our system both cruel and idiotic. Just recently I was talking to a friend in the UK about a root canal I need and I asked him how that works over there: “Very simple” he replied. “I just had one done. I called the office and a week later I had my root canal and without a bill attached to it either”. A friend from Holland who was hit by a cab in NYC and sent to the emergency room was beyond outraged when asked for an insurance card while laying their bleeding. Do they do that in the Netherlands? NO. And this was not a person who couldn’t afford healthcare here. It was simply how immoral it was to ask a bleeding person for an insurance card when actual care should the number one priority. Rich Canadians cross the border because they don’t want to wait and can easily afford America’s healthcare system. And sure, we don’t legally refuse care but if you’re uninsured or can’t afford it you have to jump through hoops to get it and sit in an emergency room. And try doing long term treatment for cancer or say MS without health coverage or money; you’re dead. Fact is the average person on an average salary is better served by universal healthcare and the idea that it makes you lazy, is really, really stupid. I would say get used to it because sooner or later we’re going to single payer. California is already looking to implement a single payer system as well.

  14. You have no concept of what freedom and liberty mean.

    Under universal health care, the government decides what treatments and preventatives you can receive. In other words, they own your body and have your life in their unqualified, totalitarian little hands.

    I will not be a slave.

    I will either live free or die.

  18. Yes, in the UK they will demand proof of ability to pay from foreigners. And the NHS killed one of my professional acquaintances and blinded another so forgive me if I am skeptical of paens to European healthcare especially with the accounts of its abuses in the European press.

  19. Well, I can see your anecdotes, as well, given that I’m married to a European and do spend a considerable about of time there, and have had discussions with European doctors about the state of “universal health care”in the EU. It is not as sanguine a picture as you believe. Further, I suggest you drive along U.S. Highway 2 from Minnesota to Kalispell, Montana and view all the medical imaging centers catering to Canadians. Or see, this article from the New York Times a few years ago.

    The fact of the matter is, it is not possible to provide what the government promises, which is an extension of what we have to everyone more cheaply. It is a deliberate lie. It’s not about providing health care; it’s about usurping autonomy and resources fro the American people.

  20. Heh. When I was diagnosed earlier this year with liver cancer, the first thing that happened was I was referred to hospice when I was told to accept their PCA of morphine and drift away. I rejected that and was told that in the future I would not be given the choice, that I could accept hospice or go without treatment. Thankfully, obamacare had not been fully implemented so I was able to have the simple surgery to have the cancer removed.
    Anecdotally, when I vacationed in Brasil a few years ago, a companion was run down on the street in Rio. The ambulance arrived and the crew would not transport him without a pre-payment of $200. We paid and upon arrival at the hospital, we were told that a fee of $5,000 would be required before treatment! That would never happen in America.

  22. Or, if you’d prefer an honest Democrat, I give you Robert Reich, who spells out precisely what’s going to happen. Note his admitting that medical innovation will be going the way of all flesh. Note, the idea that “very old” people will be allowed to die. That’s not Sarah Palin talking about “death panels,” because she’ an idiot, after all. That’s a prominent Democrat. It’s already happening in the Netherlands where 3% of all deaths are attributed to euthanasia.

  24. Let her go. RS will make short work of her. Anyway, you all have a lovely Tuesday. I have a ton of work today and then I am off on a roadtrip tomorrow.

    Have a fun Obamacare day.

  25. Are you serious? You’re a terrible bore if you don’t like the Parade of Leftist Psychopathy, either as fascinating case studies (maybe you don’t like science?) or just the delicate art of the train wreck.

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