Why I Oppose the Government in Healthcare

22 08 2009

In many ways I’m building off of and reacting to Megan McArdle’s explanation of why she is opposed to national health care (If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend going, reading it, and then coming back here to read this post).

Megan’s case, as I understand it, is centrally driven by the concern that if government becomes the primary, or more likely only, purchaser of drugs it will kill the market for medical innovation. Personally, I think she’s right on this. Even so, it’s not why I’m opposed to the government getting (even more) involved in healthcare.

But the root concern is the same – what incentives will guide government action. In my case the concern is most heavily realized in the issue of rationing.

Now, before you tune out in disgust, my worry isn’t that of Sarah Palin’s “death panels,” some faceless bureaucrat pulling the plug on grandma. The simple economic reality is there are not unlimited medical resources and they have to be rationed somehow. Under the current system that rationing, for the most part, boils down on market terms. Beyond the very basic fundamentals you get as much care as you and your family are able/willing to pay and/or go into debt for.

Let’s be honest. That’s a shitty system. It’s cold. It’s heartless. It has gross inequities. And it’s a fair sight better than the alternative.

That’s because the alternative isn’t an end to rationing. It’s a rearrangement of what drives it. Like it or not, when government becomes the arbiter of choice rather than the market, decisions cease to be driven by market forces and are instead driven by political pull. Try imagining a healthcare system where every health complaint is now a political interest. Do you think they’ll prioritized around necessity and importance? Or will it be around which ones have the best lobbyists and marketing?

Actually, you don’t have to think about it. There’s already an example. It’s called the National Cancer Institute and is a part of the National Institute for Health that Ezra Klein and his parade of experts have lauded in his dispute over innovation with Megan. In 2007 it spent $572.4 million on breast cancer research. In the same year it only spent $226.9 million on lung cancer research. And this is in spite of the fact that lung cancer kills more Americans every year than any other cancer (in fact, according to the Lung cancer Foundation of America it kills more people than breast, prostrate, colon, liver, melanoma, and kidney cancer combined).

It all comes down to politics. Breast cancer is easy to market and sell. Lung cancer isn’t. Everyone loves boobs and it’s fun to have things like “Save the TaTas” and pink ribbon events. On the other hand lung cancer is considered a smoker’s disease and these days it’s fashionable in America to hate smokers.

Healthcare is too important to let it be decided (even moreso) by these kind of popularity contests. Medical choices need to be driven by the diffuse force of the marketplace, where incentives should be, if not immune to this sort of problem, at least a lot more resistant to them.

Now, this doesn’t mean I don’t want reform. Like I said, the status quo has a lot of problems and I think there’s a lot than can be done to fix it, such as expanding HSAs, removing the bias towards employer-provided insurance, and health-status insurance, to name a few. But that’s not the point of this post, so I’ll leave my thoughts at that for now.


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Categories : Big Government, Liberty, Megan McArdle, Politics, Universal Healthcare

In Which I Mourn for my Generation

20 08 2009

Erica Williams, deputy director of Campus Progress, has posted up her screed with all the reasons for why she supports Democratic health reform and how her chief reason for support – moral imperative – sets the Millenial generation apart from the others.

And all of those reasons would be true. But for my generation, health care reform is more than a personal story or experience: it is a moral and humanitarian mandate.

Surprisingly enough, the generation that many believe to be the most egotistical and narcissistic, is actually one of the few voices in the health care debate willing to talk about reform as a justice issue and one that impacts us all as Americans. It was our cry that a public option be an essential part of any plan not because we were unaware of political realities or because it was a catchy campaign buzzword, but because we refuse to leave anyone behind or compromise on progress.

The sad thing is, I suspect she does speak for our generation. Mine is a generation of great promise. After the great excesses of the Bush era it is probably one of the most zealously defensive of civil liberties. It generally opposes the War on Drugs, and if the debate comes up again, I suspect will incline towards liberalizing our antiquated immigration laws.

Unfortunately, growing up under Bush and maybe the latter years of Clinton, my generation has no conception of how much can go wrong when government acts in the economic sphere to balance its skepticism of government action in the social sphere. The follies of central planning, so well-explained by Hayek and realized throughout the 20th century were forgotten by our parents and never learned by my generational cohort.

As a result most people my age simply seem unable of understanding that just because something is morally desirable it doesn’t mean the government should provide it. And that worries me. A lot.

I’ll likely be posting my own explanation of why I oppose the Democratic plans for healthcare reform sometime tonight or tomorrow (in the meantime I recommend this post I did on government rationing, it’ll play a role in the coming post). I can’t say I speak for my generation, but I certainly hope my generation listens.


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Categories : Liberty, Millenials, Universal Healthcare

Answering the White House’s Call

6 08 2009

Most everyone knows by now that the White House has crowd-sourced the call for reporting on fishy claims with regards to the new healthcare reforms by e-mailing them to flag@whitehouse.gov. I decided it was only right that I fulfill my patriotic duty and report one such case I found.

Here’s the e-mail I sent:

To Whom It May Concern:

I recently viewed a video online that contained some information that was not only questionable, but quite clearly untrue. Per the president’s request, I am sending the information here in the hopes something can be done about it.

In the video posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0XCl6OHgiM a clip was shown in which it appeared that President Obama made the claim that “Here’s a guarantee that I’ve made. If you have insurance that you like, then you will be able to keep that insurance.” Knowing that the president is nothing if not an honest and honorable man, above any sort of misdirection or false claims on the issue, I can only assume this is a case of malicious video editing.

If one looks at the House healthcare bill, H.R. 3200, Title IV, Part I, it is quite clear that the bill will make it illegal to choose to not have health insurance and that any individual who chooses to persist in not having health insurance will be punished with fines in the form of taxes that can easily rise into the thousands of dollars. Considering that “no health insurance” is a form of insurance that many individuals can and do voluntarily choose and are quite happy with, it is quite clear that the president could have never said such things and the clip I referenced above is part of the misinformation he is working so hard to combat.

It is my deepest hope that immediate action will be taken to combat this vile and disgusting attempt to subvert the debate with malicious falsehoods that impugn the president’s good name.

In Liberty,
Kevin Waterman

Now, I may have been playing up the snark in the e-mail, but I think this is an important point, and one that doesn’t get made often enough. “No insurance” is still a form of insurance, just as much as “No religion” is still a type of religion. For that reason alone I hope that video gets pulled and people start calling out Obama and the other Dems for the liars they are on this point.

There’s a bigger issue here though. The morality of insurance mandates.

Now, while I’m certainly not a believer in a right to healthcare or insurance, the fact is a right to do something or to have something should be just as much a right to choose not to partake in whatever it is. Freedom of the press means the government can neither prevent you from reporting nor compel you to report any given item. The same should apply for health insurance if the government wants to make it a right – if the government wants to make the claim that you have a right to health insurance it still has no business compelling you to get it and punishing you when you don’t.

UPDATE: In case you don’t feel like following the link to the video I referenced, I’m embedding it here


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Categories : Barack Obama, Big Government, Liberty, Nanny State, Philosophy, Regulation, Universal Healthcare, YouTube

Avoiding Big Brother: Portable GPS Jammer

30 07 2009

There hasn’t been much talk about it lately, but there was a time not so long ago when Ray LaHood and others were talking about replacing the gas tax with a mileage tax.

For the time being the proposal failed (probably something to do with the huge invasion of privacy involved in the government tracking every person’s driving) – but who wants to bet it won’t show up again sometime in the future.

That’s why this handy little device seems so convenient. Plugging into a cigarette lighter socket it jams any car-based GPS signal. Of course, anything that convenient will be made illegal the minute the government thinks a mileage tax could work. Or if it decides it simply ought to know where we’re all driving.

Hell, it could be illegal already for all I know. So might be best to buy yours now, just in case the men in Washington haven’t caught on to it yet.

HT: BoingBoing


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Categories : Big Government, Liberty, Taxes

Local Secession

28 07 2009

First Point Pleasant organized a recall on its mayor after his attempt to raise taxes. Then a nice clean-out of corruption. And now a court has given the OK for a cul-de-sac to secede from Toms River and join Lavalette.

According to Neighborhood Effects:

The private cul-de-sac was left unplowed during a heavy snowstorm in February 2003. Across the lagoon in Lavallette, roads were quickly cleared. Being stranded for three days proved to be the last straw for the street’s residents, who have complained to the Toms River goverment about garbage collection and the speed of emergency services from the mainland for years. Lavallette is not only closer, it already provides Bay Beach Way with its cable and electricity.

Nor is this the first case of secession in Toms River – it’s the third. Toms River mayor Tom Kehaler is complaining residents are only doing this to take advantage of lower tax rates in Lavalette. If they’re paying more taxes for worse service, I can’t say I blame them.

If New Jersey keeps on this path I might have to consider abandoning my beloved Maryland (which seems unable to doing anything about its horrid state government) for the (hopefully) steady improving New Jersey.


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Categories : Liberty, New Jersey

Who Watches the Watchmen Indeed?

22 07 2009

I saw two stories yesterday that really caught my eye.

First one. The Maryland Transportation authority is looking to install audio surveillance equipment on all of its trains and buses. I don’t think I need to go into depth on how unpleasant the thought of the surveillance state expanding to that level is. As I once heard it said, “1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a how-to manual.”

Luckily, it looks like opposition will be firm against such a move:

The idea drew a negative reaction from the Sen. Brian E. Frosh, chairman of the Senate Judicial Proceedings, who predicted the policy would almost certainly result in some legislator introducing a bill to prohibit such surveillance.

Meanwhile, as to my second story, the UK is swinging in exactly the opposite direction, apparently taking a firm stance against surveillance – unless the government is the one doing the recording.

Boing Boing is reporting that police tried to prevent a woman from recording them as they detained and searched her boyfriend. Here’s what they posted, courtesy of the Guardian:

Atkinson’s mobile phone recorded part of the incident at Aldgate East underground station on 25 March, one month after Section 58(a) – a controversial amendment to the Terrorism Act – came into force, making it illegal to photograph a police officer if the images are considered “likely to be useful” to a terrorist…

The opening part of the mobile phone clip shows two uniformed police officers searching her boyfriend, Fred Grace, 28, by a wall in the station. Atkinson said she felt that police had unfairly targeted Grace, who did not have drugs in his possession, and decided to film the officers in order to hold them to account.

Seconds later, an undercover officer wearing jeans and a black jacket enters the shot, and asks Atkinson: “Do you realise it is an offence under the Terrorism Act to film police officers?” He then adds: “Can you show me what you you just filmed?”

Atkinson stopped filming and placed her phone in her pocket. According to her account of the incident, which was submitted to the Independent Police Complaints Commission that night, the officer tried several times to forcefully grab the phone from her pocket.

Failing to get the phone, he called over two female undercover officers from nearby. Atkinson said he told the women: “This young lady had been filming me and the other officers and it’s against the law. Her phone is in her right jacket pocket and I’m trying to get it…”

A second female officer approached her and said, incorrectly: “Look, your boyfriend’s just been arrested for drugs, so I suggest you do as we say.”

Atkinson claims the male undercover officer who initially approached her repeatedly threatened her with arrest, stating: “We believe you filmed us and that’s against the law so we need to check your phone.” When Atkinson protested, the officer replied: “I don’t want to see myself all over the internet.”

After officers made calls to the police station, possibly for legal advice on the situation, the handcuffs were removed and Atkinson was released.

She said the officers walked away – all but one of them refused to identify themselves to her.

There’s really not much I can add, the story pretty much speaks for itself. Britain is already the most monitored society on earth. It’s hard to express how alarming it is that the government is now insisting it can monitor citizens without being monitored itself – even to the point of shielding the identities of its officers. At the end of the summer my sister is going to Scotland for a semester, I can only hope she’s able to avoid all of this.

Installing audio recorders in public transit here and shutting down citizen observers across the pond. Sad times for the birthplace of classical liberalism and the land that (at least somewhat) realized its promise.


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Categories : Big Government, Britain, Liberty, Maryland, Nanny State

A Challenge to Lefty Bloggers

21 07 2009

Over at Hit & Run Reason senior editor Radley Balko has put up a challenge to lefty (Unrelated, but what’s the proper spelling, lefty or leftie? Or is either acceptable) bloggers:

Every initiative announced by the Obama administration pushes us further into uncharted territory on both fronts, so it would be interesting to see what if any actual limits lefty opinion makers would put on the size, cost, and influence of the federal government. At what point would you be willing to finally say, “Okay, we’ve gone far enough”?

Radley breaks this query down into several categories, such as progressive taxation, inflation, and federal spending as percentage of GDP to name a few. I will be very intrigued to see what, if any (serious) responses he gets.

In that vein I encourage Jamelle and the other “lefty bloggers” I interact with here to take up the challenge.


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Categories : Big Government, Liberty, Philosophy, Politics, Radley Balko, reason, United States of Jamerica, Web 2.0

Avoiding Big Brother

17 07 2009

I just read an interesting way to ensure security officials at customs cannot access your laptop. Since I’m all for snubbing the efforts of nosy government officials whenever possible I thought I’d pass it on (I haven’t implemented it yet since I don’t fly that often, but I might if and when the need arises).

Bruce Schneier doesn’t like people snooping in his stuff and neither should you. He posted a clever solution to the problem of encrypting your laptop so it cannot be unlocked if you are under duress. While it is not foolproof, it prevents anyone – customs officials included – from scouring your laptop on landing. Why? Because you won’t know your own password.

The trick assumes you have your hard drive encrypted with BitLocker or another multi-login solution. You will create one login for yourself and another completely random login that you won’t be able to remember even under the threat of torture. We’re talking “sdfsdfsdfuirweuvmsbvbxcvbyoi723472374kwdefmsdf” and not “porkloin.” You then send this password – without seeing it – to a spouse or business partner who will be prepared to give it to you when you get out of customs.

When you work on the laptop on the plane, you login with your normal password. Then you delete that personal account, leaving only the random one. This means your laptop is completely secure while you’re in customs. When you pop out you call your trusted person and they give you the key. Easy peasy.

HT: CrunchGear


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Categories : Big Government, Liberty

The Question of Empathy

14 07 2009

Regardless of what happens with Sonia Sotomayor (and I stand by my prediction of her being approved by a thin margin) the debate over whether she should be appointed has broached an important question, that of empathy.

The Democrats have latched onto Sotomayor’s own endorsement of the so-called empathy standard, and with reason. They have long attacked limited government types as being lacking in empathy, suggesting that an opposition to their slew of entitlement programs was indicative of a fundamental lack of imagination, an inability to have the empathy to imagine themselves in another’s scenario.

Well, I’m going to call bullshit on that.

What motivates Democrats and other Leftists to push their entitlement programs on America is not empathy. They are not motivated by a strong sense of solidarity, of shared (even if imagined) experience. What they are motivated by is not empathy, but sympathy.

At its core, the entitlement program is a reaction of guilt. It is how individuals resolve the fact that they have while others do not, and that because of that disparity they feel a deep hurt. I don’t blame supporters of entitlement programs for this, nor do I condemn them for it. It’s natural – most people, when they see someone in distress want to help.

But we must recognize that the dispensing of monies, whether our own or someone else’s is not an act of empathy. Even if well-intentioned, it is an act of condescension, the tacit statement that because I have means I can buy moral satisfaction by giving of my excess to meet your necessity. It flaunts wealth and reminds the recipient that he is ultimately below the giver and not considered an equal. It is the same sort of motivation we see in the writings of James I and some Russian nobles with regards to their serfs (at least they were honest about it though).

This becomes even more true when one considers the structure of the modern entitlement program. At least charity goes no further than to implicitly suggest inferiority of means. Government entitlement programs though, they suggest inferiority of intellect as well. By insisting that some men in Washington can manage affairs best, not only do they remind the beneficiaries of their material inadequacy, they also tell them they are mentally deficient and the entitlement managers are infinitely their superiors, being the only ones fit to manage resources. It is insulting and disgusting – but far too many people fail to see that.

So what does true empathy in action look like? To begin with, it does not condescend. It recognizes that all men are fundamentally equal, even if they are possessed of different statuses and abilities. It seeks to work with them, not giving alms nor dictating terms. It is realized in actions and programs that enable people to help themselves. True empathy is, to sum it up in one word, libertarian.

Examples of it are numerous.

They can expanding access to tools like IRAs and HSAs, that let people take control of their own lives by being the owners of their finances, rather than dependents on remote and distant corporations or bureaucrats.

They can be the stripping of regulations and taxes that benefit the wealthy, powerful, and well-connected while shutting innovators and entrepreneurs out of the market.

They can be microloans, where people engage with those less well-off as equal partners rather than well-endowed beneficiaries and desperate mendicants.

They can be anything, so long as they are predicated upon a principle of equality, the recognition that every man is an individual agent and the master of his own destiny. They must bear none of the well-intentioned, yet ultimately condescending paternalism espoused by the royal absolutists and inherited by the modern Left.

So yeah, let’s talk about just who believes in empathy.


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Categories : Empathy, Liberty, Morality, Philosophy, Politics, Sonia Sotomayor

Living in the American Panopticon

14 07 2009

There’s a good article from the AP detailing the basic info on RFID chips and the controversy how the government is mandating the use of them in passports and slowly pushing them into most other forms of government ID as well.

If you’ve read Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother then you already know what a problem this is. If you haven’t (and I highly recommend you do, you can get it for free), this piece from the article should convince you:

Climbing into his Volvo, outfitted with a Matrics antenna and a Motorola reader he’d bought on eBay for $190, Chris Paget cruised the streets of San Francisco with this objective: To read the identity cards of strangers, wirelessly, without ever leaving his car.

It took him 20 minutes to strike hacker’s gold.

Zipping past Fisherman’s Wharf, his scanner detected, then downloaded to his laptop, the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians’ electronic U.S. passport cards embedded with radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he’d “skimmed” the identifiers of four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a distance of 20 feet.

If it’s that easy for one guy whose not trying terribly hard to get this kind of data, what do you think a dedicated hacker or identity thief could do? And equally disturbing, consider how easy this will eventually make it for the government to track your every movement? That’s right, I’m looking at you Winston – down with Big Brother indeed.

Now, there are some steps you can take. It’s illegal to tamper with a government passport or ID, which includes deliberately disabling the RFID chip, so I’m not telling you to do anything, but accidents do happen.

Likewise, I’m not supporting or endorsing the contents of these links, but they do make for an interesting read:

How to block an RFID tag

How to kill your RFID chip


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Categories : Big Government, Cory Doctorow, Department of Homeland Security, Dystopia, Liberty, Nanny State, National ID

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