Tag Archives: obama

The Health Care Solution

It’s called the Freelancer’s Union and they can provide you with quality health care for $180-$380/month depending on the size of the deductible.  That means you could have health care coverage for $2,000-$4,000 a year.

If the government enabled the spread of organizations like the Freelancer’s Union, and gave every American a $2,000 voucher, we could ensure that every American has basic health coverage for about $700 billion a year.  That’s a shit load of money, but it’s THREE TIMES LESS than the $2,2600 billion (aka $2.26 trillion) we currently spend per year  and every indication suggests that private health care via organizations like the Freelancer’s Union is superior to the current system or any government run one.

The most important reason a private system is better than a public one is that private health care incentivizes healthy living by encouraging people to INVEST in their own health.  The logic is simple.  Would you maintain your car if the government paid for all your repairs?  No, you’d probably drive more haphazardly, skip routine maintenance and purchase lower grade gasoline.  You’d save money in the short term by accumulating damage until a serious malfunction occurred.  Then you’d go to the government repair shop and get a major overhaul.  If you had to pay for all your repairs yourself, you’d more likely treat your vehicle with respect, driving more conservatively, perform routine maintenance and invest in high quality fuel.  You’d think about saving money in the long term by taking care of problems early so they don’t ultimately devolve into seriously expensive malfunction.  Your body is a vehicle and, while most people treat their bodies worse than they treat their cars, the economics of auto-repair and health care are not so different.

Obama’s health plan is fundamentally wrong. It taxes businesses that don’t purchase their employees health care which results in an indirect tax on anyone who purchase their own health care from organizations like the Freelancer’s Union. The ultimate result is that if you, a sovereign human being, wanted to purchase your own health care on a free market you would be taxed.  This is a horrible idea that would stunt the growth of private health care solutions and erode our personal freedoms.

There is absolutely no reason for the Federal Government to be involved in the application of health care services to the people just as the military should not be involved in community watch programs.  Individuals must be free to make their own decisions about how they treat their own bodies.  Freedom encourages responsible long term thinking that can not be successfully replicated by an authoritative system, no matter how honest the intention or complete the application.  Freedom can not be imitated.  It’s our nation’s most valuable resource and we squander it at almost every opportunity.  That is no longer acceptable.

There is also a Constitutional argument that could be made about the invalidity of any public health care scheme.  The 4th amendment, as interpreted under Roe v. Wade, clearly gives individuals the right to make their own health care decisions.  Any government action that deliberately changes the most important decision I can make about my body, how health care is delivered, is obviously unconstitutional.  My right to my body is the most fundamental right possible because if I do not have that right then, quite simply, I could be imprisoned or killed at any time by the people who do have the right to my body.

Let’s go deeper.

Big Insurance: impossible without Big Government.
Big Insurance: impossible without Big Government.

But, one might say, if health care was really about freedom and we’ve been living with deep government interference with health care for over 30 years, then we are not, nor have we been, free individuals. This is true: we’ve been enslaved. Liberated people do not hate their jobs.  Liberated people do what they enjoy all the time because there is no one forcing them to do otherwise.

Imagine how little money you’d need to be truly happy.  What if health care, food and shelter weren’t a factor because society provided you with access to each for no cost.  How much money would you need?  Aside from attracting a mate and recreation,  you wouldn’t need much else.  You’d be liberated because you’d need to earn less so you could spend more time doing what you enjoy.  The magic of the world is that you are best at doing what you truly enjoy and, in a more liberated economy free from government meddling and the monopolies that emerge from it, it’d be much easier for you to monetize your passion.  Indeed: you’d be in the sweet spot of what economists call comparative advantage.

The beauty of of the free market is that capacity doesn’t increase when people do more valuable tasks, but when people actually producing more value.  The difference is subtle but significant: economic output increases when people expand their own capacity to do work, not when they do higher priced jobs.  The more self-actualization in an economy, the more it can produce.  The goal of the free market is transforming our labor force from farm labor into self-actualized labor.  This is the trajectory of humanity’s economic development.  It is the accumulated efficiencies of thousands of years of incremental progress.

But what does this have to do with health care?

The free market is the active force enabling comparative advantage.  Government does the opposite.  It restricts freedom by enabling someone else to make decisions for you and for others.  No one knows what you love better than you do so no one but you can efficiently allocate your labor.  Only you and the creative force of freedom.

The fact that our politicians do not look at every policy and first ask whether or not it restricts people’s freedom is a great treason and violation of the spirit of the Enlightenment philosophers who founded this country.  America’s founding was rooted in a deep faith in the goodness of free human nature and a deep suspicion of institutions that prevented people from being free.  It was an outgrowth of a freedom movement.  If you’re not into freedom (many people aren’t) and think government should baby sit you and your friends – then you should either amend the Constitution or move elsewhere.  There are many countries with lower costs of living, better weather and a government that will be happy to take care of you.

Let’s not be hasty and rush a ‘reform’ plan through Congress before looking at all the options, especially an easy to implement voucher system.

8 Reasons McCain Needs a Miracle to Win

John McCainIf you’ve been watching the news for the last month, it seems like John McCain might actually pull out a victory in November.  After months of the press fawning over the unlikely candidacy of Obama (remember, he’s a mixed race junior senator with no executive experience) the press has rediscovered that John McCain actually has the credentials, the political persona and the charisma of a fantastic presidential candidate.  Unfortunately for Senator McCain, he simply doesn’t have the support.  Despite popular polls numbers (this isn’t a popular election after all, it is a state by state winner take all contest) and a receptive media, eight national trends would make a John McCain victory miraculous.

Voter Registration

The Republicans are losing more and more registered voters to the Democrats and independents while the Democrats are registering unprecedented numbers of young, black and formerly disenfranchised voters.
Real Clear Politics states: “The number of registered Democrats in party registration states has grown by nearly 700,000 since President George W. Bush was reelected in November 2004, while the total of registered Republicans has declined by almost 1 million.”
The changes are most notable in Iowa and Nevada, two states that were majority Republican in 2004 (and voted for Bush) and now have more registered Democrats.  The other 5 states with growing democratic advantages are Oregon (10pts), New Jersey (14pts), New Hampshire (-.6pts), Connecticut (15pts) and Pennsylvania (12pts).
By most accounts, the Obama campaign machine has been impeccably organized, and it isn’t hard to understand why the Republican machine is failing.  Quite simply,  being a Republican is no longer as cool as it used to be.  As the Economist so aptly noted a year ago, no matter how clever the Republicans are at politics, at the end of the day when they were given the chance to lead, they failed.

Organization

Obama has 336 open offices while McCain has just 101. While field offices, like voter registration, doesn’t directly correlate to voters, one has to wonder where the McCain campaign will base their get-out the vote operations when the election arrives.  More specifically interestingly, McCain has 1 office in Colorado and 1 in Pennsylvania while Obama has 10 and 18 respectfully.

Independents

The 1.7m net loss net of Republicans since 2004 means independents are more important for McCain.  Historically he has garnered much support from independents but Obama is denying him an advantage as polls show them neck and neck.

Millennial Generation

One day, the Millenials, which are Americans under the age of 26 and are the largest generation in American history, (over 100m) will dominate American politics.  Obama has a massive advantage amount youth and his campaign has vigorously registered and engaged this demographic.  Whether or not this is the election that will permanently shift America politics from the Boomers to the Millennials, it’s clear that Obama has the age demographic advantage as there are nearly twice as many 18-30 year olds than there are people over 65.  For more go try USA Today and Wikipedia.

Latinos

While Hispanics gave Bush an advantage in 2004 by giving him 40% of their vote, McCain will be disadvantaged by the fastest growing demographic in America.   Obama has a massive lead of 3:1 (63% to 23%) among Hispanics.

Evangelicals

McCain is polling at 61% support among Evangelicals while Bush won 69%.  They aren’t going to Obama, who has the same 25% Kerry had in 2004, they’re simply deciding to sit this one out.  Why?  Many of their leaders want to disengage from American politics while others are under the influence of a right wing media that has historically despised Senator McCain.

Rush Limbaugh

America’s second most listened to talk show host (all hail Howard) thinks McCain sucks and hasn’t and will not motivate his listeners to vote for him.  In fact, he often threatens to work against McCain if McCain doesn’t veer more towards the right.

Read this transcript from his show:
RUSH: Because [the Republican Party] thinks that they own us, in the most crucial of earlier decisions, McCain is misjudging us. He feels he can pick whoever he wants, pro-choice Democrat running mate, and that everybody’s just going to march with him. But he figures wrong.  This is going to be a close election, and it’s not going to take a lot of people sitting on their hands to lose an important state or two.

CALLER: Mmm-hmm.

RUSH:  Now, Obama is out there firing up his base.  McCain is trying to deflate people like you.

CALLER:  He’s angering us, and I wasn’t going to vote for him. I was just not going to mark anything, but then when he pulled this — and I think, Rush, I really think — and I know you’ve done so much to get the word out. I really think that if he puts on a good, strong conservative, he has a pretty good chance of getting elected. But if he doesn’t, then the Republicans are going to say, “What’s the difference between him and B. Hussein Obama?”  And they either won’t vote or I don’t know, and it’s really scary and I’m worried about it.  I don’t like McCain; I never have liked him.

Bush’s victory was consistent with years of right wing media narration.  Those same people have been skewering McCain for a decade.  Now if they wanted to do an about face and support McCain, they would risk alienating their own audiences.

Libertarians

Ron Paul’s revolution is continuing via Bob Barr, a former popular Republican who turned to the Libertarian party and was polling at 6%. Unlike Nader who was a simply protest vote in 2000 and 2004, Barr and Paul, while not officially linked, are both aiming to realign the Republican party around an authentic small government platform.  Paul and his followers are vigorously organizing the “Campaign for Liberty” which will create a constituency that could support a real libertarian third party or could begin to realign the Republican party.   Paul has frequently stated he won’t support McCain unless McCain fundamentally changes his platform.  There will be no better way for the libertarians to flex their political muscle than resisting a McCain’s presidency.

Real Clear Politics Electoral Projections

Conclusion
As I see it, McCain is disadvantaged by national political trends, he lacks a competitive ground organization, he isn’t dominating the independent vote, he has an age demographic problem, he has a latino problem, an African American problem, an Evangelical problem and isn’t garnering support from right wing media celebrities.  Finally, there is a large and growing consistency within his party that would prefer to lose this election and return the Republican party to a small government platform than continue with business as usual.

Least we forget, the media is a business and they would prefer to have a ‘horse race’ political campaign going than inform Americans of the massive demographic hurtles McCain faces.  They would also prefer to report on national poll numbers that represent the insignificant popular vote than look at state by state numbers that clearly show an Obama advantage.  Take a moment to go through Real Clear Politics electoral college and see for yourself.

Obama Willing to Compromise on Oil Drilling

So Barack Obama just reversed his hard line stance against offshore drilling. I genuinely hate offshore drilling.  It’s advocates say it does three things: lower the price of oil, promote US energy security and buy us time for alternative fuels. BS.

First, oil companies are the only one’s who will benefit from expanded drilling because they’ll make billions selling the new oil into a marketplace that fluctuates like the emotions of a teenager.  The oil won’t affect gas prices for a decade and who knows where they’ll be in so many years.  Oil drilling promotes energy security like buying another beer promotes a responsible drinking habit.  It won’t ‘buy us time’ for alternative fuels, it will buy oil more time to dominate our economy. Everyone knows we’re addicted to oil, and everyone knows the best way to end an addiction is to stop using the product.

Despite my dislike for off-shore drilling, I’m not infuriated by Obama’s shift. He says: “If, in order to get [a comprehensive energy bill] passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage – I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done.”

When Obama says he’s a different kind of politician, people haven’t really investigated what that means. It means Obama is a compromiser and a deal maker, not an ideologue and not heavily opinionated. While to many this “flip-flop” seems like a display of weakness or political pandering, I think it shows that he has his priorities straight. Right now, this nation’s first objective should be a strong, consistent, well-supported energy policy with ambitious but achievable objectives. Bipartisan support is essential for an effective plan. If the Republicans and 70% of Americans support drilling for more oil, even if that support is manufactured by the oil companies pr strategies, then Obama is willing to compromise to make sure the bigger objective is achieved.

Unconventional politics is compromising with your adversary even when you have an advantage. That is the way long term solutions are created. Unfortunately, many Democrats are having buyer’s remorse. They see a strong Obama and a strong Democratic party, and they want to shove policies down Republicans’ throats. That’s conventional politics and the path to more ineffective government. Resist that urge, compromise and make real progress. An ambitious national energy policy is more important than a few additional oil rigs in the Gulf.