From the movie Fight Club (1999):
Narrator: Tyler, you are by far the most interesting single-serving friend I’ve ever met… see I have this thing: everything on a plane is single-serving…
Tyler Durden: Oh I get it, it’s very clever.
Narrator: Thank you.
Tyler Durden: How’s that working out for you?
Narrator: What?
Tyler Durden: Being clever.
The Hill reports that Dems feel healthcare fatigue.
Blue Dog Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), who voted for the health overhaul, said the debate has shifted to the Obama administration, which must now implement the bill. “The healthcare bill is done,” Pomeroy said. “The action on healthcare is now in the executive branch as they implement the bill. It’s critically important that they implement it in a sound way, and I believe the attention of Congress is best spent on overseeing the sound implementation of this bill.”
Clever. Vote to nationalize the U.S. health care system even though you didn’t bother to read the 2,400-page bill. Then walk away because you’re “tired” and want to leave the heavy lifting to the White House. Plus, more photo-ops and press releases about health care from Rep. Pomeroy’s office would only serve to keep this on the mind of North Dakota voters.
Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) agreed with the premise that “members would be wary of major health legislation after we’ve spent so much time — we do have other priorities.” … “I could see that people would be exhausted if we were doing something major and controversial,” Waxman told The Hill. “So I think that we’ll probably limit ourselves right away in terms of what we’ll be pursuing.”
Paul Howard at City Journal looks at Obamacare’s Hidden Costs, a phenomenon certain to increase the fatigue factor among Obamacare supporters in the months and years ahead:
While the full cost of President Obama’s health-care legislation won’t be apparent until federal subsidies to the uninsured start flowing in 2014, Americans are getting an early glimpse of some of the unintended—but very costly—consequences of rushing through a 2,400-page bill affecting 17 percent of the economy. Since the president signed the bill into law on March 23, dozens of companies have reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission the losses that they expect to take as a result of the legislation. (Companies that offer drug benefits to their retirees will now be taxed for the partial federal subsidy that they receive for each retiree.) The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that as many as 40 major companies will take a hit, for a total of $3.4 billion; other cost estimates run even higher.
Greece, once again, provides a warning. Investor’s Business Daily asks, Guess What Greece Has To Jettison?:
Greece was told that if it wanted a bailout, it needed to consider privatizing its government health care system. So tell us again why the U.S. is following Europe’s welfare state model.
The requirement, part of a deal arranged by the IMF, the European Union and the European Central bank, is a tacit admission that national health care programs are unsustainable. Along with transportation and energy, the bailout group, according to the New York Times, wants the Greek government to remove “the state from the marketplace in crucial sectors.”
This is not some cranky or politically motivated demand. It is a condition based on the ugly reality of government medicine. The Times reports that economists – not right-wingers opposed to health care who want to blow up Times Square – say liberalizing “the health care industry would help bring down prices in these areas, which are among the highest in Europe.”
Of course most of the media have been largely silent about the health care privatization measure for Greece, as it conflicts with their universal, single-payer health care narrative.
In the Rapids City (S.D.) Journal, columnist Rick Kahler quotes an anecdote from an fellow financial planner:
“I have some good friends (dual Greek and U.S. citizens) who live in Athens. They tell me corruption is rampant and every tax increase is met by an exponential increase in the underground, noncompliant economy. There is no sense of duty to pay taxes. There is no sense of dishonor asking someone to transact business outside of the system.
“Greece’s health care system just about collapsed when it became socialized. First, long lines led to treatments being scheduled so far in the future that costs were reduced because patients routinely died before the treatment date. Citizens responded by taking paper bags filled with paper currency to doctors in exchange for prompt treatment.
“When this practice became common, the government eventually began arresting doctors.
Did this make the system function properly? Nope. The doctors simply used their nice European Union passports to leave the country and seek work elsewhere.
“Nurses were then expected to provide medical care they hadn’t been trained to do. This at least made costs go down—nurses started fleeing, too, so that salary expense declined. My friends in Athens report many Greek hospitals are ‘just walls—no doctors, no nurses, not even anyone worth bribing. When we need care, we buy a ticket to the U.S.”
Check out the Acton Institute resource page on Health Care.
