Everywhere I look, I see the command /control economy failing. I knew this instinctively, some thirty years ago when I attended “bottomless cup” fraternity parties. What started out as a “too good to be true” deal ended with an early dismissal for the guys and an invitation to the girls to stick around for the “after party”. Naturally, I joined a fraternity.
I knew this empirically, after I graduated college and watched the Soviet Union give up the ghost. The Soviet Union spent money on guns and butter until both were depleted. It survived for so long by keeping the Soviet people at Americans’ throats rather than at each other’s. Then…. the Russian kids saw Levi’s blue jeans and there was no turning back. The Soviet citizens wanted guns and butter and their Russian children wanted blue jeans…and those Russian kids were willing to fight the Soviets for them.
What’s this have to do with Hobby Lobby and the Supreme Court? If you’re reading this blog, you know that Hobby Lobby was granted an exemption from Obamacare. Predictably, one group of Americans are hailing this as a victory for religious freedom while the other group of Americans is claiming that this is a continued war on women.
Equally as predicable is the “so called reasonable centrists” who think they know how to improve the command/control plan for health care. It’s employer-sponsored health insurance, you see. If we can only disconnect from that, we can (a) create a captured market for insurance companies, with heavy regulations (the fascist approach) or (b) have single-payer health care (the socialist approach):
The fact that most Americans get their health coverage through their employers is something that we all take for granted but has no logical purpose behind it whatsoever. No other industrialized country in the world does it this way, and the system didn’t develop in the United States because it made sense from any standard of efficiency, cost or providing superior benefits to citizens. It was an accident of history — one that would take some time and work to undo, but which is worth undoing. Not only that, both conservatives and liberals would have reason to support such a shift.
This is approach is flat out wrong. The Hobby Lobby decision shows that we need to rid ourselves of the GOVERNMENT-based health insurance system….
…and, if you’re upset that employers offer health insurance to employees, ask why they started it in the 50s. It was the income tax and wage/price controls which caused employers to look for ways to compensate employees–a voluntary and cooperative approach to command/control failures.
Our government is tearing us apart with its policies. It’s willfully pitting us against one another in a cannibalistic fashion. Government profits by making me jealous of you and by making you loathe me.
In the real world, you and I get together and solve problems with one another; we might even make some money doing that (commerce). In the real world, you and I get together and figure out how to help others (community). In the real world, you and I work together to help those who can’t help themselves (charity).
Command and control schemes are crumbling. Voluntary cooperation, through commerce, community, and charity, is flourishing. We are NOT enemies (to each other). We are only enemies to the controllers. Reject the controllers and embrace one another.
Repeal Obamacare now.