Come for the Politics, Stay for the Pathologies



Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

Hot Air has found another duly elected official who  is too ignorant to be allowed to write legislation.  As Joe Scarborough interviewed him on MSNBC yesterday Rep Anthony Weiner (D-NY) explained  exactly what he meant by “Public Option.” And yep, it’s just exactly what we thought: socialized medicine for all – with the exception of Congress and  other high ranking elected officials and bureaucrats.

At one point in the interview Rep Weiner repeatedly contends that health care is not a commodity, to which Ed Morrissey responds:

Of course health care is a commodity. Weiner wants to use this populist pet phrase, which goes along with the notion of a “right” to health care, but it’s absurd. Food is a commodity, water is a commodity, clothing and shelter are commodities. Until cap-and-trade came up in the House, air was not a commodity, but carbon dioxide will shortly become one, even though life itself cannot exist without it. People have to produce the goods and services that comprise the health-care industry, which means that the supplies are finite and they expect to get compensated for their work. That makes it a commodity, regardless of Weiner’s socialist rhetoric. Anything with a cost is a commodity, by definition.

Anyone who doesn’t understand that much about economics has no business creating policy.

 

Apparently Rep Anthony Weiner  is also too stupid to keep his yap shut about the real desires of the progressive left. But he certainly provides a handy response for complaints  from the  left questioning why right wing nut balls refer to Obama as a socialist.  I’m personally more inclined to call them Collectivists or Marxists now.

Jonah Goldberg has an interesting take on calling a spade a spade in his  article at NRO:

What drives me crazy about liberal complaints about conservative tactics these days is how selective they are. Obama, Barney Frank, Jacob Hacker, and others have said that they want these reforms — specifically the public option — to lead to single payer. But when conservatives take them at their word, suddenly it's outrageous misinformation and "fishy" stuff. When the wind is at their backs, liberals look way off to the horizon, like Obama at a podium, dreaming of a future of European-style statism. But when conservatives use this to their advantage, suddenly it is outrageous to even consider the possibility of a road to hell being paved with good intentions. Suddenly liberals bleat that it is scare-mongering to look beyond what they are proposing in this exact moment, outrageous to ask "Where will this lead?"

 

And if you are strong of heart and curious about how such a benign thing as “health care for all” could lead rabid conservatives to proclaim the existence of “death panels,” you  must read Dr. Sanity’s “Not N.I.C.E.” post. The mere mention of  Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel) should be enough to make your blood run cold. His scholarly article, "Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions"  might just stop it from circulating all together.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.