About This Blog

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was the greatest economist of my time. His greatest works can be accessed here at no charge.

Mises believed that property, freedom and peace are and should be the hallmarks of a satisfying and prosperous society. I agree. Mises proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the prospect for general and individual prosperity is maximized, indeed, is only possible, if the principle of private property reigns supreme. What's yours is yours. What's mine is mine. When the line between yours and mine is smudged, the door to conflict opens. Without freedom (individual liberty of action) the principle of private property is neutered and the free market, which is the child of property and freedom and the mother of prosperity and satisfaction, cannot exist. Peace is the goal of a prosperous and satisfying society of free individuals, not peace which is purchased by submission to the enemies of property and freedom, but peace which results from the unyielding defense of these principles against all who challenge them.

In this blog I measure American society against the metrics of property, freedom and peace.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Stupidity Has Consequences For The Dumbest Woman On Earth

As ObamaCare implodes, people who voted for Obama and supported his takeover of the health insurance/healthcare industry are having second thoughts.

Take Cathy Wagner of Colorado. She was an ardent ObamaCare supporter. And a nurse. She "retired early." Now she's received a letter from her insurance company cancelling her health insurance policy. She is shocked.
“I was really shocked … all of my hopes were sort of dashed,” Wagner said. “’Oh my gosh President Obama, this is not what we hoped for, it’s not what we were told.’ “
 Poor baby. Cathy is old enough to retire, yet still hasn't learned a basic lesson of life: You can't trust politicians to take care of you. Mr. Obama ran on a campaign of hope and change. Now Cathy's life has changed and her hopes are "sort of dashed."

And that's not all. Cathy has learned that one of ObamaCare's consequences is higher cost:
She was shocked further to learn that for the same coverage she would pay 35 percent more and have a higher deductible.

“Our premium for next year is going up to over $1,000 a month for two of us and we’re two fairly healthy individuals,” Wagner said.
  The reason Cathy is disillusioned is not because Mr. Obama lied through his teeth for the past five years about how wonderful ObamaCare would be, how it would be cheaper for all Americans, how it would allow individuals to keep their current policies and their doctors. No. Cathy is disillusioned because she is a stupid fool, a no nothing voter who not only voted for Obama but probably also voted for U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat from Colorado who promises:
“As we work through all of this I think that a year from now people overall are going to be very, very happy with the way the Affordable Care Act is working,” DeGette said.
Cathy isn't convinced. The ex-nurse says:
“The whole plan was to get everyone enrolled so there’s a larger risk pool and our costs go down,” she said. “Wow, not at all what we’re seeing.”
Poor, dumb, disillusioned Cathy. The "whole plan" was not to "get" everyone to enroll in ObamaCare. The whole plan is to force everyone to enroll in ObamaCare by penalty of law and the IRS. And larger "risk pools" don't make costs go down. Competition in the free market -- not government mandates and intimidation -- make costs go down.

You don't have to be a nurse to see through the ObamaCare scam. You simply have to be smart enough to know a little economics. And open-minded enough to understand that words have meaning. On July 22, 2009 U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the government's lead enforcer of the ObamaCare absurdity and perhaps the second stupidest person in the world, said:
For the American people, America's Affordable Health Choices Act will mean a cap on your costs, but no cap on your benefits. A cap on your cost, no cap on your benefit. That represents real change.
Was Cathy Wagner listening back then? If she was, did she not understand plain English? Or basic economics? Or simple flim-flam?

Imagine a hundred people outside a Walmart being told they can go in and shop with a cap on their costs but no cap on their benefits. You don't have to be a nurse or a health insurance expert or a government genius to imagine the consequences.
Has Cathy learned her lesson? Or will she continue to rely on politicians to keep her fat in health care and groceries?

You tell me. It seems Cathy has written a letter to Mr. Obama stating her disillusionment with ObamaCare in no uncertain terms and demanding he fix it.

Good grief! Is there any hope for a nation of morons?

7 comments:

David said...

No, there is no hope for the moron who wrote this piece of crap. Cathy had not yet checked with the "exchange" as of the publication date of her initial story.

However, "according to Connect for Health Colorado, there are 30 different plans for couples over 50 for under $1000 /mo., including eight that are about the same or cheaper than what Wagner was paying before (starting at $622.12 /mo.), with deductibles ranging from $1750 to $6750 per person."

Did you really think an insurance company was going to inform someone of their least expensive option in a cancellation notice?

Sherman_Broder said...

Thanks for your comment, David. You've convinced me. I now believe that bureaucrats in Washington ARE better able to decide than Americans themselves what is in their own best interest.


Moreover, I now believe coercive government programs ARE more efficient in satisfying consumer demand than voluntary exchange among free individuals.


Furthermore, I think Nancy Pelosi should be awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for her groundbreaking theory that capping costs and not capping benefits by force of law and income redistribution is the key to individual American prosperity.


In fact, I am so shocked and outraged by my former naivete, I am about to sit down and write Ludwig von Mises a letter demanding he retract all of his obnoxious reasoning with regard to purposeful human action.

David said...

Most intriguing is your inability to stick to the subject at hand. I never implied or insinuated that Gov't knows more about a person's own self interests, even if many individuals don't either.


The ACA is NOT a government program; it is "insurance reform."

As to the "science" of economics; that is a fallacy. Science is methodology. Calling economics a science is like calling philosophy a science.

An economist cannot keep you out of the poor-house, but once you're in, he can show you exactly how you got there.

How is a person free when he's in debt, over his head in medical bills? Who is losing freedom by chipping in to make insurance affordable for everyone and making sure that no person will ever be turned down or go bankrupt by medical bills again in this country?

A necessitous man is not free.

Sherman_Broder said...

David, I appreciate your thoughts. However, I submit that by defending the ACA or ObamaCare, you are implying the government knows best what's in a person's best interests.

Saying the ACA is not a government program is like calling the Federal Reserve a private, free market entity. Has it slipped your mind that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is in charge of ACA administration? Or that the IRS is in charge of collecting ACA taxes? Or are you going to tell me that IRS collection efforts are not a government "program?"


As for economics as a science, I refer you to Mises' book: "The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science." The subject is far to complex to discuss here.



Lastly, asserting that a "necessitous man is not free" is asserting that a man is not and never can be free. Each man is by nature necessitous. Man's natural condition is want. The question is: How is man able to best satisfy his wants while at the same time living peaceably in society?



Is the answer to consider all men unfree and thereby imply the need for a wise and benevolent master?


I think not. The answer is a society of free and voluntary exchange. And, by the way, economic science proves to us that free and voluntary exchange not only best satisfies our wants but is also most efficient in doing so.

David said...

Sherman, obviously you are a very bright young man, but our philosophies, our cores are quite different and we'll never agree on anything.

I live in a "we society," while you live in a "me society."

I was once like that; an entrepreneur, made and spent money, and always looked out for number one. Then I retired early (at 47) and traveled the world. I lived with Bedouin in the desert, learned their languages, their ways; lived among Ethiopians; and did the same.


Additionally, I come from a scientific background and I know that we've reached a time in our evolution where we are up against limits; limits to our growth, and the needs of the individual will have to take a back seat to the needs of the many. I know this sounds "socialistic" to you, but I've not found, in my travels, parts of socialism to be all that bad. I've been cared for in foreign hospitals as well as the VA system here in the US (all socialized medicine). If you think Obamacare is a takeover of medicine, go visit your local VA hospital. The VA system is looked at all over the world as one of the most efficient systems running, and let's face it, it must be good. There is talk of privatizing it.

I'm tired of my taxes going to the wealthy. I'm tired of paying more for health care than any other nation that has socialized medicine, and not getting anything for my money.

As for my "wants," they are few. I have learned that, he is richest whose needs are fewest. I'm richer than Bill Gates. He has to get up tomorrow and go make more and more. I have enough. And now I'm associated with a group of humanitarians who have projects that will change the world, even as massive greed eats away at it like a cancer.

I wish you well. I wish you enough.

Sherman_Broder said...

David, you’ve made a couple of wrong assumptions. First, I am not a young man. I am in my late sixties. I’ve been an entrepreneur too, apparently not as successful as you because I didn’t retire for the first time until my mid-50’s.

Your second wrong assumption is that you live in a “we society” and that I live in a “me society.” The truth is we both live in the same society, assuming you live in the United States. The question is, how do we both live in a “peaceable society” given that our core values are not only different but contrary?

You are tired of your taxes going to the “wealthy.” May I speak frankly? I am tired of my private property being confiscated by you and your humanitarian friends to do with as you please.

You and your friends supported and passed a law that requires me to buy a
product that I don’t want. If I don’t buy this product, I will be penalized by your friends at the IRS. Why did you do this? To satisfy your own lofty sense of entitlement? Did you expect that our society would become more peaceable as a result of you and your friends resorting to such strong arm tactics?

Imagine living in a society in which theft were not only allowed, but advocated
as right and proper. You can’t. Because such a society cannot long exist in this world. It would soon devolve into a dog-eat-dog world of strife, chaos and poverty. Yet you and your friends want to create a society in which robbing Peter to pay Paul is the law of the land.

Good luck with that, David.

Sherman_Broder said...

It's a shame we'll never see eye to eye. As long as people like you and I exist, our society will be plagued with political and possibly physical strife.


Fascinating. A group of highly successful and very rich people who've earned their fortune by means of voluntary exchange on the free market and who now are hell bent to keep others from doing the same. You and your wealthy friends have never taken a dime from the government, yet you're tired of your taxes going to the wealthy. What's that all about?


You say you and your rich friends will change the world with their "projects." Will you offer these "projects" to your fellow citizens for sale on the free and voluntary market? Or will you ram these "projects" down our throats in the dead of night as your friends in Washington did ObamaCare?


People have been going to emergency rooms for health care and have "gotten nothing from it?" What, are they still sitting in the waiting room?


No one went without health care in this country prior to ObamaCare. 85% of us were satisfied with the health insurance we had on the free market. In order to provide health insurance for the 15% that didn't have it, we upended the entire system -- made it more expensive and gummed it up with a million pages of bureaucratic regulations.



Go ahead. Continue "fighting" for the unfortunate and deprived "masses." But it seems to me our society would be a whole lot more peaceable if you and your friends simply redistributed your own money -- your $-trillion -- to these needy masses. Why try to extort my and my neighbors' pitifully small incomes?



YOU are, after all, your brothers' keepers.