A Letter to Senator Webb on Healthcare “Reform”
I just sent this letter to my Senator, Jim Webb, a few minutes ago:
Dear Senator Webb,
I am writing to you regarding the impending vote on Harry Reid's health reform bill. If you do not vote against this bill, I WILL VOTE AGAINST YOU IN THE NEXT ELECTION.
We are witnessing the complete destruction of deliberative democracy with this bill. The fact that the text of the bill has been held secret for so long is an outrage. Further, the revelation that Senators are now voting for the bill not on substance, but because of payouts and exemptions for their states, is even more outrageous. How can we call a law validly (and constitutionally) enacted by the legislature when key votes needed for passage are based on peculiar payoffs for the state and exemptions from some of the bill's key provisions? This is not lawful!
Substantively, this bill will be a disaster. While I've heard the President and Senator Reid repeatedly make the same stale assertions - that the bill will cut premiums and lower the deficit - I have yet to see any evidence. How can a bill that places taxes on insurance, medical devices, and requires non-discriminatory coverage possibly decrease premiums, when all those things add new costs? And how can this bill lower the deficit (beyond the use of an accounting gimmick), when it creates a new entitlement and a massive new bureaucracy?
I will be honest, Senator Webb. I am not a Democrat. I consider myself a conservative libertarian, which means that I will usually vote for Republicans or third-party candidates on the right. That said, I have given this issue a lot of thought, and I have come to the following conclusion: if you help kill this bill, I will have a lot of reason to vote for you and to encourage my friends to do the same. If, on the other hand, you help this monstrosity pass, I will do everything in my power to make sure that you do not win reelection.
Sincerely,
Andrew P. Connors
We still have time to kill this horrible bill. Senator Webb is viewed as a possible swing vote. Contact him now by visiting his website.
Update: Read more about the special favors and exemptions dolled out to Nebraska and Vermont here.
Update II: Read this great letter from a primary care physician in Nebraska commenting on the perverse payment scheme imposed on her by government medicine.
Update III: The Senate GOP has a summary of the shenanigans called "Let's Make a Deal...With Your Money."
Final Update: Well, the letter failed. Senator Webb confirms that he will vote for an atrocious bill.
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- Republicans Resurgent in Elections
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December 20th, 2009 - 12:26
They need to add back in a public option
December 20th, 2009 - 12:30
Way to ignore everything I put in the letter.
December 20th, 2009 - 18:00
Robert E Connors
December 20th, 2009 – 12:26
They need to add back in a public option
=============================
Greatest troll ever.
(I can’t imagine that he’s being serious, but here’s a response…)
Let’s consider the public option from the perspective of baseball. You all like baseball, right?
Let’s say that the government decides that they need to make MLB “more competitive”, so they create a “public team”. This team is funded, not from attendance, merchandise sales, championship payoffs, or anything remotely based on merit. Instead, this team is funded by holding a gun to the back of every fan of baseball, and forcing them to pony up $X each so that this monstrosity can exist.
That’s bad enough, but here’s where it gets ridiculous.
The public team sucks, hard. They have a bunch of 40 year old, mediocre beer league softball players. Since the team is “publicly” funded they don’t have the money to pay any player more than the league minimum. Even if they could afford a star or two, those players would not be interested on playing on such a crappy team.
The government is upset because the public team is really bad. After finishing their first season 0-162, the president is worried. This is going to reflect poorly on him. All this had accomplished was making the league less competitive, and, in the process, cost the fans more money.
The government decides that they need to fix this. Their approach is multi-pronged:
1. It’s not fair that other teams have so much more money than the public team. The government institutes heavy taxes on the other teams in order to better subsidize the public team and make them “more competitive”. (As a result, those teams have less money to spend on players, and have to charge more for tickets.)
2. Since other teams had a “head start” on the public team, there needs to be some sort of “re-balancing”. The government, using force (as always), declares that the public team only needs to get to 1st base in order to score a run. They also decide that the public team’s hitters start every at bat with a 3-0 count. The public team’s pitchers, meanwhile, start every hitter 0-2. On defense, the public team only has to make 1 out to end the inning. The government assures us that these provisions are only “temporary”.
3. Players are too selfish, and should not be allowed to freely negotiate and choose what teams they can play for. Players are to be evenly distributed amongst all of the teams, with their salaries determined by a committee formed in Washington that has “the best interest of the game” in mind.
In their 2nd season, the public team has a miraculous turn-around and goes 162-0. Everyone is so happy… except for fans of baseball, baseball players, and team owners. In fact, during this season, attendance drops league-wide. Fans are upset, and as a result, ticket and merchandise sales are down all across the league. This, coupled with the heavy taxes and subsidies that teams are forced to pay, causes some teams to file for bankruptcy and others to release the few good players they had remaining.
The government decides to lend a helping hand, and they buyout the struggling teams. Now there are only a few privately owned teams left, and they are barely hanging on (and they’ll soon fall as well). If only they weren’t so greedy and selfish, maybe they could have fielded a successful team like the government did!
Baseball becomes a wasteland. Promising young athletes no longer pursue careers in the game, opting for other sports. Fans are driven away from the game. It costs more money to operate the, now completely publicly owned, league, than the league takes in in revenue. No problem, we’ll just tax people more and/or print more money!
Meanwhile, small local “black market” leagues are springing up over the country. These leagues have fans flocking to games, and are showing a real grass roots resurgence of the sport. At first the government ignores these leagues, then they decide to tax them, since they’re stealing fans from the public league, and eventually they outlaw these leagues because they are far too successful. We already have one league, and that’s good enough! All of these fans and players should be working together!
The “public option” in health care would destroy health care, without question. It is not a “competition” when 1 agent has unlimited resources and can change the rules of the game on a whim, to best suit themselves.
It’s beyond disingenuous for someone as allegedly intelligent as the president of the United States to claim that the public option would “increase competition”. There are only two options: He is an idiot, or he is a liar. Which is it?
December 21st, 2009 - 09:33
Wow, fantastic metaphor and analysis, Johnny. Thanks for the contribution.