Category Archives: Health

Drafting Docs

Whenever you declare something a positive “right,” it implies slavery on the part of someone else to fulfill it. If we continue on the current path with health care, forced conscription of doctors is inevitable.

[Update a few minutes later]

I liked this:

Another force at work here is the fact that government intervention in health care has for years been sending doctors out of general practice and into specializations that are far removed from Washington’s interference. Obamacare will almost certainly intensify that trend, producing a surplus of specialists such as cosmetic surgeons even as the nation experiences a shortage of primary-care physicians. The legacy of Democratic health-care reform very well may turn out to be cheaper boob jobs, a fitting comeuppance for the boobs who put this program in place and the boobs who elected them.

I think there may be a few fewer boobs next fall.

Millennials And Obama

They’re finally turning on him:

…nearly half of Millennial’s surveyed – 47 percent – said they would support a recall of the president.

Most probably don’t know this, but there’s no such thing as a “recall” of a president. However, as I’ve noted previously, the Constitutional equivalent would be to elect enough Republicans to both houses next fall to impeach and remove him.

[Thursday-morning update]

Millennials jump ship over ObamaCare bait’n’switch.

The Bad-Faith Presidency

of Barack Obama:

If he were awoken at 3 a.m. and told he had to make the case for nationalizing the banks by denying he was nationalizing the banks, he would do an entirely creditable job of it, even without a TelePrompTer. The salesmanship for Obamacare represents in microcosm the larger Obama political project, which has always depended on throwing a reassuring skein of moderation on top of left-wing ideological aims.

All politicians are prone to shaving the truth, giving themselves the benefit of the doubt and trying to appear more reasonable than they are. Obama has made it an art form. Bad faith is one of his signal strengths as a politician, and makes him one of the greatest front men progressivism has ever had.

He will never admit his deep bias toward the growth of the federal government for its own sake, or that he doesn’t care that much if Iran gets the bomb, or that he is liquidating the American leadership role in the Middle East. No, no—he is just trying to make government work, giving diplomacy a chance and pivoting to Asia, respectively.

It’s a shame more people didn’t catch on the the con last year.

The Starship Enterprise

ObamaCare isn’t one:

The technocratic idea is that you put a bunch of smart, competent people in government — folks who really want the thing to work — and they’ll make it happen. But “smart, competent people” are not a generic quantity; they’re incredibly domain-specific. Most academics couldn’t run a lemonade stand. Most successful entrepreneurs wouldn’t be able to muster the monomaniacal devotion needed to get a Ph.D. Neither group produces many folks who can consistently generate readable, engaging writing on a deadline. And none of us would be able to win a campaign for Congress.

Yet in my experience, the majority of people in these domains think that they could do everyone else’s job better, if they weren’t so busy with whatever it is they’re doing so well. It’s the illusion of omnicompetence, and in the case of HealthCare.gov, it seems to have been nearly fatal.

Remember, Obama was a better speech writer than his speech writers, knew policy better than his policy advisors, would make a better chief of staff than his chief of staff. He is the Dunning-Kruger effect personified.