LOL at Dr. Berwick and Obamacare

LOL is the only way that I can respond to Dr. Berwick’s recent editorial in the WSJ “The Right Way to Reform Medicare.” After observing that Medicare costs are growing, he summarily dismisses the Republican plan to have customers pay for their own insurance, eliminate guaranteed Medicare benefits and limit choices. He says the right way to bring down costs is to make care better and improve our healthcare system. This observation begs the very basic question he asks. He observes that we should use the automobile, computer, television and telephone industries as examples to follow in making health care better. What follows is a long list of unsupported promises, vacuous claims and socialist utopian platitudes as reasons why the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) is the solution to our health care problems. This vacant reasoning is the same reasoning supporting Obamacare in the first place, “we must pass the bill to find out what is in it.”

I will agree with one statement in Dr. Berwick’s analysis. We should look to private industry to find our solution to our health care problems. If Dr. Berwick had initiated a reasoned analysis on this proposition, he would have come to a completely different conclusion. What is it about these industries that has made them successful in making their products better and more efficient? It is the very thing that Obamacare is removing from the healthcare industry: freedom, competition and market forces.

When someone goes to buy a car, a television or a computer, he has a multitude of choices. Technology is changing dramatically in each of these industries. The technology is changing dramatically because the many competitors are motivated to make a better and cheaper product that is attractive to customers. This is particularly true in the telephone industry. It was only after the deregulation of AT&T decades ago, when companies were able to compete for customers, that the technology advanced to give us the technologies we have today.

Market forces impacting costs and prices drive producers and consumers to make commercial choices which they deem to be the most beneficial and efficient. Removing market forces and price signals removes the incentive to be efficient. One example should suffice. Anyone who has been the beneficiary of a good health insurance plan at work should recognize that when there is no cost to visiting an emergency room, there is no incentive to minimize the use of that valuable service. When emergency room treatment of a cold or flu or a splinter has no cost, there is no incentive to seek an appropriate alternative yet less costly form of treatment, such as chicken soup or a tweezers. Price causes customers to make efficient and cost effective decisions.

Obamacare, by removing market forces and price signals from the market place, will cause the healthcare system to operate in an increasingly inefficient manner. Dr. Berwick is correct to observe that Medicare costs continue to grow. However, a reasoned analysis would cause him to conclude that that very fact contradicts his conclusion that Obamacare will improve the health care system. Medicare is a federal program that has removed market forces from the health care industry. What Medicare does in a small way, Obamacare does in a big way. If Medicare costs are increasing, Obamacare costs will increase much more. Obamacare is a big problem designed to solve a small problem. The actual solution should be to eliminate the small problem. Government is the problem. Therefore, government should be removed from the system.

Dr. Berwick’s reasoning is also internally inconsistent. Consider the following paragraph:

Under President Obama's framework, we will hold down Medicare cost growth, improve the quality of care for seniors, and save an additional $340 billion for taxpayers in the next decade. These policies don't shift costs to seniors or deny care to people in nursing homes or people with disabilities. Instead, they focus on improving the quality of care and lowering costs by putting patients first.

Who is “we?” One can only conclude it is Dr. Berwick and the Obama framework. They will “hold down” Medicare cost growth compared to what? One can only conclude that these central planners will hold down Medicare costs compared to actual costs. However, artificially holding down costs compared to actual costs does shift cost. It also makes a service more attractive than it actually is, causing an increased demand on the service. If the demand exceeds the supply in a centrally planned system, care will be denied because there will be no market forces—due to the actual cost being artificially held down—to incent the expansion of the service. If you artificially hold down the price of a television that costs $1,000 to make to $500, there will be cost shifts, there will be a reduction in service, or there will be no service, i.e. bankruptcy.

Obamacare scared me in its inception and its final passage. I am even more frightened by this kind of reasoning behind its implementation. With this kind of reasoning, we have a government that will bankrupt us all if they don't kill us first.

Taken From Bubbles and Money, One of the Blogs I Follow

How awesome is that day to me-
O day of hallowed history!
Set time in God’s determined plan
To sacrifice the Son of Man.
What famous work that day was done
By Jesus Christ, His Perfect Son!
The Second Adam, sent to save,
Humbly obeying to the grave!

How savage is that day to me-
O day of pure brutality!
When Christ, the Son of God Most High,
Was fiercely whipped and hung to die.
And O the horror of my sin,
Seen there in His appalling skin!
For God struck down- as meant for me-
The sinless One, at Calvary.

How precious is that day to me-
O day of purchased liberty!
In Him, a freeman now I live;
My sins, through death, did God forgive.
No wrath at length looms o’er my head,
But lovingkindness there instead.
His righteousness, my guilt replaced,
And Love, this ransomed soul embraced!

O awesome, savage, precious day-
‘Tis God the Savior on display!
What peerless, holy, gracious Mind
Would fashion such a Grand Design?

Kevin Hartnett works for NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, overseeing the science operations activities of the mission. He was selected in 2003 from a thousand candidates as the “Poet of the Year” by the Fellowship of Christian Poets.

Doctors the New Cops on the Beat

So what is the conservative reaction to HB 658, the so called Meth Lab Elimination Act? What the bill would do is require a doctor’s prescription for ephedrine, phenylpropanolamine, or pseudoephedrine. The rationale is that this would make it harder for meth labs to get the raw material for their product. It would make doctors the gate keepers (or cops) for the flow of the raw material for the illegal substance.


While I understand the motive for this act, it is going about finding a solution the wrong way. I find it ironic that when government is taking over so many areas of life for which it has no authority, it is forcing doctors to take on its responsibility and private citizens to give up liberty because it is failing in one of its primary responsibilities, to punish the evil doer. Government wants to take responsibility for my health, for my employment security, for how I view the arts, and how I raise my children. But it does not want to engage its primary responsibility to get the bad guy who makes the meth. Rather it wants to regulate the manufacture and commerce of a good product. Get the government out of all of those things it has no responsibility for and it will have the where-with-all to accomplish those things for which it has responsibility.

Time to Change Our Attitude

There were two stories that emerged last week that portray the stark contrast in views of governmental power. One story told of state Senators Lembke, Nieves, Schaaf and Kraus filibustering the Missouri Senate so as to prevent Missouri from receiving federal funds to extend unemployment benefits from 79 to 99 weeks. The story continued that Senator Lembke wants to accomplish the same goal for federal funds earmarked for education. The other story told was of Governor Jay Nixon seeking one billion dollars of federal money to build a light rail line from St. Louis to Kansas City. Not only would the system improve transportation in the state, it would bring higher paying jobs to the state.

There are arguments pro and con for each issue. It is always “good” to help those in need. It is “good” to bring new jobs to the state. However, at what point should a culture stop facilitating unemployment and create a real felt incentive to get a job? And is a centrally planned transportation system better than one designed by the free market? I do not wish to get into any of these issues. My goal is to look beyond these to bigger arguments, arguments of attitude. My goal is to highlight how the trajectory of time has shown that our welfare state mentality will actually destroy us.

In his work The Law, Frederic Bastiat observes that,

But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law—which may be an isolated case—is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.

In another place, he observes,

The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law becomes the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!

If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.

Are Bastiat’s observations borne out in our government today? Consider, as Congressman Akin is often known to do, that the income of the federal government is roughly equivalent to the cost of the growing entitlement system and the interest on the debt. That leaves all other functions of our national government unfunded except through borrowing. The federal behemoth has now grown to such a state that the interest on the debt, which is not paid, continually adds to the national debt. Many have rightly commented that this is unsustainable. What this situation indicates is that the continued spending by the federal government, whether directly, or by bribes to the states, is putting the nation in deeper and deeper debt. This debt will be paid back in one form or another. If it does not bring the nation to a financial collapse, it will burden our children’s children for their repayment. We are enslaving our children with this debt. Indeed, Bastiat’s observations are borne out in our government. We are not satisfied with taking from some in this generation to satisfy our greed. We are willing to saddle the next generation with slavery for our greed.

The happy argument for those who want to take the money is that the federal government will spend it anyway. We might as well benefit from it rather than letting others use it to their advantage. This argument has some validity, but only in a culture in which greed has been institutionalized. Only by assuming that everyone else is as greedy as you are can such an argument work. Unfortunately, that assumption is valid in the United States of America at this time, at least among many in the ruling class.

What Senators Lembke, Nieves, Schaaf and Kraus are trying to do is change attitudes. Attitudes are hard to change, but changing attitudes has to start somewhere. Changing attitudes is also painful, particularly when you are invested in your attitude as we are today in the United States of America. Again, we are so invested in our attitude that we burden our children’s children for our convenience. Let us remember that the preamble of the U. S. Constitution declares that the purpose of the Union is to secures the “Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” not just to ourselves. If for no other reason, we must listen to the good Senators because it is the purpose of government to protect our children.

Bastiat once more has a helpful insight: “When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor. It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder.” Yes, stopping the plunder will be painful. But not to stop the plunder will be even more painful for the next generation. Thank you, Senators Lembke, Nieves, Schaaf and Kraus for your courage.

Theologians Need a Good Education in the Law

It seems to me that our modern day PCA theologians could use a good healthy dose of legal education in the law of contracts.  They should understand that for a contract to be binding, both sides to the contract must give what the law calls "consideration" in order for a contract to be binding, and for a contract to be fulfilled.  "Consideration" is something of legal value, whether an act taken or a promise given in response to the consideration given by the other party.  Consideration can include the forgoing of a legal right.  Consideration has nothing to do with merit, but it is a condition necessary for the fulfillment of a contract, and nothing more.

I am not saying that the covenant God made with Adam was a contract.  However, I do believe that many of our concepts of contract are acquired from God's character in extending covenants.  If theologians were to understand the distinction between consideration, also recognized in the Westminster Standards as conditions, they might not get so agitated over the Federal Vision discussion.

OK, I will take off my rose colored glasses now.

Drill Already!

A lot of folks can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage here in our country.
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Well, there's a very simple answer.
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Nobody bothered to check the oil.
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We just didn't know we were getting low.
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The reason for that is purely geographical.
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Our OIL is located in:
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ALASKA
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California
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Coastal Florida
~~
Coastal Louisiana
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North Dakota
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Wyoming
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Colorado
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Kansas
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Oklahoma
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Pennsylvania
And
Texas
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Our dipsticks are located in DC

Time to return the regulation of land back to the states as intended by the framers of the U.S. Constitution.
 
Adopted from an email received this morning.

The Initiative Petition

Much has been written in the Missouri Record in the recent past regarding the initiative petition process, and rightly so. This is an important issue. With the initiative petition process, Missourians have enacted into law certain requirements regarding utility rates, renewable energy, cloning, and puppy mills.


On Tuesday, February 22, the Missouri House Elections Committee heard testimony on HJR No. 16, a resolution that would propose to amend provisions of the Missouri Constitution relating to initiative petitions. Currently, in order for an initiative petition to be successful in proposing a change to the constitution of the state of Missouri, the proponents of the initiative must obtain signatures from eight percent of the legal voters in each of two-thirds of the congressional districts in the state. To propose a law, proponents must obtain the signatures of five percent of the legal voters in each of two-thirds of the congressional districts in the state. HJR No. 16 would require the same percentages of voter signatures, but from all congressional districts in the state.

The main objection to the proposal was that the change would increase the total number of signatures necessary to secure the initiative on the ballot and, therefore, make it more difficult to achieve a ballot proposal. This would give moneyed interests greater influence in the political process and diminish efforts by the typical citizen to affect change. While it may be a worthy goal to require proponents to obtain signatures from all congressional districts, the percentage of signatures should be reduced. The resolution was voted out of committee on March 1, and it is reported that the committee adopted an amendment reducing the percentage of signatures required in each Congressional district.

Clearly, this change would make it harder to secure an initiative petition on the ballot. Is this a bad thing? The answer to that question is not quite so clear. Audrey Spaulding has written in the Missouri Record that, “One of the greatest strengths of American government is that there are a number of checks and balances at the federal, state, and local levels that limit the ability of any one branch of government to abuse its power. The initiative petition process is one of those checks on power, and restricting it further will serve only to erode Missourians’ ability to limit legislators by initiating good — but politically difficult — policy change.” I agree with this statement in principle, but not in detail. I agree one the greatest strengths of the American government is the checks and balances designed into the U.S. Constitution. However, the initiative petition is nowhere addressed in the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution may be amended only by the actions of the states, sometimes at the prompting of the Congress. The initiative petition is a right of the people under the Missouri Constitution. Spaulding is right that the initiative process is a check on the abuse of power by the Missouri Legislature.

There is much confusion when it comes to issues surrounding the initiative petition process. The reason this issue is so confusing is that there is confusion regarding the source of governmental authority in our culture and even in our heritage. One theory propounds that the source of political power is the people. The very first section of the Constitution of Missouri supports this view when it declares that all political power is vested in and derived from the people and that all government of right originates in the people. This is clearly the popular “democratic” view of our nation, that we are a democracy. While the declarations of the Constitution of Missouri are of great weight in this discussion, the political philosophy expressed therein is not entirely supported in history or fact.

Generally, the original thirteen colonies received their governmental authority through royal charters issued by the sovereigns of Europe, whether kings or legislatures. No doubt this approach to granting governmental authority was consistent with the idea of the “divine right of kings” which held sway at the time. While the divine right of kings was greatly abused by the kings of Europe, its core principle was founded upon Scripture, particularly Romans 13, which held sway for most of the two thousand years of Western Civilization. Sir William Blackstone, the great English jurist of the early 1700s, recorded that English common law was subject to the law of God, specifically Scripture. Finally, the writings of the founding fathers almost universally express a fear of democracy. The will of a majority could impose tyranny on a minority just as devastatingly as any king. For that reason, they wrote into the U.S. Constitution a guarantee to every state in the Union for a Republican form of government.

The checks and balances Spaulding points out are inherent in a republican form of government and not in democracies. We see this in the legislative process. In the legislature in Missouri, a bill is submitted to a committee, and the committee holds a hearing. It hears the concerns expressed by opponents. Committee members are given an opportunity to amend the bill. If the bill makes it through the committee, the bill is debated on the floor of the House or Senate. Members have opportunities to amend the bill again. If the bill is passed in one chamber, it has to go to the other chamber and the entire process starts again. This process engenders compromise for the liberty of all. It also permits a consideration of issues unanticipated by those who initiate the law.

The democratic initiative petition process is not geared for the give and take of compromise. It is controlled by the initiative proponents. What is placed on the ballot can be as one sided as the proponents think they can get past the voters. The democratic process of the initiative does not lend itself to guarding the liberties of the minority. Neither is it geared toward a complete analysis of all issues. We have seen certain problems that have arisen from confusing language arising in the renewable energy standard and the puppy mill law, both passed by initiative.

So where does that leave the initiative petition? I agree that there is a place for the initiative petition in a free republic. Even though it is not entirely clear that all political power does actually come from the people, the Constitution of Missouri does vest the power there. The people should be allowed to express their radical displeassure with the state of the law. But isn’t that what elections are all about?

At this point, it is appropriate to make a radical distinction between amending the Constitution and passing a law. By way of analogy, I have argued in other places that amending the U.S. Constitution by use of a Constitutional Convention is a nuclear option when compared to simply utilizing the adequate tools already in the U.S. Constitution to reassert the rights of the states. Similarly, it should be difficult to amend the Constitution of the state of Missouri. The Constitution is the covenant agreement expressing the foundation upon which law is made. Covenants of this nature are the foundation upon which individuals enter into society. Covenants of this nature should not be lightly changed. It should be exceedingly hard to amend the Constitution of the state of Missouri.

With a law, on the other hand, the argument that the state legislature may not have the political incentive to change an unjust law has force. This is the unfortunate reality of living in a world ruled by sinful men and women. The goal, consistent with the principles of republican government, should be to permit the people to initiate the process and so direct a law to achieve the goal of liberty on a certain matter and still subject that process to the refining process of the legislature. Can such a mechanism be devised? Suitable suggestions might include an analogy to the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. The Missouri Legislature has created a joint committee of both Representatives and Senators to which all administrative rules are submitted. The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules may propose to the Missouri Legislature that certain proposed rules not be permitted to go into effect. The Legislature may by resolution, signed by the Governor, so declare. Could a similar mechanism be designed to submit an initiative to a Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions, the purpose of which is to actually enact a law proposed by initiative petition but refined by the Legislature? I admit I do not have the answer.

With these principles in mind, I would prefer to rest on the side of a more consistent republican point of view and maintain that initiative petitions should be difficult to obtain. Many claim that making it more difficult to obtain a ballot measure through the initiative process will provide an advantage to moneyed interests. There is a bit of irony to this argument in that it is actually the initiative petition process by its very nature permits money to have a greater impact on a democratized government. Making it easier to obtain law through the democracy of the initiative petition will permit money to have an even greater influence on a democratized government. This is the advantage of money. It is an unfortunate circumstance of life. The appropriate response is to look to the Missouri Legislature to fulfill its God ordained responsibility of securing the liberty of the people. It is reviewing renewable energy standard and the new puppy mill law this year, which is a good sign.