No Coercion

George Mason economist Don Boudreaux writes a brilliant letter (over at Cafe Hayek) to Obama regarding something truly bizarre the Mafioso-in-Chief said about rationing:

8 March 2010

Mr. Barack Obama
President, Executive Branch
United States Government
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC  20500

Dear Mr. Obama:

CBS radio news this morning ran a clip of one of your recent speeches.  In it, you criticize insurance companies because they “ration coverage … according to who can pay and who can’t.”

My first thought was “not exactly; coverage is rationed according to who pays and who doesn’t.”  Ability to pay isn’t the same thing as actually paying, and what insurers care about is the latter.  Many folks – especially young adults – have the ability to pay but choose not to do so.  They get no coverage.

But further pondering of your point leads me to look beyond such nit-picking to see fascinating possibilities.  Not only insurers, but all producers who greedily refuse to supply persons who don’t pay should be set aright.  Now I’m sure that you don’t ration the supply of the books you write according to any criteria as sordid as requiring people actually to pay for them.  But our society is full of people less enlightened than you.

For example, the typical worker rations his labor services according to who pays and who doesn’t.  That must stop.  Oh, and supermarkets!  Every single one rations groceries according to who pays.  Likewise with restaurants, clothing stores, home-builders, furniture makers, even lawyers!  You name it, rationing is done according to who pays.  Indeed, my own county government has been corrupted by this greedy attitude: if I don’t pay my taxes, the sheriff takes my house – effectively booting me out of the county merely because I didn’t pay for its services.

Preposterous!

I look forward to your changing this selfish and unfair system of rationing that for too long now has kept Americans impoverished.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

And I love the non-traditional way he addresses the letter, omitting the usual tone of deference.

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By now everyone’s heard about the incident at a MoveOn.org rally in favor of Obama/Pelosi/Marx/KennedyCare in which a “healthcare reform activist” (that’s the media’s term for what I like to refer to as “supporters of state violence”) bit off a counter-demonstrator’s finger tip. In addition to the hilariously inappropriate remark by a commenter on the LA Times blog that “at least we know there are still meat-eaters on the far-left,” I think there are a couple of things of great interest here.

First, it seems fitting that such a vicious aggression would be committed by one of those who are advocating an escalation of the use of violence by the government to confiscate and redistribute wealth and inflict greater restrictions on the ability of individuals to engage in voluntary production and exchange in the area of health care (which they are hoping to do in order to increase their own power as the ruling political class, enrich the business interests allied with them, and appease a bunch of apoplectic voters with big hearts but a tenuous grasp of morality and basic economics).

Second, there was this:

“While we do not have any more facts about what happened than what we saw in press accounts, MoveOn condemns violence in all forms,” Hogue said.

All forms? Really? Your rally was in support of a gross initiation of violence by the state against the productive members of society. Your organization is one of the biggest advocates of the expansion of the state and the violence by which it works. I fear a basic failure to properly define terms has led a great many people to think as this man does–that violence, when committed by an entity with a monopoly on the legal use of force, is somehow not actually violence and not actually wrong.

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Barack Obama (I’ve decided to stop using terms of authority and respect for politicians of any party) is continuing to escalate the war in Afghanistan:
Obama aides see need for more troops in Afghanistan
Officials: US to Add 14,000 Combat Troops in Afghanistan

This is rich. A bunch of suckers (i.e. Democrats and anti-war independents) elected Obama thinking he would somehow stop U.S. military aggression (even though he had a half-hearted, long, drawn-out proposal for extricating us from Iraq and talked openly about invading Pakistan!), and now they are starting to see that he has exactly as much respect for peace and prosperity as Bush did.

Stefan Molyneux, in describing the multiple ways that governments lead to war in Practical Anarchy, finishes with this:

If the above is understood, then the hostility of anarchists towards the State should now be at least a little clearer. In the anarchist view, the State is a fundamental moral evil not only because it uses violence to achieve its ends, but also because it is the only social agency capable of making war economically advantageous to those with the power to declare it and profit from it. In other words, it is only through the governmental power of taxation that war can be subsidized to the point where it becomes profitable to certain sections of society. Destruction can only ever be profitable because the costs and risks of violence are shifted to the taxpayers, while the benefits accrue to the few who directly control or influence the State.

This violent distortion of costs, incentives and rewards cannot be controlled or alleviated, since an artificial imbalance of economic incentives will always self-perpetuate and escalate (at least, until the inevitable bankruptcy of the public purse). Or, to put it another way, as long as the State exists, we shall always live with the terror of war. To oppose war is to oppose the State. They can neither be examined in isolation nor opposed separately, since – much more than metaphorically – the State and war are two sides of the same bloody coin.

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By now everyone knows about the infamous White House blog post calling for people to e-mail anything “fishy” they hear or read about the current health care “reform” proposal. It says:

If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Now, I’m sure they would say that they’re not looking for individuals, but rather only the arguments they’re using to oppose the “reform” bill. Nevertheless, you can’t be too careful in this era of disappearing civil liberties, and I want to do the right thing and come forward rather than have someone else turn me in. So here’s an e-mail I just sent to flag@whitehouse.gov:

Dear White House Disinformation Control Center (or whatever you call it),

I would like to turn myself in for spreading what you refer to as “disinformation” about health care reform. You say that “facts are stubborn things,” and I couldn’t agree more. Here are a few that I’m aware of:

1. Every time a human being freely takes a particular action (or opts to not take an action), he does so for one reason–to bring about circumstances for himself that he believes will make him better off in some way than any alternative choices he could have made.

2. When two parties engage in a voluntary exchange, they do so because they both benefit (whether physically, financially, emotionally, or in any other way).

3. Any barriers to such voluntary exchange decrease the wealth or utility that is produced by such an exchange.

4. Health care and health insurance are goods, like any others, that people seek to obtain or provide in order to improve their circumstances.

5. There is no possible way for government to legislate goods into existence.

6. There is no possible way for government to make better decisions for people than they make for themselves when they engage in voluntary exchanges based on actual costs and benefits.

7. Health care costs are rising precisely because of widespread government interference with individuals’ choices regarding how to improve their circumstances.

8. Additional actions by government will comprise even greater barriers to individuals’ ability to obtain low cost, high quality health care.

9. The only thing government can do to improve the state of health care is eliminate the actions it currently takes to hinder voluntary exchanges among free people.

Facts are indeed stubborn things.

Darren O’Connor
XXXX XXXXXXX Drive
Durham, NC XXXXX
NoCoercion.com

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John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, had a great column in the Wall Street Journal a couple days ago:

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

Mackey lists eight things government should do to reform health care that don’t involve increasing government control, power, and spending (including a couple I’ve mentioned before).

The only one I might take issue with is his recommendation to “make costs transparent.” I’m not sure what he means by that. It gives the impression of some kind of government regulatory agency imposing transparency as is done in some other sectors. That, of course, I would argue strongly against as government aggression. Of course, he may simply mean that government should halt particular actions it currently takes that actually prevent cost transparency, in which case I heartily support the idea.

Also (and this may just be an issue of imprecise wording), he mentions that the “right” to health care “has never existed in America.” This is true, of course, but logically speaking, there can be no such thing as a “right” to a certain level of health care, regardless of your particular country. As I point out regularly, a right to a certain level of health care (or housing, or wage rate) would imply the necessity of Peter robbing Paul to pay for it, and that violates the fundamental right of all sentient beings–the right not to have force initiated against your person or property. And when that fundamental right is not recognized, we’re no better than animals fighting over scarce resources under a regime of “might makes right.”

At any rate, a generally outstanding piece by the wise Mr. Mackey.

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The recent USA Today opinion column by Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi reeks of double standards.

So people who are opposed to any kind of socialist health coverage reforms who attend town hall meetings to express their opposition to their Congressthings are “un-American.” But when people who were disgusted with Bush and GOP policies (like starting wars) protested quite loudly for a good 8 years, it was deemed (correctly, for the most part) by Democratic politicians to be an exercise in the right to free speech.

The charge that these health care protesters are being ‘put up to it’ by the Republican and Libertarian parties is both hypocritical and inaccurate.

First, the anti-Bush protesters were just as much put up to it as these anti-Obama protesters are; that is, they were already strongly opposed to the Bush policies and the Democratic (and sometimes Libertarian) Party helped organize and focus their opposition in the form of protests and speaking out at events held by Republican politicians. What’s the difference?

Second, there is nothing at all wrong with an organization such as a political party organizing its members to ‘ambush’ politicians by showing up in force and demanding they answer tough questions. That’s one of the things for which political parties exist. As economies progress, the division of labor results in increasing specialization in order to use resources ever more efficiently, thus creating wealth. Some people (political party staff) specialize in identifying opportunities to protest a policy they disagree with and organizing people who agree with them to get out there and raise hell. So people who genuinely disagree with a policy strongly enough to protest against it but don’t have time to identify opportunities and organize their friends simply join political parties or interest groups that e-mail them the latest plans for grassroots protests and then head on over after work.

Sounds like Steny and Nancy are just a little too thin-skinned for a taste of what their own people have been doing to the GOP for the past 8 years.

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Obama and the more leftist Democrats in Congress are bound and determined to “fix” American health care with some form of massive federal involvement in health insurance coverage. As with the financial crisis, the government is purporting to fix a problem that stems from too much government interference in the market…by imposing even more government interference in the market.

In industries burdened far less by government tampering consumers get products of ever-increasing quality at ever-decreasing prices. In a free market we would especially expect to see such a pattern in health care, but we don’t. And the reason has nothing to do with “greedy” doctors or drug companies or insurance companies–unless of course you think that greed (that is, the natural human desire to improve one’s circumstances) is limited to the health care industry and that all those cell phone, computer, and coffee maker companies are giving you better and cheaper products out of a sense of charity. No, the reason has everything to do with government actions hindering a free market.

Here are just a few of the ways, in no particular order, that government (often in the name of “protecting the consumer”) keeps you from enjoying the benefits of a free market in health care:

1) Professional licensing. Every state government requires health care providers (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, chiropractors, etc.) to be licensed by the state. This is simply a barrier to entry that existing providers tend to favor because it reduces competition and allows them to charge higher fees. Rather than protect consumers, it leaves them with fewer (and more expensive) choices.

2) Pharmaceutical and medical device regulation. The FDA regulates drugs and devices and imposes massive costs on their development. The result is that many drugs and devices that could help people never make it to the market, and those that do are delayed by many years, are much more expensive, and usually are restricted even further by being prescription-only.

3) Tax code. The federal tax code creates an incentive for employers-provided health coverage (a practice that originated as a result of totalitarian WWII-era wage controls), thus encouraging extensive third-party medical payments. When consumers pay less for something, they use more of it. Medical providers know that individual consumers are not shopping around, so there’s less incentive for them to be competitive on price.

4) Medicare and Medicaid. Just as with government subsidies for college tuition, the subsidizing of health care through Medicare and Medicaid cause demand to be artificially increased, thus causing prices for everyone else to rise well beyond natural market levels. And of course the increasing prices drain individuals’ income and thus create additional “need” for Medicaid and other government welfare. In addition, when you subsidize health care, you incentivize poor health, increasing demand yet again. Finally, the large number of Americans now on Medicare, combined with the rules governing reimbursements for each procedure or medication, means that medical pricing in America is now grossly distorted by the federal government. On a related point, the government requires hospitals to admit and treat anyone who comes in, thus further increasing demand on these facilities and raising prices for everyone.

5) Insurance regulation. Insurance companies are regulated by state governments, which restrict insurers’ and consumers’ freedom to contract with one another as they see fit. Insurers are forced by law to insure uninsurable risks, thus driving up prices. They are prevented from effectively discriminating between various risk levels among consumers, driving up prices even more.

6) Perpetuating the “right to health care” myth. Government at all levels tends to make pronouncements and take actions that perpetuate the erroneous belief that there is a right to health care. Any regular readers of my blog know where I stand on that–it is logically impossible to have a right to something when the provision of that right requires the forcible confiscation of another person’s property (thus, there can be no such thing as a right to a certain level of health care, housing, wages, etc). But government creates a feedback loop with its health-care-is-a-right propaganda that boosts support for additional socialist measures to control health care.

These are just a few of the government actions that have caused our health care costs to rise so dramatically. And Obama’s solution is more government control of the industry? I can only hope there are enough Americans still possessing enough critical reasoning aptitude and desire for freedom and prosperity that this latest attempt to expand government oppression will fail.

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