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‘Grab A Mop And Get To Work’
By Bradley Harrington, For The Bulletin
“We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.” —Thomas Paine, "The American Crisis, No 4,” 1777
President Barack Obama, in his massive push to complete the process of health-care nationalization begun decades ago, has not been happy with his Republican critics as of late, his responses to which have been, “’What I reject is when some folks sit on the sidelines and root for failure,’ he said…‘I’m busy,’ he told the crowd…‘Why don’t you grab a mop? Why don’t you help clean up? …Let’s get to work.’” (“’Grab a mop,’ Mr. Obama tells health care overhaul critics,” Matthew Jaffe, ABC News, Oct. 16.)
Get to work doing what? The president proposes, not to mop up the mess, but to dump the rest of the filthy water out of the bucket and onto the floor. At that point, mops will no longer be good enough; bilge pumps will be the order of the day, and the Republicans are right to reject such measures.
Anyone, of course, can criticize the stupidity of government-mandated slavery when they see it: what are the Republicans for?
This would be the perfect time for some right-thinking Republicans, should any be looming on the horizon, to stand front and center and articulate the merits of establishing a complete free-market system in health care. Such proposals would include, but not be limited to:
(1) Abolishing medical licensing requirements; such licenses have merely stifled competition by being repeatedly used by groups such as the American Medical Association (AMA) to limit access to medical schooling and restrict the number of new medical doctors. As Milton Friedman once observed, “Licensure has reduced both the quantity and quality of medical practice. It has retarded technological development both in medicine itself and in the organization of medical practice.” (“Capitalism and Freedom,” 1962.)
(2) Scrapping Medicare and Medicaid. These socialist programs have been with us since Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” and have near-completely destroyed the normal market process of payment for services rendered. Both programs have proven to be dangerously more expensive than they were ever supposed to be and have done nothing more than create a dependent class of beholden-to-the-state serfs out of millions of our elderly and disabled. A better solution would be to “charge premiums, proportionate to lifetime earnings, for all parts of Medicare; allow seniors to opt out of Medicare without losing their Social Security benefits; replace Medicare with a prefunded system where workers invest their Medicare taxes in personal accounts dedicated to their health needs in retirement; and grant all Medicare beneficiaries a voucher used to purchase a health plan of their choice.” (“On Health Care Reform,” The Cato Institute, 2009.)
(3) Dissolving the tremendous mass of regulations that dominate all aspects of health care and — especially — getting rid of the ban on purchasing health insurance across state lines. “A 2004 study by eHealthInsurance found monthly premiums varying widely across different cities. In their study they found that for a family of four an insurance product with a $2,000 family deductible and 20 percent co-insurance could be had in Kansas City, Mo. for a monthly premium of $171.86, while that same coverage in Boston would cost $767.30.” (“Costly Mandates Price Many Workers Out of Health Care Insurance,” Council For Affordable Health Insurance, 2005.)
(4) Promoting individual-based health care plans instead of employer-based plans by terminating the tax credits for employer-based insurance. “Thanks to wartime wage and price controls imposed by the Roosevelt administration in 1943, employer-provided health insurance became tax-free to the employees. That benefit tied health insurance to employment, gave the power of choice to the employer, and denied portability when employees changed jobs.” (“Health Care and the Free Market,” John McLaughry, The Bennington Banner, Oct. 20.)
(5) Implementing tort reform on frivolous malpractice suits. “The malpractice system is supposed to compensate victims of medical errors for their injuries and discourage future errors by medical providers. It does both jobs poorly and it imposes large costs on doctors, employers and patients.” (“Medical Malpractice: 10 Steps to Tort Reform,” John C. Goodman, National Center for Policy Analysis, 2008.)
So, you disapproving Republicans, “grab a mop” and “let’s get to work.” A thoroughly appropriate request, if you ask me, since it was, after all, the gutless GOP politicians, who have always been too afraid to stand up consistently for true capitalism and freedom, who have been the true architects of this health care debacle from the beginning.
Bradley Harrington is a former United States Marine and a free-lance writer who lives in Cheyenne, Wyo.
President Barack Obama, in his massive push to complete the process of health-care nationalization begun decades ago, has not been happy with his Republican critics as of late, his responses to which have been, “’What I reject is when some folks sit on the sidelines and root for failure,’ he said…‘I’m busy,’ he told the crowd…‘Why don’t you grab a mop? Why don’t you help clean up? …Let’s get to work.’” (“’Grab a mop,’ Mr. Obama tells health care overhaul critics,” Matthew Jaffe, ABC News, Oct. 16.)
Get to work doing what? The president proposes, not to mop up the mess, but to dump the rest of the filthy water out of the bucket and onto the floor. At that point, mops will no longer be good enough; bilge pumps will be the order of the day, and the Republicans are right to reject such measures.
Anyone, of course, can criticize the stupidity of government-mandated slavery when they see it: what are the Republicans for?
This would be the perfect time for some right-thinking Republicans, should any be looming on the horizon, to stand front and center and articulate the merits of establishing a complete free-market system in health care. Such proposals would include, but not be limited to:
(1) Abolishing medical licensing requirements; such licenses have merely stifled competition by being repeatedly used by groups such as the American Medical Association (AMA) to limit access to medical schooling and restrict the number of new medical doctors. As Milton Friedman once observed, “Licensure has reduced both the quantity and quality of medical practice. It has retarded technological development both in medicine itself and in the organization of medical practice.” (“Capitalism and Freedom,” 1962.)
(2) Scrapping Medicare and Medicaid. These socialist programs have been with us since Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” and have near-completely destroyed the normal market process of payment for services rendered. Both programs have proven to be dangerously more expensive than they were ever supposed to be and have done nothing more than create a dependent class of beholden-to-the-state serfs out of millions of our elderly and disabled. A better solution would be to “charge premiums, proportionate to lifetime earnings, for all parts of Medicare; allow seniors to opt out of Medicare without losing their Social Security benefits; replace Medicare with a prefunded system where workers invest their Medicare taxes in personal accounts dedicated to their health needs in retirement; and grant all Medicare beneficiaries a voucher used to purchase a health plan of their choice.” (“On Health Care Reform,” The Cato Institute, 2009.)
(3) Dissolving the tremendous mass of regulations that dominate all aspects of health care and — especially — getting rid of the ban on purchasing health insurance across state lines. “A 2004 study by eHealthInsurance found monthly premiums varying widely across different cities. In their study they found that for a family of four an insurance product with a $2,000 family deductible and 20 percent co-insurance could be had in Kansas City, Mo. for a monthly premium of $171.86, while that same coverage in Boston would cost $767.30.” (“Costly Mandates Price Many Workers Out of Health Care Insurance,” Council For Affordable Health Insurance, 2005.)
(4) Promoting individual-based health care plans instead of employer-based plans by terminating the tax credits for employer-based insurance. “Thanks to wartime wage and price controls imposed by the Roosevelt administration in 1943, employer-provided health insurance became tax-free to the employees. That benefit tied health insurance to employment, gave the power of choice to the employer, and denied portability when employees changed jobs.” (“Health Care and the Free Market,” John McLaughry, The Bennington Banner, Oct. 20.)
(5) Implementing tort reform on frivolous malpractice suits. “The malpractice system is supposed to compensate victims of medical errors for their injuries and discourage future errors by medical providers. It does both jobs poorly and it imposes large costs on doctors, employers and patients.” (“Medical Malpractice: 10 Steps to Tort Reform,” John C. Goodman, National Center for Policy Analysis, 2008.)
So, you disapproving Republicans, “grab a mop” and “let’s get to work.” A thoroughly appropriate request, if you ask me, since it was, after all, the gutless GOP politicians, who have always been too afraid to stand up consistently for true capitalism and freedom, who have been the true architects of this health care debacle from the beginning.
Bradley Harrington is a former United States Marine and a free-lance writer who lives in Cheyenne, Wyo.
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Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of thebulletin.us.
American Medical Assn wrote on Oct 26, 2009 1:48 PM:
" To clarify, the AMA does not limit the number of people who become physicians and has no power to do so. The AMA continues to advocate for an increase in the physician workforce, especially as we work for all Americans to have affordable, high-quality health coverage. We need to attract the best and brightest to careers in medicine and
help practicing physicians continue to provide high quality patient care.
American Medical Association "
help practicing physicians continue to provide high quality patient care.
American Medical Association "
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JEngdahlJ wrote on Oct 25, 2009 8:12 PM: