I monitor some left wing blogs in order to keep up with the current meme that is animating the left. At one time, it was an attack on George Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard. A left-wing blogger named Kevin Drum did a far more thorough study of this story than CBS did, for example, and concluded there was no real story there. I developed considerable respect for Kevin from this incident and have been disappointed to see how few other examples I can find of objective analysis by the left. The current health care debate is one which pits a basic pillar of “progressive thinking”, single payer health care, against the realities of such instances as exist today.
I have been a bit puzzled to see an organization like AARP join Obama on the “reform” bandwagon, such as it is. They are supposed to represent members who are eligible for or members of Medicare and one thing we can all be certain of is the prospect of rationing of care for the elderly in any Obama sponsored plan. It seems that some AARP members have figured this out. maybe the AARP staffers who marched out of that meeting can report the violent oldsters to flag@whitehouse.gov. Here I link to a useful guide for those who wish to identify the evil right wing mob members :).
Anyway, I have run across a good analogy of what this supposed reform is all about. It’s about a new Nomenklatura. That’s the Chicago Way.
It is important that people realize that these government institutions will not be transparent nor will they be fair. A new, parallel system of privileges and favors will arise that will supplant our current system, which is largely cash based. As the government owns and controls more of society, it will be more important than ever to covet the friendship and favor of the Nomenklatura that will control access to queues and prestigious posts.
Luckily we have an entire body of knowledge of how the US will fare as government control increases – our study of the former Communist countries (which was largely done as a response to their military threat, since it was important to understand the “enemy” at the time). For example you can go here and see an interesting research paper related to the topic.
The occasional articles we see on corruption in the system are missing the point; the ENTIRE system will eventually be riven with corruption, because that is essentially how these sorts of socialistic enterprises all end up being run. It isn’t the spots on the dog, but the dog itself.
It is the essence of socialism that, once money is not the medium of exchange, another medium will be found. It is usually one that is available only to the insiders. It’s a bit like cutting $100 million from the trillion dollar budget, then ordering three new $65 million airplanes for Congress to fly around in.
UPDATE: It is now eight new airplanes. Do these people have any sense of where we are ?
Health care will never be more egalitarian than it is now.