Out of desperation, Obama makes the conservative case

Last week, President Obama gave an interview to Spanish-language media. In a question from the audience, a man observed that he can't afford the plans available to his family under ObamaCare. Obama's response is interesting.

I guess what I would say is if you looked at that person's budget, and you looked at their cable bill, their telephone bill... other things that they're spending on, it may turn out that it's just they haven't prioritized health care.

What is interesting is that this is a fundamentally conservative argument. The notion that individuals are responsible for their own needs, and that they must prioritize and make informed choices about what is best for them is not something we hear from the Left very often.

If only Obama actually believed this and championed policies that were grounded on this philosophy. We would be spared programs like ObamaCare, Common Core, minimum wage laws, "stimulus" bills, and the rest. All these programs are founded on exactly the opposite premise: that the needs of every person and family are the same, and that only a few Really Smart People in Washington know what those needs are, how they should be provided, how much they should cost, and how much you should be fined if you don't do as you're told.

The truth is, Obama doesn't believe the things he said in the interview. He only said them because they were convenient. When confronted with the on-the-ground reality that the "Affordable" Care Act isn't actually affordable, he adopted an argument his opponents have been making all along for why ObamaCare is a bad idea: Everyone's circumstances are different. They know their circumstances better than anyone else. And so they need as much freedom as possible to prioritize and make the choices that are best for them and their families.

Think it over, then do as you're told

Washington Times:

The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it would allow insurers to issue until October 2016 health plans that do not meet Obamacare regulations, pushing back another Affordable Care Act deadline well past November's midterms.

Facing the prospect of another wave of cancellation notices this fall, the administration took even further action to mitigate the blowback from President Obama's broken promise that all Americans could keep their health care plans under Obamacare.

Not long ago, congressional Republicans attempted to pass legislation which would have made changes to ObamaCare. Obama fought this legislation, insisting that ObamaCare is "settled law." This made no sense, of course, since Congress has the constitutional authority to pass new laws. A law is only "settled" until Congress says it's not. (The president has veto power, of course, but the point stands: there is no such thing as settled law as Obama would have it.)

Since then, Obama has made dozens of changes to what he insists is "settled law," all without these changes being first voted on by Congress. The president has no authority to make or change laws on his own, which means that in addition to being a liar and a hypocrite, Obama has repeatedly violated the oath he took to uphold the Constitution. In a sane world, he would be impeached for this, but we don't live in a sane world.

As the Times article suggests, this latest change, allowing insurers not to obey "settled law" until after the 2016 presidential election, is politically motivated. Democrats own ObamaCare, and they can't afford to have millions of cancellation notices sent out prior to a big election. They say otherwise, of course, but the rationale they give is completely transparent:

“We’re extending this to give people an opportunity to make a judgment about what works best for them and their families,” a senior administration official said, briefing reporters on the major policy change.

Let's walk this through. The law, as written, automatically cancels the insurance policies of millions of Americans and forces them into policies the government says they must have. People are upset about this, as Obama repeatedly promised them the law would do no such thing. ("If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.")

So now comes this delay, pushing the betrayal of that promise up past the 2016 presidential election. And the reason given is "to give people an opportunity to make a judgment about what works best for them." But what will happen after people make that judgement? The government will ignore it, cancel their policies, and herd them into ObamaCare policies anyway! 

We'll give you a little time to decide before we force you to do it our way.

I'm tempted to ask just how stupid they think we are, but we keep electing people who treat us like sheep, so I guess I have my answer.

The local effect of ObamaCare

I had a medical scare a couple of nights ago and had to drive myself to the local emergency room. Fortunately, it turned out to be something relatively minor, but while I was there I took the opportunity to ask a nurse how ObamaCare was impacting things at the hospital. Here's what I learned.

To begin with, Anthem is the only insurance company in the state that is participating in the ObamaCare exchange -- so much for Obama's promise of increased choice and competition. Next, for some reason I don't fully understand, Anthem is only able to cover patients served by one of the two hospitals in my area. As a result, the Anthem patients who would normally go to the hospital nearest me (Hospital A) are now required to drive across town to the other hospital (Hospital B). This means that Hospital B is being flooded with new patients -- crowding and delays, on top of the inconvenience of the extra travel on icy New Hampshire roads. In response, many of the Medicare patients that would normally go to Hospital B are now driving across town to Hospital A to avoid the logjam at Hospital B. So Hospital A is now treating more Medicare patients and fewer patients with private insurance. Since the government only reimburses doctors for a fraction of each dollar spent on Medicare patients, Hospital A is not only losing money from the lost Anthem patients, it's also losing money on the extra Medicare patients it's picked up.

How's that for a government "solution"?

Red States vs. Blue States

Here's something.

The Mercatus Center has just released a study that examines states’ abilities to meet their financial obligations. It isn't a pretty picture, mostly due to rising health care costs and the burden of government worker pensions.

Here's the thing I found most interesting. Take a look at the top and bottom 10 and notice how Red States states compare to Blue States. (Wikipedia has some handy maps which show voting trends over the past couple of decades.)

Top 10:
1. Alaska
2. South Dakota
3. North Dakota
4. Nebraska
5. Wyoming
6. Florida
7. Ohio
8. Tennessee
9. Montana
10. Alabama

Bottom 10:
50. New Jersey
49. Connecticut
48. Illinois
47. Massachusetts
46. California
45. New York
44. Maryland
43. Hawaii
42. Pennsylvania
41. West Virginia
40. Kentucky

 Pretty definitive, no?

Eight of the top 10 fiscally solvent states are solidly Red; eight of the bottom 10 fiscally solvent states are solidly Blue.

Further, the same striking pattern emerges when we look at other measures of success. I took a look at William P. Ruger and Jason Sorens' latest edition of Freedom in the 50 States. In it, they rank the states by a host of measures of personal and economic freedom. If you take a few minutes to thumb through the various charts, you'll see that Red states consistently outperform Blue states, especially when it comes to fiscal issues.

There was a time when we didn't have the data to determine whether conservative or liberal policies lead to better outcomes over the long run. But that time has long past. We now have many decades of data to examine, and the results are clear: liberal policies don't hold up over time.

And this is true on the world stage as well. Compare East Germany to West Germany, Hong Kong to mainland China, or North Korea to South Korea. In each case we see free market policies along side state-controlled economies within the same culture and time. The free market approach wins every time, and the differences are dramatic.