Euthanasia for Clunkers: The So-Called 'Healthcare Bill'

“Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.”

President Obama (June 24, 2009) – on the topic of health care for elderly people

If the government can’t handle a $1 billion program that’s as simple as giving a $4,500 check to those who trade in an old car, how can it be trusted to administer a $1 trillion program where your life is on the line? Of course it can’t. The Cash For Clunkers program was a 136 page bill in Congress, and the Euthanasia For Clunkers program (the so-called “health care bill”) is around 1,000 pages just for starters. Its main purpose is to kill whatever remaining aspects of private health care, in favor of a Washington DC politbureau which will decide what health care you will, or will not, obtain.

As with every single government program, this massive socialist scheme will naturally generate a vast bureaucracy, cost many times more than what is being promised today, and deliver abysmal services. This is really so obvious that it shouldn’t be necessary to argue the point, but in the age of the Obama Marxist takeover of America, it has become necessary to explain these basics.

We already have numerous government health care programs – so many, in fact, that the government directly accounts for one third of health care expense in America already. If you include indirect spending and control, the number could be closer to two thirds. Some of the larger government bureaucracies include Medicare (for the elderly) and Medicaid (for the poor). Then we have a long list of other special programs for other groups in society: Indian reservations, the military, Congress and children, among others. The elderly and the poor already being covered, the only remaining purpose of Obama’s multi-trillion-dollar government bureaucracy is to cover those of us who already have health care, as well as one new group of approximately 10 million illegal invaders, people who in most cases ran across the border in direct defiance of US law.

In order for the government to take over the health care system, and to cover approximately 10 million illegals, while at the same time not increasing the number of doctors, nurses or hospitals by a single person or unit, someone else needs to get less health care. Who will have to surrender more than taxes in order to balance this equation? Most likely, all of us will pay to some extent, but the elderly will be the prime target. In Obama’s Marxist philosophy, they have out-lived their useful lives and seeing that as in his mind property rights don’t exist, the elderly in particular can have everything taken away from them by the state. After all, “we” ARE the state, in the view of the Marxist. And you can’t sue yourself.

The already-existing government programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, are already bankrupt and huge failures. 21% of state budgets go to Medicaid alone. Anyone serious about health care reform would start by getting rid of programs that don’t work. If we abolished these huge government bureaucracies that drain private industry, this country would be a lot more competitive with the faster-growing economies around the world. Instead, with Medicare and Medicaid being total failures, Obama and Pelosi are proposing a new and even huger bureaucracy to serve as a super-umbrella-bureaucracy over all the failures. It is rewarding failure with power. Mr. and Mrs. Government Bureaucrat, you’ve failed in everything that you do. You’ve squandered tens of trillions of dollars. Now, let’s give you a gigantic increase in power!

If Obama and Pelosi get their way with the Euthanasia For Clunkers bill, expect all of us, but particularly the elderly, to await that “thumbs up, thumbs down” scene from the movie Gladiator. Need a pace maker? Thumbs down, take a pill. Need hip surgery? Thumbs down, take a pill.

Obama has said as much; perhaps we should listen for a change. When politicians promise nothing but sweetness, light and jingles, it’s time to question and be suspicious. But when politicians basically tell you that they will stick it to you, then it’s time to ring the alarm bell, just like Winston Churchill did in the 1930s. Remember that paperhanger in Austria who moved to Munich and wrote the book “Mein Kampf” in the 1920s? Perhaps we should have listened a bit earlier, no?

There is one, albeit dubious, benefit with the Euthanasia For Clunkers bill, and that’s in the form of “shovel-ready” government stimulus. What do I mean? In order to administer any of these programs, including Cash For Clunkers, there is the need to construct new government offices to house tens of thousands of bureaucrats. It will surely increase employment in the government, with tens of thousands of people being hired to investigate all aspects of your life, so that you minimize your health care expense. What do you eat? We have to change your diet. How much do you exercise? Stop when the dog stops. What do you drive? Make all motorcycles illegal or tax them like tobacco. So the building of these new government bureaucracy facilities will indeed stimulate the construction industry. But the same thing could have been said about Auschwitz.

Disclosure: No positions

Comments

[Tim Miles:]

Congrats, Anton, for spouting the same old drivel that comes out of Fox News. The Clunkers program is actually working very well, to the extent that Congress is probably going to provide $2 billion more. By the way, the VA (run by the Federal Government) also provides better care than many private sector hospitals as surveys show. Time to move on.

Aug 03 09:04 AM

[William L. ...:]

There is a lot of political commentary out there, but I have been looking for a dispassionate summary of the costs and benefits of the healthcare legislation, free of accusations and name-calling. Can anyone point me to such a summary? Also, has anyone quantified reductions in costs due to the government's purchasing power. This was something both Republicans and Democrats talked about in the primaries, but I have not heard any discussion of it recently.

Aug 03 09:06 AM

[Mad Hedge F...:]

Seems to be working to me. Perhaps it was the newspaper gene in me that made me screech my car to a halt when I saw a near riot in progress at my local Toyota (TM) dealer. The showroom was more jammed than the unemployment office, with eager salesmen recalled from vacations, manning card tables set up in every available space. I managed to grab one peripatetic salesman by a lapel, who gushed that they sold 45 cars yesterday, compared to ten for a normal Friday, and that 35 of these were the fruit of the “Cash for Clunkers” program. Sure I could get a $4,500 credit for my 1995 BMW (17 mpg), and apply it to a new Prius (50 mpg), taking the price down to $19,500 and the monthly payment to $450/month for five years. In fact, the government stimulus program was so successful, that it ran out of money in the first four days, and congress rushed to triple it to $3 billion on Friday. It was like the survivors of a ship torpedoed at sea were swimming frantically for the only piece of wreckage that floated. Assuming that the average car drives 10,000 miles a year, and the average swap generates a mileage improvement from 15 mpg to 27 mpg, junking 750,000 clunkers will save 30 million barrels of crude a year, 1.5 days of our total annual consumption, or three days of imports. I asked to see the cars that were traded in and was told that the lots for the dealer, the used cars, and the detailer were all full, but I could see some if I went to the Target nearby where they were renting extra spaces. There I saw the fleet condemned to clunkerdom, GM Safari’s, Jeep Cherokees, Buick Regals, Dodge Ram pickup trucks and vans, and Chrysler minivans by the dozen, all with “CFC” marked on their windshields, a certain death sentence. These sorry excuses for transportation will never belch blue smoke, nor drip oil on our interstates again. I can’t imagine a sorrier commentary on the management failure of the US car industry for the last 30 years.

Aug 03 09:18 AM

[Tasteless:]

Comparing healthcare in the US to Hitler and Auschwitz is completely tasteless and offensive. You are free to disagree (something that was never encouraged under that last administration), but have some class when you do it.

Aug 03 09:23 AM

[Briber:]

Utter bull...slight play on words.

Aug 03 09:59 AM

[The Recusant:]

"the elderly will be the prime target"... "Obama Marxist takeover of America"..."Obama’s Marxist philosophy"...say, I recognize this stuff. Rush, is that you?

Aug 03 09:09 PM

[Anton Wahlman:]

Indeed I think Rush Limbaugh is awesome. May I also suggest that I believe Mark Levin (marklevinshow.com) to be even better.

On Aug 03 09:09 PM The Recusant wrote:

> "the elderly will be the prime target"... "Obama Marxist takeover
> of America"..."Obama’s Marxist philosophy"...say, I recognize this
> stuff. Rush, is that you?

Aug 03 10:48 PM

[User 321716:]

If government managed health care will be such a disaster, why is the private insurance so scared of a public option? Could it be related to the several 100% increase in private insurance profits from 2001 to 2008 while the number of uninsured increased? Or the decline in the % of revenues of private insurers actually spent on medical costs?

For every one sob story out of Canada there are a million tragedies in the US.

Health care is one arena that is fundamentally unsuited to aggressive capitalism - if you care about people, that is.

Aug 11 12:03 PM

[Wildflower:]

I am sure there are those who sounded the alarm when Hitler was coming into popularity/power. The open minded did not listen to the narrow minded and millions were slaughtered as a result.
Without standards anything can sound logical.
We are unemployed, but somehow eek out over $300/mo. for $7500 deductible health insurance. I am glad to have the choice and i hope we will continue to have that.
My Grandfather was an immigrant. He declined receiving social security because he was proud and would not accept help from the government....would there were more of us like that.
Big government does not seem to lead to a content, happy and prosperous people...if it is big enough to give you everything it is big enough to take it away....
Wake up people! Before you accept change make sure it is change for the better!

Aug 12 09:20 AM

[William L. ...:]

The New York Times this week has carried a good summary of the current legislation, and it has a good tool on its website for comparing the vaious healthcare bills.


On Aug 03 09:06 AM William L. Florida, CFA wrote:

> There is a lot of political commentary out there, but I have been
> looking for a dispassionate summary of the costs and benefits of
> the healthcare legislation, free of accusations and name-calling.
> Can anyone point me to such a summary? Also, has anyone quantified
> reductions in costs due to the government's purchasing power. This
> was something both Republicans and Democrats talked about in the
> primaries, but I have not heard any discussion of it recently.

Oct 14 08:56 AM