The last time that Socialists tried seriously to nationalize the US Health Care industry was under Bill Clinton.

The insurmountable problems at that time were, among numerous minor issues: Privacy and Standards.

THe HIPAA act resolved both of those issues to the satisfaction of the more compassionate (meaning slightly less ruthless)Nanny State advocates in Congress. The stage is set for this to happen under Obama. I don’t know if he can get it done. There is still a strong anti-Socialism streak in American’s, even amongst those who appear to promote it with everything they say and do. There can’t be any illusion; Americans have to face the choice head on, “Do I want to be a slave to the State?” or “Do I want to continue be a free individual?”

I sure hope the opposition to Socialism is much larger than the folks running the country do…but I’m not optimistic about that.

The good news is that for people right now today, and for the first decade after the Socialization happens, the prices may come down, or even be “free.”

The bad news is that in the long run many of the meds people take for granted will cease to exist. Our pharmaceutical industry will be ground into dust just like it has been in every other country that nationalized the industry. Eventually, we will have no choice but to buy most medicines from other countries…just like Canada does. In order to get a good price, our Health Czar will have to lower quality standards and recommended dosages. They will hire more unskilled labor to deliver bureaucratic care instead of skilled labor to deliver professional care. Socialized medicine amounts to “the BEST care EVERYONE can have.” The problem is that some people, a LOT of people don’t understand that isn’t a good thing.

Once the industry has been nationalized the incentive to remove or reduce costs or to research new meds or to optimize the balance between quality and cost is removed. It doesn’t take long for health care to become a form of control that is applied by a mindless bureaucracy that never improves, it only consumes more and more resources for its own maintenance.

Already our trend towards Socialism has fueled enormous investments in health care industry products and services in places that intend to compete. To be fair, socialist European countries provided the first incentives for the Asian nations to realize they could dominate health care in the future. The impending doom of competition and innovation in the USA health industry has turned a good idea into an historical milestone, a major turning point in the crumbling of the American Empire.

Just as the anti-business, anti-individual Nanny State policies have slowly and incessantly pushed our manufacturing capability overseas, the same thing is happening and will accelerate dramatically under a Socialist health care system. The amplification of the Nanny State policies while simultaneously focusing them intensely on crushing the business of health care out of existence, will ensure our future dependence on foreign sources for medical devices and drugs.

The problem is infuriating but I have no better answer for it than anyone in the history of civilization has.

People in the present who are happy and comfortable are apparently ALWAYS willing to sacrifice their children’s future when it comes to their determination to maintain and enhance their own comfort and convenience.

People in the present who are oppressed, poor and desperate are ALWAYS willing to sacrifice even more of their miserable existence in the present to make a better future for their children.

Over generations, these people ALWAYS swap positions. This happens regardless of how much stimulus they can borrow or print, or how many “barbarians” they slaughter on the alter of comfort due to fear of losing it.

The reason I loathe most politicians is because they know the immoral destructive force they wield upon future generations yet they do it anyway. Each for their own reasons. The obvious and pervasive reason politicians support the use of such destructive force is because it funnels power and adulation onto themselves and their benefactors. The support infrastructure for the system is pervasive throughout the world and has been for nearly a century. The public schools are designed to produce interchangeable economic morons that are more easily influenced and manipulated by Academic Guilds ensconced in our major universities.

The job of the guilds is to produce economic mystics who promote the dastardly policies required to finance the system and its loyal parasites. Most of these mystics merely continue in the guild and never really leave the shelter of the university enclave. Some, however, are elevated to elite celebrity status. Honored by a body of their peers, these celebrities come with built-in credibility, a stamp of approval from the mystics that create them. Wonderful.

Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman is a perfect example. He is popular with the media because he says what people want to hear. He is good for ratings. No one wants a regular dose of the truth when it isn’t pleasant. Krugman has no dependency on truth or history or even his own past statements. He makes it up as he goes. He is absolutely eager to step up to make “expert” excuses for why the policy and heroes he bases them on are not jiving with reality.

In the age of willing ignorance and desperation to prolong the present at the expense of the future, Krugman is a hero. Politicians love him because he protects their parasitic attachment to the productivity of the nation’s citizens. The people love him because he provides a supposedly popularity-based foundation upon which to base their denial that they are repeating a cycle of destruction that is well documented and well trodden. The university Guild Masters and adoring apprentices and the army of rank and file economics professors love him because of the glory he has brought to their arcane theories and rituals demanded for the constant update and patching of those theories.

Krugman is also an fine example of the liberal “fail forward” process of advancement and promotion. This is based on the phenomena that any press is good press. Big press for enormous failures and embarrassments is easier to get than big press for successes. Thus, “fail forward” is a dominant force in the liberal political hierarchy…simply because it works. The ends justify the means.

Well, bouncing from one Socialist tool back to the one that I started this article with, I hope it takes President Obama a lot longer to socialize our health care than he is planning…however long that is.

I believe only the complete collapse of our economy before he gets it done will be able to stop him…and that is certainly nothing to go on record hoping for. 🙂 There it is. I hope the economy collapses before Obama can socialize health care. Better sooner than later. He is working very hard on multiple fronts to ensure the rapid collapse the economy…so, it is kind of a race to destruction…which will we reach first?

-Jahfre Fire Eater