Medicare: It’s a Capitalist Thing

 

Labels are devices to save talkative persons the trouble of thinking.  John Morley

 

Let’s dispose of a liberal talking point about Medicare that the Obamabots in media are constantly getting wrong.

 

When Americans complain that Obama’s government health insurance mandate is a move away from Capitalism, Obama’s supporters counter with Medicare.  They label it a limited form of Socialism, in an attempt to make the point that America has already moved away from Capitalism, so moving further away is no big deal.

 

As is usual with Obama supporters, they’re wrong.  Medicare is an expected derivative of Capitalism, not Socialism.

 

If you’re a Capitalist, read on to examine this issue further.  If you’re an Obama supporter, go cry in the corner over the loss of yet another of your weak arguments (or take your usual position and just call me a racist).

 

Let’s talk about competition in the market.

 

Capitalism is competition.  People compete for resources, which they sell or use to make other resources, which in turn grows the economy.  Competition is the key to both success and failure.

 

Competition being good for the economy is the official position of the United States government.  The Department of Justice Anti-trust Division exists to defend competition.

Here is the position of the DOJ Anti-trust Division about “competition,” taken from their website:

 

Antitrust laws protect competition. Free and open competition benefits consumers by ensuring lower prices and new and better products. In a freely competitive market, each competing business generally will try to attract consumers by cutting its prices and increasing the quality of its products or services. Competition and the profit opportunities it brings also stimulate businesses to find new, innovative and more efficient methods of production. 

 

Since America is based upon people competing against one another, we recognize that there are 3 groups of people who can’t be expected to compete: 

 

1)      Children 

2)      The Elderly

3)      The sick

 

While Americans are competitive, we are also the most compassionate people on earth, giving away more dollars to the rest of the world than any other country by far (yet according to liberals, everyone still hates us).

 

Were we not compassionate, we would let those 3 groups who can’t compete in America (children, the elderly and the sick) fall by the wayside.  But we don’t.  Our system of competition sets up programs to care for those not in the competition.

 

Medicare for the elderly is one of them.  It’s a sum of money collected from those who are competing, to take care of those no longer competing.

 

Capitalists fund many such programs for children, the elderly and the sick.  In addition to Medicare, we fund Medicaid, Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance, SCHIP, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, Food Stamps, Federal Housing, free schools, etc.

 

These programs are a product of Capitalism, and it’s benevolent understanding that those who cannot compete must be cared for.  They exist as part of the Capitalist structure, not in spite of it.

 

This is precisely where President Obama parts company with America.  He now wants to extend federal benefits beyond the children, the elderly and the sick.  He wants the government to involve itself in the distribution of resources to those who are supposed to compete for them.

 

That means people who say Obama’s health insurance mandate is a move away from Capitalism are correct.  They are calling him a Socialist (more aptly his plans are Corporatist, mirroring 1930’s European fascist economy) because he wishes to mandate the taking of money from some and redistribute it others (namely insurance companies).  It’s Eminent Domain on steroids.

 

Redistribution of wealth is what Obama told Joe the Plumber he would do, and spent the rest of his campaign swearing to us that he wouldn’t do.

 

So the next time a Dummycrat attempts to convince you that Medicare was America’s move toward Socialism, let him know that Medicare is a Capitalist function. Obama’s mandate to purchase insurance for those who should buy their own is the anti-capitalist proposal in the dwindling marketplace of leftist ideas.

Comments

[JDS]

Welcome back, Tommy...I was afraid Goffredo or one of the other idiots at this site got to you.

[Tommy De Seno]

Thanks JDS. Like interferes with writing :-(

[Eric P]

I, too, wanted to say, welcome back! And you are correct, medicare and the like, do support those who are unable to compete anymore. Expanding that out to everyone else is to eliminate competition and thus drive up costs. In a single payer system, the old way to cut costs is to ration. And who decides what to ration, why the elitist government official or panel of course. Just like our friends in Britian. What a crock! Keep swinging, Tommy. Love the work.

[erin]

Tommy, why did so many in the GOP oppose Medicare when it was first proposed back during the Johnson Administration?

[frank]

Week arguments? I know you probably hate the New York Times, but please read this article. If you are a true political analyst, you do not mind reading articles written by the opposition.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/opinion/05krugman.html?_r=2