Americans Finally Blow and Only Hurt Themselves
Posted by Colin Tipping on September 14, 2009
I’ve always thought that Americans on the whole are a very tolerant lot, not much given as are the French, Italians and Spanish, to taking to the streets, overturning cars and setting garbage bins on fire. However, earlier this year, I would not have been surprised to see bricks and bombs hurled through the windows of the offices of Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and AIG. I fully expected to see the mansions in the Hamptons, owned by the executives of the perpetrators of the biggest financial swindles ever perpetrated against the American people, burned to the ground by angry mobs who had their life savings and 401K retirement plans gobbled up by the banker’s greed-driven schemes. I expected large mobs with upside down mortgages and pending foreclosures to at least pillory the mortgage brokers who sold them the loans in the first place, even if they couldn’t find out who actually owned their sub-prime loans.
But none of this happened. Americans just sat on their hands and watched both the Bush and Obama Administrations and the Fed bail out AIG and the big banks, and then the auto industry, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. It didn’t seem to phase them that the same executives responsible for the swindles were still pocketing many millions of dollars in bonuses and, by all accounts, continue to do so even now.
But repressed rage has a way of coming out sideways, especially if the rage is about something not easily understood – like hedge funds, credit default swaps and securitization. When the rage finally bubbles up, it gets acted out on people who just happen to be conveniently available. Or it gets projected onto some other situation that has only a marginal connection to the original cause of the rage. Ask anyone who grew up with a rageaholic parent.
Another way that anger gets acted out and displaced, especially when it concerns authority figures like fathers, bosses and, as in this case, governments, is that it gets turned back towards the self. In our rage, like jilted lovers who kill themselves as a way to get even, we engage in activities which damage ourselves more than the people we are really mad at. Sometimes we even forget who we were angry with in the first place and just lash out in ways that leave them unscathed and ourselves in serious jeopardy.
This is what I see happening with the healthcare issue. Of all the things that we could be justifiably mad about – high unemployment, record deficits, banks refusing to adjust mortgage rates, jobs disappearing, climate change and the death of the American Dream – we have chosen to wound ourselves by channeling all our fear and rage into stopping or crippling the very thing we need most – as if it alone was responsible for all our problems.
There is not a person in this country that does not have an interest in having a more sensible healthcare system that would provide them a reasonable amount of security. There is no doubt it will need a lot of passionate debate and a high level of commitment to get a good solution. Yet a large number of people seem to imagine that failure to create meaningful reform would be a victory. They imagine that stopping reform would somehow be in their interest and would by itself solve the bigger problem of record deficits. This is not only self-sabotage, it is self delusion. If they prevail, we will all end up getting the health care system we deserve and we will have only ourselves to blame.
Colin Tipping
doctor help me said
Yes there is a more sensible doctor care system and it is already here, no waiting. It is called self discipline and planning. The problem is people do not want that responsibility. They much prefer to be coddled no matter what they do or don’t do.They want big mommy government to take care of them without a thought as to who it may inconvenience or place a burden on. Never mind that they will in droves go right back to the lifestyles and habits that got them there in the first place. Because they know who will take care of them and without lifting a finger so why worry.
I know from talking to many health insurance customer service representatives that medicaid recipients automatically assume on a regular basis that they have everything coming to them and is a right of theirs and they can’t understand it when someone tells them yes there is actually a limit to what you are entitled to.They are also the ones who most often break or lose their medical devices or glasses and are irate that they don’t qualify for another until next year.They are also the rudest with their entitlement attitudes.Little responsibility equates to little to no willingness to plan or maintain those things they do have.It’s human nature,it’s nothing new. To enable them does them no favors it retards their progress to being a disciplined responsible adult.As they become disciplined and responsible they tend to do it in all areas of their lives even health.As they get more so they depend on doctors less and less and even realizing yes their choices reveal their health.Not a novel concept to those in the alternative health care field where independent thinking is the rule not the exception.Predicting future behavior in humans is not hard. Simply look at what has been done in the past and usually that will be repeated.
As you speak of self delusion realize that this country is just now waking to it’s delusion of being able to have it all and now,not tomorrow.Home ownership is not a right. It can and will be taken from you at anytime (foreclosure,taxes,maintenance,health,death of a partner).The thought that you started paying for it and now can’t afford it but darn it you should still get to keep it is ludicrous.To put America’s position in perspective monetarily you need an early 20’s person who has stars in their eyes and 10 credit cards to max out and only the wages of someone who works at McDonalds. They go out and buy on credit all in the same week a new Mercedes,house,gym membership,office building,summer home,yacht,tract of land,banana plantation and has just invited every one he knows to come to live with him all expenses paid,stay as long as you want.America now is sure it cannot cover all of that and they know for sure that they do not want any more leveraged credit on debt they are already drowning in.It is delusional to any rational person that it can sustain itself .It is a fools paradise soon to become a nightmare. Stop the madness.
Lauren said
Mr. Tipping,
You have stated that “Yet a large number of people seem to imagine that failure to create meaningful reform would be a victory. They imagine that stopping reform would somehow be in their interest and would by itself solve the bigger problem of record deficits.”
As one of the angry mob, I can tell you that I am not against healthcare reform, nor do I think that stopping this bill would by itself solve the bigger problem of record deficits. But I am against the current bill as proposed by congress.
This bill will add significantly to the deficit.
According to an August 4th post on http://www.heritage.com (http://blog.heritage.org/2009/08/04/health-care-reform-cost-estimates-what-is-the-track-record/) the latest CBO scoring of the Senate’s leading bill, Dodd-Kennedy, estimates that Obamacare will add $597 billion over just the next ten years. Meanwhile, CBO director Doug Elmendorf has said the House health plan will increase the budget deficit by $239 billion over ten years, and “generate substantial increases in federal budget deficits during the decade beyond the current 10-year budget window.”
Or if you object to the Heritage Foundation, CNN reported on July 2, 2009 (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/02/senate.health.care/index.html) that the bill will cost $611 billion dollars over 10 years.
Our current debt, without adding healthcare to the picture, is $11.8 trillion dollars. It is fiscally irresponsible to fund more programs and add to our debt when we don’t have the money to pay for it and when the economy is in a negative cycle. This is common sense.
Economist Walter E. Williams commented, “President Obama and congressional supporters estimate that his health care plan will cost between $50 and $65 billion a year. Such cost estimates are lies whether they come from a Democratic president and Congress, or a Republican president and Congress. … At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee, along with President Johnson, estimated that Medicare would cost an inflation-adjusted $12 billion by 1990. In 1990, Medicare topped $107 billion. That’s nine times Congress’ prediction. Today’s Medicare tab comes to $420 billion with no signs of leveling off. How much confidence can we have in any cost estimates by the White House or Congress? Another part of the Medicare lie is found in Section 1801 of the 1965 Medicare Act that reads: ‘Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize any federal officer or employee to exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine, or the manner in which medical services are provided, or over the selection, tenure, or compensation of any officer, or employee, or any institution, agency or person providing health care services.’ Ask your doctor or hospital whether this is true.”
Why do we need a 1300 page bill to reform healthcare? Why did Obama insist that the bill be rammed through congress in a month without giving anyone time to read it?
We are not in a healthcare crisis and the system is not broken though reform is needed. Here are some simple ideas for health care reform that are not part of Obama’s reform package: tort reform, removing barriers that prevent health insurance companies from insuring people across state lines, allowing insurance companies to offer a wide-range of policies, fewer government mandates on health insurance policies, and Medical Savings Accounts. These simple ideas would bring healthcare costs down. They would not add to the deficit or necessitate an increase in taxes.
So why aren’t these simple ideas included in Obama’s reform bill? Because special interests don’t want them. Take tort reform for example, trial lawyers are against tort reform because it would greatly impact the amount of compensation juries could award in malpractice cases and, as a consequence, a trial attorneys fees.
According to an article in Investors Business Daily (http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333759404527100) “The accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers says about 10% of the cost of medical service is attributable to medical malpractice lawsuits. Roughly 2% is caused by direct costs of the lawsuits; an additional 5% to 9% is due to expenses run up by defensive medicine.”
And yes, Mr. Tipping, I am angry about a lot of what is happening in America today, but I am not wounding myself by misdirecting my anger at healthcare reform. Healthcare reform as proposed by the Obama administration is simply the straw that broke the camel’s back.
And, by the way, the American dream is not dead. You are a living, breathing example of the American dream. So how can you even say that?
Julia Cain said
I so admire your work that I had decided to download your radical money program to review it this weekend. I am so very disappointed that now I have paid and I have been offered no method of downloading this. I hope you get this fixed soon because I really would like to participate.