Health Care ‘Reform:’ $500 Hammers and the Reverse Economies of Bureaucratic Scales

At the center of the health care debate is the simple – but profound – question of whether government can deliver services, in this case health care services, better than private enterprise sensibly regulated.   President Obama clearly believes that the ‘public option will not only be more equitable but more efficient as well – a claim he made when he spoke to the Joint Session of Congress earlier this year.  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

The reason Obama is wrong, and the Left in general on issues of public options versus private enterprise, is simple human nature.  When it comes to such matters, it was never so well explained as by the legendary Milton Friedman:

“There are four ways in which you can spend money.  You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else.  For example, I buy a birthday present for someone.  Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost.  Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself.  And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch!  Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else.  And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get.  And that’s government.”

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Tags: Barack Obama, bureaucracy, federal spending, government health care, Government spending
Posted Nov 17th 2009 at 10:21 am in Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 3211034 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tdelbeccaro/2009/11/17/health-care-reform-500-hammers-and-the-reverse-economies-of-bureaucratic-scales/Health+Care+%27Reform%3A%27+%24500+Hammers+and+the+Reverse+Economies+of+Bureaucratic+Scales2009-11-17+17%3A21%3A26Thomas+Del+Beccaro

Obama and the Nobel: Right Man, Wrong Prize

The Norwegian Nobel Committee wanted to let everyone know that they really like Barack Obama. They approve of his political views and they want him to remake the world according to his vision.  Okay, we get it.  The Norwegians, one of the most homogeneous societies in the world, whose sole significant imprint on the world stage is the annual awarding of this increasingly worthless prize, arrogantly assume the role of moral arbiters of United States politics.  Thanks.  Appreciate it. 

It is blatantly absurd to award the Nobel Peace Prize to a nine-month president with absolutely no foreign policy achievement of note.  Especially when there are so many other fields where the Academy could justify lavishing glory, (and money–one wonders what POTUS will do with the cash?) on their secular savior. 

 President Obama has written two highly acclaimed (by the left) books.  Dreams from My Father is his accounting of his unique life story and his journey to understand his roots and his father’s abandonment of him and his mother.  It was called, “the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician,” by fawning sychophant Joe Klein.

 His second book, The Audacity of Hope (the first campaign flier published by Crown) was his soaring vision of a nation and world guided by the kind of social justice that only a community organizer can envision.  No less a literary critic than Gary Hart called Obama a, “figure who possesses perseverance and writing skills that have flashes of grandeur.”  The book occupied the New York Times Bestseller List for thirty weeks and won a Grammy to boot.

Almost any writer would kill to have sold as many volumes and have his or her books become so influential.  Surely the Nobel Prize for literature would have been much more justifiable.

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Tags: Audacity of Hope, Dreams of My Father, Government spending, health care reform, J. M. Keynes
Posted Oct 9th 2009 at 10:21 am in Culture, News, Obama, Politics, Uncategorized | 1493069 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dobrien/2009/10/09/obama-and-the-nobel-right-man-wrong-prize/Obama+and+the+Nobel%3A+Right+Man%2C+Wrong+Prize2009-10-09+17%3A21%3A56Doug+O%26%2339%3BBrien