I doubt it. Something like 70% of Americans want universal healthcare, so I don't know why there would be a backlash from anyone but the most diehard conservatives.

He's taken a bit of a dip in the polls. I read an editorial today that mentioned Jimmy Carter. Thats never good.

On a slightly different note, I'm Canadian and when I watch American News I see people taking shots at Canadian Healthcare. Its always bad care this, government bureaucrat that, end of the world type care. This is strange to me because universal healthcare is a non-issue in Canada. If any politician even mentions anything that sounds like privatisation that will instantly lose them an election. Doesn't that say something about our system? We certainly aren't unhappy with it.

thats something that I really don't understand. howcome countries like Canada, or Sweden, be so succesful under Socialist governments when socialism is supposedly a bad system. obviously communism didn't work for the USSR, but why are the afore mentioned nations so succesful?

I would love to have a Canadian- or English-style healthcare system in the States.

I don't think it's fair to say that only the most diehard conservatives could oppose this healthcare bill. It could just be a bad system altogether, no matter how you feel about the issue.

I think the symbolism of this is more important that just the fact that the bill is being delayed. It's doubtful that any kind of meaningful reform will be passed now, since every upset constituent and interest group will be hounding these Congressmen and Senators during the recess to vote against anything but the most superficial of changes.

In America politicians are more individuals than party members due to how our system is set up, and quite a few Democrats in close districts have already put their necks out over the Stimulus and the Cap and Trade Bill which wasn't even written when they voted for it. Given the choice between leaving the President out to dry and getting reelected in 2010 I think the overwhelming majority will choose the latter when pushed.

I'd say that Obama's honeymoon is officially over and we're back to the standard Congressional-Executive friction. That's not to say Obama has lost control of his policies and is powerless, but it would be a very serious defeat if healthcare goes down. Even if he gets a compromise bill passed, if it's too much of a compromise it means that he's lost the command of Congress he once had. That's very normal, however.


If the government were serious about solving a healthcare crisis it would use all the money they want to spend on this plan and fix Medicare and Medicaid with it.

I have to say that I'm not really a fan of Obama's stimulus plan... he's spending WAY too much money. The health care system in Canada is not nearly as bad as American Conservatives portray it... it's actually really simple and convenient, and I've never had any problems with it as a patient.

That said, it doesn't mean that one size fits all and that you can simply get America to adopt universal health care and expect the same result. If America is going to be able to afford universal health care it's going to have to cut back spending and/or raise taxes, and by very significant amounts as well, or it will be simply unsustainable.

I don't think that our politicians have the ability to not overspend. because, quite honestly, it is not hard at all to spend other people's money for things, even things that are unnecessary. they feel no consequence for their choices. If we took 10 dollars away from each of their salaries for each 1000 dollars they overspent the budget they would stop overspending pretty quick, I think atleast.

Canada doesn't have a socialist government. In fact the Conservative Party is currently in power. Its just seen as morally unthinkable to deny someone healthcare here.

On Chrisp's point on cost, implementing universal healthcare would be like a massive tax break for employers because they aren't burdened with healthcare costs. Thats one of the main reason lots of Japanese car companies have plants in Canada. Many Americans might be surprised to learn that the largest sub-national car manufacturer is not Michigan or any other American state, but the Canadian province of Ontario.

"Something like 70% of Americans want universal healthcare"

Maybe that used to be a correct statistic, but from the polls I've seen, a majority are against the proposal as it stands. Maybe they realized that they don't want it when it actually costs something...

"If America is going to be able to afford universal health care it's going to have to cut back spending and/or raise taxes"

Chrisp, Chrisp, Chrisp. You're forgetting modern economic theory. Paying for things doesn't matter - we'll just go deeper into debt. And the national debt doesn't matter at all...

Seriously though, morally, I think national health care is, simply put, evil. But I'm an objectivist, and I've tried debating the finer points of Objectivism, and it's, frankly, an argument I'm tired of having. Especially on the internet. So I'll attempt to display why, practically, national health care, and socialistic principles in general, simply don't work.

Point One: From a microeconomic perspective, the government subsidizing an industry such as healthcare (Or education anyone?) creates, essentially, an illegal monopoly. They can provide for free what other organizations, ie. private healthcare providers, must provide at a cost. In order to remain competitive, the natural response (As has been the case in education) is provide a high-quality high-cost product to the very rich. The niche market of catering to the lower and middle classes would even less appealing than it is now, with the result being that the lower and middle classes have no choice but the government system. If you really think, after looking at the public education system, that modeling our health care system after the same model is a good idea, well, I don't know what to say. As someone who lives in Tennessee (49th in the nation in education) and went through (the best) public schooling (in the state) let me say, you DON'T want that happening...

Point Two: Since the healthcare system is relatively monopolistic, a direct subsidy wouldn't work. In monopolistic or oligopolistic industries, the subsidies tend to go simply to the profits of the companies, because they will raise the price by the amount subsidized. (This would be for a pure monopoly, of course, or a perfectly colluding oligopoly, but you get the point - the subsidy would be passed mostly to the companies, not the people.)

Point Three: As Chrisp said, we have to pay for this some way. There are essentially three options: Raise Taxes, Cut Spending, or Borrow Money. Raising Taxes, obviously, is a pretty bad idea in a recession. I don't think that anyone would argue that. Cutting spending I would be relatively neutral towards. Taking money from one useless, corrupt, and evil program and giving it to another useless, corrupt, and evil program, I don't really care about. But it would never practically happen. This leaves us option three, which is borrow/print more money - the far most likely option, in my opinion. This only adds to the $66 trillion in unfunded liabilities that the government currently has. Guess who gets to pay that debt folks? That's right, my generation! Thanks Mom and Dad!

The bottom line is this: When we have a bill of $66 trillion (That figure is probably outdated - it's probably higher now) that is going to come due over the next 40 years, we don't need to be adding government programs. We need to end almost all of them if we want any hope of surviving as a nation.

All of this being said, on a practical note, I'm all in favor of national health care. There's no way that we will actually be able to cut spending to a level that is remotely sustainable, meaning that at some point in my lifetime, America will collapse due to fiscal irresponsibility. Just like the Romans, so too will the America fall. And I'd just as soon that come sooner rather than later, so I'm around to help pick up the pieces.

The attribution of the following quotation is ambiguous, but it is largely attributed to Alexander Tytler, and is quite appropriate to our discussion:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."

Wow. I didn't realize I had written such an essay...

I started writing a response to this. But then I decided that "I'm tired of having this argument, especially over the internet." Especially with someone who says that a policy is morally wrong and then also says he is in favor of it.

Regarding Centurian's points, I would still say that Canada is more socialist than America, and what's the cut off line? Yes, we have a Conservative government, but it's still more leftist than the American Democratic party on a great number of issues and fiscal policies.

I would just point out that the large automanufacturing sector in Canada is attributable to a number of factors, that I would say are probably more important than the effects of national healthcare. A lot of it has to do simply with history, as many of the first auto plants were opened in Canada and we've always played a large role in North American auto manufacturing so it makes sense for Japanese motor companies to ride on the infrastructure and skilled population that had been producing cars for quite some time already. The Canadian auto industry is in decline, but this is the case for much of the world.

As for the tax-break benefit for employers, I'm a little skeptical. I would say that it's mitigated by the fact that employers can classically shift a good amount of that burden to their employees by lowering wages. If national healthcare became a reality in America, I would definitely expect tax increases beyond the benefit to employers you've mentioned. There's nothing to say it wouldn't come in the form of business taxes.

Regarding rlumley's points, I'm not nearly as pessimistic or fatalistic. I really think that while America might decline in global standing, it won't have a cataclysmic collapse. I think it's more likely that it will raise taxes and shift more to the fiscal left to produce a more socialist economy.

I'm actually pretty undecided on this topic, and despite my typically libertarian views, I do lean toward national healthcare. I've stated before that this could simply be my cultural bias, but I think there are some good arguments to be made in favour of universal health care. I don't really care for the moral arguments, but am more into the practical arguments. That's one of the problems I've always had with Objectivism, but I don't want to derail the topic.

I would just say that in increasing terms of cost there is prevention, cure, and treatment. Not coincidentally, this is also the same order in terms of increasing profitability and in terms of decreasing cost-effectiveness. A private health care firm makes the most money off treating a patient, while a government health care program saves the most money with prevention. Governments get more money with a healthier population which can work harder and for longer and pay more taxes. Private firms get more money with a sick population that they can treat, the more expensive and profitable option. Just in terms of incentives, there's a major concern here, with private firms striving toward the less cost-effective treatment and a sick population, and government health care striving toward more cost-effective prevention and a healthy population.

I think in America this creates an environment where large private health care and pharmaceutical firms are encouraged economically to induce demand by instilling a sort of national hypochondria. Americans get far more superfluous testing and significantly more prescribed drugs for many conditions (especially psychological) that are overdiagnosed.

The one major concern that I have with nationalized healthcare is with regards to medical innovation. The profit incentive is extremely important for innovation, and it's probably no surprise that America is a leader in medical innovation, despite that it's often for cures and treatments rather than the more cost-effective prevention.

This topic has happened before, but perhaps if someone can raise some new and powerful arguments, I might finally be more decided on the issue.

@rlumly, that was an extremely good post and argument. And the statement that Nations only have a 200 year golden age is very true aswell, I think. we've been around for a little more than 200 years so now it's about our turn to fall. because honestly there is no chance we'll be able to pay off our debts. we're going to collapse as a nation and relinquish our title as world power to another nation. or we'll become a dictatorship (I plan on being that dictator) and we'll become an empire or something like that.

"Regarding rlumley's points, I'm not nearly as pessimistic or fatalistic. I really think that while America might decline in global standing, it won't have a cataclysmic collapse. I think it's more likely that it will raise taxes and shift more to the fiscal left to produce a more socialist economy."

What I'm saying is that a fiscally liberal position simply isn't sustainable, unless you want the taxes to pay for it. And we're so behind on our payments it's not sustainable. We've borrowed so much money from social security it will be the death of us.

I'll try to put it in different terms. (According to Wikipedia - if you want a better source, look for it yourself) unfunded obligations currently amount to $53 trillion. (An old statistic from 2008 it looks like.) Add to that a national debt of $11 trillion and you have total obligations of $64 trillion. Let's just role with that number.

The personal income tax takes in about a trillion dollars annually. That means that we could double it, today, and in 50 years, still be in debt, ceritus parabus...

$64 trillion dollars, divided by 300 million people in America = $213,333 dollars per person...

Assuming the wealthiest 1% pay one third of all taxes (I thought it was a higher percentage than 33%, but that's what I found in about 30 seconds of googling) - $7,111,111 dollars per rich guy...

If Bill Gates earned his current net worth each lifetime, it would take him 1.6 million lifetimes to bail us out...

With $64 trillion dollars, we could buy almost 200,000,000 2009 Ferrari 599's...

Or, we could feed almost three billion people $20 meals three times a day for a year...

Or we could buy everyone on the earth _two_ top of the line Dell Alienware M17x Gaming Laptops...

I could go on, because I really enjoy doing things like this and trying to put a staggering figure like $64 trillion dollars into perspective, but I think you get the point. And my point is this: $64 trillion dollars is such a massive figure that to attempt to tax that from the tax base would be economic suicide. If you assume that Americans will not elect politicians that will attempt to reduce our obligations, (ie. end Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) which I think is a fairly safe assumption, the only logical conclusion is complete economic collapse. The Federal Reserve will print more money and attempt to inflate the debt away, and we will be looking at Germany circa 1920. And we all know how that one turned out. The military, or a dictator of some sort, will take over, declare martial law, and America as we know it, will end. Americans have lived beyond our means for too long, and now my (our) generation will pay for it.

Folks, we already have a national health care system in the United States. Almost half of all health care spending in the United States is spent by government(s) - mostly Medicare, the VA system, and state equivalents (MediCal here in California, which covers all children under 18 (and some over 18)). All of you complaining about government health care are too late.

I'm already required to pay taxes for the health care of senior citizens, people under 18, military veterans (like my drug-addled loser of a brother who gets free health care and a pension for life because he made it through 5 weeks of basic training), and - here in California - illegal immigrants. But I had to cancel my health insurance a few years back because I couldn't afford the $300/month premiums. Not only am I required to pay for everyone else's health care through my taxes, I'm required to pay substantially more than the government for the same medical care, since doctors and hospitals are forced by the government to treat Medicare patients below cost and illegal immigrants (who hospitals are required by law to treat) almost never pay for the medical services they receive. So private payers like myself have to pay not only for ourselves, but also for everyone getting free or below-cost health care. I've had a severe upper-respiratory infection for three weeks now, and I'm afraid to say I doctor because I know I'm just going to be charged $500 for 2 minutes with a doctor who is probably going to do nothing more than tell me to get some rest and drink plenty of fluids (and maybe prescribe an antibiotic that will do nothing for a viral infection, but still cost god only knows how much to get filled).

I don't like the idea of a Soviet...er... I mean, Canadian-style government-run health care system. But it would certainly be an improvement over the half-government-run fustercluck we have now. HMOs treat their victims/customers/patients as bad as any government-run system could from my experience anyway - American health care is only the best in the world only for those people wealthy enough to pay out of pocket for everything (or are in Congress).

Ideally, I'd like to see government get out of health care entirely and let market forces restore some balance and sanity to the system, but 'they' are never going to let that happen.

I'm a little disappointed that nobody's mentioned how clever the title of this thread is.

At any rate, there's no arguing that far too much money has been spent by the government, particularly so recently. While I don't really think we're headed for a dictatorship or giving Obama Augustus the Corona Civica, but it is a VERY serious problem.

It's not even just a problem for the US anymore. Since the end of the Second World War the US dollar has been the standard reserve currency for the entire world. If, I almost say when, there's hyperinflation or a collapse of confidence in the dollar we could see the total collapse of the entire worldwide monetary system and a Global Depression.

The effects of such a scenario cannot be underestimated. The Great Depression contributed to all the conflicts of the 30s and 40s, one today could lead to just the sort of conflicts or even worse. What happens when billions of Chinese and Indians are out of work? The fall of the dollar would be the fall of the world, and this administration is contributing to the problem.

Sorry if that's a little bleak. I just saw Bruno and was pretty disappointed.

rlumley, I'm aware of the level of unfunded obligations. I also read articles on conservative sites, and I'm a fiscal conservative. The key words in your statement are ceteris paribus, which is not at all a reasonable assumption. Let's not just roll with the number because I don't think that America will stand by for a major economic collapse like you predict. It's hard to predict ANYTHING that will happen in the next few decades let alone the state of the national debt. You can't just extrapolate from the short term and expect it to give a reasonable approximation of the long term.

I don't approve of the move to leftist economic policies, but I do think that it's coming. As for whether socialist economics is sustainable or not is difficult to say. Socialist Europe isn't doing so bad, though your definition of sustainable really depends on your time frame. Nothing lasts forever. I still believe that free markets can do better than centralized control, but I don't believe that a cataclysmic collapse is inevitable as a result. If the gradual trend of rising living standards and technological progress throughout human history can show us anything it's that we can endure, grow, and innovate through political and economic conditions far worse than those of socialist theory... ie. feudalism? It's really about doing even better, and I do think that for that purpose, we ought to rely on the free market.

Haha, Invictus, I didn't know that was intentional. I admit that when I first read the title I interpreted it as referring to biological responses... but that's because I've recently been volunteering at a lab conducting experiments with mice and electric and tone stimuli.

This is an interesting discussion, but I want to go back to Invictus's opening question: in a way, yes, this is a reaction to Obama's policies. This is because Obama has done something very strange in American politics: called for reform of an underlying system rather than a superficial fix.

For some reason that I've never really figured out, but that really frustrates me, American politicians overwhelmingly opt for short-term benefits with long-term losses rather than the opposite. Every few years, a newspaper, candidate, or academic announces the "emergency" that is social security reform, health care reform, or any number of other structures that need to be reformed or will skyrocket out of control. This announcement is usually followed by explanations of the huge numbers representing the costs down the road of leaving the program unchanged. The problem is that reforming costs money now; leaving it alone is free now and will cost money later - after the politician is long gone (the median age in the Senate is something like 63, and all but 5 of them are older than Obama).

This type of thinking probably comes from deep down in the American culture. Last year's national budget deficit was about $1 trillion. Interestingly enough, that same figure also describes private consumer credit card debt in the US. Americans like to get things now that they can't afford, and hope to be able to escape (somehow) from the escalating costs later. And when gutsy politicians like Obama step up to try to address this habit and discipline America with a costs-now, benefits-later approach, the old-schoolers respond like this, by putting their fingers in their ears and letting worthy proposals die so they can get reelected.

grncton, I would like to point out that Obama's proposal isn't really costs-now... as a lot of the money he's spending will add to the deficit and will have to be paid off by future generations. It's not really costs-now because the spending is largely covered by borrowing money.

Reform does not a problem solve. Just because Congress passes a healthcare reform, and they probably won't pass anything substantial, that doesn't make such a policy good. Obama may have the best intentions in the whole world, but he could easily be wrong and if people think he's wrong they have every right to disagree and try to stop him.

Thank you, Chrispminis.

"rlumley, I'm aware of the level of unfunded obligations. I also read articles on conservative sites, and I'm a fiscal conservative. The key words in your statement are ceteris paribus, which is not at all a reasonable assumption. Let's not just roll with the number because I don't think that America will stand by for a major economic collapse like you predict. It's hard to predict ANYTHING that will happen in the next few decades let alone the state of the national debt. You can't just extrapolate from the short term and expect it to give a reasonable approximation of the long term."

Ordinarily, I would agree with you, were it not for a couple things. First of all, there is no extrapolation. That $64 trillion dollars is money that we either borrowed or promised to pay them in the future, through social security things. We DO owe that much money, the only extrapolation has to do with revenues. Which brings me to my second point, which is that the extrapolation on the revenues is going to make so little difference compared to the massive sum of $64 trillion that it doesn't matter.

In my opinion, it would take several innovations as revolutionary as the internet to get us out of this hole, and I just don't see that happening. It's obviously hard to put a monetary value on something like the internet, but if you could, I doubt it would approach $64 trillion.

@ Invictus - I absolutely agree that the simple act of reforming doesn't always solve a problem. My suspicion here, though, isn't that the folks in Congress holding up the proposal don't agree over whether the plan will work, but rather that they don't want to face the prospect of coming home to their districts for the summer recess and saying to their wealthiest donors, "Why yes, I did just pass a law to raise your taxes."

@Chrisp - True, but there is still a costs-now element through the various tax proposals embedded in the plan (taxing the top 1%, or removing employer benefits tax exemptions). The current plan means that, if passed, somebody ends up paying more "today" (whenever it passes) than they did yesterday, which is exactly the type of costs-now that politicians seek to avoid.

What's wrong with listening to their constituents, grncton? You should be more worried if the Congressmen voted for whatever the party said regardless of local opinion.

so what do ya'all think about the idea of there being people in the backround manipulating everything thats currently going on? including this bill.

@rlumley, I looked into the numbers more. Firstly, the wiki article that I think you cite actually states that it is $53 trillion, which is including the national debt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_debt#Unfunded_obligations

Also, I did more research into the nature of unfunded obligations, and it's important to note that the numbers you mention are referring to the cost of unfunded obligations over an "infinite horizon" which means it is the cost to continue the program indefinitely. It is absolutely extrapolation, and does not represent money that is already owed. Typically, the figure released for unfunded obligations is tied to the natural expected life span (approx 77 years), and not an infinite future. For example, the unfunded obligations for the next 75 years for Social Security is $3.7 trillion, as compared to the $10.4 trillion over the infinite future. To put it into perspective, if you took into account the present value of taxable payroll over the infinite horizon, America's got $295.5 trillion coming. So tell me that extrapolating revenue isn't going to work.

http://www.factcheck.org/article302.html

You have to take the figures into the correct context, and recognize that they absolutely do represent extrapolation. If the Medicare/Medicaid system isn't made more efficient, then you'll simply see an increase in taxes, most likely personal income tax, but not the complete economic meltdown of America.

@grncton, there has been a long history of fiscally irresponsible (depending on who you ask) politicians who borrow against future generations, and I have to say that Obama is no exception. The costs-now portion isn't really the main issue, and it's dwarfed by the mammoth all around cost that will run America's national debt into unprecedented levels. Frankly, I don't think it's well justified.

@ Chrisp: Regardless, that $53 trillion figure is outdated anyway.

But (and this is sad) the tens of trillions of dollars don't really matter. Let's say that we owe $20 trillion over the next 30 years. Even $20 trillion is too much of a burden. (Yes, I pulled that number out of my butt) If we want to spend $20 trillion, we essentially have two choices - borrow the money from China and/or print more money, thus causing inflation, or tax the people. Inflation to the tune of $20 trillion would be just as devastating as taxes to the tune of $20 trillion.

You can frame the numbers however you want. But if America wants to have any hope at all, you need to be dividing, not subtracting. And you need to be dividing by large numbers.

I'm so glad that I'm not the only one who thinks that way. =)

@rlumley, I've already said that I'm a fiscal conservative that doesn't support Obama's stimulus because I believe he's spending way too much money and it will result in a socialist shift. I wasn't disputing that spending too much money is bad... I was disputing your idea that America is on the verge of economic catastrophe. You can't just say $20 trillion is too much of a burden without giving proper context. It very much depends on the economic state, as well as what the money is being spent upon. I won't argue with you that there needs to be more fiscal responsibility, but I will argue with you that America is doomed. It can certainly do better than Obama's stimulus plan, but it won't mean the end of America, just perhaps a fall in relative global economic standing.

I suppose I'm in between you two. The level of spending and debt over the long run would destroy America economically, but I have faith that the problem will be addressed before it gets totally unmanageable and irreversible. The fact that many Democrats are starting to say no to Obama's excesses are a good sign. The fact that no one is even trying to solve Social Security when it will be insolvent by 2017 is a bad sign.

We need statesmen, not politicians. I don't see many in either party, but I still beleive that the American people will be able to find a person to actually work to solve these problems instead of ignoring them and making new ones.

If we keep on falling for the honeyed words and false promises of both parties we deserve what we get.

"The fact that many Democrats are starting to say no to Obama's excesses are a good sign. The fact that no one is even trying to solve Social Security when it will be insolvent by 2017 is a bad sign."

That's very true. I'm not saying that it's impossible for America to live, I'm just saying I have absolutely no faith in the politicians to do what is necessary, and I have even less faith in the people that elect those politicians.