The Road to Serfdom and Obamacare

Like many of my posts, this one was originally written on Karl Denninger's site market-ticker.org. 
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=225621&page=2#new


I decided to search the mises.org site to see if they posted the Hayek book, The Road to Serfdom. It is there. I had bought it in paperback a few years ago, but I would suspect I have gained more perspective, watching the NAZI's in power and reading other stuff. If you haven't read the book, or have and it has been awhile, this is the book to read now and turn onto your friends. I put it on Facebook, which is about all I do on Facebook. That is post stuff I hope others will read.

hayek page 47 wrote..

Nobody saw more clearly than the great political thinker de
Tocqueville that democracy stands in an irreconcilable conflict
with socialism: Democracy extends the sphere of individual
freedom, he said. Democracy attaches all possible value to each
man, he said in 1848, while socialism makes each man a mere
agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in
common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while
democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in
restraint and servitude.

hayek page 49-50 wrote..

Democratic assemblies cannot function as planning agencies.
They cannot produce agreement on everything the whole direction
of the resources of the nation for the number of possible
courses of action will be legion. Even if a congress could, by
proceeding step by step and compromising at each point, agree on
some scheme, it would certainly in the end satisfy nobody.
To draw up an economic plan in this fashion is even less
possible than, for instance, successfully to plan a military
campaign by democratic procedure. As in strategy, it would
become inevitable to delegate the task to experts. And even if,
by this expedient, a democracy should succeed in planning every
sector of economic activity, it would still have to face the problem
of integrating these separate plans into a unitary whole. There
will be a stronger and stronger demand that some board or some
single individual should be given powers to act on their own
responsibility. The cry for an economic dictator is a characteristic
stage in the movement toward planning.

Thus the legislative body will be reduced to choosing the
persons who are to have practically absolute power. The whole
system will tend toward that kind of dictatorship in which the
head of government is from time to time confi rmed in his position
by popular vote, but where he has all the power at his command to
make certain that the vote will go in the direction that he desires.

hayek page 53-54 wrote..

Advancement within a totalitarian group or party depends
largely on a willingness to do immoral things. The principle
that the end justifi es the means, which in individualist ethics is
regarded as the denial of all morals, in collectivist ethics becomes
necessarily the supreme rule. There is literally nothing which the
consistent collectivist must not be prepared to do if it serves the
good of the whole, because that is to him the only criterion of
what ought to be done.
Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to
serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation,
most of those features of totalitarianism which horrify us follow
of necessity. From the collectivist standpoint intolerance and
brutal suppression of dissent, deception and spying, the complete
disregard of the life and happiness of the individual are essential
and unavoidable. Acts which revolt all our feelings, such as the
shooting of hostages or the killing of the old or sick, are treated
as mere matters of expediency; the compulsory uprooting and
transportation of hundreds of thousands becomes an instrument
of policy approved by almost everybody except the victims.

To be a useful assistant in the running of a totalitarian state,
therefore, a man must be prepared to break every moral rule he
has ever known if this seems necessary to achieve the end set for
him. In the totalitarian machine there will be special opportunities
for the ruthless and unscrupulous. Neither the Gestapo nor
the administration of a concentration camp, neither the Ministry
of Propaganda nor the SA or SS (or their Russian counterparts)
are suitable places for the exercise of humanitarian feelings. Yet it
is through such positions that the road to the highest positions in
the totalitarian state leads.

http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/file....

Any legitimate American can't read this and look at the current administration and not see the Road to Serfdom being paved by the NAZI's in power. When confronted with their lies, the administration tells more lies. They go right from telling people they can keep their insurance coverage, to writing rules that force insurers to cancel policies because they are against the law to blaming the insurance companies. Who is writing the business under Obamacare? The insurance companies, of course. So, the new idea will be to get rid of the insurance companies and institute new taxes to run the system. All decisions dealing with health care, treatments, who will live, etc., will be done by the regime. Dissenters will be fined or imprisoned. Or be pursued by the IRS.

Health insurance really isn't anything more than a means of financing health emergencies. You pay in advance for what you might need. Now, where are we? Everyone that has had insurance that has had an illness since being insured is now impaired as an insurable life. Remember, health insurance is life insurance. You can't buy life insurance when you are dead and you can't buy it when you are likely to die, at least at a premium most people would be willing to pay. But, if you are terminal, they can't cancel you. Not even on a term policy where the fixed term is up, you can still pay the renewal to 95 rate and you can sell your policy and let someone else pay it.

But, with health insurance, if the pool is cancelled, those that are uninsurable are fucked. They had insurance and now they don't. I have never sold health insurance, because between the noise you hear from the socialists and my misunderstanding of various payment clauses in the policies (I have never used a health insurance policy in my adult life), I never felt competent to discuss such coverage. I have had contracts to sell insurance though and there was always a guarantee you had coverage in a new pool, if the pool you were in was discontinued. I guess the only out the insurance company had was to quit doing business in your state. The bullshit you hear from the mouths of the defenders of this current mess is just that, bullshit.

I posted the Hayek link, because I think every American should read this book and examine what we are seeing now. I get a lot of argument from people I know about this NAZI stuff I rant. Mainly, because they are clueless as to how the Hitler's happen. This is how they happen. Good intentions or not, a group sets the stage and another group comes in and takes over. It is already clear that the Obama administration has absolutely no morals. The entire group lie. They intend to use force at some point. They spy on the people. I can go on and on. It might not be Obama that turns this into a totalitarian dictatorship, but it is apparent we are well on our way. There will be more adherents to socialized medicine, as the system comes out of this totally fucked up. We are really looking at a situation which would be not unlike Japan, where instead of 2 bombs, we flew over the same cities and dropped another on each and then put a couple on Tokyo to boot. Some will say you can't fuck up what is already fucked up. Any of us that have been through difficulties know that is not true, as it can always get more screwed up.

What if the news Karl posted above had come out when the data was available? The whole government shutdown mess would have been a mute point. At the worst, we would have had a case for postponing the Unaffordable Care Act for a year, that the American people would have probably demanded. As it is now, the genie is out of the bottle. I don't think they get the genie back in the bottle at this point. We have seen the nuclear option used on the healthcare system of the United States. The only way to save the village was to destroy it.

There is only one way we come out of this in one piece. That is to allow the free market to work. There have been examples posted here and acting-man.com wrote about a couple of MD's running no insurance operations, one a GP and the other a surgeon. Anyone with credit can afford to get a surgery under the free market system. The payments would probably be less than those on a health care policy and there would be no coinsurance.

I am sure that if any free market plan comes to fruition, the NAZI's will step in to stop it. I am not sure that such a restraint of trade and freedom would pass court muster, but this day and time, you never know. as the legal system has been steered in a fascist direction as well. If enough people dropped their health insurance and bought policies that covered cancer, heart problems and accidents and paid the rest out of pocket, American health care would be revolutionized. If you think we would see the current cash pricing in pharmacies continue without insurance, you are missing the boat. But, the can of worms is open and the totalitarian solution Hayek diagrams is likely to be used. NAZI's cannot afford to have their authority questioned.