Mitchell’s laws: The more budgets are cut and taxes inceased, the weaker an economy becomes. To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments. Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder. Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
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Why are these people protesting? What do they want?
Actually, I’m not sure what they want, but it’s clear what they don’t want. They don’t want to buy health care insurance. They seem to feel that the government telling them to buy health care insurance is an infringement on their freedom to go without health care insurance.
But, what will happen if they don’t have health care insurance? Will they simply grin and bear it when an appendix bursts or there’s that terrible pain on the left side of their chests? Will they tell their kids to ignore that broken arm?
Or, will they pony up the $25,000 – $50,000 or more that cancer or heart surgery costs, out of their own pockets? (Somehow, these folks don’t look all that wealthy.)
Or, (most likely) will they rush to the emergency room and force the hospital to accept them as charity patients, so that the people who do pay hospital bills can absorb the cost?
All these people so angry about being forced to have health care insurance — what next? Refusing to pay for food or to obey speed limits, as affronts to their “freedoms”? Or do they simply want someone else to pay for their health care?
Perhaps you readers know the answer. Please tell me: Why are these people protesting and what do they want?
I award 5 dunce caps to this entire fake-“freedom” protest movement, engineered by the so-called “religious” right.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com
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No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption + Net exports
#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
There are other ways for health insurance to be provided. How about a free market with insurance companies being able to offer policies across state lines and eliminate state mandated items to be covered.
When the government starts to run industries better suited for private companies cost escalate. ie postal service. Stamp prices have risen and the cost always exceed the revenue. No incentive to be competitive.
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Mark,
Even in a “free market” the insurance isn’t free. So the people would be “forced” to buy it, there by losing their freedom.
Someone else wrote me about the inefficient post office. This is what I told him:
The postal service is one of our better services, but it should be supported by the government, not limited as it is now.
There is a pernicious belief that private enterprise always is better than public. But it simply is a myth. The Tea Party has made it oh-so-fashionable to sneer at government workers, and when the right wing casually cuts federal payrolls, everyone thinks, “To hell with those people.”
But the reality is: Some private businesses are better, because the profit motive supports efficiency and creativity. But some private businesses are worse, because the profit motive supports greed and lawlessness.
It depends on the business.
It was private enterprise, not the Fed or Congress, that caused the recession, and it will be the government, not private enterprise, that gets us out of it.
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The question is not whether people want health care, the question is which economic model should deliver it.
The cost ? The real cost is the doctors, nurses, hospitals, drugs, etc. that is required to provide the health care. If we need more pieces of paper printed with dead presidents, Uncle Sam has a printing press, and paper is cheap.
Maybe we should be offering free med school (with a stipend to boot) to any qualified applicant ? Maybe we should be building hospitals and clinics, instead of waiting for the invisible hand of the market to build them ? Maybe we should nationalize the generic drug industry, so that we’ll have plenty of drugs (currently there are serious shortages of generics because big pharma loses interest once their patent expires).
What value do insurance companies add to health insurance ? If they add no value, then why do we want insurance ?
What if you are too poor to buy the insurance but have too many assets to qualify for Medicaid+ (there is currently a $2000 asset limit on Medicaid, disqualifying anyone with even a tiny IRA). Why should poor people who can’t afford the substantial premiums and deductables pay a penalty ? Why does Uncle Sam need the penalty money since Uncle Sam CAN PAY ANY BILL ?
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The “market” works best when (for any particular need) there are products at various prices, substitutes, and/or the reasonable possibility of doing without.
None of this applies to health care. There is essentially only one standard, and usually only one definitive treatment for an illness. A person who needs a heart transplant can’t settle for a couple of aspirins.
The only way a market system could work for health care is if suffering and death are counted as acceptable alternatives.
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Excellent article by Steven Pearlstein.
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Roger:
This is a direct reflection of the idea that people can’t get a necessarily limited commodity without taking it away from someone else. It’s okay for others to gain via omission bias, but direct human interaction MUST take away from some group to give to others.
And no, you’re not going to break them of the delusion that oftentimes we just have resources sitting idle that can be given out for free. Or that if you let the ‘wrong’ people have some resources, even directly out of your pile, it will in the long run make your pile even bigger. And don’t even bring up the suggestion that what they currently have right now is a privilege or, worse, completely unearned or unfair — people will freak the hell out and start calling you names.
It all boils down to: if others fail, then you must be winning. It’s exactly why kings were willing to impoverish themselves for several centuries even though they ended up much richer after they freed their peasants.
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THEY don’t know even know what they’re protesting against…
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Why should anyone have to pay for health insurance or care? The monetarily sovereign Federal Government can just pay the hospitals with the money it creates. Why should we pay when the government can?
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Exactly correct. The federal government can and should provide free Medicare for every man, woman and child in America.
Please supply fact to shown this is not feasible and right — without sarcasm, if possible. Sarcasm is not evidence.
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That wasn’t exactly sarcasm. Why are you dumping on the Tea Party for not wanting to pay for health insurance, when you are saying no one should have to?
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Buster,
The federal government should pay for health insurance — fully paid Medicare for everyone.
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Okey dokey, I won’t argue with that point. But I’m not buying health insurance, per your theory, since I am not taking from anyone else if the federal government ends up having to pay for me. I don’t understand why you are angry at the Tea Party people for doing the same…
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They want a smaller federal government, with no idea why, and no concern for the millions of people who would be hurt, and in fact are being hurt, by this mindless philosophy.
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they want the public option of course. they’re mad that obama threatened kucinich on air force one. i like the force the hospita to pay option. unfortunately, most community hospitals are being privatized where they charge medicare, medicaid, and private insurance high rates and turn away the people who caused the higher rates to maximize their profits, expand the hospital, and look good for stealing the community hospital.
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