I am in the Philippines this week, so I am commenting on this matter based on newspaper articles I have read. I have no secret inside information, just the comments of the Governor and newspaper commentators.
I saw two articles, one in which the Governor called the concerns the Republicans have about illegal aliens getting free, taxpayer-paid California health care as "Mickey Mouse" concerns, and one in which Fabian Nunez said he and the Governor want to be on the cover of time magazine. In his comments about Republicans, he compared Republicans to "obese" people, and his comments to those encouraging the obese to exercise for their own health and well-being.
In the spirit of those kind of encouraging remarks, I like to make a few of my own, because, when it comes to governing, intellectual obesity, intellectual laziness, if you will, is far worse than physical obesity. Ideas in politics are not the matter of polls, and they are not the matter of talking points and populist rhetoric, they really do matter. Unfortunately, the Governor doesn’t like to think about policy. He wants to be popular. He wants to be on the cover of Time Magazines. It is not that he is incapable. I have found him to be extremely intelligent. Nor is it that he doesn’t have the capability of doing the right thing. He does. He has chosen difficult fights before. He is, however, intellectually lazy, and he is quickly becoming intellectually obese because of his obsession with being popular. He is like the BMOC who never studies, and thinks the way to get through high school is to charm the teachers. He needs to study. He needs to spend some time reading about health policy, and its actual impact on people’s health. He needs to take a look at some of the things that Pacific Research Institute, or Claremont, or Reason, or Heritage say about government-run health care systems. He needs to give his brain a workout, before he resorts to his talking points again. This battle is not about health care, it is about our future, and the future role of government in our lives.
Is it "Mickey Mouse" to care about increasing taxes on people? Is it "Mickey Mouse" to oppose the expansion of government into an area, in this case, health care, that government, through its past policies, has screwed up almost beyond repair? Is it "Mickey Mouse" to be concerned about how this expansion of government will actually affect the doctor/patient relationship? HMO’s are bad enough, but the Governor is talking about making the whole system one big, government-run HMO. Talk about intellectual obesity–this has been Ted Kennedy’s dream for 30 years.
Is it "Mickey Mouse" to be concerned about the Constitution? The courts have held similar plans to be unconstitutional as violating federal law. Do we just dismiss those concerns as irrelevant?
The problem of health care is the problem of the third party payor, and how the government taxes you if you pay for your own health care, and, through this tax policy, basically forces you into system where someone else, either the government or your boss, pays for your health care. You don’t care about their cost, and they don’t care about your health. As a result, the whole system falls apart, because there are no free market forces at work anywhere in the system.
Governor, you need an intellectual workout. You are a smart man, but you will kill people with your health plan, and the health plan advocated by the Democrats. Worry about doing the right thing, not the popular thing, and you will restore your intellectual health. I say this because I love you, and I want you to be healthy and successful. XXOO