It would be helpful if “healthcare” reform advocates were forced to state the Problem(s) they think they are addressing and solving. This would make it more apparent that “healthcare reform”, as that phrase has come to mean, is not pointed at and has nothing to do with solving the Problems they always bring up. As things stand when I try to address the supposed Problems one by one, it inevitably leads to one or another sort of Dodge on the part of the “healthcare” advocate. Here are some examples, their most obvious/straightforward resolutions, and their dodges:

Problem: people can DIE because they don’t have health insurance or aren’t covered by Medicaid type programs, therefore will not be given health care they need in order not to DIE, because all hospitals/health care deliverers will refuse to treat them. Resolution: this problem doesn’t actually exist, of course. It is against the law (EMTALA) to deny needed treatment on the basis of ability to pay. Dodge: stretch the meaning of what’s “needed” to include virtually everything – routine checkups, whatever. This is a dodge because then we’re no longer talking about people dying (which supposedly was the Problem).

Problem: some cliched number of people (the agreed-upon number nowadays seems to be “46 million”) don’t have “access” to health care. Resolution: this just isn’t true. Go into any hospital, you will be given “access”. You might be asked to pay and/or cite an insurance company or something (then again, you might not, if you’re poor enough, or it’s an emergency), but “access” as such is not an issue. Dodge: equate “access” with “getting stuff for free”, which is ridiculous (the Problem “46 million people are without free health care!” just wouldn’t have the same ring to it, would it?)

Problem: the Important 46 Million don’t have insurance. Resolution: who cares whether they have “insurance”? Insurance is not health care. Dodge: Equate insurance with health care at every opportunity, refuse to see the difference between the two.

Problem: Health care costs are too high for the average person. Resolution: bring costs down via market mechanisms like in all other areas of human life – have people pay for things themselves as much as possible, no more intermediation, remove barriers to entry on the supplier side, remove the distorting tax credit for employer-provided health plans, let people not consume (i.e. not buy insurance or buy only minimal insurance if they want), etc. Get consumption down and bargain-shopping and competition up, make peoples’ costs visible to them, and costs will inevitably come down. Dodge: “That’s crazy talk! I’ve got a much better idea: socialism. Let’s put as many people onto a government plan as possible and make sure everyone’s true health care costs are hidden from them.” Then mumble something vague and inaccurate/ignorant about “risk-spreading”, wave your hands, and voila, spending a trillion dollars and distorting the market even further will magically make costs come down.

Are there any other Problems that “healthcare” reform is meant to solve? Because it would solve none of the above Problems, which either can be addressed in other ways or aren’t real problems in the first place. Indeed, the only real Problem I can see solved by “healthcare” reform is the Problem of Not Enough Socialism.

Needless to say, not everyone sees that as a problem. But obviously, some people do.

My exchanges with “healthcare” advocates make it clear that their priorities are in fact rather strange.

Let’s say they give sob stories about people who need health care to save their life, but can’t afford it, therefore will be left to die. I point out EMTALA. They say “but that only covers ER care, it doesn’t cover routine things!” Um, huh? I thought this was about life-saving treatment, not acne medication.

Let’s say they start prattling on about how all other ‘developed’ countries have ‘universal’ health care (=government health care that covers everyone), but since we don’t, poor people fall through the cracks. I point out Medicare. They say: “but that only covers poor people, not everyone!” Um, huh? I thought the concern was precisely whether poor people are covered. The rich and middle class already have health care through their jobs, or privately.

It seems the real priority is that there be an All-Encompassing Government Program that Covers Everything. You get it? The concern is not life-saving nor is the concern poor people. The concern is that an All-Encompassing Government Program needs to exist. As long as it doesn’t exist, the left will consider it a tragedy, and agitate for one.

Why? Why is that a priority? Obviously, they don’t know.

So I’m trying to dig deeper. What psychological pathology makes people so in love with the concept of health care being delivered via an All-Encompassing Government Program? What’s so special about getting your health care from the Government that the left instinctively considers it a goal in itself worth striving for endlessly, for everyone (not just poor people)? The more I think about it the more bizarre it is.

It’s been nauseating to catch snippets of lefty/media reaction to the Fort Hood shootings. Dozens of people murdered and the Intelligentsia’s primary concerns are Will this hurt diversity? and Will this hurt Muslims’ feelings?

If I were parodying lefty/PC attitudes I couldn’t possibly come up with a reaction so extremely tasteless, tin-eared, inane, and just plain evil. The reality is now beyond parody.

The House just passed a mammoth bill that not a single person voting for it had read.

Half the country is applauding at the “landmark” vote. Not a single one of the people applauding has read the bill.

President Obama hails the great achievement. He has not read the bill and, like the others mentioned above, has only the faintest idea what’s in it.

All of this is emblematic of the Smart point of view. This is what Smart People think and how Smart People behave. Smart People approve of all of this. Thank goodness we’re not living in the Dumb, Know-Nothing time of President George W. Bush, they all say, in their studied ignorance.

Unemployment at 10.2%. Good thing we had “stimulus” which automatically creates jobs, according to Smart People. In fact Smart People just think this proves we need more “stimulus”.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: a recession with high unemployment is a totally awesome time to be proposing that we tax the middle class up the wazoo in order to spend a metric-buttload of money on “healthcare”. This will be brought to you by more Smart People.

I’m not a Smart Person.

I’m not a huge military expert but it seems to me that one thing the U.S. Army should have a lot of are Muslim psychiatrists. I think that would be a big help. Everywhere you look our military bases should be flooded with Muslim psychiatrists and doctors and “chaplains” and other educated-type Muslim guys with chips on their shoulders who were born in Jordan or Syria or somewhere like that. I think going back historically that’s been the one thing missing from our military: not enough jittery, resentful, bitter Muslim guys living amongst our troops. That’s why we lost all those World Wars in my opinion.

Our government has its priorities straight in other areas: Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants has been cited for marijuana possession. It’s such a tragedy that Tim Lincecum has used marijuana, just think if he hadn’t, why, he might be a successful wicked-awesome pitcher in the major leagues or something. Our government needs to prevent him from doing that. If there’s one thing I want my government to spend its time and money on, it’s preventing people from owning certain plant leaves that obviously destroy lives (just as they’ve destroyed the life of Tim Lincecum), and fining them if they do.

Perhaps the proceeds could be used to hire more Muslims into the U.S. military.

I realized I knew Obama would win in the primary when a lefty colleague said he ‘wasn’t optimistic’ and I mistakenly assumed he was talking about Obama’s chances. Because I was viewing him as the frontrunner and left favorite even before he obviously was.

Now, I’ve just realized I think the shine is off Obama. I overheard a young trendy-type bond salesman ridicule another, female bond saleswoman, saying “Aren’t you glad you voted for him now”, and she said:

“Please. I can’t even look at him.”

Buyer’s remorse has got to be a high-probability threat indeed when you vote for someone you know absolutely nothing about primarily because of the following factors: he’s Kinda Black but not black-black, he doesn’t talk like a thug and looks good in a suit, the kids seem to like him, and that Youtube video was way cool.

(Were there any other factors in play for most Obama voters? I actually don’t think so.)

I haven’t read the books, but the Bourne movie series seems to be primarily about backpacking. Matt Damon’s character lives out the standard cliche of the American college student taking off from his homeland to wander around Europe with a knapsack, and maps in tote, living anonymously and making liberal use of trains and subways.

Only, with a bit more killing and martial arts.

Curiously, the movie turns this great American college students’ tradition into something sinister, backpacking-across-Europe as a metaphor for American imperialism. These movies would have you believe that America has unleashed a virtual army of anonymous backpackers across Europe and indeed the world to carry out our plans of world domination. And indeed we have, I suppose (it’s called the Peace Corps). Whereas the James Bond series was perhaps a fictionalized romaniticization of the spirit of the OSS, the Bourne series turns things around and presents a dark, foreboding contrarian view of the spirit of the Peace Corps. Metaphorically, it’s a scathing attack on the Peace Corps, which is why – while Bond is inherently progressive, Bourne is our foremost reactionary superhero. It’s so reactionary it’s not even comfortable with global efforts set up by ’60s peaceniks.

It occurs to me that regardless of the details of whatever “healthcare” bill passes, the majority of lefties (none of whom will read it) will assume it incorporates universal health care.

They wanted universal health care, they elected Obama, Obama says the word “healthcare” a lot, a bill’s (probably?) gonna pass, so voila, automatically it must be universal health care. Whatever’s actually in it.

It also occurs to me that regardless of the details of the bill, it’s going to empower a zillion and one busybody bureaucrats into doing a bunch of stuff related to health care – because they’re the ones who will have to implement whatever the hell Congress is about to pass. Indeed many/most of these people will be the very same ones who long for universal health care and will assume the bill (whatever’s in it) is universal health care.

So, they’ll just go ahead and implement universal health care, at every possibility.

Regardless of what’s in the bill.

My point being that what’s actually in such an ideological bill doesn’t matter. It could be nothing but 8000 pages of “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” for all you or I or anybody knows. Makes no difference. The actual words in the actual bill don’t matter.

If you’re a “progressive”, chances are there are certain cities you find extremely desirable and which embody the best in how you think cities should be. You might even make or at least read and approve of Lists Of The Best Cities To Live In, lists that (coincidentally, of course) highly correlate with how “progressive” those cities are.

Chances also are that those cities are extremely white.

In my view this pattern also seems to scale up to the country level (think Sweden and the other standardly Good Socialist Scandinavian Countries – no “progressive” praises, say, some mid-African socialist country in quite the same way) and down to the neighborhood level (“progressives” may like San Francisco but are there lots of e.g. black people where in the particular parts of San Francisco where all the “progressives” actually want to live? do “progressives” want to live in the neighborhoods e.g. 1-2 miles south of China Basin/PacBell Park? Similarly for New York, which “progressives” also like: but are they talking about Harlem? would they even ever go to Harlem in a million years?).

Culturally as well: Do tons of black people watch PBS or listen to NPR? Do “progressives” watch Tyler Perry movies or George Lopez on TV? Are black people as a rule generally highly concerned with “walkable neighborhoods”, high-speed rail, bicycling, recycling? Do “progressives” tend to spend every weekend at family picnics with loud stereos in public parks? How many Hispanics are, like, totally into Radiohead and Coldplay?

I’m starting to wonder: doesn’t “progressive” basically just mean “white”?

HT Steve Sailer.