Our Government is Either Weak or Incompetent

Every day I see reports about insurance companies that are radically increasing the amounts they charge for health insurance premiums. That doesn’t seem very affordable. Every day, there are patients that come to the Surgery Center of Oklahoma that have these so-called Obamacare plans. And they pay us cash because that provides a better experience for them out of their own pocket than actually paying their deductible and co-pay consistent with the terms of these policies.

This does not seem like a much more affordable option for them either. So healthcare is not more affordable. Healthcare is actually much more expensive since the passage of the Unaffordable Care Act.

As I think about this, I wonder, ‘is this government incompetence the failure of central planning? Or was the exact disaster that we have in healthcare, with skyrocketing costs… was that the plan?’

I also think about the very provocative political philosopher of the 19th century – Lysander Spooner. He had this to say about a runaway Federal government and the failure of the Constitution to rein it in in the 1850s. Think of what he would say today! He said this:

“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”

I think he would look at the Unaffordable Care Act and say either this law has authorized the skyrocketing cost of healthcare, or it has been powerless to prevent it, and in either case, it is unfit to exist.

I think it is a legitimate question to ask about what were the intentions of the central planners, and I think it is also a very legitimate comparison to Spooner’s critique of the failure of the constitution of the 1850s to rein in government.