Why Huckabee?

Peggy Noonan has a take on the “why” of the Hucker’s win:

From the mail I have received the past month after criticizing him in this space, I would say his great power, the thing really pushing his supporters, is that they believe that what ails America and threatens its continued existence is not economic collapse or jihad, it is our culture.

We’ll get back to this.

They have been bruised and offended by the rigid, almost militant secularism and multiculturalism of the public schools; they reject those schools’ squalor, in all senses of the word. They believe in God and family and America. They are populist: They don’t admire billionaire CEOs, they admire husbands with two jobs who hold the family together for the sake of the kids; they don’t need to see the triumph of supply-side thinking, they want to see that suffering woman down the street get the help she needs.

Much has been written about Huckabee’s stealth liberalism, by much better observers than I. 

But the Huckabee’s great strength – “it’s the home, family, schools and culture, stupid!” – is also the deepest pitfall.  It points out an inward-facing, insular coccooning instinct that is the flip side of the post-cold-war euphoria that gave us Bill Clinton.  In 1992, the electorate said “History is over; let’s talk about underwear!”.  Today, it’s “the world is a dangerous place, here and abroad; I wanna focus on “here””.  It’s a current that melds nicely with Huckabee’s propensity to bury problems in money, and his foreign policy naivete.

They believe that Mr. Huckabee, the minister who speaks their language, shares, down to the bone, their anxieties, concerns and beliefs.

Sorta like that other candidate from Little Rock did. 

But history didn’t stop in 1992, and you can’t wish it away today.

83 thoughts on “Why Huckabee?

  1. You know the media. First they ignore Huckabee, then they pay him far too much attention. In NH Huckabee will do better than he would have without the Iowa win, but he will lose, I think, to McCain. Huckabee’s appeal is limited to a subset of evangelical Christians. 50%+1 of voters are not in that subset. Without a better than expected showing in NH, Romney’s support will evaporate. Hugh Hewitt seems to be in panic mode about Romney, which says a lot.
    The coalition that backed Reagan — small government conservatives, social conservatives, and Wall Street conservatives — is breaking, and the GOP can blame no one but its national leadership. And Bush.

  2. The “ideas” haven’t even been tried for 20+ years! The left’s “ideas” have brought us the shameful state of American education, beyond-belief social ills and a coarsening of the culture. You can have your ideas RickDFL. Your philosophy has created a huge stinkin’ mess of things.

    I’m not a Huckabee fan although I am a fundamentalist Christian. My choice would be Duncan Hunter (or Clarence Thomas or Thomas Sowell or…), but alas, a guy like that never has a chance. Why is that?

  3. Terry is right. The Wall Street guys and the God-botherers have finally realized they have nothing in common. McCain is really your only shot. Otherwise get used to the Clinton Restoration or the Punahou grad. Angryclown’s guess is the latter.

  4. As far as the media paying too much attention, Huck did win the first Republican contest with no money and, until recently, no national profile. He won by the seat of his giant fat-guy pants. That’s kinda interesting, dontcha think? ‘Specially cause the Huckalanche shows exactly how much disarray the party is in right now.

    McCain.

  5. Colleen questioned: “My choice would be Duncan Hunter (or Clarence Thomas or Thomas Sowell or…), but alas, a guy like that never has a chance. Why is that?”

    Cause we live in a constitutional democracy, Colleen, not the Death Star.

  6. we live in a constitutional democracy, Colleen, not the Death Star.

    Good line.

    Not appropriate to any of the subjects, but…good line.

    until recently, no national profile…That’s kinda interesting,

    Yes, it is.

  7. The guy’s a gifted speaker – miles ahead of Romney, Rudy and Fred. Angryclown started keeping an eye on Huck after hearing him in the Republican debate on African American issues (Romney, Rudy, Fred and McCain had unspecified “scheduling conflicts,” natch) and Brownback dropped out. He’s a religious kook, of course, but a likable religious kook. (You got any other likable candidates? – people seem to go for that.)

    You want to pretend Huckabee’s owned and operated by “the media,” and that all those Iowa Republicans don’t know any better than to follow what the New York Times tells ’em to do, you go right ahead. The more fixed delusions you guys take on, the more Angryclown has to make fun of.

  8. Pat Robertson won Iowa and then disappeared when he ran out of highly organized evangelicals operating in a caucus format. It’s just a Huckabubble.

  9. Terry is right.
    Well said!

    The Wall Street guys and the God-botherers have finally realized they have nothing in common.

    The rift could be mended with the right leadership. Independents won’t turn out for Huckabee, and evangelicals won’t turn out for McCain, Giuliani, or Romney. Even without a 3rd party run by Paul the numbers look grim for the GOP this fall.
    On the other hand Hillary is not popular with independents, and Obama has yet to face a critical press.

  10. “The “ideas” haven’t even been tried for 20+ years!”

    You remind me of the people I knew in around 1989 who went around saying that real Communism had never been tried either.

  11. I agree with your analysis. The Dems have a better candidate pool, but the election will be one Dem against one Republican. And all the individual Democrats are flawed. The Republican field is full of ridiculous candidates (Baptist preacher/former fat guy Arkansas governor who can’t place Pakistan on a map? Not likely.) McCain remains the one general election candidate with a chance of attracting independents and Democrats.

    I like the Dems’ chances against anybody but McCain. Nominate McCain and I like the Republicans’ chances.

  12. What ‘ideas’ are you talking about, RickDFL?
    This is still a conservative country by western standards. Large majorities are in favor of closing the borders to illegal immigration and banning same sex marriage. The Dem’s fear the overturn of Roe Vs. Wade because without it many states would ban abortion outright.

  13. What ‘ideas’ are you talking about, RickDFL?
    My top 4
    1. Health care for all at half the cost.
    2. Defending our country, not invading others.
    3. Raising wages for all, by making it easier to join a union.
    4. A return to the rule of law and accountability.

  14. Republicans are the ones who should fear the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Then you’d actually have to vote to overturn abortion, which would be poison at the ballot box, or just flip-flop, which won’t serve you much better. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, you’d lose one of the biggest issues energizing your base.

  15. I’m actually pro-choice, AC. I think abortion is a moral wrong but I don’t think that the best way to handle this particular moral wrong is to make it illegal. Like a lot of conservatives I detest Roe vs. Wade because our country is a Republic. We, the people, should decide controversial political issues & let the political chips fall where they may.

  16. We agree, Terry. Perhaps you would like to run as the vice presidential candidate on Angryclown’s independent ticket.

  17. “What ‘ideas’ are you talking about, RickDFL?”

    1. Health care for all at half the cost.
    2. Defending our country, not invading other countries.
    3. Raising wages for all by making it easier to join a union.
    4. Restore the rule of law and accountability.

  18. You remind me of the people I knew in around 1989 who went around saying that real Communism had never been tried either.

    No Rick, they were saying it didn’t work because the wrong people had been in charge. They were just plain smarter than Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, Tito….

  19. Terry:

    1. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/2/38980580.pdf

    “The United States also ranks far ahead of other OECD countries in terms of total health spending per capita, with spending of 6,401 USD (adjusted for purchasing power parity), more than twice the OECD average of 2,759 USD in 2005.”

    2. How is that Iraq war working out?

    3. http://www.afl-cio.org/joinaunion/why/uniondifference/uniondiff5.cfm
    “In nearly every occupational category, union members earn more than nonunion workers. By comparing the wages of workers within occupational groups, the union difference is most clear.”

    4. The rule of law is an idea that does not work? Really – that your final answer. Well I suppose that is the logical conclusion of the Bush administration.

  20. # RickDFL Says:
    January 5th, 2008 at 3:42 am

    Terry:
    It is not the people, it is the ideas. They do not work.

    Terry Says:
    January 5th, 2008 at 12:14 pm

    What ‘ideas’ are you talking about, RickDFL? [ . . .]

    # RickDFL Says:
    January 5th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

    “What ‘ideas’ are you talking about, RickDFL?”

    1. Health care for all at half the cost.
    2. Defending our country, not invading other countries.
    3. Raising wages for all by making it easier to join a union.
    4. Restore the rule of law and accountability.

  21. whoops . so used to playing defense around here, I lost track.

    so the republican ideas that do not work are

    1. paying health insurance companies huge sums of money to figure out ways not to provide health care.

    2. invading other countries.

    3. preventing workers from collectively bargaining.

    4. a uniquely lawless administration.

  22. 1. paying health insurance companies huge sums of money to figure out ways not to provide health care.
    A highly colored opinion. No one is in favor of this.

    2. invading other countries..
    The Iraq War had broad bipartisan support. As did Clinton’s military adventures in Haiti, the Balkans, etc.

    3. preventing workers from collectively bargaining.
    Collective bargaining is a legal right when a union has been certified by a vote of the workers. Are you against democracy?

    4. a uniquely lawless administration.
    Wasn’t it Clinton that got impeached for obstruction of justice & perjury?

  23. RickDFL-
    Here’s my list of GOP ideas that don’t work:
    -Valuing capital more than labor.
    -Working with failed government institutions rather than reforming or eliminating them.
    -Using congressional pork as a re-election tool.
    -Insensitivity to the problems of the working poor.

  24. You remind me of the people I knew in around 1989 who went around saying that real Communism had never been tried either.

    That’s cute coming from a guy that calls himself RickDFL.

  25. Had to hit on this too, even though Terry already has:

    1. paying health insurance companies huge sums of money to figure out ways not to provide health care.

    If you actually believe this, Rick, you are as obtuse as a 178-1-1 degree triangle.

    If Dems didn’t believe that health care shoud be completely free of any charge for some, causing it to be abusingly expensive for others, we wouldn’t need medical insurance.

    2. invading other countries.

    Left off of Terry’s list: Bosnia. Clinton said the troops would be home by Christmas 1997. Troops are still there. How come no one on the left reminds us of this?

    3. preventing workers from collectively bargaining.

    Allow me to quote Bill Whittle:

    No, you can’t turn on any of the government-controlled news outlets without seeing daily the shooting and arrest of union leaders trying to organize workers. You are a tool. How long has it been since there was national coverage of the WGA strike? Half an hour, maybe? Whatever decline in Union power in the USA is related to the fact that more people have taken control of their lives in the information economy and function as freelancers.

    In too many cases, unions are obsolete, unnecessary or downright destructive (see the UAW corrosive effect on the big three automobile manufacturers.)

    And I say this as a IBEW member, buddy boy.

    4. a uniquely lawless administration.

    Despite your BDS fantasies Rick, this has been the mot moral, ethical and lawful administration in decades. How do we know this? Because protesters march every weekend in this country and mouth the most vile personal attacks against the Bush Administration unchecked. If it were really that lawless, why aren’t you and your DFL buddies all lamphades? Hmn?

  26. Paul-
    I’ve never understood how one could be in favor of unions (the cartelization of labor) and yet fight the simple requirement that you have to be legally allowed to work in this country before you can compete for an American’s job.
    BTW, I was an ILWU worker at one time. The company used to do things just to antogonize the workers, such as refusing to issue a check for earned vacation time. They’d only issue it months later when they were legally forced to do so. I also saw a shop steward sexually harass a female member of management (he told her “Nice t*ts!” whenever he saw her) just make the point that the company’s sexual harassment policy was not part of the union contract.
    It was not a pleasant work environment.

  27. Terry:

    On the first point, it’s easy when you realize that unions as a group are a Dems constituency, and they are trying to cement illegal immigrant as one also to amass power and remain in office indefinitely.

    On the second point: Exactly what I meant. The shop I currently work in (located in Golden Valley; btw, I’ve lived in Plymouth the last two years) doesn’t have such an atmosphere, but such an example is uncommon.

  28. Paul-
    Fortunately I moved onto bigger and better things after I’d been at that place for a few months. It was awful. Management’s head of personnel had to park his car next to a security camera to keep it from being vandalized. My shop steward was also the safety guy and he would throw his weight around by shutting down parts of the building if he detected a few drops of oil spilled on the floor. The company got rid of him by making an emergency call to our department about a “water leak” — and when the shop steward showed up to fix it they fired him on the spot for being out of his work area. And the firing stuck.
    Very grim, indeed. After he was fired the shop steward made a mint when he sold his house in Kona and then retired to a live-aboard catamaran in the gulf of Baja. I guess he got the last laugh after all.

  29. While I am grateful to the support I got from the union to which I used to belong, I now find myself on the other side of the rules: I cannot appear in the newspaper that employs me because of the classification assigned to my job. Odd, that.

    As for getting healthcare for everyone at half the price: when the government runs the hospitals, it’ll be interesting to see how they handle malpractice insurance and lawsuits, which consume tremendous amounts of resources. I expect juries will find themselves in a generous mood when it comes to handing out money – the government can afford it; they can afford anything – and this will quickly be followed by caps on jury awards.

    This might lead to a reduction in malpractice premiums, which could be a good thing, but it would probably be accompanied by a cap on the prices doctors could charge. If you want the government in the business of determining people’s salaries, that’s fine, but frankly I’d take the high premiums and no cap, especially if I’m doing something that requires eight years of school and 24/7 hours, like OB-GYN.

    You might have more doctors willing to enter fields known for specious malpractice suits if the plaintiffs knew they couldn’t get more than 50K – but on the other hand, some cases deserve more than 50K.

    In short: I suspect that healthcare for everyone at half the price would result in healthcare for many at half the quality.

  30. One only needs to look at the UK and Canada’s rationing and (in the case of he UK) hundreds of thousands of people seeking medical help outside their home country, to see the wonderful success of socialized medicine.

    Or are those also cases of “it’s failing because the wrong people are running it” like it was with communism?

    They (communism and socialized anything) always have failed, are failing, and always will fail because when the shit hits the fan, human nature is to look out for #1 (and #1’s family) first. No amount of liberal phumphering about compassion and compassion and, oh yeah…..compassion, will change that.

    If communism is supposed to work so well, why is it that every communist regime that has ever existed needs to forcefully compel its subjects to stay home?

  31. Lielkes wrote:

    “I cannot appear in the newspaper that employs me because of the classification assigned to my job.”

    So have your co-workers and management negotiate a letter of understanding that allows you to write for print. It happens all the time.

    “I suspect that healthcare for everyone at half the price would result in healthcare for many at half the quality.”

    What you suspect is wrong. The evidence is clear. Other countries, like France, provide health care as good if not better than U.S. care for less then half the $ amount per person. This is not something we have to “suspect” about, it is just solid fact.

  32. Mr Lileks, the line is…..

    “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it is free”

    We also are willing to except: “Your health care, provided to you by the people who brought you Katrina”

  33. Paul,

    The model Rick suggests works in many other countries which have (25 countries to be exact have better healthcare stats, of which I believe 20 have nationalized healthcare models, including Canada and England, where it was predicted for both, that it would fail, and bring about very poor health care). Instead those countries have:

    a. Far lower costs
    b. Far better average healtcare

    I believe you may want to do substantial research on National healtcare models, on where the US ranks currently, what the trends are, and the overall cost for healthcare as a portion of the GDP over the past 25 years. Neo-cons can make whatever claims you like, but the facts stare you in the face. As someone intimately familiar with the healthcare payment system (I was a Health Insurance Claim examiner, auditor, manager, and department assistant director over 11 years working in Health Insurance), I can assure you that the current model isn’t broken due to ‘free care’ or any other such ludicrous memes. The poor frequent the medical system far less often than do those with insurance, their infrequent care costs FAR more than having them get the preventive care would both cost and subsequently prevent in later care, and mostly what we’re facing is an aging population covered by fewer and fewer people.

    You all can spout your silly little memes all you like, but the facts of unburdened care were true in 1970, they are not true any longer, and while competitive pressure MIGHT have worked in 1970, it is SOO far beyond that point now that it’s a silly, foolish argument to suggest that if we simply allowed for the competitive marketplace to cure things, we’d be just fine. The first problem with that is, the most expensive care is not ‘optional’ it HAS to be delivered. The second is that patients pay a huge portion of their bills now – at least in raw dollars. There has LONG been pressure on doctors, hospitals, clinicians in general, to contain costs, but the sheer cost of delivery and attendant salaries in health care are so far beyond local pressure to change, that it’s laughable to suggest that Aunt Betty, or even 100 Aunt Betty’s are going to do so. I have a very good friend whom I respect greatly who advocates for HSA’s as part of the solution, who sits on a national board recommending ways to correct the system, and while HSA’s have a place in the current environment, there is no chance they can change the fundamental paradigm that we have too few people paying for a rapidly aging populace. Some figures to consider, 75% of what you’ll spend on healthcare in your life, you will spend AFTER you turn 65 (meaning what will be spent on you, either by the government, or your insurance, or your self). It will be for late-life care, to extend your life, to treat you for serious illness, and/or to provide you hospice at the end. That care, is by far the most expensive care you’ll receive, it’s not about ‘over-utilization’ or any other such clap-trap. It’s about care you will want desperately for your parents, your spouse, and that your children will desparately want for you (or your spouse will ) etc. As such, it constitutes a DEMAND industry, like power, like heat. You look for cheaper costs, believe me, it happens now for this kind of care, it happens all over, all the time, everywhere, but in the end, the market is set by what everyone else charges too, and you’ll pay, you’ll pay because you want to live, or you want your Dad to live.

    And Rick, you vastly undersell France, they provide FAR FAR superior in Freedomland, than we do here, for much less than half the cost.

    Chuck, healthcare employees aren’t necessarily political schills and hacks, hired by those contemptuous of government with the full intent of looting the treasury and proving government can’t work. That would be the difference between effective government (in oh, other countries) and the corrupt, nepotism laden Bush Administration.

    And those of you who don’t care for the length of this post, well – tough- Healthcare is enormously important. It deserves an injection of reality about the stupid and foolish ‘overutilization’ meme. People don’t “overutilize” cancer care, believe it or not. No one take Chemo for fun, or Radiation for kicks – such suggestions border on the insane, and are insanely stupid.

  34. So all those articles from liberal-leaning newspapers and journals about the abysmal level of care and timely availability of health care in Canada, Britain, the Scandinavian countries (we have relatives in Norway-we know the truth there), etc. is all a BIG LIE?! Peevish knows the true scoop-who’da thunk it? And all those people that come across the border (both north & south) for their health care are just doing it so they can shop at Wal-Mart while they’re here? That’s all another BIG LIE (I live 6 miles from the border, so I have some idea)? And-whaddaya know-our own Peevish knows the true scoop again! Isn’t he something?

    Wasn’t France where all those elderly people died because they were too hot? Hmmm….with the uber-exceptional health care available, you would have thought they could have saved them-because, when it comes to European countries, they’re so much like our American celebrities-what they don’t know (and can’t do) doesn’t exist…especially compared to our backward, beknighted land. Poor us-it really does just suck to be American, doesn’t it? We just fumble around and can’t get anything right. Nothin’ but the big, goofy stumble-bum of the universe.

  35. I, being, Lielkes, wrote:

    “I cannot appear in the newspaper that employs me because of the classification assigned to my job.”

    RichDLF answered: “So have your co-workers and management negotiate a letter of understanding that allows you to write for print. It happens all the time.”

    Don’t take this the wrong way, but unless you are a Guild negotiator involved in this particular argument, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

    Compounding my sins, I wrote:

    “I suspect that healthcare for everyone at half the price would result in healthcare for many at half the quality.”

    To which RickDFL replied:

    “What you suspect is wrong. The evidence is clear. Other countries, like France, provide health care as good if not better than U.S. care for less then half the $ amount per person. This is not something we have to “suspect” about, it is just solid fact.”

    Interesting: I was having this same conversation with my brother-in-law over the holidays; he was touting the French system, which is “free.” On the other hand, he prefers America as a place to have a career, because you can afford a house, the taxes aren’t as ruinous, and you can actually get a job because the economy is 10X more dynamic, and change jobs for the same reason. He just got a new job with a local multinational, too. Excellent health benefits. He even brought over his teenaged daughter from a previous marriage to live in this hell-hole, too; she prefers America as well. I don’t know what gets into some people.

  36. The model Rick suggests works in many other countries

    Where “work” = is threatening, or is forecast, to grind to a screeching halt in a few years without huge extra expenditures.

    And where it means “create a healthcare system with a stagnant talent pool, since the doctors take-away isn’t commensurate with the effort it takes to become a doctor, leading to a further constriction of the supply of doctors, nurses, and (worst of all in the long tern) researchers.”

    Socialized medicine is “superior” in the same way that man-made global warming is “proven”; because its proponents keep saying so.

    Oh, and healthcare in the UK, Canada, France and the Netherlands is “better” in the same way that I was a better running back than Walter Peyton – by picking the statistics very carefully.

  37. Lileks wrote:
    “he was touting the French system, which is “free.” On the other hand, he prefers America as a place to have a career”

    So he can change the American health care system to look like the French, but keep the other parts of the American economy he likes. Best of both worlds.

    Collen wrote:
    “So all those articles from liberal-leaning newspapers and journals about the abysmal level of care and timely availability of health care in Canada, Britain, the Scandinavian countries (we have relatives in Norway-we know the truth there), etc. is all a BIG LIE”

    I would have to read them. The articles I see talk about Americans going oversees to get more affordable care. Can you find any articles saying a larger proportion of French residents go abroad for health care than U.S. residents?

    Mitch wrote:
    “by picking the statistics very carefully”
    But you are not picking any statistics. None of you has cited any verifiable statistic. What statistic do you want to cite?
    $ spending per person
    % of GDP spent on health care
    life expectancy
    infant mortality
    Docs per 1000 of residents
    accute care beds
    standardized death rates for diabetes

    In any of the above France beats the U.S.

  38. RickDFL-
    So France is the model of the model of great socialized medicine these days? I remember in the early 90’s it was Canada. And then Canadians started to show up at American clinics willing to pay for routine surgery rather than endure pain and discomfort while they waited month after month for a free appointment North of the Border. Did you know Doctors and Nurses make up the largest group of (legal) Canadian Immigrants to the US?
    Before Canada it was Britain’s National Health Service that was the model. Then things got so bad that in the 80’s they started allowing people to opt out of the system. This had the expected result — those who could afford it bought private insurance and the state ended up caring for the poor and those that were un-insurable. Costs soared, while support for the NHS among the middle class (who essentially paid for it in taxes) dropped.
    The US is the US. If we get universal health care it will be as much a hodge-podge as the current methods of paying for health care in the United States. The model isn’t France, it’s medicare & medicaid.

  39. Terry:

    Do you know that Americans leave the U.S. and travel to other countries all the time? Do they do it more than Canadians?
    How does Canadian doctors coming here (if that happens) help your case. If they are coming here because they can squeeze more money out of you, then it shows that the Canadian system is more cost-efficient.
    I have no idea what you are talking about in regard the NHS.
    Medicare for all would be great. If Medicare is so bad why do they have to pay seniors extra to adopt a private plan?

  40. Rickdfl: Please cite each of these you listed:

    $ spending per person
    % of GDP spent on health care
    life expectancy
    infant mortality
    Docs per 1000 of residents
    accute care beds
    standardized death rates for diabetes

    Oh and please remember to break it down by racial factors (an example: black women have higher infant mortality rates, etc.). Compare it all to France. All.
    And you know where Americans are going “overseas” for health care? India…and places like that because it’s CHEAPER not better.

    http://medical-tourist-alert.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/35-guid.html

    http://abcnews.go.com/Business/IndustryInfo/story?id=2320839&page=1

    And apparently there was not one single point made by the posters previous that you could address. Not one. You just stick your fingers in your ears and say, “Nah, nah, can’t hear you…France is better…nah, nah…”. Criminy.

  41. RickDFL-
    You’ve managed to put a lifetime’s worth of ideological blindness into a single post.

    Do you know that Americans leave the U.S. and travel to other countries all the time? Do they do it more than Canadians?

    American citizens who travel to other countries for medical care usually do so because the treatments they desire haven’t been approved by the AMA. There are a small (but growing) number of US ‘medical tourists’ who travel to India (or wherever) to get medical care in another country for less money. More power to them! It’s the free market at work. A non-AMA approved doctor who can’t be sued would almost certainly be cheaper than what a patient would get in the US, but caveat emptor.


    How does Canadian doctors coming here (if that happens) help your case. If they are coming here because they can squeeze more money out of you, then it shows that the Canadian system is more cost-efficient.

    I don’t know if you can call less care for less money an increase in efficiency. Medicine is a demanding profession. You’ve got a leftist’s typical ignorance of the market going on there, RickDFL ‘If you want more and better of something pay less for it’.


    I have no idea what you are talking about in regard the NHS.

    You seem awfully informed about the French system of universal health care but ignorant of what is happening with Britain’s universal health care. A little selection bias, perhaps?


    Medicare for all would be great. If Medicare is so bad why do they have to pay seniors extra to adopt a private plan?

    No idea of the cost or who would pay it, or the effect this would have on a centuries old system of delivering healthcare from willing providers to willing buyers, just “Medicare for all would be great”. Your assumption that a communitarian solution with political accountability would provide ‘better’ health care to all is naive.
    I didn’t say medicare was bad, just that it is the most likely sort of plan the US would end up with. It is not universal coverage, there are co-pays and the state takes the place of an insurance company or HMO in deciding what treatment will be payed for. This would be bad for some people and good for others, the same as the current system.

  42. Terry:
    You are getting incoherent.

    1. It is clear that you have no actual data on medical tourism, so can we just stop citing it as evidence.
    2. Getting more for less is a basic economic fact going back to Adam Smith, remember ‘economy of scale’. Canadian Docs come to the U.S. (if they do) because they can charge more for the same goods. Good for Docs, sucks for the rest of us. The Canadian systems use their bargaining power to get a equal level of service from Docs for less money. Just like Wal-Mart gets cheap DVDs by purchasing in bulk.
    3. I know a fair amount about the NHS, but I still have no idea what you mean by “in the 80’s they started allowing people to opt out of the system”.
    That is either because I am ignorant (unlikely), your phrasing hopelessly opaque (clearly), or you have no idea what you are talking about (we have a winner). So please for us non-NHS experts, can you provide a link to some clear explanation of event to which you are referring.
    4. “No idea of the cost or who would pay it, or the effect this would have on a centuries old system of delivering healthcare from willing providers to willing buyers, just “Medicare for all would be great”. Your assumption that a communitarian solution with political accountability would provide ‘better’ health care to all is naive”

    Are you insane? The systems I want to model have been up and running for 50 plus years in every major country around the world. They have a longer track record than the computer. What more evidence could there be?

  43. You want to change a system that works most of the time for most people. The burden of proof is on you to convince me (and by extension the American voter) that your proposed system (you’ve mentioned no models other than medicare & the Fench system) will be an improvement over the current US health care system most of the time for most people.
    You can have a link fest if you want, but if you only read sources that agree with your communitarian, state-provided solution . . . garbage in, garbage out.
    Besides, I think Mitch’s WordPress installation only allows 2 live links per post.

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