Political Provocateur

Ezra Klein over at WaPo is confused about a few things. So, I would like to clarify.

When it comes to the proabably, already over-hyped Joe Wilson shout of “You Lie!” during Obama’s speech, Klein is baffled as to why two Democratic lawmakers are throwing him a line:

 But for reasons I won’t pretend to understand, Max Baucus and Kent Conrad seem intent on throwing him a lifeline, while at the same time making their bill worse and more cumbersome. 

For comparison’s sake, here’s what Baucus’s framework currently says on page four. “No illegal immigrants will benefit from the health care tax credits.” It’s not exactly ambiguous. And it wouldn’t be considered ambiguous except that Baucus now appears to be going back and saying it was, in fact, ambiguous. The end result here is that his bill will be worse and his opponents will not be mollified in the least. It’s really hard to decide what’s worse about this move: the politics, which helps out Glenn Beck and the forces of hysteria, or the policy.

 A couple things jump out here. First, is that Klein is actually upset that the opponents of the health care reform plan will not be “mollified in the least.” Here are two Democrats (in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due) who in response to the obvious and genuine concern of a Republican congressman and millions of Americans, have gone back and cleaned up their legislation a bit. Wow, that is terrible! And exactly would this contribute to the “forces of hysteria?”

Sure, maybe the phrase “No illegal immigrants will benefit from the health car tax credits,” is not on its face ambiguous. But that doens’t exactly tell us how illegal immigrants will not benefit, when all over evidence points to the contrary.

Of course, at this point one could bring up the tangential argument about illegal immigration to begin with. And while I do favor open borders and all that that entails (for economic reasons mostly), there still is something to be said for the rule of law. And until illegal immigrants are paying their dues like everyone else, they should not recieve government benefits. But not to get too sidetracked…

Klein goes on:

The policy being proposed will demand documentation not simply to get premiums, but to participate in the insurance markets. That’s a very bad idea. It’s a very bad idea because the people you most need to reach — low-income folks, and the unemployed, and legal immigrants — are the least likely to have easy access to documentation and the most likely to get scared off by a lot of paperwork requirements.We’re stopping them from purchasing health insurance with their own money. But there’s a reason Best Buy doesn’t have a citizenship requirement and Safeway doesn’t ask for papers. It’s cumbersome and inefficient and, at the end of the day, we want people to spend money on things anyway.

Again with the excuses, the “woe is them” attitude, and the overall sentiment of “people can’t handle things on their own, so the government must step in.” Give me a break. Can we cease and desist with the “government can take care of everything” mantra? I hear that in order to qualify for welfare, one must first go through paperword full of beauracracy nonsense, but I don’t see that stopping the poor and unemployed from jumping to claim their entitlements.  

It’s also ironic that Klein compares this government plan to private and capitalist businesses like Best Buy and Safeway. No, those businesses don’t demand to see papers because yes, that would be very inneficient and discourage people from buying their products. However, government-sponsored healthcare isn’t exactly what I would call a private enterprise. Thus, it would follow that it will not act or function like a private business that thrives in a capitalist, free-market society.  And you can’t force it to.