Liberal Fascism Redux

Liberal Fascism Redux

by Mark Luedtke

When I want to know about fascism, I look to Benito Mussolini who said, "Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." FDR, LBJ and George W. Bush all expanded fascist control over our economy, but nowhere near the extent of fascism in Italy and Germany before WWII. President Obama and his Democrat allies fixed that. Their seizure of control over our health care system against the clear will of the people is terrifyingly reminiscent of the fascism of Mussolini.

It was funny how during the health care debate of the last year, Democrats demonized health insurance companies and drug companies, but in order to pass their health care oppression bill, they made back-room deals with them to loot the American people on their behalf. Those corporations were promised big profits at our expense, but their operations will be directed by the fascists in Washington. Modern America is transforming into Depression-era Italy. The Italians and Germans mistakenly considered themselves free too.

There's no mystery about what the consequences will be. Compare government schools to private schools. Compare the post office to Federal Express. Costs will skyrocket. Quality of care will plummet. Government will ration care. Sole practitioners and small doctors' offices will go extinct. Medical advancement will stagnate. While the rich and powerful enjoy excellent care in a two tier system, we'll suffer assembly line medical care staffed by bureaucrats. As in every fascist country before us, virulent racism, secret police and political violence will become commonplace. As Hayek explained in the Road to Serfdom, the strongman will rise to combat the unrest, stoke nationalism and start a war in an attempt to rally the people behind him. In a decade or so this fascist health care system will collapse as it's designed to do (insurance companies only recently figured that out and turned against the bill) so our false saviors in Washington can blame it on the non-existent free market and force full-blown socialized medicine down our throats. Seniors and the chronically ill will be denied care to control costs. Life expectancy will fall. Americans will live shorter, more painful, less productive lives.

It's instructive to review how we got to this point. In the early 1900s, government imposed education restrictions for doctors. This reduced the supply of doctors which increased the cost of health care according to the laws of supply and demand. During WWII, government banned raises for workers but allowed companies to buy health insurance for their employees tax free instead, creating the third party payer system we're stuck with today. Because the cost of health insurance became invisible to employees, the demand for health care exploded, increasing the cost of health care according to the laws of economics. Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP all increased demand and drove up the price of health care. Every increasingly draconian restriction on doctors, hospitals, health insurance companies, medical equipment providers and drug companies drove up costs and drove out small suppliers, reducing competition and creating the government and corporate dominated system we know today. The reduction in the number of suppliers also reduced the pace of innovations, reducing the quality of the care.

Each government interference was designed to fix the problems created by the previous interventions, but like all government interventions, all created worse problems than they were supposed to solve. As a result our health care system is prohibitively expensive and quality of care is significantly lower than it otherwise would be. Obamacare isn't an isolated policy. It's the inevitable next step in a process that both parties have pushed for a century. Each president and Congress builds on the power grabs of the previous president and Congress. While we rightly blame Democrats for this fascist step in the process, they couldn't have done it without all the interventions supported by Republicans over the decades including Romneycare and Medicare Part D and the expansion of SCHIP under Bush. The solution has always been to remove government from our health system, but voters never make that happen. The next inevitable step on this path is socialized medicine.

Republican opposition to Obamacare wasn't based on non-intervention or limited government principles. In addition to $500 billion in new taxes, this bill robs Medicare, which has a strong Republican constituency, to expand Medicaid, an overwhelmingly Democrat constituency. This law is all about looting the American people and buying votes. Republicans tried to compromise so they could share in the looting, but Democrats shut them out. Don't get fooled into thinking Republicans will repeal this law. They won't. Look for them to restore Medicare funding and find other ways to balance the looting, but little else.

A great way to understand the nature of government is to visualize it as a gun to the head of the people carrying the threat, "Do what I say, or else."  That's great when it targets murderers, rapists and thieves, but Obamacare points the government's gun at every American while he or she is visiting the doctor. Doctor-patient confidentiality is history. Government is violence and threat of violence, and Obamacare is the single greatest act of violence the government has perpetrated on the American people since the Civil War. Americans are righteously angry.

The right to life depends on the right to pursue whatever health care options we choose. Obamacare took that right from us, and therefore it took away our right to life too. We'll realize that Obamacare also took away our right to the pursuit of happiness when Democrats propose restrictions on our lifestyles ostensibly to make us more healthy. I hope somebody makes this argument to the Supreme Court, but since the worst provisions of Obamacare don't kick in until 2014, it's unlikely the Court will hear a case for nearly a decade. By then the system will be on the verge of collapse if it hasn't collapsed already.

Congratulations to the people who voted for change. I hope you can live with it.

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References:

Mises scholar explains how government regulations led to the skyrocketing cost of health insurance.

Big Pharma and Big Insurance supported Obamacare. Insurance companies turn against Obamacare because they realize the plan is designed to put them out of business. The birth of our employer based health care system.

Judge Napolitano says that it will take on the order of a decade before Obamacare could be declared unconstitutional.

It's interesting that the burden on small businesses really kicks in in 2014.

Here's what I'm talking about when I say that Democrats monopolized the looting which is why Republicans are so upset.

"The Obammunist’s socialized health care legislation promises to cut Medicare spending by hundreds of billions of dollars while increasing Medicaid spending by hundreds of billions.  At least half of all Medicare enrollees vote Republican; almost all Medicaid enrollees vote Democrat.  This is why the Obammunists are so euphoric today."

Not only did Democrats successfully loot us on behalf of one of their core special interest groups, they cut Republican looting on behalf of arguably their most powerful special interest group. It's all about power and politics. Health care be damned.