Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk 3/29/10: Healthcare and Economic Realities
http://house.gov/paul
http://CampaignForLiberty.com
With passage of last weeks bill, the American people are now the unhappy recipients of Washingtons disastrous prescription for healthcare reform. Congressional leaders relied on highly dubious budget predictions, faulty market assumptions, and outright fantasy to convince a slim majority that this major expansion of government somehow will reduce federal spending. This legislation is just the next step towards universal, single payer healthcare, which many see as a human right. Of course, this right must be produced by the labor of other people, meaning theft and coercion by government is necessary to produce and distribute it.
Those who understand Austrian economic theory know that this new model of healthcare will cause major problems down the road, as it has in every nation that ignores economic realities. The more government involves itself in medicine, the worse healthcare will get: quality of care will diminish as the system struggles to contain rising costs, while shortages and long waiting times for treatment will become more and more commonplace.
Consider what would happen if car insurance worked the way health insurance does. What if it was determined that gasoline was a right, and should be covered by your car insurance policy? Perhaps every gas station would have to hire a small army of bureaucrats to file reimbursement claims to insurance companies for every tank of gas sold! What would that kind of system do to the costs of running a gas station? How would that affect the prices of both gasoline and car insurance? Yet this is exactly the type of system Congress is now expanding in health insurance. In a free market system, health insurance would serve as true insurance against serious injuries or illness, not as a convoluted system of third party payments for routine doctor visits and every minor illness.
While proponents of this reform continue to defy all logic and reason by claiming it will save money, I worry about cataclysmic economic events. Already investors are more reluctant to buy US Treasuries, fearing that the healthcare bill, along with other spending, will cause government debt to explode to default levels. I had the opportunity last week to address my concerns with both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, especially about the potential for the coming serious inflation. I am not optimistic that these important decision makers truly understand what is coming, why it is coming, and how best to deal with it.
The Federal Reserve finds itself in an unprecedented and unenviable position. To keep up with government spending and corporate irresponsibility, it has increased the monetary base by nearly $1.5 trillion since September of 2008. Excess bank reserves remain at historically high levels, and the Fed’s balance sheet has ballooned to over $2 trillion. If the Fed pulls this excess liquidity out of the system, it risks collapsing banks that rely on the newly created money. However, if the Fed fails to pull this excess liquidity out of the system we risk tipping into hyperinflation. This is where central banking inevitably has led us.
The idea that a handful of brilliant minds can somehow steer an economy is fatal to economic growth and stability. The Soviet Union’s economy failed because of its central economic planning, and the U.S. economy will suffer the same fate if we continue down the path toward more centralized control. We need to bring back sound money and free markets- yes, even in healthcare- if we hope to soften the economic blows coming our way.
Duration : 0:4:10
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spam , my ass
spam , my ass
What do Skull and …
What do Skull and Bones, ancient German secret societies, the Georgia Guidestones and the Health Care bill have in common?
The answer is March 22nd.
That’s right.
The Georgia Guidestones were christened on March 22 1980. The first commandment on the stones was a pledge to keep the world’s population under 500,000,000 people.
March 22nd 2010 (Universal Time) is also the day that Health Care finally passed in the United States.
@anwas777 No, this …
@anwas777 No, this bill will eventually lead to what you just stated though. Either gov’t bailout/takeover of the insurance industry or gov’t will let insurance companies go bankrupt so the gov’t is the only option left to provide national healthcare (if we don’t go bankrupt as a nation first).
This is a …
This is a government bailout of the insurance industry. the fedgov is trying to prvent a collapse of the bubble that is forming in the insurance industry. That is why there are no benefits until 2014. this is TARP for insurance companies
@jmk3482
you dont …
@jmk3482
you dont know what your talking about
listen to Austrian business cycle theory and you will see how communism and socialism dont work and its easy to predict the boom bust cycle with govt intervention, and your comment towards doctor Paul is a ignorant, one sided of a false left right paradigm
Google:
Ludwig von mises
F.A.Hayek- nobel prize winner in 1974
Murray Rothbard
Peter Schiff- was right video
Tom Woods Harvard/ Columbia graduate -Meltdown new york times best seller
What would Ron Paul …
What would Ron Paul know about health care???
Hes only a doctor.
Obama knows more about health care, just search how many Doctors Obama and his wife have Sued.
@jmk3482 hey they …
@jmk3482 hey they earned it.
@jmk3482 No one …
@jmk3482 No one needs to use auto insurance to know that it is just plain Anti-American to force people to purchase something they may not want! Our country is founded on Liberty and Freedom; not security and govt control. You might like the idea of having someone else pay for your healthcare, but you will not like the result you wind up with! The govt cannot and never will be able to run something better than the private sector!
Ron Paul you are …
Ron Paul you are right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@jmk3482 RP is a …
@jmk3482 RP is a medical doctor as well as a distinguished scholar i wouldn’t brush him off so easily
HAHA…Something …
HAHA…Something similar happened to me last week…the good thing was that at the end she did listen to me…since I even did support my believes with graphs and everything…F…Obama’s Socialism—or Communism…=(
Your comparison …
Your comparison between cars and health is terrible inaccurate and not relevant. Also, all of your arguments are classic one-sided Republican opinions. It sure is easy to be against proper health care for the working class when you are on a government health plan and you make $170,000 a year.
this man here is …
this man here is NOT lying. He studies economics and is on Ben Bernanke’s hind quarters !!
@constablekohler …
@constablekohler Sadly, the people who desperately want Socialist to work convince themselves that it will work “this time” or if “the right people are in charge”, and when presented with an argument based upon the systematic failure of all economic intervention, they plug their ears.
Without addressing first principles, no discussion is possible.
I have met only one Socialist in my life that addressed first principles, and they were honest about admitting they wanted to learn more.
I was just arguing …
I was just arguing with someone about this yesterday. All his points were points I used…my ‘opponent’ just couldn’t believe that this country’s ‘mighty dollar’ (HA!) couldn’t collapse. That this country isn’t europe or the soviet union…meaning that centralized banking and gov. run healthcare could work here. I argued that it’s not the country that makes something fail or succeed but rather it’s the economic reality. At the end, person was just upset & not listening. too bad for him
Don’t the left any …
Don’t the left any ideas!!!!
cool
cool