Originally Posted by cabo35

Recently, while drifting and dreaming off the South Jersey coast, I was trying to organize the pieces of the health care plan into something definable by logic. Today, a lay day....that's nautical talk for for being stuck in port between the mooring posts, I have some time to attempt an articulation of random thoughts and debatable conclusions unencumbered by links and quotes. Sometimes random thoughts can be mischievous excursions into dark areas.

I erased the slate on Obamacare, threw out all the arguments and started out tabula rasa. It wasn't easy because of the biases, like many of you, I have acquired during the debate.

I approached healthcare by stepping away from the fray, turning it upside down and looking at the "big picture" from a lofty perch above the battleground. What does this push for government dominated healthcare mean in the context of its relationship to everything else that is happening in government at this moment in history. You know....the "change". I thought of the words "spread the wealth". Most of us know what that means in the venues of social justice and taxation. I applied the "spread the wealth" theme to the healthcare issue.

The application of "spread the wealth" politics to healthcare can be interpreted without much effort as... taking current coverage for those who enjoy it....reduce their coverage benefits....and spread it to those who don't have it. The concept ultimately diminishes incentive to improve and perpetuates mediocrity of care.

I know that many of the Obama healthcare advisors such as Tom Daschle and Rahm Emanuael's brother Ezekial, a doctor, advocate for reducing life extending benefits for the elderly in favor of the younger and more productive. That issue is debatable and controversial on its own merit. Their positions are solidified and validated on the public record in books, writings and speeches. I promised to spare you the links and quotes. Google if you must.

This thought provoked a linkage to the bizarre economic gymnastics we have witnessed. Are the White House and Congress running amok or do they really have a plan? How does the new healthcare fit in the grand plan? I get dangerous when I start speculating on answers to my own questions.

The government gets what we used to call a two-fer. A two for one bang out of a healthcare policy that reduces cost and benefits for the most expensive component, Medicare. Reducing the treatment options for Medicare recipients or converting them to cheaper less expensive options saves a lot of money. The more sinister back end of the two-fer is that old people will die...with dignity... sooner... and concurrently lower the burden on Social Security. I guess the concept would be somewhere between coldly efficient and diabolically evil.

Anchors away.....

Keedy, if I'm torpedoed off the Atlantic coast......don't blame the Russians.