Come on, we have to get real. This is nothing but another YouTube sensation that gives nothing but a one sided argument… how good do you think this guy would be if he had someone challenging any of his points?

For example, here is a sound agrument that someone wrote in response to Zo:

His little speech has some flawed logic and untrue statements. But the underlying philosophical mistake he’s making is that competition will reduce costs in health care and improve service. Ummm… they already tried that with HMOs, and it’s failed miserably (HMOs were the first Republican “solution” to health care by making insurance competitive).

And this is coming from someone (me) who believes in free markets and capitalism… just not unfettered free markets that have no accountability to people and society. Free market capitalism can serve both profits and people, but only when it’s in the right ecosystem — an ecosystem that includes proper oversight and moderating forces to ensure that corporations don’t end up only serving themselves at the exclusion of their intended benefactor: people.

When it comes to health (life and death) the free market will always fail. Why? Because when it comes to life and death, people do not have patience for “the free market to work things out.” Only when it comes to niceties (like gadgets, tv sets, appliances, cars, etc.) does the free market tend to work. And only when there’s an environment where there’s healthy competition. Have these free-market Republicans (like McCain) already forgotten what the “free market” did to our financial system? They had to ask we, the people to bail them out. It’s stunning to me that anyone would want to take unfettered free market approaches to health care and health care insurance — right after we’ve seen what the same approach has done to our financial system.

Speaking of “working things out,” one of the fundamental tenets of free market capitalism is that it’s a reactive system, not a pro-active system. As a result, sectors that benefit from reaction and rapid iteration benefit more from capitalism than industries and sectors that require more pro-active solutions. Like I mentioned above, the free market eventually “works things out,” but this is not an acceptable premise for life and death issues for people. We expect treatments to be there when we need them — not after we’ve proven that there is enough demand to drive supply (which is a funamental tenet of free market capitalism).

Free market zealots are a one-trick pony — they have one solution (free markets!) for everything. The world is just too complex for one solution to solve all problems. And life is too precious to risk on hoping others want to compete to save my life. The problem isn’t really in health care as much as it is health care insurance. Doctors do want to save my life, but the people who actually pay (insurance companies) don’t really care if I live or die. In fact, they only really want me if I’m healthy. If I’m already sick, they won’t even take me as a customer — which goes exactly against free-market philosophy. In this “fantasy” free market, companies are fighting for my business. But it does not work that way in health care: a pre-existing condition excludes me from the free market. It’d be like Apple not letting me buy a McIntosh if I previously bought an IBM PC (a PC-existing condition?)! What we need is health care insurance reform… the health care itself is more-or-less fine. Insurance today is driving bad health care practices and decisions (ask any doctor… not a stand-up comic).

McCain’s health care proposal solves one of the problems we have today, but it creates so many more that it’s basically so risky that would never make it through the Senate.

Also — and this is important — if we let the free market run health care with no government regulations, we would never, ever solve any disease that affect smaller percentages of the population. So, for all of those people who are for free-market health care, they would effectively be advocating a health care system that let most babies die if they had a rare illness. The free market does not solve “rare” problems; it only solves the most profitable ones…

…like erectile dysfunction. We sure cured that quicker than leukemia and ALS, didn’t we? Think about it.

I love Republicans — they think we can continue to pay less taxes and keep getting better services, a bigger military, and better health care. Their fantasy is something-for-nothing. Which means that, at the end of the day, they are basically cheap and selfish — they do not want to pay to make things better, and they only want to make things better for themselves. They want “the magical free market” to work things out for them so that they don’t have to worry about it, or pay for it. Yes, the free market can create new value and introduce efficiencies…but as we have just seen first hand, it only works this way in certain sectors, and it always, always works toward profit — not toward anything else. Free markets do not work toward quality, nor what’s right, nor what’s good for the people or the country. They work exclusively for profits. So, in a free market health care system, if China decides to pay our health care providers more than we in America pay them, then our entire health care industry will start solving China’s health problems instead of ours. That’s what the free market does — it follows the money. It would take government intervention to stop this from happening.

This is why governments are so damned important in this age of global corporations. Governments are the only “corporation” supposedly dedicated to the welfare of its people (I say supposedly because in the last 50 years, the US government has become too cozy with corporations, at the expense of its citizens’ best interests). There is no other large organization dedicated to ensure that the Constitution’s basic tenets are implemented: to ensure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Corporations might seem like they’re helping secure these fundamental rights, but when they are, it’s just a coincidence. Their basic tenets are profits — not citizen rights. When these profits help enable life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the free market is great, and an ally to governments and to people. This was the situation (more or less) from the 1940s through the 1980s. So it should not be surprising that a lot of folks are still stuck with assumptions that were baked solid for 40 years.

But, things have changed since the 90s, and it has a lot to do with the age of globalization. In a global economy where resources can move freely around the world, corporations no longer have a vested interest in any given country. They can go wherever they please. Example: Before globalization, GE needed to make sure that American children were educated well because they relied on these kids to be future workers and leaders in their company. Now, there is no longer an incentive to ensure a good education in America. If they can import Chinese people, or just set up shop over there, then there’s no need to invest in domestic education for GE’s sake. GE’s future is no longer tied to America’s future. Corporations and governments are now at odds in their goals, which means that we need to make sure that our government is funded and designed to fight the good fight for we, the people.

It’s the government’s job to ensure that business and people all work toward the betterment of its society and societal health and welfare. That’s the primary job of government. It’s the opposite of “bad” — in fact, it’s inherently “good” by it’s credo to work for we, the people. Does the government always work well? Of course not — it’s a huge enterprise. Nothing that big works that well. But it does work. And only those who have a vision for it to be more effective are the ones who should run it.

Conversely, those who do not believe in government should probably not run it. For example, my brother dislikes the oil industry, so I would argue that if he were to run an oil company as CEO, he probably wouldn’t work very hard to make it run better and more efficiently. In fact, he might subconsciously (or consciously) try to destroy it by making it work poorly. The same goes for Republicans — if they think the government is “the problem” and “can’t be trusted” to help insure health care or anything else, then how can we trust them to even try to make the government work better? Hmm?

Just some things to think about, and to share with those who are open to challenging their own assumptions.

One speech on the Senate Floor and I can see Dodd and his cronies fleeing.

It’s also very coincidental; my wife is on facebook, and a friend of hers who is black noticed that she had put down that she’s voting for McCain, and not Obama (as a black woman like my wife should be doing). She mailed a note that started “I don’t want to offend you, but…” then provided a long litany of half-baked, ignorant, and downright hateful statements of what she thought about republicans, essentially accusing my wife of being a race traitor and a self-loathing black. And this is a girl with whom she had been friends for ten years.

I can only imagine how hard it is for this guy. Seems that liberals are only into tolerance as long as you agree with them.

The dichotomy between his extreme enunciation and his wild mannerisms is really entertaining to watch. I hope someone hires him and makes him rich and (apparently more) famous.