HEALTH CARE

Insurance companies aren’t real business.  Not in traditional America.  They don’t make anything, and they don’t sell anything that gets made.  They don’t even drive a thing somewhere.  They collect money to give to sick people.  That used to be called a charity.

They aren't business, they're government.  And for a government they stink, absolutely.  They are a bureaucracy with a profit motive.  They are a government allowed to keep the taxes.  How would you feel if the DMV cleared 4.7 billion dollars profit last year?  That's how much health insurer WellPoint made.  Doesn’t a health insurance surplus mean that there are no sick people?  

Insurance companies are also the worst of what good conservatives hate about liberalism.  It's a social safety net.  Everyone pays a little money to cover other people’s failures.  Disgusting.  When did we become a welfare state where everybody’s broken pinkie is my affair?  They say the money is there for us too, but frankly, I’d sooner keep my money and take my chances.  I don’t work as hard as I do to treat some stranger’s gingivitis. 

But, no, the insurance industry, like the IRS, collects a tax.  Fine.  Use the money if that’s the bargain.  But use the money.  Don’t then tell me that in addition to giving away my money you are responsible to your shareholders to make a profit.  The balance of this inequity is not a profit yielding investment.  We don’t mitigate the fraud by selling shares of the heist. 

Insurance, in its rightful place, is civil service.  I don’t begrudge the bureaucrats a reasonable standard of living, but if they want more money they should GET A JOB.  Time was, in this country that we love so dearly, rich people made stuff.  Others sold stuff or otherwise serviced industry.  Today the wealth in America is tax-based bureaucracy.  Investors, bankers, insurers, every one takes a profit from our money.  Outrageous!  Just because it’s tax collected by private enterprise doesn’t make it less of a tax.  You want my money?  Send me the magic shammy or the 46 slot chicken roaster.  Paint my house with the titanium-aluminum-powder-coating guaranteed to never need ironing.  Do something. 

I understand the government needs to collect taxes.  Money used for our common defense.  I pay my taxes just like I pay my dry-cleaner; for services rendered.  It pleases me to know there’s a cop at the other end of the phone and a traffic light at the intersection.  I’m glad to know that we have the most powerful military in the world, and I’m happy to be an investor.  I just don’t like getting ripped-off. 

Tax and spend has become a vituperative phrase in our culture, but in truth, it is the only noble thing to do.  When you tax, you must spend.  Otherwise, it’s just stealing.  Government regulation is characteristically bad.  I don’t like the idea of people nosing around in my business.  But to regulate an industry that is nothing more than a tax collector is not bad at all.