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July 14, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

17:58

The Reality of Obamacare

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	Hello, everybody.
	Stefan Molland from Freedom Aid Radio.
	I hope you're doing well. I will succumb to popular pressure because I am a mere spineless jellyfish when it comes to user preferences and talk about Obamacare.
	Today, the Supreme Court of the United States on a 5-4 decision has upheld the constitutionality of allowing the federal government to force you to purchase a private product on condition of being a citizen.
	Okay, yes, of course, there's a massive, massive overreach of government power, and yes, it could be that the government will now force you to eat broccoli, although that's highly unlikely because broccoli is not the majority's popular taste, and that's what the government enslaves itself to.
	But the pundits are focusing on the healthcare.
	I think it's a massive mistake.
	The most essential lesson to learn from Obamacare at the moment...
	Sorry about these crows.
	They're just, you know, circling over the ashen healthcare of your future.
	The most important thing to get out of Obamacare today is the basic reality that there's no law in America.
	This is the... This is the matrix moment.
	This is the red pill moment. There's no law in America.
	Nobody could figure out ahead of time what the Supreme Court was going to do.
	It was a 5-4 decision, which means even if you are a highly accomplished constitutional lawyer, scholar, professor, and judge, you have no idea what is constitutional or not.
	And I mean, the arguments that they made were ridiculous.
	It's a penalty, not a tax.
	Although it's a tax, not a penalty.
	I mean, it's all complete madness.
	But the essential thing is that there's no law.
	If nine people can't even come to a remote consensus about what is legal in America, then nothing is legal in America.
	If you are a judge of many decades' experience and a constitutional expert, and you can't decide for yourself what is constitutional or not, the important thing to understand is there is no law Left in the United States.
	It is all judgment, opinion, politics, fascistic surrendering to the mob and to the immediate interests of self-interested parties.
	There is no law. Yeah, it's funny.
	A free society without a state is often criticized as having no rules.
	Well, common law works.
	This top-down hierarchy does not work.
	Nobody is saying we don't have a constitution if nine experts can't even remotely come to any kind of consensus.
	About what is legal and what is not.
	How are you supposed to be subject or bound by a law that even the experts cannot come to any consensus on?
	There is no law left in the land.
	The other thing, of course, is that Obamacare is supposed to solve the problem of healthcare.
	You know... Just as instituting the AMA did in the early part of the 20th century, just as giving doctors the sole right of prescription in the post-war period, just as Medicare, just as Medicaid, just as the prescription drug program, just as the FDA, just as all of these previous programs have failed because massive new spending and expansions of government power are now necessary to have the system even pretend to be remotely functional.
	These new solutions are put forward with no reference to all of the previous solutions having failed.
	This is how you know it's a con job.
	A con job, they will always try and give you a new solution with no reference to the previous solutions having failed.
	It's like if a guy is supposed to fix your septic tank and spews your crap all over the lawn and then offers it to fix it with no reference or no mention of the fact that it was he who...
	Spread all of this manure out, you know it's a con.
	If he says, oh man, you know, I promised to do this, because then, you know, it's his fault, his responsibility, he's got to fix it.
	But if he just keeps going forward, offering you new solutions with no reference to the fact that the previous solutions have failed, well then, you know it's a con.
	And, of course, the costs are going to go completely mad, as usual.
	Studies have shown regularly that government programs, no matter small, large, municipal, federal, doesn't matter, they're always many times more than the original estimates.
	The original estimates are just used as, you know, the tip of the sword, the thin edge of the wedge to get you to exceed.
	Remember how income tax was in the First World War, a temporary measure of a few percentage points on the super wealthy?
	Well, that's just to lower your defenses to get you to accept a violation of principle.
	So that the principle can be broken and expanded.
	This is the same thing.
	People in government will find whoever you care about the most.
	And people who are sick, we all care about them.
	They will find whoever you care about the most.
	They will promise you an easy solution.
	They will call you a hater of the people you care about the most.
	If you oppose the government solution, they will put the solution in place.
	It will make everything worse.
	And then they will need another solution.
	Because more government controls always lead to more government controls.
	Always lead to more government controls.
	Always lead while you get the picture.
	So, I think it was as of March, the 10-year estimate for the cost of Obamacare was almost $2 trillion, trillion by the TR, and that had gone up double from its original estimates.
	I mean, it's just going to continue to go.
	Now, the reality is that healthcare insurance Not the same as being healthy.
	Having access to healthcare insurance is not the same thing as being healthy.
	This is really important to understand.
	Many, many studies have shown that even if you offer people healthcare for free, their healthcare outcomes do not improve.
	Do not improve.
	Because the vast majority of healthcare problems are user-chosen, individual choices.
	You smoke, you drink too much, you eat badly, you don't exercise, you got a desk job where you're hunched over like Gollum over a rotten fish all day, you don't move around, you don't do the right thing, you sit in front of the TV, you know, all the usual annoying Aunt Edna finger-wagging stuff that goes on.
	In the base brain of our healthcare consciousness, so 70 to 80%, depending on how you measure it, of healthcare problems result from people making bad decisions, people postponing exercise, people postponing doctor checkups, you know, all the usual stuff.
	And the U.S. population as a whole now is so irredeemably unhealthy, so obese, so sedentary, so addicted to bad behaviors, sugars, fats, I mean, just all of the mess in the world, that you really have a healthcare system that's being dragged up to a top of a flagpole by the short and curlies.
	Not pretty for anyone.
	And this is the population that the Political class has now to pander to.
	Because if you say to people, look, most of the healthcare problems that you're having are the result of your choices.
	Yeah, there are a few people who are born with genetic problems and so on, and their parents didn't buy them healthcare insurance, didn't buy the kids' healthcare insurance before conception, before birth.
	This is when you should do it, of course.
	And, you know, I have some sympathy.
	I certainly have sympathy for the kids.
	It wasn't the kids' fault that the parents didn't buy them healthcare insurance before they were born.
	I have huge amounts of sympathy.
	I would be more than willing to help out people like that.
	But the reality is that most people have such an unhealthy lifestyle that they need a lot of healthcare.
	So the big thing that happens, of course, is...
	And this is just another result of government programs leading to more government programs.
	As you probably know, the reason that employers pay for your healthcare is because in the Second World War, the FDR, the bad one, he mandated that you couldn't give people raises.
	In the private industry, employers still wanted to lure away the best people, and so instead of giving them raises, which was illegal, they started paying for their healthcare instead, which was a cost at the time.
	And that's how this all became embedded.
	This is one of the main reasons why your salary has stagnated as a worker for the last 30 years, is because healthcare costs keep going up, and employers have to pay that rather than give you raises.
	I think GM now basically sells autos in order to provide healthcare To its retirees, it is a healthcare provision shop which has to sell autos in order to do that.
	It's no longer a car company, but a healthcare company whose currency is cars.
	And this is just another example of how you remove people from the real cost, you remove people from the real consequences of their actions, and costs are going to spiral, costs are going to escalate.
	This pre-existing condition thing...
	I mean, it's a complete mess.
	So, of course, what happened many years ago was there are people who didn't buy health insurance who then got sick and then wanted health care insurance.
	I feel embarrassed to even explain that to anyone with the IQ to tie their shoelaces and not together, but the whole point of insurance is you have to pay into it when you don't need it.
	It's like, can you buy life insurance after you're dead?
	Well, of course not, because you haven't paid into it.
	Again, it's ridiculous to explain.
	If you take the gamble and don't buy health insurance and then you get sick, then you have to rely on charity.
	And look, you know, before the government started stepping all over the face of healthcare, there was tons of charity.
	Doctors used to get paid in chickens.
	A lot of them used to donate a day a week to sort of pro bono care.
	And you used to be able to get this kind of charity.
	There were collective agencies, churches, communities, and so on would chip in to help people who were sick.
	But this pre-existing condition thing is a huge mess.
	Why is it that you pay for a family in New York about $60,000 a year in healthcare?
	Because in New York, you can't refuse people healthcare insurance for pre-existing conditions.
	That's the point. What happens is, when you can't refuse people for pre-existing conditions, they wait till they get sick, and then they apply for...
	Health care insurance and then they pay $1,000 or $2,000 and they get all the health care that they want over and above that for quote free, which simply means that it pushes the costs onto other people.
	When those other people see that their health care costs are rising and those other people see that they will not be denied health care insurance for pre-existing conditions, they step off.
	Right? They step off the payment treadmill and they say, well, I'll just wait till I get sick and then apply.
	And then, and then, and then.
	And so, this is natural.
	This is how it works. Now, those people who do have pre-existing conditions and want healthcare insurance are a very powerful, vocal, and self-entitled constituency.
	And, you know, in a way, in a sort of base mammalian resource gathering, maximizing amoral approach, you really can't blame them.
	I mean, it's kind of a good deal. The other part of Obamacare is you get fined if you don't have a healthcare insurance.
	And they say these fines are going to be very low, but this is economically not possible.
	So if your healthcare insurance costs you $5,000 a year and your fine is $500 a year, you will pay the fine until you get sick and then you will buy healthcare insurance.
	And that will continue to drive the costs up.
	I mean, it's all just so ludicrous and ridiculous and so predictable that, I mean...
	Without massive significant awakening from the general population, which I do not have even one finger and one toe, crossed to four.
	It's going to go socialized, right?
	I mean, forcing people to buy healthcare insurance is exactly the same, fundamentally, as socialized medicine.
	Socialized medicine is you force everyone to pay into the healthcare system, and you subsidize those who can't afford to pay into the healthcare system, and you have to pay into it even when you're healthy, and then when you get sick, you do not have to pay the bills.
	That is fundamentally a kind of socialized medicine.
	So this is where you are.
	But of course, you have the additional overhead of the insurance companies, right?
	So government's forcing everyone to buy health insurance.
	And by not allowing any discrimination for pre-existing conditions, everybody's health care costs are going to go up.
	A huge number of people are going to prefer to pay the fine rather than for health care because it's going to be cheaper.
	Unless the fines are increased to be significantly more, then that's going to be a huge problem.
	And then you're going to get tons of people charging into the health care system on a more regular basis.
	So when people get, quote, free healthcare or they get subsidized healthcare or whatever, they just end up using more of it.
	It's sad, but true. Here in Canada, there was a suggested $5 copay to reduce the number of people who go to the doctor saying, I have a sniffle.
	I stubbed my toe. And, of course, it's, you know, roundly and vociferously denied.
	But you get millions of people stampading into a healthcare system.
	And this is, you know, just another example of the appalling, vacuous economic ignorance of the average voter.
	As Winston Churchill said, the best cure for any adherence to democracy is five minutes' conversation with the average voter.
	What's going to happen when millions more people get into the healthcare system?
	There's no increase in the supply, so there's going to have to be rationing based on time.
	Here in healthcare, we pay not in dollars, but in hours in terms of waiting to get healthcare.
	And of course, where the government involvement is least, right?
	So the problem is healthcare costs going completely out of control and they're insane.
	Well, you have... A monopoly on the provision of healthcare through doctors.
	They've pushed out alternatives.
	They've pushed out midwives.
	They've pushed out all of these other people, nurse practitioners, who could provide healthcare.
	They've kept a monopoly on prescription, which fuels the prescription drug trade.
	And you've got the FDA massively driving up the costs.
	And Mary Ruart has got great presentations on this about the millions of people who've died as a result.
	Of the FDA banning and withholding drugs that have saved millions of lives in other countries where they're completely legal and tested and proven.
	And so you're going to have all of this happening.
	It is completely catastrophic.
	You also get when you get the people into the healthcare system, when healthcare is mandated, And insurance companies are forced by law to provide certain benefits.
	Everybody wants to get their own little pet illness onto everybody else's health care bill, right?
	So you lobby the government to force insurance companies to provide fertility and birth control and all this sort of stuff, which is like getting insurance for a...
	An oil change in your car.
	That's not what insurance is. It's for the unexpected and catastrophic things.
	And of course, everybody wants to get their own pet illness onto the forced mandated healthcare insurance so that everyone else is forced to pay for their own pet little ailment.
	And again, you know, from an amoral, I want to stay alive standpoint, can't really blame people.
	Of course, once you violate the basic ethics of property and you allow the government to point guns at everyone to solve problems, things are always going to get worse.
	Now, the last thing I'll say is, well, what is the solution?
	The solution is always the same.
	I really do feel like a bit of a broken record.
	Sorry, squire, the record's stuck.
	Sorry, squire, the record's stuck.
	The solution is to stop pointing guns at everyone and think that very complex and challenging social problems can be solved by running around like Yosemite Sam on Coke and shooting your gun into the sky and saying, everybody do what I do, do what I say, or you're going to go to the right-brain prison cage, or we find that if you don't pay the fine, you or you're going to go to the right-brain prison cage, or we find that if you don't pay That is not a good way to solve social problems.
	It certainly will not work in the long run.
	We need to stop putting...
	Guns to people's heads and threatening them with jail if they don't obey some sort of central mandate.
	Central planning didn't work in the Soviet Union, didn't work in China, didn't work under the Khmer Rouge, didn't work in any of the socialized countries.
	Central planning, how's that going for the US currency?
	How's that going for the Euro?
	How's central planning going for the economic ghost city voids of China?
	Not good. Not good, because once you get central planning, you get politics taking over prices.
	Politics will appeal to the basest instincts of the self-interested majority.
	It will avoid principle or will only apply principle as a shredded ex post facto layer of crap after the fact of violating people's rights for the sake of delivering goodies under the short-term horizon of the majority.
	And of course, that's handy for politicians who are good with words and not with reason and evidence.
	It is bad for everyone else in the long run, particularly the young who will end up having to pay for all of these bills.
	There is no funding source for any of this stuff.
	There was no funding source for Bush's prescription drug program.
	This is another reason why this is all so catastrophic for everyone.
	We need to put down the gun, stop forcing everyone to do things.
	If you look at things like laser eye surgery or veterinarian services, it takes about the same amount of skill and training and medicine and We're good to go.
	If you look at laser eye surgery, the costs have come down enormously because it is largely left to the free market.
	The costs have escalated because every time you throw violence into the mix, you clog up the system, you misallocate resources.
	People get scared. They do defensive medicine because of the tort system, which is estimated to add several.
	Estimates go between 2 to 3 to 10% of the costs are because of fear of being sued and you've got to pay for sometimes upwards of $100,000 or more per year for particular specialties for malpractice insurance because, well, because for bad reasons. Which is not to say that doctors never make mistakes, but the system is not working.
	Of course, most politicians come from the legal profession, expecting the legal profession to act against the self-interest of the legal profession is to cross your fingers and hope that if you jump from a plane, a whole bunch of friendly flying dolphins will whisk you off to the safety of Puff Mountain.
	So, yeah, it's a mess.
	It's a catastrophe. It is putting everybody on the ice chute bubsled run towards socialized medicine.
	It is a confession of the failure of all previous programs.
	It is just another program that is going to fail.
	So my suggestion to you is please, please take care of your health as much as you humanly can.
	If you're overweight, you know, drop some weight.
	I dropped 20 or 30 pounds a couple of years ago.
	It's a great thing. And, you know, take care of your health.
	That you have under control because you now have a system that is going to make money off cure, not off prevention.
	And that is exactly the wrong set of incentives for everyone involved.
	This is Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	May your health be great.

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