That’s Right Nate

[We're very lucky tonight to have a guest column by Congressman Jack Kimble (R-CA) who is writing in praise of Senator Joe Lieberman (?-CN)]

I happen to be a great fan of Joe Lieberman.  I took some heat for this in 2000 when he was brainwashed by Al Gore and ran against our beloved President Bush.  I have to admit, I could even feel empathy for the many Democrats who were crestfallen at the thought of Joe being denied the Vice-Presidency in such a close election.    I’ve been a big fan of Joe Lieberman for nearly 20 years since he first won my heart as Willie on the television show Alf.  His deadpan, put upon, whining delivery has served him well as a Senator as well.

Though Joe is older now, I can attest that he looks like a man half his age in a spedo.  He’s living proof that with good living, you really don’t need health care.   Today, he took a lot of flack from his own party, or former party, or whatever the Democrats are when he announced he would not vote for a health care bill with the public option and in fact he wouldn’t even vote to end a filibuster unless the public option was removed from the legislation.

Joe’s problems with the public option is the same as my own:

1. The government cannot handle things like this efficiently and it would do a terrible job insuring people.
2. The public option will increase competition and lower the profit margins of insurance companies at a time when they can least afford it.
3. The public option will lead to communism by 2012.

Joe has said that he would to keep the rest of the bill and in 3 or 4 years revisit things to see if we might want to investigate the possibility of creating a trigger that if reached would possibly bring us the public option.   Without the public option, the current program will work to lower health care costs and insure people by fining people heavily if they don’t buy health insurance   This will help the insurance companies by increasing their profits and help the uninsured by making them by health care.

Joe has once again shown himself to be a figure of integrity and courage.  A lot of people would have been scared to stand against the public option when like Lieberman, they were so heavily financed by the insurance industry.   I had the same problem just last year when I had to make the difficult decision of supporting the tobacco industry despite the fact that they heavily funded my campaign.  I made the right choice and went with my conscience the same way that Joe Lieberman has today.  This is truly what being a member of Congress is all about.

Today the Senate Finance Committee defeated the public option in a double header 15-8 and 13-10.  This is great news for this country as the public option appears on it’s last legs.  Despite the best efforts of President Obama, only 2/3 of Americans favor the public option and only 3/4 of doctors are in favor of it.   Those numbers are even lower in the Southern United States where the country has it’s highest percentage of NASCAR related injuries.

This setback will hopefully kill the public option leaving us with a health care reform that will safeguard the interests of the insurance industry by mandating that people buy coverage or pay a very severe fine.   This is the type of reform that I believe everybody should be able to get behind.     The heroes of the day for the 1/3 of who oppose the public option were Democratic Senators Blanche Lincoln, Kent Conrad, and Max Baucus who in statesmanlike fashion supported this country’s insurance industry over the powerful sick people lobby which continues to push for public funding.

Baucus said that his own bill without the public option, “is not easy on insurance companies.”  I am assuming that he is referring to all the people who insurance companies would now have to do paperwork for because his bill would mandate them buying insurance.   As many of these people are young twenty-somethings in good health, the insurance companies would probably be willing to do it.

At this time of economic uncertainty it really doesn’t make much sense for us to throw stones at the one industry in this country that is booming.   Last year, insurance companies made a 428% profit.  Can our economy afford to knock that down?  I don’t think so.

I previously posted about the Investor’s Business Daily editorial on health care that stated, “People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.”

Recently, Hawking fired back by saying, “I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS.  I have received a large amount of high quality treatment without which I would not have survived.”  Thus Stephen Hawking establishes himself as the Thatsrightnate Moron of the Week!  Investor’s Business Daily has taken a lot of heat over this editorial despite changing the article to omit the claims about Hawking.  Furthermore, Hawking’s robotic voice does not have a British accent so nobody knew he was British.  Sorry, Hawking if you listened to people who know about health care like Michelle Bachmann and Dick Armey, you’d know how wrong you are.

It has been heartwarming for me to see Americans who are willing to sacrifice and at times do without welfare to look out for the well being of their brothers and sisters in the insurance industry.   The insurance industry is huge in this country and it pays a lot of employees very well.  It is unlikely that health care costs won’t go down without the public option, but they are also a slippery slope to covering all Americans.  That’s not something we can stomach in this country.  As Jim Demint said, “government never competes in a private market; it takes the market over.”  One need only look at the problems charter schools, private universities, and cabs are having competing with public education and public transportation to see the truth in this.

As Americans we look out for our neighbor.  In this case, we need to look out for our neighbors in the insurance industry.   They’ve been there for us haven’t they?   Now, it’s time to be there for them.

People, it’s time to stand up for your rights.   The Socialists…I mean Democrats seem bound and determined to put a public health care plan in place to compete directly with our good old American private insurance companies.   At patientpowernow.org, they come right out and say it, “If the “public plan” is so good, show, do not tell.  Show us by creating a better product on the the (unfree) market, and let consumers decide.  Do not tell us it’s better and make it a crime for taxpayers not to fund it.”

That’s a clear and concise summary of the issue.  If the government can make such a great plan, then why should tax payers fund it?   The always insightful Heritage Foundation claims, “The likely incentives for government officials would be to set rules to advantage the government’s own health plan and to disadvantage the private health plans, including setting the government’s health plan premiums artificially low, reducing or eliminating cost-sharing requirements, or more heavily subsidizing certain benefits to make the government health plan more attractive than the private health plans. These plans would operate without incurring any of the normal financial risks that private health plans must bear.”

I couldn’t agree more.   We can’t expect a publicly funded enterprise to compete fairly with a privately funded one.  What’s odd though is that the Heritage Foundation is also a big advocate for increasing charter schools in this country.   Since charter schools are privately run schools  that compete directly with public schools in a system with public school districts are player and umpire in pretty much exactly the same way.  Of course the answer is simple–eliminate public schools in this country and let the charters provide education in a free market system.  We know that charters are better than public schools, but they score poorer on standardized tests than their public counterparts because it’s the public school districts that create the tests through the State Boards of Education.

It’s already troubling that UPS and Fed Ex are expected to compete with the United States Post Office, but the increased funding in the stimulus plan for public transportation is only going hurt the auto industry’s attempts to rebound.   Why would anybody buy a $50,000 car and fill it with expensive gasoline when you can ride on the tax payer’s back plus a buck or two?  Don’t even get me started on public broadcasting.

I’ve never even liked government funded roads.  I believe that the government went way above their Constitutional powers when it built the first national road in 1806.  Privately funded roads like the Lancaster Turnpike were doing just fine before the government got involved.   Let’s get the government out of businesses better left to private companies like roads, mail delivery, education, transportation, security, and insurance.   Socialism is not the American way.