Socialistic Creep

I made the mistake of watching the news last week, which mistake was compounded by watching the news on a channel noted for it's support of left-wing agendas. But whatever, the press is the press, although I do wish they would at least pretend that they're not spinning the facts to support whatever agenda they and/or their producers have seized up that day.

But in the course of watching, I was subjected to a "news" story about a bunch of liberal attorneys in New York, who are absolutely up in arms about that fact that, on average, women pay 140% more in health insurance premiums than men do. This was portrayed in the "news" story in question as an unspeakable outrage, and efforts were made to parlay this situation into something comparable to legimate gender-issues such as women making less money to do the same job. So, these attorneys were launching a crusade of the "there should be a law" variety to reform health care, and are no doubt doing their best to get such a law in place.

As I was watching this, it suddenly became clear that - regardless of the state of the law - many Americans are not only embracing socialist policies, but are already harboring socialist expectations.

Let's think about this for a second, people. No matter what conspiracy promoters might tell you (and perhaps even believe themselves), the fact that women pay higher higher health-care premiums than men IS NOT the result of a bunch of stogy old insurance honchos sitting in a smoke-filled room, developing a plan stick it to the female of the species. As with so much else in life, until a government steps in and fucks things up, economic policies (including insurance premiums) are based on economic realities.

Women tend to pay higher healthcare premiums. But this is because women also tend to have higher healthcare expenses! Women's plumbing is much more complex than men's and results in all sorts of possible complications, ranging from exotic forms or genitourinary tract TB and cancers to the much more routine development of women having additional medical bills simply because the get pregnant. Men, by contrast, are much simpler and easier to treat. A lot of our plumbing is at or near the surface (a vasectomy is an out-patient procedure that can be done with local anesthesia; cross-reference that to the female equivalent); other than prostate problems, men don't have a whole lot of male-specific problems that might require thousands in bills to treat. Men are much more likely than women to need treatment for topical or traumatic injuries (broken bones, concussions, GSWs, etc.), but those are fairly cheap to treat. Invasive surgeries are what drive the costs of healthcare up more than any other single factor. A man can easily go his entire life and never need surgery. A woman on the other hand, if nothing else, will in many (perhaps even most) cases need a hysterectomy for medical reasons, in addition to minor women-troubles along the way. And again, the biology of child-birth is medically intensive, to put the matter lightly.

That women pay higher health care premiums is directly related to the fact that the insurer providing coverage is - on average - going to have to pay more to keep that woman healthy than they would pay for a man of comparable age and health. Anyone who asserts that men and women should pay the same rates for health care is siezing upon political and gender issues to advocate exceptionally poor financial policies. Saying that women and men should pay the same health care rates is like saying lead and gold should cost the same. I'm all for equality of the sexes, but anyone who things that the sexes actually are the same is fucking kidding themselves.

But, just for moment, lets put aside reason. In the words of George Carlin, WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR A RATIONAL SOLUTION. So. Shall we make some bets as to what laws are likely to be passed in the near future?

The mantra of communism was "From each according to ability, to each according to need." We all saw how well that worked out. Just how far are we going to go down that path? And are we ever going to stop? Imagine a situation where the only thing we have a lot of are shortages, brought about because many people are not working because they've learned that they don't have to (just display less ability or greater need, and you're golden). Tough for us to imagine, since many (most?) of us are industrious enough to support ourselves, but that was the reality that came to pass in Russia. When we get there, are our politicians going tell people with overwhelming needs "Sorry, you can have no more." Or are our politicians going to tell the people who are working that then need to pay more taxes? They need to work harder, because their neighbor has been unemployed for four years and needs a liver transplant.

But don't worry. Barack was elected. Everything is going to work out now. Y'all can come visit me down in Costa Rica, when you get tired of working all day every day so someone else can have free housing, free healthcare, and a check each month for their "wellfare."