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Liberty Man Van: Welcome to Liberty Watch. I am your host Liberty Man Van. On this show we look at the world through a libertarian lens. As the root word of libertarian implies, we are for maximum freedom of action for individuals. Libertarians believe in:
- Individualism over collectivism
- Private property rights and Free markets
- Freedom of association
- Principle over party
- Non-aggression principle
When looking at public policy I ask the following two questions. 1) Is the proposed law constitutional? 2) Will the proposed law increase freedom or seek to limit freedom? If I determine the law is constitutional and will increase freedom I ask this question: Does the proposed law violate anyone’s person or property? If so, I could not support it.
Let’s take two controversial topics that illustrate how my thinking would operate. Would I support legalization of?
- Prostitution
- Child pornography
Next, we will spend a little time discussing health care policy and specifically Obamacare. My first question to ask about health care is to ask if it is constitutional for Uncle Sam to be involved with it. The answer is no. The federal constitution gives the federal government only certain enumerated powers: control of the health care system is not listed as one of those powers and the general government should have no role in it.
But, as a practical matter, they have decided to be involved heavily with it. The most recent federal legislation involving health care is the patient protection and affordable care act, aka Obamacare.
These major provisions of Obamacare guaranteed that premiums would rise:
- Community rating for health insurance premiums- Community ratingis a concept usually associated withhealth insurance, which requires health insurance providers to offer health insurance policies within a given territory at the same price to all persons without medical underwriting, regardless of their health The exception is tobacco use.
- Cannot be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions.
- Minimum standards for health insurance policies.
- Certain types of preventive care must be covered at no additional cost.
- Annual and lifetime dollar limits on care are prohibited.
The following provisions of Obamacare were an attempt to keep premium costs down:
- Subsidies for people under 400% of the poverty level.
- Individual mandate
Other major provisions:
- Medicaid was expanded in participating states
- Employers may not require employees to wait for more than 90 days for health insurance eligibility.
- Employers with over 50 full-time employees will be charged a penalty for each full-time employee that lacks health coverage.
Liberty Man Van: Trump was asked by an interviewer recently about Obamacare. Here is what he had to say.
Video clip: Moderator- Let me ask you about Obamacare which you say you will repeal and replace. When you replace it are you going to make sure that people with pre-existing conditions are still covered? Trump- Yes, because it happens to be one of the strongest aspects. Also for the children living with their parents for an extended period. We are very much going to try to keep that in.
Liberty Man Van: This is consistent with what Trump said on the campaign trail. He always said he would repeal and replace, not just repeal Obamacare. He has consistently said that he will keep the pre-existing conditions provision intact. If you keep that provision you will have to keep many of the other provisions as well. This is why I believe the republicans will replace Obamacare with another piece of legislation that will be essentially just Obamacare by another name. They will then be able to say they repealed the law and replaced it but the replacement will be just as bad if not worse than the original. When congressional republicans are on the campaign trail they often talk a good game about their desire to cut government spending. But when push comes to shove they will always “play it safe” and leave these spending programs in place. Their first priority is to get re-elected and this always comes before any principled action. No one is looking out for the interest of the taxpayers. No one.
Liberty Man Van: House speaker Paul Ryan was recently at a town hall meeting. Here is one of the Obamacare questions he encountered.
Video clip: When it was passed I told my wife we would close my business before we complied with this law. Then, at 49, I was given six weeks to live with a very curable type of cancer. We offered three times the cost of my treatments, which was rejected. They required an insurance card and thanks to the affordable care act I am standing here today alive.
Liberty Man Van: These are the types of people who are paraded out in front of the camera to defend Obamacare. I would like to make the following points about his case:
- We can all suddenly be struck by a devastating disease and we feel compassionate.
- Was it responsible for him not to carry health insurance?
- Are his fellow citizens now responsible for paying for his irresponsibility?
- Does he own the labor of his fellow citizens?
- If you can buy insurance AFTER you get sick, doesn’t that just encourage more people to be irresponsible and skip the premiums?
- Should people who gamble be rewarded with other people’s money?
Liberty Man Van: Here is how speaker Ryan addressed the question.
Video clip: Paul Ryan- The problem with Obamacare, the actuaries call it a death spiral, it is a really kind of ugly and gruesome term. But a death spiral is a mathematical term they say when the insurance becomes so expensive that healthy people won’t buy it. It’s just a trade-off; the penalty to not buy it is a lot cheaper than buying the insurance. So healthy people won’t buy it and they won’t participate in the insurance pool to help cover the losses caused by sicker people. That is what is happening to Obamacare now. So now you have unhealthy people buying it and healthy people not buying it. That is why the rates are going up so much and causing many insurers to pull out. The biggest health insurer in the country, United, last year pulled out of Obamacare. Aetna pulled out of Obamacare. Humana pulled out of Obamacare. As I mentioned, five states now are down to one insurer. Over one thousand counties in America are down to one insurer.
Liberty Man Van: And Tucker Carlson had this to say.
Video clip: Tucker Carlson- If you tell insurers that they can’t account for risk, which is basically what you are doing when you say that they have to take people with pre-existing conditions, you are no longer really selling insurance. I am not saying that it is not virtuous, it is a good deed, but you are not really selling insurance.
Liberty Man Van: Carlson here:
- Not insurance but charity
- I disagree that it is virtuous and a good deed
- Indentured servitude coerced upon others is not virtuous. Theft is not virtuous.
Liberty Man Van: As an example of how insurance premiums for many Americans have risen under Obamacare we have the following article from msn.com.
Video clip: article
Liberty Man Van: When you allow people with pre-existing conditions into the insurance pool it was predictable that premiums would go up on many responsible people who had bought health insurance BEFORE getting sick.
Liberty Man Van: The republican proposals for replacing Obamacare include an expansion of health savings accounts. These are a good idea. One proposal was from Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Video clips: “What if 30 percent of the public had health savings accounts?” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) asked.
“What do you do when you use your own money? You call up doctors and ask the price. … If you create a real marketplace, you drive prices down.”
Liberty Man Van: He makes an important point here. You tend to pay more attention to price and quality when you are spending your own money. With health savings accounts you are spending your own money. Economist Milton Friedman discussed the four categories of spending. Let’s hear it from the master himself.
Video clip: Milton Friedman with chart.
Liberty Man Van: Now back to Senator Rand Paul’s H.s.a. plan.
Video clip: Paul’s plan would eliminate the requirement that the accounts be tied to high-deductible health plans, increase the amount of money users are allowed to add to their HSA each year and allow people to use their accounts to pay for deductibles and premiums, which currently is not allowed.
Liberty Man Van: Expansion of health savings accounts are a great idea because they will give people more control and drive down health care costs.
- We were promised a social security trust fund
- Initial surplus because there more than two paying into the system for each receiving benefits
- Trust fund was raided and spent on other programs
- Irresponsible stewardship of the trust fund
- Demographic changes will not produce a yearly deficit
- Operates like a legalized Ponzi scheme
How do we now fix the social security deficit? Bernie Sanders proposed the following.
Video clips: show text summary of the bill from Bernie’s website.
- WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced legislation Thursday to expand Social Security benefits and strengthen the retirement program for generations to come. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) introduced a companion bill in the House.“It is time to expand Social Security, not cut it,” Sanders told Social Security Works, The Alliance for Retired Americans and other organizations at a meeting on Capitol Hill.The legislation would ensure that Social Security could pay every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 61 years, according to a newanalysis Thursday by the retirement system’s chief actuary.
- The bills would increase benefits by about $1,300 a year for seniors now making less than $16,000 annually. “At a time when more than half of older Americans over the age of 55 have no retirement savings, our job is to expand Social Security to make sure that every American can retire with the dignity and the respect that they have earned and deserve,” Sanders said.The legislation also would make the wealthiest Americans – those with incomes of more than $250,000 a year – pay the same rate into the retirement system as everyone else already pays. Current law now caps the amount of income subject to payroll taxes $127,200. Under the proposal, only the top 1.6 percent of wage earners would pay more under the proposal, according to the Center for Economic Policy Research.
Liberty Man Van: This is classic Bernie Sanders. When he wants to expand the size of government he always presents himself Santa Claus, seeking to give you a new benefit. He’s always going to get the funds from those greedy rich people. So here is the gist of the argument from those who would support this legislation:
- We told you we would put your money in a trust fund
- But we couldn’t be trusted, we raided the trust fund
- Just give us some more money. We promise to be responsible this time.
- Fooled me once shame on you. Fooled me twice shame on me.
As a matter of fact, I have a message for Bernie and his band of thieves.
Video clip: The Who, Won’t Get Fooled Again
Liberty Man Van: That’s right. This time let’s not get fooled again. And as for Bernie Sanders and politicians like him, you are not like this guy:
Video clip of Santa Claus.
Liberty Man Van: Instead, you are like this guy.
Video clip of the Grinch.
Liberty Man Van: Why the Grinch rather than Santa Claus?
- Santa Claus uses his own resources to make toys and gives to children
- Grinch steals from children to give to adults
Liberty Man Van: Bernie Sanders, the Grinch, always want to spend now and pay for it later. That means that our children and grandchildren will have to pay for it. It amounts to intergenerational theft. How large is the national debt? Let’s take a look at it.
Video clip: National debt clock. Record a voice over reading the numbers out loud. Grinch song over part?
Video showing convention drawings. Voice over: Our next story comes from Philadelphia, home of the constitutional convention of 1787. Unfortunately, the wisdom of the founding fathers does not continue in the city leaders of Philadelphia today.
Liberty Man Van: That’s right, from the city of brotherly love comes this headline.
Video clip: Soda companies, supermarkets report 30-50% sales drop from soda tax.
Video clip: Consumers who don’t want to pay an extra 1.5 cents per ounce for their favorite sugary drinks have a strong incentive to avoid buying soda (or juice, or iced tea, or sports drinks) in Philadelphia. They’re leaving the city to buy soda, and doing the rest of their grocery shopping outside the city too. That leaves grocery stores with less revenue and creates an incentive to cut costs, which could mean laying off workers.
Liberty Man Van: Which leads us to our next headline.
Video clip: With Sales Depressed by Soda Tax, Philly Grocers Look to Cut Jobs as Mayor Blames ‘Greedy’ Soda Industry
Video clip: It’s not the first time Kenney has tried to ignore basic economics when it comes to the soda tax. A few weeks ago, he blamed grocery stores and restaurants for “price gouging” when they increased prices for sugary drinks to make consumers pay for the cost of the tax (the tax is technically applied on the transaction between distributors and retailers, but, like all other taxes, it gets passed along).
Video clip: Per month, Philadelphia expects to collect about $7.6 million from the tax, but in collections totaled just $2.3 million in January, City & State Pennsylvania reported this week, citing a city report.
Liberty Man Van: As a libertarian I believe that a free market creates the most wealth for the most people and that people should be free to act in their own self-interest. This story illustrates how government intervention always creates winners and losers in the market. Who were the winners?
- Merchants just outside the city limits of Philadelphia
- Workers just outside the city limits of Philadelphia
- Non-sugary drink manufacturers and merchants
- –
Liberty Man Van: To see the loser simply reverse these.
Liberty Man Van: This next story is a light-hearted one. Have you ever read an online article that bashes white people and think “Boy, if this magazine said that about a black person they would be shamed out of business.” Then have some fun with the new chrome extension called the “racism simulator.” It works on the Salon, Huffington Post, and buzzfeed websites.
Video clip: Demonstrates new chrome extension.