So, when you said that Beck failed history 101, you were wrong? Just wanted to clarify.

Glynnis thinks rights come from politicians, and that they can take away every one of our constitutional protections. I am happy to see such honesty. But if anyone wants to know why Beck has such a large audience, all they need to do is read this….and shudder!

The specific “inalienable rights” enumerated by (the hated by conservatives) Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence are: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. I would argue that under the heading of “life”, health care for the poor would be included. Thus, the efforts by the Congress to fix a situation where 50K people a year die early, after long suffering, is certainly supported by the spirit of Jefferson’s words.

I really like this site, I really do… but the author’s stance on Glenn’s position on whether natural rights come from congress or God screams MediaMatters to me. And it doesn’t help when he writes, “we pointed out” which assumes that the website as a whole shares the opinion of the author. You are entitled to your opinion of history and distort it however you may, but I’ve felt that this site was less about choosing political positions and just reporting on the news makers in a Perezhilton/Valleywag-like fashion. *shrugs*

Glynnis:

You are in WAY, WAY over your head.

Instead of insulting Beck and claiming he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, you need to acknowledge that he is speaking of a theory of jurisprudence (namely, nature law) that has a long and distinguished pedigree. You are responding with an immature, naive brand of positivism, a relatively recent jurisprudential theory. However, you’re just not well-informed enough to make the arguments. Instead of acting like an elitist and pretending that you know what you’re talking about and Beck doesn’t, I suggest you BEGING by reading John Hart Ely’s Democracy and Distrust, H.L.A. Hart’s Concept of Law (make sure you get the 2d edition), and Ronald Dworkin’s Law’s Empire. Then give me a call and we can have a debate on the issue. Instead of arrogantly sounding off about how dumb Glenn Beck is, you’ll realize (after that very brief introduction to the subject) that Beck’s knowledge of the issue was far, far ahead of your own (even if his knowledge is still rather elementary).

Sorry for the typos. In my outrage over the author’s repeated displays of rank ignorance, I mistyped “nature law” when I meant “natural law” and “BEGING” when I meant “BEGIN.”

COOL STORY, BRO!!1

Hilarious!!! A Fox “News” analyst says Beck is right.? No kidding, Beck’s knowledge on this issue is a KM long and CM deep. There ain’t nothin there folks…sorry.

No worries AnonymousFinch , it’s only the libs that point out your errors and in the next breath call you a ignorant, tea-bagging moron. You get used to it after a while!

>Glynnis thinks rights come from politicians, and that they can take away every one of our constitutional protections. I am happy to see such honesty.

That’s the damn point. It’s the entire philosophical foundation to modern political ideology. Our Constitution is a prime example of the social contract theory. The fact is that the government is the only institution in the country that can lawfully punish, imprison and execute individuals. From this we get primarily two groups of people, one who think the government’s role must be minimized (negative rights; libertarians) or those who believe it can be used for good (positive rights; economic liberals, social conservatives).

I hope no one objects if I refuse to be Glen(n)’s protege on matters theological. I don’t believe he is qualified to mentor anyone about such matters.

I very much like your point, M, but I seriously doubt anyone believes that we still have a social contract. I mourn it’s loss.

Sorry. “its” ….

However, the Declaration of Independence is a statement only and is not the basis for our government and law. The basis for our government and law is the Constitution which was enacted by a group of men, representatives of the initial Constitutional Convention, who were chosen by the states.

There are two kind of rights: Those established by the Constitution, and those established by law pursuant to the Constitution. Beck is correct if he says that the Congress does not establish “inalienable rights”. But then, as a practical matter, those are irrelevant. The only rights that matter, the only rights that have the force and effect of law, are of two kinds: Constitutional rights, such as the Bill of Rights, and rights established pursuant to the Constitution by our elected Congress and President. Thus, we have the right to assembly pursuant to the Constitution; and we have certain civil rights established by, for example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I suppose you might say that we are also granted rights by the Judicial wing of our govenment too, such as “custodial rights”, for example, but those are based on an application of law established by the Legislative and Executive branches pursuant to the procedures outlined in the Constitution.

Congress together with the President can certainly establish “rights”. Are those “natural rights”. Of course not, only God grants those. The point is, our government can certainly establish a person’s “right” to healthcare pursuant to Constitutionally authorized law making.

> You do not create rights, rights come from God

I can’t believe neither Beck or Napolitano know the distinction between natural and legal rights. Want a list of rights we’re all born with? Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Want a list of rights we’ve given ourselves? The Constitution incl the Bill of Rights.

Glynnis,

I can spot “your” headlines before I see your name.
That is NOT a compliment.

Beck is not an expert on law, natural or otherwise. In this case he was confusing the powers granted to Congress and the President to create “rights”, and those nebulous “inalienable” rights that Jefferson was referring to. Would Beck say that the Bill of Rights reflects natural or inalienable law? Why? Most of the Bill’s rights arose out of the mind of enlightenment era thinkers. Some of them were specifically in your face to the religious people who tend to want to inflict their own view of “natural law” on everyone else, and the ‘royalists” who considered it “natural law” for a king to rule over the people.

I am glad to see someone respond to Beck on the issues, instead of just dishing out tired smears. But how revealing to see what the Left really thinks about individual rights. Now I know: we only have rights until the politicians want to take them away. And the political process is more important than liberty, which is protected only so long as it is expedient for the party in power.

If Beck had attributed these views to the Left, everyone would be up in arms and would have offered vigorous denials — and they would done so on this very web site. But now Glynnis goes out and proclaims this vile interpretation of the Bill of Rights (which we should now call the provisional Bill of Rights), and all the Lefties fall into lockstep and nod their heads.

There are some interesting comments here that make a number of good points in opposition to Beck’s argument. In fact, after more than 20 years of studying these issues (first as a philosophy student with a concentration in jurisprudence and later as a practicing attorney), I disagree with him in significant ways.

However, let’s not forget where this debate began. Last night Beck started the “controversy” with a simple but accurate statement of classical natural law; namely, rights come from God, not from governments. Glynnis MacNicol responded to Beck’s statement with an ignorant and hysterical headline that Beck had “just failed U.S. history 101.”

Sorry, but no. Beck gave a very traditional statement that is wholly consistent with the thinking of the Founders. That conception of natural law was conventional wisdom in this country well into the 20th century (HLA Hart did not publish The Concept of Law, for example, until 1961). There are very valid criticisms to make of that theory of law, but it should not be ridiculed–and to claim that it “fails U.S. history 101″ is profoundly ignorant.

I like Mediaite because I think it is striving to be fair-minded. It criticizes the left and the right in equal measure (pretty much). If Ms. MacNicol is allowed to continue with her dangerous combination of a dearth of knowledge, an overabundance of hysterical rhetoric, and a fair-measure of arrogance, then this website will become nothing more than a print version of Keith Olbermann.

valkyrie101 says:
March 16, 2010 at 7:40 pm

I think you might be wrong. The Declaration is the ‘official’ document announcing the colonies
breakaway from England. In part it is the basis of our Constitution and does carry some legal
wieght. I’m not sure how much though. As for the Civil Rights act of 1964 I would argue that
it is the Fulfillment of what the Declaration and the Constitution intended. It says ‘all men’ not
‘all white men’ are created equal.

TO get back to the main topic though, what I think they are saying is that we all were
‘created’ with certain inalienable right. Whether that done by the Creator or is nature endowed
is irrelavent.
They are there. Any law that tries to infringe of those is wrong.

Felixw is exactly right. What is most interesting about this debate is that Glynnis MacNicol and the liberals criticizing Beck are arguing for a legal theory known as positivism. But in the real world, liberals HATE positivism. For example, they routinely attack Justice Scalia as a positivist (which is not entirely accurate, but that debate is for another time).

Let me give the liberals a hint: You can’t get to Roe v. Wade via positivism! Don’t marry yourself to a legal theory that is going to undermine much of your agenda just because you think it is a convenient response to Glenn Beck. As I said before, MacNicol and company are in way, way over their heads in this debate.

felixw
The “rights” we have are established by the Constitution, and the laws passed pursuant to that Constitution. Period. What individual rights have the politicians taken away from you? You mention liberty. That is a nice concept. What does it mean if it is not enumerated by the Constitution? And how is your liberty taken away by passing health care reform? Seriously, that whole argument is nothing but fear mongering initiated by the corporations and their highly paid spokespeople who know that health care reform will end the gravy train they have been on all these years as the cost of health care has increased at a rate several times that of the average pay of the regular working people. while the CEOs and other owners of the insurance and health care industries have seen their own salaries hitting eight or even nine figures. Those people are taking people like you for suckers.

How ironic that Jefferson’s inspired words are what Beck is hanging his hat on, while his Conservative buddies down in Texas have eliminated Jefferson from the school books.

I tuned into Beck’s show today (after many months) because I was curious if he would clarify his statements from yesterday that appeared here on Mediaite. Bingo! I thought it was a good show and I particularly enjoyed David Barton’s comment about the first 45 words to the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence. He was giving credit to something that I have pointed out here on Mediate a couple of times concerning the curriculum standards for the state of TX.

Valkyrie, you are an idiot. Name a single person in the health insurance industry with a “nine-figure” salary. You can’t because no such person exists.

The truth is that you could confiscate ALL of the profits of ALL of the health insurance companies in the country, and that would finance health care in this country for 2 days. You’d have to look somewhere else to finance the other 363 days.

You can never have a “right” that depends on someone else paying for it. For example, you have the right to free speech, but that doesn’t mean the government has to buy a newspaper or television station for you to get your message out. Healthcare can never be a “right”; it can only be an entitlement.

If I give you one, will you then post, in caps, I am an idiot?

Valkyrrie, there are two CEOs in the health insurance industry that make eight-figure salaries (Ron Williams of Aetna and Ed Hanway of CIGNA). The CEOs of all the next eight largest insurers make six-figure salaries. The executives at the remaining 1,300 or so private insurers in the country make much less.

And, for the record, whether or not those salaries are reasonable is not for me or you to decide. That decision lies with their boses (i.e., the shareholders of those companies). That’s what “liberty” is all about. Shareholders can invest their savings in corporations and pay the executives of those companies what they see fit based on the return the investors get on their investments. To the extent that Barack Obama wants government regulators to make those decisions instead of the shareholders, his health care plan infringes on their liberty.

finch,
So that means yes, you will post in caps I am an idiot? This is not the one I have in mind, but check out these three. Of course none of them are so stupid as to pay themselves a straight salary of nine figures, but don’t they love those stock options: http://sickforprofit.com/ceos/

The site you linked to proves me right. Even including stock options, none of them are making nine-figure salaries. For example, your site says that Ed Hanway of CIGNA made $120 million OVER FIVE YEARS. As I said before, that is a eight-figure salary.

And you are dealing with the 3 top paid executives in an industry of more than 1,300 private companies with thousands of executives. Ed Hanway’s $25 million per year when our total healthcare expenditures are $2.3 trillion is literally a drop in the pocket.

You are buying into the old scapegoat mythology. “Greedy” health insurance companies aren’t the problem.

Unregulated capitalism has nothing to do with liberty, finch. Do you take the position that we should repeal our anti-trust laws? How about laws relating to dumping raw chemicals into our rivers, would you consider those regulations a violation of liberty? It is precisely because of too few regulations that our financial system ran amuck.

Moreover, there are some obvious problems with the site you linked to. For example, it says that Stephen Hemsley of UnitedHealth had a total 2007 compensation of $13.2 million. But if you click on the link to the Forbes article that it is supposedly relying on, it says that his total compensation was $3.2 million.

For that reason, when you come up with your example of someone in the health care industry making a nine-figure salary, I’m sure you’ll link to the company’s annual report or 10-K SEC filing, and not some hack liberal agenda website that just makes up whatever facts are convenient.

Anonymous Finch is offering some intelligent and well-considered opinions here. What a refreshing change from the usual rants and playground insults.

I am still holding my ace. Perhaps it is under your radar screen because the man was fired in 2005 after his company took a big PR hit after it was disclosed how much he was making. But what I did post flys in the face of what you said about the poor under paid insurance executives. Do you think those stock options are not income? I don’t think you read that right.

Last chance, finch, are you willing to post in caps, I am an idiot?

Profit margin for United Health = 4%. Lousy margin, by any measure.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=UNH

By comparison, General Electric – which is cheerleader for the Democrats in one part of its business, and enjoys contracts from the Democrats in other parts of its business (paid for by the taxpayers) – has almost twice the profit margin.

And if you want to see a CEO who is raking in the money, funded by taxpayers, take a look at GE’s chief Obama cheerleader Jeffrey Immelt’s compensation:

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/12/67G5.html

That’s a straw-man argument. No one is arguing for completely unregulated capitalism. In the non-economic sphere, for example, you need laws against murder, rape, assault, fraud, etc. so that individuals do not abuse their liberty and hurt others. That is perfectly consistent with liberty. Similarly, in the economic sphere, you need anti-trust laws because monopolies are anti-capitalistic (and, ultimately, a form of fraudulent coercion). Similarly, you need environmental laws because pollution is a form of nuisance (and, therefore, battery). They are also consistent with liberty.

But those reasonable regulations are a far cry from creating a FEDERAL mandate that millions of people buy a product (insurance) that they don’t want to buy. And that is only one example of the command and control regulations in Obamacare. Reasonable regulations are necessary to protect freedom; they are not justification for command and control regulations. It’s a question of balance, and Obamacare is skewed very, very far to one extreme.

Greed is definitely the problem. Here are figures from fifty assorted people from a couple years ago. There is a finite amount of money in our economy. The more money that the top people pay themselves, the more expensive the cost of the product. The common man’s salary has gone up at a rate of a couple percent each year since 2000, while the executive salaries have gone through the roof. No wonder people can not afford to live.

1. Jay Sugarman…..$90,192,027…..iStar Financial Inc.
2. Steven P. Jobs…..$74,750,000…..Apple Computer, Inc.
3. Larry C. Glasscock…..$46,212,719…..Anthem, Inc.
4. Eugene N. Melnyk…..$41,917,908…..Biovail Corporation
5. L. George Klaus…..$39,723,164…..Epicor Software Corporation
6. Mario J. Gabelli…..$38,702,110…..Gabelli Asset Management Inc.
7. Warren J. Spector…..$38,255,431…..The Bear Stearns Companies Inc.
8. James E. Cayne…..$33,925,412…..The Bear Stearns Companies Inc.
9. H. Lawrence Culp Jr……$31,083,042…..Danaher Corporation
10. Richard E. Dauch…..$30,957,693…..American Axle & Manufact. Holdings, Inc.
11. Sanford I. Weill…..$30,674,065…..Citigroup Inc.
12. Alan D. Schwartz…..$29,556,378…..The Bear Stearns Companies Inc.
13. Bob R. Simpson…..$28,853,282…..XTO Energy Inc.
14. Lee R. Raymond Ph.D……$27,783,140…..Exxon Mobil Corporation
15. Charles O. Prince…..$26,812,148…..Citigroup Inc.
16. Timothy M. Donahue…..$26,331,461…..Nextel Communications
17. Robert B. Willumstad…..$26,159,146…..Citigroup Inc.
18. E. Stanley O’Neal…..$25,344,265…..Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.
19. Ray R. Irani…..$25,096,042…..Occidental Petroleum Corp
20. Louis C. Camilleri…..$23,852,064…..Altria Group, Inc.
21. Henry R. Silverman…..$22,863,045…..Cendant Corporation
22. Angelo R. Mozilo…..$22,634,271…..Countrywide Financial Corp.
23. Stephen M. Bennett…..$22,303,437…..Intuit Inc.
24. Robert L. Nardelli…..$22,217,160…..The Home Depot, Inc.
25. William R. Berkley…..$22,142,704…..W.R. Berkley Corporation
26. Robert I. Toll…..$21,530,638…..Toll Brothers, Inc.
27. Henry M. Paulson Jr……$21,400,579…..The Goldman Sachs Group
28. John H. Tyson…..$20,921,299…..Tyson Foods, Inc.
29. Thomas J. Hilfiger…..$20,569,000…..Tommy Hilfiger Corporation
30. Lloyd C. Blankfein…..$20,199,625…..The Goldman Sachs Group
31. Richard B. Handler…..$20,123,253…..Jefferies Group, Inc.
32. Anatolie Sirbu…..$20,070,000…..Asconi Corporation
32. Constantin Jitaru…..$20,070,000…..Asconi Corporation
33. John J. Legere…..$19,624,589…..Global Crossing Ltd.
34. Edward E. Whitacre Jr……$19,534,875…..SBC Communications Inc.
35. Sumner M. Redstone…..$19,100,521…..Viacom Inc.
36. William E. Greehey…..$18,899,596…..Valero Energy Corp.
37. Bruce Karatz…..$18,518,720…..KB Home
38. Jeffrey L. Bewkes…..$18,412,841…..Time Warner Inc.
39. R. Chad Dreier…..$18,173,976…..The Ryland Group, Inc.
40. Kenneth D. Lewis…..$17,781,531…..Bank of America Corporation
41. Joel F. Gemunder…..$17,700,473…..Omnicare, Incorporated
42. Alan C. Greenberg…..$17,685,015…..The Bear Stearns Companies Inc.
43. Robert P. Cochran…..$17,662,332…..Financial Security Assurance Holdings
44. Michael L. Smith…..$17,526,297…..Anthem, Inc.
45. David R. Frick…..$17,465,540…..Anthem, Inc.
46. Franklin D. Raines…..$17,056,642…..Fannie Mae
47. Robert D. Glynn Jr……$16,920,179…..PG&E Corporation
48. William J. Shea…..$16,663,501…..Conseco, Inc.
49. Robert E. Rubin…..$16,556,813…..Citigroup Inc.
50. Gary D. Forsee…..$16,445,958…..Sprint Corp

So you are in favor of regulation, doesn’t that interfere with “liberty”.

But you also don’t understand how stock options work. First, there is no indication what period of time over which those stocks options were granted. (Whether, for example, it is 1 year or 20 years makes a big difference). Second, the amount of stock options that are currently unexercised is not the same as the value of those options when they were granted. Third, if they are unexercised, then it means, by definition, that the executive has “earned” anything from they yet.

Tiger Woods made $93 million in 2009
Phil Mickelson made $53 million in 2009
LeBron James made $42 million in 2009
Etc. etc.

Clearly the Federal needs to put caps on athletes’ income.

Oh, I forgot, putting a ball in a hole is much more important than running an organization that employs tens of thousands of people……NOT!

Anonymous Finch is absolutely right. Money gained from stock options is only paid to a manager from new wealth created by the rising value of the shares. In every instance, the CEO must create more wealth than is collected via these options. This is a positive transaction from every social and economic perspective.

But Finch, this amount of truth is hard for the left to bear, who want to think that this money is somehow squeezed out of the mouths of widows and orphans.

Valkyrie, now you have shown your true ignorance. There is NOT a finite amount of money in our economy. To the contrary, the economy GROWS over time (hopefully, at least). It grows when economic actors create value for other people. Wealth generation is not a zero-sum game.

That is the main difference between conservatives and liberals when it comes to economics. Conservatives want to grow the pie. Liberals want to use the government to “distribute” the slices of an ever-shrinking pie.

When Steve Jobs (who, the last time I checked is NOT in the healthcare business) makes $74 million in a year, he is not “taking” it from anyone. He is earning it by creating value for other people. Moreover, his “outrageous” salary of $75 million per year is less then 1/10 of 1% of Apple’s annual sales, yet their gross margins are near 50%. In other words, his salary is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the price of Apple’s products.

You say that corporations can pay their CEOs whatever they want. That’s fine. I do not disagree. But if they are going to do that, I have no problem taxing those payments at a 50% rate. Otherwise, the common man, the masses of people, not just the unworking poor, are being short changed.

Valkyrie, let me break the bad news… marginal income is already taxed way beyond 50%. If you add up federal, state, local, sales, property, use, estate, gas and other taxes, the wealthy are basically giving most of their income to the government. They get to keep a small amount for themselves. Sort of a finder’s fee. Even pimps and loan sharks take a smaller cut of the action than the Democrats in congress.

FelixW, thanks for the kind words. I need some sleep, so I pass the baton to you. Valkyrie seems like a well-intentioned guy. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.

The health care industry is unique. In a normal industry, the rules of supply, demand and price are balanced. If the product is really expensive the demand is less and the supply accumulates.. Thus, to make money, the manufacturer must find a way to lower the price, thereby increasing demand. But in the health care industry, where patent rights on new drugs and other technology prevents competition, people literally have no choice but to pay the higher price. Otherwise, they die. So naturally, for example, in the case of a big pharma company, applying their Harvard Business school training, a little light goes on for these greedy people, keep the price high and people will still buy it, even if they have to go into bankruptcy to afford it. Thus, they generate massive profits. And that is the current reality. Capitalism is a tool, a system, used by men. Capitalism has no heart. Only men have heart. Capitalism in the hands of greedy men has no heart.

Yeah, MacNicol is the quintessential leftist. What about the federal government granting rights to services seems constitutional to her?

‘if Congress doesn’t recognize something as an “unalienable right” and then take the measures to protect, does it matter whether or not it’s been granted by God? Intrinsic in this process is Congress’ recognition and subsequent protection of a right’

First of all, I can feel the piercing shrill of her soul at the mention of God. How could government possibly protect my hypothetical right to health services? What if I want viagra? What if I need a transplant? Will doctors be slaves? WAKE UP.. or maybe understand we see right thru what you want to do. How do you separate yourself from the Big Lie, anyway? And things will only work perfectly in your world, I am sure.. there will be no problems if only you were in charge.. delusion, all of it.

Since the beginning of time, there has been little evil as evil as Glenn Beck. His bruning in the fires of Hell will bring great joy to the Almighty for Glenn Beck is a disciple of Satan. He is EVIL. He will reap his reward in the hereafter, and all saints shall cheer his punishment

The sad part is this is even a point of debate. People(including the author) firmly believe that our rights are given to us by the federal government, and that the government exists to “take care of us”. This type of thinking is absolutely destroying this country! The more you look to the government to provide for you, the more liberty you surrender. The United States was founded on the concept of individual liberty, and the consent of the governed. These concepts are being undermined by the entitlement mentality and the belief that government is the answer to all our problems. When the Federal Government forces you to buy health insurance at the point of a gun, you no longer live in a free country…….

>The United States was founded on the concept of individual liberty,
>The more you look to the government to provide for you, the more liberty you surrender

They’re not contradicting with one another. When you have universal health care coverage, individuals are more free to do things with their lives that they previously couldn’t do. Passing this health care bill *increases* liberty, because it’ll mean that people don’t have to care as much or pay as much into health insurance anymore.

The only theological concept the Baboon is authorized to narrate is his own hallucinations when he hit bottom.

But he doesn’t understand that was his personal hell hole.

It is laughable and disgusting he is now trying to pass himself as an authority on human rights while he spouts merde against a society trying to implement care for its own individuals.

The Baboon and his zombies pretend they can survive in isolation.

Guess what? Even animals, insects tend to form SOCIETIES with different specialties in order to protect the whole SOCIETY.

@valkerie

Your hatred of capitalism is blatant, to the point that you vilify without perspective. While you rail at drug companies for example, and their “massive” profits, you are ignorant of the front-end of the drug process. During reasearch and development (R&D) those greedy drug makers often sink tens of millions into the creation of a new drug with no promise it will be effective in the market. Once it clears R&D, and testing, and vetting through the FDA they have a time period where they alone can sell that drug for it is proprietary. The profit-motive, as despised as you believe it to be, is what leads to groundbreaking discoveries. It is also something that will be stifled under a cost-cutting UHC reality.

Look to Apple for an example. They spend tens of millions developing the iPhone, and set it into the market for $600 a unit to make back their investment with proper sales. Using your standards the govt. could declare that is too high a price, that it should be $150, and other companies can make knock-off versions at will. Apple then would never see a return on their investment and to remain afloat would scale back that R&D, thus retarding innovation.

m says:
March 17, 2010 at 3:39 am

In the abstract your statement might be true but in application there is a lot of evidence that says it will
curtail freedom, from waiting on a doctor for lower quality care to higher taxes on your funds to even
possibly limiting the choices of food you can eat ((which is actually happening see: NYC salt regulation)) or
what you can do(( This might be a little stretch but it seems like a natural progression to the logic
of curbing food choices))

Since we’re talking about the Health takeover err Reform bill, here’s the best argument against it:

30 million added patients. 0 added doctors.

Unless this is corrected we are heading for a train wreck if this thing passes

Shark,
As I said, the health care industry is different than others because people can not choose to not pay. Their life is on the line. If someone can not afford an i-phone they simply do not buy one. Not so with a necessary drug or other treatment. You speak about re-investment (R&D). Sure, a lot of their money is spent in that, but not as much as a percentage as you think. Rather, before they do that, they pay themselves millions of dollars and carve out millions more for other personal benefits, and millions more to pay off the politicians that regulate their industry.

As for my supposed hatred of capitalism, I am wondering how that is possible. How does one hate a tool. I don’t hate guns, another tool of men, either. It’s the monkeys wielding those tools who are the problem. Unfortunately, left to their own devices, some men abuse those tools. Thus, we have learned that we must establish laws to regulate those irresponsible men. Capitalism is an excellent and effective tool, but in the hands of certain irresponsible men, leaving it unregulated is a recipe for abuse. But the conservatives do not like regulations. And here is the reality in that regard: the same profit driven men, arguing in the same way they do today – that regulation will destory society as we know it, stood against the regulation of, for example, lead fuel and other pollution, at a time when LA was virtually not visible for the smog. The liberals had to carry those polluters kicking and screaming to the next level. And now, 40 years later, we take the relatively clean air for granted, and LA is no longer visible from space as a cloud of pollution.

Fidoohki,
Yes, there indeed would be a shortage of doctors and hundreds of thousands of other health care workers too. Thus, lots and lots of job opportunities would open up. With such a need for workers, the colleges will have to work over time producing qualified workers. Is that a bad thing?

I find it amazing that people think that the nation that won WWII can not suck it up to create a situation where basic medical care is provided to its citizens, like the countries that we defeated in that war, and most of our allies during that war already have.

America was not founded only for the purpose of individual liberty. That was indeed a major consideration. But there is also such a thing as collective liberty. Our forefathers did not create, nor seek to create, an anarchy with a bunch of individuals doing whatever they wanted, and with no consideraton for the collective good.

valkyrie101 says:
March 17, 2010 at 9:03 am

It takes 11 years to train a doctor. according to here: http://www.bls.gov/k12/help06.htm

What do the people do til then? do we tell them ‘sucks to be you’?

Also you are talking about a generation that is near rioting right now in California because their
tuition is going up in a state that is near bankrupt! I’m sorry but I have my doubts.

Here is my rebuttal to Glynnis MacNicol that I published on my blog today:

http://www.anonymousfinch.com/2010/03/17/glenn-beck-v-glynnis-macnicol-the-decline-of-mediaite/#more-1948

@ val
I made no mention of regulation, you were railing against salaries and bonuses, and that is something that is put in place by shareholders. Polluters are in violation of laws and should be held accountable, that differs from salaries.

I am in some agreement regarding health care being a required payment, but regarding that necessary drug or treatment,when you begin to shackle the commerce of the medical or drug companies you rein in that research and technological advancement as well. A life-saving drug may be extremely expensive when first placed on the market but that expense is preferable to not having the drug available at all. And no, they do not pay themselves before the R&D, those bonuses derive from profits that are a result of successful drugs or products, those created during the R&D. If a CEO continues to soak in massive bonuses while the company is losing money then they are replaced, by the board and/or share holders. But once the govt. restricts what a company pays its members they will pull back on the research money side.

“The point is, our government can certainly establish a person’s “right” to healthcare pursuant to Constitutionally authorized law making.”

Entitlements are not rights, they’re…well..entitlements.

The AMA really determines how many doctors are generated. Right now there are hundreds if not thousands of students with 3.5 GPAs who are being told they are not smart enough to be a doctor. If those people are not turned away, it would not be 11 years before increases of doctors would appear. So now you will say, yea, watering down the qualifications thus reducing the quality of care. But really, 90% of what it takes to be a doctor is really not that complicated. And in any event, even if the quality is watered down a little, that is no reason to deny health care to millions and millions of people who get no care at all.

shark,
The businessmen that run the big drug companies go out and recruit the best and the brightest science graduates from the top schools, for top dollar, so that they can use their brains to develope drugs, with the patent on those drugs held exclusively by the drug company, not for the people who need care, but for the purpose of making money. The only reason they lower the price is when that drug has a competitor out there which provides competition (often not the case), or when, as in the case of the S1N1 vaccines, when public opinion goes after them. The job of capitalists is to make money, heart is not a factor, and too many companies are run by people who make more money, via bonuses, as you say, for making money, not whether they help their fellow man. The system of bonuses you refer to is a carrot for CEOs to make money for the company. Obviously, in order to make the most money, you need to charge the maximum amount for the products you sell that the market will bare. And as I mentioned earlier, when people’s lives are on the line they will pay anything, even unto bankruptcy, to stay alive.

Capitalism is a man made system, a tool, used for our benefit, all of us, not something that must be worshipped. There is nothing wrong with tweaking that system, God will not mind, it is not a sacrosanct thing, and it does not impugn our liberty by doing that. Right now, the gap between rich and poor, with the salaries of the rich growing dramatically every year, while the salaries of the common man remain substantially the same, while prices sky rocket, clearly indicates that the system needs tweaking.

Valkyrie, what’s the alternative to using the incentive of profit to “recruit the best and the brightest science graduates from the top schools” to make life saving drugs? Rather than paying them enough to voluntarily incentivize them to use their brains to make life saving drugs, do you want the government to force them to use their brain power for that purpose? What if you have a brilliant doctor who has to choose between making life saving drugs (but without the financial rewards that are currently in the system) or going into, say, plastic surgery or some other speciality with marginal social utility? Rather than letting people be free to make those decisions for themselves (and be compensated for their decisions as the market demands) you seem to want the government to make those decisions for all us.

Val, you should also note that a drug’s patent protection last for a limited period of time. By the time FDA approval comes through, most drugs have less than 10 years before they lose patent protection. At that point, the drug (whose formula is literately on file with the U.S. Patent office and available over the internet) can be made by anyone in the world with absolutely no R&D costs. Short term benefit for the drug company, but a long-term benefit for humanity. I think that’s a fair trade-off. If you eliminate that decade of profit, whose going to invest billions of of dollars to make these drugs?

finch,
Again, the motive of the incenticized CEO and his associates is personal profits which they get when their company makes a profit. That is not the same as compassion for their fellow man, which is something that used to be emphasized in the field of health care. Thus, as I said, and you did not address, they charge as much as the market will bare. Normally that is ok because in an ideal capitalist market situation the price will always reflect what people will pay for it. If the price is high and too few people buy the product to make it profitable, the company must reduce the price. But that is skewed in the case of drugs and other medical products. In the case of those, people will pay virtually anything, even up to going into bankruptcy, because they do not want to die, or allow their loved one to die. So the drug companys have people over a barrel, and they take full advantage of that for their own gain. And that is especially the case when the CEO and his associates are incenticized.

Am I saying that all capitalists are selfish money grubbers? No. Quite a few capitalists are not. But enough are to make the entire situation untenable. The profits of the drug companys are higher now than at any time in history.

Val, you imply I’m worshiping capitalism when what I am doing is combating your demonization of the quest for financial success. You are ignoring the longterm benefit to mankind as a result of the profit motive. Without the possibility of that big payday the drug companies would not sink an enormous amount of money into the research. Numerous drugs are tried and fail – at great expense to the companies – yet when they have a successful product it hits the market and they profit, and mankind benefits from it being available. Profits themselves are not evil and they become the motiation for innovation and medical advancement. Remove that windfall and what company would extend itself financially? And A.F. is correct, they have proprietary rights to their creation for a set time but then it becomes available for generic drug makers and it becomes lower in price if popular enough. But you need that profit motivator to spurn research.

So shark, the only thing that motivates people is profit? Without the profit motive the drug companies would not provide this great service to mankind? You can not have it both ways. If you want to say that the profit motive drives them, fine. But don’t talk about their great service to mankind because that is a completely different mind set. Mature capitalists, at least those participating in the health care industry, who are also compassionate human beings, should find a balance between keeping a company profitable and legitimately serving their fellow man. But instead, they have found a way to make tens of millions of dollars in personal enrichment, and massive corporate profits, beyond anything that has existed in the past, while the cost of drugs has sky rocketed, with tens of millions of people left without the funds to pay for those drugs, and 50 thousand of them dying every year.

It’s not PERSONAL enrichment. Drug companies have, literally, millions of shareholders who pull their money together in order to invest in those future drugs. Some of those shareholders are “rich,” but in an age where well more than half of all people are in the stock market (via 401ks, pension funds, etc), its not just the “wealthiest 5%” that Obama likes to demonize so much. Moreover, if you tell those people than drug companies aren’t allowed to pursue profit, they are going to sell their shares in drug companies and go invest in making iPods or Marlboro cigarettes or the like.

Again, what is the alternative to the profit motive? Do you think people are going to continue to invest their time and resources without the hope of profit? Or do you anticipate using the force of government to force them to continue to do what they are doing now?

If you think it can be done without the profit margin, why hasn’t it been done already. Under current law, you could have not-for-profit drug companies now. Instead of giving your money to the Red Cross, you give it to a non-profit drug company to develop the next oncology drug and sell it with no profit.

THERE’S A REASON WHY THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN NOW! Namely, doing complicated things like developing drugs requires special skills that aren’t cheap. The people who have those skills spends year, nay decades, of the their lives developing those skills. Once they get them, they rightfully want to compensated for them at the rates that the market will bear.

Take that away, and the only way to make it happen will be to use the coercive force of the government.

Specifically we have been talking about pharma and other health care companies, so I will stick to that. Of course every company needs a profit margin to survive, and remain strong and effective, but that does not mean all of its “caring” CEOs and top executive people should be making millions of dollars in that equation, essentially off the blood of sick people. And the name of the game is not to make as much money as possible, because that ultimately means over priced products out of reach to the common man’s budget.

But here is the problem, those executives are under pressure from their board of directors, and their shareholders, who wish a big return on their investment, to make as much money as possible, thus raising stock prices. The whole thing is self perpetuating, like an out of control machine.

Thus, I would disincentivize the payment of exorbitant salaries (anything over a million, for sure) by taxing those at a much higher rate. And I would tax accumulated corporate capital at a much higher rate too. Would corporations scream bloody murder about that? You bet. They don’t like taxes. So they would then be more inclined to re-invest their capital. And of course the super wealthy who currently have played the system to the extent that the super wealthy, those in the upper 2%, literally control or own 90% of the wealth of the whole country, while the working middle class has sunk into oblivion.

If that is what our system has rendered, then our system needs to be tweaked to make it more equitable because we are all equally entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not just those who play our man made system for their own exclusive benefit.

Jimmy Carter tried a similar tactic, and it was rooted in a similar mindset. He despised oil companies making “obscene” profits while America paid higher gas prices, so he raised the tax rate rate on their “excessive” profits at a certain threshold, supposedly for the benefit of the marketplace. What happened was when the companies reached that threshold it was no longer profitable so they simply curtailed production, and instead of high gas prices we ended up with high prices AND also had to sit through long gas lines as rationing took place. So gas prices remained high, there was simply less of it. This will happen in the medical field as well because to compensate the higher tax rate drug prices would remain artificially higher. That is what always gets ignored in the tax-hike theorem — the tax hike always gets passed into the price of the product.

You continue to focus on the profit = evil equation, based on your “blood of sick people” comment. You are missing the main point: if the companies are profiting it means they have supplied a product that in the end is beneficial to people. The success indicates such.

Yes, you are relating economics 101, as conservatives always teach it. If that worked in the health care industry, then we would not have a situation where health care costs are the highest in the world, such that tens of millions of people get no health care, and many others pay more than they can afford, often going into bankruptcy, because they feel they have no choice. As I have said repeatedly, health care is a unique market because people do not have the option of not buying the product (assuming they want to live). It is the proverbial “offer they can not refuse”.

Here is the essential problem with conservative theory: when there is obviously something wrong they continue to espouse the same principles that caused the problem in the first place, as if beating a dead horse will finally make it get up and go. Somehow you think that corporations will just lower their price when their taxes are reduced, or regulations are removed, and pass that on to the consumer. In fact, if they can make more money by doing it, they will raise the price every time, especially in an industry, like pharma, where the people ultimately have no choice but to pay, whatever the asking price is. If the companies lose a few customers (like those who die) it does not matter because they make more, net, by selling at a high price. That is precisely what the insurance industry does. And there is no reason that they should lower the price because the game of capitalism is to make money. It has no other purpose.

Clearly the current health reform bill is a joke. The government needs to get into the health care business because the reality is that the conservative capitalists do not care about the high costs, the vast number of uninsured, and the fifty thousand dead people a year. Why should they, as I said, capitalism has no heart, its a system, a tool. Unfortunately, that is the beast that conservatives worship.

But you are ignoring one huge factor in the current problem of the health industry — government involvement. Two of the reasons health care prices are so high is restrictions on the insurance industry restricts competition and props up pricing, and Medicaid is reimbursing at about a 65% rate, meaning those hospital costs have to be absorbed into the system elsewhere.

Early on you mentioned the companies’ service to mankind and profits and said you could not have it both ways. Why not? They make their money while benefitting us. If they create a drug that works it is used more often and they profit more. Your flaw is that you want to impose an ultaristic aspect into the system and provoke companies to do things for the good of man. Fine in principal, except when it comes to them investing their own millions into a product they will not see a profit on in the market. Why would they do such without the reward? The result is they won’t, then we lose out on the innovation and the drugs. With the profit motive they innovate AND we benefit. Yes, some drugs/procedures are costly, because the research and manpower was costly – but we get the advancement. You fail to realize that if you restrict the system you restrict the results, and then that very expensive drug is no longer expensive because it is not available to begin with. I would say that is the worse of the options.

Look into nations with nationalized care and you find doctors who complain they are forced to use procedures that are years out of date because the entire system is budgeted so low.

shark,
No, I do not think that the health care and insurance corporations will do the right thing for the good of man. They can not do that because their marching orders under the current system is to make as much money as they can, so that they can impress their shareholders and earn those big bonuses. That is the nature of a capitalist system, as I said, heartless, a machine. And nobody can make those corporations do the right thing without curtailing liberty for everyone. Thus, as most countries in the world have figured out, the people, via their government, must take the initiative.

Your condemnation of the failures of the nationalized systems, “years out of date procedures”, etc., does not accurately describe the Canada and Great Britain systems. Yes, America has some very good medical care, and perhaps with respect to some procedures, better than any other country, but that care is so expensive that it is not available to tens of millions of people. So when you are analyzing the American system, factor in all those people who die, usually after long suffering, for want of care. What would you be saying if in Canada tens of thousands of people died because of shoddy health care? You would say, see, the nationalized health care in Canada is so bad that thousands of people die for shoddy care. But in our country, they die for no care. So to say that the private American health care system in this country is better than in Canada is simply, and quite objectively, wrong.

If every year a terrorist blew up a city of 50,000 people you would be aghast, and screaming for government action. You would immediately petition the government to mobilize its government run military apparatus to take drastic action, with all due speed, to prevent that tragedy. But that is exactly what is happening to our innocent citizens right now. Where is your urgency to take drastic action?

The current health care bill will do little to correct that travesty. So because of all the health care/insurance industry spin, with literally hundreds of millions of dollars being spent to stymie the debate and prevent change (something that, yes, would cut into their profit margins) our country will continue to literally be the laughing stock of the world over this issue.

The U.S. should simply create a new branch of the military, the U.S. Medical Corp, and begin to build hospitals and clinics, and provide free health care to those people who can not afford it. We could easily recruit tens of thousands of people, train them, and get a system up and running within ten years. And many current doctors and health care professionals would love to cast their lot with a group of public service minded people to care for their fellow man. That competition would do more to curtail runaway health care/insurance industry abuses than anything else. You would be surprised at how many people would gladly commit themselves to helping their fellow man, selflessly, like our soldiers currently do. But then the healthcare/insurance industries would scream, hey that is unfair competition. They would say that, like they do now, because obscene profits are more important to those men who serve that runaway capitalist machine, than all the people dying around them. And we the people should just say to that, too bad. You had your chance to do the right thing, but you turned a blind eye, as you pocketed the profits that your heartless master dolled out to you.

If rights are given by gods, your “inalienable rights” are dependent on which gods are in fashion. If you read Wright’s “The Evolution of God”, you’ll see that, even within a single religious traditon, the idea of what God wants changes. Also, if religions were interested in rights, you’d think that they’d put Bills of Rights in their holy books, so that we’d know just rights are “god given” and which we can ignore. This is important because people will go to great lengths to show that their holy books say that what they want to do is okay. In fact, I’ve heard that the (white) clergy in the antebellum south asserted that the christian bible said that it was okay for white folks to own black folks. Obviously, the bible doesn’t just come out and say “owning people is wrong”, I think that any gods and/or goddesses who weren’t morons would have foreseen such things and written their holy books to prevent this.

Many of the Founders advocated Hume and Locke’s conception of natural rights, but certainly not all did, and those who did were most likely to be counted among the anti-Federalists. Whether the Framers had a natural rights perspective is a matter of scholarly dispute. It’s notable that the phrase, “natural and inalienable rights” never appears in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. A key document for discerning the Framers’ views may be Federalist #84. Madison explicitly stated that certain rights, such as trial by jury, arise from a social contract – not natural rights – in the Introduction of the Bill of Rights in Congress.

Modern conservatism arose in part from Edmond Burke’s rejection of the concept of natural rights in “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” so there’s a certain irony that conservatives who get their information from TV are so quick to declare themselves on the side of natural rights.