Fat Fish in a Shrinking Barrel

Wow. Where to begin.

Sarah Palin took to Facebook recently to share some of her thoughts (or whatever you wish to call them) regarding Obama's proposed health care legislation. "The America I know and love," said Palin, "is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."

If this scenario sounds more like an episode of the Twilight Zone than the legislation in question, that's because it is very similar to an episode of the Twilight Zone ("The Obsolete Man", original air date June 2, 1961) while it has no factual or even rational connection to the legislation. Worse than securing her position as the fat fish in a shrinking barrel in which many love to fire away, there is an even greater political danger in Palin's wacky proclamations.

She has thrown a red herring into the health care debate that liberals could only dream of. And it worked.

Now an alarming number of conservatives are riled up, railing against provisions that do not even exist. Meanwhile the clear and present dangers of the bill, the cost-cutting smoke and mirrors neatly tucked away, the overwhelming increase in spending (and subsequent necessary tax increases) and bureaucratic sprawl, and the considerable damage all of this will do to an a private health care sector that is poised for one hell of a collapse, are increasingly ignored.

These things may not be as sexy as an imaginary death panel, but for the thinking conservative they should loom as a far more ominous threat. A threat that Sarah Palin either chooses to ignore or fails to see, which seems characteristic of her relentless supporters.

Palin's Facebook page is full of their posted wisdom:

"Thank you Sarah Palin. At last we have someone who speaks for the people!"

"No weapon formed against you shall prosper......rock on!"

And my personal favorite...

"PALIN/LIMBAUGH 2012??!!!"

Sometimes I get the impression these Republicans are profoundly confused, and perhaps believe they're only following some kind of elaborate reality television program. Does Sarah Palin reflect the Republican Party or does the Republican Party merely reflect Sarah Palin? I can only hope the latter is true, and temporarily so. We're all a little hungover after the Bush Administration, after all (see: the Presidential Nomination of John McCain).

But so long as Sarah Palin remains at the forefront of Republican politics, tossing red herrings into already complex policy discussions, the Republican voice in Washington may grow louder, as it also grows benign.

DIAGNOSIS -- FUBAR

Discussions abound regarding American health care reform, and most hinge on one fundamental question: should we or should we not implement socialized medicine? Both extremes of the political spectrum are out in full force, consciously or unconsciously employing misdirection in an attempt to disprove one another, rather than arguing in favor of their own points (assuming they have any to begin with).

Liberals continue to hammer home Obama's statement that his plan only offers a public option, which will compete with private insurance and encourage lower costs, greater efficiency and happier, healthier Americans.

Conservatives argue that Obama's public option is nothing more than a Trojan horse, a giant step toward socialized health care, and ultimately a socialist America.

Here's the problem: Neither side is correct, nor can they hope to be correct. Regardless of the favored solution, both arguments are fundamentally and irreparably flawed from the get-go. This has never been uncommon in American politics, which could explain why the recent town hall meetings have gone so disastrously awry. Perhaps White House deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina, summed it up best when he told Democratic Senators, "If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard."

Once again, it has come to this. It was barely 150 years ago that Congressman Preston Brooks beat Senator Charles Sumner on the House floor with a wooden cane over a speech regarding slavery. Now stories are flooding in from across the nation of town hall meetings quickly degenerating into violent, uproarious mobs.

But let's suppose we can remove violence and vitriol from political discussions and get down to business. Conservatives oppose the so-called public option on its own merit as an un-American federal encroachment on the free health care market. Thing is, the American health care market is not even close to free and hasn't been since the Great Depression. As the late, great Milton Friedman points out in this eye-opening 2001 article, federally-imposed wage and price controls forced businesses to offer employer health benefits as an incentive to workers. Employers kept these medical benefits off the books long enough that when the IRS finally caught on, the sluggish wheel of industry could not be turned back. This ultimately led to the tax-exemption of employer benefits we enjoy today (which makes individual health insurance inaccessible and unaffordable and has created a monster of the insurance industry).

Partially-socialized health care took root in 1965 with the advent of Medicare and Medicaid and today operates as a virtual black hole for tax revenue (like any good social program).

The third-party payer system is hardly a free market. A free health care market would arguably require an even greater overhaul of the current system in both the public and private sectors. To suggest that preventing the passage of Obama's proposed health care plan somehow preserves our freedom is either ignorant or naive or both.

On the other hand, liberals who argue that the public option would be just that, an option, are only kidding themselves. As Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute points out, the idea that the federal government has any incentive, or is in any position to compete with private insurance companies is laughable. By manipulating its own cost while driving private companies into financial and economical ruin, the public option would likely become the only tenable source for health care coverage. The network tactics used by private insurers to encourage physician involvement will look like child's play compared to awesome, unbridled power of the United States Government.

And anyone who openly supports socialized medicine also stands to be sorely disappointed as the audacious hope for ObamaCare fades a little more each day. Which is to say that no matter where you stand in the American health care debate, you will lose. It is as quintessentially lose/lose as any important issue that has ever faced the American people (see: slavery, abortion, energy, Vietnam, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, etc.)

With this in mind, I am surprised that Town Hall violence hasn't escalated more quickly. But there is certainly time for that, as the health care debate has no apparent end in sight.