LIBERTARIAN SIMPLICITY

Let me begin with a premise.  If a challenge exists, finding the most complex solution to it is probably not an effective response.  As evidence of this theory, let me offer the ACA legislation, more affectionately known (but no longer by Democrats) as Obamacare.

Much has been made of the fact that Obamacare is over 2400 pages long.  Now all of us recognize that’s a lot of trees that died for this legislation.  Put another way, the original act contains over 400,000 words.  That’s nearly the equivalent of the novel “War and Peace” in the original Russian.  Of course, Tolstoy had the cleverness to incorporate a plot in his epic work – something that Obamacare clearly lacks.

But let’s continue our analysis of this law.  You may remember the physics concept that, “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”  Apparently that principle does not apply to legislation.

With a law as pithy as Obamacare someone has to decipher what it means and explain it to the legislators who passed it without bothering to read its contents.  Hence those in charge of administering it and writing regulations for it have, thus far, used up nearly 12 million of our perfect good English words that would have preferred to be out golfing with the president instead.  That is, by the way, twice the number of words in the Internal Revenue Code.  No wonder the IRS isn’t answering taxpayers’ question on the proper tax filing procedures.  Apparently, one of the BFOQ’s of working at IRS is not having a Certificate of Completion for the Evelyn Wood speed reading program.

Without a doubt the subject of Obamacare goes far beyond law and deeply into the innards of partisan politics.  Democrats accuse anyone who opposes it of being heartless, money grubbing and racist.  There is a bit of wavering on this subject by the Democrat senators who are up for re-election who voted for it and find that the results, thus far, have not been either what they or the president promised their constituents.  Republicans, smelling blood in the streets, have naturally stooped to conquer, citing instances of the disaster the law has brought on the populace.  They have a great deal of material from which to choose.  Meanwhile, the people whom the law was theoretically intended to help – the uninsured – have adopted a rather ho hum view of the law with less than one percent of them bothering to enroll through the end of January.  Perhaps their lack of enthusiasm and participation is that either they do not want to have health insurance or simply cannot afford it.

Without debating the merits or lack of them of the law and setting aside partisan politics, this provides an excellent example of the libertarian concept, “That government is best which governs least.”  Even some proponents of the law have admitted that it’s unveiling has been far worse than they anticipated.  One could include the president in that group since he has amended it twenty-eight times by the use of his mighty pen.  But this does raise a serious question – all politics aside.

I realize there are those who truly believe that government is the answer to all our problems – and others who believe that it is the root cause of most of them.  I consider myself to be somewhere in the middle of those two views, probably leaning more to the latter.  But whatever your political stripe or your view on the role of government, the rollout of Obamacare should give any rational person reason to pause.

By now we all know that the president repeatedly made promises about Obamacare which were patently untrue.  Whether he was ignorant of the truth or purposefully lied in order to sell the program is only moderately relevant.  If he were ignorant – he failed in his responsibility as chief executive and, if he were working in the private sector would have been fired.  If he were working in the private sector and lied to his shareholders (the American people in this case), he would have been removed from office.

Now health insurance is something which we are all mandated to own by the law and which any rational person hopes never to need to use.  Obviously, some of those who have insurance will find a reason to utilize it and others not.  So this issue only affects all of us on a theoretical basis.  But what if there were a crisis that affected everyone – a failure in the nationwide power grid, for example.  Given the track record of this administration, is there anyone who would feel confident that this government would be able to handle that crisis effectively?

Fortunately, I have a simple solution for the problems that Obamacare has encountered or created.

The president made it clear that, “He has a pen and a phone.”  (I guess that’s the original Obama phone).  So all he has to do is sign an executive order outlawing disease, accidents and genetic defects.  We will no longer have to fret about the uninsured since everyone will be healthy and the money we are spending repairing the website and expanding the bureaucracy to administer the law could be used to feed the hungry or clothe the poor.

You know, this simplicity thing, combined with the power of the pen has got a lot to commend it.  I think I’ll turn my attention next to Putin, Kim jung-un, and President Assad.  The sky’s the limit.  Well, at least if we don’t run out of ink.