Where Does the Money Go?

A breakdown of US Government spending in 2010, from Wikipedia

I'm not going to offer much commentary, here, especially since my last post was a tad, um, long.  What I want to point out, though, is that our Congresspeople and President have recently been fighting over a budget for the coming year.  Mostly - as I understand it - the discussion about where to make cuts is focused on the upper-left quadrant of this graph.  My question is, what about that gigantic maroon section?  What about the 18.74% (in 2010, almost $700 billion) we're spending on our military every year?  In 2010 the USA's military operations  - that is, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - budget ($283 billion) alone was larger than our Education, Justice, Agriculture, Energy, Labor, Commerce, and  Environmental (EPA and Interior) spending combined.  What does that say about our priorities, as a nation?  What does that say about the parties that we enthusiastically vote for?

Keep in mind, while you listen to the news talk about the vehement arguments between Democrats and Republicans over a hundred million dollars here and a hundred million there that neither party - including the President - supports a reduction in our military spending, even though a mere 10% cut therein would more than cover the total discrepancy between the Republican and Democratic budgets for 2012.  Keep in mind, while your state cuts pension programs for government employees, including teachers, and slashes non-core education programs like the arts and physical education, that most state budget shortfalls are dwarfed by our defense spending.  Keep in mind, when you go to vote in 2012, that neither major political party will do anything to change that.

Don't Feed the Troll

I'm sorry to do this, but I just can't hold it back.  American political discourse is such a sham, people on both sides of the alleged two-sided debate believe such nonsense that sometimes I can't help but laugh at the whole thing.  You know there's some kind of problem when the debates of the day concern who's crazier, Keith Olberman or Bill O'Reilly.  Newsflash, America.  They're both out of their minds.  Neither of them (or any of their compatriots, the Rush Limbaughs, the Chris Matthewses, the Sean Hannitys) has any interest in real discourse, in trying to do anything positive for the country or the world.  They just yell, call each other names, and pass it off as politics.  Because, hey, that's what the people will watch on the TV.

Come to think of it, maybe that's all politics is meant to be, but we can dream of a better approach, can't we?  Perhaps it's too simplistic to put it this way, but wouldn't we be better of if real people made up the meat of political discourse, and not media-magnates, corrupt politicians, or for-profit corporations?  Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what the word "Democracy" means (from the Greek, 'Demos' meaning people, and 'Kratos' meaning rule)?

Anyway, the point here isn't to gripe about our mis-defined terms (we could spend a whole post talking about how words like "liberal," "communist," "socialist," "democracy," "conservative," and "constitution" have acquired meanings very different from their actual definitions).  No, the point is to go against my own advice.  I'm going to feed the troll.

The troll, in this case, is a man who wrote a letter that I received from one of my right-wing relatives via email.  He's one of those people who forwards five emails a day that all say "I rarely forward emails" at the top, and which contain font in at least three different sizes and at least four different colors in the body of the message.  So yeah, that's a sure sign not to take anything too seriously.  Except...  Except the people who believe these kinds of emails win elections.  Which isn't really a big deal, since at least you're putting principled crazy people (instead of the much more dangerous unprincipled sane ones) in office, but still.

This particular email is a gem, so much so that I laughed long and hard when I read it.  Now, you have to recall, I am not a Democrat, and I am not a Republican.  I'm an equal-opportunity critic of both parties, and, in fact, I'm probably all the more critical of the left than the right.  True, I am more "left wing" than "right wing," in that I believe in social freedoms like the right for gays to marry and the right to have an abortion, but economically and politically I am aligned with neither party, and don't believe that I fit along the 2-dimensional spectrum that most of us have been fooled into thinking encompasses all of political thought.

This particular email, though, comes from the right of American politics and is a harsh "criticism," if you can call it that, of Nancy Pelosi.  Now, Pelosi is about as corrupt as they come, but this fine piece takes her on in the most insane, unreasonable, and terrifyingly inaccurate ways possible.  In theory, it's by a man who is a former Assistant District Attorney named Dennis Guthrie, which makes it all the more classic for reasons which will become clear.  Without further ado, here's the email (in bold) with comments inserted.

Dear Ms. Pelosi:

I write to you out of utter disdain! You are as despicable and un-American as the traitor Jane Fonda.

Jane Fonda!  She's so despicable and un-American that she married Ted Turner!  Of course, Dennis is referring to her protest of the Vietnam and Iraq Wars and her self-described feminist ideals.  But Jane Fonda isn't really the point, here.  The point is that this is an absolutely ludicrous way to start a letter.  "Dear Ms. Person, I hate you!  You're just like this other person that I hate!"  Sounds a little like a little kid, no?

I am a soon to be 65 year-old who has voted in every state and local election since 1966. I have voted for both Republicans and Democrats alike. I have worked on campaigns for both Republicans and Democrats, white and black. I served the country that I love in Vietnam, as my son did in the Middle East . I was awarded two bronze stars. I have been involved in politics since age 6 when my father was campaign manager for a truly great American Congressman, Charles Raper Jonas, who worked for his constituents and his country, and was to be admired, unlike you.

Attempting to rebuild credibility here, because, you know, the whole Jane Fonda thing was a bit of a gamble that didn't really pay off.  So we find out that Dennis is not partisan, not in the slightest.  We also find out that he's not a racist - he's very careful to point out that he has worked on campaigns for both white and black people.

The real key to this credibility argument, of course, is that 6 year-old Dennis (soon to be seven?) was "involved" in politics because his father managed the campaign of Charles Raper Jonas (can we talk to his parents about that middle name?), who worked for his constituents and his country, and was to be admired, unlike [Nancy Pelosi].  Let's talk about how tortured this sentence is.  Wait, let's not.  Just read it again.  Non sequiturs abound!  The purpose of the sentence changes no less than twice, beginning with "I've been around politics for a long time," transitioning to "Charles Raper Jonas was a good congressman," and finishing with "You're a scumbag!" Bravo, good sir.

You obviously haven't read the Constitution recently, if ever, the Federalist Papers, or even David McCullough's book on John Adams.

Oh my.  Cue music...  One of these things is not like the other.  Let's see, key documents for a member of congress to read... 1) Constitution, check.  2) Federalist Papers, check. 3) David McCullough's book on John Adams, check?  Now don't get me wrong, I'm guessing that McCullough's book is very good.  He's a two-time Pulitzer winner, and John Adams is one of those winners.  But that still doesn't put it in the same camp as the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, which are, you know, political treatises about the founding of the country, and not historical biographies.

Also, isn't the order wrong here?  It's weird enough that he throws in the McCullough book, but it's the "even" that gets me.  It's like saying "he hasn't read any Shakespeare, even Titus Andronicus," as if that's the one Shakespeare play everyone should read.  I mean, I can imagine Pelosi not reading the Constitution, but David McCullough's John Adams, really now.

You ought to take the time while riding around in your government provided luxury executive jet to do just that. You represent Socialistic and even Marxist principals that our founding fathers tried to avoid when setting out the capitalistic republican form of government represented by our Constitution.

Boom.  This is the best part of the whole thing, right here.  For a man who is, in theory, a former Assistant AD who has read John Adams (by David McCullough) and even the Constitution (see what I did there?), this is a remarkable display of historical ignorance.  Let's not even get into how non-socialist Nancy Pelosi is, and instead let's talk about Karl Marx.

Marx was not a socialist, because socialism and communism are very different, but that's not what's amazing here.  No, simple chronology is the bugbear in this paragraph.  Marx was born in, wait for it, 1818, and he published the Communist Manifesto in 1848.  The Constitution was written, as I'm sure you know, in 1787, a full 31 years before Marx was even born.  The Marxist principles the founding fathers supposedly avoided while setting up our government did not even exist - at least not in name - when the Constitution was written.  Dennis, I suppose, might argue that Marxism existed in spirit, but anyone with even a passing knowledge of history knows that the late 18th century were hardly a time of powerful labor unions.  Hell, when the Constitution was penned the French Revolution hadn't even happened yet.  Indeed, the closest thing (and they weren't particularly close) in the entire world to communism in 1787 was - you guessed it - the American colonies.  Well done, Mr. Guthrie.

We're not done with this yet, either, because Dennis lets us know that, in addition to predicting the invention of communism in half-a-century, the founding fathers also predicted the invention of capitalism.  Now, you no doubt know that Adam Smith published the Wealth of Nations in 1776, but you may not realize that he doesn't call anything "capitalism," therein.  What's more, that which is capitalistic in Wealth of Nations is critiqued heavily, as Smith laments the way that trade corporations conspire to harm their customers.  Like Machiavelli's Prince, Wealth of Nations is historically misunderstood as advocating for a certain system, whereas the works themselves are more descriptive than proscriptive.

In this particular case, Wealth of Nations has little to no bearing on the Constitution (indeed, it's unlikely that many of the founding fathers had even read the book by the time the Constitution was ratified), and the word "capitalism" or the concepts associated therewith even less.  Capitalism, as a term, didn't really come around until after Marx's own descriptive work, Capital, popularized the concept.  The founding fathers, needless to say, weren't particularly concerned with the economic system of the United States, because there weren't really competing theories at the time, and because the Constitution was meant to be a political and governmental user's manual.

The moral of the story?  Before you spout off nonsense about the founding fathers and their motivations, try reading the Federalist Papers and the Constitution first (bazing!).  You'll find the words "capitalist," "Marxist," and "socialist" absent.

I find it interesting that you and your husband are multi-millionaires with much of your fortune being made as a result of your "public service". You have controlled legislation that has enhanced your husband's investments both on and off shore. At the same time you redistributed the wealth of others. Our system of a free market economy is being destroyed by the likes of you, Harry Reid, and now our President. You ride around in a Gulfstream airplane at the tax payer's expense while criticizing the presidents of companies who produced something for the economy. You add nothing to the economy of the United States , you only subtract therefrom.

Ok, the Gulfstream thing is one of those wonderfully false Internet rumors that floats around.  You know, like Barrack Obama being a Muslim born on Neptune who's secretly collaborating with the Cylons in preparation for their invasion.  As for the rest of it, well, I don't really know anything about Pelosi's husband, but I do know that, by the nature of the congress, Pelosi "controlled" nothing.  It's the classic "Great Man" or, in this case, "Great Woman" theory of politics rearing its ugly head again.  The idea that any one person is responsible for legislation of any kind is absurd, given the several hundred members of congress and the several thousand staffers, lobyists, corporate donors, special interest groups, and so on that make the country go.  To say that Pelosi "redistributed the wealth of others" is more than a bit of an exaggeration.

As for our free market economy being destroyed, well, I'd argue that Nancy Pelosi is only a small part of that picture as well.  Even if we agree that a pure free market works, I would argue that what we have now is a kind of reverse-socialism.  That is, common people are taxed so that our money can be given to huge corporations (which pay no tax at all) in the form of bailouts and subsidies.  Is Pelosi a part of that?  Yes, but only because all elected politicians - in order to be elected - almost have to be corrupt.  With the Supreme Court ruling last year that Corporations can give unlimited, anonymous funds to political campaigns, it is nearly impossible to find a congressperson or senator who has not been bought and sold already.

Blaming Pelosi (or any single congressperson) for that is a bit much.  Really, the blame rests with no one person, but the willful ignorance of the American people - who refuse to see that their country is not, in fact, run by their elected representatives - is a major part of the problem.  It's no wonder that we've begun to cycle wildly - the people elect Democrats, find them unresponsive, and then elect Republicans, only to find them equally unresponsive, and so on.

Anyway, bring us home, Dennis baby, with some personal attacks.

I would like to suggest that you return to the city of fruitcakes and nuts and eat your husband's canned tuna and pineapple produced by illegal immigrants and by workers who have been excluded from the protection that 90% of the legal workers in the United States have.
 
Another meandering sentence-with-many-meanings.  To wit:
1) San Francisco has gay people in it, and is thus morally reprehensible (unlike my state of North Carolina, where everyone is straight, white, male, and Christian; at least everyone worth mentioning).
2) Eat some canned tuna and pineapple, bitch!  Seriously, is this some kind of innuendo I don't know about?  "I'm taking my talents to South Beach, where I'll be eating my husband's canned tuna (wink wink)."
3) Damn Mexicans, how dare they try to make a better life for themselves!
4) Honestly, I'm not sure what Dennis is getting at here.  Is he saying that illegal immigrants deserve protection?  Or is he saying that illegal immigrants are robbing other Americans of legal protections?  Or what?  Whatever his point, he's sure worked up about it.

I await your defeat in the next election with glee.

I suppose this means, while he waits for Pelosi to lose in the next election he'll be watching a lot of Glee, starring Lea Michele, Jane Lynch, and Matthew Morrison.  I haven't seen the show, but I hear it's very popular.
 
Don't ever use the term "un-American" again for protesters who love this country and are exercising their rights upon which this country was founded. By the way, while I served in the Army, I was spit on by the same type of lunatics who support you and who you probably supported in the 60's and 70's. You are an embarrassment to all of us who served so that you would have the protected right of free speech to call us un-American. But at the same time, I have the right to write you, to notify you, that I consider you to be un-American, as do the majority of the people of this formerly great country. You are a true disgrace to most of the people who served this country by offering themselves for public service in the United States Congress.

Just when you thought we were done, Dennis pulls out the classic "and another thing" on us.  The best part here is that he criticizes Pelosi for calling town-hall protesters "un-American," and then proceeds to criticize anti-war protesters for the exact same thing.  Does the irony know no bounds?  I mean, let me make Dennis's argument in this paragraph clear:

1) You can't criticize people for protesting because that's the 1st amendment.  They have a right to do it.
2) How dare those protesters in the 60s and 70s rally against the Vietnam War!  That's un-American.  They shouldn't have a right to do that!
3) I, however, have a right to free speech, which is why I'm writing you this letter.  I'm a little confused about what I'm saying, but that's ok, because I can always wrap it up with:
4) You're a scumbag!

Also, let's talk about this "formerly great country" bit.  What does that mean?  Are we talking about the 80s?  I'm guessing not, because there was even more hand-wringing then than there is now.  No, I'm guessing Dennis means the 1950s, back when black people and white people couldn't eat in the same restaurants, back when women weren't allowed to have jobs in science, technology, or mathematics, back when gay men and women were liable to be beat up or killed if people found out about them, back when people lived in constant fear of nuclear war with the USSR...  Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say the past was awful - rather, it was like any other time, filled with good and bad, filled with justice and injustice, filled with love and hatred.  Humanity is complicated, history is complicated, and the sooner we acknowledge that the sooner we can start having real conversations instead of just yelling at each other.

I feel certain your aides will not share this letter with you, but I intend to share it with many.

Cue passive-aggressive one-liner... And we're done.

Sincerely,
Dennis L. Guthrie 

In the end, you have to love the "Sincerely," don't you?

OK, I know what you're thinking:  "But Paul, isn't what you're doing here exactly what Dennis is guilty of?"  Yes, and no.  The purpose of doing this is, in part, the fun of it (I read too much Fire Joe Morgan back before it went silent).  But more importantly, the purpose is to show that there's a wrong way to have political discourse, and that this wrong way is all-too-prominent.  Dennis Guthrie, believe it or not, means well.  It's just, he doesn't know how to have a conversation, how to engage in a dialogue.  He's become a part of a political discourse that's all rage and anger and hatred - from Democrats and Republicans alike - and that will not get anyone anywhere.

Left and Right and Right and Wrong

If you've never stumbled across the "Political Compass" and given it a spin, I highly recommend doing so. I do not know the motivations behind the site - if any - except that they clearly are trying to offer a better picture of political persuasion than the general discourse we're all surrounded by every day. The essence of their insight is this: it is silly to delineate politics on a simple, one dimensional, left-to-right scale, because there are (at least) two dimensions at play. While I would argue that even a two dimensional representation is limiting, it is at least better than a one dimensional representation.

In the case of the Political Compass, they have selected economic "neo-liberalism" and "communism" as the extremes on the x-axis, and have juxtaposed on the y-axis "fascism" and "anarchism." Those, of course, are over-charged catch phrases-cum-insults that we like to throw around all too often, and so I tend to replace those extremes with their actual meaning. The x-axis, instead, ranges from strict government regulation of commerce ("Communism," as they call it, though Socialism might be a more proper label) to non-regulation (their "Neo-liberalism"), while the y-axis ranges likewise from strict regulation of people ("Fascism") to non-regulation ("Anarchism"). As you can see, the labels they apply make sense, but the connotations that we carry around make the labels too incendiary and, in a way, self-fulfilling. Better to look instead at the meaning.

So what is the meaning? Well, I will not hide from you that I register strongly on the side of government regulation of commerce, whilst also believing strongly that the government should not regulate people. I am joined, internationally and historically, by figures like Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and the current Dalai Lama (which makes me happy, because I respect all three).* I am not joined, incidentally, by the vast (I mean vast) majority of American politicians, who almost exclusively occupy the upper-right quadrant of unregulated commerce and highly regulated society.

* As you can see, here is where the labels break down. Am I a Communist and an Anarchist? Hardly. Was Gandhi? Mandela? Is the Dalai Lama? Of course not.

What's that? American politicians are social authoritarians?! Believe it or not, the land of the free ought to be called the land of the free enterprise, because we the people aren't seeing the freedom. Consider this map of the major players in the 2008 Presidential primaries:

There's a great Noam Chomsky quotation that I feel like I've mentioned before in this space, but it bears repeating: "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

Consider that quotation alongside the above graph. We get all caught up, in America, about how "ultra-conservative" or "ultra-liberal" our politicians are. But, really, with the exceptions of Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, and Dennis Kucinich (notably all considered "unelectable" and "outside the mainstream"), not a single one of our Presidential candidates in 2008 was off of the stubby trendline we might draw in that upper-right quadrant. On a scale of -10 to +10 in both dimensions, John McCain and Barack Obama are roughly 2 or 3 steps away from each other in either direction.

Also stunning is this map of the states, by Senator, which you can play around with if you like. The tendencies in our Presidential elections are corroborated by our senatorial representation, as you can see.

Most Americans, I suspect, believe that they live in a country that stands at the pinnacle of both social and economic freedom. That is simply not the case. It is also not the case that Europe is a relative bastion of seedy, left-wing socialists. Most European leaders fall somewhere near where Obama and McCain fall, in the lower part of the upper-right quadrant.

Who, then, falls in the other quandrants? Or, in other words, what good is this spectrum if all the notable people in politics fall in the upper-right? Well, the rest of the graph would be filled in, I expect, by ordinary human beings. In our globalized world, success in politics almost depends upon being, to some degree, a social authoritarian and an economic libertarian. Economic regulation is, simply put, not popular with the companies that, in the end, fuel political campaigns, while social freedom is not popular, ultimately, with the mass of voters who hold fairly strict and Puritanical social virtues.

What is interesting to me, though, is not the phenomenon of the upper-right quadrant, so much as the linearity that exists in that quadrant. With few outliers, most American politicians lie not just in the same approximate place, but along the same approximate line. There is not, in America, much of a debate within each party, because each party is itself content to exist on a linear continuum both with itself, and with the other party. Linearity rules our discourse because, ultimately we are politically linear. The Libertarians - who tend towards both economic and social freedom - are marginalized because we don't have any mechanism for understanding where they stand on our political line.

In short, we have conflated, in America, economic deregulation with social regulation, and have called those two things together "Conservatism." I have known a great many conservatives, few of whom actually believe in social regulation, but they don't realize, often, that the Libertarian and not the Republican Party represents their values. Likewise, I've known many Democrats who would score, like me, in the lower-left quadrant, but who "compromise" on Barack Obama, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, or the Democrat du jour because, damnit, at least it's better than the Republican. Of course, at a certain point, if you score -5 and -5, what's the difference between +2, +3 and +5, +6?

We get so caught up with the language of "left" and "right" in America that we often forget to talk about right and wrong. Those are loaded terms, of course, but they represent a real conversation, rather than an ideological - and unexamined - shouting match. Recalling Chomsky, part of why our current shouting matches are so violent (I'm thinking of the health care debate) is because we're so close to each other. Ironically, it's a lot harder to compromise when you start off in the same room than when you start in different houses, because there's so little distance that either of you can move, and because your motions become so perceptible.

As I said at the outset, I am not personally persuaded by a two-dimensional model of political opinion. It seems to me that human social morality - which makes up the impetus for politics - is far too complicated to capture even on a Cartesian graph, but at least it's better than a straight line. In the long run, the practice of setting ourselves up as foils to each other (I am a Republican, which means I am not a Democrat, or vice versa) serves only to obscure the conversations we should be having, and serves only to help both sides elect politicians who represent, not the breadth of opinion in this country, but a narrow, and therefore uncreative and uncompromising sliver. I challenge you to think outside the quadrant.

Framing the Discussion: A Look at Health Care

I can't find or remember the exact quotation, but in A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn quotes Noam Chomsky, reminding us that the best way to squash dissent is not, in fact, to try to limit freedoms. Rather, the best way to ensure that the policy you as a government, a corporate entity, or a political party want is to allow an impassioned and heated discussion within a very narrow field of opinion. As the U.S. Senate voted down a public option today, I cannot help but weigh in from this perspective: the difference between the bill with the public option and without may seem momentus, but it is not. Indeed, the debate about health care in America has been framed brilliantly, so that the range of opinions currently in circulation in the media and in the congress is so outrageously narrow that the almost constant incendiary articles and opinions and debates about the subject seem absurd.

I would characterize the extreme ends of the current debate thus: on the one hand - the generally Republican side (but more on parties is sure to come) - we have a position that says we should mandate insurance coverage for every American, including assessing fines to those who fail to purchase insurance when they can afford it (according to who, we might ask), granting stipends to those who can't. On the other hand, we have a position that says we should mandate insurance coverage for every American, and we should provide public insurance option for anyone who wants to opt-in, but in a way that does not undercut the competitiveness of existing insurance companies. I recognize that the situation is more complex than this, but I think it's a fair description of what we might call the "extremes" in this debate.

What these two plans have in common is this: they are different from what we are doing now primarily because they both require every American to have health insurance. They differ from each other in that, in one, Americans are asked to purchase insurance from private companies, whereas in the other, they are given the option of purchasing insurance from the government. Without getting into the politics of those options, it seems to me that this is a fairly insignificant difference. Sure, the public option may be cheaper than health insurance company rates, and may have fewer absurd situations where coverage is denied for no reason, but it is impossible that the proposition would pass if it posed a serious threat to insurance company profits. No, there is almost no difference between what the Democrats and the Republicans are offering in this debate, because there is no discussion of the two broader extremes of radical reform, both of which, I'll argue in a second, make more sense than the Democratic and Republican options. This should come as no surprise, however, since both sides of the debate are being funded, essentially, by the same interests, and it pays to remember: the health insurance companies have already won.

I want to engage in a little thought experiment, but first I need to introduce what I'll call the "Libertarian" option and the "Progressive" option. Both these perspectives fall well outside the current debate, but they represent what all the crazy "fringe" leftists and rightists actually want. The Libertarian option I would say is this: entirely deregulate the health care industry. Eliminate all protections, barriers to entrance, and moral requirements (what few there are) the government has imposed. While this may sound callous to most of us - to me, for example, the argument is actually not absurd. The idea is, if it were easier to form an insurance company, or a hospital, or a broader health care corporation, then there would be more competition and less collusion than there is now, leading to a higher quality of service.

On the other hand, there is the Universal Health Care argument. This is the tried and true method that almost every other country in the world currently uses: health care is run entirely by the government, and coverage is guarenteed for every citizen. The argument here is that health care is a human right and a moral imperative, and we simply cannot leave it to the vagaries of profit-motive and personal ambition. Making health an economic decision, the argument goes, is wrong. The quality of service, here, may not be as high for the wealthiest citizens as it is under other models, but the overall quality is much higher (by analogy, Honda may not make the finest automobiles in the world, but it's better to have a bunch of Civics running around than a few Aston Martins and a bunch of horse-drawn carts).

So let's run the thought experiment. I'm going to do a lot of approximation here, but my point should be clear by the end. Let's say it costs 100 economic units to provide health care for every American. In our current system, 20% of people aren't covered, so we're only paying 80 of those units (though that is driven higher by people delaying coverage due to cost concerns). On the other hand, health insurance companies charge a lot for overhead, and make tremendous profits, so let's say we're actually paying something more like 130 units (50 units for profits and administration). That's as things stand.

Under the Republican model, we'd have this: 100 units base cost, and all 100 units being paid, plus additional cost for expanded overhead and comprable profits. So our total cost is now 160 units.

Under the Democratic model, we're in a similar boat: 100 units base bost, all 100 being paid. Profits probably decrease a bit, but government beauracracy increases overhead significantly, so we're probably somewhere around 170 units.

As you can see - if you buy my premises - there's not a significant difference here. The Republicans may decry the cost of Obama-care, but the alternative is just as expensive.

How about the "Libertarian" plan? We're probably going to spend something like 90 units - I think fewer people would choose to forgo insurance if there was more competition in the insurance industry. Lower prices result in smaller profits, too, and overhead decreases with the formation of smaller, sleeker companies. So let's say the overall cost is 120 units (20 for overall profit, 10 for overhead).

Universal Health Care? Now we're covering all 100 units, but there's no profit, and while there is overhead and beauracracy, it's not as complicated because there's only one supplier. Let's guestimate 15 units for administration. So we're at 115 units and everyone is covered.

I'm sure there are studies that actually do this math, and I'd be shocked if the results don't match mine. Universal, single-payer health care covers everyone for less money than any other plan. Why isn't it on the table? Because health insurance companies go caput, and the fact that they are fighting to survive means they're willing to spend endless resources to maintain their position. Where they've been most effective, however, is not in shaping policy (if it were up to them, we'd have a hybrid of all of the most profitable practices possible), but in framing the debate. Which side are you on, Democrat or Republican?