Ramblings

I was talking to a guy last week about Medicare.  I have signed up for it, being eligible in a few weeks.  It was, as I noted to this fellow, a bit painful.  Oh, it wasn't the Web site, which made signing up pretty easy.  I do have to mention a couple of things.  The opening page told me to expect the process to take "about 10 minutes."  Page two changed that to "30 minutes."  Since it took closer to 10, it wasn't a big deal.  But then it asked me if I was born in the US.  Of course, I was.  I was asked in what city and state I was born.  Then it asked me if I am an American citizen!  I'm not kidding.  So, my own government doesn't know what constitutes citizenship?  Later, it asked me if I am insured under any other "group plan."  If so, is it through my employer?  No.  Is it through someone else's employer?  Yes.  Then I was asked who my employer is and when I started working for that employer, who doesn't provide my coverage.  Again, perhaps I nitpick......

Anyway, signing up for Medicare seems like a rite of passage of sorts.  First, who ever really believes he'll be old enough to get Medicare?  I certainly didn't--even a few weeks ago!  Second, I have this aversion to getting things like this from the federal government.  I know I've paid for this for the past 45 years or more, so it's not really an "entitlement." Still, there's that lingering feeling.  Silly?  I guess so.

This fellow was talking about how great Medicare was for his mother, who lived until her 90s.  It took care of a lot of problems/expenses.  Good!  Then, I recalled last Sun or the Sun before, on one of the Sun AM talk shows, one of Obama's Obamacare point men admitted there are likely to be some "rationing of services" under the ACA.  I think his admission was "Certainly, I think there might be."  I wanted to tell this guy, a fervid Obama-guy and one who's loudly proclaimed, "Having health insurance is a right!," about "rationing."  I didn't, mostly because he wouldn't hear what I was saying.  I suppose it's just like nobody admitting that maybe Sarah Palin was right about "death panels."

Which leads me back to Clarence Thomas's autobiog.  I am continually reminded that people aren't supposed to think for themselves.  They are expected to fall into line, to accept the party line, be it with their political parties, their unions, education, whatever.  Any deviation (I almost wrote "deviance," a Freudian slip?) is anathema, equivalent to heresy.  Regardless of how wrong, misguided, or even just different the conventional wisdom of these groups/leaders, to think outside of their framework is worthy of the worst of name-calling.  I guess I would question why we need a First Amendment, particularly the part about freedom of speech, if this is now the norm.

Speaking of rights, I believe it was Walter Williams who wrote a column a couple of weeks ago that touched upon some of my blogs of the past.  He used different terminology, "negative rights" and "positive rights," but I've explored the concepts.  A "right" is something that is possessed merely by being--coming from God or wherever.  It is not granted by a government, at least not by our government in our system--or so we purportedly believe.  Government is there to protect/guarantee rights, not to confer them.  A "right" does not infringe on anyone else.  That is, another person doesn't have to give up something in order to have others possess a right.  Williams called that a "negative right."  For instance, for me to have freedom of religion, the right to choose my own belief, nobody is required to concede anything.  I am left free to choose and my choice doesn't burden or encumber anyone else.  Now, as the guy above claimed, "Having health insurance is a right!" is a "positive right."  That is, to have such a right requires others to concede, to give up something. If health care is "a right," well, somebody must pay for it.  That requires taxing people to grant this "right" to others.  That is, others have to give up something--their own money--in order to confer this so-called "right" to health care.  That, it seems to me, is redefining "natural rights," changing their meaning to fit a political agenda/view, etc.  (Of course, that's dangerous.  As my math buddies were fond of noting, "If you start with a false premise, you can prove anything."  If we start with our own definition, making one of our own choosing, we can make practically everything "a right."  Now that I think about it, maybe I like this.  Karen and I fly to Las Vegas several times a year to visit Matt.  If the "right" to travel is a natural right, perhaps we can get others to pay for our increasingly expensive flight tickets??????  After all, don't Karen and I have a "right" to see our son??????  C'mon, who can argue with that one?)

Out to color with the kids......