Scott Spiegel

The new test of liberal political ideology seems to be, not whether you favor Obama’s health care plan, but how long it takes you to realize what a disaster it is.

The American people were, as usual, first out of the gate to demonstrate their common-sense conservatism.  Although a slim majority voted for Obama in November, a growing preponderance has been telling pollsters they disapprove of the President and his handling of health care.   On Sunday, Rasmussen reported that Obama had reached a new low in their Presidential Approval Index, with health care one of his lowest-rated issues.

Like a teacher indulging a failing student’s pleas to find a way to give him extra points on his test, the Congressional Budget Office has spent all summer admonishing Obama for presenting legislation that will be more expensive than advertised, produce no savings, and yield expanding and unsustainable deficits for the next 10 years.  (“Now, Barry, I’ve already given you all the credit I can—next time you’ll just have to try harder.”)

The Mayo Clinic, which Obama cites as a model for cost-cutting measures, called the Medicare payment model proposed by Congress a “catastrophe.”

Seven state medical associations banded together with private medical societies and two previous AMA presidents in a letter to the President opposing the legislation.  The American Hospital Association is imploring hospital directors to counter Congress’s bill, as are specialty associations such as the American College of Physicians.

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal cataloging the myriad flaws in Democrats’ proposal.

Sixty-thousand AARP members have cut up their cards since July over their leadership’s endorsement of Congress’s approach.  Though AARP supports the President’s general strategy, even they had to smack Obama down for claiming they had endorsed a bill when they had not yet done so.

After Obama insulted the Postal Service in his quest for a bill, the National Association of Postal Supervisors wrote Obama a letter expressing “our collective disappointment that you chose to use the Postal Service as a scapegoat …  [I]t was a kick to the chest to have you take a shot at a group of federal employees who are working hard every day to support this country.”

Pseudo-moderate network CNN recently chronicled “Five Freedoms You’d Lose in Health Care Reform,” including the freedom to negotiate details of your plan, cut costs by living healthier, choose a high-deductible plan, keep your current plan, and select your doctors.

The Associated Press fact-checked Obama’s claims and called him out for continuing to tell the same lies: e.g., if you like your health insurance, you can keep it—the implication being that you can keep it for as long as your employer and insurance company would otherwise have offered it without government health care, which is outlawed in Congress’s plan.

The Washington Post, no friend to conservatives, has been barraging readers with columns opposing ObamaCare.  Columnist David Hilzenrath affirmed that the administration would not be able to ensure that employees can keep the plans they have now.  Martin Feldstein explained that the 85% of Americans who now have insurance would pay higher taxes and receive fewer services.  Maya MacGuineas ridiculed the administration’s pledge that it can add an expensive new health care plan covering millions more Americans that will cost no extra and actually alleviate the budget deficit.

The Post’s editorial board also reminded the administration of the CBO’s harsh projections and warned him not to treat these lightly.  In a separate editorial, they scorned Democrats’ stubborn, mindless fixation on a public option.

Obama’s own Hyde Park doctor suggests that Congress’s legislation is worthless and adds of his patient, “I’m not sure he really understands what we face in primary care.”

In the workers’ paradise to our north, the current and incoming presidents of the Canadian Medical Association recently bemoaned the failures of Canada’s universal health care system, calling it “sick,” “precarious,” and “imploding,” and urged Canadian doctors to support free market reforms to the system.

The artist of the Obama “Joker” poster, Palestinian socialist and Dennis Kucinich supporter Firas Alkhateeb, admitted, “[Y]ou had all of these people who basically saw him as the second coming of Christ.  From my perspective, there wasn’t much substance to him.”

Air America host Christiane Brown decried Obama’s reversal of his promise not to bar negotiation for lower drug prices, then purred, “He’s such a charming liar, though.  He’s such a nice guy when he lies like that.”

On Sunday, Senator Joe Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats, said he’s changed his mind on proposed legislation and urges postponing it until the economy recovers.

Now The New York Times has gotten on the bandwagon; you might say they finally have some “skin in the game.”  Times reporter David Pear reported a few days ago that there is, after all, a legitimate basis for elderly Americans’ fear that legislation will lead to rationing of health care.

Paul Krugman criticized the President’s priorities, belittled his dwindling ability to inspire confidence, and lamented that “his speeches and op-eds still read as if they were written by a committee.”

Bob Herbert scolded Obama for not explaining why a gargantuan new government program is in our country’s interest in the middle of a recession: “Many sane and intelligent people who voted for Mr. Obama… have legitimate concerns about the timing of this health reform initiative…  [He] has not been at all clear about how the reform that is coming will rein in runaway costs…  [P]eople are starting to lose faith in the president.”

I’m glad the Times is finally starting to see the light on Obama’s executive inexperience and his disastrous agenda.  Maybe now millions of Middle Americans who hang on Krugman and Herbert’s every word will develop more confidence in expressing their opposition at all those town hall meetings I keep hearing about.

Paul Krugman’s recent column, “An Affordable Salvation,” gushes about how, now that the “junk science”-loving (and Nazi-hugging) former occupant of the White House is gone, we can finally start saving the planet.  And it won’t cost much, either!  That is, if only we can get cap-and-trade skeptics to stop practicing “junk economics.”

“The best available estimates,” according to Krugman, suggest that turning industrial civilization green will basically be painless, and in the end will actually be good for us.  Perhaps his “best available estimates” include the recent, breathless press release from the Environmental Defense Fund: “For about a dime a day we can solve climate change, invest in a clean energy future, and save billions in imported oil.”  New EDF slogan: Saving the planet and 90 cents will get you a cup of coffee!

In the Rube Goldberg scheme of alternative energy sources, permits, taxes, carbon credit swapping, and rebates known as “cap-and-trade,” I count at least six additional charges consumers will directly or indirectly face.  First, there is the cost of less efficient “green” energy production, which will be passed on to consumers.  Second, there is the charge for emissions permits, which will also be passed on to consumers.  Third, there are the private and governmental bureaucratic costs of administering this system.  Fourth, there are costs from lobbying and inefficient allocations of carbon credits to congressional districts in exchange for pro-cap-and-trade votes, to industries in exchange for union support, and to companies in exchange for campaign contributions.  Fifth, there are inefficiencies that will result from the illegal selling and trading of credits and the costs of prosecuting this corruption.  Finally, there’s the cost of industry leaders and investors’ uncertainty regarding possible cap-and-trade regulations the government could decide to introduce or expand any time it wants.

But, Krugman reassures us, carbon credits would become a “scarce” resource, just like oil, land, and water; he adds that the “magic” of the free market should allow it to “cope” with emissions limits just fine.

Any idiot realizes that natural resources are not the same thing as artificial, government-imposed restrictions.  The former allow us to be productive; the latter prevent it.  Legal leg irons are not amenable to expansion through scientific innovation.

Mocking laissez-faire capitalists for believing the free market is “magic” is a straw man—no one ever said the marketplace could compensate for unpredictable, industry-destroying, government-imposed limits, which preclude the very existence of the free market.  How’d the “magic” of the marketplace do in overcoming “scarce” resources in the former Soviet Union?

In case we’re still not persuaded that cap-and-trade isn’t suicidal folly, Krugman tempts us that “committing ourselves now might actually help the economy recover from its current slump.”  This, from an “economist” whose patron saint is John Maynard Keynes, who once famously said that the government could stimulate the economy by putting money in jars, burying them, and paying unemployed people to dig them up again.

If “green” business were profitable, wouldn’t companies already be doing it?  If alternative forms of energy were so efficient, would they need massive government subsidies to keep the companies that produce them from going bankrupt?

Krugman argues that cap-and-trade would “create major incentives for new investment—investment in low-emission power plants, in energy-efficient factories and more.”  All of which, of course, are less efficient and less preferable to investors.  Cap-and-trade might allow for “major technological innovation,” as he claims, but at the cost of discarding already profitable, more efficient innovation.

The “argument from economy” is designed to reassure those who think cap-and-trade is necessary that it is affordable, and those who think cap-and-trade is not necessary that it at least will not hobble our economy.  But those who are rightly skeptical of cap-and-trade should be aware that it is anything but a harmless indulgence.