A Bitter Pill

So, now Senator (shudder) Hillary Clinton is speaking about Health Care. Now, I’m not questioning her ability to be a Senator–esp a junior senator which means she really can’t do crap. The thing is, though, given her previous and pretty much damning prior experience with minor administrative roles, I pray to god she stays as far away from the White House as possible. I’m no sexist, and if she was qualified for the position I’d give the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, she has proven herself worthless.

Here’s her talking about health care….

She . . . said Democrats would focus on improving the quality and affordability of health care–a touchy matter for the former first lady, who in 1993 led her husband’s calamitous attempt to overhaul the nation’s health care system. The failure of that effort helped Republicans win control of both the Senate and House the following year.

“Health care is coming back,” Clinton warned, adding, “It may be a bad dream for some.”

Now here’s a 2003 entry from a LIBERAL economist Brad DeLong explaining why Hillary + White House = Bad

My two cents’ worth–and I think it is the two cents’ worth of everybody who worked for the Clinton Administration health care reform effort of 1993-1994–is that Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to be kept very far away from the White House for the rest of her life. Heading up health-care reform was the only major administrative job she has ever tried to do. And she was a complete flop at it. She had neither the grasp of policy substance, the managerial skills, nor the political smarts to do the job she was then given. And she wasn’t smart enough to realize that she was in over her head and had to get out of the Health Care Czar role quickly.

So when senior members of the economic team said that key senators like Daniel Patrick Moynihan would have this-and-that objection, she told them they were disloyal. When junior members of the economic team told her that the Congressional Budget Office would say such-and-such, she told them (wrongly) that her conversations with CBO head Robert Reischauer had already fixed that. When long-time senior hill staffers told her that she was making a dreadful mistake by fighting with rather than reaching out to [Sen.] John Breaux and [Rep.] Jim Cooper, she told them that they did not understand the wave of popular political support the bill would generate. And when substantive objections were raised to the plan by analysts calculating the moral hazard and adverse selection pressures it would put on the nation’s health-care system . . .

Hillary Rodham Clinton has already flopped as a senior administrative official in the executive branch–the equivalent of an Undersecretary. Perhaps she will make a good senator. But there is no reason to think that she would be anything but an abysmal president.

It bothers me greatly that Medicare and especially Social Security are major issues that are in dire straits, yet politicians on both sides choose to ignore it. The problem is people have emotional attachment to stupidity and thus the debate isn’t even on a level playing field. Given the track record of the government’s ability, I am still unsure why liberals and many Americans are so trusting of the government to handle their medical issues and retirement. The government is extremely conservative with their investments (e.g. your taxes) and generally banks yield what… 3..4%? The market continuously yields 8-10% given diversified investments.

You give somebody $10,000 and tell them to invest it. Most people with some knowledge will throw it to a professional investor, mutual fund, stocks, etc. I doubt many would throw it in a bank and hope the interest revenue will suffice for retirement. The age of pensions and traditional Social Security/Medicare is dead, and people need to accept that.

The party of “choice” (e.g. choice over one’s own body) is also the party that says you’re too dumb to use your own money. Interesting concept. Furthermore, investment professionals are also too dumb to handle your money (e.g. privatized health care, social security, etc). No, only the government bureaucracy is smart enough to make sure your 6.2% and 1.2% taxes are handled wisely.

I wonder if I get a refund when the social security and health care system explodes.