A few decades ago, I caught Teddy Kennedy on CSPAN: He was Chairman of a Committee exploring health-care reform. What I saw left me with a very bad opinion of that pompous twit; I am befuddled whenever people speak of Teddy as a great Senator. If there's interest I'll post a summary of that hearing and Ted Kennedy's stupidity.
Sure. I'd be interested.
In the early 1990's during the one year I had a TV, I happened to catch part of a Senate hearing (about HillaryCare) on CSPAN. Ted Kennedy had called the CEO's of McDonald's and Pizza to explain why they didn't provide their employees with health insurance and didn't want to. (I don't remember if the CEO came from Pizza Hut or some other Pizza company; I'll just call him Pizza CEO.) I'll paint
Pizza CEO's remarks Green and paint
Kennedy's remarks Blue. Can 28-year old CSPAN segments be found on YouTube? I'll just paraphrase some of the remarks.
The McDonald's CEO had a prior engagement, so offered to send the company's CFO instead. Perhaps the CFO would have had better financial insights than the CEO, but gathering information didn't seem to be Kennedy's priority. Instead he left the 2nd witness chair empty, placing a paper bag on the table instead, a bag with a BigMac and french fries. Every time Pizza CEO had an intelligent answer for which Kennedy had no rebuttal, Kennedy would turn to the BigMac and Fries and complain for the umpteenth time that McDonalds didn't deign to appear. He seemed hugely insulted that McDonald's could spare only their CFO to discuss finances with Chairman Teddy.
BTW, Pizza DID provide health insurance, CEO explained, but only to employees who'd worked full-time for 12 months, or some such. This seemed reasonable to me, especially since — though Pizza CEO didn't make this argument — otherwise a chronically ill person could work just a little and get free care from Pizza.
Don't you think it's immoral for you not to provide your employees with health care? Kennedy intoned like a rabid preacher from a B-movie.
Hunh? Is there really a logical reason an employer
should provide health insurance? They're already providing money. I provide my barber with money; does that make me morally obligated to provide him with a blow job?
(Morality has nothing to do with it.) Those other companies are obligated by a covenant they agreed to. Pizza CEO's answers were always calm and objective; he didn't say anything like "Morality has nothing to do with it." That's what
I would have said, probably part of the reason why he's a CEO and I'm a hermit retired to the jungle. Pizza buyers were price-sensitive; raise the wages, raise the prices, customers stay home, he'd have to lay off workers. Whom does that help?
Aha! Kennedy thought he'd cornered Pizza into a logic paradox.
Your competitors will have to raise their prices also. You won't lose customers.
(Wrong again!) Our main competitor isn't other cheap fast-food restaurants. Our competitor is Mom or Dad cooking Macaroni and cheese at home. This seemed like a good point. Ted Kennedy had no answer for it since he told the cameras to turn to the BigMac and fries which he ranted at some more.
Immorality? Some taxation and wage-control decisions by the Federal government in the 1940's and 1950's "painted the country into a foolish corner" where health care came from employer instead of government. Morality had NOTHING to do with it. Immorality is when you walk away from a drowning woman and don't bother to notify police until you sober up.
Every time I hear someone praise the youngest Kennedy brother I think about the time he ranted against the BigMac-and-fries because Pizza CEO was too smart for him. I hate to say it, but I'm afraid many on the left went away with the opposite impression, and thought Kennedy was the winner of that "debate", the way he intoned
Immoral! with the Bostonian accent of a Puritan preacher.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I've never had health insurance. When others bought their medicine for $80 ($10 co-pay and $70 from insurer) I had to pay $115. If Hillary really wanted to help the uninsured she could have forced the pharmacy to sell to me for the $80 price. (When I try to explain this to the average pharmacist, he thinks I'm trying to get the $10 price and don't understand "insurance.")
Would mandating such fair pricing — canceling the "negotiation power" of big insurers — be contrary to Capitalist Freedom where Job Creators are allowed and encouraged to fleece customers anyway they can? Sure! But every part of HillaryCare (or ObamaCare) would attack those so-called freedoms anyway. Why not a simple change that would immediately help the uninsured?