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Reviving Obamacare – Michael P. Ramirez
Nobody mocks like Michael P. Ramirez, but unless we put a stake in the heart of socialized medicine, Big Government will reanimate it forever. The key is to figure to how to get healthcar
e decision makers (mothers) to take action. Dave Sussman’s essay is a good place to start, and I see a “Healthcare Choice” movement on the horizon, similar to School Choice. For those who have forgotten, in 1990, and as late as 2000, parents were thrown in jail for homeschooling, and charter schools were rare. The revolution in education overwhelmed State and Federal governance, and the same can, and should happen with Obamacare.
*Michael P. Ramirez will be speaking at Hillsdale College Sept. 22. Click HERE for details
Published in General
That parallel to school choice is exactly what I see here too.
I worked on a great book by Regina Herzlinger, Who Killed Health Care?, that makes the point that consumers–patients–are the one voice missing in health care financing reform.
We need to ensure that doctors and patients can opt out of the coming single-payer system.
I’d have a hard emotional time being arrested for home schooling. Actually the cop would have a hard time because if I’m going to jail it better be for something violent.
Hillary is not in favor of anyone not fully abiding by Her rules.
It compensates for her own approach to following the rules.
I am an ABC voter: anyone but Clinton.
Here in Michigan, rebel homeschool families finally managed to win Choice because of a sympathetic Governor Engler, and a fairly Constitutionally conservative State Judiciary. A President Hillary Clinton, (armed with her pen and eBay Blackberry phone) and backed by her Supreme Court will federalize education.
In the next to the last season of Person of Interest, in the last episode, there is a scene in which Harold has packed up his entire humanity-monitoring computer into a single briefcase. Harold watches the little blue light on the briefcase to make sure that his computer system is still alive.
That’s the significance of the opt-out provision. To my mind, if that goes, we really will be doomed. But as long as there is a single doctor practicing medicine the old-fashioned way, when the government has finally absorbed and destroyed the present system, I have hope that we can reconstruct what we will have lost.
All Republican elected officials should be put on notice by their constituents that an opt-out provision must be part of any deal made on health care financing reform. That provision is nonnegotiable.
Furthering the comparison; homeschoolers have benefitted from publicly available professional curricula in addition to online help, tutors, group teaching, etc., and patients have internet sources, Web MD, and doctors they can consult online for a fee, and from whom they can even obtain written prescriptions. Coupled with new diagnostic technology in the home, medical care is already trying to shift to private self-care, and government, as usual, is lagging far behind, dragging at our heels.
Not to be snarky; most of us will always prefer the hands-on approach of physicians like DocJay, but our children and grandchildren will enjoy more choices regarding their care and maintain true privacy in the future via home based tech- but only if we enforce our Rights before Obamacare destroys the economy.
This episode of the Bookmonger with Vicki E. Alger on her book Failure: The Federal Miseducation of America’s Children is very good.
And thanks for posting Mr. Ramirez’s cartoons here – he is a genius.
Thanks for the tip! I’m glad you enjoy Michael’s cartoons. At some point, when he carves out a bit of time in his incredibly packed schedule, he promises to post and comment himself. As his agent, I’m authorized to share his very latest here, and to invite Ricochet members to use any cartoons they like; just don’t crop them, and be sure to give proper attribution by linking back to MichaelPRamirez.com
Wow, I did not know that, @6foot2inhighheels! Quite awesome!
My memory could be failing me, but I don’t see where Engler gets much credit for this. Homeschooling was already well established by his time. He opposed other choice proposals because they would motivate black Detroit voters to go the polls, who would support school choice but might vote against Republicans for elective office. He did support charter schools, which contrary to my pessimistic expectations haven’t been completely taken over by the education establishment.
And he accomplished a state takeover of local schools by shifting a lot of the funding from local taxes to taxes levied by the state. This was not a very choice-like move on his part, and makes Hillary’s federalization of education easier.
If my memory is mistaken about any of this, please correct me.
Six,
Ramirez is the best but given the damage that the ACA has already done to everyone’s health care, maybe it should be more like this.
Regards,
Jim
Mark and Christine De Jonge were convicted of teaching without State accreditation in 1985. Their case went to the Michigan Supreme Court and in 1993 their convictions were reversed.
As a result of the De Jonge case, Gov. John Engler in 1993 signed into law Senate Bill 679, Amendment A, which ended the teacher certification and reporting requirements, giving Michigan one of the more classically liberal homeschool environments in the country. He is considered a Hero within the homeschool community.
Modern homeschooling was rare and very illegal in 1990, with the exception of state-degreed teachers with state certification. The unions were rightfully terrified of homeschools and influenced the state school board to make very restrictive “rules” that were treated as the Law. Besides the hurdle of state certification, which required a college teaching degree, homeschool teachers were required to use a specific curriculum, and to keep the same hours as public schools. Any deviation might trigger a truancy charge.
I began homeschooling my daughter in 1992, and for a time had to do so in secret. Don’t feel bad about your memory-many people are astounded by these facts, and it’s a testament to the pioneers of the homeschool movement -mostly moms who saw public schools as a threat to their kids, that we have school choice today.
I’ll have to examine some of my memories more closely. One case I know of was that of a public high school teacher who homeschooled his children, much to the annoyance of some of his fellow teachers. He was teaching at the high school during normal school hours. I thought this had all occurred several years prior to 1995, but maybe I am mistaken.
It was a few years after that homeschooling took off on a large scale. I was involved in science activities for a homeschool group for a few years in the early 2000s.
I was not a fan of John Engler, even though the Democrats hated him with a fierce passion. Our township supervisor couldn’t say a sentence in public without uttering imprecations against him, but when the local school administrators started saying nice things about him, I knew he had taken a wrong turn. His tax overhaul was a terrible thing, and we are still harvesting the bitter fruits of it.
If Hillary gets a Dem Congress, she will turn on the insurers and all the other medical industry suckers who threw in with Obama, pronounce a market failure, decry greed etc and jam single payer down our throats. She has been on record for a long time that mere citizens should defer to their betters as to what care they get or don’t get.
I believe a Hillary Presidency will adversely affect the conservative community, aka, the Tea Party. I’ve been reporting and interviewing these folks since 2009, and they’re exhausted; financially, emotionally, and physically. They know that reprisals will be forthcoming under Clinton, as many have experienced them under Obama. Not all are enthusiastic about Trump, but if he wins, they will continue their activism in the hope of electing someone more conservative after 4 years. My point being that I agree; she will jam everything down our throats will impunity, and there won’t even be effective protests in return.