The Washington Free Beacon brings us an exceptionally dishonest and blockheaded pander from Vice President Joe Biden, on the campaign trail in Colorado Wednesday:
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“My daughter, and my granddaughters, and Barack’s daughters are entitled to every single operation!” Biden thunders. “EVERY SINGLE OPERATION!”
Remember that, folks! When you come before the ObamaCare death panels, tell them Joe Biden said you’re entitled to every single operation. Act confused and hurt when they gently explain that he’s an imbecile, and you were foolish to take him seriously. It’s the only thing you’ll be able to do.
Of course, the more cynical observer might note that Biden only loosely implies that he’s saying everyone gets to have every operation they want. Does he really mean only women will get whatever they want, and men will be left to suffer harsh health care rationing?
Or, to get even more specific, you’ll notice he only directly states that his and Obama’s family members are “entitled to every single operation.” That’s closer to the truth – Joe Biden and Barack Obama don’t have to live under the health care nightmare they imposed on you. Their care will be top-notch. They’ll never have to accept a brutal rationing decision from the Independent Payment Advisory Board.
But it’s pretty clear what Biden wants his audience to believe, and it’s just the latest iteration of the childish folly at the heart of socialism: the promise of zero cost without rationing. The delivery of goods or services through free-market competition, with people paying their own way, is supposedly unfair or unworkable, which implies that those fair-market prices are unreasonably high. Government can forcibly distribute the goods and services in question more efficiently.
But price is forever in search of the intersection between supply and demand. Redistribution and subsidies merely hide the costs, and often inhibit supply. ObamaCare is driving doctors out of the market, and that’s going to leave fewer of those operations Joe Biden says either everyone, women, or the families of powerful politicians are “entitled” to. Taken to its logical conclusion, his pandering argument means that people would have to be forcibly conscripted to provide all the operations everyone demands. The business end of “entitlement” is always indenture; if you are entitled to something, I am obliged to give it to you.
Of course, Angry Joe would recoil from the suggestion that he wants to enslave the medical profession. No, of course people won’t be able to declare themselves entitled to liposuction or plastic surgery! The beneficiaries won’t be able to define the parameters of “entitlement” at their whim. There will be an immensely powerful board of political appointees in charge of deciding who is truly “entitled” to each operation.
So you won’t really get “every single operation,” not by a long shot. In fact, people will be denied access to live-saving care, because it’s not cost-effective for our beyond-broke government and the health insurance industry it has seized control of. But don’t you dare call them a “death panel.” Biden and his boss really hate that.
