PrintAugust 21, 2009
ObamaCare and the Sorcerer's Apprentice
Barack Obama is unleashing forces he only dimly understands, hopelessly out of his depth.
Barack Obama has stated, and quite publicly, that the debate over climate change is over, and that the Earth`s climate is shifting as a result of human emissions of carbon dioxide. We simply must act, and one of his signiature issues is Cap-and-Trade (I hear Quaker is adding that to their breakfast cereal line). Obama, the man whose entire presidential campaign could be summed up in a one-word slogan "change" is firmly in favor of maintaining the climatological status quo.
But when it comes to his scheme to nationalize health care, Obama has stated vociferously "the status quo is not an option". Obama wants change, any change, in the way America does health care.
While these may seem to be a case of apples and oranges, they are not in a fundamental way; both are about very complex systems, systems that in many ways we do not fully understand and cannot predict. We do not understand the interplay of the innumerable variables, and the models we have made to aid us are very limited and inflexible in a number of important ways. Climate is changing - and has always been changing since the Earth coalesced from the leftovers of the sun. Climate isn`t stable because it has never been stable. Obama and his friends think that we can predict what will happen as a result of rising CO2, and can act by reducing our carbon emissions to stop those changes, essentially keeping the environment in stasis.
The health care industry in the United States is approximately 1/7 of the U.S. economy, and it is not a straightforward proposition, since health care is about more than selling standardized parts. How many diseases can the human body develop? How many injuries? How long does it take for a doctor, or a team of doctors, to recognize and diagnose a problem properly? How does the individual respond to the treatment proscribed? How is technology influencing diagnosis and treatment?
Essentially, both systems are too complex to understand and standardize. It is impossible to make strong predictions about either, yet Obama is confident that he and his anointed brain-trust can easily grasp the outcome of both, and can impose legal mechanisms to act as controls. It should come as no surprise that an arrogant man and his arrogant advisors believe they can move both the heavens and the Earth.
But Obama wants to stop climate change and at the same time advance any change possible in health care. If there is danger in the climate changing, isn`t it equally dangerous to tinker with a health care system that is nearly as complex? Oh, and Cap-N-Trade will profoundly effect the nation's economy as a whole, something that is beyond the understanding of even the most learned of men. Obama is a child playing with matches.
Remember the Sorcerer's Apprentice; he could make the brooms move, but didn't have the foggiest idea of how to control them.
