Last week in a Wal-Mart parking lot I saw a bumper sticker on a pick-up truck that read, “How’s that Hope N Change working out for you?”

Of course, “Hope and Change” are campaign slogans, a sales pitch to the mass market and sadly not much more. Hope and Change like, “New and Improved!” doesn’t really mean much, it is just meant to get people to buy. Once the product is in your home, well, you are on your own.

Like Elmer Gantry in an Armani suit, the core principle of the character was never stringently weighed against the reality of accomplishment. Many of the founders of this country feared an imperial presidency. They fought rough battles and put in place seemingly ironclad systems to insure against the tyranny of democracy. And, yet “the people” prefer a king.

Nietzsche’s philosophical concept of “will to power” concludes that humans, nature and governments are motivated by power. His basic thesis is that every action toward another stems from a primal desire to bring that person or entity under one’s power in one way or another. While there are challenges to this notion, there is a great deal of evidence to support Nietzsche’s concept if only one among many motivations.

However, “Will to power” certainly has great merit as it applies to governments. States are instituted to act on behalf of their citizens to accomplish what the individual cannot or would not do alone. In other words the big stuff, as in the preamble to the Constitution, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Some say that “promote the general Welfare,” means government should take care of my every need. This is silly on its face, Congress was however granted the power to promote the general welfare of the nation by the Constitution of the United States. It means that Congress may provide legislation that acts in the general best interest of the nation. It does not mean that Congress should create legislation that robs one set of people in order to redistribute wealth to another. And in its original intent never provided entitlements for certain other people.

Saying that the government has a moral obligation to provide for the needs of every person living in a country is like saying that your old Ford Pinto has a moral obligation to fly you to the moon. Neither was designed or has the ability to get you there. The same can be said of healthcare.

In reality humans don’t like change, we especially do not like radical change. And most Americans distrust government, particularly governments that over promise and under deliver.

Like “As Seen On TV,” pitchmen Mr. Obama and his crew are shouting, “But wait there’s more!” But people will not always buy hope, packaged as big government.

Sadly, we are becoming a nation of wimps who expect the government to take care of our every need. Like Israel of old, too many of our people want a king to protect them. The prophet Samuel told the children of Israel that their King would take what was rightfully theirs and eventually enslave them. The patina is coming off our latest incarnation of “The One,” but there will be more temptations ahead, but for now I ask…. How is hope and change working out for you?

Cost cutting measures for Healthcare

As a nation we continue to do stupid things, so, therefore in light of the healthcare challenges facing our nation, I will offer some cost cutting measure for consideration.

Abolish the AMA (American Medical Society). Let anyone who hangs out a shingle practice medicine. Caveat emptor! This will allow the free-market to work and will lower healthcare cost while perhaps increasing business for the undertaker.

But seriously, do we really need a doctor to set a broken bone? Not too long ago my wife broke a bone in her foot, she heard it crack, she felt the pain, she knew it was broken. So, she made an appointment to see an orthopedic doctor. After filling out pages of paper work she was taken to a room where an assistant escorted her to another room where two technicians took an x-ray of her foot. The assistant then escorted her back to the first room where after an hour the doctor appeared looked at the x-ray and pronounced her foot broken. The doctor told the assistant to put a cast on my wife’s foot and indicated the position the foot was to be held in and he left. The assistant put the cast on my wife foot and we left. We paid a $20 dollar co-pay for the visit and our insurance company paid $2,000.

It would seem to me that the assistant who was making $12 bucks an hour was totally capable of setting the bone and would have save thousands of dollar in the bargain.

We don’t need someone with 10 years of college to do this type of work; all we need someone with technical training from a community college.

The same goes for stitching a wound; in 99 cases out of 100 a nurse can sew the necessary stitch. But then there would be no money in the ER visit, no reimbursement for every doctor who happened by the patient while in the hospital, just a small fee for the service. No one can get rich on the stitch so we need a highly trained individual do what Grandma with a sewing kit could do.

What happened to midwives? Do we need birthing centers for everyone?

A person does not need to take their automobile to a specialist to have the tire changed. What do you think?