To: KLP who wrote (27007 ) 3/30/2014 11:59:08 PM From: sense Respond to I want to address your comments, rather than the link: [PS from KLP: IF the 6 MILLION + number of people who lost their heath care insurance BECAUSE of Obama's new regulations, and EVEN IF ALL of those who have supposedly signed up , and IF they have PAID for Obamacare --- isn't This a Push or Zero sum game ???? And HOW MANY BILLIONS of dollars, to say nothing of the human agony this Administration has foisted on the US Citizens, have they spent putting this total monster together?????]" I know I'll agree with what you are trying to say... but, for good reason, I need to make a few points in relation to the proper use of the language... So, the correct answer is NO, that " EVEN IF ALL of those who have supposedly signed up , and IF they have PAID for Obamacare --- isn't This a Push or Zero sum game ?" Obamacare is NOT a ZERO SUM game... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero%E2%80%93sum_game#Non.E2.80.93zero_sum A zero sum game is one in which, after the changes are made, the total value in the equation (including the cost of implementing change) is still the same... So, all a zero sum game does is apply some change to who benefits, with some benefiting more than before, and some benefiting less... but, the total value of the benefits stays the same... There are many reasons why that isn't true of Obamacare... First, y ou might note that it is a permanent increase in the cost of administration of the same benefits ? Then, the PURPOSE of Obamacare is to force MORE resources to be applied to healthcare... resources that would otherwise have been applied to other purposes... while only ASSUMING that the higher costs imposed for health care mean imposing those costs in a way that results in BETTER value... rather than less value ? The government assuming the economic decisions it is forcing people to make are "better" uses of their money than they would make otherwise... ??? If the impact of Obamacare was to make society as a whole more productive... if the impact was to increase employment... while ALSO making the population happier and healthier... then, you'd have to note that the change made was one with a non-zero sum result. That result would be a positive non-zero sum... with the "pie being made bigger" and everyone getting more pie as a result. A zero sum result... would be one in which no real change occurred... other than some shuffling around in who gets how much of the same sized pie. If, instead, the impact of Obamacare was to make society as a whole more horribly bureaucracy bound, and much less efficient in its decision-making... while imposing costs that necessarily operate to reduce employment... shrinking the economy while making people more frustrated and less healthy... then, again, you'd have to note the change was a non-zero sum result. That result would be a negative non-zero sum... with the "pie being made smaller" with the impact that the entire society will be getting less pie as a result. Obamacare is a NEGATIVE non-zero sum game... It costs vastly more than the "benefit" it pretends to enable is worth... The cost of implementing it... is hugely negative in relation to the cost of not having it... to the degree that cost alone means that Obamacare WILL NOT WORK... and cannot be made sustainable. The larger cost, though... is that, for business, Obamacare makes everything else harder instead of easier... and that will translate into fewer jobs... and less production by fewer people... resulting in an acceleration of the problem in divergence in wealth... Obamacare makes a very few rich people, richer, faster... and it make poor people poorer than ever, while making many, many more of them... You will see that... in shifting employment patterns, first... as employers transition workers to part time work... and as they reduce hiring and increase prices in an effort to try to cover the costs imposed on them. Obamacare is a major millstone on the neck of the nation... not just because it doesn't and can't possibly work, or because it costs way too much, or because it costs more and too much for LESS total benefit... all of which is true... but because it is also both destroying the function of the economy by adding a weight that is too heavy to be carried... and it is purposefully undermining the very BASIS of the function of the economy by eliminating free market functions in favor of a centralized command economy... Socialism doesn't work... because it costs more to operate than it CAN POSSIBLY produce... A free market economy is the most productive possible... You can saddle it with the cost of "some" socialism and it will be able to shoulder that load... but, you can't begin to remove those features that actually do allow the productive engine work... and expect that everything will work better if you do ? Ronald Reagan recognized that by 1980 we'd gone much too far... had allowed government to grow wildly out of control... and had imposed insane levels of obstruction by government, preventing productivity, while increasing the cost of each element in the load more over time... and the economy just wasn't able to shoulder the heavier and costlier load any more... much less tolerate more growth in that load. However, by 2008... we were again much FARTHER into that same socialist hole, and in it deeper than we were in 1980... and, Obama's "solution"... isn't to get out of that hole and get the economy back to work so that we will all be better off and can afford more as a function of increased prosperity... it is instead to start filing in the hole... with us in it.... expanding poverty and dependence... while eliminating our freedom.
