Healthcare reform profited lobbying firms

The 120 million went to pay for the time and energy of the lobbyists in exchange for the work they did. Now this work, time and energy did not result in a single person being cured of a disease, anybody being relieved of pain nor in people receiving the satisfaction of speaking with a health care provider. In contrast, it went to the wasted tug-of-war of determining who is forced to give up their earnings (in this case it’s all tax-paying Americans) and who gets how big a chunk of that bounty (in this case, according to the article, pharma, but there are obviously other corporations who benefit as well). Meanwhile, as the middlemen, politicians and their campaigns along with the lobbyists also share in a chunk of that pot of money, while the losers are the general public.

Do we want a society where ones wealth and prosperity comes about from who can more successfully exploit the power of elected officials to force other people to give up their money and rights involuntarily? Or do we want a society where ones wealth and prosperity are dependent on providing value to others, so much so that the others willingly and gladly pay in exchange for the benefits that the providers give them?

The answer is not a simple one. From an ethical point of view, the latter is the moral way. From a reality point of view, if you are one of the special interest groups that is especially adept at exploiting the system, then of course your self-interest would have you loving the former system.

The sad thing is that for society as a whole, the more we move towards a society where power is based on political manipulations as opposed to one based on voluntary non-coercive free-exchange, the lower our overall standard of living will become.

There are several obvious reasons this is true. But there are actually many less obvious, indirect reasons as well. And those of you psychologists, sociologists and economists out there can probably name a lot more of these reasons than I can.