是誰在製造美國的災難？ (圖)

美國斯坦福大學著名經濟學家湯姆斯.蘇維爾教授的這篇文章值得認真讀一讀。

他指出，奧巴馬作為美國的總統一意孤行，要重建美國。

他為此目的不惜代價,不論手段，要在各個領域裏把屬於美國人民的權力和決定權轉移到華盛頓精英，最後到他自己手中來。　

媒體也許不會在乎，但奧巴馬這種不顧曆史經驗教訓，以個人意識形態為指導美國國內外事物所表現出來在政治上的幼稚和業餘水平，會被美國的敵人所利用。

美國人民將為此付出慘重的代價。

Disaster in the Making?
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, July 28, 2009

After many a disappointment with someone, and especially after a disaster, we may be able to look back at numerous clues that should have warned us that the person we trusted did not deserve our trust.

When that person is the President of the United States, the potential for disaster is virtually unlimited.

Many people are rightly worried about what this administration's reckless spending will do to the economy in our time and to our children and grandchildren, to whom a staggering national debt will be passed on. But if the worst that Barack Obama does is ruin the economy, I will breathe a sigh of relief.

He is heading this country toward disaster on many fronts, including a nuclear Iran, which has every prospect of being an irretrievable disaster of almost unimaginable magnitude. We cannot put that genie back in the bottle-- and neither can generations yet unborn. They may yet curse us all for leaving them hostages to nuclear terror.

Conceivably, Israel can spare us that fate by taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities, instead of relying on Obama's ability to talk the Iranians out of going nuclear.

What the Israelis cannot spare us, however, are our own internal problems, of which the current flap over President Obama's injecting himself into a local police issue is just a small sign of a very big danger.

Nothing has torn more countries apart from inside like racial and ethnic polarization. Just this year, a decades-long civil war, filled with unspeakable atrocities, has finally ended in Sri Lanka. The painful irony is that, when the British colony of Ceylon became the independent nation of Sri Lanka in 1948, its people were considered to be a shining example for the world of good relations between a majority (the Sinhalese) and a minority (the Tamils). That all changed when politicians decided to "solve" the "problem" that the Tamil minority was much more economically successful than the Sinhalese majority. Group identity politics led to group preferences and quotas that escalated into polarization, mob violence and ultimately civil war.

Group identity politics has poisoned many other countries, including at various times Kenya, Czechoslovakia, Fiji, Guyana, Canada, Nigeria, India, and Rwanda. In some countries the polarization has gone as far as mass expulsions or civil war.

The desire of many Americans for a "post-racial" society is well-founded, though the belief that Barack Obama would move in that direction was extremely ill-advised, given the history of his actions and associations.

This is a president on a mission to remake American society in every aspect, by whatever means are necessary and available. That requires taking all kinds of decisions out of the hands of ordinary Americans and transferring them to Washington elites-- and ultimately the number one elite, Barack Obama himself.
 
Like so many before him who have ruined countries around the world, Obama has a greatly inflated idea of his own capabilities and the prospects of what can be accomplished by rhetoric or even by political power. Often this has been accompanied by an ignorance of history, including the history of how many people before him have tried similar things with disastrous results.

During a recent TV interview, when President Obama was asked about the prospects of victory in Afghanistan, he replied that it would not be victory like in World War II, with "Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur." In reality, it was more than a year after Japanese officials surrendered on the battleship Missouri before Hirohito met General Douglas MacArthur for the first time.

This is not the first betrayal of his ignorance by Obama, nor the first overlooked by the media. Moreover, ignorance by itself is not nearly as bad as charging full steam ahead, pretending to know. Barack Obama is doing that on a lot of issues, not just history or a local police incident in Massachusetts.

While the mainstream media in America will never call him on this, these repeated demonstrations of his amateurism and immaturity will not go unnoticed by this country's enemies around the world. And it is the American people who will pay the price.

Thomas Sowell (born June 30, 1930), is an American economist, social commentator, and author of dozens of books. He often writes from an economically laissez-faire perspective. He is currently a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In 1990, he won the Francis Boyer Award, presented by the American Enterprise Institute. In 2002 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal for prolific scholarship melding history, economics, and political science. In 2003, he was awarded the the Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement.

[unix]

死亡小組：曲解了字麵，卻抓住了要害

作者:輝格
2009-09-06 16:50:27
發表評論 [1] 推薦本文 正體

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美國社會圍繞醫改法案的爭論已進入了白熱化狀態，由於關係到切身利益，各方關注和參與的熱情不亞於大選；根據公共意見戰略（POS）上周發布的調查結果，法案的支持和反對者各為25%和37%，與94年克林頓醫改相比，支持和反對率都上升了2個百分點，可見這次人們表達立場的欲望更強烈；醫改也給奧巴馬帶來了他上台後最大的反對和抗議聲浪，支持率降至最低點，如果國會中的民主黨人扛不住民意壓力，奧巴馬將遭遇與15年前一樣的失敗，那曾是克林頓總統生涯的最大敗績，而當時民主黨同樣控製著國會兩院；麵臨政治險境的奧巴馬已開始表現出焦躁，他抱怨媒體偏離主題，還罕見的宣稱為了醫改成功甘願隻做一屆總統。

就在這場爭論日趨激烈之時，前共和黨副總統候選人佩林扔下了一顆炸彈，她把法案中一項允許政府支持的醫保用於支付臨終意願谘詢服務的規定，解讀成了最終導向由政府指定的死亡小組來裁定是否聽任某些病人不治而亡的可怕結果；死亡小組這一簡練鮮明的說法，立刻傳遍全國，成為熱議話題，並在各種針對醫改的基礎會議上占據了焦點位置；佩林成功運用了一度成為奧巴馬競選利器的網絡新媒體，她的文章發表於自己的facebook，然後又通過twitter迅猛擴散，在醫改反對者尤其是保守派選民中掀起一波又一波的怒火，對奧巴馬政策的種種不滿，很可能因這一浪潮而得以聚集和展示。

從字麵上看，佩林無疑是曲解了法案的意思，所謂臨終意願谘詢，是為醫保客戶解釋未來可能麵臨的臨終醫療的代價、效果和治療中的痛苦，以便客戶斟酌是否接受那些代價高、效果差而又痛苦的治療，斟酌之後，他可以在醫保合約上簽字放棄這些治療；谘詢服務提供的隻是信息和建議，決定還是由客戶自己做，況且是否接受谘詢也是他自己決定的，這裏談不上什麽死亡小組；但是，如果我們從奧巴馬醫改的整體內容和主要指向來看，死亡小組這個字眼，盡管十分誇張，卻準確的抓住了政府在健康和生命問題上，深度介入和幹預了個人價值判斷這一實質要害。

醫改爭議的背景是，美國人醫療開支的高得離譜，總額占GDP的16%，達OECD平均水平的兩倍，且仍在以高出GDP2.5個百分點的速度快速增長；聯邦醫保計劃（Medicare）的無準備負債高達36萬億美元，在許多州，聯邦醫療補助計劃（Medicaid）開支占據了州稅收收入的3/4，而雇主和個人支付的保險費，常常花掉一個中等家庭收入的1/4；這樣的係統顯然難以為繼，因此任何改革計劃成立的首要前提是能夠控製醫療開支。

同樣由政府提供醫療福利，美國開支卻比歐洲高得多，原因是，美國采用的是需方補貼：窮人看不起病或買不起醫療保險，政府掏錢替你買單或給予補貼，美國政府大約負擔了43%的醫療開支，法規還要求雇主為雇員購買醫保，並為個人醫保開支提供稅務減免，這三方麵措施大大提高了醫療需求，而對供給方則不予控製，相反，國家衛生研究院（NIH）每年300億預算創造了大量新型醫療供給；而歐洲國家則通過公立醫院係統，包辦了醫療供給，醫療服務由計劃係統平等分配給國民，所以，盡管醫療服務近乎免費，但開支是可控的，其典型的結果是英國診所裏漫長的令人絕望的排隊。

美國的係統盡管代價高昂，但因為供需雙方都得到了額外激勵，國民確實獲得了充裕而優質的醫療服務，美國人更頻繁的看門診，更多使用新藥和新技術；醫療消費的獨特之處在於，消費本身會自動創造出新的需求，當更多更好的醫療服務不斷延長壽命的時候，老年人的醫療需求也隨之而急劇增長，隨著壽命從65歲延長到 75、85、95歲，每位美國老人的醫療開支分別為30萬、40萬、55萬和81萬美元；多花數十萬美元來多活幾年，是否值得？這純屬個人價值判斷，你可以把畢生節儉下的儲蓄用來維持最後幾年甚至幾個月的生存，也可以趁年輕盡情享受，生了大病就瀟灑一蹬腳，旁人無從置喙。

然而奧巴馬方案正是要在這方麵替個人做判斷，通過嚴格限製保單設計，禁止保險商對客戶區別定價，推行社區統一價，個人按自我價值取向而選擇適合自己保單的自由，很大程度上將被剝奪；那些情願放棄昂貴的老年慢性病和臨終治療的人，那些擁有健康飲食和生活習慣的人，原本可以低廉的價格獲得日常醫療保障，而新法案將把他們強行拉入標準化保單和統一定價的行列，因為沒有這些低成本客戶，全覆蓋的醫保係統將無法負擔留下的高成本客戶；而同時，即便拉進低成本客戶，政府還是必須對永無止境的醫療需求做出限製，否則，隨著日益昂貴的新技術不斷湧現，醫保仍難免被拖垮。

這樣，一方麵必須壓製需求，一方麵又必須懲罰低需求者，至於什麽才是對待健康和生命的“恰當”方式，政府會告訴你；由此，政府將不可避免的背上這個沉重的道德包袱，稱之為死亡小組並不為過。



－－原載：《輝格Blog》，2009-09-01
http://www.bullogger.com/blogs/whig/archives/317029.aspx