Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Posted by Bob Schultz at 8/25/2009 7:58 AM
Categories: uncategorized
Ted Kennedy died this morning. It is incredible to realize that Kennedy held his US Senate Seat for 47 years.  It was just over a year ago that I heard Senator Kennedy give his speech at the Democratic National Convention.  His speech and appearance electrified the Democratic audience.  

It's recently been reported that Ted Kennedy had reached out to Massachusetts Gov. Patrick and asked him to change the law on selecting the replacement Senator.  Currently, the state law dictates that the new senator will be chosen by a special election to be held in the next 160 days. The news media breathlessly reported that the ailing Kennedy wanted to "insure that Mass. would immediately be represented" by having a Senator appointed by the Governor, rather than wait 160 days for a special election.  Sounds like a laudable goal, right?

Well, in fact, Massachusetts law provided for the appointment (rather than a special election) up until just 5 years ago.  Back then, Presidential nominee, Massachusetts Senator Kerry would have created a vacancy in the Mass. Senate Seat if he had been elected President.  Rather than allow Governor Mitt Romney (Republican) to name a Republican to the seat (if Kerry were elected President) , Kennedy and other Massachusetts Dems conveniently changed the law so that a special election had to be held for a vacancy.  

Of course the Kerry vacancy never came to pass.   And now that law is coming back to bite the same politicos who enacted it.  While nearly every media outlet reported on Kennedy's desire to have the current law overturned, I don't recall a SINGLE ONE that gave the full history.  

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Yesterday's post on other countries' health care systems, prompted a response from my brother Jim.  He was recently visiting with a friend from Canada and offered this timely message:

After years of “free” health care, the Canadian government became concerned with the rampant use of the emergency room for any and every thing that their citizens might find ailing them.  To encourage people to stop coming to the ER for a bandage or an aspirin, a decision was made to impose a $10 fee for each emergency room visit.  The citizens were outraged and the government quickly retracted the fee and reopened the “free” approach to anyone using the ER for whatever reason.

THE MORAL:  Once a society becomes use to “free” service, then any retraction of this type of entitlement is near impossible.   The US can ill-afford to create a deeper welfare society by offering “free” health care without some type of economic impact upon the user.

 

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