From Obamacare to solar panels, big government is a disaster
By Richard E. Ralston
web posted December 21, 2015
President Barack Obama and his administration are certain that the U.S. government, as they control it, knows how to do everything better than any private citizen or enterprise.
Thus the president shoved through legislation to subsidize solar panels to revive the U.S. economy and strike a death blow to global warming. Billions of dollars were showered mainly on new corporations with government connections.
In very short order, those firms went "belly up" and lost taxpayers' money. The Chinese, who seemed blissfully unaware of global warming, were showering even more money on firms producing solar panels made in China. No U.S. firm could compete with them.
At the same time, the president decided that Obamacare would have to provide huge handouts to new health insurance co-ops that would provide competition to health insurance companies in the federal and state insurance exchanges.
Those co-ops are now experiencing cascading financial collapse in the same way that the firms making solar panels failed.
The government has been failing for years to provide adequate medical care to millions who have earned it in recognition for their military service, including combat injuries. The Department of Veterans Affairs has been failing for years to provide timely care--instead placing veterans on interminable waiting lists until they were forgotten or dead.
Private organizations have fortunately stepped into the breach. When we see the television appeals of these organizations, many of us are moved to support these veterans who fight so admirably to sustain their own lives and values.
But shouldn't we be asking why they have to? Why are groups like the Disabled American Veterans and Wounded Warriors necessary?
The layered bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs seems best suited only to overspend billions of dollars on big building projects and pay themselves bonuses.
Medicare and Medicaid do not have to provide care--just insurance. Except the government cannot even do that but must use private insurance companies to administer the insurance payments and benefits.
This record provides background and context for the recent failure of 12 of the 23 state insurance co-ops that have received nearly one and a quarter billion dollars in seed money through Obamacare.
The U.S. government had no trouble burning through so much money--it has had so much practice at it.
By the way, only one of the eleven remaining insurance co-ops has ever broken even, so there will be more bad news soon. And at least 400,000 people participating in the co-ops at government urging have already lost their insurance.
What should we learn from this? Is there a consistent pattern here? What principle is involved?
Americans were told that they must sacrifice for hybrid energy solutions and, through their taxes, subsidize firms making solar panels. The result was economic and environmental waste stemming from a hybrid ideology of government control and alternate energy fantasy.
President Obama and a majority of Congress lied persistently and repeatedly over a period of years when they promised that everyone who liked their current insurance could keep it--then millions learned their insurance was no longer permitted. They were sacrificed to an ideology of government micro-management of health care. Now millions are learning that their government-mandated insurance has failed and is no longer available.
We will endlessly repeat such folly until Americans again realize that they are better off managing their own affairs and reject the persistent lie that politicians can do it better. 
Richard E. Ralston is executive director of Americans for Free Choice in Medicine, Newport Beach, California. Copyright © 2015 Americans for Free Choice in Medicine. All rights reserved.