11 Nov 2013

Stephan Kinsella Has a Scheme That Walter Block Would Say Is Heroic

Health Legislation 41 Comments

From Facebook (and Stephan said I could post it):

So, if it’s now illegal for a medical insurance co to refuse people for ‘pre-existing conditions’– what’s to prevent a group from using this for various extortionate purposes? For example you live in a big city, you have cancer, and you are friends w/ a bunch of cancer victims. You get them all on board to threaten to switch from their disparate insurers to a single one, such as ABC Insurance Corp. You call ABC and tell them, 500 of us cancer victims will sign up tomorrow for your policy, and you cannot refuse us, and we will cost you tens of millions. If you just pay us $5k each we will go away.

And yes, I’m just kidding about Walter Block, making a joke about his heroic blackmailers.

41 Responses to “Stephan Kinsella Has a Scheme That Walter Block Would Say Is Heroic”

  1. Cosmo Kramer says:

    My god. I need cancer.

  2. Bob Roddis says:

    You realize, of course, that if a group of communal atheist ascetic lesbians formed their own voluntary AnCap community, Walter Block would be standing over them with a gun to make sure that their contractual community governance agreement treated blackmailers as heroic. And such an agreement would also necessarily include a clause allowing newborn babies to be left out in the cold to starve and freeze to death.

    • Major_Freedom says:

      Also, as an anarcho-capitalist, he would trespass on their land and threaten them with death if they didn’t enforce “an eye for an eye” punishment for internal transgressions.

      • Bob Roddis says:

        Of course, MF, The whole point of AnCap is to trick good innocent people into entering into what they think are voluntary and peaceful contractual living arrangements only to discover Rothbard having arisen from the dead with a gun imposing on them his personal views of “the ethics of liberty”. It’s all just an evil trick put forth by evil sinister people.

        Or maybe I should discontinue my subscription to Salon.com. Come to think of it, hasn’t our good buddy LK made these types of claims after receiving a good beatdown?

        • Major_Freedom says:

          Don’t worry, they got it covered. If anarcho-capitalism isn’t a philosophy of avoiding poor people and giving them the cold shoulder, then it’s a totalitarian nightmare of enslaving them.

          It’s both secessionary and imperialist. Up and down.

          Whatever works for the moment.

        • Bob Roddis says:

          Ahh the sex slavery apologist Walter Block is cited.

          Here’s what the Blockhead thinks is freedom for Children:

          Quote: “Suppose that there is a starvation situation, and the parent of the four year old child (who is not an adult) does not have enough money to keep him alive. A wealthy NAMBLA man offers this parent enough money to keep him and his family alive – if he will consent to his having sex with the child. We assume, further, that this is the only way to preserve the life of this four year old boy. Would it be criminal child abuse for the parent to accept this offer?

          Not on libertarian grounds. For surely it is better for the child to be a live victim of sexual abuse rather than unsullied and dead.”

          So freedom is being a sex slave according to AnCaps like Roddis and his Hero Walkter Block?

          Any form of “property” that creates by it’s nature creates such depravity is aggression.

          http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2013/09/mike-konczal-how-ronald-coase.html?showComment=1379894116746#c1043181291441969135

          • Bala says:

            As always, Knucklehead1 does not realise that Block is addressing a lifeboat situation presented by Knucklehead2 as a counter to Block’s theory.

            • Major_Freedom says:

              It’s sometimes depressing watching people make such horrible arguments.

              A: Suppose for argument’s sake the only choice someone has is death, or being raped.

              B: Oh how cruel you are!

              A: I’m just saying IF we’re going to choose, there is going to be an argument to be made.

              B: A$$hole!

              A: So like I said, IF the choice is between death and being raped, I think being raped is better.

              B: YOU’RE PRO RAPE!11!!!

              [Facepalm]

          • Bob Roddis says:

            Matt Franko said…

            sept,

            if there was ever any doubt that these people are just a bunch of psychos, I think you have dispatched with any such notion…

            Chilling…

            rsp,

          • Bob Roddis says:

            Remember the MMTers’ “state theory of money” which holds that money gets it value because you have to pay your government taxes with it?

            But love of metals CAUSES genocide in search of those metals

            http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2013/07/alexander-del-mar-conquest.html

            This is the sum and substance of the entirety of our opponents “thought”. It is ubiquitous and never ending. As Charlton Heston said in the first “Planet of the Apes” movie: “If this is the best they’ve got around here, in six months we’ll be running this planet”.

            • Major_Freedom says:

              Roddis, this is a personal preference of mine, and take it for what you will, but in all honesty I prefer not to see any posts or citations of what the lunatics on that cesspool of a website happen to spew out about anything.

              It’s pure intellectual poison.

              • Bob Roddis says:

                I had them on the mind because Bob Murphy is going to explain MMT to Tom Woods on his show this week. I’ve basically ceased commenting there because I’m officially banned by Mike Norman.

                I also had them on the mind because Rohan Grey, the Columbia law student who set up the Modern Money Network and the Murphy/Mosler debate, suggested I read and watch all of the materials from Seminar 5. Seminar 5 has tons of great stuff that obliterate the “basics” of MMT.

                http://www.modernmoneynetwork.org/seminar-5-constitutional-history.html

              • Bob Roddis says:

                If you can just never get enough MMT, there’s Taylor Conant’s attempt to debate Mosler online:

                http://publicdebates.blogspot.com/

              • Rick Hull says:

                Nice link, Roddis.

    • Colin A. says:

      How would a bunch of ascetic lesbians have children? It would be impossible on three counts: there are no men, they are lesbians, and they are abstinent.

  3. Z says:

    I dont think I’ve ever laughed more in my entire life than after reading this.

  4. Keshav Srinivasan says:

    Obamacare has actually planned for this eventuality. Not the blackmail part, but the part about having a sicker risk pool. Basically, the government will give the insurance company money if its risk pool is sicker than expected, for instance due to people with pre-existing conditions enrolling in a plan.

    The first link gives a summary, and the other two links give more detailed expositions:

    theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/delaying-the-individual-mandate-would-be-a-headache-for-insurers-but-it-wouldnt-induce-a-death-spiral/

    http://www.actuary.org/files/AAA-SOA_research_brief_on_3Rs_060412.pdf

    http://www.rwjf.org/content/dam/farm/reports/issue_briefs/2012/rwjf72568

    • Gamble says:

      Actually insurance company’s have been planning for this the past 3 years.

      They have been increasing premiums 15-30% annual for the past 3 years in preparation.

      • joe says:

        No they haven’t.

        • Gamble says:

          Yes they have. Check rate increase data. If you get your insurance from employer you would never know, they know. I know because I am in the individual market.

          Every healthy person has been paying extra in anticipation.

          Check the data.

      • Keshav Srinivasan says:

        Premiums have not been increasing at a greater rate than they were before the law was passed. And the law has an individual mandate exactly to compensate for the costs of the regulations it’s putting on insurance companies. And as my links discuss, if the insurance company get a sicker risk pool than expected, the governement plans to give them money to compensate.

        • Gamble says:

          Considering wages are stagnant and cost of living is up, sounds like insurance rates are getting steeper, quicker.

          I think the bigger problem is people are getting sicker(fatter) and not healthier.

          Why we subsidize and manipulate the food industry and food producers is beyond me. Maybe it is a feel good issue.

          Farmers belly ache but truth be told, people generally eat about twice as much as needed. There should be about half as many farmers/ranchers. Most people need about 2000 calories per day, not 4000.

          Would Wal-Mart even exist if not for welfare and farm subsidy? I mean just look at food stamp amount and consider that a direct payment to Wal-Mart. Not to mention they purposely pay just enough and encourage employees to get welfare to pay the rest.

          Socialism is such a cluster ..ck.

  5. Major_Freedom says:

    Wow, Kinsella is really going off with the potty mouth on that thread:

    “oh for god’s fucking sake. this is NOT ABOUT FUCKING CANCER. it was just an example. pick another disease if you are gonna get fucking PC on us. for jesus fucking sake”

    “Agnositcs are confused cowards. take a stand”

    “jeff, if youdon’t want me to block your ass, stop your incivil shit. now.”

    “who cares. the disease is fucking irrelevant. stop acting like a child, like an atavist shill. god”

    • Hank says:

      Well, both Ludwig von Mises and Henry Hazlitt were agnostics.

    • Bala says:

      When has Kinsella not gone off with the potty mouth? The only question is how small a provocation it takes to get him foaming at the mouth.

      • Major_Freedom says:

        I guess I have never seen it.

        The last time I heard him was his debate with some guy named Wenzel, which isn’t his real name. He seemed pretty clean then.

        • Magus says:

          still one of the greatest moments in libertarian history, as far as I’m concerned. I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. “I GOT YOU BY THE BALLZ STEPHAAAAAN!!”

          it was surreal.

        • Rick Hull says:

          Is it too much to ask that we always maintain decorum? Even when our opponents do not?

          • Major_Freedom says:

            …Yes?

            • Rick Hull says:

              Asshole!

              • Major_Freedom says:

                I suspected you wouldn’t abide by your own advice for decorum.

                LOL!

  6. Keshav Srinivasan says:

    Obamacare has actually planned for this eventuality. Not the blackmail part, but the part about having a sicker risk pool. Basically, the government will give the insurance company money if its risk pool is sicker than expected, for instance due to people with pre-existing conditions enrolling in a plan.

    Here are two links describing it:

    http://www.actuary.org/files/AAA-SOA_research_brief_on_3Rs_060412.pdf

    http://www.rwjf.org/content/dam/farm/reports/issue_briefs/2012/rwjf72568

    It’s called the “three R’s” system (for reinsurance, risk adjustment, and risk corridors), and it was designed to compensate insurance companies if not enough young healthy people signed up, but it would also help in a situation like this where too many old and sick people signed up.

    So long story short, insurance companies wouldn’t really have an incentive to pay the blackmail.

    • Keshav Srinivasan says:

      Duplicate post by accident

      • Major_Freedom says:

        “Henry Hill: And then there was Jimmy Two Times, who got that nickname because he said everything twice, like:

        Jimmy Two Times: I’m gonna go get the papers, get the papers.”

    • Innocent says:

      So in reading this I again am shocked, why purchase insurance until needed?

      • Keshav Srinivasan says:

        Are you asking what incentive sick people have to not game the system by waiting until they need care to buy insurance? That’s the purpose of the open-enrollment period: you can only buy insurance during a certain time of the year.

        • skylien says:

          With the exception of “Life events” that allow you to enroll outside this period as well. Of course those “Life events” are somewhat vague and you will be able to comply if you really want to.

          I can already see officers try to find out if the sudden marry or divorce or loss of your job or whatever is purely based on the need for a certain insurance due to a serious illness that suddenly came up.

          This system creates some nasty incentives.

  7. Gamble says:

    Kinsella described exactly what has already happened, how do you think we got here.

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