Yesterday morning, Yankee Institute president Carol Platt Liebau was a guest on WATR-Waterbury’s “Talk of the Town” with Larry Rifkin (and she’ll be joining Pastor Will on WTIC tomorrow).
One of the most interesting parts of the discussion focused on the growing sense — across Connecticut and the nation as a whole — that, too often, public policy is forged to serve (1) government itself (and the public employee unions) and (2) big business with the money to secure special favors from politicians (otherwise known as “crony capitalism”). In the shuffle, the needs of regular people too often get lost — and the check on each other’s power that government and business are supposed to provide disappears. It’s just one more danger of public policies that prioritize government over freedom and opportunity.
Carol pointed out that ObamaCare, both in-state and across the country, is just such a program. It increases both state and federal government control over citizens’ lives — and was passed thanks to government’s ability to secure the support of health insurance companies in part through promises to bail them out with taxpayer money to cover the majority of their losses. In the end, by Big Government edict, Connecticut citizens will end up paying to subsidize losses resulting from a program they really didn’t want in the first place.
Yankee’s mission — improving lives through freedom and opportunity — represents the only real approach to policy that offers a level playing field for all Connecticut’s people. In the context of health care, that means replacing government-centered health care with patient-centered reforms like those Yankee has outlined.
When Big Government and its unions formulate public policy to serve its own agenda, it’s a disaster for regular people. And when it amasses enough wealth and power to practice crony capitalism — buying off big businesses to secure its own ends — the danger only increases.
So who’s looks out for the little guy? Anyone who promotes a freedom and opportunity agenda, which puts control over every individual’s life back where it belongs: In his or her own hands.
