The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Facts the ‘Experts’ Never Mention

Posted on | December 29, 2013 | 11 Comments

Philip Klein calls our attention to an overlooked statistic:

Massachusetts, whose health care reform program was used as a template for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, had the highest per capita health spending in the U.S. in 2009. . . . [T]he state spent $9,278 per person on health care in 2009, which was 36 percent higher than the national average of $6,815, and 11.2 percent more than the next-highest state, New York, which spent $8,341.

Was the relatively high cost of health care in Massachusetts a cause or an effect of the push for socialized medicine? The political impetus for ObamaCare came from highly urbanized, Democrat-dominated states where the cost of health care was already high.

If the result of this national policy is to spread the misery (i.e., causing a rise in health-care costs in more rural Republican-dominated states) why should liberals care? This simply deprives the GOP states of an economic advantage they previously enjoyed.

You could do some other correlations:

State …………….. Vote 2012 …. TFR 2010
Rhode Island ……… Obama 62.7% …………. 1.63
Vermont ……………. Obama 62.8% …………. 1.66
Massachusetts ……. Obama 60.7% …………. 1.67
New Hampshire ….. Obama 52.0% …………. 1.67
Maine ……………….. Obama 56.3% …………. 1.70

Utah ………………….. Romney 72.8% ………. 2.45
Alaska ……………….. Romney 54.8% ………. 2.35
South Dakota ……… Romney 58.3% ……….. 2.27
Idaho ………………… Romney 64.5% ………. 2.24
Texas ………………… Romney 57.2% ………. 2.16

TRF is total fertility rate — the average number of lifetime births per woman, based on annual birth rates — and you see that the top five states as measured by TFR all went for Romney, while the five lowest-fertility states all went for Obama. The average rate of the high fertility states (2.29) is 38% higher than the low-fertility states (1.67 average), which tells you that the political differences reflect profound differences in culture and lifestyle. Nationalizing policies favored by the low-fertility states can therefore be seen as an attempt to abolish these differences, to force the high-fertility states to abandon their culture and lifestyle.

 

Category: Health Care

Comments

11 Responses to “Facts the ‘Experts’ Never Mention”

  1. Steve Skubinna
    December 29th, 2013 @ 2:30 pm

    No problem. Obama just signs an executive order mandating abortion for all Republicans.

    For, you know, the children.

  2. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 29th, 2013 @ 3:15 pm

    The fertility factor on healthcare! If we can’t beat their ideas, we will stop them from breeding.

    You are all a bunch of anti Semites too!

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  4. CTimbo
    December 29th, 2013 @ 6:21 pm

    The fertility rates in blue states are self regulating. Take one look at liberal women and you’ll know why.

  5. Steve Skubinna
    December 29th, 2013 @ 8:51 pm

    To be fair, liberal men do their share of the, uh… whatever.

  6. CTimbo
    December 29th, 2013 @ 9:11 pm

    Liberal men don’t really contribute that much to fertility rates. Just ask Phil Robertson about it.

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  8. Quartermaster
    December 29th, 2013 @ 9:41 pm

    But, what if it really is the juice?

  9. Steve Skubinna
    December 29th, 2013 @ 11:01 pm

    What I meant was their share of self regulating. But I had a hard time making it sound positive and dynamic.

  10. McGehee
    December 30th, 2013 @ 10:24 am

    A TFR of less than two means declining population unless immigration is increased…

  11. TheUnrealWoman
    December 31st, 2013 @ 3:19 am

    This is a foolish debate because if liberals outnumber conservatives in large amounts (and they do in America), you can’t actually outbreed teh librulz. 100k conservative women having a TFR of 5 is only 500k kids over their entire lifetimes. This is trumped by 1 million liberal women having a single IVF darling over their lifetimes. You can’t breed your way to political victory, math says no. Sorry!