A Promise Kept?  A Lie Made.

     Despite being a mainstream Objectivist who agrees with almost all of the views of the Ayn Rand Institute, I have found another, rare issue on which I diverge.

It is commonly held that the Objectivist strategy to get rid of all of socialized medicine (i.e., Medicaid and Medicare) is to phase them out on a sliding scale relatively slowly.  But, the fact that there is so much political resistance to this makes it unlikely that any slow, and non-objectively chosen, sliding scale, age cut-off reduction will ever actually happen.

In my view, I think that America must adopt the attitude that all socialism should end NOW, or this country will end up going the way of Rome.  The rationale of the mainstream Objectivists is that too many people (especially older ones) are counting on the promise government made which translates into taking from others.  Every time I hear a politician chant the slogan: "A promise kept.", I want to add to that: "A lie made."

My proposal is for America's intellectual leaders to declare that: Obamacare, Medicaid, and Medicare have already reached the cut-off of the sliding scale.  Any continued withdrawal from one's paychecks is just residual, immoral crime that socialists are performing to try to keep the lie alive.

Since Americans now recognize that: Obamacare, Medicaid, and Medicare are over, the young, and especially older individuals, should scramble to make, and save, as much money as they can.

Paul Wharton
Objectivist Capitalist Medicine Promoter

What We Can Learn from the Cruz's ObamaCare

     One of the big news stories of the day is the government coercion that led Ted Cruz to sign his family up for ObamaCare.  While I don't deny that I am disappointed by his decision, I understand the pressure he was under.

Picture it this way.  Imagine that government just passed a law that will completely phase out private education within five years.  When your 2015 income tax becomes due, you can either pay the enormous costs of enlisting your children into the public school system, or pay a fine.  The next year the fine will increase, until, five years from now, there will be no legal private education in existence in the United States.  If your wife tries to home-school your kids, she will go to jail.

So, what do you do?  Perhaps running for President with the goal of repealing the public education system--even though, in the meantime, one will have to navigate around the legal mandates for a couple of years is the route to take.

Paul Wharton
Objectivist Capitalist Medicine Promoter

Socialist Takeover of Pharmaceutical Companies' Prices?

     Today's concerted media attack against pharmaceutical price freedom is a grave injustice.  A business has the right to decide what price to charge potential customers independent of government force and coercion.  But, it is not just pharmacy prices that are at stake in the discussion.  Economics involves other equally analogically negotiated prices, too.  The following scenario illustrates my point:

Suppose there is a socialist, mostly government entity named "Fast Slips" that is disguised on Wall Street as just another company.  This "company" goes into businesses and identifies prices for goods that it declares are too expensive.  When Fast Slips rushes into action, it finds the owner and argues for bringing down certain prices at the expense of the owner's income and reduced wages or pink slips of every employee in the business.  If Fast Slips meets resistance, it pulls out its Trump Card--that being its government connections and true socialist nature.  Due to the threat of this overwhelming coercive force, most owners fold to the pressure--cutting jobs and reducing wages to meet the new government conditions.

Now how would you feel if you were a worker in that business?  What economic reward would you get if you were the owner?  Instead of Express Scripts and CVS screwing over the entire pharmaceutical industry, why don't they: dissolve their socialist elements, stop forcing drugs with nasty side-effects upon people, and give up the economically devastating dream of free lunches without capitalist payment?

Paul Wharton
Objectivist Capitalist Medicine Promoter

Pay your own way for a better life.

     In December of 1997, I was released from a hospital to live in Westmont, Illinois.  I had about $15,000 in the bank; but, even so, I faced a dilemma.  I could go to the government health center that the hospital had insisted on "linking" me to.  Or, I could pay my own money to see a private psychiatrist.  The public, government system would hand out "free" medicine, but force me to attend gatherings of incompetents called "groups".  The top of the line drug that I had sampled in the hospital (Zyprexa) would be excluded because it cost more than $600 per month.  And, Depakote might be restricted as well.

I knew that if I paid for: a private doctor, Zyprexa, and the lower cost Depakote, I would have almost no spending money--even with maintaining a full-time job.  I chose the path less traveled, and have not regretted it since.

Over the years, as I begged for extra hours at work, I would go through the ritual of driving over to the pharmacy to pay my $600+, then $900+, then over $1000 per month for psychiatric medicine.

In 2005, I began blogging in Usenet News.  I opened up about the Zyprexa medication in 2007.  I thought I could use the mind that Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) had enhanced to think of ideas that would help the company.  As an Objectivist Capitalist, I allied with Big Business; but, I never thought that my online efforts would produce a significant economic return for me.

I started showing the private psychiatrist my blogs.  Every two months, I would hand her a folder with everything I had posted.  One day, she brought up the topic of Zyprexa samples that the Eli Lilly drug rep brings when he visits her office.  At first I refused because I took pride in supporting myself; and, besides, I was skeptical that it would work out becoming a free-rider.  A couple sessions later, I approached the doctor with an offer.  I said that I would focus my blogging on helping Eli Lilly in one way or another (much of my writing is political) in exchange for accepting samples of Zyprexa.

Thus, despite the fact that government forced me to consume psychiatric medication that whole time, I was self-responsible in earning money in a private job, paying my own way for medicines, and finding a second job as an Internet blogger.  I am proud of my history and the fact that I stand by my own effort.  After the years of physical and mental abuse by the government, I never thought that life could be this great!

Paul Wharton
Objectivist Capitalist Medicine Promoter

AbbVie (ABBV): Its Now Time to Get In

     I haven't written about my biopharmaceutical investment, AbbVie Inc. (ABBV), for a while; but I have been following it very closely.  On Friday, it closed at $55.64.  Having bought at $62.62, I only wish I could have gotten in at a lower price.  Great things are going to be done with this company.  My argument is that now is the time to get in.  I list four reasons:

(1) The Dow is off its high.

(2) Many investors sold over the last two trading days because they perceived AbbVie's $21 billion price for Pharmacyclics as too high.  Their money is gone from AbbVie--leaving the company a cheap buy.

(3) The Pharmacyclics acquisition is just the beginning of AbbVie's turnaround of its morale problem that started from the pragmatism of the deal with Express Scripts.

(4) And, then there's the Paul Wharton factor.  The Abbott-AbbVie invention of Depakote saved the quality of my life and literally freed me from a prison-like environment enforced by state governments.  With the gratitude motive (on top of the profit one), investors can expect to see AbbVie (ABBV) getting some boosts from my reading, thinking, and blogging.  I encourage anyone who doubts this to visit my blog: lillyfuel.blogspot.com.  I did all of that in just over a year.

Paul Wharton
Objectivist Capitalist Medicine Promoter