2016 Dec 8^th

This morning’s paper caries a column by Thomas Sowell titled “The Left’s political gambles.” For a party that just elected to the presidency an admitted lecher without any political experience and who is enthralled by Vladimir Putin, I thought that any “gambles” by the left would, by comparison, be modest indeed.

So who is Thomas Sowell? Dr. Thomas Sowell is a very conservative columnist whose doctorate is in economics. His degree, from the University of Chicago, indicates that Sowell is very academically talented. (It is important not to conflate academic talent with judgment or with general intelligence. They are correlated but they are certainly not co-extensive.)

Sowell’s point here is that liberals have taken choices away from people. He gives examples: “Something as personal as what doctor we want to go to has been taken out of our hands by Obama Care. What job offer at what pay rate someone wants to accept has been taken out of their hands by minimum wage laws. …people who are dying are prevented from trying a new medication if it has not completed the long years of tests required by federal regulations.”

His very first claim is not true. You can contract with any physician who will take you as a patient and ACA cannot interfere with that relationship. When it comes to paying for that physician’s fee you might find that he/she is not part of the service providers signed up by your insurance company. That is different. If you want to pay the physicians fee nothing stands in the way. Keep in mind that some physicians don’t accept Medicare or Medicaid payment either.

It’s true that ACA needs some repair but even Trump claims that providing insurance for preexisting conditions must be kept and that policy is the driver of costs. Still, his statement that the ACA means you can’t choose your doctor is standard right wing exaggeration

As to minimum wage laws keeping you from getting “the job you want at the pay rate you are willing to accept” is also nonsense. Sowell says that at 17 he “ left home and went out into the world as a black high school dropout.” He claims that it was far easier for him to find a job then because the minimum wage had become meaningless due to inflation. Of course the fact that this black high school dropout was surely articulate and savvy enough to ultimately get a doctorate in economics from a premier university is not something to consider. Any 17-year-old black kid could have done that; it just took a very low minimum wage to get started.

What Sowell doesn’t mention is the fact that many minimum wage earners are not teen agers and that they will all be eligible for food stamps because their paltry earnings qualify them for this subsidy at the public’s expense. Sowell’s idea of public largesse is to but a door in the sides of dumpsters to make access easier for those dumpster divers who depend on this food source.

His last claim isn’t true either. Experimental drugs not yet approved by the FDA for general use can be approved for compassionate use. Below is a paragraph  from the FDA’s website. If Sowell weren’t so intent on pushing his agenda he might get some accurate information and avoid writing ridiculous columns.

Expanded access, sometimes called "compassionate use," is the use outside of a clinical trial of an investigational medical product (i.e., one that has not been approved by FDA). FDA is committed to increasing awareness of and knowledge about its expanded access programs and the procedures for obtaining access to human investigational drugs (including biologics) and medical devices.