Practical definition: Fair share

Posted by Marc Hodak on April 6, 2009 under Collectivist instinct | Be the First to Comment

Fair share:  What I think you should spend on stuff that I want

Example:  Massachusetts experiment in universal health care, dubbed RomneyCare by some, is…guess what…costing more than anticipated.  This was one of those public-private partnerships where the state makes a deal with private firms in order to get them to accept a big, hairy policy change.   The state then sees that the changes they forced on everyone cost more and did less than originally advertised, then goes back to change the deal with the private firms to their detriment.

In Massachusetts, a consumer group called Health Care for All (don’t you love how these self-styled groups get labeled as such by the uncritical press?) says, through a spokesman:

Increasingly employers are getting tremendous benefits under health reform. The question is not whether employers are doing their fair share for the employees they are covering, it’s whether they are doing their fair share for their employees the state is covering.

The translation is, “The state needs the money.  These private companies should be providing it, because that is how I figure it.”  How this group or the state figures things, of course, is less important than that they’re doing the figuring.