Salud!

In trying to get the college students in my remedial English classes to understand pronoun "voice," I'd point out that the first person voice is the one most important to everyone: me, myself, and I. Next important is the second person: you (or the archaic, but descriptive thee... with whom I am most familiar). At the bottom of the totem pole is the third person: they and them (can you hear the curl of the lip?).

There are of course some economic and political corollaries here: foremost for me is good for me, second good for thee, and after that good for her or him or them...way over there. It is human nature to seek our own good first of all. Of course that's selfish, so in our better moments we strive to be altruistic, and that's when we mess up.

We err because, as economic guru Thomas Sowell explains so logically: everything is connected to everything else (even ice cream and catchers' mitts), so "it makes no sense to declare some given goal a 'good thing,' without regard to the [economic] repercussions, which spread out in all directions..." His example is the "good" of home ownership, which brought about the [bad] financial repercussions, including job losses, we suffer today.

Repercussions are something to think about now that the Obama administration has declared health insurance for all Americans a "good." The administration claims its interference in 17 or so percent of our economy can be done painlessly...without increasing the tax burden of average, middle class Americans a dime or reducing existing coverage or hampering medical innovation  or souring doctor/patient relationships or increasing the national debt... or falling victim to any of the multiple dislocations suffered by any of the existing national health plans in other nations. These claims are incredible.

But the political corollary may well be that national health care is a political boon for Democrat politicians...perhaps lasting just long enough for Obama to maintain his current (somewhat depressed) popularity and even to insure his reelection in 2012  before the full catastrophe becomes apparent to the least informed citizen. In that case, our only hope may be to drink to our health.