When Good Intentions Go Bad

When Good Intentions Go Bad was Originally Posted on December 23, 2013 by lavarock

It doesn’t take much to find examples of when good intentions go bad.

If you live on the coast, you know about beach erosion, either from natural ocean currents or from storms. Sand shifts from one location to another and before long, some places have lots of sand and some are left with rocks. The town may decide to build a jetty or other structure to contain or move the sand, but often times these improvements only un-improve another area to a greater extent.

This is not unlike the example I use of a thermometer. When you place a thermometer in a glass of water, you don’t really measure the temperature of the water, you measure the thermometer. The temperature of the thermometer changes as temperature of the water touching it begin to equalize. For the most part, a small thermometer in a large glass of liquid will cause a minor change of heat from the thermometer to effect the large mass in the glass. However, if the thermometer is very large and the temperature difference is very large, the liquid is effected by the heat transfer.

Back to my assertion now.

Cracker Barrel is in the news (again). They removed some Duck Dynasty items from their stores after the recent flap, attempting to (in their minds) show that being intolerant towards gays was not right. The public turned on them. Yet it was not all that long ago that the public turned on Cracker Barrel when they themselves were intolerant of gay employees. So in what looked like a good move for them to show they learned a lesson, they were damned if they did or damned if they weren’t.

Now we turn to healthcare. The Democrats came up with a healthcare plan which they thought was the answer to a problem. They did everything they could to implement it. Those efforts failed miserably (so far) and as of today, a date when people are *supposed* to be signed up, there is a growing concern that even those signed up for what they think is an inexpensive plan may well have a tremendous sticker shock when they next go in for an appointment because of deductibles.

I personally am covered by a health plan and decided not to change anything until the dust settles. I have a possible health issue that could involve a hospital stay and costs. I have no intention of swapping a plan that I know, for one that has unknowns associated with it. I can only speak for myself. My sister who has a pre-existing medical issue cannot afford insurance and her state did not expand Medicare, so she still will remain uninsured.

Now we swing on over to Hawaii. Hawaii, like many other states, has had a prescription drug problem where people shop doctors to get extra prescriptions for restricted drugs. We also have a program to give drug users new needles to stop the reuse of dirty, disease carrying needles. The news report today is that by attempting to control disease by needle sharing and by cutting back on the number of people getting illegal prescriptions, Hawaii may be pushing more drug users into heroin use. The availability of needles and the lack of ability to get prescription drugs seems to be the case. This same increase has been seen in other states where prescription drug abuse has been lowered by curtailing the ability to easily get prescription drugs.

I contend that sometimes a good intention causes unforeseen consequences.