Nick Gillespie is puzzled at President Obama’s invocation of state-run universities as an analogy to a state-run insurance company:
Leaving aside a host of questions about the analogy, college costs are among the few that have been rising with the speed and intensity of medical costs. So how would this sort of competition reduce costs, one of the main goals, says Obama, of any health care reform worth the name? Indeed, the obvious similarity between higher ed and health care is that both systems rely on a third-party payer system where expenses are heavily subsidized (by employers, tax breaks, parents, federal grants, special loans, you name it) and the end consumers (patients, students) are shielded from knowing the full cost of the services they consume.
John Goodman lays out how these two propositions – the first a popular reform proposal and the second an option that Americans just aren’t willing to support – are linked through the complexities of the health care system.
It isn’t realistic to expect the majority of Americans to understand how these two propositions are connected, but it is more than reasonable to expect that lawmakers hire experts who can predict the consequences of all the nice ideas floating around in public debate before writing or passing laws.
Michael Pollan, in a New York Times op-ed, reminds us that as the government is allowed to take away the ability of Americans regarding their health care, it will become interested in more of the choices Americans make while living their daily lives. Specifically, the choice of what to have for dinner.
The James Madison Institute recently released a new paper that looks at the economic impact that the pending national health care legislation would have on Florida. To read the entire report, click here (PDF). To view a summary of the study, click here (PDF). It calculates that over the next 10 years, the bill passed by the U.S. House would cost Floridians nearly $6 billion.
Gary Palmer, president of the Alabama Policy Institute, reminds us it’s not what’s in the bills being considered in Congress that matters, but what’s not in the bills:
For example, will the House bill provide health care for illegal aliens?
“Obama’s claim that the health care reform bill does not include a provisionfor government health benefits to illegal aliens is only half the story. The fact is every effort by Republican congressmen to amend the bill to require documentation of legal residency and ensure that no one obtains coverage illegally has been rejected by the Democrats.”
It’s refreshing to read, for a change, of a state that is doing something to make the costs of insurance less expensive.
Oklahoma, for example, has a task force on insurance mandates. According to the Tulsa World, “Sen. Cliff Branan, R-Oklahoma City, said he wants the task force to review mandates that the Legislature has handed down in the past. He said he hoped the task force could study if those efforts were meeting their original goals.”
Shikha Dalmia on President Obama’s speech Wednesday as an image at least as colorful as the outburst of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina):
For several months now, the American people–as if exhorted by the ghost of William F. Buckley (no particular hero of mine)–have been standing athwart the Democratic agenda of socialized medicine, yelling, “Stop!” But President Barack Obama showed them the policy equivalent of the middle finger Wednesday night.
What’s in the only piece of legislation that has been passed by the House of Representatives? A physician takes a look.
Cross-posted from State House Call.
In this audio clip, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana) speaks with KMOX about alternative proposals on health care reform. I wish he and some of his colleagues had had the opportunity to wave those papers that he talks about in the clip. It would have made for good theater and perhaps gotten across an important point that the alternative to ObamaCare is not limited to “do nothing.”
The Michigan Economic Development Corp., state Legislature, governor and other supporters of government “jobs” programs have adopted an almost pop-culture idolatry for all things environmental by showering taxpayer subsidies upon corporations claiming to bring purportedly “earth friendly” products to market. It has a shiny, new green paint job, but in fact this is just the latest in a long line of failed state economic development program fads.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm has gone public with a laundry list of proposed tax hikes and “loophole closings.” It's a "death by a thousand cuts" strategy, which most items extracting relatively small amounts, or targeted at politically powerless populations like smokers. Unfortunately, these little injuries add up to a lot of blood drained from Michigan's already ailing economy.
Want government intervention in health insurance? We’ve already got it. Here’s the latest example: Michigan may (again) tell insurance customers what their policy must contain. It would also ride roughshod over the moral objections of pharmacists.
Cross-posted from State House Call.
National Public Radio sent someone out to survey the scene at a few parties where people were gathering to listen to President Obama’s speech last night. The online comments are filled with the usual, including those who favor a greater role for government calling those who oppose it selfish, uncaring Randians who don’t look out for anyone else, etc.
The newspapers are filled not only with stories about President Obama’s latest speech on health care, but on swine flu cases — Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
To be sure, some people have died from the swine flu (mentioned in a few of the stories linked to above). But many, many more people die from heart disease, cancer and stroke. Even influenza and pneumonia, a category that takes in much more than simply swine flu, claims just 10 percent of the number of people who die from heart disease.
Will an employer mandate help business productivity? Wishful thinking, says The Heritage Foundation’s D. Mark Wilson, who explains the several effects of employer mandates on both employers and employees.
Cross-posted from State House Call.
Is there wasteful spending in health care in the U.S.? Sure. Here’s Michael F. Cannon on the subject:
Cross-posted from State House Call.
From BusinessWeek:
Where are health care costs rising the fastest? Hint: It’s not in the U.S.
Cross-posted from State House Call.
While President Obama focused on those who have slipped through the cracks in America’s health care system last night, the National Center for Public Policy Research is reminding us that countries with greater government involvement in health care have their own, often worse, stories of access to life-saving medicine delayed or denied. They’ve released 100 such stories (PDF) from around the world.
The Cato Institute’s Michael D. Tanner has analyzed the key health care proposals being discussed in Congress and finds them all lacking.
From a blurb on his new study: “Americans will pay more and get less. Whatever the variation, however these bills are merged or compromised, this would be bad news for Americans.”
Here are a few reactions to President Obama’s speech last night that I’ve noticed this morning.
Larry Sabato, one of the country’s most respected academic observers of politics, said on his Twitter feed: “The era of bipartisanship, a mirage first seen in January, is over. You could cut the polarization in the House chamber with a knife.”
President Obama’s much-anticipated health care address last night fell short of the groundbreaking proposals one might have expected from the hype.
The president has firmed up support for a few ideas — individual and employer mandates that force people to enroll themselves, or their employees, in an insurance plan, and asserted his support for a government-run insurance company (though he didn’t call the “public option” a dealbreaker). He also reminded Americans that he supports choice and competition, even though the insurance mandates he’s set on seem to be opposed to both.
If you’re going to watch the president’s speech to Congress on health care tonight (8pm Eastern), you can follow the reactions of Cato Institute experts Michael F. Cannon and Michael D. Tanner on the Cato web site and on Twitter. See Cato-at-Liberty for details.
Here’s another reminder of why we need to make health care and health insurance cheaper: Arizona, facing a budget shortfall, will drop 10,000 people from one of its insurance programs.
To show you how bizarre public policy makes health care, these people are adults who are enrolled in a program for … children.
Here’s a pretty good, short description of what our laws have done to health care:
On the other, we enact regulations and restrictions to keep driving the private insurance system off a cliff.
As they say, read the whole thing, from Holman Jenkins in today’s Wall Street Journal. It’s insightful and short.
Alabama will soon make more children dependent on politics for their health insurance, and perhaps devastate the private insurance market for everyone else in the process.
According to the Birmingham News, “All Kids” will be able to enroll about 14,000 more children starting October 1, thanks to looser eligibility requirements. Right now, the program is limited to families with an income of two times the federal poverty level. It will go up to three times, so the number for a family of four will be $66,156. By contrast, the median household income in the state is under $41,000.
