Is Something better than Nothing?

Posted: July 30, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Health care reform | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

Forty-four years ago, then President Johnson handed former President Harry Truman the nation’s first medicare card. fdr-march-32That was July 30, 1965. This measure was one of the biggest steps taken during LBJ’s Great Society programs and undoubtedly one of the biggest steps towards eliminating poverty among the elderly since the Social Security Program. Back then, its critics included George H.W. Bush and Barry Goldwater who were bandying about the ‘it’s socialism’ meme as freely as the critics of any health care reform do today. Note to Republicans, yet again. Socialism is when the government turns private assets into public assets. It’s about ownership of assets, not about providing agencies or government sponsored private monopolies the opportunity to provide third party services in failed markets. Do you consider your utility company to be an agent of socialism?

So, today, we have watered down (and that’s being generous) health reform in an era of huge democratic majorities in government. Still, we’re losing the argument for the best and most cost effective plan to hysteria around purposefully promoted misunderstanding. We stand on the verge of passing legislature that is something, which is more than nothing, but hardly much of an improvement over the very bad status quo. Is that really worth it?

The Hill reports that Waxman’s compromises have created furor among Liberals. Count me among those of us that know that the only true way to save money on health insurance, cover every one, get the benefits of risk pooling and the economies of scale that come from uniform process and paper work is with a universal health care plan. What are we getting now? Basically a foot in a closing door and that ain’t much.

That’s a problem, since the draft bill already promises to be a tough sell for liberals. It eschews two central Democratic priorities: the creation of a government-run public insurance plan option and a requirement that most employers provide health benefits.

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Leaders also agreed to allow states to create health “co-ops” that would compete with the government-run “public option” and private insurers, which deals a blow to liberals.

But why is every one afraid of expanding Medicare?

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The Realities of Market Failure

Posted: July 26, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Health care reform | Tags: , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Realities of Market Failure

doctor-1-400Paul Krugman jumped further in to the health care reform debate today just as the CBO announced that the Obama Plan, billed as a cost-saver, continues to be anything but cost saving. Krugman rightly points out that in a land of third party payers, you are not going to find a free market solution. This is simply true by definition so why is there so much confusion?

Krugman borrows heavily from an earlier treatise by Kenneth Arrow, one of the early pioneers of modern economics in a 1963 treatise called Uncertainty and the Welfare economics of health Care. (Note: The link on Krugman’s blog is bad so use mine.) Let me just mention here that Welfare in economics means you’re looking for allocative efficiency within an economy given that economy’s income distribution. Since so few folks in this country have the majority of income and resources, for example, the U.S. is a considered about average on allocative efficiency. Our resources are not distributed based on the aggregate welfare of society. We have a system where there are winners and losers because most of our goods are distributed by ability to pay and most of that ability to pay comes from accident of birth.

So, Krugman updates the Arrow treatise and argues that healthcare is not what you would refer to as a standard market that would thrive under free market conditions. He points to two very distinct characteristics that takes it out of contention for a completely free market solution which borrow heavily from Arrow.

There are two strongly distinctive aspects of health care. One is that you don’t know when or whether you’ll need care — but if you do, the care can be extremely expensive. The big bucks are in triple coronary bypass surgery, not routine visits to the doctor’s office; and very, very few people can afford to pay major medical costs out of pocket.

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The second thing about health care is that it’s complicated, and you can’t rely on experience or comparison shopping. (”I hear they’ve got a real deal on stents over at St. Mary’s!”) That’s why doctors are supposed to follow an ethical code, why we expect more from them than from bakers or grocery store owners.

If you’ve followed any of my blogging carefully, you will recognize two underlying themes that we’ve frequently talked about throughout Krugman’s assessment. That would be that the health care market has the two nasty frictions of moral hazard and information asymmetry. Insurance companies, theoretically, should provide cost effective remedies to both. However, there are things unique to health insurance and the underlying risk of getting catastrophic illnesses that make huge risk pools the most cost effective. This is the primary economic argument for universal healthcare. Putting every one (the healthy and the unhealthy) into one HUGE risk pool, minimizes the cost to everyone, thereby maximizing allocative efficiency and economic welfare. Insurance companies that cherry pick, and healthy folks that self opt-out of risk pools, violate these principles and make it more expensive and less efficient for every one.

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What Exactly are they fighting to Preserve?

Posted: July 25, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Health care reform | Tags: , , , | Comments Off on What Exactly are they fighting to Preserve?

Here’s an interesting link from Foreign Policy. We’ve joined China, Russia, and wait for it, wait for it … that bastion of global civilization …Turkmenistan on the list of the World’s Worst Health Care Reforms.

I understand why Republicans are fighting progress on Health Care Reform because they don’t like progress of any sort, but what about those democrats who want to reinvigorate health insurance industry profits? What exactly are they supporting? Continuation of failure?

System: Employer-based private coverage, with an under-regulated private insurance market, and

government-subsidized public plans for the poor, elderly, and disabled

Reform: The United States has the rare distinction of being both one of the world’s richest countries and having one of its least-functional health care systems.

Americans spend around one in every six dollars on healthcare. But, in aggregate, they’re not getting much bang for their buck. People in the United States are as likely to die from diseases like lung cancer as citizens in all OECD countries – which, on average, spend less than half as much per capita. Some 47 million lack any health insurance coverage. An estimated 600,000 people file for bankruptcy every year because they cannot pay their medical expenses. Indeed, the United States is the only rich country without universal coverage.

The U.S. government has repeatedly tried to create a more coherent plan and to make sure more Americans are insured. Reformers have scored piecemeal victories — such as the 1997 creation of the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan, or Massachusetts’ recent implementation of universal coverage.

But for the most part, the history of health reform in the United States has been a history of failure. The last attempt at comprehensive reform — the 1993 bill derided as “HillaryCare,” during the administration of Bill Clinton — floundered in Congress. Since then, costs and premiums have doubled, a lower percentage of employers offer coverage, and millions more are uninsured.

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Do NOT Buy A Used Health Care Program from This Man!

Posted: July 22, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Health care reform, Main Stream Media, New Orleans | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

popejindal I’m going to bring out some information I put out on Bobby Jindal in December of last year so you’ll know exactly how little to pay attention to this man. Jindal is obviously positioning himself for a run at national office which doesn’t surprise me at all, because the guy’s been a bigger job hopper than our current POTUS. It’s evident that anything to be learned from any of those short-lived jobs is lost on him because he never puts facts, people, or effectiveness before ideology. He’s a faith-based ideologue. He’s totally convinced of the ‘rightness’ of his view regardless of what the facts are on the ground. Contrary to his insistence that Louisiana is improving when it isn’t, and contrary to his insistent that he’s cut state bureaucracy when the payrolls have gone up, he’s still just a man that never lets facts get in the way of a good dogmatic speech opportunity. I don’t think the man exactly lies, he just appears to be totally delusional.

I’ve written two things on him. One being his insistence that the state of Louisiana is all hunky dory just cause he’s in office. It’s not, our unemployment statistics are moving up now like the rest of the country because the FEMA and Federal Hurricane monies that were stimulating our economies are running out. We’re getting our dose of recession and it’s not going to improve for us any time soon. Of course, it goes against his ideology to suggest that government funding may have actually helped our state, so he just prefers to take all the credit himself.

He also has been insisting he’s passed these tough ethic laws, which is true, but he conveniently forgets to mention he’s exempted the governor’s office. Ask Jindal about those tickets to see Miley Cyrus at the SuperDome if you’re a reporter and you get a chance.

Governor Bobby Jindal, in the midst of Day 4 of a special session on ethics, is having to deal with a controversy surrounding Disney sensation, Hannah Montana. 9NEWS has learned that Governor Jindal’s chief of staff and several state legislators were able to get tickets for free. WAFB’s Jim Shannon has the story.

Much has been said down at the legislature about free tickets and lavish meals for lawmakers and appointed state employees. Granted, all of that talk is for future legislation. However, the governor’s office is not ignoring the perks that come with being governor. Governor Bobby Jindal’s special session on ethics is moving through the legislature on a fast pace. Amid cries of no more fat cat meals or tickets to sporting events and concerts, the governor is dealing with a ticket controversy within his own office.

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News for those not Interested in Death and Sex Watches

Posted: June 26, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Environmental Protection, Health care reform, president teleprompter jesus, Team Obama, The DNC, The Media SUCKS, U.S. Economy | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

or When Will Journalists actually Report Real News?

pig3So for those that don’t want to see the People Magazine section on the front page of every news paper and as the lead in to every TV news item, let’s look at some real news.

Climate Change : The American Clean Energy and Security Act:

Should we be questioning the Climate Change Numbers? Surprise from the WSJ? Not. It’s still an interesting read in light of the Waxman-Markey attempt to push through cap and trade.

The Climate Change Climate Change: The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country’s new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country’s weeks-old cap-and-trade program.

Greenpeace opposes Waxman-Markey

“Since the Waxman-Markey bill left the Energy and Commerce committee, yet another fleet of industry lobbysists has weakened the bill even more, and further widened the gap between what Waxman-Markey does and what science demands. As a result, Greenpeace opposes this bill in its current form. We are calling upon Congress to vote against this bill unless substantial measures are taken to strengthen it. Despite President Obama’s assurance that he would enact strong, science-based legislation, we are now watching him put his full support behind a bill that chooses politics over science, elevates industry interests over national interest, and shows the significant limitations of what this Congress believes is possible. “As it comes to the floor, the Waxman-Markey bill sets emission reduction targets far lower than science demands, then undermines even those targets with massive offsets. The giveaways and preferences in the bill will actually spur a new generation of nuclear and coal-fired power plants to the detriment of real energy solutions. To support such a bill is to abandon the real leadership that is called for at this pivotal moment in history. We simply no longer have the time for legislation this weak.

I would hate to see this piece of legislation move through the House of Representatives with out media coverage and robust discussion. You’ll remember that I explained cap and trade earlier in case you want a review.

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