Healthcare does more to illuminate the divide in political ideology than any other issue. It merges the ideological and pragmatic limits of central power; the dispersal of interests (and thus the difficulty of consensus) and the dispersal of knowledge, the ‘fatal conceit’ that any central power can know how to manage complex markets for a vast and diversified nation. Health care challenges the authority and the competence of central power.
Read MoreNew data indicates that the disease arrived here much earlier than we thought, has already spread to many more people than we thought, and based on the estimated cases as compared to diagnosed cases the mortality is much less than we thought.
Read MoreTo those who claim insurance is immune to market forces, I would suggest that the problem is that it is not. If a grocery store was required to get a certificate of need to open up a new store and the competitors got to make the decision what would likely happen to the price of food. What would happen if an association of grocers could determine who is allowed to sell food? What would happen to the price of your auto insurance of you filed a claim for oil changes and preventative maintenance? What happens to anything when you restrict supply and expand demand?
Read More“Assuming some benevolent government will institute quick and perfect Keynesian business cycle corrections that maintain full employment, or that government provision or regulation will result in ideal outcomes in other markets, leads to unwise policy making—and to public displeasure with the outcomes of government.”
Read MoreBy defying the relationship of health care to basic economics we passed a bill that defied basic economics- the outcome was very predictable. Another example of promising a benefit without paying for it; hiding the cost in a maze of cross subsidies, mandates, proxies and obscure regulations.
Read MoreImagine the compromises when 100 Senators and 435 Representatives bargain to get their piece of the health care allocation in an atmosphere where bitter partisanship rules every issue. In other words what seems to work in Europe is not easily transferable to a radically different political and economic environment. And the complete comparative picture is not as clear as we are led to believe. Maybe we spend more on health care because we want to.
Read Morefrom the WSJ
“But new data shows that mortality rates have also increased, suggesting the policy may contribute each year to 5,400 premature deaths of Medicare patients with serious heart conditions. “
One of the greatest advantages of market solutions is not that it always picks better solutions, but that it recognizes failures quicker and better. The opposite happens in government. Self serving bureaucracies institutionalize failures. Instead of admitting failure and redeploying assets into better and different solutions we institutionalize failures and increase their funding.
Read MoreThe health insurance controversy is the pragmatic apex of sharply conflicting ideologies and both will not easily coexist. It will take more than the repeal of Obamacare to fix. Obamacare was just a bad response to a history of bad policies. Trying a different bad response will not fix the problem either.
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