Tag Archives

Archive of posts published in the tag: ACA

Federalism and Health Care

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.

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Replacing One Health Care Failure with Another

By 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.

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Health Care is an Economic, not a Political Problem

The health care problem, like so many others, is the result of making an economic problem a political problem. Our elected officials make promises in exchange for votes and power without paying for them. They hide the cost in cross subsidies, mandates, regulation, demonization, and wishful thinking.

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Why Social Media is a Sucker for Bad Reporting

The point is that the subject is much more complicated than most are willing to accept. Even the most respected journalists are seduced more by the political angle than accuracy and open mindedness.  This travesty is multiplied thousands of times on the social media by the lazy who read for confirmation rather than information.

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ACA’s Death Toll

from 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. “

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The High Cost of Good Intentions – A Book Review

The result of this history is that entitlements have expanded far beyond assisting the poor. Many of the benefits go to beneficiaries far above the poverty line. Congress has proven totally untrustworthy in managing surpluses or trust funds or maintaining a sound financial basis.   The explosion in entitlements is the primary driver of the post-World War II debts.

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Health Care Reform in 21 Words

In 2010 during the health care debate Democratic Congressman Jim Marshall (GA- my district) published an article in National Review about increasing consumer pressure on health care.  Read Real Health Care Reform- Why America must move away from its third-party-payer

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First Do No Harm

from The Wall Street Journal, How Democrats Learned to Love Insurance Companies by Ellysia Finley  (paywall) The cost for the most popular ObamaCare silver plans will increase 37% on average next year. Democrats and insurers are both blaming soaring premiums on

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Politics as Performance Art

From National Review Kevin Williamson writes McHealthcare Deluxe- The Affordable Care Act is a failed political product. There are better and worse ways to fail, and it pays to be conservative when trying out new products, most of which fail, or investing

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Tax Bloated Insurance

from Scott Atlas at The Wall Street Journal, The Health Reform That Hasn’t Been Tried Third, introduce the right incentives into the tax code. Today employees aren’t taxed on the value of their health benefits—and there is no limit to that exclusion.

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Organizing Knowledge

From National Review Kevin Williamson writes McHealthcare Deluxe- The Affordable Care Act is a failed political product. Emotionally mature people and highly effective institutions are quick to admit error. The best of them in fact embrace periodic failure as a necessary part

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The New Coke Policy

From National Review Kevin Williamson writes McHealthcare Deluxe- The Affordable Care Act is a failed political product. But whatever else you can say about the politics of health insurance, it remains the fact that the ACA does not work. Even if it

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Permanent Emergency

Another gem from Kevin Williamson, A National State of Non-Emergency in National Review: The recently proffered Republican health-care bill instantiates much of what is wrong with our politics: The bill was constructed through an extraordinary process in which there were no hearings,

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The Failure of Pragmatic Health Care

The 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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Mortality Increase Under the ACA

from The Georgia Public Policy Foundation Friday Facts 7/7/17 Food for thought: A total of 31 states and the District of Columbia expanded Medicaid under ObamaCare. Oren Cass of the Manhattan Institute reports that in 2015, age-adjusted mortality rose and

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Tinkering with a Broken System

from George Will at The Washington Post, Why ‘repeal and replace’ will become ‘tweak and move on’ In 2009, President Barack Obama ignited a debate that has been, for many members of Congress and their constituents, embarrassingly clarifying. Back then,

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Rhetoric vs Reality

From economist Tyler Cowen at Bloomberg, What Democrats Won’t Admit About Voters and Health Care But keep in mind that the American Health Care Act of 2017 does not prevent states from spending whatever is needed to cover pre-existing conditions, if

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A Health Care Reader

The health care debates are particularly contentious because they are a focus of the fundamental philosophical differences in political and economic thinking.  While activists insist they are only trying to be pragmatic in providing care for all, they remain hostage

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The Price of Contempt

If I could pick one word to describe the upset it would be the word ‘contempt’. This was a Brexit election, a revolt against the elites, but the problem is not elites.  The founding fathers were elites and a large

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Inflationary Wealth Transfers

Kevin Williamson’s Welcome to the Paradise of the Real was written over two years ago and I still refer it to readers.Sneaky Inflation is equal to that piece in bringing sound economic thought to bear on current issues with an engaging style.  Both

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