It’s an interesting report with a lot of stuff I agree with, but what I found most striking was that Stossel, who is famously Libertarian, was arguing against the free market system. Maybe I missed something, but I don’t think he ever even brought up government meddling in health care. Instead he focused on the muddling of prices caused by insurance companies - which is all true, but is entirely the fault of private enterprise.
Insurance companies exist because the invisible hand felt a demand, not because government mandated them.
It is evidence of the chaotic, unplanned, irrational nature of our health care system that the most decisive piece of health care policy — save maybe Medicare — is a World War II-era tax quirk. The Roosevelt administration had instituted wage and price controls to prevent profiteering. Excess profits were taxed at mind-bogglingly high rates. Wages were frozen so employers couldn’t offer raises. But the government decided to exempt health benefits from these rules. So corporations took their wartime profits and plowed them into health care benefits. In 1953, with the war over, the IRS tried to overturn the rule. Congress overruled the IRS.
And so here we are. If you walk out, on your own, and attempt to give your friendly neighborhood health insurer a dollar, you’re taxed on that dollar. If your employer gives the health insurer that dollar on your behalf, that dollar is not taxed. As a result, getting health insurance through your employer became — and remains — a much better deal than purchasing it with your wages.
Government price controls created employee provided healthcare and employee provided healthcare killed consumer oriented healthcare. Now we just have private insurance companies and government, all racing to shield the consumer from EVEN MORE cost reduction incentives.
Point well taken. I don’t disagree with anything you and Ezra Klein are saying here. It was just striking to me that Stossel never bothered to make the implicit argument you’re making.
Nixon’s “HMO Act” was also key. This created these huge HMO’s which were regarded as cheaper with the tax incentives and initial government subsidies. But the associated government mandates and the nature of third party payer have in fact caused costs to skyrocket as Stossel points out. It has totally eliminated the ability of the individual to acquire insurance and affect prices. It’s an absurd, non-free market system.
This is a critique from a “conservative” perspective? If by that you mean something totally unlike what a Republican would do then you’re right. But then Republicans aren’t conservative. Though they do talk that way sometimes, just like Obama talks as if he’s anti-war.
It’s an interesting report with a lot of stuff I agree with, but what I found most striking was that Stossel, who is famously Libertarian, was arguing against the free market system. Maybe I missed something, but I don’t think he ever even brought up government meddling in health care. Instead he focused on the muddling of prices caused by insurance companies - which is all true, but is entirely the fault of private enterprise.
Insurance companies exist because the invisible hand felt a demand, not because government mandated them.
Not true. Ezra Klein explains:
Government price controls created employee provided healthcare and employee provided healthcare killed consumer oriented healthcare. Now we just have private insurance companies and government, all racing to shield the consumer from EVEN MORE cost reduction incentives.
Point well taken. I don’t disagree with anything you and Ezra Klein are saying here. It was just striking to me that Stossel never bothered to make the implicit argument you’re making.
Nixon’s “HMO Act” was also key. This created these huge HMO’s which were regarded as cheaper with the tax incentives and initial government subsidies. But the associated government mandates and the nature of third party payer have in fact caused costs to skyrocket as Stossel points out. It has totally eliminated the ability of the individual to acquire insurance and affect prices. It’s an absurd, non-free market system.
This is a critique from a “conservative” perspective? If by that you mean something totally unlike what a Republican would do then you’re right. But then Republicans aren’t conservative. Though they do talk that way sometimes, just like Obama talks as if he’s anti-war.