Archive for the 'HealthCare' Category

Mar10th2010

British HealthCare Rationing

One of the strongest argument against single payer is that government rationing is the worst kind. The British healthcare system is an example:
DAMNING reports on the state of the National Health Service, suppressed by the government, reveal how patients’ needs have been neglected.
They diagnose a blind pursuit of political and managerial targets as […]

Mar4th2010

Quote Of The Day

“I spent the morning writing about the Bush administration’s failure to anticipate the long-term costs of the Iraq occupation, which have reached $1 trillion and counting over the last eight years. With health care reform, there are no such illusions: We have good-faith estimates, sometimes downplayed but never hidden or dismissed, of how much this […]

Mar2nd2010

Price Controls And ObamaCare

The strongest argument against universal and single-payer healthcare, IMO, is the argument that they inevitably lead to price controls. And as any student of economics knows, price controls are detrimental to many things we like about healthcare. Things like technological innovation, pharmaceutical innovation, and quick access are all harmed when price controls are implemented.
Advocates of […]

Feb17th2010

Quote Of The Day

“If you did a simple cost-benefit comparison, the Obama plan vs. a simple extension of Medicaid, more R&D through the NIH, and some targeted public health expenditures, I believe the latter would win hands down.  And the latter seems more politically feasible too.  It avoids the mandate, the unworkable and ridiculously low penalties for those who don’t […]

Feb11th2010

Republican HealthCare Points

Economist Arnold Kling gives what should be the Republican healthcare points in their upcoming healthcare summit with Obama:
1. All Medicare savings must be used to shore up Medicare. None of those savings can be used to fund new insurance subsidies or entitlements. Medicare is unsustainable, and it is going to need every dollar that we […]

Feb8th2010

Quote Of The Day

“Apparently, the administration has issued rules requiring parity for mental health treatment with other illnesses.  They’ll take effect July 1st.  If you want to know why health insurance costs keep marching upward seemingly uncontrolled, this is why:  mandating new benefits is always popular, and the government doesn’t have to pay for them.” — Megan McArdle

Jan22nd2010

Quote Of The Day

“It’s really hard to get rid of bad legislation. Most people (almost everybody?) think ethanol subsidies are a loser except for the people who get rich from them directly, Archer Daniels Midland and maybe some others. But do we fix it? We don’t. That’s the way the system works. There’s a lot of inertia. It’s […]

Nov24th2009

Quote Of The Day

“In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care’s […]

Nov21st2009

Quote Of The Day

“I think it’s pretty clear at this point that no bill from our Congress is going to meaningfully “bend the cost curve”.  Every time I argue that cost control seems unlikely, I hear that no, the Senate bill is going to make some serious inroads into delivery system reform.  Well, according to the CBO, the […]

Nov17th2009

Quote Of The Day

“What is frustrating to me is that many people would agree that the Massachusetts health experiment failed, and yet that is the experiment that is being used as the model for the current bill. The original promise in Massachusetts was that by eliminating the “free-riding” of the uninsured and by setting up an efficient government […]

Nov6th2009

Dont Copy Europes Healthcare

So says a European:
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Nov5th2009

A Healthcare Plan I Could Support

If Republicans were being responsible Republicans, this is the alternative they would argue for:
Here’s a better alternative. Let’s scrap the $220 billion annual health insurance tax subsidy, which is often used to buy the wrong kind of insurance, and use those budget dollars to provide insurance that protects American families from health costs that exceed […]

Nov4th2009

High Healthcare Spending Is Better Than Government Rationing

Harvard economist Martin Feldstein makes the case that high healthcare spending is better than government rationing:
The best solution to this problem of private overconsumption of health services would be to eliminate the tax rule that is causing the excessive insurance and the resulting rise in health spending. Alternatively, Congress could strengthen the incentives in the […]

Oct29th2009

The Public Option Or A Public Option

Arnold Kling asks a good question:
Just once, I would like to see someone making this argument collect data on how where insurance company overhead comes from. I suspect that very little of it comes from designing means for selecting customers in the individual market. Instead, I suspect that a lot of overhead is associated with […]

Oct21st2009

Quote Of The Day

“Earlier in the day, I’d been talking to MIT economist Jon Gruber about this issue. “There are a few things economists believe in our souls so strongly that we have a hard time actually explaining them,” he said. “One is that free trade is good and another is that health-care costs come out of wages.” […]

Oct13th2009

The Part Of ObamaCare You Wont Hear Obama Talking About

Kevin Hassett of AEI reports:
The report projected that the excise tax would raise about $52 billion in 2019. Of that, about $8.9 billion would come from taxpayers with incomes of less than $50,000; about $19.4 billion from taxpayers with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000; and about $17.4 billion from taxpayers with incomes between $100,000 and […]