"We Can't Afford to Do Nothing"
I swear to God if I hear one more clueless liberal say this in terms of discussing Barack, Nancy, & Harry's Excellent Adventure; at last count, I saw nearly 3 million hits on this saying with respect to health care via Google search. I seriously want to require each national legislator to swear to a Founding Fathers' political version of the Hippocratic Oath: DO NO HARM!!! These progressives are economics-challenged, have never run a business, and have no idea what comes out of their Pandora's box of political malpractice.
I've written several posts on genuine health care reform, and there are a number of conservative or libertarian think tanks (Newt Gingrich's organizations, Heritage Foundation, CATO, etc.) whom identify more substantive policy approaches.
We need to understand what the real problems are. Part of the problem in small business coverage is that it takes only one sick individual with an expensive health care bill (e.g., cancer treatments) to more than offset the providers' slim profit margins for servicing other participants and their families. The question is not provider "greed" but provider risk. (Heaven forbid that progressives should remember the lesson of last year of what happens when an insurance company, say, AIG, fails to establish proper reserves and price risk into its products...) The following quote, although 5 years old, is relevant:
The top 1% of spenders in the U.S. population accounted for 27% of healthcare expenditures in 1996, previous research has shown...Health insurance could become more available and less expensive for people who experience catastrophic medical expenses if the federal government were to provide reinsurance policies that spread those costs across a larger population. Health insurers traditionally have purchased reinsurance policies from the private market to cover the costs for individuals with very high medical expenses.
Because the cost of insurance is often prohibitively expensive in the individual and small-group market, the federal government [should] consider providing reinsurance for cases in the top 3% of the expenditure distribution in the individual market and for businesses with fewer than 100 employees.
America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the Washington, D.C., trade group representing health insurers, endorsed the concept of a government-subsidized reinsurance program for qualifying state high-risk pools to cover 75% of claims higher than $1 million for an individual enrollee.
Let's point out some critical elements in that discussion. First, note that the wider scope of eligibility, the higher the costs to the federal government; the study authors pointed out "universal" catastrophic coverage could cost the federal government almost 5 times as much as a more focused plan to high-risk individuals and small groups. Second, states are struggling to maintain high-risk pools that make individual/small group insurance more affordable; the federal government already shares certain costs with states (e.g., Medicaid).
It only makes sense under limited financial constraints to point out you can leverage federal assistance more effectively in addressing existing state/regional mechanisms, like high-risk pools, which focus on those individuals and small groups which find it difficult to obtain affordable coverage.
And although I have issues with some state regulators (e.g., Massachusetts) which create huge, anti-competitive barriers to entry by socializing a number of expensive special-interest mandates, I'm much more concerned with a central federal regulatory empire constituting a single point of corruption. I believe, by principle, we should be working towards a local/state implementation, leveraging regional experience and expertise in the delivery of medical products and services.
The big lie that liberals hope will stick if they repeat it enough to gullible people is that conservatives are simply hypercritical and averse to change in the status quo. (I assure you that I hope for a change election next year...) I think we are simply more prudent about the nature, purpose and extent of the federal footprint and more wary about the effect of federal actions on individual liberty and core values (e.g., self-reliance, initiative, hard work, etc.) which are the foundation of our economy.
In my case, I'm a pro-business conservative--in particular, I'm strongly supportive of entrepreneurs and small businesses, and I realize they encounter challenges in obtaining competitively-priced benefits, key to recruiting and keeping talented people to grow the business. The government can take some of the risk out of the equation by spreading the risk fairly across 300 million Americans. That is a pro-competitive standpoint. A solution that imposes penalties or proportionately higher costs on small business, with limited financial resources, is anti-competitive.
More Bad Poll News for Dems
The latest WSJ/NBC News poll shows that Obama's popularity has dropped off more than either Clinton or Bush during the first year in office. For the first time, the poll shows Obama's approval numbers less than 50%, the Democrats losing their edge over Republicans in preferred Congressional leadership, and more people preferring nothing done on health care versus the Democrats' convoluted plan.
Political Cartoon. Steve Kelley has Santa Claus explain to Virginia that she won't be able to regift the Democrats' version of unwanted dried-out, nutty fruitcake which has been shelf for decades: health care "reform". Yes, Virginia, there is reality: she will be getting a bill to pay off Obama's contributions to the national debt each payday for the rest of her life. Santa Obama and his little elves Nancy and Harry have been in the workshop borrowing resources from future generations trying to cobble together a bill. Unfortunately, the instructions to designing reform require a basic understanding economics, so the bill is being assembled by seat of the pants.
Christmas Musical Interlude: Mannheim Steamroller's "Joy to the World"
Chip Davis, founder of Mannheim Steamroller, gives media conservative Rush Limbaugh a lot of credit for giving the group a key big break in terms of exposure to a wide audience. In fact, in the early 90's when I lived in Irving, Texas, I watched Rush's half-hour syndicated television show. (I never knew whom Rush was until I was working as an IBM subcontractor in Irving; one of my male co-workers was listening through earphones and occasionally would break out laughing. (On my part, I was listening on the last day of an adult contemporary station before a musical format change, and the DJ's were protesting by putting the Eagles' "Hotel California" on auto-repeat. The song begins to lose its charm after the first dozen consecutive times you hear it; I was actually pining for a commercial break...) My colleague was more of a pro-abortion choice libertarian whom did not share Rush's opinion on a number of issues; I asked him why he listened to Rush, and he simply replied that he thought Rush was very entertaining. I noticed that Rush had a syndicated TV program and started to watch it, and Rush had his moments: I recall at the time Rush had a book on the NY Times bestseller list and pop music diva Madonna had just released a book reportedly containing nude pictures of herself. Rush would make some amusing comment about being on top of Madonna.)
So when Rush introduced Mannheim Steamroller music, I was intrigued: Chip Davis and company put an inventive, brassy spin on traditional Christmas song instrumentals, and I bought copies of their first few albums. I guess my enthusiasm for Mannheim Steamroller became so well known to my family I started getting new Mannheim Steamroller CD's and collections as gifts. Their version of "Joy to the World", one of my favorite Christmas carols, is a classic introduction to their material.
