Only as high as I reach can I grow,
only as far as I seek can I go,
only as deep as I look can I see,
only as much as I dream can I be.
Karen Ravn
Pro-Liberty Thought of the Day
"In time of peace there can, at all events, be no justification for the creation of a permanent debt by the Federal Government. Its limited range of constitutional duties may certainly under such circumstances be performed without such a resort." —Martin Van Buren
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Jailhouse Security Misconduct in Los Angeles County
Facebook Corner
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| Via LFC |
The "insurance market" is as relevant to health care today as the horse-and-buggy market is to modern transportation.
Never forget, the Individual Mandate was your idea: Thunk up by far-right think tanks, championed by far-right politicians under the excuses of "private markets are better" and "taking personal responsibility", and piloted (with surprising success) by "severely conservative" failed presidential candidate Romney.
OK-"progressive" economic illiteracy as usual. The Heritage Foundation was referring to a mandate for CATASTROPHIC INSURANCE as an alternative to nationalized health care--which is NOT insurance but prepaid health service bundles. Insurance involves shared risk for low-frequency events.
It's easy to debunk predictable "progressive" talking points. RomneyCare didn't deal with economically infeasible policies of guaranteed issue and community rating which Massachusetts passed in 1996--resulting among the highest health insurance rates in the country. What resulted in RomneyCare was the Bush Administration fear that Medicaid funding for providers was also partially funding "freeloaders" and threatened to cut off Medicaid funding. Romney basically took state funding pools and redistributed them as means-tested subsidies with a mandate. Also less than 10% of the population was uninsured when RomneyCare passed.
One of the things these politically spinning economic illiterates fail to point out is that the uninsured use a fraction of the health services (without significant differences in health outcomes). They also fail to realize that tax exemption treatment of employer health insurance effectively is a discount not available to those in the individual policy market. What you throw in nonessential, ordinary benefits (like birth control and routine health visits), it's a perversion of the healthcare industry.
I could go on at length with other idiocy by this "progressive" troll, but he doesn't have a clue about apples and oranges cost accounting in their disingenuous comparisons (government overhead is not factored in, government doesn't qualify providers, and government underinvests in fraud protection, among other things--but the fact is the administrative costs are lower for the private sector on a per-patient base). (If you're interested in more details, see Goodman and others.)
Why are we seeing sticker shock? Because next year the private insurers have to abide by the guaranteed issue insanity. What this really means is government is shifting costs from their books to insurers (and to customers). Why a mandate? No, troll: not for greedy insurers. It's because when you force insurers to accept high-cost patients at a loss from day one, the only way insurers can make up the difference is by the government giving them enough profitable new customers to make up for the money-losing policyholders. You can't force insurers to operate at a loss... They'll exit the market. Many states had a different concept: high risk pools, say partially subsidized by premium surcharges. Shoring up and/or establishing risk pools would have been a much more tolerable reform.
What trolls need to own up to is decades of failed health programs, routine massive budget deficits, rampant fraud, and tens of trillions in unfunded liabilities--and these clueless trolls have a bright idea--let's add another budget-busting entitlement. The megalomaniac progressive doesn't get the fact that healthcare costs are being driven by bad public policy--and they are getting worse.
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| Via LFC |
I believe that the judge did not rule for polygamy itself. Recall that DOMA was not the first federal law that dealt with marriage. The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act was passed under Lincoln, particularly pointed at Mormons in the Utah territory. Reynolds v. US involved a Mormon trying to overturn the law on First Amendment grounds but was unanimously upheld. What the judge in the recent Utah decision did was decriminalize plural household living arrangements--which is really what the plaintiffs were seeking
I find it paradoxical that libertarians want to constrain definition of marriage on the traditional state regulation (not to mention why gay libertarians would want to give states power over their relationships). In a free market of states, states could market themselves as "gay-friendly", etc. for those whom want the special legal status accorded nontraditional marriage recognition.
The Govt. doesn't pick who can marry. They just get to decide what contracts will have the force of law behind them. That is their job.
It's really not. 14th amendment guaranties equal protection under the law. This would mean contracts should be enforced equally no matter the gender, orientation, religion, race, etc.
Actually, equal protection refers to GOVERNMENT ACTIONS, not the private sector. But more important, it's not just government, but other institutions (family, religion, etc.) that support social values.
(Illinois Policy Institute). Illinois' recovery in manufacturing jobs is anemic compared to neighboring states. Illinois only recovered 11%, or 12,300, manufacturing jobs since the recession lows from 2009. Neighboring states such as Indiana and Iowa recovered nearly half of the manufacturing jobs they lost. And Michigan has recovered 63% of its lost manufacturing jobs. More here: http://illin.is/1h9kGzP
MI recovered a lot of car manufacturing jobs thanks to Obama's bailout of the car companies. If we had followed the GOP path of letting them go bankrupt the entire country would be buried in a massive depression.
It's sad economically illiterate "progressive" trolls pollute this group praising the corrupt, special-interest, crony-unionist Administration that lost over $10B in taxpayer money bailing out failed auto companies and violated the rule of law by stiffing bondholders to reward their cronies. (Actually they were bailing out the unions, whose contracts contributed to an unsustainable business model.) Auto demand wasn't going away; there were/are other American-based auto plants that were financially viable, and a pared-down GM vs. Government Motors would have emerged from bankruptcy earlier, more competitive, and without stealing taxpayer money.
Yes, Virginia, the airline industry did survive the fall of Eastern, Pan Am and TWA; the public accountants the demise of Arthur Andersen. But there is no Santa Obama.
(Milton Friedman group). "Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government." --Milton Friedman. Someone argues effectively who is left to protect the consumer from the abuses of government-run healthcare. Someone (obviously a Democrat and/or "progressive" troll) accuses the discussant of being a brainwashed FNC viewer, and we are off to the races. I comment at the end of one particularly long series of exchanges:
Interesting exchange. Both federal and state regulation of healthcare have contributed to problems. Of course, guaranteed issue and community rating are economically perverse policies that shift government costs onto insurers and hence policyholders. Tax-advantaged prepaid health benefits is not the same as insurance; for example, birth control and routine doctor visits are predictable, ordinary expenses. Moreover, there's a double standard because individual plans are paid with after-tax dollars. Conservatives for years have fought for things like cross-state pooling, self-insurance models like companies with multiple state operations, and using interstate commerce to do, for once, its lawful application in promoting a free market by letting any state-regulated insurer to operate across state lines.
I don't know enough of the Alabama market to explain Blue Cross' dominance; it could be Blue Cross' economies of scale and/or low margins or perhaps certain state regulations discourage competitors. But to argue that it's a "market failure" is economically illiterate; none of the states has a true "free market". And I do know for a fact that the myth of "more efficient" Medicare administration has been debunked; part of the myth is based on poor cost accounting ignoring government overhead. Medicare also has underfunded fraud detection, and Medicare patients tend to use more healthcare goods and services (without necessarily better health outcomes). Administration costs are lower for the private sector on a patient basis, and there's an abuse of statistics using percentages because Medicare covers more catastrophic cases. (See Goodman and others.)
(John Stossel). In 2013, our rulers added to the massive pile of rules that we must obey. My wish this Christmas is that reporters stop whining about the "least productive" and “do nothing” Congress, and instead, celebrate the fact that politicians NOT passing laws means more freedom for Santa, and for the rest of you. In case you missed it, #GoodBadUgly re-airs tonight at 10, this time on Fox News.
Not to mention a divided government has tempered growth in federal spending by The (Spendthrift) One the last 2 fiscal years
(The Independent Institute). Senior Fellow Benjamin Powell and Darren Hudson: "Pope Francis doesn't have any divine knowledge of how a market economy operates. This Christmas season he and other theologians should stick to what they know best - the Holy Scripture and moral exhortation. They should leave the economics to the economists."
No, as a Catholic libertarian, I know that this Pope is definitely one of the worst. His view of capitalism is perverted through his exposure to Argentina, which used to have one of the most robust economies until the populists ran the economy into the ground. Look at any economic freedom index; Argentina is one of the worst on the planet. Heritage classifies it as repressed, even below nations like China and Russia. Francis is, as I've stated elsewhere, "all miter and no sheep"; like Obama, his "leadership" is mostly symbolic, and he confuses trite sayings with substance. Unfortunately, when he combats the intellectual shallow bumper sticker strawman distortions of "trickle down", social darwinism, income inequality, etc., he's engaging in little more than derivative populist rhetoric. He ludicrously reduces capitalism to "greed". When the Pope writes on a topic on which he has no expertise, he undermines his own credibility. Powell correctly points out that Francis confuses means with ends. In capitalism, consumer's needs are first, and the poor are also consumers. Statist bureaucracies are a pale, ineffective, inefficient alternative to the dynamic free market.
How exactly does this article make a case for free market economics when in fact, no country has a truly free market?
This thread is polemical crap. It's like arguing that the slightest flaw in artistic technique disqualifies any work of art. Or there's no such thing as a good hitter when none has a lifetime average over .400. What we know is that the private sector generates goods and services without central planning--and does it faster, better and cheaper than the state; in fact, China has quadrupled median income by relaxing state control of the economy.
Political Cartoons
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| Courtesy of Gary Varvel via PatriotPost Re-gifted generation to regeneration... |
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| Courtesy of the original artist via the Independent Institute |
Musical Interlude: My iPod Shuffle Holiday Series
Gene Autry, "Here Comes Santa Claus"
