You can't choose the ways in which you'll be tested.
Robert J. Sawyer
Image of the Day
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| HT Bea Gartner |
I remember, after spending most of my teen and early adult years in no-state-income-tax Texas, the shock of paying 7% state tax in Wisconsin for my first faculty appointment, and I wasn't making that much at the time (certainly more than my stipend as a teaching fellow in Houston). I brought it up at some university cocktail party event, and the middle-aged woman seemed to be perplexed by my observation. She quickly pointed out maintaining the "wonderful" park system takes a lot of resources. While she mentioned that, I kept to myself Texas' parks where I camped at as a Boy Scout, but I never made it to one of those Wisconsin parks (I was too busy working as an untenured professor).
Hall of Shame: Crony Unionists Fight Competitive Distribution and Sale of Alcohol With Manipulative Ads
HT: Reason. I have to differ from the author, whom writes "Residents of most states take for granted the ability to buy beer and wine at the grocery store. That has been possible in every state where I've lived, with the exception of the one where I was born: Pennsylvania." Technically, depending on the state or locale, that may be true given where he's lived. But when I lived in Irving, TX and in the Baltimore suburbs, you couldn't buy beer in supermarkets and when I interviewed for an Ohio faculty position years back, you could only purchase in state-designated locations. Let me be clear here: driving while intoxicated is morally unacceptable and a crime against victims and/or property owners. (E.g., my folks sustained damage to their house when a driver drove into it several years back.) However, all the drivers I know drink reponsibly. All this legally sanctioned cartel does is discriminate against responsible purchasers.
Some Additional Comments on ObamaCare
It's not so much that I'm a healthcare guru, but I do think I've got a good grasp of the core issues, and I believe my writing style is much more readable than even many of the gurus in the area. I know the talking points of each side in the debate. I've got a good conceptual overview of the issues; I do find myself frustrated in forums like social media because many people seem to never go beyond talking points, never question their assumptions.
I think my approach to the issue is different from most others. For example, I have several "is the emperor wearing clothes?" moments in the rationale of RomneyCare as the model for ObamaCare. Is Massachusetts typical of US states? It seems unlikely because healthcare policies cost much more in Massachusetts than most other states... But then the "progressives" claim that they can bend the cost curve. But why haven't they bent the cost curve in Massachusetts? And what is the federal government track record on bending the cost curve? And why is Massachusetts' insurance so expensive compared to say, Utah? Is it that people in Utah are so much healthier than those in Massachusetts? If we really wanted to have a model for the US as a whole, wouldn't we rather emulate whatever Utah is doing right?
And how did health insurance come to cover minor costs, unlike say mandated bodily injury/property damage coverage for auto policies? And what was the case before health insurance covered 85% of households, before the introduction of Medicare? Was there an epidemic of senior citizens dropping dead because doctors and hospitals refused to see them? (For an interesting retrospective, see here; it seems that just over half of elderly had private-sector healthcare at the time Medicare was adopted. The cited piece has a decidedly pro-Medicare perspective from a qualitative standpoint that it is popular with seniors, many of whom have better access to quality healthcare goods and services, although it admits that the program is unsustainable in its current form.)
I think even in my more socially liberal salad days, I was always fiscally conservative and distrustful in adding another layer of bureaucracy; to the extent of any relevant government programs, I believed in the principle of Subsidiarity, or more decentralized administration.
There are a couple of talking points I want to address, from either side of the partisan divide:
- the debate is "over"; ObamaCare is here to stay; the opposition is playing politics. The idea that because some Americans, under penalty of law, signed up is hardly an accomplishment. That some people who signed up are eligible for deeply subsidized insurance is also predictable. But Obama, with his partisan transparent move to allow some plans defer coming under high-cost ObamaCare mandates, has undermined the business model. That means that younger, healthier policyholders will be paying closer to their own risks, vs. contributing to a cross-subsidization of the higher risk pool. This means that the subsidy offset will be in the form of higher premiums for current policeholders and/or unplanned government subsidies. I suspect that many younger, healthier people will opt out of expensive coverage for a much more modest penalty--which won't offset the higher margins on mandated premiums. I also suspect households under tight budget constraints may drop their converages. Plus, I think we'll see what has been the pattern in early government health programs--it will blow way past budget, typically underestimated costs and overestimated revenues. But we haven't even seen what happens if and when unpopular cost-containment measures are implemented, when government fails to accomplish the unrealistic promises to bend the cost curve, if and when the past dozen years of huge deficits come to a day of reckoning... And we are already in the beginning of the Baby Boomer Retirement Tsunami, where senior entitlements will result in sharply higher taxes and/or crowd out other federal expenditures. To his utter shame, this President has not in his first six years reduced so much as a dime the estimated $80-210T unfunded senior liabilities; just paying a reasonable interest rate on that amount would dominate most federal expenditures.
- "Repeal & Replace". It's not just a principled, ideological stand for me--I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that government has hosed the healthcare market with its interventions, and I believe in the compelling economics of a free, dynamic market--freed from delays in drug approval, occupational licensing, morally hazardous tax and benefit policies, paperwork and bureaucratical inertia, economically-illiterate price controls, etc. The "popular" feature is guaranteeing coverage of catastrophic conditions. I heard a female AAPS representative on the Tom Woods podcast gripe about GOP "repeal & replace" as (I'll rephrase) a Big Government Lite alternative to the clearly unacceptable ObamaCare nightmare. I have not reviewed the plan under discussion I believe in the Senate, but, short of a free market which I'm not sure will exist absent some financial crisis, what I would like to see is groups being able to form across state lines, the ability of groups, like some corporations, to self-insure, any state-regulated insurer being able to market across state lines, allow medical personnel to transport credentials across state lines, accelerated immigration for health service professionals, scientists, and entrepreneurs... I would like to see more focus on shoring up/expanding state/regional risk pools, if necessary reinsuring catastrophic plans, caps on any tax expenditures/subsidies, vesting consumers in healthcare expenditures, particularly ordinary expenses, more application of the principle of Subsidiarity...
(IPI). With everyone arguing about the minimum wage, taxes and pension reforms, many people may not realize the most important battle Illinois’ next governor will face: negotiating the state’s largest government union contract.
Its not the people that work that are the problem! Thieves in springfield ,illegal aliens alone cost this state about $4 billion a yr. ! And all the freebies to non workers...the list goes on but you cant blame workin folks!!
Crony unionist nonsense. 'Working public employees' is an oxymoron.
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| Via Aurelio Arredondo |
(IPI). In an effort to strong arm legislators, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White threatened that armed security at Illinois’ Capitol building would need to be completely removed if the 2011 temporary tax hikes were rolled back.
How many times have we heard the same old same old song and dance from profligate "progressives"? You never hear them say "we're going to trim criteria for government programs" or lay off high-costing government employees and administrators or reduce government subsidies or close down redundant government facilities or 1001 other common sense budget cuts. No, they always try to play populist politics, targeting what they figure to be the most unpopular spending cuts, like lay off your kids' first grade teacher, release violent prisoners, etc. Been there, done that. Fear-mongering as usual. Isn't it time Illinois retired this demagogue?
(Drudge Report). 28-Year-Old Medical Student Auctions Off Her Virginity...
Haven't we've seen this before? Think "Indecent Proposal" where a million dollars was offered to sleep with someone's wife--not a virgin. It looks like the value of everything has gone down, not counting the Fed's reduction of the purchasing power of the dollar over the last 20 years.
(Reason). Pennsylvanians Can't Buy Beer and Wine at the Grocery Store Because 'It Only Takes a Little Bit of Greed to Kill a Child'. See Hall of Shame above.
they're partially responsible bcuz their methods didn't prevent an externality of their business practice. so we need to continually push for improvements to the methods. pennsylvania needs to keep it the lowest in the nation and make it even lower to continue to set an example
How I despise "progressive" trolls citing Pigou to rationalize Statist intervention.... There are critiques, e.g., valuation and conceptual from Austrian School economics, dealing with this externality nonsense.
(Reason). How much does your state suck?
Uhhh WHAT? Which MA do you live in, certainly not the same one with higher everything, hospitals and nursing homes closing, those remaining open having to merge with larger hospitals to stay viable, looong wait times for appts., need I go on? (This is followed up by defensive "progressives" arguing about the alleged high quality/satisfaction with Massachusetts' healthcare, education, etc.)
Taxachusetts also leads with some of the highest, if not the highest, healthcare costs in the country. No wonder the Tax-and-Spendocrats used it as the basis for the Unaffordable Care Act.
(In response to a pro-MA troll:)
My parents couldn't get out of the hellhole of Massachusetts fast enough. By a CNBC state comparison, MA rated among the lowest 10 for infrastructue, cost of doing business, and cost of living. In another comparison of recent GDP growth (Bloomberg), it registered less than half of the increase of either North Dakota or Texas. It ranks #30 in Mercatus personal and economic liberty rankings. It ranks in the bottom 10 of the Cost of Government Center rankings. It recently ranked #29 in unemployment rate. It recently had the highest debt per capita in the country and pays well above the average welfare amount. Am I being specific enough for the Massachusetts troll?
Ahh...this is Romney, republican, about our best education system. http://www.politifact.com/.../mitt-romney-said.../ I wonder what's more important than public education and health in the mind of tax payers.
Romney blew an election to one of the worst Presidents in American history. I think he did the best he could given one of the worst state legislatures in the country, but he is no principled pro-liberty conservative. The idea that the government should intervene in the education and healthcare market is an intellectually vapid deceit.
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| Via LFC |
(Cato Institute). "The U.S.-South Korea military alliance once made sense. No longer. American policy will not have really succeeded until the ROK ends its embarrassing security dependence on Washington."
The US bankrolling our European and Asian allies' militaries made sense when we were an export-driven economy. By paying for their defense we allowed them to focus on recovery, and in return they provided a market for our consumer products. The situation is totally reversed now; we import half again as much from Korea as we export to them, and twice as much from Japan as we export there. Subsidizing that situation makes no sense at all.
No! Stop blaming trade--as Basiat observed, "if goods don't cross borders, armies will." We need to focus on what is in the best interest of the consumer. An attitude that Europeans or Asians needed American dominance to settle their own regional conflicts is both patronizing and morally hazardous, plus provides a heightened, undue risk of military intervention given emboldened allied leadership's decisions.
Saying that South Korea was not in our sphere of interest is what triggered the last invasion. Head in the sand, isolationist foreign policy is one of the reason libertarians can't win elections.
No, we have spent the last dozen years nation-building first under a President whom criticized his predecessor for doing the same thing. We are all but insolvent and cannot afford to be the world's policeman; we have about 3% of the world's population and less than one-quarter global GDP. The last thing we need is neo-con macho rhetoric nonsense.
Marriage and Family
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Steve Breen via Townhall |
Neil Diamond (with Buffy Lawson), "Marry Me"
Protest Song on Benghazi
HT TPNN. This seems to be a revamped variation of a famous CSN song, "Ohio", during the Vietnam protest era.
