Wednesday's other Wall Street Journal editorial about healthcare, in addition to this one about California's fiscal dilemma with its plan, was one concerning the general nature of universal healthcare plans in other nations.
Essentially, wrote Merrill Matthews, director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, and a resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation, the typical experience in other countries is for federal-level governmental management of healthcare to shrink allocations to medical spending, thus 'saving' money, while reducing the availability and quality of healthcare.
Among the evidence cited, Matthews notes that countries such as Canada and France spend 8-10% of GNP, rather than the nearly 16% in the US on healthcare, because such spending becomes a function of political, not consumer demand.
He notes that Federal payments for Medicare have gone down, not up, over time. Currently, Congress is dangling an increase in front of the medical sector, but only if they will back the SCHIP program, which is a back door way of getting Hillary-care operational, beginning with children.
With the government becoming the only payer, rather than one comprising merely a portion of the healthcare market, supply of healthcare will become a function of Congressional budgetary action.
To those of you who don't have an economics background, this means, by definition, healthcare rationing. Because budgetary supply for healthcare will have no obvious relationship to real consumer demand.
Welcome to the world in which your actual health needs will have no impact on the availability of supply of the proper medical services to heal you.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
California's Universal Healthcare Debacle
Wednesday's Wall Street Journal carried two articles on the editorial page regarding universal healthcare.
The lead editorial described the failure of California's legislature to fund and pass Governor Schwarzenegger's universal healthcare plan. After all the misrepresentations and half-truths are peeled back, even the liberal Democratic California legislature won't risk passing it.
Between the "guaranteed issue" provision requiring insurers to cover everyone, and the mandatory enrollment, a 3.5% payroll tax, a $3.7B annual subsidy from the Federal government, and taxes of 2% and 4% on doctors and hospitals, respectively, the plan taxes and raises enormous amounts of money to solve what is estimated by what Stanford researchers estimate to be an uncovered cost of medical care in the state amounting to only 2.8% of the medical premiums in the state in 2000.
Essentially, Schwarzenegger's grand scheme is already collapsing under its own fiscal weight. Much like those of Illinois, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Pennsylvania before it.
It would be comforting to think that, having observed these large state laboratories struggle, and fail, to find a formula to make universal healthcare work, the Democrats' drive to install it at the Federal level would end. But, that's probably too optimistic in this election cycle, when even a Republican, Mitt Romney, mistakenly backed a similar program while governor of Massachusetts.
The lead editorial described the failure of California's legislature to fund and pass Governor Schwarzenegger's universal healthcare plan. After all the misrepresentations and half-truths are peeled back, even the liberal Democratic California legislature won't risk passing it.
Between the "guaranteed issue" provision requiring insurers to cover everyone, and the mandatory enrollment, a 3.5% payroll tax, a $3.7B annual subsidy from the Federal government, and taxes of 2% and 4% on doctors and hospitals, respectively, the plan taxes and raises enormous amounts of money to solve what is estimated by what Stanford researchers estimate to be an uncovered cost of medical care in the state amounting to only 2.8% of the medical premiums in the state in 2000.
Essentially, Schwarzenegger's grand scheme is already collapsing under its own fiscal weight. Much like those of Illinois, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Pennsylvania before it.
It would be comforting to think that, having observed these large state laboratories struggle, and fail, to find a formula to make universal healthcare work, the Democrats' drive to install it at the Federal level would end. But, that's probably too optimistic in this election cycle, when even a Republican, Mitt Romney, mistakenly backed a similar program while governor of Massachusetts.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Democratic Presidential Candidates Meet The Gays
I caught a few moments of videotape on O'Reilly last week of the Democratic Presidential candidates' 'debate' with gays.
Of course, the real center of attention is one-time popular singer Melissa Etheridge. I believe she's the woman who was the partner, for a short time, of actress Anne Hecht, the latter whom, after conceiving the 'couple's' child, eventually decided she wasn't gay after all.
I suppose it's of some value for gay people to have Presidential candidates dote on them, and their issues, as if they are life-or-death, and material to the Republic at large. And having someone like Etheridge, who can garner publicity, can't hurt, either.
However, one comment I heard from a guest on O'Reilly's program, a gay woman, actually struck a very responsive chord with me. She intoned that, frankly, she didn't really want all that much governmental involvement in being gay, because what she wanted was to just be allowed to live as she chose.
My God! You could confuse that woman for a libertarian!
And this is sort of what mystifies me about liberal Democrats and their ceaseless, shameless pandering.
First, don't they think other Americans realize that they are watching the Presidency being shopped and sold, one victimized group's votes after another?
Second, these groups may want to be careful about for what they wish. Too much 'attention' from Washington might result in what they appear to request, but not what they actually want.
Third, just because modern communications media allows one to endlessly segment groups, identify their members, and reach them, does that necessarily mean it's a good idea to campaign and debate for them, exclusively? Isn't that reinforcing the balkanization of American society which seems to retard or prevent simpler, more even-handed solutions to various social issues?
I think I'd be okay without seeing various special-interest group-oriented campaign 'debates' among Presidential candidates of either party. Instead, I'd appreciate more insightful, meaningful questions from real people, and the removal of so many biased and posturing media personalities as the moderators of these frequent travesties.
Of course, the real center of attention is one-time popular singer Melissa Etheridge. I believe she's the woman who was the partner, for a short time, of actress Anne Hecht, the latter whom, after conceiving the 'couple's' child, eventually decided she wasn't gay after all.
I suppose it's of some value for gay people to have Presidential candidates dote on them, and their issues, as if they are life-or-death, and material to the Republic at large. And having someone like Etheridge, who can garner publicity, can't hurt, either.
However, one comment I heard from a guest on O'Reilly's program, a gay woman, actually struck a very responsive chord with me. She intoned that, frankly, she didn't really want all that much governmental involvement in being gay, because what she wanted was to just be allowed to live as she chose.
My God! You could confuse that woman for a libertarian!
And this is sort of what mystifies me about liberal Democrats and their ceaseless, shameless pandering.
First, don't they think other Americans realize that they are watching the Presidency being shopped and sold, one victimized group's votes after another?
Second, these groups may want to be careful about for what they wish. Too much 'attention' from Washington might result in what they appear to request, but not what they actually want.
Third, just because modern communications media allows one to endlessly segment groups, identify their members, and reach them, does that necessarily mean it's a good idea to campaign and debate for them, exclusively? Isn't that reinforcing the balkanization of American society which seems to retard or prevent simpler, more even-handed solutions to various social issues?
I think I'd be okay without seeing various special-interest group-oriented campaign 'debates' among Presidential candidates of either party. Instead, I'd appreciate more insightful, meaningful questions from real people, and the removal of so many biased and posturing media personalities as the moderators of these frequent travesties.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Ron Paul's Difficulties Understanding Financial Markets
I saw a very scary interview on Friday. Larry Kudlow Had Ron Paul on for a few minutes, after Friday's turbulent equity market performance.
First, I must confess, I don't know all that much about Ron Paul, and I'm not too sure I want to know more. Despite several veteran financial market commentators agreeing that Bernanke & Co. at the Fed had cleverly engineered a way to provide liquidity to the US equity markets without either lowering rates or using the discount window, Paul insisted that it had bailed out wealthy financiers and their companies.
No amount of explanation that the Fed had simply extended credit on securities pledged to it by various securities firms, a sort of repo swap, would convince Paul that Friday's actions by the Fed were not a bail out.
For me, this kind of lack of intelligence and perspective is awfully scary in a Presidential candidate.
It's the same sort of ineptitude and ignorance that led John McCain to believe he did something good with his co-authored campaign finance 'reform' bill some years ago. The thing's an abomination, and, as with all campaign finance 'reform,' created more problems than it solved. If it solved any. And then it impinged on First Amendment free speech rights in the bargain.
Nice going, John. Maybe stick to being a retired naval aviator?
But, back to Ron Paul. Beyond misunderstanding how providing liquidity through repo loans for the short term is not the same as simply bailing out a financial firm, he then went on to demand that such a 'bail out' should only go forward if homeowners were similarly bailed out.
This is too much for me. Not only is Paul economically illiterate, but he then behaves like a liberal Democrat, demanding that relief be ladled out for everyone.
I was unimpressed by Mr. Paul's interview with Kudlow. Yet another reason to favor a really long Presidential campaign season....
First, I must confess, I don't know all that much about Ron Paul, and I'm not too sure I want to know more. Despite several veteran financial market commentators agreeing that Bernanke & Co. at the Fed had cleverly engineered a way to provide liquidity to the US equity markets without either lowering rates or using the discount window, Paul insisted that it had bailed out wealthy financiers and their companies.
No amount of explanation that the Fed had simply extended credit on securities pledged to it by various securities firms, a sort of repo swap, would convince Paul that Friday's actions by the Fed were not a bail out.
For me, this kind of lack of intelligence and perspective is awfully scary in a Presidential candidate.
It's the same sort of ineptitude and ignorance that led John McCain to believe he did something good with his co-authored campaign finance 'reform' bill some years ago. The thing's an abomination, and, as with all campaign finance 'reform,' created more problems than it solved. If it solved any. And then it impinged on First Amendment free speech rights in the bargain.
Nice going, John. Maybe stick to being a retired naval aviator?
But, back to Ron Paul. Beyond misunderstanding how providing liquidity through repo loans for the short term is not the same as simply bailing out a financial firm, he then went on to demand that such a 'bail out' should only go forward if homeowners were similarly bailed out.
This is too much for me. Not only is Paul economically illiterate, but he then behaves like a liberal Democrat, demanding that relief be ladled out for everyone.
I was unimpressed by Mr. Paul's interview with Kudlow. Yet another reason to favor a really long Presidential campaign season....
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