Bipartisanship We Can Believe In

Unlike what we are seeing going on with the current healthcare debate, Judd Gregg (R-NH) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) prove that bipartisanship can be alive and well and can lead to the development of good solutions to some of our most pressing problems.

Norms, Rules, and Morality

Megan McArdle has a very interesting blog post (http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/personal_finance_1.php) where she discusses the importance of norms for the functioning of the economy.

She correctly points out that the health of the economy, particularly as it pertains to credit, borrowing, and financial markets, relies at least as heavily on societal norms as it does on actual laws. For instance, many individuals currently own houses that are worth less than the mortgages that they took out. For a good portion of these individuals, they probably could benefit financially from simply walking away from their mortgage. Indeed, some people act on this very fact, and yet most of people in this situation still attempt to make their payments as long as they can afford to do so. This is because it is a societal norm in America that when you take out a mortgage, you are expected to try your best to make the payments. If this norm were to disappear, then no matter what laws we might pass, we could expect credit to dry up for many people and mortgages to become much more difficult to obtain.

There are many other norms that help the economy function, and many of them have no real absolute moral underpinning (though there are definite exceptions, in my opinion). Instead, they have simply become accepted by our culture due to various reasons, and as such we become outraged when they are violated. It will be interesting to see how these norms evolve over time, particularly as a result of the economic upheaval that we are currently going through.

For a much more thorough and engaging discussion, you should check out Megan's post.

The Virtuous and the Greedy

This is a paradigm that has polarized our country and led to bad thinking. It’s holding the nation’s progress back. It’s as if there were a wall. And on one side of the wall is this belief that not-for-profits and government exist for public service, and that they’re fundamentally altruistic, that they have a deeper purpose, and they’re doing good in the world, and they have pure motives. On the other side of the wall are corporations. And they’re just selfish and greedy. They have no purpose other than to make money. They’re a bunch of psychopaths. And I’d like to tear that wall down. Human beings are obviously self-interested. We do look after ourselves, but we’re capable of love, empathy, and compassion, and I don’t see that business is any different.”

- John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/04/100104fa_fact_paumgarten?currentPage=7#ixzz0bkYL3TkJ

I have no problems with not-for-profit organizations, but I can guarantee you that if we were to replace all of our grocery stores, health care providers, educational institutions, home developers, etc. with not-for-profits, we would live in a far less prosperous country.

From Pro-Choice to Pro-Life

The following is a powerful video:

An Unfortunate Culture of Entitlement

...as explained by the London Times here.

The Wisdom of Teddy Roosevelt

"I really do not know which quality is most productive of evil to mankind in the long run, hardness of heart or softness of head." He stated that the Bible tells each of us "to stretch out his hand to a brother who stumbles. But while every man needs at times to be lifted up when he stumbles, no man can afford to let himself be carried, and it is worth no man's while to try thus to carry someone else."

Governmental aid to those in need, TR emphasized, should be limited and "extended very cautiously, and so far as possible only where it will not crush out healthy individual initiative." He saw entrepreneurship as the most effective means of dealing with problems and argued that "socialists and others really do not correct the evils at all, or else only do so at the expense of producing others in aggravated form."

Roosevelt saw governmental redistribution of wealth as a surrender to covetousness. He argued that anyone elected on such a platform "is not, and never can be, aught but an enemy of the very people he professes to befriend. . . . To break the Tenth Commandment is no more moral now than it has been for the past thirty centuries."

In short, TR opposed both private and governmental corruption. He straightforwardly noted that "the Eighth Commandment reads: 'Thou shalt not steal.' It does not read: 'Thou shalt not steal from the rich man.' It does not read: 'Thou shalt not steal from the poor man.' It reads simply and plainly: 'Thou shalt not steal.'"

A Bizarre Argument

In this article, the author makes the bizarre argument that even though the USPS is generally inferior to UPS or Fedex, and even though Amtrak is a travesty of a rail company, they would make good models for federally provided health care. The argument essentially boils down to this: the USPS may not be all that good, but no other private company does what it does, so the USPS is better than nothing. What's the problem with this argument? Private companies are forbidden by law from competing with the post office when it comes to basic mail delivery.

If anything, this article makes a great case for why the government should not be directly involved in the actual provision of health care. Nobody doubts that people would rather have basic health care than none at all. A sensible person might conclude from these ideas then that the government should provide financial support to people to ensure that they have basic health care, rather than provide the care itself.

One other note: health insurance is far different from the actual provision of health care. Health insurance can only be cheap if the actual health care is cheap. The only way government insurance can be cheap is if it drastically underpays doctors and hospitals (which would lead to many shortages and other problems), or if the government directly runs the hospitals. Anyone excited about heading to the public hospital?

The Insurance Industry

I am all for reforming the health care system, but using the insurance industry as villains is simple-minded and not particularly convincing. Sure enough, every day there are stories about an insurance company rescinding its contract with a patient after they discover that there was an unannounced (and possibly previously unknown) pre-existing condition. We hear about denials of treatment, and worse. Undoubtedly, one of the goals of any health care reform effort should be to get rid of some of these practices.

Nevertheless, the story that the big hungry profit-seeking insurance companies are to blame for rising premiums and mass deaths and bankruptcies is false. For one, the average profit-margin in the insurance industry is... 3.9%. Read here for more. That is far less than the profit margin in most US industries. Also, don't forget that Blue Cross and Kaiser are two large, nonprofit insurance companies.

The fact of the matter is that health insurance costs in the US are high and rising quickly because health care costs are high and rising quickly, not because insurance is in and of itself so expensive.

Get Out Your Nietzschean Hammer

...and pummel your emotional commitments to your ideology. The following article talks about how we tend to work backward from a firm conclusion to come up with a supporting argument. (You're supposed to do it the other way around.)

Read here.

Of Shouts and Lies

Read this for a good take on all the distortions and bad tactics (from both sides) in the healthcare reform debate.

What's at Stake: Your Freedom

In this article, Mark Steyn discusses why the healthcare debate, and the prospect of reform, is about much more than just "controlling costs" or "expanding coverage." It is about the fundamental right of people to have personal control over their medical expenditures, or in other words, the fundamental right to have personal control over the care of your body.

Three Good Healthcare Articles

"Why We Must Ration Health Care" -- no, I am most definitely not suggesting that we should let the government take over health care and tell us what treatments we can receive. However, this article does make a good point-- there must be some limitation to what the public purse is going to spend on health care. A line has to be drawn somewhere.

"Budget Analyst Assails Cost of Congress' Health-Care Proposals" -- This should come as no surprise. The House bill does little more than increase the federal government's responsibility to provide health insurance to everybody, at the sole expense of higher income people. Aside from the repugnant redistributionism of the bill, it in no way changes the incentives of healthcare consumers or providers.

"Massachusetts Takes Big Step Away from Fee for Service" -- An excerpt: "A commission recommended this afternoon that the state turn away from the traditional "fee for service" model of paying for health care -- piecemeal payments for each procedure delivered. Instead, the commission said, the state should shift toward a system under which health-care providers would receive a sum to care for a given person or family, thereby providing an incentive to deliver care in a cost-effective way."

Sound anything like my "health membership" idea that I mentioned in a previous post?

Shared Sacrifice for Reform

Today's Los Angeles Times has a piece here describing their take on the healthcare reform efforts going on in DC right now. Focusing on the financing of any reform, I completely agree with the Times that it should be funded by some sort of broad-based tax rather than a narrow tax aimed directly and solely at "the rich."

A healthy democracy is one in which everybody contributes to financing the expenditures of the government, rather than one in which certain subsets of people can vote for themselves more and more generous benefits at the expense of others. Beyond that, I won't even get into all the negative economic impacts of increasing the top marginal rates for people beyond 50%.

Fannie-Mae Healthcare?

This article examines the logic behind instituting a public plan, and some of the drawbacks to doing so.

Even Obama Agrees

WASHINGTON (CNN) – President Barack Obama said Tuesday that there is a "legitimate concern" about the ability of private insurers to compete with a public plan "if the public plan is simply eating (from) the taxpayer trough."

If that's the case, it'd be tough for private insurers to compete, Obama said. If, on the other hand, the "public plan must collect premiums and provide (good) services" like private insurers, then private insurers should have no problem competing with a public option.

Obama said he was hopeful that an efficiently-run public plan could help push private insurers to make similar cost-cutting moves.

The president made his remarks during a news conference at the White House.