Radioactive Communist Zombies

Romney's Box

Today's the Florida primary and if the polls are accurate, Mitt Romney is going to win it which could pretty much seal the deal on him winning the nomination.  And if he's our nominee, I'll support him as best I can against Barack Obama.

But here's where I see Romney has a huge problem going up against Obama: Romneycare. Romney won't (probably upon advice of his handlers) disavow Romneycare, the health care system he signed into law in Massachusetts when he was governor there.  It became the model for Obamacare, right down to the (unconstitutional) individual mandate to buy health insurance.

Since Obamacare is Romneycare writ large, all Romeny can say (and has said) is you can do at the state level what you can't do at the federal level.  All Obama has to say to defeat Romney in a debate is "why?"  Why if it's okay or even good for the citizens of Massachusetts isn't it okay or good for the whole country.  And to that I've yet to hear Romney give a coherent answer.  Because he can't.  If it's wrong for the federal government to do it, it is wrong for a state government to do it.  (Yes, I know that's not true on all matters, i.e., states should setand enforce speed limits  but not the federal government).

One of the biggest problems Obama faces is the unpopularity of Obamacare.  And Romney won't be able to use that against him because all you need to say to Romney is "Why if it's okay for Massachusettes is it not okay for the U.S.?"

But apparently that's who we're going to have for a nominee unless Newt pulls out a miracle.  Which doesn't seem likely.  And with Romney as the nominee, we might have four more years of this president who will do everything he can to turn this country into the People's Republic of Amerika.

Government Exaggerates Benefits and Minimizes Costs of Obamacare

It seems most liberals think regulations have no costs beyond the paper they are printed on.  This is, of course, not true and the costs are often higher thant he benefits.  For example, see here. Government agencies in the U.S. are required by law to do cost/benefit analysis.  Unfortunately, they have every incentive to minimize the costs and exaggerate any benefits.  And this is happening again with Obamacare.

As Peter Suderman reports at Reason.com:

[T]he [cost/benefit] analyses tended to overstate the potential benefits. For example, based on state insurance data, the authors report that the number of children projected to benefit from the law’s pre-existing condition limitations was overstated by a factor of three to five. And in preparing the high-risk pool rules, regulators cherry-picked studies to inflate the mortality benefit of being insured far beyond minimal to nonexistent improvement most comprehensive reviews and syntheses report.

Meanwhile, an easy way to prove that the benefits are worth the cost is to downplay the cost. And that seems to have gone on too. The authors also conclude that the analyses were also “more likely to understate the magnitude of costs than to overstate them. All eight regulations appear to have understated the costs. In some cases, costs are understated by billions of dollars. The net effect of this pattern is to further contribute to the bias favoring regulation.”

Why would a government agency do this? Simple: the more regulations a government agency gets to administer, the more power it has, the bigger budget it gets, the more people it can hire.  It is like manna from heaven to these agencies.  Everything that makes an agency "successful" is driven by getting itself more power.  That is why government is so scary and controlling it so necessary.

An honest cost/benefit analysis of most regulations would find they are doing more harm than good.  But that would reduce the power or government agencies.  And that's ananthama to the government.

Health Care Costs are Hurting Middle Class

Back in June I embeded a video from Robert Reich supposedly "connecting the dots" on the economy.  I then refruted most of his points in his lie-filled video (e.g., we are NOT spending less on education). But one of Reich's "dots" was that middle class incomes have been stagnate for about 25 years.  Which is unfortunately true.  The problem is, incomes plus benefits have increased but health care costs have eaten up all or most of those benefits.

Today, as Dan Mitchell points out in his blog, Cato's Peter van Doren shows that the reason health care costs are eating up the middle class' wages is because of government.  And if you add in the cost of Medicaid, Medicare, and private health insurance, the poor are getting more benefits than the middle class and the so-called rich.

The problem is, government is distorting the system by being too involved in health care.  As Mitchell says (links orginal):

This is the problem, not inequality. As I’ve explained before, American healthcare suffers from a third-party payer crisis caused by too much government intervention.

And because this distorted system leads to ever-higher costs, the increase in total compensation for lower-income and middle-income people does not translate into an increase in their living standards. Ordinary people feel like they’re on a treadmill.

Lower and middle class income earns are seeing their take-home pay stagnate while they are paying more and more for health care either through taxes or private insurance.  The solution is not more government involvement in health care but more market-oriented health care solutions.  Unfortunately, Obamacare is a step in the wrong direction.  As nearly every other country with government-run health care can tell you, costs spiral out of control while patient care diminishes.

Well, maybe with President Romney and a GOP majority in Congress we can fix that.  Just don't count on it.

Obamacare Kills More Jobs

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA; also known as "Obamacare") is turning into four lies in one.  The only thing that is true is it was an act, all right.

Two studies are out today, one saying Obamacare will increase premiums (so much for "affordable") and another saying it will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs (so much for "patient protection").  None of this is a huge surprise to those who know the history of big government programs.

From "The Foundry" Blog at the Heritage Foundation (links original):

In a recent study by the consulting firm Oliver Wyman showed that this tax [on health insurers that offer full coverage beginning in 2014] will increase insurance premiums by, on average, 1.9 to 2.3 percent in 2014. The impact will grow with time, reaching 2.8 to 3.7 percent by 2023. Like the nominal premium increases occurring due to already-enacted parts of Obamacare, these may sound insignificant on their own. But the cumulative impact—in conjunction with cost increases that would have occurred anyhow—will be much higher premiums for families and individuals: “For small group coverage, this will on average increase the cost to cover an individual by about $2,800, and a family by about $6,800 over a ten-year period, beginning in 2014.”

Which will, of course, make it harder for small businesses to buy insurance and for families to afford insurance. Let's hope the individual mandate gets struck down by the Supreme Court!

And what about jobs?  Well, it looks like this tax will cause the loss of up to a quarter of a million jobs:

The NFIB study released today shows the effect that premium hikes will have on employment and job creation. As NFIB researcher Michael Chow explains, “For a small business owner who does not self-insure, this increase in premiums will be borne by both the employer and the employee, each of whom contributes toward financing the insurance.” The report shows that the new tax will reduce private sector employment in 2021 by anywhere between 125,000 and 249,000 jobs.

Yeah, that's great as we suffer through the worst job-performance in a so-called recovery since the Great Depression.

The solution?  There can only be one: repeal Obamacare.  Oh, and Dodd-Frank while you're at it!

RomneyCare Costs Spiraling Out of Control

Mitt Romney still touts RomneyCare as some great achievement.  But it's looking more and more like he signed the bill then left the state to figure out how to deal with it.  The New Yuck Times today has an article about RomneyCare's spiraling costs (links original):

Predictably, the plan [RomneyCare] did little to slow the growth of health costs that already were among the highest in the nation. A state report last year found that per capita health spending in Massachusetts was 15 percent above the national average. And from 2007 to 2009, private health insurance premiums rose between 5 and 10 percent annually, according to another state study.

So now the Democrats in Massachusetts (probably the only state I can't spell) are looking at another massive revamp of the health care system.  They aren't throwing out RomneyCare, they are changing how it pays:

Although important details remain to be negotiated, the legislative leaders and Gov. Deval Patrick, all Democrats, are working toward a plan that would encourage flat “global payments” to networks of providers for keeping patients well, replacing the fee-for-service system that creates incentives for excessive care by paying for each visit and procedure.

The problem is, in health care there is what some have called the "trilemma."  You can have affordable health care, universal access, or quality care.  But you can't have all three at once and often you only get one. For instance, in the U.S. we only have quality care (although there is limited universal access) and our costs are out of control because the government is so mixed up in health care.  There's no market incentives.  In the UK, by contrast, they only have universal access, and costs are high and quality is low because it's completely ran by the government.

I'm sure this scheme by the Democrats in the Bay State (I can spell that) will, as it lowers cost, lower either quality or access or both.  The problem with health care in America is not lack of government.  It's lack of market incentives to help keep costs down and increase quality (as happens in every other area where there are market forces).

Health Insurance Costs Soar

Remember when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was passed and signed into law? Some people (such as me) call it "Obamacare." Now do you remember? Well, anyway, I don't know about the "patient protection" part but the "affordable care" part isn't panning out.  A short AP story says that health insurance costs increased a lot this year . . . unexpectedly:

A new survey shows that the average cost of employer-sponsored health insurance surged this year, snapping a trend toward moderate growth, but experts say increases may slow again in 2012.

A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation says annual premiums for family coverage climbed 9 percent compared to 2010, when they rose only 3 percent.

Why?  No explanation is given.  But let me toss out some ideas.  1) Dealing with massive new regulations that come out of Obamacare, 2) Having to cover "children" up to age 26, 3) Insurers getting in price hikes while they can before Obamacare becomes completely in force, and 4) as always, the lack of market forces in the health insurance market keeping out competition that Obamacare not only doesn't address but makes worse.

The unforeseen consequences of trying to regulate a huge part of the economy from Washington D.C. are just starting.  Wait until the "patient protection" part becomes a lie, too.

RomneyCare Cost 18,000 Jobs

In the MSNBC Reagan library debate, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry traded boasts on who could create the most jobs and who had the best record as a job creator (as Michelle Malkin pointed out in her Twitter, governors don't create jobs).  And Romney still touts Massachusetts' universal health care program, sometimes called "RomneyCare" despite saying he doesn't support Obamacare.

The problem for Romney is, a new study (PDF) shows that RomneyCare was a jobs killer.  Frank Quaratiello of the Boston Herald gives us the details:

The Bay State’s controversial 2006 universal health-care plan — also known as “Romneycare” — has cost Massachusetts more than 18,000 jobs, according to an exclusive blockbuster study . . .

How many jobs would you pay for universal health care?  But wait, there's more:

The Beacon Hill Institute study found that, on average, Romneycare:

•    cost the Bay State 18,313 jobs;

•    drove up total health insurance costs in Massachusetts by $4.311 billion;

•    slowed the growth of disposable income per person by $376; and

•    reduced investment in Massachusetts by $25.06 million.

All for something half of Massachusetts votes say isn't working.

RomneyCare is a prefect preview of how bad Obamacare will be.  And for that I thank Mitt Romney.  But as long as he supports RomneyCare, I can't support him (unless he wins the GOP nomination).

More Presidential Initiatives

Today, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that the individual mandate in Obamacare, requiring all U.S. citizens to buy minimal health insurance. As the New Yuck Times reports:

The Obama administration prevailed in the first appellate review of the 2010 health care law on Wednesday as a three-judge panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that it was constitutional for Congress to require that Americans obtain health insurance.

Upon this ruling, the Obama Administration announced the following legislative initiatives:

The Healthy Citizens and Children Act (HCCA):  This will require each American over the age of 6 to purchase a gym membership.  Due to the need for bi-partisan support, the enforcement clause requiring visits to a gym was dropped in committee.

The Energy Security and Environmental Transportation Act (ESETA): This act will require each American family with one or more automobiles registered for road use to purchase a plug-in electric hybrid vehicle with a minimum MPGe of 100.

The Waste Elimination Healthy Gardening Act (WEHGA): Simply put, every American household will be required to compost and use the compost in growing a "Save the Earth" garden which will both provide fresh, healthy vegetables but reduce carbon emissions from going to the store to buy food.  Apartment dwellers will be required to cooperate in community composting and gardening.

What?  You say the government can't force you to do those things?  Well, if they can force you to buy a commodity (i.e. health insurance) why can't they force you to buy anything.  Or do anything?  Yes, those acts above are jokes.

At least for now.

Obamacare Oops

Remember when then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass the 2,000-page long Obamacare bill to find out what's in it?  Guess what, we're finding out.  Apparently there is a provision in Obamacare that would allow middle-class families to get very cheap insurance that was supposed to just go to the poor.   The AP is breaking the story this afternoon:

President Barack Obama's health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.

The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid, said officials who make long-range cost estimates for the Health and Human Services department.

Up to 3 million more people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of the anomaly.

Oh, that's all we need, more people on Medicaid to run that bus over a cliff faster.

AP compares this to letting the middle class get food stamps (hey, a new entitlement to keep the middle class voting Democrat!).

The details are complicated (like all of Obamacare) but basically, a married couple who retires early and makes less than $64,000 from all sources (e.g., investment income) could be eligible for Medicaid.

Nancy, we're finding out what's in the bill and we don't like it!

No Perfect Solutions

There are no perfect solutions, at least on a scale larger than a small business. There are only various trade-offs of solutions. Some solutions may be better than others (and probably are) but there are no perfect solutions.

This is due to scarcity of resources. For example, take Megan Fox. There are probably something like 100 million people who'd like to date Megan Fox. But there's only one Megan Fox. So there is a lot of demand but not much supply. This drives the cost of dating Megan Fox very high (you'd have to convince her to date you). Possible solutions: we could force Megan Fox to date 100 persons per day, thus increasing the supply. But even then assuming she lives another 50 years, that'd only get about 2% of those 100 million folks a date with Ms. Fox (and a short date at that). Now if we could clone Megan 100 million times, there'd another solution. But even that would be imperfect because then a) the cachet of dating Megan Fox would be somewhat diluted, and b) somehow we'd have to absorb 100 million more young actresses into our economy. I think a lot of those Megans would be unemployed.

Because of scarcity, there are no perfect solutions. Another example: health care. Is a single pay system a "perfect" solution? If we look at countries that have single payer the answer seems to be "no." Both the quality and accessibility of care is degraded, while costs are not contained very well. In health care there is what some have termed the "Trilemma." This is because, simply, there is not an infinite supply of health care, just likes there's not an infinite supply of Megan Fox. You can have quality health care, you can have affordable health care, or you can have universal access health care, but you can't have all three and rarely two. In the U.S. we seem, up until Obamacare, to have chosen to have high quality care but it's neither affordable nor universal. In Canada they have universal (sort of, if you count waiting lists as "care") but not high quality nor affordable (to the taxpayer).

With Obamacare we seem to be on the road to not having any of the three.

So if there's no perfect solutions, what's the best solution? Depends on your priorities. If your priority is universal access, then single pay may be the best solution. If your priority is high quality and/or low cost, a market-driven solution may be the best.

Frankly, I'd rather keep our high-quality health care system, use market forces to lower (or at least contain) costs, which in turn would increase the number of insured, and not put government in charge of health care for the chimera of "universal access." It's not a perfect solution. But it is quite probably the best solution.