Health care reform

Absolutely scary!

True, Vikingvista. But in a complex market, everyone is working in their best interest and their best interest is to get the job done so they can be paid and remain competitive. Government workers' best interest is to do as little as possible and to monetize the small amount of power they have. Thus, I submit that when government creates complexity where there shouldn't be any, it is much worse than a naturally occurring complex market.

This chart thing worked when Hillary was in charge of fixing health care. The only thing that will work this time is to convince Dems that they are going to shoot themselves in the feet by way of their derriers. It wouldn't be a lie. They are going to do that, and the pathetic Republicans are going to win big in 2010 because of this and cap & trade and the lingering depression. But will enough Dems see enough light to steer this in a more marginal, less destructive direction. That's the question on the table this week.

I think executive and legistlative branches will get their wake up call when the general working public finally realizes how much of "universal health care" is just "we make it law that you must have health insurance or pay a steep fine."

Yes, a free market is complex. But it has one simplicity over the chart. The chart shows the consumers and providers, both very small icons, on opposite sides of the chart, separated by a vast maze of lines and squares representing government agencies and insurance companies. In a free market system, there would be simply a straight line between them. Insurance companies would be off to the side.

Yes a free market is a complex system, but all this government interference makes it even more complex.

Methinks -
RE: "Government workers' best interest is to do as little as possible and to monetize the small amount of power they have."

I love public choice theory, but this strikes me as an abuse of the more nuanced critiques that guys like Buchanan raised. I'm not trying to pick a fight, but I think operating off of these sorts of idealized forms doesn't really add much insight.

Gappy – "There is no logic to sizes, colors and shapes; iii) some nodes might have been grouped and shown has one node (example: Natl coordinator for health IT, Office of Civil Rights, Office of Minority Health."

The above statement is just wrong.

The reason there is no logic to the sizes or the chart is that the "Government" is not capable of logic. Therefore the chart is a very accurate representation of the idiocy that is coming out of congress and our alleged president.

thedaddy

It looks like Walt Disney threw up.

There is no guarantee that it is correct and that it's not overcomplicating things.

But what if it is a correct simplification?

…will it operate smoothly or will it rule by clunky bureaucratic fiat. It's too early to judge.

I somehow doubt this would be the first government program that doesn’t rule by clunky bureaucratic fiat, so it’s not too early to judge. This healthcare proposal is a horrible nightmare. (Just one pick: it’s completely stupid to require employers to provide insurance. The present tax treatment of health benefits is a significant cause of high healthcare costs. So let’s do that even more! Yeah, that’ll work…) And don’t bother to mention that the whole thing is completely unconstitutional, the @$$holes don’t care about that quaint old parchment any more.

As to the complexity, in this case I think it is frightening of itself. All that complexity gives untold numbers of parasites (both in and out of the government) places to hide (aka jobs). Those people will be analogous to the hordes of people whose function is limited to tax compliance – they add nothing to the economy (or in this case healthcare, thus the term parasite).

gappy wrote:

If you want to criticize the Health Care Reform, don't do it on account of its perceived complexity, but based on an analysis of the incentives of the parties involved.

I submit that there is, fundamentally, only one proper way to analyze any proposed government action — and that is by asking: What does this government action do to the individual rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness of all those the proposed action affects? Does it protect them — or violate them?

In the case of this "health care reform", it is clear that what is being proposed is simply the mass-stealing of vast additional wealth from those who’ve produced it and earned it — and to whom it thus rightfully belongs — for purposes of bribing a sufficient number of Americans into acquiescing in the government takeover of a huge portion of our economy. The whole plan is nothing more than a vast power grab to be financed by looting a group that has no defenders in today‘s culture: the “wealthy“. As such, the entire program is a massive, egregious violation of individual rights and is thus both immoral and impractical.

The right to life does not mean the right to remain alive at someone else’s expense. It means the right to remain alive at your own expense, by means of your own honest effort, by either producing what you need or trading your labor for a wage from someone else who is engaged in production. The right to life means that no one can take your life from you by physical force — either by killing your or by interfering with your own productive effort to sustain your life.

There is no such thing as a right to healthcare — or to any other good or service produced by human labor — because there is no such thing as a right to any portion of another man’s life, be it his time, his labor or the fruits of his labor, i.e. his property. In short, no one can claim a right to have others forced to labor involuntarily to provide for his healthcare, his food, the clothes on his back or any other material good or service he needs. No amount of “need” on the part of one man gives him the right to demand any amount of slavery on the part of others to satisfy those “needs”.

And no amount of alleged “good” to be achieved can justify the violation of any individual’s rights. The end does not justify the means. When a man takes your property by force, he violates your rights and commits an utterly immoral act. It does not matter what he proposes to do with the proceeds of his robbery — it is still a robbery and it is still a violation of your rights.

Man is not “his brother’s keeper” as Obama keeps insisting — because nothing on earth justifies the notion some must sacrifice while others collect the sacrifice — that some must surrender what they’ve earned so that others may be given the unearned — that some get to eat, while others get eaten. No one has ever justified this notion — and no one can.

The animating idea behind he creation of the United States was this:

That all men are created equal — that there are no “brothers” that can claim any sort of superior status entitling them to be “kept” — and that all men are an end in themselves, with each possessing the same inalienable right to the pursuit of their own happiness, by means of their own honest effort — with none having the right to force others to sacrifice for their benefit and none being forced to sacrifice for the sake of others — and with the purpose of government limited to “securing these rights“.

But now here comes Obama and his fellow power-lusting looters in Congress, determined to complete the destruction of America by reversing her animating idea and transforming us into a collection of rightless creatures whose lives and property belong, not to us by right, but to the government, who may seize whatever they wish to address whatever “needs” they deem to exist anywhere in society.

Somehow we must convince Americans that if they value their lives and their freedom, they must learn to assert their right to exist for their own sake — they must refuse to accept the notion that they are merely sacrificial animals to be looted at government's whim — they must take a moral stand and tell Obama and his ilk, “NO Obama, my life and the fruits of my labor belong to ME, not to YOU, not to the government, and not to any stray, mooching, incompetent, shiftless ‘brother’ who seeks to exist at my expense”.

The 800lb gorilla is the fact that the Democrat bill, no matter how you diagram it, specifically avoids and rather exacerbates the cause of growing health care costs–demand.

1. Millions aren't covered because they can't or don't want to buy health insurance.

2. They can't or don't want to buy insurance because it costs too much for them.

3. It costs too much because people consume inefficiently.

4. People consume inefficiently because they pay first (or not at all), and are denied any savings that they might achieve.

5. They prepay without opportunity for savings because the government taxes them for Medicare/Medicaid; and replaces health care choices with employment choices.

If the Democrat's new third party financing scheme could efficiently control costs, then there wouldn't be a health care financing crisis–Medicare and the hundreds of "greedy" private insurance companies would've already found a way.

Instead, the new plan will come down to, as all third party "cost savings" do, denial of care. And as we've seen in European models, which have similar cost growth rates as us, even those savings will eventually be lost. What you will then have is the same financing problem, but with worse delivery of care.

A rational health care bill would be very simple:

1. Replace employee benefits tax deductions with an income tax decrease.

2. Allow those who contribute the amount of their Medicare payroll tax to a retirement-only HSA to opt out of Medicare. Fund the transition from general revenues (expensive but temporary).

3. Restructure Medicaid as a contribution to HSA accounts rather than direct provider reimbursement, where the patients can keep what they don't use.

4. Optional–break unconstitutional state barriers to health insurance interstate trade by simply passing a law stating that anyone can buy an insurance plan anywhere in the country regardless of state of residence. Then let the supreme court do the rest if states challenge it.

Over the next several years you will see health care costs plummet making it more affordable for millions. You will also see an explosion of variety of choices for health care consumption. In other words, just like most everything else you consume, costs will decrease and quality, availability, and variety will increase.

The ONLY bad thing is that the huge savings the Federal government sees will only encourage it to find new ways of spending that money.

"don't worry about demand. Once they squeeze out the private insurers, instead of denying payment they'll deny the service."

Indeed. Rationing = brute force demand control. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say brute force consumption control–since people will still want the services that that they are denied.

fake-libertarian-clarity/">this piece by Will Wilkinson; ii) you are making a much stronger assumption, i.e., that any government initiative is illegitimate, since it is funded by forcibly taking wealth from (at least some) individuals, like yourself.

I am not in a position to judge because I don't understand the basic functioning of our health care system, but appreciate that Vikingvista is making some very concrete, non-trivial, reasoned proposals (and I would encourage him to post a link explaing the solution better). Just saying that something is wrong *by definition* because it involves *any* level of government is simply not very useful to advance the understanding of an issue.

However, the US Chamber of Commerce has a PDF with before and after charts of regulation. The before chart is pretty complicated, but not nearly as much as the after.

Russ, Shame on you, falling for the "well, health care is a mess now so it must be reformed somehow, some way…" nonsense. Remember Russ, my health care is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS nor the government's. Leave me (and my health insurance, doctors, ER visits, etc.) ALONE and do something productive…PLEASE!

Daddy,

He's 25 years old. He's very smart and probably did very well in college and that gives him the impression that he's much more knowledgeable than he really is. Plus, he has apparently never been to the DMV.

As we all know, government workers are completely logical. Their logic is that no matter how they treat the supplicant, the union will not allow them to be fired and since they will be paid the exact same amount whether they accomplish ten things every day or just one, why stress themselves on your behalf?

Speaking of lies and healthcare reform….

On page 16, under header "Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage", under "Limitation of New Enrollment" the bill makes private insurance illegal.

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage doesn not enroll any individual such coveraage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the bill is signed into law.

We can all keep our current coverage – as long as we don't move to another state or we don't change employers. The minute we do either, we have no choice but to enroll in ObamaCare.

How is this constitutional?

He's 25 years old.

That explains a lot!

Dan,

Where did the daddy ever say anything about government employees? If you're going to self-righteously declare your superiority based on your preference to address people's points, it should at least be an accurate statement.

It was I who brought up government employees. So, please don't accuse the daddy of sins he did not commit and then whine when people find it irritating.

You're a good kid. You're smart and I like you. But, when a lot of people make the same observation about your behaviour, you may have to consider that there may be some truth (rather than malice) in what they're saying. So, you know, chill out (do the kids still say that?).

"Government is generally inefficient because it has the wrong incentives to accomplish most productive activities out there – but not all productive activities."

BINGO!

DK not so sophomoric after all.

"How old are you the daddy?"

Going on 67, been there done that, dealing with all levels of Gov't employee incompetence since I went into business in 1974 right after the Nixon administration allowed the Arabs stick-it up our collective **S. Then there was the brilliant Russian Wheat deal that caused the price of Flour to triple an a period of 6 to 9 months.

Then there was the brilliantly executed OSHA which fined first (at $7000 a pop) and asked questions later.
And of course if you have ever had any dealings with the IRS you will have experienced not only a lack of logic but a substantial quantity of Negative Logic.

"If you really go around in life thinking that once you walk through the door of a federal office building you become a useless, unproductive, illogical drag on the economy than you're the one that really needs to cultivate some more life experience and maturity before making sweeping statements like that."

Well I take back the compliment I made above.
This statement completely contradicts the statement that I complimented you for, notwithstanding the last 5 waffle words.

Freedom is a wonderful thing; in my opinion it is the only thing worth having (in a political sense). It's too bad the state exists to muck it up. If we lived in a free (stateless) society Daniel Kuehn could follow the flow chart of his choice, and I could follow mine. We might argue about who has the best flow chart, but neither of us could use the police power of the state to force the other into following a path against his will. Instead of constantly scheming against each other in pursuit of the power of the state, we could each live our lives as we saw fit, and we could be friends at the same time! Freedom is a wonderful thing. It's too bad the state exists to muck it up. There's the anarcho-libertarian view.

It's pretty complicated, isn't it? But not so complicated that it can't be diagrammed. In contrast, coercion-free healthcare–i.e., a healthcare market that would evolve from the choices and actions of 300-plus million Americans under the price system–can't be diagrammed. Not only would it be infinitely more complicated than government healthcare, it would evolve dynamically as supply, demand, and prices changed. Even if one could draw a diagram of coercion-free healthcare at any given moment in time, as soon as the diagram was finished it would be out of date: the coercion-free market would have moved on!

Adjusting the government's plan would require an Act of Congress! In contrast, adjustments in the unhampered, coercion-free market would take place automatically and continuously, as citizens voluntarily modified their behavior in response to changing price signals.