Why is medical malpractice reform not in the health care reform bills making their way through Congress? That’s a question many of us have been asking for months. We now have the answer, care of Howard Dean and Congressman Jim Moran.
At a recent townhall meeting, Moran was asked by a constituent about the issue. (That was after Moran forced the gentleman to show him his ID before asking the question.) Howard Dean decided to take a first stab at answering by saying:
This is the answer from a doctor and a politician. … Here’s why tort reform is not in the bill. When you go to pass a really enormous bill like that, the more stuff you put in it the more enemies you make. Right. And the reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else… And that is the plain and simple truth.
Congressman Moran followed up by saying, “That’s a very honest answer.”
In other words, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have no problem taking on the American people — the majority of whom are opposed to ObamaCare — but they wouldn’t dare take on their well-funded buddies in the trial bar.
There has been a lot of talk in the media (here, here and here) about how Herbert Hoover was a great miser and should have spent his way out of the economic downturn like Obama is attempting to do. The myth might be as old as Hoover’s administration: Hoover was a free-market Republican who let Americans suffer instead of attempting government intervention.
False. It’s hard to believe that a quick search through our own budget data proves that Hoover was more of Keynesian, someone who spent plenty and raised taxes in his vain attempt to “prime” the U.S. economy toward a resurgence.
Reviewing budget numbers from the White House’s own budget, we see that Hoover drastically increased the size and scope of government. When Hoover arrived in the White House in 1929, he inherited a surplus of $734 million (back when that was real money). After he left in 1933, the surplus turned into a $2.6 billion deficit.
Of course, some of this decline was due to lower revenues as a result of the depression, but looking at the outlays during his tenure and you’ll see a massive increase in the size of the federal budget, partly with the help of a Republican Congress as well. From 1929 to 1933, Hoover increased federal outlays from $3.1 billion to approximately $4.6 billion, a 48% increase. From 1931 to 1932, outlays surged 30%. Yes, Hoover was a real miser, a free-market fiend who hated spending the money of hard-working taxpayers.
To put Hoover’s 48% increase in perspective, progressives often assailed President Bush as a free-market disciple who refused to spend money on levies, the poor, or the uninsured. During Bush’s tenure, estimated federal outlays surged 57%, even more than Hoover and LBJ’s Great Society (approximately 50%).
So, the next time you hear someone say that a runaway free-market caused the Great Depression and our current crisis, just remind them that Bush made LBJ look like Uncle Scrooge and Hoover drove federal expenditures faster than President Clinton. Old rumors die slowly but this is one that needs to end now before we continue to perpetuate even more big-spending government boondoggles.
According to the WSJ, SAT scores dropped this year. From the story:
“Many observers Tuesday viewed the flat results of recent years as discouraging in light of a more than 25-year effort to improve U.S. education. ‘This is a nearly unrelenting tale of woe and disappointment,’ said Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank. ‘If there’s any good news here, I can’t find it.'”
Perhaps that’s because there is absolutely no correlation between spending more money on public education and output. The public school system, like any other monopoly, operates at a high cost and typically produces mediocre results.
Regardless of one’s political affiliation or ideology, today’s news of Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s passing is upsetting. Kennedy, an unapologetic liberal — indeed, an icon on the Left –served more than 40 years in the United States Senate and was a fearsome advocate for the causes he took on. Indeed, in the heat of more than a few legislative battles over the years, many in the center-right community found themselves cursing his name, while at the same time wishing he played for our team.
When I sat down this morning to write this post, I must confess that I was lost for words. Then I stumbled upon Bill Bennett’s words on NRO’s The Corner. Bennett wrote:
He assaulted our causes and nominees with vigor and rancor. Still, in his day he was a powerful orator — and historians will mark his speech to the 1980 Democratic convention as a high water mark and example.To his supporters, I simply give them his words, and leave the rest to historians: ‘For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.’To the American Left, he was their lion.To the American conservative movement, he was our bane.But today, we put the politics aside and wish him and his family God’s peace.
Many Obamacare proponents paint a government-run or single-payer system as some Utopian endgame for health care. It’s not. The same debate that takes place here rages overseas as well.
Tuning in to the Prime Minister’s Question Hour is a good way to appreciate (in addition to the unintended hilarity) how a government-run system doesn’t end the debate, it merely changes it. Instead of asking questions about universal coverage, complaints arise over seniors being denied care because the government offered care to younger patients.
This article from the UK’s Liberal Democratic Party is illustrative:
“When doctors at that hospital have confirmed that they were instructed by their managers to abandon seriously ill patients and to treat people with minor ailments instead in order to meet the Prime Minister’s targets, it is not enough to talk of reviews, inquiries and to blame other people. Will he scrap the mad targets that make hospitals tick boxes rather than look after the desperately ill?”
Full article is here. Remember, putting Uncle Sam in charge typically raises the cost, reduces efficiency, and introduces severe unintended consequences: see Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Cash for Clunkers, AMTRAK, etc., etc…
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) today released its mid-year long term deficit projections. While the 2009 deficit estimates came in at $262 billion less than predicted earlier in the year ($1.58 trillion total), OMB’s 10-year projection increased to a whopping $9 trillion, or $2 trillion more than previously estimated.
That’s a lot of money – so much, that it’s hard for the average person to even comprehend.
Fortunately, John Lott, economist and author of “Freedomonics,” has a great opinion piece today on FoxNews.com that helps put the figure in perspective. For starters, Lott writes that the new OMB projection “likely underestimates the deficit by at least another $1 trillion,” which means the real 10-year deficit number is probably closer to $10 trillion. Elaborating on what that means for you and your family, Lott writes:
Ten trillion dollars simply is a lot of money. Whether it is an individual going into debt or a country, spending the money now means that we have less to spend on other things. In the case of ten trillion dollars of national debt, it comes to over $33,000 per person– $130,000 for a family of four. The $130,000 is the amount of taxes that a family is going to have to pay back, somehow, and people have to ask what their family could have gotten for that much money. Is the benefit they get from the government spending all this money greater than what they could have gotten if they had spent that money themselves?
“Accidentally, but relentlessly, America has built a health-care system with incentives that inexorably generate terrible and perverse results. Incentives that emphasize health care over any other aspect of health and well-being. That emphasize treatment over prevention. That disguise true costs. That favor complexity, and discourage transparent competition based on price or quality. That result in a generational pyramid scheme rather than sustainable financing. And that—most important—remove consumers from our irreplaceable role as the ultimate ensurer of value.” – David Goldhill, writing in the Atlantic.
Interrupting his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard today, President Obama announced plans to appoint Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to a second term.
OAK BLUFFS, Mass., Aug. 25 –With Bernanke at his side in a schoolhouse-turned-briefing room on this vacation island, Obama said Bernanke has helped to steer the country through one of its worst financial crises.
President Obama on Tuesday renominated Ben Bernanke for another term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, citing “his background, his temperament, his courage, and his creativity” as reasons he should continue in the nation’s most powerful economic policy making job.
In an op-ed published in The Washington Post today, RNC Chairman Michael Steele highlighted details of a “Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights.”
Protecting Our Seniors
GOP Principles for Health Care
By Michael S. Steele
Monday, August 24, 2009
Americans are engaged in a critical debate over reforming our health-care system. While Republicans believe that reforms are necessary, President Obama’s plan for a government-run health-care system is the wrong prescription. The Democrats’ plan will hurt American families, small businesses and health-care providers by raising care costs, increasing the deficit, and not allowing patients to keep a doctor or insurance plan of their choice. Furthermore, under the Democrats’ plan, senior citizens will pay a steeper price and will have their treatment options reduced or rationed.
Republicans want reform that should, first, do no harm, especially to our seniors. That is why Republicans support a Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights, which we are introducing today, to ensure that our greatest generation will receive access to quality health care.
Judging by his recent trailer and his comments on YouTube, the movie looks like a tired rehash of past arguments for further redistribution of wealth and government intervention.
Moore will argue that the “market” is too powerful but the trailer includes clips from the bailout fiasco last year and other examples of corporate welfare. Of course, this is not capitalism. The last eight years have been an exercise in how the government distorts markets and rewards the politically powerful.
For example, corporate power last year allowed some companies, like AIG , to prosper and receive massive bailouts, while others were left to wither. Capitalism doesn’t endorse multi-billion dollar transfers of capital from taxpayers to corporations, and I’m not sure why Moore thought the bailout was the perfect example of how the market is evil and corrupt.
On the contrary, the last 12 months have provided a brilliant example of how the government is corrupt. The government distorted credit markets by keeping interest rates below the market rate and then encouraged reckless lending and borrowing. Furthermore, the government compounded the problem when it rewarded large reckless lenders with bailouts from taxpayers. Capitalism has suffered this past year, not government. Government remains bigger and stronger than ever, poised to consume even larger portions of the market and take on new responsibilities.
Finally, in the comments section, Moore states that the rich “feed” off of the rest of us. For someone who has made his fortune by practicing capitalism, it’s strange that he would describe himself as a vampire. People, liberal and conservative, pay money to see his films and either agree or disagree with him, but few would deny that Moore has a talent for film-making; that is why he is rich.
I wish him the best of luck as he continues to pursue his profession, just as I wish the billions of other workers on the planet the best of luck pursuing their vocation. For some reason, Moore thinks that there is some finite supply of money at the end of a rainbow that the rich and powerful have found and only occasionally share with the rest. But, Moore himself found no stash of money. He created money and personal wealth through his own skill, just like any other talented worker. And, consumers voluntarily saw his films because they saw some merit in his skill.
Let’s hope Mr. Moore includes some of the true virtues of the free market and capitalism when his film is finally released.
Harry Reid is in big trouble in his home state of Nevada. A new poll shows the Senate Majority Leader trailing both of his possible GOP opponents by as many as 11 points. Reid’s approval ratings remains at a paltry 37 percent.
“Rationing is bad policy. It forces individuals with different preferences to accept the same care. It also imposes an arbitrary cap on the future growth of spending instead of letting it evolve in response to changes in technology, tastes and income. In my judgment, rationing would be much worse than excessive care.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, President Obama is trying to reassure his closest allies that the Public Option (government-run health care) is still on the table. As we noted yesterday, dropping the Public Option could mean losing over 100 votes in the House.
From the story:
“The government-run plan does not have the votes to pass in the Senate, and it never has,” said Michael Mahaffey, spokesman for Sen. Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.), a Finance Committee member. “So while Sen. Enzi is pleased to see the White House backing away from its insistence on including a government-run plan, the fact is this doesn’t change the dynamic in the Senate very much.”
The President no doubt has a difficult balancing act to walk in the next few months. The fall of the Public Option could spell the demise of his health care overhaul and even possibly other heavy-handed legislative goals like Cap-and-Tax.
Perhaps most troubling, however, is that government control could be re-branded under new names like co-op or individual mandate. Taxpayers should still be on the lookout for whatever derivation of government control that the White House conjures in the next few weeks.
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