Monthly Archives: May 2012

Reigniting ObamaCare

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In light of the target date for the Supreme Court’s decision on ObamaCare coming up soon (in June), TOC wanted to revisit a point that the media has glossed over since ObamaCare was first conceptualized. The Democrats have made the claim that ObamaCare will make us all better off and is the right thing to do. (A claim that James Clyburn made – which TOC found offensive – was that passing ObamaCare was the continuation of the Civil Rights movement. This is the same Clyburn that has not stood up for school choice for his or any other constituency).  Even more troubling is the stand that the President has taken stating the Supreme Court should approve ObamaCare because it provides “mechanism to ensure those with preexisting conditions get health care,” but provided no rationale for why he felt the law was Constitutional.  The Constitutional professor should know that the Constitution provides a framework for us all to agree on what mechanisms are needed as opposed to one supreme leader determining that on his or her own. The court determines if a law is “in bounds” instead of determines if a law is a good thing, and Obama should know that a law’s constitutionality should not lie in its intent (but trusts that the voter does not know this).

 

The above alone is enough to justify the Supreme Court finding ObamaCare unconstitutional, but TOC would like to address this question of how effective ObamaCare would be otherwise. Does it make us all better off? Let’s explore this in a framework of three points.

 

First, ObamaCare requires everyone to have access to insurance and be insured at standard cost. We have the implication that insurance gives us access to preventive care, and that preventive care alone makes us more healthy. This leads to the belief that ObamaCare will cut health care costs overall. This is an interesting assumption that seems to be true. As usual, with a liberal argument, you always have to consider good intentions with unintended consequences. Will access to preventive care really cut costs? Are people with access to preventive health care more healthy? We were told constantly that roughly 40 million people do not have access to health care through insurance, but are those people on average less healthy? If there are 40 million without health care, that means there are 270 million with it. I have no proof that the health of these people is significantly better than the health of those without insurance; however, shouldn’t the ones who are proposing to completely overhaul the system provide irrefutable proof of the opposite? On top of that, an unintended consequence can be found in the first two chapters of an Economics book. The law does little to encourage more people to enter general practice medicine; in fact (per the next point), it very well may have presented a deterrent for more people to become primary care providers.  With the same number (or fewer) primary care doctors providing care for 40 million more people, does the law of supply and demand not say that costs have to go up?  You have increased demand without increasing supply.

 

Secondly, ObamaCare does not address the need for tort reform.  This is not just important because doctors need malpractice insurance (per the above – tort reform could have reduced practice costs and encouraged more people to enter primary care medicine), but also because health care providers sometimes practice defensive medicine. Some estimates of the cost of defensive medicine range up to $60 billion. The Obama administration has insulted our intelligence by suggesting a series of pilot programs to address malpractice cost increases, while they are insisting on a “big bang” approach for the rest of ObamaCare.  Texas saw an increase in the total number of physicians practicing in Texas and a decrease in malpractice insurance premiums for doctors after implementing health care.   Additionally, states with tort reform have 2.3% lower consumer insurance premiums than states without tort reform.

Finally, we look at the fact that ObamaCare requires everyone to have access to insurance and be insured at standard cost.  In other words, insurance companies are required to provide insurance to everyone at a certain cost regardless of pre-existing conditions.  One could feel sympathetic for the lady who has unpreventable lymphoma and could believe this requirement makes sense.  The trouble arises with those diseases that are preventable, such as Type II Diabetes and lung cancer.  Consider that Ezekiel Emmanuel – who advised Obama on health care – believes that up to 40% of cancers can be prevented with diet and exercise.  Instead of grandiose, costly proposals such as sugar taxes, could we not just let people have the freedom to monitor their own sugar intake and exercise on their own?  A good way to do that without wasting money or imposing on freedoms is to allow people to be accountable.  Forcing availability of insurance at standard cost takes away a powerful incentive for people to remain healthy – you do not have to pay more for costly treatments.  In the process of trying to assist the patient with Lymphoma, ObamaCare provided a disincentive to the obese junk-food eater to be healthy.  Is there a way to help the former while keeping the latter accountable for his or her own health?  Perhaps, if there would have been a debate on objective facts during ObamaCare’s construction we could have found a way; however, if you are a Democrat, that would require you to read research and policy papers and . . . proposed bills.  Thanks to John Conyers, we know Democrats do not do such things . . .

The Danger of Obama’s Path of Least Resistance

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While some in the media marveled at President Obama’s reaching out to the youth of Americaby slow-jamming the news on the Jimmy Fallon show, I could not shake a feeling of concern.  We have an education crisis, a fiscal crisis, anemic economic growth and countless other crises but he can find time for such.

(As an aside, it is amazing how small business owners and entrepreneurs – the actual job creators in this economy – have to work 16-hour days when they encounter monumental crises, then have to face demagoguery and higher taxes from leaders in our government – such as our President.  Meanwhile, when our highest leader in government faces his crises, he finds time to slow jam the news . . . but I digress.)

Obama supporters will tell you this is an innovative way to get his message out.  No doubt, this is a valid point and works well for the Obama reelection campaign.  Instead of the passive, marginal voter having to watch boring debates and research policy positions on news telecasts, he or she can now be entertained and do his or her civic duty by getting up to speed on critical current issues simultaneously.  Team Obama takes note of statistics like one-third of Americans under the age of 40 says satirical news-oriented television programs are taking the place of traditional news programs (per Rasmussen).  The problem with using platforms designed for entertainment to discuss policy is that the primary purpose of such programs IS to entertain, not inform.  Even Jon Stewart quipped that he is a “comedian first.”  When informing is secondary to entertaining, under-informing and spinning are probable.  Even though the mainstream media has a left-wing bias, it does function for the primary purpose of informing.  Dispensing information through an entertainment platform is similar to serving junk food that tastes attractively good but is over-processed for easy digestion and has tons of empty calories.  It appeals to the human desire to have fun (in lieu of being educated), allows for the propagation of simple yet unvetted policy positions that could not otherwise withstand significant scrutiny, and creates a class of voters that is hopelessly under-informed on critical issues and confuses celebrity obsession with the civic responsibility of being an informed voter.  To further the point, consider that when Newsweek administered its U.S. Citizenship Test, 29% of the participants could not name the vice-president and 44% could not define the Bill of Rights.  In this state, can we really afford for our citizens to gather critical public policy information from a comedian?

Turning back to Team Obama, we do not see such concern.  Unlike the former clothing retailer Syms’s motto:  “An educated consumer is our best customer”, it seems that Team Obama believes “An UNeducated citizen is the easiest voter – to attract”, providing a path of least resistance.  Hence, more and more, they look to promote their message through non-traditional medium that is “cool”, “trendy” and the like.  The consequence of this is under-information – good for a President that is personally popular with low approval ratings but bad for ensuring that the maximum number of people voting is adequately informed on the issues.

Let us look at some of the ways this is evident in recent political history:

  • Presidential nominee Obama told naïve crowds in 2008 through traditional and      non-traditional media that he was going to close Guantanamo Bay within a year of being elected.  Many passive voters brought that it was possible without risking national security.  To this day Guantanamo Bay remains open.
  • Barack Obama campaigned on renewable energy policy in which the government would support subsidies to entities with viable energy solutions instead of      political connections.  Peter Schweizer’s Throw Them All Out chronicles that the exact opposite has happened since Obama’s inauguration.
  • A concept as simple as fairness – something children argue about on the      playground – is helping to determine tax policy for a federal government with a nearly $4 trillion budget.  As I laid out in my blog The Objective Citizen, under Regretfully Rich, Obama is willing to sacrifice tax revenue dollars and growth in order to be “fair”.  Many people do not understand the difference between increasing tax rates and maximizing tax revenue, which is fine with Team Obama since they can push “fairness” – a simpler concept to understand although it makes us all worse off (rich and poor).

I would like to close by revisiting the Jimmy Fallon show.  The crowd cheered while Obama explained he was going to hold Congress to task to get student-loan interest rates lowered.  Funny how the crowd did not boo since a) it was President Obama who signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 into law in the first place, which eliminated subsidization of interest rates on student loans and b) that very provision was allowed in order to give Obama an additional $400 billion (but up to a possible $2.4 trillion) of spending, given his history of spending on useless, crony-capitalism spending (see the Peter Schweizer link above, for example).  Then again, Jimmy Fallon could not get Obama back on the show if he discussed facts in the first place.