President Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation’s economic output by 2020, the Congressional Budget Office reported Thursday.
Lovely. So (with apologies to Instapundit) I’ll pose the question on everyone’s mind: is this “hope” or “change”?
The most recent issue of National Affairs contained a very insightful article on health care entitled “Health Care and the Profit Motive.” You can find the whole article here (it’s long, but worth a read). In the article, author Avik Roy explains the history of health insurance in America, the factors that have brought about our dysfunctional system, and background on the differing views between liberals and conservatives. While Roy focuses on the economic arguments moreso than concerns over constitutionality and political philosophy, the article is a very helpful. On the economics, Roy concludes, as I do, that the true solution needs to be based soundly on market principles. Here is an excerpt:
At the heart of the problem is the rising cost of insurance coverage. Costs are rising because of our existing fourth-party system, driven in particular by the very health-care entitlements that liberals seek to expand. To address that problem, we need incremental reforms to bring about greater market competition. Replacing the entire system with a sweeping government program might feel good — and might seem like a way to address the moral element of the problem — but it simply would not work. Given its economic inefficiencies, it could never be a serious answer to the question of how to fix American health care.
So even if the purpose of our health-care system is both economic and moral, the solutions to its problems must be economic. They should apply market forces, including the profit motive, to curtail the growing cost of health care. As much as possible, they should place the power to make difficult decisions into the hands of patients and their doctors. And they should liberate the forces of medical innovation to increase quality, improve affordability, and extend lives.
President Obama’s freeze of the non-defense, non-homeland security side of the budget will do nothing to get us on the path of fiscal responsibility. Here’s why.
Jonah Goldberg has a great article in the Los Angeles Times today:
Insurance companies are now heavily regulated government contractors. Way to get big business out of Washington! They will clear a small, government-approved profit on top of their government-approved fees. Then, when healthcare costs rise — and they will — Democrats will insist, yet again, that the profit motive is to blame and out from this Obamacare Trojan horse will pour another army of liberals demanding a more honest version of single-payer.
Analysis | Lucius Junius Brutus | 
March 26, 2010 11:21 am | 
Comments Off 
Subscribe