Skip to content

HEALTH CARE SYSTEM SAFE FROM DEMS

The single greatest danger to our health care system is the election of a Democrat to the Presidency in November.  The good news is that this is less and less likely. As Dick Morris suggests, if Hillary can’t win the nomination of her party she’ll make sure Obama loses the general election:

Is she continuing her race so as to have a platform from which to continue to bash Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in the hopes of so damaging him that he can’t win the general election? Is she doing this to keep her options alive for the 2012 presidential race?

Is she really that Machiavellian? Anyone familiar with the sordid political career of the Clintons will instinctively know the answer to that question:

She, the consummate realist, must know that she has no practical shot at the nomination herself after her numbing loss in North Carolina and her paper-thin margin in Indiana. But she welcomes the opportunity an ongoing candidacy offers to bash Obama and to drive a wedge between him and the voters he must have to beat McCain.

This is good news for America in general and health care in particular. A President Hillary would be a disaster and a President Obama would be worse. Long live the Democrat politics of personal destruction!

Posted 09 May 2008 † Catron § Hillary BS § Obama BS § Political BS ‡ Comments (2)

MCCAIN, LEFTY MEMES & ACTUAL EVIDENCE

Last week, I highlighted what has already become the standard meme for ”progressive” policy wonks who wish to bash John McCain’s proposal to decouple health insurance from employment. The basic talking point, as expressed by Jonathan Cohn, goes as follows:

Insurance companies generally won’t offer coverage directly to people with ‘pre-existing conditions,’ since they represent such bad financial risks.

The basic idea here is that the employment-based insurance system offers protections to higher risk patients that would evaporate in an individual insurance market. However, as is often the case, the actual evidence refutes the Lefty meme.

In reality, as this Health Affairs article points out, a free individual market would offer more protection for high-risk patients than does the employment-based system so beloved of our “progressive” friends. Here’s the money quote:

A young male high risk who initially had small-group coverage faces a 44 percent chance of becoming uninsured in the next period–a risk nearly twice as great as it would be if he initially had individual insurance.

So, once again, Cohn and his fellow travelers have it wrong. Why? Because their positions are based on ideology rather than objective data. That’s OK for the cocktail circuit or some nutroot convention, but it’s no way to make actual policy.

Posted 08 May 2008 † Catron § Insurance BS § McCain BS § Reform BS ‡ Comments (0)

FREE MARKET COMPETITION IS YOUR FRIEND

Last year, I wrote that price competition between Wal-Mart and its rivals was a boon for pharmacy customers. Well, according to MarketWatch, the free market continues to work its magic:

In another expansion of its prescription drug program that has helped to increase its pharmacy sales, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it’s adding a 90-day supply of its prescription drugs for $10, increasing additional medications for women, and unveiling $4 over-the-counter medicines.

Wal-Mart’s $4 generic prescription drug program has already saved its customers a ton of money:

It has saved it’s customers almost $1.2 billion during the entire program period as consumers saved on expenses such as co-pays, the company said. Wal-Mart said acceptance of its offerings comes from both the insured and uninsured.

That’s the beauty of the market. Businesses want new customers, and the way to get them is to offer lower prices than the competition is offering. So, Wal-Mart and Target battle it out and we pay less for our meds.

Contrary to the BS promulgated by government health care advocates, the market will work just as well for the rest of the system—-if only those boneheads in D.C. will get out of the way. 

[HT Healthcare Economist]

Posted 07 May 2008 † Catron § Market BS ‡ Comments (0)

CANADIAN HEALTH CARE: CAN THEY HANDLE ANYTHING?

In addition to the cardiac and I.C.U. patients that Canada must send south to get proper care, women with high-risk pregnancies and sick babies are also being sent to the U.S. The Globe & Mail reports the following:

More than 100 Canadian women with high-risk pregnancies have been sent to United States hospitals over the past year.

Why? Because the bureaucrats who run the Canadian system failed to allocate enough beds:

The problem is due to bed closings that took place almost a decade ago, the absence of a national birthing initiative and too few staff.

And even when there is a bed, there’s a shortage of neonatologists:

When extra NICU beds were added in Victoria, it took about a year before they were operational due to the difficulty in recruiting a neonatologist.

This story resonated with me because, as it happens,  my eldest daughter was a premie. She was a “thirty-week baby,” fifteen inches long and weighing in at a little less than three pounds.

And how did she fare in the evil “profit-driven” U.S. system? Well, there was a bed for her … about 100 yards away. And a neonatologist was on hand to manage her care from the moment she took her first breath.

What kind of moron would want to exchange a system like that for a pig’s breakfast like the Canadian system?

Posted 06 May 2008 † Catron § Canadian BS ‡ Comments (11)

RON PAUL IS LOOSE AGAIN

Just when you thought it was safe, the old crackpot has wriggled out of his straightjacket and eluded his keepers long enough to get in front of the cameras and announce that Barack Obama has already won the November election:

Rep. Ron Paul, the House member from Texas who technically remains in the race for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination against Sen. John McCain, predicts that Democratic Sen. Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States.

Meanwhile, some of his fellow escapees are creating bedlam in the Republican delegate selection process:

An ongoing spat between supporters of Republican presidential candidates John McCain and Ron Paul flared again Thursday, when pro-Paul dissidents were kicked out of a Pasco County GOP Executive Committee meeting.

Hey guys, it’s time for you and your maundering messiah to go back to the asylum, get back on your meds, and stop pestering normal people. 

Posted 05 May 2008 † Catron § Ron Paul BS ‡ Comments (8)

OBAMA’S ACTUAL HEALTH CARE RECORD

Barack Obama’s actual legislative record on health care is a cautionary tale. His current rhetoric about controlling costs notwithstanding, he has consistently favored policies that contribute to health care inflation.

For example, his career as an Illinois state senator was marked by unwavering support for government mandates dictating the coverage health insurers must provide. The WSJ explains why this is bad:

A long list of studies show that mandates like the ones Mr. Obama has championed drive up the cost of insurance for the very people priced out of coverage.

And the cost increases caused by these mandates are significicant: 

A 2008 study by an insurance-industry supported research organization, the Council for Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI), estimates that mandates increase the cost of basic health coverage by 20% to 50%, depending on the state.

So, what’s the alternative?

If insurers were allowed to offer “bare-bones” plans – which would be cheaper because they would cover just essential care – many consumers who are priced out of health insurance now would likely buy these plans instead of living without insurance.

But that’s not what Obama is offering the American people as a presidential candidate. According to his web site, he is for “guaranteed eligibility” and “comprehensive benefits.” In other words, more of the same.

“Guaranteed eligibility” and “comprehensive benefits” sound good to many voters, but government mandates providing such things will keep insurance prices high. Does that sound like”change” to you?

Posted 05 May 2008 † Catron § Insurance BS § Obama BS ‡ Comments (2)

ARE INSURANCE COMPANIES THE PROBLEM?

Mark Gimein, writing in Slate, disputes the commonly held belief that ”Big Insurance” is driving health care inflation. He does a good job of debunking two pervasive myths:

Myth-1: Insurers’ profits are responsible for our health care costs.

Myth-2: Evidence from Medicare shows that a government program can provide the same services for less than the insurers.

Gimein disposes of the first myth by pointing out that insurance profits actually constitute a tiny percentage of our $2 trillion health care bill:

With a membership that included a little more than half of the Americans covered by private insurance, [the five largest] insurers’ profits came to 0.5 percent of total health care costs.

Myth number two, which is based largely on the cost of Medicare Advantage,  is debunked thus:

Yes, Medicare Advantage HMO programs do cost the government more than standard Medicare … The bottom line, though, is that its costs come not from insurance company inefficiency or profiteering, but from the extra benefits.

Gimein’s third “myth” is actually not a myth:

Myth-3: The concentration of power in a few large insurers raises health care costs.

He attempts to deal with it by arguing that big insurance mergers put downward pressure on costs.  But the low payment rates that mega-insurers insist upon do not, in fact, lower costs. In reality, the access problems they create drive costs up. 

Because doctors are often forced to stop accepting patients whose policies impose a negative ROI, people with low-paying policies from mega-insurance carriers often wind up getting primary care in their local ER. This, needless to say, is very expensive.

His confusion on this issue notwithstanding, Gimein does a good job of debunking the myths that big insurance profits and administraive inefficiency contribute in any meaningful way to health care inflation.

Posted 03 May 2008 † Catron § Insurance BS ‡ Comments (0)

PREMIUM BS FROM THE LA TIMES

The LA Times delighted Lefty health care wonks yesterday with an article entitled Workers’ health insurance costs soar. Here’s the money quote (as it were):

Workers with job-based coverage for their families saw earnings rise 3% from 2001 to 2005, while their health insurance premium contribution increased 30% … The average cost nationally of family coverage during the period increased nearly $2,500, to $10,728 from $8,281.

Man that seems like a big jump. And it would be—-if it were true. But it would appear that the Times has once again proven Jefferson correct:

The quoted figures came from  this study, which clearly states (see table 3) that the average employee paid only 24% of the total premium for family coverage. 

In other words, the average employee paid $1,987 for family insurance coverage in 2001. By 2005, that figure had increased to $2,574.

So, the actual increase paid by employees was $587, or $147 per year. No one wants to pay more for insurance, but this is not the stuff of a Dickens novel.

This reality has not, of course, stopped the usual suspects from quoting this disingenuously written article and tut-tutting about how awful things are.

These are not serious people.

Posted 02 May 2008 † Catron § Insurance BS ‡ Comments (7)

PROGRESSIVE PARROTS SQUAWK

In addition to being incapable of objective, non-partisan analysis, progressive health care wonks are utterly predictable.  They can be counted on to mindlessly denounce any reform proposal from any Republican—-regardless of its merits.

So, their response to John McCain’s newly fleshed out health care agenda was no surprise. They reflexively repeated their talking points like so many parrots screeching in unison. One of the first to squawk was Jonathan Cohn:

A big problem with this scheme, as critics like me pointed out, was that it wouldn’t do much for people who were already sick. Insurance companies generally won’t offer coverage directly to people with “pre-existing conditions,” since they represent such bad financial risks.

Cohn is, of course, reverting to the hoary adverse selection/risk pool argument that sounds very wonkish and intellectual but which, as I explain here, is based on a false premise. Ezra Klein mindlessly mimics the meme:

Somewhere in the house, a phone is ringing. It’s your old insurance company … Sorry, they say, but your family just doesn’t fit their risk profile … It is a call — or, sometimes, merely a letter — that millions of Americans have received … These Americans are rejected for health insurance because they were sick once.

This dope, in a just world, would be delivering pizzas. Merrill Goozman, on the other hand, does not have Klein’s excuse of sheer naiveté. He knows the truth and still chooses to provide this variation on the disingenuous theme:

What was most notable about presumptive Republican nominee John McCain’s health care plan unveiled Tuesday was the campaign’s unrealistic assessment of its impact on people with life-threatening conditions like cancer, the millions of Americans with chronic disease like diabetics …

Blah, blah, blah, blah … If John McCAin had come out for free universal health care, covering everyone from cradle to grave, these people would have found some cheesy excuse to denounce it.

Why? Because John McCain is a Republican and it is an election year.

Posted 02 May 2008 † Catron § McCain BS § Political BS § Progressive BS ‡ Comments (1)

MCCAIN VS. OBAMA ON HEALTH CARE

McCain’s health care plan is by no means perfect, but it is vastly superior to that of the probable Democrat presidential nominee. Here’s an excerpt from my American Spectator article comparing McCain’s health care reform agenda to Obama’s:

McCain would emphasize consumer choice, markets and tax reform, while eschewing government-run health care. As he put it on April 28, at the launch of his “Call to Action” tour, “I am convinced that the wrong way to go is to turn over your lives to the government and hope it will all be fine.” Obama, on the other hand, places considerable faith in the state, favoring the shopworn tools of big-government liberalism: central planning, oppressive bureaucracy, and the creation of new entitlement programs.

To read the rest of my brilliant effusions on this subject, go here.

Posted 01 May 2008 † Catron § McCain BS § Obama BS § Political BS ‡ Comments (0)