Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Affordable [sic] Healthcare [sick]

The Pelosi-Obama Affordable Care Act was passed as a pig-in-a-poke. Now with that poke open, with the pig fully emergent as of next year, what do we know about “Obamacare”?

  1. It’s not socialized medicine, but it is heavily regulated- and subsidized-medicine, almost designed not to work. Its inevitable failures will be said to require more government as “fixes,” eventually (some Democrats hope) going all the way to, yes, socialized medicine.

  2. It’s chockfull of new subsidies, which raise medical costs by making demand for services even more inelastic . . . and thus can only increase taxpayer burdens and more strain on budgets. The original reason so many Americans opposed the reform was that promoting a new “entitlement” even as the old entitlements of Social Security and Medicaid teetered further into insolvency was the very opposite of common sense.
  3. It’s filled with new “mandates” at every level, for businesses as well as individuals. A few have been postponed, but the bulk of the increased regulations are indeed going into effect next year. That will generally raise prices.

But by how much? Well, a new all-state study predicts that

insurance premiums will increase under the first year of Obamacare in 45 of 50 states. This finding flies in the face of President Obama’s promise that his health care overhaul would cause premiums “for the typical family” to fall by $2500.

Why the decrease in five states?

Those had already embraced the goofy over-regulations that Democrats just seem to love.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Thought

Murray N. Rothbard

Subsidies prolong the life of inefficient firms and prevent the flexibility of the market from fully satisfying consumer wants. The greater the extent of government subsidy, the more the market is prevented from working, the more resources are frozen in inefficient ways, and the lower will be the standard of living of everyone. Furthermore, the more government intervenes and subsidizes, the more caste conflict will be created in society, for individuals and groups will benefit only at one another’s expense.

Categories
links

Townhall: Limited Terms

The death of an enemy — a time for reflection.

See this weekend’s column at Townhall.com, and then come back here for more to think about:

Categories
Thought

Margaret J. Wheatley

When we can lay down our fear and anger and choose responses other than aggression, we create the conditions for bringing out the best in us humans.

Categories
video

Video: The Great Disintermediation

Matt Kibbe on the future of the Republican Party . . . and the Democratic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e70y_g6LcAs

Categories
ballot access

Hobbling Challenger Parties

Incumbents write the laws — sometimes to rig the game in their favor.

Everybody knows about the conflict-of-interest iniquities of gerrymandering; increasing numbers of people are learning that “campaign finance reform” also increases incumbent advantages.

But one of the most obvious ways incumbents can limit challengers is to limit challenger parties. That’s on the agenda of the Republican-controlled Ohio Legislature. The Senate just passed SB 193, a bill that rewrites the rules for “minor parties.” The House now considers.

Ohio’s law governing minor parties does need re-tooling, arguably, having been struck down as unconstitutional . . . way back in 2006. The Green Party and Libertarian Party were qualified parties then and, with legislators busy causing trouble elsewhere, they have remained on the ballot since.

“Obviously, if you are in one of those minor parties,” Republican Senator Bill Seitz said, “you probably would like that current, lawless state of affairs to continue because you get to stay on the ballot without demonstrating any modicum of support.”

Probably. Most folks do like to have the candidates they want to vote for listed right there on the official ballot. Why shouldn’t they?

Last election for governor, four percent of the people voted for the Green (1.5) and Libertarian (2.4) candidates.

I say, “Protect the Four Percent!”

As far as modicums go, how about a modicum of justice?

The ACLU testified that the new rules are onerous, draconian. Even worse, throwing people off the ballot at this stage in an election cycle and requiring 56,000 petition signatures to get back on is not fair or right or legal — a violation of due process.

Are Republicans really so afraid of an alternative to Governor Kasich next year?

I can’t imagine why.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Thought

Margaret J. Wheatley

In these troubled, uncertain times, we don’t need more command and control; we need better means to engage everyone’s intelligence in solving challenges and crises as they arise.

Categories
Thought

Albert Einstein

Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.

Categories
education and schooling ideological culture

Progress in Talk About Schools

Since my days in the early grades of school, there’s been a lot of educational progress in America.

Not so much in the public schools, but in alternatives to them. When I was young, public schools were not only paid for by taxpayers, they were near-monopolies. Parochial schools and other religious-based programs were few. Home-schooling was uncommon, technically illegal in most states and locales.

How things have changed! Not enough, mind you. But the general political culture has improved enough that charter schools are often voted in, and there exist working voucher systems, if of a limited scope, in several areas of these United States.

In Britain, the situation is also opening up. The Labour Party is pitching its support for “parent-led academies in areas of educational need.” Party outreach spokesman Tristram Hunt, who had previously snarked that such projects were “vanity project[s] for yummy mummies,” takes it all back, now insisting that his (quasi-socialist) Labour Party now backs “enterprise and innovation.”

Britain is ruled by a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, with Labour on the outs, so of course Labour could be said to be grasping at straws. It’s cheap to try freedom when you have little power. Conservative politicians insist that the latest statements are nothing but empty promises, and that Labour is still socialistically clinging to the old notion of schools “run by bureaucrats.”

But hey: notice that freer solutions are on the table.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
media and media people national politics & policies porkbarrel politics

Broken Fix

Washington Government is broken. Everyone — even those limited to a single firing brain synapse — knows as much. But, what to do about it?

Washington scribe Ezra Klein offers “The 13 reasons Washington is failing,” on The Washington Post’s “Wonkblog.”

First on Klein’s list? Earmarks. Really. Yes, the little pork-barrel items stuffed into bills without any debate or serious consideration to boost an incumbent politician by a million or a billion dollars here or there. Klein blames the GOP House for banning earmarks.

“It used to be that Boehner could ask a member to take a tough vote and, in return, help him or her get a bridge built back home,” explains Ezra. “That bargaining chip is gone.”

Our political system desperately needs it back, so we can put the genie back in the Klein bottle. Congressional leaders simply must be able to keep your representative on the take.

But that’s not all. Government is also too transparent, or, as Ezra puts it, “Too much sunshine can burn.”

Sure, effective political bridge-trading needs to be done behind closed doors. Away from the prying eyes of pesky voters.

Klein goes on to lament that, “Big business has lost a lot of its power over the Republican Party.” That’s a problem. Really. Progressives are nonplussed.

And Klein argues “The Republican Party has become particularly extreme” and “Ted Cruz (and others like him) has gained a lot of power over the Republican Party,” before informing readers: “There is no ‘Republican Party.’”

All of which — obviously and unquestionably — explains why Big Government cannot give us nice things. Or so says one insiders’ outsider.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.