Mass. health costs still soar, NY Times spreads fallacy about fee-for-service health care
The fundamental problem in health care is not that we are using too much of one payment mechanism (e.g. fee-for-service) and too little of another. The problem is that the person who benefits from the service is not the same as the person who pays the bill. Continue reading
Fallacy watch: containing health care spending vs. health care costs
Don’t confuse controlling health care costs with controlling spending. A government health plan can contain spending by refusing to pay for life-saving treatments, but this would impose great costs. Continue reading
How Obamacare will decrease health care access for the poor
“ObamaCare, by lowering the money price of care for almost everybody while doing nothing to change supply, will intensify non-price rationing and may actually make access to care more difficult for those with the least financial resources.” – John Goodman Continue reading
Paul Krugman’s space aliens won’t create jobs, repealing health control law will
Printed in the Boulder Daily Camera, summary: Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman says a massive defense buildup in response to “fake an alien threat” would end the economic slump. An EconStories rap explains the fallacy: “If every worker was staffed in the army and fleet, we’d have full employment and nothing to eat.” Repealing the 2010 health control act would spur employment. Continue reading
Mitt Romney, mandatory health insurance, & the phony free-rider justification
“[I]f the individual mandate’s purpose is to prevent free riders from shifting the cost of their emergency care to others, all it should require is … insurance to cover a trip to the emergency room. Instead, both RomneyCare and ObamaCare require everyone to be covered for numerous benefits going far beyond emergency care.” – Jeff Jacoby
Why Cato’s Michael Cannon has boycotted PolitiFact:
Why PolitiFact’s claims are not always factual.
How many are uninsurable because of pre-existing conditions?
An HHS study says 1% of Americans have been denied coverage because of a pre-existing conditions. Economists conclude that less than 1% of the population is uninsurable. The individual market pools risks well, and that allowing insurers to risk-rate premiums would encourage innovative products like health status insurance.
ObamaCare Repeal Won’t Add to the Deficit
How, then, does the ObamaCare health control law magically convert $1 trillion in new spending into painless deficit reduction? It’s all about budget gimmicks, deceptive accounting, and implausible assumptions used to create the false impression of fiscal discipline.
Colorado Consumer Health Initiative misleads again
It’s been illegal to drop coverage when someone gets sick since 1997. The 2010 health control bill did not change this, despite what Dede de Percin of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative says.
Mandatory insurance vs. personal responsibility
Mandatory insurance is not about “personal responsibility.” It’s about forcing you to pay for others’ medical care by making you to buy more insurance than you’d like. If those who use the “responsibility” argument were honest, they’d want to repeal Medicaid & other government programs that force one person to finance the medical care of others.
Workers, not employers, bear the (full) cost of health benefits
Many workers believe they pay one part of their health insurance premium, and their employer pays the rest. But that’s not how it works. Really, you pay the full cost of your health benefits.
Make a word meaningless: add “social” in front of it!
Michael Cannon at the Cato Institute makes a great point: [HuffPo blogger Jesse Larner writes that] “Cannon is not in favor of universal coverage as a social right.” True, that. “As a libertarian, he doesn’t even recognize the concept of social rights.” I believe it was Friedrich Hayek who said there’s no better way to […]
