By Examiner Editorial

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is proving once again the maxim that darkness hates the light.

Buried in his massive amendment to the Senate version of Obamacare is Reid’s anti-democratic poison pill designed to prevent any future Congress from repealing the central feature of this monstrous legislation.

Beginning on page 1,000 of the measure, Section 3403 reads in part: “… it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.”

In other words, if President Obama signs this measure into law, Reid intends that no future Senate or House will be able to change a single word of Section 3403, regardless whether future Americans or their representatives in Congress wish otherwise.

Note that the subsection at issue here concerns the regulatory power of the Independent Medicare Independent Advisory Board to “reduce the per capita rate of growth in Medicare spending.”

That is precisely the kind of open-ended grant of regulatory power that effectively establishes the IMAB as the ultimate arbiter of the cost, quality and quantity of health care to be made available to the American people. And Reid wants the decisions of this group of unelected federal bureaucrats to be untouchable for all time.

No wonder the majority leader tossed aside assurances that senators and the public would have at least 72 hours to study the text of the final Senate version of Obamacare before the critical vote on cloture. And no wonder Reid was so desperate to rush his amendment through the Senate, even scheduling the key tally on it at 1 a.m., while America slept.

True to form, Reid wanted to keep his Section 3403 poison pill secret as long as possible, just as he negotiated his bribes for the votes of Sens. Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, Ben Nelson, of Nebraska, and Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, behind closed doors.

The final Orwellian touch in this subversion of democratic procedure is found in the ruling of the Reid-controlled Senate parliamentarian that the anti-repeal provision is not a change in Senate rules, but rather of Senate “procedures.” Why is that significant?

Because for 200 years, changes in the Senate’s standing rules have required approval by two-thirds of those voting, or 67 votes rather than the 60 Reid’s amendment received.

Reid has flouted two centuries of standing Senate rules to pass a measure in the dead of night that no senator has read, and part of which can never be changed. If this is not tyranny, then what is?

By Jon N. Hall    

By John Stossel

As an American, I am embarrassed that the U.S. House of Representatives has 220 members who actually believe the government can successfully centrally plan the medical and insurance industries.

I'm embarrassed that my representatives think that government can subsidize the consumption of medical care without increasing the budget deficit or interfering with free choice.

It's a triumph of mindless wishful thinking over logic and experience. 

The 1,990-page bill is breathtaking in its bone-headed audacity. The notion that a small group of politicians can know enough to design something so complex and so personal is astounding. That they were advised by "experts" means nothing since no one is expert enough to do that. There are too many tradeoffs faced by unique individuals with infinitely varying needs.

Government cannot do simple things efficiently. The bureaucrats struggle to count votes correctly. They give subsidized loans to "homeowners" who turn out to be 4-year-olds. Yet congressmen want government to manage our medicine and insurance.

Competition is a "discovery procedure," Nobel-prize-winning economist F. A. Hayek taught. Through the competitive market process, we producers and consumers constantly learn things that force us to adjust our behavior if we are to succeed. Central planners fail for two reasons:

First, knowledge about supply, demand, individual preferences and resource availability is scattered -- much of it never articulated -- throughout society. It is not concentrated in a database where a group of planners can access it.

Second, this "data" is dynamic: It changes without notice.

No matter how honorable the central planners' intentions, they will fail because they cannot know the needs and wishes of 300 million different people. And if they somehow did know their needs, they wouldn't know them tomorrow.

Proponents of so-called reform -- it's not really reform unless it makes things better -- have shamefully avoided criticism of their proposals. Often they just dismiss their opponents as greedy corporate apologists or paranoid right-wing loonies. That's easier than answering questions like these:

1) How can the government subsidize the purchase of medical services without driving up prices? Econ 101 teaches -- without controversy -- that when demand goes up, if other things remain equal, price goes up. The politicians want to have their cake and eat it, too.

2) How can the government promise lower medical costs without restricting choices? Medicare already does that. Once the planners' mandatory insurance pushes prices to new heights, they must put even tougher limits on what we may buy -- or their budget will be even deeper in the red than it already is. As economist Thomas Sowell points out, government cannot really reduce costs. All it can do is disguise and shift costs (through taxation) and refuse to pay for some services (rationing).

3) How does government "create choice" by imposing uniformity on insurers? Uniformity limits choice. Under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's bill and the Senate versions, government would dictate to all insurers what their "minimum" coverage policy must include. Truly basic high-deductible, low-cost catastrophic policies tailored to individual needs would be forbidden.

4) How does it "create choice" by making insurance companies compete against a privileged government-sponsored program? The so-called government option, let's call it Fannie Med, would have implicit government backing and therefore little market discipline. The resulting environment of conformity and government power is not what I mean by choice and competition. Rep. Barney Frank is at least honest enough to say that the public option will bring us a government monopoly.

Advocates of government control want you to believe that the serious shortcomings of our medical and insurance system are failures of the free market. But that's impossible because our market is not free. Each state operates a cozy medical and insurance cartel that restricts competition through licensing and keeps prices higher than they would be in a genuine free market. But the planners won't talk about that. After all, if government is the problem in the first place, how can they justify a government takeover?

Many people are priced out of the medical and insurance markets for one reason: the politicians' refusal to give up power. Allowing them to seize another 16 percent of the economy won't solve our problems.

Freedom will.

By Peter Suderman

Over the summer, the health-care debate focused on the controversy over the so-called "public option"—a government-run insurance plan intended to offer a low-cost alternative to private insurers. But squabbling over the public plan has diverted attention away from the true centerpiece of all current reform efforts: an individual mandate requiring every American to buy health insurance. Even without any form of public option, a nationwide mandate opens the door to de facto government control over the entire insurance industry, while potentially killing off the low-cost plans that could truly revolutionize American medicine.

An insurance mandate is a crude solution to the what many liberals consider the primary problem with America's health-care system: the large number of uninsured. One of the most frequently repeated statistics in the health-care debate is that there are 47 million people without health insurance in the U.S. Anyone looking for a way to get all of those people insured is left with only one option: force them to get insurance.

Problem is, the 47 million statistic is misleading. And even with a mandate, health reform legislation is projected to leave tens of millions uninsured.

Let's start with the 47 million figure. The number is presented as a static fact, but instead it's the total number of people who go uninsured for even a single day each year. The number also includes several million illegal immigrants, 11 million individuals who already qualify for some form of government health assistance, and 18 million individuals who make more than $50,000 a year, many of whom presumably could buy insurance but simply choose not to.

Meanwhile, mandates don't actually bring everyone into the system. Some people simply wouldn't comply. Others would choose to pay a penalty in order to avoid buying insurance. The latest report from the CBO estimated that the health-care plan put forth by the Senate Finance Committee would leave "about 25 million nonelderly residents uninsured (about one-third of whom would be unauthorized immigrants)."

In other words, a mandate is, at best, a leaky solution to an incredibly exaggerated problem.

Yet advocates claim that it's the only way to cover everyone and bring down costs. In the real world, however, that's just not true.

As Cato Institute health-policy analyst Michael Cannon pointed out in a recent paper, mandate supporters often argue that, by bringing everyone (or nearly everyone) into the insurance pool, a mandate will save money on so-called "uncompensated care"—the unpaid-for care doled out to free-riders throughout the nation's emergency rooms. But according to the Urban Institue, a left-leaning think tank, uncompensated care only accounted for about 2.2 percent of health spending in 2008. So, at most, savings would amount to measly 2.2 percent—and that's before accounting for the additional costs imposed by a mandate.

And those costs can be significant. As Cannon explains, "when government makes health insurance mandatory, it must define a level of coverage that satisfies the mandate." That means that many lower-coverage, lower-cost plans no longer make the cut—and premium costs go up. As Cannon calculated based on a study by Massachusetts Division of Finance and Policy, mandatory coverage requirements can "increase the cost of insurance by as much as 14 percent—or nearly $1,700 per year for family coverage." Two-and-a-half years after first imposing a mandate, the state now has the dubious honor of having the nation's most expensive health insurance premiums, and the future looks even more grim: Insurers have already announced plans for double-digit hikes next year.

Nor does the existence of a mandate guarantee that public spending on health-care will be kept in check. Indeed, the opposite has occured in Massachusetts. The state's medical spending is so out of control that, according to the Boston Globe, state insurance commissioners now worry that it "could threaten the state’s model health insurance law and bankrupt employers and patients." 

Supporters claim the Massachusetts plan has been a success because it's increased the percentage of people in the state with health insurance. And it's true. Estimates suggest that, these days, the percentage of uninsured in Massachusetts numbers somewhere between 2.2 and 4 percent (although given that 86 percent had insurance before the mandate took effect, this isn't as much of an accomplishment as they claim). But what good is insurance if the program that funds it isn't sustainable? Even among those who view the plan as a model for the nation, there's concern that skyrocketing costs "threaten the long-term viability of the initiative."

Meanwhile, a mandate's minimum coverage requirements would effectively outlaw low-cost health-care solutions like health-savings accounts (HSAs) that let individuals pay for care out of accounts they control—and, unlike traditional insurance plans, have a legitimate (if not yet definitive) record of lowering health-care spending.

But in Washington's current reform-crazed atmosphere, sensible ideas like giving consumers more control over their health-care don't stand a chance. Instead, liberal reformers appear to have succumbed to the power of compulsory insurance. And if they get their way, it won't be long before we're all in the grips of mandate madness.

Peter Suderman is an associate editor at Reason magazine.

by D.W. MacKenzie

"The idea that we must choose between public healthcare and politicized-private healthcare is false. We can also move to depoliticize the healthcare industry."

Rising costs are the main issue in the debate over healthcare reform. Most everybody thinks of healthcare as expensive, but there is much confusion over these costs. On September 9, President Obama attempted to clarify cost issues concerning the medical industry. The federal government will supposedly reduce costs, curtail abuses, and make healthcare services more affordable.

The president proposes creating a low-cost market for health insurance. Previously uninsured people would be required, with some exemptions, to buy health insurance — so as to avoid high-cost emergency-room visits. Businesses would be compelled to provide insurance, with some exemptions for the smallest businesses. The federal government would also promote preventative care and nonprofit health clinics.

Senator Baucus has proposed a new plan whereby people who do not buy health insurance will be fined $3,800. These fines will force people to buy insurance, and this will spread costs more broadly.

Economist Paul Craig Roberts criticizes proposals for forcing people to buy insurance. He argues that fining people who cannot afford health insurance is like "solving the homeless problem by requiring the homeless to purchase houses." Roberts recognizes that fines forcing more people to buy health insurance are the equivalent of a new tax. He objects to this new tax on the grounds that it is imposed on those who cannot afford it.

Roberts believes that taxes for healthcare should be apportioned according to the "ability-to-pay" principle. He favors a "single-payer, not-for-profit healthcare system." According to him, private healthcare does not work because of expensive medical technology, malpractice suits, bureaucratic third-party-payer costs, and the "cost" of shareholder returns.

The remarks that the president, Senator Baucus, and Paul Roberts have made regarding profits and executive compensation reveal problems with their understanding of economics. The president, for instance, sees profits and high executive salaries in insurance companies as unnecessary costs, fat that can be cut from the health industry. In economic terms, however, profits represent success in satisfying consumers of particular products at relatively low costs.

Successful executives keep revenues high by gaining market share and satisfying customers in large numbers. They also keep financial costs low by cutting waste in the use of labor, capital, and supplies. High profits are often a sign that companies are serving their consumers at a low cost.

The president's remarks regarding profits and executive salaries likely derive from the hostility towards all profits characteristic of many people on the Left (such as Michael Moore), rather than from sound economic reasoning. Executives earn high salaries by delivering high profits to owners, and high profits derive in part from keeping costs under control. Would a nonprofit, single-payer (i.e., taxpayer-funded) system also be run on a cost-minimizing basis?

"High profits are often a sign that companies are serving their consumers at a low cost."

The basic choice we have to make is between healthcare based on the profit motive and healthcare based on some kind of service principle. On the one hand, corporations do make profit by developing new drugs for consumers, and by manufacturing medical supplies and equipment. On the other hand, nonprofit clinics do exist, medical professionals do perform pro bono services, and some companies do donate medical supplies and equipment. But what serves the public best: private profit seeking, or the desire to do public service?

Of course, we don't want to assume that all profits and executive salaries derive from efficient management. Some executives increase the profitability of their operations through lobbying the government to secure state-granted privileges and subsidies.

Roberts recognizes such problems with special interests. Senator Baucus proposes that people be pressured into buying more insurance, but Roberts notes that Baucus has taken large campaign contributions from insurance companies. Lobbying by special-corporate interests generates profits that are "fat in the system" and should be cut.

But will increased government involvement in the healthcare industry cause more or less corporate lobbying? Both mandated-private and single-payer, nonprofit insurance proposals will likely increase wasteful lobbying by corporate interests.

The real question is, how far can we replace legitimate profit seeking with public service? Some people donate time and goods to healthcare. It is also true that some people work at Medicare or the Center for Disease Control because they want to do public service. But how much more of this conscientious public service can we expect? Other people seek federal jobs for an easy path to early retirement, or for power. The president is assuming a ready supply of capable and conscientious public servants, as well as effective means of managing and organizing healthcare along bureaucratic lines.

In the absence of market prices and profits, large-scale organization requires central planning. The idea of such planning scares many people, and rightly so. The planning of entire national economies during the 20th century ended in disaster. Large public bureaucracies have also exhibited significant problems with waste and rigidity.

These problems exist for specific reasons: central planning suffers from the defect that small groups of leaders or officials cannot possibly understand local conditions in modern industries like healthcare. The modern world is simply too complex to be planned. Of course, the private system of profit and loss also has defects, but we must be careful in identifying the source of the worst problems with profit seeking.

"Income taxes create a bias in favor of healthcare funding through insurance."

President Obama wants to further politicize the medical industry. He seems to assume that private profit seeking is wasteful. The president would be right if he specifically criticized profiteering through the manipulation of public policies. Since the medical industry is heavily regulated, we should expect that part of its profits serves special interests rather than consumers.

But the president's complaint about executive pay and profits in general is more in line with the socialist idea that profits necessarily serve a particular interest group — capitalists — at the expense of everybody else.

There are, of course, other sources of waste in the current healthcare system. Laws that mandate coverage of minor and routine healthcare services increase private administrative costs. For that matter, income taxes create a bias in favor of healthcare funding through insurance, rather than through per-service fees charged directly to consumers.

Third-party administrative costs could be slashed simply by removing the current bias towards healthcare financing through so-called insurance (as opposed to through true insurance for high-cost/low-probability health events). Frivolous and fraudulent lawsuits have also imposed high costs through inflated malpractice-insurance rates. Would either single-payer or mandated-insurance proposals decrease these costs?

We have three options: our current system, permeated by ill-gotten politicized profits and wasteful special-interest lobbying; a largely untried privatized system, based on private profits and limited private charity; and a system of centralized, single-payer healthcare through public bureaucracies. The type of compromises that the president proposed in his September 9 speech have already been tried and failed. We already have regulation by bureaucratic agencies.

Public bureaucracies have well-known and well-deserved reputations for rigidity, waste, and, at times, abuse. The private sector has a bad reputation in the healthcare industry, but that is largely due to the fact that healthcare has already been politicized.

Obama's plan for healthcare amounts to a self-fulfilling prophecy: if we further politicize the healthcare industry its profits will be even less justifiable, and public options will gain legitimacy. Paul Craig Roberts has seen ahead of this curve, and recognizes that a centralized, single-payer system might have some advantages over a politicized system of government mandates favoring private-corporate interests.

But the idea that we must choose between public healthcare and politicized-private healthcare is false. We can also move to depoliticize the healthcare industry. A depoliticized, free market in healthcare would be run on the basis of profits that are for the most part earned through cost efficiency and customer service.

A truly competitive health industry of this kind would best serve American consumers. Unfortunately, we are as far from approaching this situation as President Obama is from comprehending its merits.

D.W. MacKenzie teaches economics at the Coast Guard Academy. (The contents of this paper do not reflect official views of The U.S. Coast Guard Academy.) Send him mail. See D.W. MacKenzie's article archives. Comment on the blog.
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Source: Understanding the Costs of HealthCare (http://mises.org/story/3708) by D.W. Mackenzie

By Eric M. Staib

In response to my recent article on health-insurance mandates, I received many emails from readers who argued that mandates, as unappealing as they may be, are necessary to prevent market failure in emergency medical services.

Specifically, they argued that there is a "free-rider problem" in emergency care because individuals are currently able to visit the emergency room (ER) without insurance or the means to pay, receive care, and then skip out on the bill. Such free riders force the hospital to either accept the losses or spread the costs to other patients. Therefore, the readers reasoned, there is a market failure in that health insurance is under-demanded and ER care is over-demanded, increasing health care costs and dumping them onto those consumers who do purchase insurance and pay for their visits.

As accurate as this common depiction of the symptom is, however, it misdiagnoses the disease. The free-rider problem in ER care is not a market failure, but a government failure. The Hippocratic Oath notwithstanding, hospitals only accept all patients irrespective of their ability to pay because they are required to by government regulations. These laws, which are in place in countries around the planet, result in a simple welfare scheme whereby the costs of the uninsured are transferred to insured patients. With this reality in mind, it is easy to see that the free-rider problem in ER services is not a market failure, but rather a government failure.

A Libertarian Alternative

How, then, would truly free-market hospitals handle patients who are now free riders? There is every reason to expect that these uninsured, mostly low-income people would be treated more humanely and with greater dignity than they are in the current quasi-socialist system.

Without government regulations on their payment collection methods, hospitals would be free to offer more flexible prices and payment options, and to negotiate contracts with individual consumers. Those patients with little financial leverage would be able to form creative payment plans, and those without any savings or insurance could even contract to pay for their services with labor.

Furthermore, in a truly free market for medical care, even patients who intentionally try to skip payments and thus dump the costs on others cannot. This is because, in the absence of supposedly compassionate hospital legislation, to admit oneself or someone else to emergency care is to agree to the terms and conditions of service at that hospital — most importantly, to pay for treatment.

Thus, in the libertarian society, checking out without arranging payment would constitute a violation of contract, and therefore these malicious free riders would be held accountable. In the current situation, however, such predatory patients are subsidized by others in the name of social compassion.

Another advantage of contractual enforcement of payment for ER services on the free market is that it removes hospitals from financial responsibility for those patients who are admitted to the ER by another party while incapacitated. Which party will be held responsible for the hospital bill in each case would be decided by negotiation between the two parties and perhaps even by court arbitration. Which party eventually pays is not important for this matter, though; what matters is that the hospital will be paid either way, and that other patients will no longer be stuck with the bill.

Now that we've seen that the free rider problem does not exist in a free market for medical care, we can address other readers' concern that the profit-driven market process is unsympathetic to the suffering of those patients who are truly unable to pay in any way and can't afford market insurance, but who shouldn't simply be left to suffer.

The Market for Free Riders?

To argue that the market discards those it regards as undesirable is to both ignore the prevalence of private charity and deny the existence of the entire public-relations industry. Indeed, setting socialist doctrines aside, we can see that affectionate treatment of the poor and downtrodden is actually a very profitable endeavor.

In every market, firms of all sizes expend resources to maintain a positive public image. There are few actions better received by a community than healing and treating their vulnerable and disabled at a discounted or zero price. As such, it is absolutely foolish to believe that hospitals would not take in such customers for treatment.

In fact, if we examine the nature of prices and income differentials closely, we arrive at another instance of destructive government intervention. Price discrimination of almost every form is illegal in almost every market, and health care is certainly no exception.

Price discrimination may feel unfair, but if allowed by law it can lead to much more efficient market outcomes and higher market quantities of all goods and services. Using price discrimination, hospitals would be free to provide additional and cheaper services to low-income consumers without decreasing the price for high-income consumers.

Price discrimination would benefit the hospitals as well, because they would not only increase the quantity of services they perform and add potentially loyal new customers, but would also be able to increase the price of services to their high-income patients without losing their business.

Viewing the converse of this market outcome, then, we can observe that laws against price-fixing necessarily decrease quantities of goods and services, and squeeze marginal consumers out of the market. In the health care market, this means that those who are most in need of low-cost care are forced out of the market in the name of social justice.

In contemplating competition between medical service providers, we can deduce that the market will indeed treat people who are now free riders with dignity, but that those consumers will no longer actually be free riding on others. Instead, they will provide a valuable good to society — namely, the satisfaction that comes with supporting others in their time of need. While it may seem strange to think of this as an economic good, it certainly is, as evidenced by consumers' willingness to forgo other forms of consumption in favor of charity.

While caring for these patients would still redistribute costs to other consumers, it would do so only to the extent that these paying consumers would tolerate it by continuing to purchase care and services. That is to say that consumers' choices between competing hospitals' services would, just as in any market, force those hospitals to provide equilibrium quantities of charitable care.

This efficient market quantity would therefore be determined by the charitable inclinations of insured and higher-income patients. And in a truly libertarian market, which would lack taxes, we can say that these individuals would inarguably be more giving of their own income.

Perhaps the best feature of the free-market process in a libertarian health market is that it would allocate charitable funds to their best use. In our emergency services case, this axiom of market behavior implies that hospitals will spend their charity budgets on the most destitute and impoverished patients.

Whereas government funds are allocated according to political cronyism and electoral opportunism, free-market hospitals will always attempt to maximize the benefit to their public image — nothing more than profit maximization — by providing for those patients who are most in need.

Conclusion

With rigorous examination, we can see that emergency medical services function like any other market, and that the free-rider problem is the result of a government failure. Furthermore, we can safely expect that the free market would treat the most deserving of these free riders more humanely than does the supposedly compassionate central health administration.

Eric Staib is an economics major at the University of Oklahoma. Send him mail. See Eric M. Staib's article archives. Comment on the blog.
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Source: Is Emergency Care a Failed Market? (http://mises.org/story/3699) by Eric M. Staib

By Ann Coulter

I'm trying to get to the next installment of my Pulitzer Prize-deserving series on liberal lies about national health care, but apparently liberals have decided to torture us by neurotically fixating on one lie.
   
After President Barack Obama gave a speech to a joint session of Congress last week passionately defending his national health care plan, the Democrats were agog at the brilliance of the speech. Nancy Pelosi was so thrilled, her expression almost changed.
   
But as Obama ticked off one demonstrably false claim after another -- eliciting 37 standing ovations from the Democrats in the audience -- America's greatest living statesman, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., yelled out, "You lie!" in response to Obama's claim that the bill will not cover illegal aliens.

There are a number of theories about why America's greatest living statesman shouted "You lie!" at that juncture, but mine is that Wilson said it because Obama told a big, fat stinking lie.
   
Every single American knows it's a lie. But liberals take pleasure in repeating it -- and then condescendingly accusing anyone who doesn't accept their lie of being a toothless, illiterate racist.
   
Our politicians, media and courts have done everything they can to encourage illegal immigration, including obstinately refusing to enforce the border. While illegals streaming across the border generally aren't prosecuted, U.S. border patrol agents who naively try to guard the border often are.
   
Wise (and pregnant) Latinas dash across the border just in time to give birth at American hospitals -- medical services paid for by U.S. taxpayers -- gaining instant citizenship for their children, thereby entitling them to the entire Chinese menu of American welfare programs.
   
In 2004, 42.6 percent of all babies born at taxpayer expense in California were born to illegal aliens, according to a state report on Medi-Cal-funded deliveries. In hospitals close to the Mexican border, the figure is closer to 80 percent. Remember: This is before health care becomes "free" to every U.S. resident.
   
Hospitals across the country are going bankrupt because the federal government forces them to provide free services to illegals. This situation appears to have angered some segment of the population, in particular, American citizens who pay taxes to support the hospitals, but then are forced to spend hours writhing in pain in hospital waiting rooms.
   
With Americans in a boiling cauldron of rage about the government's impotent response to the tsunami of illegal immigrants, last year, both political parties ran candidates for president who favor amnesty for illegal immigrants.
   
And now Democrats have the audacity to tell us to our faces that national health care won't cover illegals. Not only that, but they tell us we must not be able to read if we think it does.
   
The crystalline example of this sneering liberal pomposity came from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Monday night:

"Reading the House health care bill would show you that (the bill does not cover illegal aliens). But you know, sometimes reading is hard. Fortunately, in the case of the health reform bill, there is a way to get all of the information that's in it without any of that pesky reading.
   
"It's called HearTheBill.org. Volunteer voiceover actors have donated their time to read all 1,017 pages of the house health care reform bill, HR-3200, the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009.
   
"So if you don't want to tire out your eyes, you could just listen to the thing that disproves (Rep. Wilson)."

Maddow then played an audio clip of Section 246 from the bill. This section, which liberals keep brandishing like a DNA-stained dress, states: "Nothing in this subtitle shall allow federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."
   
In other words, illegal aliens are excluded from precisely one section of the thousand-page, goodie-laden health care bill: Section 246, which distributes taxpayer-funded "affordability credits" to people who can't afford to pay for their own health care.
   
Even this minor restriction on taxpayer largesse to illegals will immediately be overturned by the courts. But the point is: Except for vouchers, the bill does not even pretend to exclude illegals from any part of national health care -- including the taxpayer-funded health insurance plan.
   
Moreover, liberals won't have to wait for some court to find that the words "nothing in this subtitle shall allow" means "this bill allows," because the bill contains no mechanism to ensure that the health care vouchers aren't going to illegal aliens. Nor does the bill prohibit the states from providing taxpayer-funded health care vouchers to illegals.
   
Democrats keep voting down Republican amendments that would insert these restrictions -- just before dashing to a TV studio to denounce anyone who says the health care bill covers illegal aliens.
   
It's as if we have a relative who shows up at every holiday gathering, gets bombed and totals the family car. At the 18th Christmas celebration, he's not only demanding a drink, but also calling us liars for saying he's already totaled 17 family cars. Gimme a gin and tonic and the car keys, you lying racist!
   
I think that's why America's greatest living statesman erupted with rage when Obama retailed this particular lie during his speech on health care.
   
It's bad enough to be lied to, but to be lied to by people who accuse us of not being able to read when the problem is that we can read -- and also can remember what happened at the last 17 family Christmases -- is more than even Mother Teresa could bear without a quick heckle.

Source: Liberal Lies About Health Care: Bonus Joe Wilson Edition (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33587) by Ann Coulter

The Foundry

“There remain some significant details to iron out.” Thus spoke the President of the United States last night, in an address in which, with a straight face, he told an awaiting nation that he was finally delivering not lofty rhetoric, but his grand plan on health care.

On that score President Obama was right. It may have been, however, a bit of an understatement. Absent, of course, was how exactly all the savings he confidently predicted would materialize, how exactly the government would prevent employers from dumping all their employees into a government plan and how czars and boards would operate without bureaucrats coming between Americans and their doctors. Ah, details, details.

In fact, while he kept referring to “our plan” he never explained whose plan he meant. One of the two House plans? The one Senate plan that exists or the Finance one that’s under construction? What’s he actually for? What’s the President against?

To the question that all of America wanted an answer, to wit, is the President abandoning his stubborn attachment to a public plan, the President had no clear response.  Or maybe he did. He appeared to draw a line on the sand at one point by saying, “I will not back down from the idea that, if Americans cannot find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice.” Maybe that was the clearest indication of the night that Barack Obama is still sticking to the public plan, to be introduced by whatever means. But a minute later he said he was open to other ideas!

As for the rest on this subject in a 45-minute speech, his 29th devoted to health care in nine months in office, Mr. Obama ducked behind the English language—or, more charitable observers would say, used it to its fullest extent. There was his promise, for example that “nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.” [italics added] This is a change, even an improvement on past exertions.

Previously, the President had insisted that nobody would be forced to abandon the insurance plan they have. Last night he said nobody will be required. See the change? Of course, all he seems to mean is that the government won’t require you – he said nothing about what the consequences of the plan may prod your employer to do.

To critics, including analysts at The Heritage Foundation, who charge that many employers would gladly dump all their employees into his proposed exchange, leaving millions of American with no real choice but the public plan, President Obama mysteriously said that the government plan “would only be available to those who don’t have insurance.” But the congressional plans are open to smaller firms with insured workers. So what proposal is he referring to?

One could praise the President for showing moxie, as when he evoked America’s “self-reliance, our rugged individualism and our fierce defense of freedom” as he tried, yet again, to sell sweeping controls over one sixth of our economy. Less of a surprise was the decision to close the speech with an ode to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Just about everyone was waiting for the Camelot Moment.

And the President did stump for civility. Yes, the man who weeks ago told his opponents “I don’t want the folks who created the mess doing a lot of talking. I want them to just get out of the way,” said with hope in his eyes “I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility.”

He also threw Republicans a bone, or at least hoped that the nation would see it that way. He offered to look at a proposal near and dear to conservatives’ heart—tort reform. That is, reforming the legal system so that bad people will not game the medical malpractice system. Or, rather, Mr. Obama offered to send the proposal to the states and let them experiment with a few demonstrations of ideas — approved by his Health Secretary, of course.

But why not get serious with state experiment, not just for tort reform but for a range of reforms? In fact, that has been proposed in true bipartisan legislation the President seems to have overlooked. The 50 states are the proper laboratories to try out different proposals. But the states need Washington to give them the power to do so.

What we did not see, alas, was a willingness to start over and set aside those issues where the American people can’t agree – most importantly the public plan, the individual and employer mandates, a maze of new federal regulations that pre-empt existing laws, and a massive Medicaid expansion. There are ideas that really do have broad support. The key ones:

1. Empower the states to explore ways of achieving the goals of affordable and accessible coverage for their citizens. Bi-partisan proposals to do this have been introduced in both the House and Senate. As welfare reform showed us, states are laboratories for change and can learn what works and what doesn’t.
2. Extend tax relief for those who need help. Offering tax credit to middle class families in need by reforming the way the tax code treats health insurance. And instead of expanding Medicaid, providing lower-income families will assistance offset by other spending.

At the very least, Mr. Obama and the Democrats should stop trying to ignore reality; they should stop pretending that August didn’t happen, that there hasn’t been a national revolt against a government takeover of health care. They keep telling themselves—and thus keep hearing—that the Town Hall meetings of summer were concocted by FOX News and abetted by the Internet. Reality may need to set in before we can get real reform.

Another Gem from the Mises Institute.  Eric Staib explains why any centrally planned economy, even if it could produce the results it promised, will always be inefficient and a devastating intrusion on human liberty.

It's not that central planning simply doesn't work, it's that it cannot work.  Unless one is prepared to accept a life of utter slavery in all aspects of their lives, philosophies of collectivism can never be considered virtuous or even desirable.

Understand also that the history of human existence does not lend itself to being easily overwhelmed by central planners.  It is because of this that government attempts to regulate human action must always do so with the threat, and use, of force.  A society as large as the United States, with 300+ million citizens, would never voluntarily submit to having their health care choices made by the Government.  It is for this reason that H.R. 3200 carries stiff penalties for individuals who fail to obtain coverage, despite their own personal desires.

Enjoy.  I always do.

Via Mises Daily

By Eric M. Staib

Even if by some miracle Obamacare was able to deliver on its promises, it is still not clear that universal coverage would be a laudable achievement. In fact, the exact opposite is true.

What Efficiency Is and Is Not

To properly address the merits of universal coverage, we must first establish exactly what we as economists consider ideal. Any college freshman can easily cite the promotion of "efficiency" as the ultimate goal of economics, but contemporary political economists profoundly lack an understanding of what it actually means for a market to function efficiently.

A market is said to be "efficient" when its producers and consumers are acting cost-effectively; in other words, when they are economizing on their scarce resources. Consumers are said to be acting efficiently when they choose to consume only those goods and services that most please them. It is easy to see that individual consumption decisions are the only method by which consumer welfare can be maximized.

Unfortunately, when they talk about "efficiency," mainstream economists all but ignore the dual pillars of efficacious market processes and optimal consumer behavior. Outside of theoretical claims about "market externalities," mainstream economists are content to measure what they call efficiency with political analysis of various statistics. These statistics range from the prices of certain goods to the availability of certain services, with the latter often measured in arbitrary terms such as "sufficient health insurance coverage."

To derive a measurement for efficiency, however, is both theoretically absurd and practically impossible, because the simple reality is that economists don't know and indeed cannot possibly ever know which quantities, prices, production processes, and types of employment are efficient.

Economists are able to estimate certain parameters, such as short-term commodity price trends, with some degree of certainty. But it is indeed impossible for economists to predict a prioriwhich goods will be produced, which methods they will be produced by, and what prices they will be sold at, in an efficient market (or what Cordato calls an open-ended universe). It is just as impossible to determine, therefore, whether any given market can be said to be working efficiently.

The only conclusion that economists are able to reach a priori with respect to consumption decisions is that a consumer necessarily consumes those goods within his means that he expects will please him most. This axiom is rooted in praxeological truths regarding human action — namely that man is rational, and that his actions, informed by experience and reason, fulfill his desires.

Therefore, we can observe an individual consumer's choices and thus know his preferences. While a group of consumers can tell a central planner that they really do prefer health insurance to the goods they currently buy, their actual purchases incontrovertibly reveal their true preferences. It is easy to see, then, that a truly free market, which allows each consumer complete freedom of choice, is the best mechanism for the maximization of consumer welfare.

L'Homme Politique versus Homo Economicus

Central planning, be it in health insurance or in farm products, is not designed with true economic efficiency in mind. An efficiently operating market economy does not strive toward political benchmarks — in fact, it abhors them.

Even in a politically regulated economy, individuals will attempt to fulfill their consumption desires so long as legal disincentives are not strong enough — in other words, as long as individuals don't believe they'll be fined or jailed to such a degree as to make the good or service in question too costly. This, of course, is the reason that black markets exist in every country on the planet.

The implications of this point are clear: to enforce central planners' decisions for consumer behavior, the governing body must enforce strict and serious penalties. Not surprisingly, the Democrats' healthcare bill includes just such a penalty for those consumers who refuse to participate in the plan. Such fines may make political plans more effectual, but they will not and cannot make the economy more efficient. Instead, they necessarily make the economy less efficient because they deliberately create suboptimal consumption choices.

Thus far, our discussion of efficiency has made clear what policy makers should not do to increase the efficiency of the operation of the economy. Perhaps we ought to consider what the government should do to increase market efficiency.

As discussed earlier, from the very fact of their abstention from the purchase of healthcare services, we know a posteriori that millions of individuals in this country do not desire health insurance more than other goods or services. Indeed, even with the lower prices for coverage that would prevail in a truly free market, there is every reason to expect that millions would choose not to purchase insurance.

Central planning authorities, then, ought to allow completely free consumption and production of all goods and services. This is not a recommendation for passive policy, but rather for an active policy of economic liberalization and the repeal of every type of prohibition.

The allowance of economic freedom must extend to every type of good, no matter how unsavory or immoral its consumption may seem to the general public. Undeniably, some people will choose to spend their money at their closest casino rather than on purchasing health services.

We should no longer treat such consumers as if they are too stupid or improvident to fulfill their own desires. They are merely individuals with high risk tolerances and strong desires for the psychological thrills of gambling. For such consumers, then, the enforcement of healthcare mandates (and the regulation or outlawing of gambling) unequivocally makes them worse off. While their choices may negatively affect national health statistics, the repeal of all prohibitions would unambiguously increase their happiness.

With such consumers in mind, we can assert with confidence that a health insurance mandate must, by praxeological definition, decrease consumer welfare and thus make the economy less efficient.

Any prescriptions contrary to this formula for efficiency must be criticized for what they are: attempts to impose undesired consumption on individuals, for the political benefit of self-righteous policymakers and so-called public economists.

Eric Staib is an economics major at the University of Oklahoma. Send him mail. See Eric M. Staib's article archives. Comment on the blog.

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Source: Universal Coverage means Suppressing Human Choice (http://mises.org/story/3666) by Eric Staib

By Erick Erickson

ABC News reporter Jake Tapper summed up the situation best when he said, “[I]f the president finds himself at a town hall meeting telling the American people that he does not want to set up a panel to kill their grandparents ... perhaps, at some point, the president has lost control of the message.”

Sarah Palin won the health-care debate with her use of the phrase “death panels.” The national press corps, never having rushed to defend Republicans routinely accused of wanting to cut Medicare, starve children and jail people because of their skin color, raced to defend Democrats against Palin’s charge. Democrats ran away from their “end of life” solution just as quickly.

No one thinks Democrats want to “pull the plug on grandma,” as President Obama put it. The Democrats’ health-care proposals do not mention “euthanasia,” “assisted suicide” or “death panels.” Nonetheless, many seniors are worried, not because of “Republican scare tactics,” but because of the Democrats’ own rhetoric regarding “end of life” planning.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., said in March that as part of responsible healthcare reform people must recognize they would not be able to get every treatment they wanted. The government would use a cost-benefit analysis to determine treatment options.

Noted liberal writer Ezra Klein wrote that health-care reform would save money by making tough decisions about a person’s life. “We’re profoundly uncomfortable saying that a person’s life, or health, is not worth the price of a particular procedure,” he wrote, alluding to the need for panels of experts to make those decisions.

Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emanuel’s brother and one of Obama’s health-care advisors, wrote in a January 2009 white paper that health care should be rationed in a way that “promot[es] and reward[s] social usefulness.” He said age could play a factor in determining who can and cannot access health-care resources.

Emanuel also wrote, “[S]ervices provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens [in the body politic] are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”

Obama addressed this too, saying, “Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. ... And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance.”

We see where this road we are now traveling goes out in the real world. Reporter Dan Springer reported in 2008, “Since the spread of his prostate cancer, 53-year-old Randy Stroup of Dexter, Ore., has been in a fight for his life. Uninsured and unable to pay for expensive chemotherapy, he applied to Oregon’s state-run health plan for help.” Oregon denied Mr. Stroup’s request and referred him to an assisted suicide specialist.

We will spend money we don’t have to pay for health care, or we will prioritize who gets treatment. It is an inevitable fact of life that the more the government outlays to keep you alive, the more your life becomes subject to a cost/benefit analysis.

The Democrats’ proposal would not require doctors or families pull the plug on grandma. The proposal would require that grandma, and others who bureaucrats deem have limited social utility, wither and die while people with greater social utility get treatment first.

If the empowered bureaucrats are generous, they might throw in a one way ticket to Oregon to visit an assisted suicide specialist.

Erick Erickson is a Macon City Councilman.

Source: Killing Grandma: How Sarah Palin Won the Health Care Debate (http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/08/21/killing-grandma-how-sarah-palin-won-the-healthcare-debate/) by Erick Erickson