Getting Grouchy

I guess I am getting a little more grouchy lately, whether from the simple cantankerousness of aging, or being driven to distraction by a world that seems to have lost its mind. I'm a self-confessed NewsWonk and my daily routine includes at least scanning a dozen or so news sources each day.   The problem is that lately, there's not a single "above the fold" news topic on which I agree with the mainstream media consensus opinion. Either I'm suffering the first humiliations of OldTimers, or things are getting pretty loopy out there.

Here's an example. The Republicans put forward a health care reform bill for consideration by the House of Representatives. It's about 200 pages long, and available online for anyone to read at: http://www.gop.gov/solutions/healthcare. That's newsworthy in and of itself considering that the Democrats have broken their promise to have their 2000+ page healthcare bill³ available for public viewing 72 hours before any vote.

More to the point though is that the GOP proposal seems, on the face of it, to make some very sensible and cost effective first steps in reforming American health care. The bi-partisan CBO², estimated the ten year cost of the GOP bill at $61 billion, that's 97% less than the trillion dollar Democrat Bill that House leaders plan to bring to the floor as soon as this weekend. The CBO analysis also indicated the GOP bill would reduce the national debt and lower the cost of health care insurance for most Americans.

I understand that any really serious liberal voter really wants the whole enchilada, complete single payer universal government provided health care. I can accept that they believe that this would be a good thing, and we have some common ground. I'd really like to see health care dramatically improved, and the cost of it reduced and presumably even the most hard core ObamaCare supporter would agree with those goals. If we share the desire to move towards better quality, less expensive and more accessible health care it should be a good start towards agreeing on what should be done. Right?

But the reaction on the liberal left and in the "mainstream media" is a petty, inflammatory and dismissive rejection of every idea in the GOP plan. Apparently any health care proposal other than the nebulous monstrosities that the Democrats keep trying to ram through Congress is beneath contempt. Or at least beneath any serious analysis or discussion.

So I ask the question, how are we supposed to believe that ObamaCare is the proper course of action when we can't even seem to have an honest and objective conversation about it?

Journalistic Malpractice

To get very specific, let me address a news / analysis of the GOP plan that appeared on the National Public Radio website this week. In the 5 November NPR analysis of the Republican healthcare proposal, titled "House Republicans' Overhaul Would Insure 3 Million More People," the author Scott Hensley posits a rhetorical question:

"This is health overhaul?" Mr. Hensley demands, as though the answer were either utterly opaque to him, or simply preposterous to consider.

In a tragic display of journalistic malpractice, Mr. Hensley then proceeds to dance around some of the main points and benefits of the GOP proposal, helpfully elucidating each putative benefit with a corresponding evil.

To an informed reader, or anyone gifted with a modicum of common sense, the pathos is palpable because the more effort Hensley pours into disparaging the GOP Plan, the better it sounds.

Here are a few examples, but I'd encourage you to go read the whole piece at NPR.org.¹  

This is health overhaul? --Well, yes Mr. Hensley, that's why the GOP is calling it the "House GOP Health Care Reform Bill" Unlike the Democrat drafts, this one is actually available for public review. That's newsworthy in and of itself. Here's a link in case you're having trouble finding it. http://www.gop.gov/solutions/healthcare

CBO figures about 3 million more people would have health coverage a decade from now. Hey, that doesn't sound like a bad thing, at least it's headed in the right direction.

the GOP proposal, by design, focuses more on cost and the deficit. Wow, what an arcane perspective. You mean it would actually try to REDUCE the national debt? Imagine that. Might of been useful to the reader if Hensley mentioned that the estimated cost of the GOP plan is $61 billion, 93% less than the $1 trillion estimate for the Democratic bill that House leaders are hoping to rush through as soon as this weekend.

Lots of people with insurance would pay less for it. That doesn't sound so terrible either. You mean people like me, actual middleclass taxpayers could have their insurance premiums go lower? Revolutionary concept.

the Republican's proposals to curb medical malpractice would cut health spending by $41 billion Uh Oh! You mean those pesty ambulance-chasing lawyers on the radio and television would have to find some other blood to suck? I guess we could live with that.

I could go on, but let's just say the myopic Mr. Hensley is sort of missing the point. To most Americans, a two hundred page bill that anyone can read online, which actually reduces our health care costs, lowers the national debt, makes coverage more portable and chases the lawyers out of our doctor's office sounds pretty damned good.

More importantly, Mr. Hensley makes it crystal clear that his only apparent goal for any health care reform is to immediately institute universal coverage for every warm body in the United States, regardless of the cost. If there were a way to do that magically, without cost or unintended consequences we'd all sign up, but there isn't.

Hensley sums it up this way, "the bill wouldn't cost much--or put much of a dent in the ranks of the uninsured." Fair enough Scotty, but most Americans are really scared of the high cost and governmental expansion components of ObamaCare. The GOP proposal sounds like a really good first step to us.

Allegorical Levity

I hate to end this on a sour note, so let's indulge in a little allegory to lighten the mood. Little Scotty Hensley enters the K Street Starbucks with his beloved Mum and his stern and unyielding Father. Scotty orders a mondo-gratissimo Kopi Luwak latte with free-range acai tincture and Himalayan goat creme frappe. The Barrista takes this in stride but informs Scotty that the bill for this will be one trillion dollars. Not to worry though Scotty, he's got a special today on the Grande Caffè Misto for only a buck and he'll throw in a dollop of whipped cream for free. Scotty's face congeals into a masque of blotchy anger, he stomps his feet, erupts in tears and threatens to burn the store down if he can't have exactly what he desires. Mum sees things his way as usual and immediately goes to the bank next door to see if she can get a trillion dollar loan, while Father rolls his eyes in the general direction of his errant son. The crowd rumbles malevolently at Father and someone calls Child Protective Services to report a hate crime in progress. On the evening news, Keith Olbermann looks grim and concerned as he relates the breaking story that Father is torturing children, and probably puppies too. President Obama expresses concern.

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Sources:
¹  Hensley's NPR Article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2009/11/house_republicans_overhaul_alt.html
²  CBO Report on the GOP Alternative:http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/hr3962amendmentBoehner.pdf
³  Full Text of the Democrat Health Care Bill: http://www.defendyourhealthcare.us./congressionalbills.html
⁴  Analysis of the Democrat Health Care Bill: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704795604574519671055918380.html

FWIW, I know that emotions run high on this topic. I'm all about the ideas, not the people, and I'll apologize in advance if I've offended you.  There are already plenty of hard feelings out there. Anyway, don't be offended if I fail to engage in /msgs over this. If you disagree, research it and write it up for all of us to enjoy.  

Update, New York Times - 44 minutes ago Lawmakers in the House voted 220 to 215 on Saturday night to approve a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health care system⁴. Only one Republican voted for the bill, and 39 Democrats opposed it, including 24 members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats. A Republican alternative was rejected on a near party line vote of 258-176.

I'm going to keep this relatively short, but I feel obliged to butt my opinion into this one.

The problems with our current health care system come from one of two places. Some come from a lack of technology to address problems, or insufficiently developed treatments, or theories. The rest come from violent intervention into the market, in the name of government.

The health care debate as of late has been characterized by two dominating approaches. First, there is the leadership of the Democratic party, who advocate some degree of increased government control over healthcare. Second, there is the leadership of the Republican party, who either feverishly contest the approach taken by the former group and advocate its complete reversal (in the case of less representatives than you can count on your fingers), or sheepishly object to it. To override the outspoken representatives, we have the wonderful construct of the televised media, who frame the entirety of the debate as two sides, both of which are equally correct, but really hate each other. On one hand, we have Rep. Grayson, holding up his "G.O.P. shoots at babies" sign, and on the other, we have Sarah Palin alluding to "death panels." Both of these acts have received elaborate media coverage, and have completely failed to address any of the issues at hand. Off in the corner, there is the distant voice of people who advocate less and no government, of which I consider myself a part.

H.R. 3962, the "Affordable Health Care for America Act," could not be named more deceptively. The bill contains up at least 9 direct tax increases; this is at least what we can augur from its labyrinthine contents. The bill attempts to create a threshold for insurance based on income as Medicaid once did, among its countless provisions. This is not a cooperative, remember, these programs are funded by money that is violently extracted from you, and it's ridiculous to think you'd make money off of that. This whole thing is insane.

Now let me sum up the contents of the bill in terms of actual results. I will generalize quite broadly for a minute here, so bear with me.

No incursion into private industry, defined as the realm of human interaction which takes the form of purely voluntary transactions, by a violent demand, has ever resulted in a more equitable result, possibly barring truly defensive violence, or situations where there is a fundamental imbalance of information. No incursion into private industry by government has ever had a net increase on the ability of all markets to respond to consumer demand, and neither have any ever reduced the prices for a product without reducing either the quality of the product or the compensation of those who create that product. When the government has the ability to intervene into private industry and make a positive change, in the event that somebody has been cheated, originally in the intent of correcting inefficiencies in markets resulting from a person's inability to predict the actions of another to be involved in a transaction with them (in the model of a nonviolent market), it is nonetheless a fundamentally coercive mechanism, and is as susceptible to exploitation, and expansion into business cartels much like what we see today. When government is at the point where it is exploitative, a candidate who wishes to make positive changes will have the means to gain power if information is controlled. Certainly the person willing to draw a living from the violent extraction of funds is more likely to be manipulative or violent in efforts to retain power.

The implications of what I just said should be somewhat clear, but let me state it more explicitly. If "ObamaCare" was actually cheaper for people, or produced better results as a whole, and was not a huge financial black hole, it would not take the form of a mandatory program, backed by violence. Rather, it would take the form of a cooperative in the free market, composed of people who elected to be members of it. The thing about that, though, is that we've tried it already, and it doesn't really work very well - medicine is a field that requires substantial expertise, and is fundamentally ineffecient as a cooperative. Attempts to field a cooperative in terms of insurance are fundamentally unstable, because any member of a cooperative receiving less than the mean in benefits will be willing to fund another cooperative that bases premiums on risk - which will leave the higher risk people paying high premiums as they would to begin with. The fact that ObamaCare, and indeed any government program intended to socialize an industry, is mandatory is not only a reflection of the difficulty inherent in getting people to voluntarily enroll in such a program, but a reflection of the fact that the program can be distorted in the future in the name of further "reform," to create more favorable conditions for its administrators and contractees. This is the nature of government.

The only improvements that the G.O.P. politicians, or indeed those of any party, can make on to our current health care system are to either leave politics and start an organization that offers superior service to all of the existing businesses (and indeed, take all of their customers in the process), or to rescind all of the incursions that have been made into the industry to begin with. The results of this will be very significant. The American Medical Association will no longer enjoy a monopoly over the certification of doctors, which will drastically lower prices by loosening the supply in the field, the F.D.A. will no longer control the certification of medicines, which will stimulate the production of new medicines and, in the event that medical patents are rescinded, will also greatly lower the price of drug manufacture, and in turn, the prices of drugs. Furthermore, all sorts of traditional medicines will be subject to the purchasing decisions of free individuals, as opposed to a government monopoly. This necessitates, ending the "war on drugs," as the right of individuals to self-medicate is fundamentally unjust to violate. Malpractice reform (read: the lack of malpractice lawsuits) will eliminate the need for malpractice insurance, and lower the overhead doctors need to operate. The elimination of restrictions on the insurance market will greatly increase its viscosity and eliminate the coercive, bureaucratic monopolies that currently dominate it, and lower premiums as a result. This will also repair the often-complained about problem of 30 million people being uninsured in the United States - those who desire insurance will be able to afford it. This is really simple, trust me. Hopefully the internet can provide a market based on information, and teach politicians to stop acting like assholes, in the end, maybe just do something helpful for a living. Domination is only possible when you can control information.