Free Market Health Care over Government Run

By: Louie Glinzak

The news seems saturated each day with the health care debate, and rightfully so. We continue to hear about the push by Democrats in Washington to get a vote on health care before they leave for recess. We hear about the flaws of the health care bill, the amount that it will hamper small business, and how it will cost the United States an obscene amount of money. Republicans have sounded the alarm on all of these issues, and they’ve done a tremendous job.

But that is all they have done.

Do not get me wrong; I wholeheartedly agree with Republicans that the proposed health care reform is a bad idea. However, when 56% of Americans favor passing a major health care reform bill this year, according to a Gallup poll conducted July 14, , Republicans need to put something on the table. Especially when another Gallup poll conducted on July 21, shows that 50% of Americans disapprove of the way President Obama is handling healthcare policy (44% approve).

However, this doesn’t mean Republicans have to sprint the opposite way of Obama. President Obama’s press conference last night brought up a few good points Republicans should push for. Insurance companies should not be able to drop coverage if a person gets too sick, and Americans need to be able to keep their insurance if they leave or change jobs. Republicans must incorporate these ideas into their plan as well.

It is time for the Republicans to offer a new plan.

The Republican plan should not advocate for any form of healthcare controlled or subsidized by the government. Instead, Republicans should push for a plan that champions the Austrian economic principles that they hold so dear and President Reagan so greatly articulated.

Governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal published a column in the Wall Street Journal recently articulating a proposed health care plan; both the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute offered proposed health care plans as well. Republicans need to analyze all of these proposed plans and put something together that will lower health care costs, ensure competition amongst the insurance companies, and prevent a government takeover of health care: things a majority of Americans want to see. As a result, costs will be lowered and health care coverage will be expanded.

A free market approach to health care, one that ensures competition for customers, is necessary.

Some argue this is not possible, too ideological merely because it has never been done, but in reality it is easy to implement. Free market health care can be paralleled to the way car insurance in the United States works. Customers should be able to choose their health care provider based on who can tailor to their individual needs the best and provide the best quality of insurance at the most competitive rates. We should be able to choose how much health coverage we actually want. If you are a healthy person who rarely visits the doctor or hospital, why pay for coverage that would require you to pay premiums that cover medications you never need or visits you never use? However, if unforeseen situations occur, a person should be able to expand their coverage to cover medications and visits they did not need before, bearing in mind this will cost more money.

Just like car insurance companies reward drivers for not being reckless, being in accidents, or receiving traffic violations by decreasing rates, health care insurance companies should reward people for lowering their cholesterol, losing weight if a person is overweight, or maintaining good health.

Health care reform should also include medical lawsuit procedure reform. By reforming medical lawsuits, doctors would be able to continue to give the public the care they are currently receiving and perhaps get more high school graduates to pursue the path of medicine. Other aspects that should be considered are providing vouchers for those who are on Medicaid and Medicare. The voucher will let Medicaid and Medicare recipients choose their health care provider and once again, find one that is best tailored to their individual needs. Vouchers will also further competition between health care insurance providers, drive costs down even more, and save the government money.

A free-market health care approach will save employers enormous amounts of money and will also help the economy. One-third of health care spending, or 6% of the GDP, is waste. This 6% would be saved under a free-market health care approach. Furthermore, the Office of Management and Budget stated that it costs workers $10,000 a year in take-home-pay for their employer sponsored insurance. Free market health care will save the employer and the employee money. And finally, the Office of Management and Budget said eliminating the $10,000 that it costs workers is effectivelya $532 billion tax cut each year. Free-market health care puts more money in peoples’ pockets.

These are just a few points that can be incorporated in a Republican version of health care reform. Much more still needs to be articulated in order for this vision of health care reform to be successful.

Free-market health care saves the government money and employers money, while at the same time putting more money in peoples’ pockets. And in our present economic times, who would not want more disposable income?

Intention Deficit Disorder

By: Jacob Bodnar

Since the passing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the private work force has lost 652,000 jobs in March, 519,000 in April, 322,000 in May, and most recently 467,000 in June. That’s a total of 1,960,000 jobs lost since February.

Common sense tells you employment numbers like that don’t indicate a recovering economy. Add that to the current 9.5% unemployment rate and you would have to be a fool to think the economy is on the rebound.

Well folks, say hello to our leader, Barack Obama, the fool-in-chief of the United States of America.

In a recent interview Obama said the February stimulus plan has “worked as intended.” I guess if massive job loss and rising unemployment were the intentions of the stimulus plan than Washington hit their mark.

Obama backed up his point with the following statement, “It [the recovery plan] has already extended unemployment insurance and health insurance to those who have lost their jobs in this recession. It has delivered $43 billion in tax relief to American working families and business.”

There’s one itty bitty problem with Obama’s statement, this “recovery” act was billed as a jobs saver. During a statement at the signing of the bill Vice President Joe Biden said, “Starting today, our administration will be working day and night to provide more aid for the unemployed, create immediate jobs, building our roads and our bridges, make long-term investments in a smarter energy grid, and so much more.”

I guess they got tired of working “day and night.”

Jobs is a favorite political buzz word in Washington, during the President and Vice President’s remarks at the signing of the stimulus package, they mentioned the word “job” 16 times. Don’t try and tell me the alleged intentions of this bill were anything but jobs. It seems that the White House has come down with a case of intention deficit disorder; they don’t really know what the intention of the bill is or ever was. The signing of the bill and the spending of billions of dollars just created the illusion that Washington was doing something.

The reason Obama veered away from saying creating jobs was the bill’s intention is because no jobs are being created. As stated before, since the signing of the bill, the private workforce has cut 1,960,000 jobs. Furthermore the White House predicted that without the recovery plan unemployment would peak at 9% in quarter one of 2010. Instead unemployment is up to 9.5% at the beginning of quarter two in 2009.

As a matter of fact since February the real unemployment rate has been above the White House projection with and without the stimulus plan. Big mouth Joe Biden said that “everyone guessed wrong” on the unemployment numbers but that shouldn’t stop people from trusting the White House with doling out $787 billion to help stop the bleeding unemployment.

The fact is politicians are incompetent when it comes to spending money. They’ve proven that by racking up $10 trillion in debt. We shouldn’t trust them with correctly predicting unemployment and we sure as hell shouldn’t trust them with spending $787 billion. I wouldn’t trust them with a $25 Visa gift card.

Unfortunately we gave them a $787 billion gift card, and they have already screwed up big time while spending it.

For starters only $73.36 billion of the $787 billion in stimulus cash has been spent. That amounts to a measly 9%. Watch out where you are walking folks, you might get hit in the head by a shovel from one of those “shovel ready projects.” If they were so flippin’ “shovel ready” why haven’t the shovels been digging something up? It’s been five months already.

But if you think all of that stimulus money is going towards filling potholes and resurfacing roads you’d be wrong. Some of that money is going towards signage for the projects. And not signs that say “watch out for shovels at the site of this shovel ready project,” but rather signs that say “Putting Americans to Work. Project Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” The signs even feature the nifty Recovery.gov logo the White House dreamed up. They’re very groovy.

Unfortunately for the taxpayers they are also very expensive. According to ABC News, each sign costs $500 in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, $1,700 in Georgia, $2,000 in Pennsylvania and New York, and $3,000 in New Jersey. The Garden State is especially signage happy; they’ve been allocated $225,000 in stimulus funds, 5% of which have gone to signs.

I wish signs were the end of Washington’s stupid stimulus spending, but alas it is not.

The dormant and virtually worthless website, Recovery.gov, is getting a makeover. But don’t jump out of your seat with excitement just yet, the project isn’t suppose to be completed until around January 2010 (add five months for the inevitable government error and we are looking at May 2010). The real kicker is the cost. It has been reported that the makeover will cost $18 million.

$18 million for a website that displays information about where stimulus money is going, good lord can it tell me my future too? How many kids am I going to have Recovery.gov?

I’m sure I’m not the only one that thinks that $18 million could be better spent. As a matter of fact $18 million could fill a whopping 600,000 pot holes, then we would really need to be dodging shovels.

But for right now put your hard hat down. So long as Washington thinks they can buy their way out of this economic mess we will continue to see unemployment rise. Temporary “shovel ready jobs” are no way to correct an economic downturn. Obama will continue to row against the current and when people begin asking “where are the jobs” he’ll be void of an answer.

Unfortunately there’s no cure for Intention Deficit Disorder.