Rational rationing?
I think Leonhardt is maybe half right or maybe even three quarters. He's right that the choice isn't between rationing and not rationing. But I don't agree that the choice is between rationing well and rationing badly. I don't know what rationing well or badly means. He means we ration badly because we spend too much. He's right. The current system doesn't let prices ration. Prices are artificially low. There isn't enough rationing in the global sense.
For me, the crucial question is who does the rationing, a centralized decision-maker or a decentralized system. Centralized decision makers influenced by political pressure inevitably ration badly. Decentralized systems can potentially avoid the problem of political pressure.
The "reformers" want more top-down rationing with prices playing a smaller role than they do now. I want prices to play a bigger role. Prices also play a role in rationing any overall level of care among individuals.
Pictures from Iran's Disputed Election
These are great pics: Iran's Disputed Election - The Big Picture - Boston.com.
Health care reform: The real problem is lack of competition
The reason for rising frustration with insurance companies is that patients can't do what patrons they do when they receive poor service at a restaurant, which is to go elsewhere. Most health insurance is tied to employment, so most patients are stuck with their insurance company. And it shows.
The solution is not less competition, but that is the assumption behind the Obama administration's plan and what it will produce. The solution is more competition.
via Health care reform: The real problem is lack of competition - STLtoday.com.
Economic View - Obama’s Difficult Choices on Medicare Spending - NYTimes.com
MEDICARE expenditures threaten to crush the federal budget, yet the Obama administration is proposing that we start by spending more now so we can spend less later.
This runs the risk of becoming the new voodoo economics. If we canât realize significant savings in health care costs now, donât expect savings in the future, either.
via Economic View - Obamaâs Difficult Choices on Medicare Spending - NYTimes.com.
Nixon Lives?
In other words, the narrative about Goldwater as the guiding light of the post-war GOP is wrong. Nixon, and his allies, have driven the agenda since the late 1940s. Other Republicans (Eisenhower, Goldwater, Reagan) represented factions who, at most, were allowed a seat at the table created by Nixon.
First, consider the following facts about the elite Republican leadership:
* Nixon and his coalition were able to put themselves on the national ticket in 1952, which displaced earlier liberal Republicans.
* Nixon and his personal friend Gerald Ford were in office in 1969-1975.
* Regan â who had a different base than Nixon â had to accommodate another Nixon appointee â GHW Bush â as VP in 1980.
* Bush (a Nixon appointee) was president from 1989-93 and brought in more Nixon/Ford appointees (e.g., Cheney) to run things.
* Bush IIâs campaign was run by a mix new folks (Rove, Hughes) and assisted by more old Nixonites (James Baker).
* Bush IIâs administration, until about 2006 or so, was lead by Nixon and Ford appointees (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell).
The Nixon network (him and former staffers/appointees) have been in control of the presidency or vice presidency every time the GOP has won the national election. Furthermore, this network has controlled key national security positions very often in GOP administrations.
What Judith Warner Left Out
Two weeks ago, a Muslim extremist shot two soldiers, killing one, outside a recruiting station in Arkansas. Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad acted alone, just as James von Brunn apparently did. He was, like von Brunn, captive to a supremacist ideology that, in his mind, justified the murder of an innocent man. Like von Brunn, authorities said, he had mapped out Jewish targets for potential attack. And yet, no mention of the hate crime committed by a Muslim; only hate crimes committed by white, right-wing extremists were worthy of mention in Warner's column. This is true for other columnists on the liberal side of the spectrum. The murder of Private William Long seems to be of no concern, and without larger meaning.
Think Again About "Blaming Bush", Part 2
Obama has more reason to be mad at Johnson and FDR for bequeathing him intractable legacy costs than at Bush: they will substantially reduce the scope of the things that Obama can do. But I don't expect to hear him explain that he has to run a budget deficit because he inherited a legacy of unsustainable spending by his Democratic predecessors. The fact remains that Bush actually left him very little legacy of permanent spending to be drivng his future deficits. Once we withdraw from Iraq (I assume we can all agree that any president would have invaded Afghanistan), and the tax cuts expire next year, the actual net contribution of everything Bush did to Obama's structural deficits will be well under $100 billion a year of the $1 trillion or so Obama is projected to spend.
Not that I want to get all hysterical about the Obama deficits either. I presume he's planning to deal with them, mostly in ways I don't like. But I'm not going to start claiming that I have scientifically proven, through the awesome power of budget math, that Obama is like the worst president ever: I will hate his health care plans, etc. exactly as much if he raises taxes to pay for them. My worries about his deficits are more prosaic: is he borrowing so much money that we're at risk of a fiscal crisis brought on by excess debt and spiking interest rates, or is he crowding out private investments? These are empirical questions, and it's far too early to have more than hints at the answers. But Obama's deficits, even in 2012 and beyond, are the largest since World War II by any measure. And that's good reason to worry, in a non-hysterical fashion.
The Anti-Stimulus
As we know, most of the stimulus spending does not take place until next year and beyond, so the short-run gains are puny. On the other hand, the big increase in the projected deficit creates the expectation of higher interest rates, which raises interest rates now. These higher interest rates serve to weaken the economy.
According to this standard analysis, the stimulus is going to hurt GDP now, when we could use the most help. Much of the spending will kick in a year or more from now, with multiplier effects following afterward, when the economy will need little, if any, stimulus.
This is the flaw with using spending rather than tax cuts as a stimulus. The lags are longer when you use spending.
Of course, if the real goal is to promote government at the expense of civil society and to create a one-party state in which business success is based on political favoritism, then the stimulus is working exactly as intended.
via The Anti-Stimulus, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty.
Free Trade Is The Natural State
What requires government action - what requires "collective choice" - is protectionism. Free trade exists naturally. Free trade is simply the absence of trade restrictions - the absence of officious interference with those engaged in consensual capitalist acts.