Stella Zawistowski of
ReasonPharm had a nice
LTE published in the New York Times on President Obama's recent trip to Ohio to promote his health care plan (3/18/2010 edition, 4th one down):
President Obama is resorting to Natoma Canfield's sad story and saying that "every argument has been made" because he has not answered so many arguments against his plan. How, for example, when an insurance mandate has failed spectacularly in Massachusetts, will it work times 50?
I, too, feel sorry for Ms. Canfield, an uninsured woman with leukemia. But that does not justify brushing aside the facts and increasing government intervention in health care.
In fact, it is government intervention that places individually purchased insurance out of Ms. Canfield's price range in the first place.
Feelings of pity, however strong, must not get in the way of a reasoned debate. The only way to help Ms. Canfield and other Americans get health care is a fully free market.
Stella Zawistowski
Jared Rhoads of the
Lucidicus Project has a new OpEd, "
21 musings before the vote". Here are a few choice items:
2. According to preliminary numbers from the Congressional Budget Office, health reform will cost an estimated $940 billion. I'm sure we will see people proffer calculations of what that comes to for every man, woman, and child in the nation. But remember to multiply that figure by at least two in order to get your share, because over 40 percent of Americans pay no income tax.
8. The same people who advocate taxpayer-funded incentives for "healthy lifestyle decisions" also support disassociating risk from insurance pricing through community rating. Wouldn't risk-based pricing be the best incentive of all, and save us the IRS middleman?
14. A good test of a person's values these days is to bring up the Tea Party movement. Anyone can disagree, but if he calls it "astroturf" or uses the "teabag" epithet, then run the other way. You have nothing to gain from dealing with such a person.
(Read the full text of "
21 musings before the vote".)
