TheAgitator.com
Regulation is the Health of Corporatism
Thursday, October 2nd, 2003Ronald Bailey at Reason has some good ideas for anti-tax, pro-market health care reform. I’d earlier criticized Bailey for advocating libertarian acceptance of a forced insurance-buying plan, but this time I think he’s on the right track.
I have little hope, however, that the proposals he describes will ever be adopted. Why? Because both parties have strong reasons not to take them up: they’re too anti-socialist for the Democrats and too anti-corporate for the Republicans.
The former is perhaps obvious; the latter requires a bit of explanation. The current system, under which employers can pay for their workers’ health benefits with pretax dollars but individuals can’t buy their own insurance pretax, biases the labor market in favor of large corporations. If you’re a middle-aged man or woman with kids looking for a job, getting good, cheap, stable health insurance for your family is really important, and working for a large company is the easiest way to get it. If you’ve already got a job, the prospect of losing your insurance (or having to pay enormous COBRA premiums) when you quit is a significant deterrent to quitting.
Anything that makes it easier for individuals to pay for their own health care, then, makes large corporations less competitive as employers. So those corporations have an incentive to use their political clout– with both parties, but probably with the Republicans especially– to block measures like those Bailey advocates.
P.S. Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s been forever since I posted. I’ve been snared by that crazy, mind-eating distraction called “work”. Coming soon, however, is a review of James Bovard’s new book Terrorism and Tyranny.
It would never happen. Americans don’t want to decide things for themselves anymore, and Bailey’s prescription for system overhaul requires too much individual decision-making.
does an MSA allow enough a year to cover a family’s own individual premiums? IF so – I think the individual should achieve the pre-tax premium payments that you say cannot be done.
Don’t know, maybe I should call HR.
How is health care legitimately a public policy issue in the first place?
It isn’t legitimately a public policy issue. But unfortunately, legitimately or not, it is likely to remain a public policy issue for the foreseeable future. Giving people back their tax money so they can buy health insurance is at least a step in the right direction.
“It isn’t legitimately a public policy issue. But unfortunately, legitimately or not, it is likely to remain a public policy issue for the foreseeable future.”
As long as that’s true the situation will deteriorate in the long run. Any marginal benefits you gain by reform will be undone because you’ve granted legitimacy to a false premise. You can’t win this game by playing it.
It’s legitimately a public policy issue for the same reason that universal education is a public policy issue: Because a helthy, educated population is a requirement for a modern tecnological society.
Health care is just as important as education, roads, police, etc. And our current system, where health care is tied to employment with a large company is actually a drag on the market and innovation.
If smaller companies weren’t disadvantaged in the margetplace of healthy employees this would be a net benefit to all of us. Because we all know that most job creation is from small companies and nearly all innovation is in small companies.
The easiest and best way to achieve this is to have the provision of basic health care be guranteed to all citizens in exactly the same way that we gurantee basic education, roads, police and other necessary prerequisites of the market.
See Nicholas? You and Bailey are just arguing with Bones here about [i]how much[/i] ought to be stolen…
Don’t be an idiot. You wouldn’t have anything to “steal” if the government wasnt there to gurantee your “rights” and provide the basic infrastructure for commerce.
I know it’s a matter of faith that taxes are theft, but really. It’s just propaganda, only an idiot actually believes that.
Only anarchists thing that the correct amount of governemt is “none”, and as soon as you admit that some government is proper, you have an obligation to pay for that goverment. One way or another that’s gonna mean that some of your productive output has to go to pay for essential services.
Now, health care isn’t essential in the same way that police departments are, but a thoughtful analysis of the facts will always lead to the conclusion that a society does better as a whole if health care is treated as a ‘right’ even if we don’t belive it’s a fundamental right.
First of all, Bones, there are plenty of thoughtful analyses of the facts that don’t lead to any such conclusion. For one such, follow the link back to my earlier article, where I link to David Friedman’s thoughtful analysis titled “Should Medicine be a Commodity?” You should also read his article “The Weak Case for Public Schooling”, which argues that government-provided education does not, in fact, make “society do better as a whole”. A healthy, well-educated population is indeed a requirement for a modern technological society– but government provision of health care and education makes us less healthy and less well-educated.
Second of all, I *am* an anarchist, so I don’t admit that any amount of government is proper. Now, I’m sometimes willing (unlike Mr. Kennedy, perhaps) to support piecemeal measures to decrease the size and scope of government. I’ll even stipulate that a few government functions, like national defense, are necessary evils for the time being, until we can figure out something better. But the ultimate ideal is no government at all; so it’s not much of a response to my arguments to dismiss them as something that “only anarchists believe”.
bones, nobody is arguing that having a healthy, well edumacated society is necessary for further progress and prosperity…but what makes you think that the government is the best source for these things?
Craig -
I would go a step further and ask: Even IF government was the best source of health care and education, where exactly is the Constitutional mandate for governmental control of these matters?
It seems to me that the Federal government shouldn’t be doing these things in the first place, at least according to our Constitution. I can’t imagine a scenario where these issues fall under the banner of “providing for the common defense”.
“A healthy, well-educated population is indeed a requirement for a modern technological society– but government provision of health care and education makes us less healthy and less well-educated.”
Here again you affirm the collectivist premise that collective welfare is the standard by which to judge.
No, I don’t. Accepting a premise arguendo isn’t the same as affirming it. The point of the statement is that *even if* you accept the premise, the conclusion still doesn’t follow.
I hate collective welfare ideology; it is anti-American… and Bones calls US the anarchists.
” Accepting a premise arguendo isn’t the same as affirming it.”
Fair enough. But where in your blog entry or Bailey’s article did you guys say that’s what you were doing? Couldn’t a fair reader conclude that both of you did accept the premise?
You effectively affirmed it rhetorically by not qualifying your acceptance. This is a persistent problem with advocating collective public policy.
“Health care is just as important as education, roads, police, etc.”
So is food. However, we let the vast majority of our citizens choose it and pay for it themselves, kicking in some vouchers for those who can’t or won’t earn enough money to buy it themselves.
“And our current system, where health care is tied to employment with a large company is actually a drag on the market and innovation.”
Yep. Let’s get rid of it poste haste.