Publius

The socialist left has set up a massive straw man in the health care debate. It is, in short: "Opponents of Obama's health-care (wait, no, health-insurance) plan want to maintain the status-quo." This of course is a straw man and a great lie. There are clearly problems with the health care system, or more precisely, with the way that costs are growing out of whack. Nobody says the current setup is ideal. There is legitimate disagreement, however, about whether Yet Another Government Welfare Program is the way to go. Obama says "we need a government insurance plan to keep the private insurers honest". Even assuming that insurance companies were being dishonest (which is clearly the intention of Obama's phrasing), why not open the insurance field to MORE competition by allowing insurers to operate across state lines? That is one solution to the issue of limited competition in insurance and one which does not require a massive new federal bureaucracy and entit

Paul Krugman always gets my blood boiling, because he is so self-righteous and yet so wrong. He writes in the pages of the New York Times, and talks about how he loves the proles and democracy - but unlike virtually every other media outlet, the New York Times has no reader comment feature. What Krugman really likes, is to pontificate to the masses from atop his ivory tower, and not have to listen to anyone tell him he's wrong. And how wrong he is. In a recent New York Times op-ed (1), Krugman writes: Washington, it seems, is still ruled by Reaganism — by an ideology that says government intervention is always bad, and leaving the private sector to its own devices is always good. First off, Krugman like other Socialists just can't get over Ronald Reagan. They are still campaigning against him even though he's been dead for years. Earth to Krugman: Obama is the President now. Blaming Reagan for today's crises is even more daft than blaming Bush. " Let’s talk for a m

Barack Obama just launched a sleazy attack on many of the companies that make it possible for most Americans to have and pay for life-saving medical care - insurance companies. While this is the now well-defined scapegoat, they are still trotting out some tired straw man arguments too. 1. Health insurance companies are the problem! After talking about "health care" reform for years, Barack has found his scapegoat - insurance companies. Now the pitch is "health insurance reform". Never mind the thousands of pages of government regulation of insurance companies, the idea of insurance companies as 1800's-style robber barons oppressing the medical proletariat may be fashionable, but it's total bunk. Few industries are regulated as heavily as medicine and insurance. Barack's new solution, to make it illegal for insurance companies to cancel plans for any reason, will obviously cause a rise in premiums - just as the regulations forbidding companies from filter

Congresswoman Diana DeGette of Colorado recently held an "online, interactive town hall". That's fancy talk for a "telephone conference call". While I of course applaud the idea of elected representatives putting themselves in the middle of the crowd to hear their ideas, this particular one was fishy. First, to participate, you had to fill out a form on DeGette's web site. Then, they would tell you five minutes before the event whether you were invited to the event. If invited, they would give you a call with the teleconference number. Then, they would offer certain participants the right to ask a question. Some "town hall". This is more like an infomercial. Clearly DeGette's crew was screening participants in order to avoid tough questions. They then further screened questions. Nothing would be asked of DeGette that wasn't doubly screened and allowed. This all amounts to Diana DeGette covering her ears and shouting "la la la la la la