 |
|
April 21, 2014
April 18, 2014
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Clarifying one of the greatest philosophical conundrums in theology
John Ericson: Trying hard to be 'positive' but never succeeding? Blame Your Brain
The Kosher Gourmet by Julie Rothman Almondy, flourless torta del re (Italian king's cake), has royal roots, is simple to make, . . . but devour it because it's simply delicious
April 14, 2014
Rabbi Dr Naftali Brawer: Passover frees us from the tyranny of time
Eric Schulzke: First degree: How America really recovered from a murder epidemic
Georgia Lee: When love is not enough: Teaching your kids about the realities of adult relationships
Gordon Pape: How you can tell if your financial adviser is setting you up for potential ruin
Dana Dovey: Up to 500,000 people die each year from hepatitis C-related liver disease. New Treatment Has Over 90% Success Rate
Justin Caba: Eating Watermelon Can Help Control High Blood Pressure
April 11, 2014
Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Silence is much more than golden
Susan Swann: How to value a child for who he is, not just what he does
Susan Scutti: A Simple Blood Test Might Soon Diagnose Cancer
Chris Weller: Have A Slow Metabolism? Let Science Speed It Up For You
April 9, 2014
Jonathan Tobin: Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame?
Samuel G. Freedman: A resolution 70 years later for a father's unsettling legacy of ashes from Dachau
Jessica Ivins: A resolution 70 years later for a father's unsettling legacy of ashes from Dachau
Matthew Mientka: How Beans, Peas, And Chickpeas Cleanse Bad Cholesterol and Lowers Risk of Heart Disease
April 8, 2014
Dana Dovey: Coffee Drinkers Rejoice! Your Cup Of Joe Can Prevent Death From Liver Disease
Chris Weller: Electric 'Thinking Cap' Puts Your Brain Power Into High Gear
April 4, 2014
Amy Peterson: A life of love: How to build lasting relationships with your children
John Ericson: Older Women: Save Your Heart, Prevent Stroke Don't Drink Diet
John Ericson: Why 50 million Americans will still have spring allergies after taking meds
Sarah Boesveld: Teacher keeps promise to mail thousands of former students letters written by their past selves
April 2, 2014
Dan Barry: Should South Carolina Jews be forced to maintain this chimney built by Germans serving the Nazis?
Frank Clayton: Get happy: 20 scientifically proven happiness activities
Susan Scutti: It's Genetic! Obesity and the 'Carb Breakdown' Gene
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Sept. 26, 2007
/ 14 Tishrei 5768
Health Care and the Postal Service
By
Bob Tyrrell
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Contrary to many predictions from the political pundits, the war in Iraq is not going to be the pre-eminent issue of Campaign '08. The Angry Left might want the war to be foremost in the presidential debates, but whoever becomes the Democratic nominee will know that placating the left — which is to say promising an immediate pullout — opens a Democratic administration to ongoing ridicule from the Republicans and to badly damaged credibility. This is because immediate pullout is impossible. All the leading candidates of both parties have acknowledged as much, albeit the Democrats sotto voce .
So what will be the pre-eminent issue of Campaign '08? I think the answer is health care. The Republicans already are propounding market solutions that promise lower costs to a national health care expenditure that already is growing by as much as 6 percent annually, continued personal care from a patient's chosen physician, and portability — the ability of a patient to take his insurance policy with him from job to job.
The Democrats all promise more government involvement and increased costs paid for with higher taxes. So let us stop there. From Hillarycare to Edwardscare, the Democratic candidates want to make your health care delivery as inexpensive, personal and efficient as the U.S. Postal Service. That might sound very attractive to anyone who has not used FedEx or UPS. Perhaps there are still Americans who expect to stand in long lines for inferior service or who remain enraptured by that jingle about delivering the mail through rain, sleet and snow. But as the post office's monopoly has been broken down, private delivery services have demonstrated the superior service resulting from market solutions.
The health care solutions offered by the Democrats are the fossilized government programs one would expect from the Old Order, and the Democratic solutions to public policy matters are very much the product of reactionaries. The free-market economist Brian Wesbury notes that we live in an era when former socialist regimes such as India and China are prospering by encouraging markets, less government regulation and lower taxes. In our own country, with the supply-side presidency of Ronald Reagan, innovation and prosperity have been the norm since 1983. Under the Old Order's economics (the economics of the "mixed economy"), recession and inflation stalked the land. From 1969 to 1982, the United States was in recession 30 percent of the time. Since 1983, the country has been in recession only 5 percent of the time, and those recessions were shallow.
Now along come the Democrats promising for health care what they brought down on our economy prior to the Reagan Revolution: more government regulation and enforcement. The vast stew of a health care package just presented by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton sounds good in parts. There is her promise of tax credits to assist lower-income Americans in the purchase of health insurance. There is the allowance for an insurance buying pool. There are caps on employers' tax-deductible employer insurance. But there is much more government control, namely a federal mandate that all Americans obtain health insurance.
Who doubts that this means government bureaucracies deciding the constituent ingredients of insurance packages and their costs? Who doubts that, as with the IRS, government would patrol health care and punish alleged violators? In Medicare and Medicaid, government already imposes ceilings on what doctors might charge for various procedures. Surely with Hillarycare doctors' costs, hospital costs and pharmaceutical costs would be monitored and enforced by government. But that is only part of the problem. The enforcement is bound to fail while snaring a countless number of citizens in government violations. Mandated health insurance means inflationary costs and price controls. From the 1970s, we should have learned that price controls are doomed to failure. The only question is how long it would take under the Democrats' government-monitored health care for the citizenry to recognize this.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Bob Tyrrell is editor in chief of The American Spectator. Comment by clicking here.
Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate
|
|
Columnists
Toons
Lifestyles
|
