John Goodman’s Commentaries
With Obamacare Still on Books, Americans in Dire Need of Better Insurance Options
The solution to Obamacare’s high out-of-pocket costs and narrow networks is to let people buy insurance that meets their medical and financial needs. That’s why people are turning to short-term insurance, limited benefit insurance and health sharing insurance.
SCOTUS Punts Obamacare Back to Congress
Obamacare has two very bad features: unaffordable out-of-pocket costs and perilously narrow networks. If you combine last year’s average (unsubsidized) premium with the average deductible, a family of four had to pay $25,000 before getting any benefits at all from their plan. Also, the average plan looks like Medicaid managed care with a high deductible, excluding access to the best doctors and the best hospitals.
Mark Cuban’s Health Plan
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has done some innovative thinking on how to reform the health care system. The Cuban plan is similar to an idea once proposed by Milton Friedman and also by Harvard economist Martin Feldstein. In a nutshell, people would be responsible for medical bills up to a certain percent of their income, and government would pay everything above that. In other words, people would pay ordinary bills out-of-pocket, and government would provide catastrophic coverage for the large bills.
How Did the Cancel Culture Become So Dominant So Quickly?
The intellectual collapse of liberalism and conservatism at the end of the 20th century created space that the cancel culture moved quickly to occupy. The world of ideas abhors a vacuum. Absent the traditions bequeathed to us by the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, the cancel culture was only too willing to serve up irrationality and unreason.
Who Pays the Corporate Income Tax?
What about Joe Biden’s promise that the next big spending bill won’t cost anyone a dime if they make less than $400,000? All economists think that the corporate income tax is partly paid for by lower wages for workers. The only question is: How much of the cost is born by labor? Larry Kotlikoff and his colleagues, using the most sophisticated model of international financial flows that exists, have concluded that the full burden of the corporate income tax falls on workers. Not just in this country. But in every country. The editorial board of the says they agreed with him.
How to Reform Obamacare
John Goodman was the first person to note that health plans would respond to Obamacare incentives by imposing high deductibles (three times what is normal for employer plans) and narrow networks (as bad or worse than under Medicaid). Along with Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff, he has now proposed simple, straightforward reforms to both problems in an editorial published in the Hill.
Minimum Wage
Suppose Congress were considering a bill that would do the following: either your employer must double your wage or fire you. Is that the kind of law you would like to see passed? Most people wouldn’t. But then why are they willing to inflict the same threatening edict on those at the bottom of the income ladder?
Who is Getting the Vaccine?
Two things are obvious. Access to the Covid-19 vaccine has not been equal. And in many cases, the distribution is unrelated to medical need or medical risk.
Goodman: Conservatism Needs a Reset
William F. Buckley is best known for promoting a fusionist approach on the right – uniting traditionalists and classical liberals in a common cause — especially in National Review. Yet in the latest, Buckley’s former debating partner, John C. Goodman says this approach is not working. Those who believe “We should stand athwart history yelling stop” have no appeal for the young, he says. “They generate none of the energy and enthusiasm needed for a successful political movement.”
Goodman says conservatives should focus instead on reforming institutions, liberating people and making the world a better place. “The classical liberals were reformers,” he says.” To be successful, modern conservatives must follow in their footsteps.”
Father of Health Savings Accounts Says We need One, Universal Account
More than 80 million people have some kind of savings account targeted for health care. But the system needs reform:
· By law, seniors cannot make deposits to an HSA
· Almost no one with Obamacare insurance has an HSA
· Among those who have an account, money cannot be used to pay the fees of “direct primary care” doctors – who are available by phone, email and Skype and as an alternative to emergency room care at nights and on weekends.
· It is impossible to structure HSAs for diabetes and other chronic conditions
Writing in, John C. Goodman says there should be one, easy-to-use account available to everybody. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) has introduced a plan to move in this direction.