What’s New
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.
Why Trump lost the Election: Health Care
The editors of the Wall Street Journal, the editor of National Review (Rich Lowry) and John Goodman all agree: Trump didn’t endorse the plan outlined by Goodman and Heritage Foundation scholar, Marie Fishpaw.… Oops…. Trump actually did the things Goodman and Fishpaw recommended, including allowing people to talk to their doctors by phone, email, and Skype; allowing employees to have access to 24/7 primary care as an alternative to the emergency room, and allowing employer-provided health insurance to be personal and portable. But Trump never talked about any of this. So, he didn’t get credit for any of it.
Q & A on the Labor Market
Finance and accounting are probably the easiest health care services to outsource. But the potential list is growing. It’s estimated that one-third of all physician visits could be replaced by consultations using Zoom, Skype or Facebook – and the incidence of such remote consultations is soaring.
In the future, your doctor could be in India. So could your accountant, your lawyer and dozens of others who produce goods and services you consume.
Bipartisan Health Reform
Avik Roy’s think tank, the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), has produced a health reform proposal that has been introduced as a bipartisan bill in Congress. There is a lot of overlap with proposals you will find in the document (endorsed by more thatn 70 representatives of think tanks and public policy organization) and many of these ideas are being implemented buy the Trump administration.
Q & A on Prescription Drugs
Until recently, every patient with the coronavirus in the United States for the past ten months has been treated with a non-approved drug. What allows doctors to do this? They have always been able to do it.
In medicine, the use of non-approved drugs is ubiquitous. In fact, medical science couldn’t progress without it. In treating a patient with a brand-new condition (like Covid), for example, doctors often experiment with drugs that have worked for related conditions. They compare notes. They trade data on outcomes. They discard less-promising therapies for more promising therapies – in a trial and error process.
Biden tax plan hurts workers
One of the intellectual architects of the 2017 tax cut legislation says the Joe Biden proposal to reimpose higher tax rates will be harmful to the economy and to working families. Earlier studies by Boston University professor Lawrence Kotlikoff and his colleagues found that “the United states had one for the highest corporate tax rates in the world.” As a result of lowering the top corporate rate from 35% to 21%, the US became competitive and more than $1 trillion has been repatriated by US firms. In a new study, Kotlikoff finds that the Biden proposal to undo half the cut in the corporate income tax rate will lower wages and cost jobs.
Public Option health plans don’t save money
Presidential candidate Joe Biden and other Democrats have proposed creating a government-run plan to compete with private insurers in the (Obamacare) health insurance exchanges. They say the result will be lower premiums. Yet writing at National Review, Ed Haislmaier and John Goodman say there are several public options” available already in some exchanges and they are not saving consumers any money. Similar to public options, 23 health insurance cooperatives were created under Obamacare, and supported with government subsidies. Of those 23 co-ops, only four still survive — a 79 percent failure rate.
Kotlikoff and Mina on Home Testing for Covid
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Goodman Institute Senior Fellow Lawrence Kotlikoff and Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina say the new point of care test developed by Abbott Labs is the right test at the right time.
Here is the disappointment. To conform with government regulations, this test has to be administered in the presence of a medical professional (such as a nurse). That means its value will be limited to schools, large companies, hospitals, etc. It won’t be useful for people who most need to be tested. We don’t insist on having a nurse present when a woman conducts her own pregnancy test. How is a Covid test any different?
What we really need are 150 million tests a day. In the home.