What’s New
Solutions for Pre-Existing Conditions
The best position on pre-existing conditions is not to argue that the problem is small, although it certainly is, writes John Goodman at Forbes. Our argument should be that many – perhaps most – people who come to the individual market with a pre-existing condition are worse off because of Obamacare than they would have been under the old system. And that there is a conservative approach that is much better.
WSJ endorses our view on pre-existing conditions
Joe Biden claimed at Tuesday’s debate that “100 million people who have pre-existing conditions” will lose insurance if the Trump Administration wins an Affordable Care Act case at the Supreme Court. Democrats have terrified voters with this fiction for years, and Republican confusion has helped keep the fear alive. So let’s explain the reality one more time.
Goodman on Bidenomics
There are a surprising number of illiberal proposals, including health insurance subsidies, Medicare enrollment for seniors who are wealthy and already insured, two years of free college – subsidizing the single greatest cause of income inequality. “The puzzle in all this is, Why? Why impose a whole slew of new taxes on the rich and then turn around and give them a whole slew of new benefits?”
Kotlikoff: We Are Not Saving Enough
On net, the U.S. is saving just 2.2 percent of our national income. By contrast, the nation’s saving rate was 7.6 percent in the 1980s, 10.3 percent in the 1970s, and 13.0 percent in the 1960s.
The main reason: government policies that take an ever-larger share of resources from young and give them to the old.
Unless baby boomers change their saving habits substantially and relatively quickly, they may experience much higher rates of poverty in their old age than what the current elderly are experiencing.
The FDA is Preventing a Solution to Covid
With paper-strip tests, Americans could test themselves every day in their own homes, at a cost of $1 to $2 per test. The government could even make the tests available for free. Unlike lengthy swabs and finger prick tests (which cause personal discomfort), paper strip testing involves no more than spitting into a tube or the use of a short nasal swab – with results in a few minutes. By contrast, the standard PCR test currently being used costs from $50 to $100 and sometimes more. Results can take more than a week – and that makes them virtually useless. Also, testing tends to be a one-time, irregular event.
A Manhattan Project for Covid
Same-day, time-stamped cell-phone pictures … of negative test — tests, which were approved and supplied to everyone for free by Uncle Sam — would be required to enter the workplace, fly on an airplane plane, frequent a restaurant, enter a store, or attend a school, college, or university. If home tests weren’t perfectly precise, you’d likely need to show several days of negative test results. These requirements would be established by market players, not by government decree.
Corporate Tax Reform that Pays for Itself
Republican tax reform could have been better. An ideal reform, originally proposed by Paul Ryan would have produced a of 20.5 percent increase in the nation’s capital stock and a 6.8 percent increase in GDP. Wages would have increased by 6.3 percent for high-income workers and by 7.5 percent for low-income workers. The reasons: a highly elastic global supply of capital, which moves across borders at the first sign of a tax advantage and the inefficiency of the U.S. corporate income tax, which, as of 2014, our year of calibration, had a very high marginal, but very low average tax rate.
Kotlikoff in the NYT: A Cheap, Simple Way to Control Covid
Paper-strip tests are inexpensive and easy enough to make that Americans could test themselves every day. You would simply spit into a tube of saline solution and insert a small piece of paper embedded with a strip of protein. If you are infected with enough of the virus, the strip will change color within 15 minutes…. The price per person would be from $1 to $5 a day. The Food and Drug Administration should encourage their development and then fast track approval.
Short-Term Insurance Is Not The Problem. It’s The Solution
Democrats in Congress are trying to abolish short-term, limited-benefit insurance, but that insurance is on the rise because people want it. Democrats complain that today’s short-term plans don’t cover services people might need. “What if you get sick and need expensive drugs?” they might ask. The answer is: you drop your short-term plan and enroll in an Obamacare plan.
The Five Deadly Sins Of Private Health Insurance
In health care we are not getting the benefits from competition that we receive in markets for other goods and services. The reason for that is unwise government regulation. Under the current system, We don’t allow health plans to specialize in something they are really good at. Say a plan is very good at diabetic care. If we would allow it to restrict its enrollment to diabetics and focus exclusively on their care, it would probably improve even further. Instead, we require health plans to be all things to all enrollees.