Mitt Romney - F U ! ! !

[Straw Man]

333 - I don't waste my time watching any video you post

I've learned from experience that it does't matter what is in the video but only what you believe you saw/heard

If you want to tell me what you see/hear in the video then I will respond

[howardroark]

THIS is basically what Schiff is saying:

Okay guys, basic economics.

The supply of health care is what economists call "inelastic," meaning that the supply is more-or-less fixed: a large increase in demand calls forth only a very small increase in supply, meaning that prices have to increase drastically in order to equilibrate (balance-out) supply and demand. Why? Because there are only so many doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics, hours in the day to treat people, etc. etc. It's very, very difficult to expand the supply for health care, since that essentially means sending people to school for at least 8 years, and that's not counting all the other shit people have to do in order to become MDs.

Anyway, government intervention via Medicare, Medicaid, tax breaks, mandates, etc. end up pushing the demand for health care upwards... but since the supply is relatively inelastic, the prices for health care have to skyrocket in order to call forth the additional supply necessary to supply the few people who otherwise would not have had access to health care.

If the government got out of the health care market, then health care prices would fall drastically. That is what economists call a "demand-side solution." Though this might prevent SOME people from getting necessary health care, for the most part it would eliminate unnecessary health care expenditures that people make because they don't face the cost of doing so (this is the problem with third-party insurance).

However, there is also a "supply-side solution:" remove all of regulations which are choking off health care supply. Licensure laws and regulations limiting where and how many hospitals are built are good examples of this.

Government plans such as Obamacare and single-payer systems throw fuel on the fire... They increase demand while doing NOTHING to expand supply. The result is even higher costs for health care, which either end up being paid through government (and thus higher taxes with a premium for all the inefficiencies found in government) OR they end up being paid indirectly by individuals, via waiting lists and so forth.

[tu_holmes]

False - the owner of the car has to have insurance, not the driver.   you can get a drivers' license without getting insurance.   

Unless you are my kid or immediate family I'm not letting you drive my car anyway.

You are being extreme about this and it's not really helpful.

[Soul Crusher]

Unless you are my kid or immediate family I'm not letting you drive my car anyway.

You are being extreme about this and it's not really helpful.

Its not extreme at all.   Its a huge distinction. 

[Straw Man]

Okay guys, basic economics.

The supply of health care is what economists call "inelastic," meaning that the supply is more-or-less fixed: a large increase in demand calls forth only a very small increase in supply, meaning that prices have to increase drastically in order to equilibrate (balance-out) supply and demand. Why? Because there are only so many doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics, hours in the day to treat people, etc. etc. It's very, very difficult to expand the supply for health care, since that essentially means sending people to school for at least 8 years, and that's not counting all the other shit people have to do in order to become MDs.

Anyway, government intervention via Medicare, Medicaid, tax breaks, mandates, etc. end up pushing the demand for health care upwards... but since the supply is relatively inelastic, the prices for health care have to skyrocket in order to call forth the additional supply necessary to supply the few people who otherwise would not have had access to health care.

If the government got out of the health care market, then health care prices would fall drastically. That is what economists call a "demand-side solution." Though this might prevent SOME people from getting necessary health care, for the most part it would eliminate unnecessary health care expenditures that people make because they don't face the cost of doing so (this is the problem with third-party insurance).

However, there is also a "supply-side solution:" remove all of regulations which are choking off health care supply. Licensure laws and regulations limiting where and how many hospitals are built are good examples of this.

Government plans such as Obamacare and single-payer systems throw fuel on the fire... They increase demand while doing NOTHING to expand supply. The result is even higher costs for health care, which either end up being paid through government (and thus higher taxes with a premium for all the inefficiencies found in government) OR they end up being paid indirectly by individuals, via waiting lists and so forth.

what proof can you supply to show that the supply of healthcare is inelastic?

I do find the argument that access to healthcare (i.e. Medicare, Medicaid and you should also include the largest access point - which is employer sponsored healthcare plans) increases demand kind of interesting.    I think the CEO of Whole Foods was trying to make the same argument, basically that when you give employees access to health insurance then their use of health services rises.  

Is the point of this argument that if we eliminated health insurance (again, you must included employer sponsored plans in this) then health care costs would go down because many fewer people would be able to afford health care.

Is that the basic argument?

btw - if you have a problem with regulation then why not address one of the biggest causes of rising costs, which is lack of competition due to the legal monopoly enjoyed by insurance companies  via the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945.  Just getting rid of that would foster competition and almost certainly drive down costs

[howardroark]

Inelastic supply... a HUGE price increase is necessary in order to marginally increase the quantity supplied:


THAT is a perfect description of the health care market, because of how long it takes and how costly it is to train new doctors, nurses, specialists, etc. AND how difficult it is to open up new hospitals due to government regulations. The government exacerbates the problem even more by increasing demand via Medicare, Medicaid, health insurance mandates (on the state level, for example mandates requiring that drug addiction treatment be covered), and tax loopholes which encourage third-party insurance (your employer pays for your health insurance -> you don't bear the costs -> you spend more on health care than you would otherwise). The result is that a whole lot of people are spending other people's money on health care that isn't all that necessary, and that's locking out of the market people who can't afford necessary health care.

And what's the government's solution to this? Increase health care demand even MORE by insuring those who don't have it... This will lead to even more skyrocketing prices.

The only REAL solution is to free up supply by cutting out government regulations/restrictions while decreasing demand by cutting out government subsidies (both direct and indirect) which increase demand for less necessary forms of health care.

[howardroark]

what proof can you supply to show that the supply of healthcare is inelastic?

How many years does it take to train a new MD? What does it take to open a new hospital?

Answer these questions and you'll see what I mean.

I do find the argument that access to healthcare (i.e. Medicare, Medicaid and you should also include the largest access point - which is employer sponsored healthcare plans) increases demand kind of interesting.    I think the CEO of Whole Foods was trying to make the same argument, basically that when you give employees access to health insurance then their use of health services rises.  

Is the point of this argument that if we eliminated health insurance (again, you must included employer sponsored plans in this) then health care costs would go down because many fewer people would be able to afford health care.

Is that the basic argument?

Not eliminating health insurance per se, but eliminating the third-party provision of insurance. If you buy health insurance on your own, then you still bear the costs of your health care expenditures to a degree. If your employer or your government buys you health insurance, then you bear none of the costs so you have an incentive to spend as much as possible.

btw - if you have a problem with regulation then why not address one of the biggest causes of rising costs, which is lack of competition due to the legal monopoly enjoyed by insurance companies  via the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945.  Just getting rid of that would foster competition and almost certainly drive down costs

I'm not familiar with that law, but I do know that states restrict health insurance competition to a great degree - that is a problem, but it's a problem that needs to be dealt with on the state level.

[Straw Man]

How many years does it take to train a new MD? What does it take to open a new hospital?

Answer these questions and you'll see what I mean.

Not eliminating health insurance per se, but eliminating the third-party provision of insurance. If you buy health insurance on your own, then you still bear the costs of your health care expenditures to a degree. If your employer or your government buys you health insurance, then you bear none of the costs so you have an incentive to spend as much as possible.

I'm not familiar with that law, but I do know that states restrict health insurance competition to a great degree - that is a problem, but it's a problem that needs to be dealt with on the state level.

some quick thoughts and then I'm out the door but I'll check back later today

you've given a concept of inelasticity but no proof of it's actual impact on the cost of healthcare

do you have any info on the difference in admin costs (and profit) btw a source like Medicare and a private HMO and it's impact on rising costs?

don't the marjorty of people with health care have it provided by their employer (with some sharing of the costs).  Doesn't this also cause an increase in demand.  if this is true (and I'm not saying it is) then doesnt' employer sponsored healthcare actually exacerbate the problem even more than Medicare (which people pay into their entire lives)?

[howardroark]

some quick thoughts and then I'm out the door but I'll check back later today

you've given a concept of inelasticity but no proof of it's actual impact on the cost of healthcare

It is impossible to actually measure elasticity of supply, we can only make 'guesstimates'. A supply curve represents how much of a given resource would have been supplied at a given level of prices and demand. You can only know what that number is if you're "at" that number in prices/demand. You cannot know (in real life) what the entire supply curve is.

So our best guesstimate regarding the health care market is that it is inelastic... why? Because it takes about a decade and thousands of dollars in college costs (this is not counting the FULL opportunity cost) to train a new MD. It can even take longer for other types of doctors. Then there are very byzantine government restrictions on how many hospitals are built and where they are located. There's a lot more which I cannot call off the top of my head.

do you have any info on the difference in admin costs (and profit) btw a source like Medicare and a private HMO and it's impact on rising costs?

don't the marjorty of people with health care have it provided by their employer (with some sharing of the costs).  Doesn't this also cause an increase in demand.  if this is true (and I'm not saying it is) then doesnt' employer sponsored healthcare actually exacerbate the problem even more than Medicare (which people pay into their entire lives)?

Yes, employer-paid health insurance exacerbates the problem. That is because a third party pays for your health insurance, so that third party is responsible for the costs you incur.

And why do we have this system of third party health insurance in this country? Because of the tax code. Employers get a tax credit if they buy health insurance for their employees. However, if the employers decide to drop the health insurance and instead pay out those benefits in the form of salary/wage increases, then the employees would be taxed more. Thus, it's better to include health insurance as part of the employment package than just paying a straight salary/wage.

Then there's also the problem of health insurance mandates... states mandate that health insurance cover all sorts of things, from pregnancy to HRT to alcoholism treatment. This increases demand for health care, much of which could be unnecessary.

This way you end up with a system where individuals don't face the costs that they incur and thus have no incentive to limit themselves... this pushes demand up, and in a market with inelastic supply, this causes prices to skyrocket. This, in turn, locks people out of the market who otherwise would be able to afford certain medical procedures - but now can't because prices are too high due to high demand.

What needs to happen on the demand-side is an end to Medicare, Medicaid, the state-level health insurance mandates, tax loopholes favoring employer-paid health insurance, etc. This will lower demand for unnecessary health care procedures, which will dramatically bring down the price. The lower price will allow a lot of people who weren't able to afford health care before to be able to pay for the health care they need now.

Of course, in any free market system there will be some people who will not be able to afford what they need... but that is something that is not only a mainstay of free markets but of the reality of economics. Not everyone can have access to scarce resources. The issue here is figuring out how to allocate those scarce resources in the best possible manner - and a free market system does exactly that. What we have now is a broken system which increases demand unnecessarily and thus leads to a poor allocation of health care resources. By attacking the root of the problem and introducing free market health care, more poor people and more people with pre-existing conditions would be able to afford the health care they need. It's as simple as that.

[howardroark]

Really, it's indisputable that the supply of health care is inelastic. When it takes 10 years and thousands of dollars to train a new MD, the supply of health care can't be anything but inelastic.

This, of course, wouldn't be a problem that could be solved EXCEPT for two things:
1) Government artificially limits health care supply through restrictions lobbied for by special interests (e.g. licensure laws and the AMA).
2) Government artificially increases health care demand via mandates, Medicare, Medicaid, and tax loopholes.

[Soul Crusher]

Really, it's indisputable that the supply of health care is inelastic. When it takes 10 years and thousands of dollars to train a new MD, the supply of health care can't be anything but inelastic.

This, of course, wouldn't be a problem that could be solved EXCEPT for two things:
1) Government artificially limits health care supply through restrictions lobbied for by special interests (e.g. licensure laws and the AMA).
2) Government artificially increases health care demand via mandates, Medicare, Medicaid, and tax loopholes.

Bingo - its not really that more complicated than that. 

[Straw Man]

so quickly reading through this last responses I can't figure out what "problem" is being addressed here

is it the problem of the high cost of health care (which If I understand correctly is being driven up by access to health care via health insurance)?

Is the "solution" to eliminate health insurance so that very few people could afford health care leaving the fortunate few who can afford it with lower costs?

I brought up the McCarran-Ferguson Act which the House voted to repeal in 2010 with a vote of 406 t0 19 (that's pretty damn amazing bipartisan support) but it went nowhere in the Senate (not sure why).   In most states we have one or two companies that control 90% of the market.  Simply eliminating the anti-trust exemption would probably help a lot in lowering health care costs

[whork]

Romney: "No, I just know it's the nature of politics. People trying to cast their opponent in a less than favorable light. And I know that health care is one of those issues. The Massachusetts healthcare plan. But don't forget, this healthcare plan was something we learned about from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Even Newt Gingrich supported the idea of an individual mandate, insisting on personal responsibility. Now, what we did isn't perfect. Some parts of it worked, some didn't, some things I change. But it's not like it was a liberal idea. It was a conservative concept. I'm proud of the fact we did something that worked with our state consistent with the Tenth amendment. I'm also proud of the fact that I'm out there saying I'll get rid of ObamaCare. I know why it's bad. I know how it's different than what we did and why it needs to be taken off the books of the US -- of the entire nation."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/11/21/romney_health_care_individual_mandate_is_a_conservative_concept.html

Selling out to be pres nothing new 

[Soul Crusher]

Romney doubles down on argument that state health mandate is 'conservative'
By Julian Pecquet - 12/21/11 12:15 PM ET


http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/politics-elections/200793-romney-doubles-down-on-argument-that-state-health-mandate-is-conservative 



Requiring people to have health insurance is "conservative," GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney told MSNBC on Wednesday, but only if states do it.

The argument aims to improve Romney's appeal to Republican voters concerned about the healthcare reform plan he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts in 2006. The Massachusetts law contains an individual mandate similar to the one in President Obama's healthcare law, which conservatives despise.


"Personal responsibility," Romney said, "is more conservative in my view than something being given out for free by government."

"There were two options in my state," he said. "One was to continue to allow people without insurance to go to the hospital and get free care, paid for by the government, paid for by taxpayers."

"The best idea is to let each state craft their own solution because that's, after all, the heart of conservatism: to follow the Constitution," he said.

The Supreme Court is set to rule next year on whether a federal mandate is constitutional.

States' right to require their citizens to have health insurance isn't in question, but state mandates are equally unpopular. Fourteen states have already passed laws or constitutional amendments banning individual mandates, and another four — Florida, Wyoming, Alabama and Montana — have similar measures on their ballot next year.

[Soul Crusher]

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Mitt Romney....VAT Tax?
Big Government ^ | 12-23-2011 | Dan Mitchell
Posted on December 24, 2011 7:01:22 PM EST by ak267

There’s been a lot of discussion about Mitt Romney’s appeal – or lack thereof – among supporters of limited government. To put it mildly, many libertarians and conservatives are underwhelmed by his less-than-stellar record on healthcare, his weakness on Social Security reform, his anemic list of proposed budget savings, and his reprehensible support for ethanol subsidies.

Notwithstanding this dismal track record, some advocates of free markets argue that anybody would be better than Obama.But that’s not necessarily the case.

Economic history shows that the burden of government often expands the most under Republicans, with Nixon and Bush (either one) being obvious examples.

On the other hand, even a skeptic like me has admitted that Romney’s record in Massachusetts is difficult to assess because he was governor of a very left-wing state and he had to deal with a state legislature with heavy Democratic majorities.

That being said, there’s a new development that suggests Romney may be an unacceptable alternative to Obama.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he basically said he is willing to consider a value-added tax for the United States. Here’s the relevant passage.

(Excerpt) Read more at biggovernment.com ...




Oh fucking hell no!!!