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HT: Trish
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
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2013
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November
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- Systemic risk declines globally
- Claims back on track
- Two reasons this recovery has been so weak
- TIPS are priced to low inflation and weak growth
- Retail sales beat, but still not impressive
- Truck tonnage and equities update
- Quantitative Easing myths
- The Obamacare meltdown continues, and that's good ...
- Blogging will be light this week
- Jobs continue to grow at a 2% annual pace
- scary stuff
- The Fed's objective is to destroy the demand for cash
- Service sector still OK
- More QE risks higher inflation
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November
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About Me
Favorite blogs
Favorite books
- "A Random Walk down Wall Street" -Burton Malkiel
- "FDR's Folly" -Jim Powell
- "I Am John Galt" -Don Luskin
- "Panic" -Andrew Redleaf and Richard Vigilante
- "Parliament of Whores" -P.J. O'Rourke
- "Popular Economics" -John Tamny
- "The Education of a Speculator" -Victor Niederhoffer
- "The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure" -John Allison
- "The Seven Fat Years" -Robert Bartley
- "The Way the World Works" -Jude Wanniski
- "Wealth and Poverty" -George Gilder
10 comments:
Wonder if Bones lives in a state with a Republican Gov :) With a little luck something will be done about the miserable collection of software contractors the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is essentially forced to rely upon to implement projects like ACA. Maybe companies like GOOG will be able to use this event to impose some sane change on the bewildering software procurement process. And maybe the Pentagon will embrace Cost Accounting principles ... yeah right. As for the States that set up their own registration websites it sort of brings home the truth in the old saying, "if you want something done right, then do it yourself", I suppose.
You know what's even scarier? The present health care system.
I have had expensive private health insurance in NJ (a state that prevents insurers from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions) for years, and it is still often extremely difficult and time-consuming to deal with private insurance companies.
So I am completely unable to understand the love affair some pretend to have with the current health care system.
I think we should just ask Canada to take the whole US healthcare system over. I have spent 3 months in Canada in recent years and, as a physician, I always ask people I meet "What do you think of your healthcare system?" In variably they are pleased and satisfied. Twenty years ago there were access problems and some patients were sent across the border to the US for certain procedures. Not anymore.
For half the US price what is not to like?
Not liking or hating Obamacare says nothing about how one feels about the current system. In my view the current system is deeply flawed, primarily because only employers can deduct healthcare costs, and because the vast majority of people have their healthcare paid by someone else, creating the "third party payer" problem.
Obamacare will never work, it will only makes things worse. Two solutions, of many possible: We need to change the tax code to allow everyone to deduct healthcare insurance costs, and we need to allow insurance companies to offer policies across state lines. Also, politicians should refrain from imposing on consumers what they believe is "best" for them.
Trick or treat?
Time to go soap some windows?
It's pretty spooky.
The GOP says the VA works. Why not gin up a VA model for everyone?
Why not issue every American a Medicare card, and get on with it -- trust me, the top 1% will still have access to the best care via premium healthcare service providers available overseas -- the US needs to come up with some system for the 99% crowd, and then let that system corrupt into whatever it might -- such a move will only make off-shore healthcare all the better, especially once healthcare rationing kicks in -- again, I have no fears of issuing everyone a Medicare card -- the Congress can then constrain healthcare costs by capping healthcare salaries and benefits via regulations -- what we should all be talking about is where people can obtain much higher quality care overseas (albeit at a premium cost that insurance will not cover) -- accredited investors are covered via self-insurance (and perhaps a healthier lifestyle) -- again, the 99% crowd should be issued Medicare cards -- the top 1% can then avail themselves of what will become premium healthcare services overseas -- trying to fix healthcare in the US is not worth the trouble.
The last time Republicans had control of all the branches of government, they failed to pass any real health care reform, but they (including Paul Ryan) voted to enact an unfunded Medicare prescription drug benefit.
Obamacare is based on Romneycare and before that, a Heritage Foundation plan that included an individual mandate so freeloaders would no longer be able to pass on costs to people who had insurance (i.e., individual responsibility.
In 2007, Jim DeMint told Fox News that Romneycare should be the model for the country.
When the 2009 heath care debate began, Sen. Grassley supported the individual mandate.
Within a few months, the plan was socialism, when in fact, the VA is the only truly socialistic health care system in the US.
It's pretty tough to have a reasonable compromise given the foregoing facts.
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