tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180270631422837748.post2720835201158495003..comments2023-08-16T09:39:08.120-04:00Comments on femonomics: Healthcare: a skeptic's guideCoca Colohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05951066922977616639noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180270631422837748.post-74981706949435687312010-03-24T21:52:16.492-04:002010-03-24T21:52:16.492-04:00My primary gripe with healthcare reform in the US ...My primary gripe with healthcare reform in the US has been the need to go after big packages. Pretty much everyone agreed that pre-existing condition exclusions had to go, and that consensus has existed for quite a while. Why couldn't a small piece of legislation have been passed decades ago to accomplish just that(*note). It seems that politicians' egos require that they attach themselves to big projects, that to pass necessitate tons of shady compromises, instead of making incremental positive change.<br /><br />*note: pre-existing conditions are slightly tricky, in that when insurers must price everyone the same, and where health insurance is not required, the pool of insured can enter a death spiral see Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_spiral_(insurance)mongoose6https://www.blogger.com/profile/17517485576276212600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180270631422837748.post-72389058027000979332010-03-24T18:47:25.473-04:002010-03-24T18:47:25.473-04:00Agreed this is a good post.
The No. 1 reason I pr...Agreed this is a good post.<br /><br />The No. 1 reason I prefer the bill to the status quo is that it will prevent the scenario where one gets a catastrophic & expensive illness and can't get insurance. Starting from a state of nature, I expect we would all want this kind of social insurance always and forever, and this bill gets us closer to that ideal. This dominates most other concerns for me and makes me cautiously optimistic about the bill.<br /><br />Now this comes at what cost? My No. 1 concern is what negative effects the bill will have on medical innovation. This falls into your No. 3, but to be clear -- the kind of distortions I'm concerned about are not relative price changes and little triangles between supply and demand curves, but rather the treatments and medicines that might never be around to save lives if government stifles innovation. Too much policy gets made based on a static view of the world that completely ignores the dynamics of creativity and invention, and that does worry me.<br /><br />One more thought on innovation that's mostly unrelated to health care but truer to the theme of this blog -- imagine telling someone in the 70s, after Title IX passed, that in the year 2010, millions of households would have several networks that show sports 24 hours a day, and one of them would freely televise every game of a 64-team women's college basketball tournament. I imagine most people would not have believed you. Government policy can change the world in ways you might not dream are possible, for better or worse, and the long run needs more attention than it's been getting, beyond just CBO budget forecasts.DRDRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09998965615143790016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8180270631422837748.post-26599001084538574962010-03-24T14:01:04.898-04:002010-03-24T14:01:04.898-04:00Coca Colo, I think this is an interesting, well-in...Coca Colo, I think this is an interesting, well-informed and well-thought-out post that certainly offers a valid and important take on the health care reform. There are indeed reasons why one might be less than euphoric about *this* health care bill (although I personally disagree with 1 and 2, I think the other reasons bring up valid and important considerations). I also think you are right to question whether the government is really the most efficient or knowledgeable actor in making health care decisions for the rest of us.<br />However, for me, the euphoria associated with the passage of the bill comes from the fact that it FINALLY addresses some issues faced by some of the poorest and most powerless people in our society by providing them with a basic safety net of health insurance. The expansion of health insurance (although it's unfortunate that, still, not everyone will be insured, and the subsidies may not be large enough) will serve to make sure that people don't go bankrupt when they get sick (or don't forgo necessary treatment because they can't afford it). This is huge! I think this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/business/24leonhardt.html?hp makes this point well by talking about how this bill is the first in many decades to address the growing wealth inequality in the US. Now, there might be concerns with how well this reform will be executed or whether there are loopholes... But just the mere fact that this (yes, imperfect) legislation passed, I think, is something to celebrate. And that's my (perhaps traditionally liberal) opinion!Just a State School Girlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03087743801029398258noreply@blogger.com