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Why is American Health Care So Expensive?
In the May 5, 2013, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat “What Health Insurance Doesn’t Do”, discusses a recent Oregon Medicaid experiment which shows that the Medicaid program improves health...
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Is Emphasis on Deficit Reduction Impeding Recovery?
The New York Times reported on May 9, 2013 that “Emphasis on Deficit Reduction Is Seen by Economists as Impeding Recovery”. According to the reporter, “Tax increases and especially spending cuts, the...
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Free Market Healthcare in America: How Do We Get There?
Almost everyone agrees that healthcare in the U.S. is way too expensive but how do we change to a better system? Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Avik Roy have laid out a roadmap to do this: “The future of...
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Going On a Short Vacation!
I began this blog last November, right after the national elections, to promote my strong view that the United States is on a dangerous fiscal course, with an already enormous, and still rapidly...
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Private Health Care Reform is Getting Started!
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal has a very interesting article, “More Employers Overhaul Health Benefits”, which describes a movement just getting started whereby employers give their employees a...
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Our Dire Fiscal Situation I. The Facts
Take a look at the front page of a new report from the Congressional Budget Office, “The 2013 Long-Term Budget Outlook”. It shows very clearly the huge fiscal mess confronting our country in the near...
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A Pessimistic View of America’s Future III. What, Me Worry?
This week’s cover story in Barron’s, by Gene Epstein, “What, Me Worry?”, attempts to create more attention for our impending fiscal crisis. “Stop all the dithering, D.C. The baby-boom budget bomb...
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What Is the Best Budget Outcome in the Current Standoff?
In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, columnist Holman Jenkins describes “The Best Budget Outcome: Tax Reform”. His point is that the only way we can possibly continue to pay for our rapidly growing...
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Is Expanding The Social Safety Net Compatible With Fiscal Restraint?
Yesterday’s New York Times addresses this issue with an article “Ohio Governor Defies G.O.P. With Defense of Social Safety Net”. It describes how Republican Governor John Kasich has maneuvered to...
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Are Deficit Fears Overblown?
In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal columnist David Wessel responds too mildly in “Why It’s Wrong to Dismiss the Deficit” to Larry Summers’ view that we should not worry about the deficit. Mr....
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Beyond ObamaCare: Where Do We Go From Here?
Last Sunday’s Washington Post has an Op Ed column by Jon Kingsdale, “Beyond Healthcare.gov, Obamacare’s Other Challenges” which describes the many challenges confronting ObamaCare besides just the...
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Why Is Obamacare So Unpopular? Because It’s Too Coercive!
The individual mandate for health insurance, upheld by the Supreme Court a year and a half ago, is now leading to millions of policy cancellations in the individual insurance market. The mandate...
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Controlling the Cost of Healthcare
The New York Times is running a series of articles, “Paying Till It Hurts,” giving many examples of the very high cost of healthcare in the U.S. today. The latest article “As Hospital Prices Soar, A...
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Let’s Devolve Federal Programs Back to the States!
Yesterday’s New York Times has an article “Battles Looming Over Surpluses in Many States”, pointing out that “unexpectedly robust revenues from taxes and other sources are filling most state coffers,...
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Redistribution, Inequality and Growth
Most people agree that income inequality and wealth inequality are increasing in the U.S. Likewise anyone who’s paying attention is aware of our slow rate of GDP growth, averaging 2.2% per year,...
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How to Control Federal Spending II. A General Approach
“Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late” Benjamin Franklin, 1706 – 1790 The above chart from the Congressional Budget Office’s latest budget forecast “Updated Budget...
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How to Control Federal Spending III. Reform Medicaid!
One of the many controversies involving the Affordable Care Act concerns the expansion of Medicaid to cover low income people up to 138% of the federal poverty level. As Robert Samuelson reported in...
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Is A Free Market Possible in Health Care?
With a total national debt of $17.8 trillion, of which close to $13 trillion is public debt (on which we pay interest), it is easily understood that the U.S. has a very serious fiscal problem. At the...
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How to Shrink the Deficit: Control Entitlement Spending by Fixing Obamacare
Our country faces two major fiscal and economic problems: How to boost the economy in order to put more people back to work. How to either increase tax revenue or better control spending in order to...
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Fix the Debt
Recently I have had several posts about our national debt, for example, “Why the National Debt Is Such a Threat to the U.S.,” showing graphically that our current public debt at 74% of GDP is very...
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