Patient Power

Obama vs. his economic advisors, Part II

In a previous post I discussed how Obama’s advisor Jason Furman is critical of employer-sponsored insurance, even though Obama wants to “strengthen it.”   In this Cato Institute podcast Michael Cannon talks about how other advisors have been critical of Obama’s health care policy proposals.

For example, Larry Summers will be head of the White House’s National Economic Council.  On forcing employers to provide insurance, which Obama wants, Summers writes:

Suppose, for example, that there is a binding minimum wage. In this case, wages cannot fall to offset employers’ cost of providing a mandated benefit, so it is likely to create unemployment….

Mandated benefit programs can work against the interests of those who most require the benefit being offered…

There is no sense in which benefits become ‘free’ just because the government mandates that employers offer them to workers…

For more, see here.

• Colorado Amendment 56 destroys jobs for the poor, minorities, and women
• Businesses join against Colorado Amendment 56
• Obama and Big Business vs. a freer health insurance market
• Colorado Amendment 56: immoral, impractical
• Obama should support McCain’s health insurance reform