Linn and Ari Armstrong offer a fine critique of Senator Jim DeMint’s (R, SC) proposed health care reform bill. Som exerpts:
The plan contains some good ideas. It reduces political controls of insurance by allowing people to buy policies out of state. It limits frivolous lawsuits. And it allows people with Health Savings Accounts to use pre-tax money to purchase insurance.
Part of the plan, however, forces some people to finance other people’s health care. That’s not freedom, it’s a threat to throw people in prison if they don’t pay up.
Real freedom in medicine means that patients, doctors, and insurers have the right to voluntarily interact to mutual advantage, free from force, fraud, and political controls. Real freedom means that you may choose to pay for somebody else’s health care if you want, but others may not force you to pay for their care.
The problem with American medicine is that over decades politicians have seized control of much of medicine, driven up costs, and largely destroyed the market for real health insurance by tying most people to expensive, non-portable, employer-paid insurance.
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DeMint’s bill 1324 creates a “refundable tax credit” for non-employer insurance of $2,000 for individuals and $5,000 for families. That’s a great idea for those who would simply get a tax break, as it would offset the tax incentive to get overpriced insurance through employers.
The problem is that those who pay less income tax than that would get a subsidy or voucher, in other words a handout.
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So long as Republicans play the handout game, they will correctly be seen as “me-tooing” the Democrats, and they will continue to lose, step by step, inch by inch, to those who would subject the entire economy to political controls.
DeMint’s handouts also distract attention away from the fundamental problem: health insurance is too expensive because of political controls. You solve that problem by repealing the controls, not by hiding them behind another welfare scheme.
Read the whole article here.
