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Greg Mankiw Argues for a Financial Transactions Tax to Improve Health Care
TPMCafe —
... Okay, that's not exactly right, but there is an important link. In his column in the NYT today, the former chief economist to President Bush warns that a public health care plan could in the long-run lead to lower pay for doctors and therefore fewer doctors. Of course one of the reasons that we pay twice as much as everyone else for health care is that our doctors get paid twice as much as in places like Canada, Germany, and England, so one part of controlling costs will probably involve making doctors' pay more internationally competitive. ...
Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up
Daily Kos —
Frank Rich: Like all students caught up in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, I was riveted by the violent confrontations between the police and protestors in Selma, 1965, and Chicago, 1968. But I never heard about the several days of riots that rocked Greenwich Village after the police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in the wee hours of June 28, 1969 — 40 years ago today. Gregory Mankiw: In the end, it would be a mistake to expect too much from ...
Quality & Accessability vs. Affordability & Accessability?
California Conservative —
When you strip away all the peripheral stuff, health care reform comes down to choosing what our priorities are. Would we put a higher priority on good accessability and great quality in health care or do we prefer a system that features universal coverage and price controls. We know that President Obama chose the high quality option:
Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to ...
Health care is not a bowl of cherries
Paul Krugman —
... and Greg Mankiw basically argue that we don’t need a government role because we can trust the market to work — hey, we do it for groceries, right? Um, economists have known for 45 years — ever since ...
Mankiw on the Pitfalls of a Public Plan:
The Volokh Conspiracy —
Gregory Mankiw evaluates the risk of a public health care plan. Even if one accepts the president’s broader goals of wider access to health care and cost containment, his economic logic regarding the public option is hard to follow. Consumer choice and honest competition are indeed the foundation of a successful market system, but they are usually achieved without a public provider. We don’t need government-run grocery stores or government-run gas stations to ensure that Americans can buy food and fuel at reasonable prices. An important question about any public provider of ...
The Free Market And Health Care
TalkLeft —
... I know very little about health care delivery. But one thing I do know -- health care delivery is not a normal market and applying the standard free market platitudes to it is just plain silly. Greg Mankiw does that today and ...
Monday morning links
Maggie's Farm —
The Gernam concentration camp brothels
More on the EPA quashing their own climate skeptical report
White House: "not ruling out" middle class tax hike"
From Mankiw in the NYT, who says the gummint could make it's own public option insurance today:
An important question about any public provider of health insurance is whether it would have access to taxpayer funds. If not, the public plan would have to stand on its own financially, as private plans do, ...
Progressives Pot Committed to a Public Plan
RedState: Conservative News and Community —
... Given that President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Waxman, Chairman Kennedy/Dodd and Chairman Baucus all want a public option — along with their Progressive base — how (exactly) is a public option going to kept out of the final House or Senate plan, unless Democratic Members who are equally opposed dig in their heels on the subject of financing and a public plan? ...
Krugman on Republican Health Care Logic: The Great Ignorance Meets the Great Disingenuousness
Firedoglake —
I was planning to write a post about George Will's absurd column claiming that America's health care system is working just fine. The rich and fully covered Will writes that the best reform is to leave it alone.
Anyone who thinks that our health care system is okay is simply too selfishly ...
Greg Mankiw on Health Care Reform
Hit & Run —
Harvard economist and former George W. Bush adviser N. Gregory Mankiw wrote an excellent op-ed for the New York Times this weekend about President Obama's public health care plan. Mankiw writes: Even if one accepts the president's broader goals of wider access to health care and cost containment, his economic logic regarding the public option is hard to follow. Consumer choice and honest competition are indeed the foundation of a successful market system, but they are usually achieved without a public provider. We don't need government-run grocery stores or government-run gas stations to ensure that Americans can buy food and fuel at ...
KIMBALL & MANKIW PROVE THAT OBAMACARE IS HOPELESS AND A FRAUD AND SOCIALISM AT ITS WORST
THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS —
PJM'S KIMBALL ON MANKIW AND OBAMACARE'S INHERENT FLAW: Professor Mankiw has this to say: “Even if one accepts the president’s broader goals of wider access to health care and cost containment” — and who doesn’t? — “his economic logic regarding the public option is hard to follow.” Professor Mankiw is a generous spirit. By “hard to follow,” he really means “completely bogus.” He goes on: Consumer choice and honest competition are indeed the foundation of a successful market system, but they are usually achieved without a public provider. We don’t need government-run grocery stores or government-run gas ...
'Cost vs Efficiency'
The Corner on National Review Online —
... , is a controversial claim). But even if that factual claim were true, the argument would hardly be dispositive as to the greater efficiency of a publicly run system. As I put it in my recent Times article , "True, Medicare s administrative costs are low, but it is easy to keep those costs contained when a system merely writes checks without expending the resources to control wasteful medical spending." Over at Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen also comments on administrative costs ...
