Nov 06
A 2011 University of Virginia study found that surgical Medicaid patients are 13 percent more likely to die than those without insurance. Of the 893,658 surgical operations reviewed between 2003-2007: Patients on Medicare were 45% more likely to die than those with private insurance; the uninsured were 74% more likely; and Medicaid patients 93% more …
Oct 29
“Underperforming bailout-style programs (expiring after next year) designed to artificially hold down rates, sicker-than-expected risk pools, and stagnating enrollment projections.” These are, according to columnist Guy Benson, the ways that promoters of Obamacare underestimated costs and unintended consequences of the “Affordable Care Act.” Premiums are rising an average of at least 7 percent annually (despite …
Oct 06
When Medicare was enacted in 1965, Congress projected its costs into the future, and estimated that it would cost $3 billion dollars by 1990. Actual cost in 1990 was $98 billion. Today the program costs taxpayers more than $500 billion annually. Government officials consistently underestimate entitlement costs, refusing to recognize that medical entitlements artificially increase …
Oct 05
The U.S. Postal Service lost $5.5 billion in 2014 and has lost many more billions over the past decade. Even as global trade, communications and shipping has skyrocketed, the Postal Service can’t operate efficiently. U.S. Postal workers are greatly overpaid. Hundreds, even thousands, apply for every opening. It might be said that the PRIMARY purpose …
Sep 29
The history of humanity is a history of people wanting to control their neighbors through government–and of their neighbors (and ultimately, themselves) fleeing the governmental environments they created for freer shores. England, for example, was widely known to be freer than continental Europe throughout the past thousand years. Vagabonds, exiles and wandering gypsies from throughout …
Sep 27
A case study in how the government-supporting media report business news through the lens of government. This weekend, dozens of prominent newspapers (including the Bozeman Daily Chronicle) reprinted an Associated Press (AP) story entitled “Side Effects: Lack of regulation, competition, research costs increase prescription drug costs in the U.S.” See the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s republication …
Sep 09
According to Jim Clifton, chairman and CEO of Gallup, “for the first time in 35 years, American business deaths now outnumber business births.” See here. Small business startups are being choked off by mountains of taxes and regulations. “Believe it or not, when measured in per-capita terms, socialist countries such as Denmark, Finland, New Zealand …
Sep 08
The brilliant economist John C. Goodman is out with another brilliant column. This one about the foolishness of minimum wage laws. See here. : To summarize: a firm that pays workers more than they are worth cannot survive because it cannot match the prices and the rate of return to investors of its rivals. A …
Aug 23
American health care is so overregulated that the VA SCANDAL THAT BROKE LAST YEAR is still not resolved–and never will be. In order to “fix” the Veterans Administration health care problems that were much publicized last year, hundreds of new doctors, nurses and staff needed to be hired. But it turns out that hiring such …
Aug 22
Every economic regulation–whether laws governing labor, product quality, or prices of goods or services–creates a black market. And socialist countries which seek to regulate everything suffer (or, rather, experience the comforts and joys of) black markets in every commodity and industry. Here is a recent BBC story about efforts to thwart free-market transactions in Venezuela–a …
