Our Future under Obamacare | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

Our Future under Obamacare | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Republicans won't really try to repeal it. Republicans will run this fall on a promise to repeal this deeply unpopular bill, and will likely reap the political advantages of that promise. But in reality there is little chance of their following through. Even if Republicans were to take both houses of Congress, they would still face a presidential veto and a Democratic filibuster.

But more important, once an entitlement is in place, it becomes virtually impossible to take away. The fact that Republicans have been criticizing Obamacare for cutting Medicare shows that they are not really willing to take the heat for cutting people's benefits once they have them — no matter how unaffordable those benefits are. Paul Ryan put forth a serious plan for entitlement reform — and attracted just six co-sponsors at last count. Enough said."

Innovation Best Alternative to Obamacare | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary

Innovation Best Alternative to Obamacare | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Economist Glen Whitman and physician Raymond Raad found that, when it comes to basic medical sciences, diagnostics (e.g., MRIs and CT scanners), and therapeutics (e.g., ACE inhibitors and statins), the United States often produces more medical innovations than all other nations combined.

America's health insurance markets are not following suit, despite the ready availability of innovations that can improve the delivery of care, insure the 'young invincibles,' and provide secure coverage for the sick. Bringing those innovations to consumers requires tearing down regulatory barriers to competition"

"Yet these innovations lie beyond the reach of most consumers, Stanford health economist Alain Enthoven explains, because our employment-based health insurance system – a creature of the federal tax code – blocks entry by integrated, prepaid health plans."

"While the Obama plan would force young invincibles to purchase health insurance, markets have developed insurance policies that can achieve the same result without coercion. Such policies pay a deferred dividend to customers who end up not filing any claims. The same miscalculation that causes young invincibles to underestimate their need for insurance also causes them to overestimate the probability that they will receive a dividend. Therefore, they insure."

"these innovations are currently available in China, and were quite popular in life-insurance markets in the United States until they were demonized as a form of gambling."

Don't Confuse Health Care Reform with Public Health | George Avery | Cato Institute: Commentary

Don't Confuse Health Care Reform with Public Health | George Avery | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In fact, federal 'reform' often hurts the public health system. Both public health and health care experts have criticized Medicare and Medicaid, enacted by Congress in 1965, for changing the focus of health care practitioners from prevention to treatment. Infectious disease mortality rates rose 22 percent in the 1980s (even after discounting for AIDS deaths), despite rising public and private spending on health insurance and medical care. In 1988, the Institute of Medicine warned of a deteriorating public health system. Inadequate vaccine supplies, such as the recent shortages of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine or influenza vaccines, are at least in part the result of federal attempts to control the production and distribution of the vaccines.

Requiring all Americans purchase health insurance, which the current bills hope to do, would not address the underlying socio-economic issues at the root of most public health problems. Income, social capital, employment status, and other factors have a stronger impact on population health than access to health care. People with more education and higher incomes are better able to avoid health risks."

"Indeed, access to health care can help individual patients, but can also aggravate some public health problems. Healthcare, like everything else in life, involves risk tradeoffs. Hospitals can help cure disease, but by their very nature can also help spread infections. Most of Toronto's 2002 SARS cases were infected, for example, were health care workers and visitors infected by exposure to the virus in a hospital. High rates of surgical intervention increase the risk and spread of drug resistant infections like MRSA."

Property Rights and Whale Wars - Jeremiah Dyke - Mises Institute

Property Rights and Whale Wars - Jeremiah Dyke - Mises Institute: "Only within the sphere of communal property could two vessels manage to collide in the vast openness of the Antarctic Ocean — an ocean of nearly 21 million square kilometers. Only within the sphere of communal property could such a collision leave all parties faultless."

"Conservationists are actually gambling with the whales' prospects of survival by concentrating their efforts on a war against whaling, instead of embracing solutions to the problem of supply, such as whale breeding.

Simply limiting the supply of whales only increases the price per unit of whale on the market. Fisherman who would normally seek other ocean inhabitants may actually be enticed to hunt whales, instead of fish, by the new, inflated price."

Remember the Father of the Constitution - Gary Galles - Mises Institute

Remember the Father of the Constitution - Gary Galles - Mises Institute: "There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied … than … that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong … nothing can be more false … it would be the interest of the majority in every community to despoil and enslave the minority of individuals … reestablishing … force as the measure of right."