Protecting Ourselves From Our Masters

by Mario Rizzo

I have previously blogged about healthcare “reform.” (One example is here.) Both the House and Senate bill attacked the tax-advantaged flexible spending account for healthcare expenses. Now there seems to be a move to reinstate it with a maximum of only $2,500.

I understand why the first instinct of economists is to oppose to such accounts. They enable people to put aside money from their salaries before taxes and use it to pay for deductibles, copayments and uncovered medical or dental expenses (for which most people’s insurance is terrible).

Flex Spending Accounts tend to lead to overutilization of healthcare because it changes the terms of the tradeoff between medical and other expenditures. A dollar spent on healthcare costs a person, say, $0.60 (The other $0.40 would have gone to Federal, NY State and City income taxes). A dollar spent on clothing costs him or her a dollar.

However, look at the world in which we live.

Healthcare Constructivism: A View From My Window

by Mario Rizzo 

I have taken a quick look at some of the provisions of the recently-passed House healthcare bill. What I want to do here is determine how it will affect me and others in a similar situation. I do not think my own situation is exceptional. I urge others to determine how it will affect them.  

Pain in the Fannie

by Chidem Kurdas

As Fannie Mae goes for its next withdrawal from the $200 billion kitty the US Treasury graciously made available to this government-created and -sustained mortgage financer, it may be useful to look beyond the current housing slump and consider what it augers for the future.

Having made yet another loss, the government-sponsored enterprise needs more money. A report Fannie filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission attributes the $19 billion third-quarter loss to the housing slump and mortgage defaults.  “We do not expect to operate profitably in the foreseeable future,” says  the company.

I always thought it was a great triumph of government public relations to come up with the sweet-sounding Fannie Mae moniker for an entity officially called the Federal National Mortgage Association.  Now I understand what the nickname really means—a pain in the taxpayers’ backside for the foreseeable future.

The business has been adversely affected by helping delinquent or imminently-in-default borrowers to modify their mortgages so as to reduce their monthly payments. As the economy recovers, defaults will decline, and presumably this aid will no longer be needed. But it is not clear when – or even if – the subsidy program will end.

In fact, it may be extended.  Fannie “may recommend supplementing the program with other initiatives that would allow us, pursuant to our mission, to assist more homeowners.”

Will Obamacare Be Deficit-Neutral? Part 2

by Mario Rizzo

To much fanfare the House Democrats just revealed their healthcare plan. Three items from the CNN report caught my eye:

“The nearly 2,000 page bill — a combination of three different versions passed by House committees…”

A priori, I say this will be a nightmare to read and a mess to interpret.

“Pelosi’s office said the bill would cut the federal deficit by roughly $30 billion over the next decade. The measure is financed through a combination of a tax surcharge on wealthy Americans and spending constraints in Medicare and Medicaid.”

That is $30 billion over TEN years.  When have Congressional estimates of savings not been seriously wrong in the direction of greater spending?

“Medicare expenditures would be cut by 1.3 percent annually.”

Politically impossible under the current mindset.

I am astonished by the patently obvious nonsense that is being peddled by this Congress.  Let them admit that what they propose will cost a ton and add to the deficits. Then, at least, we could see if there are any counter-balancing benefits.

UPDATE: A few hours ago the House Democrats said the bill would cost $871 billion over ten years.  However they “misspoke.”  Oops. It has now been revealed that it will cost $1.05 trillion over ten years. (But now it will save about $100 billion over ten years.)  Stay tuned.

Will Obamacare Be Deficit-Neutral?

By Mario Rizzo  

If anyone doubts that this Administration and the Democrats in Congress live in bizarre fantasy world he should take a look at what is happening with the funding of Medicare.  

Fast Track To The Single Payer

by Mario Rizzo  

For some time I have been interested in the dynamics of public policy – specifically, how particular policies make further policies more likely. Glen Whitman and I explored this in general terms in our paper, “The Camel’s Nose is in the Tent”  and our own Sandy Ikeda’s book, The Dynamics of Interventionism offers a different, but largely compatible, general dynamic framework  

I believe that dynamic-tendency (or slippery-slope) analysis — if carried on in a coherent theoretical framework with plausible empirical assumptions — can be a powerful supplementary critique of public policy.

The healthcare area seems especially prone to the dynamics of the slippery slope. In this post I wish to point to several factors that will ensure that the current proposals, if adopted, will not constitute a policy-equilibrium. Thus, they will likely lead to more and worse intervention by the state. 

Delusions of Healthcare Policy

by Mario Rizzo  

The Wall Street Journal reports, mirable dictu, the latest Senate healthcare plan passes the Congressional Budget Office’s test for not adding to the deficit. In fact, the plan will trim the deficit by $81 billion over ten years. That is an average of $8.1 billion per year in a projected deficit that is so high I can’t remember what it is. This is your classic rounding error. Let that pass.   

What is the basic financing mechanism?  

The Real David Hume: A Curmudgeonly Reaction

by Mario Rizzo  

I admit upfront that I did not find David Brooks’s New York Times column on Mr. Bentham and Mr. Hume as updated characters at all amusing, funny or informative. I am sure I am in the minority. It is no comfort to me that Brooks seems to favor “Mr. Hume.” I leave it to Jeremy Bentham’s partisans to evaluate his portrayal.  

I think David Hume was one of the greatest political philosophers of all time. 

Fantasy Is Not a Serious Policy Option

by Gene Callahan

You may have seen the status going around Facebook that reads, “[JOHN DOE] thinks that no one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.” (This is meant to be an argument for Obama’s health care package, I surmise.)

Well, I posted as my status another blurb, not original to me, that says, “No one should be frozen in carbonite, or be slowly digested for a thousand years in the bowels of a sarlaac, just because they couldn’t pay Jabba the Hut what they owe him.”

Neither Truth Nor Charity, Part 2: Globalization and the Pope’s Discontents

by Mario Rizzo  

Throughout Pope Benedict XVI’s enclyclical (“Caritas in Veritate”) he stresses that scientific knowledge is not enough when trying to determine appropriate government policies or even individual actions. This is quite true.  

He fails, however, to appreciate in many specific instances and arguments the importance of the fact that that moral or ethical knowledge is also insufficient to determine appropriate government policy or individual actions. He pays lip service to this idea (Sec. 9, 30) but it rarely constrains him in practice, as we shall see. 

Now consider a specific issue.  

The pope is worried about the effect of globalization on the traditional welfare state. (Sec. 25)