Obama's alarmism ignores health insurance reality

"There are 1,300 competing providers of health insurance. And Roll Call's Morton Kondracke notes that the 2003 Medicare prescription drug entitlement, relying on competition among private insurers, enjoys 87 percent approval partly because competition has made premiums less expensive than had been projected. The program's estimated cost from 2007 to 2016 has been reduced 43 percent.

Some advocates of a public option say health coverage is so complex that consumers will be befuddled by choices. But consumers of many complicated products, from auto insurance to computers, have navigated the competition among providers, who have increased quality while lowering prices.

Although 70 percent of insured Americans rate their health care arrangements good or excellent, radical reform of health care is supposedly necessary because there are 45.7 million uninsured. That number is, however, a "snapshot" of a nation in which more than 20 million working Americans change jobs every year. Many of them are briefly uninsured between jobs. If all the uninsured were assembled for a group photograph, and six months later the then-uninsured were assembled for another photograph, about half the people in the photos would be different.

Almost 39 percent of the uninsured are in five states -- Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, all of which are entry points for immigrants. About 21 percent -- 9.7 million -- of the uninsured are not citizens. Up to 14 million are eligible for existing government programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, veterans' benefits, etc. -- but have not enrolled. And 9.1 million have household incomes of at least $75,000 and could purchase insurance. Those last two cohorts are more than half of the 45.7 million."

http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2009/06/21/taking_a_razor_to_the_presidents_plan?page=2

Socialized health care makes us more like Europe

If Democrats enact a public-option health-insurance program, America is on the way to becoming a European-style welfare state. To prevent this from happening, there are five arguments Republicans must make.

The first is it's unnecessary. Advocates say a government-run insurance program is needed to provide competition for private health insurance. But 1,300 companies sell health insurance plans. That's competition enough.

The results of robust private competition to provide the Medicare drug benefit underscore this. When it was approved, the Congressional Budget Office estimated it would cost $74 billion a year by 2008. Nearly 100 providers deliver the drug benefit, competing on better benefits, more choices, and lower prices. So the actual cost was $44 billion in 2008 -- nearly 41% less than predicted. No government plan was needed to guarantee competition's benefits.

Second, a public option will undercut private insurers and pass the tab to taxpayers and health providers just as it does in existing government-run programs."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124467554761003983.html

Dems never waste time on favorable facts when there's a good doomsday crisis to exploit

"Contrary to popular perception, even though America is at the epicenter of the financial crisis, it has suffered less than its industrialized peers in terms of economic growth. According to the latest International Monetary Fund figures two weeks ago, the U.S. economy actually grew 1.1 percent last year even as Japan's shrank by 0.6 percent. France and England's both grew 0.7 percent, and Canada's only 0.5 percent—or less than half of America's. Only Germany did slightly better at 1.3 percent.

What's more, despite all the gloom and doom about the American economy, IMF expects its gross domestic product to shrink 2.8 percent this year compared to anywhere between 3 percent (France) to 6.2 percent (Japan) for these other economies. (Figures from the U.S. since the IMF projections suggest that the U.S. economy contracted more than expected in the first quarter of this year but it is not yet clear how the other countries performed.)

Not only is America hurting relatively less now, its economic performance in the prior 18 years—from 1990 to 2007—has also been visibly better than everybody else's. Calculations based on Department of Agriculture data show that America's GDP grew at an average annual rate of 3 percent during this period. By contrast, Canada's grew 2.88 percent; England's 2.3 percent; France's 1.92 percent; Japan's 1.74 percent and Germany's 1.59 percent."

http://www.reason.com/news/show/133344.html