What Health Care Reform Should Look Like

You have heard the old saying about the "cure being worse than the disease" and that definitely seems to be the case when it comes to the health care reform debate. Virtually every reform suggested will make health care more expensive and reduce the accessibility of quality care for the vast majority of Americans who are already covered. This will happen because they will have to pay for both the private system and the public system. This will likely have the same effect that the government has had on education...sure, every one can use private schools, but you are going to have to still pay for the government schools. The result of this type of policy is that 90 percent of all young people go to public, rather than private, schools.

This is a shame, considering that the US has the best health care system in the world. The life expectancy of the average American has increased by over a third in the past sixty years - from 57 to 78 years. The US is the health care capital of the world, with hundreds of thousands of people traveling here for consultations with our physicians and treatment in our hospitals. Furthermore, the U.S. has the highest cancer survival rate in the world. According to the American Cancer Society, two out of three American cancer patients are alive five years after diagnosis. This stands in stark contrast to the situation in Britain (which is under a national health care system) where barely one half of cancer patients survive five years. Over time, almost half of those in Britain with breast cancer will die (48 percent), while only one fourth with die in the US (25 percent). It is not surprising that the majority of Americans prefer their health care over a government model, according to Fox News.

To make matters worse, the biggest issues when it comes to health care are not being addressed. One of the most important of these is role of the states. The federal government does not have a proper role when it comes to health care reform. According to Article I, Section 8, the Congress has seventeen powers, none of them include forcing people to buy something they do not want to purchase. With that, the states should continue to pursue various approaches in an effort to find a better way to pursue health care reform, including:

• Restoring competition among companies nationwide. Right now you can only buy insurance from companies that are in your state. Every effort should be made for individuals to be able to buy plans around the country and for states to reduce and eliminate mandates that essentially prohibit such.
  
• Fostering individual choice and competition through Health Savings Accounts. One of the biggest problems with health care is the lack of individual responsibility and freedom. If people had to pay more for certain health care procedures, they would think economically about their health care. One of the reasons why HMOs were largely a disaster is that the cost of visiting a physician was below anything market. People faced lines and had Department of Motor Vehicle treatment. The same is around the corner with socialized health care. With HSAs, an employer could provide for many procedures -- tax free -- directly to the employee. Meanwhile these plans could be bolstered with very high deductible plans (that are quite affordable) to cover major illness or injury.
  
• Encouraging competition and portability. The states should break down the barriers that prevent true competition when it comes to the purchase of health insurance policies. Some states have only one or two carriers because of ridiculous mandates. Freedom of choice should fall on the consumer.
  
• Serious tort reform. One of the single biggest drivers in health care costs is law suits. According to Fox News, many doctors pay as much as $200,000 a year in insurance coverage. Medical malpractice lawsuits add an enormous cost to the practice of medicine. No one is advocating that people should not have recourse for when things go wrong, but if the cost is open ended, the risks are enormous, leading to high insurance premiums and, in turn, the cost of going to a physician. The Democrats, who are driving the health care reform debate, have a very cynical view of the importance of tort reform. Howard Dean, while serving as the Party's chairman, said he "did not want to take on the lawyers," expressing greater concern about one of his party's constituencies than over real reform.
  

This list, of course, is only a beginning. Meaningful discussions on the cost of regulation, the impact price fixing has on physicians who accept Medicare and Medicaid, and many other topics are worthy of debate. What is most important is that we return the discussion where it belongs -- in state capitals around the country -- and we seek solutions grounded in freedom and not in more government.


Kevin Price is a syndicated columnist whose articles frequently appear at ChicagoSunTimes.com, Reuters.com, USAToday.com, and other national media. Kevin Price is Host of the Price of Business (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650) and Publisher of the Houston Business Review. Hear the show live and online at PriceofBusiness.com. Visit the archive of past shows here.

"I Believe in Free Enterprise, Except..."

For almost two decades I have been sitting across the table from politicians, authors, business leaders, and economists as guests on one of my radio programs. There have been the occasional crazies who want to socialize everything, but the vast majority of them -- like the majority of your neighbors and co-workers -- claim to support free enterprise.

These conversations about the virtues of the market go the same way. "The free market is so amazing and powerful, it is able to create jobs and new industries. It is terrible that government seems to do everything in its power to undermine the economy's potential." However, you dig a little deeper and then you start finding exceptions. Most of the time those exceptions are based on what they do for a living. Attorneys who represent clients who have suffered property damage will say, "they support free enterprise, except when it comes to the regulations they place on insurance companies." The farmer will tell you, "I definitely support free enterprise, except when it comes to agriculture subsidies." Scientists definitely believe the economy is best left alone "except when it comes to research grants." You get the idea.

Our entire socialistic system has evolved over the decades to accommodate exceptions like these above. Now we have millions of Americans who support free enterprise, "except." That "except" is bankrupting us and destroying our freedoms.

One of the most inspiring things I ever witnessed was the "Damn Right" campaign for President of Pete dupont in 1988. In that year, I actually voted for the former Delaware Governor while managing a Congressional race in West Texas. I have the feeling I was the only one who casted that vote in that town. He lost big time in the ballot box, but his message is as potent today as it was then. Pete duPont had no problem telling farmers, seniors, scientists and anyone else that they were part of the problem and that everyone would have to sacrifice in order to restore our freedoms. It was "damn right" for people to carry their own weight and not seek government as a solution.

Those who founded this Republic were aware that it was the tendency of government to expand over time. That is why they believed in the dispersion of power and they wanted to make changes in policy hard to achieve. The states would not ratify the Constitution with its "necessary and proper clause" that could be used for all form of abuses, without a Tenth Amendment that makes it perfectly clear that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." They envisioned a nation of nations, with each state offering their own unique approaches to solving problems, all of them checked in their excesses because people could leave that state to another that provided more freedom. The decline in our liberties and the increase in socialism, are all linked to the undermining of the political institutions in government designed to protect us from an authoritarian federal government.

So, where does the long path towards the restoration of freedom begin? John F. Kennedy is famous for saying "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." We need to ask ourselves, what "exception to freedom can I give up for my country?"

Kevin Price is Host of the Price of Business, the longest running show on CNN 650 (M-F at 11 am), AOL Radio, and CBS Radio. Eric Bolling of Fox News and Fox Business says that Price’s Blog “is very influential and moves the blogosphere.” Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal calls Price the “best business talk show host in the country.” Find out why and visit his blog at www.BizPlusBlog.com and his show site at www.PriceofBusiness.com.

The States and Minimum Wage

Unemployment is rising fast and Americans are looking for quick answers. Currently, President Obama is looking for the federal government to solve that problem and, frankly, that level of government is the primary reason why we are in this mess. The federal government ended the multi-year supply-side tax cut that kept the US going and growing in spite of wars and the implications of September 11th and has continually turned to failed "bail outs" that are not only not working, but will likely lead to hyperinflation like we have only read about in history books.

I think that the President should draw on the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and look towards state solutions to the unemployment crisis. The federal system created by our nation's early leaders points to the virtues of the states as a resource for answers. I think it is exactly where the President should go for employment answers and the place to start is minimum wage.

For some reason, the minimum wage issue has not even been discussed by our policy leaders, but I believe it may be as big as a contributor to our current situation as are some of the other factors that are debated about daily. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment has largely been below 5 percent for years until the summer of 2008. What happen then? The Congress had raised the largest increase in the minimum wage in 16 years. In July of 2009, that minimum wage will jump again to over $7 an hour. It is doubtful the economy can sustain such an increase and as a result, the federal government should consider an alternative approach, which is to eliminate the federal minimum wage entirely because it is a deterrent to job creation.

I know, it sounds radical, but instead of the federal government in Washington, DC telling states, often thousands of miles away, where they should keep their minimum wage; the US government should simply mandate the states to set their own basements. This would create competition among the states and give them a tool to radically change their own economies. Some states (like California) would likely keep the minimum wage at the same rate. Other states might set their own minimum wage but permit cities to have lower wages still if their economies demand such. For example, Camden, NJ; East St. Louis, MO; and Detroit, MI have suffered from long term depressions long before the national recession. This would give them what they need to turn their economies around.

For years states and cities have set minimum wages that are higher than the federal mandate (for example, San Francisco's is around $9 an hour). Minimum wage is not brain surgery and there is nothing about it that would make it necessary for the federal government to set it. It makes perfect sense for it to be determined by the people who are most profoundly affected by it and those are the states and the cities through out this country.

Kevin Price is a syndicated columnist whose articles frequently appear at ChicagoSunTimes.com, Reuters.com, USAToday.com, and other national media. Kevin Price is Host of the Price of Business (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650) and Publisher of the Houston Business Review. Hear the show live and online at PriceofBusiness.com. Visit the archive of past shows here.