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Looking at the healthcare debate, Jonathan Tobin wonders if economic freedom is still imaginable.
The nation will be holding its political breath this week when the U.S. Supreme Court spends three days hearing arguments about the constitutionality of ObamaCare. Though the issue is split into three parts, the main event will be on Tuesday, as the question of whether the Commerce clause of the Constitution can be interpreted in such a manner as to allow the government to require Americans to engage in commerce rather than to merely regulate it, is debated.
For most liberals, including President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress that rammed this law down the throats of an unwilling people two years ago, the notion that there are any such limits on the power of the federal government is laughable. To be fair to them, they do have much of the history of 20th century American politics on their side. During the last century, Washington’s power has expanded to the point where there is almost nothing that can be imagined that can’t be justified by the Commerce clause. That’s why this case is so important. Barring an electoral revolution this November in which Republicans sweep both Houses of Congress and the White House, we will have lost our last chance to preserve our freedom. …
Just in case anyone is interested, Robert Samuelson says health insurance is not necessary for good health.
As the Supreme Court hears arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — Obamacare, as many call it — the justices will probably share at least one assumption: that their decision will have a big effect on the health of Americans. Ideally, everyone ought to have insurance, and it’s popular wisdom that this would significantly improve people’s health. But it’s not true. The ACA’s fate will dramatically affect government and the health-care system; the impact on Americans’ health will be far more modest.
Rarely has a program with so little potential inspired so much contention. Although millions would benefit from health insurance, the overall relationship between people’s insurance status and their self-reported health is underwhelming. Consider a study of Massachusetts’s universal coverage program, enacted under former governor Mitt Romney, by economists Charles J. Courtemanche of the University of Louisville and Daniela Zapata of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It estimated that about 1.4 percent of the state’s adult population moved into the “very good” or “excellent” health categories.
Another study by economist Daniel Polsky of the University of Pennsylvania examined what happened to uninsured Americans who went on Medicare at age 65. Polsky found “no significant health effect for the uninsured relative to the insured upon reaching Medicare eligibility.” Although other studies report somewhat larger effects, most share a weakness. They rely on people’s self-reported assessment of their health. Just receiving government-subsidized insurance, worth $8,000 to $12,000, may make people feel better. It shields them from financial setbacks.
On reflection, the loose relation between health and insurance is not puzzling. …
John Hinderaker of Powerline spots a Telegraph, UK story about Britain’s National Health Service denying care to elderly.
The Supreme Court is hearing arguments on Obamacare today, which makes the timing ideal to consider this news story from the cradle of socialized medicine, the United Kingdom. The article is titled “Elderly dying due to ‘despicable age discrimination in NHS.’”
“Thousands of elderly people are dying unnecessarily early because “despicable” age discrimination in the NHS is denying them treatment for cancer, a charity has warned.
A lack of treatment or insufficient treatment is contributing to 14,000 deaths a year in people over the age of 75, Macmillan Cancer Support has found, in what it called an “unacceptable act of discrimination”.
Deaths from cancer are reducing in most age groups but at a slower rate in those aged 74 to 84 and are increasing in people aged 85 and over, the report said. The report, The Age Old Excuse: the under treatment of older cancer patients, said treatment options are too often recommended on the basis of age rather than how fit the patient is.”
This point is especially salient, given the current debate over health care in the U.S.:
“According to research published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, there would be 14,000 fewer deaths from cancer in those aged over 75 per year if mortality rates from cancer matched those in America.”
A gaff is when a politician accidentally tells the truth. The president did that today in Korea when an open microphone caught him telling Medvedev he would have more flexibility after the election. You can figure we’re gonna hear about this again and again up to the election. Peter Wehner has the story.
ABC’s Jake Tapper reports that at the end of his 90-minute meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev today, President Obama said he would have “more flexibility” to deal with controversial issues such as missile defense, but incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to give him “space.”
The exchange was picked up by microphones as reporters were let into the room for remarks by the two leaders.
Here’s the exchange:
President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.
President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…
President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.
President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.
I imagine scores of voters will find it comforting to know President Obama is sharing his plans for a second term with both Dmitri Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, even if he’s keeping them secret from the American people. …
And Jennifer Rubin.
… is there anyone who thinks Obama, should he get a second term, wouldn’t run wild with policies and positions that the majority of the electorate oppose? Otherwise, he’d roll them out now, of course.
It’s remarkable, actually, that Obama could be any more flexible with Russia after the election than he’s already been under the “reset” that is indistinguishable from appeasement. He praised the rigged Russian elections, helped get Russia into the World Trade Organization, has tried to slow down human rights legislation aimed at Russian perpetrators and yanked missile defense sites out of Eastern Europe. One can only imagine how much worse things would get if he no longer had to worry about public opinion and all those troublesome human rights groups nagging him.
The same is, of course, true on everything from gay marriage to Israel policy to taxes. …
All during the coming campaign the administration will be reminded of their energy record. Victor Davis Hanson starts the parade.
When the summer driving season starts soon, and tension heats up about Iran, gas may reach $5 a gallon. Nothing bothers voters more than paying an extra $20 or $30 every time they fill up. In times like these, they soon might prefer even an oilman in the White House to an ideologue whose opposition to new oil development seems more religious than empirically based.
All presidents, of course, usually get the blame when the price of gas skyrockets and praise when it plummets, just like they own a bad or good economy, or a successful or failed war.
President Obama, however, earns additional blame for the gas rise for reasons well beyond the normal oil bogeymen – tension in the Middle East, rapacious OPEC dictators, oil company greed and Wall Street speculation.
Why? Americans remember that his team boasted about wanting higher energy costs in 2008, when Mr. Obama was still basking in hope-and-change adulation. Steven Chu, then the energy secretary-designate who doesn’t own a car, pontificated about wanting higher American gasoline prices, hoping they would somehow reach European levels.
Candidate Obama breezily warned of skyrocketing energy prices – the necessary cost of his planned cap-and-trade, anti-global-warming legislation.
Sen. Kenneth L. Salazar, Colorado Democrat who was soon to become Interior secretary, bragged that even if gas reached $10 a gallon, he would not vote to open up new federal offshore oil leases.
Once upon a time, Mr. Obama and his supporters believed that high gas and oil prices were either helpful in ensuring that favored subsidized green energies would be cost competitive, or that they helped the environment. That’s why a now-embarrassed Mr. Obama digs in by mocking opponents who call for increased drilling. …
If you’re surprised the recovery is so slow, David Boaz has a great post at Cato.
Here are some news stories you could find in last Friday’s Wall Street Journal:
The Federal Reserve is holding an international conference of central bankers to reassure themselves that their “easy-money policies” are working and won’t cause too much inflation this time.
The IRS is ramping up audits of the most successful people in the economy. If you make more than $5 million in a year, you can pretty much expect a time-consuming audit.
“Federal regulators are preparing a drive to tell workers at nonunionized businesses they have many of the same rights as union members, a move that could prompt more workers to complain to employers about grievances ranging from pay and work hours to job safety and management misconduct.”
“The Department of Energy has placed nearly one-third of its clean-energy loan portfolio on an internal ‘watch list’ for possible violations of terms or other concerns, according to a copy of the list obtained by The Wall Street Journal, highlighting how such concerns have spread beyond the now-bankrupt Solyndra LLC.”
The European Union is beefing up its permanent bailout fund to keep failed businesses alive.
States are circling Amazon and other online retailers, about to pounce with new taxes.
The Labor Department has “stepped up pressure” on PulteGroup, demanding thousands of records on its contracts with employees and subcontractors.
That’s one day’s stories about new government assaults on wealth creation and new political transfers of wealth. And so maybe it’s no surprise that the paper also carries these stories:
FedEx scaled back its forecasts for domestic and global growth.
“New signs of a slowing global economy rattled investors on Thursday and put stocks on pace for their worst week this year.”
Burton Malkiel writes that, while stocks don’t look as bad as bonds, “we are likely to be in a low-return environment for some time to come.”
Note that few if any of these stories made headlines, or even appeared in other newspapers. Many voters know about Obamacare, the massive 2009 stimulus bill, and Cash for Clunkers. Many fewer realize the tax tsunami planned for 9 months from now. Hardly anyone knows about the costs of stepped-up regulation and regulatory enforcement. But everyone wonders why the recovery is so slow and unemployment remains so high. Just read the papers — in detail.
If you own gold, or are thinking of purchasing some, you will want to read this story from ZeroHedge.com. A one kilo gold bar has surfaced in the UK that was doctored.
The last time a story of Tungsten-filled gold appeared on the scene was just two years ago, and involved a 500 gram bar of gold full of tungsten, at the W.C. Heraeus foundry, the world’s largest metal refiner and fabricator. It also became known that said “gold” bar originated from an unnamed bank. It is now time to rekindle the Tungsten Spirits with a report from ABC Bullion of Australia, which provides photographic evidence of a new gold bar that has been drilled out and filled with tungsten rods, this time not in Germany but in an unnamed city in the UK, where it was intercepted by a scrap metals dealer, and was supplied with its original certificate. The reason the bar attracted attention is that it was 2 grams underweight. Upon cropping it was uncovered that about 30-40% of the bar weight was tungsten. So two documented incidents in two years: isolated? Or indication of the same phenomonenon of precious metal debasement that marked the declining phase of the Roman empire. …