{"id":12,"date":"2009-09-09T15:44:10","date_gmt":"2009-09-09T22:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/?p=12"},"modified":"2009-12-23T11:30:15","modified_gmt":"2009-12-23T18:30:15","slug":"questions-for-the-president-tonight-hughhewitt-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/09\/questions-for-the-president-tonight-hughhewitt-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions for the President Tonight | HughHewitt.com | 09.09.09"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When he stands before Congress tonight, the president will almost certainly replace his demand for an immediate \u201cpublic option\u201d (government-provided insurance plan) with endorsement of a so-called \u201ctrigger.\u201d \u00a0Under his new plan, failure of health insurers to reduce their rates in some period \u2013 probably five years \u2013 will \u201ctrigger\u201d a public option. His implication will be that insurers control health costs and that their greed and ineptness are the primary sources of health cost inflation. \u00a0In this, the president is wrong.<\/p>\n<p>A numerous economists have pointed out, government policies and programs have created inflationary pressures in health care marketplaces ranging from pharmaceuticals to physician services to insurance itself. \u00a0But most have special interest groups backing them, and some of those groups are major supporters of the president and his party. \u00a0To know if Mr. Obama understands the essential economics of controlling health cost inflation and is prepared to act, listen for the following as he speaks:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Competition<\/span>:      \u00a0The president has repeatedly said that he wants competition in the      market for health insurance. \u00a0This is why, he has said, he embraced      the public option. \u00a0So does the president endorse allowing any policy      that is approved in one state to be sold in all states? \u00a0Such a move      would instantly create a vibrant, national health insurance market with a      thousand or more players, a much more potent inducer of competition than      any public option ever could be. \u00a0As of now, our national health      insurance market is stuck in the days of the Articles of the      Confederation, that is, we have no national market. \u00a0A policy sold in      one state may not be sold in the next without the second state\u2019s approval      \u2013 which has produced in the health insurance market the same kind of      crisis that all of commerce experienced in the days of the Articles.      \u00a0Ending intra-national commercial isolationism was the purpose of the      Constitution in the first place. \u00a0But the Constitution\u2019s writ has not      extended to the health insurance marketplace. \u00a0States have written      extensive and expensive regulations governing coverage. \u00a0In some      states these mandates include hair transplants and sex change operations.      \u00a0The result has been vast state-by-state differences in insurance      prices. \u00a0But every one of those thousands of state-level regulations      favors one special interest or another. \u00a0Does the president have the      courage to take all those special interests on?<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Choice<\/span>:      \u00a0The president says he wants us to be free to choose what is best for      us. \u00a0Tonight, does he embrace opening the door for us to own our own      insurance? \u00a0This would mean giving individuals the same tax breaks      when buying health coverage and services that employers receive, so that      taxes don\u2019t make buying policies ourselves prohibitively expensive.      \u00a0Many unions oppose this move. \u00a0Among their reasons: group      health insurance is something they have traditional negotiated for their      members. \u00a0If the members begin choosing coverage for themselves, they      will need their union all that much less. \u00a0Will the president say no      to this core Democratic Party constituency?<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">May we decide value for ourselves<\/span>: \u00a0Because of tax policies that virtually mandate      buying health coverage through employers, health coverage today is not      purely insurance coverage. \u00a0Policies also include an expensive      element of prepayment for normal services, for example doctor visits and      routinely prescribed medicines. \u00a0The result is that most of us never      get to see the prices of the services we receive, denying us a clear way      to gauge value. \u00a0Market economists agree that the lack of consumer      power to demand value has kept our health care markets from producing the      same increases in productivity that the rest of the economy has      experience. Will the president embrace expanded health savings accounts,      which would fix this problem? \u00a0HSAs have proven popular, but again,      for the same reason as before, the unions don\u2019t like them. \u00a0Again,      will the president take this special interest group on?<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">May we decide if we are in or out<\/span>: \u00a0The president wants to see all Americans      receive a health insurance policy. \u00a0Never mind that after taking out      those who Medicaid already covers but who haven\u2019t applied, and those with      incomes $60,000\/year and up, and those who will be without coverage for      only a few months, and those who are young and healthy and don\u2019t want      coverage, and those who are in the country illegally, and those who simply      misreported their lack of coverage to Census Bureau questioners\u2026 in other      words those who are without coverage for only a short time, can get and      pay for it but don\u2019t want it, or whom we wouldn\u2019t cover even with a public      plan, we are approaching universal coverage today. \u00a0But if the      government mandates buying something, it must define what must be bought \u2013      and that would be an open door to Congress to do exactly what the state      legislatures have done\u2026 pile requirement on top of requirement, driving up      the cost of health care and health care coverage. \u00a0Will the president      drop the call for employer and individual mandates?<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">May we stop paying lawyers when we pay our doctor<\/span>: \u00a0Everyone knows by now that medical liability      reform is would bring down health costs. \u00a0No one believes that trial      lawyers should have a piece of each payment to our doctor, though through      liability premiums effectively they do now. \u00a0But trial lawyers are      historical supporters of the president\u2019s party. \u00a0They oppose reform.      \u00a0Will the president tell them they are wrong?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Despite the rhetoric, America does not have a \u201chealth care system\u201d as such. \u00a0It has numerous health care markets. \u00a0Antiquated or misguided government policies have driven prices up and quality down in many of those markets. \u00a0Tonight, will Mr. Obama signal whether he is brave enough to trigger an end to those policies, even though when he starts to pull that trigger, powerful special interests are sure to shoot back?<\/p>\n<p><input id=\"gwProxy\" type=\"hidden\" \/><input id=\"jsProxy\" onclick=\"jsCall();\" type=\"hidden\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When he stands before Congress tonight, the president will almost certainly replace his demand for an immediate \u201cpublic option\u201d (government-provided insurance plan) with endorsement of a so-called \u201ctrigger.\u201d \u00a0Under his new plan, failure of health insurers to reduce their rates in some period \u2013 probably five years \u2013 will \u201ctrigger\u201d a public option. His implication [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-policy-health-care","tag-hugh-hewitt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":457,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}