tfl: The Flatiron Life

Before our next president imposes British NHS style health care on us. Although, this could be a good side job for someone with a strong hand and clean pliers.

Here is the follow up to the John Stossel article I blogged about last week and later clarified.

Again, I think Stossel is a mix very correct and incorrect.  He shows an example of an employer health care plan that puts patients in control and keeps costs down for employers, Whole Foods oddly enough.  However, he sees their adoption of HSAs are evidence for his less insurance stance.

I don’t see it this way.  I see putting consumers in charge, like they are for nearly everything else, as the moral of this story.  If consumers want to buy the insurance with high premiums but low deductibles, they should be free to.  If they want to buy insurance that covers everything that might ever ill them, they should be free to.  If they want to buy just insurance that covers coma, ingrown nails, and UTI or any other combination and someone will sell it to them, they should be free to.  If they want to pay cash only for service, they should be free to.

The ills with the system today are twofold.  First, insurance purchases are biased toward being  made by employers in the tax code.  Second, there is one level of care inforced by the state.  True, premiums and deductibles my vary but the service offered is the same.  The combination of these factors means if some one is able to find an inovative way to offer insurance it will be many years before anyone is able to take advantage of it.  This is even the case with change inacted by the state in this area.  HSA and MSA were created years ago, but few have this option.

How often have you said this or heard it said? Is insurance the answer?

Imagine if your car insurance covered oil changes and gasoline. You wouldn’t care how much gas you used, and you wouldn’t care what it cost. Mechanics would sell you $100 oil changes. Prices would skyrocket.

This is John Stossel moving the health care debate to something a little bit easier to grasp. You might say you cannot compare health care and auto care because one is a necessity of life. However, given the publics apparent inelastic demand for gasoline, I am not sure I know which is the necessity.

Read this weeks article spelling out the problem. Next week he promises to have some solutions.

Walter E. Williams reports it will soon be pontificated that tax avoidance is a sin.

Prof. Williams asks the Bishop of Rome

 Should the Roman Catholic Church support the welfare state? Or, put more plainly, should the Church support the use of the coercive powers of government to enable one person to live at the expense of another? Put even more plainly, should the Church support the government’s taking the property of one person and giving it to another to whom it doesn’t belong?

Catholics may be in the spotlight here, but all to often when I am at the Temple or read the Social Principles I wonder the same thing about the UMC.

What would be your 30 day plan to greater freedom in America? Lew Rockwell published his plan today.

The Everyday Economist’s favorite day is

DAY FOUR: The minimum wage is reduced to zero, creating jobs for ex-federal bureaucrats at their market wage.

I think that is my favorite too. My second favorite is

DAY TWENTY: All federal monuments are sold, in some cases to non-profit groups based on the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association, which owns and runs George Washington’s home. The VFW buys the Vietnam memorial. There is much bidding for the Jefferson and Washington monuments. Nobody wants FDR’s, so it’s torn down and the land sold to a farmer. (With the federal government cut back to its constitutional size, much of Washington reverts to productive uses like agriculture, as in late 18th century.)

A few weeks ago Joscelynn turned my on to the worlds only stand-up economist with this video.

Today Prof. Mankiw points to the newest video of Yoram Bauman.

If you ever find yourself in control of a country with out of control inflation, remember this one simple rule: “STOP PRINTING MONEY”. Inflation is caused by too much money; printing more is not going to help.

If you need an example of what not to do, ask yourself this question, “What would Robert Mugabe do?”  Then all you have to do is remember to not do that.

(HT: Mises Blog )

Jos doesn’t think we should air our dirty laundry. I agree, we should deal with our private issues privately; but I don’t think it is out of school to announce that we fight from time to time. However, I think our fights have a little different character than most married couples. We quickly resolve issues about chores and “typical” married issues you might find on sitcoms. However, if it comes to the role of government, you had better watch out. If a modern liberal is for 50% of a role and a modern conservative is for 30%, Jos is for 0.0001% and it is safe to say I am for less.

A while ago we were shopping and started talking about Andrew Speaker’s TB induced quarantine. Our opinions differed and we agreed to disagree. Now Robert P. Murphy has an article that sheds some new light on the case. I learned a lot that I did not know concerning what Mr. Speaker was told for the last 6 months. Also Mr. Murphy has a premise that I think Jos and I can agree would make America better

But suppose the government did act as if owners really had the right to control who used their property. What voluntary institutions would spring up to help a free society cope with the problem of contagious diseases?

I am not sure this will square the libertarian quarantine issue for Jos, but I found it a good read.

Josh Hendrickson says,

If you are like me, you have been quite puzzled by this Bank of America “Keep the Change” scheme that is supposedly designed to promote personal saving.

I am like him.  This program has always rung oddly for me.

Alex Tabarrok is also like Josh and I and has good thoughts on it.

This is not the iPhone. T-Mobile has introduced some really interesting new plans that are more likely to fundamentally change your phone use than the amazing little phone/ipod/atlas/pda/oracle/ED-cure from Apple.

David Pogue’s article really spells out how this is not just a money saving proposition for consumers, but a really brilliant business plan that I think could propel T-Mobile to be the cell market leader. Read the whole thing; it is very well written and .

(HT: Melissa Lafsky at Freakonomics Blog)