There is an air of absurdity to what is mistakenly called “health-care reform.” Everyone knows that the United States faces massive governmental budget deficits as far as calculators can project, driven heavily by an aging population and uncontrolled health costs. Recovering slowly from a devastating recession, it’s widely agreed that, though deficits should not be cut abruptly (lest the economy resume its slump), a prudent society would embark on long-term policies to control health costs, reduce government spending, and curb massive future deficits. The president and his top economic advisers all say this.
So, what do they do? Just the opposite. Their sweeping overhaul of the health-care system””which Congress is halfway toward enacting””would almost certainly make matters worse. It would create new, open-ended medical entitlements that would probably expand deficits and do little to suppress surging health costs. The disconnect between what Obama says and what he’s doing is so glaring that most people could not abide it. The president and his allies have no trouble. But reconciling blatantly contradictory objectives requires them to engage in willful self-deception, public dishonesty, or both.
“It slights cost control.” Yes exactly and that is one of the three key problems. Of the other two, health care delivery isn’t tackled either.
Availability and sustainability are improved, but without the other two the overall outcome is anything but what is needed.
Samuelson is one of many voices essentially crying out that the Emperor has no clothes. Which is blatantly obvious to everyone but those who still share the same delusion that the Emperor does.
I thought Samuelson’s title was not only apt but suggestive. In labeling the Administration’s vaunted health care reform bill an example of political [b]”malpractice,”[/b] it sparked the thought:
[i]Hmmm. I wonder if anyone could sue him for criminal malpractice in mismanaging the economy??[/i]
David Handy+
[blockquote]I wonder if anyone could sue him for criminal malpractice in mismanaging the economy?[/blockquote]
Short list of who to sue for economic malpractice (25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis)
1. Angelo Mozilo (Countrywide CEO)
2. Phil Gramm
3. Alan Greenspan
4. Chris Cox
5. American Consumers
6. Hank Paulson
7. Joe Cassano (AIG)
8. Ian McCarthy (Beazer Homes)
9. Frank Raines (Fannie Mae)
10. Kathleen Corbet (Standard & Poor’s)
11. Dick Fuld (Lehman)
12. Marion and Herb Sandler (World Savings Bank (invented ARM))
13. Bill Clinton
14. George W. Bush
15. Stan O’Neal (Merrill Lynch)
16. Wen Jiabao (China)
17. David Lereah (National Association of Realtors)
18. John Devaney (Hedge fund manager)
19. Bernie Madoff
20. Lew Ranieri (invented mortgage backed bonds)
21. Burton Jablin (Scripps Networks – program to flip houses)
22. Fred Goodwin (RBS)
23. Sandy Weill (Citigroup)
24. David Oddsson (Iceland’s Prime Minister, central-bank governor)
25. Jimmy Cayne (Bear Stearns)
Re #3
You’ve forgotten two of the prime miscreants: Chris Dodd and Barney Frank.
Barney for sure, but what about Nancy?
Perhaps Nancy shouldn’t have blocked the impeachment of President Bush. I’m not sure that would have stopped the impending train wreck, though. The makings of the disaster were well in place before she became Speaker.
And perhaps Barney should have not listened to Greenspan, Bernanke, Cox, Paulson, etc. and the Wall Street Bankers.
The reality is that the debt-based infrastructure of the current disaster has been put in place gradually, through the entire economy, for a generation–at least since the late 1980’s–and I think the list in #3 could go on and on and on. That certainly doesn’t mean that the new guys on the block should escape their own day in court. They continue to throw gasoline on the fire. But the designs of the Roster of Blame floating around on all sides of the political spectrum are only helpful in revealing the pre-existing political biases of their authors.
Bruce Robison
3 & 5
Don’t forget Jamie Gorelick at Fannie Mae. When you include here “contributions” pre- and post-9/11, she emerges as a real triple threat to the country.