The journalists have also found evidence in Ms. Segarra’s recordings that even after the financial crisis and the supposed reforms of the Dodd-Frank law, the New York Fed remained a bureaucratic agency resistant to new ideas and hostile to strong-willed, independent-minded employees. In government?
…..
Enter George Stigler, who published his famous essay “The Theory of Economic Regulation” in the spring 1971 issue of the Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science. The University of Chicago economist reported empirical data from various markets and concluded that “as a rule, regulation is acquired by the industry and is designed and operated primarily for its benefit.”
— Wall Street Journal
Sat through an hour listening to College Admissions Officers at my kid’s high school. Pure hypocrisy, double talk, BS.
How is ObamaCare doing?
How does one evaluate ObamaCare?
In my mind, there is only one relevant question:
Have health outcomes improved, and at what cost?
This question is harder to answer than one might think. Some problems:
- Which Americans? What happens if some Americans are better off and others worse off?
- What does it mean to be better off? Which of these two is a "better outcome":
- A 80 year old extends his life by 5 years, but experiences a low quality of life.
- A 80 year old extends his life by 1 year, but experiences a high quality of life.
- At what cost? One 80 year old may decide that spending $100,000 to extend your life by one year is worth it. But another may prefer to spend that $100,000 on his grandchild's college tuition.
- To what extent are any observed changes in health outcomes attributable to ObamaCare? One can hardly blame ObamaCare if an Ebola outbreak kills many Americans. Of course, any improvements must be immediately and loudly attributed to ObamaCare.
I have zero interest in statistics that tell me that "more Americans are insured". Whatever being insured means. Have you ever tried using Medicaid?
We may never have precise answers to the questions I raise above, but we must at least ask the right questions if we are to get anywhere.
Of course, I have my own answers to many of the questions I have raised. Since the answer is clearly subjective, I want the decision to be made individually. Not by ObamaCare bureaucrat 244567.
In the meanwhile, I leave you with the following startling revelation: Bloomberg News informs me that the cost of the ObamaCare website so far is $2.1 Billion! One hopes that this is a one time set up expense, but anyone with a modicum of experience of Government and Software projects will know how misplaced such hopes are.
Think about it. $2.1 Billion. Just to set up the frickin' website. Not to run it. Not for the enormous subsidies being doled out by ObamaCare. Not for fixing the inevitable problems we will soon be hearing about. (You heard it here first). Not for the inevitable rewrite of the system in 2016 when President Hillary decides that we need to start afresh.
How much is $2.1 Billion? I have a hard time keeping all these numbers straight. So here is some help: thats about 0.1% of total US healthcare expenditure in 2012. So you could argue that it is not much. Lets wait till the final bill is here.
