the tindog coffeehouse

A couple of years ago, I quoted an article from The Economist comparing California, with its high unemployment and oppressive government regulation, to Texas, which has a lower-than-average unemployment rate and business-friendlier environment. While Texas naturally came out ahead, the article did praise California’s “inventive” nature, to which I replied, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

I may have to rethink that.

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Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke thinks the U.S. should try to cut its budget deficits before Asia completely destroys us with its super economy-rebounding powers.

“As the global economy recovers and trade volumes rebound, however, global imbalances my reassert themselves,” Bernanke warned. For the United States’ part, “the most effective way” to boost national savings in this country “is by establishing a sustainable fiscal trajectory, anchored by a clear commitment to substantially reduce federal deficits over time,” Bernanke said. He didn’t suggest ways to do so.

Bernanke may not have any ideas for how to cut the deficit, but I have a few suggestions. How ’bout no more bailouts for starters? Maybe stop buying banks, auto companies, and insurance companies? Also, we could stop paying people to trade in their old cars. And — call me crazy! — maybe we should abandon plans for a massive, multi-trillion-dollar health care overhaul.

Just a few ideas off the top of my head. You’re welcome.

Previously:
The real ‘death panel’? The federal budget

Forget any talk about rationing or “death panels” or whether the government is gonna rifle through your wallet before deciding whether you’re worth saving. That’s irrelevant. You want a simple answer as to why ObamaCare is bad for America?

We can’t afford it.

Wednesday night President Obama claimed that his health care plan would (only) cost $900,000,000,000 over 10 years while not increasing budget deficits.

In the words of Congressman Joe Wilson, “You lie!”

The Congressional Budget Office’s initial estimate of the cost of Senator Ted Kennedy’s health care plan estimated that it would cost about $1.3 trillion over 10 years and still leave 37 million people uninsured. The CBO also noted that the House plan would increase the deficit by $239 billion over that same 10-year time period. And then from 2019 to 2029, the CBO says, spending would increase by 8% while revenue would only increase by 5%, creating even larger deficits over time.

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Yesterday I touched on the BCS in college football and whether its complicated system of bowl selection, which heavily favors six major conferences to the detriment of others, is fair. Of course it’s not. Meanwhile, this question of fairness is at the core of another more serious debate going on right now, that of health care reform.

President Obama and congressional Democrats are pushing hard to pass a massive overhaul of this nation’s health care system, instituting a government-run universal health care program that would provide medical coverage for every American. Proponents of the program criticize the high cost of private insurance and medical care and point out the millions of Americans who can’t afford it. And in fact, Texas has the highest rate of uninsured citizens in the country (about 25% of Texans have no insurance, including 40.5% of Hispanics). They argue that providing a government-backed program in addition to private plans is the only way to keep people from falling through the cracks.

Sounds fair, right? And fair is good, isn’t it? Well, no.

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Buried within the bowels of the massive $838,000,000,000 “stimulus” bill being pushed through Congress right now is a mandate for the establishment of computerized medical records, records which would include a person’s entire medical history from birth to death and which could be accessed by, well, no one knows for sure.

Billions will be handed to companies creating these databases. Billions will be handed to universities to incorporate patient databases “into the initial and ongoing training of health professionals.” There’s a mention of future “smart card functionality.” …

The databases will, “at a minimum,” include information on every American’s race and ethnicity. They will be used for “biosurveillance and public health” and “medical and clinical research,” both of which raise privacy questions. They will become part of a “nationwide system for the electronic use and exchange of health information.”

Plus, the federal government will use its vast purchasing power–think Medicare and Medicaid–to compel adoption of e-records that meet government “standards and implementation specifications.” …

The bill punishes physicians who are not “meaningful users” of a government-certified e-record database, and specifies certain procedures and information exchanges that will “satisfy” the requirement.

Starting in 2015, government reimbursements to physicians who are not participating in the federal e-record effort will begin to decline.

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