The Cruz Amendment

Posted on 17 July 2017 by eehines

Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) has a provision in the latest Senate health bill that’s on offer, one that would allow sellers of actual health insurance to sell non-Obamacare compliant policies on the condition that they also sold Obamacare compliant plans on the ObamaMart. The idea, and it’s a sound one, is that those plans, better tailored their customers’ needs, would soon have commensurately lower premiums, deductibles, and copays and thereby be more affordable.

Health plan sellers don’t like it, though.

While this setup could offer healthy people less expensive policies, insurers and actuaries say it would likely prove dysfunctional over time, pushing up rates and reducing offerings for people buying the compliant plans.

This is a preview of The Cruz Amendment. Read the full post (394 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

On Whose Side Is He?

Posted on 14 July 2017 by eehines

Senator Rand Paul (R, KY) has said he will not vote for the latest Senate effort at beginning the repeal and replace process of Obamacare. He claims he can’t tell the difference between this offer and the Obamacare that exists because, in part, it leaves some of the Obamacare taxes in place.

Never mind that a critical difference between the offer and Obamacare is that the offer does repeal some of the Obamacare taxes.

This is a preview of On Whose Side Is He?. Read the full post (262 words, estimated 1:03 mins reading time)

Misguided Reporting

Posted on 10 July 2017 by eehines

A Dodd-Frank requirement to report the pay ratio between a company’s leadership and its rank and file—specifically, the total earnings of the chief executive compared with those of the median employee—is on the chopping block.

Supporters of the rule, part of the post-financial crisis Dodd-Frank Act, hope disclosure at an individual-company level might focus more attention on inequality and sky-high CEO pay.

This sort of pay ratio metric may well have value to a company’s investors, but it has no value at all to the Federal government beyond a cynical social-justice virtue signal kind of mandate from the Progressive-Democrats. The requirement needs to be chopped (along with the whole of Dodd-Frank, but that’s a different story).

This is a preview of Misguided Reporting. Read the full post (175 words, estimated 42 secs reading time)

Payback

Posted on 9 July 2017 by eehines

The European Union is pushing for it over Great Britain’s appalling effrontery in choosing to go out from the EU.

The European Union’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier on Thursday gave a stark warning to officials in London that the UK won’t have “frictionless trade” with the bloc after it leaves.

… Mr Barnier said that he isn’t sure that the EU position is “fully understood across the Channel.”

Barnier added

In practice, “no deal” would worsen the “lose-lose” situation which is bound to result from Brexit. And the UK would have more to lose than its partners[.]

This is a preview of Payback. Read the full post (176 words, estimated 42 secs reading time)

The Health Care Choice

Posted on 29 June 2017 by eehines

The Wall Street Journal has the right of it, and it’s a stark one for the Republican Party and for us Americans. The House and the Senate bills for getting rid of Obamacare and replacing it with something better are far from perfect, but they are significant improvements over the Obamacare assault on Americans’ access to health care, and on individual liberty and responsibility. Further, the House plan has always been billed as the first part of a three-part effort at complete repeal and replacement; it’s never been claimed to be a final answer. And the Senate bill on offer is not one, either. Senate Republicans are well aware of this.

This is a preview of The Health Care Choice. Read the full post (409 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

General Reform

Posted on 9 June 2017 by eehines

25% of us don’t see doctors because that costs too much.

32% of older millennials (is there such a thing? Gad) skip the doctor. 13% of Americans don’t have any health coverage plan at all—paying the penalty is more valuable to them. Half of us don’t think we’ll have affordable health insurance much less Obamacare’s health coverage welfare.

This, together with today’s other post, just illustrates the fact that no single part of our economy—or of our Federal government—can effectively be treated in isolation: not Obamacare alone, not Federal spending alone (especially not by “cutting” through reducing the rate of growth in spending), not taxing alone, not debt handling alone.

This is a preview of General Reform. Read the full post (165 words, estimated 40 secs reading time)

Losing Health Coverage

Posted on 9 June 2017 by eehines

The CBO and Progressive-Democrats in Congress loudly claim that millions will lose their health coverage plans under Republican plans to repeal and replace Obamacare.

What the Progressive-Democrats are carefully ignoring (the CBO not so much; they weren’t tasked with comparing the Republican plans and Obamacare) are the real millions that already are losing or are about to lose their health coverage plans because Obamacare is collapsing now.

The nation’s second largest health insurance company, Anthem, will extract itself from the majority of the ObamaCare market in the state of Ohio by 2018, the company announced Tuesday, raising questions about the future of its exchange participation.

This is a preview of Losing Health Coverage. Read the full post (226 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)

Expanding their Empire?

Posted on 14 May 2017 by eehines

The SEC—the Securities and Exchange Commission—doesn’t have enough power; it wants to convince more private companies, over which it has no jurisdiction, to go public so it can regulate them, too?

To spur more companies to go public, the new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission has turned to a veteran Silicon Valley lawyer whose career has involved some of the biggest deals in history.

SEC Commissioner Jay Clayton seems to be sincere in this effort, but he won’t be around forever, and his predecessor had different regulatory ideas, and so likely will his successors.

Then there’s this:

This is a preview of Expanding their Empire?. Read the full post (174 words, estimated 42 secs reading time)

Going Soft

Posted on 12 May 2017 by eehines

Senate pseudo-Republicans are balking at one good item that was contained the House-passed American Health Care Act: repeal of Obamacare’s trillion dollars’ worth of taxes. These guys actually don’t see the value of that repeal. Senator Susan Collins (R, ME) is typical:

I don’t see how you can repeal all of the pay-fors…and still meet the goal of providing health-insurance coverage for people who truly need assistance[.]

Aside from the false premise of needing Federal government “pay-fors” as a default position, rather than a last result, the Lady from Maine and her fellows plainly either don’t understand free market principles, or they have no confidence in free markets.

This is a preview of Going Soft. Read the full post (358 words, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

Getting Rid of Federal Government Rules

Posted on 12 May 2017 by eehines

A couple of random thoughts triggered by a Wall Street Journal article. The Republican Congress has been using the Congressional Review Act to rescind rules enacted by various Executive Branch agencies. The Act allows Congress, by simple majority vote (no Senate filibuster) and Presidential signature to rescind rules so long as the rescission is done within 60 days of the rule’s promulgation in the Federal Register or formal reporting to Congress. There are potsful of rules that haven’t yet passed that threshold, and so Congress can reach back years for rescissions under the Act.

Senate Democrats have insisted the rules have lengthy debate time….

This is a preview of Getting Rid of Federal Government Rules. Read the full post (342 words, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

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