Why Not?
One of my biggest problems with health care reform is the all-or-nothing mentality behind any effort at reform. But why can't we have a two-tiered system of reform? Why can't there be a government system for those who would chose coverage under a government system and a deregulated private market for the rest of us? The public option gives the illusion of this sort of dichotomy, but the reality is that the health care reform options currently before the Senate create one massive government system. It doesn't just create a government option, it also increases regulation on the private sector and creates a mandate that individuals purchase coverage. You can avoid the public option if you wish, but you can't avoid the long arm of the government.
So why not two real choices? Why not set up one system for those who prefer government care and another system for the rest of us who don't want the government involved in our health care? And there's no reason you can't make such a system fair: Make the government system self-sustaining through the premiums of those who can afford to pay for coverage and provide vouchers for those who can't afford coverage. To put everyone on a level playing field the tax deduction for employer provided health insurance should be eliminated, but that's always a big bugaboo when it comes to reform. But why not something simple?
So why not two real choices? Why not set up one system for those who prefer government care and another system for the rest of us who don't want the government involved in our health care? And there's no reason you can't make such a system fair: Make the government system self-sustaining through the premiums of those who can afford to pay for coverage and provide vouchers for those who can't afford coverage. To put everyone on a level playing field the tax deduction for employer provided health insurance should be eliminated, but that's always a big bugaboo when it comes to reform. But why not something simple?
posted by lonely libertarian at 12:49 PM
2 Comments:
Because you can't force people to subsidize other people's insurance with out a mandate.
Question on the KSM stuff from a few posts ago: I'll just copy and paste from Thomas Sowell: "The last time an attack on the World Trade Center was treated as a matter of domestic criminal justice was after a bomb was exploded there in 1993. Under the rules of American criminal law, the prosecution had to turn over all sorts of information to the defense-- information that told the Al Qaeda international terrorist network what we knew about them and how we knew it."
Your take on that?
I still don't get why it is we can't try these people in military courts. This feels like an overreaction stemming from people's embarassment over gitmo and waterboarding.
The problem of prosecuting terrorists is basically the same as prosecuting any large and wide reaching criminal operation. Obviously, the stakes may be larger when it comes to terrorism, but you're talking about the same problems of revealing sources and potentially compromising larger investigations.
I don't point this out to say that we should treat terrorism the same as organized crime, but it is interesting to note how traditional criminal law is not particularly suited for dealing with large scale criminal endeavors.
But Dr. Sowell is ultimately correct and the problem of information is problematic when it comes to civilian trials which by their very nature are public. And perhaps therein lies the basis for a good distinction about what sort of cases should be tried where.
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