BLOG.ANNAPHILPOT.COM: Recent Comments

Comment on Healthcare vs. car insurance

Anna — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:27:44 GMT

Hmm, too bad about my car insurance argument. I still like it, though. Points out that we've done something similar and it's worked well.

Actually, I would prefer a UK-based system as well. I lived in Australia years ago and was very impressed by their healthcare system. All children are covered - for everything. It cost less per capita than our system - and contrary to the scary comments being made - no one waited in line to see their doctor or have surgery. As an economist, can you answer what the financial fall out would be switching from private to public system?

Comment on Healthcare vs. car insurance

Charles Sizemore — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:19:12 GMT

While I too have become rather disgusted with the Republican party in recent years (they are a party with NO principles anymore...Bush pretty much made sure of that), I have to agree with them on this one issue (hey, even stopped clocks are right twice per day...).

Your argument about car insurance isn't quite relevant because:

1. Car insurance only applies to people who own a car and drive it on public roads. If you walk, use public transit, or never leave your own property out in the country, you have no obligation to buy insurance.

2. In contrast, the Dems proposal to require health insurance applies to everyone. It's basically a tax in which the government is in bed with a private business. Not to be dramatic, but it's a mild form of fascism, or at least corporatism. Not a good precedent!

Personally, I view full UK-style socialization a lesser of two evils, if those are our only two choices. At least the UK model is honest about what it is. The US proposal tries to pass this off as "free market" when it is really quite the opposite.

Of course, I'd rather see a REAL free market in health care with NO tax writeoffs or subsidies that mask the true cost. But that's never going to happen, alas.

Comment on Naught to worry about

Anna — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:33:50 GMT

Thanks for the comment, Shane!

I heard a lawyer and activist on the radio this morning talking about how America is so focused on consuming and living in luxury that we've forgotten some of the basic tenets Washington, Jefferson, etc. worked so hard to shape into our Constitution. Perhaps a bit melodramatic but it does illustrate the point that no on in this world needs name-brand jeans, purses or sunglasses to be happy. As a marketer, I've helped to further that falsehood. That saddens me. As a mother, I hope to teach my children what contentment means - through actions, not through purchases.

Comment on Naught to worry about

Shane — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:08:13 GMT

Amen!

We should always be thankful for what we have. Maybe the 00s were not the greatest, but I'm willing to be there are places in the world where people spent the 00s trying to survive, instead of worrying about their home values.

We have a problem in this greatest nation on the face of the world for often painting ourselves as having it rough. By and large, we don't.

Comment on What course of action?

Shane — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:55:30 GMT

Anna -

Wow. I had no idea that my simple life could inspire anything. Heh.

One of the things that my job teaches me often is that life is fragile and fleeing, and that no one is exempt from hardship and tragedy. Rather than lament hard times I choose to rise to the challenge. Rather than withdraw from life and friends I choose to love them more and more completely.

And most importantly, as you pointed out, enjoy the small things in life. When I was really down at church over Isaiah's death, I took the opportunity to greet one of my friends whose had her baby boy with her. His small smile was quite theraputic.

Comment on Buy more, spend less

Charles — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 03:00:20 GMT

Good post. You can see the damage done to the retail sector by the number of high-profile bankruptcies in the last year. When consumers increase their savings rate, there is quite a bit of collateral damage!

Comment on Buy more, spend less

Alistair — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:15:01 GMT

Very true, the same is happening with the UK as high streets are ravaged by the recession and big unit out-of-town retailers win big. Economies of scale and supplier pressure mean unbeatable prices in a very elastic market and decreasing competition. Those businesses which survive the depression will be in amazing shape when the economy recovers, with families realising how much money they can save without realising the effects on our environment. All UK supermarkets and home improvement retailers are flying currently as people eat-in and invest in what they have, rather than trading up and moving on. Recessions will always provide opportunities, but someone will always pay for them, indirectly.

Comment on What do you want out of healthcare reform?

Charles Sizemore — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:03:38 GMT

On this issue, both parties have really dropped the ball. The reforms proposed by the democrats do not address the underlying issues (moral hazard, the need for tort reform, the "prepaid card" mentality, etc.)

But republicans, in opposing reform, are also quite misguided. They claim to be supporting a free market system, but our system as it stands is not free market at all. It's socialist with a private sector intermediary...which may actually be the worse of all possible worlds.

Does it make sense that American companies provide health insurance to their workers? If we were going to start a system from scratch...is THIS how we would set it up? The only reason that companies started providing health insurance was that it was a way to circumvent the wage and price controls put in place during World War II. After the war, Congress encouraged the process by giving big tax breaks to companies for providing insurance.

So...how is it "socialist" to have government-run national health insurance like the UK and Canada but "free market" to have large private corporations perform the same service via private insurance companies in order to get a federal tax break? It would seem that the corporations are an expensive and unnecessary middleman.

A better solution might be to socialize the insurance for big, catastrophic diseases like cancer or ALS -- the random events that insurance is designed to protect against -- while regular, routine medicine is paid for out of pocket, bypassing insurance altogether. This would make for a more efficient system in which you wouldn't have to fill out 10 pages of forms in order to get someone to look at your sore throat.

This was the direction George W. Bush was going when he pushed for HSAs. It was one of the few good ideas the man had...too bad no one listened to him.

Comment on Goat milk butter

Charles Sizemore — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:45:44 GMT

I read something about lactose intolerance that blew my mind. According to Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, lactose intolerance actually used to be the norm for humans. A rejection of dairy was part of the process of weaning a child from the mother's milk. Apparently, lactose tolerance was a beneficial mutation; the tribes that were able to drink cow milk (as opposed to slaughtering the cow for meat) were able to enjoy a higher calorie diet and thus had a reproductive advantage over those tribes that did not. That's why lactose tolerance is now the norm. So people who are lactose intolerant are actually just old school. Go figure.

(The book this diatribe came from was the 10,000 Year Explosion).