President Obama uses rhetoric of “choice” and “competition” to push the “public plan.” But he has declared his ideal to be single-payer health care, where — by definition — a government monopoly prohibits both choice and competition.

If “public plan” supporters honestly wanted choice and competition, why do they oppose policies that would make Medicaid and Medicare compete?  For example, vouchers that Medicaid and Medicare recipients can use to buy commercial insurance. Or better yet, allow taxpayers to opt out of funding these programs by getting tax credits for donations to comparable charities.

A “public plan” would not even compete fairly with insurance companies. It would have access to tax dollars, and many other advantages.  As Professor Harrington concludes, “equal competition between a government health-insurance plan and private plans would be impossible.”

If a government health “program were to be stripped of any special advantages it would cease to be a government program. It would be just another private insurer,” writes Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute.

If politicians truly want more competitive insurance markets, they should remove the tax code’s bias for employer-provided insurance, which shields insurers from competing directly for patients’ business. But politicians covet votes most. Since the biased tax code empowers unions, Democrats are not likely to touch it without giving unions special treatment.

This was published in the Boulder Daily Camera on July 4, 2009.

President Obama is either misinformed or lying about health care. He said the “free market has not worked perfectly.” There’s a market, but it’s not free. It’s infested with harmful political meddling. One example is government’s favoring employer-provided insurance, a poison to affordable medical care and insurance.

But unions and Congressional Democrats want to intensify the dose with a “pay or play” employer mandate. This would penalize employers for not buying medical insurance for their employees. This is not “reform;” it just entrenches flawed policies. It would violate rights,  lower wages, and threaten jobs of minority single moms.

Read the rest here.

Last week the New York Times reported that while more Massachusetts residents gained coverage in the past year, “one in five adults has been told … that a doctor or clinic was not accepting new patients or would not see patients with their type of insurance.” Rejection rates for people with government insurance were twice the rate as those with commercial insurance.

Nor has mandatory insurance helped strained ERs. The Times reported “little change in the use of emergency rooms for non-emergency treatment.”

As with Medicaid and Medicare, Massachusetts faces escalating costs and political rationing of treatment. The Times reported that the plan will “not be sustainable” without “significant steps to arrest the growth of health spending.” A chief administrator spoke of “limiting resources for people doing really good stuff.” The lesson: empowering government to run health care empowers it to deny you care.

Yes, insurance companies are frustrating. But don’t blame “the free market;” it’s not free. Consider the tax code, which shackles us to our employer’s plans by discounting employer-provided insurance. This pro-insurer bias limits competition and makes insurers accountable to employers, not patients. It amplifies the threat of pre-existing conditions. It disfigures real insurance into prepaid health care, which encourages over-consumption of treatment that increases costs.

For better health care, demand more freedom, not more political controls.

This was published in the June 6 2009 Boulder Daily Camera.

There’s also her controversial quote. In deciding court cases, Judge Sotomayor said she would “hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Paraphrasing Thomas Sowell, what if a Supreme Court nominee hoped for the opposite? That is, that a wise white man with “rich experiences” would more often than not reach a better judicial conclusion than a Latina female, who had led a different life? Why would this be any more or less objectionable than Judge Sotomayor’s hope?

I prefer the view often attributed (perhaps erroneously) to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, that “a wise old man and a wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases.”

The above was published in the Daily Camera (Boulder) on May 30, 2009.

The city should cut its spending — just families, nonprofits, and companies have in response to decreased income. To stay in business, companies reduce spending by laying off employees. These employees respond by being more frugal. Governments should do the same, and resist the temptation to increase tax rates.

Voters who want to increase the city’s revenue should put their money where their vote is. Instead of imposing their preferences on everyone else, they should oppose tax rate increases and donate their own money to the city. Better yet, they could donate to their favorite tax-funded programs. For example, Wednesday’s Camera article about this issue mentioned funding for housing and human services, RTD, and libraries.

We’re not talking about the law enforcement and public safety here, but some programs that perform the same or similar functions as nonprofits or companies. Why should these programs receive tax dollars when the nonprofits and companies they unfairly compete with must raise money from willing donors or customers?

In the face of decreased revenues, why should the City of Boulder act differently from everyone else? It should not be exempt from fiscal responsibility. City Council should be creative, find ways to cut costs, and do more with less.

In the comments I noted that Colorado would see increased tax revenue should they legalize and tax the sale of marijuana.  See Jeffrey Miron’s study here and mention of this idea for Colorado at Politics West here (along w/ a commenter who pointed me to Miron’s study.) Of course, the plant should be legal to grow and consume regardless of tax revenues, as I wrote here.

Would you argue against government’s banning a book by citing the positive outcomes of free speech? Of course not. This concedes that free speech takes a back seat to whatever authorities consider to be “good for society.” Free speech derives from our individual rights: our freedom to take action and pursue our goals through the voluntary and peaceful cooperation of others.

Drug prohibition is unjust because it violates these rights. Don’t be distracted by arguments about prison overcrowding and marijuana’s medicinal benefits. These are important issues, but do not concede your rights. Pregnancy aside, you have the right to ingest, inhale, or inject whatever you want.

Legitimate law enforcement is a response to aggression — like restraining a violent drunk from further pummeling someone. We properly celebrate civilians who do so. But we should condemn civilians who forcibly interfere with someone’s selling, buying, or smoking politically-incorrect plant. Such interference is not a response to aggression; it is aggression. Sensibly, civilians who favor drug prohibition do not partake in such aggression themselves; they delegate it to government employees.

Yes, some people will ruin their lives by abusing drugs, whether they are banned or not. If this concerns you, consider supporting drug rehab charities instead of destructive prohibitions that violate our rights.

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For a great video on marijuana legalization by Drew Carey, and one with John Stossel on ABC News, and other resources (20/20), see here.

The piece in the Daily Camera was in answer to this week’s question:

A pro-pot student group is holding a three-day symposium in Boulder starting this weekend, leading up to the annual 4/20 campus “smoke out” session on Monday. The talks and event are aimed at the decriminalization of marijuana, which many people think is a drug that should remain illegal. What do you think?

Joel Stein’s commentary against tax-deductible charitable donations is penny-wise but pound-foolish. By favoring some types of spending and punishing others, the tax deduction indeed violates our freedom to spend our earnings as we please. He suggests that the increased tax revenue from eliminating the deduction could “help pay for health care.” But compared to the tax deduction, this is a much worse violation of our freedoms.

Tax-funded health care is mandatory charity. Unlike voluntary charities, government charities need not compete for and earn your donations. The penalty for tax evasion effectively encourages your “donations.”

If Mr. Stein wants more fairness toward charities, he’d support allowing taxpayers to opt out of funding entitlement programs by donating to charities of their choice. For example, if you donate $100 to a low-income medical-care charity, Medicaid loses that funding and you pay $100 less in taxes.

Harry Kalas died on Monday.   Bob Ford at the the Philadelphia Inquirer has a good story, and are the side bar links.  Also check out ESPN’s coverage and videos here, which includes a video narrated by Jayson Stark, who I grew up reading in the Philadelphia Inquirer.  It includes a the video and Kalas’s call of Mike Schmidt’s 500th home run.  I get choked up watching it, and remember seeing it on TV, watching it & cheering with my brother Andy and his friend Phil in 1987^*.   Here it is on mp3, with some music from This Week in Baseball in the background.  Or you can play it right here:

^*OK, I don’t think Phil knew what we were all excited about, but that adds to the memory somehow.