Scarcity

We have perfectly functional markets in all sorts of life-and-death goods. They expect you to pay up at the grocery store, too, but poor people are not starving in the American streets, because we came up with this so-crazy-it-just-might-work idea of giving poor people money and money analogues (such as food stamps) to pay for food. It is not a perfect system, but it is preferable, as we know from unhappy experiences abroad, to having the government try to run the farms, as government did in the Soviet Union, or the grocery stores, as government does in hungry, miserable Venezuela. The Apple Store has its shortcomings, to be sure, but I’d rather have a health-care system that looks like the Apple Store than one that looks like a Venezuelan grocery store.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447361/heath-care-reform-no-cure-scarcity

Cut Health Costs or Help Workers. You Can't Do Both.

Much as we’d love to think that it’s all insurance company profits and outrageously priced “me too” drugs, the main reason that American health care costs so much is the number of procedures we do, and the price of those procedures. And health-care labor is a huge portion of those costs. For example, it makes up about half of hospital costs, despite the fact that hospitals are enormous buildings containing an awful lot of high-tech equipment and pricey medicines.

It's theoretically possible that we could demand that all those folks take a pay cut. But so far, as the Official Blog Spouse chronicles, the U.S. political system hasn't even been able to get doctors to take a cut in their Medicare reimbursements, much less their whole incomes. Here's the basic electoral math: If you try to cut the incomes of doctors, nurses, radiology techs, phlebotomists, etc., voters may be glad of the price break, but I'd be surprised if 1 percent would go to the polls and vote for you because you're the guy who cut doctor reimbursements by 17 percent. On the other hand, 100 percent of the doctors, nurses, radiology techs and phlebotomists will storm the voting places and make sure that they cast their vote against the jerk who wants to cut their incomes and, oh, by the way, destroy American health care.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-02-25/cut-health-costs-or-help-workers-you-can-t-do-both

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-04-30/single-payer-would-make-health-care-worse

The Real Inequality

Federal workers’ pay and benefits were 78 percent higher than private employees, who earned an average of $52,688 less than public sector workers last year.

The study found that federal government workers earned an average of $84,153 in 2014, compared to the private sector’s average of $56,350. Cato based its findings on figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

But when adding in benefits pay for federal workers, the difference becomes more dramatic. Federal employees made $119,934 in total compensation last year, while private sector workers earned $67,246, a difference of over $52,000, or 78 percent.

http://freebeacon.com/issues/study-government-workers-make-78-percent-more-than-private-sector/

Treason

Obama's Record

Nice summary of the downsides.

What the Dakota Access Pipeline Is Really About The standoff isn’t about tribal rights or water, but a White House that ignores the rule of law.

.What the Dakota Access Pipeline Is Really About The standoff isn’t about tribal rights or water, but a White House that ignores the rule of law.


If only the pipeline did cross tribal lands, the contractor would have paid them for the easement and the tribe would have happily accepted it.  Nothing to extort in this effort, and apparently, nothing to otherwise occupy their time

Socialism