President Obama, is a ‘substandard’ health plan really substandard?
“And when we do, not if, you’re going to have families all across this great state of Texas that are going to have the security of high quality, affordable health insurance.” But even as Obama tried to take a more offensive tact in promoting the health care plan with his visit to Texas, a state with one of the largest uninsured populations in the country, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius acknowledged before the Senate Finance Committee that ACA enrollment figures would be “very low” when the administration releases data for the first month of the program next week. Sebelius, however, pushed back against a bipartisan call to delay full implementation of the law, which calls for most uninsured Americans to sign up for health care by March or face a penalty. “Delaying the Affordable Care Act would not delay people’s cancer or diabetes or Parkinson’s disease,” Sebelius said. “It would not delay the need for mental health services or cholesterol screenings or prenatal care. Delaying the Affordable Care Act doesn’t delay the foreclosure notices for families forced into bankruptcy by unpayable medical bills.” To make his case, Obama chose the backdrop of Dallas a community in a deep red state where more than a quarter of residents are uninsured to call on Americans without coverage to sign up for health care. The city has had a youth boom, providing the makings for the sort of young and healthy insurance pool that the White House hopes will eventually flock to HealthCare.gov and keep costs of coverage stable.
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Still others may be skeptical of the effectiveness of mental health care. In a free society, we generally leave purchase decisions to the individual, whether their justifications for those purchases are prudent or not. The fact that a health care plan does not include all the benefits of other plans does not imply that it is substandard. Instead, the ACA replaces plans that cater to needs of a particular consumer with those cluttered with bells and whistles that may be of little value. Proponents of ObamaCare point to externalities created by those who do not have proper health care. Among the more legitimate arguments is that maternity benefits are necessary to protect the unborn children of the poor. Even these arguments are suspect. There are already programs (like Medicaid and Childrens Health Insurance Program) that assist those unable to afford the care and no need to distort the entire health insurance system to address this legitimate concern. Moreover, there are almost always externalities to which one can point, but restricting consumer choice is not likely to be the best solution. Even my roll-down windows created negative spillovers. Should I have been required to buy a car with power windows because reaching over to roll down the passenger window might slow down the White House security clearance process? Probably not. Similarly, eliminating substandard health care plans replaces consumer sovereignty with a government dictate without justifying the superiority of the government choice. When the president tells us that he is preventing consumers from buying what would be substandard plans, he implies that consumers would make the wrong decision absent government guidance. Given the administrations recent record of judgment and competence, we might prefer to trust the consumers.
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Dealing with health care woes, Obama pivots to the economy
export growth has been strong enough to play a central role in the economic recovery in the U.S., but also said the country is more than $200 billion below Mr. Obama’s goal he laid out in 2010 to double exports within five years. Only 12 out of the top 100 metro areas have maintained the 15 percent annual growth rate necessary to meet the goal, the report says, though New Orleans is one of the cities on track , in part because of America’s energy boom. Still, convincing Congress to spend money on infrastructure is a tall order at a time when cutting spending is still a top priority for Republicans. Last month, Sens.
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