This morning's CNBC programming featured a 'debate' between an advocate of market-oriented healthcare reform, whose name I do not recall, and liberal Democrat, former governor of Vermont, former chair of the DNC, former presidential candidate and, finally, onetime/sometime medical doctor, Howard Dean.
For reasons not entirely clear to me, absent politics, about which more a little later, Howard Dean seems to appear on CNBC quite a bit these days. He's not a businessman nor an economist, but he is fairly frequently brought in to comment on such matters.
Frankly, it's not at all clear why simply being a medical doctor in the past qualifies Dean to comment on the US healthcare situation.
Dean provided substantial dis- and misinformation about the current administration's intention to offer government-provided healthcare insurance in opposition to private insurer-provided products.
Specifically, several recent Wall Street Journal editorials have noted a variety of flaws with the proposed government-offered insurance. Among them, as I recall, are these,
-Government-provided health insurance will tend to be underpriced, because the programs' losses will be just another part of the large federal deficit. Thus, allowing this is tantamount to unfair price competition.
-Government-provided health insurance will be capable of using free or low-cost, unmonitored promotional channels, such as social security and unemployment check stuffers, to name just two.
-Existing private plans are shackled by regulations preventing cross-state marketing or offering of insurance, plus unwieldy state-based oversight and, lastly, onerous coverage requirements legislated by the states and/or federal government.
One of the recent lead Journal editorials provided quite a bit of depth to the analysis, concluding that any government-offered plans would have grossly unfair advantages, while hiding the true costs of the plans from their buyers.
Dean's remarks this morning on CNBC amounted to, to paraphrase them, the following,
'You can't believe those insurance companies. Conservatives are afraid of a fair fight in the market between private insurers and government-backed plans. Let's let people choose their insurance- that's the fair thing. And government-backed insurance will be cheaper because it won't have as many administrative or marketing expenses.'
Frankly, I seriously question Howard Dean's expertise on these points. For instance, who among us really believes that our federal government does anything less expensively than it is done in the private sector? And Dean simply ignored the issue of taxpayer subsidization of under-priced insurance. Don't Medicare and Medicaid give us chilling examples to avoid?
So, to my earlier question, why does CNBC so frequently feature Mr. Dean on topics about which he doesn't seem to have any expertise?
As I've noted in some recent posts, I try very diligently to keep politics out of this blog, preferring it to be the focus of its companion political blog. But when the news about a business sector is all about government intervention, e.g., finance, autos, and healthcare, it's impossible to do that.
I cannot help but sense that GE's CEO, Jeff Immelt, is consciously using his company's media business, NBC/Universal, to be a bully pulpit with which to curry favor with the current administration. From 'ecoimagination' to slanted views on healthcare insurance, GE seems to be trying to portray itself as an agreeable, accommodating business partner for government.
GE's medical technology unit surely has a major stake in the coming battle over government-offered health insurance. If spending levels decline and care is rationed, won't GE sell fewer expensive imaging systems and related, or even unrelated, medical products and services?
Perhaps. But being viewed by the federal government as an obstinate, determined foe of that institution's plan to socialize healthcare could easily earn GE a punishment of being effectively shut out of future federal provisioning of its healthcare plans and services.
Could GE be subtly, or not so subtly, tilting its coverage of the healthcare insurance debate by featuring champions of the government solution, despite their questionable credentials? Such as Howard Dean?
It was very clear this morning that Howard Dean was allowed to get away with vague, unsubstantiated claims about the administration's proposed healthcare plans, while launching equally-unsubstantiated assaults at private sector insurers.
There's something very troubling to me about seeing the major business cable news network engaging in such obviously biased and politicized 'coverage' of such an important economic issue.
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2 comments:
There's no evidence that government back health insurance will cost more than the private sector. There is substantial evidence, albeit from other countries, that administrative fees associated with health insurance are higher in the US than government provided insurance in foreign countries. Add to this that the profit from insurance companies (which is substantial)would be eliminated with government provided healthcare, it at leasts begs us to question contemporary conservative dogma that government provided anything is more costly and offers less benefits.
After posing the question to a few dogmatic colleagues, none agreed that they would support a publicly funded healthcare system even if it offered the same coverage at a lower price (a hypotheical, but not necessarily unattainable, goal).
I did not see Howard Dean on CNBC, but refuting facts with dogma is usually a bad way to open a discussion about a market that fails to operate efficiently.
Thanks for your comment.
I disagree with the basis of your first point, i.e., one has to ask what evidence there is, imo, that government can be less costly than the private sector. Not give government the benefit of the doubt.
As to government healthcare costs in other countries, I don't believe those would be necessarily, or even probably comparable, when adjusted for service levels. It would not surprise me if rationed healthcare is cheaper.
I'm not entirely clear on the conclusion of your latter remarks, but I interpret them to be in agreement with me.
Your point regarding focusing on how to more efficiently get the current market to operate, rather than issue dogmatic blather, as Dean did, is, I think, correct. And I've provided some brief but sensible thoughts on this in a post on my other blog.
In my opinion, so much of politically-orchestrated healthcare reform misses some obvious points. Specifically, identical tax-preference treatment of health insurance expense for everyone, multi-state availability of plans, and no government coverage mandates. Instead, let companies off a variety of plans, and people choose what best fits them.
All of which require no government-run healthcare monolith.
-CN
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