From Charlie Martin: ‘The Arithmetic Absurdity Of Obamacare’

Full piece here.

I’ve gotten a few emails suggesting there’s been a lot of ‘partisanship,’ on the site lately.  I agree there’s more than usual, but in the face of such a pork-passed monstrosity of a law, with so many bad incentives, so much adverse selection, and young people being forced to work in a system that makes so little sense for them, it’s good to have certain ideas boiled down:

Thanks for any concern.  I assume the risk of driving some people away with all this political talk.

Martin:

Now, what’s the point of this little fable? Basically, this is the story of health insurance. We started off with “major medical,” which was a way to protect yourself against big medical bills that everyone hoped they wouldn’t have; now what we’ve got is that major medical — but we’re also paying for snow-shoveling, er, we’re paying for everyone’s day to day medical care, and we’re paying for it in pretty much the most expensive and complicated possible way: through a federal government agencyand insurance companies.

Related On This SiteRichard Epstein At The Hoover Institution: ‘The Obamacare Train Wreck’

Avik Roy At Forbes: ‘Democrats’ New Argument: It’s A Good Thing That Obamacare Doubles Individual Health Insurance Premiums’Megan McArdle At Bloomberg: ‘Health-Care Costs Are Driven By Technology, Not Presidents’

Richard Epstein At The Hoover Institution: ‘The Obamacare Quaqmire’

Richard Epstein At The Hoover Institution: ‘Watching Obamacare Unravel’

From The New England Journal Of Medicine Via CATO: ‘The Constitutionality of the Individual Mandate’From If-Then Knots: Health Care Is Not A Right…But Then Neither Is Property?… From The New Yorker: Atul Gawande On Health Care-”The Cost Conundrum”Sally Pipes At Forbes: ‘A Plan That Leads Health Care To Nowhere’

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