Thursday, July 16, 2009

Health care roundup

Some links:
  • The Investor's Business Daily claims that health care legislation in the House makes private individual health care insurance illegal.
  • Megan McArdle is skeptical about how much revenue a surtax on the wealthy will generate to pay for government-run health care. (Well, yeah, given that paying taxes is voluntary)
  • Steve Chapman explains why claims that a "public option" is needed to promote competition are bogus.

3 comments:

Ben said...

Is this the way to go, abolishing "[t]he tax preference given to health insurance provided by employers (over, say, the coverage bought by the self-employed)?" It "is a market distortion that costs the exchequer some $250 billion a year."

Colin said...

I think that abolishing the tax preference is an absolute necessity to a real overhaul of the health care system. Like almost all tax breaks it is a distortion that promotes bad behavior -- in this case linking health care to employment.

More needs to be done that simply eliminating this tax break, but it's a good starting point.

Paradigm Shifter said...

I have been so busy the last few days that I forgot to stop by and post a comment. Thanks for the HT!