As a state and local think tank, we opposed the federal stimulus bill, but did not articulate many of the specific reasons for our opposition — aside from the fact that temporary economic stimuli have never worked. That said, two of our economists on staff, Ken Brown and Micha Gisser recently tackled the stimulus on the pages of the Albuquerque Journal’s Business Journal.

The article, “Stimulus plan too big, too late to help,” can be found here.

The Lewin Group, a highly respected health care policy and management consulting firm, has examined the impact of the American Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200).

In New Mexico, the impact of the health care bill on private coverage, the uninsured, physicians and hospitals, as found by the Lewin Group, is as follows:

– 45 percent of privately insured New Mexico residents would transition out of private insurance.
– 51 percent of New Mexico residents with employer-based coverage would lose their current insurance.
– 82 percent of New Mexico residents in a health insurance exchange would end up in the public plan.
– 49 percent of the uninsured in New Mexico would still lack coverage.
– Physicians in New Mexico could see their net annual income decline by $136.7 million, as a consequence of the new public plan.
– Hospitals in New Mexico could have their net annual income fall by about $314.6 million, with hospital total margins dropping to 1 percent.

While the Washington Post attacked the Lewin Group in a recent story, the story was unable to refute the numbers cited above. More importantly, Lewin’s clients include the government and groups with a variety of perspectives, including the left-leaning Commonwealth Fund.

The numbers above should be a wake-up call to those who think that Obamacare will solve our health care problems.

I couldn’t make this week’s episode of Speaking Freely. I was actually heading to a meeting in Santa Fe (I took the RailRunner and that is a different story). Anyway, earlier in the week Jim asked the Democratic Party which is located next door to the KIVA Studios and they told him they would send someone to discuss the health care proposal making its way through Congress…but they never sent anyone. So, Jim and the producer Double C ad-libbed and took calls on the issue. Listen to the show here.

Recently, one of Governor Richardson’s lead advisors on health care issues argued on the pages of the Albuquerque Journal that the so-called “public option” is the best fix for our health care system.

A national public option is perhaps the most important step in the reform process. What can a public option do to fix the well-identified problems? First, by being a good public option that is national in scope, it will allow for the creation of one large actuarial pool across state lines, thereby dispersing risk and allowing small state like New Mexico to take advantage of large pools.

Second, every American should be able to obtain coverage. This means coverage under a private plan, or coverage under a public plan. Patients should not be turned away because of a pre-existing medical condition and they should not be turned away because they cannot afford coverage.

Third, a good public option must include coverage of all essential medical services. This includes preventative care, maternity leave, disease management, and more.

Finally, a good public insurance option will enforce transparency and comparative costs across plans and providers, as well as report on benchmarks of quality and outcomes.

By “public option,” Tryon means “Medicare for all.” Of course, enlarging actuarial pools is a nice idea, but allowing patients to wait until they are sick in order to get insurance is like buying auto insurance after an accident. Nice idea, but hardly fair.

As he states in point three, a public option must be very robust. This is means that young people will be forced to pay more for costly insurance plans. No “bare bones” policies will be available and this likely means that my Health Savings Account will be eliminated as an option.

Of course, advocates of “Medicare for All” never mention the unfunded liabilities associated with Medicare. They also love to claim that a “public option” won’t crowd out private insurance because, “if the free market is so efficient, it should be able to compete with a government-subsidized plan.” Of course, they also fail to realize that simply taking money from unwilling taxpayers is, at least currently, very efficient. They don’t seem to believe that the “crowd out” effect (as it relates to demand) matters.

The quote above is from Mahatma Gandhi and it described how his movement eventually achieved victory. Apparently, although we skipped the ridicule part, from reading the pages of the Albuquerque Journal, we at the Rio Grande Foundation must be getting close to victory. After all, our opponents are fighting us and our ideas harder than ever. Why else would readers attack us three times in published letters during just the past week? To me, that seems to indicate a high level of effectiveness and proximity to victory.

First, on Monday, a reader wrote this letter in response to my recent article on “Health Care for All.” Yesterday, I picked up the paper only to see a reader attempt to discredit another organization, CARE, through their association with us. In a letter entitled, “Jimmy Carter Had It Right,” Marita K. Noon’s commentary “Green on the Surface, Dirty Underneath,” is fitting for the executive director of the Citizens Alliance for Responsible Energy — an ally of the Rio Grande Foundation.

Lastly, in today’s paper, a letter writer again decries our opposition to “Medicare for All,” stating:

“Think Tank Needs To Get Real on Need for Health-Care Reform”

THINK-TANK ESSAYS on real-life issues are always interesting to read but are generally lacking in usefulness, and Paul Gessing’s recent op-ed on health-care reform is no exception. He suggests that we limit the government’s role in the health-care industry in order to “ restore the doctor-patient relationship by empowering consumers to shop around for the highest quality care at the best price.”

Where is he? When I had health insurance, the company would send me a list of approved doctors, hospitals and pharmacies that they had already forged working agreements with and that would guarantee their profitability but not my satisfaction.

I currently have no health insurance because the last company I had a relationship with gave me an offer of $800 a month, with a $50 co-pay and a $2,000 deductible. I shopped, but the only others doing business in my area were mysteriously similar in terms and money.

We will get health-care reform. Approximately 48 million Americans have no health care, and millions more have it but can’t afford to use it. I will guess that when the uninsured number reaches 100 million, in say seven years, the medical-industrial complex will realize that they have priced themselves out of the market and that there are no more new customers to be had.

They will then run panic-stricken to the federal government and beg for a bailout. They will then call it health-care reform.

The writer seems to believe that our opposition to government-run health care results from alleged support of the insurance industry as it currently exists and functions. This could not be further from the truth. The key to free market health care and reforming the existing system is to do away with the third-party-payer system which places undue emphasis on health insurance companies. Insurance should play a role that is limited to true insurance and should not be the first place we go when Americans seek health care.

An excellent article appeared recently in the American Spectator. Rather than directly targeting what we know — Obama’s plan will dramatically increase federal control over Americans’ health care — the author, Philip Klein targets an even more important topic, what we know but that isn’t so.

Among the myths that hinder opponents of government-run health care are the “fact” that we have a free market health care system (I have written about this in the past and the “fact” that 46 million Americans are without health care. Many good points made in the article and if conservatives and free market advocates can kill this federal takeover and then work to expand free market health care while educating Americans about the 46 million, we’ll be in a much better position to enact positive reforms in the future.

If you did not attend the Rio Grande Foundation’s “Lights of Liberty” luncheon, you missed out on a truly amazing event (I’m not saying that because I’m the President of RGF). We had 170 liberty lovers gathered at the Marriott Pyramid in Albuquerque to witness several awards being given to the Foundation’s supporters and leaders in the fight for liberty including former Governor Gary Johnson and current Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones.

Also, David Boaz of the Cato Institute gave a powerful talk about “Liberty in Crisis.” The video can be found here:

On Saturday, July 25, 3rd district candidate Adam Kokesh dropped by the KIVA studios for an hour-long discussion of his personal history and campaign for Congress. Listen to the interview here.

David Boaz will appear on Bob Clark’s show this morning from 9am to 10am. Tune in! And don’t forget, the “Lights of Liberty” luncheon is today at the Albuquerque Pyramid hotel. See you there.

New Mexico State Senator Sue Wilson Beffort had an excellent opinion piece in today’s Albuquerque Journal. As Beffort points out, it is useful to note that New Mexico has a whole host of public programs available for the uninsured, that people with pre-existing health conditions are not denied insurance (as reform proponents often claim), and that prescription drugs are actually becoming more affordable for both the elderly and the general public. As Beffort summarizes her argument, Congress should consider maximizing these programs and their effectiveness before completely revising our entire health care system.

In addition to this piece, a reader attacked my recent opinion piece. The author, Leon Logan, writes:

Paul Gessing’s column on July 20 is pure propaganda that is a coordinated and intensive effort to maintain the status quo in health care.

He says that the “heavy hand” of the government and its bureaucracy are the reasons for our expensive health-care system. The Food and Drug Administration is given as an example. I suppose his “research” has determined that the “heavy hand” of the government was responsible for our current financial situation. Medicare’s bureaucracy is about one third that of private insurance “bureaucracy.”

The Rio Grande Foundation is supposed to be a “nonpartisan, tax exempt, research and educational organization.” I guess the fact that we have the most expensive health-care system in the world, rank about 35th in results … and the only “free market” system was too obscure for “research” to reveal.

Not surprisingly, Logan argues that I want the “status quo.” This is patently false and I mention some specific reforms at the end of the piece. I’ve also made the case for free market reforms elsewhere. And then he goes on to exempt the government from any and all responsibility for the current financial crisis, a very complex situation that resulted from many factors, including government policy.

Lastly, the cartoon below is an excellent summary of the “uninsured” situation in the United States.

Our good friend Marita Noon over at the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy had an excellent op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal recently (you can read it here). The basic point of the article is that even “green” energy sources like wind power require mineral resources from the earth. Unfortunately, environmental zealots, many of whom preach the benefits of green jobs that they say will inevitably result from a taxpayer-subsidized shift to their preferred sources of energy, often stand in the way of efforts to access those needed resources here at home.

Americans are abundantly knowledgeable about the shortcomings of their health care system. On top of this is the drivel from the mainstream media touting the wonders of socialized medicine overseas. Fortunately, there are many Americans who have first-hand experience with foreign medical systems. And, while personal stories vary based on the individual, the importance of these first-hand accounts cannot be denied.

The Rio Grande Foundation’s Research Director, Ken Brown’s wife Agnes is of Dutch decent and has had significant dealings with the system. In this brief article, “Dutch Health Care, I’ll Take Albuquerque,” Agnes Brown explains how the system places onerous restrictions on end-of-life care and burdens taxpayers.

Also, I will be debating Carol Miller on health care on “In Focus” on KNME (Channel 5 in Albuquerque) this evening at 7pm. Tune in.

The Rio Grande Foundation hasn’t really done any work on the wolf reintroduction issue. After all, the killing of wolves was subsidized by US taxpayers.

That said, we do have serious concerns about the cost and scope of federal programs. That is the tack that our investigative journalist, Jim Scarantino, took in his new report “Does the Federal Government Value Wolves More Than Humans? The Money Says It All.” The press release is available here.

Several governors around the nation have been speaking out in opposition or “with concern” about the health care plans being pushed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. A New York Times article about this can be found here. In the article, New Mexico’s Bill Richardson is quoted as saying “I’m personally very concerned about the cost issue, particularly the $1 trillion figures being batted around.”

While not explicitly opposing the plan, Richardson’s comments are clearly negative and should be cheered by opponents of government-run health care. Of course, we all know that Richardson proposed his own government-run health care scheme a few years back. Richardson’s proposal was a bit more like the Massachusetts plan that is also failing, but there are enough differences between the two, that I suppose Richardson could support one and not the other.

At this point, an excellent question might be “What say you Diane Denish?”

President Obama has increased spending to unprecedented levels. This has rightfully caused a great deal of consternation among broad swaths of American society. Hopefully it will result in the deaths of legislation that would restrict our health care and energy choices while killing economic growth.

But which president bears the greatest responsibility for our current predicament? As much as Obama has done to grow the federal government, George W. Bush still retains the dubious distinction as the architect of our current economic mess. As Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute points out:

The U.S. government is deeper in debt than it has been since just after World War II. When Bill Clinton, who actually reduced the federal deficit as a portion of GDP, left office, the Congressional Budget Office projected an $800 billion dollar yearly budget surplus for the years 2009 to 2012. Now CBO projects an annual budget deficit of a whopping $1.2 trillion.

Although Republicans are blaming Barack Obama for this gargantuan budget gap, George W. Bush is responsible for 53 percent of the total, according to the New York Times. Another 37 percent is due to the recession of the early part of the decade and the global meltdown that began in late 2007. Obama is responsible for only 10 percent of the total. Yet the reason that Obama’s portion is so small is because George W. Bush, a big-government Republican, was in office for eight years, and Obama has been in office less than six months. Obama has been spending at a phenomenal rate—on a pork-filled stimulus bill and an expansive domestic agenda.

Thus, Obama is guilty of making Bush’s legacy of massive red ink even worse. Obama’s budget would double the projected deficit over the next 10 years. By 2019, federal spending is projected to be an eye-popping quarter of the nation’s GDP. By contrast, for four decades federal taxation has averaged about 18 percent of GDP. These massive deficits, accumulating as a monstrous national debt, could cause hyperinflation and the prolonged economic stagnation (stagflation) that would make the 1970s look like an economic picnic.

The good news is that Obama still has time to pull the country out of this economic nose-dive. If he fails to restrain the federal leviathan, he’ll undoubtedly surpass Bush in the big-spending, big-debtor category.

Jim and I sat down with Albuquerque Dr. Torre Near for an hour-long discussion of health care issues on Saturday. The podcast is available here. While Near is generally free market in her approach, she, Jim, and I certainly don’t agree on all the issues relating to health care reform. I have to say that this is one of the best shows we’ve done.

In case you haven’t seen it already, I have an opinion piece on health care reform in today’s Albuquerque Journal. With not one, but two, recent op-eds having appeared in the paper’s opinion pages on behalf of “Medicare for All,” it is a bit disappointing that the editor felt the need to run a “pro-reform” op-ed alongside mine.

As I wrote yesterday, I was going to be on Channel 4 to discuss a high speed rail proposal that Governor Richardson and Sen. Tom Udall are eying. The story led off the 6pm news and my interview was the bulk of the story.

Check it out here.

The American Petroleum Institute has put out its annual energy quiz. The interactive quiz will ask about 25 questions about energy and energy policy. There are no “gimmees!” I scored only 55%. See if you can beat me and post a comment.

The critics and pundits say that newsprint is dead. Don’t believe it! The Rio Grande Foundation has a print publication focusing on issues relating to the Legislature and state policy issues called Capitol Report New Mexico. You can subscribe to Capitol Report by donating to the Rio Grande Foundation.

Another recently-launched publication is The New Mexico Breeze. The publication attempts to:

1. better inform readers regarding politics and current events with behind-the-scenes information, and

2. provide positive news about the state, leaving readers with a sense of pride as New Mexicans.

Recently they published an article by our own Jim Scarantino on the paper’s front page.

Speaking Freely airs 9am to 10am on Saturdays. Jim and I will be discussing health care reform with Albuquerque-based doctor Torre Near, MD. Dr. Near recently wrote a great opinion piece on health care that appeared in the Albuquerque Journal.

Tune in to the show and feel free to give us a call at 505-265-1550. It is sure to be an interesting discussion.

I just got around to reading last Sunday’s Albuquerque Journal opinion section. There I saw a piece by Nick Mandel’s piece “Pension Envy Won’t Fix State Budget, Policy Woes.” As far as I could tell, the organization does not have a website, but the essence of Mandel’s argument is:

1) Yes, government pensions are far more generous than those offered by the private sector because government can always extract money from the private sector and they don’t have any profit pressures (but please don’t hold it against us);
2) Cuts can be made to the Governor’s exempt employee hires, double-dipping should be stopped, and taxes should be raised on corporations in order to bring in more money. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. Certainly, Richardson’s has hired great numbers of exempt employees and double-dipping should be stopped (of course, the problem is that public employees are able to get pensions far too early, thus they can retire and get back to work for the government again).

I took a different take in a recent article on the pension situation. Sure, government pensions have been reduced by $80 million, but this is a drop in the bucket. As we’ve discussed in the past, the number and overall compensation levels of government employment are out of line with the private sector. Mandel prefers to ignore that.

So, Mandel offers a few good options for cost savings (and one bad tax hike), but that doesn’t mean that an inflated government bureaucracy is not a problem.

Those who advocate for government-run health care reform love to talk about how “simple” their plans are and how they are the ones restoring the patient-doctor relationship. The problem is that anytime government is involved in managing the economy, things get complicated…and fast.

Here is a flow-chart illustrating how the House Democrats’ health care plan would work in practice:

Unfortunately, the flow chart does not adequately illustrate how the $1.5 trillion extra needed to run the plan will have to be obtained.

This article more fully explains the flow chart and how it will be used.

Last week I wrote about my appearance on Channel 4’s News on the topic of “high-speed rail.” Of course, when government officials discuss rail in a “high-speed” context, some inevitably get stars in their eyes and believe that this means 150 mph or more.

Blogger Heath Haussamen makes this mistake in his weekly blog roundup when he writes that 2 hours to Denver would be “cool.” He’s actually citing a post by the Santa Fe Reeper blog which fantasizes about actual high speed rail to Denver which is being advocated by a special interest, but is not even remotely on the table policy-wise because it would be ridiculously expensive.

The reality is that Denver and Albuquerque are 450 miles apart. Even running at the Reeper’s fantasy speed of 200 mph, trains won’t go from ABQ to Denver in 2 hours. At 110 mph, the speed proposed by President Obama, Governor Richardson, and Sen. Udall, a train trip from Albuquerque to Denver would take at least 5 or 6 hours.

Rail advocates can dream about 200 mph rail in New Mexico if they want to, but if Obama had any brains at all, he’d focus resources on increasing speeds on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, an area with far greater population density than New Mexico and Colorado, yet the Acela only gets up to 150 mph, it’s top speed, for a few miles of its trip between Washington, DC and Boston.

The RailRunner is already enough of a boondoggle. Can’t we stop wasting our money with that?