Wednesday, September 24, 2008

healthcare

As our economy implodes we have seen the results of the deregulation of the financial sector begun under Reagan. McCain is arguing for the same irresponsible behavior regarding healthcare.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are actually going to blame Reagan for this? You sir...are an idiot.

Michael J Mahoney said...

I think there was eight years of a guy named Clinton in there. I suppose he could have done something about healthcare if he had just stopped playing doctor with White House interns!

Anonymous said...

Deregulation is one of the words which, taken out of context doesn't mean a great deal. For example, there's a big difference between saying an obese person is going on a diet to get back to a healthy weight compared to saying an underweight model is going on a diet to become even bonier. The problem is not the principle of dieting, but the application.

The same is true of deregulation. Going back 20-40 years, capital markets were over-regulated. Freeing some of that up gave us the possibility of globalised trade, which I would maintain is still our best shot at fixing global wealth imbalances.

There was a global deregulation trend in 80s that did a lot of good. Certainly in Australia it was the basis for a sustained period of growth whose benefits were widespread. But, from the 90s onwards there was an extension of that which was a lot more pernicious.

I mention all that as a way of saying that deregulation in health insurance might not, in principle be all bad. It could bring in more players, maybe open up competition, maybe even bring down premiums. It just depends where the market is and what the current regulations are actually doing.