Drunkard DA?

Lest we need a reminder that angels do not administer the laws, the Gazette reports (via the Rocky Mountain News): "Fourth Judicial District Attorney John Newsome has been caught on tape drinking and then driving his county-owned vehicle, KOAA reported Tuesday. ...In all, Newsome was shown drinking about 134 ounces of beer in five hours." True, the drinking didn't start till after 4:00 p.m., and whether he was legally impaired is not a matter for me to decide. I wouldn't have been able to drink 70 ounces of beer in "less than two hours" and then drive responsibly. KOAA's video of the story is fairly damning. I do think that District Attorneys driving tax-funded vehicles should be held to a high standard. I assume that Newsome's office handles cases of impaired driving.

Surprise, Surprise: Bill 217 Captured by Special-Interests

As Brian Schwartz has reported, State Senator Bob Hagedorn said that "to load up mandates" into his bill 217 would be its "kiss of death." Unfortunately, while the bill deserves death, bad legislation has a way of rising from the dead to stalk citizens.

Schwartz points to a May 2 article from the Denver Business Journal by Bob Mook that reports the following:

[Representative Anne] McGihon acknowledged the House is much different than the Senate bill, but it now is supported by a wide range of advocacy groups -- some of which originally opposed it. ...[T]the bill was severely changed in the House with provisions that removed a coverage cap of $250,000 from the plans. Another House provision would direct the panel to consider plans that cover hospice and palliative care...

I'm not sure where the bill stands now. But even if the bill is stripped of its House provisions, the fact that the bill was immediately subjected to special-interest lobbying indicates where this legislation is headed, if it becomes law. Not only will the new commission it creates be subjected to continual lobbying, but, if the legislature enacts the commission's recommendations, the legislature too will be subjected to such pressure, so long as the legislation remains in force. It is the inevitable result of politician-controlled medicine.

Gorman Skewers Bogus Families USA Health Claims

Families USA is a "non-partisan" outfit that is a partisan fighting for government-controlled health care. It advocates policies that would harm families and that run contrary to the USA's heritage of liberty. The organization is built on deception and it uses bogus claims to advance its agenda.

Back in February, Linda Gorman and I pointed out that a Families USA "study" regarding the magnitude of costs shifted from the uninsured to the insured is deeply flawed. We wrote:

Those who advocate an individual mandate throw up all kinds of numbers to support the wild claims that the proposal would save everyone money. A Jan. 8 article from The Denver Post claims that "Coloradans who have insurance spend an extra $950 each year to cover the costs of those who show up at the hospital without insurance."

The article attributes the number to state Rep. Anne McGihon, who said that the figure comes from Partnership for a Healthy Colorado. Partnership for a Healthy Colorado, in turn, says it got the figure from Families USA, which published a paper in 2005. That paper's estimates were unable to accurately predict the percentage of uninsured residents in Colorado. The paper also grossly overestimated at least some costs of uncompensated care.

The Lewin Group, the modeling firm hired by the commission to collect information about Colorado, reported total Colorado expenses for the uninsured of about $1.4 billion. Of that amount... leftover uncompensated costs, the ones that are not paid by any identifiable source, total $239 million. Divide $239 million by Colorado's 2.8 million insured residents, and the result is a maximum likely cost-shift of about $85 per insured individual per year.

To "fix" the problem of $239 million in cost-shifting, the [Commission for Healthcare Reform] proposes to increase health spending in Colorado by more than $3 billion...

Then, on May 2, Gorman posted an article to John Goodman's Health Policy Blog regarding Families USA's claims about insurance and mortality:

In the series of reports, called "Dying for Coverage," Families USA purports to show how many people are killed by a lack of health insurance in each state. For example, they claim 6 people die every day in Florida because they are uninsured. Seven die every day in Texas, 8 in California, and 25 in New York.

How is Families USA able to tally up all this carnage with such pinpoint precision? As it turns out, these claims are based on a 15-year cascade of studies - each repeating the errors and misinterpreting or mischaracterizing the findings of the previous one and ultimately relying on data that is 37 years old. ...

[T]here is no point at which anyone from Families USA actually examines a medical record. There is no interview with any doctor, any patient or any family of a deceased patient. There is only algebraic mumbo jumbo in support of an unsupportable claim.

Gorman explains the problems with Families USA's claims in greater detail in the article.

Gorman's criticism follows one by Michael Tanner, who explains, "The Families USA study was not a traditional 'double blind' experiment with a control group and a treatment group." Tanner offers additional evidence discrediting the Families USA claims.

As I have reviewed, Brian Schwartz discovered that a summary of State Senator Bob Hagedorn's bill 217 cites the bogus Families USA study.

Finally, on May 3, the Rocky Mountain News published Gorman's letter regarding Families USA's claims about Medicaid. Gorman points out that an earlier article from the Rocky, "Report ties Medicaid cuts to job losses," "simply repeated the substance of a press release from Families USA." Gorman continues:

...What the Bush administration is proposing is a slightly smaller budget increase, about 7.1 percent rather than 7.4 percent. The 2009 budget numbers are available on Page 61 at http://www.hhs.gov/budget/ 09budget/2009BudgetInBrief.pdf.

If Families USA were a real family making $50,000 a year, these budget numbers would be the equivalent of having an expected windfall of $53,700 reduced to $53,550.

Families USA is known for approaching health care with a well-defined ideological slant and for producing lousy numbers on all manner of health-care issues. One hopes that, next time, the Rocky will take the Families USA reputation for inaccuracy into account, and that it will check before it unquestioningly reproduces their press releases as news.

It would also be pleasant if Colorado legislators would refrain from basing state policy on Families USA's misinformation campaigns.

Denver Post on Guns

Michael Booth and Kevin Simpson have written a surprisingly balanced article about gun ownership for The Denver Post, not a paper to which readers usually look for balance regarding such issues.

Unfortunately, the authors do get some points wrong. My criticisms should not be interpreted as a blanket condemnation of the article, but as a corrective to an article that's largely good.

The authors sound surprised to report that, in handgun safety classes, people spend much of their "class time learning how to avoid actually using a gun." The authors call this a "paradox," but it is the standard orientation of gun owners.

The authors correctly note that those with concealed-carry permits compose an "exceptionally law-abiding group." Unfortunately, the authors misstate the evidence regarding guns and crime. They write: "Gun enthusiasts argue more guns equal less crime... but researchers point to a long-term decline influenced by larger forces and no impact on crime attributable to concealed-carry laws."

It is true that "larger forces" play the bigger role. However, it is simply not true that "researchers" -- suggesting all researchers -- have found no impact of concealed-carry laws. Some researchers have found that concealed-carry reduces crime, others have found that it does not reduce crime, and no researcher has found that concealed carry increases crime.

Moreover, plenty of unassailable research shows that gun ownership reduces "hot" burglaries when the owners are home. John Lott, in addition to running statistical regressions showing that concealed-carry reduces crime, also ran regressions showing that gun ownership generally relates to lower crime, other things equal. (Lott reviews the research regarding guns and crime in The Bias Against Guns and More Guns, Less Crime. Such scholars as Joyce Malcolm, Gary Kleck, Don Kates, and Dave Kopel discuss many other issues including burglary. I review a portion of the evidence in my 2003 article, "Guns and the Media.")

The main problem with the Post's article is that it advocates "middle ground" gun restrictions but does not offer any actual evidence that such restrictions would work. The article ignores the evidence that existing restrictions (such as Brady registration checks) have failed, as well as the well-developed arguments as to why various proposed measures would cause more problems than they solved. For example, the article quotes State Senator Sue Windels, who has offered "lock up your safety" legislation that would demonstrably make homeowners less safe. Instead, the article offers polling data indicating that many people want more restrictions, as though polling data were a substitute for sound arguments. The article thus reveals a deeply pragmatic mindset that assumes a principled, consistent view must be wrong by virtue of the fact that it is principled and consistent, despite the fact that it is also supported by tight logic and robust empirical evidence.

Krause on China

Mike Krause, a Senior Fellow with the Independence Institute, has started the blog "Regime Watch" to track "Beijing's world-wide thuggery." So far, I've learned of China's role in the Sudan and in Zimbabwe.

Mostly I track state policy, and even there I must be selective in what I follow. I devote less attention to foreign affairs, and China gets only a fraction of that time (what with all the goings on in the Middle East). It is great, therefore, that Krause is devoting a space to China, a nation posed to become an ever greater global player.

I've always been torn between two arguments. On the one hand, free trade with China may foster a middle class there, expose China to Western ideas and institutions, and encourage pro-liberty reforms. On the other hand, trade (or at least some sorts of trade) may further enable China to build its military, threaten its neighbors, control its people, and support other oppressive regimes. Obviously, we do a great deal of trade with China, though, off hand, I don't know what fraction of our trade or China's trade this constitutes. In what ways is China getting better? In what ways worse? Perhaps Krause can delve into these sorts of broader issues as he develops his blog.

For Better Health, Repeal Political Controls

The following article originally was published by the Independence Institute on April 30, 2008.

For Better Health, Repeal Political Controls

By Ari Armstrong

My wife and I pay $132 per month total for high-deductible health insurance, hundreds of dollars less than we would pay for comprehensive insurance. Our goal is to never need to make an insurance claim. We pay for all of our routine medical care -- doctor visits, eye glasses, dental work, prescriptions -- out of pocket, and we like it that way.

Our medical expenses come out of our Health Savings Account (HSA), which means that it's all pre-tax money. Unfortunately for us, various enemies of HSAs have been trying to undermine them at the national level.

By paying less for high-deductible insurance, we've been able to pay off debts faster and prepare for a family, something that has been difficult given our high tax burdens.

If Colorado wants to keep and attract young working families, the legislature ought not further muck up health insurance by loading in a bunch of new expensive mandates. Nor should the legislature require such couples to further subsidize others through higher taxes and/or insurance premiums.

If the legislature wants to make health insurance more affordable for more people, it should repeal existing political controls that have driven up insurance costs and priced some people out of the market.

However, we should realize that the broader problem with health insurance is that, because of federal tax policy, most insurance is tied to one's job. Lose your job, lose your insurance. Because of the tax benefits of "paying" people with insurance coverage, such insurance is really pre-paid medical care that discourages economic provision and consumption of health care.

Our society has largely forgotten the proper purpose of insurance when it comes to health. Most people remain healthy into middle age, when risks for various diseases start to increase. Through insurance, we voluntarily pool our resources to pay for the care of the few who get unlucky. If federal policy had not driven health insurance off track, we'd buy insurance when we're young at a low rate and keep the same policy long-term, and we'd also pay for routine and expected expenses directly, which would encourage healthy competition.

All of the commonly cited problems with medicine have been caused by decades of political intervention in medicine. For details, see "Moral Health Care vs. 'Universal Health Care'," by Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh, MD, at WeStandFirm.org.

Yet, rather than act to repeal the controls that are the cause of the problems, many of today's politicians want to impose still more controls. If they succeed, the result will be worse health care that costs even more.

Here in Colorado, the legislature has considered everything but repealing the controls that are the cause of the problems. In 2006, then-Governor Bill Owens signed into law Senate Bill 208 to create the Blue Ribbon Commission for Healthcare Reform. That commission rejected the only free-market proposal and recommended such measures as massively expanded taxes and forcing everybody to buy insurance. The Commission's recommendations basically went nowhere.

But apparently one failed commission deserves another, so State Senator Bob Hagedorn is currently pushing Bill 217. If the bill passes, later this year Governor Bill Ritter will appoint "a panel of expert advisors" to come up with a bunch of new political controls for the legislature to consider in the future.

Originally, the bill encouraged the "panel of experts" to assume that all Coloradans would be forced to purchase politician-approved health insurance. The amended bill lists that only as an option.

Forcing people to buy insurance would cause two basic problems. First, you can't force somebody to buy something they can't afford, so any such plan must accompany massive tax hikes and subsidies. Second, once politicians force you to buy something, special-interest groups will constantly fight to include their pet service as part of the forced package, whether you want it or not. The result will be continual pressure to expand the scope of the forced insurance and make it ever more costly.

Much of the bill describes the creation of politician-approved "value benefit plans" for health insurance that would be subject to a variety of restrictions and substantially subsidized through taxes.

Yet consumers and providers have the right to decide through voluntary exchange what plans constitute a value to them. We don't need a new bureaucratic commission; we need liberty.

Ari Armstrong, a guest writer for the Independence Institute, blogs at FreeColorado.com.

The Post's Push Poll

The Denver Post's online polls often are silly, but one from April 28 is especially ridiculous:

Did you observe Earth Day?
Absolutely - Every day is Earth Day
Yes - Took part, vowed to live greener
Sort of - Accidentally got involved this year
No - Meant to, but didn't
Never - Don't believe in climate change

Of the five responses, the first four imply support for the motives and political goals of Earth Day, while the last response describes a position that no actual person holds.

The Post would be hard pressed to find a single person who does not "believe in climate change." Anyone with at least an elementary education understands that, in the past, the earth's average temperature has alternated between ice ages and warming periods.

The three main issues in contention are these: does global warming pose a significant problem within the coming decades, is modern global warming significantly impacted by human behavior, and what, if anything, should be done about it?

For what it's worth, here's my reply to the Post's poll: "No, because I disagree with the environmentalist movement's bias against human industry and its advocacy of socialistic reforms."

Insecure Property Rights Brings Conflict

We allow local politicians to arbitrarily redefine property use, and then we wonder why this causes problems. Daniel J. Chacon writes for the Rocky Mountain News:

After a nearly 10-hour meeting that ended just after 3 a.m. today, the City Council approved a rezoning that will prevent the construction of duplexes and other multifamily dwellings in two northwest Denver neighborhoods.

The council voted 10-2 to rezone 53 acres in West Highland and 62 acres in Sloan’s Lake from R-2 to R-1, putting an end to so-called scrape-off redevelopments to make room for higher density multiple-unit properties.

Council members Charlie Brown and Jeanne Faatz voted in opposition. Though they raised several concerns with the proposal, both said the issue boiled down to property rights.

The dissenting council members are correct that arbitrarily changing property rules violates rights, but the fundamental problem is not the change in zoning but the zoning controls themselves. Arbitrarily zoning to allow higher density use is just as incompatible with property rights.

It is a sad state when, in America, people think they own their neighbors' property as well as their own. Yet that is the mentality manifest and propagated by zoning controls. Land ownership is to a significant degree a socialistic endeavor.

What is the alternative? The proper default position is that the first-in-time user acquires rights in the used property, but not in any adjacent property, except insofar as use of adjacent property interferes with the original use. For example, if you build a ranch in an open frontier, you have the right to own and operate the ranch, but you don't own the entire frontier or the open land not directly associated with the ranch. If somebody moves in next door, you have no right to control that property unless the new neighbor directly interferes with your operation of your ranch -- for instance, if your neighbor opens a plant that poisons your land.

First-in-time property allows for voluntary communal rights. For example, if you want to set up a commune on an open (or purchased) piece of property, compete with common ownership within the commune, you have that right. Though the language of a "private commune" is odd, it is apt in the sense that the commune is privately held by a particular group of people.

I live in a Homeowner's Association (HOA) in which all of the outdoor property is owned in common and use of indoor property is restricted by covenant. The sort of complex in which I live simply could not operate without such an arrangement (though it does fall into problems typical of collective ownership. I have speculated that federal housing policy drives such property away from an apartment model to a condominium model, but regardless HOAs are permissible in a free market).

If you want to maintain partial ownership rights over your neighbors' property, then you should buy into an HOA. Alternately, a group of neighbors could, by unanimous consent, create an HOA.

Aside from HOAs and conflicts of prior rights, you do not own your neighbor's property and should not have the ability to control it. Real property rights are not subject to majority rule or the whims of petty politicians.

Insecure property rights necessarily breeds conflict.

Chacon continues:

About 130 people testified at the two hearings, and at least twice that many showed up to listen. The huge turnout -- and the divisiveness of the issue -- prompted council members to call on sheriff’s deputies to keep a close eye on the hearings.

The zoning changes, which go into effect in January 2009, created ill feelings among divided neighbors. ...

Supporters said the increased density from the multiple-unit structures was ruining the character of the two neighborhoods, which are comprised of predominately single-family detached homes.

The outcropping of multifamily structures has cast shadows on gardens, increased traffic and created parking wars, among other quality of life issues, they said. ...

But opponents said the rezoning infringes on their property rights and would hobble the redevelopment they say has revitalized the neighborhoods.

Todd Silverman said he bought in the area 10 years ago for several reasons, including the "potential the zoning would afford."

It's unfair that now "certain people want to take away those property rights," he said.

Realtor Susan Pearce agreed. She also said the rezoning could lead to higher housing costs.

You do not own the roads (though someone should), and thus you do not own traffic rights. You have the right to park your car on any property that you own or rent, but not on property that does not belong to you.

The matter of sunlight access (similar to the matter of scenic views) is a trickier one. While it is conceivable that a new user could block another's sunlight in such a way as to significantly impede the original use, I have never heard of such a case. If you buy property in an urban setting, you're hardly counting on unimpeded sunlight for your livelihood. The notion that a partial "shadow" on one's garden may constitute a violation of property rights seems pretty silly. An HOA can properly control such things, but otherwise the owner should be able to determine use. Of course, you are welcome to purchase your neighbor's land -- or an easement on that land -- in order to preserve your views or prevent shadowing.

Defining property rights is no trivial matter, particularly when it involves such things as moving water and air. Yet property rights can be securely defined through objective laws and the courts. A mark of secure property rights is that they cannot be overturned by vote.

To a large degree, property rights have been subverted by zoning controls. The inevitable result is the sort of conflict and injustice seen in these Denver neighborhoods.

Tax-Subsidized Recreation Brings Conflict

The following article originally appeared in Grand Junction's Free Press.

April 28, 2008

Fruita rec center another zero-sum game

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

In our last article, we discussed Barack Obama's confusion about zero-sum games, situations in which one person's gain comes at another's loss. Michelle Obama perfectly summarizes the zero-sum mentality (as reported by Neal Boortz[via Myrhaf):

"The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."

We don't think that people's pies, or their pay checks, belong to national politicians. Or to local politicians, for that matter.

A defining characteristic of a free market is that people are able to make mutually-beneficial transactions. One person's gain is the other person's gain.

A fun place to view the workings of the free market is Down Town Grand Junction during Farmers Market. But even here the invisible hand that Adam Smith talked about can go unnoticed. We do not see the thousands of exchanges of goods and services that came before a single apple could be sold at the Farmers Market. Breeding, planting, irrigation, fertilizer, tractors, haulers -- the list goes on and on -- made possible the apples we buy at market.

The free market system is beautiful to see, so why would anyone want to upset the apple cart?

Farmer John's apple cart competes with other apple carts and also, to an extent, with many other businesses. If we buy apples, we have less money to spend elsewhere. Yet if Farmer John offers quality apples at a good price, he'll make sales.

Now imagine that, one day, Farmer John notices a new apple cart across the street, one run by the government. The latest freeze was less frightening. These apples are subsidized by taxpayers, whether they eat the apples or not. Because the government forces people to subsidize its apples, Farmer John suddenly faces lost sales and, perhaps, bankruptcy.

Moreover, because people lose more money to taxation, they have less to spend with the lemonade stand, the dance teacher, and so on, who in turn have less money to spend for goods and services that they want.

The government's apples are seen, as Henry Hazlitt would say, whereas all the goods that are not produced, and all the services that are not offered, are unseen.

Subsidized apples are an example of a zero-sum game. Some people's gain -- the employees and customers of the government's subsidized apple cart -- imposes a loss on others -- Farmer John and everyone else who loses business.

True, there are winners and losers in a free market, but the difference is that, in a free market, exchanges are voluntary, so the losers are those who fail to satisfy their customers; the system remains one of positive gains. In zero-sum politics, the resources of some are forcibly transfered to others, creating a net loss.

Substitute a recreation center for an apple cart and we arrive in Fruita, notably a town that did not get its name from government-run fruit production.

Recently the people of Fruita voted on a measure to use tax dollars to build a city-owned recreation center. The measure failed on a tie vote.

This issue has divided the community of Fruita, and this is not surprising. Half of the community is willing to use governmental force, ultimately at the point of a gun, on their neighbors to build the center. (If our claim strikes you as overly dramatic, try writing a letter explaining that you choose not to pay your taxes, and see what happens to you.)

Is a recreation center a good idea for Fruita? We don't know. If it is, then it will be profitable on a free market. Those who want the center can raise the capital, build the facility, offer the services, and pay for it all by charging their customers (or collecting voluntary donations). Just like any other business.

But if the recreation center cannot be built without government force, it shouldn't be built at all. The government has no more business offering recreational services than it does selling fruit. The government should not subsidize some people's pet recreational activities at the expense of movie theaters, dance instructors, ski slopes, Boy and Girl Scouts, restaurants, 4H, tour guides, outdoors stores, rafting companies, and so on.

Even a small tax can have large effects when spread out over a city's population. Moreover, a government that can forcibly transfer a little wealth can forcibly transfer a lot of wealth. A few dollars here, a few dollars there, and suddenly the total tax burden approaches half our income. Families that would rather spend their money on an ice cream cone or put it toward the college fund, rather than toward a recreation center, have that right.

Zero-sum politics diminishes neighborly trust because it harms some to benefit others. The alternative is the positive-sum, voluntary free market.

Apocalyptic Environmentalism

Ronald Bailey recently made some interesting comparisons between environmentalism and evangelical Christianity:

Environmentalism arose as a movement just a few years before the Moral Majority, with an end-of-the-world undercurrent that harked back to the millenarian sects of the Second Great Awakening. Green millenarians do not expect a wrathful God to end the corrupt world in a rain of fire; instead, humanity will die by its own gluttonous, polluting hand.

Such apocalyptic visions were limned in Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring, which predicted massive cancer epidemics as a result of chemical contamination of the environment. Paul Ehrlich asserted in his 1968 book The Population Bomb that in the 1970s "hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." And the Club of Rome's 1972 report The Limits to Growth announced the imminent, catastrophic depletion of nonrenewable resources. ... The Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that "civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." Even the staid New York Times editorial page warned of the human species' "possible extinction." It wasn’t so far from the evangelists' fears of a literal Armageddon, embodied in books like Hal Lindsey's best-selling The Late Great Planet Earth (1970).

Although all those predictions failed, environmentalism still exhibits millenarian tendencies. Former Vice President Al Gore has warned that man-made global warming is producing a climate crisis that might "make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage to the planet's habitability for human civilization."

Is it any wonder that evangelicals are turning increasingly green?

Despite environmentalist scare mongering, the Industrial Revolution has been the greatest boon to human beings.

It turns out that humans almost did go extinct once, about 70,000 years ago. Fox reports:

The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.

The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age. ...

The report was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. ...

Paleontologist Meave Leakey, a Genographic adviser, commented: "Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction?"

What? You mean the whether used to change even when people had a miniscule "carbon footprint?" The difference was that, back then, people had no ability to deal with climate changes.

Anyone who doubts the amazing pro-human consequences of the Industrial Revolution need merely glance at a historical population chart.

It is ironic, but no coincidence, that the same environmentalist movement that warns of human apocalypse laments the causes of the population explosion.

Schwartz Starts Patient Power Blog

Hooray! Brian Schwartz has started a blog called Patient Power, "brought to you by the Independence Institute."

Within a minute of viewing Schwartz's blog, I learned something new about State Senator Bob Hagedorn's Bill 217, which raises the possibility of new controls and a mandate to force people to buy politician-approved insurance. Schwartz writes:

The Bill Summary for Colorado Senate Bill 08-217 (which I’ve written about here), which would make it a crime for Coloradans not to buy politician-approved medical insurance, includes a link to a report by a group that calls itself “Families USA”* titled Dying For Coverage, which claims that lacking health insurance causes thousands of Coloradans to die each year. ...

* You gotta love the name “Families USA.” If you disagree with their policy recommendations, you must be against families, and worse yet, the USA!

Sure enough, the very first pdf file included in the summary is the Families USA study, which, as I pointed out yesterday, is seriously flawed.

In other words, Hagedorn's bill is motivated by a fabrication.

In his opening post, Schwartz writes:

Why “Patient Power”?

Because this is what government controls have taken away from us. It's what we need to continue to benefit from life-saving medical advances and care, and be satisfied with our experience with physicians, hospitals, and insurance companies.

State and federal policies have wedged insurance companies between between you and your physician, which erodes the doctor-patient relationship. Doctors have more incentive to please insurance companies than they do to please you, the patient. Government controls have also placed your employer between you and medical insurance companies, so insurers seek to please employers, and not you. ...

Patients and doctors alike owe Schwartz thanks for defending their liberties.

Tanner: Families USA Health Study Flawed

Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute wrote an article for today's Rocky Mountain News that criticizes a recent study by Families USA. That study, Tanner summarizes, claims " that 360 Colorado residents die each year because they lack health insurance." Tanner notes that, "all things being equal, it is better to be insured than uninsured," but Families USA misstates the actual problem.

Tanner writes:

The Families USA study was not a traditional "double blind" experiment with a control group and a treatment group. Rather, it is a retrospective analysis, which compared the rates of people who died with insurance to those who died without insurance. Since the proportion of people without insurance seemed to be higher than those with insurance, they extrapolated likelihood to project excess deaths due to lack of insurance. But there are just too many outside variables to make such interpretations valid.

Even the Urban Institute's Jack Hadley, who co-authored a similar Institute of Medicine study cited by Families USA has said that "observational studies . . . cannot answer the question of whether health insurance directly affects health outcomes." And a detailed review of the academic literature by Helen Levy and David Meltzer of the University of Chicago Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies found little proof of a "causal relationship" between health insurance and better health.

Moreover, the reason that many people cannot afford insurance is that political controls have priced them out of the market. Yet Families USA is dedicated to promoting even more political control of medicine.

Tanner continues:

One thing we know for certain is that government-run health-care systems frequently deny critical procedures to patients who need them. For example, at any given time, 750,000 Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals, and shortages force the NHS to cancel as many as 50,000 operations each year. And in Canada, more than 800,000 patients are currently on waiting lists for medical procedures. ... A study by Christopher J. Conover with the Center for Health Policy, Law and Management in the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University found that as many as 22,000 Americans die each year from the costs associated with excess regulation.

Tanner notes that various mandated benefits in Colorado significantly increase the cost of health insurance.

It's quite a coincidence that the flawed Families USA study popped just before State Senator Bob Hagedorn starting pushing bill 217, which, originally, advocated forcing individuals to buy health insurance.

Hagedorn recently said that 217 is "the antithesis of what Massachusetts has done." Yet 217 still creates the possibility of an individual mandate, the core of the Massachusetts plan.

The Daily Sentinel reports, "Senate Bill 217 would have carriers submit plans to the state rather than have the state dictate the kinds of plans it would require carriers to offer, Hagedorn said."

What a joke. Bill 217 would in fact dictate what sort of plans carriers must submit. Moreover, once the plans are submitted, the legislature can continue to impose more controls on them.

It is interesting, though, that Hagedorn is now running away from Massachusetts, even though the Massachusetts plan is in fact the primary model for proposed plans in Colorado. Paul Hsieh has collected numerous stories describing the problems with the Massachusetts plan.

If reformers such as Hagedorn get their way, perhaps politicians in other states can pretend that their statist proposals are the "the antithesis of what Colorado has done."

Doug, Doug, Doug

As a long-time advocate of open immigration, I'm as annoyed as anyone by Douglas Bruce's comments about the "5,000 more illiterate peasants in the state of Colorado" should Marsha Looper's guest-worker bill pass. While I have not read the details of the bill in question, I support the general idea. I first met Looper before she joined the legislature when she was working for property rights, and I respect her all the more for sponsoring such a bill.

However, The Denver Post is having a bit more fun with this than is necessary. Jessica Fender's article, which also includes a link to the video recording of Bruce's comments, carries the headline, "Bruce barred from speaking after 'illiterate' remark." Fine. But, for a time on Monday night, the Post's web page blared, "Bruce calls Mexicans 'illiterate'." That claim is not accurate.

It's obviously not true that workers from Mexico are illiterate as a group, though I suppose a fraction of them are. I suspect that migrant workers are less-well educated than average citizens of both Mexico and the U.S. I've also met Mexicans -- both in Mexico and in the U.S. -- who are a lot smarter and better educated than either Bruce or me. Moreover, I suspect that a greater fraction of immigrants from Mexico are literate in two languages relative to the native U.S. population. However, while, according to the CIA's World Factbook, 99 percent of the U.S. population is literate, only 91 percent of the Mexican population is so.

But Bruce's main problem is not that he's wrong in claiming that mostly-literate people are illiterate, but that suggesting that literacy is relevant to the issue. Even if it were the case that all 5,000 new immigrants would be illiterate, that would not justify a vote against the bill. U.S. employers have a right to hire willing workers, and people have a right to seek work, whether or not the employees are literate.

I knew as soon as Bruce kicked the photographer on his first day on the job that he had set himself up as a story. He now has a reputation that he'll never be able to shake. And the Post is more than happy to report all of Bruce's zaniness, because the Post has a long-standing antipathy to the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, which Bruce was instrumental in promoting. The Post loves the idea of making Bruce the poster-boy for TABOR. Which means that Bruce has done more than tarnish his own reputation; he has made it harder for advocates of restrained taxation to make their case over the noise.

The fact that various conservatives simultaneously claim to back TABOR and oppose immigration shows only that they don't understand what economic liberty is all about. Not only do I welcome peaceable, productive Mexicans to the U.S., but I want them to bear the lowest tax burden possible.

Gore Not Green Enough

As the environmentalist frenzy heightens, even Al Gore finds himself targeted for his un-green ways. A story from Fox reports:

Look out, Al Gore... People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says you are refusing to face one very "inconvenient truth."

On Monday, the animal rights organization launched the campaign offsetalgore.com (conveniently timed for Earth Day) in an attempt to counter the effects that they say the former vice president's meat-laden diet has on Mother Nature.

While reps for Gore had no comment, Pop Tarts confirmed with people who have worked with the ex-veep that he loves his steak and sausage, plus he was notorious for chowing down on the almost all-meat Atkins diet during his run for president.

A recent report published by the United Nations determined that raising animals for food generates about 40 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, ships and planes in the world combined.

Of course, PETA is using green paint to coat its animal-rights agenda. PETA wouldn't approve of eating meat even if it reduced greenhouse gas emissions. But vegetarianism is also very much an environmentalist issue. It is telling that Gore, who has done more than perhaps anyone else to publicize global warming, is now the target of environmentalists.

Ultimately, environmentalism holds that it is a moral crime to be alive as a human being, for living as a human being requires the use of natural resources. If environmentalists succeeded at banning meat, then they would go after modern farming, which has vastly expanded the world's population while lifting much of the world out of poverty, for farming too has an environmental impact. It is no coincidence that some environmentalists yearn for the era when the earth's population of humans was a tiny fraction of what it is today, and humans lived barely above the level of the animals around them.

Let Them Drink Gas

Environmentalism continues to harm and kill people, especially the world's poor. The corn-gas laws have become a significant contributor to higher food prices and a widespread food shortage. Steven Milloy writes:

"When millions of people are going hungry, it’s a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels," an Indian government official told the Wall Street Journal. Turkey’s finance minister labeled the use of biofuels as "appalling," according to the paper.

Biofuels have turned out to be a lose-lose-lose proposition. Once touted by the greens and the biofuel industry as being able to reduce the demand for oil and lower greenhouse gas emissions, biofuels have accomplished neither goal and have no prospect for accomplishing either in the foreseeable future.

The latest research shows that biofuels actually increase greenhouse gas emissions on a total lifecycle basis. Add in that taxpayer-subsidized diversion of food crops and food crop acreage to fuel production has contributed to higher food prices and reduced food supply, and biofuels turn out to be nothing less than a public policy disaster.

Did you get that? The environmentalist corn-gas laws not only hurt the world's poor, but they worsen the environment, at least according to the environmentalists' own standards.

This is not merely an accident; this is the way that socialistic policies work. There are two broad problems inherent in the environmentalists' socialist agenda. First, political controls, by forcibly transferring resources and either banning or mandating certain actions, negate people's ability to apply their personal knowledge to the problems that interest them. Second, political wealth transfers and controls necessarily become mired in special-interest warfare, as various groups vie for the transferred resources and for protectionist legislation. Thus, socialistic measures to "protect" the environment are unlikely to do much regarding the environment, but they are very likely to waste resources and reward the corrupt.

Milloy notes that many environmentalists are doing everything within their power to halt energy production:

As the Sierra Club campaigns to shut down our coal-fired electricity capabilities, the Natural Resources Defense Council campaigns to prevent nuclear power from taking its place. ...

Millions in the developing world have died and continue to do so from the greens' campaign against pesticides such as DDT. Nothing less should be expected from their new campaign that threatens global food and energy production.

So long as environmentalism holds that untouched nature is the moral ideal, the necessary consequence is the sacrifice of people to nature. (Preserving tracts of nature for human enjoyment is a different story.) To the extend that environmentalism puts people first, it becomes something other than environmentalism. I don't much mind "environmentalists for nukes," as Mother Jones calls them, except that such environmentalists tend to fall into old-school, left-wing politics. Those with a sincere interest in environmental issues and free-market capitalism are an unfortunately rare breed.

CCW for School Safety

Recently I mentioned an "empty holster" protest planned for the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Diana Hsieh argues in The Gazette that faculty should be allowed to harry concealed handguns:

I'm a graduate student instructor at CU Boulder. Since 2001 I've been licensed to carry a concealed firearm in Colorado. Every time I hear of a new school shooting, I worry that some psychopath might unleash his rage on my campus. University policy forbids any firearms on campus. I obey that policy but it won't stop a killer from waltzing onto campus armed to the teeth. So if my students and I were in his path, we could only cower in fear in a corner of the classroom, helplessly waiting for him to kill us.

If the university respected my concealed carry permit, my good aim could protect my students from such an unthinkable end. Since I'm a law-abiding citizen trained in the proper use of firearms, my gun poses no danger whatsoever to other peaceful people.

To forbid a trained staff member from carrying a concealed handgun is dangerous and insanely stupid.

People Day

As some prepare to celebrate Earth Day on April 22, I look forward to celebrating People Day. Yes, the earth is valuable -- for people. I love the earth -- because I get to live here.

Two great writers recently have taken on environmentalist hysteria.

The first is Vincent Carroll, a major reason why the Rocky Mountain News is the best newspaper in the region. Carroll writes:

In the global trajectory of greenhouse emissions, my conservation is meaningless. Yours is, too. What's more, even yours and mine together -- even combined with the conservation of every American who takes similar action - is not significant, either. ...

[M]ost of the world's inhabitants are still poor. They want electricity; they want mobility. And fulfilling their aspirations is going to boost greenhouse gases to a degree that utterly dwarfs any possible tempering of our own energy appetites.

Environmentalism is largely a religion because it encourages pointless acts to lighten one's guilt for the moral crime of living on earth. Much recycling is a waste of resources (particularly if we take time, the most important human resource, into account). Corn gas has done nothing to fix global warming, though it has contributed to a global food crisis. People spend thousands of extra dollars to drive hybrid cars -- some of which get worse gas mileage than my standard car, and which require more resources to produce. There might as well be an environmentalist Rosary.

Carroll concludes:

If there are environmental heroes among us, they are the scientists and technicians who someday figure out how the world can produce much, much more affordable energy -- which it is going to need -- without adding to greenhouse emissions. In that drama, most of us are fated to be spectators.

Craig Biddle has gone to the next step:

Because Earth Day is intended to further the cause of environmentalism—and because environmentalism is an anti-human ideology -- on April 22, those who care about human life should not celebrate Earth Day; they should celebrate Exploit-the-Earth Day. ...

Exploiting the Earth -- using the raw materials of nature for one’s life-serving purposes -- is a basic requirement of human life. According to environmentalism, however, man should not use nature for his needs; he should keep his hands off “the goods”; he should leave nature alone, come what may.

[I]f the good is nature untouched by man, how is man to live? What is he to eat? What is he to wear? Where is he to reside? How can man do anything his life requires without altering, harming, or destroying some aspect of nature? In order to nourish himself, man must consume meats, vegetables, fruits, and the like. In order to make clothing, he must skin animals, pick cotton, manufacture polyester, and the like. In order to build a house—or even a hut—he must cut down trees, dig up clay, make fires, bake bricks, and so forth. Each and every action man takes to support or sustain his life entails the exploitation of nature. Thus, on the premise of environmentalism, man has no right to exist.

Biddle is criticizing the essence of environmentalism: the view that the earth is intrinsically valuable, apart from the interests of people. Of course, there are self-proclaimed environmentalists who say they want to improve the human condition through better technology. For some environmentalists, this is just a cover, a way to package their statist, anti-human agenda in populist terms. But others seriously think humans should exploit the earth for their own well-being. But the fact that such environmentalists cannot admit to this shows that they are still operating from an essentially religious viewpoint.

Brook: End Tax Social-Engineering

Tax season is now behind us. But it's not. Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute points out in an article for Forbes that, with 66,000 pages of tax code controlling our lives, tax day is every day.

After offering numerous examples of the way that the tax code skews incentives, Brook summarizes:

Tax policy works by attaching financial incentives to a long list of values deemed morally worthy. If you want to maximize your wealth come tax time--and who doesn't?--you must look at the world through tax-colored glasses, "voluntarily" adjusting your behavior to suit social norms and thereby qualifying for tax breaks. In this way, the social engineers of tax policy preserve the impression that you're exercising free choice, while they're actually dispensing with your reason and your judgment.

Brook then briefly describes the proper alternative:

Government's job is not to dictate your values but to protect them. In a free country, you choose values and then use your own money as a tool to achieve them. But a value-rigged tax policy reverses this cause and effect--it uses your money against you, bribing you with tax breaks that let you keep some of your earnings in exchange for abandoning your preferred values.

Brook's entire article is worth perusal. Brook's topic is delimited, so he does not touch upon all of the misincentives of the tax code. A huge problem is that high taxes reduce the incentive to produce. Taxes also reduce the division of labor. Work you do for money is taxed, while work you do for yourself is not taxed. Thus, rather than spend their time working in their field of speciality, many people divert some of their time to doing things they don't especially enjoy and aren't particularly good at, such as fixing the car or painting the house. But these are just two more examples of the way that taxes distort incentives. The combined effects are massive.

Presidential Candidates Play Zero-Sum Games

The following article originally was published by Grand Junction's Free Press on April 14, 2008.

Presidential candidates play zero-sum games

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

When you walk into any store and trade your money for a product, often both you and the clerk will say, "Thank you." The reason for this is that, in a voluntary exchange, both parties benefit. The same is true at your job. Employers value the labor of employees and pay for it, while employees value the paycheck and other benefits enough to do the work.

In a free-market system that bars fraud, stops the initiation of force, and protects people's property rights, one person's gain is another person's gain. And when people can count on the legal protection of their property, they invest in new skills, machines, factories, technologies, and other capital. Over time, this raises people's productivity and real wages, leading to a growing economy.

A thief rejects mutually-beneficial exchange. If a hold-up man takes $100 from you by force, then the thief is better off financially for the moment, but you are worse off by the same amount. Such a situation is sometimes called a "zero-sum game." Some people gain at the expense of others.

When a society becomes plagued by zero-sum interactions, the result is economic destruction. To the extent that people fear that the fruits of their labor will be taken from them by force, they stop producing, trading, and investing. For example, look at much of Africa.

Unfortunately, while the United States was founded on the ideals of liberty, government limited to the protection of rights, and secure property, today's presidential candidates actively promote the zero-sum games of political controls.

In his famous speech on race, Barack Obama worried that, for many working people, "opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense." He added, "the path to a more perfect union... requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper."

But by "investing" Obama does not mean that individuals should be free to invest in their children's education or a company, or even to donate voluntarily to charity. Americans don't need Obama to tell them that getting an education, contracting for quality health care, and saving for the future are good ideas.

No, what Obama means by "investing" is that he wants to take more of your money by force and give it to others, of course with a huge chunk taken out to pay the salaries of bureaucrats.

For example, Obama wants to socialize medicine. That means that you will have to pay through the nose in taxes in order to wait in line to get "free" health care that sucks. (For some of the problems that other countries are experiencing with health care, see Michael Tanner's recent Cato paper, "The Grass is Not Always Greener.")

Forced welfare, as opposed to voluntary charity, tends to promote dependency and irresponsible behaviors. And tax-funded "investment" in jobs means siphoning money out of the productive economy to reward special interests.

In other words, most of Obama's policies promote zero-sum games, in which some gain at the expense of others.

But it's not like John McCain is much better. Last November, Matt Welch wrote for the Los Angeles Times, "McCain... wants to restore your faith in the U.S. government by any means necessary, even if that requires thousands of more military deaths, national service for civilians and federal micromanaging of innumerable private transactions. He'll kick down the doors of boardroom and bedroom, mixing Democrats' nanny-state regulations with the GOP's red-meat paternalism in a dangerous brew of government activism."

To pick out one of those examples, forcing people to "serve" others (a practice we thought was outlawed in the United States) fails to recognize the benefits of liberty and mutually-beneficial exchanges. In a free society, people are free to give of their time and money to others. But the choice is left to them, and people are not free to forcibly give away the time or money that belongs to somebody else.

McCain asks you to "sacrifice your life" to "a cause greater than yourself." In general, we're opposed to human sacrifices, but especially when a political leader defines how and for what you are to sacrifice yourself. Didn't we already do the century in which political leaders asked their countrymen to sacrifice their lives to the state?

Given McCain's guiding principle of sacrifice, we expect him to be a fair-weather friend -- at best -- to voluntary, mutually-beneficial, free-market exchanges, despite his occasionally market-friendly rhetoric.

We don't know who will become the next president. But we fear that whoever wins will do his or her damnedest to make sure that the rest of us lose.

Affirmative Action: Complaining Signer Wasn't Registered

Earlier in the month, I wrote about claims that petition circulators for an initiative to end racial discrimination (including affirmative action) at the state level used deceit to collect signatures.

I quoted from the complaint sent by Chloe Johnson to the Secretary of State: "... I was approached by a petition circulator who asked me to sign a petition that would end discrimination in Colorado... I questioned this petitioner knowing that we already had laws to prevent this but he told me that they would no longer be effective in the following months."

I noted that, from three formal complaints and various news reports, Johnson offered the "single example of somebody who claims to have signed a petition after hearing deceitful claims from a petition circulator."

Now, it turns out, Johnson was not eligible to sign the petition, because she was not registered to vote.

FaceTheState reports:

A Democrat state legislative aide who had claimed to be a victim of voter fraud saw her complaint dismissed after state officials learned that she was not a registered voter.

On February 26, Chloe Johnson filed a complaint with Secretary of State Mike Coffman's office alleging that she was tricked into supporting Amendment 46, also known as the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, a ballot effort designed to end race and gender preferences in government hiring, education, and contracting. The complaint was formally dismissed by the state's Office of Administrative Courts because Johnson never registered to vote.

“I wasn’t a registered elector at the time, so they dismissed my case,” said Johnson. “I thought I was registered and that I registered last year when I turned 18.” ...

Johnson claims that she signed the petition because she believes in “preventing discrimination anywhere," but that after signing it and during the course of her legislative internship with Rep. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, she became outraged when she learned that the initiative would not "end discrimination," but was "in fact a petition for anti-affirmative action." ...

Upset by this revelation, Johnson says she called the office of Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, and requested that her name be removed from the petition. She was instructed to contact Coffman's office about the matter, which she did, leading her to subsequently file a complaint.

So, given that Johnson's claim is bunk, and given that affirmative action is a type of discrimination, I have yet to hear a single, credible, first-hand account of someone who claims to have signed the petition after being deceived.

And this was a story worthy of the attention of the mighty New York Times?

If there is a real problem here, then surely someone can point me to actual evidence showing a problem. I will be happy to post an update just as soon as somebody does that.

Ritter Signs Blue-Law Repeal

Starting July 1, Coloradans will be able to purchase liquor in stores on Sundays. The Rocky Mountain News reports:

With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Bill Ritter today signed into law a bill that makes Colorado the 35th state to permit liquor stores to open Sunday.

“This is a law whose time has finally come,” Ritter said in a statement. “The ban on Sunday sales was an antiquated law that long ago outlived its usefulness or relevance.” ...

The new law came about after liquor store owners dropped their long-standing opposition to Sunday sales.

They made the switch to head off legislation that would have allowed grocery and convenience stores to sell full-strength beer and wine. Lawmakers killed that bill in the face of strong opposition from liquor store owners.

So Colorado continues to suffer from a host of political controls on the liquor industry. Liquor stores can't sell food, and grocery stores can't sell anything but 3.2 beer (except in one location per chain). Nor can liquor stores start chains. Also, Sunday car sales continue to be illegal.

But we can buy bottled booze on Sundays. It's not much, but it's something. So, thank you Democrats. While many political issues are arcane and confusing, this one is simple and obvious to the common person. During all of its years in the majority, the Republicans did nothing but fight for the Blue Laws against the interests and liberty of consumers. On this issue, the Republicans left it to the Democrats to score one for economic liberty.

April 18 Update: Penn Pfiffner writes:

In your recent blog dealing with a step toward rolling back the Blue Laws, you said:

"During all of its years in the majority, the Republicans did nothing but fight for the Blue Laws against the interests and liberty of consumers. On this issue, the Republicans left it to the Democrats to score one for economic liberty."

True, in that the legislature never acted successfully through those years. I wanted to bring to your attention, however, that I offered legislation to end the Sunday prohibition on both liquor sales and car sales. The Republican-majority Business Affairs Committee killed the bill. If memory serves, this was sometime during the 59th General Assembly (1993 or 1994).

I appreciate Pfiffner's clarification and his work in the legislature and out.

I was referring to Republicans as a party, not to individual Republicans who sided with economic liberty.

Students Plan Empty-Holster Protest

The Denver Post reports:

John Davis, a 30-year-old University of Colorado at Colorado Springs senior and a member of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, said students at CU-Colorado Springs and CU-Boulder will join a national demonstration April 22-25 in which students will wear empty gun holsters. Davis said the display symbolizes that students are "basically defenseless" at school.

The Colorado Springs Gazette editoralizes on the matter (via Paul Hsieh):

[S]tudents at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs want... university officials to lift a dangerous ban on guns that makes the campus vulnerable to suicidal mass murderers and other brands of psychotics that are known to prey on college students. ...

A group of local students have formed the UCCS chapter of "Students for Concealed Carry on Campus." ... This is a matter of public safety and human lives. To a suicidal psycho, a classroom full of unarmed students is opportunity. It's that simple. To forbid trained students from wearing their guns is to set a stage for murder. CU regents should change the policy, immediately, before the blood is on their hands.

Of course, I argue, first, that all educational facilities should be privately owned and funded, and second, that all private establishments have the right to independently set such policies as gun carrying. What would I do if I were running a private college? I would pay for any faculty member who wanted to participate to receive firearms training and acquire a concealed-carry permit and quality handgun. I would also allow qualified, trained students to carry concealed handguns on campus, but I would subject the practice to fairly rigorous rules.

Nuts and Bolts of 217 Anti-Health Bill

I've been writing about Senate Bill 217, which seeks to impose Massachusetts-style health controls in Colorado, so I thought it was a good time to pull a few quotes from the bill itself. Colorado's legislative bills can be downloaded at the state legislature's web page. Click on "All Versions," and download the confusingly labeled "Preamended" version. This version of the bill states, "This Unofficial Version Includes Committee Amendments Not Yet Adopted on Second Reading." Additional versions of the bill may appear as it moves through the legislature.

Section 1(e) states that the bill would create "a balanced partnership between private and public sectors." Translation: politicians are going to control the health-insurance market to an even greater extent than they do already.

Section 2(a)(I) creates a new commission, a "panel of expert advisors appointed by the govern," composed of actuaries and insurance insiders, which "shall prepare a request for proposals to be issued to health insurance companies." The companies will be asked to describe "Value Benefit Plans," or VBPs. Section 2(b) describes how the VBPs are supposed to work. They must include "benefits for primary and preventive care participation in wellness programs, and incentives for plan participants to engage in healthier behavior."

In other words, the VBPs will be high-cost, all-encompassing plans, not real insurance with high deductibles, like my wife and I currently purchase.

Here's a big one: subsection VIII specifies that VBPs must take all comers, regardless of health, and charge everybody of the same age and region the same rate. In other words, the plans would force some people to subsidize the health expenses of others.

And here's the penultimate requirement: XII states that the plans must "assume that all Colorado residents would be required to purchase health insurance."

But Section 3 pushes the real work onto the 2010 legislature. "[T]he governor may reject proposals..." "If the governor recommends legislation and the general assembly chooses to pursue legislation..."

To quote the infamous Jayne Cobb, I'm smelling a lot of "if" coming off of this plan.

But, "if" the 2010 legislature chooses to screw Coloradans with more political controls of medicine, then it will impose mandates and a "mechanism to enforce" mandates "through the state tax laws." The insurance plans would, of course, be subject to political approval. What the bill does not mention is that the plans would be subject to continual special-interest pressure to keep forcing up premiums.

Nor does the bill mention that the reason health insurance is too expensive for many people to afford is that politicians have for decades been undermining the insurance market with tax distortions, forced wealth transfers, and reams of mandates. SB 217 would impose more of the same.

Hillman Defends Liberty in Medicine

Mark Hillman, a former Republican state senator, has come out with an excellent critique of a new legislative proposal to impose Massachusetts-style health controls in Colorado. The measure, Senate Bill 217, would force everyone to buy politically-approved health insurance and expand health welfare. I lambasted the proposal yesterday.

In a Speakout for the Rocky Mountain News, Hillman explains:

In calling for health insurance companies to design "value benefit plans" to provide a low-cost insurance alternative, the bill says that the state "shall not specify benefits or other details" of those plans. Just two paragraphs later, however, the bill stipulates a dozen mandated benefits or other details that value benefit plans must include.

Essentially, insurers are prohibited from proposing anything that's remotely innovative. They are commanded not to "interfere with the existing small-group market" but are locked into the same rating criteria that has devastated that market for most of the last decade. ...

SB 217 does change the existing health-care market in one dramatic respect, by signaling to insurance companies that state government is ready to force its incorrigible citizens to buy health insurance, even if it's unaffordable.

The bill calls for "a requirement that all Coloradans obtain health insurance either individually or through their employer" and provides for enforcement "though the state tax laws."

Rather than allow insurers to offer new choices or allow consumers to obtain coverage across state lines where Colorado's draconian regulations aren't strangling the market, legislators prefer to penalize taxpayers for the audacity of refusing to buy insurance that costs too much.

Hillman's analysis is right on. I can only hope his former colleagues are paying attention. It's nice to see that a leader of Hillman's stature -- and a party man to boot -- takes seriously liberty in Colorado.

CO to Adopt MA Health Disaster?

Welcome to Colorful... Massachusetts?

The Massachusetts health mandates have been a disaster. As Paul Hsieh, MD, summarizes:

The state of Massachus