Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
Shannon Love Megan McArdle asks, if politically-managed health care is so great, why isn’t military health care a shining example to be emulated? [h/t Instapundit]
It’s an important question to ask and answer because the military health-care system is a completely socialized system. If we can politically manage health care in the real world then the military system should be a shining example of medical care in America. Yet care for both for service personnel and their dependents sucks.
Here’s three posts from Instapundit this morning:
ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTION becomes environmental problem. D’oh! — Chemicals used to replace CFCs due to CFCs’ theoretical degradation of the ozone layer now seen as a significant greenhouse gas.
IF THIS HAPPENED IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR, WE’D BE HEARING ABOUT “GREED:” DC subway crash: Regulators had warned to replace aging fleet. — The DC Metro system fails to take unsafe cars out of service.
SACRAMENTO BEE: Dan Walters: Pension hike of a decade ago backfires. — Government-managed pension investment implodes.
What do these stories all have in common? They all demonstrate that government organizations do not systematically make better decisions in the same circumstance than do private organizations.
Sharon (Stan’s Mom): [sighs] Stanley, you know you’re the most imprtant thing to me, right?
Stan: If that’s true, then get back together with Dad for me!
Sharon: Now Stanley, you have to understand how divorce works. When I say, “you’re the most important thing to me,” what I mean is, you’re the most important thing after me and my happiness and my new romances.
Stan: Oh.
I think South Park is the most moral show on TV. Even with all the cursing and gross-out humor, I think it should be shown in Sunday School.
So, the bright bulbs at Obama’s Federal Trade Commission have decided to regulate blogs based on the premise that undisclosed financial relationships between bloggers and businesses could lead bloggers to deceive their readers as to the value of products they blog about. [h/t Instapundit]
If we’re going to regulate speech based on inducements to bias why stop with mere financial relationships? I think we should require all media sources to reveal all possible sources of bias starting with the political affiliations of the publishers and reporters. After all, the media sells stories they advertise as accurate and objective. Shouldn’t consumers have ready access to the information they need to decide if those claims are true?
Megan McArdle makes a very good general point in her post on the illusion that socialism will reduce health-care costs:
We have been trying to control health care costs since the 1970s made it clear that Medicare was going to get really, really expensive. And any idea that you care to name, from comparative effectiveness research to healthcare IT to preventive medicine . . . these have all been on the table for more than thirty years, under one name or another. They haven’t happened.
The answer that those promising magical cost reductions need to ask is “Why haven’t they happened?” and “What has changed to make them feasible now?” But when I ask this question, I get angry demands that I put forward my plan for cost control, rather than merely critiquing everyone else’s. This seems rather like demanding that I put forward my design for a perpetual motion machine before I am allowed to point out problems in the US energy market.
I was reminded of this style of argumentation by Harry Angstrom’s comments in my previous post, where he makes this exact argument. In thinking about it, I realized that a lot of debates with leftists often come down to this type of, “I have an idea and you don’t, therefore I must have the best plan,” argument.