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Sunday, April 23, 2006
The ' 90 foot Rule': Mass Delusion and Abolishing the Laws of Arithmetic
The ' 90 foot Rule', Mass Delusion and Abolishing the Laws of Arithmetic

[ ' The elected leaders of Massachusetts have come up with a novel solution for the vexing problem of paying for health care: abolish the laws of arithmetic...' Alot can be made of ideology, universal health insurance coverage, common sense and political grandstanding. Notwithstanding, perhaps, heading up the list of common sense and the immutable laws of the universe is the absolute perfection baseball's 90 feet. Athough the origins of baseball have been steeped in controversy for over 100 years, one thing remains perfectly clear > baseball's flawless application of the laws of arithmetic has been the linchpin of the great American way of life throughout. Whoever it was that magically derived baseball's 90 foot basepath rule can be considered genius and should be. Considering the constant haps of razor close plays at first base throughout the course of a game, it would seem that even the slightest deviation from the magical distance, less or more, would have rendered the game impotent and historically irrelevant, as with most legistlation that has managed to pass through federal and state houses over this same period. Our suggestion, require the '90 foot rule', by law, to be adhered to in the political arena, with capitol offense fervor, when any attempt is made to address an issue concerning the well-being of the American way of life.]
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EconLog: Issues and insights in economics

Mass Delusion on Health Care
Arnold Kling(April 7, 2006)



In today's Wall Street Journal, the author of a new book on health care policy writes (subscription required--free version here):

    The elected leaders of Massachusetts have come up with a novel solution for the vexing problem of paying for health care: abolish the laws of arithmetic...

    The Massachusetts health plan promises to provide health-insurance companies with subsidies in order to induce them to offer these low-deductible insurance plans. The arithmetic suggests that these subsidies will have to be large -- thousands of dollars larger than the $295 per worker that the state plans to collect from employers that do not provide health insurance.

    The problem of paying for health-care coverage, which politicians are declaring they have "solved," is really just beginning. The only way to make zero-deductible health insurance available at low cost is with a large subsidy; how much will depend on negotiations with insurance companies.


The Massachusetts plan makes a large, open-ended spending commitment, while raising no new taxes, apart from a tiny $295 annual fee to be charged businesses for ......More


Written at 5:21 PM by globalEyeNews.
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