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Peter Orszag: Assessing the Economic Recovery and Future

Council on Foreign Relations
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phiscal Avatar
phiscal
Posts: 45
Posted: 10.09.09, 03:03 PM
Peter Orszag is a mandarin supreme.

It is surprising that such talent has poo pooed then ignored the leading practical proposal for cutting costs fast - that is to give patients control over their own health care dollars. Patients acting as customers, with a little useful information, will find where the system provides value and where it does not far faster than bureaucrats. In fact, anything else can be justifiably perceived as anti-democratic.

Outsourcing one's health care budgeting to insurance companies and Washington for all but the most expensive and rare conditions is bound to promote waste.

I assert that this round of health care reform is too timid. It not only does not even aspire to cut health care costs in half, it likely will increase, not reduce costs, both long-term and short-term.

And it will not appreciably broaden the availability of health care.
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Aaberg Avatar
Aaberg
Posts: 9
Posted: 10.29.09, 04:41 PM
Uhm, the reason anyone can afford expensive healthcare, is because people who may never need it help to pay.
Doing it your way means that people who needs expensive cancer treatment can never hope to pay for it, while those who goes though life without a dent can live happily ignorant and indifferent to the people around them.
I know you Nozickian policies seems all fine and dandy to you, but only if you couldn't give a rat's ass about your fellow humans.
i think your perception of how a fair society works is somewhat naïve.
I can recommend reading Rawls' "A Theory of Justice" to get some understanding of the issue at hand.
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Irene_J Avatar
Irene_J
Posts: 2
Posted: 10.30.09, 02:22 AM
We all want to see a sign of economic recovery - and though statistics do help, they don't illustrate a real street level of improvement. Moody's Economy recently had a piece on the state of economic recovery, especially on Bureau of Labor Statistics and what areas are being hit the hardest. New York City took one square on the chin, and the finance industry is in shambles. Detroit and Flint Michigan also took broadsides with the auto and manufacturing industry sectors both having the bottom drop out. Austin, Texas, and Boulder, Colorado are two cities on the top 5 best cities to weather the recession. That said, some areas show legitimate signs of economic recovery, but others that need definite debt relief.
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