Tonight during President Obama’s press conference the president fielded a question about the Mayo Clinic’s reaction to the House health care bill.  Over the past two days Mayo Clinic has posted two updates to their previous statement regarding the house health care bill.  It will be interesting to see how this story plays out over the next few days.

From Mayo Clinic’s Health Policy Blog, 7/21/09

Although there are some positive provisions in the current House Tri-Committee bill – including insurance for all and payment reform demonstration projects – the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher-quality, more affordable health care for patients. In fact, it will do the opposite.

In general, the proposals under discussion are not patient focused or results oriented. Lawmakers have failed to use a fundamental lever – a change in Medicare payment policy – to help drive necessary improvements in American health care. Unless legislators create payment systems that pay for good patient results at reasonable costs, the promise of transformation in American health care will wither. The real losers will be the citizens of the United States.

Recently, President Obama was interviewed by Diane Sawyer on ABC and had the following to say about the Mayo Clinic:

SAWYER: …patients. It is time for Americans to recognize they’re going to get fewer scans, fewer procedures, fewer tests, because the vicious cycle has to stop?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think what’s important is to say to the American People that you should get the best possible care to make you well. And that the measure of the quality of care is not quantity, but whether or not it is making you better. Now, what we’ve seen is that there’s some communities and some health systems that do this very well. Mayo Clinic, a classic example. In Rochester, Minnesota. People go there. They…spend about 20-30 percent less than some other parts of the country, and yet have better outcomes. And in other cases, you’ve got more spending, worse outcome. So, what we’ve said is let’s put out the research. Let’s study and figure out what works and what doesn’t. And let’s encourage doctors and patients to get what works. Let’s discourage what doesn’t. Let’s make sure that our payment incentives allow doctors to do the right thing. Because sometimes our payment incentives don’t allow them to do the right things. And if we do that, then I’m confident that we can drive down costs significantly.

Ok, so now that people are starting to get upset about government spending the inevitable conservation on government efficiency comes up. You hear arguments against pork spending, wasteful spending, and excessive spending for certain projects. Arguments will call for cutting programs, cutting taxes, or raising taxes in order to make the government more efficient. I must say, all of this misses the point. Government cannot EVER be efficient.

Awhile back I read an article on “The Myth of Efficient Government Service” by Murray N. Rothbard who is a somewhat well known economist and libertarian thinker. While I’m not a huge fan of all his work this article makes a number of great points. Murray argues that efficiency only comes from a scenario where you have a risk of losing something. In government, unlike the free-market, you have no risk and almost unlimited resources. The effect of this is that the government has no rational way of allocating resources and no measure of success or failure that would create efficiency of money.

One point the article does not cover well is the fact that government has no “at risk” investors. You could argue that anyone holding a t-bill is an investor but whether or not they get paid is not dependent on the profit of the USA for that year as the US is not going out of business (yet). So when you pay taxes you basically become a customer. As such you want the most for your money. Since our system permits unlimited borrowing you can always get more for your money which keeps you electing the people giving out the services. Thus we have an inherent incentive to not be efficient in terms of dollars but rather be efficient in giving citizens anything they want.

I could go on but I want to get to my final point. Government will always be inefficient because of its inherent nature. The only way to solve this is NOT to have less inefficiency or attempts at running government like a business but to have less government in general.

1.  What do you mean by that?

2.  Where do you get your information?

3.  How do you know you are right?

4.  What happens if you are wrong?

Can you think of other questions to ask?  Comment below.

Psalm 1:1-3

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.  In all that he does, he prospers.

HT Pics: interfacelift

Examine, for instance, this exchange between commenter EJDolbow and myself:

Me: It’s amazing how a website page that says, “coming soon” can compel such animosity. Sheesh.

EJDolbow: Mike Huckabee damaged the Republican Party. He needs to go away and stay away.

I might interject that perhaps the current Republican party orthodoxy might need to be damaged. But that is another discussion. Continuing,

Me: But, one thing is for certain: I thought conservative not only supported, but advocated, divesrity of ideas in the public arena. So why are some many self-proclaimed conservatives suggesting that “[h]e needs to go away and stay away?”

EJDolbow: The reason he needs to go away is because he is attaching himself like a sucker to this party. If he wants to split and start the Party of Pastors, that would be great.

I said in following comments that it is a bedrock principle of Conservative thought that the diversity of ideas should not only be defended, but advocated and advanced as well. What the particular commenter I have highlighted, as well as several others not highlighted, have suggested is that Huckabee needs to go away. To be fair, they probably do not really mean that he should literally go away (as in get out of politics), but I wonder what they really do mean?

On the show yesterday, Dobson declined to elaborate whether he would support any of the three candidates running for President, but he did say that he would participate in the November elections because other offices besides the Presidency will be on the ballot. True to form, Sean Hannity tried to warm Dr. Dobson to a McCain presidency by trying to alleviate Dobson’s concerns about McCain’s social positions. Hannity told Dobson that just a few weeks ago John McCain pledged to support both the marriage and pro-life planks of the Republican platform.

But should this alleviate the concerns of social conservatives? I do not believe so. Let’s first examine the relevant exchange between Sean Hannity and John McCain.

HANNITY: And I think one of the areas that came up the most is would you leave the pro-life language in the platform and the marriage amendment in the platform?

MCCAIN: Yes. But as you know, I believe that the states should make these decisions on the marriage amendment. I am a Federalist and I believe that states like mine and other states that we should amend our state constitutions, and I will stick to that position until such time, if ever, a higher court says that my state or another state has to recognize the other status — another status of marriage.

I am committed to maintaining the unique status of marriage between man and woman. I think it can best be accomplished, and in keeping with my federalist philosophy that states should do as much as possible to have that done at the state level. But if it is overturned by a superior court, I will then obviously support the other path.

The Republican Party Platform calls for two amendments to the Constitution: a human life amendment and a marriage amendment. They read thusly:

We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make it clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

We strongly support President Bush’s call for a Constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage, and we believe that neither federal nor state judges nor bureaucrats should force states to recognize other living arrangements as equivalent to marriage…Attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country, and anything less than a Constitutional amendment, passed by the Congress and ratified by the states, is vulnerable to being overturned by activist judges.

John McCain has acquired the reputation of being a “straight talking maverick.” I will not object to the label; I will only say that if straight talking is a virtue, it nevertheless is no virtue to “straight talk” out of both sides of one’s mouth. Hannity’s question was very carefully crafted in order to ensure that John McCain would not have to say that he actually supports the pro-life and marriage planks of the GOP platform. Hannity pulled this off by asking him whether he would leave the language of those issues intact in the platform. The fact is that John McCain does not support either a human life amendment or a federal marriage amendment. Consider McCain’s response to Hannity, for example. After saying that he would not seek to change the marriage amendment language in the Republican platform, McCain goes on to say that he does not actually support what that platform says.

Is Sean Hannity really comfortable going on national television and suggesting to social conservatives that John McCain supports their cause? He does not. What has become clear about McCain is that his straight talk really is just double talk. But what is worse is Sean Hannity’s attempt to advocate McCain’s candidacy to social conservatives by suggesting that he really supports the issues. Is it really supposed to be some consolation that, even though McCain neither supports a human life amendment nor a federal marriage amendment, he nevertheless does not have a problem leaving the human life and marriage amendment language in the platform?