As early as today the Louisiana Senate will be voting on Rep. Kirk Talbot’s HB 1474, which would protect our state against the unconstitutional government micromanagement of intrastate commerce and personal choice also known as the individual mandate for health insurance coverage. The timing of Rep. Talbot’s bill could not be better. As reported by both the New York Times and the Cato Institute, President Obama’s issuance of new health insurance regulations this week emphasizes the dire economic implications of mandated insurance coverage on private businesses and individuals.
Cato Institute
Would you like to read an excessively optimistic view on health care reform? Sen. Mary Landrieu’s op-ed highlights what she believes to be the greatest ObamaCare achievements, praising the full coverage of Louisiana’s children, young adults, and seniors.
Claiming that “congress has finally delivered meaningful health care coverage to all Americans,” Sen. Landrieu argues that the new reform will “save businesses thousands of dollars each year which will allow businesses to potentially increase wages or hire more employees.”
But Sen. Landrieu is overly confident – and even deceptive – because she is neglecting important facts behind the new health care reform: its costs. As Michael Cannon from the Cato Institute points out:
“Obama’s plan [aka: ObamaCare] would vastly increase the size and scope of the federal government, and increase our already record federal deficit”
The Congressional Budget Office estimated costs to be around $940 billion, but this projection takes into account only the costs to expand current health insurance coverage. Considering other unavoidable spending provisions, the costs would amount to around $1.2 trillion. And that is a conservative estimate. Further, the new health care reform will force nearly all Americans to purchase health insurance, set price controls on the private health insurance industry, and increase the federal deficit by providing more than $1 trillion in subsidies.
Sure, Landrieu is right to claim that these reforms will extend coverage to more children, seniors, and sick individuals. Unfortunately she fails to acknowledge that this will not be sustainable in the long run.
Unionized government workers now outnumber unionized workers in the private sector. What does this mean for taxpayers?
Dr. Daniel D’Amico of Loyola University points out, “with collective contracts it is difficult to maintain good incentives for individual job performance.” In other words, better workers get the same wage as lower performing workers. Further, “if a union obtains better terms for its members, then the costs of production paid by employers increase.” The higher production costs will be shifted to the consumer, resulting in higher priced goods and services.
The Cato Institute‘s Chris Edwards analyzes the cost of public-sector unions for our overall economy. Specifically, his statistical analysis shows that the state’s public debt increases as the size of the unionized state workforce increases. Further, Edwards demonstrates that the state’s management quality decreases as the union’s share in the state workforce increases.
Due to their political influence, public-sector unions are not subject to competition and their workers are indirectly granted preferences over non-union members. By relying on government’s preferential treatment, public-sector unions skew market forces: collective bargaining in the public sector creates higher labor costs. Further, states provide lower quality services while taking on increased financial pressures.
In order to safeguard taxpayers’ money, legislators should end their political preference for public unions and limit public unions’ influence by encouraging competition across the public sector. These measures will improve the quality of public services by limiting excessive increases in labor costs and the unnecessary waste of taxpayer money.
As mentioned in a previous post, Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute, in his fine obituary for Jaime Escalante, wrote that the best way to preserve Escalante’s legacy is to “understand why our education system destroyed rather than amplified his success—and then fix it.” Coulson then goes on and accurately presents the success of today’s charter schools as the prime example of promoting innovation and creativity in today’s public schools. Coulson contrasts the burgeoning success of charter networks such as KIPP with the failure of centralized education and its obsolete and out of touch standards.
Despite the astounding success rate of charter schools relative to centralized public schools, not everyone is convinced, and some are ardently resistant. Diane Ravitch, in a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, laments the failure of No Child Left Behind and dismisses charter schools as unsuccessful in reaching their goals. Instead, Ravitch promotes a new set of standards to regulate public school teachers and administrators. Though well-intentioned, Ravitch’s position is wrong.
First, the Cato Institute offers a couple of strong rebuttals to the notion of further centralized standards. Regarding her dubious claim about charter schools, Ms. Ravitch must be oblivious to the well-documented revitalization of education in New Orleans thanks to innovative charter school programs. The solution is not to impose a new set of standards, but to encourage innovative and progressive teaching methods, reward good teachers, and fire bad teachers.
Ms. Ravitch complains that the disparity between public schools students and charter schools students is emblematic of their failure. In fact, it is testament that not enough young children are in charter schools. The facts are ineluctable; charter schools work and are the best bet for public education.
As you likely have seen or heard in the news, Jaime Escalante, the legendary Los Angeles math teacher who inspired the 1982 film Stand and Deliver, passed away last week at age 79. Amid the myriad of obsequies recounting his success in one of the worst school districts in America is a cautionary tale. Escalante challenged and threatened the status quo maintained by Los Angeles’ public school board and, in doing so, provided a blueprint for success in public schools.
However, by actually promoting progress, Escalante was undermining the power of the teachers’ union and, thus, became an enemy. Eventually, fed up with the opposition he faced from resentful career bureaucrats and unqualified school board lackeys, Escalante, along with some of his colleagues at Garfield High, resigned. Not long afterwards, Garfield High’s progress plummeted back to abysmal standards.
Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute produced an excellent piece in last week’s Wall Street Journal recounting Escalante’s remarkable tale, as well as the subtext of the clash between progressive, innovative education and the stagnant power-politics of the status quo. Not content to merely recap Escalante’s considerable accomplishments, Coulson acknowledges that, “The best tribute America can offer Jaime Escalante is to understand why our education system destroyed rather than amplified his success—and then fix it.”
