LiberatedSelf.com

Over at ProgressOhio.org, Bret Thompson cited Robert Pear’s New York Times story about a former female Archway Cookie employee from Ashland, OH as an example of “when access to affordable health care is at the whim of your employer”.

The crisis is on display here. Starla D. Darling, 27, was pregnant when she learned that her insurance coverage was about to end. She rushed to the hospital, took a medication to induce labor and then had an emergency Caesarean section, in the hope that her Blue Cross and Blue Shield plan would pay for the delivery.

According to the Anthem Blue Cross Ohio website, a 27 year old non-smoker needing insurance for 1 month with a deductible of $250 and 20% coinsurance would cost $94.41 – so the net cost to wait out the baby is $344.41 + 20% of medical expenses after that.

If that’s too expensive, then your only choice is to induce labor so you can have a c-section, right?

Not really.  Federal law requires hospitals to help with labor and delivery of babies.  If a medical condition means that delivering the baby at the first hospital, then they must safely transport you to another hospital that can.  They can’t turn away mothers in labor “just because they can’t pay”.

This raises a few questions.  First, is the only way Mr. Thompson can persuade people to adopt his favored “non-employer provided healthcare insurance” to publish misleading hype?

I’m guessing he’s advocating taxpayer provided socialized medicine as opposed to the personal responsibility of buying your own insurance and obtaining it from charities if too poor to afford your own.

If Bret thinks “non-employer provided healthcare insurance” is the safety net that would prevent people like Ms. Darling from inducing labor early for economic reasons, then why is it that she still undertook this risky approach when she already has Federal mandates ensuring that her baby must be delivered by a hospital regardless of her ability to pay?!?

Unfortunately, no healthcare strategy will prevent people from undertaking unnecessary healthcare risks for a variety of reasons – real or imagined.  But handwringing articles like those by Pear and Thompson lead people like Ms. Darling to misunderstand their options and perhaps overlook safer alternatives.

Last night’s NBC Nightly News featured some odd unsubstantiated claims regarding the likely effects on the economy if a government bailout failed to prop up automakers.  Specifically I’m addressing comments made by CNBC’s Trish Reagan and Phil LeBeau, another CNBC reporter in this piece:

Here’s Trish’s quote:

"If one of them fails, the entire industry would be at risk."
- Trish Reagan 0:45

And here’s Phil’s":

"If one goes bankrupt, you’ve got a domino effect where it may bring the others into bankruptcy." 
– Phil LeBeau 1:15

Both seem to assert that the major auto manufacturers, GM, Ford, and Chrysler are somehow intertwined such that what is bad for one of them, going out of business for example, would be bad for all others.

This doesn’t make sense.

Presently, the three major US automakers are competing for the same set of resources.  They need talented workers, raw materials, and services from various suppliers.

Moreover, as the story states, while the nation needs autos – we’re not buying them as a leisure activity.  We’re buying what we need to get us around – practical cars that do the job frugally – assuming that we’re buying them at all.

Since there is a lack of demand, the supply of cars is very high if factories continue to produce at prior levels (this is what the Democrats want since they hope this would preserve jobs).  Another alternative is to let factories lay idle (which eats away at profits as expensive equipment depreciates unused).

The third major option is to consolidate.  Left to it’s own devices, market forces will allow the stronger competitors to cannibalize the weakest automaker – taking the most desirable brands, product lines, equipment, and employees.  The remaining skeleton can be sold at auction or scrapped.

The result would be an auto industry capable of making the cars we need, employing enough people to make that number of cars, and freeing the remaining auto workers to use their manufacturing skills and expertise in other industries – or to branch out into new endeavors.

Admittedly, if a government bailout focused on only one automaker, it’d have negative economic effects on the others – the government picking winners and losers should be ruled out entirely.  But if the economic bailout is spread among all automakers this just preserves the oversupply situation.

So where are Trish, Phil, and the CNBC folk getting the idea that having one less competitor would be bad for the other two?

To give you an idea how much the Federal Reserve and Congress have inflated our currency through poor financial policy, let’s take a look at the latest sweeps hype parroting the AP: 

a contractor who found $182,000 in Depression-era currency hidden in bathroom walls

SOURCE: Money Found House’s Walls No Treasure

Sounds like a lot of money – and the people who found it have been fighting in court while the homeowner lost or squandered a large portion of the money on a lavish vacation.

Nothing to sneeze at, but what would that money buy today versus in 1920 – adjusted for inflation?

According to one inflation calculator:

What cost $182,000 in 1920 would cost $1,869,024.30 in 2007.

SOURCE: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

So today, the full amount found would buy a house like this in the Cleveland area with 3 bedrooms and 1.5 baths.  A little over the median home value for Ohio.

But without the Government and Federal Reserve abusing us with the hidden tax of inflation, the same money would buy this house with 6 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms.

Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2007 and 1920,
they would cost you $182,000 and $15,733.03 respectively.

SOURCE: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

It’s of critical importance that the new administration must reign in inflation to protect us from this hidden tax – but so far I haven’t seen any evidence that anyone has any intentions of shoring up the $53 trillion in un-funded liabilities of the US government.

Here’s a rundown of some commentary on the issue. I got a kick out of this article about Krugman’s commentary on energy markets back in 2001.  Here his understanding of the effects on Zoning on housing bubbles is applauded.

Reason has a short piece on the story along with links to some of their favorite articles about him in the past.

The folks at Cato had some nice things to say as well, a sentiment echoed by Reason.

Last week in it’s ruling on LEEGIN CREATIVE LEATHER PRODUCTS, INC. v. PSKS, INC., the US Supreme Court took the position that anti-trust laws are not designed to protect the consumer, but instead, manufacturers.  Here’s an excerpt:

A single manufacturer?s use of vertical price restraints tends to eliminate intrabrand price competition; this in turn encourages retailers to invest in services or promotional efforts that aid the manufacturer?s position as against rival manufacturers.

It goes on to explain how locking prices into tiers supposedly benefits the consumer:

Resale price maintenance may also give consumers more options to choose among low-price, low-service brands; high-price, high-service brands; and brands falling in between.

What’s wrong with high-service brands without the high-service overhead at the low service price?  The court explains that as well:

Absent vertical price restraints, retail services that enhance interbrand competition might be under provided because discounting retailers can free ride on retailers who furnish services and then capture some of the demand those services generate.

I agree that customer service in discount stores is minimal, but considering that service in general is so abysmal, I’m happy to bypass it and I don’t think I’m alone.

When I shop, I go for a combination of the best product for the least money with the least time spent obtaining it.  I’m resigned to the fact that any additional services will require phone/email contact direct to the manufacturer.  For me, the best thing retailers can do is stay out of my way and let me give them my money for the product I want as effortlessly as possible.

For example, I judge my ideal retail service experience on a visit to Roush Hardware in Westerville, OH (sometime in the autumn of 1997).  They operated with a sort of proactive zone model.  As a customer enters the store the greeter asks you if you’re looking for anything specifically.  In my case, it was a bolt for my license plate.  The greeter pointed the appropriate aisle out to me and paged an associate who met me in the aisle.

The guy knew exactly what kind of fastener I needed and grabbed a few, along with a screwdriver.  He walked me out to my truck and installed the bolts to make sure they’d fit, and when they did I went back inside and paid.

I’m sure I could buy discount bolts somewhere, but the court is clearly wrong that I would bypass the service I received for bolts that were  few cents cheaper.

The ruling dealt with shoes, and since I’m married, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to observe shoe shopping.  My wife tends to go shop for shoes that she needs to be comfortable at stores that offer better service.  When she wants shoes for style, she shops at stores where she can be left to dig through thousands of deeply discounted shoes from a variety of brands with nobody to bother her – sometimes even online.

The court would have you believe that it would somehow benefit my wife to artificially inflate the prices at discount shoe warehouses and drive her to more intimate mall retailers.  Our household budget says otherwise. 

Presently she can afford brand name style and quality at closeout prices, and that’s the best of both worlds.  The court’s position illustrates clearly that the law here is designed to protect business at the expense of consumer choice.  That’s something to consider next time someone becomes defensive about big-government anti-trust laws framed as a consumer protection.