What others are thinking
Here are the guys at Media Matters on Charles Krauthammer:
Mr. Krauthammer is, of course, free to voice any political point of view he likes, and he should never draw criticism simply for his professed conservative beliefs. But like so many conservative critics, Krauthammer's work is characterized by sloppy thinking, factually-challenged analysis, and partisan hyperbolae that undermines his credibility as an analyst and pundit.
I find it odd to talk about a pundit's "credibility," but alas.
He’s an Arab
Among the various fallacies of irrelevance is the "ignoratio elenchi." This often has the very unhelpful and imprecise role of being a catch-all category for any relevance problem not covered by another more precise description (It's other more usual role covers arguments whose extreme conclusions are unwarranted by the evidence). Along these lines, Ross Douthat considers the following evidence:
This ideal has had a tough 10 months. It’s been tarnished by Palin herself, obviously. With her missteps, scandals, dreadful interviews and self-pitying monologues, she’s botched an essential democratic role — the ordinary citizen who takes on the elites, the up-by-your-bootstraps role embodied by politicians from Andrew Jackson down to Harry Truman.
And concludes:
But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.
What's the success story now? Sheleft Wasilia in financial ruin, lost in a national election, and quit the governorship of Alaska after 30 months for reasons no one can decipher.
But here's another round of complete nincompoopery from the author of this piece:
Here are lessons of the Sarah Palin experience, for any aspiring politician who shares her background and her sex. Your children will go through the tabloid wringer. Your religion will be mocked and misrepresented. Your political record will be distorted, to better parody your family and your faith. (And no, gentle reader, Palin did not insist on abstinence-only sex education, slash funds for special-needs children or inject creationism into public schools.)
This was also not the lesson of the Obama experience? Only Obama's political record (and by obvious implication his citizenship, patriotism, political record, etc.) was gleefully distorted by Palin.
Happy Fourth of July
I've posted some things here about the arguments for torture. I find them unpersuasive. Many, like certain former American VP, his pundit defenders, and the current members of the Iranian government, do not:
The government has made it a practice to publicize confessions from political prisoners held without charge or legal representation, often subjected to pressure tactics like sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and torture, according to human rights groups and former political prisoners. Human rights groups estimate that hundreds of people have been detained.
Oh well.
Too stupid to notice
Here's a fun item in the Wall Street Journal. It's fun because it's an intellectual disaster. Here, just for entertainment, is one glaring and obvious problem:
– "The cost of treating the 45 million uninsured is shifted to the rest of us."
So on Monday, Wednesday and Friday we are harangued about the 45 million people lacking medical care, and on Tuesday and Thursday we are told we already pay for that care. Left-wing reformers think that if they split the two arguments we are too stupid to notice the contradiction. Furthermore, if cost shifting is bad, wait for the Mother of all Cost Shifting when suppliers have to overcharge the private plans to compensate for the depressed prices forced on them by the public plan.
This is is not a contradiction, as the clueless author of this dismal piece suggests. Besides, 45 million people lack health insurance (of any variety) but many more lack meaningful health insurance. For the consequences of that, read this article in the New York Times. Because it is printed in that paper, it is indisputably true. Anyway, back to the point, people who lack health insurance, the good argument goes, still will seek life-saving medical care (after having put off routine care). Someone will pay for that. The cost will be much higher than it would have been had these people been insured like the rest of us.
The rest of the piece reads like a series of examples from a textbook on informal fallacies. More on that later, maybe. But let me close with this tidbit from the Times' article mentioned above:
At St. David’s Medical Center in Austin, where he went for two separate heart procedures last year, the hospital’s admitting office looked at Mr. Yurdin’s coverage and talked to Aetna. St. David’s estimated that his share of the payments would be only a few thousand dollars per procedure.
He and the hospital say they were surprised to eventually learn that the $150,000 hospital coverage in the Aetna policy was mainly for room and board. Coverage was capped at $10,000 for “other hospital services,” which turned out to include nearly all routine hospital care — the expenses incurred in the operating room, for example, and the cost of any medication he received.
In other words, Aetna would have paid for Mr. Yurdin to stay in the hospital for more than five months — as long as he did not need an operation or any lab tests or drugs while he was there.
Aetna contends that it repeatedly informed Mr. Yurdin and the hospital of the restrictions in policy, which is known in the industry as a limited-benefit plan.
Hurray for private insurance!
Rational allocation
George Will has seen why health care in the US costs so much, and it is (the) US (government). He writes:
The president says that the health-care market "has not worked perfectly." Indeed. Only God, supposedly, and Wrigley Field, actually, are perfect. Anyway, given the heavy presence of government dollars (46 percent of health-care dollars) and regulations, the market, such as it is, is hardly free to work.
As market enthusiasts, conservatives should stop warning that the president's reforms will result in health-care "rationing." Every product, from a jelly doughnut to a jumbo jet, is rationed — by price or by politics. The conservative's task is to explain why price is preferable. The answer is that prices produce a rational allocation of scarce resources.
Blaming the government for the high cost of health care comes out of left field (that's a baseball metaphor) in this piece. Will has in other words done nothing to establish that claim. He has argued that Americans spend more on health care–the only reason he has given is this:
Today the portion of income consumed by those four has barely changed — 55 percent. But the health-care component has increased while the other three combined have decreased. This is partly because as societies become richer, they spend more on health care — and symphonies, universities, museums, etc.
He hasn't addressed two very obvious objections to this: (1) just about every other advanced society pays less for health care and gets more (every citizen covered, better overall outcomes) and (2) paying more for health care does not entail getting more: A "free market" for health care services, in other words, may not produce the most rational outcomes. That "truism" may not be so true. And besides, very few people would really view their needs for basic health care as they would Cubs' tickets.
All of this amounts to a subtle change of subject: let's not talk about (1) the uninsured, (2) the under-insured, (3) the insured but not for long, (4) the limitations of employer-based insurance on the lives of people, (5) the devastating effects of health care related bankruptcy (for people with and without insurance), (6) the empirically verifiable existence of vastly superior systems, (7) the rationing of health care to people who pay tons for it in a "free market," and (7) much more. Let's instead talk about the glory of choices in the free market–shiny things, in other words:
Your next car can cost less if you forgo GPS, satellite radio, antilock brakes, power steering, power windows and air conditioning. You can shop for such a car at your local Studebaker, Hudson, Nash, Packard and DeSoto dealers.
Keep that in mind, folks, next time you're "free market shopping" for health care.
David Brooks on human nature
David Brooks asks:
Has there ever been a time when there were so many different views of human nature floating around all at once?
Answer: Yes. But he proceeds:
The economists have their view, in which rational people coolly chase incentives. Traditional Christians have their view, emphasizing original sin, grace and the pilgrim’s progress in a fallen world. And then there are the evolutionary psychologists, who get the most media attention.
Only three? Anyway, in addition to that colossal dumbness, he really wants to argue that evolutionary psychology, as emboddied in the work of one popular author's narrow view of evolution, is wrong, because, err, evolutionary psychology has gotten evolution wrong:
The first problem is that far from being preprogrammed with a series of hardwired mental modules, as the E.P. types assert, our brains are fluid and plastic. We’re learning that evolution can be a more rapid process than we thought. It doesn’t take hundreds of thousands of years to produce genetic alterations.
And so on. So the problem isn't evolutionary psychology–since evolution as a theory seems clearly right to Brooks, it's wrong versions of evolutionary psychology. And who can't get behind that?
Mr.Spock
Yesterday I mentioned Obama's response to the argument (made by George Will inter alia) that the "public option" (in part on account of its being not-for-profit) will kill private for-profit insurance. Here again is Obama's response:
OBAMA: Why would it drive private insurance out of business? If — if private — if private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That's not logical.
Now, the — I think that there's going to be some healthy debates in Congress about the shape that this takes. I think there can be some legitimate concerns on the part of private insurers that if any public plan is simply being subsidized by taxpayers endlessly that over time they can't compete with the government just printing money, so there are going to be some I think legitimate debates to be had about how this private plan takes shape.
But just conceptually, the notion that all these insurance companies who say they're giving consumers the best possible deal, if they can't compete against a public plan as one option, with consumers making the decision what's the best deal, that defies logic, which is why I think you've seen in the polling data overwhelming support for a public plan.
As anyone can tell, Obama is making a point that that particular argument against the public option suffers from a logical defect. In particular, he is claiming (I can't believe I have to spell this out, but you'll see in a second why) that the claim we have a perfectly competitive business environment must therefore be false, because the addition of new competetion would destroy existing competitors. We therefore either have an artificial insurance market which cannot sustain substantial or real market-driven competition (which would be provided by the market driven choice of a not-for-profit model). Or perhaps the private people just don't want competition from a plan more people would choose–in which case we wouldn't have a free market either. Notice, dear readers, that Obama concedes there would be "healthy debates" about the nature of the private plan. That's good–very conciliatory. But if were up to George Will and friends, that debate can be resolved a priori, as a logical matter. Obama, correctly points out that the allegation of the logical flaw is erroneous.
Enter Jake Tapper, journalist:
And, while I appreciate your Spock-like language about the logic of the health care plan and the public plan, it does seem logical to a lot of people that if the government is offering a cheaper health care plan, then lots of employers will want to have their employees covered by that cheaper plan, which will not have to be for-profit, unlike private plans, and may, possibly, benefit from some government subsidies, who knows.
And then their employees would be signed up for this public plan, which would violate what you're promising the American people, that they will not have to change health care plans if they like the plan they have.
First of all, it is not the case that all private plans are for-profit, but besides, Spock-like? For Chrissake. The question deserves a little spock-like criticism of its own. Take the second part, how many employees have control over the health plan their employer chooses for them now–raise your hands.
Barack Obama versus George Will
Sunday, George Will issued a column on the public option. In this column, he argued that public option would drive the private insurance industry out of business. Among other things, he wrote:
Assurances that the government plan would play by the rules that private insurers play by are implausible. Government is incapable of behaving like market-disciplined private insurers. Competition from the public option must be unfair because government does not need to make a profit and has enormous pricing and negotiating powers. Besides, unless the point of a government plan is to be cheaper, it is pointless: If the public option conforms to the imperatives that regulations and competition impose on private insurers, there is no reason for it.
That struck me as bizarre (I'm thinking of the Postal Service here). Anyway, it struck Obama as odd as well. Check out his response to the following question:
QUESTION: Wouldn't that drive private insurance out of business?
OBAMA: Why would it drive private insurance out of business? If — if private — if private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That's not logical.
Now, the — I think that there's going to be some healthy debates in Congress about the shape that this takes. I think there can be some legitimate concerns on the part of private insurers that if any public plan is simply being subsidized by taxpayers endlessly that over time they can't compete with the government just printing money, so there are going to be some I think legitimate debates to be had about how this private plan takes shape.
But just conceptually, the notion that all these insurance companies who say they're giving consumers the best possible deal, if they can't compete against a public plan as one option, with consumers making the decision what's the best deal, that defies logic, which is why I think you've seen in the polling data overwhelming support for a public plan.
I think Obama is correct to the extent that non profit companies compete in a free market all of the time. Many hospitals don't need to make a profit, some insurance companies are essentially non profits. I suppose the only remaining thing is the size. But, as Obama correctly points out, a large number of people seem to favor that kind of insurance arrangement. It would seem to be an odd limitation on their freedom to shut off that option.
The public option
The ongoing (and coming?) health care debate will no doubt be a gold mine of sloppy and dishonest reasoning. We've already noticed some examples of this already. Just as the debate over gay marriage seems to inspire certain particular patterns of fallacious reasoning (the equivocation on "marriage" and the slippery slope), I think the health care debate will have its own definitive fallacies. At the moment, I'm thinking that we'll see a lot of red herring–changing the subject from the less appealing facts of the matter (for instance, the fact that Americans pay more for health care and get less than other developed nations) to tangentially related, yet incendiary, notions such as "socialism."
But I think we'll also see a whole lot of weak analogy–in particular comparisons of health insurance to any other complex consumer product. Here's one from George Will yesterday:
Some advocates of a public option say health coverage is so complex that consumers will be befuddled by choices. But consumers of many complicated products, from auto insurance to computers, have navigated the competition among providers, who have increased quality while lowering prices.
Those things are different in that they are largely optional purchases. Sure, you "need" them, but you don't need them. I might mention, by the way, that auto insurance is legally mandated for all drivers (yet another difference from health insurance–and I doubt, by the way, that Will would advocate such a mandate). In any case, before one starts comparing health insurance to any other consumer product, one ought to take note of the vast differences. Few products typical consumers (i.e., anyone of any income level) would absolutely have to buy involve possible outlays of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And few of those products carry with them (often in their fine print) the real possibility of physical and financial ruin.
In the interest of fairness, I should point out that this entire piece, however bad, does not argue against the feasibility or desirability of single-payer health coverage. In fact, it does a lot to make the case for it (though not on purpose). Will's purpose is merely to argue against the "public option." I think his argument is bad (citing as it does Mort Kondrake and a health insurance industry funded study), but I think such an option is a bad one (for other reasons).