TAX ON TRADE WITH LOW-WAGE COUNTRIES
One problem with the Dem 'negotiating' position is that they are not proposing their own compromises.
I have one, for the intractable Senator Grassley, finance committee.
Not only do we 'ship jobs overseas', but we force workers to face foreign, low-wage competition, so that companies do not want to pay benefits, at home, like health care, for American-based workers (why should they, if they can hire someone overseas who doesn't require it?).
To compromise, we can pay for the social net that global competition erases by levying a 'competitiveness tax' on low-cost countries. In most cases, the wages in these countries are so low that the process of 'globalization' will continue apace, despite even a medium-sized tax.
If the good Senator doesn't 'get that', perhaps we can help him along by eliminating the tariffs that protect his good state ... ? I mean, it's hard to entact such taxes; but, hey, in today's America, it's fashionable on the right to ignore the facts, so they may not even care or notice.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Compromise on Health Care: I am the 'middle'
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The Looming Health Care Battle - Are We Ready
Scanning through the comments here, it looks like some folks (here, here) are getting past the staid. blogospherical opinion-makers on the subject of what do to about healthcare.
Having listened to the recent President's roundtable, I have to say that even I didn't have an appreciation of the scale of the structural changes that could be required.
Getting cost-rationalization in American healthcare may end up being like turning a battleship. For one thing, we have no consensus or rigorous rank-ordering of the cost drivers. For another, there is no consensus on how to attack 'the problem', although many seem to be suggesting that a 'patient centric' focus is the way to grab a hold of this tiger and tame it.
Anyway, the uncertainty mist allows people like Kling to push scary 'tradeoffs' that we aren't even sure are of principal concern.
Related: Smackdown of the size of the 'frivolous lawsuit' cost driver...