Could Taxing Employee Healthcare Fix the System?

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/10/06/Uncommon_Knowledge_David_Brady_and_Daniel_Kessler

Hoover fellows Daniel Kessler and David Brady discuss tax breaks for employer-based health benefits - what they describe as the "original sin" of the healthcare system. They argue that a tax on employee benefits would help rein in spending.

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David Brady and Daniel Kessler combine the insights of a political scientist with those of an economist and offer unique observations into the political forces and policies at play in the current health care debate.

Brady and Kessler compare the politics of Clintoncare in 1993 to the politics of Obamacare today. If President Clinton couldn't push through sweeping health care reform in 1993 why does President Obama think he can in 2009? Has public opinion or the health care system changed? Has the health care system itself changed? And what exactly is the substance of the president's plan and will Congress give him what he wants? - Hoover Institution

David Brady is deputy director and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also the Bowen H. and Janice Arthur McCoy Professor of Political Science and Leadership Values in the Stanford Graduate School of Business and professor of political science in the School of Humanities and Sciences at the university.

Daniel Kessler is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. In addition to his Hoover appointment, he is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where he teaches courses on economics, public policy, and the health care industry.

Peter M. Robinson is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he writes about business and politics, edits Hoover's quarterly journal, the Hoover Digest, and hosts Hoover's television program, Uncommon Knowledge.

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[ndyt]

Why not just stop spending money on useless wars and Israel?

[Luinreg]

It is time to separate health care from employment. That is the one major problem because it is big business that gets all the benefit for paying other business for the best discounts and loopholes.

[NikovK]

@ndyt The excess of control manifested itself in the government pushing banks to loan to the financially unreliable as the government strove for lower class home ownership. But sure, call me brainwashed. That furthers our discussion. In retort, I blow a raspberry at you, good sir. : P *thpppt*

[ndyt]

@NikovK, if you think there is too much control over the banks then you are brainwashed.

[NikovK]

@Bobbiethejean

I'm uninsured and unemployed with a preexisting brain scratch. Its not all that bad. I get free sample packs from my doctor's office, they cut all the unneeded tests and appointments since they know I'm broke, and I pay the late-fee-free bills whenever I manage. I mean, if I got cancer I'd be SOL, but then, fifty years ago if I got cancer I'd be SOL. I really can't complain.

[NikovK]

@ndyt Well yeah, we need a society ruled by laws and laws need to protect citizens. However the way to do the most good for the citizens isn't to have the most regulation, but to have enough regulation that the power of monied people to do harm is held in check but enough liberty that their power to do good is still free. There's a balance to strike, and currently I feel we're missing the mark with too much control, and that excess of control is being used by people in power.

[ndyt]

NikovK, regulation done wrong can be a really bad thing, not denying that. Airline deregulation in the 80s is proof of that. But the airlines are still regulated to a degree and I think that is a good thing.

[NikovK]

@ndyt

In response to state laws trying to limit the scale of companies, Rockefeller and his associates developed innovative ways of organizing, to effectively manage their fast growing enterprise. In 1882, they combined their disparate companies ... under a single group of trustees. By a secret agreement, the existing thirty-seven stockholders conveyed their shares "in trust" to nine Trustees... This organization proved so successful that other giant enterprises adopted this "trust" form.

[NikovK]

@ndyt

History points otherwise. Vanderbilt, who we all see as a monopolistic robber-baron, actually got his start by breaking a government-regulated monopoly on New York harbor trade. Friedman goes into detail about how government regulation is more harmful to competition than deregulation.

[truthadvocate]

I agree. We've been naturally selected to listen to our parents, a behavior that's retained in adulthood. Plus for millennia rulers slaughtered anyone who dissented. Realistically in a national electoral process I am powerless to choose my leader. I do have complete power, however, to choose my employer. Naturally I'm much happier with the leader I chose (my employer). Why can't all leaders be voluntarily selected like this? Because humans suck? That just leads me back to my previous arguments.