The President has made much lately of what a fan he is of the free market, how he doesn’t want to run private companies or interfere in the private sector. Well, we’ll just let that sit there for comic value without further comment.
But Mr. Obama is merely continuing (accelerating?) a long-established trend in Washington of government meddling, winner- and loser-picking and other intrusive policies that distort the free market.
For example, here’s a peek at the scope of government’s heavy hand in distorting, oh excuse me, in helping the private sector: $4.9 billion annual taxpayer subsidies of wind, solar, geothermal and hydroelectric “renewable” energy schemes, $1.3 billion for nuclear power, $3.3 billion for coal, $2.1 billion for natural gas and petroleum and $1.2 billion for electricity.
Now that mere $17 billion in annual government interference, uh, excuse me, of help shouldn’t distort the market much, hm?
We like to imagine a world where the feds keep their cotton-picking hands off of - and our tax money out of - energy production altogether. Then we could find out what really works economically. Wouldn’t that be novel?
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This is one of those areas that must drive true libertarians crazy! (Warning:long rambling philosophical post):
There are two vague ill-defined economic concepts which can be used and twisted to justify any political philosophy: Utility and Externalities. Conservative free-market boosters cite utility, and argue that the free market which is made up of rational utility seeking actors has already demonstrated the will of the people, and therefore we need to do what we’re doing now with less regulation. This of course ignores all the rent-seeking, power-brokering, and industrial consolidation that has been in part to blame for inflated pricing in health care, pharmaceuticals, and under-pricing of food production, and automobile usage (I know its bad, but it should be worse!).
Liberals on the other hand exploit the concept of externalities and try to quantify all the harmful effects of any industry that are borne by the general public. This they feel is the role of government to take the externality (pollution, traffic, health risks, unemployment, inefficient land use whatever it may be), quantify it, and impose it financially on the market.
So the government tries to “reward” good behavior, and “punish” bad behavior. But that activity requires that people accept that a) there is such a thing as the greater good, or the public good, or a rational better way, and b) that government as an entity can determine what that is, and manage the economy to achieve such outcomes. My understanding of libertarianism is that it does not accept either of those premises. Libertarians want to “reset” the system, and let the market sort out the winners. However what will that process look like? The market after all is a reactionary system. You can boycott a poisonous product, but only after its been sold, and has already led to deaths. An inefficient car will eventually be unpopular, but only after a true market equilibrium in oil prices has been established and those cars have aged and been replaced.
So my question to the libertarians on here is how do you go from the current managed economy to a completely free economy and avoid the social unrest caused by getting rid of both the right and the left’s pet subsidies?
So why don’t we taxpaying citizens demand our tens of millions of dollars returned from skilled nursing facilities’ giants like Sun Healthcare Group Inc. read this:
Potentially inappropriate nursing home payments spur increased Medicare Part A, Part D oversight
June 08, 2009
Tens of millions of dollars were likely inappropriately paid to skilled nursing facilities through the Medicare Part D prescription drug program in 2006, according to a recently released report from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General.
This state sure did:
Kindred pharmacy affiliate to pay $1.3 million in drug over-billing lawsuit
June 18, 2009
Kindred Healthcare Inc.’s affiliate PharMerica Corp. will pay $1.3 million in a settlement with the federal government and the state of Tennessee. It allegedly over-charged the state’s Medicaid system for drugs delivered to a Knoxville nursing home, according to recent reports.
The lawsuit alleges that the company billed the state’s TennCare program for more drugs than were actually delivered to the company’s skilled nursing facility in Knoxville, resulting in serious overpayments. According to the Tennessee attorney general, this is the largest settlement ever reached by the TennCare Provider Fraud Task Force under the False Claims Act. Both PharMerica and Kindred have denied any wrongdoing, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel.
The whistle-blower responsible for bringing the overpayments to light will receive a reward of roughly $220,000, according to the terms of the June 5 settlement. Jeanne Mayes was a billing clerk at the facility, and filed the original suit on Feb 11, 2005, according to the News Sentinel. PharMerica was created from the merger of two institutional pharmacy businesses, PharMerica Long-Term Care and Kindred Pharmacy Services.