Murphy's Law of Economics and Health Care

Alan Binder once proposed: "Economists have the least influence on policy where they know the most and are most agreed." This is part of what he called Murphy's Law of Economics. An editorial in The Washington Post (here) discusses why this sacred cow of inefficiency and waste seems to be off-limits in the current health care debate.

The fact that most economists agree that the current tax free status of employer provided "Cadillac" health plans is not good for the economy puts this right in the cross hairs of Murphy's Law, Binder version.

These plans remove the patient from economic awareness of health care consumption and is a contributor to runaway costs. If these Cadillac plans could be eliminated and phased over to plans more like Health Savings Accounts combined with catastrophic medical insurance, the patient could become more aware of cost/benefit relationships and participate in controlling costs. These arrangements could still be structured to have the same tax benefits as the current widely used employer plans.

Of course, low income people, the unemployed and those in poverty would not have the income necessary to participate in these plans and some basic level of coverage would require public assistance. However, these subsidized plans would require the same emphasis on patient involvement in responsibility for cost in order to bend the cost curve down. Prof. Feldstein of Harvard has proposed that everyone should have a government credit card for health care (http://seekingalpha.com/article/165606-feldstein-empower-patients-to-make-health-care-cost-decisions). If used, the balance would become an attachment to future earnings through the normal W-2 process. The extent of such expense would limited by the use of catastrophic insurance, which would be mandatory in the same way that automobile liability insurance has been for years.

I have written about the need for patients to have some personal responsibility for controlling their own health care expenses previously (here, here and here). If patients do not find a way to start to participate in controlling health care costs, it will be done for them. Either insurance premiums will become more than they can afford or the coverage they receive will be reduced. It's the old challenge: take care of the problem or the problem will take care of you.

Whatever the outcome of the current legislative debate, the insurance companies appear to be painted into a corner from which they can only escape with reduced profitability. (See this Instablog - http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/98115-john-lounsbury/32905-insurers-are-promoting-a-public-option - which describes how the actions of the insurers are making a public option more likely in the pending legislation.) For investors, now is the time to avoid the comprehensive medical plan insurers. This list includes United Health Care (UNH), Aetna (AET), Well Point (WLP) and Cigna (CI).

Comments

[derryl:]

John wrote,
"These plans remove the patient from economic awareness of health care consumption and is a contributor to runaway costs."

This is definitely a big part of the problem. Canada's single payer system suffers the same problem, unlimited demand for a good that is 'free' to the end user. Cdn provinces solve this problem by rationing health care. A more rational solution is to institute a co-pay system like Sweden's. The user pays the first $230 of any medical care as a 'deductible', then 10% of any additional cost up to a maximum of another $230. I'm not sure how they deal with people who have no money, but their system succeeds in keeping demand and health care costs down to a realistically affordable level, with good outcomes in both medical and fiscal health.

All the lefties will tell you that water and other environmental resources are "wasted" when users don't have to pay fair market prices for them. Health care is no different. If users have to pay a fair portion of the costs they will self-ration their demand for health care just like they self-ration their demand for everything else they spend their limited incomes on. It takes a lot of the politicking out of the health care funding debate.

Oct 25 11:09 PM

[Leftfield:]

I'm not sure the reason economists are silent about "this sacred cow of waste and inefficiency" of user unconcern with healthcare costs when it's "free" to them is due to almost universal agreement. It's obvious that a plan such as you suggest, a health savings account with catastrophic coverage, would help impose market discipline on this wildly costly system.
I don't know where economists stand particularly on this issue, but it should be loud and clear for sensible market incentives. Another chance missed for them to improve society.
They should also stand loudly and clearly for tort reform and really improve our society.

Oct 25 11:58 PM

[optionsgirl:]

Where I reside now, you can open an HSA, take out a personal insurance policy with a larger dedectible, fund the deductible from your HSA, roll over unspent amount into the next year, and not spend it unless and until you are ill. If you wish, you can later convert it to an IRA.
It's a no brainer.
I had an FSA in another state, sponsored by an employer. This was not as effective because the account had to be emptied by year end, or went to the employer. Why the employer got the funds when they were paid by the employee is beyond me, but that is how it was structured.
Given the opportunity, much better products could be designed without government intervention.

Oct 26 12:06 AM

[untrusting ...:]

You note that rationing is done by the Canadian provinces, but it is also done in the US but by the insurance companies themselves. They just do it differently by denying coveage, terminating patient coverage, disputing claims, and multiple other methods. Some degree of rationing is necessary and unavoidable, as the service is not unlimited nor even appropriate on an excessive cost/benefit basis. Surely reasonable basic healthcare can be provided much more efficiently and effectively in the US, as it seems to be everywhere else in the developed world.

Have not seen much on the Swedish healthcare system, but was very impressed with a short presentation on the Dutch/Netherlands healthcare system as presented on PBS/Nightly Business Report about a month ago. It had many interesting features not the least of which it was 100% run by the private insurance industry with broad government oversight. A private insurance company CEO showed quite a few ways that the industry had managed national healthcare and introduced many innovative and cost saving methods and yet maintained high citizen satisfaction with care and relatively low insurance premiums.


On Oct 25 11:09 PM derryl wrote:

> John wrote,
> "These plans remove the patient from economic awareness of health
> care consumption and is a contributor to runaway costs."
>
> This is definitely a big part of the problem. Canada's single payer
> system suffers the same problem, unlimited demand for a good that
> is 'free' to the end user. Cdn provinces solve this problem by rationing
> health care. A more rational solution is to institute a co-pay system
> like Sweden's. The user pays the first $230 of any medical care as
> a 'deductible', then 10% of any additional cost up to a maximum of
> another $230. I'm not sure how they deal with people who have no
> money, but their system succeeds in keeping demand and health care
> costs down to a realistically affordable level, with good outcomes
> in both medical and fiscal health.
>
> All the lefties will tell you that water and other environmental
> resources are "wasted" when users don't have to pay fair market prices
> for them. Health care is no different. If users have to pay a fair
> portion of the costs they will self-ration their demand for health
> care just like they self-ration their demand for everything else
> they spend their limited incomes on. It takes a lot of the politicking
> out of the health care funding debate.

Oct 26 12:09 AM

[doubleguns:]

OG it goes both ways. If your FSA allows you to fund and spend $2000 per year. You could spend it all in january and then you have the entire year to fund it back. Your employer would have put the money up in January since you had not put the $2000 in. However if you left the company in February and had recieved your $2000 check you would not owe anything. That would come out of the employers pocket. That is why they get to keep anything left over at year end.

That is also why I wont offer an FSA to my employees. A small employer could never take those kinds of hits.


On Oct 26 12:06 AM optionsgirl wrote:

> Where I reside now, you can open an HSA, take out a personal insurance
> policy with a larger dedectible, fund the deductible from your HSA,
> roll over unspent amount into the next year, and not spend it unless
> and until you are ill. If you wish, you can later convert it to an
> IRA.
> It's a no brainer.
> I had an FSA in another state, sponsored by an employer. This was
> not as effective because the account had to be emptied by year end,
> or went to the employer. Why the employer got the funds when they
> were paid by the employee is beyond me, but that is how it was structured.
>
> Given the opportunity, much better products could be designed without
> government intervention.

Oct 26 12:23 AM

[Mark Bern:]

Good points from all and an excellent, thought-provoking insta. Now, if only we could get our leaders in Washington DC (Da Capital) to consider using a little of this obvious common sense approach.

Oct 26 12:39 AM

[optionsgirl:]

These are mechanical issues that could be easily rectified so that the employer doesn't have any exposure, and the employee doesn't risk losing his contribution at year end, if the state insurance departments allowed it. (There's the rub!) Thanks for explaining the reason.


On Oct 26 12:23 AM doubleguns wrote:

> OG it goes both ways. If your FSA allows you to fund and spend $2000
> per year. You could spend it all in january and then you have the
> entire year to fund it back. Your employer would have put the money
> up in January since you had not put the $2000 in. However if you
> left the company in February and had recieved your $2000 check you
> would not owe anything. That would come out of the employers pocket.
> That is why they get to keep anything left over at year end.
>
> That is also why I wont offer an FSA to my employees. A small employer
> could never take those kinds of hits.

Oct 26 12:41 AM

[bob adamson:]

A number of persons commenting on this article have made reference to rationing of health care under the public insurance plans in the Provinces of Canada. Arguably it is a misnomer to suggest that these plans “ration health care”. The more accurate description is that they allocate resources to optimize utilization across the population they serve. In other words, as an individual a person doesn’t receive a limited benefit equal to the provision other individuals receive; he or she draws on the pool of resources allocated in the Province by the plan to treat the need the person requires. This is not to say that these public plans always allocate sufficiently for a particular service in a particular community annually to fully treat demand that actually arises during the year. Patients may face delays or may have to go to other communities at public expense for a service. Certain specialized services may be in short supply or, rarely, not available. In short, a particular service may be delayed but rarely denied to an individual and, where delay is an issue, priority is given to one individual over another on the basis of comparative risk to life or future health.

In short, Canadian public plans limit globally and allocate individually by need as assessed by the patient’s doctors, not bureaucrats. By contrast, it is in the interest of insurance companies in the US to deny treatment to the individual if the terms of the insurance contract can arguably interpreted by plan administrators to support such denial.

Oct 26 01:59 AM

[Ponchovilla:]

JUST GOES TO PROVE WITH ENOUGH MONEY AND LOBBYING INFLUENCE YOU CAN BUY OR RENT A CONGRESSMAN OR A WHOLE PICNIC FULL AND HAVE LEGISLATION PASSED THAT NOBODY READ OR UNDERSTOOD.

Oct 26 03:52 AM

[Michael Clark:]

Interesting comment, Bob.


On Oct 26 01:59 AM bob adamson wrote:

> A number of persons commenting on this article have made reference
> to rationing of health care under the public insurance plans in the
> Provinces of Canada. Arguably it is a misnomer to suggest that these
> plans “ration health care”. The more accurate description is that
> they allocate resources to optimize utilization across the population
> they serve. In other words, as an individual a person doesn’t receive
> a limited benefit equal to the provision other individuals receive;
> he or she draws on the pool of resources allocated in the Province
> by the plan to treat the need the person requires. This is not to
> say that these public plans always allocate sufficiently for a particular
> service in a particular community annually to fully treat demand
> that actually arises during the year. Patients may face delays or
> may have to go to other communities at public expense for a service.
> Certain specialized services may be in short supply or, rarely, not
> available. In short, a particular service may be delayed but rarely
> denied to an individual and, where delay is an issue, priority is
> given to one individual over another on the basis of comparative
> risk to life or future health.
>
> In short, Canadian public plans limit globally and allocate individually
> by need as assessed by the patient’s doctors, not bureaucrats. By
> contrast, it is in the interest of insurance companies in the US
> to deny treatment to the individual if the terms of the insurance
> contract can arguably interpreted by plan administrators to support
> such denial.

Oct 26 05:30 AM

[User 345297:]

Why is everyone proposing to impose their opinion on others!? I'm happy with my health insurance. Leftfield wrote that economists (or any other group of people) missed the boat to "... really improve our society." Why should "they" (or anyone else for that matter) override the systemic decisions hundreds of millions make every day!? The current situation today is what it is becuase that's the way we've determined it to be by our choices. We have chosen this.

If you don't like your employer-sponsored health insurance plan(s), go work somewhere else. If you want to couple a HRA/HSA with a catastrophic plan, go ahead and do it.

I have fundamental problems with someone telling me what I am allowed to do based on their "annointed" view of what society should be. Society should be what we all determine it should be based on the systemic decisions we as a group make every day; not something prosthelytized from "on high" by the "annointed."

If you yourself think health insurace is too expensive and you have a better business model, go out and start a health insurance company! If there are barriers to entry arbitrarily imposed by our leaders, take it up with them!

If you think health insurance is too expensive and leaves the "poor" out in the cold, go help one of them! Practice what you preach before you expect us to fall in lock step behind you. Stop trying to force your ideas on others!

Oct 26 09:32 AM

[The Geoffster:]

John: Why is health care a right? If poor people are entitled to government provided health care, why aren't they entitled to government provided life care? It's a slippery slope my friend and I think the leftists have got it figured out.

Oct 26 10:26 AM

[Formyx:]

@User 345297

When the time comes for your double hip replacement, knee surgery and heart transplant, I do not want to impose on you but you will not be a good risk for the pool because you will affect the premia for everybody else. What will you get from that anyway? Some short extension at best. Health Insurance is not Health care and it would be nice if you could pay for part of the treatment.

From an interested party in your insurance pool.

Oct 26 10:55 AM

[John Lounsbury:]

Geoffster - - -

I may be in a small minority. I believe health care is a right and a responsibility. Let me elaborate:

Every individual has a responsibility to pay for their health care. They have a right to access, but they must pay. There are low income and no income people who should get government support, but in a way that they are clearly contributing payment. That is the basis of my attempts to generate ideas that I believe maximize access but produces individual financial involvement in order to control costs.

Let the poor go uncared for? If they were animals, it would be a crime called animal cruelty by reason of neglect.

This is where I'm coming from. It's from the left and from the right, but, as is so often the case, I can't support what any political viewpoint seems to be suggesting.

To summarize, everyone has a right to health care, but it is not an entitlement.

Oct 26 12:03 PM

[John Lounsbury:]

User 345297 - - -

Formyx gave a good response.

I would add the sinking boat analogy. Your end of the boat is not sinking, so you are content. But if you perceive that you might be affected, what is your plan? Saw off your end of the boat?

By the way, anyone who wants to cover their 10% of AGI healthcare cost plus catastrophic expense insurance responsibility with a comprehensive health care plan with very low deductibles (the so-called "Cadillac" plans) obviously has met all requirements of what I am discussing.

I just happen to think that many will prefer a "Chevrolet" that gets them to the same place at much lower cost. But, if you are a Cadillac guy, be my guest.

Oct 26 12:13 PM

[jpau:]

This makes sense to me, however I would add that IMO no person or family should be bankrupted by the cost of healthcare. Families should not have their savings or retirement plans wiped out, nor lose their homes to pay for catastrophic illnesses. Copay sure, but with an annual out-of-pocket maximum based on income.


On Oct 26 12:03 PM John Lounsbury wrote:

> Geoffster - - -
>
> I may be in a small minority. I believe health care is a right and
> a responsibility. Let me elaborate:
>
> Every individual has a responsibility to pay for their health care.
> They have a right to access, but they must pay. There are low income
> and no income people who should get government support, but in a
> way that they are clearly contributing payment. That is the basis
> of my attempts to generate ideas that I believe maximize access but
> produces individual financial involvement in order to control costs.
>
>
> Let the poor go uncared for? If they were animals, it would be a
> crime called animal cruelty by reason of neglect.
>
> This is where I

Oct 26 12:25 PM

[optionsgirl:]

Some of the AFLAC type plans are also good supplements to "Chevrolet" coverage, John. They pay a fixed dollar amount directly to the insured. I am watching the life/health insurance companies. A flu pandemic coupled with a public health plan option where the government is a direct writer is a double whammy.

Oct 26 12:27 PM

[User 345297:]

Formyx, unlike what's being proposed, no one forced you into a group health insurance model. You made that choice yourself. If you are unwilling to take the risk that the risk pool of your group is actively being influenced by a "double hip replacement, knee surgery and heart transplant" recipient, then leave the group or form your own, less risky group. Or, get an individual policy. You made the choice to participate. All insurance companies pool risk. Do you examine your neighbors circuits to make sure his/her house is a safe insurance "bet" before you buy a homeowner's insurance policy from the same company? Do you bemoan the fact that your homeowner's insurance goes up because some homes in your pool were buglarized?

John, if I perceive I will be affected, and I do, I will make changes, as I always do. That is my right and my responsibility. Those changes are ones I choose and not ones forced on me by someone who thinks he knows better that I do what's good for me. I understand, on an altruistic level, wanting to extend health insurance to all. Today we don't do that in practice. There is no great clamor from the general populace to do so. There is a great clamor from those who think they know best or who are trying to secure permanent consituencies. If you think it's such a good idea then do something about it in the realm in which you control. Buy a poor person an insurance plan. Pool a bunch of people together to by the poor and high risk insurance plans. Even better, start an insurance company and offer plans to the poor or high risk that you subsidize. Just leave me out of it! I'm fatigued by being told what's best for me!

Oct 26 12:42 PM

[Formyx:]

@User 345297

"Imposition" is a strong word and this is what prompted my reply. Nobody likes the will of others being imposed on themselves but in the case of a medical catastrophe we impose ourselves on others involuntarily.

Although, I am sympathetic to libertarian views, the fact is that we are all on the same boat and we should better devise a system to replace a broken one. It is not altruism. It is a necessity.

Oct 26 01:24 PM

[User 345297:]

Formyx, we have devised the system. The system was devised by decades of our systemic choices. We all bought into employer-based group health insurance becuase we determined we were better off doing so than in not doing so. Every day hundreds of millions of people in this country "vote" to keep the system the way it is by continuing to participate. The moment we decide it better for us not to particpate than it is to continue to particpate, is the time when we will cease and seek alternatives. I honestly believe I am hearing a vocal minority in this national debate. I believe its individuals who are trying to do something good for others without considering all consequences or politicians just trying to secure a permanent constituency.

If anyone feels individual or group is being left out of any benefit enjoyed by others (real or perceived), those individuals are free to provide that benefit themselves. Or get a group together to extend the benefit collectively; that's your right. I don't want to be included in that (or any) group where I cannot opt out.

I understand that I don't live in a perfect world. I acknowledge that I am part of many groups that I cannot opt out of. But, that doesn't mean I'm not going to resist, through civil discourse, my inclusion in any more. I do appreciate and respect your comments.

Oct 26 01:46 PM

[John Lounsbury:]

There is a good related article this afternoon at The Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com...

Oct 26 02:45 PM

[Formyx:]

Good article and discussion!

Oct 26 02:50 PM

[The Geoffster:]

On Oct 26 12:03 PM John Lounsbury wrote:

> Geoffster - - -
>
>
> Let the poor go uncared for? If they were animals, it would be a
> crime called animal cruelty by reason of neglect.
>
>
John: If I abuse my dog, it's animal cruelty. If someone is sick, I may have a moral or religious obligation to help them, but my failure to do so is not animal cruelty, nor do they have a right to my help.

Oct 26 03:01 PM

[bob adamson:]

There are at least two significant differences between health insurance and term life insurance from the perspective of the purchaser and the fact of these differences may be lost sight of in debates about public health insurance.

The first is that the needs for health insurance are more complex. Term life insurance, essentially, is a vehicle for the purchaser to create or secure a sum of money for the benefit of survivors of the life covered and premiums reflect the amount of the benefit and the risk of one contingency (death of the life covered within the period covered by the premium). The risk of death is actuarially calculated based on the circumstances of the individual and, together with the amount of coverage the purchaser decides upon, forms the basis for the calculation of the premium to be paid. While pre-existing conditions of the life covered form part of the business case both purchaser and insurer, the decision to contract term life insurance is essentially a business case (i.e. is the benefit worth the price?) not itself a matter of life or health. By contrast, health insurance often covers each member of the purchaser’s household for an array of medical treatments (and to specified limits and on various terms) for an array of medical conditions. The premiums and limitations of coverage must reflect this great complexity. Most importantly, for the household members coverage does not only represent a business case but also a degree of protection against the threat to life and health. Often, through circumstances beyond the control of the persons seeking coverage, those with the greatest need for protection against the threat to life and health are the very ones for whom coverage is denied or curtailed.

The second is that, given the very complexity of the risk being insured, access to inclusion in a favourable pool of covered persons is a much more important and difficult issue when one seeks to obtain health insurance by contrast with term life insurance. Potential insurers, because of the impracticality of trying to tailor health insurance plans to individuals or small self forming groups, form their business model for health insurance on the statistical profiles of large pools of people represented by certain types of employers, professional groups etc. By contrast, much smaller pools and even individual plans for term life insurance are practical business models for insurers offering term life policies because actuarial tables can substitute for pooling. Thus someone seeking term life coverage is usually eligible to seek coverage under several plans and is not dependent on whatever is available through his or her employer.

Arguably the foregoing illustrates that the design of viable health insurance plans is dependent on forming large pools of people as it is not practical or cost effective to measure risk of individuals or small groups. In other words, health insurers measure their risk against a population (for which general and measurable trends can be discerned) because individual risk is too random and can not use actuarial tables to the same extent for this purpose. Term life insurance (and many other types of insurance for which actuarial tables can reasonably apply) can substitute actuarial tables for pooling.

The larger the pools, the more they accord with the general population but the harder they are to form artificially (i.e. an employer of a large group of young middle class women is prized by health insurers as such pools are rare among people generally). Leaving political and philosophical preferences to one side, this explains one attraction of looking to a pool of the general population as a whole as an attractive basis for a health insurance plan.

Oct 26 06:30 PM

[The Khan:]

Seems to me that suggesting people making pay more for health care will limit its costs implies that people rush out and get colonoscopies just because it's "free". I'd suggest that the reason the average grogan submits to having a long tube stuck up his bum is not because he enjoys it, but because a doctor tells him he needs it and he knows that if he says "no" and then dies of cancer he'll feel like a bloody fool for not listening to the doctor and pissing away 20 years of life.

John, I think you make this error repeatedly in your articles on health care reform. You think people want to make judgments about things they may know nothing about, and which can kill them if they get it wrong. Or their children. People play it safe John. They don't want to make critical decisions in areas of ignorance. They leave it to the "experts". That is smart. Or it would be, if the experts truly had expertise. But that is another story.

Do you really know people who consume medical services just because they can John? I find it hard to believe. Maybe a hip replacement just for the hell of it? I hear cardiac bypasses are a lot of fun.

Oct 26 07:30 PM

[Zmartmoney:]

People in Sweden who have no money freeze to death before they get sick enough for coverage. Warm climates are going to continue to have real problems with poor, sick people. The rest of us will likely be hitching rides to Mexico for treatment.


On Oct 25 11:09 PM derryl wrote:

> John wrote,
> "These plans remove the patient from economic awareness of health
> care consumption and is a contributor to runaway costs."
>
> This is definitely a big part of the problem. Canada's single payer
> system suffers the same problem, unlimited demand for a good that
> is 'free' to the end user. Cdn provinces solve this problem by rationing
> health care. A more rational solution is to institute a co-pay system
> like Sweden's. The user pays the first $230 of any medical care as
> a 'deductible', then 10% of any additional cost up to a maximum of
> another $230. I'm not sure how they deal with people who have no
> money, but their system succeeds in keeping demand and health care
> costs down to a realistically affordable level, with good outcomes
> in both medical and fiscal health.
>
> All the lefties will tell you that water and other environmental
> resources are "wasted" when users don't have to pay fair market prices
> for them. Health care is no different. If users have to pay a fair
> portion of the costs they will self-ration their demand for health
> care just like they self-ration their demand for everything else
> they spend their limited incomes on. It takes a lot of the politicking
> out of the health care funding debate.

Oct 26 08:41 PM

[bob adamson:]

Addressing your proposal directly, Mr. Lounsbury, the difficulty is that the economic circumstances of people range considerably from individual to individual and these differences don’t correlate directly with income to a sufficient degree to form the basis of a user fee or copayment formula along the lines you are suggesting. A number of the public health insurance plans in Canada have attempted to address the issue by the detail of the fee schedule for doctor’s and by making it necessary for a patient to be referred to a specialist before the specialist’s fee is covered. Doctors are generally busy and would be short-changing patients requiring services if they over-serve other patients. The Provincial medical societies and the Plans work together to develop practice guidelines to help doctors optimize their allocation of services. The objective is not to place a barrier before a patient seeking service but to create a disincentive for doctors to provide redundant services. While always a work in progress, these efforts to help address to problem you discuss.

Oct 26 10:17 PM

[H. T. Love:]

John,

"Prof. Feldstein of Harvard has proposed that everyone should have a government credit card for health care (seekingalpha.com/artic...). If used, the balance would become an attachment to future earnings through the normal W-2 process".

I do hope that as a libertarian-leaning critical thinker you can see the danger inherent in this proposal from the "ivory tower".

Forgetting all the inefficiencies, potential for fraud, etc., just think of the implications of delivery to a "statist" government more private, and sensitive, data about every individual in the country.

As to the "right" to health care, it is *exactly* the same as the "right" for any other commercial transaction - no more nor less. The moral obligations you enter in your later comments have a place in the various communities that one frequents only as a /voluntary/ support of other community members who are in dire straights. This should be supported by /local/ community organizations not supported by confiscatory wealth transfer activities of the state.

When *we* were young, this is how it was done. Doctors had fees that varied according to the patients ability to pay (often wealthier subsidized poorer and they knew and didn't object, as far as I know). Fund-raisers were held to help with hospital bills. Hospitals - well I can't say for sure about them.

Turning ever more to the government to satisfy perceived moral obligations helped get us where we now find ourselves.

I enjoyed the article and hope you do more on this topic. But please keep in mind some of the consequences when superimposing your compassion onto a (possibly) enforceable action by a government entity.

And I suggest John Stossel be one of your sources for future discussions of this topic. He'll make a nice counter-point to professors and such.

HardToLove

Oct 29 06:48 PM

[H. T. Love:]

P. S. Walter Williams too!

HardToLove

Oct 29 06:50 PM