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Cato Dispatch for October 30, 2009

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(Links to outside sources were active as of the date of this dispatch; however, not all news sources maintain links to current stories indefinitely. Some links also may require registration.)

The House Health Care Bill: Nearly 2,000 Pages and $2.2 Million per Word

House Democrats unveiled a 1,990-page health care reform bill on Thursday, which includes a more "moderate" version of the so-called public option. Under this plan, health care providers would be allowed to negotiate reimbursement rates with the federal government. Politico reports that the bill will come to about $2.24 million per word.

Cato health care experts say that you can call it “moderate” all you want: It’s still a first step toward a government-controlled health care. "Regardless of how much lipstick they put on this pig, it still is a government takeover of the health care system that would all but eliminate private insurance and force millions of Americans into a government-run system," writes Senior Fellow Michael D. Tanner.

In a recent Policy Analysis, Michael F. Cannon, Cato director of health policy studies explained why the so-called “public option” won’t be anything like the program that is currently promised:

A full accounting shows that government programs cost more and deliver lower-quality care than private insurance. The central problem with proposals to create a new government program, however, is not that government is less efficient than private insurers, but that government can hide its inefficiencies and draw consumers away from private insurance, despite offering an inferior product.…Congress should reject proposals to create a new government health insurance program — not for the sake of private insurers, who would be subject to unfair competition, but for the sake of American patients, who would be subject to unnecessary morbidity and mortality.

For more, read the case for a market-based approach to health care reform.

October Deadliest Month for Troops in Afghanistan

Reuters reports, “October has been the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the start of the war in 2001, Pentagon officials said on Tuesday. The death of eight troops in bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday pushed the October death toll to 53, topping the previous high of 51 deaths in August, officials said.”

Cato Foreign Policy Analyst Malou Innocent comments:

An infusion of 40,000 more troops, as advocated by General Stanley McChrystal, may lead to a reduction in violence in the medium-term. But the elephant in the Pentagon is that the intractable cross-border insurgency will likely outlive the presence of international troops. Honestly, Afghanistan is not a winnable war by any stretch of the imagination.

Innocent recently co-authored a study, “Escaping the 'Graveyard of Empires': An Exit Strategy for Afghanistan" that outlines a plan for the conflict in the region.

Cato Quick Hits

• Why new financial regulation will do nothing to stop another economic crisis.
  
• How Washington’s plans may result in even higher executive pay.
  
• The case for allowing insider trading.
  
• Twenty years later: Why the Berlin Wall fell.
  
• Gallup finds libertarians make up 23 percent of the electorate.
  
• In the Washington Post, Nat Hentoff explains why hate-crime legislation is unconstitutional.

Chris Moody, editor, cmoody@cato.org