February 11, 2010 12:42PM # Fisking Gingrich & Goodman on Health Care Reform By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) --- SHARE I much prefer the ideas of Newt Gingrich and John Goodman to those of President Obama. But their recent [oped](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704820904575055190217079952.html) in the *Wall Street Journal* shows why conservatives and Republicans still have a ways to go if they want to stop getting their clocks cleaned on health care. Here’s a fisk of the objectionable passages: - **“The current taxation of health insurance…giv\[es\] lavish subsidies…”** There ain’t no such thing as a “tax subsidy.” Or a “tax expenditure.” If that’s what you call it when a tax break reduces federal revenue, don’t be surprised when politicians try to “reclaim” that “expenditure” (read: increase taxes) and spend it someplace else. - **“Many health economists conclude that tax relief for health insurance should be a fixed-dollar amount…”** Many economists also conclude that Medicare’s administrative costs are low, but that doesn’t make it true, nor does it mean Medicare is a good idea. If conservatives actually believe in limited government and they want to improve health care, they should advocate [policies that will help eliminate tax breaks for health care](http://www.bepress.com/fhep/11/2/3/). Targeted tax “breaks” are merely another example of destructive government meddling. - **“Employers should be encouraged to provide employees…”** Nyet, comrades. That’s not the government’s job. Government should stop encouraging anyone to do anything in health care, unless it’s encouraging people to keep their promises (read: enforcing contracts) or encouraging producers not to hurt consumers (read: tort liability). - **“A good model for self-management is the Cash and Counseling program for the homebound disabled under Medicaid.”** Sure it is — if you want to [increase dependence on government](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4528). - **“We should also encourage health plans to specialize…For example, special-needs plans in Medicare Advantage actively compete to enroll and cover the sickest Medicare beneficiaries.”** Re encouragement, I refer my right honourable friends to the answer I gave some moments ago. And do we really want to hold up Medicare Advantage — which is even more government-heavy than the Democrats’ health insurance exchanges — as a model for reform? - **“Don’t cut Medicare.”** Really? And you’d prefer dealing with Medicare’s $80 trillion unfunded liability…how? - **“A viable bridge to Medicare can be built by allowing employers to obtain individually owned insurance for their retirees at group rates.”** A Bridge To Medicare. Please let that be the slogan for Gingrich’s presidential primary campaign. Of course, that bridge would require more regulation. - **“Eliminate junk lawsuits. Last year the president pledged to consider civil justice reform. We do not need to study or test medical malpractice any longer.”** For all their talk about limited government and the rule of law, conservatives and Republicans just can’t seem to stop advocating [unconstitutional](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3079) federal limits on med mal liability. Maybe they’ve convinced themselves that [all doctors are angels and all trial lawyers are demons](https://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv28n1/v28n1.html). - **“We can help prevent \[health care fraud\] by using responsible approaches such as enhanced coordination of benefits, third-party liability verification, and electronic payment.”** We will prevent health care fraud when we get the government out of health care — not before. For a good take on the silliness of government fraud-prevention efforts, see [David Hyman’](https://www.cato.org/people/hyman.html)s [*Medicare Meets Mephistopheles*](http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&pid=1441322). Whew, this list is longer than I thought it would be. Just two more: - **“Make medical breakthroughs accessible to patients…by cutting red tape before and during review by the Food and Drug Administration.”** The FDA is constitutionally incapable of striking the right balance between speed and safety. [It must be eliminated.](https://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb111/hb111-15.pdf) Getting other reforms right first — reforming the tax code, reforming Medicare, allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines — will make eliminating the FDA easier. - **“The solutions presented here can be the foundation for a patient-centered system.”** The authors must have in mind a different oped than the one I read. To emphasize, there’s a lot that Gingrich & Goodman get right. But if conservatives and Republicans wonder why government already controls so much of America’s health care sector, and why the Left is [so close](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9679) to having government takeover the rest, they might consider some of their own misguided ideas about health care reform. ##### Related Tags [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).