Now, to the substance. While i agree completely that “more choice is good”, this private/public hybrid is a bit worrisome. As evidence i point to what the article you linked too also points out and that is Medicare ADV. Several independent audits have shown that this program grossly over paid providers and it seems Ryan’s plan is set up for even more since we are talking about the full package, not just supplemental coverage.

My second concern/question is that the insurance industry is regulated a the State level so there is no “national” bidding process that can be undertaken because plans will differ by state. Furthermore,this limits the ‘competition will drive down prices” argument because there is still only limited competition, if any at all. I said the latter given our case here in Northern Illinios where we only have two companies to chose from because the other state providers do not have coverage (no doc will take them) in this area so there is really no competition (one is an HMO and other PPO)

I can park at the Humphrey Terminal for $112 and I’m inclined to spend the extra to do that. Even if it all comes out cheaper in the end, it will bother me to pay $5.50 a day for a shuttle I won’t be using.

The problem I have is that our healthcare system is too inefficient. Costs are well above where they are at for other developed nations. And this is a cost to employers as well. Because they are burdened by our inefficient healthcare model, they have to take this into consideration when making hiring decisions. But the problem isn’t PPACA. No one is saying it is. In fact, PPACA provides for a tax credit for small businesses simply for providing insurance to employees. PPACA does not force businesses to do anything, save the few small things I listed above. It does not force businesses to provide insurance. What it does is make healthcare more affordable and reduces costs for employers. To say this causes businesses to stop hiring is a bit of stretch, in my opinion.

Yet you wish to completely discount the importance of health care and regulation, which is disingenuous, since those are both important factors too, as the poll shows. Again, there’s LOTS going on in this complex economy of ours, and you and Cheryl are both partly correct about one aspect of it, but also choose to completely ignore another aspect of it so you can be “right.” Kudos to you.

As for the other, lesser reasons, not a word is said about “Obamacare.” “Potential cost of healthcare” is not a new concern of employers. If you compare healthcare costs in the United States to those of other advanced industrial nations, like Canada or those in Europe, our healthcare costs are leaps and bounds above everyone else’s. The entirely privatized system is inefficient and employers have always had to pay dearly for the economic model our of healthcare system. Naturally, employers are weary of “potential healthcare costs” when our entire system is so inefficient, but it really says nothing about PPACA. So, again, trying to blame “regime uncertainty” due to “Obamacare” as the reason for unemployment, when the facts show that well over two-thirds are more concerned with demand, is a pretty lousy excuse to escape the facts.

What could perhaps be considered striking about this survey is that no one says a peep about “taxes are too high.” No where is that listed as a significant reason small firms are not hiring. Yet the right continues to talk loudly about how “taxes are too high” and therefore firms are not hiring… if only we lowered taxes, firms would be bastions of employment growth. The opinions of small business owners, of course, is entirely different.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/152654/health-costs-gov-regulations-curb-small-business-hiring.aspx

And perhaps a bit off-topic, but I’ve written about the newspaper business before, and it really is apparent that the industry is tanking. Newspaper readership is nothing like it used to be before. The entire landscape is changing. Just one notable example is the preponderance of blogs, such as this one, that provide a forum for exchange of information, ideas, and opinions. There are many more examples, of course. People are finding substitutes for newspapers that just a few years ago never existed. The entire field of journalism is undergoing a major revolution, as it has been slowly been collapsing over the past decade or so; whole new economic models are needed, replacing the old, failed ones.

Some in the journalism business have hailed The New York Times’ decision to charge a subscription fee to their online content as “good news,” because before then smaller newspapers had compete with The NYT’s free content; now that the NYT charges, competition is less fierce and they can begin charging as well (and so we’ve seen the St. Cloud Times charge now). It would be unfathomable to see the SC times charge if people could read the NYT for free. The problem with the “fee-to-see” model is that it curtails people from access to important information; access to the information of the day has always been a cornerstone to a successful democratic model. A free and vibrant press is a perquisite for civic society and liberal democracy. Knowledge is a key public good. The spread of information, knowledge, discussion is essential for any healthy society. The question is whether we want to limit this dispersion or if we want to make it as free and vibrant as possible.

So, for example, Jefforson keenly understand the importance of ideas and knowledge, writing that they have a “peculiar character” in that “He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.” Jefferson, one of our key framers, is understanding knowledge as a public good (though he would perhaps be branded as a radical if he were to reiterate his sentiments in today’s society). To actually treat knowledge as a public good, as Jefferson proffers, really frightens some people today.

The most major things include making restaurants provide information to their customers regarding the nutritional value of their products. Virtually all economists agree that informed consumers make better choices and that access to information is good; perfectly informed consumers (and firms) is a perquisite for a “perfect” market, after all. And there are studies showing that people order less calories when they’re made aware of the calories they are ordering. So it has an effect.

Other things include taxes on indoor tanning, reducing costs to companies that provide benefits to the elderly, making firms report what benefits they provided to employees, and providing tax credits to small businesses. That’s really the extent to which it directly impacts a firm. So, I reiterate, it’s simply a lousy excuse to blame current unemployment on.

This thread seems to have run its course so I will bid you good night and good luck. You’re a nephew of Francine / Janet, I think. There is a family reunion coming up in Colorado. Imagining that many Switzers makes me dizzy. Enjoy.

It’s also caused by all of the rules that went into Obamacare and the financial reform. Literally hundreds of rules that have to be written by the DHHS and SEC, that still have yet to be written. It’s taking years for them to figure everything out (and as they do, they cut some programs like the senior elder care insurance part). The smart thing to do is wait it out and see what happens. So firms sit on $2 trillion in cash.

Agree to disagree.