John H. Cochrane on How America Should Have, and Still Could, Reform Health Care (+video)

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Photo Credit: University of Chicago

Photo Credit: University of Chicago

If you only read one column about how to fix health care in America, make it this one.

I had never heard of John H. Cochrane before I read this piece this morning in the Wall Street Journal. That was my loss. He is a professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution, and he has a clear sense that even most Republicans miss about what was really wrong with health care pre-ObamaCare, and why ObamaCare was not the right solution at all.

Better, Cochrane has a game plan for what to do once ObamaCare has collapsed:

Only deregulation can unleash competition. And only disruptive competition, where new businesses drive out old ones, will bring efficiency, lower costs and innovation.

Health insurance should be individual, portable across jobs, states and providers; lifelong and guaranteed-renewable, meaning you have the right to continue with no unexpected increase in premiums if you get sick. Insurance should protect wealth against large, unforeseen, necessary expenses, rather than be a wildly inefficient payment plan for routine expenses.

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Why China is Stepping Up its Presence in Detroit Auto Industry

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Photo Credit: Rebecca Cook/Reuters

Photo Credit: Rebecca Cook/Reuters

While the US automotive industry continues to rebound after its near collapse from the financial crisis few years back, China is quietly expanding its presence in the Detroit-based market. Encouraged by the low price of real estate and the high level of advanced engineering talent, dozens of Chinese auto companies and suppliers are opening plants and offices in and around the Motor City, where they hope to one day sell cars to US buyers.

So far, the emphasis has been on the supply chain, but automotive experts and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) hope that continued investment in the area will lead to much more, and they envision Chinese companies playing a big role in helping the city flourish after it emerges from its Chapter 9 bankruptcy restructuring, which got under way this year.

“They [the Chinese firms] want to be more global over time, so they need to look at North America. And if they’re looking at North America, this is the place to come,” Governor Snyder told reporters earlier this year.

Snyder is opening the door wide to China. In September he made his third economic development trip there in three years to court investors in all sectors, but mostly automotive. To date, he said, Chinese companies have invested about $1 billion in his state, 95 percent of which is related to the auto industry. Michigan companies exported 22 percent more goods and materials to China in 2012 than in the previous year. Although not all of the activity from China is auto-related, Snyder says he expects to see more Chinese involvement in the auto sector.

“Detroit is the value place in the United States, in Michigan, and potentially the world in terms of a great value opportunity,” Snyder said. “Come in and invest now, because there’s going to be a great upside.”

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The First 3D Printed Organ — a Liver — is Expected in 2014

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Photo Credit: Organovo

Photo Credit: Organovo

Approximately 18 people die every day waiting for an organ transplant. But that may change someday sooner than you think — thanks to 3D printing.

Advances in the 3D printing of human tissue have moved fast enough that San Diego-based bio-printing company Organovo now expects to unveil the world’s first printed organ — a human liver — next year.

Like other forms of 3D printing, bio-printing lays down layer after layer of material — in this case, live cells — to form a solid physical entity — in this case, human tissue. The major stumbling block in creating tissue continues to be manufacturing the vascular system needed to provide it with life-sustaining oxygen and nutrients.

Living cells may literally die before the tissue gets off the printer table.

Organovo, however, said it has overcome that vascular issue to a degree. “We have achieved thicknesses of greater than 500 microns, and have maintained liver tissue in a fully functional state with native phenotypic behavior for at least 40 days,” said Mike Renard, Organovo’s executive vice president of commercial operations.

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President Obama’s Top 10 Constitutional Violations Of 2013

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Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

One of Barack Obama’s chief accomplishments has been to return the Constitution to a central place in our public discourse.

Unfortunately, the president fomented this upswing in civic interest not by talking up the constitutional aspects of his policy agenda, but by blatantly violating the strictures of our founding document. And he’s been most frustrated with the separation of powers, which doesn’t allow him to “fundamentally transform” the country without congressional acquiescence.

But that hasn’t stopped him. In its first term, the Administration launched a “We Can’t Wait” initiative, with senior aide Dan Pfeiffer explaining that “when Congress won’t act, this president will.” And earlier this year, President Obama said in announcing his new economic plans that “I will not allow gridlock, or inaction, or willful indifference to get in our way.”

And so, as we reach the end of another year of political strife that’s fundamentally based on clashing views on the role of government in society, I thought I’d update a list I made two years ago and hereby present President Obama’s top 10 constitutional violations of 2013.

1. Delay of Obamacare’s out-of-pocket caps. The Labor Department announced in February that it was delaying for a year the part of the healthcare law that limits how much people have to spend on their own insurance. This may have been sensible—insurers and employers need time to comply with rapidly changing regulations—but changing the law requires actual legislation.

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Eight Ways to Opt Out of Obamacare

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

With the deadline to sign up for Obamacare having come and gone, many Americans have decided to “opt out” of President Obama’s signature health care reform law, choosing instead to pay the $95 penalty for sidestepping the individual mandate.

“For many Americans opting out of Obamacare is the best decision they can make, but it’s important that they do it the right way—just refusing to buy health insurance and not having another way to pay for catastrophic medical expenses is a mistake,” Sean Parnell, author of the newly-released The Self-Pay Patient, told Breitbart News. “People who want to opt out should be looking at alternatives to conventional health insurance, such as joining a health care sharing ministry or purchasing a fixed benefits policy.”

Parnell also strongly advises Americans against opting out and simply paying the “list” price for medical visits and prescription drugs without shopping around, or by relying solely on the local hospital emergency room for routine medical care.

“This approach leaves people who opt out vulnerable to sky-high medical expenses at inflated ‘list’ or ‘chargemaster’ rates, and can result in an inability to obtain needed care because of cost,” Parnell writes on his blog, selfpaypatient.com. Instead, Parnell recommends the following eight options for those who have opted out of ObamaCare:

1. Join a health care sharing ministry, which are voluntary, charitable membership organizations that share medical expenses among the membership.

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Chamber of Commerce to Spend $50 Million In Efforts to Crush Tea Party

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

On Christmas Day, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it plans to spend at least $50 million to “support establishment, business-friendly candidates in primaries and the general election, with an aim of trying to win a Republican Senate majority.”

“Our No. 1 focus is to make sure, when it comes to the Senate, that we have no loser candidates,” said U.S. Chamber of Commerce top political strategist Scott Reed. “That will be our mantra: No fools on our ticket.”

GOP establishment officials hope to elide Tea Party challenges by shrinking the nomination process down to a tight four-month window replete with penalties for states that shirk the rules.

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New ObamaCare Taxes/Fees Hit Americans in 2014

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Here comes the ObamaCare tax bill.

The cost of President Obama’s massive health-care law will hit Americans in 2014 as new taxes pile up on their insurance premiums and on their income-tax bills.

Most insurers aren’t advertising the ObamaCare taxes that are added on to premiums, opting instead to discretely pass them on to customers while quietly lobbying lawmakers for a break.

But one insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, laid bare the taxes on its bills with a separate line item for “Affordable Care Act Fees and Taxes.”

The new taxes on one customer’s bill added up to $23.14 a month, or $277.68 annually, according to Kaiser Health News. It boosted the monthly premium from $322.26 to $345.40 for that individual.

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Be Prepared: Wall Street Advisor Recommends Guns, Ammo for Protection in Collapse

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ammoA top financial advisor, worried that Obamacare, the NSA spying scandal and spiraling national debt is increasing the chances for a fiscal and social disaster, is recommending that Americans prepare a “bug-out bag” that includes food, a gun and ammo to help them stay alive.

David John Marotta, a Wall Street expert and financial advisor and Forbes contributor, said in a note to investors, “Firearms are the last item on the list, but they are on the list. There are some terrible people in this world. And you are safer when your trusted neighbors have firearms.”

His memo is part of a series addressing the potential for a “financial apocalypse.” His view, however, is that the problems plaguing the country won’t result in armageddon. “There is the possibility of a precipitous decline, although a long and drawn out malaise is much more likely,” said the Charlottesville, Va.-based president of Marotta Wealth Management.

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Senator Urges UPS to Refund Customers Whose Christmas Packages Were Late

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A U.S. senator is calling on UPS to refund customers whose Christmas packages got caught up in widespread delays.

“In a very real sense, Christmas is on the line,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in a written statement Thursday. “I call on UPS to do the right thing and provide refunds to people whose Christmases were a little less cheery as a result of their late deliveries.”

The senator said he recognizes the “tremendous work” that UPS, as well as the U.S. Postal Service and FedEx, put in this time of year. However, he said he was “disappointed” to learn so many people in his state and across the country were “left empty-handed” on Christmas.

Both UPS and FedEx were playing catch up Thursday after poor weather and overloaded systems delayed packages that were intended to be delivered in time for Christmas.

Neither company said how many packages were delayed but noted it was a small share of overall holiday shipments. But the problems appear to have affected many parts of the country.

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California Schools Prepare for Transgender Rights Law

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

With a law that spells out the rights of transgender students in grades K-12 set to take effect in California, school districts are reviewing locker room layouts, scheduling sensitivity training for coaches, assessing who will sleep where during overnight field trips and reconsidering senior portrait dress codes.

But administrators, counselors, teachers and school board members also are watching and waiting. The law, the nation’s first requiring public schools to let children use sex-segregated facilities and participate in the gender-specific activities of their choice, could end up suspended within days of its Jan. 1 launch if a referendum to repeal it qualifies for the November ballot.

To obtain a public vote on the law, passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, a coalition of conservative groups called Privacy for All Students has collected hundreds of thousands of signatures. Counties have until Jan. 8 to verify them through random spot-checking.

Depending on how many are found to be valid, the secretary of state will approve the referendum, determine that it failed or order a review of every signature.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen when kids come back from their holiday vacation,” said Republican state Sen. Steve Knight, who voted against the law. “Are there going to be 15-year-old girls talking in the bathroom and in walks a boy? What are they going to do? Scream? Run out?”

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