Category Archives: Regulation

Certain Economic Decisions Are 'Constitutionally' Compulsory

As the late Joe Sobran once quipped, “The U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.” A Clinton-appointed U.S. District Court by the name of Judge George Steeh has ruled that “Congress can require individuals to buy health insurance starting in 2014 as one of the provisions of health care reform legislation enacted in March.” The ‘judge’ went on to dismiss ‘part of the Ann Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center’s federal lawsuit.'”

The nonprofit Christian legal advocacy group filed a lawsuit on behalf of four uninsured Michigan residents who objected to the individual mandate provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as an unconstitutional tax.

“According to the Law Center, the court took the extraordinary step of concluding that Congress’ Commerce Clause power does not end at regulating economic activity. Rather, this power can be extended to regulate economic decisions whether made consciously or not. The court stated, ‘While plaintiffs describe the Commerce Clause power as reaching economic activity, the government’s characterization of the Commerce Clause reaching economic decisions is more accurate.'”

Rob Muise, The Law Center’s senior trial counsel who handled the case commented, ‘This decision is ripe for appeal, which we intend to do expeditiously.'”

Global Ghouls Rising

Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Political Economy, Regulation, Taxation

Since the onset of the economic crisis, the din has grown louder from assorted international institutions. It goes without saying that the demands are never for a dispersion of power. There have been various lunges for EU types of controls over financial institutions. Most of the resistance to the pull has come not from the US.

For example, and as I documented over this space, the Canadian government, not the American one, resisted a bank tax suggested by the the global regulatory regime.

Ministers fanned out across the world to raise opposition to the proposal for avoiding another financial crisis. ‘Canada is, and will remain, opposed to a tax that would penalize financial institutions that remained strong and prosperous while many of the world’s banks failed,’ Clement told a press conference with Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon.”

“In an apparent attempt to reignite damped discussions on a key regulatory issue,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “the IMF proposed that a half-dozen or so of the countries with the biggest financial centers—such as the U.S., U.K., and Japan—voluntarily agree to a set of guidelines to resolve failed systemically important international financial firms.”

Not-so curiously, in opposition are the European countries: “it is uncertain whether [they] want to cede sovereignty on the issue.” Some of these countries have also implemented austerity measures, which have angered hedonistic B. Hussein. Remember when our president instructed German Chancellor Angela Merkel to “print more money, not make it”?

If the IMF is looking for the political will to galvanize the globe, they will surely find it in the US.

Collapse Of The Child-Only Healthcare Market

Barack Obama, Healthcare, Regulation, Socialism, The State

Here is yet another unhappy installment in a BAB series of posts on the effects of the Obama healthscare, as these percolate throughout the economy.

This time it is “the collapse of the child-only market.” Reports the Wall Street Journal:

This week Democrats threw a six-month birthday party for ObamaCare—and the timing was only appropriate since it occurred at the same moment their reform annihilated a corner of the U.S. insurance market.

Democrats were celebrating the arrival of ObamaCare’s first regulatory wave, which was designed to land weeks before the election. These include mandated benefits like “free” preventive care (i.e., the cost is built into the premiums). Democrats think these “consumer protections” poll well, even though they’re already raising consumer rates across the country. But the most immediately destructive item turned out to be new rules governing private health coverage for children.

This week, almost every big insurance company in America—including Aetna, Cigna, UnitedHealth Group, WellPoint, Humana, Coventry, some Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliates and others—stopped writing “child-only” policies in the individual market. This is a niche product that parents typically buy when their employer health plan doesn’t cover dependents. The exact plans vary company to company and state to state, and the insurers will still offer family policies and make good on the child-only policies that they’ve already sold. But most won’t be writing new ones.

In other words, for-profit businesses are refusing to sell products that consumers want to buy. Exact data aren’t available, but the child-only market covers roughly a million kids a year.

The reason is a regulation that President Obama mentions every time he talks about health care, as he did recently in Falls Church, Virginia: “Children who have pre-existing conditions are going to be covered.” Insurers are now required to cover everyone under 19 when their parents apply for coverage, regardless of health status. The problem with this kind of “guaranteed issue” is that it encourages people, in this case parents, to wait until their kids are sick before seeking coverage.

This drives up premiums for the healthy, encouraging consumers in turn to drop coverage, and eventually it leads to what’s known as a “death spiral,” the industry term for an insurer with rapidly increasing costs as a result of population changes in its coverage pool. The child-only market is a particular death-spiral risk because it is so small and unstable, which explains why so many insurers left in a stroke.

MORE.

If we are to believe a new AP poll—and my thesis in “Statism Starts With YOU!”—Americans “who think the law should have done more outnumber those who think the government should stay out of health care by 2-to-1.”

The fatter the feds the happier Americans are.

UPDATED: Production Depends On Pressing Flesh In Washington (Big Biz Was Once Small, Dah!)

Business, Democracy, Economy, Healthcare, Political Economy, Regulation, Science, Technology

As discussed over these pixelated pages, the effects of the Obama healthscare are percolating down. Now the EETimes reports that, “As many as three-quarters of venture capitalists are exiting the health care field as the total pool of venture capital decreases and regulatory hurdles increase.”

Medical electronics companies face increasing hurdles getting funding and regulatory approval to bring new technologies to market, according to executives at a medical device event here.

“We’re in a bit of a perfect storm right now with some of the worst things I’ve seen in 30 years,” said Eamonn Hobbs, chief executive of DelCath Systems and chairman of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA), host of the event.

As many as three-quarters of venture capitalists are exiting the health care field as the total pool of venture capital decreases and regulatory hurdles increase, said Kevin Wasserstein, managing director of Versant Ventures (Menlo Park, Calif.) which focuses on health care.

“Even entrepreneurs have started to retreat from pursing big ideas [in health care], and we risk as an industry evolving to incrementalism and safer projects,” said Wasserstein.

Some of the about 100 medical devices executives gathered here complained about what they said was an increasingly conservative and slow-moving U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The chief executive of one medical device company said his product is approved for sale in Europe, but is still waiting on an FDA OK to begin clinical trials.

UPDATED: (Sept. 21): Big Biz Was Once Small, Dah! What do you know, Bernie Marcus, Home Depot co-founder, was once the owner of a small business. How can that be? (Yeah, Obama … and the Republicans are idiots).

Yes, big business was once small. Through the democratic vote of the consumer, a small concern grows and grows to become a big, invariably, bad business. (Irony alert.)

Democracy practiced in the free market is the only democracy worth a dime. Let’s destroy the only honest democracy we have: the free market.