America's Inherent Healthcare Problem

As we have seen in class and all over the news, the largest and most prominent topic for the debate on private vs. public industries is undoubtedly the healthcare system in our country and the reforms that are being mulled over by our government. The essential question being asked is whether the healthcare industry should be managed by the private sector or by the government. Now, I think we all know what Friedman would have to say about this. He would undoubtedly say that, since healthcare can be divided by proportional representation, it should be controlled by the private sector. However, it is fairly clear that our healthcare system, if it hasn’t failed outright, is deeply troubled. The question we have to ask is why this has happened. Why have cost risen at almost absurd levels over the past 20 years? Why are the vast majority of Americans under-insured? Why has the Market Economy, which has been so incredibly efficient in other areas, failed here? An opinion piece written by Steven Burd, the CEO of Safeway Inc., and published in the Wall Street Journal gives an interesting take on this. Safeway, which manages its own health insurance plans, has managed to keep healthcare costs flat while national costs have risen 38% by focusing on the root cause of our healthcare problem. This issue is not that the healthcare system is broken, it is that Americans are prone to behaviors that inherently increase the amount of healthcare that they “need.” A staggering amount of the healthcare costs in our country are the direct result of our country being composed of generally unhealthy people who eat too much fast food and don’t exercise enough. Safeway has promoted health and fitness amongst its employees to reduce the overall cost of healthcare. More broadly, they have introduced the concept of personal responsibility to the healthcare, which i feel Friedman would greatly approve of.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124476804026308603.html

Marx and the NFL

Marx was very concerned with the concept of estranged labor, but he always seemed to apply to concept to the working class. I was wondering what he would have to say about the labor of a group of people who no one would allege to be low income or working class.

A recent article on ESPN.com describes a Labor vs. Management issue of the highest order. The current NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement, which dictates the procedures involved in determining player compensation and stipulates a minimum and maximum salary per team, is about to expire. If the NFLPA (players union) and the NFL owners cannot agree on a new CBA, the next season will be “uncapped” (no max, and more importantly no min) and there will be a lockout (read: strike) in 2011.

The idea of no football can be slightly jarring at a time when the NFL is arguable the most successful business model in recent history. Even someone who takes no interest in sports cannot help but notice that the football machine seems to rule the airwaves for 6 months out of the year. However, the sticking point in negotiations is the owners’ desire for the players to an estimated 18% pay cut, reducing their share of revenue from 59% to 41%.

I wonder what Marx would have to say about this. It is extremely difficult to measure the precise contributions of different groups to the NFL’s success, but I doubt Marx would like the idea of such a large pay cut. However he would undoubtedly disapprove of the leagues so-called “lockout insurance,” which takes the form of a $5 billion annual television contract that the owners get to divvy up even if there is no football. This would seem to be even more of a blow to labor than the UMWA no-strike clause because it undercuts to effectiveness of a strike rather than fueling it.

On the other hand, Marx might have no sympathy at all for the NFL players. They don’t exactly fall into his view of the proletariat, and the NFL isn’t exactly a productive industry (it doesn’t make toasters or grain or shoes, just money).

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4887844

The Price of Success

President Obama’s recently proposed bank tax is open to a myriad of questions concerning how common property should or should not be utilized. If one were to apply Aristotle’s ideas on the nature of property to our 21^st century economy, “taxpayer dollars” could be viewed as commonly held property to be used in common, in so much as they are derived from the earnings of all (or almost all) of the citizens and are intended to be used for the benefit of said citizens. This being said, I am not sure how Aristotle would view the concept of the government having the final say in how all of those assets are distributed. A recent article in the New York Times concerning a possible constitutional challenge to the bank tax outlines the banking industries objections. The question is whether the tax would unfairly target large banks, forcing them to cover losses incurred by nonbanking recipients of bailout money, which Aristotle would undoubtedly consider to be public property to be used for the public good. The intention of the tax is to recoup losses from TARP and other bailout plans, but its structure would ensured that the largest burden falls on those industries that have been the most stable (Those who have the ability to pay; the large, relatively stable banks), while giving hedge funds and the automotive industry another reprieve from responsibility. This may not be the most equitable distribution of common property, but it is probably the best way to increase the overall public good (that is the intention at least) so it is likely that Aristotle would lean in favor of this decision, even though his views on usury would tend to express disdain for the entire concept of modern banking.