Comments on: Bringing the Race to the Bottom to Health Care http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/05/bringing_the_ra.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:31:00 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 By: A.J. Sutter http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/05/bringing_the_ra.html/comment-page-1#comment-49095 A.J. Sutter Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:12:40 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/05/bringing-the-race-to-the-bottom-to-health-care.html#comment-49095 You're ignoring a huge efficiency created by the McCain proposal: instead of having to buy off the legislatures of multiple states, the health insurance industry can focus its funds and attention solely on Congress. The "crossing state lines" idea is an old one, and was incorporated into a bill (HR 2355) introduced in Congress in 2005. Jonathan Cohn reported about this in The New Republic back then, and mentions it in his book _Sick_ (2007) as well (@53). See also http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=32049 . This tendency of free market imperatives to trump local sovereignty in order to wreak rational, life-threatening results had an echo in recent weeks, when Japan was told it was forbidden to donate imported rice to the Philippines, Africa and other areas facing food scaricty because to do so would violate a trade agreement with the US under WTO. (Most imported rice here is American.) The US eventually relented regarding the Philippines, but the plan that ultimately won its approval involved selling the rice, not giving it away. You’re ignoring a huge efficiency created by the McCain proposal: instead of having to buy off the legislatures of multiple states, the health insurance industry can focus its funds and attention solely on Congress.

The “crossing state lines” idea is an old one, and was incorporated into a bill (HR 2355) introduced in Congress in 2005. Jonathan Cohn reported about this in The New Republic back then, and mentions it in his book _Sick_ (2007) as well (@53). See also http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=32049 .

This tendency of free market imperatives to trump local sovereignty in order to wreak rational, life-threatening results had an echo in recent weeks, when Japan was told it was forbidden to donate imported rice to the Philippines, Africa and other areas facing food scaricty because to do so would violate a trade agreement with the US under WTO. (Most imported rice here is American.) The US eventually relented regarding the Philippines, but the plan that ultimately won its approval involved selling the rice, not giving it away.

]]>