When the Trump administration undertakes pointless and intellectually embarrassing initiatives, we should be glad. Because it means they didn’t do something evil and of consequence. Which bring us to today’s WH report, “Opportunity Costs of Socialism.” 1/ whitehouse.gov/wp-content/upl…
The report overtly adopts Milton Friedman’s framework: Only good spending is by you, for you (p10). A great argument against public schools, libraries, police, firefighting, NIH, Medicare and parks. 2/
The report ignores that US government spending launched, aids, props up, or supports almost every major industry in the real economy: Pharma, weapons, autos, computers, Internet, ag, aerospace, telecom, oil, petrochem, home building etc. 3/
If there’s any purpose to the report, the main point seems to be to trash Medicare for All. One problem: The same arguments in the report also trash Medicare. 4/
Here’s one embarrassing claim from the report: Restraining drug prices will lower life expectancy. Yes, that’s right – in the country where 1 in 6 ration drugs because of price – they argue that restraining price gouging would cost lives. 5/
The report is dead wrong on the cost of Medicare for All. Medicare for All is MORE efficient than wasteful private insurers. We would spend the same or less on health care while providing better treatment to all. 6/
The report twists and turns to claim that US health care is superior. But we do worse than other rich nations on infant mortality, access to care, lifespan, overall health and quality. Private insurance makes things worse in each dimension. 7/
