Speaker 1: We welcome to our program, Dr Arthur Laugher, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: who has prepared a research paper on the Obama health
Speaker 1: care plan. I've i've I've admired your work, Dr Laugher,
Speaker 1: ever since I first heard of you back in the
Speaker 1: late seventies early eighties. It's great to have you here. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. Right by the way, I want
Speaker 1: to share something with you. You may not know this,
Speaker 1: but you are partially responsible for Obama becoming a community organizer.
Speaker 1: From chapter seven, page fifty four of his book Dreams
Speaker 1: of My Father, there wasn't much detail to the idea
Speaker 1: of community organizer. I didn't know anybody making a living
Speaker 1: that way. When classmates in college asked me just what
Speaker 1: it was that a community organizer did, I couldn't answer
Speaker 1: them directly. Instead, I'd pronounced on the need for change.
Speaker 1: Change in the White House where Reagan and his minions
Speaker 1: were carrying on their dirty deeds, you were a minion
Speaker 1: doing dirty deeds a million million. Oh my god. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember, Rush, but I was on
Speaker 1: your show in studio in Sacramento, California, many many years ago.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right, that's that you know you're exactly right.
Speaker 1: You impressed me enormously then as well as today. Well,
Speaker 1: I thank you very much for that. It's mutual. Then
Speaker 1: I have a summary here of your findings. Uh, let
Speaker 1: me just run through a couple of bullet points and
Speaker 1: then you can take it and expand on this. Uh.
Speaker 1: The current proposals being discussed in Washington House and Senate
Speaker 1: would raise the total federal government expenditures by five point
Speaker 1: six percent more than otherwise, adding two out and five
Speaker 1: point six billion dollars to the deficit in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: would increase national healthcare expenditures by an additional eight point
Speaker 1: nine After all this, it would still leave thirty million
Speaker 1: Americans uninsured. Uh fill in blanks here for us. Well,
Speaker 1: you know it's a it's a fairly straightforward when without
Speaker 1: going through the specific numbers, although I'd be more than
Speaker 1: happy to do that. You know, whenever you separate people
Speaker 1: from their purchases, they make If you walked into a
Speaker 1: store and weren't told what anything would cost and you
Speaker 1: can pick out whatever you wanted free, you know you're
Speaker 1: going to be squandrous. You're going to buy things that
Speaker 1: are way too expensive that you don't want. I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the ways you control costs is making people
Speaker 1: responsible for their own money, for their own expenditures. And
Speaker 1: that is exactly what this program does not do. It
Speaker 1: makes a separation between the patient and the doctor and
Speaker 1: health services further and further removed and takes away all
Speaker 1: control of costs. And frankly, if if I p J.
Speaker 1: O'Rourke put it, he said, if you think healthcare is expensive,
Speaker 1: now just way do you see how much it costs
Speaker 1: when it's free? And that's exactly what we're doing here.
Speaker 1: You know, you're you're a you're an economist, accomplished economist,
Speaker 1: and you obviously need a lot of research here. Uh.
Speaker 1: One of my bugaboos is in a in a political
Speaker 1: sense that when somebody like it Obama or any Democrat
Speaker 1: proposes something massive like this, the premise, which is we
Speaker 1: have to have healthcare reform, is automatically accepted and we
Speaker 1: start analyzing the numbers and we said, well, that's too
Speaker 1: much hair is too much in there? Do you do
Speaker 1: you get into the motivation for people who are behind this? Uh?
Speaker 1: This monster? Did that interest you at all? Why? It
Speaker 1: interests me? But it's not in this paper. I mean
Speaker 1: that's not our purpose. As you say, I'm an economist.
Speaker 1: I worry about the cost of the program, which are
Speaker 1: going to be a lot more than anyone else suggests.
Speaker 1: I'm worried about the access and the availability of the
Speaker 1: services of the health care and I'm worried about the
Speaker 1: quality of it. I mean, that's what economists really worry
Speaker 1: about in this program. It's it's a real problem. Well,
Speaker 1: your first point about separating people from the cost of
Speaker 1: things is right on the money. It's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it started fifty years ago with Medicaid Medicare, and it's
Speaker 1: just expanded and now people consider it a right that
Speaker 1: their employer has to provide for them. But Dr Laugher,
Speaker 1: your research is going to add to what people have
Speaker 1: already learned on their own by reading what's in the
Speaker 1: House bill. Uh, and they're they're outraged by it. Um.
Speaker 1: Do you think that your research paper has an opportunity
Speaker 1: to stop this? Well, I I hope it provides the
Speaker 1: information in the fodder basically to really make it a
Speaker 1: lot better. If not stopping it, I mean, I'd love
Speaker 1: to see it stopped. You know, our healthcare system has
Speaker 1: things that can improve it a lot, But it's not broken.
Speaker 1: It provides great health care for many people. And frankly,
Speaker 1: I think this type of reform, and especially in the
Speaker 1: direction I think these people are going for having a
Speaker 1: single pair, I think it's it's really the wrong direction
Speaker 1: for America to go. I think it will really add
Speaker 1: costs and up provide a lower quality product. Now you
Speaker 1: have in your paper a lot of solutions, uh that
Speaker 1: make health care more available, make it better without destroying
Speaker 1: what's already good in the system. What are some of those, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the obvious ones that I think
Speaker 1: are really big. I mean, I think healthcare providers who
Speaker 1: aren't doctors, allowing them to do things they're competent to do, uh,
Speaker 1: and not prohibiting them from doing it. The nurses and
Speaker 1: other healthcare technicians shots and other things, and prescribing low
Speaker 1: level medicines and that type of stuff. I think port
Speaker 1: reform is another one rush that really is a huge
Speaker 1: increase in costs. I mean, the insurance costs the doctor
Speaker 1: has just for practicing medicine and how that feeds through
Speaker 1: and expenses. Uh, it's amazing all of these things. There
Speaker 1: are lots of things we can do to make our
Speaker 1: system better. H s A is Health savings accounts is
Speaker 1: another good example there vstly struck. However, from this from
Speaker 1: both both houses of the House and the Senate, the
Speaker 1: h s a s are going to be gone precisely
Speaker 1: because they do give power and control of the patients. Sure,
Speaker 1: and it gives you the power of your own money.
Speaker 1: It's it's money that you put in there. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, individual ownership of masurance policies, that's an obvious one.
Speaker 1: I mean the h s a s as you say,
Speaker 1: are clear. Uh. You know, interstate purchasing of insurance that
Speaker 1: that's another one that can easily be done. There are
Speaker 1: lots of other ones that are in there that really
Speaker 1: will make the system a lot better. But making it
Speaker 1: the post office of the Department of Motor Vehicles or
Speaker 1: making a doctor's employees of government really doesn't make it better. Honest,
Speaker 1: let me move to the general economy if I can't.
Speaker 1: For just I love it. We saw the news yesterday
Speaker 1: tax receipts, corporate and personal near record laws since the nineties. Surprise, surprise,
Speaker 1: Well it does it the personal question. Uh. The author
Speaker 1: of the Laugher curve the principle that uh, to a
Speaker 1: certain point lowering marginal tax rates stimulates economic activity and
Speaker 1: generates more revenue to the treasury has been proven twice
Speaker 1: Kennedy and Reagan. It has been and well Bush bush
Speaker 1: Bush has been proven three times. Does it frustrate you personally?
Speaker 1: That's something you know works that has been demonstrated to
Speaker 1: work to the world constantly attacked and tried to be overthrown. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's it's silly because, I mean, everyone knows that
Speaker 1: you can overcharge for something and collect less money, and
Speaker 1: everyone knows you can undercharge for it and collect less money.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a pricing mechanism there and taxes are
Speaker 1: no different. And it just let's take the healthcare one here, Rush.
Speaker 1: You know, the President wanted to put a five point
Speaker 1: four sir a charge on millionaires thinking he'd collect more money.
Speaker 1: That's about the dumbest idea I've ever heard. If you
Speaker 1: raise taxes on those people, you're gonna get a lot
Speaker 1: less people, and they're gonna fig your ways around it,
Speaker 1: and you're going to collect a lot less money. Dr Laugher,
Speaker 1: This gets to a question that the point that really
Speaker 1: really bugs me. You just said it's stupid. Anybody with
Speaker 1: any economic literacy has to conclude by now, and many
Speaker 1: knew before it was implemented that the whole stimulus theory
Speaker 1: was bound to fail. It had no chance. It's never
Speaker 1: worked whenever you get something for nothing, because you're probably so,
Speaker 1: I'm back to motivation. I'm back in. This may be
Speaker 1: an area you might not want to get into, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna chance to question. I don't believe they're stupid.
Speaker 1: I think it's being done purposely for a reason. Nobody
Speaker 1: is this stupid, not with the history of the world,
Speaker 1: in the history of this country. Within twenty years as
Speaker 1: a guide, there's a blueprint how to get an economy
Speaker 1: going again. It's called get out of the way of
Speaker 1: the American people, and saddvised them this is the exact opposite.
Speaker 1: We're losing five or six hundred thousand jobs every month.
Speaker 1: Consumers spending was up point four percent, but the incomes
Speaker 1: are down one point three percent. Nothing is working. There
Speaker 1: is no rescue, there is no recovery. And they're talking
Speaker 1: about doubling down on this. And I, for one, as
Speaker 1: someone who understands how wrong this is dangerous, don't understand
Speaker 1: why it is being continued. Well, I'm not really sure
Speaker 1: but if you've ever been at the university with fellow professors,
Speaker 1: I mean, they may be able to manipulate a Fineman
Speaker 1: diagram or inverted matrix over a Banach space, but they
Speaker 1: don't know how to pay their lunch bill, and they
Speaker 1: can't tie their shoes. And what you see here are
Speaker 1: these types of mistakes are classic professorial mistakes, lawyer mistakes.
Speaker 1: They think that I could change a lot rush all
Speaker 1: of a sudden things are working in that direction. It's
Speaker 1: not true. And they have no idea of the real world.
Speaker 1: They've never made a bad trade, They've never suffered the
Speaker 1: humility of their own ideas being wrong, because in their classroom,
Speaker 1: their ideas are always right. And that's the trouble with
Speaker 1: this administration. They really don't have a clue. Well, you're
Speaker 1: being generous. I am. I like I like the people
Speaker 1: very much. I know a number of them very well.
Speaker 1: They're good friends. Does Laurens have a clue? I don't
Speaker 1: think he has a clue. He may be the one
Speaker 1: that you're right on, by the way, if the other ones.
Speaker 1: Jared Bernstein, I know him very well. He's a great guy,
Speaker 1: an honest man. I think he's wrong but he's a
Speaker 1: great guy. Christina's Romer, She's terrific. Her research before has
Speaker 1: been great. Christina Romer is an acolyte of you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but she's great on that stuff. And she's just sitting
Speaker 1: there now in a position where she has to mouth
Speaker 1: the the the the party line, which is very sad.
Speaker 1: I watched Austin Gouldsby defend Obama's firing of the chairman
Speaker 1: of the board of GM. Hello, that's not what a
Speaker 1: president the United States is supposed to do. Rush, but
Speaker 1: that's what they were doing. And and the economist was justifying, well,
Speaker 1: we're a big shareholder now and we Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: it's crazy, isn't it. It is, Well, it's crazy and
Speaker 1: dangerous because you know when you start attaching motive to
Speaker 1: this um. I granted you that their prophetsorial and academically stupid, ignorant,
Speaker 1: but something about this is so bad and so wrong.
Speaker 1: And there when you look at something that this bad,
Speaker 1: there there are people going to benefit from it. And
Speaker 1: when you look at who, then you say, okay, how
Speaker 1: and but who benefits from this? I see? I don't
Speaker 1: see the who benefits from these types of classic mistakes
Speaker 1: unless you're just a power hungry dictating Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: would Kim Jung Ill do this? I mean, seriously, he
Speaker 1: has done it. His people are eating dogs, they're starving
Speaker 1: to death. They're doing it in Venezuela. It's the history
Speaker 1: of the world is a pretty bad guy. They're they're
Speaker 1: they're not many worse than it. The history of the
Speaker 1: world is this. That's why the United States is such
Speaker 1: an exception. If you have a guy who's, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: as a chip on his shoulder about how the immoral
Speaker 1: and unjust this country was. I tell you what I think.
Speaker 1: Put in economic terms, I think that the objective Barack
Speaker 1: Obama is via redistribution, to return the nation's wealth to
Speaker 1: its quote unquote rightful owners. But you know he's destroying
Speaker 1: it for the poor, for the minorities, for the disenfranchise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's no. No one's doing better with nine and
Speaker 1: they have tem percent unemployment rate and the participation rates,
Speaker 1: the average hours, the average wages, the quality of jobs.
Speaker 1: It's declining like a like a submarine. Well, well, positive
Speaker 1: positive theory. If your number one signature issue is healthcare
Speaker 1: and you want it because with it you'll be able
Speaker 1: to regulate every aspect of every American's life. That's true.
Speaker 1: What better event could you have the massive unemployment and
Speaker 1: people losing their health insurance, clamoring for more, clamoring for
Speaker 1: their health because they're scared to death, they're going to
Speaker 1: get sick. I think there's a lot of fraud and
Speaker 1: deceit that accompanies the professorial stupidity. But there is a
Speaker 1: lot of that. It's hubris, I mean, is what it
Speaker 1: really is. And their inability to admit they're wrong, because frankly,
Speaker 1: they don't have to bear the consequences of their own
Speaker 1: hubris and their own mistakes. That that's the problem. That's
Speaker 1: a good points. Dr Laugher. This is a great talk
Speaker 1: to you against It's wonder we're talking with you. You're
Speaker 1: doing a great job. Thank you very much. You bet haven.
Speaker 1: You're going to present this paper a two o'clock this afternoon, right,
Speaker 1: all right, well we'll have were you doing that in
Speaker 1: New York? I'm in New York? Okay, good well, good luck,
Speaker 1: and thanks very much for your time. Thank you very much,
Speaker 1: Dr Arthur Laugher.