Unforeseen Contingencies

President Trump is a mixed bag.  Of course, tautologically that means that, unlike any of the previous four Presidents, he's not hands-down awful.  But he's much better than that.  For whatever disagreements "we" at Unforeseen Contingencies might have with his policies, we must point out he truly is a great force for good.  Here's an example.

Under President Trump, the Departments of HHS, Treasury, and Labor have issued a document "Reforming America’s Healthcare System Through Choice and Competition" that explicitly identifies government intervention as the cause of spiraling health care prices and expenditures, and calls for getting rid of intervention and restoring the free market.  This is absolutely correct.  The document doesn't go as far as I'd like, but it is very good.

First, unlike anything else I've read from politicians, it gives attention to expanding the supply of medical care, by reducing such things as regulation that blocks provision of service (e.g. CON requirements), federal interventions that restrict medical training, barriers to entry by foreign trained medical specialists, etc.  Second, it also calls for price transparency and measures to facilitate direct payment by consumer-patients, so that the buyer is in control of price and quality, unlike the current third party system.  (The Trump administration is already requiring hospitals to post prices.  Wonderful!)

Anti-Trump libertarians and conservatives need to wake up.  This is the ball game.  Who would do better?  Trump might not be perfect, but that's a stupid point at this juncture.  Hillary or any other Democrat would have imposed centrally planned bureaucratically controlled health care rationing on us, and will do so if they get power. Alternatives?  Kasich is in favor of expanding govt intervention and ACA, "Democrat lite."  Jeb! has no principles; this weak man would surrender.  Go ahead, imagine either of these two zeros commissioning an official government report that shows socialism is destructive. Gary "I think Republicans alienated a lot of people when they talk about de-funding Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood does a lot of good" Johnson deserves zero consideration. (If you don't get why, your understanding of libertarianism is as bad as his.)

When Mr. Trump said "I alone can fix" it sounded like hubris.  As an academic, I must observe that "alone" turns it into a falsifiable statement, so we can never confirm it.  I suspect Ted Cruz or Carly Fiorina could also have "fixed it" (i.e. run an administration that tries to reduce government to its proper Constitutional constraints).  But certainly the "I can fix" is right.  That's a verifiable statement.  And Mr. Trump is verifying it.

Onwards, President Trump!

Photo: POTUS receives word that he's again received Unforeseen Contingencies' endorsement.