The Failures of the American Health Care Act: New at Reason

Obamacare has sent our health insurance system into a death spiral. Premiums continue to soar as insurance companies are pulling out of the market, leaving consumers with fewer and fewer affordable choices. In over a third of the nation’s counties, individuals have just one insurance plan as a choice. Soon, many counties will have no plans available. Repealing and replacing Obamacare is no longer an option. It’s essential.



Answering the alarm, on March 6 Republican leaders in the House of Representatives unveiled the American Health Care Act, their attempt at “repeal and replace.” Unfortunately, writes Dr. Jeffrey Singer, advocates of health care freedom have little reason to be pleased. The American Health Care Act does little to stop the death spiral underway. It may even accelerate it.

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What Does It Mean to Have a ‘Right’ to Health Care? New at Reason

Despite the popular misconception, health care is not beyond economic law. It has to be produced, which means people must mix their scarce labor with scarce resources to produce the things used to perform the medical services we want. It would be foolish to expect them to donate their labor and resources because other people need them; they have their own lives to live and livelihoods to earn. It would be wrong to compel them; they are not slaves.

In other words, no one can have a right to the labor services and resources of other people—which means no one can have a right medical care or insurance, argues Sheldon Richman. Politicians, of course, can declare a right to medical care, but those are mere words. What counts is what happens after the declaration. Since a system in which everyone could have, on demand, all the medical care they wanted at no cost would be unsustainable, the so-called right to medical care necessarily translates into the power of politicians and bureaucrats to set the terms under which medical services and products may be provided and received. This is crucial: a government-declared “right” (that does not reflect natural rights) is no right at all; it is rather a declared government power to allocate goods and services.

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Prison Guards Who Threw Inmate in Hot Shower, Killing Him, Committed No Crime, State’s Attorney Rules

Darren Rainey spent two hours locked in a shower inmates at the Dade Correctional Institute said prison guards left set to scalding hot before dying of the injuries caused by the water. Rainey’s skin was peeling off when he was removed from the shower. Inmates say he was screaming to be let out before he died, and that guards regularly used extremely hot and cold showers to punish mentally ill patients. Nearly five years later, in a report released Friday, the state’s attorney has ruled that there was no criminal conduct by the guards.

In her ruling, Katherine Fernandez Rundle said, according to the Miami Herald, that John Fan Fan, a sergeant, and the officers involved in getting Rainey into the shower, Ronald Clarke, Cornelius Thompson, and Edwina Williams, didn’t act with premeditation, malice, recklessness, ill-will, hatred or evil intent. The officers involved were eventually promoted after the incident.

The state attorney claimed testimony from inmates was inconsistent with testimony from prison staff as well as physical evidence, and that she could not find evidence Rainey was burned to death. His family says they were pressured to cremate his body, the fact that Rainey’s skin fell off on contact after his death is undisputed, and the nurse who tried to take his temperature after he died said it was too high to register on the thermometer. A prison officer tested the shower a couple of days after Rainey’s death, finding it went as high as 160 degrees, but no investigators checked the shower the day of Rainey’s death.

Only two prison officers, the nurse, and a paramedic were interviewed by police immediately after the incident—other witnesses, including inmates, were not interviewed until 2014. That investigation, the Herald notes, only started when the newspaper began “raising questions about the case as part of what would become a three-year probe into corruption in Florida prisons.”

Harold Hempstead, an inmate who acted as an orderly at the mental ward, was reportedly the first person to question the incident. According to the Herald, he wrote letters and filed complaints “with police, the medical examiner and the state attorney about Rainey’s death as well as other alleged abuses” in the transitional care unit, where Rainey died. Hempstead was recently transferred to a prison in another state, the Herald reported, making it impossible for them or other newspapers to interview him in the wake of the investigation report.

In mid-2012, another inmate committed suicide at the prison, leaving a note about the abuses he said he suffered while there. His death was not part of the Rainey investigation. The Herald also notes inconsistencies in the investigative report about abuse—at one point the report says just one other inmate said he had been thrown into an extremely hot shower, but at another it reports on two other inmates who said the same thing.

After the paper’s work exposing abuses at the Dade Correctional Institute, the Herald reports that the “warden and assistant warden were forced out, and, later, then-Secretary [of Corrections] Michael Crews stepped down amid political pressure.” The inspector-general of the prison system also eventually left—he had been accused by his investigators, according to the Herald, of hampering investigations.

Correction Secretary Julie Jones told the Herald she was appreciative of work by police and the state attorney, which exonerated the officers, and said she was still committed to reforms. “We will continue to integrate services which ensure these inmates successfully re-enter society,” she told the Herald, “and lead crime-free lives upon release.”

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Why Won’t Food Taxes Die? New at Reason

GroceriesHow much do you pay for food at the grocery store? In some states—thanks to growing discussions about food taxes—you could be paying more money for less food if lawmakers have their way.

What are food taxes? They’re particularly odorous and onerous taxes on purchases of food for home preparation and/or consumption from grocery stores and similar establishments. They’re distinct from taxes that single out a particular food category—such as soda taxes—and also from taxes on foods sold for immediate consumption by restaurants, which are subject to taxes in most states.

In recent months, several states have proposed new food taxes. Some states have proposed to revive old ones. But others have also moved to repeal or reduce existing taxes. Food policy writer Baylen Linnekin explains more.

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Jonathan Haidt on “the Coddling of the American Mind” and How We Should Address It (New at Reason)

The suppression of free speech on college campuses isn’t a new thing, says Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist at the New York University Stern School of Business and author of The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. In the past, however, it was usually done by professors and administrators rather than students.

Haidt says student-driven speech suppression is a relatively new phenomenon. “It was after the Yale protests that everything really spread, and that was only 13 or 14 months ago,” says Haidt, referring to an incident in which students protested potentially offensive Halloween costumes.

For Haidt, students calling for speech codes, trigger warnings, and the like is a reversal of what we had come to expect on college campuses in the wake of the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s. “The thing people were not expecting was that the students are the ones who are demanding [political correctness] now,” he explains. “Before, it was typically the students who were demanding more freedom.”

This can have a chilling effect on speech even as it pushes students to opposite ends of the political spectrum. “At schools,” says Haidt, “men feel they can’t speak and then they go and vote for Trump.”

Reason TV’s Nick Gillespie sat down with Haidt at the International Students for Liberty Conference to discuss the rise of political correctness and its cultural implications. They also talk about Heterodox Academy, a website that Haidt helped start that discusses the need for viewpoint diversity within the university system.

Produced by Mark McDaniel. Cameras by McDaniel, Joshua Swain, and Todd Krainin. Graphics by Meredith Bragg.

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Berkeley’s Online Library Saved, Cornel West and Robert George Are Pro Free Speech: P.M. Links

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Netflix Offers Family-Friendly Teen Train Robbery Film: New at Reason

'Deidra & Laney Rob a Train'Sydney Freeland’s well-regarded but seldom-seen 2014 directorial debut, Drunktown’s Finest, was a somber look at American Indian identity issues that intertwined the stories of three Navajos: a young guy about to wash out of boot camp, a promiscuous transgendered woman, and a girl raised by white adoptive parents. She’s finally made a follow-up for Netflix, Deidra & Laney Rob a Train, and it seems to have come from the opposite side of the universe.

Imagine a scruffy teenage version of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid made for the Disney Channel—funny with a streak of poignance, the violence appropriately muffled, and, of course, a happy ending, and you’ll be close to the mark. This is not said with derision or condescension or any of the other qualities dearest to the TV critic’s heart. Deidra & Laney won’t remake the world, but it’s a fun 90 minutes of television. Television critic Glenn Garvin reviews.

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Tillerson Suggests Pre-Emptive Military Action Against North Korea a Possibility

In light of North Korea’s recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has announced that all talks with Pyongyang are closed until the country denuclearizes, reports the Associated Press.

Tillerson recently spoke at a press conference in Seoul, South Korea, as part of a three-nation trip that also included Japan and China. It has been described as a listening tour by the State Department in order to devise a better policy for dealing with North Korea, the AP story explained.

“It’s important that the leadership of North Korea realize that their current pathway of nuclear weapons and escalating threats will not lead to their objective of security and economic development,” Tillerson said. “That pathway can only be achieved by denuclearizing, giving up their weapons of mass destruction, and only then will we be prepared to engage with them in talks.”

The secretary of state also announced that it may be necessary for the U.S. to take pre-emptive military action against North Korea if the country’s weapons program reaches a critical threat level. “All of the options are on the table,” he said.

North Korea became the eighth nation to have nuclear capabilities after successfully testing its first nuclear weapon in October 2006, CNN notes. Since then, the country has engaged in numerous nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

Just last week, CNN reported that North Korea launched four missiles, with three of the missiles landing just 200 nautical miles offshore of Japan. The act prompted Japan to hold its first civilian missile evacuation drill in the coastal city of Oga, per the AP.

As North Korea’s weapon program advances, Siegfried S. Hecker, emeritus director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, told The New York Times that “Pyongyang will likely develop the capability to reach the continental United States with a nuclear tipped missile in a decade or so.”

With this news, Tillerson declared that the Obama administration’s policy of “strategic patience” is over. “Twenty years of talks with North Korea have brought us to where we are today,” he said.

President Donald Trump has also weighed in on the situation in his typically outlandish fashion. “North Korea is behaving very badly,” he tweeted this morning. “They have been ‘playing’ the United States for years. China has done little to help!”

As Reason Associate Editor Ed Krayewski noted last week, China is urging a diplomatic solution:

China, which has taken it upon itself to act as a mediator on the North Korea nuclear issue, proposed that North Korea suspend its nuclear and missile programs while the U.S. and South Korea suspend joint military exercises. However, the U.S. posture on the Korean peninsula has not escalated, and North Korea’s erratic decision-making process on missile tests doesn’t track neatly with specific U.S. or South Korean actions.

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St. Patrick’s Day Parades Were the Cinco De Mayo Festivals of 18th-Century

In 2006, Fox Business anchor Lou Dobbs, then with CNN, made a splash when he declared, “Let’s be clear. I don’t think there should be a St. Patrick’s Day.” Why the hell should we be celebrating anything other American holidays, he asked, anticipating the rise of Donald Trump’s economic and ethnic nationalism by a decade. Ever since returning to cable after a brief sojourn in Space (Space.com, that is), Dobbs has trafficked in populist attacks on illegal immigration (and most forms of legal immigration, too).

Today is, of course, St. Patrick’s Day and many cities across the country mark the day with a parade that blocks traffic and congregates drunks who have not one drop of Hibernian blood pulsing in their veins along with alcohol metabolized from green beer. I’ve celebrated St. Patrick’s at least once in some of the “Irish” cities in the country (Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago) and many times in New York. The essential fact about St. Patrick’s Day in America—and especially St. Patrick’s Day parades—is that it’s not at all about being Irish, despite trappings that indulge in the worst sort of Darby O’Gill and the Little People-style ephemera. The first St. Patrick’s Day parade wasn’t held in Dublin or Belfast, but in Manhattan, in 1762. In fact, it took until 1903 for St. Patrick’s Day to be more than a Catholic holy day of obligation in Ireland; the first St. Paddy’s Day parade in the Old Sod took place the same year.

Stick that in your $4.35 leprechaun clay pipe (+ shipping) and smoke it. The point of the 18th-century parade in New York was to show solidarity in the face of English social, economic, and political power. It turns out nothing is more purely American than ethnic identity politics. Remember that when Cinco de Mayo rolls around and on Pulaski Day (look it up), and remember it, too, on Columbus Day as well. One of the ways we show that we’re truly American is by recalling real and imagined hardships that our ancestors faced and over which they triumphed. And by letting others join in the legacy, even if that legacy is reduced to drinking until you puke.

That’s a lesson worth remembering in the 21st century, especially the day after President Trump, who wants to put America first, just hosted Ireland’s prime minister and read what he took to be an old Irish proverb but actually seems to be some doggerel written by a Nigerian banker.

“As we stand together with our Irish friends,” said Trump, “I’m reminded of proverb, and this is a good one, this is one I like. I’ve heard it for many, many years and I love it. ‘Always remember to forget the friends that proved untrue. But never forget to remember those that have stuck by you.'”

It’s OK, President Trump. Everyone—and everything—is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.

In 2010, Reason TV documented why immigrants come to America:

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Elected Florida Prosecutor Tries to Stop Using the Death Penalty, but Governor Won’t Have It

Aramis AyalaAramis Ayala wasn’t kidding when she ran and won a position as a prosecutor in Florida on a platform of criminal justice reform. And now she’s making national news for refusing to ask for the death penalty in the case of a man charged with murdering his pregnant ex-girlfriend and subsequently an Orlando police officer.

Ayala represented a small number of new prosecutors representing a trend in 2016 of voters turning to candidates that offered a less harsh justice system and dumping some incumbents.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is not impressed with Ayala’s decision, and even though the citizens of Osceola and Orange counties elected her, Scott is using his authority to move the case to another district and put it before another prosecutor. This came after she ignored his fully absurd demand that she recuse herself for not having the same position on the applicability of the death penalty as Scott’s.

The story has inevitably crystalized around the fact that Ayala will not call for the death penalty for a man who killed a police officer above anything else. From CNN:

“[Ayala] has made it clear that she will not fight for justice and that is why I am using my executive authority to immediately reassign the case to State Attorney Brad King,” Scott said. “These families deserve a state attorney who will aggressively prosecute Markeith Loyd to the fullest extent of the law and justice must be served.”

Earlier Thursday, Ayala said capital punishment in Florida had led to “chaos, uncertainty, and turmoil.”

She argued that evidence showed the death penalty was overly expensive, slow, inhumane and did not increase public safety. Ayala said after “extensive and painstaking thought and consideration,” she determined that pursing the death penalty “is not in the best interest of this community or the best interest of justice.”

“Some victims will support and some will surely oppose my decision,” she said. “But I have learned that the death penalty traps many victims, families in a decades-long cycle of uncertainty, court hearings, appeals and waiting.”

To be very clear, because some of the coverage is a little ambiguous: Ayala is going to refuse to pursue the death penalty for any murder handled by her office. It’s remarkable among prosecutors both for the political risk it opens up for Ayala but also for the fact that this isn’t even a case where there’s a lot of ambiguity that causes folks to question the application of the death penalty. This is the kind of case where people who are ambivalent about the death penalty are nevertheless likely to support Loyd’s execution (assuming he’s found guilty). Shooting a pregnant ex-girlfriend? Killing a cop execution-style and having it captured on video? The politically expedient thing for Ayala to do here would be to declare her personal opposition to the death penalty but ultimately allow the jury to decide.

Though leaders and representatives of law enforcement are furious, Ayala is getting support from groups like Amnesty International and the NAACP. The political maneuvering from the governor’s office, though, shows the challenge when prosecutors attempt to step back even just a slight bit in high-profile cases. Based on the facts of the case, it seems unlikely Loyd is ever going to see the outside of a prison again, ever. But just the prospect that Florida might not execute him as well is apparently too much for some people to countenance, even though the state’s own death penalty has been temporarily suspended over constitutional issues.

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