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I'm Going To Keep Asking Until I Get An Answer

Posted by Dave Smith on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 6:02:03 PM
I know I've asked this question repeatedly, but I still haven't gotten an answer -- any answer.  So, in response to this column in the Chronicle by Mr. J. Wayne Leonard, Chairman and CEO of Entergy Corp, I sent the following letter:

re:  "Cap-and-trade legislation deserves industry support

In his op-ed column on the cap-and-trade legislation recently passed by the House of Representatives and currently being debated in the Senate, Mr. J. Wayne Leonard claims that the cap-and-trade bill is "a good start" and the "best bill I've seen". I'll offer him the same question I've asked other advocates of this program:  how much will it lower global temperatures? 1 deg F? 10 deg F? 0.1 deg F? And if this is a "good start", how much more legislation is necessary in the future?

Mr. Leonard also mentions that carbon emissions have a cost.  What is the specific cost associated with those emissions, and how do they relate to the cap-and-trade plan? How much cost per degree temperature reduction is, in his opinion, an efficient trade-off?  I am willing to bet that these are questions Mr. Leonard would expect to ask before making any investment or major policy change as leader of Entergy Corp.  Why should we expect less from our government than Entergy's stockholders expect from Mr. Leonard?

Until he, and other advocates, can answer these questions, I find it hard to understand how this bill can be considered "the best way" forward.

Sincerely,
Dave Smith
Houston, TX
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Right Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription

Posted by Dave Smith on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 9:33:26 AM
In response to this editorial in the Chronicle, I sent the following letter:

re:  "Throwing more dollars at a broken health care system"

In describing the work Congress is doing to "reform" the US health care system, Dr. Ho makes a good diagnosis:  the current health care system is "broken" -- riddled with inefficiencies, and rapidly rising in cost.  Unfortunately, her prescription is based on an incorrect starting premise.

Rather than depending on policymakers "create a health care system" that would "take the politically unpopular action of telling the public" which medical processes to which they should have access -- putting medical decisions in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats, and paid for by taxpayers -- a better approach would be to put medical decisions in the hands of patients who have a financial stake in acquiring all the information and making an informed decision.

Because a third party (either the insurance company or, in nearly half of all cases now, the government) ends up paying for medical services, individual patients have no incentive not to " want access to every treatment prescribed by their physician".  A person eating dinner on an expense account rarely worries about frugality.

Rather than creating a complex government-imposed health care system, a better approach would be to empower individuals and remove barriers to a free, competitive market, in which consumers have a direct incentive to be better stewards of health care expenditures (while maintaining insurance coverage that fits their respective needs) and insurance companies have a direct incentive to offer better, more innovative options at better prices.

Let's return the power to consumers, not politicians, bureaucrats, and corporations.

Sincerely,
Dave Smith
Houston, TX
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