October 1, 1999

by Peter J.M. Orvetti

Medical Bill
The Waco Debate Burns On
Congressional Farm Aid

Medical Bill

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley has laid out a $65 billion plan for universal access to health insurance, saying that "big problems require big thinking," CNN reports. Bradley's plan would require parents to get coverage for their children and would offer subsidies for families unable to afford insurance. "Good health is a blessing, not a guarantee. But good health care is a right and it's up to use to ensure that right for every American," Bradley said.

In 1992, before the Clinton administration released its doomed health plan, Michael Tanner wrote in the Cato Policy Analysis "Health Care Reform: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly": "With the exception of the tax-incentive approaches, most major health care reform proposals would dramatically increase government involvement in the health care market place. The result would almost inevitably be increased costs and decreased access to care. Only solutions that build on a free market in health care will ultimately be successful in controlling costs and increasing access to care. Government involvement in health care has been steadily increasing for 30 years, with disastrous results. It is time to seek solutions in the power of the free market."

Five years later, Sue A. Blevins examined the continuing flaws of American health care in the Cato Policy Analysis "Restoring Health Freedom: The Case for a Universal Tax Credit for Health Insurance": "Americans' lack of health freedom can be measured objectively using the Health Freedom of Choice Index. This study uses that index to compare three types of health insurance plans: the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, Medicare, and medical savings accounts (MSAs). According to the index, MSAs offer individuals the most freedom to select their health care providers and benefits. Last year's Kassebaum-Kennedy bill limited the number of MSAs to 750,000 nationwide. This year Congress will grant the MSA option to only 390,000 of 37 million Medicare recipients. The way to restore freedom in health care is to provide every American a tax credit for health insurance, whether purchased privately or through an employer or other organization. A universal tax credit, along with legislation to make MSAs available to all Americans, would help put choices about health care coverage back in the hands of the people."

The Waco Debate Burns On

Attorney Michael Caddell, the chief lawyer for the survivors of the Mount Carmel center fire near Waco, Texas, in 1993, is wary of blaming the conflagration on the military tear gas that the FBI has finally admitted using, AP reports. Caddell says the incendiary canisters are a possible "red herring." He is examining other federal agents could have triggered the fire in which some 80 practitioners died. The alternate theories include that the fire started from contact between the compound's wooden walls and extremely hot exhaust from military tanks used by the FBI in the final assault.

"The lies about how the fire started commenced while the building was still in flames," David B. Kopel and Paul H. Blackman wrote in a commentary, "Fanning the Flames of Waco", earlier this month. "A Justice Department spokesman in Washington claimed that an FBI sniper using a rifle scope had seen a male Branch Davidian, wearing black Ninja-style clothes and a black hood, pour liquid on the floor behind a piano and then ignite it. The day after the fire, Jeffrey Jamar, the FBI's special agent in charge at Waco, asserted that the agent saw a person 'get down with cupped hands and then there was a flash of fire.' At the criminal trial of the Branch Davidians in 1994, that story fell apart. FBI Special Agent Jack Morrison said that he could see, through a hole created by a tank, somebody bent or kneeling by an overturned piano. The man appeared to be washing his hands, although the sniper admitted on cross-examination that he could not see the man's hands. The fire did not erupt while the man was in the sniper's sight, though the sniper did see a fire shortly thereafter. However, pictures of the progress of the fire show that the area near the overturned piano (the front door) was not a starting point for any fire. No fire appears there until several minutes after the sniper's observation. Photographs show no fire in that area while much of the rest of the building was in flames."

Kopel was among the panelists at the Cato Institute film screening of Waco: The Rules of Engagement on September 15. Waco survivor David Thibodeau and Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) also spoke. The panel discussion is available in RealAudio format.

Congressional Farm Aid

Republican leaders in Congress are close to sending an $8.7 billion farm-aid package to the floor for a vote, Reuters reports. The farm aid is part of a larger $69 billion agriculture funding bill. Disagreements over dairy reforms tied up the bill, but it is now expected to advance. Approximately $5.54 billion of the aid would be spent on cash payments to grain and cotton farmers. Aid also was targeted to cotton, soybeans, tobacco, peanuts, dairy and livestock producers.

"The paradox of modern-day agriculture is that farmers often do better when yields are low, because prices are high. But for the rest of us, low prices mean higher real incomes," Stephen Moore wrote in the commentary "The False Farm Crisis". "The late, great economist Julian Simon always complained of government's and the media's propensity to convert good news into doom and gloom. Reporters are forever in search of a victim even when the underlying trend -- lower prices, greater technological innovation, faster economic progress -- is benign… Free-market farm policies have not battered, but rather have blessed, American consumers."

In the Cato Handbook for Congress chapter on the federal budget, farm spending is discussed: "Every farm bill in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s was designed to greatly expand welfare for America's multi-billion-dollar agribusinesses… The eagerness of the Republican Congress to provide billions of dollars of preelection 'emergency' farm aid to midwestern farmers is not an encouraging development."