Cato Daily Dispatch for October 20, 2004
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Some Growth in Health Care Costs Due to ObesityFCC Wants Broad Authority over Internet Telephone
Study: Health Care in Canada Requires a Lot of Patience
Some Growth in Health Care Costs Due to Obesity
"More than a quarter of the phenomenal growth in health care spending over the past 15 years is attributable to obesity, Emory University researchers reported yesterday," according to the Washington Post.
"With 60 percent of the U.S. population deemed overweight or obese, study author Kenneth Thorpe said the only way to control soaring medical costs is to begin targeting prevention efforts and treatment on the most costly weight-related illnesses, such as diabetes, high cholesterol and heart disease."
In "Government Gets Fat Fighting Obesity," Cato policy analyst Radley Balko writes: "The war against obesity is the logical conclusion of our wars against certain drugs and, later, tobacco. The most personal of daily decisions -- what we put into our bodies -- is now a matter of 'public health.'
"This is a dangerous development. Because at the same time politicians and the media are waging war against obesity in the name of public health, government is moving to take Americans' ownership of their own health and well-being away from them, designating it public property."
FCC Wants Broad Authority over Internet Telephone
"FCC Chairman Michael Powell said Tuesday that he would seek broad regulatory authority for the federal government over Internet-based telephone services to avoid stifling the emerging market," The Associated Press reports.
"Powell told a receptive audience at an industry conference that letting states regulate Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, services would lead to a patchwork of conflicting rules like those which have ensnarled the traditional phone business for decades."
In "The Plot to Stop the Internet Telephone Revolution," Adam Thierer and Clyde Wayne Crews Jr., respectively, Cato director of telecommunications studies and adjunct scholar, write: "VoIP is something new; it does not fit neatly into the Byzantine regulatory taxonomy the FCC has established for older communications services. Its opponents want to open the door for regulation of this new service by needlessly subjecting it to the full force of traditional telecom regulations."
Study: Health Care in Canada Requires a Lot of Patience
"Voters yearning for the federal government to start rationing American health care might want to take note of a study just released by our neighbors up north. The Vancouver-based Fraser Institute Tuesday published its 14th annual report on hospital waiting times in Canada. In medical terms, the patient is not responding to increasing doses of dollars -- and the prognosis is not good," according to a Wall Street Journal editorial.
"Under Canada's government-run health-care monopoly, Fraser reports that the average wait for hospital treatment is 17.9 weeks. That's the average over 12 specialties and 10 provinces. To take just one example, the projected wait for hip-replacement surgery in British Columbia is 52 weeks. 'These waiting times are the longest that Canadians have ever experienced,' notes Fraser's senior health policy analyst, Nadeem Esmail. And 'they exist despite record levels of health spending.'"
In "Clinton Got Quick Care, Unlike Canadian Heart Patients," Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies, writes: "When government makes medical care 'free,' people demand medical care without regard to cost. Governments can't keep up with the excess demand and therefore must find some way of allocating care amid shortage conditions. Most choose to make patients wait."
Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org