Jennifer: I am going to have a longer piece on Rudy Care early
next week, so for now just a few brief comments.
Dubbing it "Milton Friedman Care" is way off the mark. That
description implies that it is a big expansion of freedom in health
care. But the only ways it expands liberty is by letting people
without employer-based coverage have access to a tax break similar
to the one that those with employer-based coverage do, and allowing
people to buy health insurance out of state.
However, the second one comes with a big catch. You will be able
to buy insurance out of state only if your state does not have
health insurance policies that are "affordable." Thus, if you live
in a state where the federal government has deemed that you have
affordable insurance, you cannot purchase insurance out off state.
That leads to the big problem of how to define "affordable." I
don't know how they will define it, since the Giuliani campaign
hasn't gotten that far into the details yet.
What I do know is that Milton Friedman would gag at the prospect
of government defining something that should be a judgment left to
individuals.