I have several specific memories of twenty years ago on this date. I remember laying by the pool at my parents’ home with one of my groomsmen who had flown in from out of town. I remember getting slightly lost on the way to the bed and breakfast where we were to spend our short honeymoon. But, most of all, I remember standing at the end of the aisle feeling vulnerable while I waited for Stefanie to step into the sanctuary. I was nervous. Oddly enough, I wasn’t nervous about getting married, I was just nervous that I would screw it up. The truth was that I wasn’t terribly concerned about the details of the ceremony or the reception. I just wanted to make sure we actually closed the deal and I didn’t ruin the moment for years to come.

Needless to say, it went off without a hitch (aside from the slightly longer-than-planned trip to the B&B). It’s been a fantastic ride for twenty years. I would have been terrified if I had known what was coming, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I also know that the adventure isn’t nearly finished and I’m looking forward to where God takes us next.

Stefanie gave a good summary of the events leading up to our wedding day on her blog here. So, I’ll just mention a very recent story that seems to sum up what a fantastic woman I’ve married.

I’ve been planning for well over a year to buy Stefanie an anniversary band to celebrate our twentieth. I’ve been held up by the fact that I didn’t know her ring size. I started with subterfuge in attempting to get the size, then moved to gentle nudges, and finally resorted to outright requests for her ring size as the date neared. At the same time, we’ve had another big event in our lives form. I will be changing jobs next week to one that’s better for our family, but will mean a lower income. Furthermore, there will be a gap of about four to six weeks where we’ll be living off of savings before my new income starts to appear. This led Stefanie to resist any large purchases, including the ring I had planned. So, she came up with a brilliant idea. She suggested that we buy new Bibles as anniversary gifts for each other.

After just hearing a sermon on understanding the real value of your actions and being good stewards with what God has given you, this suggestion floored me. She had hit the nail on the head. As our lives lead us into closer communion with our God, I’m realizing how blessed I am to be walking side-by-side with my amazing wife. I couldn’t ask for a more perfect partner in navigating life.

Stefanie, I love you more than I have ever been able to put into words. I can’t believe you put your faith in a cocky teenager twenty years ago, but I hope, with God’s strength, I’m providing some justification for that decision. I can’t wait for the next adventure as long as I get to share it with you.

I love you.

P.S. I think I’ll still buy you the ring next year.

During this health care debate, it’s become clear that a very large number of Americans are unimpressed with President Obama’s plans for reform. Despite what he and his spokesmen say, it’s hard to believe that we can make things better by involving more government and more money. In fact, I believe that proper reform is actually in the opposite direction. The value is not in hiding away the cost of health care, but actually in removing the middlemen.

Arthur Laffer made this point better than I could in this Wall Street Journal column. Economics is based on the dynamic tension between consumers and producers. The producers want to be able to charge more for the product. Consumers want to pay less. It’s this tension that drives free markets to produce better products at lower, but sustainable, prices over the long term. If you detach either end of this equation, the tension is broken and it begins to break down.

Although we’ve all come to love it, medical insurance itself is part of the problem. We pay a flat fee every month and we’re able to consume as many services as we can get approved for. By removing the patient’s concern about cost, we allow the producer (the doctors and hospitals) to charge more with no immediate effect. Maybe our premiums will go up next year, but that’s too far removed from the action that drove them. If I had to pay for each doctor’s visit, each diagnostic test, and each prescription at full price, I’d become a much pickier consumer. I’d look for better deals. Those providers would have to compete for my money. Services get better and prices go down.

Now, add another level of indirection when the government funds the medical insurance. This means some folks getting free insurance (no cost at all!) with no concern for the cost of the services they consume. When the prices go up in this scenario, the government foots the bill. There isn’t even an increase in premium prices for the patient. How does government solve this problem? By setting prices. They declare they will only pay so much for services. So, the service providers either refuse to accept patients on the government plans or they make up for the lost income by pushing the costs over to those still paying for their own insurance. Which continues to increase those premiums! And, if there are no other kinds of patients (in a single payer system like Canada or the UK), then the fix is to simply ration the care.

Distancing the payer from the service provider causes breakdowns in the benefits of free market economics. The solution here is to bring them closer. Mr. Laffer calls this the wedge. The wedge is the difference between what services cost and what the patient actually pays. The bigger the wedge, the worse the problem. The key is to shrink or remove the wedge.

Thus, health-care reform should be based on policies that diminish the health-care wedge rather than increase it. Mr. Obama’s reform principles—a public health-insurance option, mandated minimum coverage, mandated coverage of pre-existing conditions, and required purchase of health insurance—only increase the size of the wedge and thus health-care costs.

According to research I performed for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a $1 trillion increase in federal government health subsidies will accelerate health-care inflation, lead to continued growth in health-care expenditures, and diminish our economic growth even further. Despite these costs, some 30 million people will remain uninsured.

Implementing Mr. Obama’s reforms would literally be worse than doing nothing.

Put more emphasis on Health Savings Accounts to give taxpayers a tax-advantaged way to pay for these services, but make them pay for them themselves. Put the costs in front of the consumer and he will begin to shop. When people feel ownership and control of the costs, they will manage the money better than any government agency ever would.

Fantastic can mean “amazing, wonderful, and good” and it can also mean “impossible, beyond reality, and of fantasy”. I’m going for the second meaning here as I discuss the claim by the current White House that massive intrusion of the federal government into health care will reduce costs. That’s fantastic (again, in the “beyond reality” kind of way).

This article in Investor’s Business Daily makes the point cleanly.

The idea of expanding the federal role in the medical arena is truly fiscally irresponsible. The claim that money will be saved through government competition with the private insurance system (with government setting the rules!) is the height of fantasy.

If 45 million Americans are now uninsured, that means 265 million are insured privately, and the government should not disrupt that. If the government becomes the insurer of most Americans, the impact on the budget would be absolutely awesome. Rationing of medical care that is so often mentioned would surely result.

Again, I believe the author is using awesome with a negative connotation.

It seems the height of fantasy to argue that the feds can make something cheaper by trying to control the market centrally. It is the height of arrogance to make that argument with a straight face.