Governance does not count among the many human activities improved by bold enthusiasm. Governance works best in measured doses, guardedly administered.
Testimony to this observation abounds, recently in the unraveling of two enthusiastically implemented programs the US would be better off without.
One is the Affordable Care Act--Obamacare.
Because federal manipulations haven’t worked as planned, insurance companies are hemorrhaging money and abandoning the effort.
Latest to go is Aetna, which will withdraw from program exchanges in 11 states, citing losses.
Supporters of the system produced a letter purportedly showing Aetna officials threatened withdrawal to win antitrust clearance of a merger.
In fact, Aetna’s letter responded to a Justice Department inquiry about how rejection of the merger might affect its Obamacare participation. It wasn’t a threat.
Like all initiatives predicated on the ability of politicians to outwit markets, Obamacare--infamously passed by lawmakers trumpeting the need to pass the legislation before they knew what it contained--is failing….
Quite like the other program the US should discard, the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Requiring more grain ethanol than the market can use and more cellulosic ethanol than can be made, the RFS has become a cost trap for refiners. That’s reason enough to kill it.
Beyond that, assumptions on which the program is based no longer apply.
Lawmakers thought a country destined forever to struggle with gasoline shortage needed a supply extender. They didn’t foresee the surplus now depressing gasoline prices and likely to become a standard feature of the products market unless cataclysm strikes crude supply.
Lawmakers also assumed renewable substitutes for gasoline and diesel would help the environment. Experience suggests otherwise.
The Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to assess environmental effects of the RFS every 3 years and report to Congress. According to an Aug. 18 Inspector General report, it has done so once--in 2011.
Obamacare and the RFS are errors their sponsors wish not to confront. So they’ve assumed lives of their own. And they both need killing.
(From the subscription area of www.ogj.com, posted Aug. 19, 2016; author’s e-mail: [email protected])