History is fun!

Time for a short exercise in not-so-distant history. Let's count the ways in which the proposed health care reform is like the series of government intervention that led to the subprime mortgage crisis.

As I only have 20 minutes to write today, please feel free to add on if I miss anything.

Here we go, starting with the most simple:

1. Banks and insurers are both financial institutions
2. (related to 1.) Both target financial firms to provide the cash to pay for something else (for banks, it was the cash to pay for houses; for health care reform, it's the cash to pay for medical services)
3. Both arguments are highly emotionally charged ("people are ill" and "families without homes")
4. (related to 3.) Both arguments in favor rely on emotion over reason
5. Both are principally aimed at helping "the poor" at the expense of "the rich" (i.e., they are both meant to redistribute wealth)
6. Both have no basis in the Constitution
7. Both involve increasing amounts of government control over personal decisions
8. Both involve industries that are already very highly regulated by the government
9. Both demonize the companies for being "too greedy" and have politicians calling them "dishonest" (talk about the pot calling the kettle black!)
10. (related to 8. & 9.) Both have "problems" in the market, many of which are logically explained by the government interventions, but the companies take the blame
11. Both claim "market failure" without any real evidence
12. Both are highly costly to the taxpayers
13. Both are aimed to "increase access" to the cash to pay for something, which will only raise the price of the thing itself as more people suddenly have the cash to pay for it (for the banks, it was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buying mortgages as well as imposing quotas on banks to lend more to high-risk groups, which, coupled with artificially low interest rates courtesy of the Federal Reserve, led to the housing boom... and bust; the health care reform will at the very least impose mandates on insurers to cover more and pay more, which will increase demand for the services being paid for)
14. Both create large new government entities to accomplish its goals (for banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, "officially" private but actually quite intertwined with government and ultimately very costly to taxpayers; for health care, it would be the government plan)
15. Both impose extra risks to firms without compensating them for it (for banks, it was the quotas to lend to high-risk "subprime" borrowers; for insurers, it is the proposed mandates to cover pre-existing conditions and other more or less certain expenses)

I see a lot of similarities between the two circumstances. One can only hope that history does not repeat itself!