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Simon Johnson argues that the conventional antitrust tools of Sherman Act are outdated and ill-equipped to deal with the power of big banks…

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A number of opponents of Obamacare, such as Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn, have criticized the President and his people for referring to pending proposals as “health insurance reform” rather than “health care reform.” I suppose these critics think the President is engaging in a sleight of hand in an effort to minimize the significance of the reform proposals — as in, “We’re not reforming the whole health care system, just health insurance. No biggie.” But Mr. Obama is right. This proposal is about insurance rather than the provision of health care itself. And that’s the main problem.

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The president revealed his last-ditch plan to reform our healthcare system today. (Funny the plan is revealed before the “bipartisan” meeting about health care being trumpeted for political reasons.) One thing I was hoping to see in the proposal is missing — an increase in the eligibility age for Medicare (and, while we are at it, Social Security). Although I would prefer to see us do away with these entitlement programs, if we have them, why not make them solvent and sensible? When these programs were passed, people lived a lot shorter lives than they do today, and a simple indexing to life expectancy would go a long way toward reducing our national fiscal crisis. Not only would this reduce our government-funded health care expenses, it would encourage 65 year olds to stay in the work force. Take my Dad. He retired to a life of reading history books when he hit that magic number, even though he was still energetic, capable, and earning a good living at the time. Our perverse entitlement programs encouraged him to do this, to accept government handouts even though he doesn’t need them, and mandated that he go onto a government-run insurance program, even though he could easily afford his own health care bills or insurance. This makes absolutely no sense. Any system that takes people like this out of the work force and bestows upon them welfare without regard to need is not just stupid, it is immoral.

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AAI continues its series of antitrust policy statements from presidential candidates with a submission from John Edwards. Again, I’m very pleased that the AAI was successful in getting this series of submissions together and inducing candidates to share their thoughts on antitrust policy. So what does Edwards have to say?

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