Independence Institute's Caldara used his public television program to misinform about state health care reform

Summary: On KBDI Channel 12's Independent Thinking, Independence Institute president Jon Caldara hosted Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute to discuss health care reform. But Caldara did not mention the Cato Institute's libertarian agenda, or the fact that he and another Independence Institute member have proposed a state constitutional amendment opposing mandatory participation in a health care plan. Further, Caldara did not challenge Tanner's dubious assertion that "most" people without health insurance were "uninsured for short periods of time."

On the March 27 broadcast of public television KBDI Channel 12's Independent Thinking, host and Independence Institute president Jon Caldara continued his "free-market" organization's attack on the policies of Gov. Bill Ritter (D). Caldara interviewed the Cato Institute's director of Health and Welfare Studies, Michael Tanner, about the Colorado bipartisan Blue Ribbon Commission for Healthcare Reform's recommended policy changes, some of which Ritter included in his recent health care reform plan. Besides failing to disclose the Cato Institute's libertarian agenda, Caldara also failed to mention that he and Independence Institute Health Care Policy Center director Linda Gorman have proposed an amendment to the Colorado Constitution that would prohibit "the state and its political subdivisions from requiring persons to participate in any public or private health care system."

Caldara also allowed Tanner to claim that "most" people without health insurance were "uninsured for short periods of time," although federal data indicate that in the National Center for Health Statistics' most recent survey, some 43.7 million Americans were uninsured at the time of the survey and 31.2 million had been uninsured for more than a year. Further, Caldara did not challenge Tanner's claim that significantly understated the number of people who bought health insurance in Massachusetts after that state enacted a 2006 law requiring residents to carry health insurance, based on figures released by the state itself.

The Denver Post reported on March 7 that "[a] state commission on health care recommended Thursday that everyone in Colorado be required to have medical insurance and that the state put more money into child health care and Medicaid." The article further reported:

The commission also recommended subsidies for low-income workers to purchase private insurance.

The commission was appointed by lawmakers and Gov. Bill Ritter to find away to get health care to nearly 800,000 Coloradans who don't have insurance. Members have acknowledged their initiatives could cost millions of dollars, but they left it to lawmakers to figure how to pay for them.

On his March 27 broadcast, Caldara introduced Tanner as being "with the Cato Institute," but did not note the libertarian agenda of the think tank, whose website states that "[t]he Jeffersonian philosophy that animates Cato's work has increasingly come to be called 'libertarianism' or 'market liberalism.' It combines an appreciation for entrepreneurship, the market process, and lower taxes with strict respect for civil liberties and skepticism about the benefits of both the welfare state and foreign military adventurism." Furthermore, Caldara did not disclose his role in a proposed amendment opposing mandatory participation in a health care plan. As the Rocky Mountain News reported on January 10:

No one would be required to participate in a public or private health care plan under a proposed amendment to the Colorado Constitution.

Jon Caldara and Linda Gorman of the conservative-leaning Independence Institute are proposing the amendment and will meet with the Colorado Legislative Council staff later this month to discuss it.

The amendment, which Caldara wants on the November ballot, would not allow the state to mandate coverage for all its residents.

Coloradans would also not be denied the right to purchase private health insurance in any other state, and the proposal would allow people the option to purchase health coverage from out-of-state providers.

Answering a question from Caldara, Tanner used nationwide figures to estimate "the details" of the uninsured population in Colorado, concluding there are "about 400,000 Coloradans who are really the uninsured population." Tanner further claimed, "[T]he fact that they're uninsured today doesn't mean they were uninsured yesterday, doesn't mean they're uninsured tomorrow," adding, "We sort of have this image, you know, it says if someone's uninsured it means they were born without health insurance and 80 years from now they'll die without health insurance. They've never seen a doctor, or something, somehow, in between." He then claimed, "The reality is that most of these people are uninsured for short periods of time."

But while Tanner did not specify whether "these people" referred to uninsured Coloradans or uninsured Americans overall, using data "based on household interviews of a sample of the civilian noninstitutionalized population," the latest National Center for Health Statistics' National Health Interview Survey estimated that, from January through September 2007, 43.7 million people were uninsured at the time of the survey, 54.5 million individuals were "[u]ninsured for at least part of the past year," and 31.2 million were "[u]ninsured for more than a year" at the time of the survey.

Later in the broadcast, while discussing the Massachusetts law requiring most residents of the state to be medically insured by July 1, 2007, Tanner and Caldara misrepresented the law's effects on the private insurance market:

TANNER: Well, before the mandate they had about 600,000 people who were uninsured in the state. Since they put in the mandate, about 300,000 people have signed up for insurance. So, in theory, they reduced that by about half.

CALDARA: Wow, so they cut it by half! That seems like a huge success. Overnight, half the people who were uninsured are now insured.

TANNER: And you still have, of course, half the people -- 300,000 people are still uninsured in the state. But what's interesting, of those 300,000 people who signed up, 270,000 of them are receiving either subsidized or free coverage through state programs. So only about 30,000 people actually went out and bought health insurance.

The Massachusetts health care program's administrative website, the "Health Connector," reported in March that "[t]here are now more than 300,000 newly insured in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts since the outset of healthcare reform" (emphasis in original). However, in contrast to Tanner's claim that "only about 30,000 people actually went out and bought health insurance," the "Health Connector" further reported, "Approximately one-third are newly enrolled in private commercial insurance, purchasing either through the Commonwealth Choice offering (17,000) or a private health plan through their employer or directly on their own from private insurance carriers." The Commonwealth Choice program assists state residents in finding unsubsidized, low-cost private health insurance.

In addition, the "Health Connector" fact sheet noted that "[o]f the 176,000 enrolled in Commonwealth Care as of March 1, 2008, approximately 50,000 contribute something toward the monthly cost of premiums, and the remainder receives free coverage." According to the "Commonwealth Connector" website, the Commonwealth Care Health Insurance Program (Commonwealth Care) "connects eligible Massachusetts residents with approved health plans and helps them pay for them."

As Colorado Media Matters has noted, from late January through mid-February, the Independence Institute provided a variety of public and media platforms in Colorado for Paul Chesser, director of Climate Strategies Watch, which criticizes global warming "alarmists" and is a "joint project" of the conservative John Locke Foundation, the Heartland Institute and the Better Government Project. On the February 14 broadcast of Independent Thinking, Caldara and Chesser attacked the Center for Climate Strategies, which supported and facilitated the work of the Colorado Climate Action Panel, whose report became the basis of the Colorado Climate Action Plan. Further, neither acknowledged that the Heartland Institute received funding from the fossil-fuel industry.

From the March 27 broadcast of KBDI Channel 12's Independent Thinking:

CALDARA: Michael Tanner is with the Cato Institute. Appreciate you spending some time with us.

TANNER: Pleasure to be here.

CALDARA: All right, now, you focus on health care issues at the Cato Institute. We asked you to come out here to Colorado to talk to some legislators, and to share a little bit about what's going on nationwide on health care, but really focusing in on what's happening here in Colorado. For those who don't know, Colorado just went through, the state went through a blue ribbon commission -- because if you don't know whether to order paper or plastic bags, in government you have to have a blue ribbon commission. The blue ribbon commission says we need to basically step towards more socialized health care here in Colorado. I want to focus in on how bad the uninsured problem here in Colorado, nationwide is; but also how this blue ribbon commission, how they, their recommendations may or may not work. First, let's talk about -- how many uninsured do we have here?

TANNER: We have about 800,000 Coloradans without insurance. But --

CALDARA: That's a big number.

TANNER: That is a big number, but we have to be a little bit careful about that, because that sort of is a broad snapshot; it doesn't really give you all the details. We know that nationwide, for example, about 15 percent of all the people without health insurance are really eligible, now, for government programs like Medicaid or SCHIP [the State Children's Health Insurance Program] but simply haven't signed up. You know that another, oh, 10 percent or so are illegal immigrants, and you're not going to get them in any program, no matter what you try to do. So, you probably have about 400,000 Coloradans who are really the uninsured population. Beyond that, the fact that they're uninsured today doesn't mean they were uninsured yesterday, doesn't mean they're uninsured tomorrow. We sort of have this image, you know, it says if someone's uninsured it means they were born without health insurance and 80 years from now they'll die without health insurance. They've never seen a doctor, or something, somehow, in between. The reality is that most of these people are uninsured for short periods of time. They cycle in and out of the insurance market. Because we link our insurance to our jobs, if you lose your job, you lose your insurance. So, for low-income people who are sort of barely tied to the job market, cycling in and out, they get, have a job, they lose it; well, they have health insurance, and then they lose it. And then a few months later they get a new job, and they get health insurance back.

[...]

TANNER: Let's look at Massachusetts. That's the only state right now that has mandated that people buy health insurance. And it went into effect on January 1st of this year that you must now have health insurance if you live in the state of Massachusetts.

CALDARA: Just by being a citizen there, you must --

TANNER: No other reason that. Right.

CALDARA: You must have insurance.

TANNER: Well, before the mandate they had about 600,000 people who were uninsured in the state. Since they put in the mandate, about 300,000 people have signed up for insurance. So, in theory, they reduced that by about half.

CALDARA: Wow, so they cut it by half! That seems like a huge success. Overnight, half the people who were uninsured are now insured.

TANNER: And you still have, of course, half the people -- 300,000 people are still uninsured in the state. But what's interesting, of those 300,000 people who signed up, 270,000 of them are receiving either subsidized or free coverage through state programs. So only about 30,000 people actually went out and bought health insurance.

CALDARA: All right, let me give that back to you; I want to make sure I understand this. So out of the 600,000 who didn't have insurance, half of them now have insurance; but out of those, what, 290?

TANNER: 270,000.

CALDARA: 270,000 of them -- almost all of them -- are now on the government dole; the government has buying them health insurance.

TANNER: Sure. What we've proved is, if you give somebody something for free, they'll take it --

CALDARA: Yes.

TANNER: -- by and large.

CALDARA: Yeah, by the way, I noticed that. I've noticed that. So, if government's gonna buy me health insurance, I'll go ahead and take it.

TANNER: So the mandate didn't do anything.

CALDARA: So out of this -- out of this 600,000 people who are uninsured, 30,000 -- a small, what, a 5 percent of them -- decided, "I better go out and buy insurance for myself now that, now it's the law." So only 5 percent really went out and bought insurance that didn't already have it.

TANNER: That's right. We -- the mandate did absolutely nothing. The subsidies, they got more people insured. Now, we can argue about whether the cost was good there. The program is breaking the bank. It's already running $150 million this year more than was budgeted. It's expected to be 400 million more next year. Over the next 10 years it's going to be about $4 billion in excess of what was budgeted for it.

CALDARA: So, really, would it be fair to say that the way we look at Massachusetts is not that we're going to force these people to buy insurance, but we are just going to buy them insurance and give it to them? Would that be a better way to describe it?

TANNER: That actually would be what they're doing, and actually would make more sense than going down the individual mandate route.

—C.H.