More Men Liberated from Work
One in six U.S. men in their prime working years aren't employed, but North Carolina's governor has been working on a solution.
By James Freeman and Brian Carney
Updated Feb. 6, 2014 8:01 a.m. ET
MORE MEN LIBERATED FROM WORK
The Journal reports: "More than one in six men ages 25 to 54, prime working years, don't have jobs—a total of 10.4 million. Some are looking for jobs; many aren't." And the problem is not just a lack of jobs. "Simply put, many of the available jobs don't pay enough to get men to take them, particularly if securing a job requires moving, long commutes or surrendering government benefits."
While it might seem like a tragedy to see able-bodied men dropping out of the workforce, in the upside-down world of ObamaCare, this is often viewed as progress by the White House. Obama chief economist Jason Furman responded this week to a CBO report that ObamaCare would cause the economy to lose the equivalent of 2.5 million workers. If taxpayer-funded health insurance encourages some people to work less, argues Mr. Furman, "that, in their case, might be a better choice and a better option than what they had before."
CUTTING BENEFITS INCREASES JOBS, BUT 'DOESN'T POLL WELL'
Fortunately some politicians still see joblessness as a problem to be solved, rather than a "choice" to be encouraged. North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory tells us that a key factor in his decision last year to limit unemployment benefits was the number of employers who told him they couldn't persuade people to take entry-level jobs. Mr. McCrory and the legislators who approved a reduction in benefits from 73 to 20 weeks received harsh media coverage and almost "Wisconsin-level protests."
But since the most generous benefits expired in July, the state has created more than 50,000 jobs. Preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest that employment in the Tarheel State hit an all-time high in December. Even so, Mr. McCrory says he "can't tell" whether the success of the program has made it more popular. The politics are "tough," he reports, but the first-term governor says he was determined upon taking office last year "to show progress instead of decline."
MORE PATIENTS LIBERATED FROM THEIR DOCTORS
One of the signature features of the new ObamaCare insurance policies is their narrow networks of doctors—a strategy the insurance companies used to keep already-high costs from going even higher. The stories of patients losing access to their doctors have helped sour Americans on ObamaCare. Now regulators and lawmakers are going after the insurance companies over the practice, hoping to improve their political fortunes by making the insurers the fall guys.
We could explain here about free-lunchism, and how someone has to pay for the network expansions, and so on. But there's an even broader lesson here, which is that ObamaCare has made everything about health-care provision even more political. Which isn't good for anyone's health.
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