90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, May 7, 2015

After expanding to do business on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges last year, a Wisconsin-based health insurance company founded in 1892 has announced it will close its doors.

Assurant Inc. announced last week one of its subsidiaries, Assurant Health, an insurance company, will either be sold or shuttered after losing tens of millions of dollars this year. The decision comes 18 months after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and industry watchers argue Assurant Health’s end can be attributed to the new health care law.

“The health and employee benefits business segments possess differentiated capabilities in their respective markets, but we do not believe they can meet our return targets at the pace we require,” Alan Colberg, president of Assurant Inc., said in a statement. “While this is a difficult decision, we believe they would be strong assets for new owners that are focused more exclusively on health care and employee benefits.”

In a letter to its shareholders, Assurant Health said it lost money because of...

Girls With Guns

Here’s some advice to the White House: it might be time for President Obama to cancel the rest of his
economic “mission accomplished” tour and help figure out how to get the U.S. growing again.

The Department of Commerce delivered the miserable news Wednesday morning that economic growth nearly ground to a halt during the first quarter, up a microscopic 0.2 percent. Even more disturbing, because the population is growing at about 0.8 percent, real per capita GDP is actually negative. Remember we also had an abysmal jobs growth number for March.

Once again economists blamed the frigid and blizzard conditions on the East Coast; and no doubt weather was a factor in the subpar performance.

But this is a long-term pattern under Obama, not a seasonal blip. Back in 2009, Vice President Biden promised us a “Summer of Recovery” and nearly six years later we are all still eagerly waiting for it.

The tepid growth rate so far in 2015 merely extends the track record of the 23 quarter post-Great Recession recovery. The annualized growth rate of 2.24 percent dead last compared to the six other recoveries since 1960, which averaged 3.97 percent after 23 quarters. This translates into nearly $1.7 trillion (in constant 2009 dollars) in absent economic growth.

But the more amazing comparison is that of the Reagan—which trounces this current so-called recovery. That recovery’s sizzling 4.8 percent annualized growth through 23 quarters was more than twice the rate of the current recovery. In other words, for every $1 of economic growth experienced during the present time, the Reagan recovery produced more than $2. As a result, the Reagan recovery gap now stands at a record $2.48 trillion of real annual GDP (in 2009 dollars). The economy is now more than...