Mobile P-R ~ Higher education is like health care

The Mobile Press-Register opines Time for relief from rising college costs citing "Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much" of Ohio University's Richard Vedder. They didn't mention his The Wal-Mart Revolution: How Big-Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers, and the Economy. Dr. Vedder is earning his wingnut welfare at The Independent Institute as well as AEI. He is the Executive Director of The Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP) as well. His scholarship has been bought and paid for via The Searle Freedom Trust, at least in part. They also didn't reference his work for Big Tobacco or how taxation affects migration as recognized by The Heartland Institute.

The Mobile Press-Register writes

"Higher education is like health care: Costs are driven up by third-party payment, lack of price competition and inefficiencies that inevitably develop when high prices don't affect the bottom line."

So is the Mobile P-R suggesting we need a better health care arrangement? Would that they were! Although they write, "The state's heavy reliance on sales tax revenues, which fluctuate with the economy, also takes a toll on education." don't count on them to advocate for tax reform. A universal, single payer health care system (like pretty much every other modern society offers) or a fair tax arrangement simply doesn't fit their conservative world view. Nor does either fit the interests of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has picked up their propaganda on higher education rather quickly. Their Vote for Business effort is just too transparent. The right's "counterintelligentsia" surely gets plenty of ink, especially in Alabama and even more so from the Mobile Press-Register. The "magic markets" are all that matters to this bunch.

I'm hardly a fan of the DLC centrist weenie set yet even their concerns and suggestions on the issue aren't full of foolishness. I've posted before on Michael Ciamarra's "thinking" on higher education yet it would appear that the Alabama Policy Institute ought not even bother with the Mobile P-R as they are seemingly already in the tank. They are movement conservatives at best as they advance their agenda and merely pretend to be motivated by the concerns of average citizens from Alabama to beyond. John Gunn

UPDATE ~ I mentioned the Chamber's Vote for Business effort yet spending some time there makes me think those doing the work did it coming off their recent $8000 grand slobbery drunk episode. Typos are plentiful. Then again, they perhaps offshored to save a few dollars on labor. Also, the Mobile P-R is hardly looking for a Progressive solution to health care and was merely using the obligatory references to "lack of price competition and inefficiencies" like what the Chamber describes as "market-driven health reforms."