Congress is dominated by lawyers with little understanding of economics.  Wisely, they created the semi-independent Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to “score” or estimate the economic impact of the proposed legislation by lawyers.  It is strictly non-partisan.  However, there is a wing of the Republican Party (the Supply-Side wing) that insists the OMB is partisan, because OMB does not employ Supply-Side economics in their scoring or estimating.  To do this, OMB would increase the impact of changes in the marginal income tax rate.  OMB would have to show large, dramatic swings from small changes in taxes, according to this wing of the party.  It is the position of OMB that such arguments about economics belong in academia until resolved.  I agree with the OMB.  However, I wish there was some way OMB could calculate the cost of understanding.

All of my clients are intelligent and educated, but they struggle to understand the many conflicting claims of healthcare in general and healthcare insurance in particular.  There has been a distinct increase in the number of questions from them since Obamacare was established. There has to be a way to simplify this.  What do poor people do without the benefit of a professional financial planner to help them navigate healthcare insurance?  What good is coverage if you’re afraid to use it?

There are five modules to becoming a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER professional, i.e., (1) Principles of Planning, (2) Estate Tax Planning, (3) Income Tax Planning, (4) Education Planning, and (5) Insurance Planning, which includes life, property, and health.  I am doing less and less education planning, while doing more and more health insurance planning.  The curriculum needs to change.

If it is difficult for financial planners and if it is difficult for the educated and affluent to understand, then how is the regular American supposed to understand it?  Is there no cost to this lack of understanding?  Even though it is difficult to estimate that cost, should it be ignored by OMB, by Congress . . . or by you?