Deem and Redeem

When the health care bill was finally passed, it was done using a technique called deem and pass. This is because, with the election of Scott Brown, Harry Reid lost his filibuster proof majority in the Senate. The House could not amend the bill, or it would be filibustered by the Senate. The only way to get the bill to President Obama's desk was to pass the Senate version of the bill, which the House was loathe to do. To avoid an embarrassing vote, the House decided to"deem" that the Senate bill had passed, rather than actually passing it.

This has caused me to wonder: If the Republicans do win control of the House in November, would it be possible for them to nullify this vote by "deeming" that the Senate bill had NOT passed. This probably won't happen, not is it likely to be tried, but it would seem to a layman such as me that something that has merely been deemed to have passed should not have the same force of law as it would if an actual vote had taken place.

California's Prop 14 - Good Intentions, Bad Ida

In one week, Californian's will have a chance to vote on Proposition 14, a proposition that will change the way primary elections are conducted. Essentially, the change would do away with the current practice of Republicans voting for the Republican nominee should be in the general election, and Democrats voting for who they would like the Democratic nominee to be. Instead, there would be one single ballot, with all candidates listed together. Everyone would vote for the candidate they liked best, and the top two vote-getters, no matter who they are, would run against each other in the general election in November. Heck, candidates wouldn't even have to declare their political affiliation.

The idea is that, by allowing us to vote for our favorite candidate, regardless of party, that we will elect more moderate candidates. This would also open the primary to the growing percentage of voters that are registering as Independents.

I am all for getting more people involved in the primaries, but this is not the right way to do it. Political Parties are kind of like clubs, and in the primary, they put forward the person they feel is their best candidate for whatever office is being contended. Why should people that are not members of the club be able to vote for who they think should be the club's leaders? Should Kiwanis be able to vote for the leadership of the Rotary Club? Then why should Democrats be able to vote for who they think the Republican nominee should be, or vice-versa. Besides, if there really was a candidate for another party that you wanted to vote for, you can change your registration any time you want, up to 30 days before the election.

Needless to say, I am encouraging a NO vote on Proposition 14. Democrats can vote for Democrats, Republicans for Republicans, and Greens for Greens. Sure, Independents are still left out in the proverbial cold, but this is not the right way to accommodate them. There are currently two Independents in the US Senate, Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman. Both of them choose to caucus with the Democrats. If you really want to allow Independents to participate in the primary process, but still retain their status as Independent, perhaps we should allow Independents to declare in their voter registration who they wish to "caucus" with, and sallow them to vote in that party's primary. The same rules would still apply, any changes to voter registration would have to take place 30 days prior to the election.

It was two years ago that Rush Limbaugh was encouraging his dittoheads to switch party allegiance so that they could vote in the Democratic Primary in states like Pennsylvania in order to prolong the Democrats' primary fight. I thought at the time it was a despicable move. Proposition 14 would make shenanigans like this both easier and more common. Vote NO on Proposition 14.

Musings on Health Care and the Third Amendment

Congress has done it. They couldn't go through the gate. They couldn't make it over the fence. They tried to pole vault, but the pole wasn't long enough. They parachuted, but got caught up in the trees. So they dug. They dug deep. They found a way to dig a tunnel through the muck and the mud of Washington politics. And so it has come to pass that the Senate's Health Care has been passed by the House, and it has been amended through the reconciliation process.

I was reading through the Bill of Rights the other day, and came across what may be the Amendment that has the least affect on our daily lives today - the Third Amendment. It reads, "No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

We really don't think about this amendment anymore - I mean, come on, the idea of having soldiers quartered in our homes at any time, let alone in a time of peace, seems almost laughable. But why was this so important to the founders? I suspect that it had to do with stuff. Our stuff. And the right to do with our stuff what we please. We didn't want to have to put soldiers up in our homes because, well, they were ours, and it wasn't right for the government to tell us what to do with it. Now, I am not trying to argue that the Third Amendment prohibits the new Health Insurance Mandate, certainly not in a legal sense. But is this really any more of a stretch than finding a right to "privacy" in the amendment, as was done in the famous Griswald case.

I guess that what I am saying is exactly what Justice Louis Brandeis stated in his dissent in Olmstead v. United States back in 1928. We have the "right to be left alone." Well, maybe we used to.

President Obama: Universities Need More Money

President Barack, in his first State of the Union Address, has announced that he doesn't think that it costs enough to go to college. Apparently, Harvard College's endowment of $36,556,284,000 (which increased by 5.5% from 2007 to 2008) isn't quite sufficient. Yes, you read that right, Harvard's endowment is in excess of $36.5 billion.

What's that? You didn't hear that in the President's speech last night? OK, he didn't phrase it in quite that way. Here is what he did say.

To make college more affordable, this bill will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies that go to banks for student loans. Instead, let's take that money and give families a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college and increase Pell Grants.

That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? The government is going to give everybody up to $2,500/year for four years of college and increase the amount of grants available at the same time. In fourteen months, I will have four teenage children. Three years from now, I will have four children in high school. I expect that all four of them will attend college. I should have been on my feet cheering the fact that so much money was going to be made available to help me put my kids through college.

I wasn't.

The more that government tries to help make higher education more affordable by providing assistance in the form of grants (the tax credit is essentially a $2,500/year grant) and loans, the higher college tuition becomes. It's really fairly simple economics - the number of dollars vying for the same number of seats results in inflation in the form of higher tuition.

If I had $5,000 to spend on college tuition prior to this new tax credit, then I would now have $7,500. That would be great news if it weren't for one small fact; nearly everyone else in the country would also have an extra $2,500 to spend on college tuition. Unless there were an increase in the total number of seats available, each college and university would still have the same sized slice of the higher education pie. It's just that the pie would be bigger.

Most of the "elite" colleges, the ones that parents like to brag about their progeny attending, don't need any more money. Of the schools with the ten largest endowments, only one, Columbia, saw the size of their endowment shrink from 2007 to 2008, and that was less than one-tenth of one percent. Of the top 30, there were thirteen schools who were less well endowed in 2008 than they were in 2007 - almost exactly one-third of the schools on the list.

College tuition as not increased just because it costs that much more to give a student a college education, they have increased because of market forces, higher costs merely being one of many factors involved. Giving families more money to spend on higher education may sound good, but when it results in ever higher tuition, the benefit is significantly diminished. Of course, a President that has never had to balance a ledger might not be expected to realize this. Barack Obama may not have said outright that college tuition should be higher, but he might as well have.

Sharpen the Hatchets

Unless I missed it, President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address, boasted of $20 billion in cuts that he was able to make in the past year as he went "line by line" through the budget. Elizabeth MacDonald of the Fox Business Channel has done a bit better, identifying as much as $1.5 trillion in cuts that could be made in the federal budget (article here). Granted, much of this is in the form of assets that the federal government owns, but has no use for, but even without that there is upwards of $300 billion in cuts that could be made nearly immediately. Here are some of the highlights:

--Health and Human Services: $55.1 billion, or 9.4%. Includes overpayment rates of 7.8% and 15.4% in the Medicare fee for service and Advantage programs, respectively.

--Labor: $12.3 billion, or 9.9%. Almost all of the overpayments were in the unemployment insurance program.

--Treasury: $12.3 billion, or 25.5%. All of it was attributed to overpayments in the earned income tax credit.

--Social Security Administration: $8 billion, or 1.2%, in overpayments.

--Agriculture: $4.3 billion in overpayments, or 5.9% of total department spending. Much of it was in the food stamp, federal crop insurance and school meals programs.

--Transportation: $1.5 billion, or 3%. Much of it was in the Federal Highway Administration planning and construction program.

--Veterans Affairs: $1.2 billion, or 2.7%. That included overpayments in the pension and other compensation programs.

--Housing and Urban Development: $1 billion, or 3.5%. All attributed to public housing and rental assistance.

--Defense: $849 million, or 0.5%.

--Homeland Security: $644.5 million, or 3.7%. Much of it was in the Homeland Security grant program as well as Disaster Relief Fund Vendor Payments.

--Education: $599 million, or 2.1%.

It is interesting to note that, of the agencies listed that overpayed, the Department of Defense, long lampooned for things such as the $600 toilet seat, was actually, by this metric, the best stewards of our money, both in terms of total dollars ($849 million - behind only Homeland Security and Education) and percent of overpayments (0.5%). The total for all these overpayments is a whopping $98 billion - nearly 5 times the $20 billion the President seemed so proud of.

Another $123.5 billion could be cut from the budget by merely eliminating programs that don't work.

The OMB has something called the Program Assessment Rating Tool. It found 218
government programs that were either inadequate or ineffective virtually
throughout the entire government--programs run by the Departments of
Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, HHS, Homeland Security, HUD,
Interior, Justice, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, the VA, Army Corps of
Engineers, the EPA, the CFTC, EEOC, and the FCC.

Of course, this is the Fox Business channel - FOX for Pet's sake. Of course FOX is going to be able to find programs to cut. According to MacDonald, though, "these are items that government officials say should be cut." The question, then, is why they haven't been cut yet. When government officials say that government should be cut, it goes without saying that it should be cut.

So, that was more than $200 billion in cuts, but it pales in comparison to the $1.2 trillion in unused federal assets. Now, when I first saw that number, I assumed that this was the amount that could be raised if these assets were sold, but apparently this is not the case.

One alarming example of the government’s wasteful holdings is Chicago’s Old Main Post Office, a 2.5 million-square-foot abandoned structure that has been vacant since 1997 and costs $2 million to maintain annually, (the government recently moved to unload it, after spending more than $26 million to maintain it, government sources note).

So, not only do we, the people, own property that we do nothing with, but we pay for the privilege.

Those on the left often pay lip service to the idea of budget cuts, but like to say that what is needed is "a scalpel, not a hatchet." In this case, however, I think it is time for use to break out the hatchets.

Is Image Everything?

[Obama's] improved America’s image in the world. He absolutely did. But you have to translate that into something. Let me tell you what a major leader said to me recently. “We are convinced,” he said, “that he is not strong enough to confront his enemy. We are concerned,” he said “that he is not strong to support his friends.” Mort Zuckerman, US News & World Report

Do we really have a better image in the world if we are: A) not respected; and B) not to be counted on?

With My Eyes Open

Some time ago, I wrote a post about praying with your eyes open. I continue to do this from time to time, and because of it, I saw somethng today that most people missed. I attended the wedding of a young couple today, and during a prayer, the pastor said something about blessing them with children. As he said this, I saw th groom nod his head (actually,his whole upper body) with such earnestness and enthusiasm that you could tell how much it meant to him to be able to start a family with his new bride. If my eyes were closed, I would have missed this. I'm glad I didn't. I will be remembering this in my own prayers tonight.

We Hold These Truths...

It is so simple, yet so eloquent - that most important phrase from the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

We take it as a statement of faith, that we are all created equal, and that we have unalienable Rights. Three of these rights are listed for us - Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness - but these are only some of the rights that we believe that our Creator has endowed us with. The problem is, nowhere, and at no time (to my knowledge) have we attempted to identify any unalienable rights beyond these three.

The United States Constitution guarantees certain rights for American citizens, but today, we have millions of people living within our borders that are not Americans. Some are here legally, some are not. Additionally, we hold individuals as prisoners that have been captured on or near the field of battle. While none of these people may not necessarily enjoy all the rights promised by the Constitution, if the Declaration means anything to us, there remain rights that are unalienable, that every person on the planet has, regardless of gender, race or creed.

So, what are these Rights of Man, and wouldn't it be worth the time to create some sort of document that outlines them, the same way as the Bill of Rights specifically identifies some of the rights protected by the Constitution? It could be a sort of Universal Bill of Rights. We know the first three - Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Beyond that, though, it becomes murky, and so I am asking, what other rights, beyond those mentioned specifically in the Declaration of Independence, should we consider to be unalienable. I would posit that another addition to the list would be a writ of Habeas Corpus, that anyone being held should have the right to petition against illegal imprisonment. Yet another would probably be the right NOT to be tortured, although there are arguments about whether there should be the rare exception to this, as well as what rises to the level of torture. There must be others as well. The question is, what are they.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear...

I remember that, in the aftermath of 9/11, I was angry. I was angry, of course, at the terrorists who perpetrated this, but I was also angry with Major League Baseball.

Now, I may have been one of only a handful of people in the country that was angry with MLB, but I was. Why? Because they cancelled/suspended games. In my opinion, if we started changing our behavior, and cowering in fear, then the terrorists had won.

As soon as games commenced, I promised that not only would I attend the nearest MLB game, but that I would take my two sons (at the time aged 3 and 4) to the game with me. It was a memorable game. Actually, I don't remember anything about the game itself, but the memory of going to the game will be burned into my brain forever.

It was at Dodger Stadium, but instead of Dodger Blue, we wore red, white and blue. My boys were not old enough to really pay attention to the game, so I had brought rolls of patriotic stickers that were soon plastered over my body like patriotic chain mail. I let the boys wander a little around our section on the field level, and they passed out stickers to everyone. I looked up at my older boy, who gave me a look that said to me, "look what I am about to do." With that, he bolted - straight for the field.

I think this is every young parent's worst nightmare. There I was, one parent with two small boys, heading in opposite directions. I barked at my youngest to stay put, and took off after my son, reaching him just as he reached the fence along the right-field foul line. I don't know if he would have tried to make it over the wall, but that scene had played out in my head, and to this day, I don't know if I would have gone over the wall after him or not.

I was reminded of my anger over the missing games from the 2001 Major League Baseball season, by an article I read this weekend in Salon, by Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald, in turn refers to an article by David Brooks, which postulates that we, as a people, have adapted an adolescent view that government can and should keep us safe. In Greenwald's words, this becomes a "most cringe-inducing, child-like formulation."

Ultimately, both Brooks and Greenwald are correct. In the aftermath of 9/11, did any of us believe that it would be some eight years before we would see another terrorist attack on American soil? I think that, when we saw the smoke rising from those towers, and the Pentagon, we viewed it as an act of war, and we expected there to be other attacks to come. Only years of relative safety and security could have bred that kind of expectation. The federal government may have, as one of its primary directives, national security, but it is both unrealistic and naive to expect perfection it its pursuit thereof.

As a nation, we have come to look to our government to protect us, to keep us safe, to keep us from feeling pain. This is not, by any means, confined to national security. In everything from health care reform to global warming, we are asking to be kept safe and pain-free. We expect it from other areas of life, too. Did your doctor misdiagnose you? See you in court, because that shouldn't be allowed.

To quote the Dread Pirate Roberts from The Princess Bride, "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." Not only is life full of pain, it is that constant threat of pain, and fear of it, that motivates us. But we have been sold something, indeed, and it comes with a price. Every time we try to buy protection from some of our pain, we pay for it with a bit of our liberty. Greenwald points this out in regard to national security, but it is just as true when it comes to health care and global warming as well.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his First Inaugural Address, said that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." While it may not actually be the only thing we should be afraid of, it should, perhaps be our biggest fear. So many of the things that we have been afraid of have turned out to be unfounded, whether it be Alar in apples, or the threat of heterosexual aids, the coming ice-age predicted in the early 1970s, or the dire threat of second-hand smoke, the cure is often worse than the cause, whether real or merely perceived.

Why did I go to that baseball game with my boys in 2001? Because I wasn't going to let fear win out. We need to accept that "life is pain", because with every bit of pain we try to take away, we are taking a little bit of "living." Fort Hood massacre-ist Nadal Hassan wrote, as the final bullet-point of a presentation, said that "we love death more than you love life." We need to take this as a challenge, to love life, and live it, without fear, more than they love death, and more than we fear death. When we can do that, fear will have lost its hold on us, and we will be truly free.

Mission Statements

Peggy Noonan, writing in the Wall Street Journal (article here), describes the 2000's as a decade of missions forgotten. From the federal government, to Wall Street, to Congress, the priesthood and the classroom, too many of our great institutions have forgotten what their purpose, their mission is.

The new year is a time when many of us take the time to make resolutions, to think about the things in your life that you might want to change. Perhaps, though, we should think not just about making resolutions, but instead, refocusing and redefining what our mission in life should be. Perhaps, we should develop New Year's Mission Statements in conjunction with our New Year's Resolutions. What is it that is your purpose in life, and what can you do to help you to fulfill this mission of yours in the next year? Isn't that worth as much as effort as the decision to lose that next 10 pounds?

The Difference of a Decade

After reading the article, Six Sources of Liebermania, where Josh Greenman attempts to categorize the left's contempt for Joe Lieberman, I was brought back, for just a moment, to the Presidential race of 10 years ago. More specifically, I was brought back to the Vice-Presidential debate of that year - a sit-down between Lieberman and Dick Cheney. I was mesmerized by that debate, as it was full of substance and civility, two things not always present in our modern system of political discourse. I remember thinking, after that debate, that I would love to have the chance to vote for a Cheney/Lieberman, or even Lieberman/Cheney ticket, and that either one of them would make a better President than either of the stiffs at the top of the ticket.

That is how I thought of both George W. Bush and Al Gore, a couple of stiffs. Both of them struck me as lightweights, but listening to Cheney and Lieberman... those were men, and they had what the pundits would call, gravitas, a seriousness of purpose, that could only come with the experience that they both had accumulated over the years.

Today, looking back, I stand by my assessment. I still have the utmost respect for both these men. It is interesting, though, that those two men, linked for all time by that race, would today find themselves among the most hated men in America by the political left.

What a difference a decade makes.

A Health Care Prescription

We would all like to see our health care costs decline. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, employer funded health plans have more than doubled in cost since 2000. Keith Hennessey does a good job of explaining how technology is driving the increase in health care costs in Part 3 of a series of posts on Third Party Payments for health care. Please feel free to read Part 1 and Part 2 as well. I recently heard another analogy to explain rising health care costs. Thirty years ago, if you tweaked your knee, you were given a cane. Cost? Maybe $10? Today there are many other options, from physical therapy to arthroscopic surgery to knee replacement. Cost? While not priceless, I would venture to guess that the cost is a bit more than the cane. And let's be honest about this, as I am sure that nearly anyone that has had a knee replacement will tell you, it is well worth the price.

Let me start by stating that I am inclined to support the Republican proposals for health care reform than I am the Democrats. We should give individuals the same tax breaks for purchasing health insurance as we currently give businesses,. If individuals owned their own policies, concerns about pre-existing conditions would become a thing or the past. We should remove any restrictions on purchasing insurance across state lines. States should no more determine what is covered by an insurance policy than should the federal government. and then there is tort reform We have forgotten that doctors are human. They make mistakes. There is a difference, however, between a mistake and negligence, and we, as a society, have forgotten this.

I have long been a big fan of purchasing insurance for catastrophic medical care, and paying for normal medical costs as they come. When you purchase homeowners insurance, does it cover painting? And if it did, don't you think that we would all repaint our homes much more often, increasing demand for house painters, and thus driving up the price? Homeowners insurance, like just about every other type of insurance policy sold, is a catastrophic policy. Health insurance is about the only insurance policy that we expect to cover day-to-day maintenance, similar to a warranty on the purchase of an automobile.

So, if this is indeed a better model for health insurance, how is it that we could properly incentivize it so that more people would choose this option?

One idea that I have had recently, is to give people a tax credit for a percentage of their out-of-pocket, non-premium/co-payment, medical expenses. What would happen if we said that people could get, say, 25% of their out-of-pocket medical expenses returned to them at tax time? One thing that they would be likely to realize is how small a portion of a normal office visit their insurance company pays. From experience, there was a time (not too long ago) when I was uninsured. When I needed to see the doctor, it cost $50 for the visit. Now that I am covered, I have to pay a $35 co-pay. (If you do the math, that isn't too far from my hypothetical 25%.)

The key to making something like this work, of course, is having some sort of health savings account. People need to make sure that they have the money put aside to pay for their day to day medical expenses themselves. The common, day-to-day medical expenses of most people are not overwhelming. What starts to get expensive are extended stays in the hospital, chronic care, and some of the newer drugs. When you go to the doctor and need an antibiotic, that doesn't cost much - I've paid for it myself, as mentioned previously, and it was $50 for the office visit, and another $20 to fill my prescription. It is important to remember that, if we were only too need the same sort of medical treatment that was available 25 years ago, it would cost about the same as it did 25 years ago, or maybe even a little less. If there was a simple solution, such as my suggestion of a tax-credit for a portion of your out-of-pocket medical expenses, that would move more people into this kind of model, I think this would be a move in the right direction.

I welcome any and all comments.

Truth or Consequences

December 18^th saw the publication of two articles, Climate E-mails Don't Alter the Evidence, by Michael Mann in the Washington Post, and How to Manufacture Climate Consensus, by Patrick Michaels in the Wall Street Journal. Both of these articles discuss the implications of the hacked/stolen emails from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit commonly referred to as Climategate.

Mr. Mann contends that, although he doesn't condone many of the actions described in the emails, the emails themselves do not change the evidence of anthropogenic global warming. He further argues that the emails themselves are being "mined" and that excerpts are being taken out of context, and distorted.

Mr. Michaels, on the other hand, makes a case that a more serious problem is evidenced in the East Anglia emails, that of the suppression of contrary viewpoints. It should be pointed out that Michaels, himself, is not a skeptic of anthropogenic global warming, but that he has written articles that question it's magnitude. For this, he says, he has found it increasingly difficult to be published in peer-reviewed journals.

The International Panel on Climate Change, as well as the United States Environmental Protection Agency, has used a compendium of peer-reviewed articles as a basis for its findings on global warming. If this data is compromised, the entire basis of their decisions is undermined.

The basis of Science is the search for Truth, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel, or how it may undermine some of our core beliefs. The reason that scientific discovery has advanced at such a rapid pace over the past several centuries is that it has been based on the free interchange of ideas, which are continually submitted to rigorous examination and scrutiny. Any undermining of this free interchange of ideas, is no different than the Church censoring Galileo for having the temerity to suggest that the Earth travels around the Sun, rather than vice-versa.

An Open Question for Keith Olbermann

I remember the good old days, back when Keith Olbermann was just a local sportscaster. Back then, we didn't have to endure his nearly constant stream of ad-hominem attacks on those that he differs with. At the end of a twelve minute diatribe on December 17th, 2009, in which he attacked everyone from Max Baucus to Barack Obama, Olbermann let something slip. Watch this clip, and see if you catch it.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Did you catch it? Keith Olbermann is self-insured. By choice. Now I ask you, if health insurance is so important, if the future of this country is tied to reform of the entire Health Care Industry, and especially the insurance industry, why doesn't Keith Olbermann, who seems relatively well educated, own it? More importantly, if Mr. Olbermann doesn't own it for himself, why does he think that it is so important that it should be forced on everybody else?

The answer, of course, is that, barring catastrophe, it is cheaper for Olbermann to contract for his own medical care than it is to do so through an insurance policy. I have said this for some time. An insurance company has considerable overhead in addition to paying your medical bills. They have to pay all of their employees, as well as attorneys and investigators. They have infrastructure that has to be bought and maintained. There are court costs. Oh yeah, it would be nice to turn a profit as well. All this is on top of paying medical expenses.

So, Mr. Olbermann, it would seem that you are among the ranks of that blight upon society, the uninsured. But if it is so important not only that everyone has access to health care, but health insurance, why, Mr. Olbermann, do you not own it?

A Modest Trillion Dollar House

What we're buying here... is not a mansion. We're buying a modest home. But it's got a great foundation. The key to this is that this modest home, we can put additions onto it in the future. But if we don't have the starter home, we're never going to be able to put those additions on. The time is now. I plead with all of my progressive friends, now is the time to get over this hurdle.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-IA

There really isn't much else to say here. If you are concerned about the costs associated with the Health Care Bills in either the House or the Senate, but are leaning in favor of them because they are better than nothing, do not delude yourself. This is just a starter home. This $1 trillion is merely a down payment. The real cost has not been revealed... yet.

Fuzzy Logic

Anybody who says that they are concerned about deficit, concerned about debt, concerned about loading up taxes on future generations, you have to be supportive of this health care bill because if we don't do this, nobody argues with the fact that health care costs are going to consume the entire federal budget.

President Barak Obama

I have a question, Mr. President. How is it that, in order to keep health care costs from "consum[ing] the entire federal budget," we have to increase federal health care obligations by approximately $1 trillion over the next 10 years? Only in Washington is it possible to say that I am going broke because I am not spending enough money.

Obama Knows Best

"Those Were the Days"
by Lee Adams and Charles Strouse

Boy the way Glenn Miller played. Songs that made the hit parade.
Guys like us we had it made. Those were the days.
Didn't need no welfare state. Everybody pulled his weight.
Gee our old La Salle ran great. Those were the days.
And you know who you were then, girls were girls and men were men.
Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.
People seemed to be content. Fifty dollars paid the rent.
Freaks were in a circus tent. Those were the days.
Take a little Sunday spin, go to watch the Dodgers win.
Have yourself a dandy day that cost you under a fin.
Hair was short and skirts were long. Kate Smith really sold a song.
I don't know just what went wrong. Those were the days.

"Those Were the Days" is the quintessential theme song of conservatives, or at least the charicature of conservatives. Conservatives have long been depicted as yearning for a simpler age of years long past - a time when "girls were girls and men were men." If one were to put a decade to that simpler time, it would probably be the 1950's. It is ironic, then, that the first year of the Obama administration can be summed up with a reference to an iconic television series from the 1950's, "Father Knows Best." Or, in this case, Obama knows best.

Health care is a good example of this. We are being asked to forget the fact that health insurance companies are in the business of providing health care to people, and they are pretty good at it. In order to be successful, a health insurance company has to provide a service (health care) that people want and are willing to pay for, and they have to turn a profit for their shareholders. Charge too much for the service, and people will take their business elsewhere, causing profits to dry up. Charge too little, and you won't cover costs, and again, no profits. Insurance companies have armies of bean counters, armed with actuarial tables, whose sole purpose is to identify what the proper cost of health insurance should be. Enter the Obama Administration, because they know best. They know that the health care industry is broken, and that if only we had a little competition, competition with the full faith and credit of the United States of America behind it, competition that didn't care if it turned a profit or not, then we could get even better health care and pay less for it. Heck, just take a look at Medicare, they can cut 500,000,000 from Medicare right off the bat, so you can only imagine what they could do with the rest of the industry. Trust us. Obama knows best.

Then there is the matter of how we should handle suspected terrorists captured on the battlefield. What have we learned in the past 10 months? Enhanced interrogation, such as waterboarding, is torture, and, contrary to the findings of CIA, does not provide reliable intelligence. Guantanamo Bay's internment facility is a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. And terrorists such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed should be tried in civilian courts, in New York City of all places, rather than military tribunals. We are told, by Attorney General Holder, that this gives us the best chance of a conviction, which is interesting in light of reports from former US Attorney Andrew McCarthy that KSM was ready to confess, plead guilty, and accept execution. Yet again, Obama knows best.

Perhaps the best example, however, is Afghanistan. Afghanistan, remember, is the good war. The war we should have been fighting the entire time, rather than this diversion in Iraq. So, what happens when General McChrystal, whom President Obama appointed to the post, requests a minimum of 40,000 additional troops? We don't know yet, because no decision has been made. Forget the fact that General Patreaus, now in charge of Central Command, as well as the Chairman of the Joint Cheifs of Staff have backed McChrystal up. President Obama needs more time to evaluate the request. Recently, it was floated that the President would be sending additional troops to Afghanistan, in numbers close to, but not quite at, the minimum levels requested. If this were true, where did these "appropriate" troop increases come from? With whom would the President be consulting, and if they are better able to assess the needs on the ground than Generals McChrystal and Patreaus, why aren't they the ones in command? But no... what am I saying??? Obama knows best.

Remembering the Thrill

In the past 15-20 years, Michael Jackson had become a caricature of himself. Whenever his name was mentioned on the evening news, you were waiting for the other shoe to drop. It seemed as if there was an endless supply of those other shoes (or should I say, in his case, other gloves?).

On June 25, 2009, all that changed. On June 25, we forgot, or at least pushed aside, all the other stuff that seemed to swirl around him like a whirlwind. We remember only the brilliance of his artistry.

In the pantheon of the "gods of rock" there are three artists/groups that rise above all others. Elvis Presley. The Beatles. Michael Jackson. Can any of us "mere mortals" proclaim that any one of the three was any greater than the rest?

Of course, as friends have pointed out... Michael owned the Beatles Catalog. And he married Elvis' daughter.

From Mohammed to the Streets of Iran

You can tell a lot about people by what they get angry about.

When a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Mohammad, the "Muslim Street" was unleashed on the world. There were demonstrations throughout the Arab world. There were death threats made.

In the past week, there was an election in Iran. The results were announced before there was time for the paper ballots to be counted. Iranians took to the streets, to the rooftops, to show their discontent, and were brutally beaten down by the regime. The "Muslim Street" is largely silent.

This is not, in any way, intended to be a criticism of Islam itself. There are a great many people who practice Islam in a way that both elevates themselves and the religion. That being said, when people are more upset about cartoons than the butchery of innocent people, well, that says something about something, doesn't it?

Premium Insurance

I have really been impressed with Keith Hennessey's blog. I just finished reading his three-part series on Third-Party Health Care. In the third installment, Hennessey came close to an argument that I have been making for years. Hennessey's argument: That third-party insurance acts as an incentive for the health care industry to pursue any and all technological advances, regardless of cost. This is because we demand it, and we demand it because out insurance policy covers the increased cost.

Hennessey is right about this, but he doesn't go far enough. Not only are we willing to pay any price for technology, we are willing to pay any price for anything. If your co-payment is $15, do you really care if the actual cost of your doctor visit is $50, $100, $150, or even $1000? And if your employer is paying the vast majority of your premium, do you really even care if your premium goes up? Sure, we all gripe about it when our contributions are increased, but we never see, and are therefore, in the end, accept.

A personal anecdote: Some time ago, my portion of the deductible for my employer paid health plan was over $600/mo. That meant that, had I opted for it, it would have cost me over $7,200/yr. - I opted out. For over two years, I was among the uninsured. During that time, I did need to see a doctor - once. It cost me $50 for the office visit, and another $20 for a prescription. Over the time that I went without insurance, I saved in excess of $14,000. Was I lucky? Perhaps. But I don't feel so much like I beat the odds as I feel that I didn't crap out. In the same situation, I'd do it again.

I'm not an economist, and I've never slept at a Holiday Inn Express, so take this with salt to taste, but let me explain my reasoning. Insurance companies are for-profit corporations. They need to show a profit to their shareholders. A simple (or simplistic, if you prefer) look at their expense sheet would reveal expenses of medical costs, infrastructure, agents, insurance adjusters, investigators, lawyers, and lobbyists (I am sure I am missing something). Against that is their income, your premiums. Their balance sheet needs to balance and still have profits to distribute to their shareholders. If you consider the exorbitant costs associated with major illness/injury, and the relative few of us that suffer from them, and I estimate that 95% of us pay more in premiums over our lifetimes than we receive in benefits.