Justices Roberts and Alito seem ready to pound down a century-old American belief, a belief that companies should more or less stay out of political campaigning.
They sound like tools, casting about for legal grounds to subvert what is a settled, collective wisdom on the matter, that the political process isn't served well, by deep-pocketed companies that create cynicism about government among regular-way 'citizens'.
Some conservatism. Alito seems confidently unaware of the risks to the Republic, a Republic increasingly wealth-polarized, of opening up the government to further sale. These are not the conservatives of doubt or caution. They are courtroom radicals, tied up, obviously, in reconciling abstractions about free speech for man-made creations, like corporations.
Their questions suggest almost laughable, childish views about what shareholders can do to hold managements accountable. At least Scalia sounds partly tongue-in-cheek, as he taunts council with statistics on sole-proprietorships, as a way to pretend that the Teddy Roosevelt era of big trusts is bygone.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Rightwing Radicalization Goes Supreme
The Baucus Plan
Bob Cesca has a rip-up.
If his 'proposal' is an example of the current state of the debate, then the idea that there will be a bill out of the Senate Finance Committee within a week is a danger, not a relief.
Fees? Does he honestly think that those won't just get passed on to the policy holders? You'd expect to see that kind of thing as a GOP amendment, not a Democratic proposal.
An excise tax on $8,000+ plans? That's an interesting idea, but how much money is that worth? Is that meant to be a dedicated tax or what?
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Heathcare Hash
ON THE ROAD TO FIND OUT...
The GOP passed out a huge boon to the drug companies. The Dems will pass out a huge boon to the health-insurance industry, by the end of the day.
Along the way, a lot of ill people are going to get care, they would not have otherwise.
But, my head is not behind the current approach of more private, for-profit insurance as a comprehensive solution to the system's ills.
There will be a reckoning, on these both, perhaps even in my lifetime. (And I rather resent Obama for sort-of telling 'his progressive friends' they might be dreaming too big). We lost a lot of time with the sad, aborted HMO end-run. How much do we have left?
At least, if there is going to be 'concession money' or legislation for malpractice-reform studies or trials, then there ought to be money for public-private ventures to amplify the better ways to deliver health care, including bold alternatives to the 'nanny corporation'.
AS LONG AS YOU ARE TAKING IDEAS, MR. PRESIDENT
Last, if he wants ideas, here's one.
Amplify the so-called 'public option' with an extension of the Federal plan for dental, the one that Senators' access.
Anyone citizen who wants to can sign up or substitute it for the company plan (using money their company would contribute to a private plan). It's a way to start small, head in the right direction, prove to a skeptical and confused electorate that change can work, and address a critical need, for the uninsured and the under-insured. It's easy to sell, and it's not as expensive as the whole enchilada. What's more, the government isn't in the fining and collection business and the justice department isn't chasing down flunking health insurers, who live in court as much as the real estate lobby, for ... messing up on 'the rules'.
Speech Qua Speech
GALVANIZED FOR ACTION?
Will it do all that was hoped?
Maybe some.
Here's a test: name three to five critical points about the bill. Can you?
Don't laugh. Remember how far Bush got with his "an Iraq that can govern itself and sustain itself and defend itself"? 12 words. (!) Don't forget, also, that the target audience is people who think Medicare existed since the time of George Washington.
Did he raise the bar on the competition?
He did well enough, getting impassioned, without getting self-righteous (even as much as FDR). He could have said that those not batting down the mis-information are actually supporting false-witness. Now, that might have raised the bar more than 'call them out'. Afterall, this is not a miscellaneous product ad campaign, but the lives of citizens in the rub.
Otherwise, galvanizing is a good word, for much of it.
Given that listeners will likely feel the galvanizing parts, based on how many already favor some type of reform or even universal care, I'm not sure people will understand why exactly there is nothing enacted yet and what they need to do. Reagan used to ask people to help him, to go over the heads of the Washington establishment to get his agenda through.
Obama could have done more to establish his credibility. He's a young President. Afterall, he belongs to the party that brought Medicare and Social Security and much else besides, and he could tap into that and say, in effect, 'trust me' and do not listen to the crazy notions that you will lose your coverage, your doctor, or your options.
Real Violence in Iran Ongoing, Under Ayatollah Generalissimo Khamenei
UGLY 'SUPREME LEADER' USES LAW TO CRUSH THE SOUL OF THOSE YEARNING TO LOOSE THE GENERALISSIMO'S LEASH
Real violence continues in Iran.
- The war of words is amounting to nothing more than that, as the hardliners clearly have the upper hand in all elements of the struggle. Full arrest of the most popular political opposition is close or at hand and the State careens toward nuclear confrontation with the West, just as the Ayatollah Generalissimo so obviously wants...
- Students at University are ... having their lives ruined for ... protesting.
- The detestable cycle of intimidation, in service of the Big Lie, continues, as journalists are made the enemy of the state, rounded up and intimidated into ... service of the Big Lie.
- The show trials go on, a necessity for the judicial tyranny that is modern day Iran. They purge - that's what they know. The foreign service will lose some 40 people who voiced sympathy for protests, protesters, and protesting.
- Allegations of torture, death (some now confirmed) and rape in prison have been made by serious people, who were, of course, immediately arrested and all their documents, reportedly seized.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Impatient on Healthcare
TIME ENOUGH
It seems to me that quite a few are impatient on healthcare and impatient with the White House.
Legislative change of this size isn't likely to come via a back-room deal and isn't going to happen in the space of four or eight weeks. It alarms me that Alexrod thinks this is the "ninth inning".
If one had to guess, it would be 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Afterall, 'health' is a fairly 'technical sale', so there has to be time spent for the details to get known and widely disseminated, and so forth.
BIDEN YOUR TIME
I like the idea of Joe Biden talking about the plan details, ahead of the President.
Bush did well with Cheney testing the waters with various messages and so forth, before he stepped in.
It's a clever way to protect the Legislator in Chief and fine-tune the approach, before the big guns are called out.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Why does George Will hate the troops?
...and I want to be the first indirectly to question his patriotism.
I mean honestly, expect to be done unto, as you do unto others. It's not as though we don't remember the Bush era, just because of an election last fall.
Preserving an Important Distinction
AS writes, "Now [torture] is legitimate according to Charles Krauthammer ... if it saves merely one life."
Actually, the standard is somewhat different. CK's example, from which this is drawn, supports torture on the mere possibility of saving a life, not on actually saving a life.
To me, this is a subtle, epistemological distinction that has non-trivial moral implications.
Compromise on Health Care: I am the 'middle'
TAX ON TRADE WITH LOW-WAGE COUNTRIES
One problem with the Dem 'negotiating' position is that they are not proposing their own compromises.
I have one, for the intractable Senator Grassley, finance committee.
Not only do we 'ship jobs overseas', but we force workers to face foreign, low-wage competition, so that companies do not want to pay benefits, at home, like health care, for American-based workers (why should they, if they can hire someone overseas who doesn't require it?).
To compromise, we can pay for the social net that global competition erases by levying a 'competitiveness tax' on low-cost countries. In most cases, the wages in these countries are so low that the process of 'globalization' will continue apace, despite even a medium-sized tax.
If the good Senator doesn't 'get that', perhaps we can help him along by eliminating the tariffs that protect his good state ... ? I mean, it's hard to entact such taxes; but, hey, in today's America, it's fashionable on the right to ignore the facts, so they may not even care or notice.
Health Care in Civilized Countries
Here's a thought for Senator Joe Lieberman and his staffers: the U.K. enacted health care reform circa 1948, creating the NHS, in a financial mode that has more or less stood the test of time (i.e. the consumer tastes of the nation).
Reforms, according to my quick scan, were discussed as early as 1942 (Beveridge Report).
So, tell me, was Britain a wealthy country, at the end of the war? Did they choose to wait, until days of surplus or plenty to do what made sense to them?
King George's Executioner
GOP LEADER PREPARED TO DECRY U.S. CONSTITUTION AS 'OUTRAGEOUS POLITICAL ACT'
After Cheney's latest FOX appearance on the weekend, it should be clear that Dick Cheney might well seem like Saddam Hussein at his trial, denying the authority of the judge and calling on witnesses to show him their National ID card.
He's a beacon to young conservatives, don't you think?
They can dust-up their resumes, with him as an example: "Position Wanted: Job so senior one can make no mistakes, but only have 'regrets' (usually paid for by others)."
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The Last Lion of the Senate
Ted Kennedy's life and work in the Senate, I hope, should be a lesson to its 'blue dogs' amok, that they will not be remembered by their countrymen, when they hold up progress.
Teddy was one of the few left who could 'take the floor'.
A few years ago he dusted-up the place on hate crimes, with an impassioned speech. Nothing you'd ever hear out of today's media-savvy, TV-conscious soundbiters. The bulk of that is not on youTube, but the introduction of the bill is:
Here is Kennedy, with words that seem prophetic given what we now know about how far King George "The Decider" was willing to go:
The Economics of the New Healthcare
Paul Krugman says it's Switzerland, more or less, that's on offer. I understand the point.
Yet, under the new scheme, what keeps healthcare companies, profit maximizers, from hiking their prices?
Afterall, you see the proposal to drop inter-state regulations for insurance companies. So, could we end up with an American healthcare oligopoly? We dropped inter-state bank regs and got giant banks. How'd that work out? (I mean, will Bernanke's Fed drop a study comparing all the putative consumer cost savings of bank mega-mergers with the cost of the our current bank-oriented bailout, priced in trillions, now, in deficit and lost output?).
Compare also how telecom deregulation helped consumers, with fierce, beneficial price competition. Today's Comcast price of phone-internet-TV: $109/month. Today's FIOS price of phone-internet-TV: $109. Yes, that's right, there is no price competition at all going on, at least in my local market. (Out of pocket European costs are a fraction of that, so ...).
A THREE-PAYOR SYSTEM?
Well, if everyone is forced to buy your insurance product, then it stands to reason you put all your profits into marketing, until you reach an oil-market like cartel power with just two-or-three other providers. Large companies will buy from the largest insurers - we wouldn't expect "IBM" to buy insurance from a new entrant to the market, with a low price. That behavior will hasten the path to consolidation, one could argue (unless large accounts are profitless for health insurers - I don't know). What's more, instead of paying for healthcare, consumers will be paying for ... insurance marketing. (!)
Maybe I'm wrong. Afterall, Switzerland does have many sellers of basic insurance.
But, they tier the market and charge based on 'individual risk' for all tiers, including the right to refuse insurance beyond the "basic sickness" contract. Put another way, there seems to still be a Swiss role for insurance companies to compete on how well they manage their risk pools.
Change needs to come, and these questions are not a clear indictment of HR3200.
Maybe it is a non-issue, because it is already an issue? For the small business, they already face significant oligopoly (someone should brief Kathleen Sibelius on just how little competition there is in this critical marketplace, one that everyone seems to target):
Better minds than mine, hopefully, have been in on designing what looks like a minimum standards health contract, that will pass for 'systemic reform'.
But, it would pay to have leading economists (and lawyers) give an idea of how they think insurance companies will respond to changes in their regulatory environment, of the kind proposed. At a minimum, it would be nice to know whether premiums really will come down in the near term, under the proposed give-get.
Last, if running an American health insurance oligopoly is the price to pay for universal care (10% of the total US healthcare bill is hundreds of billions), it would be nice to see that there is some thought to how that formulation actually drives administrative costs out of the system ...
Monday, August 24, 2009
Secular Mullahs Among Us
Christopher Hitchens has provided great fun, skewering what he often calls the charlatans of the Christian faith, money grubbers who set themselves up in the worst possible ways. Dawkins isn't far behind.
But, keep an eye out for the secular mullahs, the secular charlatans, too.
They exist.
Look at this 'birther movement' closely. Have a look at how the regional Republican party is able to ... er, transcend fact-based analysis, on so many topics ('death panels', murderous immigrants stealing healthcare benefits, ...). They can even mobilize an army of 'believers', of quasi brown shirts, pretending to be independently motivated, concerned citizens at town hall meetings. (It wasn't just Roman emperors who paid for crowds, clearly).
There are plenty of secularists who are willing to exploit ignorance and superstitions. One doesn't have to single out the faith community or imply that it contrasts with a better world, one lead by 'secular reason'. It's plain that's an incomplete comparison, n'est pas?
Give and Get: A Mandate For a Public Plan
HEALTHCARE REFORM, NOT INSURANCE REFORM
In the House Bill 3200, everyone will pay for healthcare. Those 'voluntarily without' will be taxed. The full power of the government will be used to collect money from them - you cannot discharge taxes or escape the taxman.
Otherwise, you are just passing out big treats to the wealthy, who will no longer be subsidizing hospital care for the have-nots, and to the insurance companies, who will get a huge boost in enrollments, from the government mandate (as well as an implicit profitability guarantee from forced buyers).
If there are Senators, like Leiberman, who cannot stomach doing that, if one wants to 'start small' as Hillary once opined, but with reasonably big and far-reaching impact, then just start with dental. Offer up a public dental plan that everyone can opt into, re-directing their employer dollars, if they choose. The plan should refuse none and provide at least as good dental as the Senate gets, in terms of caps and co-pays.
The cards will fall in line after that.
Hey, a small, on-target start is better than a bad plan, I think.
The Democrats should be fighting for consumer choice, no matter how much some of them have forgotten. Something like what I've described would really put The People in charge of their healthcare.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Bush Moves Beyond Dereliction of Duty
Someone needs to get Christie Todd Whitman and Tom Ridge in a room together.
For a long time, the worst charge that could be leveled against the Bush administration, including Rumsfeld, was dereliction of duty, for their lack of "A Plan for a Future Iraq". (Paid for in American lives, including the dereliction in Afghanistan, btw).
I doubt many seriously believe that Christie Todd's EPA was going to be allowed to shut down a good part of lower Manhattan. But she should talk to Tom Ridge and see if they can't have a confessional tour, given that Ridge is suggesting that the Administration was indeed interested in subverting the functions of government to political ends, in some of the worst possible frauds on the public.
They outsourced torture. They outsourced assassination, possibly.
And George the senior honestly thinks his son served or was serving honorably. The mind boggles.
Just as the National Security Archives are revealing what Nixon was doing to undermine Chile, perhaps someday we will also find out what Bush authorized for Venezuela.