[Coburn and Burr's] own bill overhauls the tax code, currently stacked in favor of corporate employees, to provide a tax credit to every American to purchase insurance. It expands health-savings accounts. It creates state health-insurance exchanges, where private insurers compete to cover Americans, including the uninsured. (This is partly modeled on the Medicare drug program, which has provided seniors with choice and held down costs.)
More broadly, it seeks to reorient financial incentives so that the system is no longer focused, as Mr. Coburn puts it, on “sick care,” but on preventing the chronic diseases that eat 75% of health expenditures. These incentives would be used to lower costs and discourage insurers from cherry-picking patients. The bill also dives into Medicare and Medicaid reform.
Digging through my drafts and wondering whatever happened to this? With all of this talk of bipartisanship and summits in DC, it seems like a lot of good ideas from ages ago (last May) just went ignored.
While the title may be more or less true depending on the reader, the results of a particularly interesting election have hit the papers this morning. Scott Brown, a Republican from the state of Massachusetts, has defeated his opponent Martha Coakley.
I watched an interview with President Obama by Diane Sawyer. I am not convinced by President Obama’s arguments. Who are these people that suggest we do nothing? These supposed people are the focus of Obama’s arguments. His argument goes along the lines of ‘the people who say we do nothing have the burden of proof.’ If these people do not exist, then there is no actual opposition to Obama’s argument, as framed by him. That is a pretty easy argument to win.
Furthermore, it problematically paints opponents of the Administration’s plan as people who want to do nothing. This seems to be the actual strategy of Obama’s health care strawman. This is not reality. There are Republicans who are proposing reforms that focus on fixing our current system through market reforms, adjusting the tax code, and nationalizing the insurance market.
[Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Richard Burr of North Carolina, and Reps. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Devin Nunes of California] proposal — called the Patients’ Choice Act — is to leave in place the tax deduction companies receive for providing employees with health insurance and to create a “Medi-Choice” tax rebate that will give individuals $2,200 and families $5,700 to spend on health insurance.
The rebate will make health insurance more affordable, especially for young people. It also will make health insurance portable, which will free people from being locked into jobs they hate because they are afraid of losing their health insurance.
One issue that bothers me that people don’t seem to be talking about is the impact of adding healthcare to the government’s budget. The current recession has made one thing abundantly clear, state budgets are not rock solid. This is not new news though. Yes, California is suffering incredibly bad right now and using federal money to finance its operation, but Minnesota has had several budget crises. What happens during a recession? States cut back. Right now, states are cutting healthcare benefits to children. The only way to avoid this is to make healthcare a dedicated part of the budget and let the federal government run deficits, if necessary, to finance it.
Again, I implore people to ask themselves this question: If competition and price-cutting is the answer, why don’t we foster an environment for healthcare that creates a more competitive industry?
The private market may not be able to handle this public-option because the market is so riddled with regulation. There are a lot of reforms that we have not tried yet. Before we commit the government to financing our healthcare system (a truly dangerous proposition), let’s try these things first.
If you live in Minnesota and you missed the politically intense budget battle and use of archaic MN constitutional techniques:
Upon receiving the last spending bill, he announced that he would exercise the power of “unallotment,” which has been on the books since 1939 and which has been used four times. Under it, the governor is allowed to “unallot” (take away) any state spending for which there is no money to pay. Panicked, the DFL passed tax legislation to cover its blowout spending bills, 10 minutes before the session’s end. Too late. The governor said he’d veto the bill and would not be calling back the legislature to do any more mischief.
Four Republicans in Congress — Sens. Tom Coburn (Oklahoma) and Richard Burr (North Carolina) and Reps. Paul Ryan (Wisconsin) and Devin Nunes (California) — will today introduce a bill that moves away from federal centralization. Aptly called the Patients’ Choice Act, it provides a path to universal coverage by redirecting current subsidies for health insurance to individuals. It also provides a new safety net that guarantees access to insurance for those with pre-existing conditions.
These are all great articles (especially 1 and 3). Definitely worth the read if you have some time to sit down and spend it with the Wall Street Journal. One final note, everyone should probably subscribe to the paper because it really is the best news source out there. (Note: I am not paid by News Corp)
Jurisprudentially, moreover, the sorry Didden episode reveals an important lesson about constitutional law. It is always possible to top one bad decision (Kelo) with another (Didden). This does not augur well for a Sotomayor appointment to the Supreme Court. The president should have done better, and the Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike, should subject this dubious nomination to the intense scrutiny that it deserves.
Nominating a justice to the Supreme Court is a great honor for a president. They get to appoint a man or woman for life to the top legal institution in the United States. In some instances, they can change the balance of power on the Court. Judicial philosophy matters. It affects and guides rulings. Even if the balance on the Court does not change, the personalities on the Court certainly will.
A SC nomination does not do much for members of Congress from the President’s party. Yes, Chuck Schumer can repeat the President’s praise of Sotomayor and so can everyone else. But that is not a very productive confirmation hearing.
The nomination does give the opposing party the opportunity to use the hearings as a platform to explain their judicial philosophy vis-a-vis the nominee they oppose. Politically it may not be salient to vote against a nominee. By that I mean several things. First of all, the President has the power, under the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint justices. The Constitution grants him (or her) that power. In my opinion, the nominee should face scrutiny for their opinions, but that does not mean a nominee should simply be opposed because your party does not have control of the White House. Second, every vote counts. Votes in Congress are not independent of one another, members of Congress have limited political capital, as does the President.
So what can the GOP do? Ask questions with purpose. Be creative. Don’t play softball with a Princeton and Yale Law School grad. Frame questions so that you can use your answers to show the superiority of the judicial philosophy you believe should be on the Court. Sotomayor is certainly running through what questions may be asked. She will be prepared. I’m not saying you need to ambush her, but as a conservative you believe a certain type of justice should be on the Court. Show the public why Sotomayor does not fit that bill.
Speak to moderate America when asking questions about judicial philosophy. I think that they will readily listen. Just because Sotomayor will be confirmed does not mean it has to be a win for Obama. Remember, he might get another nominee in the next 3 years.
When we found out the U.S. economy lost about the same number of jobs in January, Obama chided Republican congressmen for not passing stimulus legislation faster. Now, with little fanfare the Obama administration has downgraded their estimate of the stimulus bill’s ability to generate jobs. In fact, it moved form 4 million jobs down to 3.5 million jobs. Of course, the people in January who lost their job are real, not fictional estimates about a ill-planned and rushed bill. They have families, needs and concerns. Futhermore, many Americans have worries about what the future holds.
Republicans chided Obama and House Democrats for not thinking about the opportunity cost of this bill. In other words, if we spend $1, what opportunities do we give up in the future. Put one more way, by spending $1 on ‘the arts’, we give up $1 toward aiding the credit markets or $1 for preventing a home from foreclosing, or from giving up $1 by cutting the taxes of businesses or individuals.
The federal deficit could balloon up to as much as 14% of GDP that is huge. Many economists and politicians (as well as myself) agreed that budget deficits and the national debt should not be a huge concern, especially considering the amazing reputation of government-issued debt from the Treasury (how we finance the debt). If we have a suitable means to finance the debt and the money we are spending seems to be necessary, then we should do it without a concern for debts and deficits. That equation changes when the yearly deficit is predicted to be 14% of GDP. That means the government is spending more than it is taking to the point of being 14% of our entire economy. The world’s largest mind you. That is a dangerous precedent and we have to think about coming back from that.
In 2004 and after, politicians and military advisers warned not to go on a military junket with out an exit plan. Do we have an exit plan for the stimulus bill and the crisis? It does not appear so. The new Treasury Secretary gave us a new proposal that was nearly as vague as Henry Paulson’s. That makes me believe we have just authorized Congress and the President to throw the kitchen sink at the list of solutions to fix the economy. If the Treasury Secretary, hand-picked to deal with this crisis, doesn’t have a specific solution, why are we authorizing Congress to pass a hodge podge bill with different pet projects and Keynesian rhetoric?
We should really think about this crisis…and given a $1 trillion dollars (less than spending a million dollars everyday since Christ’s birth), we should be able to fix this. Throw a $1 trillion against the wall, maybe it’ll stick, but it won’t solve the crisis. Target a $1 trillion solution at the root(s) of the problem and I suspect we’ll get something done.
“Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policymakers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth. –Statement signed by more than 200 academic economists”
I really don’t like this new stimulus plan going through Congress right now. Seriously, this does not sound like stimulus. First of all, not enough tax cuts in the right places. We need to cut taxes to the point where it changes people’s decision-calculus. Also known as changing the marginal tax rate. This encourages productivity and spending. I can accept, we may need to increase government spending, although the evidence is shaky that it has an effect. But why is Congress proposing spending money on things that won’t occur for another 3+ years? That is not stimulus.
Honestly, this bill seems like 800 billion dollars of pork. Less than 5% is going toward infrastructure and transportation projects.
Here’s another lu-lu: Congress wants to spend $600 million more for the federal government to buy new cars. Uncle Sam already spends $3 billion a year on its fleet of 600,000 vehicles. Congress also wants to spend $7 billion for modernizing federal buildings and facilities. The Smithsonian is targeted to receive $150 million; we love the Smithsonian, too, but this is a job creator?
Another “stimulus” secret is that some $252 billion is for income-transfer payments — that is, not investments that arguably help everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at all. There’s $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don’t pay income tax. While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out the recession, they aren’t job creators.
This will cost a lot of political capital for Republicans in Congress, but I believe that it is a worth-while fight. Obama was promising bipartisanship. Some of his cabinet choices made it seem like he would follow through with that promise. This stimulus bill is the Democrats checking items off of their agenda from the past 20 years, not an attempt to get this economy moving.
Note: this post has been incubating for a while and I decided to publish it in its current form. Part of an effort to get back into political musings.
I am of the belief that this is a critical issue for the GOP to resolve. Conservatives cannot mimic what the Democrats did for the last eight years. I have a post titled “Bush 43″ that has been ruminating in my draft section for more than six months. Bush is not popular among the vast majority of the country, but he is also hated among the vast majority of liberals. This really bothers me, I don’t want to mime this ridiculous behavior.
I have noticed evidence of conservatives reaching out to Obama. One, he campaigned on promises of bipartisanship. Granted, he won, he gets the spoils of that. (No one is expecting a fairness doctrine-esque regulation of the cabinet). Two, every conservative wants to see policies implemented that are best for the country. That doesn’t happen by alienating everyone! Ironically, only a strong Obama presidency will result in this outcome. A strong presidency will be guided by the beliefs of the nation, a moderate-conservative standpoint. I think that we can see this move to the center in Bill Clinton’s presidency.
Update: Recently, we have Obama reaching out to McCain in a formal meeting. Also, Obama has indicated he might keep on Defense Secretary Gates. I hope we see more of this kind of “reaching across the aisle”. It needs to go both ways though because conservatives will absurdly alienate themselves otherwise.
The truth is that there was little Mr McCain, or his campaign, could do with a party falling apart at the seams. When Mr McCain announced his second run for the presidency on April 25 2007 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the Republican brand was already tarnished, perhaps beyond repair. At that time, a poll for Democracy Corps, a non-profit polling organisation I co-founded, found that his party was viewed more negatively than positively by far, with 47 per cent of likely voters giving it poor marks and just 34 per cent viewing it positively. At that point 66 per cent of likely voters thought the country was on the wrong track. Of course, it only got worse as the campaign and George W. Bush’s horrendous presidency trudged on. Our latest poll finds that 79 per cent say the country is headed in the wrong direction.
A great piece in the Financial Times by James Carville chronicling the atmosphere that McCain faced in this election as a Republican. Makes you wonder what the future holds for Republicans if things this November don’t go as planned.
Okay, I’m sure some of you are sick of the political angle this blog has taken in the last month. But believe me, thinking about all of these political issues hasn’t been easy!
I think this post will be worth your while though. CBS News’ Katie Couric of Sarah Palin-stumping fame, not exactly a die-hard conservative, did some investigative journalism regarding Obama’s fundraising. Obama isn’t taking any public money and hasn’t disclosed a significant number of donors. CBS has found that many fake and suspicious names plague the list of his donors. If you live in a ‘battle ground’ state, then I’m sure you’ve experienced the Obama ads that this money is buying:
The FEC breakdown of the Obama campaign has identified a staggering $222.7 million as coming from contributions of $200 or less. Only $39.6 million of that amount comes from donors the Obama campaign has identified.
It is the largest pool of unidentified money that has ever flooded into the U.S. election system, before or after the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms of 2002.
To make the story more interesting, McCain has disclosed all of his donors and made the information available online:
“We and seven other watchdog groups asked both campaigns for more information on small donors,” he said. “The Obama campaign never responded,” whereas the McCain campaign “makes all its donor information, including the small donors, available online.”
The worst part of this story are the donations given under fake names over the donation limits:
In a letter dated June 25, 2008, the FEC asked the Obama campaign to verify a series of $25 donations from a contributor identified as “Will, Good” from Austin, Texas.
Mr. Good Will listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You.”
A Newsmax analysis of the 1.4 million individual contributions in the latest master file for the Obama campaign discovered 1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, most of them for $25.
In total, Mr. Good Will gave $17,375.
Following this and subsequent FEC requests, campaign records show that 330 contributions from Mr. Good Will were credited back to a credit card. But the most recent report, filed on Sept. 20, showed a net cumulative balance of $8,950 — still well over the $4,600 limit.
The article goes on to explain potential illegal fundraising from abroad. What does all of this really mean? It means Obama’s record fundraising is also break records for suspicion and potential illegal activity. It means that factors about Obama’s campaign and his history continue to trickle out to voters. I think most of all the question of experience and judgment arise again. In other words, what was he thinking? This is an American election, not a game. The results of the election are serious and money matters, it moves candidates around the country and puts them in advertisements in places they can’t be. I think the effect of the ads will be a wash, convince some people and tire out others. But what it reveals about character won’t be resolved as easily.
“The fact that the obama camp has not provided more info about who these small donors are really runs counter to his transparency message,” says Krumholz.
What about the big money donors? Both campaigns boast of many, but when it comes to the interests of those Wall Street firms caught up in the economic crisis, Obama often bests McCain.
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