Power to the People!

Here's a new requirement the health care bill levies on insurance companies:

Insurers also will have to reveal how much of members’premiums they spend on medical care, as opposed to executivesalaries or other administrative costs. Next year, they’ll owe arebate to customers if the insurers spend less than 80 percenton benefits for people in individual or small-group plans.(Bloomberg)

I think this is an excellent idea!  In fact, it should be imposed on government as well:

$ - 80%  of education must be spent on teachers and the classroom, or we get a rebate!

$ - 80% of welfare and food assistance must go directly to poor people. If the poverty numbers don't come down, fire congress.

$ - If any government program spends more than 20% on salaries or overhead, fire the bureaucratic blubberpots who administer the program, disband the department, and return the money to the taxpayer!

Power to the People!

Civil Disobedience

Obama's a big fan of Ghandi.  That's where he got all that (bowdlerized) "we are the change we've been waiting for" crap.

Well, here's one from his hero he may want to meditate upon... 

"civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless and corrupt." 
-- Mahatma Ghandi

 Go read Shikha Dalmia's article, Resisting Obamacare, Ghandi Style.

* - BTW, that picture is not a joke.  I took it from one of the Obama worship websites.

Federal Failure

It's The Education, Stupid!

Evan Thomas, in an otherwise useless Newsweek article, observes:

Grade inflation is so out of control in the nation's high schools that 43 percent of college-bound seniors taking the SATs have A averages—even though SAT scores have remained flat or drifted slowly downward for years.

The Federal Government Killed our Education System

Decline in public education can be traced back to the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a 60's version of No Child Left Behind. Indeed a straight line to hell can be drawn from that date, through the 1979 establishment of the Education Department, to where we are now.

The deeper the federal government and the teachers unions get into education, the dumber our students become and the more it costs us. This should provide a lesson for those who want more government involvement in healthcare.

Over 200 years ago, the nation's Founders understood that federal intervention into state, local, and family concerns like education would be futile. They knew that the federal government would be too distant and unwieldy to solve problems in the nation's diverse cities, towns, and hamlets.

It's a major reason why the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution declares that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people," and why the Constitution makes no mention of education at all. (CATO - Neal McCluskey)

Diversity Killed the Health Care Bill

Why is the health care bill so contentious, with seemingly irreconcilable demands? Because we are a diverse collection of people. We were never meant to have a national politburo imposing one-size-fits-all, we-say-so regulations on us.

Each state should hammer out its own solutions based on the particular needs of its residents. I don't want a Vermont solution here in Colorado, and I'm sure Oregon doesn't want Texas telling it what to do.
It's time to let 50 experiments bloom, as the founders intended.

"Neat Tricks" that bend the "Reality Curve"

Progressives have a reality problem:  They can't stand it, it's too messy.  

Global warming, climate change, whatever they're calling it nowadays 

The earth is warming!  Wait! it's cooling! No, it's more ominous than that, Its Changing!  Swimming polar bears!  Gay penguins with happy feet!  Aaaaaagh!

Sensible people would simply let the free market, as it has always done, adapt to changing weather patterns.  That's what polar bears do.  But no, liberals insist on changing reality by attempting to change the global climate, to the tune of trillions of dollars.  Pause and think about that...  Change. The. Global. Climate.  What hubris!  Scariest of all it that they really think they can do it.

Deficit Neutral Health Care for All (and other fairy tales)
"This plan is deficit neutral" intones the Professor in Chief.  Yeah, because it collects 10 years of taxes to pay for only 6-8 year of coverage. Neat trick. 

Here's another neat trick that bends the reality curve: 

Put a huge reduction in medicare reimbursements in the bill and get the CBO to score it.  Now, pass a separate bill to cancel the cuts in the first bill.  That's the wink and nod that got the AMA and some doctors on his side. 

Ryan correctly stated that the bill projects that Medicare will lower reimbursements to doctors by $371 billion over the next 10 years, yet Congress would cancel those cuts in a separate bill, all part of an attempt to mask the true size of future deficits through "gimmicks and smoke and mirrors."

Obama steered the discussion away from Ryan's numbers, and the White House hasn't challenged his analysis. (CNN-Money)

Progressive Crony Capitalism

Granting special loopholes got AARP on board, since they stand to make untold millions selling supplemental insurance on a playing field tilted in their favor. 

It's neat tricks like this that have us buried under an avalanche of debt.  Progressives try to bend reality, but look out when it snaps back.  And it always does.

Reality is so Unfair! Womens Health Insurance

There is outrage, Outrage!, that health insurance costs more for a young woman than a young man.

Gender-rating — or what some term as flat-out sexual discrimination — is linked to the simple fact that women, particularly those under age 50 or so, go to the doctor more often than men. (Denver Post)

Insurance is more for women because they go to the doctor more often, and it costs more to provide them health services.  Insurance companies are in business to make money, and their profit margin is much smaller, say, than the "medical marijuana" dispensaries going up all over the state. 

There!  That was easy.  But wait...

But outrage over how women are treated in the individual health insurance market is mounting as stories emerge of companies refusing to cover maternity benefits and denying coverage because of past domestic violence or cesarean sections... (Denver Post)

Smells like some well-timed propaganda to me.  This has always been an issue.  It's no coincidence these "stories are emerging" at this point in time.

Life insurance for men is more expensive because a man is statistically more likely to die than a woman, and women live longer.  Is that fair?

Auto insurance is almost twice as expensive for young men compared to rates for new women drivers. Why?  Because young boys are testosterone fueled hot rods and cause more accidents than girls, so they get charged more as a group.  I don't recall concerned citizens protesting these injustices...

Women Pay Less Later On...

Bonnie Erbe at CBS News points out...

...as people get older, the gender rating process reverses, with men paying more for their insurance than women.

As long as there are price differences in health insurance (it's always more expensive for older Americans, for example), then charging younger women and older men higher rates does not on its face strike me as bias.

Fairness is not the Issue
This is what happens with all collectivist projects.  We all throw money in a pool (or have is confiscated from us by a coercive government) and soon the fighting starts over who did or didn't get their fair share.  Trying to bring rationality and actuarial tables into the argument just confuses id-driven collectivists.  

Hearing the term "fair distribution" should clue you in that the logic of the free market is no longer in play. 

This is why Big Pharma and Big Insurance is in bed with Obama.  When the free market goes out the window, those in power make the rules, so you better start sucking up if you want to stay in business.  It's called Crony Capitalism. 

Healthy Discussion

Paul Ryan has some specific plans for controlling government spending  

Liberal Ezra Klein has a civil give and take with Paul Ryan about health care.  If you want to understand the issue, Read This Article.  If you want to see a model of intelligent, productive conversation between a liberal and a conservative, Read This Article.