on Broadcasting Health Care Negotiations
This quote needs no further explanation:
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama called for completely transparent health care deliberations and even promised to hold all negotiations on C-SPAN. Now, as the health care debate reaches its final stages, the nonprofit cable company is asking Washington leaders to follow through on that promise.Democratic political spin is that the time for debate is over, that everything has been discussed, etc. That is manifestly false from any objective standpoint: GOP/conservative ideas were never seriously debated. The House plan pays in part for the new entitlement by a large surtax (in addition to expiring Bush era tax cuts on upper brackets to Clinton levels)--one may just as well call it a poison bill for future American economic growth; the Senate plan alternately pays via a surtax on gold-plated plans (which is roughly comparable to a McCain proposal to provide a flat exemption, which, of course, Obama attacked during the general campaign, so it's difficult to argue what kind of mandate is being claimed). However, behind the Democratic proposals is an extension of a mandate for insurance--which is really a way of forcing healthier risks to subsidize health expenses capped for politically favored groups. For example, older people tend to be more expensive risks; if premiums are capped for higher risks, the government is subsidizing their personal expenses. Where is the government finding the money to subsidize higher risks? From other people or businesses.
The problem is not so much with covering people with catastrophic expenses, which is something I could support. It has more to do with dictating how people finance their health care (e.g., a la carte or via insurance) and adding millions of newly insured onto a health care insurance system which, in fact, is a perversion of the concept of insurance, and intensifying inflationary cost pressures--all while progressive Democrats, with a straight face, insist they are trying to make insurance more affordable. It's bad enough the Fed is keeping interest rates artificially low--which will inevitably result in growth-crushing, savings-sapping inflation--but we're throwing another trillion or so dollars into a health care system (and cannibalizing Medicare funding in the process).
The financial impact could be lowered if we simply focused on hard-to-insure people by bolstering state/regional high risk pools--and/or provided catastrophic coverage, which would address a principal health insurer rationale for denying coverage. But the Democrats want to play the class warfare card more than to limit the solution to the real problem; they want to subsidize health coverage through the middle class--not just those whom find it difficult to find coverage. They are pulling a classic bait-and-switch on the American taxpayer--and almost no one is pointing this fact out. Yes, they are correct that many Americans will be happy with hard-to-insure people being able to find medical coverage without catastrophic expenses; what they are not doing is explaining how this could be done on a more modest basis without balancing the budget on the backs of physicians and hospitals, at the expense of senior citizens (by undermining the funding of Medicare), or otherwise indirectly taxing people and businesses through mandates and favored pricing for certain groups.
The point is, however, that the deal making that Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders have been engaging in is antithetical to the whole concept of transparency in government. The American people have a right to know what other corrupt deals are being made among elite Democratic legislative and executive leaders. The idea that Democratic legislators are being asked to vote on bills without a comprehensive understanding of what Reid and others are negotiating in the back room is inherently unacceptable; what's worse is the fact that the American people are also being shut out of the biggest decision in decades regarding one-sixth of the American economy. In fact, the Democratic leaders are engaging in a majoritarian abuse of power, a conspiracy to shut out Republicans and providing a rush to judgment, simply so Obama has a timely marker to use for his self-congratulatory State of the Union address, a perversion of our Constitution.
Incumbent Dems Are Smelling Change in the Mid-Term Election
Three-term Senator Dorgan (D-ND) announced that he will not seek reelection this year; in addition, Colorado incumbent Governor Ritter pulled the plug on his reelection campaign, multiple Democratic recruits for House races have dropped out, as well as the likely Democratic candidate for Michigan governor, Lt. Gov. John Cherry.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite ABBA Tune: "SOS"
I was a huge fan of ABBA before the current generation rediscovered them, i.e., "Momma Mia"; it's one of the few groups (beyond the Beatles) for which I bought nearly every album. It's hard to pick a single song, because the group's male songwriters crafted superb pop songs; I do prefer a couple of bittersweet late hits, i.e., "Knowing You, Knowing Me" and "The Winner Takes It All". But if I had to choose one, it would have to be their 1975 hit "SOS"; I always envisioned a video of this song with a couple of passing Navy ships where a man and a woman in uniform are signaling each other, with "An Officer and a Gentleman" ending (with the guy getting the girl); I have a very active imagination. I found the embedded Youtube video which is a clip from the group's appearance on American Bandstand. I find the choreography charming and love the ladies' makeshift miniskirts, reinforcing one of the indisputable laws of the universe: Swedish women are hot. (Contemplate on that truth, Tiger Woods, during one of your Buddhist meditations...)
