All profoundly original work looks ugly at first.
Clement Greenberg
Political Potpourri
We've barely started the 112th Congress when politics is in the air. In particular, the Senate is ripe for a GOP turnover as just over two-thirds of the Senate seats up are Democratic, and the GOP only need to hold serve and win 1 in four Democratic seats to retake the Senate. In a Democratic wave election in 2006, there were a number of close Democratic wins--Webb (Virginia), Tester (Montana), and McCaskill (Missouri). Ben Nelson (Nebraska) is clearly vulnerable especially after the healthcare bill, and Bill Nelson (Florida) faced a a weak candidate in Katherine Harris, the controversial Florida Secretary of State during the Bush-Gore recount. Martinez fill-in George LeMieux is widely considered to be interested in running for term of his own; Jeb Bush would win the race in a walk, but in fact he passed up last year's campaign. There are other candidates (Congressmen and state legislators) thought to be interested in running. Former Senators George Allen (R-VA) and Jim Talent (R-MO) may decide to follow Dan Coates (R-IN) in attempting to resume their Senate careers.
Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), both with very liberal voting records in purple states that strongly leaned Republican in the midterm election, can expect stiff challenges. The Ohio name that is getting the most attention right now is the new state treasurer, Josh Mandel, whom won 80 of 88 counties. I personally think former Pennsylvania Governor and first DHS Secretary Tom Ridge would be a formidable challenger to Casey, and, of course, Rick Santorum, who lost to Casey, would be an instant favorite, but he's clearly eying an dark horse Presidential candidacy.
Senator Conrad, clearly vulnerable in red state North Dakota, announced he won't stand for reelection, and Senator Lieberman, an Independent/Democrat, badly behind in polls, is also expected to announce his retirement shortly. The Democratic nominee has to be favored to succeed Lieberman in blue state Connecticut, but Linda McMahon, a political novice whom lost by 11% to a popular 3-term attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, whom beat each of his prior GOP challengers by over 30%, is a likely candidate, and there is a former Republican governor and former US Congressmen whom may also run for the nomination.
Needless to say, Republicans have to hold serve; there is no doubt that Scott Brown (R-MA) will have to work at his getting his first full term, but so far Massachusetts voters are giving him (and his independent Republican voting record) good approval ratings. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) announced, as expected, she would not run for reelection (in fact, she said as much during her unsuccessful campaign to replace Governor Rick Perry last year). No doubt there will be a Democratic challenger (it's hard to believe because Texas has been consistently a red state since 1993, but John Tower in 1961 was the first Republican senator since Reconstruction, and Hutchison won conservative Democratic Senator Bentsen's former seat in 1993). The Republicans have a deep bench, including the current Lieutenant Governor, David Dewhurst.
Is the
Are we really surprised that the progressive Obama Administration is trying to meddle in the internal affairs of Catholic universities, which, on the grounds of religious freedom, are usually exempt from the reach of most federal laws? Last week the NLRB, ignoring the fact that the Archdiocese of New York classifies Manhattan College as Catholic, ruled that the college is not really Catholic but de facto secular and hence must follow labor relations regulations allowing, for example, the unionization of university professors. (Now if any professor could have used union protection, I was the classic case study (there are things I'll never discuss on this blog), but as a matter of principle, I would have refused to join a union, even at the expense of my own career. I would never be a part of an organization which impeded effective university administration and stood by ineffective/incompetent professors.)
Manhattan College must have fallen short of some of the 10 factors described by Kevin Theriot and others suggesting a legal defense against federal and state government intrusion, particularly laws on certain issues where the Catholic Church has taken a contrasting moral position (e.g., contraceptive and/or abortion coverage in health care, extending benefits to homosexual partners, etc.)
Postal Carriers: #11 Fastest-Growing Compensation Over Past Decade?
With the obsolete USPS regularly running chronic deficits, escalating prices, and (surprise) shrinking volumes, it of course follows that Bloomberg Businessweek found postal carriers among the top dozen occupations in terms of average compensation increase over the past decade. (No doubt Pony Express riders and telegraph and telephone operators can't be that far behind...) The USPS should have been privatized decades earlier, of course...
Health Care and Battle of the Polls on Repeal
With the AP poll showing a modest drop of opposition (particularly among Republicans) and the Quinnipaic showing a plurality (48-43%) in favor of repeal, tomorrow's expected vote is relevant.
I personally don't like the approach the Republicans are taking, although I favor repeal. I think it has more to do with forcing Senate Democrats and/or President Obama into defending a deeply unpopular law. The popular talking point is with 23 Democratic Senate seats up for grabs, the Republicans can lure 4 Democrats to cross the aisle if it gets to the floor. I don't know how the GOP gets the floor vote past a defiant Majority Leader Reid. In any event, I have to be a realist and say it's unlikely; you can make a case that could happen with new Senator Manchin (D-WV), but Blumenthal and Coons are pledged to support the bill, and I don't see any of the Democrats admitting their original votes were wrong. If they did, it would still be a reelection issue (I can just saw the attack ads now: Ben Nelson flip-flopped on healthcare.)
I think politically the Republican House leadership should really want to start off with some bipartisan wins. But if you are going to take a strategic stance to really put the Democrats on the defensive, you try a different approach. I mentioned in a prior post a couple of obvious poison pills: repeal the mandate and allow states to freeze their current Medicare obligations. There are other approaches as well: for example, one could propose that the total federal healthcare outlays can never exceed a certain percentage (say, 10%) of the GDP, all deferred benefit programs (like the entitlement programs) maintain the same reserve requirements expected in government regulation of the private sector, that any new health care benefits be implemented on a pay-go basis, etc. These are consistent with other federal budget processes (e.g., fixed-bid projects). For example, by maintaining a cost ceiling, managers have an implicit incentive to eliminate inefficient processes.
I'm getting frustrated that no Republican seems to be calling out the ludicrous concept the federal government can run health care efficiently (especially the administrative fee criterion). The reason that administrative costs are so high is because of differential treatment (e.g., large companies can self-insure and do not have to comply with state-specific benefit mandates; small companies can't). Small companies can't band together, e.g., across states, to gain scalability and thus attract lower pricing from various insurers. It would also be helpful to allow a certain basket of basic health insurance benefits to be guaranteed and marketed across states.
Dems are particularly trying to sell their 2000-page monstrosity on goodies like guaranteed coverage and allowing dependents on household policies until the age of 26. There's no such thing as a free lunch. The Democrats are implying that the health costs associated with keeping kids on your policy don't affect the household policy costs--which is utter nonsense. The Republicans eventually get to the point of talking about high risk pools; they need to invert their presentation, because during the entire year of debate over health care, I rarely heard any discussion whatsoever over high risk pools--their current issues (e.g., inadequate funding), how to finance the subsidized rates, etc.
There are a number of tweaks that could be done to address things like preexisting conditions: for example, insurance plans could get subsidies from the federal government for taking high-cost patients, and/or people who elect not to carry insurance and experience expensive health problems could be assigned penalties or premium surcharges.
What the Republicans need to do is to show that the Democrats, by expanding Medicaid, closing doughnut holes, "free" annual checkups, etc., are doing is exascerbating costs; if people think health care is "free", they will overconsume resources--see doctors unnecessarily, questionable medications, etc. The idea is to let insurance be insurance. There should be deductibles: most people can and should pay routine expenses. As I've mentioned in the past, when you pay for auto insurance, you are not covering normal operational expenses--gasoline, wiper replacements, oil changes, battery replacements, etc. It's insane that health insurers or the government should be covering consumables like contraceptives, Viagra, and similar items; most people need to think through the costs associated with bringing a baby into the world and evaluate the intrinsic costs and benefits of contraceptives.
But in terms of Democrats' trying to put lipstick on their healthcare pig, I have a couple of things to point out. First, the health care law is deeply unpopular and has been for over a year counting; only 1 out of 5 or so voters favor the health care law as is. Second, voters have mutually inconsistent positions; for example, they like some of the benefits they understand, involving preexisting conditions and allowing dependents to stay on household family policies until their mid-20's, but they also don't like the individual mandates. People understand that preexisting conditions mean high costs. Only the government can print money to pay for things it doesn't have the money to cover; insurers are not suicidal--accepting policyholders whom cost the company money from day one is a step to bankruptcy. That's why you have the mandate--in essence, forcing healthy people to pay more than their fair share to subsidize other people.
I think we need a fairer way to spread all of these costs, e.g., through a small national sales tax. This would be a conceptually cleaner way for the entire population to spread the costs of catastrophic health conditions. In fact, a similar approach (taxing health care premiums) is how many high risk plans are subsidized.
Political Humor
"Arnold Schwarzenegger says that being governor of California cost him at least $200 million in lost movie roles. Movie-goers everywhere say it was worth it." - Conan O'Brien
[I'm not sure if Arnold is going to command top dollar for his next role after production costs for "The Governator" left California voters in a $17.2B hole.]
"The Republican National Committee elected Reince Priebus as their new chairman. “Reince Priebus” is also the name of a car driven by Jay Leno." - David Letterman
[Well, they THOUGHT they were voting for syndicated morning TV host Regis Philbin, whom announced his retirement for later this year.]
Musical Interlude: One-Hit Wonders/Instrumentals
Gary Numan, "Cars"
