Great men are they who see that the spiritual is stronger than any material force.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
ObamaCare: Round One at SCOTUS
There is a sophistic argument going on here: Obama initially insisted that penalties for failing to purchase health care insurance as required under ObamaCare were not taxes. However, usually SCOTUS gives broad discretion of Congress' authority to tax; among other things, if this is treated as a tax, the "tax" cannot be challenged until the tax is actually assessed (i.e., a couple of years from now): the 1867 Anti-Injunction Act. Yes, professional sports fans, those fees assessed for doing the wrong thing are "taxes". Even the liberal justices like Justice Ginsburg see through this charade. Yes, indeed, soon our court system would be full of judges assessing "taxes" on convicted defendants.
Let us remember what this mandate stuff is really all about: it's a perverse consequence of progressive policies, like no-drop coverage and guaranteed issue. For example, if we guarantee issue at capped premiums, people can "hit-and-run" by using insurance as a way to socialize their expenses for the duration of treatment. The costs of the poorer health risks get passed onto healthier risks; given the opportunity, healthier risks will attempt to find coverage at rates more commensurate with their lower costs or opt to self-insure, and it becomes a vicious circle.
Progressive policies sound reasonable in theory, but they impose an unsustainable business model in an industry that is low margin. Businesses must control their risks (e.g., a cap on lifetime expenses). You do not help small businesses obtain insurance if the insurer doesn't have a viable means of reinsuring against the disproportionate impact of catastrophic expenses, where even one policyholder's medical expenses can affect overall profitability. There are more equitable ways of spreading the risks against a larger population (e.g., through a low consumption tax, a medical services surtax, etc.)
The insurers find themselves in an impossible, unsustainable situation: aggregate premiums not covering expenses. They need for the state in essence to reimburse them for burdensome policy regulations. There are a couple of ways the government can handle this (well, beyond the obvious steps of cost recovery from freeloaders and reforming or revoking policy): they can directly subsidize the care of those unprofitable risks; or they can compel captive revenue for insurers by mandating coverage.
There are a number of issues I have with the concept of mandates; I do not pretend the list is exhaustive. First, there is the concept of economic liberty. If I choose to pay my medical expenses à la carte, without paying for an insurance middleman, why should anyone care? Second, there's the deadweight loss to consumers: for example, the state forces me to buy very expensive insurance with crony special interest mandates, whether I want or need them. Third, there are high compliance/administrative costs, none of which contribute directly to health care. Fourth, the concept of a mandate is intrinsically inefficient: since the product must be purchased, as an insurer, I have little motive to cut costs or improve services since costs can be documented to the industry regulator. Moreover, if as a policyholder, I'm entitled to goods or services as a result of insurance, I may overuse said offerings (which I might not purchase if I was paying for them piecemeal). Finally, there is the slippery slope and the principle of equal protection: why are we singling out a single industry for intrinsically corrupting government protection?
Would these be compelling arguments from a SCOTUS standpoint? I suspect not: competent economics is not a strong suit of SCOTUS... If SCOTUS did admit economic and political arguments, defeat of ObamaCare would be inevitable: if we could only introduce the reality of the deliberately misleading budgetary analyses, the precedence of the federal government's spendthrift ways and existing Ponzi scheme entitlements, the unsustainability of federal spending, even without ObamaCare....
Sunday Talk Soup
The last time David Plouffe, Obama political adviser, showed his head on the Sunday talk shows, I refuted his talking points in detail. I'm getting a little tired of end-to-end political spin. So let's just take a few points:
- Gasoline Prices, "All-of-the-Above" Energy. Plouffe is predictable: Obama takes credit for increased oil production, even though (undisclosed to the public, of course) most of the increased production is not from federal property and we have sharply lower drilling permit approvals across the board (in particular, since the BP oil spill). We could talk about an aggressive EPA, concerns about lizards in Texas, restrictions in terms of drilling distance from shore, drilling off blue state coastal areas, no headway on the oil shale-rich Green River and various other issues, e.g., discussed here. As for "all-of-the-above", I've never believed in this political spun nonsense; alternative energy sources are notoriously infeasible compared to low-cost natural gas and other fossil fuels. Plouffe seems to think that we have forgotten the Solyndra and other failures. The disingenuous Obama Administration, as its usual pattern, even tries to deflect blame for Solyndra, even though the Bush Administration did NOT approve the Solyndra loans (what do we expect from a feckless, profligate Obama Administration whose only idea of "leadership" is throwing good money after bad, repeating the historical errors and folly of FDR's ineffectual, failed Keynesian policies?) "All of the above" is merely a restatement of what should already exist: a free market in energy production and distribution, not an inefficient, manipulated market controlled by delusional, megalomaniac statists; the main point is that Plouffe and Obama are in a state of denial about what this country can do, deeply in debt with a weak economy and too many obligations on a government's limited income.
- The Progressive Catchphrase "Balanced Approach". What pathetic, disingenuous pieces of work! This goes beyond propaganda. The Senate Democrats for YEARS have failed to pass a budget, Obama's own budgets are dead on arrival in Congress. Plouffe references "spending cuts" which really aren't cuts, but 10 years of accounting gimmicks on planned future year budget INCREASES, with most of the pain deferred past the Obama Presidency. This President, early in the fourth year of his administration, has already piled on more debt than Bush did over 8 years (with two recessions and funding over 7 years of war): it's like getting two Bushes for the price of one! Plouffe and Obama's "balanced approach" means stealing more money from people whom already pay record taxes twice in proportion to their share of national income--and only those people. What about the "shared sacrifice" from the lower 99%? Obama PRETENDS that they have sacrificed something.... Raising tax rates on the economically successful is counterproductive: you don't grow an economy by raising the cost of doing business and investing.
Romney picked up 5 Louisiana delegates to Santorum's 10, which leaves Romney a mere handful of delegates away from the halfway point (572) needed for the nomination. Santorum has 273. (In fact, Romney has earned slightly more than half the delegates decided to date, more than all his opponents put together.) Intrade now pegs Romney's winning the GOP nomination at 91%, and all upcoming primaries (including Maryland and Wisconsin) showing over 90% probable Romney victories; even Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania rates a 65% probable Romney win. Gallup tracking showed a slight dip of Romney to 39% vs. Santorum's 27%.
Santorum over the weekend is still trying to explain away his unacceptable remarks at an appearance last Thursday: "You win by giving people a choice. You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who's just going to be a little different than the person in there. If they're going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk of what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate for the future." [Etch A Sketch is the unfortunate sound bite given by a Romney strategist (Eric Fehrnstrom), suggesting that Romney would position himself differently during the general election.]
Dishonorable; pathetic. Santorum here is saying that there's no real difference between Obama and Romney. Just a reminder to my readers: RomneyCare and Romney's position shifts were known and a political issue well before Santorum endorsed Romney for President in 2008 (yes, against Obama). Romney's record and positions aren't any different then than they are now--the only difference is that Santorum is throwing Romney under the bus to promote his own doomed candidacy against Obama.
Romney isn't going to respond in kind, so I have a response for Santorum: perhaps as a lawyer, a professional career politician (on the federal level for 16 years) and a former US Senator, without no substantive business or administrative experience, just like a certain Barack Obama, you think you offer a difference--never mind you both supported the Bridge to Nowhere, you both supported deficit spending during the 2000's, you both supported Medicare's new drug prescription benefit, and you both agreed to the liberal show of US military force in the Middle East and Gulf region?
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Little River Band, "Cool Change". Hands down, my all-time favorite LRB song, and a personal favorite.
