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Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Miscellany: 7/08/14

Quote of the Day

Behind an able man there are always other able men.
Chinese Proverb

Pro-Liberty Thought of the Day


From Your Lips to God's Ears
Google's Larry Page: "I Think the Government's Likely to Collapse Under Its Own Weight."
Tweets of the Day
Stats of the Day: Those "Underpaid" Public Sector Teachers

From Reason:
The study, co-published by Heritage and AEI in November, found that “workers who switch from non-teaching jobs to teaching jobs receive a wage increase of roughly 9 percent. Teachers who change to non-teaching jobs, on the other hand, see their wages decrease by roughly 3 percent.” As Richwine and Biggs note, “this is the opposite of what one would expect if teachers were underpaid.”
And that’s just wages. When you include benefits, the gap is wider. Adding the extras enjoyed by public school teachers—such as pensions, retiree health benefits, and job security—produces a total compensation 52 percent higher than market levels for similarly skilled workers in the private sector. The study estimates that the gap costs taxpayers about $120 billion a year. 
Insanity: Doing the Same Thing Over and Over and Expecting Different Results

From Chris Edwards at Cato Institute:
There is disagreement about rising sea levels on the North Carolina coast, but there is one reform that all policymakers should support: ending subsidies that promote building in high-risk places. For decades, the National Flood Insurance Program has allowed people on the sea coasts to buy insurance with premiums less than half the market level, and the program does not cut off people even after multiple floods. Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers continually rebuilds beaches, thus encouraging development in areas that nature is trying to reclaim. Ending this wave of subsidies would be sound fiscal and environmental policy.
This blog has repeatedly called for an elimination of subsides and/or privatization of the federal flood program.

Self-Pay, Birth Control, Hobby Lobby, et al.

Tom Woods recently had Sean Parnell, author of  The Self-Pay Patient, as a podcast guest; one of Woods' first questions was, how does this fit in the age of ObamaCare? Parnell points out many plans have high deductibles; he notes that many people will never pay their full deductible. He points out that you can often save money by not doing sub-deductible expenditures through insurance but self-pay (the drawback is if you don't go through the insurance provider's often higher discounted price, it won't apply towards the deductible).
Here are two examples:
A recent article in the Los Angeles Times reported a CT scan of the abdomen costs about $2,400 for patients insured by Blue Shield of California, while the Los Alamitos (Calif.) Medical Center cash price is only $250. That is a 89% discount by my calculation.
Another local California hospital charges insured patients $415 for blood tests that cost only $95 in cash. This time it’s a mere 77% discount.
I can confirm a similar arrangement as the second example, since I had to do multiple blood tests for my thyroid and other things. The former doctor's nurse would draw the blood sample for around $10-15, and they had a discount through a local laboratory which would analyze the sample for maybe another $25.

Parnell had a recent post in the aftermath of the Hobby Lobby decision. Note here where he virtually repeats what I said in a recent post:
[I]t seems reasonable to think that most employed women who as a result of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling find themselves as self-pay patients for at least this area of their healthcare should have relatively little trouble finding something that fits their budget.
In fact, because of the way third-party payer healthcare tends to drive up costs (particularly for relatively inexpensive things, like birth control) it’s entirely possible that most women will actually save money on birth control simply by paying directly for it.
Ultimately a $20 or $90 per month bill for birth control that is supposedly paid for by an employer is going to be paid by employees through reduced wages or higher health insurance premiums, and the only thing that running it through the insurance system accomplishes is adding more costs to the process. Self-pay patients, of course, manage to avoid these bureaucratic costs.
One way to find competitive prices for proprietary birth control is through certain Internet portals:
As a first stop when trying to find the best deals on prescription drugs, I suggest a site like GoodRx or WeRx.  These are online platforms that will show you the cash prices of retail pharmacies near you, which can vary substantially.
But you can often find even better prices using generics offered at well-known chains:
[P]rices for the generic versions are much less, between $60 and $70 for a three-month supply at Rite Aid, CVS, and Walgreens (so around $20 a month). Other local pharmacies have much higher prices, around $105 to $110 for three months’ worth of pills, which is why it pays to search around and compare prices.
If $20 or so a month still seems like it’s too much (or the products available at those prices aren’t suitable for some reason) there are even less expensive options. The generic aviane, for example, is $11 at Walgreens, $12 at CVS, and $13 at Rite Aid (all with coupon). Sprintec, another generic, is $9 for a month’s supply at Walmart and Target.
Walmart actually has nine different generic birth control pills available for $9 a month, according to their $4 generic drug list (apparently they can’t do it for $4?). Sprintec and what I’m guessing is a variant called tri-sprintec appear to be the only birth control pills offered by Target as part of their $4 generics program.
If in fact you really are looking for a $4 generic birth control pill, there are still options. Philith and gildagia, both generic versions of Ovcon, are available at Target as well as what GoodRx can only identify as a local membership warehouse (i.e. Costco, Sam’s Club, or BJ’s) for $3.77. Other local pharmacies including Safeway, Walmart, and CVS all carry the same pills for about $6 or $7.

Now, granted, I'm not a female (but condoms are cheap and come in bundles, which given my lifestyle, would probably serve as a lifetime supply). But I don't get why an expense that amounts to the cost of two fast-food meals a month or less is getting so much press from ideological feminists when major medical policies run into 4 or 5 figures a year. In any event, most women I've dated have had a certain dress code for their partners.

He's Got It: Double Amputee 2YO Kayden Takes His First Steps



Facebook Corner

(Reason). In case after case this term, the Supreme Court issued one broadly libertarian ruling after another, voting against aggregate limits on campaign finance spending; in favor of a legal challenge to a speech-restricting Ohio law; against warrantless cellphone snooping by the police; against expansive government privileges for public-sector unions; and against the executive overreach of the Obama administration.
I don't see intervening in favor of socially experimental policies on behalf of authoritarian politically correct special interest groups is "libertarian". And Obama's 2 younger justices have been particularly strident "Progressives". Not to mention that Harris and Hobby Lobby carried by a narrow decision, and the majorities could have made broader rulings. Whereas I agree several decisions broke our way this term, Justice Kennedy is the swing jurist on this court, and he's not exactly a libertarian.

(Reason). Fourteen fatalities and a total of 82 people shot [over the holiday weekend]. It's not Ukraine or Syria, but Chicago. Chicago Mayor and Top Cop Blame Weak Gun Laws for Violence
This is just sad. The city leadership is in a state of denial. Never mind that other cities with lower violent crime statistics do not necessarily infringe a citizen's right to self-defense. The knee-jerk response of "Progressives" is the problem is guns and to crackdown on the liberties of law-abiding citizens. They need to stop engaging in superficial ideological responses and start looking at things like ending the dysfunctional War on Drugs, partnering with volunteer neighborhood safety groups, and implementing safer city technologies. Just to mention one vendor, IBM claims that one California city applying its relevant predictive analytic software and related technology was able to achieve a 35% reduction in crime, despite budget cuts.
Actually, Illinois passed a concealed carry law over his objections. I thought more guns were supposed to protect people from bad guys? Oh that's right, that's just more propaganda from the gun lobby . . .
The anti-gun troll didn't read the part that 4 lives were saved because a party was wearing a concealed weapon. An inconvenient truth. Yeah, stripping law-abiding people of their right to self-defense is the answer, troll.

(Libertarian Christians). How many Of you Agree with Christian Socialism ?
It's a perversion of fundamental Gospel teaching. Jesus focused on personal responsibility; it's one thing to persuade another to give, but to use force to redistribute on an aggregate level is a violation of the Ten Commandments (re: theft and coveting another's goods). Envy is a vice, not a virtue. 

 The fact is in any group people will have uneven abilities or skills, and you have free-riders. Just a simple example: in an MBA curriculum, you often have a capstone course on business strategy. I and this other guy joined two Indian students to work on various cases and the unassigned master case. The other guy and I did literally 90% of the work, including coming up with the master case and all the major analyses. The Indian guys were like bored kids on summer vacation, e.g., "I don't know what to do: what do you want to do?" In another example, on a weekend retreat, I was in a group assigned to do a skit, say over a 20-minute period. Nobody else had a clue what to do. Finally, I came up with doing this bit where I'm this teacher in charge of this unruly male student and declared in a moment of exasperation that he would never amount to anything. A few years later, the unruly youth was now a bishop, and I go up to him and admit I had been wrong. Our little skit won rave reviews, but really it wasn't a "group effort" other than the others playing roles in my skit. 

 Keep in mind Jesus had rich benefactors (consider the Last Supper and the gift of His tomb). There is also, e.g., the parable of the talents, the fact that Jesus rebuked Judas whom argued that the money Mary had spent on expensive oil could have better been spent on the poor. The Pharisees weren't happy when Jesus worked on the Sabbath. Charity was not an innovative teaching of Christ; the Old Testament and other cultures celebrated the concept.

 Can it work? Maybe in small religious communities where members voluntarily take a vow of poverty and share their resources. (But I personally know one whom left hers over some members getting preferential treatment.)

(Libertarian Republic). A member status: I don't believe in god and I used to be pro-choice, even though I always believed in free market capitalism. (Never was a socialist.)

 Still, after doing enough "soul-searching" and research, I decided that it was inconsistent to believe that it is ever moral to take innocent life in such a way. Thus, I decided firmly that being pro-life is the only moral position.

 Still, I don't feel comfortable with the idea of government banning it, because I think, in practice, banning it would bring about less liberty. I believe we should support a culture of life. We should encourage adoption, and be generous to women who need help if they are in a bad position. We shouldn't be hateful to women who get pregnant out of wedlock, but neither should we make them comfortable with the decision to end life when there are so many other options.

 We'll never get off this rock if we destroy that which is most valuable to the propagation of our wonderful, beautiful species. We are the way that the universe can know itself, and we must keep going. One day I want to see humanity go and populate the stars. I believe the only way this happens is if we humans always encourage a positive culture, a "pro-life" culture.

 And that's all I have to say about that.
I'm among the third of libertarians whom reject pro-abortion choice (prominent pro-life libertarians include both Paul's and Judge Napolitano). We realize that there almost no way to stop a woman from doing harm to her preborn child, and based on circumstances like the stage of pregnancy, we generally aren't advocating criminal sanctions . We look more at the corrupt healthcare providers whom hypocritically violate medical ethics in taking the life or aiding and abetting the murder of another human being, with DNA distinct from his or her parents'. 

 The real choice is to be responsible for one's own decisions, including intimacy and its consequences (including STD's from a partner's sexual history). If one is not prepared to be a parent, abstain, which is 100% effective, or at the very least, consider a relevant operation and/or effective forms of birth control for both partners.

 As for religious faith, it played no part in my opposition. I never heard my parents or pastors discuss the topic. I remember seeing the word when reading a newspaper one day and asked my mother what it meant. My mother gave a very clinical, nonjudgmental response, but I remember my sheer horror at what she described. My exact response was: "But, Mom, that's MURDER. What does the Church say? It has to be against it."

(IPI). A convicted torturer is still receiving an Illinois state pension.
The Illinois Supreme Court ruled in favor of a decision by Chicago’s police pension board to let disgraced former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge continue receiving his approximately $3,000 per month pension.
That’s despite the fact that Burge is currently serving a 4 1/2 year sentence in federal prison.
How is it possible that Illinois hasn't enacted pension stripping reforms of public officials convicted of wrongdoing during their tenure in the public sector?
Due process
Progressive troll! Even Democrats should know the difference between making laws and trying people under the law. Whether or not this corrupt convicted cop got a favorable decision by a dubious Illinois Supreme Court, which seems to favor corrupt crony unions, is beside the point. The question is why the pension board had any discretion in the first place. Bottom line: a corrupt Democratic state legislature and governor with ties to crony unionists, whom put the rights of public sector criminals in front of those of taxpayers.
Burge was never convicted of torture. Burge, was tried in Federal civil court, on two occasions. Both times, he was exonerated. Burge was convicted, of lying about a crime, that was never proven to have occurred. More lies from the IPI.
This troll is rewriting history. The first trial was NOT an acquittal--it was a hung jury. "He was suspended from the Chicago Police Department in 1991 and fired in 1993 after the Police Department Review Board ruled that he had used torture. In 2002, a special prosecutor began investigating the accusations. The review, which cost $17 million, revealed improprieties that resulted in no action due to the statute of limitations. Several convictions were reversed, remanded, or overturned. Four of Burge's victims were pardoned by then-Governor Ryan. A $19.8 million settlement was reached in December 2007, with the "city defendants. In October 2008, [US Attorney] Patrick Fitzgerald had Burge arrested on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury in relation to a civil suit regarding the torture allegations against him. Burge was convicted on all counts on June 28, 2010. "

(Judge Napolitano). NYC man suing ESPN and MLB after falling asleep at a game. Does he have a case? I discuss w/ Varney & Co. Fox Business at 11:45a!
He shouldn't have brought his law book to the game...

More Marriage Proposals









Political Cartoon: Former Constitutional Law Lecturer Flunks His Own Practicum

Courtesy of Lisa Benson via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Anne Murray, "Danny's Song"

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