Health insurance overhaul: the preview

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s no surprise here; Obama’s proposals for health care upheaval will come with a hefty price tag [emphasis mine]:

The upfront tab could reach $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion over 10 years, while expected savings from wringing waste and inefficiency from the health care system may take longer to show.

Details of the health legislation have not been written, but the broad outlines of the overhaul are known. Economists and other experts say the $634 billion that Obama’s budget sets aside for health care will pay perhaps half the cost.

Obama is hoping the Senate comes up with a bipartisan compromise that would give him political cover for disagreeable decisions to raise more money, such as taxing some health insurance benefits. In the 2008 campaign, Obama went after his Republican presidential rival, Arizona Sen. John McCain, for proposing a large-scale version of that idea…

The U.S. spends about $2.5 trillion a year on health care…Experts estimate that at least one-third of that spending goes for services that provide little or no benefit to patients. So theoretically, there’s enough money in the system to cover everybody, including an estimated 50 million uninsured.

But one person’s wasteful spending is someone else’s bread and butter.

The office visits, tests, procedures and medications that the experts question represent a lot of money for doctors, hospitals, drug companies and other service providers. Dialing them back won’t be easy. Providers will resist. Patients might complain their care is getting rationed.

So let’s see: costs will go up rather than down at first. Obama wants his support to be bipartisan (after saying “screw you” to Republicans on almost everything else) in order to provide him political cover for doing what he reviled McCain for proposing. Oh, and there will be rationing, but they’ll try to convince us otherwise.

The simple truth is that the reason universal health care hasn’t passed is that it is very expensive, and rationing is inevitable (see this for an earlier post about the health care dilemma).

In related news, the NY Times reports today that the health care industry is promising to voluntarily cut costs in an effort to stave off price constraints in the new national health care (the signers of the pledge are officials of the Advanced Medical Technology Association, the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and the Service Employees International Union).

Let’s see what’s planned:

…large amounts [of money] could be saved by aggressive efforts to prevent obesity, coordinate care, manage chronic illnesses and curtail unnecessary tests and procedures; by standardizing insurance claim forms; and by increasing the use of information technology, like electronic medical records.

I’ve got no particular beef with the last two on the list, or with “coordinate care” or “manage chronic illness” (and aren’t we already trying to do those things?). But “aggressive efforts to prevent obesity?” Good luck on that one. And what does it even mean, especially in terms of civil liberties? And how will those efforts be successful when it is well known that it is extraordinarily difficult to lose weight and keep it off, no matter how hard people try or what method they use?

Then there’s the little phrase “curtail unnecessary tests and procedures.” That, of course, is where rationing comes in. Who’s to decide, and what criteria will be used? I don’t exactly trust government to make these decisions in my best interest. Do you?

The real Obama has stood up

The New Neo Posted on by

Two days ago I wrote a post in which I quoted and emphasized this line:

It is now evident that Obama’s words bear no relation to his intended actions.

And although that’s true, it’s also false—because Obama has said a lot of words that contradict each other. People who voted for him were willing to pick and choose which of them to accept and which to reject; which words were (in their eyes) just campaign hot air and which were the real Obama, the one who would emerge once elected.

This phenomenon had four basic elements: Obama’s words were (and still are) often self-contradictory, sometimes even within the same speech; even during the campaign he showed a propensity for breaking important promises (about campaign financing, for example) and using sophistry to pretend he wasn’t doing so; his history of acts (the best way to judge a person) was slim; and his rhetorical gifts and even-tempered demeanor (charismatic to some; not to me) made people want to believe the best of him despite evidence to the contrary.

That’s why an article such as this one—reporting that many of Obama’s rich supporters are suddenly surprised that he’s fomenting class war—makes sense even though it seems to make no sense. After all, how could anyone just be noticing this now? How could anyone who was paying attention during the campaign and in the months that followed have failed to note Obama’s income redistrubution plans, or his knocking of the rich?

Wishful thinking, that’s how—carefully orchestrated by Obama himself. You can fool many of the people much of the time—and when they wise up, it may be too late to stop you:

Wealthy Wall Street financiers and other business figures provided crucial support for Mr Obama during the election, backing him over the Republican candidate John McCain as the right leader to rescue the collapsing US economy.

But it is now dawning on many among them that Mr Obama was serious about his campaign trail promises to bring root and branch reform to corporate America—and that they were more than just election rhetoric.

A top Obama fundraiser and hedge fund manager said: “I’m appalled at the anti-Wall Street rhetoric. It was OK on the campaign but now it’s the real world. I’m surprised that Obama is turning out to be so left-wing. He’s a real class warrior.”

It’s this sentence that appalls me: “It was OK on the campaign but now it’s the real world.” Yes, politicians often make promises they can’t keep, paint a rosier picture than is possible, and exaggerate what they might be able or willing to accomplish. But anyone who failed to note that some of Obama’s campaign rhetoric was unusually radical and based on class warfare, and to sense that this would probably have significance when and if he became elected, was guilty of self-delusion.

In a post I wrote back in October entitled “Will the real Obama please stand up?”, I quoted this article by Tony Blankley, whose predictions were considered needlessly alarmist at the time by so many of the “hopefuls.” Reading it now (and please read the whole thing), his words don’t seem all that much like fearmongering, do they?:

But of course, throughout history when dangerous, radical men have offered themselves up for leadership, their moderate supporters have rationalized their early support by hoping that the dangerous man is really a sensible man like them and doesn’t believe some of those wild things he has said to his more fervent followers.

But as the campaign clock ticks down to its last days and hours, prudent people have to consider the possibility that beneath that easy manner and calming voice is the pulsating heart of a genuine man of the radical left.

Not enough people considered that possibility—or, if they did, they rejected it as absurd (I never rejected it; I just hoped I’d be proven wrong in warning about it). Well, they’re considering it now, although there isn’t very much they can do about it except wring their hands and make excuses for themselves. As Blankley said at the end of his piece: God save the republic.

Happy Mother’s Day: mothers and babies

The New Neo Posted on by

Okay, who are these three dark beauties?

A hint: one of them is the very first picture you’ve ever seen on this blog of neo-neocon, sans apple. Not that you’d recognize me, of course. Even my own mother might not recognize me from this photo.

My own mother, you say? Of course she would. Ah, but she’s here too, looking a bit different than she does today—Mother’s Day—at ninety-five years of age. Just a bit; maybe her own mother wouldn’t recognize her, either.

Her own mother? She’s the one who’s all dressed up, with longer hair than the rest of us.

The photo of my grandmother was taken in the 1880’s; the one of my mother in the teens of the twentieth century; and the one of me, of course, in the 1950s.

Heredity, ain’t it great? My mother and grandmother are both sitting for formal portraits at a professional photographer’s studio, but by the time I came around amateur snapshots were easy to take with a smallish Brownie camera. My mother is sitting on the knee of her own grandfather, my grandmother’s father, a dapper gentleman who was always very well-turned out. I’m next to my older brother, who’s reading a book to me but is cropped out of this photo. My grandmother sits alone in all her finery.

We all not only resemble each other greatly in our features and coloring, but in our solemnity. My mother’s and grandmother’s seriousness is probably explained by the strange and formal setting; mine is due to my concentration on the book, which was Peter Pan (my brother was only pretending to read it, since he couldn’t read yet, but I didn’t know that at the time). My mother’s resemblance to me is enhanced by our similar hairdos (or lack thereof), although hers was short because it hadn’t really grown in yet, and mine was short because she purposely kept it that way (easier to deal with).

My grandmother not only has the pretty ruffled dress and the long flowing locks, but if you look really closely you can see a tiny earring dangling from her earlobe. When I was young, she showed me her baby earrings; several miniature, delicate pairs. It astounded me that they’d actually pierced a baby’s ears (and that my grandmother had let the holes close up later on, and couldn’t wear pierced earrings any more), whereas I had to fight for the right to have mine done in my early teens.

I’m not sure what my mother’s wearing; some sort of baby smock. But I know what I have on: my brother’s hand-me-down pajamas, and I was none too happy about it, of that you can be sure.

So, a very happy Mother’s Day to you all! What would mothers be without babies…and mothers…and babies….and mothers….?

[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous post.]

Obama and the 9/11 and Cole families

The New Neo Posted on by

Debra Burlingame, sister of the pilot of doomed Flight 77, says that Obama paid only lip service—and hardly even that—to the concerns of 9/11 and Cole bombing families in a February meeting about the closing of Guantanamo and the slowness of the grinding wheels of justice.

Obama wanted to hear a “diversity of views?” Offered remarks “full of platitudes?” “Glossed over the legal complexities? Gave a “vague summary” of what he might do about it? Hardly surprising.

He also was his usual dismissive and arrogant self [emphasis mine]:

Many family members pressed for Guantanamo to remain open and for the military commissions to go forward. Mr. Obama allowed that the detention center had been unfairly confused with Abu Ghraib, but when asked why he wouldn’t rehabilitate its image rather than shut it down, he silently shrugged. Next question.

But Obama’s formidable people skills were also on display, and he provided enough reassurance, vague though it might have been, that many of the families were hopeful:

“I did not vote for the man, but the way he talks to you, you can’t help but believe in him,” said John Clodfelter to the New York Times. His son, Kenneth, was killed in the Cole bombing. “[Mr. Obama] left me with a very positive feeling that he’s going to get this done right.”

“This isn’t goodbye,” said the president, signing autographs and posing for pictures before leaving for his next appointment, “this is hello.” His national security staff would have an open-door policy.

Believe . . . feel . . . hope.

We’d been had.

A mere seventeen days after the hopey-changey meeting, Obama released one of the terrorist suspects against the families’ protests. And that open-door policy for the families was about as phony as you might expect:

…the White House liaison to 9/11 and Cole families refused to answer questions about the circumstances surrounding the decision to repatriate Mohamed, including whether he would be freed in Great Britain.

Kirk Lippold, commanding officer of the USS Cole and leader of the Cole families group, had this to say to Burlingame about President Obama: “At best, he manipulated the families. At worst, he misrepresented his true intentions.”

I don’t see that there’s a whole lot of difference between the two, actually. And I have very little doubt that both are true.

Subsequent and more recent events have only continued the pattern that alarms Ms. Burlingame and the other family members. Obama is bent on releasing more detainees, and plea bargaining with others, and is giving the families’ concerns short shrift. Ms. Burlingame and the group are sadder but wiser:

Given all the developments since our meeting with the president, it is now evident that his words to us bore no relation to his intended actions on national security policy and detainee issues. But the narrative about Mr. Obama’s successful meeting with 9/11 and Cole families has been written, and the press has moved on.

The Obama team has established a pattern that should be plain for all to see. When controversy erupts or legitimate policy differences are presented by well-meaning people, send out the celebrity president to flatter and charm.”

That’s a pretty good summary of this adminstration’s modus operandi. It’s certainly not limited to dealing with terrorists and terrorism, either. It bears repeating:

It is now evident that Obama’s words bear no relation to his intended actions.

The Reagan effect

The New Neo Posted on by

Noemie Emery has come to much the same conclusions as I have about the dangers of the drive for Republican Party purity:

The conservative movement is a collection of theorists that self-selects for conformity. The Republican party is the vehicle for the center-right of the American polity, a group that includes the conservative movement, but is not quite of it, and includes many people who touch the conservative movement with different degrees of intensity, or only lightly, or on only a limited number of points…

The problem for conservatives is that in the states that [RINOs] come from, on-and-off backing is all [conservatives] are likely to get…Olympia Snowe doesn’t owe her seat to conservative activists, but to the people of Maine, who elected her and presumably like what she’s doing. If conservatives can’t make their case to the people of Maine, it’s a problem for them, not for Snowe and her voters. The alternative to her is not some idealized conservative activist. It’s someone who never votes with them at all.

Emery ends the piece with the observation that, if this goes on, in the future Republicans will be lucky to retain thirty Senate seats.

So, what’s behind the conservatives’ targeting of RINOs, when they know that the states from which RINOs come are likely to elect Democrats instead? Snowe’s Maine, for example, is now a solidly blue state, and to deny this is to deny reality.

I don’t think that conservatives really have a death wish for the Republican Party. It’s that the extreme wings of either party are just that: extreme. As such, they tend to be inherently less practical, less willing to compromise, and more inclined towards ideological purity and purges.

But that’s not the whole story. I have become convinced that the purists believe that their ideas are so inherently logical and so obviously right (as in “correct”), that if the electorate were to just listen to candidates articulating those positions properly, even in blue states (with the possible exception of Minnesota and Massachusetts, so deeply blue as to be indigo) the scales would fall from voters’ eyes and they would elect the conservative candidates.

And so getting rid of RINOs like Specter (mission accomplished) and those such as Snowe of Maine (pending) in the Republican primaries are considered steps not only towards ideological purity, but towards getting rid of pretenders to the Republican thrones in those states in preparation for the magical Republican candidates who will inevitably win over the populace and the general election.

In other words, they are waiting for the heirs of Reagan to succeed in once again convincing Independents and centrist Democrats that the Republican Party is the best way to go.

Although Reagan is a Republican/conservative hero, in some ways he did the Republicans no favor. His appeal transcended ideology, although he never shied from ideology. But he had charisma to spare, and it gave him crossover pull with the electorate. The temporary defection of so-called “Reagan Democrats” from their usual voting patterns helped give Republicans the idea that it was a permanent change, and that conservative ideology had triumphed with these people—forever. Obviously, this was not the case. And in the ensuing years since Reagan, more young people have been educated by the school system in a very different type of thinking, a fact which makes the Republican challenge that much tougher.

But not impossible. Especially if the current administration cooperates by showing many young Americans the dangers of liberalism taken too far.

[ADDENDUM: Nicolle Wallace is holding out for a Republican hero. But Nicolle, please—that song wasn’t by Bonnie Raitt, it was Bonnie Tyler.

The tires they are a-changin’

The New Neo Posted on by

I live in an area of the country where you need snow tires. At least I do. I find that my little ten-year-old Toyota Corolla is so light that it can’t get up snowy hills without them.

That means that, every fall before winter begins and every spring after the white stuff is gone, the tires must be changed. Yesterday was that day.

I had a bad feeling about it for some reason and, sure enough, about fifteen minutes after I left the car at the place, I got a call from Mike (is it just my imagination, or are a disproportionate number of guys who work on cars named Mike?) saying that my tires had contracted some sort of rot. I needed new ones, and they just happened to have some that were just right for only $384, installation included.

That sort of information always presents me with a dilemma. As a woman who subtly and yet somehow unequivocally conveys her ignorance of all things car as soon as she walks into the shop, I never quite know whether people are taking advantage of that fact to sell me something I don’t really need.

For regular car repairs, I go to the tried and true mechanics I’ve known for years. But that requires a substantial trip, and the tire people are just around the corner. Too tempting, I guess. And this Mike seemed so trustworthy and sincere—and maybe he is.

So I chose to get the whole thing over with and not fuss about it; to fork over the $384.00 dollars (an amount that was not in this month’s budget, but probably should have been) for the four new tires and the alignment and all that jazz. And as a good faith measure, Mike even offered to show me the old tires and their wretched rims.

I think this whole wariness thing began after an experience in my very early twenties, when I was one of those suckers who fell for the old Kingman Arizona tire scam—you know, the one where you stop at a gas station before entering the desert and they tell you if you don’t get new tires yours are going to blow up and you’ll be stranded in the heat and you’ll probably die (no cell phones back then, folks, and hardly any gas stations for many miles). In those days I was a younger and more trusting soul—and tires were a bit cheaper, too, although getting ones that I didn’t need still took quite a bite out of the wallet.

You live and learn—something-or-other.

Will the media—and the people—get the message on Chrysler and Obama?

The New Neo Posted on by

Sometimes I think I’ve been writing too many posts on Obama’s handling of the Chrysler crisis. But the tale seems especially important because this is one of those times when Obama’s mask of affable reasonableness has slipped most dramatically, exposing the ruthless pol beneath—the former Con Law instructor with utter contempt for the rule of law.

I don’t know how many people who voted for Obama now see what’s going on, because you have to be paying attention to perceive it. But I have noticed one thing: suddenly, I’m reading criticism of Obama in some of the mainstream media, and/or from publications that supported him in the election.

Take the Economist. Pre-election, it was utterly in the tank for Obama. But this unsigned editorial appeared there yesterday. It certainly isn’t the most hard-hitting of all the pieces I’ve read on the subject, but it lands a few quiet punches:

The collapse of Detroit’s giants is a tragedy, affecting tens of thousands of current and former workers. But the best way to offer them support is directly, not by gerrymandering the rules. The investors in these firms are easily portrayed as vultures, but many are entrusted with the savings of ordinary people, and in any case all have a legal claim that entitles them to due process. In a crisis it is easy to put politics first, but if lenders fear their rights will be abused, other firms will find it more expensive to borrow, especially if they have unionised workforces that are seen to be friendly with the government.

“Easy” to put politics first? You betcha. Also wrong—and particularly galling from one who promised to be above such petty partisan posturings. Some of those who believed Obama when he said he wouldn’t do this sort of thing might actually be shocked right about now. Others don’t care; they applaud him sticking it to the evil creditors (never mind that they’re doing their jobs protecting the money of ordinary investors) and rewarding the noble autoworkers (never mind that their unions have grown into powerful political forces winning them huge benefits that have helped to cripple the auto industry as they simultaneously give tons of money to Obama and his party).

And then there’s CBS, which has posted a sharper piece by Declan McCullagh. He doesn’t shy away from calling Obama’s actions “dirty politics” (that’s in the headline), nor does he leave out the allegations by lawyer Thomas Lauria of government threats to his Chrysler creditor clients.

Could this be the faint stirrings of a sea change in press coverage—and public attitudes—about Obama? I don’t know, although one can hope. But if it is, it wouldn’t be the first time that a politician, drunk with his own success, has overplayed his hand. Let’s just hope people start noticing.

The Obama administration and the rule of law

The New Neo Posted on by

I agree with Mickey Kaus that what he refers to as “the screwing of the secure lenders” and “the strong-arming of the banks that received TARP funds” by the Obama administration are both dangerous precedents.

And I agree that it’s very troubling that these things were done in the name of a Chrysler-Fiat deal that, because Obama refused to demand equal “sacrifices” of his beloved UAW, will result in the company going to bankruptcy (and perhaps ruin) despite all the assistance and effort.

But I disagree that it’s the latter point that’s a bigger problem than the former. The precedents set in this case are just too dangerous, and too chilling to our economy and to contracts as a whole, to justify changing the rule of law that is designed to protect all sides and all parties.

Michael Medved has a piece on the subject based on, of all things, Leviticus. It’s a must-read.

In Forbes, economics prof and NYU business school dean Thomas F. Cooley expands on the same theme from a completely different perspective.

That’s why justice wears that blindfold. It’s not that she’s unaware, it’s that she’s supposed to be impartial.

justiceblind.JPG

George McGovern against Orwellian “Employee Free Choice Act”

The New Neo Posted on by

In the spring of 2008, liberal Democrat George McGovern was brave enough to speak out against card check.

Now McGovern proves he wasn’t fooling; he’s got an article on the subject up today at the Wall Street Journal, about card check and compulsory arbitration, which he’s against as well. Both are part of the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act.”

McGovern was one of the most liberal members of Congress, and one of the most liberal Presidential candidates we ever had (until Obama, that is—and McGovern, unlike Obama, didn’t try to hide his liberalism), back in the 60s and 70s. Now in his mid-80s, he demonstrates a certain integrity and willingness to stand against many in his party to say what he thinks is true.

Buried in the WSJ article is a clue about what may have caused him to break with the current liberal line on this. It’s another example of how political change happens; McGovern was mugged by reality when he had an experience many liberals (including Obama) have never had—he actually ran a business after leaving the legislature.

Here is how he describes what he learned:

My perspective on the so-called Employee Free Choice Act is informed by life experience. After leaving the Senate in 1981, I spent some time running a hotel. It was an eye-opening introduction to something most business operators are all-too familiar with — the difficulty of controlling costs and setting prices in a weak economy. Despite my trust in government, I would have been alarmed by an outsider taking control of basic management decisions that determine success or failure in a business where I had invested my life savings.

Bingo.

TARP banks discover the cost of doing business with the government

The New Neo Posted on by

Remember way back when—it seems so long ago, but it’s only been about a month—the Obama administration showed GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner the door? Now it appears that certain CEOs of TARP-receiving banks are probably next on the chopping block.

As part of the soon-to-be-announced stress test results, they’ve been put on notice by the administration that, in the 30-day period that follows:

…firms will need to review their existing management and Board in order to assure that the leadership of the firm has sufficient expertise and ability to manage the risks presented by the current economic environment.

When I read that, the first thought that came to me was: would that it were possible for the electorate to apply the same standard to Obama.

That was also my second and third thought.

More details of this and other government requirements for the banks can be found here). After you read them, you might find yourself agreeing with this comment:

The government is saying:

1) You must recapitalize.
2) By an amount so high that you must get the capital from the Treasury.
3) Oh, and you can’t repay our capital until we say so – so, you might want to start donating to the Democrat Party.

This is out and out theft. The government knows full well that it is the only source of this large an amount of capital – who has hundreds of billions of dollars laying around? Nobody does. And the government bloody well knows it. The government doesn’t even have it. The Federal Reserve is merely going to print it out for the government.