Kill the Bills. Do Health Reform Right
Charles Krauthammer
Friday, November 27, 2009

WASHINGTON — The United States has the best health care in the world — but because of its inefficiencies, also the most expensive. The fundamental problem with the 2,074-page Senate health-care bill (as with its 2,014-page House counterpart) is that it wildly compounds the complexity by adding hundreds of new provisions, regulations, mandates, committees and other arbitrary bureaucratic inventions.

Worse, they are packed into a monstrous package without any regard to each other. The only thing linking these changes — such as the 118 new boards, commissions and programs — is political expediency. Each must be able to garner just enough votes to pass. There is not even a pretense of a unifying vision or conceptual harmony.

The result is an overregulated, overbureaucratized system of surpassing arbitrariness and inefficiency. Throw a dart at the Senate tome:

– You’ll find mandates with financial penalties — the amounts picked out of a hat.

– You’ll find insurance companies (who live and die by their actuarial skills) told exactly what weight to give risk factors, such as age. Currently insurance premiums for 20-somethings are about one-sixth the premiums for 60-somethings. The House bill dictates the young shall now pay at minimum one-half; the Senate bill, one-third — numbers picked out of a hat.

– You’ll find sliding scales for health-insurance subsidies — percentages picked out of a hat — that will radically raise marginal income tax rates for middle- class recipients, among other crazy unintended consequences.

The bill is irredeemable. It should not only be defeated. It should be immolated, its ashes scattered over the Senate swimming pool.

Then do health care the right way — one reform at a time, each simple and simplifying, aimed at reducing complexity, arbitrariness and inefficiency.

First, tort reform. This is money — the low-end estimate is about half a trillion per decade — wasted in two ways. Part is simply hemorrhaged into the legal system to benefit a few jackpot lawsuit winners and an army of extravagantly rich malpractice lawyers such as John Edwards.

The rest is wasted within the medical system in the millions of unnecessary tests, procedures and referrals undertaken solely to fend off lawsuits — resources wasted on patients who don’t need them and which could be redirected to the uninsured who really do.

In the 4,000-plus pages of the two bills, there is no tort reform. Indeed, the House bill actually penalizes states that dare “limit attorneys’ fees or impose caps on damages.” Why? Because, as Howard Dean has openly admitted, Democrats don’t want “to take on the trial lawyers.” What he didn’t say — he didn’t need to — is that they give millions to the Democrats for precisely this kind of protection.

Second, even more simple and simplifying, abolish the prohibition against buying health insurance across state lines.

Some states have very few health insurers. Rates are high. So why not allow interstate competition? After all, you can buy oranges across state lines. If you couldn’t, oranges would be extremely expensive in Wisconsin, especially in winter.

And the answer to the resulting high Wisconsin orange prices wouldn’t be the establishment of a public option — a federally run orange-growing company in Wisconsin — to introduce “competition.” It would be to allow Wisconsin residents to buy Florida oranges.

But neither bill lifts the prohibition on interstate competition for health insurance. Because this would obviate the need — the excuse — for the public option, which the left wing of the Democratic Party sees (correctly) as the royal road to fully socialized medicine.

Third, tax employer-provided health insurance. This is an accrued inefficiency of 65 years, an accident of World War II wage controls. It creates a $250 billion annual loss of federal revenues — the largest tax break for individuals in the entire federal budget.

This reform is the most difficult to enact, for two reasons. The unions oppose it. And the Obama campaign savaged the idea when John McCain proposed it during last year’s election.

Insuring the uninsured is a moral imperative. The problem is that the Democrats have chosen the worst possible method — a $1 trillion new entitlement of stupefying arbitrariness and inefficiency.

The better choice is targeted measures that attack the inefficiencies of the current system one by one — tort reform, interstate purchasing and taxing employee benefits. It would take 20 pages to write such a bill, not 2,000 — and provide the funds to cover the uninsured without wrecking both U.S. health care and the U.S. Treasury.

Morning Bell: A Victory for Democracy in Honduras

Posted By Conn Carroll On November 30, 2009

After casting her ballot for former Vice President Elvin Santos of the ruling Liberal Party in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Sunday, Erika Rodriguez told the Miami Herald : “I don’t even care who wins. This is the first time you are going to see all Hondurans celebrating — anybody’s victory.” So despite the fact that her candidate lost to cattle rancher and former congressman Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, Rodriguez joined millions of other Hondurans last night to celebrate a peaceful and successful democratic election.

The turmoil in Honduras began this summer when then-President Manuel Zelaya attempted to hold a referendum to gauge public interest in changing the constitution. As a leftist known for his ties to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, many democracy advocates in Honduras alleged Zelaya was following in Mr. Chávez’s footsteps and attempting to change the law to stay past term limits. Deeming this was a violation of Honduran law, the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress ousted Zelaya before his term was up. Rather than side with the democratic institutions of the land, the Obama administration surprisingly backed Zelaya’s demand for a return to power. For four months, U.S. diplomats bullied and hectored the interim government of Robert Micheletti to return Zelaya to power — despite an August report from the Law Library of Congress  that concluded that the Honduran government had every right to depose him.

Thankfully, the Obama administration eventually realized the error of their ways and helped broker a deal  between Zelaya and the interim government on October 29th. The critical point  of the pact was the recognition of a truly Honduran process for resolving the political crisis - yesterday’s presidential election. But Zelaya has since backtracked on his word. Speaking from the Brazilian embassy yesterday, Zelaya told CNN: “Absenteeism triumphed. … These elections don’t correct the coup d’etat.” According to the Miami Herald , Zelaya supporters told registered voters to stay home, and some went as far as planting minor bombs throughout the capital to create a climate of fear.

Despite these threats of terror, the Honduran people defied Zelaya, Chavez, and leftist Brazilian President Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (whom President Barack Obama loves ), and participated in the elections in overwhelming numbers. About 61% of Hondurans turned out to vote in the election yesterday , compared to the meager 46%  that turned out to vote in 2005.

The elections were monitored by over 600 observers from at least 31 countries who visited 75 different polling centers and interviewed thousands of Hondurans. The Washington Senior Observer Group, of which three Heritage scholars participated , released a statement saying in part:

We witnessed the enthusiastic desire of thousands of Honduran citizens to cast their ballots. Many took time to thank us for our presence today. Without exception, they expressed confidence in the electoral system, pride in exercising their right to vote, and a profound hope that their election is a decisive step toward the restoration of the constitutional and democratic order in Honduras.

It is now time for Zelaya to honor his side of the October 29th agreement and accept the legitimacy of Sunday’s elections. Furthermore the Obama administration must assert itself to make sure Zelaya does not derail the electoral process and steal Honduras from its people.

Victory In Afghanistan Is No Excuse For Raising Taxes
�
 

Speaking to the press after reports that the White House will send 34,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, President Barack Obama said, “it is my intention to finish the job.” While we wish Obama would have definitively said “I will finish the job” instead of just expressing his intent to try, his sentiments were far more preferable than those of the leftist majorities in Congress who chose the opportunity to threaten the American people with even more taxes, should they support winning the war in Afghanistan.

Specifically, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told The Huffington Post yesterday that every dollar spent on winning the war in Afghanistan was one less dollar available for domestic priorities: “I think we have to look at that war with a green eyeshade on. There is unrest in our caucus about: ‘Can we afford this war?’” But even Pelosi seemed to realize that pitting victory in Afghanistan against more domestic government programs was untenable. She later added: “I think the American people believe that if it’s something that’s in our national security interest [then the investment is worth it.]”

But for the left in Congress, prioritizing national security should never come at the expense of run-away domestic spending. Instead, the left is using the war as an excuse to raise taxes on virtually all Americans. According to Politico, close allies of Pelosi, including Ways and Means Committee Chair Charlie Rangel (D-NY), Democratic Party Caucus Chair John Larson (D-CT), and Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chair John Murtha (D-PA), all support the “Share the Sacrifice Act.” That legislation would raise taxes on millions of Americans, including a 1% surtax on middle-class households earning between $30,000 and $150,000. So much for Obama’s promise not to raise taxes on the middle class.

And don’t be fooled into thinking that any of the tax hikes the left in Congress are pushing would be in any way temporary. As National Review’s Kevin Williamson details, “temporary” taxes levied during war time, like the 1898 tax on telephone services to pay for the Spanish-American War, have a nasty habit of becoming permanent.

If the left in the majority actually cared about deficit spending (a laughable proposition considering their fiscal record since they took over Congress in 2006), then the Afghanistan war easily could be funded simply by eliminating known government waste. According to the Congressional Research Service, the war in Afghanistan is currently costing $43 billion a year. That sum is dwarfed by the $72 billion in improper payments (i.e. over-payments, payments made for services and goods never received, benefits and tax credits paid to people who didn’t qualify) that the Government Accountability Office said the federal government made in 2008. Or how about the $92 billion Washington spends on corporate welfare, or the $123 billion spent on programs that have failed to show any positive impact on the populations they serve? Why don’t the left in Congress eliminate this waste before taxing hard working middle class Americans?

Would Obama Be President If He Made These Five Campaign Promises?
John Hawkins
Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Calling a politician dishonest is like calling a burglar dishonest. The difference is that burglars take less of your money, don’t get invited on the Sunday morning shows, and are more dangerous — unless you happen to be a woman near a male member of the Kennedy family.

Even amongst politicians, Barack Obama is such a liar that he makes Bill Clinton look like honest Abe Lincoln by comparison. During the campaign, Barack Obama promised everything to everybody and when people inquired too closely, his supporters screamed that you had to be a racist for doubting him.

Well now, Barack Obama is President of the United States and he can no longer hide behind “hope” and “change” while he votes “present” on the tough issues. Now, people can actually judge Barack Obama based on what he’s doing instead of just projecting their hopes and dreams on a man with no record of leadership and a gift for soaring oratory.

Quite frankly, 2008 was a dream scenario for Barack. The sitting Republican President had a 25% approval rating, the GOP ran an old, uninspiring candidate who was disliked by much of the base, and there was a botched response to a last minute financial crisis that slammed the door shut on the GOP’s last hopes of winning.

Still, with all those advantages, could Barack Obama have become President had he told the American people what he actually intended to do in his first year as President instead of essentially saying, “Imagine what you want a politician to be. Ok, got it? Great, that’s what I’m going to do!”

Would Obama have been elected if he had told Americans the truth?

1) My fellow Americans, I pledge to push a wildly unpopular health care plan that will lead to higher premiums, higher taxes, huge cuts to Medicare, exploding deficits, rationing, taxpayer-funded abortions, a single payer system and poor medical care! Of course, Barack Obama did talk about wanting to reform the health care system as a candidate, but the talk was long on the uninsured riding on the backs of unicorns to get free service from legions of faery doctors and was short on the truth of what the plan would actually look like. Obama also never told Americans that he would try to do the plan without Republican help, slam it through before the August break without even giving anyone time to read it, and would purposefully ignore the American people’s strong and oft expressed objections to his idea.

2) Under my administration, we’ll send Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York to be tried for reasons no one seems to be able to explain. Back in 2006 Barack Obama said a “military tribunal was a perfectly fine way of handling such dangerous individuals as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.”

Why has he changed his mind? Who knows? There has been no coherent explanation given. Maybe Obama made it based on how shiny his teleprompter happened to be that day.

It’s hard to figure out what the advantages would be of the trial. Is there a chance KSM could get off on a technicality? Sure. Is there a risk KSM could use the trial as a platform to launch a propaganda campaign? Yes. Does it increase the chances of a terrorist attack on New York? It does. Are we risking having sensitive intelligence information and interrogation methods get out? We are. There’s not even a propaganda value to the trial since Obama has assured everyone, before the trial starts, that KSM is going to be convicted and given the death penalty. Thanks for doing something that dumb in the first place, Obama, and then following up by making it look to the world like a Stalinesque show trial. It’s things like this that show Barack Obama is actually every bit as dumb as they falsely accused Dan Quayle of being.

3) If you make me the next President of the United States, I will completely abandon bipartisanship and run the most partisan administration in American history! I make no bones about the fact that I’m no big fan of bipartisanship. However, Barack Obama made it one of the central themes of his campaign.

How does that square with passing a stimulus bill that will cost over a trillion dollars with no Republican votes in the House and only three in the Senate? How about being willing to pass a takeover of 1/6 of our nation’s economy with what may be no Republican votes by the time it’s all said and done? How about not meeting with GOP Leaders on health care since April?

How about this quote? Does it sound like something a person who’s willing to work with the other side would say?
“But, I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.”
How about Barack Obama’s arrogant declaration to GOP leaders who were trying to work with him on the stimulus package behind closed doors: “I won. So I think on that one, I trump you.”

If you’re liberal you might like Barack Obama’s high-handed arrogance and his hamfisted partisanship, while conservatives probably don’t like it one bit. But what everyone should be able to agree on is that it doesn’t remotely resemble his campaign promises of “unity” and “bipartisanship.”

4) Under my administration, taxpayers will throw away tens of billions of dollars to prop up General Motors and Chrysler in order to give payback to the unions that help get me elected. Even Mr. Bipartisan, John McCain, admits that what was done with GM and Chrysler was a politically motivated disaster:
It is all about the unions. The unions don’t want to have their very generous contracts renegotiated so we will put $80 billion into both General Motors and Chrysler, and if anybody believes that Chrysler is going to survive, I’d like to meet them.
Will we ever get out of those companies? Will we ever get our money back? Are we better off now than if we’d simply allowed both companies to go to bankruptcy court without Congress interfering in the process? The answer to all those questions seems likely to be “no.”

5) If you elect me as President, I will put this nation over a trillion dollars in debt for a stimulus bill that will be doomed to failure before it’s even passed! There’s so little evidence that the stimulus bill has helped the economy that even Saturday Night Live has started making fun of the idea in skits. Of course, the whole idea never made any sense in the first place, since it was enacted in the first half of 2009 despite the fact that the “Congressional Budget Office estimated that the recession would end in the ’second half of 2009″‘ even if Obama did nothing.” So, even if the recession is over, as many economists are speculating — it means nothing because it would have happened anyway. It’s like we spent a trillion dollars to guarantee that it would get cold during the winter.

Could Barack Obama have told the American people the truth and still been elected, even under the most favorable circumstances to liberals since Richard Nixon was impeached? There’s about as much chance of that as there is that Al Gore will give up living in a big mansion and move to a Unabomber style shack in order to “save the earth.”