jeffmcbride.net

Barack Obama:

Consider the facts. Over the last thirty years, the average earnings of American men have grown less than 1 percent after being adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile,the cost of everything, from housing to health care to education, has steadily risen. What has kept a large swatch of American familes from falling out of the middle class has been Mom’s paycheck.

Am I missing something here? Or, is the fact that the cost of everything is steadily rising what the “adjusted for inflation” is supposed to be adjusting for?

First off, I want everyone to know how lucky I am to be alive. I nearly died over the last few days. OK, maybe it was just the flu. But when you’re freezing and sweating profusely at the same time, you start to wonder. I’m feeling better today though, and got back to work finally.

Secondly, Happy Valentine’s day, or singles awareness day, or hallmark’s “sucker the poor insecure mate into buying their significant other silly things day!” However you choose to look at it. I won’t even be seeing the girl tomorrow. But Friday we are going to dinner and to see a play at the Getty Center. The only downer is that the show is in an outdoor (greek style) theater, and even though it has been really warm, it now seems to be getting colder. Ahh well. And Mary: just so we’re clear, I won’t be buying you any silly stuffed bears or heart shaped boxes of chocolates. I won’t completely rule out flowers though…;).

Finally, I will leave you this evening with this clip from the Daily Show last night. I am really, really glad that it is becoming clear that Huckabee has no chance for the nomination. I am a bit saddened though that he was able to get as far as he did. But McCain is a republican I can definitely live with. Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to vote for either Obama or Clinton. But if McCain wins, I won’t feel like I need to leave the country!

Simi Valley, where I work, is home to the Reagan Presidential Library where the republican debate was held this Wednesday. It seems Dr. Paul (or at least a large contigent of his supporters) was staying at the hotel down the street from my work, because in addition to several smaller vehicles, I saw the what was probably the longest limo I’ve ever seen plastered with Ron Paul propaganda. Of course, I don’t know this was actually the man’s limo; it could have been a really enthusiastic supporter, but I doubt it.

The license plate: “Big Star”. Unfortunately, it was dark, so the pictures didn’t come out so good, but here it is:

(Click thumbnail for full-size)

I’ve long thought that gasoline (and petroleum products in general) should be taxed a lot more than they are. People love to talk about the need to ween America off oil. You know, CO2 emissions, dependence on less than stable, not always friendly, developing nations, and all that. Every presidential candidate says it. But you can’t just say it and make it so! If you want to make alternatives more attractive, or if you think there are costs and risks embedded in the use of gasoline not accounted for in the price, the cost has to be increased! Yet, in the last Virginia Gubernatorial race, both candidates were promising explicitly NOT to raise gasoline taxes (I for one would have gladly voted for anyone willing to come out in favor, but the truth I’m afraid, is that most would not).

I was pleasantly surprised to hear Alan Greenspan, in his book, “The Age of Turbulence”, advocating a gas tax of $3/gallon or more.

I come very reluctantly to taxes as an alternative way to accomplish what competitive markets could do. But while oil markets are high competitive in the developed world, the market approach is clearly vulnerable in a world where a single act of terrorism can shut down massive chunks of oil production and cripple the global economy. There is no insurance, or hedging strategy, that can defend against that. We often forget that to function effectively, a competitive market must be voluntary and free of significant threats of violence, and that trade must be unencumbered. Remember, markets are not ends in themselves. They are constructs to assist populations in achieving the optimum allocation of resources.

And I really liked this:

I consider the argument that gasoline tax hikes are politically infeasible irrelevant. Sometimes the duty of political leadership is to convince constituencies that they are just plain wrong. Leaders who do not do that are followers.

He also advocated an increase in nuclear generation, which I think is great. The fear of nuclear power is significantly overstated.

There is, certainly, a short term economic cost to any increase in fuel pricing, just like there are losers for every economic shift (“Creative destruction”, to borrow Greenspan’s term). But, the fact is, it is going to have to happen, sooner is better than later, and talking about it won’t do it. America burns one out of every seven barrels of petroleum produced worldwide on its highways! That is a big chunk that could be significantly decreased fairly quickly.

On a related note: Greenspan is a really smart man, with a lot of experience, and his book is definitely worth a read. He covers everything from history, to current events, even looking a bit towards the future. It is a bit long, and has taken me a while to get through, but it has been more interesting than the couple other books I set aside in favor of it.

“The Age of Turbulence” at Amazon.com

It is hard to believe I could ever enjoy the blog of a baptist minister, but somehow it has happened with Real Live Preacher. Alhough, he isn’t your typical baptist pastor. He has been on my Google front page for a while now, and I’ve come to appreciate his writing. I’m sure there are quite a few things we will never see eye-to-eye on, but that doesn’t matter much I suppose. His most recent post about his family’s experiences with obtaining health insurance really drove home something I’ve been thinking about lately. You should read it, but in short, the point is that it is way too easy for someone who doesn’t fit the typical full-time employee w/ benefits mold to fall completely through the health insurance cracks gaping hole.

What with the whole presidential election thing going on, I thought I’d take a look at it. I was going to write something about the republican debates this week, and I may yet. But, there wasn’t any discussion at all about health care, except when Romney made clear that we should be making sure illegal aliens aren’t getting any. So I checked out some of the candidate’s websites to see what they had to say there.

Romney

Rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all, government-run system, we must recognize the importance of the role of the states in leading reform and the need for innovation in dealing with rising health care costs and the problem of the uninsured. By expanding and deregulating the private health insurance market, we can decrease costs and ensure that more Americans have access to affordable, portable, quality, private health insurance

See here.

The notion that deregulating private health insurance will ensure more Americans have access is just absurd. How many people have health insurance now only because of regulations requiring they be covered (rlp’s case points out a couple)? Markets are really great for a lot of things, but they are never going to put value on someone’s health. Unfortunately health care is one of those things where you can make some predictions about how much someone’s health care is going to cost, and there is just no financial reason to cover those people who are likely to cost more. If you look at the market as a whole, it is perhaps more economically efficient to not cover them. They are probably not producing as much for society as more healthy people anyway, so why spend the money. Let them die, it’s a net savings for the market. If we as a society are going to decide that we want universal health care (and we should!), we simply can’t make it a financial market. We may not be able to build the perfect system, but we can do better than an unregulated market. He goes on to say:

Stop The Free-Riders. Use some of the money currently spent on providing expensive “free care” for the uninsured at emergency rooms to instead help the truly needy buy private insurance.

Is he serious? Is he suggesting denying uninsured persons access to emergency room care? It’s on his website!

Giuliani

Health care is not even mentioned on his Issues page. Maybe it is somewhere else, but I don’t see it, or a search option. Found it! It is, apparently, one of the 12 commitments.

“America is at a crossroads when it comes to our health care. All Americans want to increase the quality, affordability and portability of health care. Most Republicans believe in free-market solutions to the challenges we face. I believe we can reduce costs and improve the quality of care by increasing competition. We can do it through tax cuts, not tax hikes. We can do it by empowering patients and their doctors, not government bureaucrats. That’s the American way to reform health care.” – Mayor Rudy Giuliani

This is basically more of the same. What I particularly like, is the suggestion that “We can do it through tax cuts…”. I’m not sure exactly how tax cuts are going to lead to improved health care. I mean, maybe he can improve health care despite lowering taxes, but I doubt that too.

Huckabee

Huckabee is almost progressive, next to his republican peers. I can’t quite figure this man out. On the one hand, he is an evolution denying, my faith is my life, christian crazy guy. On the other hand, he keeps saying half sensible things. A couple times in the debate I almost liked him. His health care “issue” page is not nearly so naive and light on details as the others.

• The health care system in this country is irrevocably broken, in part because it is only a “health care” system, not a “health” system.
• We don’t need universal health care mandated by federal edict.
• We do need to get serious about preventive health care.
• I advocate policies that will encourage the private sector to seek innovative ways to bring down costs.
• I value the states’ role as laboratories for new market-based approaches.
• When I’m President, Americans will have more control of their health care options, not less.
• As President, I will work with the private sector, Congress, health care providers, and other concerned parties to lead a complete overhaul of our health care system.
• Our health care system is making our businesses non-competitive in the global economy. It is time to recognize that jobs don’t need health care, people do, and move from employer-based to consumer-based health care.

…

It is time to recognize that jobs don’t need health insurance, people do, and to ease the burden on our businesses. Our employer-based system has outlived its usefulness, but the answer is a consumer-based system, not socialized medicine.

Clearly not a supporter of a government run health care, but he does recognize without any question that employer based health-care is not the right way. Seperating health care from the employer is, I think, a fundamental step to any new systems. It may well be that a private health care system, with some kind of federal support to consumers, could work. But, ultimately, I think the the federal government DOES need to guarantee universal health care, somehow.

McCain

McCain is the only republican candidate at the moment that I feel I could tolerate as president. As far as health care goes, he is again better than some, but doesn’t really say much of anything. Some bits from his health care issues page:

• While we reform the system and maintain quality, we can and must provide access to health care for all our citizens – whether temporarily or chronically uninsured, whether living in rural areas with limited services, or whether residing in inner cities where access to physicians is often limited.
• Reform the tax code to eliminate the bias toward employer-sponsored health insurance, and provide all individuals with a $2,500 tax credit ($5,000 for families) to increase incentives for insurance coverage. Individuals owning innovative multi-year policies that cost less than the full credit can deposit remainder in expanded health savings accounts.
• Bringing costs under control is the only way to stop the erosion of affordable health insurance, save Medicare and Medicaid, protect private health benefits for retirees, and allow our companies to effectively compete around the world.

So, he does at least state explicitly that “we can and must provide access to health care for all our citizens”. Although, he makes it sound like this is the status quo that must be maintained while we reform to the new streamlined, really cost-effective, open market McCain system. What exactly that system is though, I don’t see. Yeah, sure, a tax credit for the cost of health insurance is great, but it just isn’t going to do it.

Republicans talk about the need to reform, but what they really mean is to make health care cheaper, and available to those who can pay for it, and those who aren’t (based on some previous condition) deemed a high risk. The fact is, if we want everybody to have access to health care, then the system simply can’t be run as a market trying to increase profit. It has to be run by an organization who can look past profit maximization. The problem will only get worse as science continues to explore genetics, and more and more health risks will become assessable earlier. This is why we have government, because some things need collective control. In a country as rich, and with as high a standard of living as the U.S., it is a travesty not to be able to provide health care to all of our citizens. This is just one of the reasons why I become more and more of a democrat every day.

In all fairness, this post should probably cover the leading democratic candidates as well. However, that is going to have to wait for another time.