Category Archives: Politics

The Nominees are…

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The Academy Award nominations were released this morning. Coincidentally, the President’s State of the Union Address is tonight. Both will garner a lot of attention today and in the days ahead. While I haven’t seen the list of Oscar nominees yet, and obviously I don’t know how the speech will go tonight, but I think both events are pretty predictable.

For the record, let me just say that I think it is important for us as a society to honor and recognize those who work so hard to play their parts, even if they are directed by others and their words written by someone else and they make tons of money with very little heavy lifting. Here, then, are my predictions for the nominees for tonight’s performances:

Best Picture: This award recognizes the person who’s picture, taken during the speech, gets the most play in tomorrow’s newspapers and blogs. The favorites in this category have to be President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (did you know she was a woman?), simply because they get the most screen time. The edge here probably goes to Pelosi, who has better hair, though other “best picture” contenders could be of Hillary scowling or Ted Kennedy passing out face first onto his desk, but since these are familiar images they might not be as “newsworthy”. I think the winner might be a surprise candidate, such as Sen. Dennis Kucinich reading a MAD magazine, or Representative Keith Ellison reading the Koran.

Best Actor/Actress: Isn’t it archaic in this day and age to have separate actor categories for men and women? If you ask me this smacks of quotas and set asides. Why not simply recognize the best performance, based on who’s the most convincing? Expected nominees include President Bush, who will try to convince us he has a plan; Speaker Pelosi, who will try to smile and applaud as the President enters; Minority Leader John Boehner, who will try to act as if he’s relevant; and Representative Jack Murtha, who will act as if he’s actually heard what was just said. A lot of people favor Barack Obama for this award for his overall performance in appearing to have substance, but I think that tonight he’ll be playing it safe and just trying not to screw it up.

Best Supporting Actor/Actress: This award goes to person who does the best job of making the President look good, even if only by comparison. This is always a heated competition, especially in the lightweight division, where Kucinich and Senator Barbara Boxer have been the front-runners. Senator Joe Biden can also be a factor — if he isn’t too busy copying working on his screenplay. I’ve heard, however, that the Republicans are working with Fox News on some excuse to get Howard Dean into the Chamber for the evening. My money, however, is on Senator John Kerry who continues to do good work but will also garner some “lifetime achievement” support for his efforts in 2004.

Best Non-Supporting Actor/Actress: This is an unusual category but one that’s hard to ignore and that has a strong field of candidates. Nominees worth watching include the perennial John McCain, but you take your eyes off of Senators John Warner, Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagl at your own risk. I think this will go, however, to surprise dark-horse nominee, Senator Norm Coleman.

Best Original Song, Best Original Screenplay: No nominees. Haven’t we heard it all before?

That’s all I have time for because I need to go out and buy snacks and beverages for tonight’s show now so that I don’t have to worry about being late getting to my recliner in front of the TV. I’ll leave it to others to submit your nominations for categories such as “Best Director”, “Best Animation” or “Special Effects.”

From dusk ’til dawn

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Apparently we stand at the dawn of a new era, an era of peace and fellowship, free from the “culture of corruption,” heading to a brave new world.

A brave new world, perhaps, but one with some familiar old faces. George McGovern. Dan Rather. Daniel Ortega. Hillary-Care.

“Health care is coming back,” Clinton warned, adding, “It may be a bad dream for some.”

Heck, even Jack Murtha’s old Abscam tapes are making a comeback (wielded by members of his own party!). I wonder if Sandy Berger is in charge of returning those to the library when the Dems are done with them?

My goodness, with all this recycling, what’s next: a 21% prime rate and the Misery Index?

Well, far be it from me to ignore a trend. Here’s an excerpt from an oldie I posted back in the day when a certain national party had suffered another devastating political loss and was tasering itself over what went wrong and how to to repackage itself:

Not surprisingly, some of those out of power have been trying to repackage their memes in “value” oriented terms, confident (or at least hopeful) that their recent failures were merely a matter of poor communication and not a faulty philosophy. Others on that side, however, shout “Theocracy, booga booga!” as if this were a nation of vampires horrified at the sight of a crucifix. Yet their own One True Faith compels them to react to judicial nominees in the same way the Taliban greeted reliefs of Buddha.

Or perhaps these are the vampires, fleeing the dawn and being cornered in a crypt – be it the Senate Cloak Room or the faculty lounge at a University. Hissing at the rabble that have pursued them, they draw themselves up in as fierce a manner as can be mustered to demand imperiously that no one touch that window shade.

They know the day must have its turn, but if they can hold out long enough then night, too, will again have its way.

It’s interesting that most of the Democrats that won election last week did so by running toward the middle, yet those aren’t the voices in victory that we’re hearing. Instead it’s the vampires who have returned, and all because the people who held the stake poised over these undead hearts on our behalf turned away because they were afraid of getting splinters.

Did I say earlier that we stood at the dawn of a new era? Perhaps I was wrong; for a few moments dusk and dawn can look a lot alike so you have to wait a few minutes to see if it’s getting lighter or darker. In the meantime, however, I suggest you watch your neck.

Oh, that other election

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Somewhat overlooked in the last couple of days is the return of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas to power in Nicaragua. This is a sequel that has to rank up there with all the Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street and Jason movies for horror and carnage. Ortega won in a five-way race for president by garnering 38 percent of the vote with no opponent within five percent of him. These statistics were significant because of a constitutional amendment presciently pushed through by the Sandinistas before the election that eliminated the need for a run-off if a candidate receives at least 35 percent of the vote and a 5 percent margin over the nearest competitor. Gee, it’s almost as if they knew something.

Fortunately we can banish any thoughts of election shenanigans and voter suppression, despite a curious series of power outages around the country on election day, because Jimmy Carter was on hand to monitor the election, as this photo of he and Ortega looking longingly into each other’s eyes documents.

Amy Ridenour has more about the Nicaraguan election and the fawning reaction of the U.S. media here and here, plus a link to an excellent analysis by Publius Pundit.

The whole thing brings back memories, good and quite bad. One of my favorites, however, is something P.J. O’Rourke included in his book Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind’s Struggle against Tyranny, Injustice and Alchohol-Free Beer about his trip to Nicaragua in 1990 to report on the Ortega-Chamorro election that turned into a shocking upset in favor of Violetta Chamorro and the Nicaraguan people that left most of the media and the many Hollywood “Sandalistas” and their camp-followers who had come down for the party stunned and (even more) confused. O’Rourke himself was caught off-guard:

I hadn’t come to Nicaragua prepared for such joy. Like most readers of papers and watchers of newscasts, I thought the Sandinistas were supposed to win this one. I’m a member of the working press; you’d think I’d know better than to listen to journalists. But there’s a little bit of the pigeon in every good confidence man. I even believed the February 21st ABC-Washington Post poll that had Ortega leading Chamorro by sixteen percentage points. That is – I blush to admit this – I accepted the results of an opinion poll taken in a country where it was illegal to hold certain opinions. You can imagine the poll-taking process: “Hello, Mr. Peasant, I’m an inquisitive and frightening stranger. God knows who I work for. Would you care to ostensibly support the dictatorship which controls every facet of your existence, or shall we put you down as in favor of the UNO opposition and just tear up your ration card right here and now?”

Ortega was a staunch supporter and favorite of Cuba in his first reign, and an unabashed supporter and embracer of terrorism, and was heavily supported by Venezuelan President and would-be exorcist Hugo Chavez this go-round. Hmmm — Hugo and Daniel buddy-buddy in Central America and Hugo (who wants weapons) and Kim Jong-il (who wants oil and somebody to take him seriously) already exchanging Valentines. Hey, Congress: how quick can we get that wall built? (Uh-oh).

Onward and upward

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I’m sorry I’m late posting today, but with the results of the elections I’ve been busy all day putting my house on the market and getting ready to move to Australia. ;^ )

I’m disappointed, to be sure, but not discouraged or depressed. It’s not that I don’t think it matters who’s in office (though at times one can be hard-pressed to tell the difference), or that the country isn’t in for rough patch for awhile, but I take solace that my happiness and even my sustenance isn’t dependent on who’s sitting where in whatever Capitol building. There is a higher authority on a much higher throne who’s mandate is not affected by poll or policy.

I’ve not posted much about politics on this blog, and that’s not an accident. I definitely have my “side” and I’m strong in my beliefs and convictions that the government that governs best, governs least, but I long ago gave up on the quaint notion that there were many in authority in either of the major parties who shared these convictions with me. There was a time, however, when I was totally immersed, and gave up large and important chunks of my life to fight the good fight, going to caucuses, lit-dropping, planting signs, managing a campaign, serving as a delegate many times, once even making it to the state convention. The good fight, however, often was with the leadership of my supposedly righteous party who’s most fundamental concern was with getting their guy (or gal) in office simply because he or she wasn’t the other party’s guy or gal. Who they were or what they really stood for (or would go along with) wasn’t as important as having the right letters follow the name of the office-holder.

Jaded? No, not really. Once it sunk in that it was a game for both sides to play King of the Middle, I almost felt liberated. I realized that, for me, it made more sense to turn my efforts to the micro, rather than macro; to try and stir up the desire and the need for self-government in others one or two lives at a time and – as those lives changed – have faith that it might trickle up and someday move the middle closer to me. Others have felt different callings and I admire those who have gone to the front lines of the political battles as volunteers and officers, throwing themselves into the long and thankless hours that are needed to put a team on the field. We need those true believers on the wall. Many are bloggers and friends and I pray for their courage and their healing and their peace. They have the passion and the insight and, like so much else, I leave the commentary mainly to them.

As ugly as the process has become, and as the results we’ve just experienced are, I confess to a flicker of optimism. Everything is educational, and it doesn’t really matter if you learn something the hard way or the easy way as long as you do, in fact, learn. I find it ironic that a certain group emerged from the political darkness a dozen years ago and won on a promise to be different and ultimately became so enamored with “winning” that they forgot how to do it. All the compromises, all the “outreach” they did out of fear of not being “electable” came back to bite them in their spongy and expanding asses.

So, a cleansing breath, and let the other side shoot themselves in the foot for a little while. There’s alway plenty of low-hanging fruit on either side that will ripen into scandal; let those guys draw the flies for awhile and let’s get back to basics, and let’s hope that there will still be people willing to go back up on that wall when the time comes.

More than sports … as opposed to “more-on” sports

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One of my favorite on-line sports features is the Tuesday Morning Quarterback (TMQ) on ESPN.com I’ve linked the author, Gregg Easterbrook before because he has a creative and insightful take on sportswriting often makes me say, “Yeah, why is that?” (Today’s main feature on why the NFL should abolish Injured Reserve and the 53-man limited roster is breathtaking.) What I really like, however, is his tangential observations on our culture, and today’s (always) lengthy entree had several zingers.

Here’s his take on the dueling attack ads in Virginia senate race:

REPUBLICAN ATTACK AD
Soft, lilting female voice. Because voters worry that Republicans are too right-wing, the voice-over in Republican attack ads is always a sweet, reasonable-sounding woman.

“Did you know that Jim Webb reads novels? That he thinks about sex? Jim Webb has never denied thinking about sex! Jim Webb has been known to receive money. The exact amount of money he has received has never been disclosed! Many drug dealers drive their cars on highways, and Jim Webb drives his car on highways. So what’s the difference between Jim Webb and a drug dealer? While serving in the Vietnam War, Webb frequently used profanity, and is rumored to have thought about sex. When five brave firefighters died trying to stop the California wildfire, Jim Webb did nothing to rescue them — nothing! As a Democrat, Jim Webb advocates mandatory homosexuality, tax-funded Cadillacs for welfare recipients, the abolition of religion, surrendering our country to the United Nations and letting Saddam Hussein out of jail on a technicality. If Jim Webb is elected, Osama bin Laden will be placed in control of the United States military. Why won’t Jim Webb release the details of his thoughts?”

DEMOCRATIC ATTACK AD
Booming, macho voice. Because voters worry that Democrats are too squishy, the voice-over in Democratic attack ads always sounds like a steroid-swilling bodybuilder.

“Maybe George Allen is no longer a Satan-worshipper, but many Satan-worshippers are skilled at hiding their true allegiance. The postman, the school principal — can you be sure they are not Satan worshippers? Can you be sure George Allen is not? As a Republican, George Allen favors mandatory pregnancy, nuclear war against Canada, and the resumption of the Atlantic slave trade. George Allen never has explained adequately where he was on May 23, 1983. Investigators have found many documents related to George Allen. George Allen has been observed leaving meetings. Some of these meetings occurred in private! If George Allen is re-elected, major oil companies will charge for gasoline. George Allen has never denied that George W. Bush is President of the United States. George Allen, George Bush. Powerful insiders don’t want you to know that both have the same first name!”

Speaking of elections, here’s this (I think) satirical note:

Washington, D.C. — Nov. 7: Former president Jimmy Carter leads a team of international observers that will monitor elections in the United States today. Observers from Nicaragua, Guatemala, North Korea, Mexico, Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan and the West Bank will watch polling places for signs of fraud or suppression of the vote. In recent years, Carter has led many international teams to monitor elections in fledgling democracies plagued by voting scandals. This is Carter’s first election-monitoring mission to the United States itself. International observers wearing blue armbands will be stationed at polling places across Florida, Ohio, Illinois and Nevada. “We hope to help the American people vote freely and see their votes counted,” Nicaraguan team member Daniel Ortega told the Associated Press. Observation team member Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria said, “Once America learns to hold elections without irregularities, further intervention by the international community should no longer be necessary.”

He also had an interesting proposal on how to clean up the abuse of the public trough in Washington, D.C. that comes from lobbying and earmarking. Somehow his idea sounds kind of un-American, but I like it:

Related point: Jodi Rudoren and Aron Philhofer of the New York Times recently reported that 1,421 state and local governments have hired Washington lobbyists, who in 2004 spent $110 million on lobbying in order get more than $60 billion designated as “earmarks,” or special budget favors to specific places or programs. That is to say, $110 million in state and local tax money was expended to divert $60 billion in federal tax money — most of which came from people who live in states and cities, state and local taxpayers being the sources of most federal taxes. To get these favors, state and local governments hire as lobbyists former members of Congress or former congressional staffers, who then use their insider status to fleece the taxpayer. This is a classic “sliver strategy” — Congress hands out $60 billion in favors so that cronies of members of Congress can rake in $110 million in lobbying fees. Because what goes directly into the cronies’ pockets is only a small sliver of the overall waste, the sliver goes unnoted. I bet there is bipartisan consensus that Republicans and Democrats alike both don’t want this investigated, either!

Wouldn’t taxpayers come out way ahead if the salaries of members of Congress were raised to, say, $1 million per year, but in return all forms of outside income were banned for senators and representatives while retired members were permanently banned from lobbying? Raising congressional salaries to $1 million per year would cost the federal taxpayer $535 million — a bargain compared to $60 billion in earmarks and other wasteful spending that Congress approves for reasons of cronyism.

Finally, after seeing this item in TMQ, I’m predicting a surge in new email spam offers for the following “enhancement”:

Dear, the Garage Enhancement Truck Is Here: Recently TMQ included an item about fancy garage appliances as the new frontier in suburban acquisitiveness. How soon, I asked, until garage renovation strikes? Answer: not long! Many readers, including Jayne Mulholland of Charleston, S.C., alerted me to this new company, Premiere Garage, which calls itself “The Leader in Garage Enhancement.” Let’s hope that’s natural garage enhancement! Check the company’s photos, which showcase spotless garages unlike any that have ever existed in human history. These garages remind you of car ads that feature a guy in a convertible roaring down the open road with not one single other vehicle anywhere for miles around. The Premiere Garage FAQs page has this exchange:

“Q. My garage is full of stuff. What do we do with it while the floor is being coated?”

“A. It is the homeowners’ responsibility to remove all possessions from the garage.”

This may look like I’ve lifted his whole column, but it’s probably only about 25% of his weekly exposition. Read the whole thing to find out more about smart is it, really, to have the world’s largest container ship (191,000 tons, more than twice that of a Nimitz-class supercarrier) crewed and controlled by just 19 people, plus sections entitled “News from the Edge of the Solar System” and “News from the Edge of the Universe”, plus a heaping-helping of inside-football tactics and the ever-popular “NFL Cheerleader of the Week” offering.

They once let this guy have access to automatic weapons?

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So many people have been writing about John Kerry’s “botched joke” and butchered apology that I won’t elaborate on what he said, or what he later tried to make us think he said. For the record:

You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and do your homework, and make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.

Seems like a pretty straight-forward and direct statement, with no mention of President Bush, who he was supposedly really trying to insult. It may be that I’m just not on his mental wavelength, or sophisticated enough to understand his humor.

What I find interesting about his flatulent glibness is that many people enlist in the military so they can get the money for college that the military provides. College is a very expensive proposition and financial hurdles, more than intelligence and diligence, can be the most daunting barrier for a great many. While many aspire to achieve this education, there are relatively few who can take college admission for granted, as if it were a birthright. For the soldiers who take advantage of the tuition benefits, the discipline and appreciation for the experience no doubt serves them well. I believe that employers, too, look favorably upon the aptitude, confidence and intelligence of ex-soldiers, whether they went on to college or not.

John Kerry’s has shot himself in the foot so many times it is amazing that he can still get both of them into his mouth.

AARP poll says Baby Boomers are stupid

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Actually, I don’t think that that was what the AARP set out to poll, but the stereotype of Baby Boomers as shallow and self-absorbed couldn’t help but be burnished by an article I saw in a daily news bulletin put out by the A.M. Best company. This article (subscription required) covered a press release from AARP describing the overwhelming support among voters for national health care coverage:

Most Baby Boomer-Era Voters Support Universal Health Insurance, AARP Poll Says

WASHINGTON October 10 (BestWire) — Most voters say they are likely to vote for candidates who express support for the concept of national health-care coverage, according to a poll of 1,500 likely voters commissioned by AARP.

More than three-quarters of likely voters — 77% — said they are “very likely” (41%) or “somewhat likely” (36%) to vote for a candidate who supports a plan for national health-care coverage, the seniors’ lobbying group said. Nearly eight in 10 of all of those polled — 78% — said the federal government should ensure that everyone has health insurance. Sixty-one percent strongly agreed.

David Sloane, AARP’s director of government relations, said the polling data show that most baby boomer-era voters are reacting to health insurance becoming less affordable and less accessible. “The voter anxiety reflected in this poll is the result of a system that is inefficient, at the mercy of uncontrollable costs, and is leaving tens of millions of people without health insurance,” Sloane said.

… (snip) …

AARP’s poll surveyed likely voters age 42 and older, finding that nearly all (93%) are registered to vote, and that an overwhelming majority (86%) say they plan to vote next month. Fifty-six percent said they “always” vote, and 31% said they “nearly always” vote. Older voters show up at the polls more consistently than younger ones, according to the poll data, with 65% of those older than 60 saying that they always vote, compared with 50% of those aged 51-60 and 44% of those aged 42-50.

More than half of those surveyed said they are “very interested” in this year’s election. Yet as of Oct. 2, only 47% said they had given “quite a lot of thought” to their choice of candidate. Many remain undecided about both House (60%) and Senate (50%) races.

When asked about health insurance, older voters were more likely than younger ones to vote for a candidate who supports national health insurance. Forty-three percent of those aged 61 and older said they would vote for such a candidate, compared with 46% for those aged 51-60 and 32% of those aged 42-50. More younger voters, those aged 42-50, said they would be “somewhat likely” to vote for a candidate supporting national health care. Only small minorities said they would be “not very likely” to vote for candidates who support such a plan, with 9% of those aged 42-50, 6% of those 51-60, and 9% of those older than 61 agreeing.

I’ll leave it to more experienced poll-busters (Mitch, David, King?) to dig into this, but I have to seriously wonder what kind of sampling went into selecting these 1500 likely voters, and just what questions were asked (and how they were worded). This information wasn’t offered in the original AARP press release, but I’m speculating it was along the lines of “Would you rather use your own hard-earned assets to pay for your healthcare when you’re older or would you like an ice-cream sundae with whip cream and a cherry?” Hmmm, tough choice. Ice cream?

Of course, just about everyone likes ice cream, but the reality of a single-payer, national health insurance system is more like sour cream, neither of which are that good for you. It hasn’t worked in Cuba (unless you’re Fidel Castro, in which case you can apparently live forever), and in Great Britain and Canada it may even kill you, as I posted a couple of weeks ago. Sure, these programs always sound “fair”, especially if you don’t realize how much you’re paying for it (which is the reason our current flawed and counter-intuitive health system has managed to keep tottering forward). The Boomers, most of whom are beginning to realize they’ve underfunded for their dreams of golden retirement (at least they’ve got a killer sound-system and the big-screen plasma tv) are looking for another answer. The problem is they’re only being given a choice between two systems, one just slightly less imperfect than the other. They’re ready to jump at the “something for nothing” deal because that’s what they’ve come to expect as their due, but just wait until they need that hip replacement and have to wait more than a year to get it — or even find out that the government has decided that they’re too old or incapacitated to justify spending any more of its resources on them. This is not a generation that reacts well to being denied.

Okay, I’ll admit that that’s an unfair and extreme characterization of a generation that I find myself in (although at the tail end). What really gets me upset, however, is the proposition that if what we currently have doesn’t work then there’s only one other option. We shouldn’t have to keep propping up this misbegotten and artifical system we currently have, but we definitely don’t need to switch to an even more oppressive and inefficient model (especially when it’s been proven not to work). What we need is a market-driven healthcare system that takes the purchasing power out of the hands of third-party payers or the government and into the hands of the consumer, allowing us to buy healthcare the way we buy groceries or auto insurance.

Will it be easy? No. Will it be painful? Yes. Has this generation ever taken the path that wasn’t easy or that offered pain? Anecdotally, the evidence doesn’t look very good. There’s a lot to be unlearned, and special interest to be overcome, but we’ve got a chance to bite the bullet and do it — and leave a lasting legacy (instead of a curse) for those that come after us.

Update:

Along these lines, Policy Guy recommends a book, The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care.

Unlimited spending tops unlimited revenue

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The sulfur Hugo Chavez said he was smelling recently was most likely coming from the burn rate of his country’s prodigious spending, which is outpacing even the vast oil reserves of Venezuela. From the Wall Street Journal (subscription required for full story):

Venezuela Has Deficit As Chávez’s Spending Outpaces Oil Gains
By RAUL GALLEGOS
October 10, 2006; Page A6

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s spending has exceeded his government’s gains from oil sales this year, resulting in a deficit that many believe will grow in coming months. The Andean country’s accumulated deficit stood at 4.9 trillion bolivars ($2.28 billion) at the end of July, according to the latest central-bank figures.

Venezuela’s oil industry accounts for about one-third of gross domestic product and one-half of government revenue. “We expect to see a deficit of $7.7 billion this year,” or 4.3% of gross domestic product, said Andreas Faust, an economist at Banco Mercantil in Caracas.

Mr. Chávez has continued to fund popular social programs that include free health care, education and subsidized food, as he seeks another six-year term in office in December elections. He has raised salaries of state workers, continues to fund state enterprises and gives soft loans to favored industries. Many analysts expect total spending to surpass 120 trillion bolivars or almost 40% of GDP by year’s end.

State spending has pushed up prices for goods and services, resulting in 12.5% inflation as of September.

Maybe Chávez is racing his North Korean friend with the mushroom-cloud hair to see who can run their country into the ground first.

Let’s hear it for the Boy

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I work for a company in the risk assessment business. There are elements of our business who take more than a casual interest in the weather, as it can mean billions of dollars in claims and millions of dollars in capital that has to be set aside as reserves. One of our industry publications had this report today:

The climate phenomenon El Nino made an unexpected return this year, and its influence on world weather patterns could have an impact on the property/casualty insurance industry — including fewer hurricanes for the rest of the 2006 season.

El Nino is a large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate phenomenon linked to a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central equatorial Pacific. Steve Smith, an atmospheric physicist and senior vice president of Carvill’s ReAdvisory, said “a weak El Nino” formed about a month ago and appears to be affecting hurricane formation.

“I wouldn’t expect too many hurricanes for the rest of the season,” Smith said.

The Colorado State University-based Tropical Meteorology Project was even more blunt, lowering its tropical storm forecast to below-average activity for the rest of the season and predicting no tropical cyclone activity in November, “largely due to the rapid emergence of an El Nino event during the latter part of this summer.” Hurricane season ends Nov. 30.

“A hurricane is kind of like a heat engine in the atmosphere,” said Peter Dailey, lead meteorologist for catastrophe modeler AIR Worldwide Corp. “It can be disrupted by mixing the atmosphere. When we have an El Nino event, it tends to increase the wind shear in the Caribbean.”

So far, there have been nine named storms this season, and not one hurricane has made U.S. landfall.

Robert Hartwig, senior vice president and chief economist of the Insurance Information Institute, said El Nino’s influence on hurricane formation is “a beneficial impact.”

Ahhh, warming water means fewer hurricanes and, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the typical El Nino effect on global weather means warmer than average winter weather in western and central Canada, which translates to a warmer than average winter for western and central U.S. — including our own Minnesota. Maybe I didn’t need to buy my wife the new pair of flannel lined jeans and microfleece long underwear at Cabelas for her birthday after all. Maybe I can negotiate a lower fee upfront with the guy who plows my driveway.

Of course, El Nino weather patterns also usually mean more storm activity in California and more nor’easters in the northeast. Oh, those poor blue states. I bet Karl Rove had something to do with this.

There’s no such thing as “single-payer” health insurance

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If you think healthcare is expensive now, just wait until it is free.
— P.J. O’Rourke

That quote appears in my blog header this week because I’ve been keeping an eye on the Single-Payer Health Bill passed a couple of weeks ago by the California legislature and forwarded to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Terminator vetoed the bill yesterday but, like his namesake, you can expect that “it will be back.”

The bill would have outlawed all private health insurance in California in favor of a state-run, single-payer system that essentially mirrors the socialized programs of countries such as Canada and Great Britain (two links) and, in the words of Gov. Schwarzenegger, “would require an extraordinary redirection of public and private funding by creating a vast new bureaucracy to take over health insurance and medical care for Californians — a serious and expensive mistake.”

Proponents of the bill say it would actually save the state $8 billion a year in administrative costs, while private health insurance interests released a report that shows that that amount is overstated by $3.5 to $5 billion and that these administrative functions are the industry’s primary defense against fraud and abuse. The private insurers are naturally going to respond strongly to these claims, but even their counter-argument suggests that there may still be as much as $3 billion in administrative costs that could be attacked. Nevertheless, the idea that a state-run bureaucracy with no competive pressure will do a better job of ferreting out abuse and redundancies is counter-intuitive, just as the idea of a “single-payer” is a misnomer since the costs are ultimately extracted from all California tax-payers.

Both sides can readily marshall all kinds of statistics and sound-bites to support their positions. If we only had these to go by, it could be a challenge to try to peer into the future to see what the ultimate impact might be. Fortunately, we don’t have to go by expert opinion or suppositions, we can see the results and unintended consequences such as poor quality care, long waiting lists for necessary surgery and an ever-expanding bureaucracy. The problems in Canada – extolled by some for its artificially reduced drug prices – have become so severe that the New York Times recently reported that an average of one private (and therefore illegal) health clinic per week is opening in our socialized neighbor to the north. The clinics are opening in response to demand from citizens willing to pay out of their own pockets to get needed surgery to improve the quality of their lives. As the head of one of these new clinics stated, “This is a country where a dog can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which a human can wait two or three years.”

I’ve written before (such as in the links in the third paragraph above) that this situation ultimately leads to the government making decisions on who should live and die by rationing or even denying care based on its assessment of costs and quality-of-life issues. There’s also evidence, however, that this isn’t the only way socialized medicine can kill you. Amy Ridenour recently noted that “under socialized medicine, public officials administer a single budget and usually ration care among a population whose sole choice is to take whatever therapies the state monopoly provides” and that “politically driven health care jeopardizes patients’ lives,” citing:

  • Breast cancer is fatal to 25 percent of its American victims. In Great Britain and New Zealand, both socialized-medicine havens, breast cancer kills 46 percent of women it strikes.
  • Prostate cancer proves fatal to 19 percent of its American sufferers. In single-payer Canada, the National Center for Policy Analysis reports, this ailment kills 25 percent of such men and eradicates 57 percent of their British counterparts.
  • After major surgery, a 2003 British study found, 2.5 percent of American patients died in the hospital versus nearly 10 percent of similar Britons. Seriously ill U.S. hospital patients die at one-seventh the pace of those in the U.K.
  • “In usual circumstances, people over age 75 should not be accepted” for treatment of end-state renal failure, according to New Zealand’s official guidelines. Unfortunately, for older Kiwis, government controls kidney dialysis.
  • According to a Populus survey, 98 percent of Britons want to reduce the time between diagnosis and treatment.
  • Emily Morely, 57, of Meath Park, Saskatchewan, discovered that cancer had invaded her liver, lungs, pancreas and spine. She also learned she had to wait at least three months to see an oncologist. In Canada, where private medicine is illegal, this could have meant death. However, Mrs. Morely saw a doctor after one month — once her children alerted Canada’s legislature and mounted an international publicity campaign.
  • James Tyndale, 54, of Cambridge, England, wanted Velcade to stop his bone-marrow cancer. However, the government’s so-called “postcode lottery” supplied this drug to some cities, but not Cambridge. The British health service finally relented after complaints from the Tories’ shadow health secretary, MP Andrew Lansley.
  • Edward Atkinson, 75, of Norfolk, England, was deleted from a government hospital’s hip-replacement-surgery waiting list after he mailed graphic anti-abortion literature to hospital employees. “We exercised our right to decline treatment to him for anything other than life-threatening conditions,” said administrator Ruth May. She claimed her employees objected to Mr. Atkinson’s materials. Despite a member of Parliament’s pleas, Mr. Atkinson still awaits surgery.

Wouldn’t you just love it if your government decided you were too old — or too politically incorrect — to receive life-saving or life-enhancing care?

Update:

My mistake: the bill that Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed yesterday was a “Wal-Mart” bill similar to the one vetoed by Chicago Mayor Daly earlier this week. Arnold has not officially vetoed the single-payer bill yet, but has written a published op-ed piece in the San Diego Union-Tribune where he stated that he would veto it. He has until September 30 to terminate it.