Video: What comes after ObamaCare repeal? July 14, 2010
Posted by seeineye in : Politics , add a commentby Ed Morrissey
The Center for Freedom and Prosperity offers another in its Econ 101 series, but to be fair, this one’s a little more advanced — more like a 300-level course. Eline van den Broek delivers the lesson for today on ObamaCare and its repeal, and how that is really only step 1 of the necessary action needed to restore market forces back to the American health-care system. That would return the system to a status quo ante that still involves too much government intervention and disconnect from pricing mechanisms:
I wrote about the issue of third-party payers extensively last year, and it will be even more of an issue if Republicans succeed in dismantling ObamaCare. Van den Broek is entirely correct in pointing out that we didn’t have a free-market system for health care as much as we had one for health insurance, and even that wasn’t so free, thanks to endless government mandates at the state and federal level. The entire basis for the health care of most Americans is spending other people’s money through the overuse of comprehensive policies that only make sense in the warped environment of tax policy that doesn’t count health insurance coverage as income.
A quick look at the economics show that most people wouldn’t choose comprehensive coverage if given a rational choice and a level field. In 2007, the average individual comprehensive policy in Minnesota cost $3600 per year, or $300 per month. That would cover two, and perhaps three, clinic visits every month. Most healthy individuals only use a clinic once or twice a year, which means they throw away $3000 per year on coverage they never use. But why would people who get comprehensive coverage for $50 a month through their employer and pay no taxes choose catastrophic insurance instead when the employer doesn’t compensate them for making a wiser choice — and even if they did pay the difference in higher wages, the government would tax it as income?
As painful as it will be, repeal has to be followed by reforming the tax system to get rid of the distortion our current tax policies create in health insurance. We have to make the system more rational in order to get people into realistic and less expensive catastrophic coverage, and let them pay out of pocket for routine care, which will then become much more price competitive and more plentiful as providers shed the overhead costs of dealing with insurers. Repeal is just the first step to real reform, and if we don’t take the next step, we will put ourselves at risk that the next attempt at ObamaCare will not be reversed.
Emanuel Leaving White House June 25, 2010
Posted by seeineye in : Politics , add a commentby Jacob Lawrence
The London Telegraph reports that President Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel will be leaving the White House after the midterm elections. The article quotes many sources including “Washington insiders, Friends, A leading Democratic consultant in Washington, and two officials from the Bill Clinton era.”
Want me to make some sort of prediction? Well here goes a long shot:
Rahm “Dead Fish” Emanuel has proven he is a far left radical. With the upcoming elections, Democrats (including Obama) want to appear more towards the center and closer to American’s views. Because right now, 49% say that the Democrat Party is too liberal and they trail Republicans 36% to 44%.
“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before,” he is infamously quoted as saying. That is the basis of the platform of the majority in power today. But they will never get reelected proclaiming they want to control your life.
And how can we forget the Eric Massa situation?
Remember this is coming from a fellow Democrat!
Mr. Dead Fish has already expressed interest in Chicago’s mayoral race. I believe Obama is kicking him out to appear towards the center and the power hungry Emanuel will seek office in Chicago.
The Top 7 Reasons Meg Whitman Will Beat Jerry Brown from Big Government by Thomas Del Beccaro June 10, 2010
Posted by seeineye in : Politics , add a commentby Thomas Del Beccaro
Plain and simple: Meg Whitman will be the next Governor of California. After a long primary season, the general election matchup is set. Brown v. Whitman. Yesterday v. Tomorrow.
Here are your 7 reasons why Meg Whitman will be the next governor of California.
7. Meg is News. The news media follows, well, news. New candidates, especially dynamic candidates, are written about and get on the news more than candidates that have been around awhile. Jerry Brown is the anything but new – and hardly news.
6. Meg is Tireless. Meg will be everywhere throughout this entire cycle. Brown, by contrast, hasn’t been in a heavily contested statewide race in decades. Many question whether he has another such race in him. Brown simply will not be able to keep up with Whitman.
5. Meg is Extraordinarily Determined. Anyone that has spent any amount of time with Meg Whitman knows she is an extraordinarily focused person. eBay wasn’t built in a day and it wasn’t built on hope. Whitman proved in her primary campaign that she is goal oriented and categorically determined to meet those goals. Losing is not in her vocabulary.
4. Battle Hardened. Although primaries can be rough, the best candidates benefit from the experience. Meg has gone through a rough primary, taken the hit, saw the polls tighten, went back to work, and emerged the better for it. By contrast, Jerry Brown has yet to even engage.
3. Meg has the Monetary & Marketing Resources. Say what you want, the fact of that matter is that Meg Whitman will be able to compete in every corner of California – especially the LA market. Historically, Republicans draw even throughout the state and had difficulty in statewide elections because they have trouble competing in the LA Market – especially down the stretch. No such trouble this time. Meg has the resources to be on the air everywhere throughout the entire cycle. Beyond that, her commercials to date demonstrate that she has a very capable marketing team.
2. Jerry Brown Has Nothing Relevant to Say. Jerry Brown is the embodiment of Big Government, environmentalist/union politics. The problem for him is that we are in a Prop 13/Tea Party type of environment – not a pro-government/incumbent environment. So what does Jerry Brown have to offer California in 2010?
Brown can’t talk budget cuts – unions don’t like that. Brown can’t talk about bringing regulations into balance – environmentalists don’t like that. Brown can’t talk education reform – the CTA doesn’t like that. Brown can’t talk cutting tax rates – nobody on the Left likes that. So exactly what concrete proposal will Brown propose to fix California? Nothing. I assure you his platform will be more like porridge than concrete.
1. Meg’s Focused & Responsive Agenda. This election will be dominated by skeptical voters. They are no longer interested in platitudes and most do not believe government will solve all of their problems. Indeed, for many in the Central Valley and beyond they know that government is the problem because it is too big, not responsive and out of balance. Any successful candidate in 2010 must address those problems head on. Meg Whitman will.
Meg’s 3-point, focused agenda on restoring California jobs by making our economy competitive again, her plan for cutting wasteful spending and improving education is not only the right program, but it is directly responsive to the major voter concerns of the day. Beyond that plan, her determination to end Sacramento’s bill factory, by vetoing bills outside her 3-point agenda, is a great contrast to an out of control government and its poster child Jerry Brown.
* Bonus Reason. This is not a Democrat year. This is not a status quo year or a Big Government year. This is a year where all of the reasonable predictions are that the Democrats will suffer large losses in Congress across the country. It is one thing to be told you are going to lose, but the Democrat vote will be depressed even more when the wave of losses makes its way across the Country. That wave will hit California and Jerry Brown directly.
When you combine all of the above, it is hard to conclude otherwise than that Meg Whitman will be the next governor of California. Here’s to defeating the terrible B’s: Brown, Boxer and Big Government.
Barrasso says voters “right to be concerned” over IRS expansion April 8, 2010
Posted by seeineye in : Politics , add a commentby Ed Morrissey
Republicans have had little hesitation in pointing out the stagnant job-creation numbers during the Obama administration, but to be fair, they’re also predicting a big hiring boom, too. Unfortunately, that hiring boom would come at the IRS, which is tasked with enforcing the individual mandate in ObamaCare and in determining what kind of medical coverage qualifies. The Obama administration denies that it will hire more IRS agents, while HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius predicts no more than a couple of hundred extra agents. With the CBO estimating new costs to the IRS between five and ten billion dollars over the next ten years, someone’s going to have to do a lot of work. Fox News talks with Senator John Barrasso about the controversy, and the orthopedic surgeon prescribes a lot of concern for taxpayers:
Even taking the low end of the CBO estimate, it amounts to $500 million in enforcement costs each year for the next decade. If each IRS agent costs $100,000 a year, that makes for 5,000 new IRS agents. At the top end ($10 billion), that’s 10,000 new agents. That may not be the 16,000 figure quoted by Republicans, but then again, IRS agents may cost considerably less than $100,000 per year, too. It’s certainly a lot more than a couple of hundred, or zero. Of course, Democrats can always argue that the CBO numbers are completely inaccurate. Republicans would loooooove to hear that defense.
Tom Harkin: The GOP doesn’t want us to pass this bill because they know America will love it March 5, 2010
Posted by seeineye in : Politics , add a commentby Allahpundit
I don’t even know where to start. Would it be too petty to note that he doesn’t seem to understand what “reverse psychology” is? If the GOP truly feared the electoral consequences of passage — which, per every poll taken in the last six months, is simply insane to suggest — then a reverse-psychology strategy would be to make Democrats suspicious of passing it by encouraging them to do so, no? That’s where the “reverse” part comes from — urging someone to act in the opposite way that you really want them to act. If there’s any reverse psychology actually being practiced these days, which I doubt, it would be that the GOP secretly wants the Dems to pass this boondoggle because doing so might deliver Congress into their hands.
Beyond that, how might we apply this strategic logic to bills the Democrats opposed when the GOP was in the majority? Did they block Bush’s stab at social security reform only because they feared it might work and would spur Republicans to new heights of popularity? Actually … that makes perfect sense.
The looming question is when, precisely, Harkin expects the public’s fee-vah for O-Care to finally break out. Howard Dean was wringing his hands just this morning that it’s nuts to pass a bill this huge, whose costs are well known, when the benefits (or rather, most of the benefits) don’t kick in for years to come. I look forward to Harkin’s vindication circa 2016, after the GOP’s controlled the House for six years.
