Tag: change

The Healthcare Issue Simplified

Post author By David
Post date June 19, 2009
4 Comments on The Healthcare Issue Simplified

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DownsizeDC has a post entitled Complexity, Simplified that promises to make our national issue with health care reform understandable. And they deliver on that promise. They say more than this, but it all boils down to these few statements:

But we think the complexity can be simplified to two simple questions:

For whom does your doctor work?

Do you pay for your health insurance directly?

If your doctor tailors his or her care to the policies of your insurance company, or some government program, then you don’t really have a doctor who works for you, and health care hasn’t really been reformed.

You’ll know health care has really been reformed when the following things are true…

You and your doctor deal with your health insurance provider as rarely as you currently do with your car insurance company

Doctors post their prices, and compete with each other based on price and quality

It’s really that simple. As long as insurance policies and/or government programs fund most of your health care, doctors will work for them and not for you.

The same holds true for health insurance. As long as our health care coverage comes mostly from employer controlled insurance or the government, we won’t have a competitive health insurance market, and the cost of both insurance and health care will grow constantly.

When Americans care about the impact that their use of health care has on their insurance premiums in the same way that they care about the impact that speeding tickets and minor scrapes have on their car insurance, you’ll know that our health care system has really been reformed.

There – in two questions to ask, two systemic changes to watch for, and two paragraphs decribing what real reform would look like – is the entire health care issue.

Tags change, Downsize DC, health care, issues

Local National State

Tea Party and Town Hall

The real effectiveness of the tea parties is not likely to be known for some time. Two days later various factions are still trying to sort out what actually happened and what it all means. I am encouraged by the prospects that it will turn out to be more than a short-lived release of frustration for political newcomers.

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a town hall meeting with my congressional representative, Rob Bishop. I had heard about these meetings from various sources, but this is the first one to take place since I moved into the district. It was an interesting mix of support for Rep. Bishop and confrontation (speaking about the questions and comments from the audience).

One gentleman, who may well have been a tea party attendee, got up and expressed his frustrations at not having a political home after the supposedly conservative Republican party had forsaken the opportunity to promote conservative government. He asked how he could ever trust the party again. Rep. Bishop gave a very unsatisfactory answer (in my mind) that he would just have to sit back and wait. I later talked to that gentleman and invited him to visit my site – I hope he does so. My answer to the question is that those of us who really believe in conservative principles need to get active in the party and make it answerable to those principles rather than blindly following whoever is incumbent. (P.S. Rob Bishop is far from being the worst Republican Incumbent around these parts.) Sitting back and waiting is a great way to allow the status quo to become ever more entrenched in the party and in society.

I found various statements by Bishop which I agreed with and others that I did not agree with. The subject of earmarks came up multiple times and I found some of his answers insightful. For example, Rep. Bishop recognizes that earmarks are easily used as a distraction that diverts attention while the pile of money being spent continues to grow while the size of the pile is a larger problem than the earmarking process. He explained that earmarks are Congress setting priorities for appropriated money rather than the administration setting those priorities. That left me with two questions that I will demand answers on from my congressman.

If we get rid of earmarks won’t that allow us to focus on the size of the pile of money?
While I might prefer that Congress set the priorities for government appropriations rather than the administration, why should the priorities be set at the federal level at all? (except on truly federal priorities like defense spending) Wouldn’t it be better to just appropriate money to "transportation" and direct that 2% of the money goes to Utah, 5% to California, etc. then let the states and municipalities decide which projects (I-15 expansion, Mountain View Corridor, repaving existing streets, expansion of light rail, to name a few local options) deserve the transportation funding?

Tags change, District 1, money, questions, Rob Bishop

National

Change You Can Believe In

Many of the conservative Republicans who opposed John McCain even after he was the last Republican Presidential Candidate of 2008 rightly observed that the differences between McCain and Obama (or McCain and Bush, or Obama and Bush) were largely cosmetic in nature. They were not swayed by the rhetoric of change from the Obama campaign, but they would probably have welcomed a real substantive change even from a Democrat if any were offered. Over at the Financial Times today, Clive Crook captures the truth of this foresight in his column:

Mr Obama’s campaign always exaggerated the difference he would make on foreign policy. His style could hardly be more different from the caricature of US supremacism projected by George W. Bush, but the underlying issues were unlikely to be any easier to deal with. So it has proved. In many areas of foreign and security policy, in contrast to the clear break he is attempting in domestic policy, Mr Obama is mostly rebranding Mr Bush’s approach.

Mr Crook is absolutely right here except in his categorization of government policy as either foreign or domestic. I would say that a more accurate categorization would break foreign policy into military and trade policies while breaking domestic policy into social, monetary, and security policy. Of those categories the difference between Republican and Democratic positions are only cosmetically different on military, trade, monetary, and security policy. The only substantial difference between the two parties recently (if there is any substantial difference to be found) is in social policy.

Once upon a time the Republican party stood for something different from the Democratic party, but somewhere that changed so that functionally (meaning without regard to what both parties say) they all stand for codifying the status quo – whatever that may be on any given day.

I have some advise for a Republican party that is grasping for an identity – stand for something. Become a party of change that voters really can believe in. Everyone knows how hollow it sounds to have Republicans harping about lowering the deficit spending and not propping up "private" enterprise. It does not matter that those are good ideas that are worth standing for. In order to stand for something Republican parties around the nation need to demonstrate by their actions in those areas where they have some power (various governors and state legislatures) that they will act upon the principles that the party is vocal about. As they do that the next step should be to replace most of the Republicans in Congress with a new generation of Representatives and Senators who have not been betraying their avowed principles (or even actively standing in opposition to accepted party positions).

A clean break wtih the past and a clear adherence to party principles will be the only thing that gives the party a chance to re-emerge in its own right. Otherwise the national GOP will have to wait for people to get fed up with the foibles of the Democrats, just as they have becaome fed up wtih insincerity within the Republican ranks.

Tags change, Obama, parties, Republican

culture National technology

D-TV Switch

That would be D as in "Delay " not D as in digital.

I have had the opportunity to drive to work for the last couple of days and have been listening to the radio as they discussed this issue. I used to wonder why television stations should be forced to switch to digital signals. Now I recognize that Congress has been holding them back from switching to digital signals exclusively. That leaves me with the question of why it is so important that everybody be able to receive a television signal.

I know I’m odd in the fact that I never watch television (since the middle of 2000), but I really don’t understand why television stations should be forced to serve people through analog. Some will argue that television is an important news source. I argue that the "news" that comes on television is somewhere between uninformative and misinformative most of the time. Some will argue that the entertainment is important. Though I find little television entertainment worth watching (yes, I still do have a vague idea of what’s offered), none of it is necessary and why should Congress be involved in mandating our entertainment options? (I can’t seem to find that section in my pocket Constitution.) Next thing you know, Uncle Sam will be giving away 5 free movie tickets per person per year – like they do in New Zealand (I may be wrong on the exact quantity).

Considering what I heard about how much cheaper it is for stations to broadcast in digital I would bet that, if left to themselves, the television broadcasters would figure out a way to offer the financial incentive necessary to get their customers to switch to digital. But that would be a free market and <sarcasm>we wouldn’t want to try that – free market’s aren’t stable.</sarcasm>

Tags change, change congress, free markets, laws, media, television

National

Another Reversal

I’ve had another change of position which is sure to make me popular with some people. When I originally looked at endorsing Ron Paul I had some reservations. Over the five months since then those reservations have disappeared. My current position is that Ron Paul is the only candidate in either party that would bring real change to the White House. There are reasons to choose another candidate, but if you are looking for substantial change instead of new approaches to politics as usual then your only option is Ron Paul.

I am not blind to the challenges that he faces, but Ron Paul has been gaining momentum in the form of supporters (converts such as myself) and cash – he is raising as much money as John McCain and spending much less so he is prepared to keep running for a long time. Ron Paul also has something else in his favor – none of his supporters are passive in their support.

It’s funny that the only candidate who would really change things is one who has been in Congress for two decades.

Tags change, position, Ron Paul