The health care bill sure is kicking up some fervent debate these days. You can’t read about the one thousand page plus bill without also reading about crazy people likening the bill to Nazism. In the ancient world of online message boards, invoking any Nazi reference is referred to as Godwin’s law, which became the cue that the debate had ended. Not so with the health care bill, where debate rages on. The rage coming from a few carefully orchestrated demonstrations that fundamental math hasn’t been learned by a whole bunch of people who wonder who will pay for health care reform.
The question is not who is going to pay for healthcare reform, we already we pay the world’s highest percentage of healthcare expenditures. Every time you buy something at Walmart you are subsidizing a corporation that does not provide paid healthcare to its workers and thus those workers end up in your emergency rooms and free clinics, paid for by you the taxpayer. Think that’s all? About half of the population already get health care from the government, which includes children, poor people, old people and all the government sector workers tallying up federal, state and municipal.
If you think that your insurance premiums are tied to your health, think again. Health insurance companies set premium rates to mix the highest percent of low use participants to support the payouts of the highest users. The result is that the insurance companies vie for the best pool of low medical treatment people, and sort of ignore the rest. And while our insurance system is hopelessly intertwined with employer payment, you don’t really get to choose which plan works for you, your employer does, and typically does plan changes to reduce costs. Or doesn’t, as the countless cases of employers scheduling low wage employees under shifts that fail to trigger paid health benefits. Whatever the case, the cost of the health insurance is buried in operating costs that are passed on to you the consumer anyways. Automaker GM is a classic example of that.
Math is a lost science these days. It’s not just the health care debate that displays such vast misunderstanding, but even the green movement. Take the cash for clunkers program. Which scenario will result in greater fuel savings? Replacing a vehicle that gets 11 MPG with one that gets 13 MPG or replacing a vehicle that gets 50 MPG with one that gets 100 MPG? The answer can be found by math. If each vehicle is driven 10,000 miles, the 11 MPG car would use 909 gallons, the 13 MPG car 769 gallons, the 50 MPG car would use 200 gallons and the 100 MPG car would use 100 gallons. So in this simple example the replacement of the 11 MPG vehicle would net a 140 gallon reduction while replacing the 50 MPG vehicle would net a 100 gallon reduction. Yet the cash for clunker bill excluded cars over 20 years, the heart of the less than 15 MPG era. And there was no incentive targeted at those cars that were really clunkers versus those that were barely clunkers.
Yet in the post cash for clunker debate, the White House spins that the top selling car was the fuel efficient Ford Fusion. Edmunds releases the top 10 list with the Ford Escape SUV atop it. No one points the the actual fuel savings in trade-ins. The top 4 trade-in were the 1998, 1997, 1996 and 1999 Ford Explorer. The fifth spot was the Jeep Grand Cherokee. If the trade in was a Ford Explorer to a Ford Escape, the MPG was 15 MPG (combined) to 21 MPG (combined) assuming both were four-wheel drive. To claim, as the Obama administration does, that the program was a success at reducing fuel consumption without analyzing the trade-ins is junk science. What the cash for clunkers program did do well was transfer tax dollars, to a tune of $3 billion, auto makers by subsidizing new vehicle purchases. And while GM took the bailout money, it was Hyundai that scored big sales gains in the cash for clunker program.
It’s not surprising then that Congresscritter Jim Himes, of the 4th CD, has been nuanced in his assessment of the cash for clunker program. He said in an early August New York Times article, “It was designed to be stimulative, but at some point you have to say enough is enough. In the last week most of the economic news has been good and we’re starting to turn the corner on unemployment, so at some point you stop stimulating.”
It’s that nuance that Himes has to keep in sight as he navigates the 4th CD and tackles issues facing Congress. The health care debate isn’t one that travels on nuance. The parties opposed to any health care reform may be out of touch with reality but they are being joined by the nuanced crowd squarely in the middle who aren’t getting facts out of the issue. Meanwhile the netroots are gearing up for a brawl since the Obama administration hasn’t exactly been the leader of the anti-Bush doctrine that fueled the liberal revolution. Don Pesci writes that Satnley Greenberg polled Netroots Nation to determine what issue was a top priority and discovered:
The winner was passing comprehensive health care reform, with 60 percent, and number two was passing green energy policies that address environmental concerns,’ with 22 percent.
Which has lead the usual suspects, polarizing the issue. In jumps Senator Joe Lieberman, in a recent television interview on CNN’s “State of the Union“with; “There is no reason we have to do it all now, but we do have to get it started. I’m afraid we’ve got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy’s out of recession.” And the hyperbolic spinning begins, from the Huffington Post.
“He is playing right into the Republican talking points” on health care, said Ned Lamont, the Connecticut Democrat who defeated Lieberman in the 2006 Democratic Senate primary, but lost to him in the general election after Lieberman ran as an independent.
And over at MyLeftNutMeg:
Joe Lieberman has spent his entire career killing any shot at real health care reform. There is no reason to think he will not spend the rest of 2009 making sure it dies this time too. That’s why it’s so crucial towhip the Connecticut House delegation as part of a strategy to make sure a robust, workable, effective public option emerges out of this legislation.
The 4th CD, the lower fairfield county fourth congressional district, has been historically more conservative than other parts of Connecticut. The 4th CD is the both the land of common sense and common cents. Which is why Jim Himes faces a political pickle. The activists that dominate the liberal wing of the Democratic party don’t want to hear nuance, they want 100 percent support of a complete overhaul of the Health Care system, including the so-called public option.
So what is the public option? There’s where a bunch of hyperbolic spin from all sides of the issue try and paint whatever makes sense to them. You have people fearing government run Medicare. We pause for a moment to relish the absurdity of that statement. You have “think tanks” proclaiming socialized medicine. The House Democrats, The Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Dems all have different versions of what they term the public option.
The basic concpet though is that the House proposal would establish an insurance program run by the government, that would essentially be available to only the few who don’t qualify for regular plans. Here the details diverge. In simple terms it would be just another health insurance option in the long or short list of insurance options that we all get now. Unless you are a small business, or self employed where and over 50 at which point your short list is also a very expensive one.
Next Tuesday, Jim Himes will speak about the health care bill in Norwalk. The interest level is high. The forth and debate has churned passions up a notch. So will Himes stand for the same nuanced approach he held in cash for clunkers? Or, will he find himself having to declare support for the public option or face not only the public activists opposed to health care reform but also the public activists adamant about total health care reform?
