OBAMA PUSHING HEALTHCARE REFORM….BUT WILL IT WORK?

Along with many others, last night I flagged the New York Times article in which opponents of a ‘public option’ in the health care reform bill are saying that the ‘public option’ (which is essentially the federal government entering the field with its own health insurance plan) would be so efficient and inexpensive that it might drive for-profit health insurance companies out of business.

Why this is a problem for anyone else beside the for-profit health insurance companies, whose lobbying muscle in Washington kept them out of Dante’s third cirlce of hell, is not clear.

But a few readers written in to say, Look, Medicare (which is probably the closest analogue to what a public option might look like) isn’t perfect. Many doctors won’t accept Medicare, it doesn’t cover enough, etc. etc. etc.

I don’t think anyone who seriously follows health care policy debates honestly disputes that Medicare insures a ton of people with very low overhead. But you only need relatives in their sixties to know that people have problems finding doctors who will accept Medicare or who feel that Medicare doesn’t cover enough and so forth.

But this seems to me to be the heart of the case — and the real tell about the opposition to the public options within the insurance industry. If it’s really true that lots of the best doctors aren’t going to accept the ‘public option’ subscribers, then I have to imagine that’s going to put a big brake on migration out of for-profit health insurance and into the public option. In other words, the problem — to the extent there are ones — should be self-correcting. Assuming the ‘public option’ has to exist on something like the same basis as the private carriers, the private carriers only have something to worry about if the ‘public option’ is just demonstrably better insurance.

So Texas Wants to Secede…I’ll Pitch in for a UHaul

Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax “tea party” Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states’ rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, “Secede!”

An animated Perry told the crowd at Austin City Hall — one of three tea parties he was attending across the state — that officials in Washington have abandoned the country’s founding principles of limited government. He said the federal government is strangling Americans with taxation, spending and debt.

Perry repeated his running theme that Texas’ economy is in relatively good shape compared with other states and with the “federal budget mess.” Many in the crowd held signs deriding President Barack Obama and the $786 billion federal economic stimulus package.

Perry called his supporters patriots. Later, answering news reporters’ questions, Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union, though he said he sees no reason why Texas should do that.

“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”

He said when Texas entered the union in 1845 it was with the understanding it could pull out. However, according to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, Texas negotiated the power to divide into four additional states at some point if it wanted to but not the right to secede.

For her part, Hutchison issued a newspaper opinion piece Wednesday criticizing the Democratic-led Congress for spending on the stimulus bill and the $1 trillion appropriations bill.

“On April 15 — Tax Day — some in Congress may need a reminder of just who is underwriting this spending: the American taxpayer. I am deeply concerned over the swelling tax burden that will be imposed on all Texas families,” she wrote.

Partisanship and political philosophy aside, I can think of few things more irresponsible in this economy than the governor of Texas speaking freely about secession. What business is going to relocate to Texas with him talking like that? Who wants to come to a state to do research at its large land grant universities

Dylan Ratigan of CNBC

Dylan Ratigan calls in to discuss the economic catastrophe we are in right now….

Listen to the podcast or listen live @ 10am… http://www.theblockfm.com

Congress considers Cash for Clunkers program

Congress is mulling a proposal to pay people to get rid of those old gas guzzlers sitting in their driveways.

Under legislation introduced Wednesday in both the House and Senate and called the Cash for Clunkers program, drivers could get vouchers of up to $4,500 when they turn in their old fuel-inefficient vehicles for scrapping and buy vehicles that get good gas mileage.

People could also turn in their old cars for vouchers that could be used to ride public buses and trains.

The bill, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., “would be an important part of helping getting America’s struggling automobile industry back on its feet, and help consumers who are concerned about covering the cost of buying a more fuel-efficient vehicle.”

Taking gas guzzlers off the road, added Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a co-sponsor, “would reduce our dependence on foreign oil, decrease greenhouse gas emissions and stimulate the economy.”

The bill envisions the program operating for four years and encouraging the retirement of up to one million vehicles a year, saving between 40,000 and 80,000 barrels of motor fuel a day by the end of the fourth year.

Drivers would be eligible for reimbursement for purchase of a new or used vehicle with a fuel economy rating that exceeds federal targets for that class of vehicle by at least 25 percent. The vehicle must have a manufacturer suggested retail price of less than $45,000 and be a model year 2004 or later.

The vehicles turned in must be drivable, registered in the United States and have a when-new fuel economy rating of less than 18 miles per gallon.

In the first year of the program, a person trading in a vehicle that is model year 2002 and later would be eligible to receive $4,500 for purchase of a new vehicle, $3,000 for purchase of a used vehicle or $3,000 for transit fare credit. For model year vehicles 1999 to 2001, drivers would get $3,000 for the purchase of a new vehicle. Those who trade in vehicles that came out in 1998 or before could get a credit of $2,000 for a new vehicle.

“This is an even better trade-in offer than they could get from any car dealership,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., also a co-sponsor.

A person could obtain no more than one voucher in any three-year period. Dealers and scrap recycling companies could also get payments of $50 per vehicle. Initial estimates set the cost of the program between $1 billion and $2 billion a year.

Source

Sarah Palin is a Liar (Part 1)

This will be the first of MANY posts because it seems that Sarah Palin (although she is not a Washington insider) sure does know how to lie like one.

From Reuters’ Yereth Rosen on 1 September 2008:

“It garnered big applause in her first speech as Republican John McCain’s vice presidential pick, but Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s assertion that she rejected Congressional funds for the so-called “bridge to nowhere” has upset many Alaskans.

During her first speech after being named as McCain’s surprise pick as a running mate, Palin said she had told Congress “‘thanks but no thanks’ on that bridge to nowhere.”

In the city Ketchikan, the planned site of the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere,” political leaders of both parties said the claim was false and a betrayal of their community, because she had supported the bridge and the earmark for it secured by Alaska’s Congressional delegation during her run for governor.

The bridge, a span from the city to Gravina Island, home to only a few dozen people, secured a $223 million earmark in 2005. The pricey designation raised a furor and critics, including McCain, used the bridge as an example of wasteful federal spending on politicians’ pet projects.

When she was running for governor in 2006, Palin said she was insulted by the term “bridge to nowhere,” according to Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein, a Democrat, and Mike Elerding, a Republican who was Palin’s campaign coordinator in the southeast Alaska city.

“People are learning that she pandered to us by saying, I’m for this’ … and then when she found it was politically advantageous for her nationally, abruptly she starts using the very term that she said was insulting,” Weinstein said.

Palin’s spokeswoman in Alaska was not immediately available to comment.

National fury over the bridge caused Congress to remove the earmark designation, but Alaska was still granted an equivalent amount of transportation money to be used at its own discretion.

Last year, Palin announced she was stopping state work on the controversial project, earning her admirers from earmark critics and budget hawks from around the nation. The move also thrust her into the spotlight as a reform-minded newcomer.

The state, however, never gave back any of the money that was originally earmarked for the Gravina Island bridge, said Weinstein and Elerding.

In fact, the Palin administration has spent “tens of millions of dollars” in federal funds to start building a road on Gravina Island that is supposed to link up to the yet-to-be-built bridge, Weinstein said.

“She said ‘thanks but no thanks,’ but they kept the money,” said Elerding about her applause line.

Former state House Speaker Gail Phillips, a Republican who represented the Kenai Peninsula city of Homer, is also critical about Palin’s reversal on the bridge issue.

“You don’t tell a group of Alaskans you support something and then go to someplace else and say you oppose it,” said Phillips, who supported Palin’s opponent, Democrat Tony Knowles, in the 2006 gubernatorial race.

A press release issued by the governor on September 21, 2007 said she decided to cancel state work on the project because of rising cost estimates.

“It’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island,” Palin said in the news release. “Much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here.”