Excuse Me, I Was Using That Supermajority

The title of this post is taken from my facebook status message yesterday, shortly after learning of the major upset in Massachusetts. Caligula's Horse (forever the neighsayer -- get it?) responded by saying, "Were you? Because the Democrats certainly weren't." Touché. But the prospect of real health care reform seems much less realistic now. While Obama would still prefer a major overhaul, it seems unlikely now. Compromise will transform the already-watered-down proposals into a series of token measures that perpetuate the status quo.

Perhaps the Democrats should have been more fervent in insisting on serious reform (with a strong public option) and then backed down only after their loss in Massachusetts. Right now, there's no room for compromise unless Democrats want to abandon the push for real reform altogether.

I am also a little bewildered by the surprise at this election result. It was a close race, and Coakley was behind. There was little support from the White House, and little national coverage of the significance of this election. Now all of a sudden it's a huge deal and the end of the world for the Democrats. Shouldn't we have been a little more concerned before the election?

Anyway, pardon my bitterness. My four months as a Beltway insider have clearly caused me to become jaded with politics.

And don't forget the bridges to nowhere

As the health care bill gets hacked up in Congress, I read today that abortion is once again the hot-button issue. It's the same argument we've heard for the past few weeks: a lot of people don't like abortion, and therefore they shouldn't have to pay for it, even as indirectly as paying taxes to a government that partially subsidies to private insurance plans which happen to cover abortions.

The problem with that argument is that in a varied democracy (as America is), people pay for things they don't like all the time. I'm morally opposed to the death penalty, yet I'm forced to pay taxes to a federal government that allows it; I'm not calling for the end of our judicial system. I'm morally and pragmatically opposed to our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, yet I'm forced to pay taxes to a federal government that wages them; I don't advocate dismantling the DOD. I'm morally opposed to state lotteries, denial of gay marriage, our incomplete separation of church and state, and a host of other things. Point is, I don't consider any of those issues to be veto-worthy for their respective agencies.

I'm alright with pro-lifers putting out their opinions; abortion is a complex issue with valid points on both sides. But taking such a hard line on it, and vetoing anything which brushes tangentially against it, is counterproductive. It's a recipe for disaster in as large a democracy as we have.

Abortion and gay marriage

The Stupak-Pitts amendment to the House of Representatives' health care bill, which prohibits federal funds from even indirectly paying for abortions, has caused a bit of a stir here in Massachusetts. The special election to replace Ted Kennedy in the Senate has four largely indistinguishable candidates, but the forerunner in that race made some news by saying she would vote against the bill if it contained the amendment. The second-place guy went on the attack by saying that it's wrong to vote against imperfect bills, before reversing and saying that he too would vote against the bill if its final version included Stupak-Pitts.

To those who say that the amendment is necessary to get more votes, I'd counter that voting against the bill solely because it doesn't include this amendment would be wrong. I understand that without the amendment, people would end up paying for something they feel is morally wrong; but that's the nature of democracy. I have moral qualms with the death penalty, but I wouldn't vote against a bill overhauling our judicial system just because of that.

Still, although I'm relatively pro-choice, I can understand the pro-life argument. If you consider a two-day-old embryo to be human life, then ending that life is murder. There's a long precedence that murder is a crime against society as a whole, not just against the victim; so that abortion affects you, and you have the right — the obligation, even — to outlaw it.

On the other hand, if you don't consider that embryo to be human, then it's nobody else's right to prohibit you from preventing it from becoming one by controlling your own reproductive system. It's a tough situation, and that's why it's a significant, perennial wedge issue.

But there's another wedge issue that shouldn't be one: gay marriage. Call me a crazy liberal, but it seems completely obvious to me that if we let straight couples marry, we should let gays marry, too. Unlike the case of abortion, a gay marriage doesn't affect anybody who's against it, except insofar as it makes them uncomfortable — which is not a justification to outlaw something.

If you don't like gay marriage, don't get gayly married. If you want to tell a gay married couple that they're going to Hell, well, I think you're a jerk, but you're within your rights. But until you can come up with a convincing, secular, consistent argument for why gays shouldn't be allowed to marry while straights should, the idea of banning gay marriage has zero legitimacy.

3 lessons the left can learn from Levi Johnston

Well don't ask him directly, because then the answer is probably, "Not much." But the former paramour of Bristol Palin has shown surprising resilience of late, the current capstone being an acting debut in a Wonderful Pistachios commercial:

Who would have thought that former electrician's apprentice could get his still nascent model/actor career back on track just as America had finally forgotten about him again.

The lessons the left could learn from Levi are all about positioning:

1. You can't win 'em all Fathers who split are just about the least sympathetic characters in modern reality theater. They can make a comeback, but the Tsk'ing could well last a lifetime. See: Jon Gosselin. Everyone in America who watched TLC felt for the brow-beaten schlub, but when he ditched the kids to go galavanting, he lost all the public goodwill he'd built up over the years.

Levi was smart: He realized he'd burned some bridges (maybe even some $315 million ones), but rather than complaining, he set up camp and let loose on the Palins. Bully: If you can't join 'em, beat 'em. This sort of methodology worked wonders for the Bush administration (in terms of achieving its agenda), but the Democrats have taken some sort of high road to ruin, pledging and delivering on bi-partisan discussion.

What has that gotten them? Glenn Beck's controlled the conversation from Day 0 with bizarre rhetoric about Czars and Death Panels. For universal healthcare, it's a no brainer to say that if you're against it, you're against babies, old people and Apple Pie, so go for the jugular. Glenn Beck wouldn't have been any more pissed off and some actual reform might have happened.

2. Keep it simple Universal healthcare, as proponents like to explain it, is about as basic a right as they come. It's even (kind of) one of only three constitutional inaliable rights! So ramp up this "right to life" rhetoric and raise hell against the insurance conglomerates, which nobody likes anyways. This is a steak-and-potatoes sort of thing: People have a right to live, and that requires medical care.

Keep it as simple as possibly (don't worry, I'm sure it'll grow more complex to fit every special needs group over time anyways), and be up front about that: This is not the ideal we had hoped for, you tell people, but this is a deal we need. Plain, homespun talk thay says it's unacceptable to have people out on the street because they can't even get insurance for a pre-existing condition that they bear no fault for.

3. Get crackin'. Ok, so it's less Levi than Wonderful Pistachios, which is bouncing back with a fun, cheeky ad campaign to help people forget that the a million pistachio nuts were recalled earlier this year (none Wonderful, apparently) But it's working! And sure, Levi Johnston protection jokes are an easy play, but it's a quick victory that gets measurable results.

Comprehensive reform sounds great in textbooks and think tank journals, but it's generally where overly sweaping plans should stay. Be like Levi and go for the easy gigs that will give you high profile exposure while putting you on your way towars your ultimate goals: In his case, a credible modeling/acting career; in the left's, universal healthcare coverage.

Rational, schmational

My biggest problem with the free market is that humans are not rational creatures. We are influenced at least as much by emotion and impulse as we are by logic. The free market might work great on Vulcan, but here on Earth, people do irrational, self-damaging things like get addicted to drugs, pollute the air they breathe, and listen to Ashlee Simpson’s music.

Caligula’s Horse is right that our health care is rationed. Right now, the general way we ration is by providing more and better health care to wealthier individuals. I think it’s somewhat legitimate for conservatives to argue that opening up access to health care to the poor would put a strain on our already-limited medical resources. Doctors and hospitals would have to treat people who currently don’t get treatment. I disagree with the people who contend that the solution is to continue denying treatment to the poor.

A better solution would be to open more medical schools, nursing schools and hospitals. Law schools and lawyers are a dime a dozen (more law schools are opening every day and we need more lawyers like we need a hole in the head), and yet medical schools are still relatively few and far between. This is not because we don’t need more doctors. Rather, law and business schools tend to be cash cows for universities and are relatively low-cost institutions, whereas medical schools are very, very expensive.

Anyway, I digress. My point is that the free market has been tested as a means for supplying health care, and it has failed. Let's see if government can help.

Wherefore art thou, free market?

Our Elder Statesman rightly asked last week what government is good for (absolutely nothing! uhn-huh!), if not to provide the basics to those who can't provide for themselves. I think it's worth questioning not just the government's role in our society, but the free market's, too. Just as the government can't solve all our problems, neither can capitalism.

The mainstream position in America is that the free market is always the most efficient way to allocate resources, if not the most egalitarian — the latter point being where most people bring the government into the picture. This is true in most sectors, but not all.

Environmental policy is a good illustration of the free market's shortcomings. Pollution affects everybody, but the burden of reducing it falls solely on each polluter; nor are all of its affects financial, which makes it hard to factor them into ROI. The end result is that early adopters essentially subsidize everyone else's gains, and they get few benefits for their troubles. Everyone has a disincentive to be first in line, and little gets done; this is the exact opposite of standard free market conditions, where the race to be first is what spurs innovation. In areas where games of chicken threaten to leave everyone bleeding by the side of the road, the government is in a unique position to unilaterally devise a solution.

With health care, the problem isn't that people try to avoid being the first to get treatment; instead, it's that one of the fundamental assumptions of capitalist theory, that of the rational actor, doesn't apply. When people buy a car, they're more or less rational: advertising blitzes aside, they know what they want and what they're willing to pay for it. That BMW might roar somethin' pretty, but if it's not worth the money, I might get a Civic instead. And if my car is making weird sounds, I can put off fixing it if I don't have the money now; it might cost me more later if the car breaks down completely, but that's a risk I might be willing to take. When people learn that they might die in two years, on the other hand, they'll demand any and every treatment that might help. That 1% chance is everything when the alternative is death.

But it's a cold, hard fact is that people get sick, they get injured, and they die. The other cold fact is that we can't expend infinite resources on health care. Somebody needs to allocate — okay, I'll say it: ration — our resources. Right now, our system of rationing is the free market, a system built on assumptions that just don't apply. That's not the only reason the US spends so much money on health care and has so little to show for it, but it's part of the reason.

I can't say with certainty if government involvement is the best way to solve this rationing problem. But it's a way that other countries have shown works better than our attempt to force health care into the free market.

Healthy, Wealthy, or Wise? Pick one.

I have a cold. It's been getting progressively worse for the last few days. I've been having trouble focusing on work, and instead I've been spending most of my time marveling at how much mucus I can produce. I've also been hoping that I won't need to see a doctor...the health insurance I get through my job doesn't kick in until next week.

Health care and health insurance seem to be on everyone's mind these days. A couple of weeks ago I saw the protesters on the National Mall expressing their outrage at the prospect of government-sponsored health care. I saw some interesting protest signs, including the following:

• "Spread my work ethic, not my wealth!"
• "Hitler: 6,000,000 Jews, Obama: 300,000,000 Americans."
• "I'll keep my guns, religion, and money...you keep the change."

Each of those is troubling in its own way. The first one implies that only lazy people would need help from the government. The second one somehow compares mass extermination with the provision of health care. The third one is just ignorant (although I've always liked the "keep the change" line).

I think it's okay to worry about the government becoming too large and unwieldy, and about taxes being too high. However, when I think about things that the government *should* provide, health care is always near the top of the list. In fact, for me, the top 5 most important functions of government are:

1. Safety and law enforcement (military, police, courts, etc.)
2. Education
3. Health care
4. Infrastructure (roads, plumbing, electricity)
5. Environmental protection

(Number 6, by the way, would probably be social security.)

Providing all of those things, and doing it well, is no easy task. Sometimes governments fail at effectively delivering needed services. But if it's a choice between getting those services from government or not getting them at all, I'd choose the former. There are people out there who have absolutely nowhere to turn for medical care. Are some of them in that predicament because they're lazy? Probably. But some of them aren't lazy, and are going to suffer (or worse) because nobody will help them. I can't have that on my conscience...I'm still feeling super guilty over the cutting board I accidentally stole from Ikea a few weeks ago (long story).

I guess my point is, if government doesn't exist to provide for the most basic needs of its citizens, why does it exist at all? What need is more basic than the need to survive?