What I found more interesting was an argument that the law is constitutional – from a conservative legal scholar. Now the extreme stretching of the already elastic Commerce Clause was difficult enough to swallow, especially coming from this administration. But accepting the concept that forcing every American to purchase health insurance has a legal precedent in the form of jury duty and military draft is enough to cause one to choke. Seriously?

The concept was born in the mind of a legal scholar, which means that his train of thought is often on a completely different track from that of the general public. It could be said that many times the law, legal scholars, and the courts are traveling on a parallel line with common sense, with no real chance of the two ever meeting. While New York professor Rick Hills obviously believes that these two situations the courts have dealt with are similar, it is difficult to accept that declaring the health insurance mandate as constitutional could rest on previous rulings on jury duty and the military draft. His theory is based on the concept of the government having the ability to forbid inaction. While the government being able to legally coerce people into service (jury or military) through legal penalties if they failed to act might justify the fines against people that fail to obtain insurance, it doesn’t necessarily justify the mandate in the first place. In both cases, jury duty and military draft, the government pays people for their service – albeit typically lower pay than an individual would earn elsewhere. The people aren’t being forced to pay anything, technically, unlike the health insurance mandate. Now, this is a common sense analysis as opposed to a legal one. Perhaps this will turn out to be a test of our judicial system, and whether or not it will even attempt to meet that common sense line.

During the last administration, there was railing against a huge program that was meant to radically improve the performance of students in this country. Most of the complaints came from teachers’ unions, bemoaning the increase in work load thanks to paperwork, and radical changes in curriculum. They warned they would be left with “teaching to the tests” – they were right. But there was one group of relatively quiet voices crying for the one thing that had the best hope of truly improving our educational system – they wanted increased national standards for colleges and universities in their Education programs. As it is, there really aren’t national standards for teachers to this day – there are performance standards based on the performance of their students, but no basic requirements that every post-secondary institution must require of students wishing to become teachers in the first place. So here we are, wondering why we aren’t seeing great improvements in academics nationwide, while doing the same thing we’ve been doing for years. (Isn’t there an adage about the insanity of expecting different results from the same actions?) If only that little quiet group had been a bit louder, and suggested that the solution was much easier than what was already on the table. It’s not like it doesn’t make sense – if you have better teachers, you’ll have better students, right?

Now, we have a new administration hell bent on fixing health care. They managed to pass a law and everything. Of course, they had to pass it before anyone could honestly understand everything that was in it. Before the bill was passed, there was already something that was the same in our health care system no matter where you went in this country. Every health care provider and insurance company in the nation uses the same system for recording everything – all ailments and treatments use the same codes no matter where you are. That may not seem very important all by itself, but it is meaningful. Because of that, the only difference between the various insurance companies’ paperwork is the name of the company on the letterhead.

So, if one would decide “hey, why don’t we make it possible for all insurance companies to do business anywhere they like in the U.S.”, it wouldn’t be very difficult. To protect the public from predatory practices by the industry, one would only have to make a list of basic standards all companies would have to meet. And one very important thing that would need to be in that list would be a rule against insurance companies refusing to pay for economical solutions doctors come up with for people’s problems. Like no one would be screaming over the fact that a flat-footed child could not have inserts for his shoes in an attempt to cure his condition – insurance companies couldn’t tell doctors that they must opt for expensive surgeries in cases like that. That example is a very crude summation of our current problems with health care after all. Insurance companies are controlling the system, not health care providers. Accountants are telling doctors what to do. Bureaucracy. So the solution, according to this administration, is to make more bureaucracy?

Of course that alone would not necessarily make health care affordable for all. Perhaps we could take a page from the book of the insurance companies on this one. Maybe we could do away with insurance groups as we know them. We all understand that a company with thousands of employees pays less per person for insurance than one with just hundreds of employees. How about basing premiums on the number of individuals a given insurance company handles? Throw in the ability for companies to compete across state lines for business, and offering incentives to the public for keeping savings accounts for health care expenses, and maybe we’d have something. But the problem is, it wouldn’t be controlled by the government beyond insurance companies being fined – or shut down in extreme cases – for not meeting those minimum national standards.

Common sense relies on finding the simplest solution to a given problem. We have moved well beyond the point where common sense is anything but a joke to elected officials. All of the solutions offered above have probably been mentioned by others along the way. But they have also been mentioned by children. Contrary to what many may think, children are not stupid – they are just more simplistic. When they attack a problem, they don’t tend to take the long way around – nor do they take into account questionable situations like crafting an answer in a way that benefits them the most (unless you are talking about conning the latest video game out of a grandparent, of course.) As we age, we forget that simplicity, and particularly in the world of politics and government, that works to our disadvantage. We start from the most complex solutions first, and if we’re smart enough to realize our folly, we go back and simplify. (That’s assuming that we get anywhere in the first place, since we’re so enamored with infighting.) Perhaps the real change we need to look for is people that attack problems like children – identify the problem, identify the desired result, and then figure out the easiest way to reach that outcome. Parents often call it “taking the easy way out”, but in government, it should be called “not creating bureaucracies to justify the existence of our own jobs.”

Seriously? In a world where one needs a super-majority in the Senate to do anything (let alone “undo” anything), there are people out there that think any GOP member of the Senate is not a true party member for admitting that limitation? Or even worse, there are people out there that think that the upcoming election will cause a shift of power that exceeds even the most hopeful projections from anyone on the Right? Sorry, but could we please keep at least one foot firmly on the ground, and not take a flying leap into fantasy land?!?! Go out and vote. Support the people that are working to undo this nonsense. Finally, stop saying silly things like those people aren’t really real members of the GOP!

Really, it’s worth it…

The Obama Administration is showing Marxist tendencies!

Yes, I know there are quite a few out there that are saying things like “took you long enough,” but I’ve been avoiding making any statements comparing the two for one very good reason. History. Prematurely calling these ideas to mind would only encourage paranoia similar to what we saw during the Red Scare, and that would necessarily hamper intelligent analysis and debate about the problems at hand. (It also didn’t help any that I was trying desperately to stay out of my husband’s arena, given his degree in Political Science/Soviet Studies.) So, my days of intentionally leaving tomes like “The Communist Manifesto” and “Mein Kampf” sitting on the shelf collecting dust are officially over, since I won’t be relying on my (failing?) memory about them anymore. (Also will be taking a trip to the in-laws’ house to retrieve my hubby’s textbooks, for good measure. At least they will be rejoicing a little bit at the concept of losing a box or three of “junk” from their home!)

And why have I finally reached this conclusion?

If you’re just jumping with anticipation to thank the one responsible for this change of opinion, by all means take a moment and drop a line to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Be sure to thank her for taking to the road so that she can re-educate Americans on Health Care Reform. (And while Ed Morissey’s coverage of this is wonderful, please do take the time to scroll down and read the comments!)

What seems to be eons ago now, I remember being more than a little bit annoyed with President George W. Bush making the flippant comment that it would be much easier to run things if he were dictator. This Sebelius gaff is far more disturbing. Bush did not have the slightest opportunity to carry out what he suggested, so therefore the statement could not be taken anywhere near as seriously as Sebelius’ contention that Americans are in need of re-education. She most certainly does have the power to carry out precisely what she suggests. The law is on her side – “the Secretary shall…” are three little words, but they grant her the power to re-educate us. (That’s one gem readers can note in the comments I mentioned above.)

And for anyone that spent their entire time in History class napping, “re-educate” is the term of choice for Communist regimes when referring to controlling the masses. Sure, there are progressives out there that might try to brush this away as a slip of the tongue, and they might be right in other circumstances. But we’re talking about a piece of legislation that arguably squashes more rights of the people than any other in the history of this nation. (Doesn’t help at all that it creates a system that is as close as we’ve ever been to socialized medicine.)

So, for the record, while I’m not foolish enough to suggest that the masses are well-versed on what the Health Care Reform Act actually is, or what it will do – it’s not foolish to suggest that there are very few people out there that truly understand it all – I am smart enough to realize that the current course of this Administration is headed straight into the territory created by Karl Marx. “We the People” do not need to be “re-educated”. This administration does.

Pundits have been claiming for ages now that a failure at this point could be a death knell for the Obama administration, virtually guaranteeing that he’ll be a one-term president. If there is not some sort of health care reform, it will be very difficult to build energy and enthusiasm in the left-wing base.

The question has become “is something better than nothing?”, and the unfortunate truth on that remains to be seen, primarily because no one seems to really know what’s in the bill. Talk of questionable procedures to get the bill through Congress has taken center stage, and the media has been happy to stay out of finding an answer to that particular question. The argument could be made that the bill is still “fluid”, changing too much to bother keeping track. Apparently waiting until a final draft is on the floor for a vote is good enough – that’s assuming it doesn’t get through with one of those questionable procedures. That is disturbing enough, but add statements like the one from Rep. Kucinich today, and it’s difficult to call passage of the bill anything but a hollow victory. Kucinich said, “Even though I don’t like the bill, I’ve made the decision to support it.”

With poll numbers stating that the public is split on health care and generally dissatisfied with the performance of Congress as a whole, it’s no wonder that there’s some ambivalence toward the bill. Dependent on where the constituents of a given member of Congress fall on those two issues, the health care reform bill can be considered a no-win-situation. The fact that the left-wing base is largely for it is no solace for a representative facing a re-election campaign – younger voters traditionally don’t make it to the polls in the same numbers that their older counterparts do.

The argument has never been about whether or not health care reform is needed. The devil’s been in the details of how to do it from the start. Now that it is theoretically down to the wire, it is too difficult to say what the fall-out may be for Congress once the dust settles. One thing that is certain is that while the pundits may think that this is a do or die for the Obama administration, it could also be a “do and die” situation if a bill passes and the public isn’t happy with what the final draft offers.

What I wished for was beyond idealistic, since it essentially required that lawmakers tell the lobbyists where to go, and just keep the best interests of the public in mind. Worse than repaying special interest groups for campaign contributions with votes on the floor, we’ve moved on to buying votes on the floor with specific earmarks in legislation. Calling pork belly spending necessary concessions to pass landmark legislation, or how business is done in Washington should have been at least a little alarming, but at this point all concerned seem to have become accustomed to this way of thinking. If anything, instead of complaining about it for being done at all, it has become more like a group of children at the dinner table claiming that someone else got the bigger piece of cake.

Sure, Ezra Klein is right that the current offering is strikingly similar to Obama’s campaign promises. The other shoe that hasn’t dropped (and probably never will) is the observation that campaign promises by their nature are meant to win votes – not be implemented. Tell the people what they want to hear on the campaign trail, but deal with the reality of the situation once you’re in office, right?

And then there is the general nastiness. Whether it’s complaints about wording on abortion or implying that the world would be a better place if at least one of the Senators was no longer with us, we’ve been given quite a show. I place the abortion complaints on the same level as the not-so-veiled statements on vote counts simply because they play on the same public emotions. Even the media joined in when Paul Krugman was requested to clarify his statement about burning Lieberman in effigy. For the record, and the benefit of presumptuous, pandering editors everywhere:

Burning in Effigy – Symbolically. For example, That umpire was completely unfair let’s burn him in effigy. Now used only figuratively, this term formerly signified a way of carrying out the sentence of a criminal who had escaped, such as burn in effigy or hang in effigy. A dummy was made of the criminal or a detested political figure and subjected to the prescribed punishment. [c. 1600] (emphasis added)

As for creating history, the best that this administration and this Congress can hope for is a very forgiving (and forgetful) group of historians. We have been shown the best of political maneuvering, bartering, bribery, and general malfeasance through the process so far. If this is any indication of what is to come, there is no doubt that there will be a fresh new crop of political shenanigans in the coming months when the House has its turn. We can hope that it doesn’t turn into a game of limbo, but it’s more likely that we’ll see just how low they can go.

But it will all be worth it in the end, right? We’ll end up with a minimally serviceable piece of legislation that will give everything but the kitchen sink to the politicians, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and every other special interest group connected to health care. It’s a cynical view, but unfortunately, it probably is not very far from the truth. The signs are already there – Reid has already started referring to this as a stepping stone. Sweeping change and landmark legislation isn’t rushed – unless results are not the primary concern. They aren’t. It has been a matter of political survival for quite some time now. The goal has been to pass “something” as opposed to “something that works” for some time now. If that wasn’t the case, there wouldn’t be talk of concessions for the sake of numbers.

And unfortunately, the public and the press are buying what they’re selling. “Something” is better than “nothing”, right?

The folks there tirelessly hunt down the dirty big secrets of the beltway – at least the ones about lobbyists, and how things really get done in Congress. And I’m still not going to point fingers here, mostly because I have no desire to wholesale copy content from Open Secrets. For those who just have to see all the numbers, pick your industry here. Since I was thinking about health care, those numbers are here. I’m focusing on the insurance industry because they have the most to lose in health care reform.

The big numbers on that page certainly look scary, and rightfully so. The observation I was making yesterday was that the taxpayers only pay Congress to do their jobs, while the lobbies pay members to help them keep their jobs. We’re talking about job security here, and given the current state of the economy, that falls under the “priceless” category in those MasterCard commercials.

But priceless or not, the lobbies in general have definitely made the old college try when it comes to putting a dollar amount on it – many times at the expense of the taxpayers. According to Rasmussen Reports 54% of Americans think that we need health care reform, and 61% think we need to pass a bill this year. (Be patient, and scroll, since those numbers are pretty far down the page.)

According to the good folks at Google and U.S. Census Bureau, our current population is 304,059,724, and according to my handy-dandy calculator, 61% of that number is approximately 185,476,432 (rounded up one.)

Now, back to the big numbers over at Open Secrets, since 1990, the health care lobby has given lawmakers over $321 million. Normally, I’d sit here and say that’s an insurmountable number for the public to compete with, but maybe it’s not.

What would happen if the 185,476,432 Americans who supposedly want health care reform would send $3 each to their Congresspeople and Senators (that’s $1 for each), with a note saying that’s what they want? The grand total would be $556,429,296 – that’s $235,343,925 more than the current nearly ten-year total given by the insurance lobby!

True, it’s a shame that anyone should even suggest that the people pay their legislators from their own pockets, above and beyond what they already pay through taxes. However, it does place things in an interesting perspective. How would the political landscape change in D.C. if a bunch of grassroots movements sprouted up, and encouraged the people to do this sort of thing en masse? Would we still need campaign finance reform to keep lobbies in check, or would the people make it too expensive for special interests to bother anymore?

For now, I’m going to debate on whether or not I’m going to look up my Congressman and Senators, and mail them a small donation – with my request, of course.

The reason for it is that thanks to the NFL, I learned very quickly that bills and resolutions are written in the most convoluted language – standard rules of grammar and usage are meaningless to the diligent workers in the offices charged with drafting them. Often called legalese by the public, I’ve always considered it “intentionally-written-in-the-most-illogical-form-possible-to-keep-the-public-from-understanding-a-single-word” style.

As for process, legislators write something that says in Standard American English what they want a bill or resolution to do, and then the busy little bees in the office in charge of drafting legislation turns it into a mass of easily misunderstood text. If they are successful at it, the legislator’s original intention is met in a body of work that is much larger than what was written in the first place – typically by an order of at least 500 times as long. That said, it is easy to understand why bills go unread – but that might not be so bad, assuming that the legislators read what their colleagues originally wrote before it was translated into the larger work.

Now that I’ve given a very abbreviated explanation about how we end up with 1000 plus page pieces of legislation, I’m going to take a stab at the part of the process that the legislators actually do – the short form. Buzz words abound on the health care debate, including “public option”, “co-op”, and “illegal aliens.” The majority of the problem is coming from the health care insurance industry lobby, so bear in mind that my little wish list is intended for any legislator who has the nerve to tell them where to shove it.

1. Open market on insurance – if an insurance company does business in a given state, any citizen of that state may purchase from that company.

2. Residency-based insurance groups – no more insurance groups based on place of employment. Where a citizen lives determines what insurance group he is in.

3. No pre-existing condition clauses – self-explanatory.

4. Premium caps – Middle and low income citizens may not be charged more than a given percentage of their standard net income for their insurance premiums. (In case that isn’t clear, people should never have to choose between a roof over their heads and food on their tables and insurance.)

5. Insurance bundling – No more separate dental, mental health and vision coverages.

6. Mandatory reinvestment – Cap insurance industry profits by percentage. If an insurance company exceeds the cap on profits, the extra profits will be reinvested to defray costs for unemployed and poverty level citizens.

7. “Free” coverage for unemployed and poverty level citizens – Paid for primarily by insurance industry.

8. Mayo clinic rules for providers – Penalties for unnecessary testing, wasteful spending, as well as adopting all other “best practices” from the Mayo clinic in all health care facilities.

9. Mandatory reinvestment, take two – Cap health care facility profits by percentage. Reinvestment in facilities, equipment, and personnel training.

10. Pharmaceutical company caps – Cap promotions budgets and profits. Reinvestment in free prescription programs and research.

11. FDA reciprocity – Drugs accepted by countries with reasonably similar standards will automatically be accepted by the FDA.

12. Sensible tort reform – Caps on malpractice settlements without loopholes that benefit attorneys or insurance companies. Caps on attorneys fees in malpractice cases.

13. Malpractice insurance caps – Particularly in high risk sectors like OB/GYN. By percentage of income as well, to encourage physicians to take on clinic work in low income areas, amongst other reasons.

I think that about covers it. Note that there is no mention of a “public option” because there isn’t a need for one. If everyone is paying what they can actually afford, and there is a plan to cover those who can’t in the private sector, there is no need to have the government manage care for anyone. Wow! What a novel concept! Also note that there isn’t anything about the government legislating how health care is delivered (other than insisting on efficiency and high standards of care.) Yes, Virginia, it is possible to approach health care sensibly, without scaring the hell out of the masses!

Now lets see if someone on the Hill has the nerve to propose something like this!