Symbols Don't Create Jobs

On the one hand, conservatives espousing free enterprise and (0.00 / 0)

non-interference by public corporations are being entirely consistent in having little interest in creating employment opportunities for the people.  But, that consistency is only valid, if the hands-off policy towards enterprise is factual, which it's not. So, they're faced with a conundrum and, instead of coming clean and admitting the free enterprise fraud, they're doubling down and doing nothing for anyone.

Where Democrats are to be faulted is for failing to expose the fraud and making the case that public support for employees and employers are appropriate, as long as the former don't get shafted.  But just the other day, in announcing the review of the regulatory regime, President Obama made reference to free market enterprise as if it actually exists.  That's not helpful.

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by: hannah @ Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 23:43:23 PM UTC

I Think It's All About "Political Messaging..." (4.00 / 1)

...though the term "Anti-Symbolism" might be more accurate for this round of weird acts, but I don't think that's a term.  

Whatever it's called, too many in Congress and in the NH State Legislature are playing with people and their lives, and that's a terrible thing to do to our fellow Americans.  

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by: Rep. Jim Splaine @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 01:07:35 AM UTC

It's not about messaging for me, Rep Splaine (0.00 / 0)

First, the entire Obamacare bill amounted to a corporate handout. Second, the lobbied for exemptions have favored the politically connected. My parents owned a small business growing up. They couldn't deduct health care expenses, while their large corporate competitors could, which I always found incredibly unjust. And it weakens your market effects, hurting the people at large.

Neither of those points matters compared to the disgusting individual mandate, where a person is penalized for failing to transfer some of their hard earned money to a corporation given special privilege by the state.

It is far worse than the overreaching wickard v filburn Surpreme court ruling, where the court ruled that the Feds could regulate the wheat grown to feed his own horse, because it affected the price of wheat in interstate trade. This is far past that. This ruling says that you HAVE TO BUY wheat, whether you have a horse or not, because your lack of market participation affects the price of wheat in the US. If this doctrine is upheld by the courts, obamacare will be responsible for expanding the number of ways through which corporations can buy political power. The Federal Government, One Stop Shopping!

The bill is junk. Unbalaced and unconstitutional.

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by: jdavenport @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 05:18:01 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Health Care Is About People (4.00 / 1)

Well, jdavenport, I'll leave the constitutionality to people smarter than me and perhaps smarter than you.  But plenty of lawyers and law professors say the health care law is quite constitutional.  Plus it's the right thing to do.

I wanted it to be much better, much more than it is -- I was a fan of Ted Kennedy's "Medicare-For-All," simply reducing the required Medicare age of 65 to 0, with other necessary adjustments of course.  Medicare itself doesn't provide unlimited health care for those over 65, but it provides much important preventative, in-home, and hospital care that has greatly increased the quality of life, and the productivity, of those who come under it.  Do that for everyone and we'll have a stronger nation.

But for Republicans to be against basic health care for all American citizens is hard to understand.  We all benefit from a healthier population.  If you don't support this, what is your solution? -- and please don't say let the "market" do the job, because we've done that and we know that doesn't work.

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by: Rep. Jim Splaine @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 13:22:38 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

People who care about controlling other people do not (4.00 / 1)

care whether those people are healthy or sick.  Indeed, the ill, being physically incapacitated, are easier to control.

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by: hannah @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 13:58:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I don't think Medicare for All is a good idea (0.00 / 0)

Thanks for replying, Rep Splaine.

I don't think Medicare for all is a good idea, however, it would have been more likely to be Constitutional. Or at least the individual mandate wouldn't exist, and therefore be attackable on Commerce Clause grounds.

I appreciate that a person's particular frame can make it difficult to understand Others. In this brief space, I would only say that I don't think its a good idea for the Federal Government to wire the delivery of health care in either the Medicare-For-All manner, or the ObamaCare model, because I don't think it will work. I don't think we will receive quality healthcare under that model. I would love to get together and discuss why.

As is fair, I need to offer a solution. The solution presented is within the realm of the "politically possible". My ideal would take to long too explain and won't occur anyway.
I like:
1) HSA: Health Savings Accounts with tax advantage. This is used for most everyday type health care expenses. The balance remaining at the end of the year is available to the holder to do with as they wish. This places a couple tensions on the system. Expenses over the HSA cap are not deductible, so the owner shops for value. They are not shopping for heart surgery with this money, but teeth cleaning and the like. And market mechanisms at this level are effective, because we aren't dealing with moral hazards such as "Does this guy get a new liver". From a Liberty standpoint, it gives a wide breadth of freedom to the individual.

2) Private sector catastrophic coverage insurance: From the HSA funds, or separately, but tax deductible.

3) The employer doesn't get tax advantages, only individuals/families. This maintains portability.

4) Some sort of pooling mechanism.

5) I don't have a solution to the pre-existing conditions problem. You want them to be able to get health care, but you also want people to pay a price for not having purchased insurance (not entering a pool to spread risk). I don't like the idea of jamming them into a pool after the fact. Better to pick up the slack in some other way.

Oh yeah: As Representatives we are sworn to protect the Constitution. If we have a different understanding of it, so be it. We should be arguing over what it means. I have spent the last 4 years of my life learning it. In my understanding there are ways to defend your policy preferences, or at least mitigate my policy preferences, by making quality constitutional arguments. For instance, there are ways to de-power large industrial organs. There are ways to mitigate imperial tendencies. While I will not give you ammunition (can I still talk like that?), I would be very happy to explain my understanding to you or anyone else here that would care to spend the time. However, it needs to be done in person. I've practiced, and it takes a couple hours. It is the rare person who doesn't learning something new. You could then use my understanding to defend your positions, and I would be obligated to at least concede valid points.

Again, thank you for the response.

Josh Davenport
NH State Rep

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by: jdavenport @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 16:23:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Rep. Davenport (0.00 / 0)

Condescending to us is not, perhaps, the best tactic for winning us over.

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by: susanthe @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 18:40:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I've been advised not to respond to you (0.00 / 0)

By others here. But I'll make a general statement.

There are a huge number of policy areas - most policy areas - where I shut up and listen, at the most giving an opinion based on my principles. The United States Constitution is not among those policy areas. In fact, the primary reason I ran for office is because after I had spent an enormous amount of time and effort to understand how the Framers wired Government in the Defense of Liberty, I figured I might as well put it to good use.

I wish to share that knowledge with anyone who would like to learn it, as its one of the only things I know really well, and sharing that knowledge is a way I can be of value and service to my fellow man.

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by: jdavenport @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 18:55:58 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

how amusing (0.00 / 0)

that a Big Bad Freedom and Liberty Defender  would allow himself to be "advised" as to who to respond to,  to by "others."

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by: susanthe @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 20:10:30 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Wheat is not comparable to medical care and parents' prior (0.00 / 0)

experiences aren't relevant now.  It's a conservative position that government exists to tell people what to do and it was a conservative proposal to include an unenforceable mandate on individual behavior in the health insurance reform legislation-- unenforceable, not just because it's impossible to collect money from people who have none, but because the designated enforcement agency, the IRS, can't even collect money from people who fail to report having earned some.  Indeed, they can't even return money that's been collected and sent to the IRS by employers on behalf of people who don't file tax returns.  (That's what that whole tax rebate charade was about--an effort to get non-filers to request a refund and get sucked into the data-base that way).

The individual mandate was supposed to serve as a poison pill and invalidate the whole effort, much as the restrictions on corporate campaign contributions eventually invalidated McCain/Feingold.  Targeting individual behavior is what conservatives like to do and it's what the Constitution is designed to inhibit.  So, there's a constant power-struggle between the rulers and the ruled, agents of government who don't want to be servants.

Medical care does not primarily benefit the recipient.  Not only is it true that, no matter how much medical care is provided to an individual, that individual will eventually die, but it's also true that the money expended benefits the people who get it in exchange for practicing their skills in keeping individuals, both the sick and those likely to get infected, alive a little longer.  Also, unlike wheat, medical skills do not sprout out of seed and grow on their own.  Medical skills have to be transmitted from person to person, regardless of whether any particular person needs them.  So, there's a public good that needs to be supported, regardless of whether it's needed.  In that sense, the medical industry is like the fire suppression company.  It's needed, regardless of whether a particular house catches fire.

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by: hannah @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 13:56:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I can agree with this part (0.00 / 0)

hannah: "So, there's a constant power-struggle between the rulers and the ruled, agents of government who don't want to be servants."

I agree with that. Clearly I disagree that Conservatives are the lone propagators of Evil.

The processes of growing Wheat are similar in to to the processes of medicine, and I don't think you make a valid point there. Your point that the product has different responses to market mechanisms is valid. Still, people trade their health for other things all the time.; For example, working long hours in the sun, or whatever. Because ones health is intimately related to everything we do, and all risks we take, if you wire up the system wrong, the State will attempt to regulate everything you do. I think the ability to make the trade "I'm going to the beach and not using sunscreen" is essential, and I don't think the State can effectively manage those trades, but will attempt to under ObamaCare.

The Constitution is not designed to prevent the targeting of individual behavior. For example, we target murder as a society. The group "Society" enforces its will against individuals who commit murder. The Constitution is designed to enable a reasonable balance between the freedoms of the individual and the freedoms of the group.

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by: jdavenport @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 16:41:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

No, the Constitution outlines the structure of government. (0.00 / 0)

The people do not, as conservatives would like to believe, consent to be ruled.  The people consented to how the agencies of government ought to be organized and delegated responsibilities and obligations.
Individuals who deprive others of their rights commit crime.  We have agreed that dealing with bad behavior should be relegated to the judicial system.  This does not mean that the legislative body is empowered to assign obligations and define new crimes for individuals.  Individual behavior is presumably good, unless it is proven otherwise.  "Good" is not something the legislature defines.  Though there are some people who want all behavior to be either legal or illegal, that's not how our society is organized.  The law doesn't cover everything and shouldn't.

Conservatives are not "the lone propagators of evil," unless you consider the deprivation of human rights to be the essence of evil and conservatives to be in favor of it.  Mostly, I think, what conservatives would like is being obeyed and not being obligated to do anything else.  They strike me as self-centered individuals with few practical talents.  Which is why they feel insecure and seek to compensate by ordering other people around.

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by: hannah @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 22:34:25 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Constitutionality (4.00 / 3)

Please stop saying that something is unconstitutional.  I understand that you disagree with it, and in a way a lot of progressives are uneasy with the idea of people being forced into a contract with a private corporation.  That's why so many of us supported either single-payer or a public option, but conservatives (in both parties) would not allow that, so we have a somewhat uglier, but necessary solution.  Whether it--or any law, for that matter--is constitutional is not for you or I to decide; it is for the Supreme Court to determine.  If you doubt its constitutionality, say so, but the sort of self-assurance that you employ makes it almost impossible for people with legitimate disagreements to have a reasonable dialogue.

Furthemore, while I'm sympathetic to some of your concerns, until I hear more than a return to "market" ideas or the ridiculous cross-state insurance ideas from the Republicans, I'll respectively withhold any trust that these moves are anything more than grandstanding.  Republicans had a chance to influence and shape the bill; instead, they chose to oppose it at all costs for political gain.  No new law, especially one of this magnitude, is perfect, and I'm interested to hear solutions for improving and building upon it from all sides.  The answer is not repeal, however; as Bill Frist has rightly said, the answer is to use the current law as the framework within which many changes and improvements should be suggested.

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by: FrankLloydMike @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 15:42:15 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Frank, I wouldn't make the statement if I didn't think it true (0.00 / 0)

The individual mandate, if upheld, will modify current jurisprudence. It will break new ground. It will empower both the federal government and LARGE market players at the expense of States and local market players. ObamaCare as whole will also likely expand the power of the Executive over the Legislative branch, as its implementation is dependent on a huge bureaucratic machine. The primary defender of individual liberty in its implementation will be the Courts, the branch least responsive to the Will of the People.

As far as reasonable dialog, I am only claiming that the Individual Mandate is unconstitutional. In my opinion, the rest is just bad policy.

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by: jdavenport @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 16:53:35 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This is the same boilerplate (0.00 / 0)

argument that conservatives have used for SS and Medicare for years - go listen to Reagan's AMA recording against Medicare for a taste. It's old and it's tired.

As far as this goes,

he primary defender of individual liberty in its implementation will be the Courts, the branch least responsive to the Will of the People.

all I can do is shake my head at the inconsistencies in your love of all things constitutional.  Good grief.

In the immediate aftermath of Since the start of the financial crisis, the Fed/Treasury lent, spent, or guaranteed $28 $29 trillion to save the banking system.

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by: StraffordDem @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 19:19:30 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The Individual Mandate argument is not the same (0.00 / 0)

The Individual Mandate argument is not the same.

The SS and Medicare arguments are certainly about the scope of federal jurisdiction, and I do have a problem with them, but its not based on the same founding.

Neither SS nor Medicare require an individual to engage in interstate commerce. An individual could go plop themselves on a piece of land they own, pay the local property taxes, and just farm to pay for their existence.

The individual mandate says that person must pay a fine if they won't buy a product.

Or to put it another way, a poor individual may received a subsidy, such as a welfare check. The subsidy is paid for by the collection of taxes from others, and the poor person may receive a benefit. Lets say this person makes no money through his own labors, and also pays no taxes on payment for the labors, because he makes nothing and engages in no trade with others. He may be taxed on the money that is given to him (withholding), and he may be taxed for transactions he makes with the subsidized money (buy cigarettes), but he is not taxed on transactions he makes with money he has earned through labor, because he doesn't work.

The individual mandate allows a tax on that person, for the act of being alive.

Previously, he was protected from taxation by the limits of what is taxable (trade, including trading capital for labor). After, he is not structurally protected.

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by: jdavenport @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 20:34:22 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Your biases are apparent in the use of words like (0.00 / 0)

"Obamacare" and "huge bureaucratic machine" because, in fact, the reform of the health insurance industry has little to do with care and by leaving the setting of standards with the states, the Congress has avoided the creation of a duplicative bureaucracy.

Also, your reference to "quality care" is a give-away since it overlooks that quality is a constant; it's good or bad or mediocre quality that vary.

The reason conservative efforts to dub the legislation that finally emerged from Congress as Obamacare is misplaced is because, even as a candidate, Obama had no agenda to improve health care or make it available to more people.  He always talked about insurance, which, as everyone knows, is a middleman, taking a cut from expenditures for service without providing any added value.  Letting that behavior continue is what irks progressives.  That the 'cut' is somewhat smaller is a minor consolation.

Insurance is a racket.  Personally, I wouldn't mind having it terminated entirely.  And, just to be clear, I'm speaking as a 70 year old woman who hasn't been covered by insurance for eight years (since the spouse retired) and hasn't been seen by a doctor in 27 years.  I have no desire for insurance or medical care and, should I get sick, I hope to die quickly.  Nevertheless, I would not impose my preferences on someone else.

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by: hannah @ Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 22:58:37 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Does Mr. Davenport (4.00 / 1)

believe that repeating the same untrue arguments often enough will somehow make them true?  Does he think those of us who post here have not heard all these arguments before?  Believe me, Mr. Davenport, we have heard this over and over and over, and guess what, it's still not a correct assessment of the situation.  
Whether you believe it is or not is another question.  I must admit, I am curious about that.

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by: Lucy Edwards @ Fri Jan 21, 2011 at 03:20:08 AM UTC

Well, I guess you can think me a fool (0.00 / 0)

Because I do believe it.

Seeing as though a fool in the legislature is a dangerous beast, it seems to me it would be wise to at least convince me of my status with some kind of counter argument.

I expressed why I believe the Individual Mandate is unconstitutional. You say you've heard the argument before, and called me a fool for believing it, but given no discourse on where I am misguided.

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by: jdavenport @ Fri Jan 21, 2011 at 16:57:06 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Rephrasing and/or clarification (4.00 / 1)

HIGHLY recommended.

Seeing as though a fool in the legislature is a dangerous beast, it seems to me it would be wise to at least convince me of my status with some kind of counter argument.

That is a threat, Mr. Davenport. A mild one, I admit, but a threat nonetheless.

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by: JimC @ Fri Jan 21, 2011 at 17:00:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]