The Impossible Position of Moderate Republicans

We are witnessing in 21st century America the self destruction of the Republican party in the battle of a few right wing radicals versus a more moderate, traditional, and practical establishment. Right wing radicals such as the "Freedom Caucus" consisting of Tea Party members such as Texas Senator Ted Cruz can be contrasted with a more traditional group of Republicans on Capitol Hill, such as House Speaker Paul Ryan and New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte. Moderate Republicans are under threat from right wing radicals who accuse them of compromising too much with Democrats, a party which they believe is chipping away at foundational freedoms promised in the Constitution.

Sentiment for the radical wing is real, otherwise there could not exist a caucus whose purpose is to advance the radical agenda, an agenda which relies on extreme tactics such as shutting down the government, flirting with a US credit default, or relying on sequestration to slash budgets across the board. Across the country, enough citizens are electing these extremists. In order to be heard on Capitol Hill, the radicals influence the establishment by voting together, refusing to negotiate with moderates. This has the effect of pulling more moderate Republicans to the right to be viewed as not aiding and abetting Democrats. The entire party gets pulled into a more radical direction.

Tea Party Republicans should be labeled as radicals and extremists because their positions are so far from where the majority of Americans are politically, their policies would be damaging to the US economy and to its citizens, and their positions on issues are based on pure ideology, not reality.

One example is in healthcare reform. To be fair to Republicans, the way Democrats went about drafting legislation was too partisan so there is no mystery why it was not supported by the party. But was there not an opportunity for Republicans to respond to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that would have been more productive than simply saying no?

After all, Republicans are clearly not against expanding healthcare at the expense of the taxpayer. Notice how they are not calling to end a popular government run health insurance program called Medicare? Remember how in 2006 the Bush II administration expanded Medicare with the new prescription program called Part D?

In fact, given how much Democrats had to compromise just to get enough votes to squeeze the ACA through, the bill could have very well been a Republican bill! Except their vehement opposition from the beginning meant they cut themselves off from providing alternatives. They were so intent on proving healthcare reform was a bad idea that they neglected to come up with another solution. Here is what I mean about the ACA being a Republican bill:

1. There was no public option
2. States were not required to comply with creation of state exchanges
3. Long Term Care was scrapped from the bill for cost purposes

In addition, look at healthcare, health insurance, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device companies' stock price and profitability since the act was put into effect. These industries were given a corporate handout to keep their support for the bill. The industry helped draft the legislation!

The radicals in the Republican party believed the ACA undermined some fundamental American freedoms. They were against the taxes which would be required to pay for the program, the tax penalty for not enrolling, the rules and regulations for insurers and providers to provide a more consumer-friendly plan of care. This radical position prevented the moderates from working more with Democrats or from creating some alternative solution. Now that the law is in effect and is being used by millions of people, Republicans can be labeled as being anti-healthcare reform.

What it shows is how a radical wing of the Republican party can successfully be anti- practical things without being pro- anything that is not some sort of idealism. It is easy to imagine... the key word here being "imagine"... an America with a superlative health care system where health insurance is not a necessity because costs are reasonable, and for those who want health insurance, the only companies which exists are ones providing excellent coverage and will never cut off benefits as long as the customer is paying premiums. This ideal is what radical Republicans either think we have or think we could have. Even if it was possible to reach this ideal, they missed the opportunity to put forward proposals to get America to that place!

So just like the situation with the ACA, this is the common theme for the back and forth between Democrats and Republicans in Congress:

• Democrats recognize a problem exists
• Moderate Republicans agree it does exist while radicals do not
• Moderate Republicans are called out by the extremists for being too liberal which hurts their chances of being reelected so the moderates pull to the right
• Meanwhile, Democrats attempt to fix the problem with practical solutions
• While Democrats are fixing the problem, radical Republicans say over and again how they don't want Democrats to fix that problem, that it can fix itself by free market economics
• Democrats keep fixing and eventually move to pass the legislation
• Moderate Republicans allow the radicals to speak for the whole party out of fear. The radicals use tactics like shutting down the government, holding up funding for routine bills, etc. in order to stop Democrats
• Democrats pass legislation
• Republicans have no alternative ideas
• The problem slowly gets fixed and Republicans have to keep saying it is not getting fixed

Democrats do not think practically most of the time. In fact if they did Republicans would not even get as much support as they do. The Republican party is one which started an unnecessary war, tanked the economy, and shut down the government all in a span of 10 years! It should not be as popular as it is. When I say Democrats think practically, I mean they attempt to address problems with realistic solutions. Right wing extremists in the Republican party who have so much influence and often speak on behalf of the party do not attempt to address problems because they are too busy arguing that their idealistic solutions would be better, without providing a practical way to reach that ideal.

These extremists are exactly why qualified Republican leaders like Mitt Romney and John Kasich could not or will not get elected. The terms in which they speak are too practical and nuanced for the shouting of the tea party.

Questions For the Objectivist

This first question will provide me with a clearer picture of the mindset of an Objectivist. When faced with a difficult practical problem challenging Objectivism, how likely is the Objectivist to first blame the government? If it can be demonstrated that the government plays little to no role in the challenge, how likely is the Objectivist to blame the problem on the social/political/economic status quo, the most important being the economic system and the level and type of education of the population in their country? If the answer is "It is Highly Likely" to the first and the second question, I would be tempted to accuse the Objectivist of championing a system which will only work in its pristine, ideal state. If this is so, Objectivists should stop appealing to an ideal time in American history when an Objectivist could live his life the freest because there was never any such ideal. The only ideal exists in the mind of the Objectivist. And how would that idealism be different from religious idealism? It's like a religious ideal without god. If the answer does not involve blaming the government or the absence of the ideal environment and levels of education of the population, then I have the following questions:

Does Objectivism survive rigorous academic scrutiny in current philosophical literature?

How can a philosophical system maintain a closed status and not become an atheistic cult?

Does it bother Objectivists that there is a high percentage of fundamentalist Christians in the Tea Party?

Does it bother Objectivists that the US political party most closely aligned with their ideology (Tea Party Republicans) exhibit a distrust of academic pursuits and scientific inquiry in favor of simplistic explanations about how the world works?

What is appropriate recourse against a corporation whose owners/employees have been convicted of intentionally harming individuals?

How confident are Objectivists that if we removed social safety nets that individuals would fill the role of caring for those in need? If the number of individuals filling in those roles is insufficient to meet the need, would Objectivists be content with people dying in the streets?

How confident are Objectivists in the idea of Man as an economic being in an environment stripped of government interference  as one who will rationally maximize his utility as both a producer and consumer while still maintaining his humanity?

What is the Objectivist stance on weak paternalism?

Uninteded Consequences of Socialized Health Care

Socialized medicine in its truest form is government ownership of health care facilities, government employment of physicians, and government control of financial transactions between doctor and patient.

A less extreme form of socialized medicine has either privately run health care facilities receiving payment from public funds or publicly run facilities receiving private funds.

A more moderate form would entail a mixture of government run and private facilities receiving payments from both public and private funds. This form closely resembles the current system in the United States. VA hospitals are government run facilities with federally paid health care workers whose patients have a mix of private and public insurance plans to pay for care. For-profit hospitals accept Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, and self-pay patients.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) took this current, more moderate system and simply added a bunch of mandates and subsidies to it. By forcing citizens into insurance plans by threat of a tax penalty the ACA will drastically reduce the number of uninsured. Since our health care reformers in Washington DC have determined that insurance is a necessary middleman between patients and physicians, one can see from their perspective why forcing citizens into plans is a good thing.

Opponents of the ACA argue that the act is an infringement on personal liberty but have failed to explain how. Just saying that citizens should not be forced to purchase something is not a solid argument against it; after all, the government can force us to do all kinds of things like purchase car insurance if owning a car.

An overlooked infringement Republicans should be explaining is how a move toward true socialized medicine grants the government the authority to dictate what citizens eat and the lifestyles they choose to adopt.

If the government is paying for and/or providing health care it has a vested interest in promoting healthy life choices. An obese person long ago would choke on their own fat and die a premature death. A stuntman could bankrupt his family after suffering a debilitating injury. A poor person could be refused life-saving emergency care for failure to provide proof of payment. This was a harsh system, but one that encouraged people to independently make good decisions or else they, and no one else, would suffer the consequences of their actions. Under a government run system that covered everyone, these three people would drive up costs to the system. The obese person would have their diabetes meds, heart problems, and weight-loss surgeries paid for by the government. The stuntman would be pieced together like Humpty Dumpty after each fall, driving up system costs. The poor man who contributes little, if anything to the government run pool would be granted the life-saving care at the expense of every taxpayer in the nation.

The government wants to promote a healthy society in the same way in wants to promote an educated society. But when the health of a society becomes a budgetary issue, its intrusion into private lives could become more than even the most liberal proponent of socialized health care would want.

Higher utilization of care puts a strain on the health care system. Who uses more care than anyone? The sick, elderly, and daredevils. Washington DC, as the collector and payor of health care services in a more socialized system, has an interest in meeting its budget every year. A growing health care budget can be met by increasing premiums (taxes), diminishing services, and influencing a patient's lifestyle choices. Those citizens using the system more often - the sick, elderly, and daredevils - would be targets in this budget balancing act.

Sometimes the fear of being unhealthy is not a sufficient incentive by itself to promote healthy lifestyle choices. In fact, if cost is no issue to the individual, there is even less incentive to be healthy and avoid risk. Here are some ways in which the government could try to control a citizen's lifestyle in order to keep health care costs down:

Checking grocery items purchased under a shopper's card
Targeted mailings to households in areas with statistically higher obesity rates
Banning hazardous recreational activities like base jumping
Verifying purchases of prescriptions from Rx databases
Monitoring those with criminal records with drones
Keeping tabs on purchases for "sinful" services like prostitution, gambling, and drugs
Web purchase history
Frequency of clubbing, going to bars, or partying using geolocation
Checking online dating profiles for signs of risky behavior
Outlawing the most unhealthy foods like ice cream
Euthanasia/hospice/chronic elderly care decisions contrary to what an individual would choose

Some might dismiss these potential controls as paranoid. It cannot be denied that the technology for this type of intervention exists and is currently being used by advertising agencies and law enforcement.

Private health care has its own set of problems, the main one being the refusal of services to thsoe who cannot afford to pay. This can be addressed in its own time. Right now if Republicans want to start fixing our health care system they must acknowledge it is not working well, propose a way to fix it, then demonstrate how the ACA will only make things worse. The ACA can only be effectively opposed if there is a better alternative and if Republicans can show not just that the ACA will be more expensive but that it could lead toward greater government intrusion into people's lives.

Health Care Reform by "Professor" Jamison

Various US Presidents have tried to reform health care in the United States.  President Obama succeeded in passing the Affordable Care Act.  In this video I explain why I believe the Affordable Care Act will not fix this country's health care problems.

Romney or Obama? Doesn't Matter

Which presidential candidate will you be voting for in November: Mitt Romney or Barack Obama?  If you have strong feelings toward one candidate or another, let me tell you right now that it does not matter who wins the election.  Both candidates will be equally as ineffective.

You might be wondering why an avid follower of politics like myself would have such an apparently ignorant outlook on the two candidates.  There are three main reasons why I believe neither candidate will change anything.  First has to do with how not liberal Obama is.  Second, candidate Romney is not as conservative as elected Romney.  Third, neither party is willing to take the kind of risk that is necessary to get at the heart of our country's problems.

 

Contrary to what the fearmonger Glenn Beck would have wanted you to believe in the Fall of 2008, President Obama is not all that liberal.  Remember guys like 96.9's Jay Severin saying he was fearful for the country if Obama was elected?  But notice how Glenn Beck no longer has the Fox show and Severin is no longer at 96.9?  I know there were other reasons for their departure, but at least some of it had to do with their audience realizing that the world hadn't come to an end.  Obama has been tougher than any modern president on deportations - already 1.5 million gone (1).  He gave the go-ahead for the strike to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.  He has been responsible for a push for drone attacks in Afghanistan and other hotspots.  The New York Times reported in May of 2012 that he even has a "kill list" for these drone attacks.  He also did not shut down Guantanamo Bay where there are still 166 prisoners, something he said he would do during his campaign.  Furthermore, think about the opportunities Obama had to use his liberal tendencies to satisfy his base that elected him.  He didn't nationalize the banks when they were in trouble.  He followed his predecessor in not prosecuting the heads of the largest financial institutions responsible for the mortgage meltdown that occurred in 2008.  Even with health care, he chose to use the existing private system rather than create a Medicare for all.

Governor Romney is a pragmatist at heart, hidden beneath a well-polished facade of conservatism.  Remember the Mitt Romney that ran against Ted Kennedy for the Massachusetts senate seat in 1994?  That Romney was pro-choice regarding the abortion issue.  As Governor of Massachusetts he believed in universal health coverage that was mandated with threat of penalty.  Romney is praised for his business acumen, a skill he learned in college, then honed in the private sector.  It proved useful in governing the State of Massachusetts.  Unlike a senator whose focus is entirely legislative, a governor is like a manager who has to deal with strict budgets.  How effective would he be able to use his skills as a president, though?  Washington is a different world than local government.  A president does not have the ability to create jobs out of thin air.  So his solution would be the same old tired one of cutting taxes for businesses.  Doesn't that remind you of someone who was elected president in 2000 and 2004?  Where did those policies get us?

 

But let's indulge the candidates' with their claims during this election season.  We will ignore previous actions by President Obama and believe he really does want to make things better for the middle class and that he will accomplish this by using his liberal tendencies.  And let's give Romney the benefit of the doubt by believing his claims that cutting taxes will help boost the economy.  Can this polarized Congress where the Republicans control the House and Democrats control the Senate really permit any of their "radical" ideological policies through the legislative process?  Just look at how watered down the Affordable Care Act got after it finally passed through Congress.

The problems this country faces are not the ones the candidates are talking about.  The economy is fine.  If unemployment is so high, why do I not know anybody who is out of work?  So when you hear all the doom and gloom talk about the economy, ignore it.  The problems we face involve education, energy independence, cyber-security, and health care.  These are things that neither candidate has the guts to tackle in a truly effective way.  Romney could succeed at fixing one of these issues, but he will be so focused on getting re-elected in 2016 that he won't go after them at all.

If you're still not convinced that it doesn't matter who gets elected president this time around, do you honestly think things would be different if John McCain had won in 2008?

(1.) Tampa Bay Times. "Obama Toes Thin Line On Illegals." June 21, 2012

Romney Wants to Repeal Obamacare

When Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts he came to the same conclusion about health care that Barack Obama has come to as president: More people need to be covered, and any solution should be based on the current system we have where most are covered by their employers (160 million).

Obama's health care overhaul, called the Affordable Care Act, has the power to expand coverage to the uninsured.  The coverage will come at a cost since many will require a subsidy based on their income level.  Medicaid, health insurance for the poor, will need to be expanded to cover those who have low income.

The constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act is currently being decided by the Supreme Court who will issue a judgment on the law this week.  The most controversial aspect of the law is the individual mandate that requires every person in the country to buy coverage by 2014 or face a penalty.

The mandate that Mitt Romney approved in Massachusetts must not be good enough for other states since he does not support a mandate coming from the federal government.  Why would Romney support a local mandate but not a national one?  As a person who understands budgets, how does he  believe a health care system is supposed to work when individuals are buying coverage just before they need to use it?  The same moral hazard applies nationally as it does locally.

If the court favors the bulk of the Affordable Care Act but decides to strike down the mandate what we are left with is a way to cover everyone but with skyrocketing insurance premiums.  John Q. Citizen will be able to purchase insurance with pre-existing medical conditions just prior to an illness and then dump it after he is healed.  The premiums paid by the healthiest people will not be collected because they will not be forced to purchase it.

Those who disagree with the federal government's ability to require citizens to purchase something need to think about the kinds of things we are forced to buy.  I will use one simple example - the state mandate to purchase auto insurance.  How comfortable would you feel driving down the road if only half the people driving by you had coverage?

I disagree with both Obama's and Romney's solutions to the health care problem, but at least let's get real about the kind of problems we face, and let's start hearing some real, long-term solutions to fix health care.

Palin Tea Party Speech

I was disappointed that there was no mass exodus of the crowd at the tea party event yesterday when she said, "We need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law at a lectern."  She was criticizing Obama's foreign policy, trials of terrorists, and said that the Islamic Fundamentalists see that and will take advantage of it.
During the speech she made references to Ronald Regan and his leadership.  Judging by what I know of her policy positions she would closely identify as a Bush conservative as well, at least on foreign policy matters.

So I suppose her idea of a commander in chief is a former actor who was president at the end of the Cold War?  Or perhaps a Texas oilman who led us into a misguided and mismanaged war in Iraq?  I'll take professor of law who hires a good secretary of defense over the former two any day.

Engaging Republicans

This NYT article refers to Obama's offer during his State of the Union address to work more closely with congressional Republicans to pass future legislation.

Republicans have been united against the president since he took office, especially on health care. The article below goes over some of the issues but I think Republican blockades can be explained better than some Democrats who just call them "the party of 'no'."

A Democrat from Maryland was more accurate in calling them "the party of no new ideas."

To the Republicans' credit, their unity against the health care bills make sense. They are the party which stands for smaller government and does anyone actually believe that covering uninsured with federal money is going to save money over time? So they should be united against a bill that plans on expanding the size of the government. They have been portrayed as not believing health care is a major issue that must be dealt with immediately. But they are congressmen. They're smart. They know people are going without insurance who need it. When Howard Dean - a physician, former DNC chairman, and former Democrat presidential candidate - thinks the administration should scrap the current health bill because it is too full of special interest influence and will not be that effective, then the Republicans don't look so silly in opposing it.

I think Republicans should be criticized when they unite against things to score points with their voters. And they can legitimately be criticized as a party of no new ideas because of the tired mantra "tax cuts, smaller government, etc.". Those aren't new ideas. And the Bush administration showed how sometimes those free market principles need to be compromised.
From The New York Times:

Obama Acts to Engage G.O.P., Testing Party's Intentions
By CARL HULSE and JEFF ZELENY

The outreach is a marked shift in White House strategy intended to share the burden of governing and force Republicans to make compromises or be portrayed as obstructionist. ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/us/politics/03bipartisan.html

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Scott "Boring" Brown for US Senate

More like Scott "Boring Cookie-Cutter Politician" Brown.  This man is up in the polls heading into the special election.  While some people have voted for him because he will block the health care bill, I voted for him for different reasons.  The Democrats could still use the so-called "nuclear option" to pass health care, where instead of needing 60 votes they would just need a simple majority.  And even if Martha Coakley won, she said she would vote against a health care bill that contained too many restrictions on abortion.  And by the way, Brown has said he thinks health care something everyone has access to - not a view shared by a lot of his fellow Republicans.

I wish he wasn't so boring.  But I suppose I shouldn't complain about that.  After all, Obama was an exciting candidate, but what policies he has been able to pass have not been nearly effective enough, and there is so much he has not been able to deliver on.

Voting for Brown is more of a referendum on President Obama's performance since he took office.  Liberal economists and Democrat supporters who show up as guests to radio shows have complained that Obama and his Democrat majority in Congress has not lived up to expectations, breaking campaign promises, and showing little backbone against the Republican minority.

If Brown fit the mold of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush I would not have voted for him.  But he seems to adopt a more commonsense, less polarizing form of conservatism that I think will help bring the US economy back to full recovery.  Further he has a strong record of military service and has received awards for his work in politics.  Perhaps a win for Brown in Massachusetts will send a message to Obama, Pelosi, and Reed that they need to deliver more on what they promised.

Jon Steward had a great segment about the current election.  You can check it out here:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mass Backwards
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The best quote from this piece:
"If this lady loses, the health care reform bill that the beloved late senator considered his legacy, will die. And the reason it will die... is because if Coakley loses, Democrats will only have an 18 vote majority in the Senate, which is more than George W. Bush ever had in the Senate when did whatever the fuck he wanted to."

Republicans Are Against Government Run Insurance But Won't Repeal Medicare

A buddy of mine posted this link on Facebook in which Hardball anchor Lawrence O'Donnell exposes the hypocrisy of a Republican Congressman who does not support a new government-run health program, but says he would have voted for Medicare at its inception in 1965.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/14/lawrence-odonnell-exposes_n_260177.html