Some of her supporters have said there is no candidate who deserves her support.  I will not comment on that.  Politics is the art of the possible.  There is a list of people who ARE running and I am not going to sit this one out.  That’s my decision.  Having said that, I have revisited my aversion to Mitt Romney.  It is not an emotional decision.  It is a decision based on experience.  While I campaigned for, voted for and contributed to both Bush II campaigns, one of the sad lessons I learned is that when a President who is an (R) embraces big government and tries to buy votes with programs like Medicare Part D, those programs become permanently entrenched and almost irreversible.  Looking at Mitt Romney through that lense I am no longer sure that his presidency would be an improvement over a continued Obama presidency.  My two biggest concerns when it comes to Romeny are Cap and Trade and Universal Health Care.  Based on his record, a Romney presidency would enthrone those two programs in our national polity for many, many years until the whole financial structure comes tumbling down.  Romeny endorsed and implemented both while he was governor of Massachusetts.  He has said nothing to persuade me that he would not “grow in office” and endorse them again if he were to take the White House.

Both programs are an abomination.  Both will be used to stifle free enterprise and enrich the friends of the permanent political class.  Solyndra on steriods my friends.

Romney has already demonstrated his inability to resist the blandishments of the establishment press.  Anyone who is willing to spend a couple of hours reading at sites like Climate Depot,  or Junk Science and to follow the links from there to other articles should be aware that a) there is no real consensus on climate change and b) that real science is not made by consensus anyway.  Any candidate who has not taken the time to inform himself or herself about these issues does not deserve my support or my vote.

I fear that Mitt Romney is like what Richard Feinman referred to as the Cargo Cult scientists .   He falls for anybody wearing a white coat and glasses with a Ph. D. from Harvard.  He even listed John Holdren as one of his advisors.

On the issue of Universal Health Care, any candidate who does not see how destructive this socialization of health care will be, again, does not deserve my support.  In Romney’s case, I fear that Obamacare will become permanently enshrined.  Oh there will be a few tweaks and pretenses at change.  But this is a man who thought it was a dandy idea when he implemented it in Massachusetts.

So the question is which Not Mitt Romney do I vote for and work for.  While some on this website think that Rick Perry will be more conservative than Romney, I am not so sure.  What was devastating about the Gardasil decision was the ease with which he was willing to impose a medical mandate on people.  Yes he backed off.  But it makes me really uneasy about his instincts.

True conservatives understand about personal liberty.  While, unlike libertarians, they may be willing to infringe on that liberty more often than libertarians would to protect the social order, they at least are queasy about it.  They understand that the question isn’t , would that be good for people, but is should people be allowed to make that decision for themselves.  And, if you are a conservative, you put the burden of proof on the person who argues that people should not be allowed to make that decision for themselves.  Further, the only arguments you will entertain are those that pertain to how individual decisions affect other people or the common good.  If you apply that reasoning to the Gardasil decision you realize that the disease that is being spread ( a virus) is not one that is easily spread from person to person like tuberculosis or measles or mumps.  It’s reasonable to ask parents to vaccinate when one kid just sitting in a class room and breathing can infect the whole classroom. It’s not so reasonable when the disease can only be spread through sexual contact.

What bothers me is that an elected Perry may not be so responsive  when he is sitting in a Washington as when he was sitting as Governor in Texas.

So that leaves me with a host of others.  I didn’t become a Cain supporter until a) Governor Palin withdrew her name for consideration and b) Herman Cain started running ahead of Rick Perry in the polls.  Which two events happened almost simultaneously.

I like that Herman Cain is willing to talk about completely abolishing the old tax code and starting over.  I don’t think his 9:9:9 plan is perfect but it tells me that his instincts are right.  He is the only candidate who seems to understand that FICA is actually a tax.

I am concerned about his lack of government experience, but there are no perfect candidates.  I am not happy with the government experience of any of the candidates who have it.  Michelle Bachmann talks a good game but cannot point to any significant bills that she has introduced.  If you’re in the minority you can’t get the bills passed, but at least you can introduce them.  On Newt Gingrich, he has a wealth of experience but his personal life makes me think he cannot win.  And if demonization by the left disqualifies a candidate ( as many have argued demonization disqualified Palin) Gingrich has that problem in spades.

That leaves me back again with Herman Cain.  He gives a good speech.  He learned something in private business and sitting on the Federal Reserve.  He is humble enough to admit he doesn’t know everything and seems willing to learn.  He was not my favorite a month ago, but he looks like he could win.  I understand about his lack of organization.  I understand about his lack of money.  Both of which facts make his rise in the polls all the more remarkable.

So, absent the earthquake Sarah Palin said it would take to bring her back into the race, I am supporting Herman Cain.  Not that my support means much.  I am neither rich nor powerful nor very popular.  But most of his supporters aren’t.  My 2¢ worth.

See, this is why some of us call Social Security a Ponzi scheme– it isn’t JUST that the money I was paying in all those years (heck, I’m still paying it) was not going into some account to be kept safe until I reached age 66, it is that all the politicians conspired to lie to us about it.  So they don’t say, we’re going to levy a flat tax on all payroll of 15.3 percent.  No, they call it the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, that makes it sound like we’re investing in an insurance policy.    They tell us that our employers are having to pay the other half as if that wouldn’t other wise be money in our pockets that is going into the federal pocket.  They do that so we will not have to see, on every paycheck, how much of the money we earn is actually going to the federal government.

They did drop the scam when it came to financing Medicare and do call that a tax, but they are all taxes.  What is the difference between payments on an insurance policy and taxes?  Well, we all know that.  I actually own the insurance policy.  When I pay taxes I haven’t acquired any rights that cannot be taken away from me by the next congress.  So the truth is that every single one of us who works at a job above board and complies with the law is paying a flat payroll tax, self employed included.  We see the whole amount.   And, of course, despite all talk of lockboxes and social security trustfunds, just like in a Ponzi scheme, when there was a lot more money coming in than was necessary to pay off the early participants– i.e. back in the 90′s, the excess was “borrowed” to spend on other projects. Now those of us who paid the taxes back then are being treated like the doofuses some of us were because some of us (not I) actually believed all the bull about the trust funds and all the other deceptions.

So if you exchange a 15.3 percent payroll tax for a 9 percent payroll tax, that is a reduction.  Right?  At least for people making less than $107,000 a year.  But the liberal, and some conservative pundits actually claim not to understand that the share the employer pays is really a) a payroll tax and b) money that the employee earned by performing services for the employer.  So it is coming out of the employee’s pocket, it is just that the scheme is set up to promote class warfare by letting people think that money that their employer pays for their services that doesn’t show up as a dollar amount on their paycheck is somehow money that they didn’t earn.

Can conservatives at least tell the truth?  Pension benefits, medical benefits, employment insurance– these are all compensation for employment and if that money wasn’t used to pay for all those benefits it would be going in the employee’s pocket.  That is what any economist worth his salt will tell you.

“In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is — if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is all there is to it.”

Now apply that quote to the whole climate science debate and you will see why I think this blog post by Taubes is so beautiful.  Because that simple statement  describes what has been missing in most of the debates about “climate science” and what needs to be repeated.  The reason some of us are skeptics is that the beautiful computer models developed by the so-called experts disagree with observation.  There are more than a dozen articles posted on Climate Depot about predictions that haven’t panned out.  They have made a number of key predictions that simply didn’t happen.  That means they are wrong.  That is all there is to it.

As lay people, when so-called scientists come to us with their hands out we need to ask them scientific questions like, what is your hypothesis?  What will the world look like if your hypothesis is correct?  Can you show me the experimental data or observational data that show that you were able to predict accurately based on your hypothesis.  Consensus is not science.

As Mackey explains, health savings accounts are tax exempt accounts (meaning the money deposited into them is not taxed as income) that  can be used at the employee’s discretion to pay for medical expenses.Up to $3000 a year can be deposited in such accounts.  The money in the account belongs to the employee and can be invested in normal investments.  If the money is not spent it stays in the account from year to year.  It is thus possible for a healthy young person who makes minimalus use of benefits  to accumulate a large sum and have it available for major medical expenses when necessary. Governor Mitch Daniels lead the way in adopting such accounts in Indiana for state employees.  The plans, shunned by employees at first, have become extremely popular because of the flexibility that they offer.

At the present time such accounts can only be set up by persons under the age of 65, the age when people become eligible for Medicare.

Contrary to what many people believe, Medicare is not free for seniors.  It is heavily subsidized, but it isn’t free.   My understanding is that Paul Ryan’s proposal for cutting Medicare costs includes and HSA option.  He is right so that seniors can benefit from managing their own healthcare costs.

All medical care is, of course, optional.  People have a right to reject medical care if they choose.  Just about everyone knows that, but what most people don’t think about is that there is a lot of honest debate about routine “preventative” care like mammograms.  Recently there was a huge uproar when a proposal was made to reduce the frequency of mammogram screening from 1 year to 2 years for women over 40.  If insurance companies followed the proposal,  and Medicare followed the proposal there would be a substantial cost savings.  The cost of a mammogram can vary between $75 and $200.  So, without doing a whole lot of research, I think most people can afford that if they feel they have to have a mammogram and their insurance of Medicare won’t pay.  The prior “standard” advocated by breast cancer awareness advocates, was a mammogram every year.  Adoption of the new standard would save insurance companies and Medicare a lot of money.  Good.  But following the new standard wouldn’t save the patient one thin dime.  Because health insurance rates and Medicare rates are the same whether you use medical services or not.

This is the problem John Mackey points out.  Because individuals receive no benefit at all from being judicious and careful about spending health care dollars, they have zero incentive to do so.  And procedures like mammograms are examples of the kind of procedure where a lot of money can be saved.

What about me and mammograms?  I had my first one in over 10 years last week.  As evidenced by this post I am still alive, and so far as I know, breast cancer free.  But I pay the exact same health insurance as the lady I met in the waiting room who visits the doctor every month and gets a mammogram and a bone densitometry every single year because someone else is paying for it.

Now I might note that I consider high speed internet service a necessity of life, but I don’t ask others to pay for it.  A mammogram  for a woman(or man, yes men can get breast cancer) who is well, has no history of cysts or other problems with her breasts, hasn’t been on hormone therapy and has no family history of breast cancer is an optional procedure.  If a woman has an HSA and she thinks it really is necessary, then she can choose to have one.  And if she chooses not to, the money will be there for other procedures.  So simply giving patient consumers the ability to choose what they will  and will not pay for, saves money.

The other feature that saves money is cost consciousness.  As I noted in another post, my doctor recently wrote me a prescription for some wonderful new drug  to deal with pain prolems without knowing what the costs was.  It turned out that it costs $270 for 30 pills.  I told him I wasn’t in $270 worth of pain. We found another drug that was $8 per month.  When consumers become even aware of costs, that fact combined with knowing they will benefit from reducing the cost is inevitably going to lead to lower expenditures.  That has been JOhn Mackey’s experience at Whole Foods and Mitch Daniels’ experience in Indiana.

But it is also a bad idea because of the bureaucracy that will have to be created to apply and enforce the means test. Before I explain let me disclose that I am a Social Security recipient.  I confess that I think I may be a target of this proposal because I aslo receive a private pension  and receive near the maximum of social security benefits because I paid maximum FICA taxes most of my working life and, indeed, am still working.  (At age 66 you can begin to  receive full benefits even if you are continuing to earn money).

But even if I didn’t have an interest in the outcome of this proposal I think I would be opposed to it because of the horrendous bureacracy that will be required to administer and enforce means testing.  I speak as a former welfare worker.  The first problem is who loses benefits and on what basis? Do we measure income?  Assets? Income and assets? If I sell my house and realize the capital gain that has been building up over 20 years because I think it is time to move into a smaller home or an assisted care facility, do I lose my social security benefits for a year?  Do we differentiate between income sources as we do now  for people applying for early social security benefits at age 62?  That is, do we take into account income earned from working or self-employment but not from dividends and investments?  It gets real complicated real fast.

In contrast, when I applied for Social Security benefits two years ago, I didn’t even have to set foot in a Social Security office.  I applied online.  Social Security did whatever they do to make sure that I am who I say I am, perhaps matching the address on my checking account to the address from which my tax returns have been filed for the last 18 years.  And, voila!  monthly deposits to my designated checking account.  I’m sure there was a human being somewhere who looked at the whole thing, but I am equally sure it was mostly done by computer.

At present, I suspect (based on my own experience and a sister who was formerly employed by the SSA) that the vast majority of claims representatives at the SSA are employed in determining eligibility for Social Security Disability.  That is because most of the other claims processes are pretty cut and dried and based on facts that are not easily disputed, like your birth date (which the SSA has had, possibly since your birth) or your prior earnings record.   All of the types of SSA benefits have appeals processes available, but I am going to guess that 90% of appeals have to do with Disability benefit claims.  That is because, when money is involved, what sounds like definite firm guidelines on paper turns into opposing  lawyers briefs in real life.

If we add a means test to SSA benefits which are based on age, we are going to need three or four times the bureaucracy we have now.  My question is, we will actually even save money?  How can we design a fair system that is not incredibly complicated?  How can we easily and cheaply  administer an incredibly complicated system?

When it comes to means testing social security, give that some long deep thought.

What you will learn is that the problem came about because of far more corrupt and dishonest practices than you might have imagined.  Everyone from the employees of FNMA and Freddie Mac to Wallstreet brokers and mortgage brokers profited enormously and continue to profit because of taxpayer bailouts.  Dodd Franks did nothing to fix the problems.

The recurring problem is that people are being allowed to make loans and sell them in various kinds of securities to investors without ever having to worry about whether the loans will be paid back.  Everyone up and down the line gets fat fees off of these loans.  By bailing out the investors, the federal government virtually guaranteed that the problem will return.

You will learn that  what most people would think was fraud was going on at large financial institutions like Goldman Sachs who were simultaneously selling these investments to unsuspecting, if foolish, investors, while using their own funds to sell the investments short ( i.e . betting against these investment vehicles, betting that the price would fall below that at which Goldman was selling to their own cosutomers.).

There has been no real investigation into this and Forbes tells us it won’t happen because the federal government doesn’t want to undermine Goldman Sachs.  Shame on them all, including James Johnson and all the other architects of this mess for doing this to us.  Shame on us for bailing them out and taking money from other taxpayers to protect their billion dollar investments.

I also note that some commenters have pointed to the return of pertussis (whooping cough) deaths in Los Angeles County.  First, LA County has chosen to fight this through a voluntary adult vaccination program. (Most of the deaths involved newborns who were too young to vaccinate who contracted it from their parents or other adults.).  Second, the number of non-immune adults is a result of a) a large immigrant population that was never vaccinated and b) the fact that the pertussis immunity wears off   Thus L. A. County recommends vaccination for anyone who will be caring for small infants who hasn’t had a booster in the last 10 years.  There is no evidence that these deaths have resulted from some exaggerated concern about vaccine effects.  The reality is that most of us have not been immunized since childhood and can carry the infection without knowing it.

And, without claiming to be a scientist, there is a big difference between diseases like smallpox (which we no longer vaccinate for because it appears to be extinct),polio,  measles and mumps which spread like wildfire through a population of school age children by mere contact and the virus that causes cervical cancer, which is, apparently, spread through sexual contact.

All vaccines, so I am told, have some danger.  As an example, a very few people will become infected with polio by the polio vaccine.

Those talking about herd immunity need to consider HOW a disease is spread before advocating that its use be mandated.  We also have to talk about what sort of disease we are preventing.

I am one of the increasingly few people who has had measles, mumps and chicken pox.  And lived to tell the tale.  Not wonderful, but not all that bad either.  When I was young there were no vaccines for those diseases.  On the other hand, I was made to stand in line, by my mother, for at least an hour to receive the Salk vaccine.  Polio is a very devastating disease.

Tons of physicians recommend that I, a senior citizen, get my flu shot.  I have chosen not to.  Haven’t had the flu either.

So my take is that it is okay to mandate the use of vaccines as a condition of attending public school if the disease is one which is spread easily through ordinary human contact and is one that can have devastating consequences.  (And yes, I know that rubella and mumps can have devastating consequences even though they don’t usually).  That is a public health issue.  I would not even mandate tetanus shots  because tetanus is not spread through ordinary human contact.  Having said that, the last time I suffered a puncture wound, I had a tetanus shot.

Most parents who care for their children will have them vaccinated, and that fact confers some herd immunity right there.

I think what the conservative position on vaccinations is that it it is not a disease which is easily spread by ordinary human contact then vaccines should not be mandated.  Is that so really “unscientific”.  If a board of doctors can decide what I am vaccinated with , can they decide what I am allowed to eat and drink as well?

But this isn’t about them.  This is a real life example, me, of why Ryan is right.  My physician has been my physician for 15 years  or so.  I adore him.  He is a very smart guy.  But, like most physicians, he works for a big healthcare clinic and has little or no idea what even HIS services cost.  Nor do I until long after the fact.

Recently, due to administrative boondoggles and my own carelessness I found myself without Part D– Prescription Coverage for a year.  No big deal except I will have to pay a penalty when I re-enroll.  So, I have discovered the Target generic $4.00 prescription program.  Basically, if it’s not on their generic list and it won’t save my life, I am usually of the opinion that I don’t need it. Walgreen’s and Walmart have similar programs.  My doc and i have had a few exchanges.  By the way, a lot of stuff is on their generic list and my health has not been endangered.  Recently he prescribed a nice new drug for some arthritic pain I have been suffering.  When I arrived at Target to pick up the prescription, they told me they didn’t stock it.  Then they asked if I had any coverage because, oops, it was going to cost $287.00 to fill.  Long e-mail exchange shortened, I told my doc I was not in $287 worth of pain, did a little research and found a drug on the generic list which is not quite as good that costs $4.00.  I am NOT willing to have some bureacrat in Washington or some other city or some anonymous insurance administrator make that decision for me.  But I am perfectly willing to make it myself.

Under one version of Ryan’s plans, there will be Health Savings Accounts, and just like I do when the money is coming out of my own pocket as it is now, I will benefit from making a decision that saves money.

John Mackey caused a storm at Whole Foods when he pointed out that we know the cost of nearly everything we buy before we buy it EXCEPT for our medical care.  Here in California, your auto mechanic has to give you an estimate before he fixes your car.  Your doctor doesn’t even have to post prices.   A lot of medical care is very routine.  You can already buy kits at your local drug store to diagnose a UTI.  A lot of HMO’s will let a physician’s assistant write the prescription for it.  Why should you have to pay $200 or $300 to get the prescription?  We need to extract ourselves from a system in which medical care providers charge people with money up the kazoo to cover the people who don’t have money.  And we need to consign those who don’t have money to a system  which is already partly in place– publicly provided medical care that is means tested.  See, for example, Los Angeles County General Hospital, where, believe it or not you can get some pretty decent medical care.

In fact, to all those  Hollywood folk who think Obamacare is going to be great, let me make a suggestion– sign up for LACGH’s medical care plan and you will get a real preview.  The LA system has three teaching hospitals staffed by residents and faculty from two of the best medical schools in the nation– UCLA and USC.  So, while you will wait all day for an appointment, if luck is with you you may actually be able to see a world renowned physician.  Or not.

But I digress, the point of my post is, once we can set up a plan which allows its participants to benefit from making thrifty decisions, we will see the cost of medical care  brought under control.  Is this going to be simple?  No.  But the reality is that the way our system works now, if you have great insurance there is no reason for you to say no to the nearly three hundred dollar pain pill.

Oh, by the way, in my first 8 months off of Medicare Part D I have spent less money on prescriptions than the coverage would have cost.  Just saying.  Thank God I am healthy and thank God there is still a little competition in the prescription drug market.

This movie takes on several modern liberal lies– one that we have to be protected from big bad business and two — that fat is bad for you.  He interviews several low carb gurus like Drs.Michael and  Mary Dan Eades, Gary Taubes and others and talks about how the low fat scheme to government is constantly trying to push on us is actually making us fat.  He also talks about consumer freedom of choice.  Great documentary.  Watch it.  Recommend it to your friends.  Whatever your dietary preferences I suspect you will agree with his belief that the government has no place in the debate.