simpson316's blog

Reid Punts on Omnibus Spending Bill

Via William Jacobson, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) has opted to forgo the porked up Omnibus Spending bill in favor of a much more slimmed down continuing resolution. The new measure would likely only fund the government for a few months allowing Republicans to control the overall shape of the remainder of the fiscal year ending Sept 30th.

Senator Reid’s published version of what happened is that he lost the support of Republicans who had previously announced that they would support the bill. If that is true, then this surely is a big win for conservative activists who put a lot of pressure on Republicans to oppose the massive increase in spending represented by this bill. Republicans now have the opportunity to really push for some sanity when it comes the size and scope of the government.

Run Robin, Run

Robin Carnahan is clearly afraid of talking to radio hosts who will be less than coddling of her campaign. She has been avoiding going on one radio show in particular. KMOX host Mark Reardon has been trying to get the Senate Candidate onto his show for many months now.

After a while, when reasoned attempts at scheduling an interview fail, what else is one to do? Of course, you start mocking the candidate.

For those without video, this is from before the big Mizzou-OU game Saturday where the Tigers knocked off the #1 Sooners. Reardon and a crew showed up with signs mocking Carnahan for avoiding his show.

You would think that Carnahan would want to make sure that she is doing everything to make her voice heard in the final few days of this election push. Especially when KMOX is the biggest radio station in the state with a heavy listenership in the St. Louis metro area – an area that the Carnahan campaign must feel is essential if they even have a chance at overtaking Roy Blunt.

Given all of that, it does beg an important question:

P.S. Roy Blunt for Senate – One week to go.

The Postmortem on Robin Carnahan is Already Being Written

The writing is on the wall for Missouri Democrats. Their chances of winning the Senate seat currently held by Republican Kit Bond certainly qualify for the “slim to none” category. This was recognized by national Democrats with the recent decision to cancel much of their reserved air space for advertising.

A few weeks ago, Bill S had a great piece about Carnahan running an outdated “2006″ campaign.

Now, this week, Columbia Missourian editorialist George Kennedy heaps some damning praise on the Carnahan campaign:

With less than two weeks left before the election, my nomination for Worst Campaign by a Missouri Democrat goes to Robin Carnahan. Blessed with an honored political heritage and a vulnerable opponent, Ms. Carnahan has so far taken the low road and stuck to it. Her attacks on Congressman Roy Blunt have been mainly well founded, but I defy you to tell me much that she’s for, as opposed to who she’s against.

It seems the low road suits the Carnahan family all too well. See Erick’s piece from earlier today on how big brother Russ is trying to run on similar campaign.

If you are a Democrat right now, I’m guessing these are the last desperate tactics that you would use when your party is facing a massive beating at the polls this November.

P.S. Roy Blunt for Senate. This one isn’t over until the judges in St. Louis and Kansas City say it’s over.

The Choice Almost Nobody Wants

Far be it from me to not give credit where it is due. Unlike what I detailed last night in the inaugural edition of the Choice and Competition Death Watch, it should be pointed out that the new federal health care legislation did actually create a new choice in many states. A key piece of the legislation was the creation of a new set of high risk pools that would be administered by the states. Skipping the myriad of problems with administering and funding an initiative like this, it is granted that the health care legislation did create one new choice for many Americans. [Those keeping score at home will note that this is a net loss of three since I began tracking with the Choice and Competition Death Watch.]

The big problem is that almost nobody wants this choice.

Via John Goodman comes this Dallas Morning News article about the failure of people to see this choice as a desirable option.

It’s a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s health care remake, a lifeline available right now to vulnerable people whose medical problems have made them uninsurable.

But the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan started this summer isn’t living up to expectations. Enrollment lags in many parts of the country. People who could benefit may not be able to afford the premiums. Some state officials who run their own “high-risk pools” have pointed out potential problems.

The program in Texas had enrolled about 200 by early September, an official said. California, which has money for about 20,000 people, has received fewer than 450 applications, according to a state official. In Wisconsin, Goldman said they’ve received fewer than 300 applications so far, with room for about 8,000 people in the program.

Contrast this with the introduction of Medicare Part D under President Bush where eligible seniors were packing school gymnasiums, lining up at their pharmacies and generally getting information from anywhere and everywhere that they could so they could get their plan as soon as open enrollment started. So, Congratulations Mr. President. You did in fact increase choice in the health care market – as little desired as it may be.

Choice and Competition Death Watch

On the campaign trail and all through the first year of his administration, President Obama touted the benefits of his health care plan. One of the often repeated phrases that his legislation sought to increase choice and competition in the health market. Across the right it was widely predicted that the kind of legislation that the President was seeking would provide for just the opposite effect. We would in fact see a decrease in choice and competition.

We were right.

One doesn’t have to look much farther than a few key events of the past two weeks to see that the President’s pet legislation is having disastrous effects in the health care market.

It was just two weeks ago that many of the nation’s largest health insurer announced (albeit quitely) that they would no longer be issuing child only policies. This was a direct response to the portion of the legislation that required insurance companies to make all child policies guaranteed issue (meaning that coverage cannot be denied for preexisting conditions).

Last week, McDonald’s requested a waiver from the federal government from a provision of the new law that requires a certain percentage of premiums that must be spent on benefits. Many companies like McDonald’s only offer “mini-med” coverage which has capped annual benefits. Without the waiver, McDonald’s and many other businesses will no longer be able to offer affordable health benefits to all of their employees.

On Thursday, the Association of American Medical Colleges released estimates that the current legislation will increase the shortage of physicians in 2015. Their figures say that the shortage will be 50% worse than it was before this legislation. This owes to the fact that while increasing health insurance coverage for millions of Americans was the primary goal of this legislation, little was done to address the supply issues that come with that dramatic of an increase in demand.

Finally, just yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that 3M would be making changes to it’s retiree health plan options as a result of the legislation. Instead of offering a company sponsored health plan, retirees will now receive a reimbursement to purchase health insurance on their own. Anyone who has ever purchased health care in the individual market will tell you that there is definitely going to be a huge amount of sticker shock as the reimbursement will likely never be as generous as the subsidy the company was paying for their health plan.

What should be clear by now is that this is just the beginning of the highly anticipated (for those of us who were paying attention and knew how the health insurance market worked) and probably hoped for repercussions of the new legislation (because what better way to get a bigger piece of the pie for the government than to make the government the only player in major parts of the market).

Choice and Competition Death Watch will be a semi-regular feature.

Poor Russ Carnahan

You can really tell that Russ Carnahan desperately wants to be seen as a smart man. Why else would he speak so forcefully about a topic without knowing much about it. That’s exactly what he did in his debate against Ed Martin.

Carnahan attempted to gain some political points against Martin by railing against Social Security privatization, tying his wisdom to the drop in the stock market during this recession. While doing so, Carnahan – apparently with a straight face – tried to claim that Social Security is “stable”. Yikes.

The crowd, as you can see in the video below, gave the Congressman a nice round of chuckles.

Much like Sharp Elbows, I think the Congressman could have a future as a comedian. Why not? We’ve seen plenty of jokers elected to Congress.

I sure hope Congressman Carnahan doesn’t look at every other program that he has helped to grow in the same light. On second thought, I’m pretty sure he’s just fine with our ballooning entitlement obligations. It’s pretty easy to have high hopes for a failing program when you have your head in the sand.

P.S. Ed Martin for Congress. He’s under no delusion that Social Security is sustainable as currently designed.

Seventy One Percent of Missouri Voters Agree With Candidate Obama

On Tuesday, Missouri voters went to the polls. Among other things, the voters decided on Proposition C, a statute exempting Missouri from the individual mandate from Obamacare. By an overwhelming percentage, voters rejected Obamacare and passed Prop C (71.1 to 28.9). This ardent rejection of the individual mandate puts Missouri voters on par with then-Candidate Obama who, during the 2008 primary, attacked Sen Hillary Clinton’s health care plan because it contained an individual mandate.

For those of you who don’t remember, here’s video of President Obama sounding much like his opposition just a few short months later.

Gee, if only President Obama would have listened to Candidate Obama he wouldn’t have had to face this type of a rebuke from Missouri voters.

Reid to Nutroots: ‘We’re Going To Have a Public Option’

It’s the bad idea that just won’t die: the public option.

Progressives have been pushing a government run “option” to private health insurance as some sort of panacea over the last few years. Their vision is that a government that has shown itself to be second to none in cost over-runs and bloat will somehow magically be able to operate more effectively and efficiently than private sector insurance. Their claims are that this will finally bring choice and competition to the insurance market.

Hogwash.

Conservatives won a minor victory (yes, it was a victory) when we got this stripped from the bill through public pressure. Despite that victory, the public option is not dead yet.

This weekend at ~~Nutroots~~ Netroots Nation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made his promise to the progressive activists and bloggers in attendance that they were going to get a public option passed.

“We’re going to have a public option,” Reid said. “It’s just a question of when.”

That “when” could be as soon as this year as Democrats wasted no time in reintroducing the public option as legislation.

It’s no secret that Progressives are playing the long game on health care. The failure of Obamacare will be used to push for the public option. When the public option fails (and it will), that failure will be used to push for single payer.

This is why Conservatives must begin to rally around free market solutions to health care. We must begin to swing the pendulum back in the direction of freedom.

Where’s Russ?*

You can tell when someone has become so used to being a politician that they repeatedly let their mouth write checks that they know will bounce. Recently, local blogger dsm at Reboot Congress attended a Russ Carnahan (D-MO) town hall. Carnahan had a few “promises” that he wanted to make. His chief promise: His door will always be open. dsm decided to take him up on that promise.

So much for empty promises.

P.S. Remember, Ed Martin for Congress.

*Yes, I was going for the Where’s Waldo? reference.

Yet Another Example of Tea Party Violence

Oops. I forgot to tell you it was yet another example of lefty violence at a tea party. Crickets from the main stream media in 3, 2, 1…

Update I really should remember to hat tip 24th State

Blagojevich Indicts Entire Political Process

The opening statements of the trial of former Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich (D-in case you forgot) started today. In a sign that this truly will be one of the great spectator sports, Blagojevich’s attorneys have mounted an interesting defense of their client.

Blagojevich’s attorney, Sam Adam, argues in a motion filed this morning that the federal wiretaps that form the bulk of the government’s evidence are tapes of a politician engaged in political speech—and therefore untouchable under the First Amendment. “In this case, the defendant was engaged in political speech and expression,’’ argues the motion. “The government alleges that the political process in which he was engaged is criminal. This is a violation of the defendant’s rights of freedom of speech and expression afforded him under the United States Constitution.’’

Well, I guess by this logic every criminal act committed by a politician is covered.

Nixon and Watergage Check!
Ted Stevens Check!
Bill Clinton lying under oath Check!
George Ryan selling government contracts* Check!

In reality this sounds like a rather sharp indictment of the entire political process. It doesn’t matter if it’s Washington, D.C. or Springfield, IL. Too many of our politicians feel that what they do is entitled to them. The quid pro quo nature of just about everything that our politicians do would leave most Americans feeling like they needed a shower at the end of the day. You see, when selling a Senate seat feels like business as usual why would you ever think that you were doing anything wrong?

*Seriously I could have made this entire list about former Governors of Illinois. There’s something really wrong with that state.

Pennsylvania Outsleazes the Bill Collector

The state of Pennsylvania has a new commercial out for those who haven’t paid their taxes yet. Just tell me this doesn’t creep you out a little.

Now, I don’t doubt for a minute that “Tom” is a fictitious person. However, if he were not, the state of Pennsylvania just used tactics that debt collectors have been barred from using for over 30 years now via the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act of 1978(pdf) . They publicly advertised his debt, revealed personal information to a third party and made some very thinly veiled threats.

Not only are these practices illegal, the industry has an association set up that helps advise agencies how to stay current in a changing world of compliance. So, congratulations Pennsylvania. You just stooped to tactics that even the bill collector frowns upon.

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats. Sort of.

The first part of the title to this post is a very common phrase amongst conservative circles. In it’s simplest form, the phrase means that as long as we can improve the general economy we will improve the lot of everyone actively involved in the economy. Generally, this statement is true. A growing economy grows total compensation for workers at all levels. The phrase is incomplete though. You can’t artificially raise the tide. You’ll drown a lot of boats.

The Obama Administration is set to do just that. From Friday’s New York Times:

The Obama administration is planning to use the government’s enormous buying power to prod private companies to improve wages and benefits for millions of workers, according to White House officials and several interest groups briefed on the plan.

By altering how it awards $500 billion in contracts each year, the government would disqualify more companies with labor, environmental or other violations and give an edge to companies that offer better levels of pay, health coverage, pensions and other benefits, the officials said.

Because nearly one in four workers is employed by companies that have contracts with the federal government, administration officials see the plan as a way to shape social policy and lift more families into the middle class.

On it’s face, this sounds like a good move. Use your large bargaining power to raise wages for those jobs that fall under federal contracts. The problem is, you have to think about more than just the immediate consequences of your actions when you set economic policy. I’ll let Marginal Revolution’s Alex Tabarrok explain:

At a time of 10% unemployment when real wages need to fall this is bad business cycle policy. I am more worried, however, about the long term consequences of creating a dual labor market in which insiders with government or government-connected jobs are highly paid and secure while outsiders face high unemployment rates, low wages and part-time work without a career path.

Long-term unemployment is at shockingly high levels which in itself creates a dynamic of persistence because the longer a worker is unemployed the less employable they become (in part due to loss of human capital and signaling problems). Thus, getting these workers back to work is going to be hard enough as it is. Labor regulations which raise wages and make hiring and firing workers even more costly will make re-employing the long-term unemployed even more difficult.

Moreover, once an economy is in the insider-outsider equilibrium it’s very difficult to get out because insiders fear that they will lose their privileges with a deregulated labor market and outsiders focus their political energy not on deregulating the labor market but on becoming insiders[.]

The Obama Administration, through these actions, is going to assure that the easiest way to earn a decent wage is to have a government job. Why would you trade in your artificially inflated government salary for a public sector job that has depressed wages? Most wouldn’t. We really would be creating “two Americas”, only it won’t be Big Business leading the charge, it will be Big Government (and it’s ally in Big Labor). Don’t believe me about the Big Labor part? Read further in the NYT piece:

Two of Mr. Obama’s allies — John Podesta, the Clinton administration chief of staff who headed the president’s transition team, and Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union — have repeatedly pressed the president to use procurement policy to push up wages and benefits. [emphasis mine]

That’s what you call payback for helping him get elected. [Aside: How many ways does Obama have to pay back Big Labor? On top of pushing for card check and an overwhelming portion of stimulus funds going to union jobs, he's now stacking the deck in government contracts too?]

So, how do we fix our phrase? I think it should be “A rising tide lifts all boats, as long as they aren’t tethered to the bottom of the ocean.”

P.S.: That insider-outsider equilibrium thing pretty much explains why Big Government seems to always get bigger no matter who is in charge, doesn’t it? That’s why it is going to take an extremely focused effort on the part of conservatives to slay the beast. Whatever we do, we can’t get discouraged. It’s going to take a lot of work. I hope you are in this one for the long haul.

h/t to Instapundit

What Is MO Secretary of State Carnahan Trying to Hide?

Jim Durbin, editor of 24thstate.com, has been all over a case involving ACORN, Project Vote and the National Voters Rights Act (NVRA). You see, it seems that the Secretary of State’s office coordinated with Project Vote (one of ACORN’s many names) on a law suit against the state of Missouri that cost tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars. As part of Jim’s investigation, he filed a Sunshine request with the Secretary of State’s office seeking information into the number of people registered to vote through the Department of Social Services. He’s trying to confirm the data that Project Vote has published in their own case study (PDF). After several weeks with no response, Jim received this:

Does not have any documents? Like Jim, I wonder how does this happen. The Secretary of State’s office is responsible for all voter registrations. The Department of Social Services had to turn over all of their registrations to the SOS. These documents aren’t even two years old at this point. Now, someone else can get into the legalities behind the SOS office not having the documents to prove that the state is in compliance with a law that it just lost a lawsuit over. I can only think of two possible reasons for the SOS office to not turn the documents over:

1. Incompetence: A highly likely outcome. {Just think about the actions of the SOS’s brother, Congressman Russ Carnahan).

2. They have something to hide. What they are trying to hide, I can’t exactly be sure. It certainly wouldn’t be the overly cozy relationship that Carnahan shares with ACORN. That’s not exactly a secret.

I’d say that Jim needs some help finding out. So, here is the contact information for the Missouri Secretary of State’s office:

Office of the Secretary of State
State Capitol, Room 208 or State Information Center, 600 W Main
Jefferson City, MO 65101

(573) 751-4936 [ SOS Information ]
SOSmain@sos.mo.gov

If you continue to get stonewalled, just like Jim, maybe we might want to look at filing a complaint with the State Attorney General (PDF).

Hack Reporter Attacks Local Blogger

Local blogger Adam Sharp, the man behind Sharp Elbows STL, attended a recent HCAN rally. Adam has a pretty good history of getting some quality footage at these events (check out his archives). This rally was no different.

Adam arrived on the scene expecting to find his normal HCAN craziness. What he got was even better. Local “reporter” Charles Jaco (of KTVI Fox 2 and KTRS 550 AM) was in attendance. Some of you may remember Jaco from his stellar (:snicker:) reporting on the Gulf War:

Well, Jaco has continued his quality work. For the past year, he has been insulting anyone who attends a Tea Party protest with the sexual term “teabagger”. Jaco has had it pointed out to him multiple times that he is slurring people by using that term. Has that stopped him? No. Have complaints to his employers worked? No.

Adam decided that this was his chance to confront Jaco about the term. Apparently Jaco doesn’t like being questioned:

I’m really not sure how Jaco thinks he can get away with lying about knowing the meaning of the term he uses. Any journalist worth his weight would have researched the meaning of a word before using it.

Stay classy Jaco.

Update: There is now even a Cause on Facebook: Dump Charles Jaco! They’ve provided some contact information for Jaco’s two employers:

FOX 2 KTVI
2250 Ball Drive
Saint Louis, MO 63146
Main Station Phone: 314-213-2222
Assignment Desk Phone: 314-213-7831
Newsroom E-mail: ktvinews@tvstl.com

KTRS-Am 550
638 Westport Plz
Saint Louis, MO 63146-3106
Fred Zielonko
Station Manager
+1.314.453.5500
fredz@ktrs.com

Expanded Cornhusker Kickback Would Cost Billions

By now, everyone is aware of the lucrative payoff that Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson (D) received to vote for the Senate health care bill. Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Nelson insisted that every state would get the kickback and he would make sure that happened (as Brian Faughnan reported a few weeks ago). Needless to say, Nelson’s kickback, when expanded to all 50 states would become very expensive.

Thanks to Paul Ryan (R-WI), we don’t have to wonder how expensive it will be. He asked the CBO to estimate the costs of this expansion. The following document is the response Rep. Ryan received.

CBO Analysis Nebraska Deal .

As you can see, this expansion of the program to all 50 states would result in an increase of the cost of the bill of $35.3 billion. {This would wipe out a healthy chunk of the CBO estimated budget deficit reduction of $130 billion.}

As Philip Klein points out in The American Spectator, the cost of the bill is yet again hidden by creative accounting. Much like with the rest of the bill (which has 7 years of benefits spread over 10 years of taxes) the expanded Cornhusker kickback only represents three years of cost increases spread over 10 years. This means that the true cost of the kickback won’t really be felt until the second 10 year period.

If Nelson is correct, and every state has access to this kickback, then the good Senator can rightly be accused of selling his soul for the fiscal ruin of his country.

h/t to John Goodman for the letter.

Cross-posted at my personal blog.

McCowan Weaving a Tangled Web

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive.
~ Sir Walter Scott

SEIU thug Elston McCowan just can’t seem to keep his story straight.

As 24thstate.com’s Jim Durbin points out, Reverend Elston McCowan is having some consistency issues with his version of the events on the night of Congressman Carnahan’s health care town hall. His original story of that night’s events come from a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article published on August 8th.

But Elston McCowan, an SEIU staffer, said Gladney was actually an instigator. McCowan accused Gladney of attacking him as he walked to his car. McCowan said he suffered a dislocated shoulder.

“Out of nowhere, the guy just assaults me,” said McCowan, 47, of St. Louis.

McCowan’s quote makes it clear that he was jumped by Kenneth Gladney. This wording makes it clear that there was absolutely no interaction between the two before the altercation. If only McCowan would have stuck to this story.

After much backlash (and probably a lot of coaching from the SEIU), McCowan is changing his story. His new version of events appears in, wait for it, Links: The International Journal of Socialist Renewal.

Walking outside, McCowan saw Gladney selling buttons of Obama in blackface and Obama smoking weed. Feeling insulted, McCowan asked why a black man would be hawking material denigrating the first black president as he pointed to one of the buttons.

“When I pointed at the button, Gladney slapped my hand. So I told him not to hit me and pointed at it again and repeated my question. He smacked my hand even harder, hit me several times and pushed me down. As I went down, I grabbed him by reflex to break my fall. I hit my shoulder and something popped. I lost consciousness for a moment but soon realised that Gladney continued to hit me.

“Another SEIU guy, Perry Molens, came over and told Gladney, ‘He’s a minister and won’t fight back. He can’t see out of one eye. Stop hitting him!’. When Gladney kept on, Perry tried to get him off of me and threw a punch in the process.

“I don’t know why Gladney had an attorney on hand, but his attorney came over yelling ‘You two attacked him!’. Gladney went off to find cops and told them to arrest us. The cops wouldn’t listen to us and did what the Tea Party people told them to do. They arrested me, Perry, a newspaper reporter and three supporters of healthcare reform.”

This is a decidedly different story. No longer is McCowan claiming that Gladney attacked him out of nowhere. He now says that the dispute was over buttons of Obama in blackface and smoking pot. It is a seemingly small change in the story, but if McCowan is willing to lie about how this we know he is certainly willing to lie about who the instigator was.

Here’s the other problem: No one can prove that these buttons exist. Here are the six buttons that Gladney attorney David Brown says Gladney was selling (via same 24thstate.com posting)

Not one of those even has Obama pictured in it.

Jim put out a challenge: Find a picture of the buttons that McCowan was supposedly questioning. A blogger by the name of Adam at St. Louis Activist Blog claimed to find the conclusive evidence. He’s got a screen cap of a button with Obama in it that was on the board of another one of the button sellers (apparently another black conservative who was selling buttons for Gladney attorney David Brown The owner of this board is David Brown himself. He runs a business on the side selling merchandise at political events. He sold some of his buttons to Gladney.).

This is Adam’s conclusive evidence that a button of Obama smoking weed existed. The problem is that the picture shows nothing of the sort. In fact, I’m betting that most people here on RedState have probably seen the source image for this button several times.

Now, I will grant that I am one of the biggest squares around. Even I can tell that this is not a picture of Barack Obama smoking pot. It’s just your average, every day cancer stick (AKA tobacco cigarette). I guess I could give a certain amount of leeway given the replacing of the word HOPE with DOPE why one would make this mistake considering that you really can’t see the difference on a low-resolution image taken from a YouTube video. You would think that someone would make sure their evidence was air tight before going to print with it. {Oh, and Andy. I’ve got a screen cap of your post. Don’t try to send it down the memory hole.}

While it is true that Andy has shown that more than six buttons were for sale, there is still no evidence to support McCowan’s assertion. He has already told two different versions of what happened that night. How many more does he have to tell before he finally admits the truth?

Then again, McCowan isn’t the only one lying from that night.

Note: Corrected information comes from a follow-up post by Jim on 24thstate.com.

Cross-posted at my personal blog.

Defending Against Dishonesty

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote a very dishonest op-ed ["Defending the Indefensible"] attacking what they call “opponents of health reform”. Here is my response that I left for them on their web site:

I guess this is one way to win an argument.

1. Claim that your opponents are arguing for something that they aren’t. Who exactly has put forward a plan that says “Keep everything exactly the way it is now”? Now, given that the makeup of Congress is such that the only plan that could possibly pass would be one that is decidedly more liberal (more apt to allow government control) than conservative, the outcome of the current session would be either a liberal plan or no plan. This does not mean that conservatives wish to maintain the status quo. People like Congressman Paul Ryan have been pushing a conservative option for a few years now.

2. And then quote questionable studies that are influenced by how much government controls health care to determine quality of said system to slime those opponents. What is it that a native son of Missouri used to say about statistics? It’s not all that hard to skew the results to be how you want them when you can control the input variables to favor your outcome.

3. While simultaneously assuming that the problem is really one of health insurance and not the health care industry. The cost of health insurance is a function of the health care market (or this thing that is supposed to be a market but hasn’t been a functioning market since 1965). As health care costs rise, so will health insurance premiums since we incentivize individuals to claim everything under the sun on their insurance plan.

4. Opponents have been making a coherent case. You just aren’t listening. See Rep Paul Ryan of above. See Michael Tanner and Michael Cannon at CATO. See Greg Scandlen. See a brilliant op-ed by Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey in the Wall Street Journal. Etc.

As to some of the points that you make.

1. Higher administrative costs exist because you are not comparing things that are alike. In other countries, as with Medicare and Medicaid, there are many costs that are not included in their budgets. For example, in the private health care market, insurance companies have to have departments for billing, legal teams, etc that government run entities include in other budgets. The costs of the IRS collecting premiums are not included in the costs of Medicare. Neither is the costs of prosecuting those who commit fraud against the system. The same goes for many other countries. They shift those costs to other departments to make their numbers look better. {Gee, that sounds an awful lot like Enron style accounting to me}

2. Wasteful spending exists for several reasons. First, doctors practice a lot of CYA. They get sued (a lot). The best defense against a law suit is to show that you “did everything you could”. Even if that means ordering tests that have little to no benefit to diagnosis. Second, people bear a small portion of the costs of their decisions. When covered by insurance, the cost difference between an X-ray or an MRI seem quite small. When an X-ray will suffice (which costs far less) many will insist on receiving the MRI because they think it will give better results (at much higher cost). Because of the insurance coverage that they do have, they never see the true impact of that decision.

3. People most assuredly will lose their current coverage under the current proposals in front of congress. Own an insurance plan that is not exchange approved? You can keep it until the company has to alter the plan. Then you are forced to buy a policy from the exchange which is likely to be more expensive than the one you had before. On a company run plan? When faced with the decision between paying you $4000 for your individual plan or $12000 for a family plan versus a $750 fine for not providing insurance coverage, which do you think your employer is going to choose? If you said that they would continue to offer coverage you should be reminded that companies are looking to cut costs everywhere, especially these days. And cutting costs by millions of dollars would just be far too attractive to many companies to ignore.

A topic that you really miss covering here is how the current proposals will lead to a decrease in employee wages. If an employer is required to provide insurance coverage or face a fine, their costs of employing someone are going to go up in either instance if they don’t already offer health coverage. In an environment where wages are already seeing very slow growth, this would shift additional compensation dollars to health care since employers already cannot afford to both increase wages and health care premium contributions at adequate rates. Forcing them to put more into the health care premium contribution means that there will be fewer dollars available for wage increases. In extreme cases, this could even mean a reduction in either wages or number of employees if costs get too far out of hand.

{P.S. Is this reasoned enough debate for you? Or am I just trying to “fear monger” as you have so broadly painted the “anti-reformists”?}

Cross-posted at my personal blog.

Meet Elston McCowan

This is Elston McCowan.

Elston K. McCowan is a former organizer – now the Public Service Director of SEIU Local 2000 – and board member of the Walbridge Community Education Center, and is a Baptist minister, has been a community organizer for more than 23 years, and now, he is running for Mayor of the City of St. Louis under the banner of the Green Party of St. Louis.

[ed: This was from before the election. McCowan is now a former nominee of the Green Party.]

All of that sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Well, except for the position with the SEIU and the whole Green Party thing (think Cynthia McKinney).

The problem with McCowan is that he is something more. McCowan is a thug.

You’ve actually seen McCowan before. He was in a video that has been played on just about every blog on the right, mentioned on countless radio programs and has even seen play on cable news. The video sparked the protest that I attended on Saturday outside of the SEIU office here in St. Louis. See if you recognize him now.

(Click image to view original YouTube video of the aftermath)

This is one of the men (along with another upstanding citizen in a SEIU shirt) who did this to Kenneth Gladney:

Kenneth, like many other protesters, went to the townhall on Thursday seeking to voice their opinion. He had hoped to spread the message of liberty by passing out the Gadsden flag. McCowan beat Kenneth over a flag*. He found the message of liberty to be too much so he tried to stop Kenneth’s freedom of speech with his fists**.

And just think that these fine, upstanding individuals now claim that Kenneth attacked McCowan.

Don’t let them get away with this. Stand with Kenneth. Attend your local town hall, tea party or any event where you can speak your mind. I suggest you organize something yourself if you can’t find an event near you***. Heck, even if you are the only one that shows up, don’t let your voice be silenced. Send the message loud and clear:

h/t to Bill Hennessy for the news.

*Don’t tell me there isn’t a certain sense of irony involved in beating a man passing out the Gadsden flag emblazoned with the words “Don’t Tread On Me”.

**How very becoming of a minister. Remember that from his profile?

***Here in the St. Louis area there is a program called 99 Corners. Individuals have pledged to organize protests on major street corners. This could be a great way to get involved in your neighborhood.

Cross-posted at my personal blog.

“Don’t Tread On Me”

Those were the words of Kenneth Gladney. These words however were spoken by his lawyer since Gladney was under heavy medication as a result of the beating he took at the hands of SEIU thugs.

St. Louis Tea Party Protest @ SEIU Office – August 8, 2009 from Brian Simpson on Vimeo.

If you can’t see the video it is of a speech by St. Louis Tea Party’s Bill Hennessey and the attorney for Kenneth Gladney.

I’m hoping for a transcript of the prepared statement soon.

You can see some of the pictures of the “mob” here. Do these people look dangerous?

Full photostream here.

More on this at Gateway Pundit, Josh Schroeder’s blog, and Amir Kuritovic.