Uwe Reinhardt (seriously?), “A ‘Government Takeover’ of Health Care?“

I’m told the health care summit turned out to be mostly political theater, as expected. Sometimes I wonder if mass media itself is part of the problem. If politics were an ecosystem, it would seem the introduction of mass media into the environment has given us a species of politicians who can’t do anything else but political theater.

There has always been plenty of corruption and bamboozling in Washington, but in generations past the corrupt bamboozlers were capable of running a government and passing legislation that made a real difference in people’s lives. Now I look at people like John Boehner and Eric Cantor, and wonder, what the hell do you do, exactly? Because it seems their only real function is going through the motions for the cameras; they aren’t real senators, but just play the role on TeeVee.

The question is, is this new species the wave of the future, or have congressional Republicans (and some conservative Democrats) marched into an evolutionary cul de sac, too over-specialized to adapt to changing conditions? And I do think the way to defeat them is not to attack them individually and directly, but to change the conditions that sustain them. Maybe I’ll address that some other time.

At Slate, Timothy Noah has an interesting observation — the ruling class doesn’t fear the peasants enough.

Starting late in the 19th century and ending late in the 20th, a hugely important engine of social progress was fear on the part of the nation’s leaders that economic inequality, if it were allowed to become too severe, would lead to class warfare and maybe the radical overthrow of the U.S. government. That’s why Andrew Carnegie founded his libraries; it’s why the states ratified the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, creating the modern progressive income tax; it’s why Franklin Roosevelt created the New Deal (“The failure of Republican leaders to solve our troubles,” Roosevelt said when he accepted the Democratic nomination in 1932, “may degenerate into unreasoning radicalism”); it’s why Harvard President James Bryant Conant moved Harvard to a merit-based system of admissions subsequently adopted by other universities; and it’s why every Republican president from Dwight Eisenhower to Ronald Reagan pursued domestic economic and social policies only somewhat less liberal than those favored by Democrats.

Of course, it was Reagan who stopped that trend, and beginning in the 1980s income inequality has grown.

But instead of fearing radicalism fueled by income inequality, today’s “conservatives” thrive on it. Instead of dealing with the issues that are causing people to be angry, conservatives just fan the flames to make people more angry, hoping to harness that anger into political power. And it’s worked for them pretty well, so far. But is it sustainable, or will it all flame back into their faces someday?

See also: Paul Krugman, “Afflicting the Afflicted.”

In case anyone is interested, here is the CBO analysis everyone is claiming says premium costs will go up or go down. You can see for yourself who is lying and who isn’t. Or, who is maybe not lying but instead is reporting the numbers in a way that seems to favor the lie.

For example, The Note claims the CBO analysis says “The net effect of those three factors: Premiums would be 10 to 13 percent higher for the average policyholders.”

This is deceptive The 10 to 13 percent figure applies only to non-group policies. Since the overwhelming majority of people are in group plans, the “average policyholder” is in a group policy. The same analysis shows group policy costs to remain about the same, give or take one percentage point.

Someone not reading carefully, such as Jammie Wearing Fool, might easily take away from the Note that the cost of most people’s insurance policy’s will go up. Not so.

Further, the increase for non-group policy costs comes from the assumption that people will choose to purchase more comprehensive policies. As Ezra explains,

CBO expects prices in the individual market to rise by 10 or 12 percent, an expectation driven entirely by predictions that individuals will purchase policies that are much more comprehensive, and thus somewhat more expensive, then the insurance they can afford now. … as the CBO explains on page five, part of the increase in the type of insurance being purchased is the result of “people’s decisions to purchase more extensive coverage in response to the structure of subsidies.” In other words, the change is driven by the subsidies, not offset by them.

However, if you keep the non-group policy you already have, the premium cost should go down.

The much anticipated health care summit is today, from 10 am to 4 pm EST. I don’t plan to live blog the whole thing but will be monitoring it on the TeeVee and may post if something strikes me as significant — like, releasing tigers.

I haven’t seen it, but Ben Dimiero of Media Matters says rightie media is furiously promoting a Breitbart TV video that shows Democrats in 2005 criticizing the “nuclear option.” Well, I’ll let him explain it —

The “nuclear option” was a term coined by Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) in reference to his proposed change to Senate rules that would have banned use of the filibuster for judicial nominations.

Reconciliation, on the other hand, requires no change to Senate rules since it has been used repeatedly over the years to pass major legislation – notably to pass major pieces of health care reform legislation. Republicans themselves weren’t quite so uncomfortable with the supposedly “dirty” process when they used it to pass President Bush’s tax cuts. Multiple times. …

…In a jaw-dropping display of audacity, the video runs several examples of Democrats railing against the “nuclear option” in 2005. The video attempts to juxtapose this with their current support for reconciliation to show their supposed hypocrisy.

This is absurd.

The Democrats in the video are railing against the “nuclear option” as defined by Lott, not the new definition conservatives have decided to bestow upon the phrase. On his radio show, Beck called the video “laughable” and “unbelievable.” I agree with those characterizations, but for slightly different reasons.

To prove a point, I propose we change the definition of “deficits” to mean “freedom,” then put together a reel of conservatives attacking “freedom.”

It would be about as honest.

It may be a sign of the times that news of a new school shooting in Littleton, Colorado, seems to be making no splash at all on the blogosphere. No one was killed, fortunately, but still, you’d think some blogger would mention it. I haven’t even seen any rightie bloggers try to claim the shooter was a liberal.

Anyway, guns are in the news. Ian Urbina reports for the New York Times that states are tossing out what’s left of firearm regulations in anticipation of the Great Obama Gun Grab that’s supposed to begin any minute now.

President Obama has never indicated he intends to try to confiscate firearms, and last year he signed bills that allows firearms to be carried in national parks and on Amtrak trains. But that just shows how diabolically clever he is. As soon as gun owners relax their guard, agents from ACORN will show up at their doors to confiscate their firearms.

Some states have passed laws saying that firearms manufactured, purchased and used entirely within their states are not subject to any federal regulation. Which is to say, if you think the U.S. Congress is a waste of protoplasm, you probably don’t want to look at your state legislature real hard.

I read this week that the Indiana legislature is debating a bill that would deny employers the right to ban firearms from their property. Gun owners want to be able to store their guns in their cars while parked in the company parking lot.

Employers complain that the bill interferes with their property rights. The National Rifle Association says that the right to self-defense trumps property rights. I guess if there’s a hold-up in your workplace, you could tell the bandit to wait until you fetch the rifle from your car.

It’s crazy out there, people.

Just in case this post attracts some firearm, um, enthusiasts, let me say that I do not oppose personal firearm ownership per se. I have never owned a gun, but if I lived in a remote mountain cabin in Montana, I might keep a loaded shotgun on the wall. I don’t even oppose hunting, even though I am a Buddhist. I wouldn’t go hunting myself, but I wouldn’t stop other people from hunting as long as they know what they’re doing and follow state laws and hunting safety rules and, most of all, stay sober.

I also think there’s some truth in the slogan “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” As Michael Moore pointed out in Bowling for Columbine, there are other nations, notably Canada, in which lots of people own guns and which don’t have anywhere near the level of gun violence you find in America.

The cause of gun violence is not guns alone, but a combination of guns plus people who are (a) paranoid, (b) angry, (c) paranoid and angry, (d) criminal, (e) psychotic, or (e) all of the above. Unfortunately, that list describes a large portion of the American public.

And, unfortunately, the people who are most hysterical about keeping their right to bear arms are the same people you’d least likely trust to use a firearm responsibly. (See list in previous paragraph.) The NY Times article pretty much backs me up on that.

The current stampede to reverse state firearms regulations is part of an ongoing trend. Although it hasn’t been updated since 2006, this animated graphic shows changes in right-to-carry laws nationwide. This is supposed to make us safer from criminals carrying guns, a claim demolished pretty well on this website.

And Steve M. has data showing how Virginia’s gun laws impact crime in New York City. New York City? Virginia is the primary supplier of guns used in crimes in NYC. Years ago criminals could drive down to Virginia, legally purchase a carload of firearms, and drive them back to NYC. In 1993, Virginia passed a law restricting citizens to one firearm purchase a month, which contributed to a dramatic drop in violent crime in NYC.

Well, guess what, folks? Virginia just voted to repeal the law. Because, you know, purchasing one gun per month isn’t good enough to keep law-abiding citizens self-protected.