Planet Utah

Everybody just chill

There's a lot of discussion these days about why the Obama stimulus plan isn't working and what that means for Democrats' political prospects.

Please. Things will probably change a hundred times before 2010, let alone 2012.

Think back to 1982. The economy was in a severe recession, everybody said Reaganomics had failed, the Reagan revolution was over, etc. Then in 1984 the economy was roaring, it was morning again in America, and Ronald Reagan won every state except Minnesota.

I know that the 24-hour news cycle demands ever-changing story lines...but that doesn't mean you and I have to take them all seriously.

Who needs cable (he asked rhetorically, but defiantly)?

When I moved to Austin, I discovered that cable TV cost about 50 percent more than it did in Phoenix. I'm not a big watcher of original TV programming, so I decided to go without cable. Let me tell you what I've done instead.

First, I bought a DVR called DTVPal. It's a bit like TiVo, only: a) it doesn't require a subscription; and b) it's not quite as smart. But it can do the basics.

Second, I hooked up a cheap, Web-connected computer to my TV.

Third, I bought the cheapest available subscription to Netflix, which costs nine bucks per month.

With the DVR, I can record regular network TV fare and syndicated reruns, and then play them back at my convenience, skipping through the commercials. This allowed me to watch, and enjoy, an entire season of "24" for the first time in my life.

With the computer hooked to my TV, combined with the Netflix subscription, I can stream movies directly from the Netflix Web site to my TV. You can't stream the very best stuff from Netflix, but there's plenty of good stuff...including lots of television series.

One thing that has NOT worked particularly well is using sites like Hulu to run TV or movie content from the Web to my TV. The video quality just isn't that great. I'm sure it will be, though, in the not-too-distant future.

So, that's my inspirational story. If you want to be like me and cut the coaxial cord connecting you to Time Warner, Cox, or whomever your provider might be, a little bit of hardware and a cheap Netflix subscription might provide as much entertainment as you need.

Sarah Palin reassures opponents: "Don't worry--I'm as flaky as you think"

With the announcement today of her resignation, Sarah Palin--whether she knows it or not--has taken herself out of the running for president or vice president. After her uneven performance in last year's campaign, the questions about her knowledge and experience, the assorted family controversies and ethics complaints in Alaska, and now her resignation, even supporters like me have to say, "Sorry...you're asking for too much, and you're not doing nearly enough."

Footnote: Because I'm a Palin supporter, I'd like to assume she's smart enough to have figured out what I wrote just above. If that's true, then maybe: (1) she wasn't interested in a national political career in the first place; (2) she was interested in a national political career, but was sick of the media bullshit and the coverage of her family; or (3) she's aware of some information that we are not, which information would most likely disqualify her for higher office anyway.

In other words, I'm hoping this wasn't just a dumb, ill-considered decision.

The right way to get caught with your wiener in the pickle-slicer

There's something I've noticed about most of the recent political sex scandals: When caught, the pols have fessed up and sought to put the issue behind them. Compare that to the lie-and-deny approach of Larry Craig, John Edwards, or Bill Clinton.

Actually, guys like Larry Craig are probably the reason you have guys like Edwards and Clinton. Craig got away with it, in the sense that he never had to make a humiliating public confession. I suppose that as long as there's some chance of that outcome, it's human nature to want to try to bluff your way through.

But is it worth it? Consider what the first eight months of 1998 must have been like for Bill Clinton--knowing that he HAD, in fact, screwed around with Monica Lewinsky; knowing that there was probably lots of evidence to that effect if anyone cared to look; and knowing that two important and powerful parties DID care to look, namely, Ken Starr and the national media.

What are the odds that denial is going to work under these circumstances? Very, very slim. And yet, Clinton put himself and the country through eight agonizing, costly months, relying on nothing more than those slim odds. Stupid.

Footnote: Guy comes home from work early one day. His wife asks him what's up. He says, "I got fired." Wife says, "Why?" Guy says, "I got caught with my wiener in the pickle-slicer." Wife says, "Oh my gosh! Did anything happen to your wiener?" Guy says, "No, it's fine." Wife says, "What about the pickle-slicer?" Guy says, "She got fired too."

Anklenote: There's been lots of commentary about Republican hypocrisy when it comes to sex scandals. In general, I think the brushstrokes of this criticism are too broad. Just because I'm a member of the GOP, it doesn't mean that I've ever talked about "family values," criticized someone else for their sexual indiscretions, or held myself up as an example to be emulated. While that may be true of some members of the GOP, it's certainly not true of all, or even most.

More specifically with respect to Mark Sanford, I sincerely doubt that at least the second half of this allegation, which appeared in Salon this morning, is true: "However, like most Southern Republicans, Sanford talked like a biblical fundamentalist: piously condemning others' sexual sins and boasting about his own righteousness."

If Sanford ever "boasted about his own righteousness," he deserves everything he's getting, and then some.

Knee-note: Even though I ended the post with the word "stupid," what Clinton did may not have been so stupid after all. Mike McCurry, former Clinton press secretary, once described his approach to scandal management as "telling the truth, slowly." In other words, the lies and denials don't have to work forever--only long enough for the initial shock and outrage to die down, and for people to start saying, "Can we please move on?" At that point, it's safe to come clean with the whole truth.

The Vanity Fair piece on Sarah Palin

Yeah, I read it. Every word.

It wasn't fair, but come on, it's VF; they're not claiming to be an objective journalistic outlet. It was clear from the opening paragraph that it was going to be a one-sided piece, very critical of Palin. It didn't represent the whole truth any more than a prosecutor's opening statement does.

Furthermore, much of what was in the article has been said about other politicians in other contexts, but in those cases the behavior was described as "shrewd," "tough," "relentless," "wily," "focused," and so on. It's hard to think of an upwardly mobile national politician who wouldn't rather be known as a ruthless, vindictive son-of-bitch than as a nice guy. Bill Clinton is the former. Paul Tsongas was the latter. Nuf said.

Anyway, if you can get past the slant of the article, you can find what might be two legitimate concerns about Palin. First, she lacks discipline. She doesn't want to put in the work, stick to the script, learn from criticism, listen to advice, build a more impressive resume...all the things she needs to do if she wants to have a meaningful future in American politics. She's like a kid who insists on leaving college for the NBA after his first year, despite the shortcomings in his game, and against the advice of coaches and scouts. He ends up not getting drafted, playing in the NBA D-league, trying to make money by playing in Europe, etc. Had he been patient and disciplined, things might have turned out differently.

Second, Palin doesn't necessarily know her own strengths and weaknesses, and doesn't necessarily know how to exploit them. She appears to be a great retail politician that genuinely feels at home among middle-Americans. She's not a policy wonk, though, she's not particularly glib, she doesn't understand much about Washington, D.C., and she's not beloved of the national media. So, if she has national ambitions, she needs to do as much grass roots, retail politicking as she can in fly-over country, hitting on two or three big themes as she goes. She should avoid the national media, avoid a running commentary on the Obama administration, avoid trying to talk about policy specifics. Doing that stuff is like Shaq trying to hit three-pointers. Gotta know your strengths...

What they say about cap and trade

You've read my primary criticism of cap and trade here. (Actually, calling it "mine" isn't quite right. I lifted it from stuff I'd read and found persuasive.) It goes like this: Unless the world's other big economic powers implement similar cap-and-trade regimes, anything the U.S. does will produce almost no benefits in terms of global warming, but will have significant costs.

I've been surprised to find very little challenge to this premise on the left. That surprises me because in today's politics, advocates don't often let the truth stand in the way of their position. But from what I've read, it seems to me that the left is conceding the truth of the argument above.

So, why go ahead with cap and trade? Various lefties are making this case: Only by adopting a regime of our own will we have the authority to say to China, India, Russia, Brazil, Japan, Chad, Madagascar, and the tiny little Duchy of Grand Fenwick, "Hey, you all need to step up to the plate and do this, too."

And you know what? It's definitely true that with no regime of our own in place, other countries can say, "If it's such a great idea, why don't you go first?"

The question is, though, whether going first will actually get us anything. Conservatives say no. They say that by going first, we'll be giving up any negotiating leverage we might have had. Without cap and trade, we'd have cap and trade to offer: "Hey, China, if you do cap and trade, we will too." But with cap and trade already in place, we've lost that leverage.

These competing arguments represent two very different ways of looking at the world, and two very different assessments of how people, and entire nations, make decisions.

Who's right? I don't know. I do know, however, that if we go first and fail to get the rest of the world to go along, we're in a pickle. If we don't go first, though, and we then try, and fail, to get the rest of the world to hold hands with us and jump off the bridge together, we can always adopt cap and trade on our own, and return to the negotiating table with the authority that the left says we need. This seems like a much more sensible approach to me.

Footnote: For what it's worth, I think most political scientists--bolstered by game theory and their assumptions about the self-interested behavior of political actors--would side with the conservatives here. They'd look at the U.S. going first and predict that the rest of the world would respond in unison: "Suckers!" But according to their rational actor assumptions and their game theoretic models, nobody should vote on election day, either. So, you can't take them (I mean, us) too seriously.

Anklenote: Lehigh, you know rat choice and game theory much better than I, so please correct me if I'm wrong. Just be sure to address me as "Doctor" when you do...

The tired old "judge not" debate

I haven't blogged about religion very much in recent months, mainly because I've achieved a degree of peace when it comes to the issues I had been struggling with. Actually, it would be more accurate to say I've achieved a state of clear. That's what we call it in the Church of Scientology.

Just kidding, Mom and Dad! I mean, really, who can afford their own e-meter? (Actually, I have achieved a degree of peace, but I'll save that for another post.)

So, anyway, today I was listening to talk radio, and apparently some congregation got kicked out of some institutional church somewhere for somehow appearing to condone homosexuality. Well, the one side said, "Homosexuality is sinful behavior. You can't claim to be a Christian church and condone sinful behavior. So, if that's what the congregation was doing, they deserve what they got." This prompted people on the other side to call in and say, "Who are we to stand in judgment of others? Jesus said, 'Judge not, lest ye be judged.' The only one with the power to judge is God. If homosexuality is sinful, then God will judge homosexuals at the end of time. It's not our business to judge them in the here and now."

The problem I have with the latter response is that it glosses over the difference between judging people and judging behavior. My own interpretation of Jesus' teaching is that it is not our place to judge people, i.e., to say, "You are a good person," or "You are a wicked person"; only God can do that. I think Jesus is okay, however, with judging behavior. In fact, he gives explicit instructions for what to do when "your brother has sinned against you." Following those instructions requires that: a) we be able to identify sinful behavior in our brother; and b) that we point it out to our brother with an expectation that the behavior will change. We are, in other words, judging the behavior as bad and in need of change, and we are saying so.

This leaves open the question of what to do about sins against God. Homosexuality, for example, isn't a sin against ME, but it is a sin against God (or God's design), at least if you take Leviticus seriously. (And for those of you who think that Jesus didn't take Leviticus seriously, at several places in the Gospels he expressly affirms the continuing relevance of "the law," i.e., the Torah, i.e., the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.) In Leviticus, God calls homosexual sex an abomination, a detestable act, an enormous sin...depending on the translation you prefer.

So, for those who insist that we not judge sins against God, you are saying that our thought process should run as follows: "Well, God says this behavior is an enormous sin, and God says that this behavior is punishable by death...but I'm just not comfortable condemning it. Call me crazy..."

In my mind, that WOULD be crazy. If God condemns the behavior and requires us to be the instrument of civil justice in response to it (i.e., to stone people who engage in it, at least in Leviticus times), is it a reasonable expectation that we are not supposed to condemn the behavior as well? I don't think so...

Footnote: In preemptive fashion, let me acknowledge that Jesus also offered abundant cautions about judging the sins of others when we ourselves are engaged in sinful behavior. He was particularly sensitive about the Pharisees, whose condemnations of sin were public, and whose self-righteousness was also public. And he was a big believer in forgiving and forgetting rather than bearing grudges. But I don't think Jesus preached that we should never identify and condemn sin in others.

Anklenote: Would I be comfortable calling out someone else's sins? In certain circumstances, yes. It would have to be a pretty serious sin, it would have to be part of a pattern of behavior (not just a one-off thing that would never happen again), and the sin would have to be something of which I was not guilty myself. (That's the plank-in-your-own-eye caution.)

Did I mention that I solved the health care crisis?

I did. Surprisingly, it wasn't that hard.

The two things Democrats want most are: (1) universal coverage; and (2) a "public option," that is, a new, "Medicare-like" program into which non-elderly, regular Janes and Joes could opt. (I am self-consciously using quote marks here on phrases that have become so common in this debate as to seem trite. Rest assured, though, I will not be using the phrase, "bend the curve.")

So, let them have those two things.

The two things Republicans want most are: (1) individual choice; and (2) portability. (They consider the former a good thing in and of itself, but also good in that it creates a more robust health care market, which should result in lower prices, higher quality, etc. They consider the latter a good thing because it means no one will be stuck in a job they don't like or a state they don't like for fear of losing their insurance.)

So, let them have those two things.

Immediately, Republicans will object: "If you allow a public option, you already know what's going to happen. The federal government will insist on a Cadillac plan but will only pay Malibu prices. Health care providers will then charge private insurers more to make up for the money they're losing on the public option. Not only does this put private insurers in an unfair competitive position, it also does nothing to control health care costs. You're just squeezing the balloon again."

Here's how you fix that problem: Everyone will have to pay something for the health care plan they choose, and because there's going to be a net cost involved in all of this, what they pay will have to be more than what they pay today.  This added cost could take the form of higher deductibles/co-pays, a straight tax assessment, a premium, whatever. However you structure it, though, the amount you pay for your plan will be directly proportional to the value of the plan benefits, as determined by some independent entity. And the plan will be valued not just on the basis of an abstract basket of benefits it claims to provide, but on the benefits it actually provides in practice. If plan providers order up a full-body CT scan every time I go in, I'm going to have to bear part of the cost for that. If, on the other hand, plan providers never run any tests, and instead just encourage patients to eat an apple a day, I'm going to enjoy some of the savings from that.

What does this approach do for you? First, it establishes a more direct connection between the cost of health care and the costs that health care consumers pay. If you want more/better, you can have it, but you will have to pay more. That will help keep spending in check.

Second, this pricing scheme keeps the federal government from cheating. Politicians will be able to control the public plan, and their natural inclination will be to provide fantastic benefits, charge small premiums, and then say to voters, "See what we did for you?" All they really will have done, however, is disadvantage private insurers and rack up more debt. But if the consumer costs associated with the public plan are based on the value of plan benefits, then a Cadillac public plan will cost the consumer the same as a Cadillac private plan. In other words, politicians won't be able to cheat. The public plan and the private plans will have to compete on equal footing.

So, both Democrats and Republicans give a little but get a lot. Health care consumers, on the other hand, are mostly going to be giving; you can't enroll tens of millions of new people in the system and not expect it to cost something.

The question is, are our politicians grown up enough to level with the American people, to tell them that they can't have something for nothing? Probably not...

What Sarah Palin should do now

Go on Letterman! I'm serious. It would show that she was a big enough person to forgive and forget, and it would undoubtedly draw huge ratings--and introduce her to an audience that doesn't normally get to see her. And if she was gracious and funny, she would probably win over a lot of people. It might turn into a fresh start for her.

Footnote: As long as she doesn't talk about flowing oil and natural gas into hungry markets...

My own little health care story

Almost 10 years ago now, I became self-employed. I didn't know how long that status was going to last, but I figured I better buy my own health insurance. I got an individual policy, and the premium was about $110 per month. I remember thinking at the time how expensive that was, and how they had really jacked up the price because of some comparatively minor health issues I'd had in the past. In retrospect, I consider the premium to have been remarkably cheap.

Ten years later, I have that same insurance. The premium is now $155 per month--still very cheap, if you ask me. Since 2000, however, I have developed some chronic health issues. They don't require much in the way of doctor's visits, but I do have to take assorted medications. Those cost me about $200/month, with insurance covering the rest. I have various co-pays and deductibles for provider visits and tests, and if I want to see a specialist, sometimes I just refer myself and pay cash rather than going through the hassle of seeing if my doctor will refer me. But all in all, my insurance coverage is adequate, it gives me peace of mind, and I consider myself fortunate to have a policy I can afford.

The policy is not ideal for me, though, for a few reasons that I won't get into. Because it's not ideal, I started shopping for a new policy about six months ago. I found one that I liked, and I applied. DENIED. Why? Because of the medical conditions that I mentioned before. So, I called an insurance broker and asked for help. She found a company that would insure me, but: (a) the policy they wrote would exclude coverage--permanently--for my pre-existing medical conditions (which were the source of the previous denial); and (b) if the frequency/cost of the treatment for those conditions increased between now and the time the company received my application, they would deny me insurance coverage altogether. 

In other words, under the new policy I would be paying for 100 percent of the medications/ treatments related to my pre-existing medical conditions (whereas under the current policy those conditions are covered, and I only have to deal with the co-pay and deductible); and if those conditions should worsen before my new policy is approved, it's not going to be approved at all.

I probably don't need to tell you that I decided to keep my current policy, and that I consider myself lucky to have it. Basically, though, I'm stuck with it, although there are things about it I don't like. And I'm probably stuck with it even if I take a job some day with an employer who provides insurance. Why? Well, what if I leave that job? I can keep the coverage under COBRA, but that could be massively expensive, depending on what my employer was paying in premiums. If I decided to quit my COBRA coverage and reapply for individual insurance, I'd be in the boat I described up above--unable to get the kind of coverage I have now. So, even if I am some day able to get insurance through another source, I'll probably need to keep my individual policy, just to be on the safe side.

So what? So nothing, really. I assume that most of my readers, like most people, have insurance through their employer or through a government program (or both). If so, you've probably experienced your own set of problems, anxieties, frustrations, and headaches. I just wanted to give you a semi-personal look at some of the issues experienced by those of us who have individual insurance policies.

Footnote: And I wanted to suggest to you, by inference, the kinds of problems I'd be having if I had NOT bought an individual insurance policy before I began to have chronic medical problems. It's not an exaggeration to say that I would have been personally responsible for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses that instead have been picked up by my insurer. Or I might simply have gone without treatment.