So was Eric Massa set up?

The default position for any statement from a politician should be skepticism. However, having listened to most of this somewhat rambling radio comment from Eric Massa, the NY Dem Rep. who announced his resignation last Friday, I'm inclined to think that at he believes that he was set up to some extent by the House leadership because he was a vote against ObamaCare who wasn't likely to be swayed. However, history doesn't entirely hold together either. He says he decided to resign because he has had a recurrence of cancer and his doctor recommended getting away from the stress of being in Washington. But then a story was bandied about that he was under an ethics committee investigation for making sexual comments to a male staffer. He claims nobody told him about any ethics investigation and Steny Hoyer lied about it -- which I'm not disinclined to believe. And the supposed sexual comment to a staffer was a joke at a fairly drunken wedding party that the guy did not find offensive. Then there was that cool story about a naked Rahm Emanuel "son of the devil's spawn," confronting him naked in a shower at the House gym. Delicious stuff.

Still, if he's so all-fired opposed to ObamaCare, why not stick around a while longer and vote against it? Can his cancer be all that invasive that a couple of weeks doing what he thinks is right would threaten his life or recovery? Maybe so. But the case just gets curiouser and curiouser.

Obama, health care losing public opinion battle

In the wake of the so-called health care summit Thursday, Obama seems to be losing public-opinion ground. I noted this in a post on yesterday's Orange Punch blog at the Register, but today's Rasmussen daily tracking poll shows him losing another percentage point, and health care reform, Democrat-style, continues to be unpopular.

The notion that it's a good idea for Democrats to push through a reform proposal that has been unpopular with Americans since about August and hasn't gained any ground no matter what Obama has done, strikes me as surrea -- and most Americans are more worried about the economy and unemployment than the fond dream progressives have nursed ever since Teddy Roosevelt, but they just might do it

Obama stubborn about all the wrong things

I am simply fascinated at how stubborn Obama and his advisers are about health care "reform." They don't have the votes, largely because of divisions among the Democrats and Massachusetts sealed that deal for good. Yet he still wants to throw a hail-Mary pass by inviting Republicans to some kind of televised dog-and-pony show that they'll probably have to go to and which he will dominate.

Perhaps he is appealing to his left-wing base by continuing to beat that dead horse. One would wish he had chosen to appeal to that base on foreign policy, by doing the sensible thing and deciding not to get deeply involved in Afghanistan, where al-Qaida is not operating. Instead, his foreign policy looks like Bush III. Disastrous.

Why the Aughts sucked

It was easier to find things to complain about during the decade just passed. In my piece for the Register wrap-up I focused on 9/11 and America's disastrous response, from the Truly Superfluous Agency TSA to limitation of civil liberties to the ill-conceived Iraq war. Moving right along, there was also the financial crisis, almost entirely -- not quite entirely but almost -- caused by government, which most Americans still blame on "unfettered" capitalism and lack of regulation of the most heavily regulated industry in the country. Trouble is the regulators were pressing banks to write unsound mortgages in the name of affordable housing. Thanks for the help!

And then there's the likely government takeover of health care. This is a strictly ideological cause -- there are problems but no crisis -- but "progressives" have been luisting after socialized medicine since the time of Teddy Roosevelt. In TR's day there was an excuse -- no outright socialist regimes had been established and it sounded good in theory. How anybody can still see anything lovely in socialism and statism after the experience of the 20th century is beyond me. But obviously, lots of people can.

Health care uncertainty

Harry Reid rounded up 60 votes for the Senate to open consideration of his awful health-care proposal, but final passage is still a long way off. As this Register editorial explains (and as has been in the news for days), Sens. Lieberman, Nelson, Lincoln, Landrieu and others are unlikely to approve a public option. Whether they can win other retrenchment I don't know for sure. But even if something passes, it could well be a little less awful than what a full-force Obama/Pelosi/ReidCare would have inflicted on us. And there's just a chance gridlock will doom it.

I did a piece for Sunday's register Commentary section that is mostly constructive -- what might be an acceptable fallback position if ObamaCare fails and Congress gets an uncharacteristic urge to pass something that might actually help. I warrant that the Register has offered more constuctive ideas on health care over the past few months (accompanied by vigorous criticism of various pending proposals) than any other mass medium. Not that we seem to have had any influence.

ObamaCare keeps taking hits

President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress tomorrow night -- I'll be staying late and live-blogging for Orange Punch -- is an admission of near-defeat. It's not a matter of a poor message but of a growing recognition that there's just no way to extend health insurance coverage to 47 million more people and reduce the overall cost. Ordinarily, when government gets involved in something it doesn't bring costs down but increases them, and that's the way it's been with health care since Medicare was passed in 1965. The more government involvement the higher the costs. So in a recession we want to commit to another trillion (over 10 years) that will undoubtedly turn out to be a lowball figure? A lot of Americans just aren't buying it.

To complicate matters for The One, various government entities keep coming up with quasi-realistic cost estimates that give the lie to the preposterous notion that more government will mean less cost. As this Register editorial explains, the Congressional Budget Office determined that electromic record-keeping, while not necessarily a bad idea, wouldn't save an appreciable amount of money. And now a group studying preventive care for diabetics has determined that while (again) it's not a bad idea at all, it will cost more money over 10 years, and the only patients for whom a lifetime saving can be predicted are those diagnosed between ages 24-30, and only after about 25 years.

The core problem is third-party payment, which means consumers have no incentive to look for better, lower-cost care or procedures. I know it goes against the grain, but the best approach is to re-establish the tie between paying for medical services and the consumer of services.

Health care: some constructive thoughts

There are plenty of critics of Obamacare (whatever of the five versions through committee or amalgam of same becomes the path to salvation), and that's fine. But few have analyzed the system and offered constructive, competitive alternative suggestions. With all due respect, I think I did this as well as almost anybody (given newspaper space limitations) in this Register Sunday Commentary piece. Give consumers/patients more control over the money and make the system more competitive. Seems obvious, but . . .

Health care? Expect more taxes

As Matt Bai's article in the NYT Magazine explains in perhaps too much detail, the Obama administration has moved shrewdly in pursuit of getting something that can be called health care reform through Congress, nurturing relationships in Congress to an extent Bush and Clinton never approached. But the sticking point just might be new taxes. As this Register editorial points out, Obama is actively flirting with two notions: making health benefits taxable to employees and putting a cap in deductions the "wealthy" can claim, to raise at least some of the money that will be needed.

The notion that deepening government involvement will lead to saving money, as the administration and its lackeys keep trying to make us believe (and maybe to convince themselves) is chimerical. But they seem determined and savvy, and resistanbce is less at this point than in 1993. I think Mike Cannon at Cato is doing some of the best work being done on health care issues, including this paper just released delineating the failures of the Massachusettsmodel, and a steady rain of articles and blog posts. If reasoned argument cold do it more nationalized health care would be dead in the water. I suspect if the administration falters, however, it will be due to divisions in the Democratic party rather than reasoned argument.

The trouble with the stimulus

Besides the fact that it's unlikely to work, of course. If increasing government spending were the key to economic health, the economy would be in tip-top shape after 8 years of increasing big domestic discretionary spending by the Bushies. The stimulus is more hair of the dog that bit us.

As this Register editorial points out, however, there are some nasty surprises tucked in to it. Setting up agencies to do research on what kinds of health procedures work better than others is not necessarily a bad idea -- it might even be desirable in the abstract -- but it is likely to and is probably designed to lead to government dictating to doctors. (Not that Betsy McCaughey doesn't have critics.) And the "Buy American" provisions could well lead to a trade war, which would deter economic growth. Governments typically turn in a protectionist direction when economic troubles hit, and protectionism makes things worse. Will we ever learn?

Perhaps the most odious aspect of the bill was the fact that the programs mentioned above and dozens of others were just tossed in without anything resembling the usual procedures -- subcommittee hearings, witnesses offering objections and support, amendments, changes reflecting criticisms, same thing at full committee, then one house, then the other. All that stuff can seem tedious, but it's at least a modest safeguard against huge mistakes (not that they don't get made despite them). This bill makes drastic changes in a number of government programs without anything remotely resembling deliberation. Most everything negotiated behind closed doors. So much for change and transparency.