Romneycare Foreshadows Obamacare

Predictable. 

If you want a preview of President Obama’s health-care “reform,” take a look at Massachusetts. In 2006, it enacted a “reform” that became a model for Obama. What’s happened since isn’t encouraging. The state did the easy part: expanding state-subsidized insurance coverage. It evaded the hard part: controlling costs and ensuring that spending improves people’s health. Unfortunately, Obama has done the same.

[...]

But much didn’t change. Emergency rooms remain as crowded as ever; about a third of the non-elderly go at least once a year, and half their visits involve “non-emergency conditions.” As for improvements in health, most probably lie in the future. “Many of the uninsured were young and healthy,” writes Long. Their “expected gains in health status” would be mostly long-term. Finally—and most important—health costs continue to soar.

Aside from squeezing take-home pay (employers provide almost 70 percent of insurance), higher costs have automatically shifted government priorities toward health care and away from everything else—schools, police, roads, prisons, lower taxes. In 1990, health spending represented about 16 percent of the state budget, says the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. By 2000, health’s share was 22 percent. In 2010, it’s 35 percent. About 90 percent of the health spending is Medicaid.

[...]

Similar forces will define Obamacare. Even if its modest measures to restrain costs succeed—which seems unlikely—the effect on overall spending would be slight. The system’s fundamental incentives won’t change. The lesson from Massachusetts is that genuine cost control is avoided because it’s so politically difficult. It means curbing the incomes of doctors, hospitals and other providers. They object. To encourage “accountable care organizations” would limit consumer choice of doctors and hospitals. That’s unpopular. Spending restrictions, whether imposed by regulation or “global payments,” raise the specter of essential care denied. Also unpopular.

Obama dodged the tough issues in favor of grandstanding. Imitating Patrick, he’s already denouncing insurers’ rates, as if that would solve the spending problem. What’s occurring in Massachusetts is the plausible future: Unchecked health spending shapes government priorities and inflates budget deficits and taxes, with small health gains. And they call this “reform”?

There are certain economic rules that no amount of political grandstanding will overturn.

Drunken Ride

Hey, it was hot. 

The Milwaukee man was riding in the 6700 block of West State Street at 10:44 p.m. Sunday when he spotted a scooter outside Metcalf’s Market. He put his bicycle in the shopping basket, hopped on the scooter and took off.

Officers caught up with the man driving the wrong way on State Street. He said he had planned to return the scooter the next day.

His blood-alcohol content was 0.11.

He was not cited for drunken diving, but was arrested for theft.

Texans Get Concealed Permit to Bypass Security Lines

Cool.

Everyone from lobbyists to lawyers and journalists is rushing to get permits to carry guns inside the Texas Capitol, where legislators already often tote pistols in boots and purses or stow them away inside their desks.

A unique loophole in a new security procedure means a gun permit is like a special-access pass into the domed building, allowing people who are certified to carry a gun to bypass lines at the metal detectors that were set up after a shooting incident earlier this year.

“Nobody wants to be the one standing in line behind three hundred kids wearing the same colored T-shirt,” said University of Texas political scientist Jim Henson. “If you’re trying to get in and out really quick and there’s going to be choke points, well, people don’t want to have to deal with that.”

There’s now a frenzy for folks to get trained and licensed to carry a firearm, especially before the legislative session begins in January. It’s not required that people have a gun to enter the Capitol through the express lane. Merely holding a valid permit, and presenting it at the entrance, will get them expedited entry.

God Bless Texas

Hey, O… how soon before we see this in Madison?  

Everyone from lobbyists to lawyers and journalists is rushing to get permits to carry guns inside the Texas Capitol, where legislators already often tote pistols in boots and purses or stow them away inside their desks.

A unique loophole in a new security procedure means a gun permit is like a special-access pass into the domed building, allowing people who are certified to carry a gun to bypass lines at the metal detectors that were set up after a shooting incident earlier this year.

...

There’s now a frenzy for folks to get trained and licensed to carry a firearm, especially before the legislative session begins in January. It’s not required that people have a gun to enter the Capitol through the express lane. Merely holding a valid permit, and presenting it at the entrance, will get them expedited entry.

...

Texas law allows people to carry a weapon if they have a permit and as long as the gun is concealed. A separate lane for license-holders had to be created so gun-toters could enter without having to pull out their weapons - or unconceal them - along with their wallets and keys.

Guns were previously allowed in the Capitol. With the arrival of the metal detectors, permit-holders now get their licenses scanned to make sure they are in good standing and their bags are put through an X-ray scanner.

...

Lobbyist Michelle Wittenburg, who recently received her gun permit and has been signing up her colleagues so they can do the same, said the security at the Capitol is still strong because permit-holders aren’t the ones who would pose any threat.

“If you do have a CHL (gun permit) then that shows you have gone through a background check and you’ve been vetted, so to speak,” Wittenburg said. “I don’t think those are the people that are going to cause your problems in the Capitol.”

Not Free

Obama seems to think that we’re idiots.

Free Preventive Care Coming Soon Thanks to the Affordable Care Act

As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  There also isn’t any such thing as free health care.

Court to Rule on Fund Raid

Here’s yet another fun little pile of poo that Doyle is leaving to the next governor and legislature to clean up.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is set to rule in a case that could blow a $200 million hole in the state budget.

The case to be decided on Tuesday will determine whether a $200 million transfer out of a medical malpractice fund to help balance the state constitution was legal.

If the court determines it wasn’t, lawmakers could be forced to return to Madison to deal with the budget implications.

The Wisconsin Medical Society, which represents doctors, is challenging the transfer in court, arguing it was unconstitutional.

Of course, some of us were pointing this out three years ago when it was first being considered.

UPDATE: You heard it here first.

4.Boom.  Court just ruled it was unconstitutional.

Posted by Mr. Pelican Pants on July 20, 2010 at 0753 hrs

School Supplies

It’s that time of year: school supplies are in stores!

Once again, we have to refinance the mortgage to buy supplies for the kids (many of those supplies end up coming home still in the original package). Of course, the kids will be able to reuse some of last year’s supplies, but below the fold is what our list looks like for four kids (three in grade school, one in high school):

I don’t know what it is about Sharpies that fascinates teachers, but I don’t think I ever touched one until I was an adult. Not sure why the kids need Sharpies of varying widths to get through the school year. I love school supply shopping, but a lot of the items are unnecessary.

Read the rest

Union Hires Nonunion Protesters

Doh!

Billy Raye, a 51-year-old unemployed bike courier, is looking for work.

Fortunately for him, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters is seeking paid demonstrators to march and chant in its current picket line outside the McPherson Building, an office complex here where the council says work is being done with nonunion labor.

“For a lot of our members, it’s really difficult to have them come out, either because of parking or something else,” explains Vincente Garcia, a union representative who is supervising the picketing.

So instead, the union hires unemployed people at the minimum wage—$8.25 an hour—to walk picket lines. Mr. Raye says he’s grateful for the work, even though he’s not sure why he’s doing it. “I could care less,” he says. “I am being paid to march around and sound off.”

Via Greg Mankiw.