Nom de plume: Rivrdog

The "Single-Payer" Fallacy

Even the most die-hard liberal seems to believe that the SCOTUS is about to either gut or utterly destroy Obamacare, so there's angst all over the media.

Too bad it's misplaced angst, for angst can be a good thing if it leads to logical solutions.

The misplaced angst here is the failure of the entire liberal side to look at the One Big Question* in the single-payer scheme of health insurance.

That question is simply this: shouldn't any mandated insurance plan have, at it's core, efficiency in payment? Let us not forget these points:

An insurance plan is just that, and that only: a plan to arrange payment for a service: rebuilding your home after a fire or other loss, rebuilding YOU after an illness. All those restorative services have COST associated with them, so PAYMENT is required.

It almost seems like liberals think that a health insurance plan must first change health care delivery. No, it doesn't have to, all it has to do is arrange PAYMENT for services. This is where Obamacare over-reached, it attempted to reconfigure health care delivery, then pay for the new delivery system.

Obamacare was a deliberate attempt of the President and his party to use health care services, or the control of them, to drag the USA into a new political system, socialism. You see, the health care insurance system we have now is not mandatory. People can and do forgo health care. They can and do shop around for the best price for health care AND health insurance, and their choices lead directly to the efficiencies in the health care marketplace. The LACK of efficiency in the health care marketplace is due entirely to non-payers. Yes, a health-care services bill is the easiest one to refuse to pay. All you have to do is declare that you can't afford to pay, and the bill will either be put off, or reduced, or some arrangement made to pay it from public funds.

The lack of certainty in payment for health care services causes the ineffiencies. To solve that one, relatively easy problem, Obamacare proposed to re-write the entire idea of delivering AND paying for health care services. This is the equivalent of using a SWAT team to bring an overtime-parking violator to justice.

BTW, your Rivrdog won't keep you in suspense. The way to solve the problem of uninsureds in the system is to have a pool of money for payment. This has been done in the auto insurance industry almost since the start of auto insurance some 80 years or so ago. It's called "assigned risk", and the system works well. If you are in the assigned risk pool, you pay higher premiums, but you get insurance, the equivalent of using a SWAT team to arrest an overtime-parking violator. The higher premiums encourage you to do whatever it takes to improve yourself so that you get OUT of the Assigned Risk pool.

All the Feds had to do to execute Universal Health Care was establish the Assigned Risk Pool for those payers who couldn't find normal insurance, and make paying for medical care the same level of debt that everything else is. Establishing that pool would have required only a small fraction of the bureaucracy and a small fraction of the money which Obamacare demands from us in it's various forms. Assigned risk wouldn't have imposed insurance, it just would have paid for all those who don't have insurance to get it.

The health insurance system in this country works. It can and should be made more efficient, but most of the job of making it more efficient would be done by establishing the Assigned Risk pool.

The Assigned Risk solution isn't glitzy though, it doesn't require a "Czar" to run it, and it certainly wouldn't require the pogrom against health care that is now in place and hopefully, will soon be erased by the SCOTUS.

*******************************

* The "One Big Question" is a construct of Joe Huffman, who blogs frequently, here. He says that most propaganda can be unraveled by the simple technique of digging out the One Big Question, and examining it for the truth.

How Bromantic!

The "First Gay President" magazine cover.

H/T to Uncle

Okay then, now the realpolitik: this is a lesson in how not to do politics.

First, take this to the bank: the gay community is not a serious asset for the President. He already had them in his pocket, because, except for the few "Log Cabin" gay rethuglicans, they're already dummycrats. He's not converting anyone with this message. Are there any lazy gays who need energizing? Again, maybe a paltry few, but most I know are VERY politically active for the Left already, so the Obumbler didn't pick up many votes by "energizing" that base, either.

Second, he HAS succeeded in energizing the GOP base with this issue, in a way that the Romnizer could only have had wet dreams about, and there may well be some Christian or Jewish undecided voters who will push the Romnoid button for sure because of this. My guess: far more of those than any pro-gay votes just changed loyalties.

Net loss of votes for Obama? Well, we aren't voting this week (except in the primary in OR, and Obummer is not seriously opposed here), but if the national polls are to be believed, the Wahn just lost 7% to Romniddy. More important, five Democratic Senators runnng for re-election have just spent the weekend distancing themselves from The First Gay President.

Many more gems like that, and Obama will retire 1-20-13. If he does, his first term and his campaign for re-election will become THE textbook case of how NOT to do politics.

Now, which one of his Two Left Feet will Romney trip over this week?

Go directly there

...to BorePatch's blog, and read this screed.

Yes, it's come to this pass. History will show that the Second American Revolution actually started before Obama's second term started...

H/T to Uncle

BTW, if you are into conflict management planning as I am, you might consider this date: Wednesday, the Seventh of November, 2012. That is the day after the election, and assuming Obama is re-elected, that is the day his "complete-the-dictatorship" program starts. Assuming you are going to resist that dictatorship, YOU will have to be prepared to begin your resistance on that date. If you are on the other side, and will be joining Obama IN his dictatorship, that is the date, after which you will begin laying your life on the line for Obama, every day until one side or the other wins unconditional victory.

Today, we are on the Seventh Day of the Fifth month of 2012. There are exactly six months, one half a calendar year, left for you to prepare for this conflict, both physical and mental preparations. The world of your comfort, as you presently see it, ends in six months. Six months from now, you will be fighting, for or against Freedom, right here in your United States of America.

Thursday Potpourri

Item: The Right comes up on the wrong side of this idea, that all OTC (Over The Counter) drugs are a better deal than prescription (R/X) drugs of the identical formulation. Example: Omeprazole, aka, Prilosec. It's been out for decades, and it's been OTC for at least a decade, but the price is still on the order of a dollar per pill, when by now, it ought to be down to a dime or less. There are other examples. What is going to happen with this FDA ruling is that some widely-prescribed drugs that are losing their patents (patents timing out) and would have become very inexpensive for sufferers to use, will now NOT get cheap, and their OTC prices will be maintained at artificially high levels. So, just moving a drug out of the R/X class and into the OTC class is not a guarantee of saving anyone any money, and in fact, some of these patent-expired drugs will show steep price rises when they hit the OTC counters. Mostly, the drug companies benefit from this, not the patients. Oh, and that thing in the article about having to go to see the doc every time a R/X is adjusted? BullTweet! You CALL your doctor's charge nurse, and the nurse handles that. I do that all the time and there is never a bill for it.

Item: The case against Roger Clemens. If you know baseball, and I'm a fan, you know that there was a sea change in top-line pitchers about 10-15 years ago. The very best pitchers, like Clemens, USED to be "location" pitchers. They could consistently put the ball within a couple of inches of where they wanted it, and scouting told them where they wanted it. Now, the best pitchers are "power" pitchers, who have the ability to throw 95 mph fastballs and sliders, at ordinary accuracy, for 6 innings or better. "Location" pitchers are now closers, who only have to throw for two innings at most, never more than 35-40 pitches total. That just the evolution of the game, but Clemens was caught up in it. As the best "location" pitcher on the mound, the game passed him by because he couldn't toss the screamers time after time. He tried to pump himself into better shape via chemicals, so as to prolong his career at the top of the heap. I can't blame him for that, and the idiotic doping trial is just that, idiotic.

Item: Afghanistan. I had occasion, night before last, to listen to a local college Professor expound on the 'Stan. Very knowledgeable guy, Prof. Grant Farr of Portland State University, spent a lot of time over there, including through the Soviet occupation. His take, in a nutshell, is that Obama's Grand Plan won't work. Why it won't work is that Obama doesn't understand the nature of the country. First of all, Afghanistan is NOT a "country" in any real understanding of the term. It's a region of three main tribal groups, each having major problems with the other, and each being unlikely to ever cede ANY authority to the others within it's own tribal influence area. If that wasn't bad enough, our whole "nation building" exercise in the 'Stan is based on building a modern national Army which can hold it's own, and hold the Nation together. The major problem is that there is 70% total illiteracy in the 'Stan, and of the Army recruits, maybe one in ten can read and write, but probably not. You simply can't raise a modern Army from recruits who can't read or write, and expecially from those who not only can't read or write, but don't want to learn to do so, lest they be labeled as blasphemous by their local imams, who DO read and write, and want to hold that over their parishoners' heads. It all adds up to FAIL, just as it added up to FAIL for every major nation which has tried in the past century (we are the third world power in the past 100 years to try to "civilize" the 'Stan).

Item: STFU, Christie. Yep, others look at Tubby and see the same potential horror story I've seen.

Final Item: I realize that Zoos are places where humans may learn about other animal species, but you have to have just a LITTLE smarts before you go. Consider NOT dressing your little tyke to look like a baby zebra (prey animal) and parking him in front of the lion's den...

2A litmus test for Romney

Without further ado, here it is:

Fast & Furious, aka, "Gunwalker"

The House Oversight Committee has USAG Holder in their sights for Contempt of Congress, but according to Brit Hume, senior analyst for Fox News, who opined on this issue tonight on O'Reilly, there will be a behind-the-scenes game played by Issa and Holder, who will give just enough of the 92% of the documents subpoenaed, but not yet delivered, to keep the noose off of his neck.

This situation is ripe for waking up the US of A with, and Romney is the guy to do it. If he bumps up Fast & Furious to near the top of his agenda to hammer on Obama with, he will add some stiffening to the spine of Rep. Issa, and maybe Issa will be less likely to cave or make a "backroom" deal which would let the inventor of Gunwalker walk.

Holder, at least, and probably Obama, conspired to try to weaken the SCOTUS-strengthened Second Amendment by a false-flag operation that was supposed to show how US guns were arming the violent drug cartels in Mexico. With plenty of evidence to show that the cartels didn't need US guns, but had a better supply of (military) arms which they got from Central America and the corrupt military in Mexico, Gunwalker was supposed to smother all that evidence, and, at the very least, "close the gun-show loophole", if not allow an acceptance of AWB Two. When the Border Patrol agent got killed on duty with a "walked" gun, though (just bad luck, really; by the numbers, he should have been killed with a Mexican M16 or Central American M16 or AK), it blew the lid off of Gunwalker, and gave an actionable cause to Issa & Co.

If Brit Hume was right, and he usually is, Holder and Obama will skate on Gunwalker until after the November election.

Romney could change all of that, give Obama a huge black eye, force him to throw Holder under the bus, and forever cement his creds with the gunnies. Heaven only knows those creds need cementing after Romney's anti-gun performance as MA Governor.

So, whichever readers are contemplating sending campaign cash to Romney (I haven't convinced myself to do that yet), consider putting the check in with a letter strongly urging Romney to start using the GOP treasury to highlight Gunwalker, and keep highlighting it.

If the GOP campaign smarties can do that, it will, at least, raise enough of a 2A ruckus that even if Obama wins a second term, he will be likely to have to forgo 2A Executive Orders, which would then be just too hot a topic for him to touch. In the best of scenarios, with Romney harping on Gunwalker, Holder might just be cut out of the herd, the GOP wolves getting their prey, and maybe, just maybe, he might cut a deal with Issa to stay out of the hoosegow. That deal, of course, would involve implicating his boss as having okayed Gunwalker.

Gunwalker could be the issue that brings down Obama, but to attain that status, it will need a boost by Romney. The One Big Question is: does Romney believe strongly enough in the 2A to give Obama the severe test he should get with Gunwalker?

I can't answer that just now, nor can I say that I really want Romney to win.

Only Romney could change that, and Gunwalker is his chance to do exactly that.

Jobs, the REAL question

In honor of Joe Huffman, who taught me to ask the One Big Question...Joe's a bit busy this weekend, so I'll iterate what he would say if someone asked him the One Big Question which has formed in my mind.

Simple question, that.

It seems that we are about to decide the policy direction of our Nation based on one little word, "Jobs", but has ANYONE stopped to ask what a "Job" actually is, how it is properly defined, how the statistics about "Jobs" are actually derived, and whether ANYONE ever checks those statistics for accuracy?

I might not be an economist, but I have dealt, to some degree, with the idea of budgeting. In budgeting, we have a concept called "Full Time Equivalent". At any sizable organization, public or private, that employs people, there is a standard definition of what it costs to have one person perform work, and that is the FTE.

Basically, the FTE is what one "standard" person draws as a wage, together with the value of that person's economic benefits (vacation days, health insurance, etc), over a period of 2,080 hours (one standard working year of 52 forty-hour weeks). My FTE, just before I retired from copping, was just over $90,0000. That was a wage of $28.56/hr, plus annual benefits running to just over $30K.

So, for full-time employees, the costs are fairly easy to break down. The tricky part is how to measure less-than-full-time work.

That's NOT tricky if fractions or decimals of an FTE are used. The average US wage (Median wage, to be accurate) last year was $26,364. Just search on "average US wage", and you will get all sorts of sites which display the statistic, and tell you how it was derived.

Why then, does the Government "play" with the figure so loosely? Here's an example of "playing". With "Job Creation" now the measure of whether a candidate "has it in him" to be President, why haven't we demanded, and gotten, a precise definition of what One Created Job actually is?

Here's what "One Created Job" ought to be: One FTE, measured against the last, accurate US Median Wage, projected as if that job lasted one year. A couple of years ago, when the "stimulus" was the big topic of discussion inside the Beltway, and "shovel-ready jobs" were being "created", I remember reading that the Obama Administration was claiming One Created Job for every job opening that lasted 15 days or more. Of course, that's crap. No two-week job ought to ever be compared to a full-time position.

Since we all have calculators, let's do the math. Taking $26,000 as the annual wage in question, and adding in, say, $10K in benefits, we have an FTE for those "shovel-ready" jobs of $36,000, or $3K/month. If those jobs only last, say, 3 months each, then each one is 0.25 FTE, and the base earning is only $9K for each job. Did YOU ever see those jobs listed that way? I didn't. That same Obama Administration (and, likely the Bush II Administration before it) claimed Christmas Seasonal workers as "created jobs" every Fall, despite the fact that those jobs never last past the middle of January, and are less than .25 FTE each. Same thing with Summer Seasonals, etc

The Government (and candidates to run it) lies, and our entire National future is being decided by this particular brand of lie.

Let's ALL go activist on the political process here, and demand that ANYONE who uses Job Creation in any sort of political statement be REQUIRED to prove out how many actual FTEs he/she is referring to, and what the actual dollar figure of that FTE actually is.

Can we do that, people? I think we can, and I expect THAT sharp saber, if universally used, would deflate a LOT of political hot-air balloons, if not ALL of them.

You have your assignments. Attend political rallies, and at the right moment, shout the One Big Question at the candidate(s): "Sir, what is YOUR definition of a Job"? I guarantee that the pretenders will NOT be ready to answer you, so YOU be ready to repeat your question.

I knew Ronald Reagan, and you may NOT compare yourself to him, Obama

I knew Ronald Reagan because being stationed in CA during the late 1960s then the late 70s to early 80s, he was the talk of the State. The much-more-respectful MSM reported more accurately on the President then.

Ronald Reagan started out as a union guy, President of the Screen Actor's Guild, but at the time, the "wild-eyed socialists"* in Hollywood were in the minority, not the majority like now. There were a LOT of WW2 veterans calling each other Brother and Sister at Union meetings then, and there was at least SOME respect for the USA amongst the members of SAG.

After his SAG stint, Reagan went on to get elected Lieutenant Governor, then Governor of California, which, at the time really WAS "paradise on earth" (yes, readers, I could easily have been a dope-smoking hippie myself, they were graciously accepted most places then, as somewhat of a side-show, but they were accepted there).

Reagan went on to become President, taking over from Jimmy Carter, who dispite being a Naval Academy graduate, and a small businessman, made a piss-poor President. I had a fellow B52 crew-member who bought a residence in Riverside in '81, and had to pay a 18% mortgage rate (and the rates were FALLING then!), IIRC. I rented, was scared out of the home-buyer's market.

President Reagan's Airborne Command Post used to land at my duty station, March AFB (Now March Air Reserve Base), which was then the headquarters for the Strategic Air Command's Fifteenth Air Force, and it was home to double-Squadron wings of both B52s and KC-135 tankers. The Presidential Airborne Command Post was a brand-new E-4 (Boeing 747), which was outfitted as the President's place to fight a nuke war with the USSR from, even before Air Force One, it was THAT important. I got a VIP tour of the top-secret aircraft, which was later featured (a mock-up of it was featured) in the HBO movie "By Dawn's Early Light".

Gawd, this is digressy, isn't it?

*The point here was supposed to be: I knew Ronald Reagan, I probably knew him better than you do, Presient Obama. He was NOT a "wild-eyed socialist", but YOU ARE. Plus, you're a liar to boot, Obama, and I never knew Reagan to lie. 

Oh, BTW, President Obama, Warren Buffet, who has put up with you to an excessive degree, has just signaled you to quit calling your "tax the producers out of existence" plan the "Buffet Rule". Do the old, sick guy a favor and stop with that nonsense. Don't bother to try to call it the "Reagan Rule", either. Reagan wanted to lower taxes for EVERYONE, not just the dependable sloths who will always vote to get their "free stuff". Oh, and quit smoking that history-revisionist crack-pipe, Mister President. It's not legal yet. If you want it to be, fire Biden from your ticket and put Ron Paul on there.... 

Watch TV, get stupid

Example: Yesterday, the local Evening news I watched, (KATU, the ABC affiliate) had a story on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Oh, the emotion! Oh, now we can have "closure".

Wait a farging minute, boneheads. 100 years have passed since the ill-fated (and poorly-built and operated) liner went down. Who is left to "close"? No survivors of the shipwreck remain, the last one died several years ago, IIRC. Probably few sons or daughters of victims remain, either, since they would have to be at least 99 years old. Maybe a few grandchildren of victims remain, but they'd be at least in their 70's, and those people grew up to be adults before "closure" became the fad it is now, so they probably don't miss their grandpas and grandmas, either, never having seen them.

When someone says "closure" to you, they are probably a mush-for-brains liberal product of the past two generations of our failed educational system. Closure is when you shovel the dirt on the casket, or, at the very last moment, when the insurance company issues the check if you are the beneficiary.

Closure, my ass, but it's not the worst example. In an almost-comical display just last week, a Civil War soldier was re-buried from wherever he had been planted, to the Willamette National Cemetary here in Stumptown. The reason given was that he had not been properly buried when he expired some time after that war. Of course, the rifle squad were Civil War re-enactors (who had a problem doing a speedy reload of their percussion-ignition, muzzle-loading rifles to fire the second volley, (the telly didn't show the third volley). Of course, some shirt-tail family member was there to receive a flag (they didn't say how many stars were on it), and of course the anchorwoman had to gravely intone, "Now the family has "closure". Be still, my retching stomach...

Second example. Afghanistan just suffered though a spate of coordinated attacks in the capital, Kabul. Most were suicide kabooms. There were a bunch of them. This ayem, I am watching Fox News' morning show, and they trot out a retired General, name of Jackson. He immediately reminded me of GEN Wesley Clark, the Clintoon apologist First Class during the Serbian War. This General Jackson opined that the attacks were NOT a military setback for Obama's Afghani policy, since they were not done by the Taliban, but by the Haqqani Network who we are at war with, but won't admit it, in Pakistan.

Oh, REALLY, General? If we have weakened the Taliban but allowed a new group to take their place as the strong terror-mongers, just HOW is that a demonstration of success?

It must be Bonehead Monday.

The little Captains

...got the better of a squad of Federal rozzers, so it seems. With the entire squad forgetting their mission, their orders, and for most of them, their marriage vows (no, the "500-mile rule" is NOT written in the Procedure Manual), that outfit must either have very good fealty to their Special Agent in Charge, and followed him to the whore's market (yes, such places exist down there, they did in Panama when I was there in '94), or there were "arrangements" made in advance which were especially attractive.

I see two problems with this mass human failing:

• The Secret Service and military members could well have been "set up" by enemies of the Colombian government. The FARC (commie-leaning drug cartels) still is around, it just can't beat the Columbian military in a fair fight anymore.
• The Obama White House may use this incident to create their own "Palace Guard" of Federal agents who will have to swear political fealty to Obama, and then Obama will have 100% of the trappings of a dictator. If he gets this wet-dream wish of his, do YOU believe that he won't use it to damage/eliminate his opposition?

Stay tuned to this issue. Stay tuned to any on the right who see it for what it is, or could become. They are the smarties. The rest of them will just have a good snicker about the scandal.

You have the Guidon, Mr. Romney

...and, in case you don't know it, the Guidon Bearer is supposed to stay out in front of the formation. You are now leading the Republican Party race for President, so let's look at the battle streamers on that Guidon, and how they may differ from your past performance.

Second Amendment: You were a big gun controller in your stint as Governor in MA. There is a battle streamer on your Guidon that says the Second Amendment MEANS WHAT IT SAYS, so you NEED to tell us that you will NEVER sign any kind of gun control legislation restricting the right of US citizens to keep AND bear arms. You did that in Taxachusetts. Your apologists say you yielded to avoid even more drastic gun control, but a Guidon Bearer never yields, never falls back, always stays in front. Tell us you WILL be a Second Amendment absolutist. Tell us you will have your DOJ go after all the Gunwalker people (if Obama doesn't pardon them all on his last day in office). Tell us that you will have your people bear down on the DeeCee Administration to move them off their position of resistance to Heller implementation. Tell us that you will put the DOJ into an aggressive posture to hammer places like NYC, Chicago, etc to get them to recognize that they can't disarm their citizens. You could start by cutting off Law Enforcement funding to any jurisdiction which does not meet a basic test of complying with the Second Amendment. Your predecessors did that for civil rights violations in the past, so just look at 2A compliance as a Civil Rights process.

ObamaCare: You started this ball rolling with your "RomneyCare" in MA. It will be your job, if elected, to erase ObamaCare, and that will take some work, because like an invasive weed, it has spread it's roots everywhere: into the tax system, into continuing funding laws, into the Pharma industry, into the very Emergency Rooms at all local hospitals. It's complete re-write of the way medicine is provided has and will screw up delivery of medical services for decades, even if you rip it all out, and do it quickly. Don't even think about leaving it partially in place, rip it ALL out and THEN make any necessary reforms, starting with draconian tort reform for malpractice, and a total cut-off of free ER care for illegals. You DO realize, don't you Mr. Romney, that the reason most states can't balance their budgets is that the cost of providing medical care to illegals has overwhelmed state budgets? In my State of Oregon, it is estimated that almost a third of education funding goes to illegals and over a third of Medicaid.

Immigration: See above paragraph, AND, Close the farging borders! Keep out all further illegals, use the military for that, THEN get to work on deporting the ones who are here. If you want to accelerate the right of naturalization for some, do that, but make sure that those individuals who are illegal now start their naturalization process by returning to their native country, waiting a determined period, then applying for a visa to return, and then they return via normal entry, just like I do whenever I leave the country and come back. Make sure all naturalization candidates declare their previous illegal stay in this country, and pay up all their back taxes they avoided by working under the table. They need to pay for any medical care they walked out of paying, too. This stuff CAN be tracked, so track it and start collecting those back taxes. If every illegal owes just $5K in back taxes, and there are 20 million of them here, that's 100 billion dollars, not exactly chump change and definitely NOT forgivable. Maybe some of them can work it off, but COLLECT what they owe, dammit!

Control the Economy: This may not sit well with most of my conservative buds, but there has to be some central control over the economy. This isn't "morning in America" like it was for Ronnie Reagan. The Global Economy had barely gotten started then, but now, we have robber barons controlling vital companies all over the globe. You can't just give them their head and let them run with our economy. They will continue to rob us blind and it will get even worse under your Administration. How about a basic principle of Everybody Pays Some Tax for starters? No business baron should be able to have his company pay no taxes. A small minimum tax will not cripple any business, and with all the regulatory burdens you are going to lift off these global businesses, they can afford to pay some taxes. Likewise, no individual gets off without taxes, either. Establish a minimum income tax of at least 5%. That will mean that the welfare-dependent might have to forgo a few cans of malt liquor per month, or keep that 42" flat-screen instead of upping their lifestyle to a 60", but DO IT.

Carry that Guidon, sir, and carry it proudly. If you do, the troops will follow you, and that's all you need to begin to turn this Nation around.