No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for August 28th, 2009

Al You Ignorant Slut

by @ 9:43. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - Minnesota, Politics - National.

During one of his closed, invitation only, small group “town hall” meetings this week, Senator Al Franken made the following argument for why he insists a government option must be a part of any health care reform bill:

In case you missed it, Angry Al’s rationale is:

  1. Minnesota only allows non profits to be health insurance companies
  2. Minnesota has 90% of premiums paid go to health care
  3. All other states have only 70% to 80% of premiums go to health care
  4. Minnesota insurance is cheaper
  5. Therefore, non profit is cheaper.

While Al’s logic may follow from one point to the next, it exists in some fantasy land and not the real world.

Based on Al’s logic, if we looked at average insurance rates by state, we should expect to see Minnesota as one of, if not the cheapest state.  We would also expect to see most other states in the range of 10% to 20% higher than Minnesota.  We would expect to see state’s like Massachusetts where there is government run insurance, as the cheapest of them all.  Finally, we should expect to find that “profit” for insurance should amount to somewhere between 10% and 20% of premiums paid.  Let’s take a look, shall we?

America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a research and advocacy group, has this study that looks at average insurance rates.  Flip down to page 9 where they compare family insurance rates by state.

In the study, rather than being one of the cheapest of states, we find Minnesota 17th most expensive, just barely out of the top third.  We also note that at $5,508, Minnesota is only5% cheaper than the national average.  Hmmm, that’s weird, shouldn’t they have been at least 10% and maybe higher?

As you look across the remainder of the study, where Al’s claims would have us expecting nearly all other plans to be 10% to 20% more expensive, we find only 11 states are at least 10% more expensive than Minnesota.  In contrast, we see that 15 states are at least 10% cheaper than Minnesota.

Al’s implied assertion that government run things are best because they run cheapest, also bites the dust.  Note that the highest cost state in Massachusetts.  Not only are they the highest cost, they are highest by a margin that would make the most dishonest loan shark blush.  Now, to be fair, this analysis was taken in the first year of Massachusetts state run plan, perhaps the rates have dramatically lessened…NOT!

Finally, another analysis done by AHIP shows where your (and my) premium dollar goes:

health dollar

Contrary to Al’s implied assertion, average profits amount to only 3% of the entire insurance premium. In fact, on average, the entire SG&A cost is 13%. Clearly, even a non profit or government plan would have administrative overhead to operate the plan so the argument that non profits are cheaper by 10% to 20% because they don’t have to make a profit is completely specious.

Earlier this week Al stated that a government option must be a part of any health reform bill:

“I’m favorable to the public option, a strong public option which will provide competition for private insurance companies.

Al’s attempting to look Senatorial by inserting “facts” to support a decision he has already made.  The problem with Al’s facts is that they are completely wrong.  Given Al’s history with SNL, the next time Al asserts that government plans are cheaper because they don’t have to make a profit, the appropriate response would be “Al, you ignorant slut!”

If You’re Not a Leftist You’re “Brain Dead”

by @ 5:31. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

On a conference call yesterday, Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif, a key House liberal referred to Blue Dog Democrats who are bucking the government takeover of health care in this fashion:

“They’re for the most part, I hate to say, brain dead, but they’re just looking to raise money from insurance companies and promote a right-wing agenda that is not really very useful in this whole process.”

Isn’t that ironic?  I usually regard the Blue Dogs as the only part of the Democrat consortium that had any chance of having part of a functioning brain!  I would have guessed, based on all the polling and what not, that these folks might in fact, be doing the jobs they were elected to do.  You know, represent their constituents!

I guess by extension, if the Blue Dogs are “Brain Dead,” the constituents who agree with them would also be “Brain Dead” or worse.  The further extension is that according to Representative Stark, all of us who would rather keep the government out of our health care are also “Brain Dead.”

We’re “Brain Dead” and “Un American.”  Maybe it’s time to officially form the Zombie Reagan Nation!

Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too!

by @ 5:18. Filed under Energy, Global "Warming", Politics - National.

Do your remember all of those great arguments for support of the Waxman-Markey “let’s rush back to the 1500’s bill?”  We were going to save mother earth, we were going to increase jobs, we were going to be less dependent on foreign oil.

Not so much!

A new study done by Ensys Energy finds that rather than import less oil, if Waxman-Markey is passed, we will actually import MORE oil.  In fact, the study shows that by 2030 we would likely need to DOUBLE the amount of imported oil!

How can that be?  Simple.

If we start taxing production and processing of fossil fuels, less investment will be made into production and processing of fossil fuels.  If less investment is made, less outcome will result.  All of this is pretty much in line with the designs of the Waxman-Markey bill.  The problems comes in that there is no magical product available that can replace fossil fuels in the vast majority of it’s uses.  Thus, we dramatically reduce supply but have little reduction in demand.  Unless we actually do chose to go back to the 1500’s, we’ll need to replace the production that is no longer happening in the US.  According to the study, the shift in production looks like this:

U.S. refining throughput, a measure of productivity, could plummet by as much as 25% (4.4 million barrels per day) and investment in U.S. refining could fall by as much as $90 billion, a decline of 88 percent, by 2030, the EnSys study forecast.

Well, I guess that shoots one of the reasons for the Waxman-Markey bill.  Would you like a quick second?

According to the same study, because no magical new power source will be available, the effect of the Waxman-Markey bill will not reduce carbon emissions.  All Waxman-Markey will do is shift the carbon emissions from the US to other countries around the world.  In other words, only the NIMBY people will get anything out of Waxman-Markey.  Yeah, they’ll get something right up to the point that the US economy is hammered because we have a dramatically increasing negative trade balance because we have to import twice as much energy as we used to!  Oh, and we’ll lose a bunch of jobs too!

 

It’s Not About Me?

by @ 5:06. Filed under Health Care Reform, Politics - National.

If you didn’t pick up on it during his candidacy, there are two things we now know about President Obama.  First, he is a committed leftist; no government involvement or control is too much in his view.  Second, his ego is second in size only to the deficit that his leftist policies are creating.

Within hours of his death, Democrat leadership began attempting to breath new life to the health care bill by attaching Ted Kennedy’s name to it.

“In his honor and as a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every American,”

was the lament from Senator Robert Byrd.  And:

“Ted Kennedy’s dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration,”

From Speaker Pelosi.

Even with the new, paid for supportive astroturf that the Democrats have been able to get into their townhalls, the public remains fully against the implementation of a government run health care program.  Rasmussen reports that while “support for the health plan has quit falling,” it is still opposed by a majority of voters.  Additionally, by greater than a 2:1 margin, “voters believe the proposed reforms would make the quality of care worse rather than better.”  It seems like a long uphill slog for passage of the bill, at least in its current form.

Ted Kennedy’s public funeral will be held Saturday morning.  We’ve learned that President Obama will deliver the eulogy.  I have one question.

With Cap and Trade likely dead for the year and his other major push health care, on the ropes, will President Obama be able to control his personal ego long enough to deliver an eulogy that actually has Ted Kennedy as the focus or will he succumb and use the event of the funeral to fan his own ego and push the health care reform bill?

Remember, never let a crisis or a highly personal and emotional event, go to waste!

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