If they're so evil, stop saving them

by Ed

First of all, you're in violation of blog rules. Throwing the term conservative around as if it somehow bolsters your argument is a no no. Argue ideas, not straw men. You're not debating "conservatives" or "republicans" or "right wing zealots". I'm nobody's spokesmodel. The name's Ed. Address your concerns directly to me.

Washington didn't bail out the banks to save Wall Street or even Main Street. They did it to save their own phony baloney hides. If the "too big to fail" were allowed to fail, investigations might have been held into exactly why everyone was loaning money to people they knew damn well couldn't pay it back. Better to sweep it all under the rug with a few trillion tax payer dollars.

It's ridiculous to keep hammering on big business and industrial giants while at the same time taking my money and giving it to them "for my own good". STOP HELPING ME PLEASE!! If they're a bunch of evil no good crooks, here's a novel idea, LET THEM FAIL!

Of course free markets need rules and enforcement mechanisms just like a good football game needs referees. When the refs start arbitrarily awarding points to one team, tying bricks around the ankles of others or flat out trying to play it for them, it really takes all the enjoyment out of it.

Transparency and accountability would go much farther in ensuring fair markets than another round of regulation that the nobody involved has any intention of enforcing. Regulatory reform is just a white wash. We can all feel good because the problems have all been fixed. They passed a new bill. Wake up and smell the horse......

Regulatory Reform: About Freakin' Time

By Matt -- One year after last fall's meltdown of the U.S. and global financial markets, the leaders of the world's 20 biggest economies are meeting to discuss long overdue regulatory changes. We should be cheering, and some of us are, because we don't want to go again down the merry path my conservative friends have held us to since the 1980s. Time and again over the last three decades, their laissez-faire faith in the free market's wisdom and ethics have led us to the brink of disaster. Sensible regulation will lead us back.
The G-20 leaders are considering moves that just make sense: 1) to sustain and then wind down the stimulus packages that, regrettably, governments must implement when economies falter. 2) to implement new bank capital rules and, finally, 3) to rein in financial industry excesses. While we can't expect to see outright limits on executive pay, as some European nations have argued, we ought to, considering the damage that these high-rollers have done.
Let's not forget, as time passes, just how close we were to real disaster. Titans of Wall Street were falling like dominoes, financial markets froze and the Dow plummeted. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were disappearing every month. It really looked like the end of capitalism as we know it. And it was.
For too long, conservative ideologues have ruled the roost in the White House and in the Washington think-tanks which pull the strings behind our political parties. These people got what they wanted: Deregulation, a loosening of restrictions on financial markets and banking activity, runaway executive pay and ever-lower taxes for the richest Americans. These were the thinkers in the driver's seat when the car went over the cliff. Now that we've had to pay to haul the thing out of the ditch and put it back on the road, we don't just want a new driver. We want the previous driver admit that he was wrong, or drunk.
We will be setting new rules of the road that may keep these folks from driving so fast and recklessly in the future, as well we should. Let's hope the cops are watching the road more closely from now on. And with that, I will yield this belabored analogy.

For Men? Damn right!

From Matt: Let this be a lesson to me about failing to meet my blogging obligations in a timely manner. I was hunting high and low for a good topic to out-debate my buddy Ed, and had settled for limits on Wall Street pay and the necessity of strict financial regulation. But too late! Ed has punctually and bravely taken the position that Day Spas are Not for Men. I must offer a counterpoint! En garde!
I'd go to a good day spa in a New York minute. I once dated an esthetician, someone trained in the proper treatment of the skin. This is when I learned that everything I have been doing in the shower all my life is wrong (I kind of thought so).
She forced me to abandon my Ivory soap, explaining that continued use of it would cause my epidermis to shrivel, crack and fall off in pieces. Ivory robs the skin of oils, which she said was bad. I said I thought I was trying to get oil off my skin. Wrong again!
Men generally have no thoughts about their skin unless it is either on fire or missing in places. Consequently we look like hell all the time, unless we get with the program.
Look, fellow 40-plus guys, it's 2009. We've been living in the future for years now, and here in the future, men take care of themselves. We are off the couch and running around the block, building the kind of endurance that our 20-something-year-old galpals expect of us. We are shaving our heads, using plenty of moisturizing body wash and begging the dentist for another shot of prescription teeth whitener. We are flossing, brushing, waxing and loofah-ing in a frantic effort to hold back the tide of age, and because looking at a man vaguely resembling our fathers in every mirror is starting to freak us out.
Look, once you've started going to the chiropractor, how much farther can it be to the day spa, a couple blocks? Why use the blanket the dog sleeps on when the wife's new snuggie smells a lot better? Here in the future, "manly" means "stuff men do to impress women." And trust me, those women are harder than ever to impress.
Pot belly? It's gotta go, dude. Flabby arms? Man up! Pasty, bumpy skin? I'm sure that little blondie across the office is going out of her mind with desire.
Hey, middle-aged guys, your winning personality and knowledge of football trivia alone isn't going to cut it with the ladies anymore, and let's face it, you're not able to throw money around like Mikey Bloomberg. You've gotta give the ladies something to look at. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a date this afternoon and I'm out of moisturizer...

For Men? I don't think so.

Technically, it was Matt's turn to start a thread, but he's been delinquent in his duties, so I'm going to take the liberty.

I want to address an issue of utmost importance. It came up during a networking meeting, when our featured speaker did her presentation on Mary Kay, or Avon, or whatever it was. Anyway, most of the products and samples were for the women, but she said "Don't worry, I didn't leave the guys out completely" and proceeded to show us the samples of scented hand lotion...for men. She went on to say that it was perfect for times like when your hands had been covered with motor oil or engine grease, or dinged up from hard work. I beg to differ.

If you're a man and your hands get all dingy and dirty and the bar soap or even the dish soap didn't do the trick, there are several acceptable options. You can use the goopy, gritty brown stuff that comes in the big can, a pumice stone, or the best option, kerosene followed by more dish soap. There is no appropriate time for a man to use scented hand lotion. I don't care what the label says.

Another disturbing trend is developing in the apparel world. The fact that it has your favorite college team's logo on it does not make a "snuggy" okay for men to wear, and for Pete's sake, if you do give in to the temptation, don't wear it in public! You might as well put on a skirt and high heels.

Day spas are not for men, even if there is a Sports Illustrated in the lobby and a game on the TV. Manicures and pedicures are not manly in any setting. If the rough edges from the clippers are bothering you, the proper solution is to rub your nails back and forth on your jeans, or better yet, the sidewalk or a brick wall.

These may seem like trivial issues, but if you let it go to far, as happened in the eighties, you get things like Phil Donahue the Bee Gees and the Back Street Boys. We don't want to go back there again.

There is a much better way to get in touch with your feminine side. There are people who are very adept at exploring, displaying and maintaining the feminine side. They're called women. Try talking to one.

Universal Care Equals Apocalypse? Doubt It.

Did you ever stop to wonder why it is that all the other countries in the industrialized world manage to insure all their citizens and we can't? If what Ed fears is true, their economies should have collapsed generations ago. Yet somehow they haven't. The reason is simple: Making sure all your citizens have reasonable access to basic health care is good for your country. Your citizens will thrive and prosper, pay taxes and contribute to the economy. National (or universal) health care works, and has for generations. Nothing remotely like the apocalypse that Ed describes has come to pass in Europe, Canada or Japan. So it need not happen here. That's obvious.
In the rest of the world, no one goes bankrupt because they get sick. But most of the bankruptcies in the US are the result of medical bills. Prevention of millions of personal bankruptcies is only going to help the economy.
When Americans can afford the pain medications and treatment they need but have forgone, they will be able to get more done. More projects, more materials, more jobs.
Despite Ed's insistence, I am happy to live in a country that allows people to invest, to profit and to make absolutely stupid piles of money. But considering the spectacular failure of free market, private health insurance companies to meet the health care needs of all Americans, it is clear that government must step in and offer help. That's what it's there for.
And as to the expense, consider this: The cost for covering all uninsured Americans for the next 10 years -- about $900 billion -- is about equal to how much money the richest Americans saved as the result of a tax cut they got eight years ago. It also about equals the cost of the Iraq war (that one is a full trillion, kiddos).
I know my buddy Ed hates paying taxes. Maybe next time someone wants to invade a foreign land for no coherent reason, I hope I hear him kicking up a fuss. -- By Matt

The evil profit motive

I don't want to spend a bunch of time defending myself. I'd rather spend it on the ideas. I'll just say there is a difference between confidence in one's convictions and the blind faith of ideology and let the reader decide which I display.

You can hate the profit motive and proclaim that it shouldn't exist, but that's going to get you as far as demonizing your car for demanding fuel.

It's telling that Matt suggests he doesn't care if the system collapses. It will serve the greedy insurance companies right. Is that the real issue? We're going to punish the rich by destroying the economy? Okay. Poverty doesn't scare me. I've been there. It sucks, but I can deal with it. Just keep in mind that there will be nobody to soak when we're done.

I know the plan says you can keep the exact same policy you have now if you want. Everyone will be covered. No limits, no denials and it will all cost less. Keep saying it over and over and maybe it will come true.

Those evil insurance companies are comprised of actual human beings. Those human beings are going to walk away and do something else when it no longer makes sense to work in the insurance biz. Then health care will be administered by politicians, and what a wonderful world it will be.

None for me thanks.

Health Care for All Americans

A battle of ideas can get boring quick, so let's start with a joke: What do you call a 22-year-old cancer patient with health insurance? A Canadian.
My ol' schoolchum Ed has many fine qualities, but he is an ideologue. This is to say that he will argue passionately and often against his own interests. I'm reminded of the great headline from The Onion: "ACLU Defends Nazis' Right to Burn Down ACLU Headquarters."
Ed's a hardworking, self-employed guy for whom a serious ailment or injury would likely mean bankruptcy. Yet his utter distrust of our democratically elected, representational government leads him to fear and oppose the easy solution to the health care crisis in America. Namely, a single payer system. It's simple, and works like this: If you've got health insurance you like, keep it. If you can't afford it or were otherwise rejected by cherry-picking insurance firms, you're covered. The government has your back. You deserve it. Why? You're an American.
Yet somehow this prospect fills Ed with dread for his children's future. He pitys the poor insurer, struggling to meet the mandates of an authoritarian state. The fact is, the insurer is the problem in the equation, and this is where Ed and I really differ.
We are agreed that to provide health care, we need doctors, nurses, hospitals and janitors. And we need someone to pay them. Fine. But why do we need health insurance companies and their profit motive? We don't.
Consider this: Over half of all Americans are in some way covered under federal programs (Medicare, Medicaid, the VA). The administrative costs under these federal programs are about 4 percent of the total spent. The same cost for a private insurance company? About 20 percent. Why is it higher? Well, the profit motive of course. They have to pay their CEOs and top executives those multimillion dollar salaries, and then there are the advertising expenses. Don't forget the investor class, they get their share too.
Ed is afraid this lovely system will collapse if there is a public option. It might, and I don't care.
I am tired of seeing the outrageous, double-digit increases in health insurance premiums that we paid year after year after year. I am tired of seeing my friends limp around in pain or go without medication for lack of money to go to the doctor. A couple years ago I attended the funeral of a woman my age who died because she had no health insurance, didn't get care and died, alone in her room.
Let's just say that woman needed $6,000 worth of care a month, Ed. Let's say she got it, and was alive to make more money, pay taxes and premiums, to bear and raise children, for many years to come. Would her contribution in life make up for the financial loss to her insurer? Obviously the health care companies -- being privately held, for profit corporations -- had no vested interest in keeping her alive. But America did. America could have benefitted from her preservation. America lost.
It is sad and ironic to me that health insurance for all is where my conservative friends have drawn the line in the sand. They trust the government to run our beloved Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines, at a cost of dizzying billions annually. They trust the government to insure their bank deposits. They trust in the roads and bridges and waterways we all pay to build and maintain. Yet they cannot fathom that it is a democratically elected government's right or responsibility to step in and offer a solution -- to just pay the damn bill -- when the free market refuses or declines to provide care to their fellow Americans.
Ed seems to worry that the elimination of the profit motive from the health care industry will lead to the ruin of America. I say the profit motive has ruined health care, and is killing America as we speak. I say, let private insurance companies perish. That's what they've been saying to millions of Americans, like my late friend, for years.

Health Care - Again

By Ed

Alright, let's get to the heart of the issue here. Instead of each of us beating each other over the head about how wrong the other is, let's try focusing on the common ground.

The goal is to try to enable affordable access to health care for everyone. The challenge is that health care doesn't just fall from the sky or grow wild in the back yard. It's a service that requires labor, resources and time. It requires someone to work. I'm going to assume we're both opposed to slavery, so that's out. Forcing someone to work for less than they believe it's worth is also out. (That's just modified slavery). So, if it's going to be done, there must be another way to go.

The government has proven time and time again that putting them in charge of huge piles of money is a horrible, horrible idea. Let's think of something else. All of the proposals on the table at the moment are just round about ways of forcibly taking money from one group and giving it to another.

I'm not opposed to healthy, happy people. I've nothing against the working poor. I am the working poor. Contrary to reports, I don't feel like my ranks are swelling (I actually lost a few pounds this year.) What I'm opposed to is watching the nation commit economic suicide.

Most of the issues aren't that hard to deal with. They can be addressed by opening up the markets for health care insurance and health care itself. There are currently so many restrictions in the name of consumer protection that choices are very limited and expensive. For example, I can't just buy a $50/month policy that only covers broken bones. States have mandated coverages that must include everything from a broken pinky to a sex change operation. A clinic that wanted to provide only first aid would be faced with so much exposure to liability, they wouldn't be able to afford band aids. Like I said, these types of issues are easy. A little common sense could fix most of them.

The real tough one is pre-existing conditions. The President has stated that any health care reform package must include the requirement that insurance companies cover everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions. This is one point that his opponents have even agreed to. In fact, the vast majority of the public is on board with this one. Here's the problem. I walk into an insurance company with an ailment that requires $6,000 worth of medical treatment every month for the rest of my life. The company is required by law to sell me a policy for $500/month. How do you make the math work on that one? You don't. Private health insurance becomes a thing of the past. We will have government run health insurance, and the math wont work any better for the government than it did in the private sector.

The good news for pubic health insurance proponents is that it's probably inevitable. I believe my children's children will be sitting around the housing project one day, talking about how great it is that they don't have to pay for health insurance, as they enjoy a lump of government cheese. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the world fares when the economic engine known as the United States goes from neutral to a dead stop.

So how do you mandate the provision health care services regardless of pre-existing condition, limited co-pays and no limits on lifetime coverage and still protect the concept of individual freedom? How do you convince individuals to start and run companies that are required to sell dimes for 5 cents each? I have no idea. But, I'm listening.