You Can't Comment On History If You Don't Know History

In an article on West Virginia's move toward the Republican Party, the author writes:

What’s happening in West Virginia runs against the tide nationally, and even more, against the pull of its own history. (emphasis mine)

West Virginia exists as a state because it broke away from Virginia in 1863 and refused to join the confederacy. From Franklin D. Roosevelt’s era until the 2000 election, it was among the most reliably Democratic states, one of only six that Jimmy Carter carried in 1980, and 10 that Michael S. Dukakis won in 1988.

I wonder if the author even understands that to side with the union in the Civil War, to refuse to join the confederacy, was to reject the Democrats and side with the Republicans? In other words, West Virginia was birthed out of allegiance to Republican ideals. So instead of claiming that the change is "against the pull of its own history," one could as well contend that it is a reversion to the state's original and most fundamental allegiances. The nightmare of its misplaced loyalties since the New Deal era may be finally over.

My Kids Are Not Part Of "Team America"

There's another one of those interminable international education studies out. I can barely bother myself to read the details. U.S. leads or lags or falls in the middle of the pack in this indicator or that blah, blah, blah.

I can't really care. I shouldn't have to care. Fortunately, my family opted out of the public education system, so we're not really affected by Common Core and all of the people who run around in circles waving their arms that "something has to be done" everytime we don't stack up against the South Koreans in educational outcomes. Home schoolers used to be widely persecuted, but we've put a stop to most of that with consistent legal defense and the sheer weight of numbers.

An important point about the U.S. Constitution is that it is anti-utopian. Yes, there's language in the preamble about forming "a more perfect union," but the means chosen to go about that are the opposite of the Utopian instinct.

We're a nation of individuals. We were the first major nation to recognize that the individual is the most important political unit, and maybe the only major nation to actually function on that basis for an extended period of time.

These educational studies are collectivist wet dreams. They identify a problem with us, collectively, and then proceed to the conclusion that it's OK to manipulate, force and coerce us, collectively, to resolve the problem.

But, regardless of how the U.S. stacks up against other nations educationaly, every single child in the U.S. is an individual. They are not competitors in the World Education Cup Games. How we do collectively is completely irrelevant, because each child's education is the responsibility of himself and his parents. Children and families have no obligation to "pitch in" and help the national average. Education may not be a priority for them -- especially others peoples' educations, or comparative results, and our nation used to recognize the right of people to be uninterested.

Just because the U.S. lags tiny, rich Singapore isn't a reason for some person in Washington to think he can start dictating how kids in Lincoln, NE ought to be educated. It's none of his business. The American system is designed that way. There wasn't even a cabinet-level department of education until the Carter administration in 1979, because education, like most other of our day-to-day governmental responsibilities, was recognized to be a local function for most of U.S. history.

So, don't tell me how the South Koreans are doing compared to us and what we need to do about it as a nation. You worry about your kids and I'll worry about mine. Move to South Korea if it's really important for you to be on the "winning" education team. I'm not on your team. There is no team.

Obama's Lies Come To My Employer

I know it's been made clear through thousands of examples that Obama was lying when he said "If you have insurance that you like, then you will be able to keep that insurance."

I just thought I'd add my own experience with my employer. Thousands of people from my company will not be able to keep the insurance they like:

Someone who works for my company submitted this comment on our health care blog:

Submitted by XXXXXXX. on Mon, 10/21/2013 - 14:23
Preparing for the Affordable Care Act does not make sense to me for dropping the 90/10 plan. What is the real reason?

 The company replied:

Submitted by (Corporate Response) on Tue, 10/22/2013 - 08:54
Thank you for your comment.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will be taxing companies that provide high-cost plans. This tax, referred to as the “Cadillac tax,”  is a 40% excise tax on the value of group health benefits that exceeds a threshold amount. The 90/10 Plan meets the definition of a high-cost plan per the ACA and a strategic decision was made to discontinue the plan in 2014 to avoid the tax as well as to continue providing affordable medical plan options to associates over the long-term.

In other words, under the affordable care act, the government doesn't want your insurance to be too good. Tough luck suckers.

The Photo That Lost Every War Since?

Fox has a fascinating article:

Behind the picture: 'Three Dead Americans,' Buna Beach, 1943

The teaser to the article from other pages is "The photo that won World War II," but I think the editor who wrote that teaser got it all wrong. It's quite possible that this photo, the first of its kind, the herald of a new era of visceral visual journalism, was the photo that caused the U.S. to stall in every war since:

What is ultimately so notable about Strock’s picture — beyond its sheer technical excellence, and its quiet power — is that when it was published in LIFE magazine in September 1943, it was the first time that any photograph depicting dead American troops had appeared in any American publication during World War II.

...

For months after Strock made his now-iconic picture, LIFE’s editors pushed the American government’s military censors to allow the magazine to publish that one photograph. The concern, among some at LIFE and certainly many in the government, was that Americans were growing complacent about a war that was far from over and in which an Allied victory was far from certain.

Once citizens started seeing these sorts of photos, videos and 'gritty' journalism, sure, maybe they weren't "complacent" but what they became, in later wars, was something entirely difference than "supportive." Was that the purpose all along? It's grown worse with every war, so that now, through images, wars like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars become intolerable to the public even though the list of U.S. dead and wounded over the entire course of the war is less than numerous single battles of the World War II era.

Could World War II's U.S. war effort have survived live broadcasts of Normandy and Iwo Jima to name just two of many? I kind of doubt it.

I'd ask, on the other hand, could the Holocaust occurred as well, with so much modern, instant media? But, sadly, we've already proven that "yes," modern age holocausts can occur in the Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and many other places.

It's kind of troubling to think that the information age hasn't crippled the monsters at all, just the will of the people who would fight the monsters.

Journalism: Investigating Shallowly

This piece in the New York Times, The Myth of the Medical-Device Tax, is a perfect example of a journalist investigating just deeply enough -- having just enough knowledge about a subject -- to get it completely wrong.

The article complains

The medical-device industry faces virtually no price competition. Because of confidentiality agreements that manufacturers require hospitals to sign, the prices of the devices are cloaked in secrecy.

This is ridiculous. I work in a very similar industry, selling very expensive equipment. Our prices, too, are cloaked in secrecy, and there is tremendous protectiveness about our prices and technology. But confidentiality agreements don't prevent our customer from shopping around, they just prevent them from sharing our information with our competitors and outside sources. The idea that a confidentiality agreement prevents price competition is ludicrous. It could only come from someone who has no experience with high-end niche-market products.

The reason it doesn't work for hospitals is that, unlike a truly free market business, there's no price pressure from below and almost no consumer choice. In my business, if the customer is going to spend several million dollars on our product, they have to justify the expense -- ROI, return on investment. They know they can't simply jack their prices up to ludicrous levels at the consumer end to cover it.

In the healthcare market, though, this isn't true. It starts right at the bottom. Because of the World War II era tax incentives on employer-provided insurance plans, the vast majority of workers get their health insurance through their employers. This means they have effectively no personal choice over their insurance plans. They don't get to choose how much they pay or what is covered. The premiums themselves are often highly-subsidized as a term of employment and even when not, it's pretty much a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

Then when the consumer seeks actual healthcare, he is either only allowed, or highly-incentivized to go to the healthcare practitioners authorized by his insurance. What other industry does that? If you wreck your car, or your house is damaged in a storm you can go to any mechanic  or contractor you want! But you can't protest this by dumping the insurance company that forces you into this, because see step one: employer-subsidized coverage! It all builds on a rotten foundation. No wonder you get a rotten product!

These doctors are forced into a pricing scheme that is heavily-influenced by insurance company and government mandates. Over half of every health care dollar in the U.S., even before Obamacare, is spent by the U.S. government. It's the 800 lb. gorilla in the room. Because Medicare is a mandatory insurance program for the elderly, and old age is when most people spent the vast majority of their healthcare dollars, Medicare rates dictate nearly all healthcare pricing in the nation -- even non-Medicare insurance and healthcare is warped by these pricing mandates. You can't dictate over half the pricing in an industry through government mandate without that being true.

So, the individual uses the insurance he doesn't have a choice in to select from a limited pool of doctors to obtain treatments for which he is prohibited from negotiating on price, and for which the price he does pay is highly subsidized, typically 80-90% paid by insurance. How, exactly, is this free market medicine? Naturally this encourages astounding waste because at nearly every level of the transaction people are dealing with "other peoples' money."

In my business *none* of it is subsidized. Every expenditure has to be justified by what the market will bear. That's the difference.

The article goes on:

Even worse, manufacturers often maintain personal relationships (sometimes involving financial payments like consulting fees) with physicians who choose the medical devices that their hospitals purchase, creating a conflict of interest. Physicians often don’t even know the costs of the devices, and individual physicians often choose devices on their own, which weakens a hospital’s ability to bargain for volume discounts.

OK, the stuff that's really expensive is hardly fodder for "volume discounts" -- the medical equipment we're talking about here isn't exactly gauze and sutures. It's high-tech fiber optic cameras and highly specialized equipment that may only be used for a single type of surgery. The hospital doesn't buy the expensive pieces in "volume," it may have only one or a few of them.

Certainly the physician choosing his own equipment at hospital expense is another example of "other peoples' money" in operation, but that sounds to me a like a matter of hospital policy, not a matter for government intervention, and it goes back again to the lack of consumer pressure on prices, not fiscally-irresponsible doctors. The doctors choose the equipment because when they are in surgery wrist deep in a cardiac patient, there's no administrative bureaucrat, no advisory group of doctors on the budget committee, to take the fall if the doctor is saddled with inadequate equipment. It's all on his head, the buck stops there. So do we really want anyone but our doctor dictating what equipment he uses?

As for the personal relationships, I don't think people understand how complicated this equipment is. Most people don't realize that there are often medical equipment company reps. right in the OR with the doctor and the rest of the team, because some of this equipment is so complex it requires a highly-knowledgable rep. to be on hand for advice and assistance. Again, we're not talking about gauze and sutures. This is also true in my industry, although it's not life or death: we spend a lot of time advising and assisting customers with our technology long after the sale. You're not just buying a refrigerator from Home Depot, getting it dropped off and never talking to GE or Home Depot again unless you need warranty repeair. When you buy equipment this high-end, you're also buying the company. Good personal relationships and trust in the vendor are essential! If this guy's in the OR with you helping you operate a million-dollar medical device with a patient's life on the line, it's nice to know he's someone competent, that he wasn't flipping burgers two weeks ago, before he signed on with the company that won the contract by submitting the lowest possible bid!

This article says the author, Topher Spiro, is the vice president for health policy at the Center for American Progress. If you go to his bio, he's a lifelong bureaucrat and policy wonk. He's absolutely not the guy you want involved in your life-or-death medical decisions! He demonstrates this in his article by showing that he has no understanding of either the basic economics that underlie this problem, nor the medical necessities involved in the use and sale of expensive medical equipment.

The entire article boils down to "Blah, blah, blah, greedy corporations! Blah, blah, blah, enormous profits!" It's a screed fit for a sophomore political activist, not someone seriously interested in improving the nation's healthcare.

His entire approach is a top-down "solution" that says "Medicare should force" this and legislation would "require" that, when top-down legislation and price fixing are what got us into this mess. It's no accident that the most highly-regulated markets in the nation are also the ones where supply and demand function least effectively. But, when you are a statist, the answer to failure of statist schemes is always "more statism!"

Shutdown Over. Debt Ceiling Hiked

It's over, for now: Obama signs bill to end partial shutdown, hike debt ceiling

Crisis averted! The U.S. is free to go deeper in debt! Glad that ended well. Wait....

And Yet, I'm Not The One Worried That Fictional Monsters Are A Threat To Society

Dr. Manny: America's obsession with 'The Walking Dead' is hurting our society

Who's obsessed with zombies? The people enjoying fictional movies, TV shows and video games, or the guy claiming in an allegedly serious column that zombie obsession threatens our society?