Archive for December, 2009

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A Mandate to Speak Out: Health Care Reform

Monday, December 28th, 2009

It wasn’t long ago that President Obama stated his opposition to an individual mandate in the health care reform debate. During his debate with then Senator Hillary Clinton on February 21, 2008, President Obama laid down the line against penalizing Americans for not buying into health care reform.

“Now, Massachusetts has a mandate right now. They have exempted 20 percent of the uninsured because they have concluded that that 20 percent can’t afford it,” said Obama. “In some cases, there are people who are paying fines and still can’t afford it, so now they’re worse off than they were. They don’t have health insurance and they’re paying a fine.”

Has President Obama retracted his words? It seems likely. In politics people’s opinions can change. As Obama once cited Washington is “the place where good ideas go to die.” Now Obama, who vowed to reform the nation’s capitol, is caving into the political system. His previous promises prove erroneous. Our president is allowing his good ideas to die. He is allowing the politics of D.C. to override his seemingly firm position against a public mandate, and as a consequence the welfare of already struggling Americans is at stake.

If the individual mandate is accepted, individuals will be forced to purchase health insurance, unless they want to pay a fine. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey revealed that 36% of Americans believe that Obama’s health care plan will result in a deterioration of the health care system, and 57% are against a law requiring individuals to obtain health insurance. If Obama is really the people’s president, and if this health care bill is truly intended to better Americans, then why is Congress resolute to pass a bill which is opposed by the majority and imparts negative repercussions on citizens of the United States?

The argument over the individual mandate portion of the health care bill has transcended the walls of the House and Senate. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann snubbed traditional journalism tenants of unbiased reporting, and spoke out against the bill.

“The mandate in this bill must be stripped out,” delivered Olbermann. “It is above all else immoral and a betrayal of the people who elected you. Pass this at your peril, senators, and sign at yours, Mr. President.”

Yet some are now arguing against Olbermann’s claim of immorality. Senator Blanche Lincoln, (D-Ark.) claims that the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the authority to force individuals to buy health insurance. Lincoln argues that the Constitution “charges Congress with the health and well-being of the people.” Yet the Congressional Budget Office, (CBO) has combated this assertion with the fact that the federal government has never mandated Americans to purchase a particular good or service. On top of that, the Constitution does not charge Congress with the responsibility of the health and well being of the people.

Evidently the health care reform wave has sparked a multitude of impassioned arguments. Some carry more weight and sensible aspects than others. But one argument contention remains constant. This health care bill is intended to help the many uninsured Americans. We cannot deny that something needs to be done to reform our nation’s health care system. But let’s move forwards rather than regress. Adopting this individual mandate will only force Americans into a deeper rut.

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Kathleen Someah previously attended Kenyon College where she studied English and Political Science.  She was recently an intern with a political think tank where she focuses primarily on issues relating to homeland security.  She currently resides in California.

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A Conservative Christmas: Book Gift Guide (Part 2)

Monday, December 28th, 2009

Thomas Jefferson said, “man cannot live without books.” Here at American Maggie, we think that goes for women too. So in the second half of this two-part series we’re presenting the rest of our annual Christmas list of great reads to give and to get. To read Part 1, click here.

The Housing Boom and Bust, Thomas Sowell

$24.95, 184 pages

If, thanks to the recession, the items on your Christmas list this year are more numerous than the dollars in your bank account, Thomas Sowell would like a word with you. The author of such primers as Basic Economics, Sowell is the economist for non-economists, the expert for the inexperienced. His commonsense approach to financial quagmire has won him a large following of readers delighted to be neither condescended to nor ignored. In the land of economists, he is a populist among princes. Of course, Sowell is no less respected (or credentialed) amongst the ivory tower intelligentsia, though his conservative views have made more than a few institutions wish to pull up the drawbridge. In The Housing Boom he analyzes the current crisis (bad ideas + big government = disaster) and argues that the recession is not the result of a monetary Watergate or an economic Pearl Harbor. It is the consequence of a domino-like series of bad decisions and inept reactions: “in short, the policies and practices of many institutions, local and national, public and private, set the stage for the roots of the housing boom and bust.” Sowell offers no quick fixes, save one:  the principles in The Housing Boom will make a useful voter guide in 2010.

Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy’s Guide, Joseph Epstein (published 2005; re-issued 2009)

$13.99, 224 pages

The former editor of the delightful American Scholar and author of numerous essays, stories, and articles, Joseph Epstein is a quick study of character. A prolific writer on human foibles, he has devoted an entire book to arrogance (Snobbery: The American Version) and another to social climbing (Ambition: The Secret Passion). But in Democracy’s Guide Epstein paints a portrait of failings relatively restrained and unglamorous. Meet Alexis de Tocqueville, a politician of meager rhetorical gifts, sallow-skinned, sickly, and with a maddening propensity to forget the names of influentials helpful to his career. He lacked both ambition and arrogance and possessed a personality, by historic accounts, humble and ill-assured; “less easily well met; he lacked the gift of making himself quickly liked.”

Yet to read de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, still relevant more than 170 years after its writing, is to envision a Nostradamus of the public stage, where prophecy and foresight are rendered with mathematic precision. Epstein’s gift to readers is to draw back the curtain on the private life of a public man, tempering the oracle-like aura of Democracy with the faults of human character. As happens in many successful life stories, de Tocqueville’s weaknesses abetted his strengths.

Today, de Tocqueville’s work while serving in the Chamber of Deputies would scarcely warrant a mention on CNN’s political ticker. His weaknesses at the podium (the lack of social finesse, the halting voice) drove him instead to cultivate a relationship with voters and an intimate knowledge of community and society at the local level, talents he would later so effectively utilize on that famous journey across the United States. This grassroots education would ultimately shape his understanding – and his remarkable insights in Democracy in America – far more than a sparkling career as a rhetorician would have done. Democracy found a fitting guide in this philosopher king.

Operation Paperback

Cost varies

“What are you doing?” I asked [the soldier] without fear,

“Come in this moment, it’s freezing out here!

Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,

You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!”

…

Then he sighed and he said “It’s really all right,

I’m out here by choice. I’m here every night.”

It’s my duty to stand at the front of the line,

That separates you from the darkest of times.

- Anonymous

When Operation Paperback opened its doors as a nonprofit in 1999, boredom rather than bombs threatened most troops. A decade and two war theaters later, their motto speaks to the transforming and comforting value of books for those far from home and family:  “Giving Our Troops the Opportunity to Escape Into a Good Book Since 1999.” Through either monetary donations or book “care packages” you can help ensure that this season American troops receive the gift of reading. The process is as simple as visiting the website and inputting the main genres you have around your home (sci-fi, biography, etc.) or are inclined to purchase. Operation Paperback generates a list of names and addresses and you package up the books and mail them off. The Operation has shipped reading materials to more than 30 countries and locations, including Afghanistan and Iraq, and four fleets worldwide.

If you’re inclined to give financial support, other Operation Paperback projects include providing educational resources to service members, language phrasebooks, children’s books for soldiers to read over webcam to their kids, and counseling books for returning troops. You may donate here.

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Skyla Freeman (skylafreeman.com) is a former writer for President George W. Bush.  She blogs about style and culture at Sanity Fair online (sfair.blogspot.com).

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RCP Interview with Marsha Blackburn

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

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The Future of Health Care Reform in the Senate

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

When President Obama assumed office, he did so with the promise of reforming America’s healthcare system by implementing a public option. The president argued that a public option would not raise taxes for the middle class, but would “be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects.”

His critics said that not only was this goal too ambitious, but that it could not, and even should not be done. His backers lauded the plan, saying the country needed change and the status quo was no longer enough. Since then, the road to healthcare reform has been a long and bumpy one, and for liberal Democrats on the Hill, things have taken a turn for the worse. And most recently, it’s all because of one Senator from Connecticut.

When it comes to passing the healthcare bill in the senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada)-the most powerful person in the chamber- has had to take a back seat to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn). In the last week, Lieberman almost single-handedly shut down the Democrat’s plan to include an option that would allow seniors ages 55-64 to buy into Medicare. Now the measure, which was originally the compromise to Reid’s public option, is no longer a part of the bill.

So how could one senator so drastically alter a provision in the healthcare bill that a majority of Senate Democrats and the Obama administration supported? Welcome to the game of Capitol Hill politics.

Though an independent, Sen. Lieberman caucuses with the Democrats, giving them their super-majority of 60. But unfortunately for Reid, Lieberman didn’t approve of the Medicare plan, telling Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation, “…I certainly would have a hard time voting for it because it has some of the same infirmities that the public option did. It– it will add taxpayer cost. It will add to the deficit. It’s unnecessary. …”

And so in order to appease Lieberman and retain the 60 votes, the Medicare option was dropped. But this of course, didn’t happen without stirring up frustration and fury with liberals in the media and on the Hill. Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein unleashed his anger by writing, “At this point, Lieberman is just torturing liberals. That is to say, he’s willing to directly cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score,” (he later took out the word “directly” to tone down the accusation that Lieberman’s disapproval of the option was simply murderous).

One senior Democratic aide told Politico, “The anger toward him right now is white hot.” And spokesman for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Adam Green, proposed taking disciplinary action against the senator, saying, and “…Taking away Lieberman’s chairmanship is the way to teach a lesson to others.”

Despite this, the White House is still pushing for the Senate to pass healthcare reform by Christmas. At this point, anything would be acceptable, just as long as something gets passed. If that sounds desperate, it’s because well, that’s exactly what President Obama is. In a meeting with Senate Democrats on Tuesday, the president pushed the bill’s passage saying this would be the last chance for reform.

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer told Politico, “If President Obama doesn’t pass health reform, it’s hard to imagine another president ever taking on this Herculean task. For those whose life’s work is reforming health care, this may be the last train leaving the station.” Vice President Joe Biden seconded that sentiment, saying on MSNBC that if reform isn’t passed now, it will be pushed aside for another generation. The message to the Senate is, essentially, it’s now or never.

But trite hyperbole and the apocalyptic plea of “something is better than nothing!” are not likely to have any effect on moderate and Republican senators who are dead-set against a drastic overhaul of the healthcare system. Nor is the president’s desperation helping his approval rating, which recently hit an all-time low of 41 percent, according to Rasmussen.

Although in the end, the Senate may heed Obama’s call for action in the face of perceived crisis, it won’t be the action President Obama promised with gusto when he assumed office. But just getting something to pass in the Senate will take a lot more wooing of moderate Democrats and Republicans, while risking losing the support of staunch liberals. At this point, only time will tell if a reform bill will pass by Christmas, not to mention what effect doing something as opposed to nothing will have on the 2010 elections. And who knows how many more Joe Liebermans there are.

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

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Sensible Alternatives for Fixing Health Care

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Congressional Democrats claim that their health reform effort will deliver higher quality care at lower cost to more people. But their legislative prescription, which relies almost entirely on greater government involvement in the delivery of health care, would fail to accomplish these objectives.

Fortunately, there is a better way. With a few targeted reforms to our country’s medical-malpractice laws, insurance regulations, and the tax code, we can do a great deal to expand access to coverage and improve the American healthcare system for all — without bankrupting the country.

These basic goals of reform — expanding access and reducing cost — seem to have disappeared from the Democrats’ reform plan. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the leading Senate healthcare bill would actually cause premiums to rise for most Americans.

A legislative package that makes health care more expensive can hardly be called reform, especially when there are more effective ways of fixing the system.

For starters, consider how the bill would address pre-existing conditions, which often prevent people from securing adequate individual insurance coverage at an affordable price. Many congressional Democrats would like to require insurance companies to extend policies to all comers without regard for their medical history or health status.

States that have implemented such “guaranteed issue” regulations have seen premiums rise by more than 200 percent.

There’s a more prudent approach, one that won’t send premiums into the stratosphere: expand federal funding for high-risk insurance pools at the state level. These privately-run, publicly-funded insurance programs act as a safety net for those who can’t obtain conventional insurance.

High-risk pools already exist in 35 states. Expanding them to the remainder of the country would ensure that those with pre-existing conditions have a way of obtaining quality health care, without causing premiums to increase for all Americans until we have a fully functioning, competitive individual insurance market.

Medical malpractice law is another area that is ripe for reform. One in eight doctors is hit with a malpractice suit each year. These suits aren’t cheap — the average medical tort case costs a whopping $100,000 to defend, even though doctors are found innocent 90 percent of the time. To protect themselves in the event of a legal proceeding, many doctors practice “defensive medicine,” whereby they order more tests and procedures than necessary.

Such overtreatment increased individual health expenditures by $124 billion in 2006 and has added more than 3 million Americans to the ranks of the uninsured.

Patients who are wronged should be able to have their day in court. But with less than 15 cents of tort-lawsuit dollars going to compensate the injured, there’s clearly a significant amount of waste in the system. Implementing several commonsense tort reforms — including a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages — could reduce healthcare health spending by $11 billion, according to the CBO.

Healthcare reform should also make it easier for part-time workers and the unemployed to obtain coverage. Most Americans receive insurance through their employers — and don’t pay tax on the value of the benefit. Those who don’t get insurance through work are forced to buy an individual policy with after-tax dollars or forgo coverage altogether.

That’s unfair. Americans ought to be able to purchase insurance policies for themselves and their families with pre-tax dollars, just as businesses can. Such a reform would render health insurance portable, so workers could take their policies with them if they switched jobs — or keep their policies if they were laid off.

Another way to make health care less costly? Allow insurance companies to do business across state lines. Presently, Americans can only purchase policies approved for sale in the state where they live. This rule limits patients’ choices and curbs their ability to shop around for the best deal.

Removing those barriers would unleash a torrent of competition overnight, as consumers could begin shopping for insurance in states with more affordable coverage options.

A 25 year-old male in New Jersey, for instance, currently pays nearly $5,600 for a basic insurance policy. But if he were free to purchase coverage in Kentucky, he could obtain a similar policy for less than $1,000 a year!

Congressional Democrats may not be willing to admit it, but we can achieve health reform that expands coverage and lowers costs without placing government at the center of the effort. Commonsense reforms like these are a good start.

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Michele Bachmann is a Republican Congresswoman representing Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District. Sally Pipes is President & CEO of the Pacific Research Institute.

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Obama Moves Toward Center Stage

Monday, December 14th, 2009

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Too Big Not to Fail

Monday, December 14th, 2009

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Save Jobs from Questionable Climate Rules

Monday, December 14th, 2009

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A Conservative Christmas: Book Gift Guide (Part 1)

Monday, December 14th, 2009

Thomas Jefferson said, “man cannot live without books.” Here at American Maggie, we think that goes for women too. So in this two-part series we’d like to present our annual Christmas list:  the top six recently released books and publications to give and to get this holiday. Happy reading, and Merry Christmas.

Going Rogue:  An American Life, Sarah Palin
$28.00, 432 pages

Sarah Palin is a figure about whom much is said and little is known. Depending on the weather and which newspaper you read, she is a folk hero, an Orwellian enigma, or a female Dan Quayle. This identity jumble is not really Palin’s fault, unless you can blame her for having good genes; a pretty woman with political power is more than our judicious, socially progressive media can handle. Thus, the lack of good reporting, or any reporting, on many aspects of her career makes Going Rogue an essential addition to the news cycle; it is the only comprehensive examination of her life, and one of the few organized defenses of her decisions. And like everything else about Palin, it is impossible to ignore.

Going Rogue has, much like Palin’s politics, also defied sound criticism. It is neither an annoying whine (“complainer in chief” per the New York Times, apparently confused over which maverick candidate was author), nor is it an “American treasure” as hailed by the Free Republic. Call it, rather, found history. Of its 432 pages, roughly one-half concern the 2008 campaign, leaving a solid 200 pages of the book to stories of Palin’s childhood, marriage, family, and early political career (including such singular vignettes as Palin campaigning door-to-door while pulling her young children behind her on a sled). The folksy writing style is also uniquely Sarah, a fact about which the media has, unfairly, made great sport. Only imagine the outcry if Going Rogue had been written with the false gravitas of Bill Clinton’s My Life. Her love of country, family, the Last Frontier State – and good eating – stands out on every page.

Palin is also an unrelenting cheerleader for conservative ideals. From her perspective, every personal and political challenge, from media criticism to Anwar drilling must be addressed through the triumvirate of hard work, determination, and trusting people to make their own decisions. But of these three, it is determination that carries her the farthest. Early in her story, Palin describes a high school basketball game where she played through a painful injury to win the championship:  “that victory changed my life. More than anything else to that point, it proved… that hard work and passion matter most of all.” Her summary is an almost gleeful account of her suffering – “my right ankle is [still] a knobby and misshapen thing, a daily reminder of pushing through pain” – and perhaps best summarizes her indomitable campaign trail spirit. She survived in part because she was strong, but also because for her pain and victory are two sides of the same coin. Peggy Noonan once wrote that “all defeat is a collaboration.” It seems safe to say that Sarah Palin won’t be cooperating anytime soon.

The Encounter Broadsides Series, various authors.
$5.99, 48 pages each

The Broadsides series, conceived by Encounter Books as a modern Federalist Papers or Common Sense, is essentially a conservative tutorial, a prep card for political debate. With the motto “The Best Defense is a Good Broadside” the goal is to educate conservatives and send them into arguments well armed. I recommend this series with some hesitation, not for its content, but for its violent potential when opened under a multi-political Christmas tree. Resist the urge to slip a copy into the sweater box of your Obama-voting second cousin (whose frothing mouth and blazing eyes will no doubt extinguish some of the fun at Christmas dinner), and instead bequeath it to the fence sitters and conservative stalwarts of the family. Or arm yourself. Choose your issue, study the broadside, and sail through the choppy waters of liberal rhetoric and skewed statistics, leaving opponents in your well-informed wake.

Issues include How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy, How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine our Elections, and Obama’s Betrayal of Israel. Available at Encounter Books (www.encounterbooks.com/broadsides/).

The New Criterion
$48.00, one year subscription.  $38.00, online only.

“Quite simply the best cultural review in the world.”

- John O’Sullivan

What do the artist Jean-Antoine Watteau, statesman Henry Kissinger, and poet Karl Kirchwey have in common?  All are featured in a single issue of The New Criterion.  Founded through the peculiar partnership of an art critic and a pianist, this conservative polemic on everything from foreign policy to poetry embodies the best of criticism, free both from the deconstructionism of liberal thought and the more trivial clichés of popular culture.

Cultural dominance has proved elusive and short-lived for conservatives in recent decades; many right-of-center supporters have been guilty of exempting themselves from the world of art and high culture altogether. The New Criterion is therefore a necessary – and rather lonely – counterpoint to the muddled, muddy criticism seeping down into the weed-choked moat of the Ivory Tower. It is also a central repository of gifted modern writers, from Joseph Epstein to William F. Buckley to Christopher Ricks. As the editors describe it, creating their excellent publication means “engaging with those forces dedicated to traducing genuine cultural and intellectual achievement, whether through obfuscation, politicization, or a commitment to nihilistic absurdity.” In other words, The New Criterion is making its stand against intellectual vacuity and bureaucratic lingo; the opportunities to do so, it would seem, are endless.

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Skyla Freeman (skylafreeman.com) is a former writer for President George W. Bush.  She blogs about style and culture at Sanity Fair online (sfair.blogspot.com).

Posted in Books and Arts, Exclusives | 1 Comment »

President Obama Has It All Wrong When It Comes to Jobs

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

Last week, President Obama shifted gears from a push for national healthcare to an all-out job-creation blitz. In between justifying his decision for a troop increase in Afghanistan and pushing the Senate to act on a healthcare bill, Obama managed to squeeze in a “Jobs Summit” on Thursday and a speech in Allentown, PA on Friday.

But he has every reason to want to address unemployment. A new report released by Democracy Corp, a Democratic polling firm, shows that pessimism among Americans about the unemployment rate is at an all-time high for the Obama presidency. Not only that, but more Americans than ever feel the country is on the wrong track.

This isn’t welcome news for the Democrats in D.C. As George W. Bush becomes more and more of a memory, Americans are looking to place the blame on the party that is in power; that means Democrats running for reelection in 2010 will be facing uphill battles. But why shouldn’t Democrats accept at least partial responsibility for the disturbingly high unemployment rate? It has, after all, increased under Obama’s watch from 7.6 to 10.2 percent.

But to limited government and free-market onlookers, this has come as no surprise. Why? Because as job creation has always been fundamentally an undertaking of private enterprise, the federal government has, or at least should have, no role in it. Moreover, the Democrats use of the government as a means to the end of creating jobs only makes matters worse.

When President Obama first assumed office, he announced his intention to “create or save” 2.5 million jobs by 2011 with a stimulus package. Based on the Keynesian theory of economics, the Obama administration planned to use said stimulus package to invest in the economy. The purpose was two-fold: To give employers the money needed to hire workers and thus reduce unemployment, and put more money in the hands of the people to encourage spending. This in turn, would fuel an economic recovery.

But as is now well-known, the stimulus package has been implemented, but the results have been found wanting. The reasons for this are simple, and they all have to do with the very nature of a government-funded stimulus. For starters, government “investment” is only a code word for government “spending,” and with the tax payers’ money, no less. The chief way for the government to stimulate the economy is take money from the tax payers and redistribute it, which is exactly what Obama did. But, to resurrect an old metaphor, this doesn’t increase the size of the pie; it just cuts it in different slices.

In other words, taking money from the taxpayers and redistributing it does not increase the amount of money in the economy. It only puts it in different places. Thus, while jobs may be added, the consumer is left with less money. As a result, demand does not meet the increased supply, profit will not be realized, and eventually, businesses will have to make cuts all over again.

The other way the government came up with to fund the stimulus- printing more money at the Treasury- has proven to be just as harmless. There is a sound argument to be made for printing more money in the short term to encourage spending; even the libertarian economist Milton Friedman recognized that an increase in the money supply is necessary during tough economic times. The trick is just knowing when to stop. Printing too much money reduces the purchasing power of the dollar, which causes inflation. This does nothing but hurt those looking for employment.

President Obama has used nothing but government intervention to solve the economic crisis. But of course, in the words of the Wall Street Journal’s, Evan Newmark, “That’s not the way capitalism works. It doesn’t take a village to create a new job. It takes a businessman trying to make a new buck.” But the only way that will happen is if economic conditions are favorable and the businessman has the freedom to allocate his resources the way he sees fit.

Whether it’s one of Obama’s speeches, or a group discussion by CEO’s, talk will do nothing to spur job creation. The only thing American businessmen need is the freedom to act; for the government, that means cutting taxes and regulations, then getting out of the way. The best thing President Obama can do is to start relying on that “invisible hand” the economist and philosopher Adam Smith wrote about so long ago. His assessment of the market is just as true today as it was then, and stimulus packages and government job creation had no part in it.

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

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