Obsidian Wings

The Public Option's Most Frustrating Opponent

by publius

Despite its new momentum, the public option has a powerful new opponent -- the White House. 

It's incredibly frustrating.  Although Reid is close to getting 60 votes on cloture, Obama and Rahm (who, for all his bluster, is politically timid) are pushing for the "trigger," which is the same as nothing.

The question, then, is why?

At HuffPo, Sam Stein and Ryan Grim report that the White House's opposition is based on political pragmatism.  The White House feels that Snowe's support is critical to both protect centrist Dems and to ensure their continuing support for the bill. 

My view, though, is that they're being too timid here.  The politics have shifted since the summer -- both in terms of the bill itself and the public option.  The NYT today, for instance, noted how small businesses are suffering from skyrocketing premiums (thus strengthening the policy argument for a public option). 

Frankly, the lack of Republican support is a greater political threat to Republicans than to Democrats.  But it's hard to get some Democrats to see that.

But I think the White House also has some ulterior motives here -- in short, their political self-interest is diverging from the public interest.  The White House, understandably, wants to be re-elected.  Passing health care is critical to that.

I think, though, that the White House also wants to say that they've restored bipartisanship, brought the parties together on big issues, etc.  In short, I'm wondering if the White House's shorter-term political calculations (for themselves) are making them more timid than they should be on this issue.  I'd like to have Snowe's support too, but I don't think it's worth sacrificing an opt-out policy that seems to have wide Democratic support (and would have more if Obama showed some spine).

Of course, this entire post assumes that the politics have fundamentally changed since the summer.  The Dems survived the knockout punch, and reform now seems likely.  The lack of Republican support doesn't pose the same threat that it did in, say, August.  

And of course, the entire debate shows just how undemocratic the filibuster and the 2-Senator rule have become.

Shorter Douthat: It's embarassing to be such a bigot

By Lindsay Beyerstein

Social conservative NYT columnist Ross Douthat admits that he's uncomfortable discussing gay marriage in public because he opposes it for no good reason:

The question came from Christopher Glazek, a fact-checker at The New Yorker, who wanted to know whether Mr. Douthat and Mr. Salam believed that former RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, who has apologized on behalf of his party for the Southern Strategy, should also apologize for the Republican party's gay politics.

At first Mr. Douthat seemed unable to get a sentence out without interrupting himself and starting over. Then he explained: "I am someone opposed to gay marriage who is deeply uncomfortable arguing the issue in public."

Mr. Douthat indicated that he opposes gay marriage because of his religious beliefs, but that he does not like debating the issue in those terms. At one point he said that, sometimes, he feels like he should either change his mind, or simply resolve never to address the question in public. [NY Obs]

It's understandable that Douthat doesn't like debating the issue in terms of his religious beliefs. Because he always loses to the opponent who says: "Who cares about your religion, Ross? We're talking about the criteria for civil marriage, here."

Ross said he doesn't even bother with the standard secular argument against gay marriage because nobody ever takes takes it seriously:

He added: "The secular arguments against gay marriage, when they aren't just based on bigotry or custom, tend to be abstract in ways that don't find purchase in American political discourse. I say, ‘Institutional support for reproduction,' you say, ‘I love my boyfriend and I want to marry him.' Who wins that debate? You win that debate." [NY Obs]

Ross says the notion doesn't "get traction" because it's too "abstract." Notice how the pundit speak absolves him from coming right out and saying that this argument is bunk. He says he doesn't make the case because nobody will listen, not because it's a crazy idea.

Actually, nobody takes the marriage/reproduction argument seriously because any undergraduate can debunk it. It's not abstract at all. Even Ross thinks that sterile opposite-sex couples should be allowed to get married and I'm sure he's aware that some same-sex couples raise children. So, the question is why straight childless couples have more rights than their gay counterparts. If reproductive support is so important, we have a moral obligation to support the children of gay and straight families equally by letting their parents get married.

It's obvious why Ross is uncomfortable talking about gay marriage in public. He wants the state to impose his religion on other people, but he doesn't want to look like a theocrat in front of the liberal cultural elite.

Open Thread Friday

by publius

Works calls today.  Have at it.  To start -- why does everyone seem to think Kings of Leon is good?

Just Tax

by publius

I have to admit that I don't like the idea of the government stepping in to dictate compensation levels, TARP funds or no TARP funds.  I'm certainly not morally opposed to it -- heck, many of these people deserve far worse.

The problem, though, is that I don't think the government is institutionally competent to figure this stuff out in a remotely fair and informed way.  It seems like the bluntest of blunt instruments.

Instead, I'd prefer to let people make what they make, and then raise taxes significantly on the very top earners.  For that reason, I'd prefer to see the anger from these ridiculous compensation levels (which were made possible by government intervention, mind you) channeled toward larger tax reform.  

The compensation limits proposed this week will be fleeting anyway -- the ultimate purpose is to keep us rubes at bay.  Raising tax rates on the very very top, by contrast, would be a more lasting reform -- one that would promote equality, reduce concentration of political power, etc.

RedState Wonkery on Open Networks

by publius

I wasn't expecting the good folks at RedState to endorse open networks.  But RedState's Neil Stevens threw me for a loop with this one: 

[Open network regulations are bad because] [w]ealth will be redistributed, as cash-rich, massive market valued Internet firms will bully and get a free ride on capital-intensive, smaller market valued telecommunications firms.

Ah yes, let's hope gritty upstart AT&T can survive this.  Anyway, I was brave enough to click the link, which led me to his previous post explaining why AT&T is actually David fighting Goliath:

“Amazon.com, EBay, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Facebook, Skype, and Yahoo” are all on their side. Some of those are small companies, but . . . Microsoft’s market capitalization stands at over 220 billion dollars today, and Intel’s at half that, $106 billion. The big, bad AT&T itself is only worth $1.2 billion, or about half of one percent of Microsoft.

Um, ok. 

I'm not exactly an expert, but I do have Google.  And Google tells me you measure market capitalization (i.e., value of equity) by multiplying the number of outstanding shares by share price.  For AT&T, that gets you $153 billion (or $146 billion after you subtract their cash). 

As you probably recognize, $146 billion is bigger than $1.2 billion.  He was close though -- just off by a factor of 121.

And if you really want to determine the value of AT&T, you should also factor in its $76 billion of debt.  That brings you to around $222 billion.

The point is that AT&T is an enormously large and powerful company under any metric you choose (revenues, market cap, etc.).  Stevens, however, is treating it like a new startup company.

More broadly, his argument that a bunch of rich Internet companies are fighting for open networks isn't really true.  Internet companies aren't exactly doing the heavy lifting anyway.  Public interest organizations like Free Press are.

And with the exception of Google, most of the companies actually doing some real work aren't that big.  Microsoft, by contrast, has been virtually useless in this fight.  You'll notice that it's not on the CEO letter that went out earlier this week supporting open networks.

In any event, essentially nothing is correct in either of Stevens' posts.  They are entertaining though.  "Single Payer Internet" is a keeper.

The Big Bang Theory

Guest post by Gary Farber.  Gary's home blog is Amygdala, and he invites you to read him there. 

For my final guest post at Obsidian Wings, something completely different: a roundup of some recent science, or tech, or just downright weird, sci-tech news, or that's at least news to me, as well as an item or two of the fantastic.

Green your factories with electron beam particle accelerators:

[...] While environmental applications of particle accelerators have made little progress commercially in the United States in the last 40 years, a number of countries in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East are actively pursuing the technology.

In Daegu, Korea, an electron-beam accelerator in a textile factory removes toxic dyes from 10,000 cubic meters of wastewater per day. In Szczecin, Poland, the Pomorzany power station installed an electron-beam accelerator in its coal plant to simultaneously remove sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides from roughly 270,000 cubic meters of flue gas per hour. China has started to use electron beams to control air pollution, and a facility in Bulgaria is under construction. Saudi Arabia may soon follow.

All you have to do for more widespread use is ensmall them. 

[...] "We have proven that the technology works," says Andrzej Chmielewski, director of the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology in Warsaw, Poland. "The size of the accelerators can be huge, though. We need a technological breakthrough" to make accelerators smaller and easier to maintain.

But they're working on that!  With plasma wakefield acceleration and laser wakefield acceleration! 

Oh, and who do you have to thank for that?

[...] Thanks in great part to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the stimulus package,

Dancing In The Dark

Guest post by Gary Farber.  Gary's home blog is Amygdala, and he invites you to read him there.

[Eric Martin: My friend Gary is going to be pitching in for a couple of days as I adjust to the enhanced parenting techniques that my son is submitting me too.  And yes, sleep deprivation is torture.]

On December 31, 2009, three provisions of "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001," aka the "PATRIOT Act,"  sunset and expire.

Bills to reauthorize or amend these three provisions have been moving through the Congressional Judiciary Committees in the past two months.

The three sections are:  

SEC. 206. ROVING SURVEILLANCE AUTHORITY UNDER THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT OF 1978. Section 105(c)(2)(B) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1805(c)(2)(B)) is amended by inserting 'or in circumstances where the Court finds that the actions of the target of the application may have the effect of thwarting the identification of a specified person, such other persons,' after 'specified person'.

This is also known as "the John Doe" provision.

SEC. 215. ACCESS TO RECORDS AND OTHER ITEMS UNDER THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT.

Also known as the section dealing with "national security letters," by which:

The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or a designee of the Director (whose rank shall be no lower than Assistant Special Agent in Charge) may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities [....]

The third is:

SEC. 805. MATERIAL SUPPORT FOR TERRORISM.

What are these about, and why should we care?, you ask. As the ACLU explains:

Pelosi Goes "All In" On Public Option

By Lindsay Beyerstein

Nancy Pelosi is going all in to support a public option that would hold down costs by setting reimbursement rates at Medicare plus 5%. The CBO's latest cost estimates for various House health care reform options have galvanized Pelosi in favor of a Med+5 public option, Brian Beutler reports. 

Pelosi has always favored some kind of public competition for private health insurers, but she has previously been non-committal about how hard a line a public plan could take to hold down costs.

The House Democrats are in negotiations to combine the various bills that passed their respective committees this summer. Chris Bowers has a good discussion of how Pelosi is using the CBO numbers and the Med+5 proposal to outmaneuver Blue Dog Democrats in the House and Senate. Basically, the stronger the public option the House bill proposes, the bigger the cost savings it will project. Fiscal conservatives will be hard-pressed to vote against a public option that's projected to cost less than the alternatives.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, the co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, told Bloomberg that the caucus is gravitating towards the Med+5 plan, as opposed to a weaker proposal that would have the government negotiate rates with providers.

It's cheaper for the public to negotiate reimbursement rates for the entire plan because the massive bargaining power of the federal government drives down prices. Whereas, the public invariably gets a worse deal when rates are negotiated piecemeal. There's really no reason not to negotiate in one fell swoop, except as a gimme to vested interests.

Naturally, drug companies and health care providers want piecemeal negotiations. However, Obama has said he won't sign a bill that adds to the deficit and the House is looking for ways to save money. Letting the government drive a hard bargain is an attractive way to cut the costs of health care reform. Piecemeal negotiations would hobble one of the most powerful cost-control features of a public plan.

A Critical, Inexcusable Blogging Error

by publius

I am furious at myself for not naming last night's post "It's a 'Part E' in the U.S.A."  You don't get that sort of opportunity very often, and I blew it.

Get Your "Part E" On

by publius

House Democrats are warming to renaming the public option "Medicare Part E."  The Hill reports:

Say hello to “Medicare Part E” — as in, “Medicare for Everyone.”

House Democrats are looking at re-branding the public health insurance option as Medicare, an established government healthcare program that is better known than the public option.

Frankly, this should have happened a long time ago.  But no time like the present.

Assuming this label catches on, I'm anxious to hear how GOP legislators will distinguish it from the "real" Medicare.  "No, no, no.  Medicare is much different.  We love Medicare.  The public option, however, is a threat.  It will lead to a government-run, single-payer, socialized coverage system.  That's much different than what Medicare does."

In all seriousness, the most valid reason not to call it "Medicare" is that the public option is far less socialized.  Even under the most liberal bills, the public option would only be available to a fraction of the public, and even then would have other restrictions such as artificial floors on reimbursement rates, etc. 

In short, Medicare is much more liberal than the public option.  I doubt, though, that the GOP will adopt this as their main talking point.  Instead, we may see a comeback tour for "Medicare will bankrupt us all."

In any event, the public option is certainly close enough to idea of the Medicare system to justify the label.  So that part doesn't bother me.  Besides, a little gimmickry in the name of good policy is no vice.

What is unfortunate, though, is that the label change is even necessary in the first place.  As virtually everyone agrees, Medicare is a very good program -- it has improved lives and reduced fear in an infinite number of concrete ways.  But it is a public program.  It should, therefore, be a testament to government's ability to help people.

The fact that the term "public option" is tainted in many people's eyes shows that progressives still need to show people that government has been, and can be, a force for good.  We should advertise it more.  It's unfortunate that socialized, single-payer Medicare could be so popular with people who are so ideologically opposed to something called the "public option."