Monte Python Insurance

On the British comedy show, Monte Python, there was a skit where a customer was trying to file an insurance claim.

The duologue follows:

Vicar: But my car was hit by a lorry while standing in the garage and you refuse to pay my claim.
Devious: (rising and crossing to a filing cabinet) Oh well, Reverend Morrison, in your policy... in your policy... (he opens the drawer of the filing cabins and takes out a shabby old sports jacket; he feels in the pocket and pulls out a crumpled dog-eared piece of paper then puts the coat back and shuts the filing cabinet).... here we are. It states quite clearly that no claim you make will be paid.
Vicar: Oh dear.
Devious: You see, you unfortunately plumped for our 'Neverpay' policy, which, you know, if you never claim is very worthwhile, but you had to claim, and, well, there it is.

Now in many ways the new republican health insurance seems to have the same basic premise.  People who aren't likely to file claims get to pay less.  However people who really need the insurance are going to pay more, in some instances a lot more.

Now the numbers look like an overall reduction because of all those young people who seldom file a claim.  Now the idea of the affordable care act was to make insurance more affordable for all by including the young and the old, the sick and the healthy in one pool. 

Yes this means if you are young you pay more, but since you are likely to be old at some point in time it eventually sorts itself out.  However, being old and sick now means that you are never going to be young and healthy again, so guess the republican solution is that you should hurry up and die.

When you take away the subsidies that made the insurance affordable for poor people, you of course save money.  Take away mandated coverage and you allow insurance companies to offer tailored products.

In other words the "Neverpay" policy is making a comeback.  At least its affordable.

Learn Who They Are

A lot of people break things down into us vs them. The problem is that most of those people are picking the wrong "thems".

If you lost your job because of a manufacturing plant closing down, that was a business decision, not some Hollywood celebrity.

Immigrants coming into this country has been allowed because they provide cheap labor, not because liberals want it.

Now if you just hate the idea of social progress and equal rights for all, then go ahead and blame the liberals.  However, your economic issues are the result of business decisions which were made by wealthy executives, not a bunch of hippies.

No one is after your guns or going to tell you what religion to practice.  The people lying to you about that want you to focus on the wrong "them".

The people who want clean air and water are trying to improve your health as well, so if you hate them you might want to ask why.  The jobs didn't leave because of that, it was a business decision.

Coal is being replaced by cheaper natural gas much more than solar or wind, although they will also become more relevant.  It isn't coming back because it isn't needed and it isn't a good business decision.

The wealthy people who run this country are the ones who are doing these things and giving them more tax breaks as a reward isn't going to create jobs, at least not in any meaningful way.

The fact that services are poor is because of those tax breaks.

Of course, you can continue to be persuaded that the enemy are people who have no real impact on your lives, the liberal media, the Hollywood elite, all those people on the coasts, but they aren't dong anything that actually impacts you.

Its the same people it has always been and you really already know that.

Spring Ahead Thoughts

Even though today we turn the clocks forward, turning back the clock is something that seems to be what many Americans want.  Its fairly common to remember the best part of the past while the painful parts don't seem as bad as when they were happening.

However, the past wasn't better than the present nor  as good as the future will be with the exception that everyone was younger.

We can't get young again although that seems to be the goal of a lot of advertising.

I'd like to feel like I did when I was young but I wouldn't want to be as stupid as I was then.

Part of human existence is the imperative to grow, live and die.  We pass on our genes and hopefully our knowledge to the next generation. 

The course of human history shows that as time passes, we progress.  Now as far as physical progress, we have things now that were unimaginable as little as a hundred years ago.  There have been some reactions to the change in technology and material things but generally most of us are happy with the changes.

But this progress isn't even and while it improves the human situation overall it doesn't work for every individual. 

The ability to use technology in manufacturing reduces the cost of products but eliminates low skill labor.

Office and business automation has eliminated a tremendous number of clerical jobs that used to exist.

Online shopping is eliminating jobs related to physical shopping.

These jobs are gone but the people remain.

New jobs are being created but they aren't the same and often don't pay as well.

It can be painful, but the clocks move forward everyday whether we like it or not.

Riding Obama's Coat Tails

When Obama took office we were in the worst financial crisis since the depression and he had to deal with it.  It wasn't easy and he took a lot of grief at the time and subsequently for the continued problems which after about a year he had turned around.

We then had an almost unprecedented period of economic and job growth, although because of various factors, primarily a change in the basis of the American economy, certain lower skilled individuals were left behind.

The solution is of course to improve the skills of the workforce to prepare them for the jobs of the future which are not going to be the mindless factory work which was at one time the backbone of the economy, robots do that now.  Humans have to apply human skills, which means thinking and developing skills.

Now the growth is real and is continuing for now and is largely the result of the last 8 years of Obama's policies but of course also the result of American entrepreneurial efforts.

What was celebrated by Trump after one month as America being great again is actually an acknowledgement of his predecessor's accomplishments, although he would never admit that.

Still the question is how long will it take him to derail our growth?

Some of his policies might lead to a short term boost if the infrastructure bill actually passes, but he seems likely to reduce trade and pursue meaningless strategies in pursuit of jobs that simply don't exist anymore.  The end result of that will be a recession, as the infrastructure spending slows, the debt increases, interest rates rise and exports fall.

Its just a question of how long really.  Obama's coat tails are only so long after all.

Denying Reality

In Alice in Wonderland, you have a girl transported to a world where reality is different.  Its a fun book and its been turned into a number of movies because the world created has few boundaries.

Now a lot of fiction is like that, depicting alternate realities that create a world which while sort of like ours is just different.

Of course, the general theme is that we leave this reality and go to that one.

Now our alt right friends and president inhabit such an alternate reality which has evil characters who are trying to destroy the life they cherish.  They have invented things like the "deep state" which is supposedly the entrenched liberal behemoth that runs things, the fake media which to most of us is the legitimate media, and a world where the undeserving get massive help while deserving people have to pay for it.

There are other aspects and the world they have created is still developing.  Of course they are certain that it is the correct reality, and in their own minds it is.

It is easy to do when developing these ideas late at night on the web when you don't actually have to face the real world.  However, when exposed to the sunlight of reality these things start to fall apart.

Take climate change. Now science is generally accepted as being non-partisan, but not in this reality.  In this reality the facts and figures are manipulated to promote a theory that allows the Government to interfere in people's lives.  We have the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency disagreeing with the consensus scientific view that carbon emissions are a leading cause of climate change.  He probably also thinks cigarettes are good for you. 

If you simply believe you can create the reality you want and then dismiss whatever disagrees with that view, you are delusional. 

Reality has to be supported by empirical proof to be well, reality.  The world appears flat until you get a larger perspective.  The sun appears to circle the earth, but we now know better.  If you continue to believe the earth is flat or the sun circles the earth, there are things that can only be explained via a conspiracy theory.

So conspiracy is the primary reality of these people.  For some reason a large number of people are distorting evidence and creating facts that aren't real.

Its almost impossible to argue with people who refuse to acknowledge that the laws of the universe are valid.  Eventually of course reality will prevail, it always does.  The consequences of that might be felt by all of us unfortunately,

Gutting the EPA

If you want to rob a bank to get money, the problems you face are the fact that the bank doesn't want to be robbed, and that the police (the Government) will try to stop or apprehend you.

Of course you have already overcome the moral issue that robbing a bank is bad, so that leaves you with the two problems above.

Considering that the bank is probably dependent on the Government to protect them, the first part is fairly easily overcome since they aren't geared up to fight back.

So getting the Government out of your way is the challenge.

Now remember, the money in the bank isn't the banks, it belongs to the depositors or the people, who trust the bank and who rely on the Government guarantee that their money is safe.

Now if some very clever and long perspective criminals worked arduously to cut the police budget and reduce their equipment they would greatly reduce the possibility of Government interference in their bank robbing.

Now we all agree that bank robbing is bad or at least most of us do, but this is the very situation we are faced with today.

Getting Government out of the way so that businesses can effectively rob us and our children's clean air and water.

Now they are maintaining that the regulations aren't needed, that they eliminate jobs and are counter productive are of course self serving allegations.

The pollution we allow today will sicken us but more so the generations to follow. 

We have polluted sites all around this country from the past when industry was pretty much allowed to do what they wanted.  What they want to do is to make money and live someplace where the air and water are good.

They don't really care what the rest of us drink and breathe.

Gut the EPA and let the rest of us wonder about the increase in respiratory diseases and pollution based cancers.

Health Care Follies

The new plan rolled out by the Republicans has an uncertain future since it doesn't have support by progressives and the fiscal conservatives don't like it.

The issue is that in the spectrum between no Government involvement and a single payer, everything else will have opponents.

Some want the whole thing eliminated as they don't believe Government should play any role.  This view goes against the concept of Government in every other civilized society and is promoted by selfish rich people.  Oh they may give money to charity, but they don't like having the Government decide who needs help.  Maybe greedy is a better descriptor since they want to keep control over all their money.  The fact that some people would die is no concern of theirs, guess they just picked the wrong parents.

Single payer is a system that actually works in most of the world but we can't do it since it would reduce profits to many businesses.  They would still have a role to play in administering the system and selling supplemental insurance, but the idea of Government health insurance with basic costs paid by taxpayer dollars is a step too far, or maybe it isn't.  It would be a step in increasing our competitive position since business would get out from under the health care cost that burdens them.  It is by far potentially the cheapest and best way to provide health care tot he greatest number of people but is still considered by many a Government takeover.

The Affordable Care Act was an attempt at a compromise that failed because the republicans at the time rejected any such attempt.  It actually includes many things that were included in republican proposals previously but which they immediately attacked.  of course they also attacked things that were never part of it, such as death panels and made claims that have been proven false but there is plenty of information about the ACA for anyone interested.  It wasn't a disaster and by most measures was quite successful in reducing the number of uninsured. 

The current republican proposal is now forced to include the successful popular elements of the ACA while convincing the more strident members of their party they have gutted it.  Throw on top of this a president who seems unable to absorb reality or actual facts although it has come to his attention that health care is complex.  Apparently he believed in a simple solution, cover everybody cheaper.  Hard to argue with that really, just like its hard to dislike Santa Claus if you don't come from Philadelphia.

In fact, one of the things that the president is used to from his construction background is inflated estimates.  So maybe he should go around telling people in the health care industry to just charge less.  It would at least keep him busy.