Obamacare Problems Shouldn't Surprise Anyone

Ok, first thing, I feel I need to say whenever I discuss the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka Obamacare): it is a Republican plan.  It is the conservative answer to the question: "How do we provide health coverage for everyone?"  The liberal answer can take a few forms but the easiest is "single payer" (aka: medicare for everyone).

ACA's 3 legged stool is straight forward:

1. Require insurance companies cover everyone (no preexisting condition exemptions).
2. Mandate everyone get insurance (otherwise, because of 1. the sensible thing is to not get insurance until you are sick/injured, which doesn't work for, I think, obvious reasons--if not obvious: this would devolve to just paying for health care, i.e. no meaningful insurance at all)
3. Provide subsidies for those who can't afford and penalties for those who can to make sure everyone gets insurance.

There are a couple ways for this this to breakdown but they amount to the same thing: too many people or insurance companies opt out.  This is exactly what is happening.  Healthy people not covered via employers are just not getting insurance on the exchanges, which means those that do purchase are in worse health than average, so the costs to cover them are higher than expected and so we see the combination of insurance companies dropping out of the exchanges and/or raising fees dramatically.

The public option would have done quite a bit to fix this: by making it possible for people to buy into Medicare (essentially) on the exchange, you wouldn't have to worry about insurance companies leaving, and the costs would be fairly low since they could be leveraged with Medicare and/or Medicaid.  Problem solved...except insurance companies did not want this because they feared (and liberals hoped) that the public option would be cheaper and provide better coverage than insurance plans, and so, over time, people would leave the insurance companies for the public option.  Basically this is a back door slide into single payer.  Not sure it would have worked but it wasn't just the liberals who thought it might: insurance companies agreed.

If there is no public option then there are a couple other mechanisms for fixing this, but both amount to the same thing: anyone that "opts out" has to pay the equivalent of a bronze tier insurance coverage.  While this technically could mean increasing the size of the penalty or just giving everyone insurance and then billing them, it would probably need to be the former.  At that point, why pay a penalty and not get insurance when the cost is the same?  So people would sign up in larger numbers.

Clinton vs. Sanders

I like Bernie Sanders, but I'm not so sure that he would be able to get much done as president.  I'm not a huge Clinton fan (Hillary or Bill) but I suspect she would be able to be more effective in meeting her goals as president.  That is probably the best reason to pick Hillary over Bernie (and this Vox article kind of gets there).  

My main problem with Hillary is not her pragmatism or even her "liberal creds" on domestic and social issues: it is that she is far too hawkish on the military/interventionist front.  Her single vote for the Iraq debacle is a black mark that is virtually impossible to erase, and all the talk about how knowledgeable she is on...well, everything...makes that vote even worse.  She should have known the correct way to vote (Bernie did) and she voted the wrong way, most people seem to presume for political purposes.  If it was not a pure political maneuver, then it is very strong evidence that she would, as commander in chief, be more likely to err on the side of bombing, invading and killing than on the side of peace and diplomacy.  

I'm not sure how I can vote for a candidate who is supposedly so well versed in detail and understanding of the issues and process, yet who made such a glaringly wrong choice.  

Conservative Catholics in the US

Interesting history lesson on conservatism and Catholicism in the US in the 60's and 70's and its parallels to today.

Catholic--indeed most Christian--conservatives have always struck me as odd.  Excepting sexual liberalism, it is very clear that liberal policies fit in far better with New Testament teachings than do conservative policies.  In fact most conservative Christians point to the Old Testament to find justifications for their political beliefs, ignoring the many times that the New Testament directly or implicitly contradicts those points.

Rich, athiest conservative (e.g. Ayn Rand) makes logical sense.  General asshole/jerk (e.g. racists, Sheldon Adelson) conservative makes emotional sense.  There is a narrow weaving of non-asshole, non-rich that may make some sort of sense, though a strong sense of individualist (aka selfishness) or kook (e.g. Ron Paul) is still required to fit in that gap.  Christian conservative just doesn't.  At all.

Unlike asshole Bill Maher I think that religion can be a positive force in society.  Most religions preach tolerance, love of neighbor, helpfulness, caring for others, disdain for violence, selflessness... That doesn't mean that there are not [always] going to be people who twist some aspect of some religion to violence and selfishness.  There is also a lot of us and them isolationism in religious communities (Mormons donate a lot...to the LDS church, they give to other charities at much lower rates than the general public).

I've got lots more thoughts on the subject but this is it for now...

"Liberal" Professors

Professors and universities are bastions of liberal thought.  Sure, but why?  This article states that the reason is self-selection, i.e. liberal youth consider academia an appropriate destination more than conservative youth and so choose it.  Fine, but this seems to me to be circular and so there is still a "why?" to consider.

First: it is circular, because the self-selection needs to be kickstarted somehow.  There needs to be a reason that liberals are more likely to see academia as a good environment to them that isn't "there are more liberals than conservatives in academia." It had to get that way somehow.  Note that that could have still been self-selection but the motivation to get from no apparent bias to professors are all liberal can't be that professors are all liberal.

So, why is it that academia developed into a place where liberals gather?  I haven't the resources (time or physical) to figure this out myself--I certainly do have a few thoughts on the matter--but this isn't a new phenomenon (some aspects are but not the whole liberal vs. conservative thought in educational settings).  

I should also note that while this has some bearing on US politics, that isn't necessarily a big part of it. Particularly today, the political side of liberal vs. conservative doesn't really register to me as an intellectual debate.  The two political sides are far more divided along emotional and group lines, though, yes, one side is far more welcoming of intellect/reason/facts/science/thought/... than the other.  

What Atrios Said

I wasn't particularly enamored with the Clinton administration (though the insane behavior of Republicans toward him made me take a more favorable view of him at the time).  I thought then--and do more so now--that by shifting so far to the right they were leaving a large swath of the public behind to gain the support of people (and businesses) who were broadly at odds with Democratic ideals which are quite popular.

Obama's rhetoric was good to hear, but his politics are in many ways even worse (i.e. more conservative).  In the end Clinton was more liberal than Reagan.  Obama really isn't.  I don't have high hopes for the upcoming State of the Union or what it will mean going forward.  Even if he sounds more populist, I just don't see any evidence that his policy positions will move that way.

Elizabeth Warren is Awesome

I'm not really sure it's anti-government left so much as anti-establishment left, as she--and her supporters--is a very big supporter of government (to regulate, equalize, level the playing field...).  She just thinks it's currently broken.