Poll Showing Drop In Support for ObamaCare Principal: You have to wonder

Support for the concept of Universal Healthcare (which is mandated by a Reagan era law that states Hospitals must care for the indigent) has fallen from 66% to 47% of the population by one poll.  Of course, I think a poll like this has the same problems that election polls have; minorities and young people and non-landline answerers don't get included.

But it is all we have and must take it at face value.

So 53% of the population believes that poor and middle class people who don't get health insurance at work, should not have access to health insurance.  Remember the policy wonks of both parties believe (as do I) that health insurance should be separate from employment and you can't get there without a robust Medicaid subsidy program like the Heritage Foundation/RomneyCare/Obamacare design.

But what is really stunning about what the 53% believe is that they think they can afford health insurance, without an employer subsidy, when the uninsured are getting treated at the E.R. with their costs covered by the hospitals upping the bills for those with insurance.  There is no free lunch in health care.  Health care providers get paid and health insurers make sufficient payments so the care providers get paid, and we make payments to the health insurance companies so they remain profitable.  So we either pay through the tax system supporting their Medicaid subsidy or we pay through higher health insurance premiums.

And it is the supposed direct higher cost of health insurance that makes people so angry about ObamaCare.  I suspect most of the complainers haven't had cancer yet and are betting on their diabetes holding off until they are on Medicare, where they definitely do not want anything changed.  And Medicare is someplace you definitely need either change or more financial support from somewhere.

I know thoughtful Republicans understand all this, just as GOP Congressman Camp understood the need for Tax Reform.  But all the thanks Congressman Camp got was a DOA designation from Boehner and now Camp has retired from Congress.

I wish the same poll had asked whether people support financial stability for Medicare.  Because you don't have a financially stable Medicare if you aren't giving the under 65 crowd access to affordable health care/insurance.

Exhausted, but I will Vote

I notice that my readership has migrated.  My Russian and Ukrainian readers have disappeared and been replaced by readers in Germany.  Since I don't think the Russian/Ukrainian readers were nationalists in the anti-democracy vein, I don't think they were upset by my anti-Putin point-of-view.  So I can only hope they have survived the conflict.

What has exhausted me?  Reading the same-ol-same-ol about the election and what the GOP are going to do.  While I do believe the GOP will control the Senate, we need to wait for the elections to pan out.  I don't trust polls because (i) young people don't have landlines, and (ii) who answers their landline when you don't recognize the calling phone number.  So a huge slice of the voting public is not getting polled.  But will they turn out?  That is the key unknown and based upon my survey of my only insight into that segment of society, they will not as they are going on a vacation Sunday for 2 weeks and I don't think they had the foresight to get an absentee ballot.

Fortunately, the only unknown election in NY where they live is Proposition #1 which is an effort to bring some honesty to the gerrymandering drawing in the year 2020.  It isn't a great proposition, but it is a step in the right direction and if voted down, who knows what the crooks in Albany will agree to since getting this was like pulling teeth.  They will probably just hunker down and let the status quo continue.

Too bad Vermont is so cold.  It is too small to gerrymander and they allow death with dignity.

Anyway, Tuesday is only 1 golf round and 2 days of studying away.  Then all this will be done and we can go back to gridlock and D.C. animosity.  If there is no compromise from the GOP, we will have veto after veto and await 2016.  At this point, I am thinking the best candidates are Maryland Governor O'Malley and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.  I have always thought Governors make the best Presidents.

Juan Williams and I Agree

"As a matter of brazen politics, the Republican strategy of obstruction has worked."

"What a shame."

Link to Juan Williams column

Ebola Musings

In the midst of the metro area governors mandating quarantines on Dr's and nurses who return from West Africa, which has received general praise from all quarters, Dr's without Borders responds that this may well discourage Dr's from volunteering to go to West Africa because the total of 6 weeks without income will be too much for them.

Yet, without Dr's volunteering to go to West Africa, Ebola will probably just spread like wild fire through the West African jungle.  And the more prevalent it becomes, the greater the risk of mutation (the non-scientist in me thinks).  So it really is in our best interest that Dr's go over there to treat people and try and contain the outbreak.  It is an example of how foreign aid is in our countries best interest.  Something the anti-foriegn aid wing of the GOP and the Democrats forget.  Perhaps, our quarantining governors could use some of that cigarette settlement money they aren't spending on anti-smoking programs to compensate these volunteers for their time in quarantine.

Meanwhile, I find out this morning that a bunch of these elections are about punishing legislators who  have supported background checks before the purchase of a gun, something 63% or so of adults of both political parties support.  That is what is so discouraging about this election.  The voters are likely to reward the GOP for achieving their goal of ruining the Presidency of Obama through their obstruction.  I hate that obstruction will be rewarded because the Democrats may well respond similarly and the country will not be better off for it.  The country is certainly not better off front the GOP unwillingness to compromise.

Voters are angry at the anger that predominates politics but then reward it.  That is depressing.

The World is Complicated (#?????)

I know I have used that headline multiple times, but partisan politicians try to convince uninformed voters that simple solutions will make everything better.

I am only on P 10 of the paper this morning and I am compelled to point out a few things that illustrated how bleeping complicated the world is (and that is the primary reason capitalism and democracy are the only good ways for a society to manage its way through the complications).

Turkey & ISIS:  The Turk's complain that some of the U.S. military airdrop of supplies went to ISIS.  Well, why didn't Turkey just let some trucks drive across the border?  They seem to let trucks with ISIS oil drive across the border into Turkey!

The Taliban are back in Afghanistan:  Neo-conservatives will no doubt be upset that Kunduz in the north is once again governed by the Taliban.  But this time, the Taliban are local and are allowing both International Aid societies and girl's schools to work.  And the locals support them because they did not feel the central government was effective in managing the society for them.  If that sounds familiar, it is the same reason the Iraqi Sunni's are working with ISIS.  Corruption breads unrest and the U.S. government does not know how to build a nation without corruption.  That is not a complaint  about Republicans and Democrats ability to lead a government, it is simply an observation that one nation cannot impose a corruption free government on another nation.  The U.S. has failed to achieve that in the Philippines, Japan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and almost every where there was an Arab Spring.  Probably the only place we were successful is Germany post WWII, but that is more likely based upon the inherent culture of Germany and all those other nations did not have the same societal predilection.  So, the ability of the U.S. to develop a non-corrupt culture when nation building requires the local culture to be accepting of a non-corrupt culture.  It is clear the Islamic world is not there yet, and putting our military forces in harms way is not going to be successful in a defined period of time at a limited cost.

China & Hong Kong:  The students of Hong Kong have capitalism, but they are not happy with the state of their democracy.  Kenny G's music is enormously popular in China to point where one of his songs is played in malls to signal closing time and all the shoppers conclude their shopping and exit the malls.  Now Kenny G showed some support for the HK students.  China is learning how compacted it is to have capitalism without democracy.  You can do it for a good while, but eventually people want both.

Creationists & the Growing Evangelical Schooling so they can focus on that:  I don't understand why evolution is so threatening to Evangelicals.  Every organized religion has figured out a way to acknowledge that evolution does not obfuscate faith in God or the Bible.  So how will Creationists explain that a human thighbone found in the tundra of Siberia has been carbon dated to 45,000 years ago and the genome reconstructed from it.  And the genome revealed that this particular individual had both human and Neanderthal genes.  Since good government requires the population to be well educated, I am deeply distressed by the growth in creationist schooling in this country.

Where Does ISIS Get It's Funding?

TURKEY, which allows it to ship oil across the border to people who will buy it and then refine it.

How does a NATO country maintain it's status when it doesn't at least stop that from happening?  After all, it cannot be that hard to spot thousands of barrels of crude oil being transported if you are looking for it.

And to the Neo-conservatives that want us to do more with boots on the ground, how do we protect our troops when our allies are allowing funds to flow to our enemies?

America: Now the Unforgiving Land of Gotcha

This Washington Post column captures some of the concerns I have had about the media coverage of Ebola and how the internet feeds hysteria.

Link to Column

And just a question.  While people are in hysterical fear about Ebola, how many people were shot or suffered death from another unexpected cause when 1 person has died in the U.S. from Ebola and he didn't contract the disease here?

And I cannot describe my disgust at the vitriol that people will post in the comments section of a news particle when a Director of Public Health is trying to calm hysteria because it is draining resources unnecessarily.

Turkey is Committing Genocide Again by Allowing ISIS to do it

I know Turkey is ultra-sensitive about the Armenian Genocide a century ago to the point of denying that it occurred.  But it did occur, and now Turkey, in its zeal to be anti-Kurdish in every possible way despite having a substantial domestic Kurdish population, is allowing ISIS to commit genocide in Kobane, Syria.

Kobane is literally on the Turkey/Syria border.  Turkey could easily send troops across the border to protect the Kurdish population in Kobane, but for some strange political reason, Turkey refuses to do so because the Syrian Kurd's have offended Turkey somehow.  I don't know how that justifies allowing ISIS to commit genocide, but in Turkey's mind it does.

So Peter Smith was correct.  He didn't allow me travel to Turkey because he didn't trust them. Unfortunately, NATO crossed that line a long time ago and now has a deficient member of NATO that is not doing all it can do to fight ISIS.

I used to support Turkey joining the EU.  Now I wonder if they even belong in NATO.

Of course, I am not a diplomat and diplomacy is all about maintaining the possible even it is not occurring at the moment.

But it sure is frustrating to watch and supporting the Kurd's is about the only sane thing that can be done in the mess that has resulted from the U.S. taking down Saddam Hussein.

I Am Humbled

Part of my recent lack of writing has been that RedStateVT and I were working together on our golf games in South Carolina.  Myrtle Beach has a terrible recommendation amongst family beach goers because it is seen as overcrowded, full of young people doing the things young people do and you don't want your kids to see, and tacky.  Off season, it is still tacky in some ways, and I would rather go to more secluded beaches, but as a golf destination, it is a very good one.   I have never seen such short grass make such difficult rough.

So that grass humbled me on the golf course.  Colorado is also humbling my political forecasting skills.  You would think that a state that legalized pot would be solidly Democratic.  But it may well vote in a number of GOP candidates in state wide positions in November.  So that is why I am staying silent on the election.  I can hope that the Democrats preserve control of the Senate, but I am of the belief that the Republicans will control both the Senate and the House.   We will then see if President Obama and the GOP are serious about the necessity of tax and entitlement reform, both of which are necessary for the long term financial stability of the country.

Turkey Moving Forward

I have to acknowledge that Turkey seems to be trying to move the political process forward on becoming useful in fighting ISIS.  We will see if they get there.

Meanwhile, I am off on a Southern tour for the next two weeks with a brief stay at home in the middle, but we are in election craziness so I doubt I will have anything to say.

Wish me well on my golf game.  RedStateVT and I know to stay out of each other's way when standing near the person swinging at a golf ball.   Perhaps, Obama, Reid, Mitchell, Boehner and Pelosi should share a round regularly.  Actually, I don't think Reid, Mitchell or Pelosi could walk 18 holes, let alone swing a golf club.  They don't strike me as having an ounce of athletic ability or interest in physical activity.  And Boehner and Obama need to quit smoking or they won't either.