There is a big health care vote in the House today. From what I hear, the way the procedural stuff is set up, passage in the House pretty much paves the way for making the health care reform package law. What really caught my attention today was some ranting about how the Constitution will die today – this from people who did not bat an eye at warrantless wiretaps and suspension of habeas corpus for individuals designated by the executive branch as “enemy combatants.” To repeat: Tapping phones and suspending habeas corpus? No problem. Health care for the poor and uninsured? Constitutional crisis!

So, on to the substance. Do I think this bill is well designed? No. Not really. But I’m convinced that a well designed system can’t pass Congress. And, given the political capital spent on this bill, there will not be another effort made for at least another 15-20 years. So, the choices are the status quo or this. The status quo is simply unsustainable. We are spending 16% of our considerable GDP on health care already. We spend twice as much per person on health care as other countries. We already pay for something like 45% of those costs from public funds. And costs are increasing. (And no, despite what you may have heard, medical malpractice lawsuits aren’t the prime or even substantial cause of these increases.) Despite spending half as much, those other countries have health care results that are comparable or, in some cases, superior to the U.S.

To date, nobody has been able to direct my attention to an example of a successful market-based system of health care; leading me to be skeptical of whether such a thing can exist. One country that sometimes comes up in this context is Singapore. However, while its system makes use of private insurance, it also ensures affordability largely through compulsory savings and price controls.

Singapore’s system uses a combination of compulsory savings from payroll deductions (funded by both employers and workers) a nationalized catastrophic health insurance plan, and government subsidies, as well as “actively regulating the supply and prices of healthcare services in the country” to keep costs in check[.]

Markets are very good at allocating resources. However, to function properly, it seems to me that buyers need to have good information and the ability to walk away from a transaction. That’s a problem in health care negotiations. Health care decisions involve analysis of medical information that’s generally beyond the understanding of most people. And, even if you can rely on your doctor or otherwise master the medical end of the decision making process, medical pricing is often ridiculously opaque. Try calling up half a dozen hospitals and trying to get the actual price of a hip replacement. Even if they’re willing to tell you, there are likely to be an array of prices depending on who’s asking. And those will be qualified prices because any number of contingencies can affect the price, even in the middle of the surgery. Then you have the problem of getting an insurer to be clear, up front, about the terms of the insuring contract and then honoring those terms after the fact. The insurer operates from a position of strength, collecting premiums for years when there are no significant health issues, then being able to withhold a determination of whether it’s going to pay for a procedure until after the procedure is complete. Finally, any negotiating options you have in the ordinary situation pretty much go out the window once you’re in an emergency situation. It’s like negotiating with a gun to your head.

Politically, the pundits like to tell Democrats they are doomed if they vote for this thing. That may or may not be. I think it’s a certainty that they’re doomed if they vote against this bill. A political wind pretty much always blows against the party in power. It’s just easier to criticize than it is to govern. But, pretty much regardless of the substance, that wind will turn into a maelstrom if they are unable to pass legislation during tough times. During good times, the electorate will pretty much ignore ineffectual dithering as leaving well enough alone. However, during bad times, “strong and wrong” seems more comforting to people than weak and either right or wrong. Of course, “strong and right” is best of all. When asked about particular policies in the legislation, folks are generally on board. When asked about the bill or the legislative process as an abstract entity, that’s when public opinion goes negative. Once the law is passed, a lot of the negativity about procedure will probably evaporate pretty quickly. When the armageddon predicted by the bill’s detractors never materializes, they will be discredited and a lot of that negativity will evaporate as well. So, politically, the best option for Democrats is going to be voting for this bill. If the bill fails, there will never be anything concrete for the electorate to judge. Instead, the health care bill will always be the inchoate monstrosity built up by its detractors. Anyone associated with that monstrosity will be judged harshly – even if a particular lawmaker only dithered about supporting the monster and even if the monster never existed in reality.

Now, it’s all over except the shouting. And the voting.

The Lafayette Journal & Courier has an editorial that criticizes the Obama administration’s plans for education reform as worthy but untimely. The No Child Left Behind approach tends to penalize schools for not bringing up lower students. The Obama approach has in mind rewarding schools for helping the upper students to excel. (I’m simplifying). The Journal & Courier’s editorial basically says “not now, the economy’s in the tank.” When the economy is better, then you can start doing other stuff.

I don’t think they’re wrong, necessarily, but this view of things highlights an excellent way for cynical political operatives, if they were so inclined, to make sure the opposition doesn’t make any progress when they are in power. Trash the economy for the middle class. As long as they are struggling, no other initiatives will be able to get much traction.

Meranda Watling, writing for the Lafayette Journal & Courier, has a story about how the passage of HB 1367 will affect schools in the Lafayette area.

The bill allows schools to transfer a percentage of their maintenance and capital projects funds to cover operating expesnes. Turns out it won’t be a great deal of help for our local schools. At the Tippecanoe School Corporation, it will allow transfer of only about $1.8 million as compared to the $3.1 million the state shorted TSC this year. And, even for that $1.8 million, it sounds like they had a mechanism available to transfer the money even in the absence of the legislation. West Lafayette could transfer about $200,000 as compared to a $586,000 shortfall in state funding. And Lafayette School Corp. could transfer $350,000 as compared to a $2.2 million state shortfall.

Public education is sucking wind. And, once again, it bears mentioning that this is a consequence of shifting school funding away from local property taxes to the more volatile state level income and sales tax. The ballot language on property tax caps in the Constitution is pretty simplistic: just mentioning the 1%, 2%, 3%. I think it should come with something that looks like the disclaimers for prescription medication (or Happy Fun Ball): “Caution – may cause extreme revenue volatility, making school financial planning impossible.”

At a personal level, I feel like grousing because I paid into the school system for roughly 14 years without kids of my own in the system – which I’m absolutely cool with. I benefit greatly from a population that knows how to read, write, and the rest of it. However, now, going into the second year of having my kid in the system, the system starts crumbling because of short sighted tax policy and they slash teachers.

It looks like Michael Newdow lost another round in his crusade against the 1954 legislation which injected the words “under God” into the original Pledge of Allegiance to keep us safe from the godless Cold War communists.

As I posted in the comments over at Opening Arguments, I think Newdow is clearly correct that the 1954 legislation injecting “under God” into the Pledge was something the United States Government had no business doing. But, I also don’t think it’s worth wasting a lot of energy on – except that the addition messes up the cadence of the original pledge.

I’m a little bemused by the idea, however, that tossing God into the middle of our Pledge or our currency is useful to anybody. Mostly, I see it as an attempt by a certain, vocal subset of Christians to mark territory.

SB 73 is ready for the governor’s signature. It is primarily concerned with railroad crossings – making it an infraction for failing to obey the instructions of a railroad flagman to stop the vehicle and requiring a motorist to stop at a railroad crossing upon the approach of on-track equipment. But, it also has a law of more general concern – what to do with those flashing pedestrian walk signs.

Flashing “don’t walk” means a pedestrian may not start to cross the roadway in the direction of the signal. A pedestrian who has already started to cross on the “walk” signal shall proceed to a sidewalk or safety island. If a countdown pedestrian signal indication is also shown, a pedestrian may cross if the pedestrian is able to proceed to the sidewalk or safety island by the time the steady “don’t walk” signal is shown, and a person who drives a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to the pedestrian.

This is pretty much the same instruction given for the “don’t walk” signal. Sometimes you wonder if the whole traffic code should be scrapped for a one line statute that says “be careful.”

I realize even talking about this is futile. Facts, logic, and other trivial details of rational analysis are utterly lost on anyone who finds Beck persuasive. And Beck himself is laughing all the way to the bank. But, whatever.

His recent bit of idiocy was to condemn any church that advocates social justice.

“I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church web site,” Beck urged his audience. “If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!”

Today, Beck returned to the subject, insisting that the notion of social justice is “a perversion of the Gospel,” and “not what Jesus would say.” He wasn’t kidding.

The Slacktivist had some nice commentary on how utterly stupid this was.

Glenn Beck continued his attack on “social justice” today, arguing that it entails “a perversion of the gospel” and is “not what Jesus would say” (MediaMatters has the audio).

This is an astonishing claim to anyone who’s ever had a Bible and their eyes open at the same time. Justice is an inescapable, relentless, pervasive, nearly omnipresent theme of that entire volume. It is impossible to read the law and the prophets, the Gospels and epistles, the histories, wisdom literature and apocalypse without being confronted incessantly with the theme of justice, justice, justice, justice, justice, justice, justice.

That accounts for justice, in the Christian teaching of every Christian church, being regarded as a cardinal virtue and an attribute of God.

But, for my part, I think Al Franken pre-emptively disposed of this kind of crap when he wrote The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus.

It is easier for a rich man to enter heaven seated comfortably on the back of a camel than it is for a poor man to pass through the eye of a needle. . . . if you are prosperous on earth, that means that God is rewarding your rugged individualism. If you are poor, it is a sign that God frowns on your reliance on handouts.

WTHR has an interesting, if perhaps overly breathless, story about how the governor and his economic development corporation, now run by Mitch Roob, puffed up its record of attracting jobs. The short version is that they chalked up victories when companies announced intentions to locate or expand employment in Indiana but didn’t take them off the “success” list when the jobs failed to materialize. I can’t imagine the Daniels administration invented this technique, but it does remind me a little of how Enron booked profits when a deal was struck rather than waiting to see if the profits ever materialized.

Since its creation, IEDC boasts more than 100,000 new jobs on its success list, and when the agency and the governor talk about job numbers, the “Indiana Economic Successes” list is what they are talking about.

But 13 Investigates discovered many of the state’s “economic successes” aren’t really successes at all.

They are empty fields and deserted factories where the state claims there are supposed to be thousands of jobs.

More notable to me was that Mitch Roob still has a job in Indiana government. My memory might be failing me, and I can’t find anything after a quick search of my blog, but it seems like there was some unusually large compensation package for Mr. Roob, ostensibly because if he didn’t receive extra compensation, we’d lose him to the private sector.* In any case, he was a big part of the FSSA debacle involving welfare eligibility privatization and his former employer, ACS, along with IBM.

*A further search suggests maybe I’m thinking of a compensation package for Richard Rhoad who worked for FSSA.

This isn’t political or even Indiana related. But, my sister-in-law posted a blog entry demonstrating how rolling with the punches can lead to great things. A traffic jam thwarted her plans for running a race. She and a friend decided to go running anyway and enjoy the day. They ended up in the midst of another race and a good time ensued.

Three school districts are teaming up to challenge inequities they perceive in the school funding formula. Hamilton Southeastern, Franklin Township Schools, and Middlebury Schools say that it’s unfair to have their per-pupil funding cut while their districts are growing to cushion the blow to other school districts in the state with stagnant or shrinking school populations (but, presumably, fixed costs that remain more or less constant.)

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller (and Indiana Barrister’s Abdul) criticize the use of taxpayer dollars to bring (and defend) the suit.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller blasted the move, saying in a statement that tax money shouldn’t have to be used either to file the suit or defend the state against the allegations.

“In times of fiscal frugality, it seems wasteful for a school board to spend taxpayers’ money to pay for lawyers to sue the state — requiring me to use taxpayers’ money to go to court, where more taxpayers’ money will be spent to ask a judge to rule on what is essentially a public policy question for the legislature,” Zoeller said.

(First, am I the only one who is a little tired of people ‘blasting’ various things in news articles?)

This notion that units of government shouldn’t be able to use tax money to challenge taxing and fiscal policies that harm them is a little ridiculous. The translation is that they should just shut up and take it. And for Zoeller to double down on the argument complaining of the use of tax dollars to defend the suit is even sillier. Want to avoid spending tax dollars in this fashion? Give them what they want.

The truth is – and I tell my clients this – once you get the lawyers involved, everyone is probably going to lose (except, generally, the lawyers.) There are more efficient methods of dispute resolution. But, if the parties aren’t willing to resolve the dispute – because they think they’re absolutely right or the other side won’t compromise enough or whatever – then there has to be a method of dispute resolution aside from us beating each other over the head with rocks and clubs. Our legal system, for all its warts, is better (usually) than violence.

On the substance, do I think the Hamilton Southeastern lawsuit has merit? From what I’ve seen, not in particular. A constitutionally permissible system of education that is “general and uniform” and “wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all” probably doesn’t require any kind of per-pupil funding formula. After all, students are not equally expensive to educate.