U.S. Politics, 9 trillion

[Commodore]

It begins

McDonald’s Corp may cut health insurance for its nearly 30,000 hourly workers unless U.S. regulators waive a requirement of new health care legislation championed by President Barack Obama, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a company memo.

The restaurant chain is at odds over the new law’s stipulation that so-called “mini-med” insurance plans spend at least 80 percent of premium revenue on medical care, the newspaper said on its website on Wednesday.

McDonald’s told federal regulators in the memo that it would be “economically prohibitive” for its insurance carrier to continue to cover hourly workers unless it receives a waiver to the 80 percent minimum requirement, the Journal reported.

"If you like your plan, you can keep your plan"...

[TrackerNeil]

The clear implication is that those who are attending these rallies couldn't possibly be educating themselves on the issues. By extension the implication is that if they educated themselves on the issues they wouldn't go to the rallies or would agree with Tracker. Hence, my question.

Let me spell out my opinion so no one has to wonder at my implication. Anyone who collects Social Security and relies on Medicare had better think twice before getting his panties in a bunch about government spending. Perhaps I am not as tuned in to the debate as I might be, but I have yet to hear any teabagger explain or even address this basic contradiction.

This Tea Party stuff...I understand that both the left and the right have their movements, and that the adherents of those movements often have little in common except dislike for the current administration. However, the leftist movement circa 2006 had fairly consistent policy goals. Ending torture goes hand-in-hand, or at least does not stand at odds, with improving America's standing with the world, and so forth. The Tea Party "platform", if you can call it that, makes no sense whatsoever. End bank bailouts but make sure those banks have money to lend to people. Curtail government spending but don't touch defense and keep those Social Security checks moving. Reduce the costs of health insurance but don't regulate the industry and for Pete's sake don't mess with Medicare. It's a crazyquilt of angry conservativism, and I have no respect for those who adhere to it.

Does that make my stance clear?

[TrackerNeil]

"If you like your plan, you can keep your plan"...

Commodore, I have a feeling that, had you been alive when child labor laws were enacted, you'd be doing a similar head-shaking. I can hear you now, "Consumers are the ones who will pay for this government intrusion. If government says factories can't employ nine-year-olds for dangerous work, next it will telling hospitals they must provide stabilizing care to patients without the ability to pay. Then where will we be?"

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Tracker,

Fair enough.

[alguien]

It begins

"If you like your plan, you can keep your plan"...

I find it curious you left out this part, Commodore:

The company called reports that it will drop health care coverage "completely false" in an email to Reuters on Wednesday evening.

"McDonald's is committed to providing competitive pay and benefits," Steve Russell, the company's head of human resources, said in an emailed statement.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Let me spell out my opinion so no one has to wonder at my implication. Anyone who collects Social Security and relies on Medicare had better think twice before getting his panties in a bunch about government spending. Perhaps I am not as tuned in to the debate as I might be, but I have yet to hear any teabagger explain or even address this basic contradiction.

Well, I'm not a "teabagger", but....

You're basically making an "in for a penny, in for a pound" argument, as if support for any kind of social safety net means you can't oppose any social program without being a hypocrite. Why can't you think "enough is enough", and that a line should be drawn against creating additional entitlements? As for SS and Medicare, those are programs to which everyone will be entitled at some point, so it's not like those folks are demanding a benefit they are unwilling to extend to you.

I just think this is a really odd argument. By the logic you and others are advancing, the fact that we offer SS to provide income supplementation to all Americans over a certain age means that we're hypocrites if we don't offer the same income supplementation to all Americans, regardless of age. That's a real head-scratcher to me.

[alguien]

So, basically your saying that those protesting expanding healthcare while receiving the benefits of Medicare are not philisophically hypocritical, merely selfish.

I agree with that.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

So, basically your saying that those protesting expanding healthcare while receiving the benefits of Medicare are not philisophically hypocritical, merely selfish.

I agree with that.

No. I'm not really a fan of Medicare or Social Security, but there is a moral distinction between programs into which everyone pays, and from which everyone receives a benefit, and programs into which everyone pays but only some receive a benefit. The recipients of SS and Medicare at least have a colorable argument that they "earned" that benefit, and that, in the case of Medicare at least, some of their earned benefit is being taken away to finance an unearned benefit for other people. A benefit, by the way, that those older recipients did not have access to when they were that age.

[alguien]

No. I'm not really a fan of Medicare or Social Security, but there is a moral distinction between programs into which everyone pays, and from which everyone receives a benefit, and programs into which everyone pays but only some receive a benefit. The recipients of SS and Medicare at least have a colorable argument that they "earned" that benefit, and that, in the case of Medicare at least, some of their earned benefit is being taken away to finance an unearned benefit for other people. A benefit, by the way, that those older recipients did not have access to when they were that age.

Interesting. Though when both those programs were created, the initial recipients received the benefits without paying in first. So again, the distinction seems selfish. "I paid and so should you."

I suppose the flipside is people who've died (perhaps even due to lack of available healthcare) before reaching the age where they would receive the benefits of Social Security or Medicare yet paid into that system.

[alguien]

The Tea Party "platform", if you can call it that, makes no sense whatsoever. End bank bailouts but make sure those banks have money to lend to people. Curtail government spending but don't touch defense and keep those Social Security checks moving. Reduce the costs of health insurance but don't regulate the industry and for Pete's sake don't mess with Medicare. It's a crazyquilt of angry conservativism, and I have no respect for those who adhere to it.

Reminds me of an article I read yesterday in the New York Times by David Leonhardt Imagining a Deficit Plan From Republicans which dissects the GOP "Pledge".

From the article:

In their Pledge to America, Congressional Republicans have used the old trick of promising specific tax cuts and vague spending cuts. It’s the politically easy approach, and it is likely to be as bad for the budget as when George W. Bush tried it.

The sad thing is, a truly conservative approach to the deficit does exist. You can find strands of it among Republican governors, some of the party’s current Congressional candidates and the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan.

The brief version might sound something like this: The federal government has outgrown its ability to pay for itself. Our economic future and even our national security depend on solving the problem. Yet President Obama has expanded health insurance, increased education spending and escalated a war of choice. Elect us, and fiscal responsibility won’t have to wait in line.

The detailed plan would start in the same place that Republican campaign rhetoric does, with rooting out waste and bloat. Some tasks, like mail delivery and air traffic control, could be privatized. The federal work force could be reduced, and pay for federal workers could be cut. Federal aid to states could be cut, too.

But then comes the crucial difference.

Actual fiscal conservatives acknowledge that these steps do not come anywhere close to solving the long-term deficit. By 2035, the deficit (even without counting interest payments on the federal debt) is on course to reach $1.9 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If you reduced domestic discretionary spending to its share of the economy under Ronald Reagan and then eviscerated it an additional 20 percent, you would shrink the deficit by all of $100 billion.

The bulk of the deficit problem instead comes from three popular programs, Medicare, Social Security and the military, and they happen to be the ones the Republican pledge exempts from cuts. But it’s impossible to fix the deficit without making cuts to these programs or raising taxes. To suggest otherwise is to claim that 10 minus 1 equals 5.

...

In short, the pledge imagines a world without tough choices, where we can have low taxes, big government and a balanced budget. And therein lies the path to ever larger deficits.

It actually has some other interesting things to say, such as:

There is a good argument that the government should grow as societies become richer. Once people can afford the basics, they want services that the private sector often does not provide, like a strong military, good schools, generous medical care and a comfortable retirement, as Matt Miller, a McKinsey & Company consultant and former Clinton administration official, has pointed out.

And gives the counter argument:

Conservatives counter that governments just as often allocate resources badly, and there is something to this. It’s the small-government case that Mr. Paul, Mr. Ryan and governors like Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Chris Christie of New Jersey are making.

Mr. Paul emphasizes wasteful military spending that lines the pockets of military contractors rather than protecting the country. A bipartisan task force of military experts has identified cuts that would eventually equal almost 1 percent of G.D.P.

...

But the biggest cause of looming deficits is Medicare. Mr. Daniels, a possible 2012 presidential candidate, recently told Newsweek that he favored Medicare cuts. Mr. Ryan has been willing to get specific. For everyone now under 55, he wants to turn Medicare into a voucher program that’s much less generous than the program is scheduled to be.

Mr. Ryan’s budget blueprint offers an especially pointed contrast with the pledge. The Ryan plan calls for holding taxes at around 19 percent of G.D.P. and suggests specific cuts to bring spending in line. The pledge calls for even lower taxes — while offering almost no detail on spending cuts.

Which seems more credible?

So basically, the GOP has no credible plan to balance the budget. Or rather, certain elements do, but they are considered radicals, outside the established GOP.

This is what bugs me. The blatant dishonesty, the preying on fears of voters. They have no plan. They just want to win.

[awesome possum]

I find that argument amusing because it conveniently ignores the fact that any tax-paying citizen already foot the bills for those uninsured who go to a hospital or ER.

[TrackerNeil]

Well, I'm not a "teabagger", but....

You're basically making an "in for a penny, in for a pound" argument, as if support for any kind of social safety net means you can't oppose any social program without being a hypocrite. Why can't you think "enough is enough", and that a line should be drawn against creating additional entitlements? As for SS and Medicare, those are programs to which everyone will be entitled at some point, so it's not like those folks are demanding a benefit they are unwilling to extend to you.

But you're not hearing this kind of nuanced argument from the Tea Party, are you? No one's saying, "Hey, Medicare and Social Security are great programs, but it needs to stop there." That's a position that allows a case-by-case examination of government programs to determine their value, instead of the knee-jerk objection we get from the Tea Party.

In fact, I notice we weren't hearing any objections from these people until the Democrats took over, when deficit spending suddenly became the greatest evil of our time.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Interesting. Though when both those programs were created, the initial recipients received the benefits without paying in first. So again, the distinction seems selfish. "I paid and so should you."

That's would be a reasonable argument if it was the "initial recipients" who are out there protesting at tea parties. But it's not. The people protesting now are the people who paid in.

I suppose the flipside is people who've died (perhaps even due to lack of available healthcare) before reaching the age where they would receive the benefits of Social Security or Medicare yet paid into that system.

These current Medicare recipients bore that same risk given that there wasn't a government-healthcare subsidy available for them when they were that age either. Other than Medicaid, but then, that's available to people now as well, and they're not protesting that.

I'm not trying to say that those folks who insist on full SS and Medicare payments are right. I disagree with them. I'm just saying that the open and shut case of "hypocrisy" so commonly tossed about isn't nearly that strong.

But you're not hearing this kind of nuanced argument from the Tea Party, are you? No one's saying, "Hey, Medicare and Social Security are great programs, but it needs to stop there."

Actually, I think that's exactly what those particular folks say -- it's implicit in there position.

That's a position that allows a case-by-case examination of government programs to determine their value, instead of the knee-jerk objection we get from the Tea Party.

I disagree -- there's nothing in that position that necessarily allows for a case by case examination of other programs. That position could simply be "providing this kind of safety net for seniors is reasonable. Beyond that, it's not, especially since we can't afford it."

In fact, I notice we weren't hearing any objections from these people until the Democrats took over, when deficit spending suddenly became the greatest evil of our time.

C'mon, Neil, that's not close to being true. The particular people we're discussing -- seniors --always bitched when there were talks about cutting their benefits, and Democrats played that card hard whenever the GOP wanted to discuss reining in Medicare costs. That's why SS and Medicare have always been known as the "third rail".

And now, you get a new Administration that proposes financing a new health care entitlement program in part by mandating additional reductions in Medicare. If would have been a shock if they hadn't gone bonkers over that.

[awesome possum]

In fact, I notice we weren't hearing any objections from these people until the Democrats took over, when deficit spending suddenly became the greatest evil of our time.

But... but... according to most of these people they were the only ones on the right who objected to Bush and the Republicans' spending at the time too.

Just because they didn't become visibly, publicly angry until a black man was elected president means nothing. Nothing! Just a coincidence. They were going to protest Bush with as much venom as well, but the tea party protests would always fall on Bingo night, or when a new episode of NCIS came on.

[Swordfish]

Well, I'm not a "teabagger", but....

You're basically making an "in for a penny, in for a pound" argument, as if support for any kind of social safety net means you can't oppose any social program without being a hypocrite. Why can't you think "enough is enough", and that a line should be drawn against creating additional entitlements? As for SS and Medicare, those are programs to which everyone will be entitled at some point, so it's not like those folks are demanding a benefit they are unwilling to extend to you.

I just think this is a really odd argument. By the logic you and others are advancing, the fact that we offer SS to provide income supplementation to all Americans over a certain age means that we're hypocrites if we don't offer the same income supplementation to all Americans, regardless of age. That's a real head-scratcher to me.

Accusing people of being hypocrites is the new black.

[Guest Raidne]

On a serious note, why did you bring this up? Was it about what was said about Paul in the body of the article, or just in what I quoted?

It was listed as one of the crazy things Paul believes in your quote.

So here's a legal question following up on the Civil Rights Act from an utter non-lawyer. Wouldn't it be fair that the Act does not really tell you that you must hire any one person in particular? Just rather that you cannot dismiss anyone from the possibility of being hired based on race and gender?

Really, it's not about any of this stuff at all. It's purely about the Constitutional issue of whether the federal government was ever granted the authority to regulate private businesses to that extent, regardless of the substantive issues surrounding discrimination. That is Paul's objection. It doesn't mean he's a bigot.

That gets back to my original question and some of my confusion on how far the Act of 1964 went. Where does the Civil Rights Act end and where does Affirmative Action begin? Where does the EEOC fit in?

Are you kidding? I'm not going to write an entire Wiki page and then some on the jurisprudential history and constitutional basis for the Civil Rights Act. Not to mention, you appear to want a lecture on administrative law and enabling statutes and regulation vs. legislative statutes on top on that. In the middle of the U.S. politics thread.

Let's just leave it at the simple answer that all of these things are authorized by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but every part does not exist in the text of the bill itself.

[TrackerNeil]

For anyone alarmed by Commodore's pearl-clutching post about McDonald's, let Jonathan Cohn shed some light on the situation.

[Altherion]

For anyone alarmed by Commodore's pearl-clutching post about McDonald's, let Jonathan Cohn shed some light on the situation.

Amusing. The law limits the extent to which an insurance company can rip people off (80-85% of the money collected has to go towards medical expenses rather than other stuff). McDonald's and/or its insurance company basically said that if the government won't let them go further than that, they'll stop providing the insurance altogether. Not exactly a great loss...

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Amusing. The law limits the extent to which an insurance company can rip people off (80-85% of the money collected has to go towards medical expenses rather than other stuff). McDonald's and/or its insurance company basically said that if the government won't let them go further than that, they'll stop providing the insurance altogether. Not exactly a great loss...

Unless you're an affected employee. Why do you care if you're not employed by one of those employers?

The article said the administrative costs are high because of the low dollar value of average claims, and because of high turnover. For anyone who knows anything about insurance, both of those are at least facially valid explanations. Prior to the passage of this "reform", such employees were free to judge for themselves whether the cost of that insurance, including those administrative costs, was worth it to them. If not, they simply wouldn't sign up for it. This law doesn't permit them to make that choice themselves, and instead makes that decision for them. The nanny state in all it's glory. And particularly stupid in this instance given that the alternative of subsidized insurance purchased through exchanges won't exist until 2014, if at all.

[Altherion]

Unless you're an affected employee. Why do you care if you're not employed by one of those employers?

I do not care, I just find it amusing. The employees aren't losing very much here even if the plan was canceled (which it doesn't look like it will be).