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Universal Health Care — It’s Addictive
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Opponents of President Obama's health care legislation were wise to attack it preemptively in the courts on constitutional grounds. If they hadn't attacked now, they would've learned that universal health care systems – sometimes a hybrid of public and private and sometimes single-payer national systems – are wildly popular in other countries. So popular that politicians can do no more than fiddle at the edges, as they have done in Britain recently and are about to do in France. No leader, not even that incontrovertible defender of private enterprise, Margaret Thatcher, dared or even thought, to privatize health care. In the industrial democracies, from Canada to Japan, people complain about their health care systems and would defend them to the death. Once universal health care is introduced and people are relieved of the fear of illness, leading to financial ruin, it is unrepealable. The opponents of Obamacare must know this, or they wouldn't have been so anxious to test it in court on the grounds of the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Kill it before people love it was an imperative. Now it's widely believed, after three days of hearings, in which conservative justices sounded more like they were conducting a congressional hearing than a judicial one, that Obamacare will be thrown out before it has ever been sampled by the public, which wouldn't come until 2014. It's been a bit like the Chinese and democracy: Don't let them try it, they might like it. So how is it the Republicans have been able to so demonize Obamacare? Partly, it's because the administration has done an appalling job of selling its own program. It's almost as though it's ashamed of its offspring because it isn't the child they really wanted: a simpler bill with a public option and such goodies as interstate insurance sales. The administration is frequently bad at trumpeting its achievements. As health care reform is its defining domestic issue, the fact that Obama and his cabinet have not extolled the virtues of the bill amounts to a curious dereliction, a sin of omission. Most people have been persuaded, if they know anything about the bill at all, that it's socialized medicine (it is not); that it will double expenditures on health care (it won't); that it's an enormous new dictatorial intrusion into individual liberty (it's not). It's not a great bill, but a good start. We in the United States spend about twice as much as other countries on health care – about 18 percent of our gross domestic product. Why? Everyone knows there's excessive testing and waste. The quick answer is to defend against lawsuits. Another answer is that doctors have no incentive to save money and through their investments in testing companies, often they have an incentive to order up the tests. Mostly, I suspect it's just indifference; the medical equivalent of not turning the lights off. I don't like Obamacare because it only does half the job and I'm uneasy about the individual mandate. Just two cheers from me. The uninsured should be assigned an insurer and the premium collected through the tax system. That way the insurers would compete for the most desirable prospects, young adults, and a real pool would operate. Another question that isn't asked: As new technology usually brings down costs, why does this not apply in health care? Why are CAT scans and MRIs not getting cheaper, as they would if they were in a different framework? Why not use the Republican idea of health vouchers as an incentive to keep patients from frivolous use of services – not as the substitute for insurance, but rather as an incentive mechanism. Pay them to stay healthy. We suffer from a failure of imagination in health care. There are good reasons to be ambivalent about Obamacare, but it's a start, a building block. Our medicine is without peer, but our concepts of care are quite sickly. – For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate - 2 responses
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Obama and Energy: What He Can and Can’t Do
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When the Obama administration seeks to explain its oil policy, it changes the subject mid-sentence.The most frequent practitioner of this verbal contortion is the president's press secretary, Jay Carney. It is as though he's a magician who has promised to pull a live rabbit from his top hat. This conjurer stands before his audience, recites some incantations and, poof, retrieves not a live rabbit, but a dead chicken.Carney, like others in the administration, starts talking about oil and switches to talking about "alternatives." The alternatives, with the exception of the nettlesome subject of biofuels (nettlesome because they produce little or no energy above what's invested in producing them), are ways of making electricity.The administration is adept at confusing these almost unrelated subjects.Oil is the stubborn problem. It affects every aspect of life and prosperity, from the balance of payments to war planning, from economic growth to our relationship with China. Worse, it may be in constrained supply for the rest of time, as the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – continue to suck up the precious commodity.New finds and technology relieve the gloom for a while, but as demand rises and supply struggles to adjust, the problem remains – even though conservative think tanks and trade groups fight the notion of structural shortage.But the United States isn't short of electricity and has no need ever to be. The electricity problem, if there is one, is environmental. Do we continue to burn coal on a massive scale while we search for an environmental fix? Or do we go wholeheartedly for nuclear – even though the Obama administration has abandoned the Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository in Nevada?Solar, wind, geothermal, wave, and even biomass energy come under the rubric of "alternatives" – and they're all electricity technologies.Then there's natural gas, thought to be exhausted in the United States, but now in abundance as a result of sophisticated technologies. That's another electricity fuel.It's enthusiasm for alternatives (a longtime love affair on the left) that has encouraged the confusing White House utterances about a policy of "all of the above." It's this that has spread the public perception that the president can do something about the price of gasoline. And it's this that makes him vulnerable to scorn over debacles like the loan guarantees to the solar-array manufacturer Solyndra.If Obama's reelection hopes aren't to be extinguished at the gas pump this November, he needs to separate oil from electricity – and the future from the present. He can't affect world oil prices, and he can't drill enough holes in the United States to change the world oil market.But he can change the debate, and push down the price somewhat, by taking up arms not against the oil producers, but rather against the oil traders, who are the market movers. They are concentrated in the New York Mercantile Exchange, where they daily bid up the price in a spiral that is unrelated to cost. The price of oil is set by traders, who use rumor, fear, and the knowledge that producers will be silent partners to jack it up.They aren't phantoms. They are real, flesh-and-blood people who manipulate the markets daily. What's happening to oil in the New York Mercantile Exchange is what happened to electricity prices in California when Enron's traders were running wild.There have even been shenanigans at the Cushing tank farm in Oklahoma, the installation that President Obama toured on Thursday. He might do well to read Leah McGrath Goodman's Fortune magazine article this month, on how ConocoPhillips warehoused oil at Cushing. That oil came in by the same pipeline that the new owners have now reversed, she writes, and it's now flowing to refineries by the very route it came in, but at higher prices.Goodman knows what she's talking about. The former Wall Street Journal reporter wrote The Asylum, the definitive book about the New York Mercantile Exchange and the madness of oil trading.Obama could jawbone the traders while providing more resources and moral support to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – the poodle trying to do a pit bull's work.
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Mass-Transit Enthusiasts: Get on the Bus
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Even railroad fanatics like me have to admit that the future of passenger transportation by rail, particularly urban commuter rail, is pretty well frozen where it is. New rail – even light rail, an idealistic indulgence – is doomed by high costs, lack of appropriate track, and political squabbling.New subways, the elegant way to get around a city, by going under it, are an almost impossible dream. The costs are too great in times of austerity, and the costs of maintenance can be prohibitive as a system ages.Increasingly, the future appears to be the humble bus. Buses have low capital costs, are flexible, and can be adjusted to demand and population changes in ways trains cannot.Spare the groaning: The buses are coming. And today's bus need not be yesterday's – noisy, smelly, and unreliable.London, which has possibly the best transportation infrastructure in the world, with a huge rail network, is nonetheless betting on buses. It's deploying a new bus that is designed for the times and preserves some of the features that have made its buses emblematic of the city, like the two decks. And, yes, they are red.The new London buses are a meeting of nostalgia with high-tech and environmental sensibility. London was busy phasing out its traditional buses in favor of articulated buses, which bend in the middle, when a controversial and eccentric Conservative journalist turned politician, Boris Johnson, declared that if he were elected mayor, he would save the old buses, or at least the concept of double-deck buses. He won the election and ideas were sought from the public.The result is what the tabloids call the "Boris Bus." It's a high-tech beauty that meets many demands. It has two doors and two staircases, but it's so low that wheelchairs are easily accommodated.They are designed to have conductors during rush hours and to be operated by drivers only at other times.They use modern composite materials from the airline industry and are hybrids, with diesel engines and regenerative breaking. That has made way for the lowering of the bottom deck, increasing stability while reducing weight.The initial reception of this high-tech scion of the old and loved London bus has been so enthusiastic that Johnson is talked about as a future Conservative prime minister – riding the bus to the highest office in the land.Back to our buses. They, too, are getting better, but less dramatically so. Between Washington and New York, there's now thriving bus service with half a dozen competing firms offering WiFi, toilets, and many points of departure. The ticket price, about $20 each way, is a fraction of those for Amtrak and airlines.These intercity buses are diesel-powered, but many cities are using natural-gas-powered buses. That might yet seal the deal for buses as the future of urban transportation, reducing the use of cars. America is awash in natural gas. It also has less environmental impact.Buses are at their best when, as my wife pointed out in London once, they run like conveyors. Frequently, that means enough dedicated bus lanes.The Obama administration would be well advised to launch a bus initiative with emphasis on better vehicles, à la London, and dedicated bus lanes. The solution to urban congestion may be in a high-speed, WiFi-equipped, natural-gas-powered bus. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate
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The Politicos Know for Sure Where the Oil Is
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Lemuel Gulliver is back! You remember him – he’s the hero of “Gulliver’s
Travels,” a satire written by Jonathan Swift, first published in 1726.Many adventures befall Gulliver, but the one most remembered is that he's
captured and pinned down with innumerable strings by the tiny
Lilliputians. By their standards, he was a giant, but they tied him down
so well that he was helpless.That, according to those seeking the Republican presidential nomination,
is the state of the U.S. energy industry – by energy, they mean oil and
gas.According to Newt Gingrich, who's echoed by frontrunner Mitt Romney and
his two rivals, the oil and gas industries have been cruelly tied down by
government, which imposes onerous environmental regulations and restricts
drilling in the most hopeful parts of our ocean shelves and on federal
lands.If these lands and ocean sites were just opened to drilling, the
Republican hopefuls argue, the United States would become the world’s
greatest energy producer, as it was in the 1940s and 1950s. Drill, baby,
drill and a gigantic cornucopia of energy awaits; energy for the United
States and the world.Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, the
take-no-prisoners trade association that represents nearly 500 oil and gas
companies, is a vocal advocate of more drilling in more places. He's a
Gulliver theorist.From Republicans and the oil industry, this is a new optimism born of an
old idea. The old idea is that if you drill enough holes in enough places,
oil will be abundant.That optimism has existed more in the fringe world of wildcatting than it
did in the big oil companies, which knew that there were limited reserves
of recoverable oil and gas in the United States. They also knew that once
a reserve is in production, you can calculate the point at which it will
decline; as has happened with the North Slope of Alaska, where less than
half the 2 million barrels a day produced at its peak is flowing today.Then came the new technologies, largely developed by the despised
government. Now in full deployment, these technologies have
incontrovertibly changed expectations for natural gas but their impact on
oil is debatable.The first of these is 3-D seismic mapping. Advanced physics enables the
companies to determine very accurately how much hydrocarbon a particular
formation underground might contain. Gone are the days when the
hard-drinking wildcatter followed his gut and mysterious patterns in the
tumbleweed.Next, is the hole itself. At one time, a well was a well – drilled
straight down, looking for a pool of oil, a cavern of gas or both.
Fracturing – the process in which water, chemicals and other substances
are injected down the hole to break up rock in proximity to the hole – has
been used to release more of the good stuff. With time fracturing, also
called “fracking,” has become more sophisticated.What has made the euphoria of the politicians and oil lobbyists possible
is the miracle of horizontal drilling, which allows as many as eight holes
to be spread out for miles from a single shaft. This and better fracking
has changed the prospects for gas out of all hope, and has somewhat
improved oil expectations.Much of the enthusiasm for new drilling has come from the success of the
new technologies in North Dakota, which has overnight become the the
fourth-largest oil-producing state in the Union. But beware. This isn’t
Texas circa 1945.Oil from North Dakota's Bakken Field isn’t cheap. Its “lifting cost” is
among the most expensive there is: It costs about $50 a barrel to bring
North Dakota oil to the surface, compared with about $15 in Russia and
Saudi Arabia. Is it oil or incense?API’s Gerard told reporters in a telephone conversation, designed to
preempt President Obama’s “all of the above” energy recommendations, that
technology in its inevitable advance would keep the oil flowing for many
generations.Only the government, in Gerard’s view, stands between the American people
and abundant oil.However, fields that have peaked – like the North Slope and much of Texas,
Louisiana and the North Sea – have seen declining production and no
technology has been enough to revive them. All the oil has been removed.
Gone, baby, gone.More drilling has already improved domestic oil production. But will
unfettered drilling really make a new Saudi Arabia of the. United States?
Can the resource base stand the exploitation? Can Gulliver actually stand
up?The next generation of technology won’t put more oil in the ground. – For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate
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The Technological Revolution So Great We Forget It
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What are the achievements of Western civilization?The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the spread of democracy and a free press tower on the intellectual side of the ledger. But they didn't happen in a vacuum; they needed coincidental technological advances.The printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1450, made the Enlightenment possible. Shaft horsepower, invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 and developed by James Watt into a practical steam engine, enabled the Industrial Revolution to get off the ground and make the first great change in how people lived by substituting mechanical energy for human and animal energy.For all the downsides of the Industrial Revolution, it was the dawn of the possibility of an improvement in the lives of most people. It hinted, even with the horrors of the exploitation of workers and miners by their employers, that life could be lived without relentless drudgery.Recently Brian Wolff, senior vice president of the Edison Electric Institute, told security analysts in New York that the trade association is launching a campaign to celebrate the value of electricity.Bravo and about time; for it is electricity that has done more to improve the livability of human life than any other product or service.Electricity has many fathers, going back to 600 B.C., when Thales of Miletus wrote about static electricity. In 1600, the English scientist William Gilbert gave us the name “electricity,” derived from the Greek word for amber: Early experiments consisted of rubbing amber to produce static electricity.Investigator after investigator added to the knowledge of electricity. In 1745, it was discovered that electricity was controllable and the first electrical capacitor, the Leyden jar, was invented.Then came Benjamin Franklin, who popularized concepts of electricity with his key on the kite and his invention of the lightening rod. The first battery was invented by Alessandro Volta, who also proved that electricity can travel over wires, in 1800.Technology moved way ahead in 1821, when the great English scientist Michael Faraday outlined the concept of the electric motor. Six years later another Englishman, Joseph Henry, built one of the first motors.All of this paved the way for Thomas Edison, who founded the Edison Electric Light Company in 1878. A year later, the first commercial power station opened in San Francisco and the first commercial arc lighting system was installed in Cleveland.But it was Edison's demonstration of the incandescent light bulb in 1879 that raised the possibility that human life could get easier. From then on, electricity was deployed at an astounding rate; despite excursions and disputes, like those between Edison and George Westinghouse and Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla.And what a boon electricity has been. It has made the home life safer, eliminating open flames for heat and light, and more convenient. At various times, as a boy in Africa, I lived in homes without electricity. It's not an experience that I'd voluntarily repeat – no light after dark to read by, little heating, no cooling and immense drudgery to heat water and build a cooking fire.Electricity has effectively liberated women from the slavery of the home and given then an equal role in society, and has made life in inhospitable climates, including the U.S. South, agreeable. And it's enabled whole technological revolutions to take place: broadcasting, recorded music multistory building, computing, health, refrigeration, transportation and just about anything one can name.Electricity is ubiquitous and the single-greatest contributor to our quality of life. In our fascinating with computer technology and the Internet, it is forgotten that it rests on an earlier harnessing of electrons by a plethora of scientists down the centuries.Of all the things invented by the peoples on both sides of the Atlantic, nothing has been such a gift to humanity as electricity. It's appropriate that it should be celebrated and find a prominent place in the pantheon of human achievement.Flip that switch and marvel. – For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate
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The European Dilemma: Austerity or Growth
May 14th, 2012
Guests: Darren Gersh, PBS's "Nightly Business Report"; Laure Mandeville, Le Figaro; Michael Fauntroy, George Mason University
Radio’s impact in Washington and the nation
May 7th, 2012
Guests: Tim Farley, Host and Program Director, Sirius XM Radio’s POTUS Channel 124
Elections here and abroad; crises in Syria and Sudan
April 30th, 2012
Guests: Arnaud de Borchgrave, CSIS; Ed O'Keefe, The Washington Post; and Christopher Chambers, Georgetown University
Word and phrase origins in the U.S. presidency
April 23rd, 2012
Guests: Paul Dickson, author; Carl Cannon, RealClearPolitics.com
Political “wars” in the 2012 election, and real wars elsewhere
April 16th, 2012
Guests: Michael Fauntroy, George Mason University; Ed Kelley, The Washington Times; Chuck Lewis, Hearst Newspapers