Almost everyone is stupid by default

Including me.  How dumb must I be to freely share my pearly political punditry with the raging masses of shallow voters who will never really understand or care enough to read what I have written more deeply than a quick scan for emotive catch phrases on which to tack a pathetically pithy comment?

Here is how it is.  Some political issues are complex, and some are simple.  Some issues matter a lot, and some matter less.  I'm here to tell you about the simple issues that matter a lot.  Everyone who disagrees with me on at least one of the following points is stupid:

1. Climate change is happening, and it's worth worrying about.  Any Republican who denies this deserves to be called a Tea Partier for being so obstinate.  The single most important national policy to slow global warming is to raise the gas tax.  Doing so would make us a little bit more like our liberal friends in Europe.
2. The U.S. government has a lot of debt, and the debt is growing fast.  Failing to stop this trend will bring great regret, in the year 2026 by one economist's guess.
3. Invading Iraq was a mistake.  But that's not even the point.  Here is the point:  If a lonely group of rogue liberal members of Congress had found a way to prevent the Iraq war by any means possible, including shutting down the George Bush administration by voting no to everything he wanted, we would owe these lonely congressional heros some debt of gratitude for saving the U.S. from a useless multi-trillion dollar war bill.
4. A lonely group of rogue Tea Partiers, much like the hypothetical group in (3), claims to be doing whatever it can to resolve (2), and they deserve respect for that, despite their great shortcomings (1).  This desperate situation gives Obama an opportunity to negotiate drastic future spending cuts to save the homeland from disintegrating like the Roman empire.  Go Obama!

Update on the meaning of a default (10/14/2013):  This article does an exceptionally good job of describing the mechanics of a default.  Some key points:  Default would be bad, but no one knows how bad.  At best, various payments would simply be delayed until Congress removes the debt ceiling.  At worst, these delays would trigger some greater economic collapse.  

In the past, I have speculated about how a doomsday default scenario might play out.  The present situation differs from my doomsday scenario in one big way.  Politicians aside, the U.S. is presently fully capable of keeping up with its interest payments, and will remain capable even if the interest rates shot back up to pre-financial crisis levels, about 5%.  That's because the debt maintenance, say 5% of 15 trillion, is far less than federal tax revenues.  By contrast, in a doomsday scenario, we'd be looking at 10% of 30 trillion, which could eat up ALL government revenue, leaving nothing for social security, defense, or national parks, etc.  When that time comes, it will be impossible (even if politicians cooperate) to pay the debt, and that's when the government and economy shut down for reals, folks.

In comparison to the horror of my apocalyptic medium-distant future default scenario, I am optimistic (but not certain!) that the present default, if it occurs, will be quite mild.  I am also optimistic that the default pains will be growing pains that prompt the electorate to become more conscious of fiscal sustainability, so that federal deficit spending can be corrected before it is truly too late.  Ideally, our dear leaders can agree to correct the spending problem right away to avoid all defaults, present and future.

The price of a baby II

The previous post, unlike the baby, was premature.  More bills arrived.  Without insurance, it now looks like I would have been billed about $19,000 for a routine vaginal birth, including prenatal care.  With insurance, I ended up paying "only" about $2,000.  So I can't complain.  But I'll complain anyway, for the sake of the future of humanity.

First, it is interesting to compare these bills with those for the royal baby.

The bills are not designed to be understood by a human.  However, some clues led me to believe that the charges fell into three main groups.  The biggest charge was for the care of the mother during a non-negotiable 2-day hospital stay.  The next-to-biggest was the charge for the "delivery" itself by the OB/GYN, and I think this included the prenatal care visits.  The smallest charge was for the care of the infant, concurrent with the mom's hospital stay.

On occasion I have heard people blame "capitalism" for the high prices.  Their implication seems to be that the problem could be solved with some kind comprehensive legislation to limit how much hospitals can charge.  The anti-capitalist reaction saddens me in at least two ways.  First, I like living in a free country, and new regulations detract from our freedoms.  Second, price controls can have surprising and terrible side effects.

The system is complex, and no single step will fix it.  But many steps will fix it, and here is one clear step in the right direction:  deregulate drugs with potential use for birth.  By deregulate, I mean get rid of the laws that say you must have a doctor's prescription to buy the drug.  If this seems like too big of a step, here is an intermediate one:  Grant all certified professional midwives the legal authority to prescribe drugs for their clients.  Such authority is currently lacking in Pennsylvania, for instance.

Why is it so important to grant prescriptive authority to midwives?  Here is a brief sketch of the common-sense cascade of effects that would follow from such a policy change:

• With prescription authority, midwives become more appealing to people who are on the fence about attempting a home birth.  Knowing that you can get the same drugs at home that are standard accessories in the hospital makes home birth much more palatable.
• Consequently, more people would choose to attempt a home birth.  I'm not speculating about exactly how many more, but certainly more, and this change would likely grow over time, as people become more familiar with the new legal options.
• More home births would directly lower the average cost of birth.  Successful home births typically cost $2-3k.  With new drug options, perhaps this would rise a bit, but it is still a major cost difference, such that uninsured Americans would give it careful consideration.  In fact, some people just prefer to have the baby at home, even with insurance.
• Making home birth a more viable option means competition for hospitals.  When hospitals notice a fraction of their patients disappearing into the home birth system, this provides natural motivation for hospitals to find ways to be more affordable.