Today concludes our series with Bob Graboyes, the senior health care advisor to the National Federation of Independent Business on the organization's evolving stance on health care reform. We wrap up with a discussion of how individuals who are ill or poor will afford health insurance in NFIB's ideal health economy. Note that Bob's comment about "government-issued price controls" could be directed toward Sen. Hillary Clinton, the only candidate to come out in favor of a cap on health insurance premiums.

To read the NFIB's principles, click here. To read previous installments of this Q&A, including the the tale of how it all began, click here.

Continue reading "Health Care For All, Redux (Q&A, Part VI)"

D'oh! I was a bit premature yesterday when I lauded Republican John McCain for his bold approach for pressuring China and India on establishing standards reduce carbon emissions. Unlike the Bush Administration, which has used intransigence in the developing world as an excuse to do nothing at home, McCain refused to shrug his shoulders and throw up his hands. "And if industrializing countries seek an economic advantage by evading those standards," he was to say, according to his prepared remarks, "I would work with the European Union and other like-minded governments that plan to address the global warming problem to develop a cost equalization mechanism to apply to those countries that decline to enact a similar cap." Democrats are nowhere near as aggressive on this matter. They promise negotiation, but China and India are in no mood to negotiate -- and without them on board, any climate change scheme is bound to fail. It struck me as akin to Nixon going to China: only an unabashed free trader could credibly propose what is probably the only solution to the dilemma -- a tariff.

Alas, it turns out McCain's not going anywhere anytime soon. Apparently the Arizona senator didn't prepare the remarks himself, or perhaps even see them until he was en route to the Vestas factory. When it came time to deliver the speech, the presumptive Republican nominee was much more conciliatory. He added language that stressed cooperation. Gone was mention of a "cost equalization mechanism." Instead he said, "I would work with the European Union and other like-minded governments that plan to address the global warming problem to develop effective diplomacy, effect a transfer of technology, or other means to engage those countries that decline to enact a similar cap." Very Democratic of him -- and not much different from what Barack Obama has proposed (pdf).

This morning I asked McCain spokesman Brian Rogers what happened. He described the new language not as a change but as a clarification. "Sen Mccain just wanted to be more a clear about where he was as a free trader," Rogers explained. "The language that he actually ended up delivering is better representative of where he is on that issue." In a conference call with reporters, McCain senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin elaborated. "What he believes is you can equalize cost in the United States and elsewhere by selling the innovation and the low carbon technology worldwide, so that everybody is using the same industrial footprint that's more environmentally friendly," Holtz-Eakin said. "He thinks that engaging diplomatically, getting them on board for pursuing that, inventing some new technologies, is cost equalization. His concern was that the original formulation sounded like too much like an interference with free trade, and that's not something he wanted people to take away as a bottom line."

Silly me for misconstruing! Although I'll simply point out that while technology transfer may be cost equalization, it is not a "cost equalization mechanism," per se.

McCain's revised remarks are online now, as is a helpful summary of his agenda.

There's a hard question that must asked of every plan that would combat climate change: how do you get developing countries, particularly China and India, to sign on to an emission control regime? Those countries, after all, have a fair point when they argue that most of the CO₂ currently warming the planet rose from the tailpipes and smokestacks of Western nations--it's unfair of the West to change the rules after a 150-year head start. But without their participation, self-imposed carbon constraints in the industrialized world are bound to fail as manufacturers simply relocate to Asia. In fact, carbon dioxide emissions could actually increase.

Democrats have never properly explained how they would induce the Asian tigers (or Mexico or South Africa) to cooperate. Democrat Barack Obama promises only to "exert maximum pressure on China and India to do their part and make real commitments of their own" -- good luck with that! But there is simple solution: make trade contingent on tough carbon emission rules. Price the tariff on the cost to abate carbon emissions, plus a little extra for our trouble. The revenue raised could go to foster renewable fuels or conservation strategies, or fund tax credits to firms that do the most to reduce their carbon footprint.

Continue reading "McCain Trades Trade For Climate"

Today, after a bit of a hiatus, our conversation with Bob Graboyes, the senior health care advisor to the National Federation of Independent Business, continues, with an attempt to get Bob to share the NFIB's view of the presidential candidates' health care agendas. In the time since this interview was conducted (by email), the terrain has shifted. On the Democratic side, Sen. Barack Obama seems to be consolidating his hold on the nomination, though Sen. Hillary Clinton remains in the race. Meanwhile, Republican Sen/ John McCain has completely reconsidered his own platform, unveiling an overhauled policy proposal just last week.

In general, the Democrats have proposed a sort of "managed competition" for health care: people can keep their insurance if they like, or they can join a government sponsored plan, "the same coverage that members of Congress enjoy." Employers would either have to provide insurance or pay the government to do it. (As the largest employer in the economy, the government has leverage few others could match and a pool big enough to absorb the risk of the currently uninsured.) To read about Clinton's plan, click here and here; for my take on her dispute with Obama over mandates, go here.

Finally, if you need to catch up, previous installments in this series are collected here.

Continue reading "The Government Will See You Now? (Q&A, Part V)"

Near-final results (99 percent of precincts reporting) in the Hoosier State, lifted from CNN.com:

Clinton: 638,274 (50.9 percent)
Obama: 615,862 (49.1 percent)

Not quite the Obama upset this column predicted Monday night, but close enough for blog work. (Note that the often-dodgy Zogby poll came closest overall last night -- nobody else saw Obama's 14-point margin in North Carolina.) Don't believe the hype issuing from the Senator from New York -- in this case, a win is not a win.

Now back to the issues.

Yes, I know: this is not a horse race blog. Sometimes, though, I just can't help myself. As recently as late last week, the foregone conclusion was that Sen. Hillary Clinton would win in Indiana. The polling there produced pretty consistent results, showing Clinton ahead by five to ten points. Consider these surveys, reported at RealClearPolitics.com:

But on Friday, there was also an outlier: Zogby had the Democratic senators tied. Zogby, though, always seems to be an outlier; a Zogby poll of North Carolina published on the same day had Barack Obama ahead by 16, while other North Carolina surveys put Obama's advantage at between five and 11 points.

On Saturday, Zogby reported Obama ahead in Indiana by one point (and his lead in the day's North Carolina Zogby poll had dropped to a more credible nine points). Sunday he was up by two points. Now, just hours before Indiana votes, a slew of new polls. Subtract the SurveyUSA figure (and perhaps, too, Zogby's), and the trend is clear:

If Obama pulls off an upset in Indiana, you heard it here first. If, on the other hand, it's a Clinton blow-out, this post will vanish like Hillary Clinton's Ivy League pedigree.

John McCain took a stab at solving his health insurance dilemma Tuesday. No, not the question of how he, as a cancer survivor, might buy insurance on the open market -- as a senator married to an heiress, his health insurance is covered. I mean his policy conundrum: how to reconcile popular demands for more access to better health care with "free market" principles that would appear to make universal coverage even harder to achieve.

The result is an interesting modulation of his doctrinaire position, as elaborated in a speech at a cancer center in Tampa. No longer does he propose thoroughly dismantling the employer-driven health insurance system and replacing it with a market of individual consumers. Instead, he merely wants to weaken protections for the employer system so that the two markets can sit side-by-side. He'd do this by taxing the insurance benefit that individuals get from their employers, which is currently excluded from income tax. Then he'd give everyone a tax credit to buy insurance anywhere they can find it: $2,500 for individual coverage and $5,000 for families. (McCain's website has posted both a summary of his proposal as well as the text of his speech. But while the press release repeatedly and emphatically insists that the proposal is loaded with "specifics," I found both the speech and summary maddeningly vague, and had to rely on two accounts from the New York Times, here and here. Ultimately, I had to get further clarification from the McCain campaign.)

Continue reading "McCainCare's Unintended Consequences"

Our conversation with Bob Graboyes, the senior health care advisor to the National Federation of Independent Business, continues today. To read previous installments in this series, click here.

Continue reading "Is Seeing A Doctor Like Buying a House? (Q&A, Part IV)"

Last Friday, Bob Graboyes, the senior health care advisor to the National Federation of Independent Business began to explain why his organization supports measure that build up the market for individual insurance. Today, that discussion continues. If you need to get caught up, you can relive every twist and turn in this series here.

Continue reading "The Individual And The Group: NFIB Q&A, Part III"

According to Bob Graboyes, senior health care advisor to the National Federation of Independent Business, the NFIB has no desire to " 'push people away from employer coverage' but, rather, [wants] to offer individuals a level playing field on which to choose employer or individual coverage." (He's quoting me there.) In our conversation last week, Bob elaborated on one of the NFIB's favorite leveling ideas: allow individuals to deduct all of their health care costs from their income taxes. Currently, only employers who provide insurance can deduct the expense from their income. "The current tax treatment of health insurance benefits creates a bias for providing health care through employers and, in some cases, encourages businesses to purchase lavish plans because the benefits are not taxed as ordinary income would be," Bob said. " A more level market ought to lower the price for individual policies and for employer-based policies. The difference between costs of individual and employer-based policies would almost certainly narrow."

But I'm still not sure that the NFIB wants a level playing field -- or even if individual and group insurance could exist on a level playing field. Bob, for his part, could have done more to clear things up. I asked him, for instance, if the NFIB supported two tax deductions, one for individuals and one for employers, side by side, or if they'd prefer that an individual deduction replace the business deduction. John McCain, for one, proposes ending the employer deduction and shifting it over to employees -- a move that clearly favors the individual market over the group. Bob, however, didn't answer my question, not even when I gave him a second chance to do so.

Continue reading "The Health Insurance Dilemma: 1 Vs. 100"