Paul Krugman adds his weight to those saying "Fix health care first!":
Well-informed business executives agree. A recent survey of chief financial officers at major corporations found that 65 percent regard immediate action on health care costs as "very important." Only 31 percent said the same about Social Security reform.
More Krugman, and more pundits below, including:
- Steve Chapman on a rational debate on the Patriot Act
- Nicholas Kristof predicts the next pope's bold move
- David Broder points out Republican opposition to the Bush war on cities
- Andres Martinez speaks out against the filibuster
- Ken Garcia roots (sort of) for Tom DeLay
- Today's cartoon
Krugman cites three core pieces of the problem:
First, America's traditional private health insurance system, in which workers get coverage through their employers, is unraveling. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that in 2004 there were at least five million fewer jobs with health insurance than in 2001. And health care costs have become a major burden on those businesses that continue to provide insurance coverage: General Motors now spends about $1,500 on health care for every car it produces.
Second, rising Medicare spending may be a sign of progress, but it still must be paid for - and right now few politicians are willing to talk about the tax increases that will be needed if the program is to make medical advances available to all older Americans.
Finally, the U.S. health care system is wildly inefficient. Americans tend to believe that we have the best health care system in the world. (I've encountered members of the journalistic elite who flatly refuse to believe that France ranks much better on most measures of health care quality than the United States.) But it isn't true. We spend far more per person on health care than any other country - 75 percent more than Canada or France - yet rank near the bottom among industrial countries in indicators from life expectancy to infant mortality.
Now for the home run:
The fact is that in health care, the private sector is often bloated and bureaucratic, while some government agencies - notably the Veterans Administration system - are lean and efficient. In health care, competition and personal choice can and do lead to higher costs and lower quality. The United States has the most privatized, competitive health system in the advanced world; it also has by far the highest costs, and close to the worst results.
Krugman promises to continue this look at health care reform over the next few weeks. I can't wait to hear what else he has to say.
Calm debate on Patriot Act
Steve Chapman says we are overdue for a rational debate over the Patriot Act, which has drawn the rage of critics as disparate as Howard Dean and Bob Barr:
Then there is the section that lets federal agents obtain library records, among other things. This is usually portrayed as a naked attempt at thought control, by exposing Americans to punishment for reading the wrong books. But no one complained when the FBI investigated what materials had been checked out of a Montana library by suspected Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, who was eventually arrested and convicted.
Here again, the point of the Patriot Act was to allow methods used against ordinary criminals to be used against foreign terrorists. As it happens, Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales said last week that since the Patriot Act was passed, it has never been used to subpoena library records.
He still wants to keep this provision in case it's ever needed. And even the critics are agreeable, though they want to "refine" this section of the law "by requiring some individualized suspicion," as the ACLU explains.
That's a debatable position, but it's also a thoughtful and balanced one--taking into account not only the need to protect privacy but the need to prevent a repetition of Sept. 11. Maybe it's the beginning of a more sober assessment of a law that federal prosecutors see as a vital weapon against terrorism.
Will the next Pope allow priests to marry?
Nicholas Kristof says allowing priests to marry is a simple point of Catholic survival:
In the United States, there was one priest for every 800 Catholics in 1965, while now there is one for every 1,400 Catholics - and the average age is nearly 60. In all the United States, with 65 million Catholics, only 479 priests were ordained in 2002.
The upshot is that the Catholic Church is losing ground around the world to evangelical and especially Pentecostal churches. In Brazil, which has more Catholics than any other country, Pentecostals are gaining so quickly that they could overtake Catholics over the next decades.
And it may surprise you to learn that JPII already took the first step:
Few people realize it, but there are now about 200 married priests under a special dispensation given by the Vatican to pastors of other denominations - Episcopalians, Lutherans and so on - who are already married and wish to convert to Roman Catholicism (typically because they feel their churches are going squishy by ordaining women or gays).
Kristof cites 70 percent of U.S. Catholics who support marriage amoung their clergy, but the real impetus may be in the Third World, where Pentecostals are overtaking Catholics in places like Brazil, and in Africa, where parenting is deeply ingrained in the culture and celibacy is, well, not.
Bush at war with U.S. cities?
David Broder looks at a lesser known Bush agenda item, shifting the largest urban program, the $4.7 billion Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), and 17 smaller programs from HUD to Commerce, which is incurring strong opposition from Congressional Republicans with urban constituencies, like Senator Norm Coleman and many House GOP members like Sue Kelly (NY):
But it was Rep. Sue Kelly (R-N.Y.), who represents five counties in the Hudson Valley, who really blew the whistle on this scheme. "My communities are frightened," she said. "They are in turmoil, because they don't know how they will be affected" if this goes through. "No specifics have been given."
Gutierrez allowed that "I understand the nervousness" and said he wanted to reach out to the communities.
When Kelly said local officials wanted to know whether there would be "a hard landing or a soft landing" for partially completed projects, Jackson said he couldn't commit beyond the current-year funding.
[Commerce Secretary Carlos] Gutierrez promised to set up an advisory committee of local officials to consult about next steps, but said legislation would not be ready for Congress until the end of this month.
Meanwhile, the president is proposing to cut the funding for these urban programs -- 4 percent, according to the Cabinet members; 35 percent, according to the Democrats' calculations.
As a planning exercise, this has all the hallmarks of the bungled Iraq occupation. But this time, Congress is likely to just say no.
Rank hypocrisy on filibuster?
Andres Martinez of the LA Times pipes in on the mutual flip-flopping on the Senate's filibuster rules:
It's now a perversion of history for the NAACP and these other liberal voices to champion the filibuster because it is temporarily convenient to do so. Like the Republicans' hypocritical attack on states' rights in the Schiavo case or in the debates over gay marriage, the liberal defense of the filibuster is an example of how devalued intellectual honesty and consistency have become in Washington.
In our frenzied 24/7 news cycle, everything is tactical, of the moment. Depending on today's correlation of forces, you can defend the filibuster, even if you decried it yesterday and may do so again tomorrow. OK, I know, I know, silly me for being disappointed by such rank hypocrisy in politics.
Martinez reminds us that the filibuster was the primary tool by which Dixiecrats impeded civil rights advances and was "widely referred to as 'the South's revenge for Gettysburg.'"
I get his point, but I'm still on the side of preserving the filibuster. I am against populism, left or right, and though it will likely interfere with our progressive goals somewhere down the line, I'd rather keep the filibuster to keep a narrow majority from railroading their agenda.
Don't stop, Tom...please don't stop!
Ken Garcia is cheering Tom Delay on:
Democratic leaders in Texas, buoyed by a recent poll in the Houston Chronicle that found 49 percent of the respondents in DeLay's district said they would vote for another candidate, already are recruiting people to run against DeLay next year. And in Washington, D.C., Democrats see DeLay's troubles as a potential windfall, in much the same way as they were able to capitalize on former House leader Newt Gingrich's implosion over ethics violations several years ago.
Most remarkably, perhaps, is that the turmoil actually proves that the courts and the judges are acting the way they are supposed to -- as a third branch of government undeterred by Congress' politically motivated attempts to exceed their constitutionally granted powers.
If anything, the judges who stood up to congressional bullying deserve more support than ever for their impartial decisions and for exhibiting the kind of judicial temperament and restraint for which they allegedly were appointed.
Judging by his actions, DeLay seems blissfully unaware of this, for which Democrats can only say: Don't stop Tom. Please, don't ever stop.
Today's cartoon
From Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: