“George Will: Professor Obama’s Wilsonian philosophy - Billings Gazette” plus 3 more |
- George Will: Professor Obama’s Wilsonian philosophy - Billings Gazette
- Abortion battle in health reform bill is more about philosophy than ... - St. Petersburg Times
- CMP Joins INSTALL Alliance: ‘This program is ... - PRLog (free press release)
- 'This Week' in History: Obama Skeptical of Roberts ... - ABC News
| George Will: Professor Obama’s Wilsonian philosophy - Billings Gazette Posted: 12 Mar 2010 01:57 PM PST WASHINGTON — There are legislative miles to go before the government will be emancipated from its health care myopia, but it is not too soon for a summing up. Whether all or nothing of the legislation becomes law, Barack Obama has refuted critics who call him a radical. He has shown himself to be a timid progressive. His timidity was displayed when he flinched from fighting for the boldness the nation needs — a transition from the irrationality of employer-provided health insurance. His progressivism is an attitude of genteel regret about the persistence of politics. Employer-paid insurance is central to what David Gratzer of the Manhattan Institute calls "the 12-cent problem." That is how much of every health care dollar is spent by the person receiving the care. Hence Americans' buffet mentality — we paid at the door to the health care feast, so let's consume all we can. Buy individual policiesJohn McCain had the correct prescription for health care during the 2008 campaign. He proposed serious change — taxing employer-provided health care as what it indisputably is, compensation, and giving tax credits, including refundable ones, for individuals to purchase insurance. Instead, as the legislative endgame plods toward us on leaden feet, the sprawling bills would subsidize insurance purchases for families of four earning almost $100,000 a year, a redundant reminder of unseriousness about the nation's fiscal mismanagement. Of course, there now is a commission of experts to recommend cures for this. It should be called the Philip Dru Memorial Commission. In a scintillating book coming in June ("The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris"), Peter Beinart dissects the progressivism of Woodrow Wilson. Edward House, Wilson's closest adviser, wrote an awful but indicative novel, "Philip Dru: Administrator." With the nation in crisis, Dru seizes power, declares himself "Administrator of the Republic," and replaces Congress with a commission of five experts who decree reforms that selfish interests had prevented. Wilson, a professor of political science, said that the Princeton he led as its president was dedicated to unbiased expertise, and he thought government could be "reduced to science." Progressives are forever longing to replace the governance of people by the administration of things. Professor Obama, who will seek re-election on the 100th anniversary of Wilson's 1912 election, told Katie Couric on Feb. 7: "I would have loved nothing better than to simply come up with some very elegant, academically approved approach to health care, and didn't have any kinds of legislative fingerprints on it, and just go ahead and have that passed. But that's not how it works in our democracy. Unfortunately, what we end up having to do is to do a lot of negotiations with a lot of different people." Piecemeal politicsNote his aesthetic criterion of elegance, by which he probably means sublime complexity. During the yearlong health care debate, Republicans such as Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee have consistently cautioned against the conceit that government is good at "comprehensive" solutions to the complex problems of a continental nation. Obama has consistently argued, in effect, that the health care system is like a Calder mobile — touch it here and things will jiggle here, there and everywhere. Because everything is connected to everything else, merely piecemeal change is impossible. So note also Obama's yearning for something "academically approved" rather than something resulting from "a lot of negotiations with a lot of different people," aka politics. Here, too, Obama is in the spirit of the U.S. president who first was president of the American Political Science Association. Wilson was the first president to criticize the Founding Fathers. He faulted them for designing a government too susceptible to factions that impede disinterested experts from getting on with government undistracted. Like Princeton's former president, Obama's grievance is with the greatest Princetonian, the "father of the Constitution," James Madison, class of 1771. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |
| Abortion battle in health reform bill is more about philosophy than ... - St. Petersburg Times Posted: 12 Mar 2010 10:01 AM PST | By Kris Hundley, Times staff writer Inside Congress, battles over federal funding for abortion have posed the latest threat to health care reform legislation. The Senate bill to be considered by the House this month includes some restrictions on the use of federal subsidies to pay for private insurance plans covering abortions. House Democratic leaders on Thursday gave up on trying to find a compromise within their own ranks on the abortion language, gambling that even if some antiabortion Democrats defect, they can still find the votes they need to pass the sweeping health care overhaul. But relative to the rest of the bill, there's little money at stake in covering abortion. It's a debate that hinges on philosophical differences more than finances. And it has little to do with the reality of how abortions are funded today: Most women pay out of pocket for the procedure, which costs about $400 to $1,800. There were about 1.2 million abortions in the United States in 2005, the last year for which data is available. Of those, 74 percent were paid directly by the woman, with her own money or funds from a partner or family. Guttmacher Institute, the source of these figures, stressed that the statistic included all women receiving abortions, whether insured or uninsured. And it doesn't account for women who may later have sought reimbursement from their insurers. About 87 percent of all employer-provided health care plans now include at least some abortion coverage. But the Guttmacher study found that only 13 percent of women having abortions had their insurers billed directly by clinics. Women may prefer paying in cash, surveyors said, to preserve confidentiality. Federal funding of abortions has been limited for decades. Since 1977, the Hyde amendment, which is renewed annually, has banned the use of federal money for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the mother's life. The Guttmacher study found that 13 percent of abortions were reimbursed by Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor. Most of those were in 17 states that permit funding in broader circumstances than allowed under the Hyde amendment. The Senate version of the health care bill includes a provision allowing people who don't have access to affordable insurance to buy private plans through a state-based exchange. Most buyers would be eligible for federal subsidies of their premiums. And that's where the focus of the current debate lies. Antiabortion groups insist that no federal subsidies should be allowed for insurance plans that cover abortions beyond those allowed under the Hyde amendment. So the Senate bill would force everyone who buys an exchange plan with broader abortion coverage to make a separate payment to the insurer every month. States would also have the option of prohibiting plans in the exchange from covering abortions. The National Right to Life committee criticized the Senate fix as a "convoluted bookkeeping scheme inconsistent with the principles of the Hyde Amendment." Earlier this month, the group issued a release, saying any member of Congress who votes for the Senate bill will be casting "a career-defining pro-abortion vote." But Thursday there were signs of splintering among the antiabortion forces. Even before the House Democratic leaders made their announcement, a group of 25 Catholic theologians and evangelical leaders sent a letter to Congress supporting the legislation. The group, Faith in Public Life, said it believed restrictions on federal funding for abortion are maintained in the bill, which they support because it would expand affordable health coverage to tens of millions of Americans, including "vulnerable pregnant women." Abortion rights groups, meanwhile, worry that the Senate's restrictions on exchange plans would have a spill-over effect on the entire insurance industry. In addition to the headache of collecting what could be as little as $1 a month from every policyholder, insurers would be forced to publicize the fact that they're offering abortion coverage. Nancy Kennan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a news release, "Women should not lose ground in the new health care system." Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University, predicts that under the Senate's requirements, most insurers would simply drop coverage for all customers, rather than deal with blowback from abortion opponents. "Quite frankly, I think it's the end of the sale of insurance that covers abortion," she said. Today most major insurers automatically include coverage for abortions and give employers the choice to opt out. But few companies or their employees may even realize they have the coverage. Late last year, the Republican National Committee discovered that its policy through Cigna had covered abortions since 1991. The antiabortion group immediately said it intended to eliminate the coverage. Times researcher Will Gorham contributed to this report. Kris Hundley can be reached at khundley@sptimes.com or (727)892-2996. [Last modified: Mar 11, 2010 10:45 PM] Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. 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| CMP Joins INSTALL Alliance: ‘This program is ... - PRLog (free press release) Posted: 12 Mar 2010 05:07 AM PST PR Log (Press Release) – Mar 12, 2010 – Horsham, PA - February 3, 2010 — CMP Specialty Products (CMP), a leading manufacturer of sub-floor preparation and
construction products announced today that it endorses the INSTALL curriculum for floor covering professionals. The INSTALL curriculum helps educate and train floor covering professionals in all aspects of floor covering, including carpet, Resilient, hardwood and subfloor preparation. As an endorser of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters
INSTALL and CMP are both committed to the success of properly educated and trained floor covering professionals. "We are happy to have CMP join INSTALL. Their commitment to quality installation practices is to be commended, and it also is an example of the dedication all members of the INSTALL alliance demonstrate everyday." About INSTALL
About CMP Specialty Products
Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |
| 'This Week' in History: Obama Skeptical of Roberts ... - ABC News Posted: 12 Mar 2010 02:11 PM PST The White House and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court engaged in an unusual debate this week over how the President should behave. "Very troubling" were Chief Justice John Roberts' words to describe the environment President Obama created when he criticized the Supreme Court's ruling on campaign finance reform during his State of the Union Address. The President and the Chief Justice have a history. Roberts tripped over the oath of office at the President's inauguration, but we went into the This Week vaults to find this tape from 2005, when then-Senator Barack Obama appeared on This Week with George Stephanopoulos the day before John Roberts' confirmation hearings began. "A political philosophy that typically errs on the side of the powerful rather than the powerless, that's a judicial philosophy that can make worse, can exacerbate some of the problems that we have in this country," Obama said. Four years later, President Obama's objections to Roberts' rulings remained rooted in his concern that the court will not protect the underprivileged. "Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests," Obama told the nation on January 27 at his State of the Union Address. During the speech, most of the Supreme Court justices in attendance, with the exception of Justice Alito, remained expressionless even as Obama criticized their recent ruling on campaign finance reform. While Justice Alito seemed to mouth the words "not true" in response to the President's unorthodox interjection into court rulings, Chief Justice Roberts did not express his outrage – at least not that night. While speaking to a group of law students at the University of Alabama, Chief Justice Robert broke his silence. "The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court - according the requirements of protocol - has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling," Roberts said. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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