Dan Froomkin has some good things to say about the current state of the health care debate.

But the fate of the public option is not yet sealed. And it’s much more than just a bargaining chip. The concept of offering health care consumers a government-run alternative to the rogues that comprise the modern American insurance industry not only has a powerful appeal to the general populace, it’s central to effective health care reform, both symbolically and concretely.

In fact, the most extraordinary thing about the mainstream media’s attitude toward the public option is how an opposition movement so obviously born of the insurance industry’s rapacious self-interest, so blatantly fueled by calls to arms that have little to no basis on reality, and so dependent on a particularly ugly strain of know-nothingism, has become viewed by our elite journalists as the pinnacle of rational centrism.

Let’s be blunt. The public option — emphasis on the word “option” — is a way to hold the insurance companies accountable should they (entirely unexpectedly, of course) fail to live up to their promises, ignore the rules, and keep doing things the way they have for the past several decades.

By contrast, the core of the argument against the public option is nothing more than a sort of whiny plaint of “Leave the insurance companies alone!”

We’re getting the same crappy journalism, by and large, that fueled the Iraq War. Credulous regurgitation and a focus on process over substance.

The concept of the public option is fairly simple. It’s a safety valve that keeps insurers honest. It’s a check and a balance to their natural incentive to put profit ahead of paying out (in their jargon) “medical loss” (i.e. the very thing you pay your premiums to get.) The insurance is able to dump $1 million/day into lobbying against health care reform — clearly your ever-increasing premiums haven’t been entirely devoted to increasing medical costs as we have been lead to believe.

Oh, and another thing, this bit irked me:

The high priests of Washington conventional wisdom summed things up this morning in a Washington Post editorial calling for the public plan to die. “This is not a matter of ideology but of political nose-counting,” said the editorial. “[T]here’s no way to amass 60 votes with a public option in the bill.”

You don’t need 60 votes for the public option. You only need 50 votes for the public option. You need 60 votes against filibustering a health care bill. Not voting for a public option is not the same thing as filibustering a health care bill that contains it. We need to know if, among others, Senator Bayh is committed to killing a health care bill that a majority of the Senate supports.

There is a strong strain of anti-happiness in the American tradition. Near as I can figure, it comes from the notion that humans are worthless worms of creation and deserve to burn in eternal hellfire immediately. Any discomfort less severe than that is righteous and almost kindly by comparison. I’m drawing that particular narrative from Jonathan Edwards’ 1741 famous sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. You can hear echoes of this sermon in the debates over sexuality — aversion to measures that would reduce pregnancy and STDs combined with hostility to abortions makes a bit more sense if one sees communicable diseases and pregnancy as righteous punishment for sinful lust.

Anne Laurie at Balloon-Juice notes a related meme making its way through the media in the health care debate: We’re fat pigs who don’t deserve quality health care because being sick is righteous punishment for our gluttony and sloth. Our desire to have the kind of health care enjoyed by others is evidence of greed and envy. (Opponents succumbing to wrath can, therefore, be excused presumably.)

Ms. Laurie:

Looks like the new Media Village talking point has been distributed: Americans don’t deserve a decent health care system because we are disgusting fat pigs.

There’s a point (around 3:00) in the MSNBC clip John posted earlier where Taibbi talks about America’s relatively high infant mortality rate and low life expectancy, and Maria Bartiromo interrupts to snarl, “We’re OBESE!” with the same combination of loathing & denunciation that a televangelist would use for “We have sinned!” Bartiromo, of course, is not obese—her television contract is based on her meeting certain standards of attractiveness, and I’m sure it includes clauses covering the personal trainers, gym memberships, nutritionists, and whatever other outside assistance is required to keep Bartiromo up to those standards. But the rest of us, well, how can we expect our babies to stay alive if we insist on being willfully, knowingly “obese”?

Then, in the WSJ op-ed John linked later in the evening, anesthesiologist and anti-happiness crusader Dr. Ronald Dworkin complains that Obama’s threatened health reforms will drive skilled professionals like himself out of the medical business, because taxes are too high and Medicare compensation is too low and frankly, smart people don’t want to work that hard. Also, “Americans have grown very fat. This complicates anesthesia tremendously. Putting in IVs, spinals and epidurals is harder. Inserting breathing tubes is much more dangerous. “ True enough, but then, he’s getting paid somewhere north of $300k a year to deal with those complicated fat people. “Quality of care will inevitably decline. That decline will come first in obstetrics… “ Go away, fat people, or the laboring mothers and their babies will suffer!

Now, it’s entirely possible I’m reading more into this than necessary. The anti-happiness strain in American thought certainly makes us receptive to the message, but all Occam’s razor probably requires for our receptiveness is that obesity is a simple scapegoat and easier to blame than the bewildering interlocking pieces of the health system. When confronted with the cascading failure presented by the relationships between general practitioners, specialists, network doctors, non-network doctors, co-pays, contract adjustments, deductibles, hospital charge masters, premiums, pre-existing conditions, diagnostic testing, HMOs, PPOs, health insurers, and everything else; well, it’s easier to just blame the fat person.

In the quest to eradicate drunk driving, the most frequent approach is to focus on reducing the drinking part of the equation. Muncie tavern owners, who obviously have an interest in keeping the drinking side of things robust, are apparently taking measures to reduce the need for driving.

Just as Indiana State Police and other local enforcement begin a Labor Day crackdown on intoxicated driving, a group of Delaware County bar owners will pay a local taxi service to provide home-to-bar, bar-to-bar and bar-to-home transportation every day until the 3 a.m. closing time. That service begins today.

PDQ Taxi owners Brad and Karen Luttrell had proposed the free-ride program, to be subsidized by the Delaware County Licensed Beverage Association.

Drunk driving tends to go hand-in-hand with a subpar public transit system. Offering free rides from bars is a good idea if the tavern owners and taxi or shuttle services can make profitable. But I suspect it only works where most of your patrons are coming from a relatively limited geographic donut — not so close that they were just going to walk in the first place and not so far as to make the amount of driving by the taxi unreasonable.

Yesterday, I got to wondering why we weren’t hearing more about Congressional hearings on health care — not so much hearings about how to move forward, but hearings on what’s going on with the status quo. Seemed like with so many insurance companies trying to throttle the health care reform baby in its cradle, we’d maybe see the glare of Congressional subpoenas start to rain down on the health insurance industry. Rep. Waxman seems to be stepping in that direction.

The request included records relating to compensation of highly paid employees, documents relating to companies’ premium income and claims payments, and information on expenses stemming from any event held outside company facilities in the past 2 1/2 years.
. . .
Among the documents requested were records relating to compensation paid to any company executive earning more than $500,000 in any year from 2003 to 2008.

Waxman and Stupak also sought documents relating to premiums paid by policy holders, claims payments, sales expenses, administrative expenses and profits, broken down by categories such as employer-provided coverage; individual coverage, Medicare and Medicaid.

Emptywheel adds:

He’s asking for the following by September 4:

* A table listing the total compensation for every employee making more than $500,000 a year
* A table listing board member compensation
* A table listing off-site conferences and retreats
* A table listing the company’s total revenue and net income

And the following by September 14:

* Communication with the board on compensation packages
* Tables listing premium revenue, claims payments, and sales expenses

Perhaps this sort of documentation would allow us to determine whether our own Evan Bayh is the Senator from Indiana or the Senator from Wellpoint. I’m not asking the good Senator to go so far as to actually vote for a liberal health care system, but I’d appreciate it if he would commit to not filibustering health care legislation and let it rise or fall on its own. And, for that matter, if it does come down to a filibuster, I hope any fence-sitting Democrats are forced to cast a vote.

Speaking of hardball – the Progressive wing of the Democrats in the House are starting to play a little.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she won’t be able to pass health-care legislation in her chamber if the measure doesn’t include a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers.

“There’s no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option,” Pelosi, a California Democrat, said at a press conference in San Francisco today.

The thing is that, until some Republicans commit to actually voting for a final package, there is no sense in trying to accommodate them. Why include their ideas if doing so won’t add a vote to the total?

Seth Slabaugh, writing for the Indianapolis Star, reports that the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) will be holding hearings on utility tree trimming practices.

I’m biased on this issue after having had my own run-in with an electric company that wanted to cut down some of my trees. I had a line of trees blocking my house from a busy road to the west and, beyond that, a big expanse of field where the wind could really get howling. The line of trees were a barrier to the wind and the road. They were under some electric transmission lines, but the tops of the trees were something like 15 feet below the power lines. One day, my wife found people working on behalf of the electric company starting to take a chain saw to one of the trees and, naturally, asked them what the hell they were doing. They said they were with the electric company and apparently mumbled something about how we should have received notice. In fact there had been notice and my wife made them get off our property. I went and dug up the easement for the power lines, read it, and exchanged letters with counsel for the power company where I explained why their easement gave them no right to cut down my trees. The company never formally agreed with me, but they just sort of disappeared and our trees remained untouched until we eventually moved. I forget the exact language, but the easement gave them the right — understandably — to take reasonable measures to keep vegetation from interfering with their power lines.

And that’s the problem, as I see it. Power companies usually just want to take a chainsaw to the trees which is probably the cheapest solution but isn’t necessarily permitted by the terms of their easement if there are less intrusive (even if more expensive) ways for them to keep trees from interfering with their power lines.

In Muncie, the IURC hearing is scheduled for 8/31 at 6 p.m. at the Central High School auditorium. On the pro-property owner side of the issue is Charlie Goodman who has a website. He reports that the IURC will also hold these additional hearings:
Indianapolis – Pike High School – September 2
Seymour – September 8
Merrillville – September 23
Fort Wayne – September 29
Evansville – October 7

The Office of the Utility Consumer Counselor has more information here.

I’m mostly posting this for my own future reference. But the Indiana Department of Correction has proposed amending the rules concerning county jail standards. Some points of interest (to me):

#Amends required intake information to include Name of health insurance carrier; Name of primary care physician; Education level, to include the name and location of last school attended if no high school diploma; Prior commitments; Nationality or citizenship; and Social Security number, and if any Social Security benefits are currently being received.

#Specifies that each cell have hot and cold running water is required (and not just running water).

#Requires installation of CCTV cameras in numerous places.

#Requires creation of a BAC policy establishing the blood alcohol content, above which a jail may refuse to accept a prisoner.

#Each sheriff shall have a policy providing for the provision of private medical, dental, and optometry services when requested by the inmate. The services shall be at the inmate’s own expense.

Brian Zimmerman, writing for the Richmond Palladium-Item, reports that Richmond High School has suspended 169 kids for dress code violations. The article says that, under a new dress code, students have been prohibited “from wearing clothing with any logos or designs of any kind — even stripes, plaid or floral prints. Additionally, students cannot wear excessively tight or baggy clothes or low-cut shirts.” Someone I know who is a parent of an RHS student has said that “low-cut shirt” means something that shows the collar bone.

Seems to me that, when you have this level of noncompliance, you have to consider that the system being implemented is to blame. And, if a school is going to ban a big percentage of normal street clothes, it should probably just go to uniforms and be done with it.

I’ve been hearing a lot of sound and fury about health care “rationing.” Currently, if you don’t have the money, you are already rationed. If you do have the money, nobody is going to forbid you from buying an extra 10 MRIs out of your own pocket –even if they are utterly unnecessary– if that’s what you feel like you want. What am I missing?

The Economist has a column urging an American strategy to deal with the decline of our landline telephone system. (h/t The Urbanophile.)

Copper telephony is becoming increasingly obsolete even though America’s wireless coverage lags other industrialized nations. (“Despite some of the flakiest mobile-network coverage in the developed world, one in four households has now gone mobile-only.”) Our broadband penetration is also not very good. (“15th in broadband penetration among OECD countries.”)

The decline of the traditional telephone system is not only a technological issue, but also a socioeconomic one. (“Landlines are the platform for many public services, such as emergency response. And taxes on landlines are the basis of the complex system of subsidies to ensure universal service, meaning an affordable phone line for all.”) Additionally, the column says that landline operators support more pensioners than even the auto industry.

The Economist column suggests that wireless phone service be assured for rural areas by means of a reverse auction system (as India has used) whereby the provider who asks for least cash to supply a particular area wins the contract. With respect to broadband:

[T]he role of the state has less to do with limiting handouts than increasing choice. Fibre-optic networks can be run like any other public infrastructure: government, municipalities or utilities lay the cables and let private firms compete to offer services, just as public roadways are used by private logistics firms. In Stockholm, a pioneer of this system, it takes 30 minutes to change your broadband provider. Australia’s new $30 billion all-fibre network will use a similar model.

The Associated Press is reporting that the ACLU has asked the Indiana Supreme Court to overturn a Plainfield ordinance banning sex offenders from public parks. In September, the Indiana Court of Appeals rejected the challenge (pdf). This case is one in a growing line (via the Indiana Law Blog) of challenges involving sex offenders. Part of this has to do with how fearful we are of sex offenders and what an easy political target they are.

Legislators respond to the fear of their constituents by attempting to drive sex offenders further from the public sphere. Whether these laws and ordinances are Constitutional – at least as they apply to offenders who committed their crimes before the laws were passed – depends largely on whether the new law is regarded as a civil regulation or a criminal penalty. The former are generally permissible, the latter are not.

I’m a father of little kids, and I have recently been involved in a couple of cases involving horrible things happening to children. So, I get the fear. But I question the efficacy of laws in keeping us safe in this area. Close supervision of your kids is one good approach to protecting them — but I kind of feel like our kids are over-supervised, in a sense. I was talking with some other Dads at a soccer practice, and we were commenting on how our parents let us “run” a little more. Having said that, I’m not sure I would be brave enough to put my money where my mouth is and take a chance by letting my kids play outside, unsupervised more than I do.

Another safeguard is probably to try to overcome the taboos our society has about discussing sex with kids so that they have enough understanding to keep out of a situation where a sex offender might harm them. No amount of education is going to stop a forcible abduction, but my understanding from watching Very Special Episodes of 80s sit-coms is that would-be molesters take advantage of kids’ confusion.

Given the heavily emotional nature of the issue, legislators will continue to impose laws and ordinances, and sex offenders — who are, much as we want to ignore the fact, people trying to live lives — will continue to challenge those laws and ordinances. So, whatever the best non-legal approaches to protecting our kids might be, we will have to take them. Even if we execute or imprison as many sex offenders as we can and impose all kinds of draconian rules on sex offender registrants; the fact is not all of them will get ensnared in the legal system before they cause harm.