"The nonnegligible probability of utter disaster"

Paul Krugman has an absolutely critical, must-read piece (here) on the economics of fighting global warming. It's long, but anyone who wants to have a handle on what appears to be the critical issue of our generation, should read it.

Amending Confederate History Month

After taking heat (from this blog as well as many other commentators) about his slavery-free Confederate History Month, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell apologized and amended his proclamation to include a fairer treatment of the underlying cause of secession and the Civil War.

WHEREAS, it is important for all Virginians to understand that the institution of slavery led to this war and was an evil and inhumane practice that deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights and all Virginians are thankful for its permanent eradication from our borders, and the study of this time period should reflect upon and learn from this painful part of our history.

I applaud the Governor for having the self-respect to admit and correct his error, instead of making political hay out of being criticized by the PC Left. I think it's especially important that the proclamation notes that the Civil War and slavery were a "painful part of our history." There needs to be serious, institutional pushback, against the valorization of the Confederacy. The Confederate Flag (actually the Confederate battle flag - the "stars and bars" was the national flag) was the symbol of treason, of tearing up the Constitution. It was carried by an armed rebellion that fought the US army and tore down the American flag when it captured Fort Sumter. 150 years later, we shouldn't be in a position such as that of one of my readers, who reports on Facebook that his vacation is being ruined by Confederate Flag beach towels.

Happy Confederate History Month!

Alleged moderate Virginia Republican Governor Bob McDonnell has reinstated April as "Confederate History Month" in the great Commonwealth of VA, after it had been abandoned by his two Democratic predecessors.

According to the governor's proclamation, April was chosen because it was the month that Virginia decided to abandon the United States and join the Confederate States of America. The proclamation is curiously silent about rhe reasons for VA joining the CSA, but if we look back to the first paragraph of Virginia's Ordinance of Secession, we get a pretty good idea.

The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitition were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States
(via Matt Yglesias)

People can (and do, at great length) argue about the relative importance of slavery over tarriffs, or industrialization, etc. as causes of secession and the Civil War, and whether we in the present can judge Southerners from 150 years ago, who were raised with completely different world views and prejudices.

However, I think that we can say, for certain, that it is utterly wrong for a state government (particularly one representing a state where 20% of the population is Black) to honor treason against the Constitution of the United States, which resulted in an armed rebellion that fired on the flag of the United States and led to the deaths of 650,000 Americans, all in the defense of the enslavement of their fellow human beings.

The iPad is not the most important thing that happened last week

Newsweek's cover story on the iPad (which pairs nicely with its back cover advertisement for the same product) declares that the iPad will "revolutionize reading, watching, computing, gaming and silicon valley." I admit that I have not yet handled the messiah-gadget (although as an inveterate gadgeteer I've read many reviews of it), but I think that, as usual for Apple products, the praise is way overblown. Let's take a look at what the iPad will allegedly revolutionize:

Reading: The Kindle (to which, full disclosure, I'm partial) has already led the way on digital distribution of books. The iPad only promises to do more of the same, but with pictures! and video clips! I think most people are using e-readers for books - I'm reading Ron Chernow's "Alexander Hamilton," on my Kindle, and have not felt a need for a video re-ceation of the Weehawken duel.

Websites, like ESPN.com, do a pretty good job of combining text, graphics and video, and these will be viewable on the iPad, as well as specially-created text/video/graphic publication that will probably be a lot like ESPN.com except not you pay for them.

I do see the iPad potentially being ground-breaking in replacing textbooks - where graphics, interactive material, etc. could be really helpful, as would the ability to highlight, cut and paste clips, etc. However, this is clearly at the moment a niche market, and not really "revolutionizing reading."

Watching: Ok, you can watch movies on it. Like you can on an iphone or a good PMP, or a laptop, except a bit larger and with a better picture. However, given that home video and TV consumption has been trending toward ever-larger HD screens, and TV-makers are investing heavily in 3D TVs, I have a hard time imagining that the average person is going to skip his 50 inch LCD with 7.1 dolby to watch a movie or the Superbowl in the iPad.

Computing: Without a keyboard, and only able to run one application at a time, I have a hard time seeing how anything you do on an iPad really even counts as computing, much less as "revolutionary computing." Computer use in the past decade has trended more and more toward users creating content - posting pics and status updates on facebook, creating, editing and posting videos on youtube, blogging, commenting on other blogs or sites. The iPad isn't really set up to do any of this. I'll bet that most people who engage with their computers or the internet and own an iPad will use it to consume media, and then go to a regular computer to create.

Gaming: So far the iPad has sold 300,000 units. Great start, definitely, but it has a long way to go before it catches up with the 140 million Playstation 2 units sold over that platform's lifespan. At the moment, the best games for the iPad look like Quake 2 era games from about 10 years ago on the PC or PS2. Nice to be able to play when you're away from your main system, but I have a hard time imagining people becoming iPad gaming loyalists.

Gaming right now is heading in two very different directions. You have gorgeously produced, immersive games like Uncharted 2, Modern Warfare, etc. that have Hollywood budgets and huge sales, and you have very cheap-to-produce, easy to play casual games like the reigning champ, Facebook's farmville, scrabble clones, desktop tower defense games, etc. As with movies, the iPad is not going to match the experience of playing a high-end game on a high-end computer or console with a big monitor or TV and serious speakers. It will probably canibalize sales from portable systems like the Nintendo DS and the PSP, and will get its share of casual game users who want to manage their digital farms while on the road, but again, hardly revolutionary.

In the end, the iPad is a great piece of industrial design, with a very slick looking operating system, that's user-friendly and appears to be pretty fun to use. It's absolutely a desirable object, even for apple-phobes like me. However, as nicely as it does what it does, none of the things it does are revolutionary - it shows movies less appealingly than a big TV, it games worse than a PS3, Wii or X-Box (or a good real computer), its battery life for reading is 10 hours instead of the Kindle's 2 weeks, etc. At the end of the day, it's just a really nicely designed gadget. No problem with that, but it doesn't merit a Newsweek cover.

Anti-immigrant healthcare policy will cost Americans money

As part of the general political climate where it's important for politicians never to be seen doing anything remotely nice to undocumented immigrants, the recent healthcare reform act excluded them entirely from its provisions. Now, I understand the argument of not wanting to extend subsidies to UIs, particularly given that many of them participate in an underground economy and don't pay taxes - the argument being that you don't want to draw people to the US just so they can tap into social services benefits, particularly if those people aren't contributing.

For the moment we'll leave aside the counter-argument that few people emigrate for that purpose, and the fact that many UIs use fake social security numbers and consequently pay into entitlement programs that (medicare and social security) to which they'll never have access. The interesting, and extremely counter-productive provision built into the new law is that undocumented immigrants are prohibited from using their own money (no government subsidies) to buy into the exchanges ( insurance markets that will bet set up on a state-by-state basis to sell insurance to people who aren't covered by their employers.) This bit of red meat for the anti-immigrant crowd is stupid, lousy policy for two main reasons:

1.) The undocumented immigrant population in the US is significantly younger, and healthier (largely by dint of age) than the US population as a whole (and than the average uninsured American). That means that the exchanges will be missing out on a batch of young, healthy customers who would subsidize the exchanges by (on average) paying more in premiums than they consume in healthcare. This would result in lower prices for everybody else buying into the exchanges, and less government spending on subsidies for people who can't afford to buy insurance on the exchanges on their own. Furthermore, the more people that buy into the exchanges, the lower the premiums will be because of competition for the pool and economies of scale. Undocumented immigrants make up about 20% of the uninsured - excluding them from the exchanges means higher prices for everyone else.

2.) As, without the exchanges, it will continue to be almost impossible (or ruinously expensive) to buy individual insurance, undocumented immigrants shut out from the exchanges will continue to be largely uninsured. However, as happens now, when uninsured people go to the hospitals, they aren't turned away- the hospital just eats the cost, and passes it along to everyone else. The reform law shuts the door on people who are interested in being responsible and insuring themselves, and forces their medical costs onto local hospitals.

This is all par for the course for American immigration policy - like the provision in medicaid that legal immigrants have to wait five years to access Medicaid (even though somebody could legally immigrate to the US, and then after working here and paying taxes for three years could become disabled but be ineligible for medical assistance). Even when pro-immigrant policy benefits everyone else (a win-win), many politicians catering to anti-immigrant voters would "get tough on illegals" than save money for their constituents.

The worst journalism on the Health Care Reform debate

(via TNR):
Investor's Business Daily's initial quote: "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

Investor's Business Daily's subsequent correction:"This version corrects the original editorial which implied that physicist Stephen Hawking, a professor at the University of Cambridge, did not live in the U.K."

Some Wednesday Afternoon Snark

Paragon on Flickr has uploaded an entertaining slideshow of misspelled Tea Party sinage (here). As somebody who once had to ^ in a missing "m" in my school project timeline that would otherwise have been titled "Iportant Events in the History of Communism," I understand that mistakes happen when you're making a poster. I see how you could write "Obama: Commander in Theif," or be against "Amensty" for immigrants.

On the other hand, I have somewhat less sympathy for noting on your car's rear window that "This is America and our only Lananguage is English." Also, I don't think it's overly elitist to suggest that somebody who spells "socialist" "scholiast" probably does not have an overly strong grasp of the underlying political theory.

I realize that snarking at these guys is not terribly helpful, and that it just feeds into their perception that educated coastal elites are looking down on them, and are consequently going to steal their guns and haul them in front of a death panel of illegal Mexicans and welfare recipients who will force them into gay marriages. However... scholiast? Really?

A follow-up Healthcare Reform Law question/answer

Yesterday I went through some common questions on the new healthcare reform law. A friend emailed with a follow-up on one of yesterday's answers:

One comment - while I'm generally supportive of the plan as first step in what will be a long road ahead, I can't help but be generally wary of "incentivized efficiency" in health care (your answer to question 1). In theory, the notion makes sense, but practically, doesn't it just result in -- to use your example -- pressure to rush surgeries, shorten hospital stays and run fewer tests?

The idea with the incentives is to guide providers into using the best practices of care providers that save money while improving outcomes, and to penalize really inefficient providers that don't actually produce better outcomes.

There was a really good article in the New Yorker about a year ago (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande), which talked about how McAllen Texas, which has basically the same demographics as nearby cities like El Paso, spends $15k/year per medicare recipient, while El Paso spends about half that, with virtually no difference in outcomes.

Moreover, providers like the Mayo clinic, and the Cleveland Clinic system have pioneered ways of treating patients by using teams of doctors who communicate with each other about the patients' conditions, which tends to save tons of money when compared to the current model of sending a patient to see separate specialists who don't share information.

Another one of the incentives is to decrease medicare reimbursement rates for hospitals that annually have a higher-than-acceptable rate of in-hospital patient infections. Those infections kill an estimated 100,000 patients a year, and add a huge cost to the system by prolonging stays, requiring extra tests, medicine, procedures, etc. However, as far as a hospital's bottom line is concerned, a patient infection merely results in extra billables. This isn't to say that hospitals intentionally cause them, or even look the other way, but merely that it's not costing the hospital money, so the managers have fewer reasons to invest heavily in infection-prevention techniques. These sorts of outcome-based incentives will also militate against providers cutting corners.

Senate Finance Committee hounded into dragging itself into the present

A few weeks ago, I and other bloggers hassled the Senate Finance Committee for having an ancient website that looked like something put together by a 15 year old on Geocities in 1995, and for being "optimized for Netscape Navigator 4.x."

I'm glad to say they've listened, and scooted around to put together a snazzy new site (http://finance.senate.gov/) that seems to work quite nicely with modern browsers (even my office's outdated IE 6). Responsive government people... I like it.

Five questions (and answers) on the healthcare reform law

A friend writes with five questions on the new healthcare reform law:

first question: one of the criticisms i hear is that with the reduced premiums that medicare will be paying to hospitals for procedures, the cost will be pushed back on to hospitals, some of which may stop participating in the program. how is the funding gap made up by hospitals? why won't they jump ship?

First off, any payment cuts are only on medicare - not medicaid, not private insurance, not the new subsidized individual insurance via state exchanges. Second, the main pressure is going to be on incentivizing medicare-receiving institutions to streamline care and eliminate unnecessary procedures - for instance, it will be less "we used to pay $60,000 for open heart surgery, now we'll pay $50,000", and more, say, switching from paying $60k for the heart surgery, $10k for the 2 weeks in the hospital, and $5k for each of the 5 tests that are used to paying a flat $70,000 for the entire treatment of a heart attack - so that if hospitals can treat the heart attack more efficiently, they can keep the difference.

Also, much of the medicare cuts are eliminating or scaling back the Medicare Advantage program, which basically privatized a portion of Medicare, at a 5-10% markup. The markup allowed the Medicare Advantage providers to give some extra frills, but nothing particularly necessary will be cut if it's gone.

Finally, American medical providers charge a lot more than providers anywhere else in the world. Politicians talk about fraud, waste, abuse, administrative overhead, etc., but the main driver of rising healthcare costs is the amount charged by providers (doctors and hospitals). For Medicare to continue to be viable, that's going to have to be reined in a little bit. In some major cities, top of the line providers may decline to accept Medicare, because they have enough independently insured patients. However, Medicare payments are still giong to be calibrated to allow providers to make a living, and the sheer number of people on medicare means that most providers are going to want to be able to tap into that customer base.

second question: are parents required to pay for their children's healthcare until they are 26, or do they just have the option to if the child does not wish to secure their own plan

My understanding is that the law merely forces insurance companies to allow parents who wish to do so to keep their kids on their insurance until they're 26. Parents who don't want to do so can stop covering their children at 18 or 21, depending on state law

third question: it seems like it would have been better to frame the "fine" for not obtaining coverage as a tax, which, while accompanied by its own onerous baggage, is less a pejorative term. it would also have avoided the legal challenges, which the proponents must have anticipated. although they don't stand a chance of achieving anything, a protracted p.r. battle in the press is not what either the bill or obama need. instead, why not: impose a healthcare tax that everyone is required to pay, but if you get healthcare, you get a credit equal to the amount of tax you would have to pay. if you don't get coverage, then you don't get the credit and have to pay the tax. why wasn't this done?

The "fine" actually is legally structured as a tax as you suggest, and had to be done that way to survive constitutional challenges (the Federal government has the power to tax, it's less clear whether they have the power to implement a fine without having to give the person being fined a hearing). I'm not sure why it wasn't sold that way - probably because Dems didn't want to have to deal with the claim that they were raising taxes, as "tax" is such a poison term in politics these days. You see a preference in all levels of government for using the term "fee" over "tax" - states love to add on fees for drivers, boaters, hunters, bars, etc. so that they can raise revenue but safely say they never raised taxes.

fourth question: i like the bill because it allows some of those who couldn't otherwise afford it access to decent healthcare, and as i'm not a greedy prick i don't mind if it costs me a couple thousand dollars over my lifetime, or even quite a bit more if i get rich. i understand it does have flaws but i am hard pressed to say what the really significant ones are. what do you think? what are strong suits i might be missing?

You can come at flaws from a couple of angles. From the left, there's the argument that the bill doesn't go far enough - it doesn't create a true public option that would compete with insurers to drive down rates. The exchanges are set up on a state level and consequently, in small states, won't be big enough to drive costs down. Above all, it doesn't either expand Medicare to everyone or create a single-payer system.

From the (reasonable) right, you could say that the bill is flawed because it still insulates consumers from the true cost of their healthcare, and consequently they can't become informed consumers and thus act to drive down costs. For instance, most people don't even realize that 80-90% of their insurance tab is picked up by their employer (and which is tax-deductible and thus government subsidized), and thus costs way more than the couple thousand a year that comes out of their paychecks. The only people outside government that ever worry about health care costs under the current system continue to be corporate HR people who pick the plans. The Wyden-Bennett bill, which had some support, would have set up a national exchange of health insurance plans. Employees who now have insurance provided by their employers would instead get an "insurance credit" that they could use to go into the exchange and buy any plan that they want - with varying levels of deductibles, coverage, etc, and could pocket the savings if they pick a cheaper plan. The govt would then provide subsidies to people who can't afford to buy on the exchange, and would regulate the exchange to make sure that every plan on it met basic criteria. This is the similar to the way we buy auto or home insurance (without the nationally regulated exchange), and it forces the price down.

I personally think that this probably would have been the best way to go, short of single payer, because it would make consumers more active participants and would make them aware of what their health insurance and their healthcare costs. Because the insurance companies would be vying for customers based on price, they would have an incentive to find creative ways to work with providers to bring costs down. Also, because consumers could stay with a company for a long time (unlike now, where, whenever you change jobs you change insurance, and sometimes HR changes your insurance every year even if you stay at a job) the insurance companies would have an incentive to do a better job incentivizing people to stop smoking, go to the gym, get checkups, etc, because they would realize the savings as their customers got older. Obama made the call that most who have insurance are fairly happy with it, and it would be too radical a change to go in this direction. The new law (state exchanges and subsidies for the poor to buy into them, prohibiting denying coverage for preexisting conditions, etc.) is a good basis for switching over to a Wyden-Bennet type plan in the future.

The other main flaw of the plan comes in the form of a trade-off. Part of the reform bill is paid for by the expected savings in medicare discussed above. These savings are the "low hanging fruit" that can be cut from Medicare fairly easily. The worry is, Medicare is still projected to be in the red as the baby-boomers retire. Because the easiest cuts have already been made, and used to pay for this new program, it's going to be even harder to make cuts to Medicare in the future when those cuts become necessary. The counterargument to this, of course, is that Medicare won't have to be cut in the future if we're just willing to raise more revenue, and if the current changes help to "bend the curve" of Medicare cost increases, future cuts won't need to be as severe.

fifth question: i keep hearing that the plan is modeled on massachusetts's program, and everyone keeps telling me that the massachusetts program sucks and that everyone there hates it. i don't know anything about healthcare in massachusetts, so i have no idea if any of this is true.

There are definitely some flaws in the Mass plan, but my understanding is that people are pretty happy with it. Best indication? Republicans in Massachusetts don't oppose it or try to repeal it. When Scott Brown was running in the special Senate election, he said that Mass residents like their healthcare, and have it already, and don't want to pay extra taxes to the feds for something they already have.

Back

What a week to go on vacation! I've been out of the country for the past week and a half on my much-delayed honeymoon, and the healthcare reform bill goes and gets itself passed. I'll be back posting once I get a handle on what's happened in my absence. In the meantime, a great quote from the NY Times:

Many Democrats credited the president with having saved the legislation from the brink of collapse. He held a remarkable, day-long televised forum with Congressional leaders of both parties, lobbied for the overhaul in campaign-style rallies around the country, attacked abuses by private insurance companies, and repeatedly told the stories of everyday Americans who had suffered in the existing health system.

This comes after much moaning by the left that Obama wasn't putting any effort into healthcare reform, and was screwing it up, etc. etc. Something for those of us on the left to remember - we have a president of uncommon strategic intelligence, with nerves of whatever's harder than steel.

In the primary, it looked like his campaign was drifting during the fall of 2007, only to see Obama turn it on in Iowa at the J-J dinner, and ride his amazing (and painstakingly created) political machine to victory. In the general election there was some slack in the summer after the conventions, but again he turned it on in the debates and had put in the quiet work organizing to make the win happen. We saw the same pattern for the healthcare bill - a big flurry of activity in the beginning, and then the appearance of drift (while Obama worked in the background to put the gears into place) and then the big push at the end to get it done.

Let's all keep this in mind before we decide that DADT, the climate change bill, etc., is dead because of lack of presidential zeal, eh?

Trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed

The Washington Post is reporting that Obama's advisors are going to recommend that he back down from AG Eric Holder's plan to try 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed in federal criminal court in New York. I'll be deeply disappointed in the Administration if they cave on this.

KSM is not a warrior. He's not a soldier. He's scum, and a criminal, and should be treated as such. We used to think that handling bad guys over to the FBI and federal prosecutors, and sending them to death row in a Federal Super-Max prison, was pretty hardcore. Now, given the Cheneyfied GOP's military fetish, apparently the people who busted Capone, Gotti, Dahmer, McVeigh, the 1993 WTC bombers, and the Shoe Bomber are suddenly incapable of taking on KSM, and it will "compromise national security" to have him in court in New York.

I don't even understand what people are afraid of.

Is he going to get up on the stand and give some impassioned speech about why mass murder is awesome, and it's going to convince Americans to become jihadists? I don't even think he speaks English... and besides, anyone who has any familiarity with courts beyond watching Law & Order understands that the judge would never permit that kind of harangue.

Are people worried that he's going to break out of lockdown and terrorize the city? This isn't 24 - he doesn't have a crack team of jihadist allies who've already brought rocket launchers into the city and have taken over floors of every office building in midtown, just waiting for the chance to spring him.

Are people worried that it will make NYC a target for terrorists? We've been a target here since 1993. We have the most sophisticated anti-terrorism police force in the world. If jihadists could attack us here, don't you think they would have done it in the past nine years? Nobody I've talked to in New York is afraid of having this guy in New York. Frankly, I think a lot of people would be happy to have him dropped off at the E Train's WTC stop and see how long he lasts.

Obama knows what's right, and he also knows the easy choice. This would be a good time for him to prove which of those is more important.

Too many elected officials

In the US, we tend to think that more democracy is better - ie, it's better to have elected officials rather than appointed bureaucrats, because the people get to choose, and the people get to throw the bums out when necessary. It's an open question, however, whether voters are able or interested in figuring out who's a bum.

Yesterday, Jonathan Bernstein wrote about his experience at the Texas primary elections:

Yesterday was election day in Texas, and I voted. And I voted. And then I voted some more. If my count was correct, I voted fifty-two times. I voted for Governor, and I voted for U.S. House and Texas House and Texas Senate...OK, I didn't actually know the candidates for the state legislature, by I did feel a bit guilty about that. I voted for Lt. Governor (which is a big deal here in Texas). I voted for Attorney General, and Commissioner of the General Land Office, and Commissioner of Agriculture, and Railroad Commissioner. I don't know what the General Land Office is, no. I voted for judges -- judicial judges, and the county judge, who is the head of the county government, not a judicial judge at all. I voted for more real judges. We know someone who is running for "Judge, County Probate Court No. 2." I voted for her. I voted for District Clerk. I don't know what kind of district the District Clerk is clerk for. I'm pretty sure it's not pronounced the British way, though. I voted for party chair...actually, Party Chairman, although I voted for a woman, but what do I know?

It's not too different in NY. Over the course of a four year cycle in NYC, I have voted for US President, two Senators, one congressman, one governor, one lt. governor, one attorney general, one state comptroller, one state senator, one state assembly-member, one mayor, one public advocate, one district attorney, one city comptroller, one city council member, a borough president and probably a dozen or more judges for civil court and state supreme court. I also voted for district leaders and state committee members for the Democratic party. This does not count the various times I voted in primaries and runoff elections for most of these positions.

In other parts of New York, it's even worse- you vote for a city or town government, as well as a county legislature. You vote for a school board, a library board, a water board. In California I voted for an insurance commissioner and a secretary of state.

Now, I don't do politics for a living, but I write a political blog and I'm the head of a Democratic club in New York, so I feel like I'm pretty plugged in. However, I have to admit that most of the time I don't know anything about the judges I vote for. The first time I voted for my state assembly member I did so because my dry-cleaner, who I like, had his sign in her window. I don't know what the secretary of state in California does. When I talk to my colleagues, who have law degrees from elite schools, many of them aren't even sure who their congressman is, much less who their state and city reps are.

I wrote yesterday about how the LA city council decided to jack up parking fees, but exempt themselves from getting tickets. They probably are going to get away with this, because people in LA, like people everywhere, are busy doing and thinking about things other than politics... and when they do think about politics, it's usually big stuff like the health care bill or whether we should withdraw from Afghanistan, or things like taxes that affect them directly. Even if they hear about the parking ticket scam, it's hard to keep track of whether your council-member voted for it or against it. Note that I'm not criticizing people for not knowing this stuff - I like politics and I find it interesting, other people find other things interesting that I don't pay attention to (like the Yankees). The question is whether there's a way to streamline government so that there's accountability.

That brings us back to the first question of this post- is more democracy always best? I'd say maybe not, if it comes at the expense of accountability. Think about the elected Insurance Commissioner in California. Nobody really knows what he does, beyond the fact that it has something to do with insurance. That means it's really hard for voters to tell if he's doing a good job or not, because if your insurance rates go up, you first think to blame the insurance company, not some guy you maybe voted for 3 years ago. Absent a scandal big enough to cut through the daily clutter and lodge itself into voters' minds, it's likely nobody pays any attention to him. However, insurance companies really do care about who the insurance commissioner is, because he regulates them. So they'll be willing to put money behind candidates that are pro-insurance, and they'll make sure to call and lobby the insurance commisioner, who will probably take their calls because the insurance companies put him in office.

On the other hand, imagine that the insurance commissioner is appointed by the governor. The governor has an interest in appointing somebody honest and smart, because a scandal in the insurance commissioner's office will make the governor look bad, and consequently will look very closely into the backgrounds of potential insurance commissioners - probably harder than the voters or media will look. The governor also has an interest in leaning on the commissioner to do things to keep consumers happy, because unhappy consumers with high insurance bills often wind up being unhappy voters, and unhappy voters usually vote against the incumbent.

Appointing officials isn't the only answer, but it's an illustration of what can happen when voters aren't paying attention - there are a lot of "special interests" who are paying attention, and who do know who the water board members or the county legislators are, and use their knowledge and access to their benefit.

Obviously you can't just appoint members of congress or state assemblymembers, but maybe we could decrease the number of elected officials out there. Do we need a state senate and a state assembly? Nebraska gets along fine with just one house. Do we need to have (in upstate NY and other places) a city or town government and a county government? Couldn't we just have the various cities and towns send delegates to a bigger meeting whenever issues affecting the entire county come up?

This would also cut a lot of government costs - because for each county legislator or state senator, you're not only paying his or her salary, but salaries and benefits for their staff, paying for their office space, etc. Moreover, it would mean that, instead of having to keep an eye on 25 or 40 elected officials, maybe each voter (and the media) would only have to pay attention to 5 or 10... which would make it much easier to figure out who's a bum that should be thrown out.

Why everybody hates politicians

A friend writes -

Not that Los Angeles city politics concern you, but the principles in this one are hysterically fucked up. Long-story short the LA City Council who have raised parking ticket rates and made parking meters run 24 hours including sundays, recently voted that all LA City Council members be EXEMPT from parking tickets. WHAAAAAAAAAA?????

This doesn't surprise me- from what I recall, the LA City Council is ridiculous, they've done an awful job managing the city, and get paid more than members of congress (almost $180k/year). The whole American system of government is built upon general applicability of the law - what keeps legislators from making bad laws is the fact that they're enforced on the legislators as well. I think that you could make a decent case that the fines coupled with the exemption for the council members violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. Given that parking law violators are not a protected class (like racial minorities, say), the court would look to see whether the Council had a rational basis for passing a law that treats similarly situated people (a city council member with a ticket and a regular guy with a ticket) differently. I have a hard time thinking of anything validfor a general exemptionI can understand not ticketing, say, police cars, or cars that might have to double-park once in a while on city business or something... but council members' private cars (particularly when I'm sure that the council has a lovely free parking garage at city hall)?

Alternately, I'd say that any candidate running against a council member who voted for it should bring a rain of populist hell down on the incumbent. In NYC, the city council last year overrode a public referendum in order to extend term limits from 2 terms to 3, (largely so they - and the mayor - could keep their jobs). It was really unpopular, and a number of council members lost their seats because of that vote. I'd say the parking tickets exemption is politically an even bigger issue, because it's completely indefensible - at least with term limits there's a general "I think term limits are bad policy" defense to the charge that you did it purely out of self interest.

The problem with that is that, just like in NYC, nobody in Los Angeles has any idea who his or her councilmember is, or what they're up to. LA has something like 3-4 million people, and 15 city council members, so each one is representing hundreds of thousands of people. The lack of accountability pretty much means that these folks can do what they want without much chance that they'll be called on it.

Senate Finance Committee is Optimized for 15 years ago.

Via Matt Yglesias, an entertaining reminder of just how old and out of touch the Senate generally is. The Senate Finance Committee's website contains a notice that the site is "optimized for Netscape Navigator 4.x or Internet Explorer 4.x" - programs that were widely used in the mid-1990s. These days Navigator no longer exists, and IE is on to version 8.

Of course, this kind of technological savvy is to be expected from a committee chaired by Max Baucus (68) and made up of Bill Nelson (67), Chuck Grassley (76), Pat Roberts (73), Jay Rockefeller (73), etc., and where the "young folks" are Robert Menendez (56) and Maria Cantwell (51) - although you'd think that Cantwell, a former tech executive, would start nudging the committee out of what is essentially the buggy-whip era of websites.