Taxes for me and thee but not for union members

Max Baucus is searching out for other sources of revenue to pay for the insuring people who are not insured now and for subsidizing the cost of buying insurance on those who will be mandated to purchase what they haven't already purchased. One source of revenue is to tax the so-called "Cadillac plans" that provide more than what the government determines is the right amount of health insurance. But the Democrats don't want that since many of those health plans are ones that union members receive. Their unions negotiated those plans and they're now part of members' compensation packages. Taxing those plans would anger the unions so House Democrats are signaling that they won't support any plan to tax such plans.

The letter from 154 House Democrats to Speaker Nancy Pelosi urges her “to reject proposals to enact an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans that could be potentially passed on to middle-class families.”

“This is not an obscure detail of health care reform,” said Connecticut Rep. Joe Courtney, who drafted the letter. “Taxing health benefits was explicitly debated in the campaign by presidential candidates and people running for Congress.”

And there is the special irony that this is just what candidate Barack Obama attacked John McCain on during the campaign.

Then-candidate Barack Obama attacked Republican Sen. John McCain in a series of television ads last fall for a plan to lift the tax exemption on health insurance plans, which he cast as a radical departure and a crippling new tax.

The unions are threatening to go to the mattresses on this.

“We will fight pretty doggedly attempts to tax benefits because we’ve paid for those benefits over the years — we’ve forgone wage increases, pension increases, days off and everything else to get those medical benefits,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told POLITICO recently.

Well, when the unions come out in full force in opposition to something, we know what will happen. There will be some sort of adjustment that won't tax union members or their plans. Of course, that will vastly decrease the revenue stream that Baucus needs. Where will he find the money he needs after that? Check your wallets.

The lesson from the laboratories of democracy

Peter Suderman looks at the results we've seen from the states that have tried health insurance reforms similar to those being touted in the Democrats' bills. The results have salutary lessons for those thinking to apply the same principles to the rest of the country. Across the board we see higher premiums, fewer doctors, and more people being thrown into the government plans.

New York's experience with guaranteed issue and community rating is not unique. In 1996, similar reforms in Washington state preceded massive premium spikes in the individual market. Some premiums increased as much as 78% in the first three years of the reforms—or 10 times medical inflation—according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Health Services Research in 1999. Other results included a 25% drop in enrollment in the individual market, and a reduction in services offered. Within four years, for example, none of the state's major carriers offered individual insurance plans that included maternity coverage.

A 2008 analysis by Kaiser Permanente's Patricia Lynch published by Health Affairs noted that in addition to Washington and New York, the individual insurance markets in Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Vermont "deteriorated" after the enactment of guaranteed issue. Individual insurance became significantly more expensive and there was no significant decrease in the number of uninsured.

And if you think that an individual mandate is the answer, think again.

New York's experience with guaranteed issue and community rating is not unique. In 1996, similar reforms in Washington state preceded massive premium spikes in the individual market. Some premiums increased as much as 78% in the first three years of the reforms—or 10 times medical inflation—according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Health Services Research in 1999. Other results included a 25% drop in enrollment in the individual market, and a reduction in services offered. Within four years, for example, none of the state's major carriers offered individual insurance plans that included maternity coverage.

A 2008 analysis by Kaiser Permanente's Patricia Lynch published by Health Affairs noted that in addition to Washington and New York, the individual insurance markets in Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Vermont "deteriorated" after the enactment of guaranteed issue. Individual insurance became significantly more expensive and there was no significant decrease in the number of uninsured.

The Obamanians came in telling us that they would make decisions based on facts and research. Yet they seem to be ignoring the data that is out there on the results of the very reforms that they're pushing.

Despite these state-level failures, President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are pushing forward a slate of similar reforms. Unlike most high-school science fair participants, they seem unaware that the point of doing experiments is to identify what actually works. Instead, they've identified what doesn't—and decided to do it again.

Sadly, the result will damage our health care in this country for everyone's future. Gosh, I wish that our nation's solons on Capitol Hill would take advantage from the lessons we could be learning from the laboratories of democracy in our states instead of simply repeating their mistakes.

Forget those promises for a five-day workweek in the House

Remember when the Democrats took over the House in 2006 and promised that they end the two and three-day workweeks that have become common practice on Capitol Hill? Well, surprise, surprise.

After taking control of the House in 2006 — and again when President Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 — Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) boasted that lawmakers would work four or five days a week to bring change to America.

That is yet another promise that hasn't been kept.

But midway through Obama’s first year in office, Hoyer’s House has settled into a more leisurely routine. Members usually arrive for the first vote of the week as the sun sets on Tuesdays, and they’re usually headed back home before it goes down again on Thursdays.

Since the House returned for its fall session on Sept. 8, it has stuck around to vote on a Friday just once: to approve a 5.8 percent increase in Congress’s own budget.

Ah, the dream job. Work two and a half days and you get to vote on your own salaries and expenses.

Steny Hoyer blames the Senate for holding up bills.

Asked about the abbreviated workweeks, Hoyer said Tuesday: “I think you understand why we’re doing it.” He pointed to the appropriations bills stalled in the Senate, but he didn’t cast blame at senators for moving so slowly. “It takes a long time to do it,” he said.

“We’d all love to see some bills back [from the Senate] quickly,” said a Democratic aide.

The House got off to a fast start this year, approving a stimulus plan, an omnibus spending bill and climate change legislation, as well as getting health care reform bills through three committees. But now lawmakers and staff are enjoying an Indian summer of sorts; Mondays are dead, and Fridays have the Hill set clad in jeans and oxfords, awaiting the next vote four long days away.

That shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone who has as much experience on Capitol Hill as Steny Hoyer. Did he think that the Senate would suddenly transform itself into a streamlined, efficient machine? He knew better.

The problem is not the short work hours in the House, but that Hoyer was either so deluded or so deceptive that he could promise with a straight face to change the ways of the House of Representatives.

Narcissist in Chief

George Will absolutely nails how self-absorbed the Obamas are. Will counts up the number of references to "I" and "me" in the pitches that both made for the Olympics.

Both Obamas gave heartfelt speeches about ... themselves. Although the working of the committee's mind is murky, it could reasonably have rejected Chicago's bid for the 2016 games on aesthetic grounds -- unless narcissism has suddenly become an Olympic sport.

In the 41 sentences of her remarks, Michelle Obama used some form of the personal pronouns "I" or "me" 44 times. Her husband was, comparatively, a shrinking violet, using those pronouns only 26 times in 48 sentences. Still, 70 times in 89 sentences was sufficient to convey the message that somehow their fascinating selves were what made, or should have made, Chicago's case compelling.

....But Obama quickly returned to speaking about ... himself:

"Nearly one year ago, on a clear November night, people from every corner of the world gathered in the city of Chicago or in front of their televisions to watch the results of the U.S. presidential election. Their interest wasn't about me as an individual. Rather, ... "

It was gallant of the president to say to the Olympic committee that Michelle is "a pretty big selling point for the city." Gallant, but obviously untrue. And -- this is where we pass from the merely silly to the ominous -- suppose the president was being not gallant but sincere. Perhaps the premise of the otherwise inexplicable trip to Denmark was that there is no difficulty, foreign or domestic, that cannot be melted by the sunshine of the Obama persona. But in the contest between the world and any president's charm, bet on the world.

Presidents often come to be characterized by particular adjectives: "honest" Abe Lincoln, "Grover the Good" Cleveland, "energetic" Theodore Roosevelt, "idealistic" Woodrow Wilson, "Silent Cal" Coolidge, "confident" FDR, "likable" Ike Eisenhower. Less happily, there were "Tricky Dick" Nixon and "Slick Willie" Clinton. Unhappy will be a president whose defining adjective is "vain."

As many have noted, the best reason the Obamas could give about sending the Olympics to Chicago was because they were from there and they liked the city and they would enjoy hosting it.

This is nothing new. Remember the Paris Hilton ad from the summer of 2008? The entire premise was that Obama was a celebrity but hadn't actually done anything. Now he's president; he should be beyond celebrity. But his speeches still have that same self-absorption. I find it hard to believe that the Obama circle is unaware of the criticism he's received since last year that his speeches are too focused on himself. Remember his wife telling us that the first time she was proud of this country was when they started voting for Barack? And the Olympics speech was no anomaly.

Obama loves to hear himself talk – about himself. In just 41 speeches so this year, not including this week's big speech at the United Nations, Obama has talked about himself nearly 1,200 times – 1,198 to be exact. (That breaks down to 1,121 “I”s and just 77 "me"s.)

It's all about them. And Obama's aides and speechwriters so buy into the whole adoration shtick that they don't even notice how poorly these speeches are written. They don't seem to notice how overly self referential they are. They're all supposed to be so brilliant, Obama and his speechwriters, but they need to come out of the cocoon for a bit and realize that they need to dial back on Obama's descent into narcissism. But who does Obama have around him who can talk to him straight and tell him he's got to dial back on the self-absorption? He needs someone like the slaves in ancient Rome who would ride behind the Emperor in a triumphal procession and whisper in his ear that "you are not a God."

Why the Baucus plan is the wrong way to reform health care

Yuval Levin has a good piece analyzing what is the Baucus plan and concludes that it will just expand all that is wrong already with how health care is provided in this country.

The bill would therefore exacerbate the chief causes of the rising costs at the core of our health care woes: inefficient entitlement spending and the absence of real market pressures in health insurance. Instead of addressing these, Baucus is offering tax increases, a new entitlement sure to grow more costly every year, fewer options for doctors and patients, a far greater government role in health care, and the prospect of health care service shortages, disruptions, and rationing.

And just what are all these costs and burdens for? The Baucus bill, like other versions of Obamacare, promises to increase the portion of Americans who have health insurance from 83 percent to 95 percent. Is there really no other way to move in this direction than to abandon a health care system that offers the vast majority of Americans care they are happy with and create a sprawling new federal fiasco?

So we would have a massive bill placed on the American people paid for by new taxes on those who don't have insurance now. Does that really sound like a viable way to fund new spending? We have a distorted market now for health care. It is distorted by government regulations and the focus on third-party payments so no one who has insurance has any incentive to save money. Rather than focusing on those problems, the Democratic proposals just extend the problems we already have to more people thus driving up the costs and need for government expenditures. It's misguided and ignores the opportunity for real reform. The Republicans have made proposals that haven't really been aired because of the Democratic majorities in Congress. So we'll end up with some version of their plans and just create more problems, shortages, and spending down the road.

Obama's policy on Iran - ignore human rights violations and talk to lawyers

Fresh off the Obama administration's rather lackadaisical response to the Iranian crackdown on protesters after the corrupt election, the Obama State Department has now cut funding for a watchdog group looking at human rights violations in Iran.

For the past five years, researchers in a modest office overlooking the New Haven green have carefully documented cases of assassination and torture of democracy activists in Iran. With more than $3 million in grants from the US State Department, they have pored over thousands of documents and Persian-language press reports and interviewed scores of witnesses and survivors to build dossiers on those they say are Iran’s most infamous human-rights abusers.

But just as the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center was ramping up to investigate abuses of protesters after this summer’s disputed presidential election, the group received word that - for the first time since it was formed - its federal funding request had been denied.

“If there is one time that I expected to get funding, this was it,’’ said Rene Redman, the group’s executive director, who had asked for $2.7 million in funding for the next two years. “I was sur prised, because the world was watching human rights violations right there on television.’’

Many see the sudden, unexplained cutoff of funding as a shift by the Obama administration away from high-profile democracy promotion in Iran, which had become a signature issue for President Bush.

....Formed by two exiled Iranians in 2004 with a $1 million grant from the State Department, the center made its home near Yale’s campus, where it attracted Yale law school professors to its board. The board also includes the dean of Harvard Law School, Martha Minow.

The group has published 12 reports in English and Persian about the forced confessions of detained bloggers and journalists, the 1988 massacre of thousands of political prisoners, and the Iranian government’s campaign to assassinate dissidents abroad. Although the State Department has been the group’s main source of funds, the Canadian government granted it money to research human-rights abuses in the wake of the disputed election this year.

Other groups that report on human rights violations in Iran have lost their federal funding. It seems to be a pattern.

The administration claims that they are funding other efforts.

The Obama administration has emphasized other forms of assistance, such as aid for software programs that help activists communicate on the Internet anonymously. It also has continued funding for exchange programs. In the coming months, for instance, the administration hopes to bring Iranian lawyers to major cities in the United States, including Boston, to talk with American lawyers about their concept of law.

Helping with the software is worthwhile. But do we really need to have the lawyers that the Iranian government would give permission to travel here to come and tell us their concept of the law? What would that be - arrests of protesters and seminars on sharia? This is what they want to fund instead of documenting human rights abuses so we would have a public record? How revealing it is that the Obama State Department would prefer supporting Iranian lawyers over those whose human rights are being abused.

The same administration that didn't want to meet with the Dalai Lama before meeting with Hu Jintao, now is unilaterally backing away from supporting Iranian human rights watchdogs. Perhaps, Obama doesn't want to upset all his grandiose hopes for Iran to suddenly give up its support for terrorism, work for nuclear weapons, violations of human rights of its own citizens, and vows to destroy Israel. Are these guys ever going to learn the limits of conciliation?

When the government interferes in medical care

Those who deny that the Democrats' health care plans would interfere with the health care we receive or how the medical industry would work under Obamacare would do well to read the WSJ explanation today of how the Baucus bill seeks to limit cardiologists and oncologists in order to create more general practitioners.

From Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus's health-care bill to changes the Administration is pushing in Medicare, Democrats are systematically attacking specific medical fields like cardiology and oncology. With almost no scrutiny, they're trying to engineer a "cheaper" system so that government can afford to buy health care for all—even if the price is fewer and less innovative ways of extending and improving lives.

Read the details - it's too much to summarize here. As the WSJ concludes,

We have nothing against primary care physicians, and clearly the country could use more of them. But then, it could probably use a lot more doctors, including specialists, as the boomers age and the prevalence of obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases rises. The increase in specialists has tracked advances over 50 years in medical science and technology. Democrats look at these advancements and see only the costs, not the benefits.

Markets are supposed to determine the composition of the workforce, not a command medical economy run out of Washington. It is perfectly insane to support one type of doctor by punishing others on a flawed theory about cost-control. The press passes all this off as routine when it bothers to notice, but we suspect our media colleagues would show more interest if Messrs. Obama and Baucus were deciding how much journalists should be paid and what they should cover.

If Democrats are going to stomp on specialists, they should at least be open about it. Then again, all Americans might take a different view of health-care "reform" if they understood that it means snuffing out the best medicine.

And if your retort is that all the Republicans do is oppose reform and support the status quo, you can read Bobby Jindal's column in the Washington Post about the 10 proposals that conservatives would support. Or you could read the column by three former heads of the American Medical Association in which they propose reforms other than a federal overhaul of the entire medical industry. Their proposals are similar to Jindal's. But they weren't part of the group of doctors handed out white coats to provide a photo op for the President yesterday. These reforms would be more appealing to the American public and wouldn't involve a total government takeover of the system.

The Obama bungle on closing Guantanamo

Politico covers the search for someone to blame in the Obama administration for Obama being unable to fulfill his promise to close Guantanamo within a year of taking office. It isn't going to happen, but the promise was so prominent that someone has to take the fall. The nominee is Greg Craig, but it's clear that it isn't all one guy's fault.

nstead, it was a widespread breakdown on the political, legislative, policy and planning fronts that contributed to what is shaping up as one of Obama’s most high-profile setbacks, these people say.

The White House misread the congressional mood – as it found out abruptly in May, when the Senate voted 90-6 against funds for closing the base after Republicans stoked fears about bringing prisoners to the U.S. The House also went on record last week opposing bringing Gitmo detainees here.

The White House misread the public mood – as roughly half of Americans surveyed say they disagree with Obama’s approach. A strong element of NIMBY-ism permeates those results, as Americans say they don’t want the prisoners in their backyards.

But most of all Obama’s aides mistook that political consensus from the campaign trail for a deep commitment in Washington to do whatever it takes to close the prison.

“The administration came in reading there to be wide support for closing Guantanamo at home and abroad, and I think it misread that attitude,” said Matthew Waxman, a Columbia law professor who held Defense and State Department positions on detainee policy. “In general, they were right….but there was very little willingness to accept the costs and risks of getting it done.”

The White House declined to make Craig available for an interview, or discuss the Gitmo deliberations in detail, but several allies and even some critics scoffed at suggestions that Craig bears the main responsibility for the missteps.

“This clearly was a decision that had the full support of the entire national security team,” said Ken Gude, who tracks Guantanamo issues for the liberal Center for American Progress think tank. “It’s typical Washington that someone has their head on the chopping block, but it’s ridiculous that it’s Craig.”

“The implication that this was the brainchild of the White House counsel is not really credible,” said Elisa Massimino of Human Rights First.

In other words, Obama made a naive promise based on his belief that what had become a cause célèbre among the leftist activists who helped fuel Obama's electoral victory. It wasn't a well-thought out policy based on a complete understanding of the complicated issues involved. He went for the prominent promises and photo op executive order on his second day in office. But the wish is not father to the command. How amazing is it that the Obamanians didn't realize that bringing Guantanamo detainees to America would not be a popular policy? Are that they insulated from how ordinary Americans think not to see that that would cause problems and that elected representatives would respond to their constituents' concerns. Or that they didn't realize that foreign governments, while happy to deride Guantanamo, weren't willing to take on those detainees themselves.

What a surprise - Obama tried to govern by campaign promises, but found out that reality is much more complicated.

Snubbing the Dalai Lama, but kowtowing to the unions

It's traditional that American presidents meet with the Dalai Lama when he visits Washington. But this year, Obama is postponing the presidential meeting so that he can meet with the Chinese leader first. It's all about showing deference...to Hu Jintao.

President Barack Obama will not meet the Dalai Lama during his five-day trip to the U.S. capital beginning on Monday, the first time in 18 years the exiled Tibetan leader has visited Washington without seeing the president.

Obama instead intends to wait until after his November summit with Chinese leader Hu Jintao before meeting the Dalai Lama, possibly sometime in December, officials said.

The decision to break precedent and delay any meeting was conveyed to the Dalai Lama last month when Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and State Department Undersecretary Maria Otero traveled to Dharamsala, India, to explain the administration's approach on Tibet.

"The administration, I think, is aware it is breaking a precedent ... but clearly they have their reasons for that and he (the Dalai Lama) agreed with the decision that was made," said Kate Saunders, a spokeswoman for the Tibetan Buddhist leader....

Saunders said the Dalai Lama actually agreed with the Obama administration's decision and believed it was important the United States and China develop a good relationship.

The Dalai Lama believes "it is important for it to be strong, it's important for it to be cooperative," she said.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, "We have made clear that the president absolutely intends to meet the Dalai Lama."

As Jim Geraghty points out, this is another expired promise from Barack Obama. Of course, the Obama administration argues that this isn't an insult to the Dalai Lama, just a postponement while the President works his charm on the Chinese government. This is in alignment with Obama's entire approach to foreign policy - don't offend our enemies or competitors and snub or shaft our friends. As the Wall Street Journal points out, Obama has found time to have meetings with Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and Vladimir Putin. But he can't fit the Dalai Lama into his schedule.

And don't buy the storyline that it's all about building a better relationship with China. When Obama's real leaders, the unions whistled, Obama was quite ready to offend the Chinese on tariff issues on imported tires.

In other words, not offending Chinese President Hu Jintao is a higher U.S. priority, at least on Tibet. By contrast, Mr. Obama was more than willing to risk offending China by imposing tariffs on Chinese tires last month to please his union supporters.

The contrast is clear. When it comes to the unions, Obama will heel, but not for human rights. The WSJ continues,

This is of a piece with Mr. Obama's other human-rights backsteps, in particular his muted support for democracy in Iran. The Dalai Lama has met with the sitting U.S. President a dozen times, as well as with Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle (including a certain Senator Obama in 2005). Although Beijing complained about these meetings, there were no serious costs to the U.S.-China relationship. George W. Bush met with the Dalai Lama in May of 2001, in advance of his first trip to China, and thereafter made clear that meetings with him were nonnegotiable.

These Presidential meetings are important because they affirm the religious and democratic freedoms America stands for, while setting a global precedent. China routinely assails countries whose leaders meet with the Dalai Lama, targeting France and Germany in recent years by cutting off diplomatic exchanges, canceling conferences and the like. Perhaps the Administration is hoping for a return favor from Beijing for snubbing the man Chinese leaders label a "splittist" and a "wolf in sheep's clothing." But rewarding China's bullying only encourages such tactics.

On Wednesday, the Dalai Lama will honor the late Julia Taft, who spoke out against Chinese abuses in Tibet as coordinator on Tibetan issues in the Clinton Administration. He'll also meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and perhaps he can wave at the White House on his way to Capitol Hill. It's becoming clear that Mr. Obama's definition of "engagement" leaves plenty of room to meet with dictators, but less for those who challenge them.

I guess the Dalai Lama is one person to whom Obama is not willing to extend the open hand.

What was missing from the SNL skit

SNL found a way to make fun of President Obama - he just isn't liberal enough.

While it was an amusing skit and fun to see comics find a hook for ridiculing Obama, it was notable that they criticized him from the left. Those on the right wouldn't agree that Obama has accomplished "jack" and "squat." Since he's been president, we've had a massive so-called stimulus bill passed, the bailout out and practical takeover of two car companies. And the federal budget has paid for getting people to purchase cars in August instead of September. We've run up huge, record deficits. We've seen a "wise Latina" put on to the Supreme Court. We've backed away from a commitment to our allies in Poland and Czech Republic. We've reached a hand out to the clenched fists of Iran and received that fist back. We've betrayed Honduras by supporting Hugo Chavez's guy over the Honduran constitution and supreme court. We've seen the President insert himself into a local police matter in Cambridge, Massachusetts and exacerbate racial tensions. So, while the left hasn't gotten what it wants on a bunch of issues, it is not quite fair to say that the Obama administration hasn't accomplished anything. It's done quite a bit, just not anything to brag about despite what is happening in Joe Biden's "wildest dreams."

Must seniors be forced to accept Medicare?

The WSJ reports on a case wending its way through the federal courts in which the plaintiffs want to opt out of Medicare. At issue are rules, called POMS, that the Clinton administration put in saying that you can't get Social Security benefits if you decide to opt out of Medicare. The first federal court hearing their case decided in their favor.

n her ruling this week, the judge said that "neither the statute nor the regulation specifies that Plaintiffs must withdraw from Social Security and repay retirement benefits in order to withdraw from Medicare." Article I of the Constitution gives Congress sole power to legislate—so when agency rules conflict with federal statute, the statute takes precedence.

The Obama Administration argued that the case should be dismissed because the plaintiffs had not exhausted the available administrative remedies for challenging POMS. Judge Collyer rejected that notion, noting that one plaintiff had sought an administrative hearing but "received no response from the SSA for approximately three years." Exhaustion of remedies was therefore "futile." A three-year wait is precisely the kind of bureaucratic hassle, or deliberate stonewalling, that government is famous for.

Keep in mind that the plaintiffs are merely asking for the freedom to spend their own money for their own health insurance. With Medicare careening toward bankruptcy, letting seniors opt out could help save the taxpayers money. The plaintiffs argue, and reasonably so, that they have paid a lifetime of taxes into Social Security and shouldn't have those benefits denied merely because they are willing to pay for their own medical care. Social Security and Medicare are separate programs, and both are financed by separate payroll contributions.

The Obama administration doesn't want to let go of any seniors from Medicare so they're contesting this suit.

The response of the Obama Administration to this lawsuit is revealing about its principles, as opposed to its rhetoric. President Obama says his plan for a "public option" wouldn't be coercive, saying that "If you like your health-care plan, you keep your health-care plan. Nobody is going to force you to leave your health-care plan." But here is a case where federal bureaucrats are using their power to force Medicare on seniors. Let's hope the courts restore a genuine right to choose.

There isn't even an argument here that we need the seniors paying into the system like we need young people to be mandated to buy a plan. This suit involves seniors who don't want Medicare, thus saving the government the cost of their health care. But the federal government just can't let anyone go.

If this suit has further success, watch for the Democrats in Congress to quick legislate the POMS regulations into law.

How the Democrats will destroy private health insurance

Robert Tracinski argues that the end result of the Democrats' plans, including Max Baucus's plan will be to drive private health insurance out of business.

The Baucus bill includes an "individual mandate" that requires everyone to buy health insurance-but not inexpensive, high-deductible catastrophic health insurance. Instead, it imposes a requirement for pricier comprehensive coverage that pays for routine costs like annual checkups. The bill then requires that insurance companies provide coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, and that they charge customers at high risk of medical problems the same rates as those with lower risks-which means that these extra expenses will have to be paid for by raising everyone else's premiums.

And then the Baucus bill delivers the knock-out punch: after forcing us into expensive comprehensive insurance plans and driving up the cost of those plans, the bill would impose a massive 40% tax on "gold-plated" plans-which turn out to include the health-insurance plans of many in the middle class. So that drives up the cost of insurance even higher.

You can see why it doesn't much matter whether or not we have a "public option" in the original bill. Everything else in the bill is designed to make private health insurance unaffordable-so that in a few years, people will clamor for a government-subsidized "public option," and the same politicians who destroyed private health insurance can make a big show of coming to the rescue of their victims.

Continued self-deception on Russia

Fred Hiatt goes back more than a decade to find quotes from America's top diplomats about how Russia is on the verge of acting with us to block Iran's nuclear weapons development. We've been optimistic about Russia seeing the light and allying with us to stop Iran from going nuclear. Yet, remarkably, despite all that optimism, Russia continues to pursue its own course. Why? Hiatt offers some reasonable-sounding hypotheses.

It might be, for example, that Russia understands the value of keeping Iran nuclear-free, but values even more the fruits of its commercial and military trade with Iran.

It might be that Russia believes that the stalemate status quo is pretty close to ideal. Iran can be delayed in its progress toward nuclear status but also prevented from normalizing relations with the United States and the West. And as long as those relations are sour -- and the West won't buy Iran's natural gas -- Russia's leverage over Europe, as Europe's main gas supplier, is enhanced.

Perhaps Russian leaders are not united on the question. In the early 1990s, Clinton administration officials persuaded themselves that President Boris Yeltsin accepted their Iran logic but that he wasn't strong enough to control his nuclear-industrial complex, which wanted trade with Iran. Today the theory is different: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev may see the light but is stymied by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Or maybe the Russians accept the logic -- but don't believe Iran can be dissuaded. In that case, their smartest policy would be to hold out hope to the Obama administration that they can be brought along -- thereby continuing to win U.S. concessions on missile defense, arms control and other matters for as long as possible -- while seeking a privileged position in Tehran for the day when Iran goes nuclear.

Just as there are those who continually believe that we can negotiate and dissuade Iran from doing what it has been doing for years, there are those who continue to believe that Russia will finally change its ways and help us along. It hasn't happened yet, but that doesn't mean that it won't ever happen, right? It's a nice thought, but if our hopes for stopping Iran rest on Russia, we need to look for another idea.

As Maine goes....

Houston Toloczko writes in IBD about how health care programs similar to what the Democrats are proposing are failing in the states. States such as Hawaii, Oregon, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Maine have created such programs involving some sort of government takeover or administration of health care and they're all experiencing huge costs overruns that are on the path to bankrupt their states. Maine's program should be a salutary example of what happens after the politicians get a hold on health care.

The name of Maine's government-run universal health care plan "Dirigo Health" is derived from the state's motto — "to lead." Fitting, as this failed attempt at government health care has led its people right off a cliff.

Maine's universal coverage plan is most similar to the plans circulating on Capitol Hill. It was proposed in May 2003 by Democrat Gov. John Baldacci and passed a scant four weeks later. Much like the $787 billion federal "stimulus" plan that passed Congress in February of this year, nobody read the Dirigo plan either.

While greasing the pipeline for quick passage of Dirigo Health, the governor assured that all of Maine's 128,000 uninsured would be covered by 2009, the bureaucracy would be streamlined and health costs lowered, and the plan would fund itself based on system savings with no tax increases — a similar claim to what President Obama has said about a new federal plan.

Six years after it was passed, it has insured only 3% — roughly 3,400 — of the 128,000 promised.

By 2007, the system was so broke that it closed to new enrollees. It still has not reopened and has also cut and capped benefits. The "streamlined" bureaucracy has cost the state's taxpayers $17 million in administrative costs to cover 9,600 people, leading one to wonder if there are more bureaucrats in the system than enrollees.

Systemwide insurance costs have increased 74% since Dirigo was passed, and the governor and legislature have tried — unsuccessfully — to raise taxes to fund the system.

Dirigo's more "efficient" bureaucracy started out with an aggregator agency for health records and a cost administration agency, but it now includes numerous councils to study this, that and anything else bureaucrats can conceive.

These agencies also dictate to providers how much they can spend on new technologies and diagnostic machines even though these costs are borne by physicians and hospitals and not the state.

Are you paying attention Senator Snowe or are you totally immune to understanding the evidence from your own state?

Perhaps Joe Biden should go back to sleep

The week before those dismal unemployment figures came out, Joe Biden spoke to the nation's governors about the so-called stimulus plan:

“In my wildest dreams, I never thought it would work this well,”

As the GOP points out, Biden was dreaming a bit more optimistically about how many jobs would be created when he was urging passage of the stimulus plan.

The guy doesn't have a clue on economics. And now we find out that he's the main voice arguing against General McChrystal on the general's plans for Afghanistan. The last time we heard about Biden's foreign policy advice was the plan he was trumpeting to split Iraq into three countries - a plan angrily rejected by the Iraqi leaders. Then he argued against the surge that ended up working in Iraq.

The man should go back to sleep and dream again about how many jobs the stimulus is going to provide. Apparently, he's much more successful in his dream world than in reality.

Cash for Clunkers a bust: Ya think?

As will be no surprise to any sentient observer - the Cash for Clunkers plan was a failure at regenerating our auto industry. All it did was move around the purchases of cars from September to August. Big whoopty doo.

After the shopping binge inspired by the government's "Cash for Clunkers" incentive program ended, U.S. auto sales plunged in September and the industry sunk back to the depths from which it started, figures released Thursday showed.

The reports of monthly sales numbers confirmed predictions that some of the spectacular gains of August had merely been achieved by moving up sales that would have happened in September.

The results raised doubts from some economists about the effectiveness of the $3 billion federal program as a stimulus.

General Motors' sales fell 45 percent compared with a year ago, and Chrysler's dropped 42 percent. Sales at Ford did comparatively better, declining just 5 percent. Compared with August, however, Ford's sales in September plummeted 37 percent, slightly more than the other two.

Overall, the rate of U.S. sales, which had been climbing since February, returned roughly to their February level for an annualized rate of 9.2 million vehicles, according to figures from Edmunds.com.

Government just doesn't do a great job at industrial policy. They can do feel-good measures like Cash for Clunkers or giving out small tax rebates as Bush did last year and as was part of the so-called stimulus plan. But those measures don't do anything to grow the economy. Unfortunately for those advocates who keep trying to sell such ideas, we eventually see what happens. And the proof is in this very depressing pudding. It was a poorly designed policy that didn't do anything to resuscitate the auto industry. The government should stay out of it and let things sort out without federal interference.

The self-deception at the heart of Obama's Iran policy

George Will uses the metaphor of the Queen of Hearts who could believe "six impossible things before breakfast" to highlight the delusions that underpin Obama's approach to Iran.

Regarding Iran, what did we learn when we learned about the secret nuclear facility in the tunnel? That Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons? We knew that. That Iran lies? We knew that, too. We did, however, learn something when the president, at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, went public with his knowledge of the facility.

On one side of the president stood France's president. On the other side stood Britain's prime minister, who said Iran's behavior would "shock and anger the whole international community." Not quite. The leaders of Russia and China were not standing with the president.

China has contracted to provide Iran with gasoline, a commodity that could be central to what Defense Secretary Robert Gates calls "severe" sanctions that he thinks might cause Iran to change course. Russia's real leader, Vladimir Putin, was not even in Pittsburgh. Russia's Potemkin president, Dmitry Medvedev, did say something that only the White Queen could believe means that Russia will participate in serious pressure on Iran: Sanctions are not "the best means of obtaining results" but "if all possibilities" are exhausted, "we could consider international sanctions." Over to you, Queen.

Gates says "the only way" to prevent a nuclear-capable Iran "is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons, as opposed to strengthened." But to accept that formulation requires accepting two propositions that would tax the White Queen's powers of belief.

One is that possession of nuclear weapons would make Iran less secure. Question: If Saddam Hussein had possessed nuclear weapons in March 2003, would the United States have invaded Iraq? Iran's leaders probably think they know the answer.

The other proposition is that Iran's regime seeks nuclear weapons merely to enhance the nation's security and not also for regional hegemony or the enjoyment of the enlarged status that comes from being a nuclear power. To believe that, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.

To believe that there is some persuasive that could lead Iran away from the nuclear weapons path it is on, is to be delusional. Especially when there is no indication that Russia and China would go along with the tough sanctions that would be necessary to bring about a change in Iran's policies. They have determined that they want nuclear weapons and they know that, once they have them, such weapons would be a trump card that would grant them hegemony in the Middle East. They are happy to engage in discussions because such talks yield them time. And time is their friend. To believe otherwise is to engage in Queen of Hearts policy making.

A tiny bit of common sense on zero-tolerance policies

Time Magazine reports on a small, but important, rollback of zero-tolerance policies in Texas schools. Fears of violence in schools have led to rules that mandate suspension for any student found bringing anything to school that could marginally be classified as a weapon. There was no appeal, no common sense. But the experience of one girl has led to a modification of the law in Texas to allow the administrator to take into account mitigating factors.

The stories of children being suspended for violations of zero tolerance school policies are legion and often involve absurd situations. Take the seven-week suspension of Texas high school student Amy Deschenes, whose spotless academic and disciplinary record was soiled when campus police found her stepbrother's theater prop sword in the back seat of her car. Weapons, including sword-like objects, are forbidden, according to the rules. But Deschenes and her family fought back, and, now, thanks to them and a band of like-minded lobbying parents, Texas has adopted a more forgiving, flexible law.

The alternative schools where these students are sent have been getting over-burdened and the students who need the real focus of teachers are losing out to students like Amy Deschenes who shouldn't be there in the first place.

Prompted in part by the Deschenes case, the new Texas law mandating consideration of mitigating circumstances passed overwhelmingly this spring. The Texas Education Agency (TEA), which sets statewide standards and policies, is welcoming the mandate. "This is a significant step. It gives principals and administrators a tool to say give us all the factors surrounding an incident," says Julie Harris-Lawrence, a deputy assistant commissioner. The new law allows principals to look at four mitigating factors — self-defense, intent or lack of intent, the disciplinary history of the student and whether the student has a disability that impairs their judgment. "This is a huge tool for the administrators," Harris-Lawrence says. "In the past, there was almost no wiggle room. If a student accidentally brought a butter knife from grandma's kitchen to cut her apple at school it was treated the same as a butcher knife."

The head of the TEA, Commissioner Robert Scott, has added a second component to the policy change. If a student enrolled in college-bound courses is placed in a DAEP, Harris-Lawrence says, those lessons must be made available to him or her so that the student's graduation plan is not changed. In practical terms that means an administrator may think twice about sending a student to DAEP if it means adding teaching resources to the alternative school.

Just think - it took a change in the law to allow administrators to use a bit of common sense. Of course, many administrators are so afraid of being sued if anything violent happens at school or if word gets out about disparate treatment of students for similar offenses that they'd prefer to just have a blanket policy that treats everyone the same. It's a lot easier that way. But no one said that being a school administrator was an easy job and you don't get to mess up a kid's education just because you're afraid of making a tough call. So cheers to the change in Texas's law and I hope other states will soon follow. Zero tolerance policies made zero sense. If we can't have faith in a little common sense from our administrators then we're really lost.

This is how bad things are in Detroit

Corpses are piling up in Detroit because people can't afford to bury their relatives and the city doesn't have the money either. So the bodies are just stored away in the morgue.

nside the Wayne County morgue in midtown Detroit, 67 bodies are piled up, unclaimed, in the freezing temperatures. Neither the families nor the county can afford to bury the corpses. So they stack up inside the freezer.

Albert Samuels, chief investigator for the morgue, said he has never seen anything like it during his 13 years on the job. "Some people don't come forward even though they know the people are here," said the former Detroit cop. "They don't have the money."

What will they do when they run out of freezer space? The mind shudders to contemplate.

Obama's Olympic bungle

Well, I must confess that I was wrong. I assumed that the President would never travel to Copenhagen to make a push in person unless they had some understood agreement that this would clinch the deal for Chicago. I just never thought that they would make the mistake of getting on Air Force One for such a high profile pitch without having the deal wrapped up. But I guess that a guy who would meet with our nation's enemies "without precondition" hasn't yet mastered this elementary rule for presidential diplomacy.

With all the bashing that President Obama has done of America when speaking to foreign audiences, is it any surprise that he just didn't measure up when came to being a salesman for his country.

And you knew it was coming: it couldn't be Obama's fault that Chicago failed to win the Olympics bid so whom should we blame? Bush, of course. And Senator Burris is already out there blaming Bush.

Burris stated in an interview, shortly after the announcement, that the image of the U. S. has been so tarnished in the last 8 years that, even Barack Obama making an unprecedented pitch for the games could not overcome the hatred the world has for us as a result of George Bush.

But hasn't the world gotten the message that The One is now president and it's a new day?

And now we'll miss out on the years of stories of graft and dirty deals as Chicago built billions of dollars in infrastructure to host the Olympics. We've found an election that a Daley couldn't rig.

Have at last witnessed an event where the late-night comics will be able to find fodder for ridiculing The One?

Finally - at least, Obama was shamed into finding time to meet with McChrystal while in Copenhagen.

John Kerry's failed power play

The Hill reports on a little dust up between Jim DeMint and John Kerry. DeMint wants to travel to Honduras to check out for himself the situation there since the ouster of Zelaya for trying to bypass the country's constitution in order to stay in power. Rather than siding with the constitutional position on Honduras, Obama's State Department has allied with Hugo Chavez's position. DeMint wants to meet with leaders there in advance of their scheduled November election. Such senatorial trips are done all the time. But John Kerry decided to use his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to veto DeMint's trip. Here's is DeMint's side of the story.

“No U.S. Senator has yet been to Honduras to assess facts of crisis. [Kerry] & Obama admin using bullying tactics to hide truth,” DeMint, who also sits on the Foreign Relations panel, said on Twitter after he heard the trip would not occur.

"@JohnKerry (Foreign Rel. chair) trying to hide truth to protect Zelaya, blocking our fact-finding trip to Honduras at last minute," DeMint also tweeted late Thursday afternoon.

DeMint's office followed with a statement. "These bullying tactics by the Obama administration and Senator Kerry must stop, and we must be allowed to get to the truth in Honduras. Not a single U.S. Senator has traveled to Honduras to learn the facts on the ground.

"While this administration has failed to act decisively in Afghanistan, it is has no problem cracking down on a democratic ally and one of the poorest nations in Latin America," DeMint added. "Now, President Obama and Democrats' blind support for this would-be dictator and friend of Hugo Chavez will prevent members of Congress from learning the truth first hand."

Senator Kerry's office argues that the real reason they blocked DeMint's trip was because DeMint had put holds on two of Obama's nominees for the State Department.

Kerry spokesman Frederick Jones responded Thursday evening that "Senator DeMint’s statement wins an A for ‘audacity.’"

"The Foreign Relations Committee always prefers to operate in a bi-partisan and collegial fashion, and it did so when it approved these two nominees by votes of 14 to 4 for Mr. Shannon and 15 to 4 for Mr. Valenzuela," Jones told The Hill in a statement. "But now Sen. DeMint refuses to let the nominations of two distinguished public servants even be considered on the floor of the Senate."

"When Senator DeMint lifts these holds and allows these individuals to receive an up or down vote on the Senate floor, the Committee will approve his travel to Honduras, a country that is in the middle of delicate, political crisis.”

Senators put holds on nominees and bills all the time. It's not an attractive aspect of the Senate that an individual senator can block action by using such holds, but it's what they do up there in the Senate. In fact, Senator Kerry wasn't above using a hold or a threat of a hold when he didn't like something that the Bush administration was doing as he did back in 2006. When he was senator, Obama did it too. What is different is trying to use his position as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee to exact revenge on a senator who is putting a hold that the chairman doesn't like.

Fortunately, Kerry's power play didn't work. DeMint is getting his trip to Honduras because Mitch McConnell stepped in. John Kerry would benefit himself from some on-the-ground research on what has been going on in Honduras. But he'd rather stake out a position without researching for himself what happened with the ouster of Zelaya. Do other senators really agree that a chairman can try to block other senators' overseas trips if they're angry about that senator using one of their prized senatorial privileges? The Democrats should remember that what goes around comes around. One day they will be in the minority. Do they want to endorse John Kerry's precedent of how to use his power as chairman?

Raise your hand if you think we can trust Iran's promises

So both Obama and Ahmadinejad got what they wanted yesterday. Representatives could sit down together with representatives from the Security Council countries plus Germany and then get up and claim that they had a breakthrough agreement.

At the 18th-century Villa Le Saugy, Iran's representative sat among the world's powers as a respected equal. Responding to an overture from the Obama Administration, the Iranians even talked about the future of the U.N. and other nonnuclear issues. Meanwhile, Washington was "buzzing" (as one newspaper put it) that a one-day visit by Iran's foreign minister might signal more detente to come. Back in Tehran, Mr. Ahmadinejad floated a tete-a-tete with the U.S. President. In short, this engagement conferred a respectability on his regime that Mr. Ahmadinejad could only have imagined amid his vicious post-election crackdown.

The price of entry is surprisingly modest, too. Though cautious, the P5+1 (the veto-wielding Security Council members, plus Germany) welcomed signs of Iranian concessions: Inspectors at Qom, an openness to send low-enriched uranium outside Iran for enrichment, possibly suspending its own enrichment program. Mr. Ahmadinejad said the Geneva talks were "a unique opportunity" for the West.

If you think that this "unique opportunity" reaped anything that would delay Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, let's remember, as the WSJ lays out, their history of hiding their program and lying to international inspectors.

Consider the Iranian offers in turn. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency won't find anything incriminating at the Qom facility. Having lied about it for years, the Iranians now have plenty of time to clean the place out. Iran's experience with the IAEA goes back to the first inspections starting in 1992, which somehow prevented the world from learning about Iran's bomb program for a decade and then only from an Iranian dissident group. A freeze on enrichment used to be the U.S. precondition for talks with Iran. Now the U.S. and Europeans say that in exchange merely for this enrichment promise, they'll freeze any additional sanctions.

Jennifer Rubin is exactly right in deriding this supposed breakthrough in discussions with Iran.

So what was the breakthrough exactly? Why, simply talking, don’t you see? Cynics might see this as a grand coup for the mullahs. After slaughtering their own people, deceiving the international community, continuing the tirade of genocidal invectives against Israel, and refusing to admit to developing a non-peaceful nuclear program, they swing one-on-one talks with the Great Satan. And if they keep this up, we are told, there may be a summit between Ahmadinejad and Obama. How lovely . . .

What is missing here? Iran hasn’t actually done anything, for starters; but already we are in the “process” and will be told we can’t possibly take further action so long as it’s “working.” When we have full and unimpeded access to all facilities and a verifiable method for determining that uranium enrichment has been suspended, then we may be justified in claiming a “breakthrough.” And while we are endlessly working toward all these goals, and Ahmadinejad is selecting his wardrobe for the summit with Obama, the Iranian nuclear program continues.

I don't know that a military option would even work against Iran. The only real solution is regime change in Iran and we don't seem to be doing anything to help that along, if there is indeed anything that we can do. It may well be an insoluble problem and we're doomed to seeing a nuclear Iran that will then use its nukes to threaten and blackmail the rest of the world. But at least we shouldn't be deluding ourselves that talking is tantamount to actual changes in policy. Self deception seems to be the order of the day.

Obama foreign policy: Means more important than ends

Charles Krauthammer so nails the unseriousness of the Obama foreign policy. They're so prideful on their un-Bushness that they are missing, or ignoring, how all the nice theatrics of Obama's appearance at the United Nations reaped us nothing. As Krauthammer points out, Sarkozy of France is demonstrating a stronger and tougher approach than the Obama's policies. President Obama was so intent on his photo-op appearance speaking at the United Nations that he didn't want to detract from his message on disarmament by talking the actual countries who are achieving nuclear weapons and threatening to use them.

Confusing ends and means, the Obama administration strives mightily for shows of allied unity, good feeling and pious concern about Iran's nuclear program -- whereas the real objective is stopping that program. This feel-good posturing is worse than useless, because all the time spent achieving gestures is precious time granted Iran to finish its race to acquire the bomb.

Don't take it from me. Take it from Sarkozy, who could not conceal his astonishment at Obama's naivete. On Sept. 24, Obama ostentatiously presided over the Security Council. With 14 heads of state (or government) at the table, with an American president at the chair for the first time ever, with every news camera in the world trained on the meeting, it would garner unprecedented worldwide attention.

Unknown to the world, Obama had in his pocket explosive revelations about an illegal uranium enrichment facility that the Iranians had been hiding near Qom. The French and the British were urging him to use this most dramatic of settings to stun the world with the revelation and to call for immediate action.

Obama refused. Not only did he say nothing about it, but, reports Le Monde, Sarkozy was forced to scrap the Qom section of his speech. Obama held the news until a day later -- in Pittsburgh. I've got nothing against Pittsburgh (site of the G-20 summit), but a stacked-with-world-leaders Security Council chamber it is not.

Why forgo the opportunity? Because Obama wanted the Security Council meeting to be about his own dream of a nuclear-free world. The president, reports the New York Times citing "White House officials," did not want to "dilute" his disarmament resolution "by diverting to Iran."

Diversion? It's the most serious security issue in the world. A diversion from what? From a worthless U.N. disarmament resolution?

Yes. And from Obama's star turn as planetary visionary: "The administration told the French," reports the Wall Street Journal, "that it didn't want to 'spoil the image of success' for Mr. Obama's debut at the U.N."

But in Obama's view, talking about disarmament is even more important than actually engaging the feckless United Nations in an honest discussion of what Iran has been doing. He'd rather engage in the illusion of discussions than confront the reality that we can't trust anything that Iran promises to do.

Look at what he got for his spurning of our allies, Poland and the Czech Republic, on the missile defense - empty words from Russia.

Just how low we've sunk was demonstrated by the Obama administration's satisfaction when Russia's president said of Iran, after meeting President Obama at the United Nations, that "sanctions are seldom productive, but they are sometimes inevitable."

You see? The Obama magic. Engagement works. Russia is on board. Except that, as The Post inconveniently pointed out, President Dmitry Medvedev said the same thing a week earlier, and the real power in Russia, Vladimir Putin, had changed not at all in his opposition to additional sanctions. And just to make things clear, when Iran then brazenly test-fired offensive missiles, Russia reacted by declaring that this newest provocation did not warrant the imposition of tougher sanctions.

Do the tally. In return for selling out Poland and the Czech Republic by unilaterally abrogating a missile-defense security arrangement that Russia had demanded be abrogated, we get from Russia . . . what? An oblique hint, of possible support, for unspecified sanctions, grudgingly offered and of dubious authority -- and, in any case, leading nowhere because the Chinese have remained resolute against any Security Council sanctions.

But we engaged in discussions and our president wasn't George W. Bush. And in Obamaworld, that counts for a success.

Money for nothing at the Post Office

Ed Morrissey links to this story of how we're paying post office workers to sit around and do nothing.

The U.S. Postal Service, struggling with a massive deficit caused by plummeting mail volume, spends more than a million dollars each week to pay thousands of employees to sit in empty rooms and do nothing.

It’s a practice called “standby time,” and it has existed for years — but postal employees say it was rarely used until this year. Now, postal officials say, the agency is averaging about 45,000 hours of standby time every week — the equivalent of having 1,125 full-time employees sitting idle, at a cost of more than $50 million per year.

Mail volume is down 12.6 percent compared with last year, and many postal supervisors simply don’t have enough work to keep all employees busy. But a thicket of union rules prevents managers from laying off excess employees; a recent agreement with the unions, in fact, temporarily prevents the Postal Service from even reassigning them to other facilities that could use them.

Ah, bless those unions keeping a business or government corporation from saving money. It's a long way from the days of the Gilded Age when unions fought for eight or even ten-hour days and safe working conditions. Now they fight to protect people from the normal vicissitudes of business. It's the same approach that just bankrupted General Motors and Chrysler.

The employees don't even like sitting around doing nothing.

They spend their days holed up in rooms — conference rooms, break rooms, occasionally 12-foot-by-8-foot storage closets — that the Postal Service dubs “resource rooms.” Postal employees use more colorful names, like “holding pens” and “blue rooms.”

“It’s just a small, empty room. … It’s awful,” said one mail processing clerk who has spent four weeks on standby time this summer. “Most of us bring books, word puzzles. Sometimes we just sleep.”

But it sure beats being laid off which is what would happen in the real world. With volume decreasing as fewer people mail their communications, we're stuck with the numbers that were hired years ago. The union contracts protect anyone who has been on the job for more than six years. The Post Office is required to pay them for eight hours of work even if there is no work. They're not even allowed to ask the employees to spend the time brushing up on their training manuals - the union complained about that. So they sit around and play cards or watch TV. The only hope is that employees will accept the Post Office's offered bonuses and take early retirement. There are 30,000 employees that the Post Office estimates that need to be cut. Meanwhile, they talk of cutting back delivery on Saturdays. Imagine how many people will need to sit around doing nothing when that happens.

Unions and federal bureaucracy - a match made in Heaven. Just wait until we can have that marvelous combination running the health care industry for the entire nation.

Democratic parliamentary legerdemain

Brian Darling of Human Events outlines a possible scenario for the Democrats to pass their health insurance proposals by avoiding the 60-vote limit. In this plan Harry Reid would combine the bills from the Senate Finance Committee and the Health, Energy, Labor, and Pensions Committee into one bill. It would be up to a small group around Harry Reid as to what elements of each bill would be melded into the final product. Then, the Democrats would take a bill that has been sitting around for months on limiting bonuses for TARP recipients and bring that bill up for debate. The assumption is that that bill would get to the floor without any filibuster. And once it gets to debate, apparently, only 50 votes are necessary to pass the bill. So, at that point, Reid would replace that bill with the health care bill by attaching it as a complete amendment to substitute for the original content of the bill. It could then pass without any possibility of filibuster.

Step 3: Now, Obamacare will be ready to hitch a ride on an unrelated bill from the House. Sen. Reid will move to proceed to H.R. 1586, a bill to impose a tax on bonuses received by certain TARP recipients. This bill was passed by the House in the wake of the AIG bonus controversy and is currently sitting on the Senate Legislative Calendar.

The move to proceed needs 60 votes to start debate. After the motion is approved, Sen. Reid will offer Obamacare as a complete substitute to the unrelated House-passed bill. This means that the entire healthcare reform effort will be included as an amendment to a TARP bill that has been collecting dust in the Senate for months.

The House would pass the exact same bill so there would be no need of a conference.

This is one parliamentary maneuver that would allow the Democrats to pass their preferred bill without worrying about getting to 60 votes. It wouldn't be anything like the open and transparent processes that President Obama campaigned on. But it would be a means to their ends. And that is all that matters to them. And thus they could pass some form of a bill that the majority of Americans now oppose and the great majority of Americans who are satisfied with their health insurance would wake up to find that the Democrats had slipped through a bill that would change how we receive health care for everyone. I don't know if this is how they would achieve that end. But it demonstrates that all the conservative triumphalism when the Senate Finance Committee voted down the public option this week was premature.