Michael Tomasky's Blog, page 75
December 10, 2009
Tomasky talk: Christmas treat or conspiracy theory?
There's a difference between Eliot Spitzer and Tiger Woods | Michael Tomasky
Occasional political developments from my old NYC stomping grounds pique my interest. Today it's word that Eliot Spitzer wants to run for state comptroller next year.
Okay. I think it's clear that I'm no prude. Back in the day, I defended even Rudy Giuliani's right to a personal life. But here I draw the line.
Spitzer emphatically, aggressively, selfishly, operatically betrayed the public trust. It would have been one thing if he'd been having an affair with a private citizen-woman -- a lawyer, say, or a school teacher. If that had been the case, it would have been a controversy but in all likelihood he'd still be governor. Even an affair with an aide would have, depending on the circumstances, been in some sense understandable. A man, a woman, working closely together under intense pressure; all that.
But he used an escort service. A prostitution ring. It was illegal. As such he exposed himself -- and the machinery of the state's executive branch, and the people of New York -- to possible extortion and blackmail. That it never happened is just a lucky accident, a function of the fact that he got caught before it could. There's the hypocrisy of it -- Mr. Crimebuster and all that -- and there's the obscene hubris of it. But mostly there is the fact that potentially, he risked compromising state law enforcement functions in any number of potential ways. There is no way on earth that that man should ever be near a public office again. Harrumph!
My Republican friends, this is one case where if I had only to choose between Spitzer and the Republican, I assure you I'd vote for the Republican, no matter now neanderthal he or she was. Surely some things are still beyond rehabilitation in this world.
November 30, 2009
Does the public option matter? | Michael Tomasky
Now here was an intelligent op-ed by Paul Starr in yesterday's NYT. He argues that the public option as currently constructed (and in any form that's likely to pass Congress) is so weakened as to be not even worth fighting for, and that liberals should give it up in return for more meaningful reforms. Selected salient grafs:
An earlier version of the public option, available to the entire public, might have realized progressive hopes and conservative fears. By paying doctors and hospitals at Medicare rates (which are 20 percent to 30 percent below those paid by private insurers), the public option would have had a distinct price advantage. But by severely cutting revenue to health-care providers, it would also have set off such a political crisis that Congress would never have passed it.
Instead, the bills in Congress now call for the government plan to negotiate rates with providers, as private insurers do. That limitation exposes a defect in the idea. The government plan may well have to charge higher premiums because it is likely to attract more than its share of the chronically ill and other high-cost subscribers. It could go into a death spiral of mounting costs.
Accelerating the timetable of reform ought to be a priority. Although the legislation calls for some important interim measures, the Senate bill defers opening the exchanges and extending coverage until 2014. By comparison, when Medicare was enacted in 1965, it went into effect the next year.
For Congress to put off expanding coverage to 2014 would be asking for a lot of patience from voters. It would also give the opponents of reform two elections to undo it. President Obama would have to run for re-election in 2012 defending a program from which people would have seen little benefit.
Continue reading...November 23, 2009
Progressive medmal reform | Michael Tomasky
Here's an interesting article on progressive (i.e., non-cap-lowering) approaches to malpractice reform that was posted last week at the American Prospect by Joanne Kenen of the New America Foundation. You should read this.
Bottom line: creating health compensation boards not unlike workers' compensation boards. Which, yes, have their own problems, too. But it seems that one goal of such boards would be a hope that they would address the current imbalance in tortuous medical proceedings, by which 95% of litigants get nothing and the other 5% get huge damage awards. But there are innovative aspects to the idea as well, which Kenen lays out.
Okay, now I'm really going to get on my airplane.
About medical malpractice | Michael Tomasky
There's a lot of dispute about whether "medmal" reform really produces significant cost control. I'm told that in Michigan, where these reforms are law, it hasn't really changed much. Last month, at the request of Orrin Hatch, the CBO issued a report on estimated savings of a medmal reform package that would cap real damages at $250,000 and punitive damages at $500,000, among other provisions. Result: a savings of $54 billion over 10 years, $41 billion of that from savings and $13 billion from increased revenues.
That's hardly nirvana. But it's not nothing, either. Those are awfully low damage figures, though, especially the punitive number. It's about nine years of an average US wage, maybe 10. If someone has truly been incapacitated to the point that she can't work anymore, is that really a fair number?
But alas, substance isn't the problem here. The following is from a piece that appeared way back in May by Time magazine's excellent Karen Tumulty:
When Barack Obama informed congressional Republicans last month that he would support a controversial parliamentary move to protect health-care reform from a filibuster in the Senate, they were furious. That meant the bill could pass with a simple majority of 51 votes, eliminating the need for any GOP support. Where, they demanded, was the bipartisanship the President had promised? So, right there in the Cabinet Room, the President put a proposal on the table, according to two people who were present. Obama said he was willing to curb malpractice awards, a move long sought by Republicans that is certain to bring strong opposition from the trial lawyers who fund the Democratic Party.
What, he wanted to know, did the Republicans have to offer in return? Nothing, it turned out. Republicans were unprepared to make any concessions, if they had any to make.
November 20, 2009
And off I go, sort of; but only to return | Michael Tomasky
I'm taking next week off, mostly. I plan on posting a reaction to the Saturday night Senate vote - will I be borrowing my headline from the Nixon era or the Bay City Rollers? We shall see, we shall see.
I'll be flying to California Monday, where I'll be Thanksgiving-ing in the lovely East Bay. I'll try to post an item or two on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I'll be closed for business Thursday and Friday, and it's back to the coal mines Tuesday, 1 December.
And lastly a note to my Washington-area readers: There's no better season that the "holiday" season (!) for a little tipple, so we'll be matching the London contingent and having our drink sometime in December. I may even invite a couple of celebrated friends to come along (celebrated not because they are my friends, but in their own right of course). Details anon. Cheers.
Mt. Rushmore here we come | Michael Tomasky
All right, it would have yucked me out pretty majorly if something like this had been produced under Bush. But hey, the guy is under 50 and athletic. I do wonder, though, if he caught it on the first take.
I'll confess to you that it took me a few takes the other day to nail the one tricky riff on Can't Ya Hear Me Knockin'. But as those of you who are guitarists will know, it's harder to play on an acoustic. You should hear me play it on my Tele with the fuzz turned up and one or two (not more!) bourbons in my belly. You'd think it was Keef himself.
Anyway, props to Brees and Polamalu and that other guy (all right, he's DaMarcus Ware, but he's not nearly as famous as the first two). And by the way, are the Saints killin' it or what? I have tickets to go see them mash the Redskins on Dec. 6.
And in further football news, will tomorrow mark the end of the maize-and-blue road for the Great Satan? For the record, I will say that if it were up to me, I'd have him back at West Virginny in a heartbeat. I won't go into the fullness of my views on the current coach for the sake of not offending my home state compadres in a furrin' newspaper. Just suffice it to say that I'd like to see RichRod return to Morgantown. And I'm sure many Michiganders would agree with me.
November 16, 2009
A lesson about bipartisanship | Michael Tomasky
Ezra Klein has an interesting post about the new book by heterodox conservative Bruce Bartlett, who believes that the GOP has to get serious about raising some taxes to deal with the crisis at hand. Klein quotes Bartlett as writing:
When the crunch comes and the need for a major increase in revenue becomes overwhelming, I expect that Republicans will refuse to participate in the process. If Democrats have to raise taxes with no bipartisan support, then they will have no choice but to cater to the demand of their party's most liberal wing. This will mean higher rates on businesses and entrepreneurs, and soak-the-rich policies that would make Franklin D. Roosevelt blush.
You see this in health-care reform: Harry Reid is looking at a payroll tax hike on the rich, and the House is looking at a straight surtax on the rich paired with a new mandate on employers. But if five Senate Republicans and 15 House Republicans had been willing to trade their votes in exchange for funding mechanisms they preferred (a tax on employer-sponsored health-care plans, for instance), Baucus, backed by Reid and the White House, would have rushed to write it into the bill, and there'd be nothing the AFL-CIO could do to stop it.
Continue reading...More off-topic Notre Dame bashing | Michael Tomasky
Actually, I can't even get my heart into it this week. The Irish may have gotten a bad call there at the end against Pitt. But the cosmic balance of bad calls in ND's favor over the decades is still about 78,632 to 1.
Anyway, it now looks as if the Irish will likely finish the season 7-5. Remember, this was the year they softened up the (admittedly usually difficult) schedule so they could go 11-1 and maybe get into the championship game. Instead, they'll probably finish barely above .500. And those three "thrilling" early-season wins will turn out to have come against teams that are probably going to finish a combined 15-21.
So Charlie Weis is on the hotseat, and probably likely to be canned. And he probably ought to be. But I will defend Weis in this one way. Expectations at Notre Dame are way too high these days. It's true they could land a really great coach, as Florida and Alabama have, and reascend the plinth of glory. But there aren't many really great coaches.
So if that doesn't happen, there's just no other reason for ND to stand out in this day and age. There are too many great athletes. In the old days, there were only a handful of really great athletes coming out of high school, and they signed with the small number of great programs (ND being one), and that's how the top teams stayed on top.
But now, with the spread of camps and training methods and so on, there are loads of great athletes. A team like ND, despite all that tradition, has to compete with tons of schools to get them.
What I think ND should do is drop its independent status and join a conference. Probably the Big East, to which its basketball program already belongs. It's probably the country's fourth-toughest conference, although some would say fifth and others sixth (and a few would say seventh). But my point is a Big East schedule would not be murderer's row. And if they won their conference crown, they'd have earned a BCS bowl appearance, even if they're just 8-4 or whatever. And since the Big East allows for five non-conference games, they could still play traditional rivals like USC and Michigan, and three patsies.
How's that for magnanimity? Me offering Notre Dame free, good advice.
November 3, 2009
Michael Tomasky: Tea leaves in NY-23
For what it's worth, the Watertown Daily Times in upstate New York is reporting this morning that Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman's closing rally was larger than Democrat Bill Owens' -- the latter featuring an appearance by Joe Biden:
Douglas L. Hoffman's first congressional campaign stop in Watertown had more campaign staff — three — than attendees.
Three months later, the Conservative Party candidate in the 23rd Congressional District race was a bigger draw here than the vice president of the United States.
"I'm a little sideways with the Republican Party for putting up Dede Schizophrenic," he said.
The singer said of Ms. Scozzafava's decision Saturday to suspend her campaign: "There was a fox in the hen house, but you know what? We smoked that fox out."
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