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Health Care: It HAS to be Done Now...Or Does It?

What ever happened to those poor people liberals so love to talk about. You know, little Jimmy who is suffering because he doesn't have coverage? He'll tomorrow if we don't pass a health care reform bill soon. There were numerous stories, some true, some fabricated, about how people were going to die in the streets because of their lack of health care insurance. Health care needed to be done yesterday, so said President Obama along with the liberal members of Congress.

They were determined to pass a bill before the summer recess. Then it was Christmas. After that it was the State of the Union Address.

It has to be done NOW. For the people of course. Because THEY ARE SUFFERING.

Congress pushed for votes on various forms of their bills mere hours after they were released to the public, barely giving Americans any time to analyze the bill. Have you ever tried reading 2,000+ pages of legal language in a day and a half (not exactly a light read)? This urgency continued all the way until the final passage vote in the Senate on Christmas Eve. All because people would die if it wasn't done now.

My, how things have changed.

In an article here, Chris Dodd has suggested that lawmakers take a "breather" for six weeks. Evan Bayh recently stated the democrats needed to rethink their strategy, that the Massachusetts special election has served as a wake up call. Other democrats suddenly seem concerned that the people may actually not want this bill.

It's interesting that when liberals had a super majority and the ability to pass just about anything, the argument was that health care reform needed to be done now, "for the people". Now that the left has finally realized America doesn't want this bill, there is not that sense of urgency.

Obama has already started his rhetoric on "getting even" with evil Wall Street (Never mind evil Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they get a pass because they're with the government). The house has already passed through a finance reform bill, and I'm guessing democrats will use the "Corporations against the average people" argument to try to gain back some favorability.

I just think it's interesting that conservatives are painted as greedy and unsympathetic, while liberals are selflessly compassionate: right up to the point where it hurts their re-election prospects.

Bailout Fallout

For my first post, I thought I'd talk a little bit about the proposed Wall Street bailout.

With the bailout bill not passing, I can say I am very disappointed. I am a Republican, but this time the majority of my party was on the wrong side of this issue. The Republicans, sticking up for main street, made an error. Although this deal is very unpopular on main street, this is one time when the public just doesn't have the knowledge to understand the problem. House Republicans should have listened to experts instead of the public and made the right choice

The Republicans in the House said they voted against the bill because they didn't want to leave their children with a bill for $700 billion. This just illustrates how many politicians don't understand finance. The $700 billion wasn't an expense like the War in Iraq or entitlements such as medicare or Medicaid. It was an investment in sophisticated securities that are widely thought to be undervalued. The government would have gotten a large portion of it's money back, possibly even more than it invested.

Also, the $700 billion wasn't all going to be available immediately for the treasury to work with. Only $250 billion was going to be available immediately, while another $100 billion was going to be granted with the president's consent, while the rest would rely on congress's approval. That's right, half of the money that would be granted later on would rely on the same congress that said it wasn't willing to risk or "spend" that much money.

Even if all of the $700 billion was spent and taxpayers never saw a dime of that money come back, the bill would have been worth it. CNBC reported today that the total value lost in the stock market was $1.4 trillion, while the proposed plan was only $700 billion. The value lost in the stock market cost twice as much as the proposed bailout.

The cost of not doing a plan would be enormous. Numerous fixed income money managers have stated that the commercial paper market has pretty much dried up. (For those who don't know, commercial paper is a short term loan used by corporations that is not back by any assets, but by the reputation of the company.) Commercial paper is critical for companies to operate day to day. Sometimes companies have money when they don't need it, and sometimes they need money and don't have it. This is what the commercial paper market facilitates. If this market dries up, business in America will literally come to a screeching halt.

Loans for main street will not just be more expensive to get. They will be impossible to get. This includes mortgages for homes, auto loans, loans for college and money borrowed for countless other purposes. If the average person thinks that this is just a Wall Street problem and they there is no way this will affect them, they are dead wrong.

All of these issues affect everyday Americans. From the lack of ability to get loans to the decline in the value of their 401-k's. The House Republicans need to recognize this, even if their constituents don't. They need to get a bill passed and I hope they work to get this done as soon as possible.