This Is Not A Referendum!

Do as the MSM and White House are doing, and say to yourself over and over "the election results in Virginia and New Jersey are not a referendum on Barack Obama or the Democrats". Just keep saying it, at some point you'll believe it, they do.

The truth is Barack Obama & Company spent a lot of time in New Jersey trying to save John Corzine from his record. Tim Kaine, the head of the DNC is the outgoing governor of Virginia, and the GOP took his seat, and a few others in the state. The NY Times and Washington Post will undoubtedly repeat the party line that these aren't referendums on the Democrats, they are.

The party line is that the "Obama coalition" didn't show up to vote in those elections. The young, and people of color chose to stay home, even though Obama showed up five times in New Jersey to beg to come out and vote and make a difference. That is somewhat of a referendum on President Obama's staying power. He's not as new and cool as he was last year.

Add to that fact that the ballots were pretty much stuffed with white guys who are career politicians, and you have a recipe for not getting out the youth vote, or the minority vote. This is something that the Democrats will have to keep in mind for the 2010 mid-term elections.

New York's 23rd Congressional District did go to the Democrats. I'm not sure that is a true indicator of anything though, since the "GOP" candidate dropped out Saturday and endorsed the Democratic candidate, leaving Doug Hoffman of the Conservative Party out on his own. The State GOP can blame themselves for that loss, though. They put up a candidate as a Republican who's farther left than many Democrats, and wonder why she didn't poll well and couldn't raise money.

Another interesting tidbit, Maine it was thought, would be one of the first states to pass a Gay Marriage ballot referendum, and instead it wend down. This didn't surprise me. Maine has an independent streak as a state, but generally runs a little bit to the right. They elect moderate republicans to the Senate all the time. So the idea that this didn't fly up there shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, except the folks that thought the 2008 elections mean the entire country shifted to the left.

Read The Full Post!

Lack of Competion, or Rules?

A new study claims that lack of competition among insurance companies is one of the reasons for our high health care costs. As an example the article points to Maine, where one company has 71% of the market.

What they don't mention is that MaineCare, a "government option" plan, and Maine's guaranteed issuance laws, along with community ratings laws have driven health care providers from the state. The Wall Street Journal just published a nice article about the failure of MaineCare.

The markets these studies find the least competition in are the markets in places like Maine, New York, and New Jersey, where guaranteed issuance and community ratings have made premiums high, and choice low as insurers leave due to losing too much money.

Since the Urban Institute did the study, and is a proponent of public option, it's not surprising that they chose Maine as an example. What better state than one who's public option (and other rules) has destroyed the private market place to claim "lack of competition" without including the public plan as part of the equation.

If in fact we want competition in the insurance marketplace here's a novel idea. Make a level federal playing field for insurance companies, and get rid of the laws that prevent sales of policies across state lines. Then see what happens. My guess would that Maine would no longer have it's insurance problems.

Read The Full Post!