Commentary

You’re Surprised?

Dave Davis Commentary, Dave's Healthcare Plan, Uncategorized

Attorney General Sessions is left twisting in the wind. Secretary of State Tillerson can’t name his own staff and is totally undercut on Qatar.  Secretary of Defense Mathis in the midst of conducting a 6 mos review of transgender policy, finds the President just banned transgender from the Military. Trump boosters pointed to President’s cabinet as the administration’s great strength.  Instead, this highly accomplished group is in the process of losing their well deserved reputations.  Still it’s hard to have much sympathy for them. Were they unaware of Aesop’s Fable of the” Frog and the Scorpion”. The well-meaning but foolish frog gives a scorpion a ride across a river. Halfway across the scorpion stings the frog, dooming them both . When the frog asks why, the scorpion said it was his “nature”. In other words , what did the frog expect? He’s a Scorpion for god sake.What did these fine people expect? Didn’t they already know Trump’s “Nature”?

Add Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who claims to have spent years in congress working on a replacement for Obamacare, but brought forward together with his former Congregational  companions a disaster. Trump is just now starting in on him. Of course Trump himself never mastered the problems of health care and was therefore almost useless in trying to pass legislation. Don’t expect to hear Trump taking any blame. That always lies elsewhere Does anyone feel comfortable in the Trump Administration? Maybe that’s why the administration has so many unfilled positions.

In any case, the latest Senate try at Obamacare repeal died in the middle of the night with a  dramatic John McCain thumb down. One doesn’t have to disbelieve the Senator’s dislike for the legislation to also see just a little pay back. Surely Trump knows what goes around comes around. Shouldn’t Trump and his base have realized John McCain owed the President nothing. McCain didn’t get mad, but he did get even. There is a reason people avoid out loud nastiness. It just may come back to bite you in the butt. It did here. Whatever McCain’s reasons, it does put the door to a compromise on health care slightly ajar. Of course, we offer  DAVE’S PLAN TO REFORM THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT as a winning compromise.

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Havana Then and Now

Dave Davis Commentary, Uncategorized

Cuba (20) copy

Cars and the Maine Monument

This blog has endeavored to engage policy and politics without injecting personal observations and life. Perhaps you’ll indulge us this once. Bernie Sanders a major power in the Democratic Party (though not a member) and Jeremy Corbin the leader the UK Labor Party have both been lavish in their praise of Castro Cuba. When asked at a press conference while he was mayor of Burlington Vermont, “Do you stand by your qualified-but-fulsome praise of the totalitarian regime in Cuba? “Sanders answered “Yes.” Apparently his opinion hasn’t changed. When asked after Fidel Castro’s death in 2016 about the leader’s legacy, Sanders replied,

You know, I think what we can say—and I’ve been to Cuba two or three times. I think Jane and I went in 1989 for the first time, and I’ve been back a couple of times, and Jane had some educational work in Cuba. A lot of positive things that can be said. Their healthcare system, for a Third World country, is quite good. It’s universal: All people have healthcare without any expense. Last time I was there, I visited a hospital, where they do very, very serious and good work. They come up with a lot of new drugs, actually, in Cuba, I believe. Their educational system is strong. But in truth, their economy is in pretty bad shape. And in truth, you don’t do very well if you dissent in Cuba

Sounds like faint damnation with lavish praise.

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What Charlie Gard Tells Us about Us

Dave Davis Commentary, Dave's Healthcare Plan, Uncategorized

The fate of an 11 month old British baby is caught up in a battle between his parents and the government hospital and the courts. Charlie Gard suffers from  a rare genetic condition and can’t move his arms or legs or breathe unaided. “MDDS.” is an inherited mitochondrial disease. He is on life support and the condition is considered terminal. The parents want to take him to the United States where two hospitals have offered experimental treatment. Separately, even the Vatican has offered its hospital for treatment. The British hospital backed by the UK and EU courts has said no. Citing “Quality of Life” the hospital won’t even let the parents take Charlie Home. Who should decide? The state or the parents? The Wall Street Journal editorialized its position:

It may be that the experts the British and European courts invoke are right, that even with treatment Charlie won’t live much longer than he might with new interventions. But it’s not their decision to make. Or shouldn’t be.

Charlie’s mother says the hospital won’t allow her and her husband to bring their boy home, meaning that if he is to die, it will be with the hospital and not at home with those who love him. Which raises a question: Whose baby is Charlie, anyway—his parents’ or the state’s? In this delicate case, Britain’s national care system has elevated technical expertise over parental love.

Europe is much further along than America in its aggressive secularization and single-payer health-care control. Those values and priorities are on prominent display here, with an infant’s court-ordered guardian invoking “quality of life” as a reason for not allowing his parents to try experimental treatment.

Precedents matter when a society is confronted with these dilemmas. If the courts prevail in Charlie’s case, it isn’t so difficult to imagine another court ruling that a child with severe Down syndrome or some other genetic disease also doesn’t have the right quality of life. Who decides? Our vote remains with the parents.

In our opinion, favoring the parents over the State is proper. One could argue parents withholding treatment from a child should be overruled in the interest of the child. In this case the state is withholding treatment. This is where their argument breaks down and exposes the greater problem, the difference between state controlled health care (single payer) and real modern medicine. What is most important in this case is two US hospitals thought it was important enough to offer Charlie experimental treatment. If the British Hospital could offer no hope, what would possibly prompt them to deny another arguably better hospital a chance to try?  We believe the answer is in the trade-off one gets when you have single payer health care. When asked on “Meet the Press” about the Canadian single payer system, Malcolm Gladwell put it this way:

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Approaching 6 Months

Dave Davis Commentary, Uncategorized

How have the first 6 months of the Trump presidency gone? Guess it depends on your perspective.

Mutts001

If you’re a Trump supporter you see great progress. David Gelernter writing in the Wall Street Journal put it this way:

I’d love for him to be a more eloquent, elegant speaker. But if I had to choose between deeds and delivery, it wouldn’t be hard. Many conservative intellectuals insist that Mr. Trump’s wrong policies are what they dislike. So what if he has restarted the large pipeline projects, scrapped many statist regulations, appointed a fine cabinet and a first-rate Supreme Court justice, asked NATO countries to pay what they owe, re-established solid relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia, signaled an inclination to use troops in Afghanistan to win and not merely cover our retreat, led us out of the Paris climate accord, plans to increase military spending (granted, not enough), is trying to get rid of ObamaCare to the extent possible, proposed to lower taxes significantly and revamp immigration policy and enforcement? What has he done lately

No question Trump has done some positive things for the right, but at what future cost? They have a nice originalist judge on the Supreme Court but at the cost reducing Senate confirmation to a simple majority. This leaves it to fate which party actually benefits in the future. Much of the positives cited by Gelernter are executive orders, some  simply  reverse those of Pres. Obama. A wave Democratic victory in 2020 and it all goes away. At first glance the cabinet is a conservative dream.  The question is simply is whether Trump will listen to any of them. The constant undercutting of the members by the President already is costing the group credibility. Maybe this is why the administration is having such a problem filling important open slots. Who likes to work for a boss who doesn’t have your back? Some members have already proven over rated. When he was in the House, Secretary of Health & Human Services Tom Price  was heavily involved in writing their Health Care bill. This embarrassment of Obamacare Light was to provide through cuts the money to underpin the Republican Tax cuts. Now not only are they stuck between a rock and a hard place on health care, tax reform is in real jeopardy. With the Presidency and both Houses, and Republicans have a good chance to go into 2018 without a major legislative victory. Also, let’s not forget Trump also took us out of TPP. The just concluded EU-Japan trade deal prompted the Wall Street Journal to editorialize:

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A Big week and a Reality Show

Dave Davis Commentary, Uncategorized

The “most expensive congressional race ever” and the Senate Republicans releasing their health plan would be a big week even without Trump tweets. Of course, Trump continued his tweets.  He and the Republicans applauded their success in retaining a couple of historically heavily Republican seats.  They seem to be saying, even if only one in three Americans thinks the President is doing a good job we can still retain control of congress over the lame old Democrats. We think this will prove to be Pyrrhic Victory.  If the Democrats had won they would’ve sat back and looked to ride the anti-Trump momentum to victory. No new leadership, bright candidates, ideas and organization would be needed. The Republicans would’ve had a wake up call to get their act together. Given his knowledge void, Trump would’ve possibly spent time learning about the issues both foreign and domestic. This would’ve left him with little or no time to tweet. Congressional Republicans might come up with health care and tax plans that didn’t look as if they were thought up by “old man Potter”.  Alas, they won and the tweets go on and the Senate Republicans gave us something we never thought possible, a plan worse than Obamacare. The same kind of unworkable Obamacare hodgepodge covering even fewer people. Now they face the 2018 election with an unpopular President who really fires up the Democratic base while they will have to defend a really bad health care law.  We’ve seen this play before in 2010.  Obamacare cost the Democrats the house even with a more popular President. Add new Democratic  leadership and bright candidates.  No callow youngsters living outside their chosen districts.  Hillary and Nancy Pelosi joining Harry Reid in the closet.  Well, maybe the Senate Republicans will fail to pass their Health care law. In that case, their impotence would be on display for all to see.  Harry Truman showed how you deal with a “do nothing Congress.” Either way the Democrat’s chances actually look better for 2018.

All this before we look at the latest Trump tweets. 41 days after threatening to release tapes of his Comey conversations, he finally tweets he doesn’t have any.  Really? Has anyone ever managed to look more guiltily when we’re not even sure a crime has been committed?  Going all the way back to the primaries and his refusal to release his taxes aroused our  suspicions. His disinterest in Russia’s Ukraine incursions and seemingly conceding Crimea to Putin, brought his praise of the Russian strong man into focus. When the damaging to the Democrat’s emails were traced to Wikileaks and by association the Russians, rather than blasting the Russians for interfering with our election he called on them to do more. Associates including his son-in-law failing to disclose meetings with Russians, only thickened this stew.  If Flynn’s lies and Trump’s actions in response doesn’t give you a creepy feeling, someone should check your pulse.

What to make of this? A doofus who keeps doing weird stuff? A Russian pawn? Just maybe it’s a Trump reality show to distract us. Here we have someone with signs front and back declaring “I’m Guilty”.  Given  a certain amount of clues, the contestants try to figure out  the crime. Sort of like Jeopardy, we know there is a criminal, but what is he guilty of?  This is getting huge ratings. You folks at home can play too.

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