Democrats don't get the point on Healthcare

We have Democrats on TV saying that the Republican healthcare bill will cost them at the polls next year.  Those Democrats clearly don't get it.  In actual fact, after 8 years of threatening to repeal Obamacare and endless campaign promises to do so, the Republicans faced a disaster in the 2018 election if they failed to pass an Obamacare repeal and replace bill.  We are currently debating what the bill they passed yesterday will do, but at least the Republicans got their act together and passed something.  If they had not, they could kiss their thin Congressional majorities farewell in 2018.  

Republicans pass a health care bill

I don't know just what is in it and what it means.  But they did get just enough votes in the house to pass it.  About time.  We voters elected a Republican congress to get us some reforms.  Up until just now, the Republicans had not passed squat, and a lot of us voters are thinking and saying, what good is a Republican congress if it cannot pass anything? 
  Early reports say that twenty Republicans failed to vote for the bill.  We should get their names and publicize them.  Congress critters so disloyal and dumb as to not vote for their party's bill need to be voted out of office.  

FBI director Comey

The Congress critters grilled him all morning.  Lotta talk about how the Russians helped Trump.  In actual fact Comey himself helped Trump and hurt Hillary far more than any mythical Russians ever dreamed about.  When Comey came out and said he had new evidence from Anthony Weiner's laptop, that October Surprise did hurt Hillary.  Lotta talk in code word and code numbers, like "702".  I am gonna have to  Google for 702 and see what it means.
   And I have posted about this before.  The Russians wanted Hillary for president.  They know her, she isn't very bright, she isn't very brave, and  she would be no match for Putin.  Trump is impulsive, and unpredictable, and has political capital that Hillary can only dream about.  Enough political capital to allow him to send an American armored division to Georgia, or Syria for example.  Hillary would never be able to do anything like that.  The Russians aren't dumb, they knew damn well that Hillary was far far better for them than Trump.  Of course, the Russians read American news media which was 100% behind Hillary and predicted her winning.  So they didn't do all that much anyhow.    

Shed a tear for Puerto Rico

They will declare bankruptcy to day, unless some last minute deal is made.  Over the years Puerto Rice managed to borrow $73 billion dollars from bone headed Wall Street bankers, who should have known that the island didn't have and never would have the revenues to pay off the debts.  Wall St bankers must have been taking stupidity lessons from the Euro bankers who lent to Greece. 
   The money ran out last year, and to complicate matters, Puerto Rice as a territory had been left out of the bankruptcy law.   You have to be a real US state to declare bankruptcy.  Territories don't count.   So last  summer Congress passed a law to allow the island to go bankrupt.  Being Congress, they put a few bells and whistles and a committee to negotiate into the law, but today the red tape unwound and bankruptcy is going to happen. 
   Anastasia O'Grady, writing on the Wall St Journal's op-ed page is all kinds of indignant about this.  She never really says just what gets her all riled up, but riled up she is.  Puerto Rico got access to a lot of credit, her politicians took advantage of that to borrow when they had no way of paying off the loans.  Politicians are like that.  And the banks deserve to loose their money.  Those were stupid loans, and loosing the money might smarten up the next generation of bankers.
   Capitalism depends upon intelligent distribution of capital.  Capital used to build businesses, employ people, grow the economy, is intelligent.  Capital used to pay government workers, politicians, and pensions is wasted.  It's clear that Wall St wasted $73 billion that it loaned to Puerto Rico.  Let's have the banker's smart for it. 
   It will take a few years (five maybe ten) for bankers to forget a bankruptcy and begin to loan again.  That will be a little tough on Puerto Rico, but that's the way the world works. 

Let's do the American Health Care Cost Reduction Act.

American health care costs too much.  We spend 19% of GNP on  health care.  Twice as much an any other country in the world.  And plenty of other countries, Canada, Britain, Japan, Germany, and many more, have public health every bit as good and in America, and they only pay half as much money as we do.  When we export American products, the price of those products has to be marked up 19% to pay for the worker's health care.  When every other country in the world exports product, they only have to mark up their price by 9.5% because their health care costs and half what ours are.  One big reason that manufacturing jobs are leaving the US, is the outrageous cost of health care in the US.   Want to make America great again?  Lower the cost of health care.
   Obamacare raised the cost of US health care.  Obamacare is a scheme to subsidize the cost of health care for everyone who doesn't get health insurance from their employer.  Obamacare did nothing to make health care cheaper.
   Here is what we could do to reduce the price of health care.
1.  Rein in malpractice suits, pure welfare for lawyers.  Don't allow lawyers to advertise for plaintiffs.  They didn't use to be allowed to do that.   Go over to the British system, loser pays the court costs.   Pass a law saying that manufacture, distribution, and prescription of any FDA approved drug or device is never malpractice, even if the FDA later pulls the drug or device off the market.  FDA takes so long to approve anything that any reasonable person assumes that anything FDA approved is safe.  Lawyers (all Congress critters are lawyers)  hate this, but there are more hardworking voters than lawyers.
2.  Allow duty free importation of drugs from all reasonable first world countries, places like Canada, England, France and some on.  Any drug approved for sale to the public by the authorities of a first world country can be imported even if the FDA hasn't gotten around to approving it yet.  Reason:  the health care authorities of other countries sandpaper the drug companies into lowering their prices, often by half or more.  Those Epipens that made the news last year when the maker raised the price to $600 each.  You can buy Epipens in Europe for $20.  Drug companies hate this, but  companies don't vote.
3.  Pass a federal law authorizing every American health insurance agency to sell policies in all 50 states of the Union, WITHOUT having to do any state paperwork.  If you are an insurance company selling health policies in your home state, you can sell them in every state.   The insurance companies hate this, but companies don't vote.
  We could run the Health Care Cost Reduction Act thru Congress while they are still fumblng around with Obamacare repeal and replace.  We could even get some Democrats to vote for it.

President Trump's 100 days

   Must be a slow news day since all the newsies seem to be talking about Trump's 100 days in office.  Most of 'em claim that he hasn't done much, or done enough.   As for me, a medium speed Trump supporter (I voted for him but I think he has foot-in-mouth problems),  I will give him a B for achievement and an A for effort.  He has gotten Gorsuch onto the Supremes, OK'ed the Keystone XL pipeline project that will lower my heating oil bills, killed off a lot of Obama regulations with executive orders, and done good on foreign affairs.
   He hasn't gotten his REPUBLICAN Congress to pass Obamacare repeal, let alone Obamacare replacement, or to get onto federal income tax reform.  To be fair, both bills are complicated, have a zillion lobbyists pushing from every direction, and the Republicans have failed to explain to the country just what they are trying to pass,  and both issues are too tricky to deal with in a few months.  It took Obama a couple of years to get Obamacare thru the Congress, it gonna to take Trump more than a few months to kill it.  And the Congress critters are getting all soggy and hard to light. 
  So I think Trump's heart is in the right place, he is working hard on it, but he has a long long way to go.  I don't think we will have a good feel for how he is doing until mid summer. 

Driving home

It's a great grandson.  Cute, three weeks old as of Friday.  Eats and sleeps well.  Doesn't fuss much, and well he does, picking him up and walking around the house quiets him right down.  Likes to nap in parent's (grandparent's too) laps.  Laps are better than cradles, ask any new born.  Has nice fine hair, looks to be blond or perhaps red.  Not unusual considering the both mother and father are still blond. 
  Drove back from DC on Saturday.  I took the scenic route.  Picked up old US 1 off the Baltimore beltway.  It dwindles to a two lane route thru Maryland farm country and gets over the Chesapeake Bay on top of the old Conowingo dam.  Must have been low tide, the down stream side of the dam was going dry, lots of mud flats all across the bay.  Upstream seemed to have plenty of water.  Crossed the Mason-Dixon line in the Pennsylvania, and US-1 widens into a nice 4 lane divided highway, light traffic, clearly a 1950's road project.  Zipped thru/by Chadd's Ford, the Wyeth art museum, Brandwine battle field, Longwood Gardens and picked up old US 202 for West Chester.  PA has finally gotten some infrastructure finished.  The construction on US 202 around King of Prussia is finally (after 10 years!!) finished.  And they have fixed a bunch of bottle necks/bad spots along the way to NJ.  They repaved using that old purple asphalt which looks nice and you don't see much of it around. 
   Got to Tappan Zee bridge at noon.  The new Tappan Zee bridge is still under construction, although progress has been made.  They have the steel girder work up clear across the Hudson, and the towers to support the cable stayed high center section are up.  The old bridge is still there, traffic was moving quickly, all 10 lanes.  The toll booth on the eastern shore is gone.  I zipped right thru, no EZ Pass, either I got thru for free, or they got my license plate on a well hidden camera and will mail me a bill. 
   All and all, the scenic route is nearly as fast as the straight-thru I95 all the way route.  Straight thru took ten hours in the rain.  Senic route was only 10 1/2 hours in good weather.  Saves about $20 in tolls. 
   Good trip.  Got to love the grandson.  Mom (Karen) and Dad (Justin) are looking fine and enjoying their first child.