Category Archives: markets

International Trade and Hillary Clinton

Posted on by
Reply

Recall that the Democrats in the House of Representatives last week blew up their erstwhile favorite, a wealth transfer sub-bill to pay a bunch of money to American workers who would be “displaced” by the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade bill being negotiated by President Barack Obama and 11 other Pacific nations. This in turn blew up the fast track authority bill already passed in the Senate and of which the TAA was a part.

Hillary Clinton, late sitter in the Secretary of State’s chair and current Democratic Party Presidential candidate was asked at her subsequent Iowa campaign rally about that fiasco, and what she thought of the fast track authority and of the trade deal in progress. She said that Obama needs to “listen and work with” Nancy Pelosi to get “the best deal possible.”

The Wall Street Journal characterized her answer thusly:

It’s a classic Clinton non-answer.

The WSJ is being polite. What it really signifies is that Clinton is utterly ignorant of the economics of international trade, or she’s too disingenuous to say what her position is.

Either one means she’s not qualified to be President.

YGTBSM

Posted on by
Reply

The federal government cannot verify nearly $3 billion in subsidies distributed through Obamacare, putting significant taxpayer funding “at risk,” according to a new audit report.

HHS’ Office of Inspector General (OIG) said

[The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] CMS’s internal controls did not effectively ensure the accuracy of nearly $2.8 billion in aggregate financial assistance payments made to insurance companies under the Affordable Care Act during the first four months that these payments were made.

Three findings from the audit [emphasis added]:

  • did not have systems in place to ensure that financial assistance payments were made on be half of confirmed enrollees and in the correct amounts,
  • did not have systems in place for State marketplaces to submit enrollee eligibility data for financial assistance payments, and
  • did not always follow its guidance for calculating advance CSR payments and does not plan to perform a timely reconciliation of these payments.

That last is mindboggling.

This administration’s performance, both with Obamacare and with information security generally, just keeps on getting better and better. The audit can be seen here.

Federal Security and Privacy

Posted on by
Reply

A government data warehouse stores personal information forever on millions of people who seek coverage under President Obama’s health care law, including those who open an account on HealthCare.gov [ObamaMart] but don’t sign up for coverage.

The Feds are proud of that, too:

The health care system, known as MIDAS, is described on a federal website as the “perpetual central repository” for information that the Affordable Care Act authorizes federal agencies to collect.

“Data in MIDAS is maintained indefinitely at this time,” says another document, a government privacy assessment dated Jan 15.

Never mind that

Marilyn Tavenner, the Medicare administrator at the time, told a congressional hearing that the program’s technology infrastructure was designed “to minimize all possible security vulnerability.”

“And we especially focused on storing the minimum amount of personal data possible[.]”

Or that proper information security technique has data destroyed after a fixed period of time, not held in perpetuity, or for as long as convenient to the holder of those data.

And this gem:

The Obama administration says MIDAS is essential to the smooth operation of the health care law’s insurance markets and meets or exceeds federal security and privacy standards.

The Obama administration has shown us, with OPM, just how shockingly low those security and privacy standards are.

Hmm….

Over-Regulation

Posted on by
Reply

…Texas style. An eight-year-old girl and her seven-year-old sister were selling lemonade and kettle corn at their homemade stand in front of their house in Overton, TX. You recognize the deal: kids selling cool drinks (with a snack added this time) on a hot summer day to give passersby some relief and to pick up some spending money.

However.

A police officer on Monday approached the stand, which offered lemonade for 50 cents and “kettle korn” for $1.

In patrol-car video, the officer can be heard asking the girls’ mother…for a permit. She says she wasn’t aware they needed one.

The stand was shut down for that lack of permit. When a family friend went to the town’s government to get the needed permit, the town offered to waive the $150 fee. $150 to be allowed to set up a lemonade stand that might make ten bucks over the three or four days it’s likely to be open.

In the end, it remained too hard for the little girls to do: the town said that health department officials needed to inspect the stand, too. Because of all the food poisoning that occurs at lemonade stands around the country. You remember the epidemics caused by the lemonade stands dotting the neighborhoods when we were growing up, don’t you?

Understand: my beef isn’t with the town or the cop—waiving $150 is no small thing for a metropolis with a population of 2,500, and the cop is doing his job (cops aren’t allowed discretion in these days of politically correct zero tolerance). My beef is with the regulations and with the foolishness of one-size-fits-all rules. Where’s the common sense? Why can’t little boys and girls set up a stand to earn some spending money sometimes without official interference?

In the event, the little girls have decided to stay open, more or less. They’ll give away their lemonade and kettle corn, accepting only donations. If you’re in Overton the next few days, or even if you’re only nearby, head on over to the stand and make a generous donation. And enjoy some cool lemonade and a snack on a hot Texas day.

Health Care Subsidies

Posted on by
Reply

President Barack Obama sent his HHS Secretary, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, to Congress to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee about, among other things, his plans should the Supreme Court rule against Federal subsidies for those who bought health plans through ObamaMart and not through state exchanges as Obama’s ACA requires. He said, through her,

If the court says that we do not have the authority to give subsidies, the critical decisions will sit with the Congress and states and governors to determine if those subsidies are available[.]

This is openly cynical. “If the court says…” the subsidies are not available, they’re not available. Full stop.

The Governors and states made their own critical decisions clear five years ago when, in full view of the ACA’s statement that Federal subsidies are available only through state exchanges, they carefully and with forethought declined to create state exchanges.

The Congress made its own critical decision all those years ago when it wrote the law that said Federal subsidies would not be available except through state exchanges.

Of course the better policy wonk than his policy wonks knows this, and he knew it when he sent Burwell up there to spout that nonsense. The only way the Court can upend those critical decisions will be through a twisted interpretation of the text of the law that leads them to uphold the Federal subsidies.

Hmm….