More Anti-Dem Beck Dreck

“The Most Trusted Name In News” granted another opportunity for Glenn Beck to spew his drivel today against the Democrats (here). And while I don’t intend to reply all of what he said (even if I wanted to, I couldn’t, because he doesn’t source his claims so I could detect from which bodily orifice he obtained them), I do want to address three points in particular…

…instead of traveling to Denver, Colorado, and reporting on the Democratic National Convention in a fancy suit like a real show, I get to watch the speeches at my house in my boxers. Sorry for that image. Here are my impressions of some of the noteworthy quotes from the convention so far, which I observed from a safe distance.

Nancy Pelosi: "I am very proud of the Democrats in Congress."

Never mind that no Congress in the past 20 years has passed fewer public laws than this one, according to the Wall Street Journal. How could they?

They are spending one quarter of their work week debating and passing symbolic measures such as creating National Watermelon Month. The Journal says no Congress in the past two decades has proposed more symbolic resolutions than this one -- 1,900, for those of you keeping score at home.

Oh yes, that’s one of the new freeper talking points about the 110th Congress (and here’s the column in the Murdoch Street Journal from which it originated).

But it’s a funny thing: according to this link listing public laws passed by prior Congresses as well as this one, I was able to obtain the following totals…

108th 1st Session – 8
108th 2nd Session – 4
109th 1st Session – 8
109th 2nd Session – 10
110th 1st Session – 6
110th 2nd Session – 6

As you can see, the Beck/Journal claim isn’t even correct because the 110th Congress (which, it should be noted, has not concluded) has already passed the same amount of public laws as the 108th, and that would be 12 (granted, the horrid 109th passed more, but what do you expect when the same party controlled all branches of our government?).

Further, the 110th, as noted here, broke the record for the highest number of roll call votes in U.S. congressional history last October!

Continuing…

Hillary Clinton: "John McCain doesn't think that 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis."

She must have missed the update that this number dropped by over a million. While it's still too high, I doubt she would have missed the news if it had risen.

She also missed, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, that 37 percent of the uninsured live in households making more than $50,000 a year, most of which can afford health insurance.

Twenty percent aren't even citizens of this country. One in three are eligible for government insurance, but aren't enrolled. So, while our health care is far from perfect, it's much better than Hillary wants you to believe.

Concerning those “households making more than $50,000 a year,” this post tells us that…

…a household at the $50,000 income level with family health insurance coverage is paying over a quarter of its income into the health care system.

…

After you’ve finished gasping in surprise at the share of your income that is already going into health care, you may wonder where all that money goes. One answer is that the United States has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world, including over 1,500 different companies, each offering multiple plans, each with its own marketing program and enrollment procedures, its own paperwork and policies, its CEO salaries, sales commissions, and other non-clinical costs—and, of course, if it is a for-profit company, its profits. Compared to the overhead costs of the single-payer approach, this fragmented system takes almost 25 cents more out of every health care dollar for expenses other than actually providing care.

Of the additional overhead in the current U.S. system, approximately half is borne by doctors’ offices and hospitals, which are forced to maintain large billing and negotiating staffs to deal with all the plans. By contrast, under Canada’s single-payer system (which is run by the provinces, not by the federal government), each medical specialty organization negotiates once a year with the nonprofit payer for each province to set fees, and doctors and hospitals need only bill that one payer.

Of course, the United States already has a universal, single-payer health care program: Medicare. Medicare, which serves the elderly and people with disabilities, operates with overhead costs equal to just 3% of total expenditures, compared to 15% to 25% overhead in private health programs. Since Medicare collects its revenue through the IRS, there is no need to collect from individuals, groups, or businesses. Some complexity remains—after all, Medicare must exist in the fragmented world that is American health care—but no matter how creative the opponents of single-payer get, there is no way they can show convincingly how the administrative costs of a single-payer system could come close to the current level.

Some opponents use current U.S. government expenditures for Medicare and Medicaid to arrive at frightening cost estimates for a universal single-payer health care system. They may use Medicare’s $8,568 per person, or $34,272 for a family of four (2006). But they fail to mention that Medicare covers a very atypical, high-cost slice of the U.S. population: senior citizens, regardless of pre-existing conditions, and people with disabilities, including diagnoses such as AIDS and end-stage renal disease. Or they use Medicaid costs—forgetting to mention that half of Medicaid dollars pay for nursing homes, while the other half of Medicaid provides basic health care coverage, primarily to children in low-income households, at a cost of only about $1,500 a year per child.

Hillary Clinton has forgotten more about the health insurance crisis in this country than Glenn Beck will ever know.

And finally…

Joe Biden: "Even today, as oil companies post the biggest profits in history ... John (McBush) wants to give them another $4 billion in tax breaks."

Here is the justification behind this talking point:

1.) John McCain wants to cut corporate income taxes for all companies.
2.) Oil companies are companies.

That's it.

Actually, here is the justification behind this fact (a lot more than a talking point)…

According to a study conducted by the Center for American Progress, “The McCain plan would deliver approximately $170 billion a year in tax cuts to corporations, including some corporations that are very large and profitable. Just one of the proposals—cutting the corporate rate from 35 percent to 25 percent—would cut taxes for five largest U.S. oil companies by $3.8 billion a year.” [Center for American Progress, 3/27/08]

While I still have to be sold somewhat on Biden as the VP nominee, I know his plusses far outweigh his minuses, and on this occasion, he hit the bull’s eye, as it were (give or take $.2 billion).

Actually, after reading this, it makes me feel good knowing that Beck plans to “keep his distance” from the Democrats.

If only he would extend that favor to everyone else.