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Douglas M. Parker

Guest Blog. Redirecting Health Reform: A Real Republican Opportunity

A couple of years ago, Jeff Bauer and I and our wives shared a nightly dinner on a transatlantic crossing and became friends. Jeff and I stayed in touch and exchanged thoughts on various subject, including healthcare, a subject on which he is an expert and I am not. I was impressed by his expertise and intrigued by his perspectives on that challenging issue and I talked him into doing a guest blog. I believe that readers of RINOcracy.com will find it both informative and thought-provoking. ~ DMP.

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Redirecting Health Reform: A Real Republican Opportunity

By Jeffrey C. Bauer, Ph.D.

 

The intensely partisan debate over repairing or repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a waste of everyone’s time. Democrats begrudgingly admit that Obamacare is flawed, but they refuse to modify its core goal of reducing the number of uninsured Americans. Meanwhile, Republicans keep voting to repeal the law without offering a viable alternative for solving the serious problems of our medical care system.

Expanding access to a dysfunctional system will only make the situation worse, but returning to the pre-ACA marketplace will not make things any better. As I argue in Paradox and Imperatives in Health Care: Redirecting Reform for Efficiency and Effectiveness (CRC Press, 2015), it’s time to start from scratch. A new approach to reform is sorely needed to extract us from today’s lose-lose confrontation between defenders of a poorly crafted law and opponents who would return us to the failed marketplace that Obamacare attempted to address.Read More »Guest Blog. Redirecting Health Reform: A Real Republican Opportunity

Blog No. 60 Jeb Bush and the Burgeoning Field

The beginning of 2015 has seen not only a blizzard on the East Coast but a blizzard of activity among potential Republican candidates for 2016. Some observers have seemed as unenthusiastic about the political blizzards as most snow bound residents were for the natural variety: “Oh, no. Do we really need this much, this soon?” The PBS NewsHour has identified no less than 17 individuals who have indicated that they’re “interested” or “actively exploring” a presidential bid. In alphabetical order: John Bolton, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, Donald Trump, and Scott Walker. Just this morning the NewsHour list had one  addition and one subtraction. Mitt Romney announced that he had abandoned any plan to run, while Senator Lindsey Graham took the initial step of forming a PAC. Other prominent figures who have made no announcement but are thought to be waiting in the wings include Governors Bobby Jindal and Mike Pence. NO ROMNEY - PLUS FLAG

Read More »Blog No. 60 Jeb Bush and the Burgeoning Field

Blog No. 59. The State of the Union Address: Barack Obama’s Parallel Universe and the Challenge for Republicans

On the day of the President’s State of the Union address, a writer in The Washington Post was moved to wonder “Do we even need a State of the Union address anymore?” It is unlikely that the writer’s doubts were assuaged by the President’s performance that evening. The President assured us on the one hand that everything was really quite splendid both at home and abroad, but also insisted that our domestic tranquility requires a lengthy and expensive set of initiatives. Indeed, listening to the address, one had the feeling that it might have been titled “No Proposal Left Behind.” In fact, however, the President declined to renew many of the proposals that he had presented a year ago and which had been largely ignored by the 113th Congress. (A PBS NewsHour analysis indicated that out of 18 proposals urged in 2014, only 2 rather minor ones had been adopted.) Now that Republicans control the Senate as well as the House, and enjoy an even larger majority in the House, the President’s prospects for legislative achievements are hardly brighter.Read More »Blog No. 59. The State of the Union Address: Barack Obama’s Parallel Universe and the Challenge for Republicans

Blog No. 58 Charlie Hebdo, Barack Obama, and Radical Islam

In the wake of the murderous assault on Charlie Hebdo and other attacks in Paris, President Obama was been robustly criticized for his failure to attend the rally of solidarity in Paris, or even to send a high level representative. We believe that the criticism was justified. Indeed, even the White House Press Secretary, Josh Earnest, acknowledged that a mistake had been made, a remarkable admission for a White House from which mea culpas do not escape easily. Earnest, however, did not offer any credible explanation of how or why the mistake had been made. It may be plausible to claim that adequate security for the President could not be provided on short notice, but presumably the security needs of Vice President Biden could have been satisfied by the arrangements put in place for forty world leaders. And one of the more curious footnotes was the unexplained failure to attend even by Attorney General Holder who was already in Paris.Read More »Blog No. 58 Charlie Hebdo, Barack Obama, and Radical Islam

Blog No. 57 Charlotte’s Web, Medical Marijuana and the Vagaries of the Law

There has been considerable movement afoot in the world of marijuana in the past year. In November, voters in Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia passed referenda authorizing and regulating the sale and use of marijuana. They joined Colorado and Washington State, which had previously adopted such laws. In Florida, a referendum authorizing the use of medical marijuana drew the support of a majority of voters but failed to gain the required approval of 60%. In June, however, the Florida legislature, had passed  a narrower law authorizing only a specific, non-euphoric, form of medical marijuana, known as Charlotte’s Web. A total of 22 states have now adopted laws authorizing some form of medical marijuana.Read More »Blog No. 57 Charlotte’s Web, Medical Marijuana and the Vagaries of the Law

Blog No. 56 The Unveiling of Jeb Bush

Actually, the unveiling of Jeb Bush has only just begun. Speculation about Bush’s possible candidacy  reached something of a mini-crescendo when he announced before Christmas that he would be “actively exploring” a run for the Presidency. That did not come as a great surprise—Candy Crowley on CNN remarked that it was what she had thought he was doing all along over the past many months. Nevertheless, the making of a formal statement made it seem unlikely that Bush would decide that the whole thing was not a good idea.Read More »Blog No. 56 The Unveiling of Jeb Bush

Christmas 2014: “A Carol for Children”

One year ago, we posted “A Carol for Children,” an Ogden Nash poem published in The New Yorker in December, 1935 and reprinted by The New York Times as its lead editorial on Christmas Day, 1978. The poem spoke to the troubled times of those years and we felt that it was equally appropriate to 2013. Twelve months later, we cannot escape the feeling that its message is more fitting than ever.

A Carol for Children

God rest you, merry Innocents,
Let nothing you dismay,
Let nothing wound an eager heart
Upon this Christmas Day.Read More »Christmas 2014: “A Carol for Children”

Blog No. 55 The 113th Congress RIP (With Reflections on the CIA and the Omnibus Spending Bill)

Few will mourn the passing of the 113th Congress. Senator Joe Manchin no doubt spoke for many when he said “Thank God! It’s over.” Still, Congress ended not as some expected, with only the whimper of lame ducks, but with a pair of modest bangs. The first bang was the release by a Senate Committee of its long-awaited (and in some cases, perhaps, dreaded) report on the interrogation techniques employed by the CIA following 9/11. The other bang was provided by the passage of a $1.1 trillion spending bill over opposition from the more extreme elements of both parties. Further bangs will doubtless come in the next Congress, but what they will turn out to be remains to be seen. In the meantime, however, we offer some thoughts on the work of Congress in the final weeks of 2014.Read More »Blog No. 55 The 113th Congress RIP (With Reflections on the CIA and the Omnibus Spending Bill)

Blog No. 54 After Hagel: Who and What?

For several days, the media was awash in stories about the dismissal (half-heartedly disguised as a resignation) of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. In the usual blend of reporting from anonymous sources and outright speculation, various theories were advanced as the reasons for his departure. While such theories commanded a certain amount of gossipy interest, they were largely beside the point. We often see things rather differently from both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, but this time we think they each had it right.Read More »Blog No. 54 After Hagel: Who and What?

Blog No. 53. The Flames of Ferguson and the Grilling of the DA

The scenes of burning buildings in Ferguson, immediately following a Grand Jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson, were appalling and depressing. They were all the more so because they were not all that surprising. Could they have been avoided or contained? Perhaps. The threat of violence had been widely anticipated, and despite advance pleas for calm from community leaders, clergy and the Brown family, the anticipation may have become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. There were numerous factors contributing to the violent upheaval, but one of them may have been a basic misunderstanding of the criminal justice process.Read More »Blog No. 53. The Flames of Ferguson and the Grilling of the DA