according to jeff

Last night we attended another Iowa caucus, possibly our fifth in our current precinct. Except when our precinct has been combined with others, we’ve had the same caucus chairman for each of the meetings. We learned last night that he’s had 45 years of experience as a caucus chair.

The caucus consists of a non-binding straw poll, election of people to serve at the county convention and on various committees, and approval of planks. A plank is a statement of the values or beliefs or desired actions of the Republican party of Iowa. Each caucus approves planks that are eventually bubbled up (or not) to the state level.

At some caucus events, the discussion, presentation and voting on planks are said to be lively, as zany ideas are squashed and controversial ideas are discussed. Likewise, non-controversial statements are said to sail through.

I write “said to” because that’s not been our experience. Here’s how our caucus works.

1. The party man nominates himself to serve as chairman. He is approved.
2. The party man nominates another party man to serve as secretary. He is approved.
3. One speaker for each candidate is allowed to give a short speech regarding his preferred candidate.
4. Caucus attenders vote, and votes are collected.
5. It is announced that planks may be turned in, and all will be submitted to the county level.
6. It is announced that there are openings to serve at the county convention, and anyone wanting to volunteer should add their name to a list.
7. The caucus was closed.

No discussion of planks. No opportunity to squash zany ideas or eloquently promote a great idea. Yet, other precincts purportedly do discuss planks, and sometimes put quite a lot of effort into it. What should one conclude?

Here’s my conclusion: it’s a waste of time. The planks discussed at the caucus level have little if any impact on what happens at the county level. Your caucus may have done a great job submitting different planks, but ours submitted everything anyone cared to take the time to write down. Loony, socialist, whatever. It all went through. Your caucus may have done great work; ours wasn’t given the opportunity. Why not? Because our party man knows that it’s a waste of time. Oh, he won’t say that, but his actions show otherwise.

How about elections to committees and the county convention? The county convention is where the real action begins, as the planks that you so carefully labored over and the planks that Crazy Uncle Eddie submitted at our caucus begin to coalesce. So, the committee members and county convention delegates have an important job. You’d think that we’d care who does it. But we don’t. We leave it up to our party man to look at the list of volunteers and fill the positions. “The people are practicing democracy at the most basic level.” Bah. Not at my precinct. We just let the party man do it.

But, wait, we still have the straw poll, right? Sure. We have a non-binding straw poll, the results of which have absolutely no impact on how Iowa’s delegation to the national convention will vote and which candidate will be nominated. It serves a valuable purpose only because the media uses it to gauge the people’s response to the candidates, and the candidates use the results to determine how well (or how poorly) their campaign is doing. It is valuable because it helps shape perception. However, technically it has no effect on the nominee that Iowa will support.

So, what do you think? Are the Iowa caucuses a sham?

I have recently had quite a bit of medical services performed as a result of an unexpected cancer diagnosis. As a result, I’ve been receiving lots of statements from the providers and my health insurance company. Note this recent statement.

Click for Larger Image

Amount billed by provider: $9,455.50
Discount negotiated by insurance: $7,586.68
Amount paid by insurance: $1,868.82

It makes me wonder who pays full price.

The annual notice of the premium increase for my health insurance has arrived. It’s not pretty.

If you’re new to this discussion, you may want to start by reviewing the previous four articles on this topic:

• 2006: Whining about Health Insurance
• 2007: Health Insurance, Part 2
• 2008: Health Insurance, Part 3
• 2009: Health Insurance, Part 4

Let’s start by looking at some numbers:

Year		Premium		Deductible		Increase		Increase
2003		$225		$4000
2004		$275		$4000		$50		22%
2005		$327		$4000		$52		19%
2006		$415		$4000		$88		27%
2007		$532		$4000		$117		28%
2008		$633		$4000		$101		19%
2009 1		$717		$5700		$84		13%
2009 2		$641		$5700		($76)		-
2010		$814		$5700		$173		27%

Notes:

1. This rate increase was coupled with an increase to the deductible, or, in other words, a reduction in coverage.
2. This reflects removing my married son from our family policy.

What more is there to say? These figures speak for themselves:

1. Premium increase: 27%.
2. Annual cost of health insurance exceeds $15,000.
3. Cost of insurance doubled in 4 years, while the deductible increased by $1700 and a person was removed from the policy.

And health care “reform” hasn’t even kicked in yet…

Yesterday was voting day. Our Hiawatha Web site indicated that it was voting day in Hiawatha, so even though I didn’t know what was on the ballot, I went to find out.

It turns out that we were electing two persons to the city council. There were exactly two people listed on the ballot, with a note to vote for no more than two.

This presented a dilemma.

Should I vote for both of them, because they were willing to serve in a largely thankless job?

Or, should I write in my neighbor’s name, since neither of the candidates made an effort to even let me know that they were running and why I should vote for them?

Or, should I simply not vote, being an obviously ill-informed citizen?

Or, should I vote “no” for the first and “yes” for the second, since people with names closer to the beginning of the alphabet live cushy lives of luxury, while people with names closer to the end of the alphabet face more challenges in life?

On this morning’s Andy Petersen show on WMT radio, Andy hosted Anthony Watts, a meteorologist with an interesting project.

Back in the 70s, when he made his first weather reporting station, his professor cautioned him to be sure to use whitewash for the surface paint, as this was the standard. To use a different paint would distort the data and make it unscientific to compare readings to previous years.

Many years later, though, he noticed that a weather station was painted with latex paint, rather than whitewash. He wondered if the difference in paint would make a difference in the recorded temperatures, and that distort comparisons with prior years. His investigation led him to discover the problems are much deeper. He found many reporting stations not properly isolated from outside influences that would artificially increase the reported temperature. Such influences included being positioned next to air conditioner exhausts, on concrete pads, etc. He then kicked off a volunteer campaign to find and photographically report on the official weather reporting stations. His conclusion: “the network has fallen into neglect, and the temperature data produced by it is suspect due to microsite biases.”

Read more about it here: www.wattsupwiththat.com/test.

Temperature recordings at these weather stations are used, in part, to support the concept of global warming. However, if there are other influences that cause increased average temperature readings at these stations, then any trend data isn’t reliable. If the trend data isn’t reliable, then it cannot be used to support any hypothesis, whether pro-warming or pro-cooling.

Both today and yesterday, the CBS World News Roundup referred to our president’s approval rating in two ways.

• An approval rating of 68%
• A 3 to 1 approval rating

Apparently no CBS World News Roundup reporters, editors or producers caught the error, since it was repeated today. I wonder how many listeners did.

Cedar Rapids pastor Eric Schumacher wrote an article, that some think controversial, regarding that status of marriage in Iowa. Click here to read it.

A retention bonus is a “bonus” paid to an employee that continues to work for a potentially failing company until an agreed upon date. In essence, the company is saying, “We know that things look bad. But things will get worse for everyone if you quit and take another job. Our best hope of staying in business is if you’ll stay with us and continue working hard. As an incentive for you to not take another job and continue working for us, we promise you (some figure) if you’re still an employee on (some date).”

The media is reporting furor over AIG paying retention bonuses to certain employees. While it’s possible that the bonuses paid are simply a dodge to funnel cash into corrupt hands, that hasn’t been sufficiently shown. Instead, AIG is being demonized for “taking” taxpayer money and spending it on “bonuses”.

But wait!

Let’s temporarily ignore the fact that AIG can’t actually “take” taxpayer money, and that those guilty of actually taking taxpayer money are the same elected officials that chose to take from you and me (and millions of others) and give to AIG.

Instead, let’s do some math, based on figures from a March 17 ABC News report.

AIG “bailout”: $170,000,000,000

Retention bonuses paid by AIG to employees: $165,000,000

Percent of bailout spent on retaining employees: 0.097%

That’s 97 cents “squandered” on retention bonuses for every thousand dollars used to “bail out” AIG. Or, put another way, that’s less than a penny for every $10, less than a dime for every $100.

What do you think? Is the furor rightly directed at those spending the dime or at those spending the hundred dollar bill?

$300 Million – Southern Baptist Convention International Mission Board annual budget, which provides financial support for missionaries working outside of North America.

$310 Million – Amount that Americans spent on the video game “Grand Theft Auto IV” on its first day of release.

Source: World, February 28, 2009, page 75

The British Prime Minister recently visited the President. Read what the London Telegraph reports about the visit.

Earlier in the day, I’d planned to write a nice article about the pleasant parking conditions that I found downtown today. I was to spend an unknown amount of time at the Linn County Courthouse, and had been concerned about where to park for an unknown amount of time. Imagine my surprise when I found many of the parking meters had been removed, and that parking on the street was free! Not only had the city instituted progressive, back-in angle parking, but it had made it much easier to visit downtown by reducing parking hassles. I expected to laud the city government, the Cedar Rapids Downtown Association, and anyone else that I could think to congratulate for such forward thinking.

But those plans changed.

Today I received my first parking ticket.

Ever.

It turns out that even though there wasn’t a sign at the parking place I chose, or the parking places next to it, or the parking places next to them, or, in fact, within several parking places of the parking place I chose, the back-in angle parking spot was reserved for permit only. There was a sign nearby reminding me to use back-in angle parking. Even though a sign post was already present for that sign, and it would have been, therefore, almost effortless to further advertise the reserved parking on that same sign post, the fact that the spot was reserved for permit parking was cleverly disguised.

A cynic might conclude that this clever disguise is purposeful. That is, that when given a choice between using ample signage to clarify that parking is permit only, or collecting $25 parking violations, the city chose to collect $25 parking violations.

I don’t know. I just know that I’m disappointed that I received my first parking ticket. Ever.

And that I didn’t get to write a positive article about parking in downtown Cedar Rapids.

It’s the first of the year and I’ve received notice of changes to my health insurance policy, so it’s time once again for my annual update on the state of my health insurance. As you may know, I am partner in a small business and an employee of that business, and purchase private health insurance for my family.

If you’re new to this discussion, you may want to start by reviewing the previous three articles on this topic:

• 2006: Whining about Health Insurance
• 2007: Health Insurance, Part 2
• 2008: Health Insurance, Part 3

Let’s start by looking at some numbers:

Year		Premium		Deductible		Increase		Increase
2003		$225		$4000
2004		$275		$4000		$50		22%
2005		$327		$4000		$52		19%
2006		$415		$4000		$88		27%
2007		$532		$4000		$117		28%
2008		$633		$4000		$101		19%
2009		$717 1		$5700		$84		13%

While this might initially look like an improvement — after all, the rate increase was “only” 13%, the lowest annual increase percentage to date — the rate increase is coupled with a deductible increase from $4000 to $5700.

So, let’s do some math to put this into perspective.

• Annual premium: $717 x 12 = $8,604
• Annual deductible: $5,700
• Monthly HSA contribution to satisfy deductible: $5,700 / 12 = $475 ²
• Monthly cost of health insurance: $717 + $475 = $1,192
• Annual cost of health insurance: $1,192 x 12 = 14,304
• Estimate of work hours per year: 2080 hours
• Hourly income required to pay for health insurance: $14,304 / 2080 hours = $6.88 / hour ³

Ouch.

The trends suggest that health insurance is going to become an ever increasing percentage of my income. One wonders how and where it will stop.

I have no way of knowing if my insurance carrier (Assurant, aka Time Insurance) is experiencing these same cost increases, or if they are taking advantage of the fact that current customers have a disincentive to change providers due to pre-existing conditions, Byzantine application and underwriting forms, etc.

It is, unfortunately, however, easy to imagine a time when private health insurance is simply unaffordable (as if it is “affordable” right now), such that the options are reduced to having no insurance, having government-provided insurance, or employer-provided insurance. And that will be an even bigger problem…

If you have any suggestions for me (other than “Get a real job, Jeff.”), let me know.
 
 
 

Notes:

1. Note the increase to the plan deductible that is paired with this premium increase.
2. It could be debated whether this is a cost of health insurance coverage or not. However, given that the deductible must be met before the insurance company pays for any expenses, I think it is reasonable to include this as an expense.
3. This estimate does not account for income tax. In order to pay $6.88 per hour for health insurance coverage, more than that must be earned.

As reported in World Magazine:

In March 2005 a New Jersey homosexual, Eric McKinley, sued dating site eHarmony.com for violating the state’s Law Against Discrimination by not offering dating services to gays and lesbians. Last month eHarmony settled the lawsuit with the New Jersey attorney general by agreeing to set up a new website call Compatible Partners that will offer “male seeking a male” and “female seeking a female” matches.

As part of the settlement, which admitted no wrongoing on eHarmony’s part, the company agreed to pay the state $50,000 for the cost of the investigation and $5,000 and a year’s free membership to McKinley. It also agreed to use pictures of gay couples in its advertising and state that Compatible Partners is affiliated with eHarmony. The new website must be available by March 31, 2009, and operate for at least two years.¹

This is sobering news to business owners and aspiring business owners.

Do you want to open a chocolate shop and sell homemade fudge? You’d better be prepared to offer sugar-free alternatives (that taste just as good!) for diabetics. Do you operate a hot dog stand? Perhaps you’d better add beef kabob and vegan hummus (similar to, but not to be confused with, humus) to your menu. Are you a book publisher? You had best offer every single title in large print and braille, for the vision impaired. Do you own a clothing store that caters to the plus-size business women? You’d better have the same stylish choices for cross-dressing business men, too. Want to open a gay bar? Tut, tut, that’s “discrimination”, too.

Or is it?

While it might be discriminating (look it up) to focus your business attention on a smaller market niche, is it necessarily discrimination? Some call it market differentiation and targeting your market and product branding.

Some even call it freedom.

1. World Magazine, December 13/20 2008, page 79

MSNBC is running an unscientific poll:

Should the motto “In God We Trust” be removed from U.S. currency?
___ Yes. It’s a violation of the principle of separation of church and state.
___ No. The motto has historical and patriotic significance and does nothing to establish a state religion.

As this article is published, the poll is still open. If you’d like to participate, the poll can be found here.

“We have been guided by a Republican administration who believes in the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it.”
— Congressman Jim Moran, Virginia¹

1. World, November 15/22, 2008, page 17