Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/217254
6A Daily News – Tuesday, November 26, 2013 Opinion The foggy crystal ball DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U NTY S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes letters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submitted will be considered for publication. Letters will be edited. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. Mission Statement We believe that a strong community newspaper is essential to a strong community, creating citizens who are better informed and more involved. The Daily News will be the indispensible guide to life and living in Tehama County. We will be the premier provider of local news, information and advertising through our daily newspaper, online edition and other print and Internet vehicles. The Daily News will reflect and support the unique identities of Tehama County and its cities; record the history of its communities and their people and make a positive difference in the quality of life for the residents and businesses of Tehama County. How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 The heck is going on here, people? Did someone drop the flag signaling the start of the 2016 presidential election race in secret? Was there a furtive whispered "go now" left on the voice mail of all the major players in the 202 area code? Thirty-six months before the election? Is it possible to earn extra credit by skipping this one and moving right on to 2020? The most recent media-consumed fever-dream boils down to Chris Christie versus Hillary Clinton. Although, two weeks ago, Ted Cruz was the presumptive GOP nominee. Didn't Hillary use up her inevitability card in 2008? When she was destined to face off against Rudy Giuliani? How'd that end up? But a lack of consistency hasn't kept the talking heads from jabbering their HD faces off. Money is being raised. Polls conducted. Seriously? Can't we wait until the midterms are over? Winter Olympics? Thanksgiving? Predicting the nominees right now is like betting on what the weather will be like in Wisconsin in April. Ten years from now. If everyone is so damn clairvoyant, why don't they throw some money down on lottery tickets? These modern-day alchemists might be better off focusing their skills on spinning straw into gold. A week in politics is a lifetime. A month is two eternities. But three years is like an afternoon at your great aunt's, while uncle Harry -- with the mole on his nose that 4-inch hairs grow out of -- shows slides of their recent trip to the Azores. We're not talking jumping the gun, this is more like jumping the application of the lane chalk. Think of all the stuff that could happen between now and 2016. By the year 2016, Hillary Clinton could be on trial for domestic abuse. By the year 2016, Chris Christie might have left politics for his one true love, the field of competitive eating. By the year 2016, Joe Biden might have single-handedly pulled six Navy SEALs out of a burning helicopter. And two puppies. By the year 2016, the oceans could rise so high that California and Florida are totally taken out of the electoral equation. exploded. By the year 2016, By the year 2016. the Tea Party might be Democrats might be holding its annual conholding their annual vention in the banquet convention in the banroom of a Casper, quet room of a CamWyoming Applebee's. bridge, Massachusetts By the year 2016, Olive Garden. the primaries may By the year 2016, come down to whoever Jeb Bush might change looks best in a fullhis last name to somebody containment suit. thing less polarizing, By the year 2016, like Hitler. Or Nixon. Mitt Romney could By the year 2016, very well have had a Will the city of Chicago new user-friendly opercould still be in flames ating system installed. from the celebration By the year 2016, that followed the Cubs Elizabeth Warren winning the World might have resigned Series. Probably not. the Senate and moved to China to organize Will Durst is a Apple workers. political comedian who By the year 2016, John Edwards could have found has performed around the world. Jesus and rehabilitated himself. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. Email Will at Probably not. By the year 2016, Rick Perry, durst@caglecar toons.com. in the midst of another execution Check out willandwillie.com for frenzy, may have accidentally the latest podcast. Will Durst's signed an order resulting in his book, "The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing," is available own. By the year 2016, Sarah Palin from Amazon and better might have said something so bookstores all over this great monumentally silly that her head land of ours. Durst Raging Moderate Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Dan Logue, 150 Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, Chico, CA 95928, 530-895-4217 STATE SENATOR — Jim Nielsen, 2635 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico, CA 95928, (530) 879-7424, senator.nielsen@senate.ca.gov GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 5583160; E-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Doug LaMalfa 506 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-2253076. U.S. SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 3930710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224-0454. Commentary Shirking, cheating to get others' bounty Rather than recount the lessons of the first Thanksgiving—wherein a failing, collectivist system producing starvation and poverty was replaced with private ownership and production, producing abundance—let's apply those lessons to the collective Obamacare system. Governor Bradford wrote in his diary of the conundrum of single, healthy men versus men with wives and children under communal production. The family man alone would neither produce, nor need, any more than the single man, but would be entitled, for his family, to several times what the single young man received. Bradford noted the resentment by young single men over the unequal distribution of what was produced by the group; women without children also resented working to help provide for women, with babies and/or children, who could not therefore work. Thievery became common as people sought a larger share of the group's meager resources. Incentive and motivation lagged, replaced by sloth and indolence, as has happened every time people are discouraged from providing for their own needs and abundance. You wonder how this bears on the Obamacare fiasco—the website problems are only hurdles on the way to implementation of the monumental disaster to come. It has simply to do with a ratio of three to one versus five to one: Politicians and technocratic advisors deemed it unfair that older people with quantifiably higher medical expenses should generally pay five times what younger, healthier people pay for insurance. They determined it only fair to limit premiums for older people to three times the younger person's premium. The insurance industry engages in risk analysis over such things, just as they assign the appropriate premiums for life (or death) insurance for younger, compared to older, people. While not rocket science or brain surgery, it does follow exacting calculations. A young healthy man will— due to higher costs under that formula, and a logical aversion to policy benefits he won't need (like maternity care)—be inclined to disregard the "mandate." By adjusting his withholding, he'll not get a refund from the IRS, which will never be able to collect the fee, or "tax." He will, rather, choose far better uses for hundreds of dollars every month, thousands of dollars every year: a car payment, a better apartment without roommates, saving for a down payment on a house or to start a business he's dreamed of creating. Hence, the economic perversity involved in relying on younger people to pay, relatively speaking, far more than they would if the insurance market were dominated by free will, business efficiency and economic selfinterest. When I entered information in the Covered California "shop and compare" calculator, sure enough, the 27 year-old will pay about onethird what a 62 year old would pay. No insurance model could possibly be sold to the general public with such poorly calculated rates. Hence, the focus on "mandates" and providing "subsidies" to ease the burden of artificially higher premiums for a "basket" of benefits that many, if not most people, will find unnecessary. For instance, a couple in their a National Urban League Navigaearly 60s with a $50,000 income tor in Texas who, as a "government-paid worker (is) will have around a supposedly trained to $1500 monthly premiuphold the law." Howevum; they qualify for er, he was recorded about an $1100 subsidy advising "clients on how from other people's to lie on government taxes. Would the people forms, evade legal willing to pay that courequirements, and ignore ple's subsidy please proper procedures." Simwrite a letter to the editor ilar shenanigans were so we can feel assured found in enrollment that the whole tax-andoperations run by Local spend scheme will work 100 United Labor out financially? Who Unions, a "New Orleans wants to step forward Don group run by ACORN and offer to pay the $150 subsidy for a young couPolson founder Wade Rathke." A little larceny to help ple earning $50,000 to The way poorer folks get other defray their $550 people's money? monthly premium? I see it Regarding Covered Then, there's the California: their numbers financial corruption and are simply bogus and not "malingering" by the poorer enrollees. How's that you reflective of actual paid enrollask? "James O'Keefe, the guerrilla ments; the Navigators are awarded videographer who helped bring a $58 bounty for each person down ACORN (the "community enrolled; criminal records do not organizing" group that Barack disqualify someone from becoming Obama worked for as a lawyer and a Navigator; the people running it trainer), and got NPR's president have "no projected model of sucfired, is back." cess—(they) simply don't know (NationalReview.com, "The Truth what demographic mix" or volume about Navigators" 11/11) This is required to be sustainable. HHS Secretary Sebelius admittime, his undercover investigators focused on Obamacare's 'Naviga- ted, "It's possible" that "a convicttors,' the nearly 50,000 people who ed felon could be a navigator and … [per HHS] 'will serve as an in- could acquire sensitive personal person resource for Americans information from an individual who want additional assistance in unbeknownst to them," under shopping for and enrolling in questioning by Texas Republican plans' on the (eventually working) Senator John Cornyn. What could go wrong? Obamacare exchanges." Some $67 million in grants, Don Polson has called Red Bluff some of which is going to a group run by ACORN's highly contro- home since 1988. He can be by e-mail at versial founder, provide the finan- reached cial endowment for, among others, donplsn@yahoo.com.