GOP misinformation: slow down, I can't keep up!

Republicans, I just can't even keep up with your flagrant disregard of facts and how generously you feed misinformation to your loyal supporters. If you don't like a particular policy of President Obama's, that is perfectly OK. But what's with the hatred of truthiness? Romney's recent attack ads burn me up in so many ways, and on the surface they look like your usual biased nonsense. But the "welfare gutting" ads in particular have been refuted specifically over and over again. I'm mildly frustrated the Romney keeps hammering this idea onto the airwaves, but what's most disturbing is the collective Republican mindset of believing anything, especially if it sounds like a poor person of another race is going to get a free meal on their dime. (Tangent alert: Obama will never come out and say it, so supporters such as myself will have to say it: conservatives, you are flat-out racist on so many issues, and the only people from whom you are sometimes able to conceal it are yourselves.)

Read the full article on NPR, but here's the really disturbing snippet:

"We think that the fact that the work requirement has been taken out of welfare is the wrong thing to do," said Peggy Testa, attending a Tuesday rally near Pittsburgh for Romney running mate Rep. Paul Ryan.

When told that's not actually what had happened, Testa replied: "At this point, [I] don't know exactly what is true and what isn't, OK? But what I do know is I trust the Romney-Ryan ticket, and I do not trust Obama."


Even when Obama gets re-elected, we're still kind of doomed...because the Peggy Testas of the world will still be here.

(Sorry, Peggy Testa, I'm sure you're a very nice lady. Go Steelers.)

"Stupid" single women

Oh Republicans, you've done it again. I had a whole long list of important and not-so-important topics that I was going to tackle this week, but now a congressman and U.S. Senate candidate in Missouri has shot his mouth off and once again it is necessary to talk about the ever-current subject of respect for women.

"Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, the Republican who's challenging Democrat Claire McCaskill for the U.S. Senate seat, said in a television interview Sunday that it's 'rare' for women to become pregnant when they are raped. 'If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,' he said in an interview with KTVI, a St. Louis television station."

Seriously. One could try to explain this as a rogue Republican's singular remark, and that the GOP is not a party full of misogynists, but let's look at just a handful of recent evidence to the contrary:

• The much publicized three-day attack Rush Limbaugh launched against Sandra Fluke earlier this year, calling her a "slut" for testifying to Congress about the benefits of access to birth control.
• Ann Coulter saying that Obama had recruited Sandra Fluke to campaign on his behalf to get the "stupid single women" vote.
• Romney "distancing" himself from Rep. Akin's remarks: "Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan disagree with Akins's statement. Saul told NPR, 'A Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.'" That's fantastic, how about commenting on the fact that Rep. Akin falsely claimed that a woman's body will prevent pregnancy in the event of a rape?

So, Ann Coulter and company, if I were not a "stupid single woman," I would naturally vote for the party who publicly says that it's somehow a failure of my body if I get pregnant as a rape victim? Smart women, by your standards, believe this?

Oh, health care economics...you CRAZY!

My little brush with Michele Bachmann on CBS' Early Show the other day has solidified my morning routine of listening to NPR's Morning Edition: the sweet, sweet sound of logic and facts told through soothing voices.

This morning, NPR did not disappoint: I nearly died when I realized Dr. Patricia Danzon, one of my favorite professors at Wharton, was on Morning Edition! She knows more about health care economics than pretty much everyone in the entire world. The NPR story was about Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney's vacillations on their health care platforms. Given the topic, I knew what Dr. Danzon would say. I had been waiting* for this since the Affordable Care Act sparked the debate over our nation's health care act into a full-on bonfire. The frenzied arguments have died down a bit in recent months, but they're back, baby!

I digress. As I listened to Dr. Danzon's speak, with her smooth British-with-a-hint-of-South-African accent, I thought, "please say it, please say it..."

And she did. Allow me to paraphrase: Health care is already socialized, in the least efficient way possible. And everyone pays for it.

The NPR piece highlights the fact that the individual mandate, vilified as a socialist idea, was actually a Republican concept when first introduced. Romney instated such a mandate in Massachusetts, leading to a population that was 98 percent insured, and Gingrich praised this plan in the past. Now that both candidates are catering to the extreme right, they are falling over themselves to lead the charge against the "socialization" of our health care system.

But our health care system is already socialized, in an extremely inefficient manner. Assume that everyone who walks into an emergency room will be given at least the basic level of care appropriate for their injury or illness. It's perfectly alright to assume this, since this is actually the case all over America. Now, for people who do not have health insurance, when they require medical care they must either pay out of pocket to see a primary care physician (PCP), where costs are more contained, or go to the more expensive emergency room if they are not able or willing to pay. Any of us could do this, but those of us with health insurance go to the PCP unless our condition is truly an emergency. On our health insurance plans, it's much less expensive to go to the PCP. That is, our health insurance plan incentivizes us to go to the PCP. Why? Because the emergency room is an extreme waste of money for any non-emergency health problem.

So who pays for the treatment of those uninsured people who go to the emergency room and then skip out on the bill? We all do. The way this happens can fill a textbook, but essentially we pay for their care through higher health insurance premiums, higher charges at the hospital, and so on. But we're not just paying for a doctor's visit and some antibiotics. We're paying all the costs of emergency care. Logically, we'd be better off if we paid for uninsured people to visit a primary care physician.

Sounds like socialism, but as a country we would pay less for health care and have better results. So, since health care is already socialized, as noted by Dr. Danzon, then what's the problem with a somewhat socialist solution (the Affordable Care Act) to making it more efficient? Is there a better solution via capitalism? I'm not sure if one really exists. This is health care. People's lives. We're not talking about manufacturing or bond-trading here. Different economic principles apply to each industry, and health care is by far the most confusing and rule-defying category.

Why do Romney, Gingrich, and their co-horts insist that the Affordable Care Act needs to be repealed? Why is socialism a dirty word? And is socialism really so bad if, by efficiently providing health care to those who cannot afford it, you also lower your own costs?

*Seriously, every time health care policy was mentioned in any national media outlet, I wondered when they were going to bring on Dr. Danzon. She's THE expert! I took her class on the  economics of the pharmaceutical industry, in which my mind was blown repeatedly, and I worked in her office in the Health Care Management department at Wharton for three years during college.

"Corporations are people." - Mitt Romney

The sad thing is, Romney is my favorite Republican candidate.

I am so sick of the right trying to drum up sympathy for big business, and even more disgusted that voters buy into this. Tell me, why should groups of people and assets (businesses) be protected from taxes that might hurt their profits, but individuals should be expected to stand on their own even if they are a single mother or a cancer patient without health insurance?

This New York Times article is from January, but the point is still relevant about corporate profits not translating to more jobs, and as we've witnessed this year, corporate profits do not necessarily equal greater overall prosperity for the country.

I am not anti-business, nor are the Democrats. I am pro-business; I have an undergraduate degree from Wharton and I've been working in the private sector consistently since graduation. Capitalism is one of the core values that makes America great. Coddling businesses that should (mostly) stand on their own...well, that sounds like some weird Frankenstein socialism for businesses to me.