US CO2 Emissions Lowest in Decades! Environmentalists Howl in Pain!

US CO2 Emissions Lowest in Decades!


Environmentalists Howl in Pain!


The U.S. Department of Energy, of Solyndra and A123 fame, revealed (to NO notice from the MSM) that during our "recovery," U.S. CO2 emissions have dropped to their lowest level in DECADES!

Even more ignored (if that is possible) is that the reduction is due to [i][b]MARKET FORCES[/i][/b], rather than government subsidies, giveaways, loans and grants!


“U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from energy use during the first quarter of 2012 were the lowest in two decades for any January-March period. Normally, CO2 emissions during the year are highest in the first quarter because of strong demand for heat produced by fossil fuels.”
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=7350

Various government and industry officials have attributed the reduction to the increase in the availability of natural gas as a substitute for coal-fired power generation. (Thank God for fracking.)

“[G]overnment officials say the biggest reason is that cheap and plentiful natural gas has led many power plant operators to switch from dirtier-burning coal.
...
Both government and industry experts said the biggest surprise is how quickly the electric industry turned away from coal. In 2005, coal was used to produce about half of all the electricity generated in the U.S. The Energy Information Agency said that fell to 34 percent in March, the lowest level since it began keeping records nearly 40 years ago.”
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-08-16-Gas%20Drilling-CO2%20Drop/id-83889b1f24bc4c679349118b9b6fcee1

Of course, climate scientists and the MSM were caught completely off-guard. In their eyes, the only solution to man-made problems is more government intervention and spending (their bread and butter).

“Many of the world's leading climate scientists didn't see the drop coming, in large part because [i][u][b]it happened as a result of market forces[/i][/b][/u] rather than direct government action against carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere.

Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, said the shift away from coal is reason for "cautious optimism" about potential ways to deal with climate change. ...Mann called it "ironic" that the shift from coal to gas has helped bring the U.S. closer to meeting some of the greenhouse gas targets in the 1997 Kyoto treaty on global warming, which the United States never ratified.
...
"There's a very clear lesson here. What it shows is that if you make a cleaner energy source cheaper, you will displace dirtier sources," said Roger Pielke Jr., a climate expert at the University of Colorado.

In a little-noticed technical report, the U.S. Energy Information Agency, a part of the Energy Department, said this month that total U.S. CO2 emissions for the first four months of this year fell to about 1992 levels.”

And, despite internal criticism, and the Obama administration's attempts to adopt IPCC and UN standards as our own, the international community acknowledges that the US is leading the way in cleaner energy production.

“The International Energy Agency said the U.S. has cut carbon dioxide emissions more than any other country over the last six years. Total U.S. carbon emissions from energy consumption peaked at about 6 billion metric tons in 2007. Projections for this year are around 5.2 billion, and the 1990 figure was about 5 billion.”
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-08-16-Gas%20Drilling-CO2%20Drop/id-83889b1f24bc4c679349118b9b6fcee1

Even so, leave it to environmentalists to see the cloud instead of the silver lining, as they bemoan the turn away from more subsidies to better market economics. With lower costs and fewer emissions, a lot of their government and "progressive" funding has dried up or been diverted to other issues. So, they cry out that phenomenally better CO2 results are OK, but 'what about all the other bad stuff that might happen?'

“Environmentalists say that the fluids can pollute underground drinking water supplies and that methane leaks from drilling cause serious air pollution and also contribute to global warming. The industry and many government officials say the practice is safe when done properly. But there have been cases in which faulty wells did pollute water, and there is little reliable data about the scale of methane leakage.

"The Sierra Club has serious doubts about the net benefits of natural gas," said Deborah Nardone, director of the group's Beyond Natural Gas campaign.

"Without sufficient oversight and protections, we have no way of knowing how much dangerous pollution is being released into Americans' air and water by the gas industry. For those reason, our ultimate goal is to replace coal with clean energy and energy efficiency and as little natural gas as possible."

Wind supplied less than 3 percent of the nation's electricity in 2011 according to EIA data, and solar power was far less. Estimates for this year suggest that coal will account for about 37 percent of the nation's electricity, natural gas 30 percent, and nuclear about 19 percent.

Some worry that cheap gas could hurt renewable energy efforts.”
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-08-16-Gas%20Drilling-CO2%20Drop/id-83889b1f24bc4c679349118b9b6fcee1

And guess what? Fast on the heels of Jim Hansen's (faulty and wrong) NYT op-ed that "it's too late to turn back" without massive government intervention, Michael (Hockey Stick) Mann applauds the results and is actually cheered that the markets are doing what governments and Kyoto Protocols never could!

“Despite unanswered questions about the environmental effects of drilling, the gas boom "is actually one of a number of reasons for cautious optimism," Mann said. "There's a lot of doom and gloom out there. It is important to point out that there is still time" to address global warning.”
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-08-16-Gas%20Drilling-CO2%20Drop/id-83889b1f24bc4c679349118b9b6fcee1

No wonder the New York Times, MSNBC, and their ilk have ignored this remarkable and remarkably important change.

Do Not look for this soon on your favorite newsstands.


jw

Bordergate? Did Eric Holder lie to Congress? Did Obama know?

Eric Holder testified that he “probably” only learned about Gunrunner in “the last few weeks,” but took credit for it in 2009. President Obama, who provided $10 million "stimulus" money and $11 million for 2011, says neither of them knew about it

At a May 3 House Judiciary Committee hearing, Attorney General Holder, under questioning by House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), testified that he had “probably” only learned about Operation Fast and Furious in “the last few weeks.”

He had similarly deflected questions from CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson in March. In a letter, the Justice Department said the agency has never knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to suspected gunrunners.

However, Holder described in detail how Project Gunrunner would operate when he spoke to an anti-arms smuggling symposium April 2, 2009 in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels. My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner, DEA is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion. DHS is making similar commitments, as Secretary Napolitano will detail

.

What's more, in a Department of Justice paper, the ATF explained in September, 2010 the Obama administration's justification for Gunrunner and its Phoenix offshoot, "Fast and Furious."

In response to the increased trafficking of firearms from the United States to Mexico, ATF developed Project Gunrunner, a firearms trafficking and firearms-related border violence strategy designed to deny drug trafficking organizations access to U.S. firearms.

…

[O]ver the past few months enforcement strategies (and other guidance) that address firearms trafficking to Mexican cartels have been developed and released by the White House and the Department of Justice. It is essential that ATF efforts support strategies promoted by the White House and Department of Justice. An examination of these and other strategies reveals similarities among the strategies, but also suggests that some revisions to ATF’s current strategy are necessary.

Nevertheless, President Obama in March told the Spanish language broadcaster, Univision, that his administration had nothing to do with distributing arms to the Mexican cartels.

"I did not authorize it; Eric Holder, the attorney general, did not authorize it. He's been very clear that our policy is to catch gun-runners and put them into jail," Obama said.

Obama said that he would hold someone responsible if, indeed, a mistake was made.

"We have to make sure that we're enforcing the kinds of measures that will stop the flow of guns and cash down south that is helping to fuel these transnational drug cartels," he said.

"There may be a situation here in which a serious mistake was made," he said. "If that's the case, then we'll find out and we''ll hold someone accountable."

The Gunrunner program was a significant part of the "stimulus" funding package that Obama pushed through Congress earli in his administration. Out of a total $40 million inspecial appropriations for law enforcement, one-quarter of it was for the Gunrunner projrct.

Obama signed the measure almost immediately after its passage

The relevant text of H.R.1 provides:

For an additional amount for ‘State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance’, $40,000,000, for competitive grants to provide assistance and equipment to local law enforcement along the Southern border and in High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas to combat criminal narcotics activity stemming from the Southern border, of which $10,000,000 shall be transferred to ‘Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salaries and Expenses’ for the ATF Project Gunrunner.

Other media sources report that this represented only part of the total funding, and that more was requested for 2011.

Despite warnings from the DOJ inspector general that tracking and assessment measures needed improvement, the payroll exploded from a few dozen to more than 200 by 2009. Under the Obama administration, ATF reaped another $21.9 million to expand Project Gunrunner (nearly half from the stimulus boondoggle), and the White House has requested almost $12 million more in fiscal year 2011 appropriations for the program.

The Phoenix, Arizona portion of the Gunrunner program began in 2009, and allowed smugglers to purchase weapons at legitimate gun dealers, often under law enforcement surveillance,and then allowed the smugglers to deliver them to Mexican drug cartels. ATF agents were ordered not to stop the purchases, intercept the smugglers, or to retrieve the weapons.

On Dec. 14, 2010, two rifles sold to one of the smugglers turned up at the scene of the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. The FBI then traced the rifles back to Operation Fast and Furious.

Issa and Grassley have advised Holder that they will continue their investigation into the Justice Department's involvement and that of its personnel.

It is a much more serious matter to conceal from Congress the possible involvement of other agencies in identifying and maybe even working with the same criminals that Operation Fast and Furious was trying to identify.

The Last Voice of Reason? Richard Lindzen: A Case Against Precipitous Climate Action

Last year in Cancun, politicians agreed to gather in and divide up more than $100,000,000,000 per year to "avert" climate disaster. This, the result of political and scientific "analysis" of the effects of minute temperature changes over the past few decades, and on speculation, manipulation and "proxy data" (i.e., made up to fill in gaps) to model trends for the future of the climate.

MIT Professor of Meteorology, Richard Lindzen believes it is an unwarranted and insupportable reaction to a "catastrophe" made up to serve other purposes than prediction of climate changes over time, or man's effects on them.

He sums up this hysterical scenario:

"The fact that the developed world went into hysterics over changes in global mean temperature anomaly of a few tenths of a degree will astound future generations. Such hysteria simply represents the scientific illiteracy of much of the public, the susceptibility of the public to the substitution of repetition for truth, and the exploitation of these weaknesses by politicians, environmental promoters, and, after 20 years of media drum beating, many others as well."

thegwpf.org...

But, the AGW faithful will retort, small changes accumulate - there is "feedback" that magnifies effects beyond what data show to be true.

To which Lindzen points out:

"For small changes in climate associated with tenths of a degree, there is no need for any external cause. The earth is never exactly in equilibrium. The motions of the massive oceans where heat is moved between deep layers and the surface provides variability on time scales from years to centuries. Recent work (Tsonis et al, 2007), suggests that this variability is enough to account for all climate change since the 19th Century.
...
Climate is always changing. We have had ice ages and warmer periods when alligators were found in Spitzbergen. Ice ages have occurred in a hundred thousand year cycle for the last 700 thousand years, and there have been previous periods that appear to have been warmer than the present despite CO2 levels being lower than they are now. More recently, we have had the medieval warm period and the little ice age. During the latter, alpine glaciers advanced to the chagrin of overrun villages. Since the beginning of the 19th Century these glaciers have been retreating. Frankly, we don’t fully understand either the advance or the retreat."

No, the high priests of AGW will argue, there is a "consensus" that says man is destroying the atmosphere with CO2.

Lindzen notes:

"When an issue like global warming is around for over twenty years, numerous agendas are developed to exploit the issue. The interests of the environmental movement in acquiring more power, influence, and donations are reasonably clear. So too are the interests of bureaucrats for whom control of CO2 is a dream-come-true. After all, CO2 is a product of breathing itself. Politicians can see the possibility of taxation that will be cheerfully accepted because it is necessary for ‘saving’ the earth. Nations have seen how to exploit this issue in order to gain competitive advantages. But, by now, things have gone much further."

While Professor Lindzen acknowledges errors in some of his earlier research, he uses independent data and the research of other experts to provide the scientific explanations against blind faith in the AGW theory.

The science for and against AGW is NOT settled; high priest Phil Jones says so himself!

Cogent factual analysis of the current responses, and summaries of the underlying data and studies on BOTH sides of the argument, as presented in this recent report, are well worth consideration by AGW advocates as well as non-believers who find themselves drawn into the hysterics.

deny ignorance
jw

"The Social Cost of Carbon" Tax Scheme: Barack Obama Secretly Sneaks Carbon Tax on Almost Everything!

In 2006 "econometrist" Nicholas Stern published a widely-criticized economic study that served as the foundation for the imposition of carbon taxes in various forms in the EU and UK, stifling economic growth and doing little to help in carbon remediation.

In February 2010, the Obama administration quietly and surreptitiously set in place significant regulation and taxation of CO2: "the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC)."

According to economist Frank Ackerman, “it is the most important number you’ve never heard of.”
www.e3network.org...

This is precisely the politicization of CO2 environmentalism for which Stern has since been criticized and many of his conclusions discredited.

Between the middle of 2009 and February 2010, hand-picked members the Council of Economic Advisers, the Office of Management and Budget, the Council on Environmental Quality, National Economic Council, Office of Energy and Climate Change, Office of Science and Technology Policy,
the Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Transportation and Treasury — but no outside organizations -- cobbled together, with no public debate, a private "consensus" on how to price carbon in the U.S.
www.miller-mccune.com...

"The SCC figure adopted last February is $21per ton of CO2 (about two weeks' use of your car). The value has already been applied to standards for fuel efficiency, and tailpipe emissions. It will be figured into any carbon mitigation strategy, whether cap and trade, cap and dividend or carbon tax."www.miller-mccune.com...

It has also been applied to new appliance efficiency costs and standards, and is being considered for industrial and power-generation applications as well. The initial rate in the UK was approx. $43/ton; it is now closer to $125. Once imposed, the "creep up" is inevitable.

(Think back to 2009, when OMB was estimating costs of carbon tax -- they "guessed" up to $8,000+/year!)

Have you noticed higher gasolines prices? SCC adds at least $0.20 per gallon!
Has anyone else seen higher electric, heat or food prices?

And, this is when the Feds were warning about deflation. As with everything else about the Obama administration, say one thing, do the opposite!

The catch is that the added costs have been slipped into our regulatory apparatus unannounced and without public debate!

Law professors Jonathan Masur and Eric Posner (Obama's ex-colleagues from the Univ. of Chicago) decry this type of "Feasibility Analysis" as opposed to more open and traditional "cost-benefit analysis."

(Didn't Obama just get raves from the MSM for espousing cost-benefit analysis?)But, he employs a criticized analytic that these legal scholars call "unsuitable for government."

Masur and Posner elaborate:

"[w]e stumbled upon the fact that the government is in effect regulating carbon through the SCC.
...
[T]he sensible thing to do would be to have a national discussion on how to price carbon, [but wonder if] the Obama administration deems this discussion politically impossible or politically dangerous. Inherent in the SCC number are moral and diplomatic judgments as well as scientific and economic uncertainties. Therefore, it reflects some very political decisions that are probably best made in a political way by political actors. But these were made very quietly in a room among agency heads and economists."

  "Feasibility Analysis"

There was a time for public comment, but it came during discussions about rules for fuel economy and emissions related to the Clean Air Act, and not during a specifically designated climate process.

Ackerman says, "A decision was made through the interagency task force with almost no one knowing that it was happening. There’s no office that claims credit, no website that explains anything about it. This crucial number, which turns out to be the fulcrum for climate policy, was decided in secret by a task force with no names attached to it.”

www.e3network.org...

Seems like regardless of your "faith" in AGW, the Obama administration has already written the basic rules governing the prices we will pay for our lifestyles for the foreseeable future.

They're just not going to tell you that they are doing it.
Why would anyone need to use force or threats when we do not even see it happening.

The extra $0.20 per gallon is accepted. The added $5.00 per month for heat and light are not even noticed.

This is the perverse beauty of the "feasibility analysis" (Read: "What can we get away with?"), as opposed to the "cost-benefit analysis" Obama claims he's applying to all regulations!

Even his former Chicago School of Law cronies have called him on it. But, where's the MSM? Where are the headlines and expose's?

We are being lied to and taking it in the ass without even a whimper or a little vaseline. 

I hate to tell you this, but if you think the unrest in the Middle East is due to Islamist sentiment, you are in for a horrible shock.

The revolts we are witness to today are the result of oppressive government and powerlessness. It is spreading. It will cross into the former Soviet Union, move into the Western European countries strugglig to keep afloat and employed, and jump across the Channel.

Once the UK falls, it will "jump the pond." I saw this coming before the inauguration. It is all but inevitable. 


deny ignorance

jw

Did Obama's National Intel Chief Lie to Congress, or is He Just Incompetent?

Why on Earth would James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, tell the United States Congress that the Muslim Brotherhood is a non-secular, pacifist organization?

The director of the United States' intelligence operations would be well-prepared to advise us of the political and social implications of the Egyptian unrest, and so we would expect a frank appraisal of the influence of the major coalition, the "Muslim Brotherhood."

What Congress received, and the MSM echoed, was the DNI's "assessment" that the Muslim Brotherhood was "non-secular" and "peaceful."

This flies in the face of the Muslim Brotherhood's avowed Islamic religious direction and its support of the murderous Hamas and Iranian regimes that espouse the annihilation of infidels.

Clapper is either a bald-faced liar or has adopted a politically-correct (and equally untrue) position of appeasement of the most-likely ascendant political-religious organization in the region.

James Clapper, the head of intelligence for the United States of America, has explained to Congress that the Muslim Brotherhood is “largely secular.” It further has “eschewed violence,” decries al-Qaeda as a “perversion of Islam,” and really just wants “social ends” and “a betterment of the political order in Egypt.”
...
This is the Muslim Brotherhood whose motto brays that the Koran is its law and jihad is its way. The MB whose Palestinian branch, the terrorist organization Hamas, was created for the specific purpose of destroying Israel — the goal its charter says is a religious obligation. It is the organization dedicated to the establishment of Islamicized societies and, ultimately, a global caliphate. It is an organization whose leadership says al-Qaeda’s emir, Osama bin Laden, is an honorable jihad warrior who was “close to Allah on high” in “resisting the occupation.”

www.nationalreview.com...

After 18 days of indecision and lack of commitment, have we now accepted the influence of radical Muslims as "the Law of the Land" in the Middle East?

As with any political organization, stating a "principle," and adhering to a tenet are two different matters.

Much as I hate to cite Wikipedia as a "source," the history continues:

... [S]tarting in 1936, it began to oppose British rule in Egypt. Many Egyptian nationalists accuse the Brotherhood of violent killings during this period. ...
...
"General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America" makes the objectives of the MB clear: "The process of settlement is a 'Civilization-Jihadist Process' with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

en.wikipedia.org...

Hamas grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious and political organization founded in Egypt with branches throughout the Arab world.

www.cfr.org...

Want more?

The Brotherhood has not only described itself as an Islamist group, committed to implementing Sharia law, it spawned Egyptian Islamic Jihad -- which offed Anwar Sadat in 1981 and later joined forces with al Qaeda. Another Brotherhood offshoot is Hamas, the terrorist group that holds Gaza in its bloody grip. It's no fan of the Camp David peace accords with Israel, either.

www.nypost.com...  

deny ignorance.
jw

Are Barack Obama’s “Dreams” Ruining America?

The President's own words, laid out in his books before he sought any office, may explain why those who adored him are disappointed, and those who feared him are convinced they were right.
It appears that the "Dreams of [his] Father" are the key to understanding Barack Obama's actions as President, and what he sees as the future of America and American government.

Theories abound to explain the President's goals and actions. Critics in the business community--including some Obama voters who now have buyer's remorse--tend to focus on two main themes. The first is that Obama is clueless about business. The second is that Obama is a socialist--not an out-and-out Marxist, but something of a European-style socialist, with a penchant for leveling and government redistribution.
These theories aren't wrong so much as they are inadequate. Even if they could account for Obama's domestic policy, they cannot explain his foreign policy. The real problem with Obama is worse--much worse.

Dinesh D'Souza, "How Obama Thinks" www.forbes.com...

With election season uponus, we are getting a reminder of “the Campaigner Obama,” whose rhetoric once galvanized and energized a core of liberal American support as it never had been before.
It also brings to mind the warnings that I and others had tried to spread that all was not as it seemed with Barack Obama II. More than once, I have implored those who seek to understand his true motivations and aspirations to read and contemplate Obama’s past; both as a politician and as an author.
Today, many once avid, if not rabid, followers are disillusioned. Those who saw in him a threat to American greatness and leadership, and as an antagonist, at best, of capitalism and free markets have seen their worst fears and predictions realized.
Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative scholar and author, has provided what may be the best insight into what, exactly, shapes Barack Obama’s vision and plans for his presidential agenda and the future of this country. It will ring true to those on both sides, and will reveal the underlying agenda driving Obama in his “transformation” of America.

What then is Obama's dream? We don't have to speculate because the President tells us himself in his autobiography, Dreams from My Father. According to Obama, his dream is his father's dream. Notice that his title is not Dreams of My Father but rather Dreams from My Father. Obama isn't writing about his father's dreams; he is writing about the dreams he received from his father.

How Obama Thinks

As he related in his first book, President Obama's life and goals are driven by the “Dreams From My Father,” Barack Obama, Sr.:
D’Souza sums it up thusly:

Clearly the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. goes a long way to explain the actions and policies of his son in the Oval Office. And we can be doubly sure about his father's influence because those who know Obama well testify to it. His "granny" Sarah Obama (not his real grandmother but one of his grandfather's other wives) told Newsweek, "I look at him and I see all the same things--he has taken everything from his father. The son is realizing everything the father wanted. The dreams of the father are still alive in the son."

How Obama Thinks


We can trace the elder Obama’s life as an anti-colonial leader and activist, showing how the focus of his rage against “imperial” governments shifted from the Europeans to the United States; and, how these feelings have colored and influenced all of his son’s actions as an adult, in and out of government. In fact, you could take some of the father’s own words, and easily work them into one of the son’s speeches:

"We need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now."

The senior Obama proposed that the state confiscate private land and raise taxes with no upper limit. In fact, he insisted that "theoretically there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed."
Remarkably, President Obama, who knows his father's history very well, has never mentioned his father's article. Even more remarkably, there has been virtually no reporting on a document that seems directly relevant to what the junior Obama is doing in the White House.

Do his father’s views really fit in with Obama’s present-day principles?

From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America's military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father's position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America's power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe's resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet.
For Obama, the solutions are simple. He must work to wring the neocolonialism out of America and the West.

Now, we have a conservative scholar laying out, in simple terms, not only where Barack Obama comes from, but where he plans to take us, and the rest of the world.

It’s not too late to gain a deeper understanding of the man in the office of the Chief Executive of the United States. It may be too late to do much about it, though.

jw

Dinesh D'Souza, formerly of the Hoover Institution and Stanford University, is currently the President of The King's College in New York City.  D'Souza is a noted conservative who has described conservatism as

"the belief that there are moral standards in the universe and that living up to them is the best way to have a full and happy life."

Mitch Daniels sounds off on health care reform bill

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has spoken out recently on several occasions about the effects of federal health care legislation on states’ economies, and on the effectiveness of consumer-driven health care, such as under programs in effect in Indiana.

Daniels signed landmark health care legislation during his first term, called Healthy Indiana, providing health insurance for those who earn too much for Medicaid but too little to afford their own coverage.  Under the plan, the state contributes permanent funds to individual health savings accounts.  Participants may also contribute; and when the account is depleted, a catastrophic insurance plan kicks in to cover any additional expenses.  The plan promotes preventive care and encourages citizens to become more value-conscious consumers of health care.  A similar plan offered to state employees now has over 70% participation (including the Governor); and only 3% have chosen to opt-out for an alternative PPO.

Appearing on Fox News’ “Journal Editorial Report” with Wall Street Journal editor Paul Gigot, Daniels spelled out his belief that Indiana’s legislative contingent should turn down the pending federal legislation.  One of his greatest concerns is for the state’s programs.  Calling the federal bill “very ill conceived,” Daniels went on to add that, “[Indiana’s] program for uninsured citizens would be wiped out,” by passage of the healthcare reform bill.

Calling the proposed reforms “a vey large mistake,” Daniels said he would advise his state’s Congressional delegation to focus more on incremental improvements, adding that he believed that health care reforms (such as the Indiana HSA program) should “individualize tax benefits” and “trust people more with their own decisions about their own health.”.

In an interview with CBS’ Nancy Cordes, Daniels emphasized the contrasts between current health care programs and the Indiana HSAs: “It's our current system that favors the wealthy and the healthy.  [Healthy Indiana] … respects the autonomy and dignity of its participants.”  Daniels also noted, "It's saving a lot of money for the employee and the employer."

Mitch Daniels takes a populist position that health care consumers are the best decisions makers where costs and choice of health care are concerned.  He wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, “The Indiana experience confirms what common sense already tells us.  … There will be no meaningful cost control until we are all cost controllers in our own right.  Americans can make sound, thrifty decisions about their own health. If national policy trusted and encouraged them to do so, our skyrocketing health-care costs would decelerate.”