YouTube Video Volunteers + PtP readers discuss healthcare, financial industry

On a personal note…

I find it a tough time to be blogging.

Chaos seems rampant. I guess I don’t know what I was expecting out of Iran, but the fact that the death of an innocent woman is serving as a unifier unsettles me. On the one hand, it’s encouraging and inspiring to see a people that won’t back down. On the other hand, it just seems like things will get more violent before they get settled. And I find that aspect of human nature unfortunate.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is snarling, bickering, fear, and sobering problems. Is it just that I wasn’t paying attention before? Has my hobby heightened my awareness of the world’s problems? And what’s my responsibility in all of this? I’m no expert on wars, economics, or social issues. I have access to what everyone else has access to. So what can I offer?

North Korea threatens Hawaii with a missile. Expensive legislation after expensive legislation keeps getting proposed and passed, which makes it difficult to assuage fiscally conservative friends. News in general is just…a bummer.

Maybe it’s just a troublesome couple of weeks in the world. Maybe this week will end on a better note.
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Comments from the PtP community

Speaking of better notes, Obama says an agreement with the pharmaceutical industry will make prescription drugs for people on Medicare more affordable. The drug companies’ investment supposedly covers some of the cost of the proposed health plan.

In that vein, I recently polled readers to get different opinions on topics as complex as healthcare. Here is an excerpt from a response by my old friend “Regina Mancard”, as posted on Phil the Pill’s Facebook fan page.

As a lifelong user of the military plan I’m in favor of adopting that model to the country. You may recognize this plan under it’s more common name of “Socialized Health Care”. The majority of the bill is footed by the government, with dental and other specialized care treated in system, or by civilian specialists with a low co-pay.
The website is: http://www.tricare.mil/

I’ve been on this system my whole life as a military dependent, and it’s worked very well. I can often get same day appointments, or short-notice appointments when I need care immediately, and the system for bigger issues is reasonably efficient. Certainly as good as any other HMO plan. Of course, I also live in the DC-Metropolitan area, so when my local Fairfax clinic is unable to solve my medical issue of the moment (i.e. allergies, mysterious pains from an unknown injury, cancer) I have access to Walter Reed Army Hospital, Bethesda Naval Hospital, or any other facility in the DeWitt system. It’s been a great help on overseas travel to countries with bases (Italy, Germany) if only for the peace of mind….

….To me, insurance is primarily for those regular check-ups, inoculations, and minor illness or injury moments. Everyone does need emergency coverage of some kind, but those routine checks are the biggest thing to worry about at the moment. People can talk all they want about not getting in car accidents never being mauled by a jungle cat, but ignoring those annual/biennial/triennial check ups (woman’s wellness, prostate, even a physical) is what will lead to the surprise cancer or other crisis.

…As for the soundbites about “socialist” health care, the kind they use in those awful countries like the UK and France– I don’t see the complaints coming from out there. It’s not a perfect system by any means; there can be long lines, paperwork and miscommunications, but those happen in all hospitals. Yes, it will cost trillions, and some years before the system is set up and functioning, but consider then the cost that taxpayers aren’t paying annually or monthly to employers or insurance companies.

You want to argue that the average tax payer shouldn’t have to pay for others? Fine, play the selfish tax payer card. Except that this is your health care too.

I think she raises several good points, even if the situation is unbearably complex.

I just want a situation where I can have access to a doctor without paying out the nose for being a certain demographic or for my genetics being a certain way. It’s not that private industry is hopeless. But I believe assuming that private industry by itself will offer that is naïve.

I also asked about these latest financial regulation proposals. The man I trust the most on this topic is Peirce and he gave a great response on a post that was mostly about Keyboard Cat.

The effectiveness or the ineptitude of the new financial regulation proposed under Obama depends entirely on the details. Many of the proposals such as requiring hedge fund managers to register with the SEC or marrying economic interests between lenders and borrowers can fall in the range of constructive to dangerous.

For example, President Obama suggested regulating lenders so that they must hold on to all or part of the loans and mortgages they distribute. While its true that this will contain one of the catalysts for the recent financial collapse, reckless lending, it will on the other hand limit a company’s lending abilities to size of the its capital giving an astronomical advantage to large banks over smaller regional banks. This trend could create more companies “too big to fail” with time at the cost of permanently stabilizing the asset-backed financial industry.

In summary, the effectiveness of Obama’s new regulation is limited to the wisdom and foresight in the regulatory bodies’ overseers. Overall, Obama was mature in his description of the financial collapse and where responsibilities lie – refreshingly uncharacteristic of politicians and media of late.

Well said, but this idea of the industry retracting into a few major banks is the stuff of dystopian nightmares. I hope the regulation does not result in concentrated resources in a few hands, but in a healthy market with several competitors. Here’s a few bullets on the Obama plan from the WSJ article linked above:

• –Creates a new bank agency, the National Bank Supervisor, and kills the Office of Thrift Supervision. The new agency will look over national banks, including federal branches and agencies of foreign banks.
• –Requires hedge funds, private-equity funds and venture-capital funds to register with the SEC, allowing the agency to collect data from the firms.
• –Subjects hedge funds to new requirements in areas such as record keeping, disclosure and reporting. The oversight would include assets under management, borrowings, off-balance sheet exposures.
• –Brings the markets for over-the-counter derivatives and asset-backed securities into a regulatory framework, strengthens regulation of derivatives dealers and forces trades to be executed through public counterparties, such as exchanges.
• –Toughens the regulatory regime, including more conservative capital requirements and tougher rules on counterparty credit exposure.
• –Creates Financial Services Oversight Council, which would coordinate activities among regulators, replacing the President’s Working Group.
• –Ensures that any financial firm big enough to pose a risk to the financial system would be heavily regulated by the Federal Reserve, including regular stress tests.

• –Creates a new agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, with broad authority over consumer-oriented financial products, such as mortgages and credit cards. The new agency would work with state regulators.
• –Gives the new agency power to write rules and levy fines based on a wide range of existing statutes.
• –Strengthens SEC’s framework for investor protection by expanding the agency’s powers to beef up disclosures to investors, establish a fiduciary duty for broker-dealers who offer advice and expand protection for whistleblowers, including a fund that would pay for certain information.
• –Creates a mechanism that allows the government to take over and unwind large, failing financial institutions.
• –Creates a formal process for deciding when to invoke this power, which could be initiated by the Treasury, Fed, FDIC or SEC.
• –Gives authority to make the final decision to the Treasury, with the backing of other regulators.
• –Gives the Treasury the authority to decide how to fix such a failing firm, whether through a conservatorship, receivership or some other method.
• –Taps the FDIC to act as conservator or receiver, except in the case of broker dealers or securities firms, in which case the SEC would take over.
• –Recommends that various international bodies implement the Group of 20 recommendations, including requiring banks to hold more capital.
• –Urges that national authorities standardize oversight of credit derivatives and markets.
• –Urges other countries to follow the U.S. lead and: subject systemically significant companies to stricter oversights

Keep the comments coming, guys. Best points get props in the posts.
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Magnanimous Monday

YouTube is launching an initiative called YouTube volunteers, which, in theory, could get Tay Zonday and Dramatic Chipmunk to join forces and make videos to help NPOs and good causes. Here’s the intro video starring the vlogbrothers:

Pretty cool. I’d do it myself, but [Excuse 1] and [Excuse 2], etc. Basically, I’m not 100% confident in my video editing abilities and I’m in such dire straits, if I’m not getting paid, I’d be practically a charity case myself.

But if YOU’VE got the time and ability to help out, it seems like a really good opportunity. Hey, tell you what, comment with a link to a video you made for Video Volunteers and I will shout it out in a post.
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Results of the Bee-in-the-Urinal Poll

What do you do with a bee sticker on a urinal?

Aim for it 64% (9 votes)

Avoid it 7% (1 votes)
Find another urinal 14% (2 votes)
Other: 14% (2 votes)
Picture (Thumbnail?) of the Day

Quote of the Day
“The World Sucks. Help it suck less.” – vlogbrothers