One of the items jammed into the new health care reform law is a 10% tax on indoor tanning services starting July 1. I rarely say this about new taxes, but in this case, Bravo!
I've stated many times before that taxes are generally bad, and should be opposed unless they are used to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, or promote the general welfare. Granted, that last one is way too flexible, but I take "promote the general welfare" to mean good roads, schools, water, etc, AND that we should not be encouraging people to voluntarily harm themselves in a way that requires society to pick up the tab.
That's exactly what tanning salons do. They drill a body with harmful UV rays that promote skin cancer, which eventually leads to increased medical care, the costs of which eventually will be borne directly or indirectly by society through higher private medical premiums and/or indigent medical care from taxpayers.
The con argument is the same crazy one that smokers use to complain about the cigarette tax. Instead of "I have a right to smoke," it's "I have a right to tan." Well then, society has a right to tax you because it will be paying for your dumb decisions later.
Another con argument out there sounds more logical, but is actaully even more ridiculous. That's the idea that we don't tax people who don't wear helmets when riding motorcycles, which is a lot riskier. But the thing is, when motorcylists crash without helmets, they usually die, and society bears no ongoing medical cost.
To be fair, I think we should slap the same tax on some other things. Fast food restaurants come to mind. If we're keeping it real, the fatty foods and soft drinks they sell are enablers for everything from diabetes to heart disease. Ingesting that stuff is a choice to have an unhealthy lifestyle, just like smoking and tanning, and choices have consequences that should not be socialized.
So for all you indoor tanners out there who feel like it is better to look good than to feel good, thank you for your vanity, and thank you for the new source of federal tax revenue!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Obligatory UNI Post
This week the United States reformed its health care system. Here is my analysis: I think....
Waaahhh! Wait a minute! The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) Panthers made the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Sweet 16 by beating heavily favored Kansas. Gotta mention that.
Not much in sports is going to top seeing an underdog Iowa group beat down one of the best teams in the country, and get all kinds of attention for it. I suppose it would have been better if they had beaten a more hated team, a team known for cheating coaches and/or players.
I happened to watch the game at a bar with friends and family, and it was possibly the most fun I've ever had watching any sporting event on TV. Loud cheering, drinks, and a gratifying outcome is a great combination. Factor in the pathetic state of the other D-I men's basketball programs in Iowa, and you suddenly have the biggest group of bandwaggoning fans in Iowa history.
But not me. I'm focusing my attention on health care reform.
After the game.
Waaahhh! Wait a minute! The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) Panthers made the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Sweet 16 by beating heavily favored Kansas. Gotta mention that.
Not much in sports is going to top seeing an underdog Iowa group beat down one of the best teams in the country, and get all kinds of attention for it. I suppose it would have been better if they had beaten a more hated team, a team known for cheating coaches and/or players.
I happened to watch the game at a bar with friends and family, and it was possibly the most fun I've ever had watching any sporting event on TV. Loud cheering, drinks, and a gratifying outcome is a great combination. Factor in the pathetic state of the other D-I men's basketball programs in Iowa, and you suddenly have the biggest group of bandwaggoning fans in Iowa history.
But not me. I'm focusing my attention on health care reform.
After the game.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
It's Not Wellmark, Chester, It's You
Many Iowans are up in arms over a proposed health insurance increase from the dominant insurer in the state, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield. The average 18 percent increase in premiums would affect roughly 80,000 Iowans with individual policies.
One thing we've learned over the past 3 years is that when bad news comes knocking at Iowa's door, Governor Chester Chet Culver is going to lurch (not leap) into action. In this case he sent a letter to Insurance Commissioner Susan Voss, expressing concern about the increase, and asked Voss to hire an independent actuary to review Wellmark's proposed increase. Wellmark has agreed to delay the increase for 30 days. Yea.
Let me interpret: We are going to spend tax dollars on a study to do work that we already spend tax dollars for within the department of insurance. Genius! Is it no wonder that when he was introduced to the crowd at the boys state basketball tournament game I attended last week, he was lustily booed.
To be sure, there is plenty of bipartisan brow-furrowing at Wellmark, including by republican Senator Chuck 'Don't Turn Off the Switch on Grandma' Grassley, who accepts plenty of insurance PAC money. It's all an act, and no study or hissy fit it going to help. They know that health care is basically a zero sum game that doesn't work out for most people. 20% of insureds are going to soak up 80% of the costs, which means 80% of the insureds are paying premiums to subsidize the other 20%.
However, there are some things that politicians could do to lower costs, like pass tort reform. An even better one is setting an example by living a healthy lifestyle, eating right and exercising..... which brings me back to Iowa's overweight governor, not to mention its cigarette-smoking first lady.
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Culver: If you want to improve health care costs and make Iowa a better state, how about you living a healthier lifestyle and being an exemplar for the state? That will do far more good than wasting our tax dollars on reactionary politics for a study that is going to do no good whatsoever. If you want to see why health care costs are rising, you need a mirror, not a study.
One thing we've learned over the past 3 years is that when bad news comes knocking at Iowa's door, Governor Chester Chet Culver is going to lurch (not leap) into action. In this case he sent a letter to Insurance Commissioner Susan Voss, expressing concern about the increase, and asked Voss to hire an independent actuary to review Wellmark's proposed increase. Wellmark has agreed to delay the increase for 30 days. Yea.
Let me interpret: We are going to spend tax dollars on a study to do work that we already spend tax dollars for within the department of insurance. Genius! Is it no wonder that when he was introduced to the crowd at the boys state basketball tournament game I attended last week, he was lustily booed.
To be sure, there is plenty of bipartisan brow-furrowing at Wellmark, including by republican Senator Chuck 'Don't Turn Off the Switch on Grandma' Grassley, who accepts plenty of insurance PAC money. It's all an act, and no study or hissy fit it going to help. They know that health care is basically a zero sum game that doesn't work out for most people. 20% of insureds are going to soak up 80% of the costs, which means 80% of the insureds are paying premiums to subsidize the other 20%.
However, there are some things that politicians could do to lower costs, like pass tort reform. An even better one is setting an example by living a healthy lifestyle, eating right and exercising..... which brings me back to Iowa's overweight governor, not to mention its cigarette-smoking first lady.
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Culver: If you want to improve health care costs and make Iowa a better state, how about you living a healthier lifestyle and being an exemplar for the state? That will do far more good than wasting our tax dollars on reactionary politics for a study that is going to do no good whatsoever. If you want to see why health care costs are rising, you need a mirror, not a study.
The Nonprofit World
If you follow the news closely enough, you're bound to read almost weekly about a case of financial scandal and/or embezzlement. And if you're keeping track, it doesn't usually involve the Enrons of the world. While the national media gives notoriety only to the biggest, the reality is that 4 out of 5 times these scandals invlove nonprofit institutions.
According to a 2008 New York Times report by Stephanie Strom, fraud and embezzlement in the non-profit charitiable sector account for a loss of $40 billion a year. It's an eye-opening read at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/us/29fraud.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=strom+light&st=nyt
Before I get back to that article, let me say that I worked at a not for profit organization for 12 years. It was not a charitable organization, but it still relied on the kindness of strangers ('members') to provide the operational compensation and infrastructure. These 'members' were not individuals, but rather other organizations that banded together in the name of sharing services. Those other organizations, of course, got their funding from either end-use customers and/or taxpayers.
While this sounds like a great money-saving idea, in practice it doesn't work so well. Whether it's a nonprofit charittable entity, or a not for profit trade association, or (egads!) a governemntal entity, it lacks two things that matter the most to successful organizations: Competition and oversight. Without competition, no one has any external motivation to be above average, and eventually the organization will be run based on jumping over the lowest bar possible.
But to get back to the New York Times report mentioned earlier, it's oversight that's the real problem. Even though I was directly involved in more than one annual audit each year as a benefits/finance director, I could identify many instances where the wrong person in the right place could have misappropriated or embezzled funds. Even if that didn't happen, on many occasions I witnessed our executive director allow member dues to be used for questionable expenditures. The best example was always sending him or his favorite friends/employees to resorts for all-expense-paid conferences at which no one had any business attending. The board of directors either wasn't told or didn't care about this, after all, they got to go to some of those conferences, too. Take my word for it, this happens frequently at nonprofit/govermental institutions.
I was reminded of this again over the weekend when a financial scandal was revealed at the Iowa Association of School Boards. It's a classic case of lack of oversight in one of the most non-competitive worlds out there, public schooling. And it makes me ill, because it's another waste of my tax dollars. (Follow the trail....I pay property taxes, which go to my school district, which uses them to pays dues to the Iowa Association of School Boards, which misappropriates them.)
Anyone living in central Iowa will also remember the CIETC scandal of a few years ago, when a state jobs training agency was exposed to have misspent millions in Iowa taxpayer dollars. At least people went to jail for that, although I don't recall getting my tax money refunded.
Let's all wake up and smell the coffee. We don't need better oversight of nonprofits/associations/governments - we simply feed fewer of them and the noncompetitive, non-oversight world in which they exist.
According to a 2008 New York Times report by Stephanie Strom, fraud and embezzlement in the non-profit charitiable sector account for a loss of $40 billion a year. It's an eye-opening read at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/us/29fraud.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=strom+light&st=nyt
Before I get back to that article, let me say that I worked at a not for profit organization for 12 years. It was not a charitable organization, but it still relied on the kindness of strangers ('members') to provide the operational compensation and infrastructure. These 'members' were not individuals, but rather other organizations that banded together in the name of sharing services. Those other organizations, of course, got their funding from either end-use customers and/or taxpayers.
While this sounds like a great money-saving idea, in practice it doesn't work so well. Whether it's a nonprofit charittable entity, or a not for profit trade association, or (egads!) a governemntal entity, it lacks two things that matter the most to successful organizations: Competition and oversight. Without competition, no one has any external motivation to be above average, and eventually the organization will be run based on jumping over the lowest bar possible.
But to get back to the New York Times report mentioned earlier, it's oversight that's the real problem. Even though I was directly involved in more than one annual audit each year as a benefits/finance director, I could identify many instances where the wrong person in the right place could have misappropriated or embezzled funds. Even if that didn't happen, on many occasions I witnessed our executive director allow member dues to be used for questionable expenditures. The best example was always sending him or his favorite friends/employees to resorts for all-expense-paid conferences at which no one had any business attending. The board of directors either wasn't told or didn't care about this, after all, they got to go to some of those conferences, too. Take my word for it, this happens frequently at nonprofit/govermental institutions.
I was reminded of this again over the weekend when a financial scandal was revealed at the Iowa Association of School Boards. It's a classic case of lack of oversight in one of the most non-competitive worlds out there, public schooling. And it makes me ill, because it's another waste of my tax dollars. (Follow the trail....I pay property taxes, which go to my school district, which uses them to pays dues to the Iowa Association of School Boards, which misappropriates them.)
Anyone living in central Iowa will also remember the CIETC scandal of a few years ago, when a state jobs training agency was exposed to have misspent millions in Iowa taxpayer dollars. At least people went to jail for that, although I don't recall getting my tax money refunded.
Let's all wake up and smell the coffee. We don't need better oversight of nonprofits/associations/governments - we simply feed fewer of them and the noncompetitive, non-oversight world in which they exist.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
School Administrators Gone Wild
This week a Des Moines metro high school is in the news for suspending a student-athlete from activities, as outlined under their code of conduct, for being at a party where alcohol was present. But that's not why the school and student are in the news - they're in the news because the (ha-ha) parents of this (ha-ha) student-athlete won a court injunction to keep the kid playing in the state basketball tournament.
My take on this could go many directions. For instance, this being another example of how there are no bad kids, only bad parents. But this is actually a better example of a point I've tried to make for years, counter-intuitively, of how foolish it is for schools to try to have 24/7 authority over students.
There are very few high schools around Iowa, if any, that don't apply their code of conduct rules all day, every day, regardless of whether the conduct occurred at a school activity or not. This is one of the dumbest, non-academic decisions a school could make. It can't be uniformly enforced to begin with, and it's unfair to both kids and parents, good and bad.
Discipline is a 24/7 parent/guardian responsibility, not 24/7 a school responsibility. Just because some parents/guadians choose not to be responsible for their children, that does not give schools the default right to discipline them. Of course, I'm fine with schools getting into the act for those things that happen on school property or at school-sponsored functions. But outside of that, I don't want schools trying to parent my kids, thank you very much.....and I do not grant them permission to do so!
When exactly did it happen that schools decided to be the boss of me and my kids, all day and all night, 365 days a year? Because I want to get into a time machine to go back and club those responsible over their collective heads. Sorry, schools, but it's not your job, as much as you apparently want it to be.
I know nothing of whether the teenager in this particualar situation is a good egg or a bad seed, but it doesn't matter. Even though it might feel good and right to suspend this kid - there's no denying that he knew the rules and consequences - I reject the premise the rules should be in place to begin with.
In this case, as of this writing, true justice has prevailed.
My take on this could go many directions. For instance, this being another example of how there are no bad kids, only bad parents. But this is actually a better example of a point I've tried to make for years, counter-intuitively, of how foolish it is for schools to try to have 24/7 authority over students.
There are very few high schools around Iowa, if any, that don't apply their code of conduct rules all day, every day, regardless of whether the conduct occurred at a school activity or not. This is one of the dumbest, non-academic decisions a school could make. It can't be uniformly enforced to begin with, and it's unfair to both kids and parents, good and bad.
Discipline is a 24/7 parent/guardian responsibility, not 24/7 a school responsibility. Just because some parents/guadians choose not to be responsible for their children, that does not give schools the default right to discipline them. Of course, I'm fine with schools getting into the act for those things that happen on school property or at school-sponsored functions. But outside of that, I don't want schools trying to parent my kids, thank you very much.....and I do not grant them permission to do so!
When exactly did it happen that schools decided to be the boss of me and my kids, all day and all night, 365 days a year? Because I want to get into a time machine to go back and club those responsible over their collective heads. Sorry, schools, but it's not your job, as much as you apparently want it to be.
I know nothing of whether the teenager in this particualar situation is a good egg or a bad seed, but it doesn't matter. Even though it might feel good and right to suspend this kid - there's no denying that he knew the rules and consequences - I reject the premise the rules should be in place to begin with.
In this case, as of this writing, true justice has prevailed.
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