Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty March 31, 2014 Russia to Kiev: Okay, Komrade, Here's How It's Going to Be Heads up: Tomorrow is April Fool's Day. If, at any point starting Tuesday morning, you hear news that seems implausible or impossible, exercise appropriate caution. Happy Obamacare Deadline-ish Day. CNN's Jim Acosta reports this morning: 
Perfect. Old traditions die hard, huh? A lot harder than this website. Russia to Kiev: Okay, Komrade, Here's How It's Going to Be Boy, this doesn't sound ominous at all! "Russia on Sunday night repeated its demand that the US and its European partners accept its proposal that ethnic Russian regions of eastern and southern Ukraine be given extensive autonomous powers independent of Kiev as a condition for agreeing a diplomatic solution to the crisis over its annexation of Crimea." And if the Ukranian government says no… is Moscow going to send those troops over the border? Meanwhile, elsewhere in the hemisphere, another troublemaker is yelling for attention: A day after raising the possibility of further nuclear tests, North Korea has engaged in provocative live-fire exercises near the South Korean maritime border, leading to an exchange of fire between the two neighbors. Health Care's Cost Curve Is Turning into a Squiggly Line, Mostly Moving Upward May 2013: Health care's "cost curve" is bending down! Credit Obamacare! "National health spending grew by 3.9 percent each year from 2009 to 2011, the lowest rate of growth since the federal government began keeping such statistics in 1960," reports the Kaiser Family Foundation. Early data suggest that the numbers held into 2012. So the curve hasn't just bent; it has bent more than ever. September 2013: Health care's "cost curve" is bending back up again! Blame Obamacare! Last week, the Obama administration's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a rather different prediction: that "the [Affordable Care Act] is projected to . . . increase cumulative spending by roughly $621 billion" from 2014 to 2022. To be clear, that's spending on top of the normal health-care inflation that would have happened if Obamacare had not been passed. So much for "bending down the cost curve," as the president often liked to say his law would do. November 2013: No, no, health care's "cost curve" is bending down again! Credit Obamacare! The White House issued a 29-page report that says, among other things, the once out-of-control health spending trends in the U.S. have been tamed to the point where medical inflation is just over 1%. Health spending growth is the lowest on record, the report contends, up an average annual rate of 1.3% over the past three years. That's less than one-third the historical average dating back to 1965. Today: Health care's "cost curve" is bending back up again! Blame Obamacare! Health care spending rose at the fastest pace in 10 years last quarter, a development that could foreshadow higher costs for consumers this year. Expenses for health care rose at a 5.6% annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said last week. The jump triggered a sharp upward revision in the government's estimate of consumer spending overall and accounted for nearly a quarter of the economy's 2.6% annualized growth in the last three months of 2013. Driving the increase was an $8 billion rise in hospital revenue — more than the previous four quarters combined, according to the Census Bureau and Royal Bank of Scotland. RBS economist Omair Sharif says the increase in hospitals' income was puzzling because the number of inpatient days dipped 1% during the fourth quarter. Fewer patients, staying in the hospital less time, and paying more. In the meantime, thank you, Obamacare. U.S seniors — those aged 65 and older — have moved from a reliably Democratic group to a reliably Republican one over the past two decades. From 1992 through 2006, seniors had been solidly Democratic and significantly more Democratic than younger Americans. Over the last seven years, seniors have become less Democratic, and have shown an outright preference for the Republican Party since 2010. Gee, do you think it has anything to do with the fact that Obamacare is cutting Medicare? When Does the Media Connect the GM Recall to the GM Bailout? GM's defective cars are getting a heck of a lot of coverage in print media, but for some reason, it hasn't broken through as much of a television news story. The good news is that the investigation is proceeding quickly, and evidence is mounting that the company knew about a problem with these switches for a long time and didn't tell consumers or buyers who were driving the cars: Congressional staff investigating the widening General Motors ignition switch recall of 2.2 million vehicles said Sunday there are indications GM approved the design of the switches in 2002 even though the company was aware they did not meet specifications. Investigators also said records indicate that in 2005 — after GM opened an internal probe into issues reported with the switches — the company considered addressing the problems but that a GM engineer said it would be "close to impossible to modify the present ignition switch." Even so, GM personnel signed off on a change largely addressing the problem just the following year. The revelations raise even more questions about why GM and federal regulators didn't act sooner to address what appears to have been a longstanding problem associated with defective ignition switches linked to 13 deaths and 31 crashes. Several families of people who died in crashes are considering lawsuits and at least one class-action suit regarding the vehicles has been filed as well. For what it's worth, it appears federal regulators were shrugging off the concerns long before the GM bailout: NHTSA is under fire for not moving more quickly to force a recall. Federal regulators had received hundreds of complaints of cars stalling over the years and, as early as 2005, ordered an investigation into a crash where a 16-year-old girl died in a Cobalt, and the air bags did not deploy. According to e-mails, in September 2007, a top official in NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation proposed a deeper look into "frontal airbag non-deployment in the 2003-2006 Chevrolet Cobalt/Saturn Ion," saying there was "a pattern of reported non-deployments." GM, however, said it did not see a pattern and Office of Defects Investigation officials later that year determined that there was no discernable trend to the incidents and decided against a more formal investigation. This doesn't get the President Obama's Task Force on the Auto Industry, which put together the GM bailout, off the hook. At this point it appears that they put together a $49 billion bailout — ultimately costing U.S. taxpayers $10.5 billion when the government sold its shares of stock — without knowing anything about these defective switches, the dangerous cars on the road, or the enormous liability issues these cars presented. GM CEO Mary Barra is to testify before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee at a hearing Tuesday. Will anyone ask her if anyone at GM shared the information about these switches with the Task Force? Did the Task Force do its appropriate due diligence in investigating potential liability issues with GM, or was their mission a straightforward instruction to do whatever it took to preserve the jobs of the United Auto Workers? Why Do We Have to Cover Every Potential Presidential Candidate, Again? Our John Fund writes: Joe Scarborough, a former representative from Florida who is now a talk-show host on MSNBC, traveled to New Hampshire this month for a series of high-profile appearances in the nation's first presidential-primary state. He did nothing to discourage speculation that he would re-enter politics, and he sold a fair number of copies of his new book The Right Path in the process. "Public people used to be politicians or celebrities," writes media critic Michael Wolff in the British newspaper The Guardian. "But there is now a separate category. If you are identified with certain opinions and an ability to express them, and if you can build yourself an audience, a partisan fan base — measured through social media — then you are an official opinionator, monetizable through books, television contracts, and the speaking circuit. This is why, even knowing you will not, in this life, be president, you run for president." You know, my colleagues in the media, we have a choice here. We don't have to cover everybody who hints and winks and nods and suggests and teases that they might be running for president. We have the right to insist this is a binary choice: y=You're either running for president or you aren't. If you are, we'll treat you like a candidate. If you aren't, we won't, and you're not running until you make the official announcement and file the appropriate papers with the FEC. None of this free-ride extra-layer-of-publicity-for-your-book-tour stuff. Fund continues: Huckabee's success prompted others to jump into the 2012 race. Newt Gingrich gave up his Fox News gig and impressed many with his debate performances and his victory in the South Carolina primary. He ended his race for the nomination even better known and with a new job co-hosting the revival of CNN's Crossfire debate show. Herman Cain, an African-American business executive, briefly enjoyed front-runner status in the GOP field before withdrawing over a personal scandal. After the election, he became a successful radio-talk-show host and the head of a political-action committee. Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota wrote a book about her life experiences, it was timed for release just as her campaign for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination began in earnest. Yeah, we don't have time for every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wants bigger speaking fees and a radio gig cluttering up the 2016 Republican presidential debate stage. A potential president needs something besides a couple of canned zingers, a ghostwritten book, and a wardrobe of appropriate suits. The stakes are too high. The junior varsity can stay home. ADDENDA: Way to go, Maryland: "On Tuesday, Maryland will begin the process of replacing its troubled exchange, which has had so many problems since its launch on Oct. 1 that officials have decided it would be better to start anew. Maryland had more than two years to create its first exchange, which has cost $125.5 million to build and operate, according to the exchange's spokeswoman."
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