On Your Marco, Get Set, Go!
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Morning Jolt December 16, 2014 On Your Marco, Get Set, Go! On Your Marco, Get Set, Go! Anytime I post something like this, the comments sections go ablaze with cries of "Amnesty! Amnesty! Gang of Ocho!" Senator Marco Rubio of Florida will gather over 100 Republican donors, fund-raisers and other supporters at a luxury hotel in Miami next month for a two-day strategy session about Mr. Rubio's political future, according to an invitation obtained by The New York Times. The conference, scheduled to begin Jan. 23 at the Delano hotel in South Beach, will be hosted by Mr. Rubio's leadership political action committee, Reclaim America, and it is expected to draw supporters from Washington and South Florida. The event comes as Mr. Rubio and other potential 2016 candidates are quietly but aggressively jockeying for the allegiance of the Republican Party's leading donors and fund-raising "bundlers." I hope he jumps into the presidential race, just to see how he does. He's possibly the most gifted communicator in the Republican party today, and we obviously can't have too many gifted communicators in this field. The really interesting question is how he runs against his political mentor, Jeb Bush.
The Overhyped Obama Bump Over Executive Amnesty Remember when pundits loved Barack Obama? It's been quite a few years now. But I suspect some of the adoration is about to come back. Politically, Obama's immigration gamble is working. Fearful of alienating Hispanics or shutting down the government, Republican leaders have largely abandoned hope of overturning Obama's move. What's more, Obama's approval ratings are up 15 points among Hispanics but have not dropped among Anglo whites. Add immigration to health-care reform and the fiscal stimulus and more commentators will start noticing that, whether you like Obama's agenda or not, it's been the most consequential of any Democratic president's since Lyndon Johnson. The executive amnesty may not have dropped Obama's numbers among "Anglo whites" but that's probably because they already hit the floor. And the bump among Latinos is pretty marginal in terms of the overall electorate. Take a look at Obama's approval in the Real Clear Politics average for the past three months and see if you can spot the amnesty bump. It's harder to find than Waldo: The red line (skipping over "red line" joke)is Obama's disapproval, steady in the low-to-mid 50s. The black line is his approval, steady in the low-to-mid 40s. We often hear the accurate fact that Hispanics or Latinos are the fastest-growing demographic in the United States -- but it's easy to forget that amounts to only 17 percent of the U.S. population, as of 2012. A 15 point bump among that 17 percent of the electorate turns into . . . a 2.5 point bump overall. The Strange Contradiction in the Cries for Campus Justice This morning, the Washington Post reports this story as if it's surprising: As growing numbers of students report sexual violence, those who seek justice through internal channels at colleges are learning that even when allegations are upheld, school officials are often reluctant to impose their harshest punishment on the attackers: expulsion. My naïve first thought was, "Wouldn't expulsion be moot once they're headed off to prison?" Write about this topic, and you're almost certainly going to be accused of insufficient empathy to victims of sexual assault. So let's begin by state everyone who suffers sexual violence deserves care, comfort and justice, and every guilty perpetrator deserves punishment. But I have a hard time understanding why a victim of sexual violence would have no problem reporting a crime to collegiate authorities but simultaneously hesitate to report it to law enforcement. Because law enforcement has everything it needs to handle this sort of crime (at least in theory). I'll bet in just about every city and college town, the local police force has investigated and prosecuted sexual assault cases in the past. They have the tools. They have the experienced investigators. They have the forensics teams. They have crime labs. They have handcuffs and guns to handle violent suspects. They usually have strong relationships with local hospitals and medical facilities. They have district attorneys and prosecutors. Responding to these sorts of crimes is their job. If you have been wronged and victimized in such a fundamental way, why would you entrust the cause of justice to a bunch of university administrators who quite possibly have every incentive to sweep it under the rug? The article gets around to acknowledging this strange contradiction a few paragraphs in: Advocates for the rights of accused students often say that colleges are ill-equipped to investigate sexual assault and that cases should be left to police, prosecutors and criminal courts. Experts say colleges generally are not required to notify police when they hear about alleged sexual assaults. But some Virginia lawmakers have proposed legislation that would mandate reporting such allegations to law enforcement. Federal law, however, requires colleges to respond when students lodge complaints. Some students want police to investigate, but many do not. Regardless of whether they seek a criminal charge, these students want colleges to ensure that campuses are safe and free from intimidation. I don't think you can have "campuses safe and free from intimidation" and have students refusing to report incidents of sexual violence to the police. You've got to pick one. A Lousy Surgeon General Gets Approved The Senate voted 51–43 to approve Dr. Vivek Murthy, President Obama's nominee to be the next surgeon general. The nomination had been held up for about a year, in part due to strong opposition from the National Rifle Association, the wariness of several Democratic senators, and questions about Murthy's experience. According to Senate.gov, a few senators voted across party lines: Democrats Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted "no." Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois voted "yes." Six didn't vote. When you hear Democrats claiming the Murthy nomination was held up by "politics" or "the gun lobby", remind them that the man's qualifications for the job were only slightly better than Obama's embarrassing jokes of ambassadors: Former surgeon general Richard Carmona, who served under President Bush, offered a bluntly harsh assessment that Murthy was "a young man who has great potential, but just a few years out of training, with no public health training or experience" and "a resume that only stands out because he was the co-founder of Doctors for Obama." Carmona went on at length in an op-ed: This is not meant to be personal; in fact, I have never met Murthy. However, at just 36 years of age, Murthy is only a few years out of his residency and has very limited public health education and experience. I believe he is unqualified to effectively serve as the nation's doctor. The U.S. surgeon general is responsible for providing government leaders and the American public with the best scientific information available about how to respond to catastrophic public health events and emerging public health threats, as well as ways to improve their general health and well-being. The surgeon general also oversees the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, an elite group of more than 6,700 uniformed public health professionals whose mission is to protect, promote, and advance the health of our nation. The surgeon general must have the skills and, more importantly, the experience, to inform the government's leaders, educate the American public and help heal the ailing public health sector. Someday, Murthy may very well attain the knowledge and experience to be a trusted surgeon general. However, to put him in this position so early in his career would only serve to weaken the position — and could doom Murthy to failure. Lest you think Carmona is some right-wing hack, note he was the Democrats' Senate candidate from Arizona in 2012. Obamacare's Big Premium Hikes Aren't Stopped, Only Delayed Here's Stephen Parente, a professor of health finance at the University of Minnesota, writing in the Wall Street Journal this morning: Americans visiting Healthcare.gov to purchase 2015 health-insurance plans are finding a nice surprise: Average premiums for the cheap "bronze" plans have increased only by 3.4% and premiums for the middle-of-the-road "silver" plans are rising by 5.8%, according to the American Action Forum. Where are the double-digit premium increases that so many predicted? Check back around this time in 2016. That's when you'll see the real spikes. The Affordable Care Act includes two temporary programs that make compliant health-care plans temporarily appear far cheaper than they are: Risk corridors and reinsurance. Both programs will expire on Jan. 1, 2017. By November 2016, consumers will know how that sunset will affect their plan's premium. Risk corridors and reinsurance are simple concepts: They subsidize insurance companies with taxpayer money. With the former, the taxpayer is covering the difference when patients spend more on health care than insurance companies predicted. With the latter, taxpayers are paying for the most expensive patients—those that make more than $45,000 in claims annually. In a telling move, the White House quietly expanded the risk-corridor program earlier this year, implying that health-insurance companies are losing billions of dollars on ACA plans. This is why premiums on Healthcare.gov are cheaper than many predicted. The taxpayer's generosity allows insurance companies to hide the true costs of the plans. But this will likely end when both programs expire in two years. At the same time, the exemptions issued by the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services—including the exemptions that allowed millions of consumers to keep noncompliant plans that would have been canceled—will also expire on New Year's Day, 2017. ADDENDA: If you're not already listening to the Three Martini Lunch podcast, know that starting on December 23 and through the beginning of 2015, Greg Corombus and I will be naming our award winners for 2014 -- using The McLaughlin Group's old categories: Most overrated political figure of the year, most underrated, most honest, sorry to see you go (significant passing of 2014), the rising political star, the figure fading into oblivion, worst scandal, best political theater, worst political theater, best idea, worst idea, boldest tactics; the most underreported story, over-reported story, and the best story of the year; the person of the year, turncoat of the year, and resolutions for 2015.
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