Romney to Replace Obamacare with...Essentially Nothing

Tommy Christopher (via @rcooley123) at Mediaite has a good catch on Mitt Romney's health care proposals, from an interview Romney gave to Mark Halperin of Time magazine. Asked what would happen to people with pre-existing conditions after he were to repeal Obamacare, Romney said:

If people have been continuously insured, and then they decide to change jobs or change locations, they should not be denied coverage if they go to a new place or have to get a new policy. So people continuously insured should be able to get new insurance.

As Christopher points out, people who have been continuously insured already have this right, and have since 1996, under Title 1 of HIPAA. As he puts it, Romney "is selling you something you already owned." And lest you think maybe Romney just misspoke, you can see the very same words in his platform: "Prevent discrimination against individuals with pre-existing conditions who maintain continuous coverage." So, on the critical question of pre-existing conditions, Romney is offering precisely nothing.

That is hardly the end of Romney's useless ideas on health care. His platform says we should return control over health insurance to the states. In principle, this could be workable; after all, in Canada each province has its own health insurance plan. States are big enough entities to do this: if Prince Edward Island can have its own plan, so could Rhode Island. And there is diversity in the provincial plans: Quebec's covers prescription medicine, while Ontario's does not. But this only works because the federal government has strong conditions on what level of coverage the provinces can provide. Romney, on the other hand, says we should "Limit federal standards and requirements on both private insurance and Medicaid coverage." This is a sure recipe for bad health insurance regulation at the state level.

Another plank in his health care platform is to "Empower individuals and small businesses to form purchasing pools." This will not enable individuals or small businesses to have anywhere near as much bargaining power as the state insurance exchanges in the Affordable Care Act.

Romney also says we should turn Medicaid into a block grant, giving states more flexibility. As Aaron Carroll points out, states acquired a great deal of flexibility with Medicaid during the GW Bush Administration, but have not introduced any great innovations. Why Romney thinks that would change is anyone's guess.

And of course, what would a Republican health care proposal be without the usual references to tort reform, "innovation grants to explore non-litigation alternatives to dispute resolution" (tort reform again), allowing insurance to be sold against state lines (which would weaken state's ability to regulate; isn't that where Romney said authority should be?) and getting rid of the tax deduction for employer-provided health care?

So, instead of the Affordable Care Act, Romney promises to give us what we already have on pre-existing conditions, plus junk to give insurance companies even more control over the health care market than ever.

Jamie Dimon Poll and Follow-Up

The poll results are in on whether Jamie Dimon will resign from the board of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. By a 53%-40% majority, with 7% unsure, readers thought that Dimon would not step down in the wake of the huge supervision failure at JP Morgan, which led to its $3 billion and counting loss.

Meanwhile, the pressure is building for him to resign. Simon Johnson, whose article I first cited on this issue, has written new articles calling for an investigation into JP Morgan, calling for Dimon's resignation, and taking on arguments defending Dimon. Johnson has also started an online petition calling for Dimon's resignation or ouster.

Johnson is hardly alone, however. In recent days, others who have called for Dimon's resignation include former Wall Street prosecutor and New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, Massachusetts Senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren, and today, Kansas City Fed President Esther George said that Fed directors who don't meet high standards should resign, which Johnson tweeted was "huge."

I was one who voted "no" on the poll, but the recent activity makes me think the odds must be increasing. And yes, I signed Johnson's petition.

Kabuki Theater Probably Won't Shake Up NY Fed

Via @MarkThoma, Simon Johnson reports that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has called (very diplomatically, of course) for JP Morgan Chase CEO to resign from his position with the New York Federal Reserve Bank in the wake of risk control failures that have already led to $3 billion in losses for the bank.. Johnson comments:

Mr. Geithner’s call is a major and perhaps unprecedented development which can go in one of two ways.

If Mr. Dimon resigns, that is a major humiliation and recognition – at the highest levels of government – that even the country’s best connected banker has overstepped his limits.  This would be a major victory for democracy and a step towards reopening the debate on financial reform, including introducing more restrictions on what global megabanks can do.

Alternatively, Johnson says, if Dimon manages to stay on to the end of his term December 31, it will mean a defeat for democracy and a victory for the big banks. Of course, there would be nothing new about this: one of the striking developments since the 2008 financial meltdown is that not a single major bank executive in the United States has gone to jail for their wrecking of the global economy. Moreover, the five largest banks in the country have seen their assets increase from $6.1 trillion in 2008 to $8.5 trillion today. By contrast, in Iceland, 200 bank officials, including the CEOs of the country's three largest banks, are all facing criminal charges for their actions leading up to the crisis. To use Richard Fields' terms, Iceland followed the Swedish model (make the banks take charges against profits immediately: bad for the banks, good for the economy) while the U.S. has followed the Japanese model (good for the banks, bad for the economy).

While I have no special insight into the kabuki theater of high official pronouncements, I tend to agree with Johnson's assessment that Dimon will probably remain on the New York Fed board. I say this for no other reason than the fact that, as the NY Fed's website points out, commercial banks who are members of the Federal Reserve System appoint 2/3 of the Board members. Three are appointed by the banks to represent themselves; Dimon is one of these. Another three are appointed by the banks ostensibly to represent the public. The banks selected the co-founder of a technology investment company, the CEO of HealthNow New York, and the CEO of Macy's to represent "the public." Hmm. The final three members are selected by the Fed's Board of Governors to represent the public, but all are presidents of major institutions: Columbia University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Partnership for New York City. So, 2/3 of the Board is selected to represent the public, but I feel pretty safe in saying that all nine Board members are in the 1%.

Readers, what do you think? Will Jamie Dimon resign from the New York Fed? Take our poll and let us know.

Another Romney/Bain Firm Got Subsidies (Then Closed a Plant)

The Tampa Bay Times reports (via Jed Lewison) that another Bain-owned company, Dade Behring, was a recipient of $7.1 million in subsidies from Puerto Rico and the federal government the year before it laid off 300 workers there. A common problem with many subsidized projects, it took the money and ran without any consequences.

As I have pointed out before, another Bain-owned company, Steel Dynamics, received at least $95 million in incentives from state and local governments in Indiana, for two separate investments. In fact, this exceeds the $85 million Bain made in profit from the firm.

Now we have a third example of Bain-owned companies getting government subsidies. For a candidate who claims to be about private enterprise, Romney clearly doesn't walk the walk. As Jed Lewison has noted before, it's clear that when Romney talks about crony capitalism, he's talking about himself.

How many other government subsidies are in Bain's past? Inquiring minds want to know.

Colorado Governor Hickenlooper Vetoes Sales Tax TIF Expansion

Leigh McIlvaine at Clawback reports that Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has vetoed SB 124, a bill that would have expanded the use of sales tax for tax increment financing of tourist projects under the Regional Tourism Act. While subsidy reformers in the state have so far been able to defeat sales tax TIF at the local level (unlike, for example, Missouri), the Regional Tourism Act allows this at the state level, but only for two projects per year expected to bring in tourists from out of state -- not that interstate sales tax competition is such a great use of subsidy dollars anyway.

The bill would have made it possible to approve six projects in a single year. This would weaken oversight of the program since all the projects would have been approved at one time. As McIlvaine points out, the bill was especially controversial because Gaylord Entertainment in Aurora (near Denver International Airport), already heavily subsidized, had applied to receive a further subsidy through the Regional Tourism Act. Gaylord has already lured a major convention, the Western Stock Show, to relocate from Denver.

Gaylord, already in the top 25 subsidies in the U.S. since 2000 (a revised version of my paper on this is almost ready to go back to the journal) at $300 million, is demanding that the state provide the full $85.4 million it has requested under the Regional Tourism Act or the $824 million project will not be built at all. This represents a nominal aid intensity of 46.8% of the investment and, according to Denver Business Journal, is more than twice as high a subsidy as Gaylord has ever received. The Colorado Economic Development Commission must make a decision on this and five other applications for the two awards on May 18.

The Governor's veto ensures that only two projects can be approved this year and allows him to "keep limits on the on the new tax-incentive program before the state committed too much money on an annual basis to tourism projects," as the Denver Business Journal said Tuesday. The story notes that the bill only passed the House of Representatives by a 37-27 vote. This guarantees that the veto will not be overridden.

Though it was a bad move to approve state sales tax TIF at all, Hickenlooper's veto prevents it from becoming a worse problem and slows the likely push to increase total subsidies under the program and weaken the targeting inherent in authorizing only two projects per year. For this, he is to be commended.

Obama Campaign Maps Romney's Tax Havens, (Almost) No One Notices

If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it really happen? That's what you've got to wonder in the wake of this week's (non-)coverage of Mitt Romney's tax haven use.

Via Tax Research UK, The Hill reports that the Obama campaign has published a handy map of presumptive opponent Mitt Romney's tax haven holdings around the world. So Tax Research UK obviously noticed. But a search ("Romney tax havens map) of the premium Nexis database shows virtually no one else did. Agence France Presse ran a story the same day (May 1) and India's The Pioneer mentioned it in a story on May 4, but that's the sum total for the week. Running the same search on Google yields the Tax Research UK article and one at The Political Carnival, plus Bob Cesca picking up The Political Carnival and then Political Ruminations picking it up from him.

Where is the U.S. press on this?

Note: I have a quibble with the Obama campaign's map. Since when were Australia and Germany tax havens? "Overseas" is not the same thing as "offshore." Indeed, Germany has done great work flushing out tax evasion from Liechtenstein by paying an informant to give them information.

Austerity fail: EU unemployment continues to rise: UPDATED

Eurostat, the European Union's statistical agency, reports that unemployment continues to worsen in the Eurozone, adding further evidence for the failure of the world's biggest experiment in austerity. When we last checked in in March, the January data had just been released. This week's release takes us to the end of March.

Select Unemployment Rates

Date     Eurozone     Spain     Greece     Portugal     Ireland     UK     USA   EU-27

1/2012   10.7%         23.3%    19.9%     14.8%      14.8%    8.3%  8.3%   10.1%
3/2012   10.8%         24.1%    21.7%     15.3%      14.5%    8.2%  8.2%   10.2%

Note: Greece and UK figures are for November 2011 and January 2012, rather than January and March
Source: Eurostat, 2 May 2012

 Overall, Eurozone and EU unemployment continue to worsen, although there were reductions in the UK and Ireland. However, both Britain and Ireland returned to recession, along with Belgium, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal.

While Friday's jobs numbers were disappointing, the U.S. is still moving in the right direction, though hardly fast enough, with positive job growth and a falling unemployment rate at 8.1%.

The good news, for both Europe and the U.S., is that Europeans are beginning to wake up to the failure of austerity. The Dutch government has collapsed over its austerity measures, and it appears that Nicholas Sarkozy will go down to defeat for the same reason. As Krugman counterposes to these results, the Right in this country is keeping up a steady drumbeat for austerity It's important that we beat back such calls, or even millions more people will suffer needlessly when their policies increase unemployment.

UPDATE: And Sarkozy goes down in another defeat for the austerity caucus.