[Today’s run: 3.4 miles]
We are in the political season again. And once again I find myself spending too much time thinking about politics, reading editorials and news items about the upcoming presidential election.
Last time this happened I was a member of a mailing list called DRM (Dead Runner’s Mind) which was an offshoot of the DRS (Dead Runners Society) list just for talking about politics and philosophy and other non-running stuff. I spent way, way too much time discussing the various political happenings of the day.
I found myself frequently being a minority voice. There were a lot of folks who were very outspoken in their dislike for George W. Bush, US President at the time. And there were very few who held any views like mine. Well, I should say that others may have been out there but they were wiser than me and kept their heads down.
The thing that finally broke the habit for me was when a lady in Maryland (of all places) said that all Republicans were racists and proceeded to make a racist joke of which she seemed to think I would approve.
My political leanings are generally conservative, with sometimes a romantic libertarian streak showing up here and there. I participated in caucus-level activities with the Republican Party while we lived in Colorado. But I definitely didn’t find myself smiling and nodding at everything that came along.
When I woke up this morning the NPR station was airing a report about some new “feature” of the Obamacare law. I guess there is some provision of the law that requires medical insurance companies to spend 80% of their premium funds on medical expenses and a max of 20% on overhead. You know, that sound pretty sensible… until you remember that insurance is a statistical game. Maybe a smaller insurance company that specializes in professional athletes (for example) would be smart to build up a buffer of assets for use when it’s aging policyholders all come looking for joint transplants. Nope, can’t do that.
It is a prime example of my attitude: laws usually have one or two good ideas wrapped up in a whole lot of unintended consequences.
I think it would have been much better to just require a reporting of where premium money goes. Then the insurance customer would have been able to figure it out, like they do with high-overhead charities and mutual funds.
Well anyway, the NPR report was telling about how some states were trying to get a waiver from the federal law so that they would not have to live by the 80/20 provision. (Again… a law that you can ask permission to break. That seems backwards to me, and belittling of what laws are about.)
Yeah. Maybe I can do a better job of being disciplined and not get so involved with political “discussion” this time around.