Precommittal and Health Care

So usually we associate pork with defense spending and bridges to nowhere. But the worst is the sort of pork arises from the inability for Congress to stand up and make important policy decisions on something very expensive, and that is health care.

Yet, pork lost today in the United States Senate. The Senate voted down the F-22, a fighter that really is not so helpful. I am a very pro-defense person. But, I would rather spend money and political capital on making it easier to do intelligence work (including fixing our wiretapping statutes to clarify and make it easier to view, but that's for another day) than on a fighter jet that is useful only against the Chinese, and that we have a lot of already.

The F-22, like so many weapons systems, is built in almost every state in the union, making it very hard to strip out. Yet, stripped out it was, because who knows.

Ruth Marcus says that the same though has to happen in Medicare. Congress must make decisions that are tough that essentially harms jobs and wealth in their states and districts. But, there is a way to do this, and that is the idea of an independent agency (and really it must be independent of the branches but get some sort of consent from the other branches). This is the IMAC idea.

Marcus is positive that perhaps, in light of this, Congress may see the light. I hope she is right.