Obama hearts atheists (sort of)

From Steve Benen:

THIS WEEK IN GOD.... First up from the God Machine this week was a rare White House meeting, between Obama administration officials and prominent atheists. (via Ron Chusid)

President Barack Obama has burnished his Christian credentials, courted Jewish support and preached outreach toward Muslims. On Friday, his administration will host a group that fits none of the above: America's nonbelievers.

The president isn't expected to make an appearance at the meeting with the Secular Coalition for America or to unveil any new policy as a result of it.

Instead, several administration officials will sit down quietly for a morning meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus with about 60 workhorses from the coalition's 10 member groups, including the American Atheists and the Council for Secular Humanism. Tina Tchen, the director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, and representatives from the Justice and Health and Human Services departments will participate.

Coalition leaders are billing their visit as an important meeting between a presidential administration and the "nontheist" community.

The Secular Coalition for America called the meeting "the first time in history a presidential administration has met for a policy briefing with the American nontheist community."

The Catholic League, which is offended for a living, condemned the gathering. "People of faith, especially Christians, have good reason to wonder exactly where their interests lie with the Obama administration," professional complainer Bill Donohue said. "Now we have the definitive answer." Donohue described attendees as "anti-religious activists" who would like to "crush Christianity if they could."

It's a long way from admitting that atheists deserve equal rights and lobbying that Christians do (I know, try not to laugh). But it's a hell of a lot better than the last guy who lived at the White House did. Also, check out this column from Kristof on the role of faith-based organizations in doing actual humanitarian work. It caused me to re-examine some of my prejudices.

Update: Health care antitrust laws

Robert Reich makes the case for ending the antitrust exemptions for health insurance companies that I mentioned in the "competition" section of my note on health care reform economics:

This can’t be the whole story, because big health insurers are making boatloads of money. America’s five largest health insurers made a total profit of $12.2 billion last year; that was 56 percent higher than in 2008, according to a report from Health Care for America Now.

It’s not as if health insurers have been inventing jazzy software or making jet airplanes. Basically, they just collect money from employers and individuals and give the money to providers. In most markets, consumers wouldn’t pay this much for so little. We’d find a competitor that charged less and delivered more. What’s stopping us? Not enough choice.

More than 90 percent of insurance markets in more than 300 metropolitan areas are “highly concentrated,” as defined by the Federal Trade Commission, according to the American Medical Association. A 2008 survey by the Government Accountability Office found the five largest providers of small group insurance controlled 75 percent or more of the market in 34 states, and 90 percent or more in 23 of those states, a significant increase in concentration since the G.A.O.’s 2002 survey.

Anthem’s parent is WellPoint, one of the largest publicly traded health insurers in America, which runs Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in 14 states and Unicare plans in several others. WellPoint, through Anthem, is the largest for-profit health insurer here in California, as it is in Maine, where it controls 78 percent of the market. In Missouri, WellPoint owns 68 percent of the market; in its home state, Indiana, 60 percent. With 35 million customers, WellPoint counts one out of every nine Americans as a member of one of its plans.

Yesterday, the House passed this exact repeal, by a 406 - 19 margin!

I think this is a hopeful sign pointing towards changing the system, but we'll wait and see...

These vote to filibuster a bill, then vote FOR the bill...

Steve Benen makes a great catch: six sitting United States Senators, paid a very handsome salary with lavish benefits, vote to filibuster (kill) a bill, then, once it makes it past the filibuster, vote FOR the bill.

These senators supported a filibuster, but approved of the bill they tried to block:

Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)
Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)
James Inhofe (R-Okla.)
George LeMieux (R-Fla.)
Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
Roger Wicker (R-Miss.)

(Two more GOP senators -- Orrin Hatch of Utah and Richard Burr of North Carolina -- missed Monday's vote, but joined with Dems today.)

So, we're looking at six conservatives who voted against a jobs bill before they voted for it.

This, alas, isn't especially new. For a year now, Republicans have repeatedly tried to block up-or-down votes on all kinds of bills and nominations, only to vote in support once their obstructionist tactics are defeated. For petty partisans like these GOP clowns to block votes on measures they end up voting for anyway is the height of cynical and pointless obstructionism.

What an embarrassment.

Indeed. But the party of Beavis and Butthead is shameless.

The case for health reform

Partisanship aside, the underlying question of why health insurance premiums are so high in America can be explained fairly easily by textbook economics. The solution to the problem is universal coverage, as has been known for decades, by lowering the average risk of the insured. The fact about the way that all insurance works is this: there are only two ways to reduce average premiums -- 1) increase the number of people who are in an insurance pool, 2) reduce the cost of the service/good being insured. Those who disagree aren't just wrong politically and morally, but are ignorant of basic economics. Krugman and Pollack explain the economics of recent increases in California insurance premiums in plain language, below are the economics concepts to consider:

The curse of being a (grown-up) Democrat

The GOP is using a filibuster on almost literally every vote in the Senate now. CNN confirmed Obama's SOTU claim that from 1949 to 1970, there were only 30 instances of using the filibuster -- and never more than 7 in any two-year session, while in 2009 alone, there were 39 by Republicans. This causes massive paralysis in our political process, where a 59-vote majority is not enough to get things done, leading to the public's cynicism with "the way Washington in broken"...hey, why would they do that?

Easy answer: their incentive is intrinsic to their ideology, which states that government is dysfunctional and cannot help people. If they can help perpetuate that belief by, for instance, preventing 70 qualified people from being appointed to necessary government posts by having an up-or-down vote in the Senate, they will. If they can turn a serious debate over substantive policy into an anti-intellectual joke, they will. By actually making government broken, they fulfill their own prophecies and attempt to cut off the possibility of hopefulness. By being the party of Beavis and Butthead, Republicans make government the butt of a joke, which ironically turns into their favor by running on a platform that says, "Elect me to be a joker. How can you hope for change?" That way, politicians who promise actual results and good things for the country are never believed (or elected). By exploiting cynicism, they win a political battle, but lose the larger war.

The burden of being the grown-up party is believing -- and actually behaving as if -- government must be force for good in its citizen's lives. That's why liberals conceded so much on health insurance reform: it is much more important to get something done to fix the broken system than to allow it to continue as it is over disagreements. And it's both the curse and the blessing of being right about policy matters that you become responsible for getting them enacted anyway when your opposition obstructs you for no good reason. I just hope our Senate doesn't become a Polish joke.

Big Surprise

Religious people don't like atheists:

Most Americans accept interracial marriage, but many people of faith say they would be troubled by a family member’s decision to marry an atheist, the Pew Research Center reports.

Seven in 10 Americans associated with a religion said they would either be bothered, but come to accept such a marriage (43 percent) or not ever accept (27 percent) it, the poll found.

Meanwhile, slightly more than a quarter of religious Americans (27 percent) said they “would be fine” with a relative marrying a person who did not believe in God.

While black Americans are the most likely to accept interracial marriage, among people of faith, they are more uncomfortable with marriage to an atheist compared to whites and Hispanics, researchers reported in the study released Jan. 12.

In general, people who attend religious services at least once a week are less likely to approve of marriage to a nonbeliever: 16 percent of weekly worshippers would be fine with a marriage to an atheist, compared to 36 percent of people who attend less frequently.

Among frequent worshippers, whites are less likely than blacks, and far less likely than Hispanics, to approve of marriage to an atheist. Eleven percent of white frequent attenders, compared to 16 percent of blacks and 35 percent of Hispanics, said it would be fine if a relative married a nonbeliever.

The last acceptable bigotry in modern America: maligning atheists.

Massachusetts: GO VOTE FOR COAKLEY (D)

Yes, she's made gaffes. She misspelled her own state's name in a commercial and called Curt Shilling a Yankee. Compare that to Brown: he's a freakin' teabaggin' Birther! But for God's sakes, people, she will lower your healthcare premiums and keep Republicans from filibustering literally every single bill the Dems want to pass until Obama is done. You voted for change in '08. Get off your asses and make sure it happens.

Brown may be favored by polling to win, but that assumes that you won't go vote!!!