Jim's Political Rants and Solutions

Immigration Reforn

2013-11-12T00:13:00.001-08:00

A simple common sense immigration reform approach should (but probably won't) appeal to conservatives, as well as to Democrats.

(1) Revert to the quotas we had before World War I, retroactively.

That System had unlimited admission, subject only to not being a felon in the country of origin and to not being indigent on arrival. (Oh, we would have to get rid of exclusion of asians.)

(2) Register immigrants voluntarily, and restrict access to publicly paid services.

Those trying to Register would be subject to review to guarantee they are not criminals, insane, or terrorists, and perhaps have money to live on or employment offers. Those already in the country could Register on the same basis.
Public services (other than emergency health care) would be restricted to those registered for some appropriate time period, say 2 (negotiable) years.
Unregistered aliens coming to emergency health care would be treated and subject to Registration Review, then either registered or deported.

Positives for this system
(1) Eliminate discrimination embodied in current quotas.
(2) Eliminate deportation of alien family members, disrupting families.
(3) Eliminate need for border protection against those coming to work,
(4) Allow enhanced security at the border against terrorists. (Since there would be no need to sneak in to get work or rejoin family, those trying to sneak in would likely be criminals or terrorists. The numbers would be low and thus easier to police)
(5) Eliminate those trying to come to get access to free welfare etc., because of the waiting period.
(6) Allow alien temporary workers to return home and reenter US without violating the law.
(7) Provide obvious path to citizenship, without penalty for wanting to be US citizens.

Los Angeles Downtown Trolley

2013-11-11T23:26:00.001-08:00

The proposed downtown Electric Trolley in LA is probably unnecessary, given the existence of bus service including Dash transit in the area. But if there is to be one, the expense of relocating infrastructure and installing trolley wires is a bad and unnecessarily expensive idea.
Instead they should use self contained electric vehicles, powered by rechargeable batteries, which can be readily located under the floorboards, and recharged nightly. The daily distance travelled by these vehicles is small enough to be handled by batteries alone. Further, it would provide a test bed and incentive for battery development.
Trolley wires blight their neighborhoods, and are costly and unneeded.

ObamaCare

2013-11-11T23:21:00.002-08:00

The biggest lies about Obamacare (ACA) are (1) that it was created by Obama and (2) that is is about health care.

In fact it was created by massive political "compromise" (read giveaways) in the Congress, modeled on Romney's plan in Mass. and modeled after the Heritage Foundation Republican "free market" answer to Democratic health care proposals, to try to get Republican support. (It didn't get any).

It was only signed into law by Obama, with lots of poison pills built in.

The ACA is, in fact, simply an insurance company regulation act, with some built-in subsidies to make it more affordable by the young, healthy, and poor.

The next biggest lie is that Obama lied when he promised that you could keep your insurance if you liked it. In reality, the substandard policies that existed were grandfathered in. They could even raise rates to keep them active. Dropping those policies was purely a decision by the insurance companies - not something required by ACA. Would Republicans support legislation to force insurance companies to continue selling policies that they wanted to drop? Not likely. Or would they support legislation to have the government take over those policies and offer them to the customers? (Single Payer, Socialized Medecine, etc.) Not likely.

What was actually needed was a single payer system based on aa known effective model with lower costs and prior public acceptance - "Medicare For All" But that was dropped early on.

A huge cost item under the previous system which remains under the ACA is that doctors and hospitals need to bill using a multiplicity of different forms and codes required by individual insurance companies, forcing the hiring of clerical and administrative personnel which would be unneeded under single payer approaches.

A second huge cost item is the profits by the insurance companies -- this has been reduced to no more than 20% of premiums, by the ACA. These companies are simply making money from the misery of others, while providing no service of value -- that is just immoral.