Homeowner's Blog

Moderates Should Show Their True Colors on Health-Care

Health-care legislation is facing a troubled future in the House of Representatives, where "Blue Dogs", who are a group of moderate Democrats, are threatening to withhold support for Democratic health-care reform packages because recent revenue estimates have shown that it will be far more expensive than expected. A similar problem exists in the Senate, where a number of moderate Democrats and Republicans also support health-care reform, but not at any cost. Moderates are being attacked from the left for being cost conscious, and from the right for supporting any changes to health care policy at all.

Blue Dogs and moderate Republicans, though a small minority of Congress, represent a block of American voters (moderates) that is larger than the number of either conservative or liberal voters.

In between election cycles the conservatives and liberals who alternatively control Congress  berate moderates for their idealogical impurity and/or lack of spine. How rude of the moderates not to give their unquestioning support to their views even though both represent a much smaller minority of voters.

Thank goodness that Blue Dogs and moderate Republicans are exerting a moderating influence on this important Congressional policy. Politics is the art of the possible. It is entirely possible to enact new health-care policy that will represent a significant improvement over the status quo. It isn't essential that it be passed by August, and the support of moderates is essential if it is to be passed in this Congress. No health care legislation will solve all the health-care challenges. It is better to pass significant improvements in this Congress and to tackle the remaining challenges in a subsequent round of legislation, than to repeat the Clinton Administration mistake of overreaching and end up with nothing.

Moderates Should Show Their True Colors on Health-Care

Health-care legislation is facing a troubled future in the House of Representatives, where "Blue Dogs", who are a group of moderate Democrats, are threatening to withhold support for Democratic health-care reform packages because recent revenue estimates have shown that it will be far more expensive than expected. A similar problem exists in the Senate, where a number of moderate Democrats and Republicans also support health care reform, but not at any cost. Moderates are being attacked from the left for being cost conscious, and from the right for supporting any changes to health care policy at all.

Blue Dogs and moderate Republicans, though a small minority of Congress, represent a block of American voters (moderates) that is larger than the number of either conservative or liberal voters.

In between election cycles the conservatives and liberals who alternatively control Congress  berate moderates for their idealogical impurity and/or lack of spine. How rude of the moderates not to give their unquestioning support to their views even though both represent a much smaller minority of voters.

Thank goodness that Blue Dogs and moderate Republicans are exerting a moderating influence on this important Congressional policy. Politics is the art of the possible. It is entirely possible to enact new health-care policy that will represent a significant improvement over the status quo. It isn't essential that it be passed by August, and the support of moderates is essential if it is to be passed in this Congress. No health care legislation will solve all the health-care challenges. It is better to pass significant improvements in this Congress and to tackle the remaining challenges in a subsequent round of legislation, than to repeat the Clinton Administration mistake of overreaching and end up with nothing.

The Country Needs the Consumer Financial Protection Agency

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, (D-MA), has introduced a bill to create an independent agency to regulate financial services. The legislation, HR 3126, would consolidate many regulatory functions spread among other agencies and would give it the authority to make and enforce rules that would hopefully prevent another meltdown in the mortgage finance sector as well as address many other financial services practices that may be injuring consumers.

Consolidation of the oversight of financial products that is now split between the Fed, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and others can potentially improve regulatory efficiency substantially. It can also reverse the process of "regulatory capture" by the regulated industries that appears to have undermined the independence some of these agencies did have. However assuring that the oversight organization is free from political influence and staffed with competent professionals dedicated to protecting consumers is more important than where the authority resides. In designing the new institution we need to study the reason for regulatory failures at the Fed, SEC, OFHEO, and other agencies, and build protections against politicization into the new organization.

The American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance believes that the legislation is badly needed and also creates an opportunity to create more rigorous examination of other financial services areas that are badly in need of more oversight. For example the anticompetitive practices of many real estate services organizations are forcing real estate consumers to pay much higher real estate commissions than they pay in other developed countries. The new Consumer Financial Protection Agency should be given additional oversight of real estate services and the power to roll back industry and state regulations and laws that are stifling competition in real estate services and costing home buyers and sellers vast amounts of money.

Time For Congress To Act

The Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee on July 6 urged the Justice Department to investigate possible anti-competitive practices in the wireless industry. It is certainly appropriate for the DoJ to scrutinize the state of competition in industries that have become more concentrated, and to take action if violations of antitrust laws have occurred. Increased concentration and practices in the pharmaceutical, airlines, agriculture and other sectors are also being reviewed by DoJ. We are also seeing more concentration in other sectors of the economy as well. DoJ needs to look at all of them as part of its ongoing mission and take appropriate action if it finds antitrust violations.

In the meantime there are other problems in the competition/antitrust arena that are already fully evolved and defined, and which clearly will require a federal legislative solution. Both the DoJ and the FTC have done a commendable job in recent years in overturning many state real estate regulations and industry practices that force consumers to pay higher real estate sales commissions. These practices have been well documented in scathing reviews by 60 Minutes and hundreds of other electronic and print media. Despite DoJ's and FTC's effective work, some of those anticompetitive practices have become embodied in state laws, and neither DoJ nor FTC currently have the power to overturn them.



Continue reading Time For Congress To Act.