What was true in 2008 is the "Lie of the Year" in 2013

These screen captures are worth putting next to one another, so take a look at both. What PolitiFact in 2008 rated as "true" has now become the "Lie of the Year." Oh, and the "Lie of the Year" makes no reference to the previous "truth."

Obamacare is headed back to the Supreme Court--and here's why it's a big deal

UPDATE: My case page is here.

As I noted the other day, the the Supreme Court granted cert in two cases (Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius) challenging the Obamacare contraceptive mandate.

The Affordable Care Act contains a regulation that requires employers to provide certain contraceptive services as a part of their employer-sponsored health care plan. To be clear, these employers are not challenging the provision of all contraceptives--just some of them. Among these contraceptive services in question are drugs and devices that the plaintiffs believe to be abortifacients, the use of which is contrary to their faith.

It is true that, as a practical matter, these cases will not likely have a huge impact on Obamacare itself--at stake is one small provision of the law, not the individual mandate at the center of NFIB v. Sebelius. Rather, what makes these cases a big deal is nexus of Obamacare and Citizens United, the case in which the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting political independent expenditures by corporations, associations, or labor unions. While corporations have had some personhood rights at early as the 19th century, the public perception of corporate personhood rights is strongly tied to the unpopular Citizens United decision. Furthermore, the Supreme Court is poised to expand Citizens United when it rules in McCutcheon v. FEC.

As a result, the combination of an unpopular Citizens United decision (potentially expanded by McCutcheon) with the controversial Obamacare contraceptive mandate is a high profile mix of politics and religion--sure to be a big deal when the decision comes down (quite possible a 5-4 decision the last week of June).

Anne Arundel County and presidential elections

Anne Arundel County Presidential Election Results, 1998-2012

Year	Democrat	Percent	Republican	Percent	Margin
1988	55,440	35.7	98,540	63.5	+27.8R
1992*	68,629	37.0	81,467	44.0	+7.0R
1996**	72,147	42.2	83,574	48.9	+6.7R
2000	89,624	46.0	104,209	53.5	+7.5R
2004	103,324	43.6	133,231	56.2	+12.6R
2008	125,015	48.2	129,683	50.0	+1.8R
2012	116,065	48.3	118,319	49.2	+0.9R

*In 1992, Perot received 19.0% of the vote.
*In 1996, Perot received 8.4% of the vote.

As the chart above indicates, Anne Arundel County has voted for the Republican presidential candidate in every year since (at least) 1972 (summaries back to 1960 are available here). The margins have fluctuated, but until 2008 had been 7 points at a minimum in 1996 and as much as 28 points in 1988. Thus, even when Ross Perot was on the ballot, Republican candidates mantained a significant advantage in the county.

The last two presidential elections have seen a significant decrease in that margin: 1.8% in 2008 and just 0.9% in 2012. This year also marked the first time that (notwithstanding a strong third party candidate) the Republican candidate did not gain at least 50% of the county's voters.

Turnout in the county was down--69% across the county (which was the same turnout as statewide) compared to 79% in the county in 2008 (78% statewide).

UPDATE: The 69% turnout figure that I cited does *not* include absentee or provisional ballots. In 2008, Anne Arundel County had 17,540 absentee ballots and 3,942 accepted provisional ballots. These ballots represented 8.2% of the total turnout; turnout without them would have been 72.9% without them. Extrapolating similar absentee and provisional ballots for 2012, turnout projects to be about 75-76%.

Election post-mortem: How I was wrong (and why)

Let me be clear upfront: I was wrong, and I have no problem admitting it.

On Friday, I projected that Mitt Romney would defeat President Obama on the strength of Republican turnout and relative strength among independents. I based this projection upon the estimate that the +7D turnout of 2008 (39D/32R/29I) would look more like +2D/+3D.

In fact, the exit polls from last night showed 38D/32R/29I, or +6D (not sure where that extra percent went!). This seems to suggest that 1) the Republican edge in enthusiasm didn't transform the electorate enough; and conversely, that 2) the relatively less enthusiasm among Democrats didn't reduce their share of the vote as much as I expected.

Among self-described Independents, Romney won 50-45. Indeed, polls have suggested a high single digit lead among such voters, and here the projection was pretty close. But it couldn't be overcome by the relatively higher turnout than expected among Democrats.

Nate Silver will get well-deserved props for his projections, but the much-maligned pollsters (especially from those on the right) deserve props, too. My case for Romney rested on the assumption that polls were oversampling Democrats; and they were, but just ever so slightly. As a result, I thought the numbers going into Nate's model were not accurate and thus likely to edge the model toward the President.

I have tried to make it clear that the race was very close (and indeed, by measure of the popular vote, it was much closer than 2008). A few points here or there may have made a significant difference. Indeed, as I stressed on Friday, it doesn't now surprise me that Obama was able to exceed 300 EVs.

More to come on other election-related issues...

2012 election prediction

I confess I have no idea who will win. I wouldn't be surprised if either candidate wins, or even either candidate surpassing 300 EVs. But there are two reasons why I think Romney will win: First, the GOP base is fired up and more energetic, as seen in virtually every poll. As a result, I think Republicans will turn out in greater numbers than the polls generally project (for reference, 2008 was 39D, 32R, 29I or simply +7D). I think turnout is likely to be closer to 35R, 37D, 28I or +2D, maybe +3D). Second, most every poll shows Romney winning among self-described independents by large single digits. As a result, I have no good reason to deviate from the same map I have drawn over the past month or so. Final prediction: Romney 275, Obama 263.

Uh, what?!

A very good friend of mine from high school (who is on the completely opposite side of the political spectrum) was looking at my LinkedIn profile and was astonished (tounge in cheek, I hope) to see that:

Ha! Of course I knew what it meant (and I assume he did too), but it did look a little weird.

He sent me the following email:

Subject: Did I Just Read That?

"Michael Schearer recommends Socialism" - taken from LinkedIn

This is not only the quote of the day, but perhaps the decade. I'm glad to see the leadership that our president demonstrated in passing landmark healthcare reform finally helped you to realize the responsibility we all share in making our world a safe, healthly, and prosperous place to live for all.

My response, of course, was two-fold: (1) to refer him to my previous post on health care insurance premiums; and (2) to recommend to him the fascinating Socialism by none other than Ludwig von Mises (of course, the source of the image above from my LinkedIn Reading List!).

Will health care insurance premiums go down even by one cent?

Then-Senator Obama made the reduction of health care insurance premiums a fixture of his campaign. On dozens of occasions he repeated his pledge that his health care plan would reduce premiums:

Under the plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year.

Let me begin, right off the bat, by making a number of concessions:

• I fully recognize that political candidates of all shapes and colors and parties regularly over-promise during a campaign. So I understand that this number is all good and well, but no one is ever going to see that sort of reduction, and per year?! That's just laughable. So I'm looking for some reduction in my premiums. Any reduction at all.
• Now I will also give President Obama an additional benefit of the doubt and say that he is talking about the full premiums, not just the employee-paid portion. So for example, while I pay about $370/month for my Aetna health care coverage, this only represents 30% of the actual cost (the remaining 70% is paid for by my employer). So the true monthly costs are in excess of $1,200/month or nearly $15,000 for the year.
• According to the President's many promises, my health insurance premiums should be reduced by up to $12,500 for the year; this comes out to about $312/month or a reduction of $58/month. Now I understand this is the maximum, and that my health care plan may or may not be "average," so I'm willing to give the President yet another benefit of the doubt; in fact, I understand that much of this plan won't be fully implemented for several years, so I'm willing to go all the way and suggest that I'll be happy if my premiums are reduced by even 1 cent next year, or any year in the future even.

Now that the health care reform bill has been passed into law, a number of companies have estimated what the new health care costs will be to them. And insurance companies are beginning to chime in, too. In an interview with BusinessWeek, Aetna CEO Ron Williams made a number of interesting points, but the most revealing was:

BW: Will insurance premiums go up?
RW: The answer is yes, and some of the things that will drive those premiums are significant additional taxes the industry will ultimately have to pay in the first year.

Now there are a couple of ways to approach this answer, but in the end the answer still remains the same. Premiums are going up (did you ever honestly think they would go down?).

So my comments for the President (or anyone who truly believes premiums will go down) are these:

1. If you truly thought insurance companies would raise premiums after this law passed, you blatantly lied for political gain.
2. If you truly thought insurance companies would lower premiums after this law passed, then you're either incredibly naive (so much so that being the President might be a little too much for you); or the the law is so bad that it can't even force premiums down. And if that's the case, what exactly was the point of all of this?

Fact check the future! Journalism #fail in the health care debate

The Associated Press is running a story entitled "FACT CHECK: Spinning the new health care law." From the article:

The tumultuous health care debate that brought you death panels and socialism has spun off a catalog of popular myths that will keep growing as President Barack Obama and all sides battle toward the midterm elections this fall.
At a White House signing ceremony Tuesday, Obama ventured the hope that Americans on all sides will judge the legislation for what it actually says and does. "When I sign this bill," he declared, "all of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform."
Wishful thinking, Mr. President.
Facts are stubborn, the saying goes. But myths about the legislation are likely to persist as well. And a lot of people don't agree on which is which.
"People have taken away from the debate a number of beliefs about the bill that are very difficult to shake based on objective reports," said Robert Blendon, a Harvard public health professor who follows opinion trends. "There is enough skepticism out there that questions about how it's going to help the country are likely to continue."
Here's a look at some of the myths and realities, from both sides of the issue...

Ok, I'm skeptical (this is the MSM after all), but so far, so good. The opening suggests that someone will actually examine the legislation and compare what people have said about the bill, to what the bill actually says...right? Wrong. Let me quote three of the six myths stated in this article:

• Health care overhaul is going to lower your health insurance premiums.
• The Democratic bill will lead to government health care rationing.
• The legislation will save Medicare from bankruptcy.

Now, the point of this blog post is decidedly not to examine each of these myths, because that is precisely what the article does. Furthermore, I'm not going to examine whether or not I agree with some of the myths (if you haven't figured it out yet, this blog post isn't really about health care). Perhaps you already understand why I picked these myths...

How can you possibly "fact check" any of these statements? The accuracy of these statements will be determined by events that occur in the future. They haven't even happened yet. Is it a fact that health care reform has lowered (or raised) my health insurance premiums? What information could I possibly use to fact-check this statement? Estimates of what might happen in the future are estimates for a reason; they're not facts. And that sort of eliminates the entire point of this exercise, does it not? How is this considered serious journalism?

One of the other myths ("Obama has put the nation on a slippery slope toward socialism") is a subjective, philosophical question to which there is, realistically, no true factual answer. The others ("You will be forced to pay for other people's abortions" and "The American people have already rejected Obamacare) are probably debatable myths; but consider that if only 1/3 of the article is even debatable as being relevant, we have already failed.

Some Guantanamo prisoners could be released in U.S.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners could be released into the United States while others could be put on trial in the American court system, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday.

Is this the "hope" and "change" people voted for?!

Bailout bonus backtrack

Congressional lawmakers are scrambling to think up creative ways to recover at least some of the $165 million in bonuses that bailed-out American International Group is paying executives -- but they could be their own worst enemy.

Though Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., is among those leading the charge on retrieving the bonuses, an amendment he added to the $787 billion stimulus bill last month created a roadblock to getting that money back.

The amendment, meant to restrict executive pay for bailed-out banks, also included an exception for "contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009."

This would seem to exempt the AIG bonuses that lawmakers and President Obama are looking to recover. Incidentally, Dodd is the largest single recipient of 2008 campaign donations from AIG, with $103,100, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Dodd amendment creates a "prohibition on what the president is now talking about," said Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the House minority whip. He also accused the administration of being in "disarray."

More change you can believe in!

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama will break a campaign pledge and sign a budget bill laden with millions in lawmakers' pet projects, administration officials said.

"Change is coming"

130 tons of trash was left on the Mall in DC following Obama's inauguration.