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Ohio Votes on ObamaCare

For the record, I don’t blame Rep. Stupak for voting with his party. Scorpions sting frogs, end of story. Repeal is going to take two years at least, unless the Senate and House suddenly become veto-proof Republican in November. Not one Republican in the House voted for it.

Coming soon to Ohio ballots. The demand for pain pills is about to go up.

The roll call:

Austria, Steve, Ohio, 7th – R – No
Boccieri, John A., Ohio, 16th – D – Yes
Boehner, John A., Ohio, 8th – R – No
Driehaus, Steve, Ohio, 1st – D – Yes
Fudge, Marcia L., Ohio, 11th – D – Yes
Jordan, Jim, Ohio, 4th – R – No
Kaptur, Marcy, Ohio, 9th – D – Yes (how she justified it)
Kucinich, Dennis J., Ohio, 10th – D – Yes
LaTourette, Steven C., Ohio, 14th – R – No
Latta, Robert E., Ohio, 5th – R – No
Kilroy, Mary Jo, Ohio, 15th –  D – Yes
Ryan, Tim, Ohio, 17th – D – Yes
Schmidt, Jean, Ohio, 2nd – R – No
Space, Zachary T., Ohio, 18th – D – No (Thank you, 18th, for ringing his phone!)
Sutton, Betty, Ohio, 13th – D – Yes
Tiberi, Pat, Ohio, 12th – R – No (Thank you, my congressman :) )
Turner, Michael, Ohio, 3rd – R – No
Wilson, Charles A., Ohio, 6th – D – Yes

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Engineering Conference

I spent two days at an engineering conference presented last week by the Engineers Foundation of Ohio to earn required continuing education hours for my PE license. While none of the topics themselves left me completely disinterested, some of the classes were better executed than others.

A partner and an associate of a law firm that handles labor and employment law gave four presentations during the first day. Three of the presentations had little content that I had not been exposed to: Federal Labor Standards Act, Workers Compensation, and Litigation Avoidance. The third out of the four, Social Networking for Engineering Business, gave some of the legal issues about using Facebook and other social networking sites to prescreen interviewers. All four presentations served to open a window into the aggressiveness of the partner, which I suppose can be a good advertisement.

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Health Care “Public Plan” Questions Worth Repeating

From Bizzyblog, June 30, 2009. Worth repeating as the vote comes today.

Questions for those advocating the “public plan” option in Obamacare:

  1. Will the “public plan” pay income and other taxes like the companies who run private plans must? (Example: Aetna alone incurred $790 million in income tax expenses in calendar 2008, and over $3.5 billion in the past four years. The company’s most recent 10-K [PDF] indicates that this expense is almost entirely related to its Health Care and Group Insurance.)
  2. What will anyone do to keep the “public plan” from taking advantage of other unfair advantages, which could at least include general government absorption of administrative costs, sales-tax exemptions, property-tax exemptions, ”public service” advertising, and much more?
  3. Will the “public plan” be just as vulnerable to class-action and no-limit malpractice lawsuits as private plans currently are?
  4. If the answers to Question 1, 2, or 3 are “no” or “I don’t know,” how can you possibly claim to know that the “public plan’s” competition against private plans will be conducted on a level playing field?

Related Update: On Sunday, Alo at Brain Shavings went after and properly characterized Obama’s snotty question (”Why would [the "public option"] drive private insurers out of business?”), and tore it to pieces. You can add the items ID’d in Questions 1-3 above to Alo’s cited reasons.

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Election Day

Don’t forget to vote!

Do yourself and your neighbor a favor: don’t vote based on what advocacy groups say about the results of any of the issues.

Don’t vote for Issue 3 because you think it will keep money and jobs in Ohio. Vote on the issue of whether or not you are in favor of gambling limited to certain areas. Don’t vote for Issue 2 because you think it will keep the Humane Society from getting on farmers’ cases. Vote on whether you think a governor-handpicked 12-person board is the best way to serve the farmer and the consumers in Ohio. Don’t vote for Issue 1 because you think paying our armed services is a good thing; vote on whether you think it’s good to pay them by incurring debt.

If we draw our judgments from the text of what we are voting on, then we don’t have to rely on the people who are paid to give us their point of view.

Go vote! May the best views (mine?) win! ;)

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Getting Deeper in Issue 2

I am frankly surprised and dismayed about my surrounding rural community’s support of Ohio Issue 2, which creates the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board.

One reason I hear that people are for it is because if we don’t pass this, then the Humane Society will come in and legislate for stricter rules. Even though this is an amendment to the constitution, there is no safeguard that the Humane Society can’t come in through this door and make price-raising, farm-crushing changes anyway.

You can’t win an argument by conceding half of it.

Wondering if I may have misread the issue, let’s go through the proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution.

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Ohio Statewide Ballot Issues Preview

The website for Ohio’s Secretary of State is a little light in state issues this year. There are just three issues: bonds for Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan vets; the creation of a state Livestock Care Standards Board, and permission to build casinos and distribute tax revenue statewide.

State Issue 1: “TO PROVIDE COMPENSATION TO VETERANS OF THE PERSIAN GULF, AFGHANISTAN, AND IRAQ CONFLICTS”

I love the military. My dad and father-in-law fulfilled their draft obligations, and my uncle is a Master Sergeant in the Kansas National Guard.

The issue here is how the compensation is paid for.  The state wants to sell bonds to pay these obligations. Bonds are essentially loans, and they are fiscally wise if they are paying for equipment, buildings, or other capital items which are used for at least the life of the loan. Bonds buy time, to give an entity something now rather than wait and get it after the money has been saved up.

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