That is why we decided to interview the brilliant Dr Tom Schaller about some important trends in politics today.

In the first video above, we asked him tell us about the rare sighting of a moderate in Washington DC.

In the second, below he tells us about the challenges facing the Republicans in the 2012 Presidential elections (Yes, they will be here in NO TIME!).

Stayed tuned for more brilliant takes from Dr Schaller in the days ahead… including his insight to The Colbert Show!

Welcome back to our final part of this week’s inaugural feature Three-and-a-half questions.

Today’s guest is esteemed UMBC Professor of Political Science Roy Meyers. Dr Meyers ia an expert on government budgets and budget politics. We were in the middle of asking him about the current debate on health care policy… (USDemocrazy insights in green.)

3. What’s your suggested “healthcare fix?” Is there a fix?

 The word “fix” has different meanings.

To the addict, a fix is an essential but very short-term act that has bad consequences over the long-run.  I’ve long thought that the typical ideological debate about health reform has compared two fixes of this type: “single-payer” vs. “choice.”  Neither approach is ever likely to develop the consensus support necessary for adoption. 

Nor is single-payer or choice likely to solve the problems of adverse selection, moral hazard, and information asymmetry that are inherent to the health system.

 If you are unfamiliar with these terms, a fantastic resource for learning about the complexities of the health system and many alternatives for reform are two reports released by the Congressional Budget Office: 

 Key Issues in Analyzing Major Health Insurance Proposals  http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=9924

 Budget Options, Volume 1: Health Care

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=9925

See also: http://www.kaisernetwork.org/

So the solutions are complicated.  One thing we do know, though, is that it is imperative to “bend the cost curve,” which means: slow the rate of growth of health care spending. 

A start on doing this was made in the recent government stimulus bill, which generously funded investments in health information technology and research of the comparative effectiveness of different medical practices. 

It will take time to earn returns on these investments. 

If it is determined we need to pay some health care providers less as well as not pay for certain procedures and products, trouble could be brewing. Both are tremendously difficult to achieve in political terms.  The same forces that scuttled Clinton’s health care reform in 1992 could reawaken to haunt President Obama ( remember the  Harry and Louise television commercials?) Oh yeah…

 Two final points about the complicated fix:

a. “Prevention” (ie. staying healthy) can make a very large contribution to the solution over the long-run. This will require Americans to exercise more, eat less and more carefully, reduce consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and dangerous drugs, and make other lifestyle changes. Wow…that asking a lot

1. A more radical approach that deserves a close look over the long-run has been proposed by Len Burman, one of the nation’s leading policy analysts:   http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=901252

 Your extra bonus question:

 What new websites were you happy to discovered recently?

1. ProPublica,  http://www.propublica.org/, is doing the kind of investigative journalism that is vanishing from mainstream newpapers these days.  Their non-profit model may be one of the sustainable models for journalism in the internet age–though I wonder how well it will work in small markets.

2. Map My Ride, http://www.mapmyride.com/, a really nice tool for planning or acquiring maps and cue sheets for road cycling.

3. Watoto Wa Baraka, http://www.watotowabaraka.org/, is an orphanage in Kenya where my son Keith will be volunteering this fall.

Welcome back to day two of this week’s first ever session of Three-and-a-Half Questions!

Today’s guest is esteemed UMBC Professor of Political Science Roy Meyers. Dr Meyers ia an expert on government budgets and budget politics. We were in the middle of asking him about the current debate on health care policy… (USDemocrazy insights in green.)

2. Health care was supposed to be on the Obama administration’s first year list of “things to do.” What’s happening on Capital Hill now?

A lot.  That’s because many believe that this is the year that major health reforms will finally pass. Hallelujah!

So here’s my prediction: by December, I expect that President Obama will have signed the “Kennedy-Dingell” health reform bill.  (I’m hoping that Senator Kennedy will still be battling brain cancer when it is signed). 

Rep. Dingell, the dean of the House, has been a long time advocate  for a national health insurance system. His father, also a Washington politician first proposed a similar Health care bill in 1933.

Why do I say this year? We were going to ask you that…

President Obama has a lot of things going for him. He is a highly capable President with an electoral mandate.  He has a first-class team of White House advisors, starting with Peter Orszag and Nancy DeParle.  He also has a large margin of Democratic votes in both the House and Senate. 

Obama also has very significant cooperation between powerful committee chairs in the Senate.  (A bit less of this in the House, but Speaker Pelosi will crack some heads.) We’d like to see a video of that.

Most importantly, The Health care industry is now trying to cut a deal with the government. Back in 1992 when President Clinton tried to promote health care reform interest groups demolished his plan through effective advertising and lobbying .

So, times have changed…

True, Monday’s press conference with President Obama was only the latest evidence. Now hospitals, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies are pledging to help control costs.

 Why might I be wrong?  Come back tomorrow to learn more….

We at USDemocrazy are dedicated to finding smarter people than us to fill our blog with useless useful information.

Fortunately, it is easy to find people smarter than us.

Today we are launching the first of many new features at our blog that highlights the insights of some pretty brilliant folks. 

This feature is called Three-and-a-Half questions. We ask a current events expert three questions in their field of interest… plus one extra credit question in an unrelated area.

We have people banging on our door looking for an opportunity to join our blog (or they could be collection agencies). We are delighted to announce the Inaugural 3.5 Questionee is UMBC Professor of Political Science Roy Meyers!

Dr. Meyers knows alot about health care (in part because he has been reading our posts on the subject).

Below is the first of 3.5 questions we posed to him on the subject of his expertise (USDemocrazy insights are in GREEN):

1. Dr. Meyers, when looking at the World Health Organization’s ranking of the best health care systems in the world, the U.S. doesn’t even make top 10. Why is that?

DR. MEYERS:  

 The U.S. does not deserve to be in the top ten.  Yes, the quality of medical care in this country is often extraordinary, and the U.S. contribution to medical research is by far the greatest.  Yet there are three areas where the U.S. compares unfavorably to countries with levels of income similar to ours, and even to some poorer countries:

 a. at least a tenth of the population cannot afford health insurance;

 b. morbidity and mortality rates are higher; and

 c. we have these problems despite the fact that we spend far more on health care (currently about 16% of gross domestic product) than do other countries.

 So the short answer to your question is that the U.S. isn’t at the top because we are so inefficient in getting good health for the money that we spend (our emphasis).  But that problem also is an opportunity: we can substantially improve our situation if we make intelligent reforms.

You mention World Health Organization (WHO)… As shown by the current swine flu threat, the WHO is a great example of the need for international cooperation. 

One of its many contributions is the dissemination of data on health systems; see http://www.who.int/whosis/en/index.html.  (The acronym for the WHO Statistical Information System is “WHOSIS”–I wonder if they considered the alternative “WHODAT?”) Nice one.

You see, we told you Dr. Meyers was smart… and he has a lot more to say. We will return tomorrow with the remainder of his interview. In the meantime if you have any suggestions for future experts please let us know.