It is amazing to see how much pent up anger there is in our state. For years we have buried our heads in the sand, oblivious to the holes every level of government was digging. Times were good and we were generous.

Now we are waking up to just how generous. Like a drunk with a hangover, we are really mad at how much of a tip we left the bartender. Only in this case, our over-generosity went to public employees.

James Coyle

President

When Scott Brown was elected to the U.S. Senate several weeks ago, the sigh of relief heard around the country was almost audible. It is amazing how fast something as important as health care reform became so frightening to so many.

Now you can feel the steam going out of the process. Many believe we will be left with status quo, just like we were when there was an attempt to reform social security a few years back. This would be unfortunate.

Misguided though both the Senate and House versions of health care reform

were, there is a pressing need for substantial change.

The big problem with what is now on the table is that it has been foisted upon us by just one party. And it has been foisted on the members of that party by some of their most radical elements. It missed the boat on reforming health care and resulted primarily in just spending more on the present failed system.

Perhaps now that the issue can no longer be forced, calmer heads will prevail and ideas that truly address the main problems will be discussed. This of course will take both sides and I only hope that the Republican members of Congress will be up to the task of being constructive. There are things more important than just winning the next election.

Over the past year we have all been inundated with ideas, claims and counter claims on both the problems and solutions facing health care. I have come to realize that there are a few key elements that must be realized if we are to both control costs and provide better health care in this country.

First and foremost, everyone needs to participate. This means that like car insurance, if you want to drive, you have to have insurance. Many of the so called “uninsured” are uninsured not because they can’t get or afford health insurance, but rather because they are young and realize that the cost/ benefit ratio is far too high. Why spend thousands of dollars a year when you are likely to have only hundreds of dollars in expenses? The reason is because this broadens the pool and makes insurance more affordable for everyone. It also provides for that sudden unexpected illness that we think will never happen to us.

Second, we need to modernize our medical information systems. In his book, The Healing of America, T.R. Reid examines health care systems from around the world and discusses at length the advances that have been made in France and Germany in particular by issuing smart cards to everyone. With these cards, all the paperwork and the people who process the huge volumes of documents that our system

requires are eliminated. The savings in overhead for the insurance industry as well as the doctors and hospitals is huge.

Third, we need a lot more doctors, and doctors who are not saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in education debt. Ours is the only country where this happens, and the result is fewer doctors who can charge more because there are fewer of them. When you add to this that expanded coverage is going to result in expanded demand, unless we have many, many more doctors, we can expect prices to skyrocket. This is an area where a relatively minor government investment can make

a big difference.

Fourth, doctors in other countries pay a small fraction of the malpractice premiums that U.S. doctors pay. The cost of this insurance is a huge expense for doctors. Perhaps this is something that can be nationalized. For those who want a single-payer system, this is the place to do it. Let the government pay the outrageous malpractice claims that are often filed.

But the real solution to health care is staring us in the mirror. Just look sideways. Until we lose weight and start taking care of ourselves, all these other things are band aids.

James Coyle

President

The recent passage of health care legislation a couple weeks back by the U.S. Senate was really touch and go. Not because the passage was ever in doubt.

The difficulty was the ability to end debate and bring the motion to a vote.

While passing a piece of legislation requires a simple majority of 51 votes, ending debate requires 60 votes. These 60 votes were only garnered by serious changes to the legislation and huge bribes to a couple of western and southern senators.

Many think this oddly called cloture rule is unconstitutional and not what our founding fathers intended.

Cloture rules which end debate, sometimes called filibuster, are a tool of the minority. They are used to prevent important matters from being decided.

While it is true that the founding fathers did not include the cloture concept in the Constitution, I think they would see it as an important and useful rule. The Constitution was designed to provide checks and balances.

Its intent was to ensure that studious effort went into any decision, and that compromise was achieved. The thought of ramming something through would have been abhorrent to its framers.

The tyranny of the majority was a key concept to Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, the two major intellects behind the Constitution. They understood that for a democracy to succeed, the rights of the minorities had to be protected from the passions of the majority.

In fact, the Senate was set up primarily to ensure this. At the time the Constitution was written there were 13 states. Some like Virginia and New York had large populations. Others like Rhode Island and Vermont did not. The small states needed protection from the large states and a body that equally represented all states

would offset the power of population as represented in the House of Representatives. The Senate was to be another check on the passions of a majority faction.

Okay, so why wasn’t this enough? Why did someone come up with the idea of the filibuster and later the concept of cloture to bring filibusters to an end?

What Madison and Hamilton did not foresee was the ascendency of political parties, at least when they were framing the Constitution. Parties are by definition factions. Their power is their ability to get their members elected and then control them once they are in office. In this country for some reason we have always had two major parties, meaning a majority faction and a minority faction.

Interestingly, when Hamilton started running the government (he was Secretary of the Treasury in Washington’s administration), he did an about-face and created the first faction which ultimately became the Federalist Party. He did this so he could ram his agenda through Congress. Thomas Jefferson, his arch enemy, founded the Democratic-Republicans with James Madison to stymie Hamilton and push his own agenda.

Filibusters came along in the 1840s as a way for the minority to stop the majority from doing what it wanted. The idea of closing off debate, i.e. ending a filibuster, was a new rule added during the Wilson administration. Back then, it took 67 votes to end a debate.

The legislative strategy of using debate to prevent action is as old as this country. It has often been used to prevent or delay very admirable pieces of legislation. One of the most effective filibusters was Senator Robert Byrd from West Virginia using the technique in an attempt to prevent the passage of civil rights legislation by a coalition of northern Republican and Democratic senators.

More recently, when the Senate was controlled by Republicans during the Bush administration, there was a lot of talk about reforming the system of cloture. At that time the minority Democrats were using filibusters to block judicial appointments and prevent an earlier attempt at health care reform known as association-based

health plans.

So pray that we keep the present system. The health care bill that finally passed is a lot better than it would have been without cloture. You may not always get what you want, but this system prevents the tyranny of the majority.

James Coyle
President

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Back in the mid-1990s when I was working at the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, there were three commissioners, two Republicans and one Democrat. The Democrat had been appointed by Gov. Florio and had gained great experience in utility matters by being a high school basketball coach. One of the Republicans, also appointed by Florio, had run a restaurant. The other guy was just a mediocre lawyer who needed a job and was appointed by Gov. Whitman.

These guys had three jobs among the most important in the state. Their decisions affected billions of dollars of economic activity. I have always found it amazing that the lights stay on given the qualifications of the people running the show. I spend more time checking the credentials of my plumber than the state spends on most of its appointees.

Few people notice who gets appointed to the boards, authorities and commissions that abound around New Jersey. There are specialty boards, regulatory boards, promotional boards, water boards, sewer boards, etc. There are statewide boards, regional boards and local boards. There are important boards and unimportant boards. Some board members get paid, some do not.

The governor has the authority to appoint thousands of people to all these boards. It is one of the greatest sources of political patronage, and unlike the state payroll jobs, these appointments are generally made without much public knowledge or oversight. It is a truly insider game that is being played.

As he prepares to leave office, Gov. Corzine has submitted 180 names for a myriad of boards to the Senate for confirmation. These range from the Board of Public Utilities to the board of directors of Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield to the New Jersey Maritime Pilot and Docking Pilot Commission.

While it is fairly common for outgoing governors to grant a few last favors, the magnitude of the Corzine appointments is really beyond the pale. The move is a cynical attempt to place as many poison pills around the state as possible, rather than an attempt to pay off a few old friends.

At the Board of Public Utilities, which I view as the most important of all the regulatory agencies, Gov. Corzine’s nomination of Ken Esser as a commissioner will ensure that the Democratic party maintains control of the board until 2012 with a three-to-two majority. Now, while Mr. Esser may be the most qualified nomination to come along in a long time, this breaks the time-honored tradition of allowing the party in control of the Statehouse to control the levers of government.

So why is this important? Is tradition all there is to this argument?

When we elect a new governor, we expect him to be able to govern. That is why the team at the top changes. We get all new cabinet officers and appointments several layers down in the different state agencies. This way new policies can be implemented.

However, when you have all these authorities, which actually have authority to do things, you cannot implement a policy agenda if the other side retains control. It basically undermines the election result. It is a poison pill.

A much better system would be to get rid of most of these appointed bodies and bring these semiautonomous groups back under the direct control of the state.

In the near term, however, Gov. Corzine should stop this shenanigan. He should withdraw these last-minute appointments and allow his successor, Chris Christie, a chance to do what he was elected to do – govern.

James Coyle
President

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