I’d like to take some time, over lunch, to share with you some interesting proposals I’ve seen while skimming the papers. I don’t necessarily agree with them, but I did find them thought provoking:
- The Size of the House. An article from Streetsblog about why Republicans tend to oppose transit funding, whereas Democrats support it triggered some thinking this morning. It posited the notion that Republican congress critters tend to be from less urban areas, and Democrats from more urban areas. This made me think back to an interesting Op-Ed piece in the NY Times that said we need to expand the House of Representatives. The premise was that the founders intended the House to be representative, with a concern about having too few representatives, not too many. Originally, the House was one representative for 60,000; we’re now up to one representative for 700,000. The op-ed argues that we should expand the House. This would make it more representative, and reduce the influence of lobbyists and special interests. It would make running for office affordable, and might provide enough eyes that bills would get sufficient review. Of course, there are drawbacks the article doesn’t mention, such as the increased amounts for salaries required (and salaries for staff), the increased demand for facilities and meeting space, and the increased election costs. Still, the notion is intriguing.
- Health Care. I’m sure we’re all aware of the various dichotomies on the Affordable Care Act, a/k/a Obamacare. Democrats want to keep it; Republicans want to repeal the entire thing. However, the public seems to want to fix it, not toss it. So how would one fix it? The problem for most people is the mandate that everyone buy health care. That mandate is there, however, so enough healthy people pay into the system to cover those with pre-existing conditions. Get rid of that mandate, and you can’t get the pre-existing coverage. A proposal by Jonathan Chait in New Republic attempts to address this issue. As opposed to letting individuals with preexisting conditions purchase coverage at anytime (pre-existing conditions aren’t an issue for employer-provided coverage), it would provide limited open-enrollment windows for such purchases. I’m not sure that would solve the problem (and I could see new problems introduced for the recently laid off), but it is an intriguing attempt to address the balance.