Greatest Movie Series Ever

Actual conversation from the house of Sal last night:

Me: "Son, why aren't you in bed like your mother told you to be?"

10-year-old son: "Dad, Rocky's on, and it's almost time for the fight."

Me: "Which Rocky?"

Son: "Rocky III. Mr. T."

Me: "Well, OK."

Let's face it--the "Rocky" series is a terribly important part of every young American boy's development. And thanks to channels like Spike TV (which last night had the whole 5-episode marathon on), some Rocky movie is on pretty much every week. Admittedly, Rocky V (Tommy Gunn) was pretty horrible, but it's still a decent action flick. For my money, there is something truly awesome about each of the other 4, plus the recent finale. I, II, and VI (Balboa) are all very good, well-made films. Don't forget that the original won the Oscar for best picture. III may be the most fun of all of them... and don't pretend that Mr. T. wasn't really cool in '83. He may be a caricature now, but when he made his debut in that movie, he was a MAN. And the cold-war showdown with steroidally-enhanced Ivan Drago and the training in Siberia sequence--that's just a great guy movie. The message of Rocky is priceless: if you train harder and are tough enough to take the pain, you can conquer enemies that are bigger and stronger than you. That's worth a few more minutes at bedtime.

So, how poor is poor?

If rich ain't that rich, how poor must one be to be "poor?" Let's stipulate from the outset that very, very few people in this country are poor by international standards--lacking basic housing and nutrition. And there is a pretty decent safety net for those people. Not perfect, mind you, but OK. A family of 4 is below the poverty line at around $20,000. No doubt, that's poor--but those guys will get medicaid, food stamps, subsidized housing--they'll never be well-off, but they won't starve. (We'll leave for another day why someone would have a family income that low if they actually go to work every day.) But what about the family making double, even triple the poverty line number: 40 to 60k? In my town, If you make $52,000 a year (that's $1000 a week), that'll come out to about $3500 spendable a month. That same family of 4 will pay $800-1100 for rent, or more like $1500 for a small house in this town. You'd think if you make over $50k you'd want to try to be a homeowner. One car payment, plus gas and insurance, and you're down to $1500 left. If you have to buy your own health plan, you can't do that and still feed a family of 4 on that. If your car is paid for, your company buys your health plan, you don't tithe, and you have bought your house back before the market went stupid, you can be pretty comfortable on $50k. But change just one or two of those variables, and the fridge is empty leading up to payday. And forget private schools or vacations. I know my family of 5 would have a very hard time making ends meet on that--and we're pretty frugal. And of course, that family qualifies for no help, even though they may have two earners scratching and clawing every week while the "welfare poor" family may have less than one full-time job. Fair, huh?

Now again, don't get me wrong--I'm not advocating that the family making $50k necessarily get welfare (after all, somebody has to pay for that). But it seems to me that we have a very skewed idea of what constitutes "middle class."

How rich is rich?

On a similar topic to the recent discussion of health insurance for the "poor" is this one: I'm in class a week ago and teaching my usual stuff, modern US history. I was talking about the Supreme Court and how John Roberts is the new (and youngest) chief justice, and how judges have a great gig because they serve for life. One of my students asks, "How much does being a Supreme Court Justice pay?" I answer, "about $175,000." Then comes the money quote, since it's from a 12-year-old who doesn't have any clue what things cost: "Is that a lot of money?" Good question. I teach in a private school that costs about $15k per year, and live in a town where the "average" house costs well over $200,000. On the one hand, I think of $175k as being darned good money... more than double what my family brings in with two people working full-time in what I think are pretty good jobs. On the other, if you made $175k, you'd be paying well over a third of that in taxes (fed, state, and FICA). Let's say you're a Christian and you tithe, as well. So when all is said and done, you'll have about $96k to budget, or about $8000 a month. Still good. But if you are the Chief Justice, you don't live in a 40-year-old ranch house with no working dishwasher like I do. A home that costs $400k in my town is no mansion--we're not talking deep water dock here. And that payment runs about $3000 all-told. And you don't drive a '93 Lumina, you and your wife drive late-model cars with payments. Maybe $1000 more total. Put two kids in my school at $2500 a month total, and suddenly you're down to $1500 a month to buy all your insurance, food, utilities, etc. That's tight. Of course, you don't have to live in as nice a house or drive the new cars or put the kids in private school. You don't even have to tithe. But you would expect the Chief Justice to live that well. Maybe not private-plane and yacht well, but definitely private school and nice SUV well. I'd even go so far as to suggest that there are some people in my town that make that kind of money (upwards of a hundred and a half) who don't live lavish lifestyles and feel the pinch sometimes. If you ask them if they are rich, they'll probably say, "no--middle class."

Now don't get me wrong--I'm not weeping for the poor guy making triple or quadruple the national average. But it takes a LOT of money to live like the "rich." And if you can struggle on $175,000, imagine a working couple where neither makes over $50k, but together they bring in $80-90,000. Again, that's double the national average. But pay taxes, health insurance, put a roof over your head, maybe buy a late-model car, and you're too strapped to send a kid to college without a loan, or to aggressively save for retirement. They might be in the top 25% of income earners, but they certainly aren't vacationing in the Bahamas.

I think the best definition most of us use for "rich" is "somebody who makes more than me." But I'll bet those of us who say that are thought of as pretty "rich" by somebody else.

While I'm on the topic, the S-Chip veto

Just in time for my rant about insurance, President Bush has vetoed a measure that would have helped insure "millions of poor children." Called Schip (state children's health insurance program), it provides coverage, not for those below the poverty line (who get medicaid) but for those slightly above, who slip through the cracks. Now why would big, bad Bush want to hurt those poor, poor children? Well, for starters, the program was being increased to cover a family of four making over $60k a year (I've read some estimates that said up to $83k, the $60k is the very low-ball figure). Sorry, if you're making that, you don't need somebody else buying your insurance. Secondly, the program was designed to be "revenue neutral" (paid for) for about 5 years... and then the costs would skyrocket. But of course, government never ever retreats on a welfare program, so when the bill comes, we'd just have to hike taxes (or, more likely, run up the deficit). President Bush offered to sign a "plain vanilla" version of the bill that would continue the present program, or to even pledge more money for those kids who were closest to the poverty line. But the political theater was too good for that to ever happen. It's a bigger political winner to say "Bush kills program for poor kids." On my last post, Phillip asked why the GOP won't engage on this issue. Plain and simple, they are licked. A huge majority of Americans want the government to "give" them health insurance, and they want someone else to eventually pay for it. So long as the voters continue to believe in Santa Claus economics, no party suggesting anything resembling fiscal responsibility has a chance.

What's Wrong With "Health Care"

I had the opportunity to shoot the bull yesterday with my new boss. He's an upper-crust lib, and I'm a working-class conservative (how's that for shaking up the stereotypes?). Yet we agreed on one thing, at least in principle: SOMETHING ought to change about "health care." I know it's supposed to be verboten for a conservative to mention anything other than free-market answers to health care reform, but I'm at the end of my rope with the current system.

First, some diagnosis. Don't tell me that "47 million Americans don't have health care." There may be 47 million who don't have a health insurance policy, but there's nobody who can't go to an emergency room and get treated. The trick is, what they do in the ER isn't free (news flash--nothing is). So the costs of treating those who can't, or won't, buy insurance is passed along to those who do, and that makes health insurance much more expensive. Indeed, many of the people who don't have health insurance are not the very poor (who have medicaid). It's the non-poor who find the cost of what's out there prohibitive.

Another thing that makes health insurance crazily expensive is the fact that it's not REALLY insurance, at all. Insurance is sharing the risk of a potential catastrophe. Your house is likely NOT going to burn down. But some small percentage of houses will. If we divide the risk of that happening among the right number of houses, as determined by the actuaries with slide-rules, and add a few bucks to each bill to provide profit to the insurance company and the agent who services the policy, that amounts to a genuine insurance policy. You hope you never have a claim, but the relatively small premium is a smart thing to pay. But if a house were already burning, that would jack the premium up to the cost of the house! Likewise health insurance. You can insure against hospitalization, serious injury, cancer, or a variety of other relatively unlikely events. But when we demand that every physical, well-child-checkup, and tylenol be paid for through our insurance, the company is going to have to charge us for all of that guaranteed cost ON TOP of the shared risk of the unexpected.

Then there's the role played by employers. My employer pays for my insurance (I have to pay for dependents). If I were single, I wouldn't have any incentive to care what it cost them. So I'm free to demand a cadillac plan. Of course, if you think about it, whatever your employer pays for health insurance could go straight to your salary if they made you buy it yourself. So it still affects my bottom line. But most of us with company benefits persist in the illusion that our health care costs are cheap or free.

On the other hand, those who buy their own policy (or have to pay through the nose for dependent coverage) have to make a decision based on opportunity cost. Paying several hundred to a thousand or more dollars a month for insurance directly impacts where you can live, what you can drive, how much you can spend on gas and groceries. For the healthy person, it's arguably smarter to pay your own way at the doc-in-the-box for routine stuff and take your chances on the more rare losses, knowing that no hospital is going to let you die anyway.

So, what to do about all of that? I think the biggest trick is to see to it that everybody has (and pays at least something for) a major medical plan with a high deductible, sort of like the "minimum limits" on your car policy. I don't care if this is done privately or publicly in the long run, or in combination somehow. But expanding the pool of the minimally insured is a good start. This can't be a cadillac policy--I envision something similar to the plans that go with the current HSA accounts--maybe $2500 deductible, 100% thereafter. If everybody had this, the larger pool would mean pretty low costs relative to what we have now. Care under such a plan would be somewhat rationed, in the sense that these things would likely not pay for Lasik and boob jobs. But lack of access to a 38DD is not a health care crisis. And besides, what we have now is rationed--a buddy of mine who pays a gazillion dollars a month for blue cross just found out his plan won't cover lap band weight loss surgery.

Of course, what to do about first-dollar care is the hard part. Here's a novel idea: how about pay your own way? Sure, if you'd like to pay somebody $500 a month so they can dole $5000 in annual costs back to you for low copays and still make a profit, I'm sure somebody will oblige you. But if you didn't have to pay the $500, you could pay a little a couple of times a year for a medical exam, or a doc visit, or a prescription. If you hit your deductible, it would be covered by the major medical plan. What a thought--people might even choose less-expensive options than they now do if it actually hit them in the pocketbook!

Perfect? No. Full of details? Not so much, but neither is Hillarycare 2.0. Discuss amongst yourselves and comment.

Stuff About Sal, Part 1

My wife and my sister, among others, have been posting lists of 100 random facts about themselves on their blogs. And since I haven't posted in a while, have very few good ideas, and think that likely no one but Matthew would care much for a multi-page rumination on how to deal with the 47 million Americans currently without health insurance, here's installment #1 on the Coach Sal trivia list:

1. I have never weighed over 147 lbs, and that was after 40 days of not running and eating fast food every day. I was only 120 lbs when I graduated from high school (at 5'10").
2. I took my wife to my senior prom.
3. I took my school's homecoming queen to my junior prom.
4. My favorite recording artist is Billy Joel.
5. I never won a championship race in high school (two conference runner-up medals).
6. Although I was a member of a state championship team (1985), I never personally qualified to run in the state finals (eliminated at Lower State, 1987).
7. I set a school record in the 100 meter dash that stood for 13 years, but didn't win the race that day. I didn't even know I had set the record until I took my son to my old school to watch a basketball scrimmage and saw my name on the record board.
8. My first name is David, the same as my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and my son. We're not very original.
9. I take a nap every Sunday afternoon, religiously.
10. Speaking of religiously, I have read the Bible cover-to-cover 6 times (currently working on #7).
11. I find Bible reading/study easy, but prayer difficult.
12. From the time I was 12, I was sure I was going to be a lawyer, and then a judge. Unless Matthew becomes president and appoints me, that one's likely not gonna happen.
13. I'm a fan of politics and the NBA, but both have been less fun for me in the past few years.
14. I love anything with Arnold Schwarzenegger in it, including "Pumping Iron."
15. I also love the Rocky movies. II is best, then I, III, VI (Balboa), IV, and finally V.
16. I read a lot in the summers, but not nearly as much in the school year. My bedside table looks like the re-shelve rack at the library.
17. I love biographies, the Harry Potter books, books on organization, and spy novels (esp. Tom Clancy).
18. I raced through college in 3 years so I could marry my wife, but then spent the next four years pursuing a master's degree.
19. My original master's program was in Medieval European History, but I never finished it--I transferred my credits to the Master's in Teaching program just in time to get a job when my oldest son was born.
20. I got my first DayTimer planner when I was 19, and have had one ever since.
21. I got my first glasses at age 14, and within a couple of months lost them by diving into a river to go water skiing without taking them off.
22. I've worn a flattop haircut for almost 15 years, and in that time have only been to two barbershops (in two different cities--I would NEVER cheat on my barber).
23. My teams are the Boston Celtics, Dallas Cowboys, Atlanta Braves, and Carolina Gamecocks.
24. I gave up Cub Scouts because it interfered with me playing pee wee football. looking back, I would have been a better Eagle Scout than defensive end.
25. I have taught about 1500 students.
26. My oldest students are now in their 30's.
27. When I first began teaching, some of my students had children older than mine. Now my children are older than my students.
28. Until three years ago, I had never crossed the Mississippi River; until this past summer I had never left the country.
29. My favorite foods in the world are my Grandmama's fried chicken and my mother-in-law's roast beef.
30. I drove a 1978 Ford Mustang in high school and college.
31. I once got a speeding ticket on my way to court-mandated defensive driving class.
32. I also drove a school bus.
33. I met my current brother-in-law when we worked together bagging groceries at a Winn-Dixie.

Well, that's 33, a good first installment. I can't think of that many interesting items. Maybe I'm boring. More to come when time permits.

Shalom!

While on a run (itself a miracle) this morning, I got a good excuse to stop for a second or two--I ran into a family I know. We live near a synagogue, so Saturday morning runs involve passing lots of devoted Jews walking to services. This particular family is the parents of a former athlete, a state-champion hurdler who is now a senior at Cornell. (Yes, my 2-miler is at Yale, my long jumper is at Harvard, and my hurdler is at Cornell--it was a really, really smart track team!) Anyway, since I know these guys pretty well, I had a chance to ask a question that has crossed my mind on many of my Saturday runs. Is going for a run "work" that a devout Jew should not do on the sabbath? After all, it IS strenuous, and it's a "workout." But it's also a hobby, and if you're barely jogging like I was this morning, it's relaxing, and a pleasure. Their answer was that the run itself, since it's just a faster form of locomotion, is permissible. But the shower after the run, that's work. Now obviously, as a gentile, this doesn't apply to me (and all my family is happy that I have showered). But it does lead to a couple of theological thoughts. First, the concept of the letter vs. the spirit of the law. I believe that Christ came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. So the details may no longer be required (ritual sacrifice, legalistic sabbath keeping, etc), but the heart should be the same (sacrificial, whole-hearted love of God). Much ink has been spilled on whether it is easier or harder to keep the Christian version of the covenant, but either way, it's just different. And secondly, the sabbath itself. Now, like most Christians, "my" sabbath is Sunday. But our family does try to observe it seriously. We generally turn down social invitations on Sundays, and we not only attend morning and evening worship services, we almost always have a set period of "down-time" (for me, a nap) in between. I also usually take Sundays as one of my rest days from running. Lots of folks kid me about how much I love my Sunday naps, but it really is my favorite day of the week--the one day that my calendar accurately reflects what I say are my deepest priorities--faith and family. Shalom, ya'll.