James A. McClure

I was dismayed to hear about widespread problems at Veterans Administration hospitals of veterans being denied medical care because of bureaucratic malfeasance. And I was a little surprised because my experience as a VA patient has been overwhelmingly positive.

When I injured my knee in a snowshoeing mishap a couple of years ago, I had surgery at the VA hospital in Albuquerque. The care I received was excellent. Everyone – clerks, surgeons, nurses, physical therapists – was professional, efficient and courteous. These are dedicated people who genuinely care for veterans and treat them with respect.

But I’m not the kind of veteran who is at risk. The VA is optional for me because I also am covered by Medicare and military-retirement Tricare. When I originally applied for VA health care (to get a free flu shot) I was surprised when I was accepted. I have no service-connected disabilities (a tolerance for bad coffee does not count, they told me) and am not indigent. I qualified for health care because I served in Vietnam – even though I was floating off the coast, never saw actual combat and was never exposed to Agent Orange.

Nearly all the people I saw at the VA hospital clearly deserved to be there: lots of disabled elderly vets and young amputees. The place has more handicapped parking spaces than I have ever seen in one location and needs more. I got prompt treatment because I showed up in the emergency room with a ruptured tendon, but suspect I would have been on a long waiting list if I had vague symptoms of post-traumatic stress or brain injury.

The VA health system is excellent in many ways but is unable to cope with the sheer number of veterans who need care. From what we know so far, that problem has been compounded by bureaucratic dishonesty, poor leadership and political inattention. It’s not just a matter of money: The VA has received significant funding increases and has been exempted from federal budget cuts, yet hundreds of medical jobs at the VA are going unfilled while veterans wait for treatment.

When the VA turns away veterans who need care, that’s an outrage – especially if they’re also delivering care to veterans who do NOT need it. If EVERY veteran who set foot in Vietnam is eligible for VA health care, for instance, that’s three million of us. Some of these folks have service-connected medical problems but many more do not. My good health and ability to afford co-pays puts me in the lowest eligibility category for VA health care, but perhaps the VA should not be treating guys like me at all when veterans in greater need are on a waiting list.

I’m sure there’s plenty of inefficiency, too. After my knee surgery the VA sent me home with a brand-new wheelchair. Once I was back on my feet I called the hospital to turn in the wheelchair and was told they did not want it back. Wonder how many more doctors the VA could hire if they were less generous with wheelchairs? There’s also no coordination between the VA, Medicare and Medicaid.

The VA has been broken for years and I hope they fix it this time. It will take a Veterans Affairs secretary who has the authority to fire dishonest bureaucrats and the gumption to pound on the desk in the Oval Office. Congress will listen in an election year because millions of veterans will be watching and voting.

It’s official: Climate change has left the realm of science and is now a full-blown political ideology. That’s unfortunate because climate change is real, and there are some commonsense solutions that are likely to get lost in the political hysteria.

Climate scientists have been making alarmist predictions for decades and most have been spectacularly wrong. Now the same folks (at least the ones appointed by politicians to government and U.N. panels) now connect manmade climate change with virtually every weather extreme: rainstorms and drought, decreasing and increasing icecaps, cold snaps and heat waves. What’s next, locusts?

I’m suspicious of the claim that debate is over because there’s a scientific consensus. This sounds more like a religion than a science, but even theologians debate. I suspect there still is a lot we do not know about the causes of weather. But if the Einstein of climate science shows up, could he or she get a research grant without conforming to political orthodoxy?

In any case, science is irrelevant because the politicians have taken over. Sen. Harry Reid, predictably, blames climate change on the Koch brothers. And I’m sure it’s a coincidence that President Obama declared climate change an urgent priority after hedge-fund billionaire Tom Steyer pledged to donate $100 million to politicians who support stringent environmental regulation. Does hot air cause climate change?

The political climate-change campaign sidesteps some inconvenient truths. Global warming has increased since 1970 but has remained flat for the past 17 years. Greenhouse gas emissions of most developed nations, led by the U.S., have been reduced to below 1990 levels. The biggest driver of this environmental success is the increasing use of cheap, abundant natural gas from hydraulic fracking. Perhaps the politicians are silent about this because the natural-gas revolution is a result of private enterprise and not government regulation.

Climate change remains a global problem, however, because increasing emissions from China, India and other growing economies far outweigh reductions in the U.S. and Europe. So adding new U.S. environmental regulations is a symbolic gesture that will reduce our standard of living, but will have zero impact on climate change so long as the rest of the world continues to burn more coal. All we’ll get out of it is skyrocketing electricity rates, higher gasoline prices, an even slower economy and the same crappy weather.

If we really want to do something about climate change – and not merely increase government control over the economy – there are some possible solutions that do not require economic suicide:

• Step up production of natural gas and export it overseas, then work with energy companies and foreign governments to expand fracking technology to growing countries that now depend on coal.
• Poverty kills more people than climate change. So let’s help poor countries develop cheap energy so that people can heat their houses, purify their water and cook their food. Solar and wind energy can play a big role here, but even fossil fuels will be an improvement over burning camel dung and cutting down rain forests for fuel.
• Develop storage and smart power grid technologies that can distribute solar and wind power to places where the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
• Dump ethanol. It causes more environmental damage than it prevents. Expand the use of natural gas as motor fuel instead.
• Expand nuclear power, perhaps by developing small-scale, manufactured reactors (like the ones on submarines) as backup generators for wind and solar systems.

It would be great to see a constructive discussion on how best to harness American innovation to continue environmental progress in the U.S. and drive global solutions. But don’t expect that to happen until after the election, if ever.

How to stimulate the economy

Since President Obama is unwilling to grow the economy by approving the Keystone Pipeline, increasing U.S. energy production or relaxing some of his new regulations on business, he should double down on his most successful economic stimulus. I’m talking about gun control.

This President has a rare talent for inspiring people to buy guns whenever he opens his mouth. His push for gun control resulted in new records for firearms sales in 2012 and 2013. So we need the President to boost the economy by campaigning even harder for gun control. And since women account for the biggest increase in gun ownership, he should continue his “war on women” rhetoric.

Guantanamo

Just close the joint, for heaven’s sake. Send all those guys back to their home countries and turn them loose. But first, surgically implant a microchip in each terrorist suspect we release. So the drones can find them.

Driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants

My home state of New Mexico is one of only two states that issue a full-privilege driver’s license to illegal immigrants. This makes the state a magnet for license fraud: Undocumented folks from around the country pay big bucks to travel here for a fraudulent license that enables them to get through airport security and perhaps register to vote. Problem is, the criminals who set this up are making all the money and that’s unfair to New Mexicans.

Our politicians are unwilling to end this fraud by issuing illegal immigrants a limited driving permit as other states have done. So my idea is to capitalize on this situation by legalizing it. Just offer New Mexico licenses to out-of-state illegal immigrants for a premium fee that’s slightly less than the criminals charge. That will put the illegal license rings out of business and generate new state revenues from driver’s license tourism.

Unemployment

We need an initiative to help unemployed workers in places like Detroit and Upstate New York migrate to areas where the jobs are, like North Dakota and Texas. Offer them moving assistance and job placement, and cut a deal with the banks for those whose mortgages are underwater. This is a practical suggestion, actually, but the politicians will never stand for it.

A union for Congress

Many politicians are fervent supporters of the right of working people to join unions, but are denied the benefit of union membership themselves. That’s unfair. If unions can represent home healthcare workers and IRS agents, why should members of Congress be denied the right to organize?

Under the “card check” rule governing most government agencies, Congress would not even have to vote. If 51% of members sign up, everyone has to join the union. This might be a problem in the House of Representatives but would sail through the Senate.

Based on the percentage of dues most union members pay, the union would collect around $8,000 a year from every senator — which is far less than many senators get in union campaign contributions. Work rules could be a challenge: Are the senators who keep the Senate in session to avoid presidential recess appointments entitled to overtime pay? When a senator fails to win re-election, will the union file a grievance? I’m sure the U.S. Department of Labor can work this out.

Mexico is a great place to vacation if you’re aware of the hazards: Not the dodgy sanitation or drug cartels, but the timeshare salesmen.

My resort in Cabo

A timeshare is a vacation home, sort of. You purchase time at a resort, pay an annual maintenance fee and can exchange time at one resort for another. It’s a lousy investment, but my late wife and I found that owning a timeshare counterbalanced our customary frugality: We felt compelled to take vacations at nice resorts and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I often vacation at my home resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and have used timeshare exchanges in a variety of places in the U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean.

Timeshare selling is practically a national sport in Mexico because the country has more tourists and fewer consumer protection laws than most places. Arriving at the airport in a resort town like Puerto Vallarta or Los Cabos entails walking through what some locals call the “shark tank.” It’s a room full of official-looking airport counters where friendly people accost you with offers of transportation or tours. Their job is to sign you up for a 90-minute resort tour and timeshare presentation. I’ve learned to avoid eye contact.

You get the same commercial bonhomie from tourist information booths around town and random strangers who approach you on the street. The practice is so widespread that some legitimate tourist information booths have “no timeshare” signs. On one vacation we were walking on the beach and stopped at a quaint, thatched-roof restaurant… where the waiter tried to sell us a timeshare.

The timeshare sales presentation starts with an attractive young person who gives you a tour of the resort. Then you’re ushered to a sales room, perhaps with a dramatic ocean view (all this can be yours!), where a succession of more experienced salesmen give you a high-pressure sales pitch. The object is to get you to sign a purchase contract before you leave the room because Mexican law does not give consumers the right to cancel a contract once it’s signed.

My timeshare company, Universal Vacation Club’s Villa Group, does an excellent job of building and operating resorts. But their sales force inhabits the same ethical swamp as the rest of the industry and timeshare owners are not immune. Over the years my wife and I upgraded our timeshare a couple of times as our needs changed. During a recent vacation in Cabo San Lucas, I signed up for what they euphemistically called a member update in exchange for a discount on my restaurant tab.

I knew what I was getting into. After the pretty lady gave me the obligatory resort tour, I explained to a tag team of sales guys that I was interested in trading down to a smaller unit than my current two-bedroom condo in exchange for greater flexibility. Instead, they offered me an upgrade to a three-bedroom penthouse: a steal at slightly more than my annual income. When I reminded them that I’m not Donald Trump, they countered with several smaller offers.

Oh, the promises they made! Upgrading to a higher membership category would give me preferential treatment. A special toll-free number to a private concierge. Nicer beach towels, spa discounts, even complimentary bathrobes. All of which would cost a great deal more than I’m willing to pay. I got up and began moving toward the door.

But they weren’t through with me. Outside the sales room yet another guy asked me to take a survey on my sales experience, and then asked how much I would be willing to pay for an upgrade. I made up a figure that was about half the price of their lowest offer, and the guy went to check with his manager.

He came back a minute later, exclaiming: “Good news!” The offer had been reduced by 15 percent. I shook my head, picked up my discount card and got out of there. The rest of my vacation was considerably more pleasant.

I just signed a contract to install an array of solar panels on my roof that eventually will give me free electricity. But don’t call me an environmentalist.

Solar energy makes sense for me because the sun shines 330 days a year on my flat-roofed house in New Mexico. It makes even more sense when the federal and state governments pick up 40% of the tab.

The irony is that I’m going solar primarily as a hedge against rising utility rates resulting from government environmental regulations. The state has imposed aggressive renewable-energy goals on utility companies, and the federal government is forcing the closing of a coal-fired power plant (because it was creating haze over an uninhabited national park). So rates for electricity are going up with no end in sight. Another irony is that the government is subsidizing those of us who can afford to buy solar systems while ordinary ratepayers foot the bill for environmental progress. 

For the record, I agree completely that the climate is changing and that human activity has something to do with it. I am not convinced, however, that closing all the coal plants will make it rain in California or curb hurricanes on the East Coast. And I had to laugh when scientists studying global warming got stuck in the ice in Antarctica.

Even if we accept a “settled science” that occasionally sounds more like Scientology, imposing draconian energy restrictions at home while China merrily builds coal plants does not strike me as a workable solution to a global problem.

The canary in the coal mine (pardon the expression) is Germany, which set aggressive renewable-energy goals and is closing its nuclear power plants as well. So electricity rates are more than twice as high as in the U.S. and they’re adding coal-fired power plants to make up the shortfall.

The good news is that the U.S. is on the right trajectory. Greenhouse gas emissions have dropped dramatically, mostly because fracking technology has made it economical to replace coal with cleaner-burning natural gas. Fuel-efficient cars, energy conservation and the miniscule impact of renewable energy have helped.

This suggests that commonsense, global solutions may be possible through innovation and engineering rather than symbolic environmental gestures. In the short term, the U.S. has the potential to be a world leader in the production of natural gas. Exporting gas, and the technology we’ve developed to produce it, can replace some of the coal that’s being burned in China and other places. And we already have the technology to use natural gas for motor fuel.

In the long term, developing smart power grids and storage technologies eventually may make wind and solar energy practical on a large scale – especially in third-world countries that still use their forests for fuel. We probably can do more with nuclear energy, perhaps by manufacturing small, standardized reactors like the ones submarines use instead of building humongous, custom-designed power plants.

It also makes sense to devote more research to coal because we have so much of the stuff. Coal plant emissions have been reduced significantly in recent decades, and perhaps further progress can make it possible to keep limited use of coal in our energy mix.

If the solar panels on my roof make a teensy contribution to save the planet while giving me free electricity, that’s fine. But it’s hard to be environmentally smug when my solar panels are coming from a factory in China that’s powered by coal.

I’ve been taking an academic interest in the public reaction to the Obamacare rollout. (It’s academic at this point because my Medicare/Tricare coverage has not changed so far.) I’ve always been curious about how people behave in groups, and my career in public relations made me an armchair social scientist.

One of my favorite assignments was conducting opinion research at Illinois Bell with surveys of customers and employees to evaluate our public relations programs. It was fun because the job gave me license to be the corporate gadfly and they paid me. My role as an opinion research wonk has continued into retirement with surveys for the National Stuttering Association.

One of my projects was tracking customer attitudes toward the breakup of the Bell System in 1984. At the time, this was the biggest corporate reorganization in history: a government initiative to introduce competition by splitting AT&T into separate local and long-distance telephone companies. So I set up a series of periodic surveys to track public opinion before, during and after the reorganization.

Before the divestiture took effect, customers were strongly in favor of the move. Breaking up a big company has compelling populist appeal, and politicians and consumer groups supported the divestiture enthusiastically. My surveys showed that customers were aware the breakup was coming, understood that this would mean changes for their telephone service, and were happy about it. Some respondents thought the government should break up AT&T into even smaller pieces.

After the breakup we saw a dramatic shift in customer opinion when the change began to affect respondents personally. Suddenly, customers told us the breakup was a terrible idea after they experienced what I began calling the Holy Shit Moment. You mean I have to deal with two separate companies for local and long distance service? I’m responsible for my phone equipment now? And you’re adding a charge to my phone bill? Holy shit! Why didn’t someone tell us this was going to happen? The lesson we learned was that public opinion is fickle, and ultimately will be driven by reality rather than rhetoric.

We may be seeing a similar phenomenon in the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. After years of political debate about what may or may not happen, the hypothetical is becoming real and personal. News reports of adverse consequences of Obamacare — insurance cancellations, website problems, etc. — are showing up in opinion polls and making the law even more unpopular. As expected, both political parties are spinning the story furiously.

Ultimately, the success or failure of Obamacare will depend on consumer experience and not messaging. I am a skeptic at this point but may encounter my own Holy Shit Moment when the law’s Medicare cuts take effect. In the meantime, it’s amusing to watch the politicians and pundits flail away in the forlorn hope that what they say will make a difference.