Obama ends Bush restriction on access to Presidential record

[Lord of the Abyss]

Chronicle of Higher Education New Blog

January 21, 2009

Obama Overturns Bush Order on Presidential Records
Washington — In one of his first official acts as president, Barack Obama has overturned a controversial executive order in which former President George W. Bush limited public access to presidential records.

The order, No. 13233, was issued by Mr. Bush in 2001. It expanded the power of current and former chief executives — and their heirs — to restrict access to their official records. Last year the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would have gutted the order, but the measure ran into resistance in the Senate. The House took up the issue again this month.

Mr. Obama’s move will gladden the hearts of historians, who have vigorously protested the Bush order. The news that Mr. Obama had overturned it was reported by the National Coalition for History, an advocacy group, on its Web site this afternoon. It noted that the text of the Obama order was not yet available, and quoted a news release from the White House that refers to the new administration’s stated commitment to transparency in government:


The executive order on presidential records brings those principles to presidential records by giving the American people greater access to these historic documents. This order ends the practice of having others besides the president assert executive privilege for records after an administration ends. Now, only the president will have that power, limiting its potential for abuse. And the order also requires the attorney general and the White House counsel to review claims of executive privilege about covered records to make sure those claims are fully warranted by the Constitution.

President Obama also ordered federal agencies today to look for ways to comply with requests for documents sought under the Freedom of Information Act, in contrast to the practices of the Bush administration. Editor & Publisher, a journal covering the news business, quoted Mr. Obama as saying that “every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known.” —Jennifer Howard

Excellent.

[Count Chocula]

Okay. I didn't vote for Barack, but I must say I like this.

I also like Florida's "Sunshine" law.

My jury of one is out. I just hope he doesn't actually waste another $800 billion and nationalize ~30% of our economy (health care).

[Illuminatus Primus]

Okay. I didn't vote for Barack, but I must say I like this.

I also like Florida's "Sunshine" law.

My jury of one is out. I just hope he doesn't actually waste another $800 billion and nationalize ~30% of our economy (health care).

Why? The Canadian and Australian model produces better outcomes and actually saves a considerable amount of economic activity which could be directed for more useful purposes. I guess you're one of those who thinks overnight austerity and hope it goes away will make it so.

[Broomstick]

I'll second the "let's not waste 800 billion" but, Chocula, I disagree on your stance on healthcare - I think we'd be better off with single-payer.

Even my Ultimate Cynic landlord grudgingly admitted approval of some of Obama's actions today. So far, so good. Here's hoping he can keep it up.

[Count Chocula]

I agree with single payer, as long as I'm the single payer and can choose a risk pool in a manner more similar to auto insurance, although that's not ideal either.

My insurance costs have tripled in the past four years, and I can't see where that's going to get better. I understand the in-network/out-of-network coverage (my dentist won't jump through Aetna's hoops), but I also can't shake the feeling that something is skewing costs for private plans. What little I do know is that health insurance as an employee benefit started during WWII as a result of wartime wage caps, and it's grown over the decades into a monster. It's my understanding that Medicare/Medicaid are brutal on what they'll pay for treatment and medication to providers, and Blue Cross is equally parsimonious. That leaves doctors/hospitals/private health insurance providers, like the one I unfortunately have, to make up the difference by charging higher premiums and reducing service. My insurance for a healthy family of 3 is the second highest expense I pay, behind my mortgage.

I realize this is a digression, but I'm not convinced that the federal government as the single payer for 300+ million people would be a good step. Their track record in the financial arena has been, um, less than sterling, and it appears that federally sponsored health care programs have introduced distortions in the private sector that have driven up prices to unsustainable levels.

[Stark]

I love it when people say shot like 'I don't understand how this works but my gut feeling is that something hat works elsewhere would be even worse than now'.

In other news, access to records = good and who cares about historians.

[SirNitram]

I love it when people say shot like 'I don't understand how this works but my gut feeling is that something hat works elsewhere would be even worse than now'.

In other news, access to records = good and who cares about historians.

Naturally. America is SPECIAL! But apparently, all that special is distilled into being totally worthless, from the tone of these debates.

Thankfully, it's a load of bull, or I'd not be on the medical insurance plan with the lowest overhead/administrative fees(And thus, excess cost) in the country.

[Patrick Degan]

I agree with single payer, as long as I'm the single payer and can choose a risk pool in a manner more similar to auto insurance, although that's not ideal either.

My insurance costs have tripled in the past four years, and I can't see where that's going to get better. I understand the in-network/out-of-network coverage (my dentist won't jump through Aetna's hoops), but I also can't shake the feeling that something is skewing costs for private plans. What little I do know is that health insurance as an employee benefit started during WWII as a result of wartime wage caps, and it's grown over the decades into a monster. It's my understanding that Medicare/Medicaid are brutal on what they'll pay for treatment and medication to providers, and Blue Cross is equally parsimonious. That leaves doctors/hospitals/private health insurance providers, like the one I unfortunately have, to make up the difference by charging higher premiums and reducing service. My insurance for a healthy family of 3 is the second highest expense I pay, behind my mortgage.

So despite all that, you would not want a system which actually does work a lot better where it's been implemented elsewhere in the world than the current setup which is reaming you out.

Your logic is broken.

I realize this is a digression, but I'm not convinced that the federal government as the single payer for 300+ million people would be a good step. Their track record in the financial arena has been, um, less than sterling,

In case you haven't been paying attention, the private sector's record in the financial arena has been utterly shitty.

Your logic is broken.

and it appears that federally sponsored health care programs have introduced distortions in the private sector that have driven up prices to unsustainable levels.

Evidence for this assertion please —particularly when there is more than enough evidence that it is HMOs and insurance companies which have been the chief drivers in healthcare costs skyrocketing over the last decade rather than anything done by the Federal government.

Again, your logic is broken.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••

Back on the track of this thread, the new president certainly is not wasting any time, is he? I expect it's going to be an uncomfortable four (hopefully eight) years for Chimpy and Count Dick as they get to helplessly sit back and watch all their efforts of the past eight being relentlessly undone and themselves steadily being erased.

[PainRack]

Evidence for this assertion please —particularly when there is more than enough evidence that it is HMOs and insurance companies which have been the chief drivers in healthcare costs skyrocketing over the last decade rather than anything done by the Federal government.

Again, your logic is broken.

Errr...... What is the evidence for HMOs and insurance compnies driving up costs as opposed to normal economic activities such as inflation, increased demand and the cost of healthcare rising in general?

The argument can be made that the Federal government hasn't done anything to drive up costs, and indeed, plenty could and should had been done to cap costs at the Federal and State level, but to argue that HMOs are the ones driving up costs instead?

[JME2]

Very good, very good; we can finally bid adieu, to Nixon-style stonewalling, at least for the next 4 years, anyway...

[Count Chocula]

Goddam will you stop with the dogpile already. Stark, I know jack shit about Australia's health care system so I don't say jack shit about it. Likewise I know jack shit about you, except your inimitable posting style in Testingstan, so I don't say shit personally about you. Maybe I should have posted this in Venting - I'm not inviting a debate because others on this board know more about the subject than I do. All I do know, for sure, is that I'm paying a buttload more with Aetna than I was with Blue Cross, for less coverage.

Nitram, honest inquiry: who's your provider? I'd love to save some money for equivalent coverage.

[thejester]

I love it when people say shot like 'I don't understand how this works but my gut feeling is that something hat works elsewhere would be even worse than now'.

In other news, access to records = good and who cares about historians.

I do

And on that note it would be like finding the fucking Titanic for whatever lucky academics are the first to cast eyes on GWB's stuff. We've had a spate of work the last two years that's aimed at critical assessment but they weren't really worth much; too much information was locked away, out of reach. Interesting to see what emerges from the documents, which often hold the real gold.

[Stark]

Turns out when you hijack a thread with irrelevant and ignorant unsupported statements people laugh at you.

Ironically in AU the public system exerts downward pressure on private cover, since it's basically unnecessary and merely a luxury so nobody would buy it if priced like the American model. LOL?

[Patrick Degan]

Evidence for this assertion please —particularly when there is more than enough evidence that it is HMOs and insurance companies which have been the chief drivers in healthcare costs skyrocketing over the last decade rather than anything done by the Federal government.

Again, your logic is broken.

Errr...... What is the evidence for HMOs and insurance compnies driving up costs as opposed to normal economic activities such as inflation, increased demand and the cost of healthcare rising in general?

The argument can be made that the Federal government hasn't done anything to drive up costs, and indeed, plenty could and should had been done to cap costs at the Federal and State level, but to argue that HMOs are the ones driving up costs instead?

Read:

In my previous blog post, I showed that America suffers from “excess spending” in its health care system. Here I will discuss one factor that drives up that spending: indefensibly high administrative costs.

To review: “Excess health spending” in this context refers to the difference between what a country spends per person on health care, and what the country’s gross domestic product per person should predict that that country would spend. (The prediction is based on trends in other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.) The word “excess” here should not be taken as “excessive” unless one could demonstrate that what the other O.E.C.D. nations spend is appropriate and what we spend is ipso facto wasteful.

The United States spends nearly 40 percent more on health care per capita than its G.D.P. per capita would predict. Given the sheer magnitude of the estimated excess spending, it is fair to ask American health care providers what extra benefits the American people receive in return for this enormous extra spending. After all, translated into total dollar spending per year, this excess spending amounted to $570 billion in 2006 and about $650 billion in 2008. The latter figure is over five times the estimated $125 billion or so in additional health spending that would be needed to attain truly universal health insurance coverage in this country.

One thing Americans do buy with this extra spending is an administrative overhead load that is huge by international standards. The McKinsey Global Institute estimated that excess spending on “health administration and insurance” accounted for as much as 21 percent of the estimated total excess spending ($477 billion in 2003). Brought forward, that 21 percent of excess spending on administration would amount to about $120 billion in 2006 and about $150 billion in 2008. It would have been more than enough to finance universal health insurance this year.

The McKinsey team estimated that about 85 percent of this excess administrative overhead can be attributed to the highly complex private health insurance system in the United States. Product design, underwriting and marketing account for about two-thirds of that total. The remaining 15 percent was attributed to public payers that are not saddled with the high cost of product design, medical underwriting and marketing, and that therefore spend a far smaller fraction of their total spending on administration.

Two studies using more detailed bilateral comparisons of two countries illustrate even more sharply the magnitude of our administrative burden relative to that in other developed countries.

One of these is an earlier McKinsey study explaining the difference in 1990 health spending in West Germany and in the United States. The researchers found that in 1990 Americans received $390 per capita less in actual health care but spent $360 more per capita on administration.

A second, more recent study of administrative costs in the American and Canadian health systems was published in 2003 by Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2003. The study used a measure of administrative costs that includes not only the insurer’s costs, but also the costs borne by employers, health-care providers and governments – but not the value of the time patients spent claiming reimbursement. These authors estimated that in 1999, Americans spent $1,059 per capita on administration compared with only $307 in purchasing power parity dollars (PPP $) spent in Canada.

More and more Americans are being priced out of health care as we know it. The question is how long American health policy makers, and particularly the leaders of our private health insurance, can justify this enormous and costly administrative burden to the American people and to the harried providers of health care.

Really, this has been debated up and down on this board over the years and this issue alone was one of the bludgeons the late and unlamented Tharkun regularly got his fool head beaten in with.

[Ender]

So does this let us go back and paw through Bush's records as well, or simply allow access to Obama's?

[General Zod]

So does this let us go back and paw through Bush's records as well, or simply allow access to Obama's?

President Obama also ordered federal agencies today to look for ways to comply with requests for documents sought under the Freedom of Information Act, in contrast to the practices of the Bush administration.

Going by this I'm betting there's a way of going through Dubya's records.

[Count Chocula]

Quote from article:

President Obama also ordered federal agencies today to look for ways to comply with requests for documents sought under the Freedom of Information Act

That statement does nothing to contradict the President's power to restrict FOIA requests, so it appears that Pres. Obama retained the power to keep his cards close. We will see, of course, how he chooses to play them.

Here's another quote, on topic, from a market commentator with whom I heartily agree:
Karl Denninger wrote

I will become actually impressed (as opposed to prospectively impressed) when Bloomberg's FOIA requests are complied with and their lawsuit is mooted.

(Yes, I'm aware that one of those suits is aimed at The Fed; the last time I checked the nation's money supply is The President's business via Treasury, and if The Fed doesn't like President Obama's "new direction" he can always either send up a bill to explicitly force The Fed under FOIA rules or, in the alternative, send one up to repeal The Federal Reserve Act.)

PS: Such a policy, if it becomes real and enforced as opposed to politik-speak, will go a long way toward restoring confidence as well.

[SirNitram]

Nitram, honest inquiry: who's your provider? I'd love to save some money for equivalent coverage.

Medicare/Medicaid.

Of the amount of waste(Administrative, non-medical) costs as a percent..

Medicare/Medicaid are running about 5%; there's room for improvement by orbital-nuking the stupid prescription drug benefit plan and not writing a bill to pad the pockets of industry friends of the Bush administration.

There is, as I doublecheck the numbers, one better performer. The VA. There is, however, a signifigant non-monetary investment there.

Private insurance is running closer to 17%.

HMOs vary pretty wildly, and go up to 25%.

This does not count profits.

Some graphs to hammer home the way administrative costs(Which include people employed simply to justify, by any means necessary, denying coverage) have changed..

Link

A little backwards; this is how much of their revenue HMOs put to medical care. The rest is all to administrative costs and profits.

This should drive home the fact that preference for no default government net for all is pretty much either ignorance(Which is hopefully now addressed), or the personal greed of those who profit from offering skimpy coverage.(Of course, there's no doubt there will still be a market for cadillac-grade coverage.)

[PainRack]

More and more Americans are being priced out of health care as we know it. The question is how long American health policy makers, and particularly the leaders of our private health insurance, can justify this enormous and costly administrative burden to the American people and to the harried providers of health care.[/i]

Really, this has been debated up and down on this board over the years and this issue alone was one of the bludgeons the late and unlamented Tharkun regularly got his fool head beaten in with.[/quote]
Ah. Thanks, I forgot how the various adminstrative costs rolled over....................

[Broomstick]

Nitram, honest inquiry: who's your provider? I'd love to save some money for equivalent coverage.

Medicare/Medicaid.

Of course, there's an irony here that this provider is likely the one Chocula doesn't have access to.

My current provider is also Medicaid (although not Medicare). The coverage is almost as good as what I got working for Blue Cross and my out-of-pocket costs are less. I am paying less than $100/month for the two of us. They also had to put a shitload of restrictions on who could get it in my state so, and I quote, "this program would not compete with private insurance". That's right - they were concerned that on a level playing field private insurance would lose to this government health plan. And they are right. People would flock to this plan if they knew about it and they could.