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The AP has an effective piece documenting the aspect of sticker shock we have not hit yet–when people realize that paying for monthly insurance will still require paying out of pocket costs. And lots of them. (I saw some poll that thought a significant percentage of people though Obamacare meant free health insurance). The bronze plans under Obamacare have very high deductibles.

The new federal and state health insurance exchanges offer policies ranked as bronze, silver, gold and platinum. The bronze options have the lowest monthly premiums but high deductibles — the amount the policyholder must pay before the insurer picks up any of the cost of medical care.

On average, a bronze plan’s deductible is more than $4,300, according to an analysis of marketplace plans in 19 states by Avalere Health. A consumer who upgrades to a silver plan could reduce the deductible to about $2,500. A top-of-the-line platinum plan has the lowest average deductible: $167.

Deductible, you ask? What’s that?

The complexities of insurance are eye-glazing even for those who have it. Only 14 percent of American adults with insurance understand deductibles, according to one recent study.

Can you imagine how pissed off people will be when they buy expensive experience, and then get saddled with a bill because of a high deductible plan? There will be outrage.

I’m sure Ilya Somin has something to say about these numbers, and rational ignorance. If only the President had read Ilya’s work, and had not been so confident people would learn and talk about health insurance while drinking hot chocolate and wearing pajama onesies.

In the President’s news conference earlier this week, I was really struck by this line:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, hold on a second, I — I think it’s important to note that, when it comes to the right balance on surveillance, these are a series of judgment calls that we’re making every single day because we’ve got a whole bunch of folks whose job it is to make sure that the American people are protected.

And that’s a hard job because if something slips, then the question that’s coming from you the next day at a press conference is, Mr. President, why didn’t you catch that; why did the intelligence people allow that to slip; isn’t there a way that we could have found out that in fact this terrorist attack took place.

In other words, the President thinks that in crafting the balance on security and liberty with respect to surveillance, one of his paramount concerns (of course) is not letting “something slip.” That is, he worries that by weakening his guard, and the United States misses something on the surveillance realm, a terrorist attack will happen. Then, he worries, the White House press corps will ask whim why he didn’t stop it. (I would imagine the loss of life is of greater concern, but I’ll leave this here).

Americans always want more freedoms, and less surveillance. That is easy enough. But, if the President instituted reforms that weakened the surveillance regime, and a terrorist attack that would have been caught, but wasn’t, resulted in the loss of life of Americans, would we blame the President.

(Of course, I am assuming that the NSA’s use of these surveillance techniques actually stops terrorist attacks. The NSA Panel’s report suggests that not a single terrorist attack was stopped solely based on these technologies. These facts are really relevant to the debate. But I’ll assume this is true for my analysis).

Or, let me give you another hypo. President Rand Paul, who is no fan of the TSA, decides to abolish it. He says we will go back to Pre-9/11 airport security. Or perhaps, he adopts the TSA-pre level of screenings (no body scanners or pat downs). He would be celebrated and lauded by travelers nationwide. This would make the keep-your-cellphone on during takeoff bit seem trivial.

But, say terrorists take advantage of this lax security, and blow up a plane, or fly it into a building and kill many Americans. And it is shown that had the body scanners been in place, the terrorist attack would have been prevented (I find this doubtful, but bear with me. See this post about why Israeli airport security is infinitely more effective). Or, had the NSA been able to collect our bulk meta data, the plan would’ve been stopped two years ago (again, assume this is true).

What would President Paul’s press conference look like? Would the Press lambaste the President, using the exact same questions Obama got, but in reverse?

Or, would Paul say something to the effect of, I was elected President by Americans who were willing to take these risks in order to be more free. I mourn the lives of those lost, but the balance we struck is one the American people wanted. I have difficult imagining any President saying that, though part of me wishes one would.

If the intoxication of executive power seduced even Obama, will President Paul be immune?

Relatedly, any post-terrorist attack would suffer horribly from hindsight bias. Danny Kahneman explored this sentiment in Thinking Fast & Slow:

The worse the consequence, the greater the hindsight bias. In the case of a catastrophe, such as 9/11, we are especially ready to believe that the officials who failed to anticipate it were negligent or blind. On July 10, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency obtained information that al-Qaeda might be planning a major attack against the United States. George Tenet, director of the CIA, brought the information not to President George W. Bush but to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. When the facts later emerged, Ben Bradlee, the legendary executive editor of The Washington Post, declared, “It seems to me elementary that if you’ve got the story that’s going to dominate history you might as well go right to the president.” But on July 10, no one knew—or could have known—that this tidbit of intelligence would turn out to dominate history.

Recent efforts to fix Obamacare on a day-by-day basis, just trying to stay alive till tomorrow, reminded of an episode of the Simpsons, titled Bart the Mother. In the episode, Bart nurses what he thinks are bird eggs, but in fact are the eggs of a lizard that steals a bird’s eggs and leaves her own. These lizards are a huge nuisance, and will destroy their ecoystem. Principal Skinner threatens to kill them, but Bart saves them.

However, the lizards eat the pigeons–annoying birds–so people are happy. But, soon the lizards over-populate and become a nuisance. So how to get rid of the lizards? Well Springfield will import Chinese Needle Snakes, which will eat the lizards. But what happens when the snakes become a problem? Well Springfield will import snake-eating gorillas, of course. But what about over-populated gorillas?  Well, ”when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.”

Sometimes I feel that government’s policies mirrors this episode. Solve one problem with a second problem, and when that problem becomes too big, impose a third problem, and so on, ad infinitum. Though, we will not have some cold winter to kill the final problem. But by that point, there will be a different President, and it still won’t be Obama’s problem.

Here is the transcript of a conversation between Principal Skinner and Lisa:

Skinner: Well, I was wrong; the lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn’t that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we’re overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They’ll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren’t the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we’re prepared for that. We’ve lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we’re stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that’s the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

Update: Thanks to Greg Dolin for finding the video.

During the President’s press conference, Ed Henry asked him about (false) statements Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made to Congress. In a response that hasn’t ginned up as much attention as I thought it would, the President distanced himself from what Clapper said, and effectively threw him under the bus driving up the BWI Parkway from Washington to Ft. Meade.

Q: You put it on your back. And so my question is, do you have any personal regrets? You’re not addressing the fact the public statements you’ve made to reassure the public — your director of national intelligence, James Clapper, months ago went up, got a question from a Democrat, not a Republican, about whether some of this was going on, and he denied it.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: But does — but Ed —

Q: Doesn’t that undermine the public trust?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: — Ed, you’re conflating, first of all, me and — and Mr. Clapper —

Q: He’s director of national — and he’s still on the job.

The President goes on to doublespeak about how his statement six months ago that we struck the right balance is consistent with his statement now that we can strike the right balance with changes is fluff. Whatever.

But what is more striking is how he effectively said, don’t blame me for what Clapper said!

This is part of a pattern I’ve seen throughout the entire presidency. The President is very quick to blame other people for stuff that is done under his watch. The President is the Commander in Chief. Clapper works at the President’s pleasure. If the Director lies to Congress, the President should fire him. Not keep him on the job, but pretend that what Clapper said is not what the President thinks.

To make a parallel to Obamacare, how much did the President *not* know about with HealthCare.gov. He also said the website would be good to go on October 1. Almost everyone at HHS knew this wasn’t the case. Except for Sebelius. She should also be fired, but won’t because the Republicans would never allow her replacement to be appointed, even without a filibuster.

The buck stops here. If your subordinate lies to the American people, you fire him or her. You can’t keep this person in your cabinet, but distance yourself from what they do. This isn’t how it works.

The Times has an important piece, titled “A Plea to Deny Gunmen Their Quest for Infamy.”

Call him the gunman. Call him the killer or the perpetrator, the defendant or the assailant. Only, the survivors urge, do not say his name.

This is the new plea after another shooting has upended a community in suburban Denver and turned a high school into a bloody crime scene. As people grope for responses, many families of victims and law enforcement officials have begun urging journalists and public officials to avoid using the gunmen’s names and photos in public.

For families, it is a small way to fight back. Their hope is that refusing to name the actors will mute the effects of their actions, and prevent other angry, troubled young men from being inspired by the infamy of those who opened fire in Columbine High School, Virginia Tech or Newtown, Conn.

This is an important point I have made several times. The nonstop media coverage of mass shootings does litlte to help the situation, and likely hurts others through the copycat effect.

Despite the urging of some families, few news outlets have excised the names of killers from their coverage. It is one of the most basic facts, and a difficult one to omit as reporters try to unravel questions about the mental health and private anger of these gunmen, and whether they had given any warning signs. ….

Would it even have an effect? Social scientists have found a nexus between suicides and news coverage, suggesting that extensive stories detailing methods and motives may drive others to kill themselves in similar ways. But the links between news coverage and mass shootings are far more tenuous, Ms. McBride said.

Social scientists and criminologists say the forces driving these shootings are a kaleidoscope of anger, revenge, insecurity, immaturity, mental illness, a desire for notoriety and myriad other factors, including easy access to weapons. In Colorado, the passage of tighter gun control laws did not prevent Mr. Pierson from legally buying the shotgun and ammunition he used to carry out the attack, officials said.

Dave Cullen, the author of “Columbine,” a book about the 1999 attack near Littleton, Colo., said that mass shootings were often public performances by frustrated young men who had suffered failures or loss. They were “about being heard and felt,” in the worst way, he said. In a September essay for BuzzFeed, he suggested that news coverage use suspects’ names “sparingly” during the first two days after a shooting, and then only make oblique references.

“Disappear the person,” Mr. Cullen said. “If you take that away, it takes away the whole point for him.”

I will be speaking at the 28th Law & the Media Seminar in Houston on January 25, 2014. The theme of the panel is “Campus Crises: Balancing Safety, Privacy, Due Process, and the Public’s Right to Know.” The Seminar will focus on how the media covers school violence. I will be sure to share these thoughts, and my soon-to-be-released paper with Shelby Baird, titled “The Shooting Cycle.”