What would happen if we had a nationalized health insurance system in which user fees were not based on projected expenses but were post-op? (In other words, all of the health care costs from 2010 would be tallied up and divided using a sliding scale, and payment would take place when people figure out their 2011 taxes.)

A while back I wrote about presidential personal and corporate ethics. While I can’t say that I agree with everything President Obama has done so far or will do in office, he has my complete respect for his response to his response to the Henry Louis Gates, Jr. arrest.

Now, I’ll just note that Gates and I shared (albeit many years apart) an English professor–and that I once met Gates and told him as much, a comment that he seemed to appreciate. Believe me, the fact that I have spoken in person with Gates–who very well may soon meet Obama for a beer–makes me very, very special.

[UPDATE (7/30/09): The beer fest happened.]

But the real news here is that we have a president who is bold enough to step up to the plate and not only admit he acted or spoke inappropriately but is taking brave initiatives to meet with the very parties he offended.

That is indeed refreshing–as is this video of the Obamas’ opening of the poetry jam in the White House a while back.

Implicit in CIA Director Panetta’s statement that the “disclosure of explicit details of specific interrogations” would be “propaganda [that al-Qaeda] could use to recruit and raise funds” and would be “ready-made ammunition” for the organization’s cause is acknowledgment that the U.S. has not been acting in its own best interest.

The debate over whether or not “harsh interrogation techniques” are okay is over, and the victors are those of us who willingly sacrifice torture’s (ever-so-slightly potential) benefits in the name of not becoming terrorists ourselves.

Not only can we claim (an albeit simple-minded) moral and ethical (I use both terms because I don’t know the difference) higher ground, we also now know–the CIA’s even said it–that doing bad things to people makes us less safe.

I sent two emails to President Obama this weekend in a feeble attempt to get him to revamp entirely the almost-finished stimulus package.

The first stated, “I voted for you and am excited about these four years.” That’s all the further I got before hitting the “enter” key–you know, to start my next paragraph–which the White House interpreted as “submit.”

But that wasn’t all I had to say–and so I filled in the contact form all over again, typed my full message, and clicked on “submit” again, only to receive an error message.

I heaved a huge sigh of humiliation–Did the President not want to hear from me? Am I so horribly technically unsavvy?–and reloaded the contact form before plodding through the form and message composing for yet a third time:

“President Obama, I voted for you and am excited about these four years. I am, however, disappointed by what I am hearing about the stimulus package. Please do something radical and address the root causes of our nation’s problems by following the advice of economists like Greg Mankiw. Thank you.”

Now I’m waiting to hear about the current stimulus package’s last-minute crumbling so something truly transformative can take place.

Waiting…

Waiting…

Still waiting…

Just to get this out in the open before Obama calls me up to offer me a new and prominent cabinet position for which the job description will be “Whatever goodbadi Wills,” let me just state that I have been a conscientious taxpayer (unlike certain other cabinet nominees).

In the name of full disclosure, I will note that there was an equally conscientious burp–more like a hiccup, really–in my taxpaying history back a few years ago when I decided that paying war taxes made me as guilty of murder as anyone else (a premise with which I still agree). To ease my aching soul, therefore, I withheld some of what I owed Uncle Sam and sent it off to a church international relief agency to build peace instead of bombs.

Soon after filing, though, I realized that the potential complications resulting from not paying all I owed would perhaps prevent me from doing more good than my paying the full amount of taxes would do harm. I quickly mailed off a corrected form, and the IRS and I have been on benevolent terms ever since.

I should note, too, that I have never been audited, which means I really don’t know if I’ve ever inadvertently cheated the government or myself in the reporting process. Until such an audit takes place, however, I have no other option but to claim accountability and maybe even moral superiority over the above-mentioned certain other cabinet nominees. I’ve never failed to pay taxes on my chauffeur service. I’ve never failed to pay unemployment taxes on my household help. And I sure hope I’ve not racked up more than $48,000 in back taxes and interest, since in all my life I’ve hardly earned three or four times that amount.

The obvious problem, of course, if we give these certain other cabinet nominees the benefit of the doubt and chalk them up as law-abiding wannabees, is that even the folks who supposedly pal around with the very people who write and enforce tax laws can’t or at least don’t understand the code enough to follow it.

If we don’t give them that benefit of the doubt, the obvious problem is that our laws are written by a bunch of crooks who really are right to withdraw from their appointments and leave some cabinet space for the rest of us.

During Obama’s presidential campaign I appreciated his nuanced assessment of the abortion rights debate. I didn’t appreciate his we’re-going-to-track-you-down-and-kill-you approach to terrorism. In his first days in office, he acted in both areas.

This week Obama overturned a law disallowing U.S. dollars to support family planning groups involved in abortions. “This should serve as a bitter pill for those who campaigned for him, all the while proclaiming their belief in the cause of life and family,” NPR quoted one abortion opponent.

While I haven’t researched the overturning beyond NPR’s precursory skimmage, I would wager that the abolishment effects hugely complex ramifications not all of which result in abortions. That said, however, to any pro-Obama-er who, like me, is also pro-life not just in pre-birth matters, this move–if indeed it does result in increasing abortion rates–by the new president is as unjustifiable as his approval of so-called anti-terror military strikes.

I’ve been writing recently about the children devastated in military conflict. Obama’s actions this week have furthered this evil devastation in no inconsequential way. According to The Guardian, “Obama, in his first military action as president, sanctioned two missile attacks inside Pakistan on Friday, killing 22 people, reportedly women and children among them. The attacks drew criticism from Pakistani officials at the weekend. Pakistani president, Asif Zardari, told the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, that the strikes ‘do not help the war on terror.’ According to reports, he also warned her that ‘these attacks can affect Pakistan’s cooperation in the war on terror.'”

I think it’s rather obvious that the war on terror is about as silly and counterproductive as is the war on drugs or was Prohibition. The best way to deal with any of those problems–terrorism, drug abuse, alcoholism–is not to outlaw them or to fight them but to dig out their roots. These self-destructions need to be pre–empted through the cultivation of concrete opportunities and founded hopes that usurp the desperation that lures people into such behaviors.

Similarly, both the expansion and limiting of abortion have one thing in common: neither deals with the underlying social ills that supply the abortion industry with clients. To say otherwise would be like claiming that encouraging people to eat junk food–or outlawing it entirely–will solve the problem of people not growing their own tomatoes.

I resonate with selected concerns aired by Frank Schaeffer back in campaign season: “We can’t [reduce abortions] by concentrating on politics, or silver bullets such as trying for that one magic court appointment. It’s the ‘holistic’ approach that is really what’s important if our goal is to reduce the number of abortions rather than just ‘win’ political games…. What kind of care do we provide to mothers and children? What is our educational system like? Is health care available to all? Do our preschool programs and everything from paternal and maternal leave to the economic well-being of our country come first? Or do we argue about abortion rights while we live lives of such supreme selfish decadence that the nature of our country means that no matter what we do with the laws about abortion life will not be valued?”

We need to pre–empt abortion through myriad concrete opportunities and options, not the least of which are better adoption processes that allow caring parents to welcome adoptees into their homes without ridiculous delays and legal encumbrances. M and I know personally two loving couples our age who are at different stages in the adopting process, and it’s no less than nightmarish, considering their frustrated willingness to meet needy children’s needs.

From-womb-to-tomb pro-lifers concerned about abortion, military action, and counter-terrorism need to demand the crystalization of the change so welcomely promised by our new president over the past year. In a sermon this morning one pastor said it approximately in this way: “We have a new driver, but we’re still in the same car.”

Dear Driver: Our nation needs a new car.

Even pudding–lots of it–can’t make the world entirely palatable.

In a fit of misguided foresight earlier this week I made not one 8-ounce serving per upcoming school day but, instead, the whole dang bag of instant chocolate pudding. It was Monday night–with but four packed lunches to go, my friend–and I made seven servings, plus a large cereal bowl full of the stuff. I used all of the milk M had mixed for us (skim with whole, since we like 1% or 2% but N’s supposed to have whole), for which I felt kind of bad but only until I saw that there was still plenty back.

Since then I have been faithfully imbibing the stuff. We ate the bowl on Tuesday night for desert, and every day I took one serving to school for lunch, except for Thursday, when I rode my bike to school. I ate two that day, one for lunch and one just before riding home. It gave me quite a boost.

It’s a good problem to have, mind you, in comparison to what so many other people have to deal with, which is what I learn about at lunchtime at school. That’s when I usually I grab my bread and cheese and (this week) pudding and sit down at a computer to listen to NPR’s hourly news updates, surf other news outlets, and watch Reuters news videos. It’s my junkie time.

Lately while I’m watching news, though, I’ve noticed a side effect of my increasing enamoredness with N: I find it unbearable to watch news of children harmed–and there seems to be no shortage of imperiled children, most recently in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian atrocities. In Gaza, “as many as 257 children have been killed and 1,080 wounded — about a third of the total casualties since Dec. 27, according to U.N. figures released Thursday,” says MSNBC.

The pudding appeal pales, but that’s the least of humanity’s worries.

War? Good God.