"So far, few traditional farmers lining up to grow marijuana in Washington state, Colorado."

WaPo reports:

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law....

The Justice Department has not said whether it will try to block the two states from implementing their new laws, passed late last year.....

In addition, marijuana is a crop that can’t be insured, and federal drug law bars banks from knowingly serving the industry....

Both states are in the process of developing rules for a legal marijuana industry....

How can state rules possibly make the industry legal? They can only make chaos that might conceivably move Congress to change the federal law. I don't see that coming any time soon. The Justice Department might say something encouraging, but will the next President's Justice Department stick with whatever position Eric Holder embraces?

Even if you felt sure you wouldn't be prosecuted, would you want to sign up on an official list as someone who is conspicuously committing an ongoing felony? Would you switch from a legal crop and expose yourself like that? And even if some farmers would go ahead and violate the criminal law — presumably because the upside profits are high — does the inability to buy crop insurance and use banks wreck the whole idea?

Dozens of marijuana experts, who have been growing plants for medical use or in secret for illegal use, are educating state officials about the potential for the crop. Probably 95 percent of those people choose to grow their plants indoors, despite higher costs, to control light and temperature, improve quality and increase yields....

Indoor crops generally allow for up to three harvests per season, compared to just one harvest for an outdoor crop, and allow for easier security measures. 

So "traditional farmers" have an entirely separate reason for not responding to the new program. You can't be growing marijuana amber-waves-of-grain-on-the-fruited-plain style. This stuff will be grown in big warehouses, pulling in loads of electricity for intense lighting and heavily guarded with guns! guns! guns!

Oh, but here's a little old lady, "Gail Besemer, who grows flowers and vegetables near Deming, Wash., [who] has expressed interest in a producers’ license."

Besemer already has three hoop houses, which are essentially temporary greenhouses, but could see expanding her business slightly to grow marijuana for a local clientele in northwest Washington.

Slightly! Flowers! Grandma!

However, “I’m concerned about druggies invading my property — ne’er-do-wells invading my property to steal, to get free dope,” she said. “Security would be an issue.”

Where do you get off with that contempt for the consumers of the product you want to grow? Seems to me, these are your people. Don't insult them.

“My family is not particularly excited about me being interested in this. But if someone has an integrated farm, growing a number of different crops, I would think it would be a high profit plant,” she said. “Taxation and security might get in the way of profits, and it might end not being so profitable.”

Yeah, you'd better think about it, lady. There's a reason it's a high profit plant. If it weren't for all these problems, any idiot could grow his own in his house. Take away the obstacles, and it's not a business at all. Which removes half of the attraction for the government, since there won't be anything to tax if there isn't a big rules-heavy structure burdening business. This isn't a game for the little old lady with her flowers and hoop houses. But that's the screwy, sentimental anecdote The Washington Post ties to plant in our brain.

"Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers..."

"... even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers."

"The breast pump industry is booming, thanks to Obamacare."

"Tucked within the Affordable Care Act is a provision requiring insurance companies to cover 'the costs of renting breastfeeding equipment'..."

“The law states that we must provide rental pumps,” said UnitedHealthcare spokesman Matthew Stearns. “These pumps are hospital-grade, and they are larger, harder to clean and more expensive than personalized pumps for women. We are providing women the option of getting a personal pump in lieu of renting the more-expensive pump.”

People will do what is incentivized. If breastfeeding is — as we've been told — extremely beneficial to the new baby (and the old baby?), then we ought to want to encourage women to do it. We can't force them to do it, but what we can do is make it easier. I'm very interested in the way the health-care law is going to be a mechanism for manipulating human behavior. By requiring the offering of something that feels like a gift, the government manages the moods of women who would be outraged — rightly outraged — to be told they must breastfeed.

Let's say, now that we're all becoming so involved in the overall economics of healthcare, that we wanted to boost the health of the babies in the insurance pool by making every mother breastfeed (unless she can't and gets a doctor's excuse note). You couldn't simple mandate breastfeeding, because it's too intimately concerned with the woman's body. You'd be violating her rights, but you wouldn't even reach that legal question, because it would be too politically ugly to go there. How about imposing higher health-care premiums for women who have babies, then choose not to breastfeed? That's also unpleasant. And how would you spy on women to check what they were doing? You could slap some big tax on baby formula, but that punishes even the women who can't breastfeed, and it nudges people to buy some alternative product — milk being an obvious substitution.

So make the pumps free so the manipulation feels good.

And here's a business sector that will do fabulously well: the pump-makers. The politicians score triply: 1. Female service to baby health is harnessed, 2. Women feel happy about getting things, and 3. A business booms.

ADDED: Times have really changed:

I remember in the early 70s, Ms. Magazine, in its early days, constantly attacked La Leche League, a pro-breastfeeding group. It was considered anti-feminist at the time to encourage women to breastfeed. Breastfeeding promoters had an ulterior motive (according to Ms.): keeping women at home.

The pump is a device to obscure this criticism. It represents a weird kind of freedom. This human organism needs your body, frequently, but you can get your distance if you attach yourself, diligently and efficiently, to the electrical suction machine. The aesthetics of breastfeeding are radically transformed. The leisure and the ease of natural breastfeeding while tending to various household tasks are superseded by a busy schedule stacked with duties — going to work, getting through work while slotting in the regular suctioning of the mammaries, getting home, taking care of all the same household tasks, and slotting in some time to bond with the child. Was this worth it? Hey, don't be glum. Here's a present for you: A milk-extraction machine. Happy?

If DOMA is unconstitutional, what kind of past employee benefits will need to be paid?

Don't assume the effect of a new decision will be only prospective. Consider this report of a ruling by the Judicial Council of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals:

... Christopher Nathan, 39, of San Francisco, a law clerk for U.S. Magistrate Maria Elena James, sought [health insurance] coverage for his spouse, Thomas Alexander, 40.... [H]e was turned down by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts because the 1996 law bars federal recognition of same-sex unions.

In April, Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware said the denial violated the federal court's rules against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender, and ordered the court to reimburse Nathan for the costs of buying private insurance.

The Judicial Council, the final authority in the administrative review process, went a step further in this week's order and said DOMA has been held unconstitutional by a San Francisco federal judge in another employee's case. The three-judge panel ordered the court [that is, his employer] to determine how much it owes Nathan and then pay him within 10 days.

Michael Jackson "is not in shape enough yet to sing this stuff live and dance at the same time... He's a basket case. Doubt is pervasive."

Emails leak in the legal controversy involving Lloyd's of London, which insured the big 5--concert series that Jackson was supposed to do. Lloyd's is now trying to nullify its cancellation policy based on false claims made by AEG about Jackson's ability to perform.

The documents include Kenny Ortega, the show's director and a close associate of Jackson for 20 years, telling Randy Phillips, AEG Live CEO, that the star was in no state to perform.  He wrote: "There are strong signs of paranoia, anxiety and obsessive-like behaviour. I think the best thing we can do is get a top psychiatrist in to evaluate him ASAP."...

Phillips told Ortega: "It is critical that neither you, me or anyone around this show become amateur psychiatrists or physicians." 

However Phillips, one of the music industry's most powerful promoters, who offered Jackson a £100 million deal for the shows, had seen the first-hand the depths to which the performer had sunk.

Horrible. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics says the medical benefits of circumcision outweigh the small risks.

"The new policy could bring about a shift in affordability. The guidelines now make plain that the benefits of circumcision are great enough to 'justify access to this procedure for families choosing it and to warrant third-party payment for circumcision of male newborns.'"

It's about insurance.

Obama imposes huge tax on the American middle class.

That's the story, right? That's the spin for Romney. What's the spin for Obama?

UPDATE: Drudge points to Obama's assertion, back in September 2009 that the mandate is not a tax.

STEPHANOPOULOS: [I]t's still a tax increase.

OBAMA: No. That's not true, George. The — for us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I'm not covering all the costs.

I have said repeatedly that Obama would be worse off if Obamacare were upheld, but what I'm really seeing is how bad it is for him with the mandate declared a tax.

Remember the Democrats got the statute passed by insisting it was not a tax. Now, we learn it is only constitutional because it is a tax. That's got to hurt politically.

ADDED: Romney has at least 3 big arguments:

1. Obama imposed a huge new tax on working people.

2. Obama deceived the American people by saying it was not a tax, when it was.

3. The law made it look like money would go to insurance companies — in the form of new premiums — that would keep premiums low as the companies were required to take on people with pre-existing conditions, but now we find out that the money is really going to go to the federal government. [ADDED: So get ready for your premiums to spiral up and/or for insurance companies to be ruined.]

Michelle Obama exults over the way "insurance companies will now have to cover basic preventive care--things like prenatal care, mammograms, contraception — at no extra cost."

Right. She didn't say free. She said "no extra cost." Key word: extra. The cost will be bundled into the price of insurance, which you will be required to buy, whether or not prenatal care, mammograms, and contraception are in the range of things you might need or want. That's the beauty of it. Because it's not an extra cost, it's not an avoidable cost. Everybody into the pool.

"People think just because you have insurance that you're going to have access to care — which is not the whole story."

"They're very few pediatric dentists that accept Medicaid in this area, so these children have nowhere to go even if they do have insurance.... It's a big problem."

An important problem for the specific children who are suffering, described in the article, but also a problem more generally. You can extend insurance coverage, but it doesn't cause the caregivers to come into existence. What will happen when everyone is forced to buy health insurance — it's not some government munificence, but something you paid for — and then the coverage is for something unavailable? I can't imagine the anger that will arise if/when that happens.

"The part I struggle with is how you undo two years worth of implementation..."

"It would leave tremendous uncertainty about what is the direction we’re going in and that uncertainty would obviously affect the patients directly."

Consider the argument — featured in the NYT — that it's too late to strike down Obamacare, because so much work and planning and money has already been sunk into implementing it. And yet some experts say that the"important dialogue that has happened over the last three and a half years" will make it "easier for Congress or the states to revisit the issue."

IN THE COMMENTS: John Althouse Cohen said:

Isn't there also an argument that the case isn't ripe yet because no one has been harmed? So it must be either too early or too late for the law to be struck down.

Have you heard about the health insurance plan that covers your fresh, organic fruits and vegetables?

It's real!

Last summer, I paid a whole dollar for weekly half-boxes of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables as part of a community supported agriculture program. My health insurer paid the rest.

But wait, there's more:

A meditation-based stress-reduction class I took last year also was eligible for reimbursement...

Meditation! You know what else is stress-reducing? Sex. Why don't health insurers cover that? And I don't mean birth control and Viagra. I mean sex itself. Isn't that where we are going? Sex is a health matter. Insurance is going universal, with extensive government-imposed coverage requirements. I think those who have to pay for sex — people with various (undoubtedly health-related) limitations that preclude their acquiring it free — should be reimbursed.

Yes, you have to legalize prostitution first, but the prospect of something else that people like becoming eligible for government-mandated insurance ought to provide the incentive for legalization. As with marijuana, legalization is achieved through medicalization, and there's never a stage where you're simply free and able to seek pleasure. The old restraints will be removed only for the purpose of locking on the new restraints. You will have sex and drugs, when it's your medicine and when you can be made to pay for everyone else's.

Just wait!

I wrote all that without reading the rest of the column, so I'm amused to see what the columnist — Chris Rickert — actually did with the groundwork that got me going. He goes from meditation to sex too:

You don't have to look far to find that sex — at least the kind of sex society values, i.e., that occurring in loving, mature, committed relationships — is a partner with wellness.... Depending on which studies you believe, sex encourages intimacy, in some cases might reduce depression, provides good exercise, reduces pain and may even reduce the risk of cancer.

If a health insurer is going to buy its customers kohlrabi and celeriac to encourage healthy eating, why shouldn't it buy them contraception to encourage more healthful sex? In the end, everyone wins.

He'd just buy contraception at this point, not an actual sex worker's treatments. That seems so unfair. Them that's got shall get. Those with benefits get more benefits. When will government level the playing field?

"The political reaction to 'slut' was opportunistic, of course, but it worked with a lot of women..."

"... because — apparently, even in this age of sexual liberation and 'slut pride' — women are still somehow deeply affected by charges of wanton and undiscriminating sexual behavior," writes Glenn Reynolds, looking at the conflicts under the surface of sex-positive feminism.

This might even account for the importance of the contraceptive issue, because mandated contraceptive coverage may be seen as representing not just a modest monetary benefit, but also perhaps some sort of societal validation. I would have thought that a strong independent woman wouldn’t need a stamp of societal approval for her choices, but apparently I would have been wrong. I leave it to the evolutionary-psych folks to work out why the “slut” charge retains such power in liberated times.

Apparently, however, it is especially wrong to “slut-shame” even though lefties feel no compunction about shaming people regarding other personal choices — from not recycling to owning an SUV to, worst of all, being a Republican. As I say, there’s something more going on here. And if the “shaming” part of slut-shaming isn’t bad, because shaming is fine in other contexts, then it must be the “slut” part.

Who did the shaming? Conservatives, including Rush Limbaugh, were characterizing sex as nothing more lowly than private recreational activity. The idea was: You have to pay for that yourself. It was the other side that seized upon that argument and imposed a new, politically motivated interpretation on it, that the woman was shamed. The wounded woman — wounded in the "war on women" — should then seek succor in the arms of the Democratic Party, who would care for what are health needs (not recreational supplies!).

Realistically, this should be a policy debate about insurance coverage, but minds must be manipulated, so competing templates are offered. What should a woman prefer, to be thought of as a strong free agent, doing what she chooses, with the government as far from her sex life as possible or a government that sees her as vulnerable, easily wounded, and in need of protection and support?

One answer is: I'm for whichever side gives me $1,000. That's what's really frightening.

Evidence that 34% of likely voters are irrational.

Here are 2 questions from the same Rasmussen poll, conducted in the last 2 days, of 1,000 likely voters:

1* Should health insurance companies be required by law to cover all government-approved contraceptives for women, without co-payments or other charges to the patient?
43% Yes
46% No
11% Not sure...

4* Should individuals have the right to choose between different types of health insurance plans, including some that cost more and cover just about all medical procedures and some that cost less while covering only major medical procedures?
77% Yes
9% No
14% Not sure

If you answered "yes" to question 1, you can't rationally turn around and say "yes" to question 4! How are these individuals supposed to buy something that the insurance companies are not allowed to offer? Apparently, people feel sympathetic to individuals but not to insurance companies, and they reflexively decide to push the companies around and respect individual freedom.

Anyway... speaking of things people get emotional about... there's also sex and religion, which naturally go together, since "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."

"If I see somebody who’s earning over $50,000 a year, who has made the calculated decision not to buy health insurance..."

"I’m looking at somebody who is absolutely as irresponsible as anybody who was ever on welfare."

Because what they’ve said is, a) I’m gambling that I won’t get sick, and b) I’m gambling that if I do get sick, I can cheat all my neighbors.

Now when you talk to hospitals, a very significant part of their non-collectables are people who have money, but have calculated that it’s not worth the cost to collect it.

And so I’m actually in favor of finding a way to say, if you’re above whatever — whatever the appropriate income level is, you oughtta have either health insurance, or you oughtta post a bond. But we have no right, we have no right in this society, to have a free-rider approach if you’re well off economically, to say we’ll cheat our neighbors.

Who said it?

Blitzer's question about the uninsured man who needed expensive care hit Ron Paul close to home.

Sam Stein explains:

Paul's 2008 campaign manager, Kent Snyder, went through a strikingly similar experience to Blitzer's hypothetical one, dying of complications from viral pneumonia just two weeks after Paul ended his presidential bid. Snyder was uninsured, so family and friends were forced to raise funds to cover his $400,000 in medical bills. Their efforts included setting up a website soliciting contributions from Paul supporters.

The episode reflects what Paul himself argued should be the free-market ideal for health insurance policy. During Monday night's GOP primary debate, the libertarian Republican made the case that health insurance coverage was a choice. If one decided to forgo it, he ran the risk of mounting bills. If a patient was on his deathbed, it wasn't the taxpayers' responsibility to pick up that tab.

"I practiced medicine before we had Medicaid in the early 1960s when I got out of medical school. I practiced at Santa Rosa hospital in San Antonia, and the churches took care of them," Paul said. "We never turned anybody away from the hospital. And we've given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves, our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it. This whole idea -- that's the reason the cost is so high. The cost is so high because they dump it on the government, it becomes a bureaucracy."

As Stein notes, people have been paying way more attention to the unseen idiots in the audience who shouted "yes" when Blitzer asked if we should let that guy die than to Paul's answer. And the fact is, Paul's answer is brilliantly stated. I'm not saying I agree with Paul, but what an articulate response!

Blitzer's question was designed to make Paul look heartless and extreme and unrealistic, and Paul flipped it, perfectly. Which is, I think, why the media would like to pay more attention to the yes-shouting jerks in the audience.

"The last two Republican presidential debates have been some of the most macabre on record."

"Blitzer asked if under Paul’s libertarian philosophy, a sick man without insurance should be allowed to die in the hospital rather than have the state pay his medical bills. Before Paul could answer that question, shouts of 'yes!' and cheering bubbled up from the audience."

"ObamaCare Backers in Wisconsin Produce Report Showing That the Health Care Overhaul Will Make Health Insurance More Expensive."

Oops!

Did a 24-year-old Cincinnati man die of a toothache because he didn't have health insurance?

No. Let's be honest. It's sad that he died, but let's be clear about why he died and not demagogue it.

"Wouldn't Kaukauna's money problems have been solved if Walker had just accepted those concessions and not demanded cutbacks in collective bargaining powers?"

We've been discussing the news that the Kaukauna school district here in Wisconsin has gone from a $400,000 budget deficit to an estimated $1.5 million surplus as a result of the the new collective bargaining laws, and that question — raised here by Byron York — came up in the comments. It is the key question. From York's answer:

In the past, Kaukauna's agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust -- a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union. "It was in the collective bargaining agreement that we could only negotiate with them," says [Kaukauna school board President Todd] Arnoldussen. "Well, you know what happens when you can only negotiate with one vendor." This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.

Now, the collective bargaining agreement is gone, and the school district is free to shop around for coverage. And all of a sudden, WEA Trust has changed its position. "With these changes, the schools could go out for bids, and lo and behold, WEA Trust said, 'We can match the lowest bid,'" says Republican state Rep. Jim Steineke, who represents the area and supports the Walker changes. At least for the moment, Kaukauna is staying with WEA Trust, but saving substantial amounts of money.

Then there are work rules. "In the collective bargaining agreement, high school teachers only had to teach five periods a day, out of seven," says Arnoldussen. "Now, they're going to teach six." In addition, the collective bargaining agreement specified that teachers had to be in the school 37 1/2 hours a week. Now, it will be 40 hours.

The changes mean Kaukauna can reduce the size of its classes -- from 31 students to 26 students in high school and from 26 students to 23 students in elementary school. In addition, there will be more teacher time for one-on-one sessions with troubled students.

"Will Anyone Even Insure Seniors if Paul Ryan's Medicare Plan Passes?"

Asks Benjy Sarlin:

Unlike the Affordable Care Act, which mandated that millions of young and healthy Americans purchase insurance with government subsidies, the Paul Ryan plan would instead bring the oldest, sickest, and least profitable demographic to the table. And with the CBO projecting that the average senior would be on the hook for over two-thirds of their health care costs within just 10 years of the plan's adoption -- a proportion that is projected to worsen in the long run --- the government subsidies backing them up may not bring in enough profitable customers to make things worthwhile.

Yeah. I don't get it.