Weatherization Plan / National Health Care Plan : Obama Disasters

Little wonder we all know how a national heath care program will work given how all other government programs work. They are mostly total failures and cost us, the tax payers, billions of dollars in waste and corruption. It has always been this way and yet many of us continue to believe the next one will be different.

What more do we need to know to say no to national health care?


THE GANG THAT CAN'T INSULATE STRAIGHT
By JACOB GERSHMAN/August 17, 2009/ – NY Post

WONDERING whether the Obama administration knows what it's doing as it seeks to remake American health care? Consider a far smaller idea that the White House pushed as a no-brainer earlier this year: The Weatherization Assistance Program is proving a perfect example of noble intentions gone awry.

A child of the 1970s fuel crisis, WAP was designed to help poor Americans reduce their home energy consumption. As part of the stimulus bill, Obama and Congress are pouring $5 billion into the program -- a nearly 10-fold increase in funding.

It was sold as a vehicle for job creation, an investment in the environment and a means for low-income Americans to lower their heating costs. But it's a failure on every count. Here's how it works: If you're eligible, the government will pay to weatherstrip your doors, insulate your walls and ceilings, fix your windows and, in some cases, buy you a new refrigerator and heating system -- all for free. You just have to sign up with a local community-action group, which will send over workers to do the repairs. It's proving a rip-off -- the government is spending a fortune for each household that benefits.

A quarter of the money is squandered on a vast bureaucracy of regulatory field staff, administrators and training. Also inflating the costs are prevailing-wage mandates and provisions that encourage states to spend the most money on the fewest homes.With $400 million, New York state intends to repair 45,000 units, or /nearly $9,000/ a home.

A typical private contractor will charge $1,000 to knock off 10 percent to 15 percent off your heating bill. The government's higher costs are supposedly justified by a promise of energy savings of around 23 percent. But that turns out to be a completely imaginary number.When I asked state officials where they got their figures, they told me they came from the feds. Then the US Department of Energy told me that the savings estimates came from a 2005 evaluation conducted by the department's research institute.That study, I learned, relied on data supplied by . . . the states, including New York.

Coming full circle, I asked New York officials where they got the numbers used in the national study. Turns out they came from a 1998 report by an weatherization-advocacy group, working in concert with the same nonprofits that administer the program money. The job estimates are also dubious.

Sen. Charles Schumer, using Department of Energy figures, claimed the $5 billion would generate 375,000 jobs. The White House put it at around 60,000. The reality is probably much lower. A director at one of the largest nonprofit agencies administering the program in New York told me the group was planning to hire two or three people. Contractors, who fear the wage regulations will triple their labor costs, say they aren't sure the stimulus money will support /any/ new jobs."There's no money to be made in it. It's just something to keep us busy," says Hugo Salinas of New York Energy Conservation Co., one of the state's largest weatherizing contractors.

Smaller contractors aren't even bothering. "It's not worth it for me. I won't do it. It's a waste of my time," says Gary Grecco, at EnergyPro Insulation of Staten Island. Here's another problem. The administration claims the program "provides a critical service for low-income families, who are often forced to choose between paying their energy bills and buying food or paying for other basic needs, a critical service for low-income families."Sorry: Those low-income families are already eligible for aid that wipes out most of their heating expenses.

New York last winter spent $400 million subsidizing the utility bills of low-income households, which got benefits as large as $2,500 each. Which explains why the feds needed "community-action groups" to round up applicants. Oh, and the program didn't manage to provide much stimulus. The weatherizing plan is so over-regulated that the Obama team hasn't even gotten it running: Labor officials are holding up the money until they determine the prevailing wage for a "weatherization worker.

"It's not hard to come up with a better way to make homes more fuel-efficient and help out the "green" industry. You could, for example, build upon existing tax credit and rebate policies. But the Obama administration /believed/ in the program.

An ounce of skepticism would have raised serious doubts. Instead, we're left with another case of good intentions falling prey to ideology and certainty.

Health reform, anyone?/jacob.gershman@gmail.com/