The California Energy Commission unanimously approved a proposed regulation today capping the power consumption of televisions sold in California, starting in 2011. Although the Consumer Electronics Assn., which represents the world's largest TV makers, was apoplectic about the ruling, The Times' Marc Lifsher reports that one faction -- the LCD TV Assn. -- was all smiles. The reason? LCD sets are less power-hungry than plasma TVs. In other words, as so often happens when the government regulates products, it favors one technology over another -- and manufacturers know it, even if the regulators insist otherwise.

(We on the Times' editorial board had also urged the commission last month not to adopt the rules, warning that they could inhibit innovations that might do more for the environment in the long run.)

The real bite in the regulations won't come until 2013, when the caps are reduced and, potentially, the rules are extended to larger TVs. Representatives of the CEA struggled at a news conference this afternoon to cite specific examples of new, feature-laden TVs that couldn't meet the 2011 cut-off -- after a bit of research, they offered one 50-inch Samsung plasma set, although more examples are likely to be forthcoming soon. But they warned that few if any of today's models would meet the tougher limits.

Granted, this is an industry that innovates rapidly and has been particularly good in recent years at lowering power consumption. On the other hand, this is also an industry that regularly loads new features into its products to try to restore the profit margins that erode quickly in the brutal competition for buyers. At the moment, manufacturers are racing to present digital TVs that can present 3-D pictures, a task that requires either a high screen-refresh rate or polarized glass. The former drinks power, the latter drinks dollars. Manufacturers are also integrating more robust Internet capabilities into their sets, which also can demand more power.

The CEA fears that the new regulations will kill that kind of innovation and feature-expansion, as well as blocking new technologies that, like plasma and LCD, enter the market as relatively inefficient users of power only to become significantly better at managing their electricity use as they mature. It's certainly true that the rules would hold technologies off the market until they're efficient enough to meet the new standards; the question is whether manufacturers would be willing to develop generation after generation of products they can't sell just to get to that point.

One other caveat: California's new rules may have little effect on the market if no other state follows California's lead. In that case, the main losers would be California retailers, who wouldn't be able to offer as full a selection of products as online merchants in other states.

The energy commission insisted that the regulations would benefit consumers because the new TVs they buy will use less power -- an average of $30 per year. That seems overstated, however, because it ignores the improvements the industry has been making on its own. And even if $30 is the right number, that's chicken feed compared with the higher prices shoppers may have to pay to get a more efficient set with the performance they want.

The commission didn't seem to recognize that not all TVs are created equal. Just because consumers can find a more efficient model that's the same size as a power-hungry TV they like, that doesn't mean they can find one with the same picture quality in the same price range. Of course, exceptional TV picture quality isn't a birthright, and conserving energy is good for public health and the environment. But the commission asserted that its rules would be all gain, no pain, and that's a quixotic view of the market, to put it kindly.

-- Jon Healey

A new Associated Press poll, done by Stanford University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, provides more evidence that the public wants comprehensive healthcare reform but rejects just about everything that implies. Although you should take a moment to look at all the results -- and comment on them below! -- here's a quick summary.

As shown in the screen shot to the right, people are eager for major improvements to the healthcare system. They want someone else to pay for the changes, however.

In particular, they strongly oppose raising income taxes or taxing health insurance benefits, but almost 60% favor dunning the rich. They like the idea of requiring everyone to obtain insurance, but they hate the idea of financial penalties on those who don't. Similarly, they want a mandate on businesses to provide insurance, but are lukewarm about enforcing it. Finally, more than 70% said insurers are too profitable and medicines too expensive, but most opposed raising taxes on them, drug companies or medical device makers.

My interpretation: the survey is yet another indication that the Obama administration and congressional Democrats haven't persuaded Americans, most of whom have health insurance and aren't seriously ill, that the proposed reform will benefit them, too. Not convinced that they have much to gain personally, they're not willing to pay more to achieve it.

About 1,500 randomly selected adults were surveyed, giving the poll a margin of error of  plus/minus 2.5%.

-- Jon Healey

A Rasmussen Reports poll released Tuesday seems to confirm a point The Times made in an editorial last month on a California regulation that would ban large-screen TVs from being sold because they consume too much energy: Leave it up to the market to catch up on electricity-inefficient televisions. An excerpt from the Rasmussen summary:

Conservation-minded folks (this bike and bus commuter considers himself one) may be discouraged by the majority opinion that most people feel being able to buy whatever mega-screen television they darn well please is more important than saving energy. But the energy-unregulated TV market is working in conservation's favor: Nearly the same percentage of people -- 54% -- say efficiency is important enough to them that would pay more for televisions that use less electricity.

As The Times' editorial pointed out, the new regulation would actually hamper the innovation already underway in the industry. The Rasmussen poll adds another point: California's action may deprive consumers of the energy-efficient entertainment they'd pay a premium for.

Hat tip: Katherine Mangu-Ward and Reason's Hit and Run.

-- Paul Thornton

Photo credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times

  In today's editorial and opinion pages, the Times editorial board gives former Assembly Speaker Fabuan Nuñez a shout-out for being cleared of ethics charges arising from his lavish spending, and then gives him a shout-down for the underlying actions. No, he's not a crook. But he still relied too heavily on the largesse of donors with issues to press in Sacramento.

And we pair a shout-down of Philadelphia Eagles player Michael Vick's dogfighting operation with a shout-out to Wayne Pacelle of the the Humane Society of the United States -- for going on a, pardon the expression, dog-and-pony tour with Vick to educate communities about stopping cruelty to animals.

And shoutouts and shout downs abound for the food industry's Smart Choices program.

Columnist Meghan Daum weighs in on farming-chic, and two folks sack Sacramento's recent move to waive environmental laws to hasten construction of a football stadium in Los Angeles or, rather, the City of Industry. Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) worries that the Legislature "opened the floodgates" to future exemptions to the California Environmental Quality Act. And sports author Dave Zirin sees just the latest in a series of sweetheart deals between unwitting taxpayers and tycoon team owners.

Photo: AP/Nick Ut

As Dr. Robertson explains in my previous post, a key factor in the rising cost of health insurance is the expenses shifted from the growing ranks of the uninsured onto those who have coverage. Several of the comments to that post blamed illegal immigrants for the increase in the uninsured. That doesn't appear to be the case.

According to the Center for Information Studies, immigrants -- legal or illegal -- are indeed more likely to be uninsured than native-born citizens. Although immigrants made up 12.5% of the population in 2007, they represented about 27% of the uninsured. There are two other factors, however, that suggest it's wrong to pin the healthcare inflation problem on border crossers. Separate studies of data from 2001, 2003 and 2006 showed that immigrant children and immigrants in generalconsume significantly less medical care per capita than native-born Americans. Noncitizens also make significantly fewer visits to the emergency room, on average, than citizens do. Second, Health Affairs reported that citizens without insurance accounted for 75% to 80% of the growth in the ranks of the uninsured from 2000 to 2006.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), a newly notorious member of the congressional peanut gallery, has used his 15 minutes of fameto argue a different aspect of the issue: that the House versions of the healthcare reform bill would enable illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-subsidized insurance. The bill flatly prohibits subsidies to go to undocumented immigrants, but as Wilson correctly noted, there is no specific enforcement mechanism to guard against illegals from fraudulently obtaining subsidies. Still, that doesn't mean administrators of the subsidies would make it easy for that kind of fraud to take place. If illegal immigrants make disproportionately low use of the care they can legally obtain, what are the chances of them trying en masse to defraud a program they're not eligible for?

Although I haven't seen the Republicans' proposal for an enforcement mechanism, I think it's worth debating. I suspect, however, that many of those clamoring for a more airtight approach won't be satisfied until the laws that make emergency care available to everyone, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay, are repealed. People who feel that way -- and you'll find at least one in the comments on Dr. Robertson's views -- are letting their cost-cutting zeal (and perhaps their resentment of immigrants) cloud their judgment. It doesn't take much imagination to see what a public health nightmare such a move would create.

-- Jon Healey

I received an e-mail this morning from Dr. Robert W. Robertson Jr., former director of emergency services at Western Baptist Hospital in Paducah, Ky., who now practices preventative medicine in that community. He was responding to one of my previous healthcare posts, and he gives the clearest explanation I've heard yet about why people with health insurance have a financial interest in extending coverage to the uninsured. He doesn't get into the issue of illegal immigrants, so I'll take that up in a later post. Besides, everyone else here is writing about Joe Wilson, so I'm feeling some pressure to do my part.

Dr. Robertson's piece follows below.

-- Jon Healey

With the healthcare debate becoming more unruly and with people who are earnestly trying to address the situation  being shouted down without having a chance to speak, I’d like to have those who are acting in such a strident manner make an effort to understand the reason that health care expenditures are on an unrelenting, accelerating, upward spiral, and why changes must be implemented.

It is a simple fact that it is the uninsured who are driving up the cost of healthcare for everyone.

Here are the facts.

In 2005, there were 44.8 million who had no medical insurance. In 2006, that number had grown to 47 million. Presently, it is estimated that there are 50 million who have no coverage, and that number will rise to over 52 million at the end of 2010.

As a former director of a hospital emergency department seeing over 50,000 patients annually, I am very aware of how the medical system works.

Anytime an uninsured person enters a hospital emergency department and registers in, the minute they cross the threshold, the hospital is mandated to (1) evaluate, and (2) make a disposition of the individual.

That disposition may be to: (1) reassure that no treatment is required; (2) provide appropriate treatment; (3) admit to the facility; or (4) make a referral.

If the hospital is unwilling to evaluate and make a disposition, it will lose reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid programs, which is tantamount to financial suicide.

No matter what the ultimate disposition, the hospital incurs costs that are not reimbursed.

Hospitals have huge fixed costs which must be covered in order to operate the facility. Also, hospitals must have available resources to constantly be able to invest in new technologies in order to best provide service for those seeking care.

Thus is set in motion the unrelenting, upward spiral of ever-increasing medical costs.

1. The uninsured numbers are constantly increasing.
2. The unreimbursed expenses incurred by hospitals in treating those ever-increasing numbers of the uninsured are constantly increasing.
3. Hospitals must increase their charges in order to cover the ever-increasing costs of treating the uninsured.
4. Medical insurance companies must increase the premiums of those they insure in order to pay for the increased hospital charges when their insureds seek treatment.
5. Each time insurance premiums increase, another portion of the population opts out of carrying insurance. Individuals or companies reach a point, finally, when they can no longer afford insurance, and individual policyholders or employees of companies which drop their benefits enter into the pool of the uninsured.
6. More uninsured people = increased, unreimbursed hospital costs = increased hospital charges = increased insurance premiums = more uninsured people.... The upward spiral is incessant.

The pressure created by the ever-increasing number of the uninsured is the driving force behind the ever-increasing cost of medical care in the United States. That force is unrelenting. It can only accelerate. It has created a system which is unsustainable.

Other than refusing to offer treatment to those who are uninsured, there is no mathematical model which can be proposed that can slow or halt the inevitable, continuing rise in healthcare costs without removing the uninsured from the equation and including them in the system.

If we fail to address the underlying reason for the situation we find ourselves in, the ever-increasing numbers of the uninsured, the medical care delivery system, severely strained at present, will eventually break.

No rational person on either side of the aisle could want that to happen.

I would encourage people to enter into a civilized debate about healthcare in our country, all the while reminding them that each citizen has a responsibility to consider the consequences if we don’t take action before any action we may take is too little, and too late.

We simply must consider and include all of the uninsured into whatever plan is ultimately adopted. There is no other option available.

Those who simply shout down our elected officials who are attempting to rationally address our healthcare delivery crisis offer no solutions.  Their actions are a disservice to each of us.

-- Robert W. Robertson Jr., M.D.

Even for someone as preternaturally calm as he is, President Obama has to be feeling a little tight around the collar about Wednesday's speech to Congress. The stakes couldn't be higher. The subject is his top legislative priority, a healthcare reform bill, whose momentum seems to have evaporated. The versions approved by four House and Senate committees have been effectively tarred by critics on the right as too expensive, intrusive and risky. Their backers on the left, meanwhile, seemed so deeply invested in one controversial feature -- giving uninsured Americans the choice of a Medicare-like public insurance option -- that any concession to Republicans on that point could drive them off. Hoping to recapture the high ground, the president reportedly plans to renew his case against the status quo and lay out a more specific set of proposals. But what should those be? Take the poll, and offer your own healthcare reform plan in the comments below!

Photo credit: Tim Sloan / AFP/Getty Images

-- Jon Healey

The change in administrations has led the Department of Homeland Security to adjust its much-maligned policy regarding laptop searches at the border. It's not going to search fewer laptops, iPods or other electronic devices, necessarily; it's just going to take more care not to disclose any sensitive information it finds on them.

As News.com's Declan McCullagh reported, the Obama administration continues to take an extremely permissive view toward the power of federal agents at the border. The new directives from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection reiterate the Bush administration's stance that agents have the authority to search any digital storage device entering the country, even when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing. They'll need to show probable cause only if they want to seize the device or retain copies of its contents. The primary change in policy is more administrative oversight over how the devices and data are handled after they're seized....

The Obama administration announced today that the wildly popular Kash4Klunkers Car Allowance Rebate System will end Monday afternoon, setting up one last weekend frenzy at car dealerships. Of course, dealerships ran short of high-mileage cars some time ago, so the program may already have outlived its usefulness.

Compared to other elements of the $787 billion economic stimulus package enacted in February, the CARS program was remarkably effective -- at least when it comes to promoting spending. That, after all, is the theory behind fiscal stimulus: using tax dollars to keep commerce going in the face of a pullback by consumers and businesses. On the other hand, some economist argue that it's all smoke and mirrors because the stimulus dollars have to come from somewhere; in this view, it's a zero-sum game, with the government taking money from one pocket in order to put it into another. 

But I digress. With CARS poised to exhaust its $3 billion allotment, what's the logical second act? The economists featured in this week's LATimes.com Dust-Up, Brad DeLong and Edward Leamer, agree that enacting a hefty gasoline tax would be the right way to go if the goal is just to nudge people into more fuel-efficient rides. If the point is to help the economy by spurring the automobile industry, Leamer says, Congress should quickly enact a tax rebate for new car purchases.

The Times' editorial board urged Congress to refill the clunkers pot when the original $1 billion was running low. But now that the $2 billion refill is all but spent, my vote would be for Washington to bow out of the automobile market. Car dealers, particularly those for U.S. automakers, weren't ready to meet the demand ginned up by the stimulus program, largely because manufacturers had cut production when the economy tanked (and they ran out of money). That was the right thing for them to do under the circumstances. In fact, one criticism of the Big Three automakers is that they didn't adapt quickly enough to changes in demand, and as a result they had to beg Washington for a bailout last year. With new, streamlined versions of GM and Chrysler freshly emerging from bankruptcy, the last thing the government wants to do is encourage them to stay dependent on federal intervention. They have to learn how to succeed on their own, even -- or rather, especially -- in a down market.

Once the recession is well behind us, the specter of global warming may justify the government trying again to promote the use of high-mileage vehicles. But rather than providing large subsidies for new-car buyers, the best approach, as DeLong and Leamer note in today's Dust-Up, is to push gasoline prices above $4 a gallon through higher taxes. Such an increase could force the price of just about everything to rise, however, given how much fuel is used to make or ship products. The U.S. economy isn't ready for such a blow, and it's not clear when it will be.

Photo credit: AP Photo / Toby Talbot

-- Jon Healey

In today's editorial pages, The Times wishes Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the rest of California, the best of luck in tackling the looming public pension crisis.

The ed board also tries to wrap its collective head around the notion that so many Americans think the current health care system is just fine as it is now -- and so many Americans have been showing up to take advantage of a program to get around the current health care system. Check out the editorial on the Remote Area Medical Foundation:

Also, we applaud Hillary Clinton for her focus in Africa on rape as a war crime.

On the Op-Ed side, in the wake of the recently announced deal between the IRS and the Swiss bank UBS, law professor and Holocaust lawyer Burt Neuborne takes on Swiss banks, their secrecy, and their penchant for protecting tax cheats and worse.

And Tom Hayden thinks someone somewhere ought to check to see whether there was a plot by independent police monitor Michael Cherkasky to get a federal judge to lift the LAPD consent decree for the express purpose of allowing Cherkasky to hire LAPD Chief William J. Bratton at Cherkasky's new security company.

And one more: Gen X-er columnist Meghan Daum salutes her era's Boswell, the late John Hughes.

Photo: Max Whittaker / Getty Images