Back to Basics

Rube Goldberg, for those of you who are unaware, was a cartoonist who is probably best known for his satirical sketches depicting overly complex and convoluted machines designed to perform simple and mundane tasks. In one of his cartoons he shows a contraption for a self-operated napkin. The man sitting at the table enjoying his soup lifts his spoon with one hand which pulls on a string which then jerks a ladle that in turn tosses a cracker to a parrot which then jumps to catch the treat upsetting a bowl of seeds on the opposite end of the perch. These seeds then fall into a bucket putting extra weight on a chord that opens a cigar lighter setting off a firework which cuts a string and allows the pendulum of a clock to swing back and forth. At the end of that pendulum is a napkin which passes in front of the mouth of the wearer and wipes his mouth. Of course the fact that such a device was not necessary because the man’s other hand is not doing anything except sitting on the table is not missed by anyone paying attention. All this man had to do was pick up his napkin in his other hand to wipe his mouth rather than wear such a funny device.

Such overly complex contraptions have become known as Rube Goldberg devices and every year there are even contests held in his honor where people construct machines with go through a myriad of often unrelated steps to do simple tasks such as turning on a light switch. The point is to be not only humorous, although that certainly does happen, but to show off engineering skills because these complex contraptions rely on all sorts of natural forces and are not as easy to construct as one might imagine. Often times debugging these contraptions to make them work properly is more of the trick than anything else.

Over the course of the years the American economy has become one huge Rube Goldberg device as well. It should not be one, but it is.

Try to get something that you want or need in life and think about everything that is being done so that you can buy said thing. For the sake of example, let’s look at the often used and universal example of the widget.

A man wants a widget. So how does he get one? Well, to the untrained eye it might appear that he just goes down to the local widget dealership, finds one he likes and then pays for it and drives off the lot. The only part of the Rube Goldberg device he is seeing however is the napkin wiping the mouth of the soup eating man. What is behind the scenes is actually much more complex and overly so.

In order for him to actually get the widget it requires much, much more to happen. Most of this is unnecessary. First the person that wants to build widgets has to apply for things such as business licenses and approvals from possibly several government authorities. If any one of these groups refuse for any reason then no widgets will be had. Then the person looking to make widgets often has to go and get a loan in order to capitalize his or her business. This requires going to the bank and, once again, filling out all sorts of applications; many of which are government required forms which add another layer of bureaucratic mess to the mix. Then once the loan is acquired the businessperson needs to build their facility. Once again this requires filling out forms and permits galore for local, state and federal authorities. The process often includes the government making demands, some reasonable but most wholly unreasonable, of the businessman or woman which affect the overall design and cost of the soon to be built widget plant. There are inspections to make sure everything meets with the government’s approval and so on.

Oh, but that is not then end of the Rube Goldberg device. Nope. There is more!

As promised this evening, I have brought forth a topic that I am a little excited to have some of you folks, who are so entrenched in your beliefs about regulation and government’s necessity in the realm of business, sink your teeth into and debate here at SUFA. I will allow the topic to rest on its own for two days until Tuesday night’s open mic (simply meaning I won’t be posting a new article on Monday night). I have spent the last couple of years debating with folks here and elsewhere that I believe that the market could take care of things better than the government. I don’t actually feel that there is any question as to the validity of that statement. The government hasn’t met a regulation that has worked. Sure some of them make small improvements in some areas, but the problem is that the unintended consequences seem to always negate any good that comes from regulation. Nowhere is this more evident than in the world controlled by the Food and Drug Administration. Not only is regulation completely ineffective in that realm, but the unintended consequences are devastating to a society that has the potential to be much farther down the path of better health than the FDA has allowed.

So what I am going to offer here is my vision for the elimination of the Food and Drug Administration. I cannot claim that all of what I will say here is 100% mine. It is the result of reading many different ideas and having many different discussions with people over the years. I wish I could name every person who had a thought that contributed. Some of them are in books (John Stossel, Hayek, and Andrew Napolitano for example), while others I knew only as “that guy I talked to while waiting for the Metro in DC.” Now let me first address the concept that I am espousing here:

I fully understand that we cannot eliminate the FDA tomorrow and think that everything is going to magically transform and the private markets are going to have instant solutions. I also understand that the idea of doing so simply scares the poo out of anyone who still, in their own mind, cannot grasp the concept of a world without government regulation. That means that any proposal that would take this drastic step would be shouted down by the same type of people who sound the alarm that without government intervention the climate will change, Bill Gates will buy the Presidency, and Coca-Cola will go back to putting Cocaine in their soft drinks.

That is why what I offer is a two-step proposal. We will get to the two steps in a bit. Step two is actually quite simple. It is nothing more than eliminating the FDA. But in my opinion we have to do step one first. Before I get to explaining step one, I thought the first relevant thing to do was justify why this is necessary at all. I made the claim above that the FDA is the best example of how unintended consequences negate any good that comes from regulation. I am going to provide a few reasons why I believe this. It will be a sort of justification for the elimination of the FDA in the first place. After all, you don’t go changing things all willy-nilly. There has to be a need for changing things in order for the private market to take action. If a need doesn’t need to be filled, the private market doesn’t fill it. But there is plenty of need to eliminate the FDA.

The Food and Drug Administration was formed in 1906 by Teddy Roosevelt as part of the Food and Drug Act. Many of the regulatory powers associated today with the FDA were granted via the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Currently the FDA is responsible for “protecting and promoting public health through the regulation and supervision of food safety, tobacco products, dietary supplements, prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical drugs, vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, blood transfusions, medical devices, electromagnetic radiation emitting devices, veterinary products, and cosmetics.” The agency was meant to do good. It was formed as it currently exists a result of some public outcry over interstate transportation of food that had been doctored and a 1937 Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy, in which over 100 people died after using a drug formulated with a toxic, untested solvent. See, even then progressives knew how to take advantage of a crisis.

Over the years the size and scope of the FDA did what every government bureaucracy does: grow out of control. Let’s start with the operating budget which taxpayers would no longer be responsible for. Last year’s operating budget for the FDA was 2.4 Billion dollars. That a nice chunk of change. But that is only a fraction of the actual costs to consumers. Drugs in the United States are some of the highest priced in the world. Financially strapped folks in the US break the law to get the same drugs for less money from foreign companies in Canada and Europe. I would suggest that simply lowering the costs of drugs would be reason enough to eliminate the FDA.

Henry I. Miller, a former FDA official, presented a crushing analysis of the FDA’s regulatory process and procedures. In his early 2001 editorial commentary, Dr. Miller noted that the total time it takes to develop a new drug and get it to market had doubled since the 60′s. He also noted, “Costs are spiraling out of control because the FDA meddles endlessly in clinical trials and keeps raising the bar for approval.” Furthermore, he cited statistics that showed the average number of clinical trials per average drug increased from 30 in the early 1980′s to 68 during the 1994–95 period while the average number of patients in clinical trials for each drug more than tripled! As expected, the average time required for clinical trials for a new drug rose from 85 months in the first half of the 1990′s to 92 months in the last half of the 1990′s. (found here )

Not bad if you can get it. My question is what is Michelle doing taking 40 friends with her on vacation. If she wants to go on vacation, fine. If she wants her friends to go, can’t they pay their own way? I am sure that this $375,000 cost doesn’t include a lot of the costs of her trip including her staff’s cost of going with her.

Michelle Obama today faced a fresh wave of attacks over her lavish break in Spain with 40 friends, which could easily cost U.S. taxpayers a staggering £50,000 a day.
The First Lady has been lambasted for her extravagance at a time when the economy is still struggling. One blogger went so far as to brand her a modern-day Marie Antoinette.
And her critics will be further annoyed when they learn that the president’s wife had a Spanish beach closed off today so that she, her daughter and their entourage could go for a swim.
Spanish police cleared off a stretch of beach at the Villa Padierna Hotel in Marbella after the Obamas had finished a busy day of sightseeing. . . .

For a start, they will be paying for the 60 rooms booked at the 129-room Hotel Villa Padierna. With basic rooms starting around £380 each, the nightly bill will be no less than £22,800. . . .

The meal cost about £40 a head, according to El Mundo – which means a bill topping £1,600 would have hit the table if all 40 friends dined together.
Stretched over five nights that’s £8,000 for dinner alone. . . .

The per diems for the secret service team runs at around £172 each, which amounts to nearly £60,000 for the length of the summer break.
Use of Air Force Two, the Air Force version of a 757, comes in at £91,900 for the round trip. This does not include time on the ground. . . .

Conservative estimates already put the total cost at £150,000. With Majorca to come, the bill will be more like £250,000. . . .

Back in the U.S., anger was mounting – especially as it has emerged the First Lady will have enjoyed eight holidays by the end of the summer. . . .

Suppose we have two groups. Group A believes that women are human beings, just like men are, and that they should be equal partners in their society. Group B believes that women were created by the devil to tempt men,  that they have no human rights, and that they must be used to have as many children as possible. If Group A and B live in different parts of the world, each region will develop in a way that reflects their different ways of life.

Group A will have highly productive workforces and individual freedom, high divorce rates and low birth rates. By contrast Group B will have high birth rates, no divorces, weak productivity and no freedom. Both groups enjoy the consequences of living in tune with their worldviews. For a while. But what happens when Group B begins to move its surplus population into the region of Group A? The higher birth rate enjoyed by Group B will make it more aggressive, particularly since a society that devalues women will also cull baby girls and practice polygamy leading to a surplus of young male. But those same qualities will also help keep it backward, making it much less effective militarily against a modern productive and efficient society. Group B will therefore have a great deal of trouble successfully invading Group A’s territory, unless Group A allows it to happen. That of course is the situation we’re faced with today. There are a number of approaches that would balance the demographic scales between Group A and punish Group B. For example, Group A might refuse to share the advanced medical technology that its society develops with Group B, unless the latter agrees to enact certain reforms that will grant rights to women and help lower the birth rate. If it agrees Group B will have a more stable and less threatening society. If it refuses, its high birth retain will have to compete with a high death rate. However if Group A provides Group B with the benefits of its medical technology, without demanding social reforms as the price– then Group B will pose even more of a threat, because its population boom will continue for ideological, rather than biological reasons, no longer to compensate for a high death rate, but on purely competitive grounds. Group B will begin suffering from a population surplus, which it will try to export into the territory of Group A, by force or immigration, collectively or individually. Group A will now begin experiencing demographic competition on its own soil. If like so many empires throughout history, it sees them as a beneficial form of cheap labor that will help keep its own citizens prosperous by making the cost of goods and services cheaper, it will have eventually doomed itself through demographic suicide. By reaping the benefits of Group A’s social setup, without accommodating itself to those same parameters, Group B is engaging in social parasitism, partaking only of the advantages to themselves, while avoiding their natural consequences. Much the same as a welfare recipient benefits from a social safety not paid for by active workers, exploits a system without paying into it– Group B exploits Group A’s social setup that it cannot recreate on its own. Alternatively Group A might prevent Group B from settling in its territory. This would force Group B to live with the consequences of its ideology. Group B would be allowed to fail, and have the chance to learn from that failure, and enact reforms for a more stable society. Forcibly attempting to invade Group A’s territory, would show Group B its own impotence, and force it to contemplate the causes of that impotence. It will probably not draw the right conclusions, much as the Arabs in the aftermath of several lost wars, decided the solution was not a civilized society, but to replace Arab Socialism with Islamism. But they will have the time locked up in their own territory to contemplate and to change. They will have examples of what to become and what not to become. So long as there is distance, both groups can live with the consequences of their social setups. However once Group B migrates into the territory of Group A, so long as Group A tolerates it– it only needs to compete on demographics. And not on anything else. No matter what else Group A achieves, it will eventually be outnumbered by Group B. The resulting society will have the values and laws of Group B, unless Group A tries to maintain a tyranny. Even this will not avail it in the long run, as tyrannies must mimic the values of their subjects to be effective. If they fail, they will be toppled. So if Group A does nothing to change the terms of the competition, it is hopelessly doomed.

Group A’s problem is that its sophistication causes it to have a wider definition of cooperative groups than Group B does. Where Group B’s nexus of loyalty is blood kin, Group A compensates for the lesser role of the family by providing for multiple levels of social interdependency. Group B’s families can exploit these systems for the benefit of their own families, while retaining their blood ties as the primary nexus of loyalty. Its second nexus of loyalty is an ideology that encompasses all members of Group B, but none of Group A. So while Group A’s cooperation values lead it to try and cooperate with Group B, Group B has no such value system. When Group A looks at Group B it sees human beings, when Group B looks at Group A, it sees outsiders. So Group A will cooperate with Group B even at a loss for itself, but Group B will not cooperate with Group A unless there is a direct benefit to it, and sometimes not even then. As a result Group A keeps trying to cooperate with Group B, which instead of cooperating takes but doesn’t give, thereby destabilizing the social setup. If Group A continues to tolerate such behavior, members of Group A will try to begin joining Group B, to protect themselves or to gain advantages in the competition for resources. While members of Group A cannot be part of Group B’s primary nexus of loyalty, they can become part of its secondary nexus of loyalty. Within Group B, people who are protected by the secondary nexus, but are not blood kin, have a second class status. But within Group A, those who are members of Group A already hold third class status, because they have obligations to Group B, which has none to them. Since ordinary Group A citizens have become third class, those who are even part of Group B’s secondary nexus of loyalty are already a step ahead of them in the shifting landscape of the country. Since Group A’s society is cooperation based, it will try to accommodate Group B. However since Group B’s society is authoritarian based, it will refuse to accommodate Group A. The less clearly Group A insists on reciprocity in its social contract, the less Group B will cooperate with it, since it does not cooperate without  gain for its nexus of primary loyalty. Group B’s rejection of interoperability cripples it socially, but not demographically. Group A’s openness enhances its skills, creativity and knowledge; but dooms it in the demographic competition. While Group A thinks that the net result of their interaction will be Group AB, Group B thinks that the net result will be Group BB. And while Group B is not entirely right, Group is entirely wrong, because while Group B will be influenced by Group A, it will still absorb it. Group A allows itself to be defeated by failing to meaningfully leverage its strengths, instead relying on a social and political model that is no longer relevant to the problem it faces. That is because like most societies and cultures, it has a blind spot when it comes to its own weaknesses, either refusing to recognize them, or insisting that they are actually strengths. Group B is doing the same thing, but by exploiting Group A, it has actually managed to take its greatest weakness and turn it into a limited strength. Group A has no one to exploit but itself. Its own system insures that its limited attempt to exploit Group B will cost it, more than it will cost Group B.

Group B’s authoritarian nature, its willingness to use force and its birth rates insure its victory, unless Group A changes the terms of the conflict, not through denial, but through a realistic assessment of the situation. Group A can either choose to submit and become part of the secondary nexus of loyalty in Group B, or even accept a lower status than that, or resist the occupation of its territory and its culture by Group B. Which means working to reverse the facts on the ground created by the invasion, loosening the social and economic footholds of Group B, and removing as much of Group B’s population from its territory as possible, while preventing further migrations. Like many cultures, the self-images of Group A and Group B vacillate between omnipotence and impotence. In the omnipotent state of mind, the group believes that it is invulnerable and destined to succeed. In the impotent state, it believes that it is doomed and completely incapable of doing anything to change that. This cultural form of manic depressive thinking can actually lead from one to the other. Both however are misguided and dangerous. A culture which feels that it has hit bottom, may rebound with a sense of false omnipotence by seizing on an old or new idea to reinvigorate its identity. And a culture which is cloaked in its own sense of omnipotence may be unwilling and incapable of recognizing how bad things have gotten, only to sink into impotence when it does. In this scenario Group A is suffering from impotence, while Group B is experiencing omnipotence. And few in either group understand how quickly the tables can be turned. But a cultural rebound can be just as destructive, because desperate people will seize on anything that offers them hope, without thinking it through. And hope without reason can be a very dangerous thing.

Within days, Majority Leader Harry Reid intends to bring sweeping energy and climate legislation to the Senate floor. He won’t call it cap-and-trade or cap-tax-and-trade, and certainly not a carbon tax.

“Those words are not in my vocabulary,” he says. “We’re going to work on pollution.”

Senator Reid’s twenty-pound bill will be laden with lofty language about “clean energy,” energy conservation, “green jobs,” reducing “dangerous” power plant emissions, ending our “addiction” to oil, creating a renewable economy, and saving the planet from “imminent climate disaster.”

Environmental euphemisms aside, however, the legislation is really about imposing national “low carbon fuel standards” (LCFS) and forcing dramatic reductions in the use of oil, natural gas and especially coal. It would expand on existing laws, regulations and decrees, like the Environmental Protection Agency’s ruling that carbon dioxide somehow “endangers human health and welfare,” EPA’s June 30 invalidation of flexible air quality permits for Texas refineries, Interior Secretary Salazar’s offshore drilling moratorium, multiple state and federal renewable energy standards and mandates, and various state and regional “greenhouse gas initiatives” that restrict emissions from power plants and industrial facilities.

The EPA, Energy Information Administration, White House and Mr. Reid insist that America can easily limit hydrocarbon use and switch to “eco-friendly” wind, solar and biofuel energy – at low cost and minimal harm to families, businesses and jobs. However, their self-serving, other-planet claims are flatly contradicted by a host of studies by reputable analysts with a solid history of integrity and accuracy.

The most recent is a June 17 report by Charles River Associates, examining the “Economic and Energy Impacts Resulting from a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard.” Prepared for the Consumer Energy Alliance, the study looked only at transportation fuels. (Including coal for electricity generation and other uses would dramatically increase its cost estimates.) Nevertheless, the study found that national standards implemented in 2015 would:

* Increase average gasoline and diesel prices by up to 80% in five years, and 170% within ten years – sending regular gasoline prices soaring to nearly $5 per gallon by 2020 and $7.50 per gallon by 2025 (assuming other international price pressures remain unchanged);

The 2,319 page financial regulation bill that just passed Congress is filled with vague, complicated language.

Some language will weaken our financial system and make it less efficient.

Other language appears to mandate racial and gender employment quotas in dozens of Federal agencies.

In the name of making sure that there is not another financial crisis, the bill does nothing to address what caused the mortgage problems created by government regulations that forced banks to make risky loans that they didn’t want to make.

It does nothing to rein in the $400 billion in losses created by government entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

What Democrats don’t understand is how everyone from farmers to small and large companies use derivatives to decrease their risks. When a farmer plants his crops in the spring he has to worry about what the price of his crops will be when they are harvested in the fall. If prices plummet before the harvest occurs, farmers face real financial peril. So farmers sell a portion of those crops even before they plant them. They know what price they will get and they greatly reduce their risk. That is what a derivative is.

The same thing happens when Southwest Airlines agrees to the price that it will pay for jet fuel months in advance.

Among the new rules is that these derivative transactions must be standardized and traded on exchanges.

Democrats claim that this will make deals more transparent. But what business is it of the government whether the farmer or Southwest Airlines makes that deal with another company or over an exchange?

If farmers and companies really benefit from using these exchanges, why does the government have to force them to make agreements that way?

What should be obvious is that the costs of trading derivatives will increase. The contracts traded over these exchanges will also not be as flexible as they are now.

Making derivatives more costly is simply another way of saying that the cost of farmers and companies buying insurance will rise. When some farmers stop buying this higher cost insurance will anyone seriously argue that really reduces their financial risks?

Regulations that restrict bank size ignore one critical question: why are the banks the size that they are now?

The most likely reason is that the most efficient banks grew, the ones that could offer customers the best services at the lowest costs attracted more customers.

Larger banks presumably could also offer services that smaller banks couldn’t.

So how does forcing banks to have higher costs and be less efficient make them less risky? Won’t that make them more likely to go out of business?

Proponents of regulating derivatives point to the losses from AIG or Goldman Sachs supposedly ripping off its customers. A simple solution for AIG would have been to let it go bankrupt and make shareholders bear that loss.

For Goldman Sachs, even if the questionable fraud charges are true, the fraud could presumably occur with any financial instrument, not just derivatives.

Just as President Obama is driving oil rigs out of American waters to other nations, he is going to drive some financial operations overseas.

He is going to raise company costs and make it costly for them to buy insurance.

We have yet another example of government financial regulations begetting more regulations. Regulations that force financial institutions to make risky mortgages remain in place.

Just when one thinks one has heard it all, a quick browse of the local paper reinforces the notion that sheer stupidity is an infinite commodity.

This is especially true in a Sanctuary City such as San Jose, California, where moon bats and lunatics with far too much idle time on their hands seek to interpret the law as an item of fickle, subject to the needs and wishes of the underrepresented, under served, and under intelligent.

As reported in the San Jose Mercury News, in part:

“Opponents of police vehicle impoundment practices are hitting the streets, intent on warning motorists of police checkpoints in Santa Rosa and Petaluma.

“Protesters holding signs in Spanish will continue to show up at checkpoints to protest 30-day impoundments of vehicles operated by drivers without valid licenses, said Alicia Roman, a Santa Rosa attorney who is a member of the Committee for Immigrant Rights.

“The cost of reclaiming an impounded auto, typically $2,000, places an “undue hardship” on low-income people, including Latino immigrants, she said.

“People are upset this is going on,” Roman said.”

An urgent message from Earth to Roman, NOT in Spanish:

People are also upset that drivers (Latinos included!) are breaking the law by driving while drunk, without a license, and without insurance. Citizens are also enraged that illegal aliens are even on our roadways, given the fact that they have no legal or moral basis for being in America!

As always, gun control proponents say they merely want “reasonable” gun control laws. Yet, when listing the actual laws they favor, they go well beyond what most people would possibly consider “reasonable.” Just look at the gun bans in Chicago and Washington, D.C. that local politicians and gun control organizations such as the Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center have fought to protect.

Today, exactly two weeks after the Supreme Court struck down Chicago’s handgun ban, the city’s strict new gun control laws go into effect. These new restrictions surely do not seem “reasonable” but rather intended to make life as difficult as possible for those who legally want to own a gun. Among the regulations is a complete ban on selling guns in Chicago. Also five hours of training is required, which may seem reasonable, but that training is forbidden to take place within the Chicago city limits.

And the list of odd restrictions in Chicago goes on. While people can own a handgun for protection in their homes, it only applies to some parts of what most people would consider their home: the gun cannot be used for self-defense in one’s yard or garage, nor on your porch, even if it is enclosed. But certainly a garage is a possible place for criminals to strike. Is it “reasonable” that if criminals attack a family member in the garage, you aren’t allowed to effectively defend them?

Further, Chicagoans are permitted to own only one handgun that is “in operating order.” If you own a jewelry store that criminals might want to rob, forget it. You cannot even place your one functional handgun in your business instead of your home if you think that is the best place to put it.

Multiple residences or a very large house would not qualify for more than one gun either.

Break any of these or the numerous other regulations and you face up to a $5,000 fine and 90 days in jail.

For the second offense, the fine goes up to $10,000 and jail time goes up to six months.

All societies, even the most primitive, established laws to ensure that relations between people did not lead to the worst offenses such a murder, rape, and thievery of all descriptions. As societies evolved, the number of laws did as well, ever rising to meet the many ways thought necessary to keep the peace.

In ancient societies, punishments were by our modern standards, draconian. Death was not an uncommon sentence for most offenses. We can measure modern societies by this rule and it is no surprise that Middle Eastern and North African nations, operating under Islamic Sharia law, frequently impose this penalty.

In an effort to maintain decorum or conformity, regimes often passed laws regarding what people could and could not wear. The Greeks and Romans were particularly concerned about trousers or slacks. The Codex Theodosanus, around 443 CE, banned them. England’s Dress Act of 1746 banned kilts and tartans, but the act was later repealed in 1782. In Iran, the wearing of a mullet hair style was just banned.

Virtually nothing is beyond the interest of lawmakers. In the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota, it is against the law to assault a police dog, throw a snowball on public or private property or break into a dog pound. In Little Rock, Arkansas, it is illegal to honk your horn after 9 PM any place where sandwiches or cold drinks are served. In Canada, a person does not have to accept more than twenty-five pennies.

The general rule is that the larger a central government grows, the more laws and regulations it generates. As we have seen with Obamacare, the fact that sixty percent or more of the citizens affected opposed it made no difference as the Democrat controlled Congress engaged in all manner of bribery and chicanery to achieve its passage. This is likely to be repeated with Cap-and-Trade and other nation-killing legislation.

With laws come the regulations to enforce them. In April, The Heritage Foundation published a report, authored by James Gattuso and Stephen Keen, on the rising tide of regulation under the Obama administration.

“These regulatory taxes do not appear on any balance sheet, yet cost Americans about $1 trillion every year. The regulatory burden on Americans continued to surge during 2009, with record increases in costs, thanks to both the Bush and Obama Administrations.”

The fight to shape perceptions of President Obama’s health care overhaul is still in the early stages, but on Wednesday two Republican senators will fire a salvo when they release a 32-page report arguing that the legislation is only exacerbating skyrocketing prices and will cause nearly 100 million Americans to lose their employer-based insurance.

“The passage of the new law is a lost historic opportunity,” says the report, authored by staff for Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, and Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican.

The report, titled “Bad Medicine,” comes as the Obama administration is accelerating a public relations push to promote benefits in the law that are taking effect now or soon, in advance of this fall’s midterm elections. There have been improvements in public opinions about the law, though large numbers still oppose it.

One of the most startling assertions in the Coburn/Barrasso report – which was obtained ahead of its release by The Daily Caller – is that nearly 100 million Americans will lose their current form of health insurance and will be required to obtain more expensive plans. One of the president’s most constant refrains in selling his health bill was that if Americans liked what they had, they could keep it.

“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently released a regulation that limits the changes businesses can make to health plans and still be considered ‘grandfathered’ plans – exempt from many of the burdensome new mandates in the law,” the report says. “With this new rule, it looks like almost 90 million Americans could lose their current health plan and instead be stuck with more costly, government-­mandated health insurance.”

There are roughly 176 million Americans who currently have health insurance through their employer, the report says.

The White House did not directly contest these numbers, but said that the majority of the 133 million people receiving insurance through large employers will retain what they have because the benefits are similar to what will be required in the future, while those at smaller companies would simply be moving from less protective plans to insurance policies with more protection, such as a ban on lifetime caps.