Nationalized Healthcare Part 1

This is the first in a two part series on healthcare reform.

You are hearing people screaming (me included) about national healthcare and going down the slippery slope of socialized medicine. A lot of people are quite frankly indifferent about the whole thing. Maybe that’s because you don’t really understand the concept. You also don’t realize that at some point in your life, your healthcare and how it is handled is going to be very important to you.

Right now the government controls, through Medicare and Medicaid, between 40 and 50% of all medical dollars spent. That is very significant, and growing. The Baby Boomers are starting to become eligible for Social Security and will soon be eligible for Medicare. That generation comprises approximately 77 million people. There are only a little over 300 million people in the country as a whole. Think about those numbers for a minute because they are very important. You are talking about a massive number of people already in a government run system. So why can’t the government implement their cost reductions and improvements on their existing system? After all they have a lot of leverage with the number of people and money that they manage.

What they are not telling you is that Medicare and Medicaid are number one, a HUGE, CRUSHING financial nightmare that is right around the corner, and that they are already driving up your healthcare costs. Medicare/aid sets rates that they will pay doctors for services. Those rates are naturally lower than the doctors would like them to be; occasionally they are even lower than the doctors can afford them to be. If a doctor is not getting properly reimbursed for services from half of his patients, what do you think he has to do to the other half to maintain a profit? Raise rates. Ask more from private insurance companies and individuals who on their own make up a small percentage of his clients.

It’s a similar story for hospitals, but they get an extra whammy thrown in. Hospitals are required to treat patients that come into the emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay and regardless of their citizenship. Now don’t get me wrong, if an illegal alien is involved in a car accident and seriously injured, I really hope that a hospital would administer care to the patient. The fact that they are in the country illegally in the first place is what I have a problem with, but the impact on private industries from the federal government NOT enforcing our boarders is a separate issue. In any case, these emergency room cases cost hospitals money.

The point is that anytime someone doesn’t pay, or under-pays, the difference doesn’t just dissolve into thin air. That money has to be made up somewhere and it is from the people that either have insurance, or are actually paying for their service out of their own pockets.

Nothing is free. Someone pays for it.

Well, then why isn’t the government taking it over the best solution?

The best way to answer that question is with a question, or maybe a series of them.

If the incentives for something decrease, then does it become more popular or less popular? Obviously less.

If college and medical school tuition is steadily on the rise, are people going to be willing to go HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars in the hole to get jobs that pay less and less? I wouldn’t.

Are you going to pay the extra money and spend the additional years of time to become a specialist? You know, an oncologist, pediatric neurologist, cardiac surgeon… The answer in the countries that have already tried this is a resounding NO. They have fewer doctors, fewer specialists, and LONGER wait times. That’s why Canadians who need a specialist often come to the US. Sometimes they are even sent here BY THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT.

So you go this route. People hear that wait times are up and they start to feel a little sick. What’s the first thing they do? Run to the doctor or at least make an appointment. Before they would have waited and tried a couple of things, but now they are worried that they won’t be able to get in if they don’t make an appointment immediately.

So now you have fewer doctors, fewer specialists, and more people going to the doctor when they could have/would have stayed home. Wait times for appointments can be months long. People literally start suffering and even dying on the waiting list. What would have been treatable cancer is now terminal. What would have been managed glaucoma now means blindness.

Understandably people get upset and they start complaining to their elected officials, after all, they are the ones who control the system. So now they create a health review panel to limit the number of things that are covered by the system since costs are skyrocketing and people are complaining. Now they ask people to start self medicating for certain conditions. Sure, they won’t be as comfortable as they would have been with appropriate care and an expensive prescription, but it costs less and frees up physicians.

All the while people who are in school and considering going into medicine look at the mess and the limited benefit to them and they decide to become lawyers instead. Medicine just isn’t worth it.

So the problem continues to build.

These aren’t hypothetical scenarios. People in the UK and Canada go through this every day. Cancer patients who reach certain stages or who have certain types aren’t treated because the chances of survival are too low and the cost too high. The elderly are denied services that could drastically improve their quality of life, like certain medicines or pacemakers, because they are too old and the money wouldn’t serve the ‘greater good’. Those who suffer are those who need care the most but are deemed the least valuable to society.

For a country that values the individual and the beauty of human life, this is the wrong direction.

The Debt Visualized

I'm a visual guy, which is why I love PoliticalMath.

BTW, these numbers were before the health care reform debate.

HT : HotAir

Just for fun

I have no idea if this is legit or not, but it certainly looks it.

You know of all the things that you can take into a marriage a healthy sense of humor is definitely near the top of the list.

I think this couple has that one in the bag.

When you're in a hole...

STOP DIGGING! Wow! This is the most LONG WINDED, NON-APOLOGY, borderline chastisement I have ever heard! Well, you know, this is all the press' fault in the first place. They really need to provide all of their questions, verbatim, upfront so that the President's staff can put a well scripted answer on the teleprompter.

How do you fight for a leader who can't use the word "victory"?

Concerning the war in Afghanistan:

"I'm always worried about using the word 'victory,' because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur," Obama told ABC News.

Did he just reference MacArthur like his REAL victory was a bad thing? I wish we HAD MacArthur in their right now as our C-in-C!

Really? Wow.

Up until this point I have credited President Obama with being a very savvy politician, and he may still prove himself again in the future, but I must say, as a politician and a leader, he’s wearing a lot of egg right now.

A few days ago police were called to a neighborhood in Cambridge, MA when someone called to report a possible burglary. Police arrived at the house and found a man inside who affirmed that he was the owner of the home and became belligerent with police. They requested to see his identification to confirm that he was the rightful owner and he refused and instead accused them of being racists. He yelled at them, apparently demeaning the arresting officer and even the officer’s mother. The man continued his rude behavior and was eventually arrested for disorderly conduct after the officer repeatedly tried to calm the man down.

Three things about the man: he is a Harvard professor, he is black, and he is a friend of the President.

Not uncommon in disorderly conduct cases, the man was released and the charges were dropped.

Wednesday night during President Obama’s press conference on health care reform (now being called health INSURANCE reform… a little rebranding) the president was asked about the arrest in Cambridge. He replied,

”I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”

So, while acknowledging that he doesn’t have the facts in the case, the President goes on to refer to the officer’s actions as stupid and strongly hints at the officers being racists.

Really? On national television? Without knowing the facts in the case you immediately blame and disparage the public servant and really ALL of law enforcement?

Most people have a healthy and well earned respect for police officers and this particular officer in question has been held up by his fellow officers and everyone in his community as above reproach in this area. In fact he was actually hand picked to teach classes to law enforcement on avoiding racial profiling.

The President has been back peddling but has not apologized for his comments.

Rasmussen (currently considered the most accurate political pollster) is going to report this morning (according to Drudge) that the President’s approval numbers have dropped below 50% for the first time this week.

On a side note, I have heard NUMEROUS times people quoting the fact that blacks and Latinos are stopped more by police officers. Why is this an issue? I really don’t care what race a person is, if they are suspected of committing a crime, I HOPE that police officers are confronting them. I hope they are stopping all people they suspect of a crime, regardless of their race, and the LAST thing I want an officer to be concerned about when he confronts ANYBODY is whether or not he is going to be called a racist… especially by the President.

Sorry, it’s Friday, I had to rant just a… little bit…

Some Legitimate Questions About Health Care Reform

Let me play a non-partisan roll for a minute. This isn’t easy because I have some VERY strong feelings on this subject, but I am going to do my best just to lay out some evidence and ask some questions to make a point. I am not going to address the elephant of whether or not the GOVERNMENT should be involved with making healthcare decisions.

On that note…

There are some very concerning things about all of the current revisions of health care reform going through congress right now and being prodded on a daily basis by the administration and specifically by the President himself.

The first question is one of cost. The CBO estimates, and states that this is basically a guess because legislation is not hammered completely out yet, that this would add $1 TRILLION to the deficit over the next ten years. That is a shocking number especially when you consider that we are already BUDGETED to be in the red EVERY YEAR for the next ten years. How on earth can we afford to go another TRILLION down over and above that! Concerning this estimate the President actually called and asked to meet with the head of the CBO. Now the Congressional Budget Office was created in the 70s to be completely non-political. Their whole purpose is to look at bills and give a number cruncher perspective. The CBO reports to Congress, not the President. Whether it is intentional or not, how can the President summon someone to the Oval Office and NOT have some type of influence on them? I am not questioning his motives, I am just pointing out that it is a very strange and unprecedented move, regardless of the intent.

The second question is the speed and enormity of this bill. Obviously if you read this blog at all you have seen that I am completely opposed to HUGE legislation. Bills should never be in the thousand plus page range - completely unnecessary. Then to be pushing a bill of that girth, which will have a HUGE impact on 17% of the American economy, demanding that it be passed in a couple of weeks is completely outrageous. EVERY American should have plenty of time to sit down and read this behemoth and decide whether or not this is really going to be the best thing for the country. They should have time to contact their congressman and voice their concerns. We have had our current system for DECADES. Why the rush? This is not going to have an immediate impact on families struggling with medical bills. This issue is too important and too big to push through on a moments notice. It needs time to simmer. It needs scrutiny.

The last question is actually one of the big ones that is bringing many so called “blue dog” democrats to come out against these plans, and that is whether or not the government should be using tax dollars to fund abortions. Since 1976 the Hyde Amendment has made it illegal for federal tax dollars to fund abortions inside the US. These plans would basically scrap that.

Can we afford this?

Do we need this rammed through RIGHT NOW?

Are we willing to scrap over three decades of precedent and force tax payers to fund a procedure that over 50% of the citizens believe is morally wrong?

That’s the tip of the ice berg, but they are some of the questions that every American should be considering as our elected officials are on the move.


*****UPDATE : Here is the link to the current text of HR3200, which is the leading version of the bill right now. Get comfortable, it stands at 1017 pages.

*****UPDATE: The President got subpar marks for honesty from the NEW YORK TIMES in his press conference.

*****UPDATE (yes, ANOTHER one) : The AP found their own issues with the President's statements.

Clarity... Simplicity... Consideration

Yesterday I emailed my Senators and Representative and voiced my concern that there is a fundamental flaw in the system being followed right now in Washington. Bills are too big, they lack focus and clarity, and are being shoved through the system so fast that no one has time to read them. Waxman-Markey is a great example. I even put a video on the blog a while back where Waxman admits that HE didn’t know everything that was in HIS cap-and-trade bill. It’s frightening. These bills have far reaching and extremely significant impact on every American family and the people voting on them don’t even have a chance to read them. The citizens that these bills effect barely know they exist before they are being voted on by our elected officials. These things need to be out in the open, they need to be clear, they need to be limited to the subject at hand, and they need to be available for everyone to see and consider for at least some period of time.

Based on that I urged them to pursue the following reforms:

- Bills should be limited in scope to the actual issue that they are addressing. If a bill is about funding federal highways it shouldn’t contain ear marks for sea otter research. If sea otter research needs to be funded it should be able to stand on its own. No ear marks. No add-ons.

- Bills should be limited in length. Our elected officials are hopefully intelligent enough to be able to articulate their legislation in a hundred pages or less. Certainly some things are complicated and should require more details to truly be useful, therefore rare cases should be allowed to go upwards of five hundred pages, however…

- The length of the bill should be considered before voting. Bills that are a hundred pages or less should be in their completed form and available to the public prior to voting for at least a week. Bills exceeding a hundred pages (but still less than five hundred pages), should be completely compiled and available to the public for at least two weeks prior to a vote in either the House of Representatives or the Senate.

These three changes of limited scope, limited length, and minimum time, would allow the congressmen to be well informed and would give the public enough time to get involved in the process and contact their elected officials regarding bills that are important to them.

This is an important reform that needs to be made. Laws that are straight forward are hard to misinterpret and twist. Bills that are short and focused on a single issue don’t have room for loop holes, pork projects, or political favors. Ideas should be able to stand on their own merits.

Please email your elected officials and urge them to move forward with similar reforms. Here is the list of Senators and webforms to fill out requests. Here is a similar page to find your Representative and send them a message.

Back in the Saddle and Looking for a Change

A week off from work and news is a good thing. A week spent with family and friends is an even better thing. We had the good fortune to do both last week. You would think that four children in a car for four days of driving would be rough, but the boys did great and the van survived the trip, although it took hours to detox it when we got back.

I did some thinking while I was there and I might try a few different things in the future here, just normalizing some of the behaviors that I’ve already been doing sporadically.

I have also been thinking about how best to win people over to certain ideas and concepts. A lot of politics is name calling and mud slinging, which can be extremely entertaining, but rarely gets people to rethink their positions. Rethinking is a good thing.

Of course to rethink you really need to think about something in the first place. It occurred to me that a lot of people just don’t think much about politics. They vote for people that seem likable or for people that have the best rhetoric, in spite of what they are actually proposing.

Politicians have capitalized on this by making policy nearly undecipherable. Bills exceeding a thousand pages are rarely read by the members who vote on them let alone by the people who only pay attention to politics for an average of six minutes a WEEK. The tax code is a painful example, considering lawyers build lucrative businesses on the mere fact that they actually know and understand the ins and outs of the tax code. Lobbying firms make millions of dollars every year to push their clients’ interests into bills. That’s not saying anything against lawyers or lobbyists; quite frankly they are just playing the established game for their own causes and profits. As long as they are ethical in their practices, I really don’t have a problem with their behavior.

Of course I have a huge problem with the system.

Openness and transparency are great buzzwords, but they need to be actual policy, not just lip service or campaign slogans. Bills need to be straight forward, clear, and they need to be public with ample time for elected officials and average Joes to take some time to read them. They should be written about a single issue. No “omnibus”. No earmarks. No footnotes to be filled in later. Clear, simple and straight forward. Every Senator or Representative should have full confidence that they know what they are voting for and every citizen should be able to look at a bill and the vote of their representative and decide whether they agreed with the vote or not.

I need to do some more thinking on this, but this needs to be part of the conservative movement of limited government. A government that is strewn with loopholes, voluminous bills, and incomprehensible laws, is a government that is working against the people. There needs to be a healthy skepticism throughout the process. Argue your ideas, write bills to propose you ideas, but write it clear and let your ideas stand on their own merits, not tagging along something else.

Pre-Vacation Rantings

Well, forced vacation/time off is right around the corner and fortunately I get to spend a good chunk of that time with friends and family from around the country, so today just a quick hit list of all of the crazy stuff going on.

- House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Dem) was asked if he would support a pledge that every member of the House actually READ the health care bill before they vote on it. I mean, what a NOVEL concept! Wait, isn’t that their JOB! The only thing more preposterous than the concept that a pledge like this would have to be proposed is Hoyer’s reaction to it, “If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes.” Okay, I understand that the bill will probably approach TWO THOUSAND pages. I also understand and have stated REPEATEDLY that if a bill is too long, then the people are getting hosed by something in it. Wouldn’t you think as a congressman you would want to be looking out for your constituents? Three words: READ THE BILL! Call your congressman and tell them if they vote for a bill they didn’t read, then you won’t be voting for them because they aren’t doing their job!

- “Every dime” of the stimulus was supposed to be tracked on the Recovery.gov website so that the American people could see exactly where their money was going. The idea was that people would be so encouraged by the administration’s openness and effectiveness in turning the economy around that it would change the whole tenor of the country and renew the trust of the people in their government. It’s failed and failed badly. Quite frankly you really can’t see where much of the money is going yet. Only 10% of it has actually gone out despite the urgency in passing the bill and the assertion that these were all “shovel ready” projects. They are even talking about ANOTHER stimulus package, but fortunately there have been some reality checks here, so hopefully THAT won’t happen. However, let me draw your attention to the Recovery.gov website itself. Despite spending millions on the site, it is nearly useless. So, what are we going to do? You guessed it! We are going to shovel more money at it. $18 MILLION MORE!!! Are you kidding me?

*****Update: HotAir.com has the connection between the website contract and... Congressman Hoyer who doesn't like to have to read bills. Classic. Looks like the web company got a thousand to one return on their contributions. Not bad. Don't worry though, when Obama is President all of this pandering, cronyism, and back scratching will be OVER... oh wait.

- According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal deficit for the first nine months of the fiscal year is $1.1 TRILLION. Let that sink in for a minute. Federal revenue for the year is estimated to be $1.5 TRILLION. We have already spent 73% MORE MONEY than we will take in for the whole year, and with three more months to go. Do we really want to start talking fiscal responsibility?

- Czars. This “non-cabinet” cabinet post is accountable only to the President. They have no accountability what-so-ever to congress or the people. There are 15 cabinet positions (Secretary of…). There are over 20 Czars and growing all of the time. And they don’t come solo. They have a whole staff. And YOU are paying for each and every one of their salaries. Just think, more and more power being consolidated in one place, further away from the people, further away from accountability. Is that the change we need?

- There is an AMAZING phenomenon that is starting to happen. People are actually starting to tie this hurricane of bad policy to the President. President Obama’s Presidential Approval Index (Percentage Strongly Approving – Percentage Strongly Disapproving) has gone into the negative and today hit -8. 38% of the people now Strongly Disapprove of the job the President is doing. Which really begs the question, “why aren’t the other 62% paying attention?” Actually they probably are paying attention, but they either already work for the government or they think their best job prospects are getting a job working for the administration. Hmmm… I wonder if I could be like the “Snippy Comment Czar”. I like it.