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Strawmen For Healthcare

September 1st 2009 16:46
This is a great video for tearing down the strawman arguments made by "universal healthcare supporters."

For all of you who think we can afford to do this, you need to go to and look at the unfunded liabilities section. Do you:

a) Really think there are and will be enough income to tax to overcome that AND provide healtchare to the 8 million people who can't afford health insurance right now?

b) Really think that the purpose of all of this is to wipe out private insurance (go see many of the videos capturing "public option" fans insisting that of course that's a way to single payer, government only healthcare) so that they can increase taxes on those not rich enough to handle a major medical disaster with cash but not "poor enough" to qualify for the other people to pick up the tab?


In such a system, as has happened in EVERY government healthcare system, the taxes collected don't go far enough, care is rationed by government bodies (like Obama's Sr. Health Advisor Ezekiel Emanuel who wants to ration away the old and very young) and the system goes bankrupt anyways. In the UK just this past week there was a story about 4,000 women THIS YEAR giving birth in elevators, offices, and closets in hospitals because government healthcare couldn't afford the beds needed. Also, a study by the UK found that one million patients got extremely poor care.


Australia has government healthcare. Yet, when the PM got prostate cancer, he flew to the US to get his care. Rich people from all over the world that are in "universal healthcare" systems fly to the US for our far superior care.

Why? Because of profit. Profit drives people to innovate, to become better to compete for the dollars. It encourages people and companies to get into the market and offer it better. The more people see money to be made, the more people and companies get into it and competition drives down prices. As prices fall the market reaches equilibrium at some point.

The reason that hasn't happened in US healthcare is simple: The government is already too involved. I have been watching some of the other news networks and the reason I hear over and over again why there has to be all these state mandates and such is that "people are too stupid to know what they need in a health plan." They don't use those words, they say something like "we have to make sure the consumer is getting what they need."

Right now the cost of insurance is inflated by:
1) Not being able to buy across state lines. Combined with state mandates, this means that insurance companies offering non-employer insurance have very small groups to spread the risk across (especially in states with only 400,000 people) and less competition to encourage price reductions. Not only that, but the brilliant (sarcastic) Oregon Legislature, for instance, just put a 1% tax on insurance policies, doctors and hospitals. All of this is passed on to the consumer, for an effective 3% tax on our medical care.

2) State mandates. Trust people to be able to buy the ala carte policies they want. States that have eliminated mandates have seen insurance rates drop and more people covered. The biggest argument people make for universal healtcare is that "disasters" bankrupt people. So let people buy emergency care only, or office visits and emergency. Let people with bad backs add chiropractic care like a person that is out of town in their car a lot can choose to add roadside assistance to their car insurance.

"But hey, I threw my back out and now they won't take the pre-existing condition!" In an ala-carte plan system that is factored in. Very few people won't buy insurance for things they don't need. In at least one state cosmetic surgery is mandated in coverage. So EVERYBODY pays for that. It comes down to personal responsibility: If you decide you don't need more than 25,000 in liability on your car and you cause a 10 car/semi pileup on the freeway, it will bankrupt you. If you work in a job where lifting and twisting are part of the work, or you have a history of bad backs in your familiy, but choose not to have back care in your coverage, then you pay the price of more expensive insurance to add chiropractic care when you do throw your back out.

In California they allow for "catastropic only" coverage and they have tort limits. Therefore, I was able to either buy catastrophic insurance for around $50 a month (less than what most people with cable or sattelite choose to pay on entertainment) and I was also able to insure my kids for $140 a month.

The current HB 3200 eliminates Health Savings Accounts, pre tax accounts limited to $5300 a year or so in contributions, that allow people to save money on insurance by getting high deductible or catastrophic only plans, but earning money in a special savings account to pay for doctors vists, etc.

It's called choice and it works.

3) Tort reform. Strengthen the certification boards for licensing doctors. Then institute two changes: a) cap the amount that can be awarded in a malpractice case and b) make the losing party pay the expenses of BOTH parties for going through with the suit.

There are many components to this. First, doctors over test and often do unnecessary procedures to protect themselves. They don't willy-nilly take out tonsils and cut off feet to get rich, as Obama has suggested in his speeches. But they do have to practice with the worry of a lawsuit in the back of their minds.

Why worry? Because in the system where it costs you to even defend a suit you can win, doctors and their liability insurance often just settle out of court, whether the plaintiff has a case or not, rather than have all the expenses to pay even if they win. It can cost well into the five figures to successfully defend a case, when you could settle for less than that. If the loser has to pay ALL costs for BOTH parties, not only will less suits be brought, doctors will defend themselves in cases where they are in the right. This means lower liability insurance because the liability insurance company will be paying out less money as there are fewer "go away" settlements and fewer cases tried.

Second, when a doctor makes an honest mistake, should he have to pay millions? Part of the reason liability insurance is so high, is becuase the awards are so high. One neurosurgeon reported that if he does 300 surgeries a year, it takes the first ONE HUNDRED just to pay his liability premiums! One third of his gross income goes to insuring against lawsuits, despite his excellent record.

Unfortunately, the trial lawyers have the Democrats in their pockets, and many Republicans too.

So, how do we cover the uninsured? How do they get care?

One of the worst strawmen arguments is that some people can't get healthcare. Very untrue. Anybody can walk into any hospital and get care. Yes, it gets distributed back out in higher health insurance costs, but people don't lay on the street bleeding to death.

If you take away people who choose not to get health insurance (they can afford it but think they don't need it, would prefer to have all premium channels, want to travel the world instead of buy insurance, etc), and the illegal aliens tax dollars should not be insuring, the number of uninsured is down to eight to ten million people.

We can handle it this way:
- Continue to allow people to use hospitals when they don't have insurance (the benefits of preventative care are questionable. Think about it, how does seeing the doctor twice a year keep your from swine flu, when the shots are available, whether you have a doctor or not, at your local pharmacy.)
- Let doctors and clinics and hospitals get all or part of their "pro bono" care deducted off their taxes as charitable contributions if they are for-profit.

If you take that, plus:
- take away state mandates so there are affordable "catastrophic" insurance plans,
- strengthen HSA's,
- put in tort reform,
- allow people to buy across state lines to increase competition and group sizes,
- incentivize charity (instead of reducing the incentive as Obama's tax plan does by restricting deductions),
- let people have the same tax deductions for insurance that employers do (count as pre-tax income),

you increase choice and freedom, which is what America is all about. Americans have shown consistently throughout history that if you reduce their tax burden they are generous, charitable, and innovative with the money they keep. If people are keeping more of their money, then free clinics will get more donations. If people have more choice, then innovation takes place to offer a better product.

A "public option" will lead to government only healthcare, as the current plans exempt themselves from state mandates and a panel of executive branch bureaucrats work to build their kingdoms and expand their department. I've seen it every time I've worked in government. You can't be intellectually honest with yourself and look at who Obama has surrounded himself with, what the single payer fans say in that link above, and the history of government agencies to push out private competition (like the post office legislated monopoly on first class mail, because they are run too poorly to compete but want to keep running in the red on taxpayer dollars). The bill may not be single payer, but it gives a government board and agency all the power of the federal government to change the playing field to eliminate private insurance through pricing and coverage pressures. Yet unions and members of congress are exempt.

Then why do it? Are they evil?

No, unless being power hungry is in itself evil. Who's going to vote against the party that "provides" your healthcare. Why has Canada, with their horrible healthcare system, not been able to get rid of it? People voting as they always do: what they THINK is in their self-interest. If the Democrats can get 80 million (as the CBO says) or even everybody onto government healthcare, they've created a voting block and believe that will keep their party in power forever, so they can keep:

Giving billions to foreign rum companies partially owned by DNC supporters.

Or giving billions to a Brazilian oil company so that billionaire George Soros (the money behind MoveOn.org and other liberal groups) can get even richer!

It's not to take care of people. There's not one government healthcare system that takes care of people better than America's private care system. Not one.

Your freedom is at stake here. I've written about that before, so I'll leave it at that. Let me leave you with this excellent cartoon by Michael Ramirez at Investor's Business Daily:

Who are the uninsured?
Get the picture?
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All should watch this

August 31st 2009 17:56
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Obama NOT Pro-Choice?

July 13th 2009 16:22
I've blogged before that Obama is the most pro-abortion president in history, and quite easily the most pro-abortion politician currently in Washington, but I may have understated it.

The seventeenth czar, but most people's counting, is his Science and Technology Czar, John Holdren. He holds extemely radical views about abortion, sterilization, and how to save the planet. Among his beliefs:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.

Definitely not "pro-choice." Congratulations "pro-choicers," in 37 years you've gone from back alley abortions to a science czar that would have women hiding in back alleys to keep their babies.

Why haven't you heard about this? Why didn't the Senate have a chance to review this? Because Obama's Czars are extra-Constitutional. They are his way of appointing radicals and other people who wouldn't pass the confirmation process to become cabinet members. These "czars" are ABOVE the cabinet in his chain of command. A few winners:

- The "Car Czar" is a 31 year old Yale Law School dropout who has never been to a car factory and knows nothing about the car industry. His only work experience? He dropped out of school to work for Hillary's campaign for president.

- The "Economy Czar" Larry Summers couldn't get confirmed because of controversial statements he made about women and science while President at Harvard. He's never run anything but a University, never a business.

- "Climate Czar" Carol Browner is a member of a worldwide socialist party that advocates damaging the world's economies as a way to save the planet. She told the auto industry task force to "put nothing in writing, ever" so that there would be no future accountability for what they decide. No surprise with her political views that she hasn't read the 1,300 page cap and tax bill either.

- The "Pay Czar", charged with the job of making sure making sure only politicians are rich.

And the list goes on and on for these unaccountable people.

Oh, and this John Holdren guy isn't the only one Obama has in his circles. Tom Daschle, who he wanted to make HHS Secretary, wrote a book in which he stated that in order afford universal health care, elderly were going to have to do less to try to stay alive. If wasn't for his tax issue we would have him in HHS. Instead we have a woman who is for partial birth abortion, the practice of killing babies what are very close to being born by sucking their brains out.

See a pattern? The unborn and the elderly should not be allowed to drain our economy and health care system any more in an Obama administration.

You can support my blogging even more by buying my book at Author House. Unlike liberals, this is the only fantasy world I live in
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Hope and Change?

June 17th 2009 15:57
Change for the worst.

Brittain was our largest partner in our multi country international force that went into Iraq. They've always been our partners


[ Click here to read more ]
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Couldn't Have Said it Better

June 3rd 2009 20:29
So I won't. "Right wing" stations came out and condemned the Tiller murder, and condemned and thoroughly reported on the recruiting center killing, but this posting says it better and more brilliant than I can!.

You can support my blogging even more by buying my book at Author House. Unlike liberals, this is the only fantasy world I live in
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Instant Classic

May 16th 2009 15:14
Classic

Oh, and for you liberals, everything in there is stuff Obama has done, sometimes tweaked to use Republican names and such, but it's a great commentary on the way the press covered what Obama did in his first 100. That's why I have to explain it's what Obama has done, because our press doesn't actually report all the things noted in the satire, which he has really done


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Saving or Creating

May 15th 2009 19:28
I could go to my wife and say, "Gorgeous, I'm going to save us $250,000 over the next ten years!" Then she would say, "How? What are you going to cut?"

If I answered like the Obama administration, I would say "Oh, I would have spent an extra $300,000 over our current budget, but instead I'm going to spend $50,000. See, I'm saving


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Disturbing

May 15th 2009 18:41
Here's how Webster's Dictionary defines fascism:

2. a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

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Changing the Tone?

April 20th 2009 20:00
I know I have relatvies who watch this garbage called a "news channel" because they repeat the teabagging insult on the internet themselves, though they probably don't know what the word really means. Rather than just link you the clip, because this is my site and I can do what I want , I'm going to link responses to it:

Now, realize that Red Eye is a late night show that gets a little rough too
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They are certainly trying. Read the following articles and postings and decide for yourself. Only three months into office and this stuff is conveniently released just before the tea parties . . . .

A good start and you might want to click and read some of the links in the post
[ Click here to read more ]
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