Socialist Health Care: It's Done.

Clearwater, FL - Everyone reading this blog knows my feelings on Obama-care. There is no point wasting bandwidth with them now. The good side fought the good fight. But the dark side headed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Harry Reid and President Barak Obama managed to pull it off in spite of opposition from the overwhelming majority of people in this country.

So today I'll leave you with someone else's thoughts from 200+ years ago.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."

–author unknown (often mis-attributed to 18th century Scottish writer/lawyer, Alexander Tylter)

I guess 234 years wasn't a bad run.

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The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.
- Michelle Obama

Fines for not having health insurance? Oh Hell no!

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) has an interesting idea to get universal health insurance coverage in the United States. He proposes fines on people that do not have health insurance. Read it for yourself.

The fines would be the stick to enforce a proposed requirement that all Americans get health insurance, much as auto coverage is now mandatory. The penalties would start at $750 a year for individuals, and $1,500 for families. Households making more than three times the federal poverty level - about $66,000 for a family of four - would face the maximum fines. For families, it would be $3,800, and for individuals, $950.

Baucus would offer carrots as well: tax credits to help pay premiums for households making up to three times the poverty level, and for small employers paying about average middle-class wages. People working for companies that offer coverage could avoid the fines by signing up.
The Associated Press: Fines proposed for going without health insurance

So lets see now…

We all know how well mandatory liability insurance on cars worked. 100% compliance and low prices across the board, right?

And if you lose your job and your insurance, big fine! Oh yeah, that's going to help. Just what every man and woman out of works needs is one more worry.

Do you think this policy will apply to illegal aliens too? It will be fun to watch Uncle Sam try to collect those fines. The feds will probably be at least as successful as the traffic courts and insurance companies that are chasing illegal aliens that have car accidents without the benefit of auto insurance.

Actually, to me it seems Sen. Baucus stumbled across a sure fire way to turn the tide of public opinion in favor of a government option. Think about it, if you are flat broke, unemployed and facing a yearly $1500 fine, a free ride from Uncle Sam suddenly looks really good.

Come on 2010, it is well past time to clean house.

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Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
- Voltaire

National Health Care Lies - More on "You can keep what you have"

One of the repeating public health care themes coming out of the White House is "If you like your current health care, you can keep it." From the President, on down through Press Secretary Robert L. Gibbs to congressional representatives, we hear it over and over again.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The proposed health reforms will eliminate private health insurance. The reason is simple math and business sense.

Most people get health insurance through their employers. Unless you are buying your health insurance on your own, the decision will lay with your employer rather then you.

To how this works let us create a fictitious company. Our company has 50 employees and an annual payroll of $2 Million. Shopping around on the internet uncovered stripped down family policies available to groups of 50 for a little over $600 a month per employee. To make the math easy, we will use $600 for an annual fee of $360 Thousand.

That is not the only employer expense when providing private health insurance. With 50 employees, the employer has one person that spends at least part of their time administering the health insurance policy. At $600 per month for family coverage at a group of 50, the employer is probably also dealing with complaints from employees that are not getting all the services they think they should have.

H.R. 3200 Sec. 412 (see text below) will levy a maximum 8% tax on employers that choose not provide employee health insurance. An 8% tax on $2 Million comes out to $160 Thousand per year.

A government health plan gives our fictitious company two options. They can stay with the private option at $360 thousand per year as outlined above or go with the government option of $160 Thousand dollars per year. And the government option carries the added bonus of eliminating all the administration costs and employee griping.

Which option do you think most employers are going to go with? I know which option my employer will take.

As employees are shifted in massive numbers out of the private sector that pool of private insurance money used to pay claims with will shrink dramatically. That will cause the price of private health insurance to go up. More employers and individual policyholders will abandon the private companies for the less expensive government option.

Once that snowball starts down the hill it will not stop until there is nothing left. Eventually, one buy one, the private health insurance companies will become insolvent and die.

History shows what happens when government enters into direct competition with the private sector. For example, the Roosevelt Administration set up government run electric utilities in direct competition with private concerns. The Tennessee Valley authority destroyed Wendell Willkie's Commonwealth and Southern and wiped out millions of depression era stock holders.

How does this happen? It is simple. The play field is severely tilted.

A government entity pays no taxes. The federal government has the purchasing power to get well below market prices and terms on everything they need. Government can and will set rules and regulations that favor the government enterprise.

If government sets up a public health plan under the terms outlined in H.R. 3200 no private insurance company will survive. The tax advantage alone will be too much of an edge.

Legal scholars on both sides of the public health fence debated to exhaustion whether or not the now infamous Sec. 102 will end private insurance in five years through the language in the proposed law. Both sides have valid points. The debate comes from the fact that other parts of H.R. 3200 will change some of the existing statutes referenced in Section 102. Those changes will cause contradictions within section 102 itself.

I think the legal argument is academic. If there is government financed health insurance, in five years there will not be a private option left to test the law.

For the record H.R. 3200 Sec. 412 will change the Internal Revenue Code with the following language:

SEC. 412. RESPONSIBILITIES OF NONELECTING EMPLOYERS.

(a) In General- Section 3111 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by redesignating subsection (c) as subsection (d) and by inserting after subsection (b) the following new subsection:

`(c) Employers Electing to Not Provide Health Benefits-

`(1) IN GENERAL- In addition to other taxes, there is hereby imposed on every nonelecting employer an excise tax, with respect to having individuals in his employ, equal to 8 percent of the wages (as defined in section 3121(a)) paid by him with respect to employment (as defined in section 3121(b)).

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The only thing worse then a bad law is a badly written law.
- Me

Yet one more act of democracy to be held against me…

I attended the town hall meeting in Monticello, FL where Rep. Allen Boyd (D-FL). listened to comments and concerns about H.R.3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009. The doors opened at 4:00 p.m. and by 4:30 the doors were closed when the court room reached a capacity crowd. My count was roughly 165 people. I'm told that another hundred or so people were left outside. I do know those left outside were a rowdy bunch.

The crowd ran 12 to 1 against H.R. 3200. Some comments were very concise and well spoken. I think what struck me the most was the vast amount of misinformation on both sides of the debate. One man wanted to know if the congressman would be giving up his fully paid, no deductible health insurance. Rep. Boyd corrected him on that misconception. Another lady extolled the virtues of a single payer system and how it wouldn't really cost any more then what we are paying now. A man complained loudly about the non-existent part of the bill that requires euthanasia of older patients.

Rep. Boyd handled the comments and questions fairly well. I was impressed with his ability to listen and respond. Respond he did, but answer he did not. It is hard to explain how he did it, but he did it well.

He did affirmatively state that he could not support the bill as it is written. He said that he would vote for what was best for the country.

I hope the bill does not change to something he can support. And lately the leadership in Washington seem to have lost sight of what's best for America. At least the America we know now.

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"Americans haven't given up on the idea of a free press, but they don't think the press is unbiased. They see the press as valuable in tracking what government does and giving them information on some very basic and real issues like the war on terror. But large numbers of Americans wish they got a better news report. The public wants us to redouble our efforts to be fair and unbiased, or at least acknowledge bias."
- GENE POLICINSKI, acting director of the First Amendment Center.

National Health Care Lies: Part 3 - We can do it better if everyone has health insurance

How many reading this are old enough to remember when liability insurance on your car was optional? All of you old enough think back to that simpler time in your life. The rest of you follow along, there is an example here.

Remember the insurance companies testifying before your state legislators? They said if everyone is covered there won't be anymore more uninsured losses, law suits will drop dramatically and therefore premiums will drop by double digit percentages. The laws were passed, people were ticketed and some lost licenses for not having proper car insurance.

As the laws passed, auto insurance rates took off like sky rockets. As each state required insurance, rates in those states went up in double digit percentages. At the same time, insurance rates in states still holding out against mandatory car insurance saw no or very small increases during the same time periods.

Auto insurance companies blamed the evil trial lawyers for screwing up the plan. Funny as it may be, states that did not have mandatory insurance laws during the same time period must not have had the same trouble with the trial lawyers. The only thing we can deduce from that information is that trial lawyers are a direct result of mandatory insurance laws. 

Now fast forward from the 1970s and 80s to March of this year. Karen Ignagni testified on behalf of the health insurance companies before the US Senate. Then she gave an interview to USA Today.

"This is a major step, and it changes everything about how the market works," Ignagni told USA TODAY. Insurers, she said, are prepared to "offer coverage to everyone who applies."

In return, however, they want a system similar to the one that now exists only in Massachusetts, in which all residents are required to get insurance. Insurers want the federal government to help those who cannot afford private insurance with subsidies or tax breaks.

Insurers also want to prevent any new system from including a government insurance plan similar to Medicare. Ignagni said such a plan could attract 100 million people who now have private insurance, because the government can bargain for lower rates with providers.
USA Today: Insurers' proposal requires coverage for all

Last weekend Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) appeared on the Mike Huckabee show. She said that "we all have to be insured" for the federal health system to work and keep costs down.

Where have we heard that before? I'm not certain, but I might have seen this tap dance before.

You can be certain the insurance companies do not want to see a government run insurance option. That is a matter of simple survival. A government run plan will exterminate the private option for all but the very wealthy.

But it is almost a sure bet the private health insurance industry longs for a Massachusetts style law requiring health insurance on everyone. Once they have a captive market, the price of the policy is no a key concern.

So everyone will have insurance, but at what cost? Once health insurance is required by law the sky is the limit.

Been there, done that, got the ticket. (Dismissed, found the insurance card later.)

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"You have awakened a sleeping giant."
- Katy Abram addressing Arlen Specter (D-PA) at a town hall meeting in Lebanon, PA

National Health Care Lies: Part 2 - All Anti-Health Care Protestors Are Professional Rabble Rousers

The August break for Congress is traditionally used so representatives may return home and meet with constituents. This year the constituents are not just asking to be heard, they are demanding it. At meetings across the country, the prospect of government run healthcare is bringing out lots of people for lots of reasons. Most of them are pissed off beyond belief over one or more aspects of the plan. They are are not being shy or even tactful when personally delivering that message in town meetings.

Democrats are attempting to paint everyone showing up at town hall meetings as agitators from out side the district and Tea Party Patriots. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (Twit-CA) coined a new term for these protestors, "This initiative is funded by the high end. We call it "Astroturf," it's not really a grass roots movement. It's AstroTurf by some of the wealthiest people of America." 

Nancy and the rest of the people making these claims seem to think we, the American public, are going to be diverted form the real issue by this verbal slight of hand. But fortunately this particular magic trick is so bad that even the most wide eyed innocents are laughing at it.

A few of the people showing up for these meetings are coming at the behest of e-mailed requests, web postings and talk radio shows. So what? The point is these people do not believe the brand of government run health care being proposed is good thing for them or their country.

Most of the people are showing up on their own volition without the extra prodding. They do so because they believe the proposed health care plan is so bad that it is worth going to the meeting to be heard in person.

All of the people showing up for these meetings have a reason for being there. Many are worried about the cost, the effect on the federal budget and their taxes. Many know their existing health insurance will eventually dry up under government competition and are gravely concerned about what will replace it. A large number of older constituents are very concerned about what will happen when free health care over loads the system and the federal budget. Everyone wants to know where the lines will be drawn when the resources eventually run out. A few are even more concerned over who will be drawing those lines.

The idea that all the people showing up at these meetings are rabble rousers out to torpedo Democrats is pure political fantasy. It is so fantastic that only the most fanatic "The US Bombed the World Trade Center" believers are buying into it.

That leads us to one of two possible conclusions:

• The Democratic leadership actually believes that this is nothing but semi-pro rabble rousers making trouble at the town hall meetings. In this case it means the Democratic Leadership is so far disconnected from the reality of what their constituents want that they have no place making laws and spending decisions over them. We are talking a disconnect so severe that even the "we know what's best for you" elite are becoming concerned.

Or…

• The Democratic leadership believes the American public is stupid enough to buy that load of fertilizer they are shoveling. If that's the case they have proved themselves to be snake oil salesmen and con artists with no place in making laws and spending decisions over any of us.

I recommend that anyone reading this seek out the nearest town hall meeting and be heard. It doesn't matter which side of the debate you are on. What does matter is the badly needed reality check for our representatives. It never hurts to remind elected officials from time to time that their cushy jobs still depend on the unwashed masses that vote for them. Who knows, they may actually listen to we voters instead of those high priced lobbyists.

Well, at least for a while. 

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"It is kinda funny, though, having a professional neighborhood organizer [President Obama] crying "foul" because those of us upon whom this abomination will be foisted may be organizing to protest."
- My Cousin

The House Democratic Health Care Plan Organizational Chart

(Click image for full size PDF - 187K)
Source: Republican Chart Outlines House Democrats’ Government Takeover of Health Care 

This would be funny if it wasn't so sadly true. We are so very screwed.

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“Recent mergers have given the industry a strangle hold over the health insurance market. With fewer pressures for efficiency and no government oversight of rates, insurers have been given free rein to spend more of our health care dollars on overhead, profit, and administration. The last decade of HMO mergers has taught us that when fewer HMOs dominate the health care market, quality goes down, premiums go up, and patients get short changed. Already, 45 million Americans are uninsured because they cannot afford to pay the insurers' ransom.”
- Jerry Flanagan