“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
Declaration of Independence
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“The reason this country continues its drift toward socialism and big nanny government is because too many people vote in the expectation of getting something for nothing, not because they have a concern for what is good for the country.”
Lyn Nofziger
When I decided to tackle the national healthcare issue, I thought a good start would be examining the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to see what they had to say about the right to healthcare. I hunted and searched the various documents which created our country. I found that according to the Declaration of Independence, we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Fourteenth Amendment states, No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
I did not find the right to healthcare in the Bill of Rights. I also did not find the right to an Ivy League education, the right to a well paying job, the right to a fully paid for pension, the right to drive a BMW X5, the right to a beautiful wife, the right to reside in a 6,000 sq ft McMansion, or the right to get into Heaven.
I did discover that government derives their JUST powers from the consent of the people. I also found that if those who govern use their powers in a destructive manner, the governed have the right to abolish that government and install a new government. Those who have run up $12 trillion in debt, led us into multiple trillion dollar foreign wars, left our children and grandchildren with a $100 trillion bill for unfunded promises, and have sold their souls to evil banks and corporations, have exercised their powers in a destructive manner. Despite this record of government corruption, failure and mismanagement, these politicians are about to fashion a new government healthcare bureaucracy that will cost trillions. Passage of this plan is a fateful decision which will push the United States a step closer to economic collapse. Abolition of this government will be necessary and the people will need to install a new government that will follow the U.S. Constitution.
HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE REALLY UNINSURED
“Mystical references to society and its programs to help may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.”
Thomas Sowell
As the Democratic Party attempts to ram their socialist government controlled healthcare plan down the throats of Americans, they have stooped to lies and misinformation to mislead the public. Last week I watched as Senator Jay Rockefeller declared that 50 million Americans were uninsured. In his speech on September 9, 2009 President Obama stated:
“There are now more than thirty million American citizens who cannot get coverage.”
On August 8th, President Obama said:
“Reform is obviously essential for the 46 million Americans who don’t have health insurance.”
So what is it? Who’s lying? Who’s exaggerating? Who’s misleading the American public? If the Democrats can’t even figure out how many people are uninsured, how can we possibly trust their 1,990 page “solution”? The 46 million figure comes from the 2007 Census Bureau report. So, why did Obama reference 30 million uninsured in his speech? Maybe it was because 9.3 million of those were non-citizens. Since the Democrats didn’t want to let the public know they were going to cover illegal aliens, Obama backed them out of his figure. Another 6.4 million actually are enrolled in Medicaid but mistakenly tell the Census they have no health insurance. Another 4.3 million are eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP but have not signed up. In addition, scores of the 46 million could theoretically afford health coverage, but choose not to purchase any. In 2007, 17.6 million of the uninsured had annual incomes of more than $50,000 and 9.1 million earned more than $75,000. Sally Pipes documents in the Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide, that those making more than $75,000 per year are part of the fastest growing segment of the uninsured population. These people have exercised their freedom and decided not to buy insurance. That is their choice and not the responsibility of government or taxpayers. Taking these facts into consideration leaves 8.4 million people truly without insurance.
A 2003 BlueCross BlueShield study determined that 8.2 million Americans are actually without coverage for a long term period of time, because they are too poor to purchase health care but make too much to qualify for government assistance. Even though these people are without insurance they have access to healthcare, because federal law prohibits hospitals from denying treatment to patients who show up at hospital emergency rooms. The average household in the U.S. has 2.5 people. This means there are 3.3 million households out of 114 million households without health insurance. That is 2.9% of all the households in the U.S. This appears to be an awfully small percentage of Americans to warrant a $1 trillion new government bureaucracy. National health spending in 2009 will reach $2.5 trillion. This comes to $8,000 per person. If we gave the 8.2 million Americans without health insurance an $8,000 voucher for healthcare, it would cost $65.6 billion. This amounts to a stimulus plan rounding error. The truth is that Obama and the Democratic statists in Congress don’t want to make healthcare better or more efficient. They want control of your life.
Many of the 17.6 million people who make more than $50,000 per year choose not to purchase health insurance because they are self employed. The tax code exempts people from paying taxes on health care benefits purchased through their employer, while denying the same tax advantages to individuals. Ending this discrimination would make health care more affordable to those who are self-employed or not covered through their workplace. This would allow Americans to have health care policies that are portable, so it would reduce the gaps in coverage people can face when they quit or lose a job. There are easy cost effective solutions to covering the 30 million uninsured referenced by President Obama in his September “You Lie” speech. The Democratic Party has no interest in easy cost effective solutions. They want power over doctors, insurance companies, hospitals, and the American people. They are pushing for government intervention in health care by distorting the 46 million uninsured figures to advance their goal of socialism. The liberal mainstream media is disseminating the lie widely without further elaboration, therefore rigging the game in favor of the Democratic Party.
COST OF HEALTHCARE
“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.”
Thomas Sowell
The U.S. health care system is riddled with inefficiencies, outrageous administrative expenses, inflated prices, pitiable management and inappropriate care, waste and fraud. These problems increase the cost of medical care associated with government health programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and health insurance for employers and workers and affect the security of families. There is one thing that conservatives, liberals and libertarians can all agree upon. The cost of healthcare in the U.S. is out of control.
Source: Perot Charts
We spend more than every other country on the planet, and with our rapidly aging demographics, costs are situated to soar. We’ve allowed the system to hurtle out of control for decades, with no attempt to rein in costs. There are too many corporate lobbyists paying off too many Congressmen. These people do not care about the American people. They care about obscene profits and the power to control our lives. Government intervention in the healthcare market has already created a $100 trillion unfunded liability for our children and grandchildren.
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According to the National Coalition on Health Care:
- National health spending is expected to reach $2.5 trillion in 2009, accounting for 17.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). By 2018, national health care expenditures are expected to reach $4.4 trillion—more than double 2007 spending.
- National health expenditures are expected to increase faster than the growth in GDP: between 2008 and 2018, the average increase in national health expenditures is expected to be 6.2 percent per year, while the GDP is expected to increase only 4.1 percent per year.
- In just three years, the Medicare and Medicaid programs will account for 50 percent of all national health spending.
- Medicare's Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is expected to pay out more in hospital benefits and other expenditures this year than it receives in taxes and other dedicated revenues. In addition, the Medicare Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) Trust Fund that pays for physician services and the prescription drug benefit will continue to require general revenue financing and charges on beneficiaries that will grow substantially faster than the economy and beneficiary incomes over time.
- According to one study, of the $2.1 trillion the U.S. spent on health care in 2006, nearly $650 billion was above what we would expect to spend based on the level of U.S. wealth versus other nations. These additional costs are attributable to $436 billion outpatient care and another $186 billion of spending related to high administrative costs.
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In 1960, health services as a percentage of GDP was 3%. Today, health services are 10% of GDP. At the current rate of increase, along with a quickly aging population, health services will pass 20% of GDP in the next two decades. I hear Democrats refer to Medicare and Medicaid as successful government programs. I guess my definition of success is slightly different than a U.S. Congressman’s definition. A program riddled with $200 billion in fraud, astonishing amounts of paperwork, a Federal bureaucracy that costs $750 billion per year, and has run up $89 TRILLION of unfunded liabilities, is not a winning program in my book. The Medicare/Medicaid system will bankrupt the country. It is on an unsustainable path. Creating a new trillion dollar National Healthcare plan will only accelerate our demise. Obama and Congress need to address the unsustainable path of Medicare and Medicaid before introducing another trillion dollar inefficient corrupt government bureaucracy.
Source: Perot Charts
The Federal government has promised far more than it can deliver. They cannot fulfill these promises. Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965, the last time a Democratic President decided to improve the lives of Americans by enacting Great Society programs that have saddled future generations with society crippling debts. The initial beneficiaries never paid a dime into the plan. When it was enacted there were 6 workers per beneficiary. By 2030 there will be 2.4 workers per beneficiary. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that to cover the future deficits through tax increases would require a doubling in tax rates, with a top marginal rate of 66%. The current cast of Congressional criminals won’t dare touch Medicare. They fear the wrath of the AARP and the liberal do-gooders who refuse to deal with reality. Their solution to every problem is – TAX THE RICH (the 53% of Americans who actually pay taxes).
The entire healthcare debate needs be put on hold until the looming Medicare disaster is solved. A combination of the following ideas must be enacted:
- Since Medicare is a fee for service model, millions are wasted on unnecessary tests. Researchers at Dartmouth Medical School estimate that 30% of Medicare spending does nothing to make beneficiaries healthier. This is a waste of $150 billion per year. The incentive to conduct unneeded tests must be taken away.
- Medicare’s lack of controls and administrative oversight results in annual fraud losses of $200 billion. The GAO found that questions from providers at Medicare Call Centers were answered correctly 4% of the time. A commission of experts from industry and the GAO needs the ability to make drastic changes in the system to eliminate this fraud.
- Allow the free market to work by giving new enrollees a means tested voucher that can be used to purchase the health plan of their choice.
- Allow seniors to opt out of Medicare, without losing their Social Security benefits.
- Allow new workers to save their 2.9% Medicare tax in an inheritable account dedicated to retirement healthcare costs
The 1,990 page bill being forced through Congress in no way deals with the staggering waste of the current system, estimated to be $700 billion to $1 trillion annually. The waste flows from a culture of health care in which every incentive is to do more unnecessary tests. Doctors make more money and protect themselves from lawsuits. Congress has no intention of addressing this major cost driver, because the Trial Lawyers of America contribute millions of dollars per year to lobby (buy off) Congressmen. Amazingly, 96% of their contributions (bribes) go to the Democratic Party. I wonder why medical malpractice lawsuits aren’t addressed in a 1,990 page bill written by Democrats. Total spending on medical malpractice, including legal-defense costs and claims payments, was $30.4 billion in 2007, according to an estimate from consulting firm Towers Perrin. At the University of Miami’s School of Medicine patient practice, 14 cents out of every dollar collected in fees for services to patients goes toward buying medical malpractice insurance. In a 2003 report that called for medical liability reform, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimated that limits on malpractice awards could save between $70 billion and $126 billion a year. This is likely on the low end, as it is extremely difficult to gauge how many unneeded tests are ordered to avoid a lawsuit.
The Democratic congressional leadership has evaded solutions to the random, costly and time-consuming jury-by-jury malpractice system. Texas passed a law in 2003 that caps liability awards at $250,000 for noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering, a move that has led to fewer malpractice suits being filed. According to Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a lobbying group that supports the caps, medical-liability-insurance rates have declined an average of 21% in the state since the law change, with almost a quarter of doctors seeing a 50% decrease. Pilot projects could test whether this system should be replaced with expert health courts, but leaders who say they want to cut costs will not even consider them. Expert courts might succeed and undercut the special interest of the trial lawyers. An expeditious and reliable new system would compensate patients more quickly and at a fraction of the overhead of the current medical justice system, which spends nearly 60 cents of every dollar on lawyers' fees and administrative costs.
Expert health courts would eliminate the need for "defensive medicine," thereby helping to save billions in costs. Defensive medicine, the practice of ordering tests and procedures that aren't needed to protect a doctor from the remote possibility of a lawsuit, is ever-present. A 2005 survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association recounted that 93% of high-risk specialists in Pennsylvania admitted to the practice, and 83% of Massachusetts physicians did the same in a 2008 survey. The same Massachusetts survey showed that 25% of all imaging tests were ordered for defensive purposes, and 28% and 38%, respectively, of those surveyed admitted reducing the number of high-risk patients they saw and limiting the number of high-risk procedures or services they performed. Defensive medicine is notoriously hard to quantify, but some estimates place the annual cost at $100 billion to $200 billion or more. Quantification is difficult because defensiveness is now entrenched in the culture of American health care. It's hard to separate the financial incentives from the distrust of the American justice system. There are hundreds of billions in savings that could be achieved if Congress chose to focus on the right issues. Instead they will add a $1 trillion bureaucracy that will increase costs for all Americans while delivering poorer quality healthcare.
The waste and fraud in the current healthcare system will not be alleviated by inserting a new government bureaucracy into the equation. A Thomson Reuters report disclosed these findings:
- Unnecessary care such as the overuse of antibiotics and lab tests to protect against malpractice exposure makes up 37% of healthcare waste or $200 to $300 billion a year.
- Fraud makes up 22% of healthcare waste, or up to $200 billion a year in fraudulent Medicare claims, kickbacks for referrals for unnecessary services and other scams.
- Administrative inefficiency and redundant paperwork account for 18% of healthcare waste.
- Medical mistakes account for $50 billion to $100 billion in unnecessary spending each year, or 11% of the total.
- Preventable conditions such as uncontrolled diabetes cost $30 billion to $50 billion a year.
- The average U.S. hospital spends one-quarter of its budget on billing and administration, nearly twice the average in Canada.
HISTORY OF GOVERNMENT FAILURE
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
Thomas Sowell
There is one thing that is beyond doubt. When government gets their grubby little fingers on any aspect of society, it costs the taxpayer more money and the task gets done incompetently, or not at all. It has taken decades of dreadful judgments, mismanagement and corruption to get to this breaking point. We went from a logical market based pay-as-you-go healthcare system in the 1950s to an illogical, bureaucratic, wasteful, litigious system that is bankrupting the country. The sorrowful path through the years is painful.
1950’s
At the start of the decade, national health care expenditures are 4.5 percent of the Gross National Product. Many more medications are available now to treat a range of diseases, including infections, glaucoma, and arthritis, and new vaccines become available that prevent dreaded childhood diseases, including polio. The first successful organ transplant is performed.
1960’s
Over 700 insurance companies are selling health insurance. Concern about a "doctor shortage" and the need for more "health manpower" leads to federal measures to expand education in the health professions. Major medical insurance endorses high-cost medicine. President Lyndon Johnson signs Medicare and Medicaid into law in 1965. Costs immediately begin to accelerate.
1970’s
President Richard Nixon renames prepaid group health care plans as health maintenance organizations (HMOs), with legislation that provides federal endorsement, certification, and assistance. Healthcare costs are escalating rapidly, partially due to unexpectedly high Medicare expenditures, rapid inflation in the economy, expansion of hospital expenses and profits, and changes in medical care including greater use of technology, medications, and conservative approaches to treatment. American medicine is now seen as in crisis.
1980’s
Corporations begin to integrate the hospital system (previously a decentralized structure), enter many other healthcare-related businesses, and consolidate control. Overall, there is a shift toward privatization and corporatization of healthcare. Under President Reagan, Medicare shifts to payment by diagnosis (DRG) instead of by treatment. Private plans quickly follow suit. There are growing complaints by insurance companies that the traditional fee-for-service method of payment to doctors is being exploited. Corporate profits trump care. Charitable non-profit hospitals are driven out of the market.
1990’s
Health care costs rise at double the rate of inflation. Expansion of managed care helps to moderate increases in health care costs. Federal health care reform legislation fails again to pass in the U.S. Congress. By the end of the decade there are 44 million Americans, 16 % of the nation, with no health insurance at all. The long-term viability of Medicare and Medicaid is ignored by Congress.
2000’s
Health care costs are on the rise again. Medicare is unsustainable under the present structure and must be "rescued". Changing demographics of the workplace lead many to believe the employer-based system of insurance can't last. Direct-to-consumer advertising for pharmaceuticals and medical devices is on the rise. National health care expenditures are 17.6 percent of the Gross National Product by 2009. Obama is about to pass healthcare legislation which will result in a dramatic increase in costs.
Government did not get involved in healthcare until 1965, when Medicare and Medicaid were passed by a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress. The charts below paint a picture of waste, mismanagement, administrative nightmares, and out of control costs. Annual national health expenditures have risen from $50 billion in 1960 to $2.5 trillion in 2009. Government intrusion and control is the single biggest explanation for this disastrous result. The policies instituted by the government through Medicare, Medicaid, and HMO laws, along with mandating that insurance companies meet 50 separate state requirements to do business have bastardized the free market. There is no competition between doctors, hospitals, or insurance companies. The incentives are all geared towards charging more for services. Introducing a government run insurance option will now decrease competition and drive people into the government option. Employers will be dropping employees from their insurance plans by the millions. A new bloated government bureaucracy will “surprisingly” get out of control. Price fixing by government will drive service levels downward and rationing of care will be the result. Prepare to wait months for knee surgery. They’ll get to you as soon as your appendix bursts. Dr. Ron Paul describes how government has already destroyed our healthcare system, so the massive overhaul proposed by the Democrats will surely blow up in Americans’ faces again:
“We should remember that HMOs did not arise because of free-market demand, but rather because of government mandates. The HMO Act of 1973 requires all but the smallest employers to offer their employees HMO coverage, and the tax code allows businesses – but not individuals – to deduct the cost of health insurance premiums. The result is the illogical coupling of employment and health insurance, which often leaves the unemployed without needed catastrophic coverage. While many in Congress are happy to criticize HMOs today, the public never hear how the present system was imposed upon the American people by federal law. As usual, government intervention in the private market failed to deliver the promised benefits and caused unintended consequences, but Congress never blames itself for the problems created by bad laws. Instead, we are told more government – in the form of “universal coverage” – is the answer. But government already is involved in roughly two-thirds of all health care spending, through Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs.”
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The pie charts below compare costs in 1960, before government intervention, to 2004, after four decades of government control. The three slices of the pie that stick out like a sore thumb (future cost $8,000) are Administration, Public Health Activity and Research. In 1960, 5.9% of costs were incurred for Administration and Gov’t and 2.5% for Research. In 2004, 10.3% of our costs were related to Administration and Gov’t and 2.1% for Research. We spend vastly more on paper pushing and government regulations and less on research and care. The FDA government bureaucratic jungle imposes billions in useless costs on the developers of every new drug. This money goes to lawyers and compliance experts, not research scientists. Government thrives while average Americans pay and suffer.
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“You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats, procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.”
Thomas Sowell
Texas Congressman Ron Paul, a man who has delivered 4,000 babies into this world, has experienced the pre-government market and the post government control of medical care in America. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are inflicting their socialist fantasy theories on America. Ron Paul has real life experience. Who should you trust? His view couldn’t be any clearer:
“I started medicine when there was no Medicare and no Medicaid and let me tell you, I don’t remember one time when I saw people out in the streets begging for medical care. Now we do. With managed care and now with socialized medicine coming, believe me, quality will down, costs will go up, there will be shortages, there will be lines and nobody is going to be happy. We’ve had corporate medicine now for about 30 years which is managed medicine by the government, and it has been a total disaster and it didn’t do much more than push the costs up.”
“The more the government is involved in an industry or service, the higher the prices go. So, in education costs go up way beyond the cost of living, and the cost of medicine goes way up. So you can’t solve the problem of medical care by ignoring this. Now, Obama says, “What we’re going to do is we’re going to tremendously increase the services and we’re going to cut all the payments to the doctors in the hospitals.” I mean, where is he coming from? That can’t possibly work.”
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Dr. Paul has proposed logical market based solutions to the healthcare crisis for years and as usual, has been ignored by Democrats and Republicans alike:
- Allowing families to claim a tax credit for the rising cost of health insurance premiums. With many families now spending close to $1,000 or even more for their monthly premiums, they need real tax relief – including a dollar-for-dollar credit for every cent they spend on health care premiums – to make medical care more affordable.
- A dollar-for-dollar tax credit that permits consumers to purchase "negative outcomes" insurance prior to undergoing surgery or other serious medical treatments. Negative outcomes insurance is a novel approach that guarantees those harmed receive fair compensation, while reducing the burden of costly malpractice litigation on the health care system. Patients receive this insurance payout without having to endure lengthy lawsuits, and without having to give away a large portion of their award to a trial lawyer. This also drastically reduces the costs imposed on physicians and hospitals by malpractice litigation. Individuals can purchase negative outcomes insurance at essentially no cost.
- A $500 per child tax credit for medical expenses and prescription drugs that are not reimbursed by insurance. Create a $3,000 tax credit for dependent children with terminal illnesses, cancer, or disabilities. Parents who are struggling to pay for their children's medical care, especially when those children have serious health problems or special needs, need every extra dollar. Waive the employee portion of Social Security payroll taxes (or self-employment taxes) for individuals with documented serious illnesses or cancer. Suspend Social Security taxes for primary caregivers with a sick spouse or child. There is no justification or excuse for collecting Social Security taxes from sick individuals who literally are fighting for their lives.
FREEDOM, LIBERTY & FREE MARKETS
“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
The Constitution of the United States and its Bill of Rights clearly define our method of representative government. Both our social and economic systems are based on private enterprise from which springs initiative and ingenuity. Ours is a system where the Federal Government should undertake no governmental, social or economic action, except where local government, or the people, cannot undertake it for themselves. No one in Washington DC, other than Representative from Texas Ron Paul, understands or believes this. Over time, government has taken unwarranted actions to protect people from the consequences of their actions by restricting citizen options. In addition to invoking government to heavily regulate the economy and redistribute wealth, Democrats now insist that we need government to make many of our private decisions for us, because individuals can't be trusted to make them on their own. The passage of this 1,990 page socialist control bill will impose more restraint on your rights and inflict increased servitude to the State.
“What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.”
Thomas Sowell
Government has imposed policies on Americans in the name of public health that are aimed at regulating personal behavior. Anti-smoking initiatives, reducing alcohol consumption, demanding seatbelt and motorcycle helmet use, regulating diet and lifestyle in the name of curbing obesity, federalizing local issues like speed limits and the minimum drinking age, and generally using the unbending authority of the state to police away lifestyle risk. H. L. Mencken, a fierce critic of government during the early Twentieth Century, wrote, "The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it." This couldn’t be any truer today, as our "saviors" enforce laws, regulations, and government "awareness campaigns", thrusting the filthy hands of government into every aspect of our lives. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the liberals in Congress are not passing the healthcare bill because they care about your health. They are passing the bill because the corporate lobbyists who wrote the bill have written it to benefit themselves. Government’s power over your every health decision will increase exponentially.
Before Medicare and Medicaid, the poor and elderly were admitted to hospitals at the same rate as they are admitted today and received excellent care. Before those programs came into existence, every physician understood that he or she had a responsibility towards the less fortunate and free medical care was the norm. Physicians take the Hippocratic Oath seriously. These facts do not fit into the current liberal script of government rescuing us from greedy insurance companies and evil doctors. The fact is that no one in this country is dying because they lack healthcare. Every person in this country, including illegal aliens, can walk into an emergency room and they will be treated by the best doctors and nurses in the world. Dr Ron Paul explains how it was and how it will be:
“For decades, the U.S. healthcare system was the envy of the entire world. Not coincidentally, there was far less government involvement in medicine during this time. America had the finest doctors and hospitals, patients enjoyed high-quality, affordable medical care, and thousands of private charities provided health services for the poor. Doctors focused on treating patients, without the red tape and threat of lawsuits that plague the profession today. Most Americans paid cash for basic services, and had insurance only for major illnesses and accidents. This meant both doctors and patients had an incentive to keep costs down, as the patient was directly responsible for payment, rather than an HMO or government program. The lesson is clear: when government and other third parties get involved, health care costs spiral. The answer is not a system of outright socialized medicine, but rather a system that encourages everyone – doctors, hospitals, patients, and drug companies – to keep costs down. As long as “somebody else” is paying the bill, the bill will be too high.”
You can bet that Lyndon B. Johnson and Democrats in Congress assured the American public in 1965 that Medicare and Medicaid would save money. I doubt they would have been able to pass the bill if they had told Americans that it would result in a $100 trillion unfunded liability and would be racked with fraud, mismanagement and would drive healthcare costs dramatically higher. Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are lying to Americans again. Costs will rise dramatically and service levels will deteriorate. Within five years, Democrats will be calling for a Value Added Tax of 10% to 20% in order to cover the “unexpected” cost overruns in the new plan. More government control, less choice, less freedom, less liberty, and a country closer to bankruptcy will be the outcome.
NATIONAL RUSSION ROULETTE
“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.”
Benjamin Franklin
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The United States of America is at a crossroads. If we allow the government to take over our healthcare system and inflict more regulations, more rules, and more cost, while rationing care, this will be the final nail in our capitalism coffin. A country that is already $12 trillion in debt, with unfunded liabilities exceeding $100 trillion, fighting two wars of choice, policing the planet by occupying 170 countries, funding insolvent criminal mega-banks, running bankrupt car companies, conquering global warming, and solving peak oil with solar and wind, will now take over one-sixth of the U.S. economy by adding its profound wisdom to the healthcare system. Based on the Obama administration’s own 10 year budget plan, adjusted for the new healthcare plan, the U.S. National Debt will rocket to $25 trillion by 2019. By 2020 the number of Americans over 65 will reach 54 million, up from 40 million in 2010. By 2030 it will reach 71 million.
|
Table 2a. Projected Population of the United States, by Age: 2000 to 2050 |
||||||
|
(In thousands except as indicated. As of July 1. Resident population.) |
||||||
|
(leading dots indicate sub-parts) |
||||||
|
Population or percent, sex, and age |
2000 |
2010 |
2020 |
2030 |
2040 |
2050 |
|
POPULATION |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
.TOTAL |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
..TOTAL |
282,125 |
308,936 |
335,805 |
363,584 |
391,946 |
419,854 |
|
..0-4 |
19,218 |
21,426 |
22,932 |
24,272 |
26,299 |
28,080 |
|
..5-19 |
61,331 |
61,810 |
65,955 |
70,832 |
75,326 |
81,067 |
|
..20-44 |
104,075 |
104,444 |
108,632 |
114,747 |
121,659 |
130,897 |
|
..45-64 |
62,440 |
81,012 |
83,653 |
82,280 |
88,611 |
93,104 |
|
..65-84 |
30,794 |
34,120 |
47,363 |
61,850 |
64,640 |
65,844 |
|
..85+ |
4,267 |
6,123 |
7,269 |
9,603 |
15,409 |
20,861 |
Source: US Census Bureau
“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.”
Thomas Sowell
The “intellectuals” in the White House and Congress, who have never run a business and whose only experience is knowing how to spend your money, believe wholeheartedly in socialism. Once a national healthcare plan is enacted, there will be no turning back. The politicians running our country have completely disregarded the warning of David Walker:
“The U.S. government is on a "burning platform" of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, expensive over-commitments to government provided health care, swelling Medicare costs, the enormous expense of a prospective universal health care system, immigration, and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon.”
Our leaders should be curtailing spending, repealing unspent stimulus funds, eliminating fraud and waste, instituting spending caps on Congress, ending our wars, and withdrawing troops from 170 foreign countries. Instead they are introducing the largest, most expensive entitlement program in history. This is national suicide.
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When I watch the actions of Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress, I can’t help but think of the scene in the movie Deer Hunter where the Viet Cong make the American POWs play Russian roulette for entertainment. Michael insists on putting three bullets in the gun in a desperate plan to kill his captors and escape. In the movie, Michael’s plan works and he escapes. The American people will not be so lucky. Barack Obama is playing Russian roulette with our country’s finances. This national healthcare plan will be the bullet that splatters our brains all over the wall. There will be no happy ending to this movie. It is a gory horror film.
Michael: We gotta play with more bullets.
Nick: What?
Michael: More bullets... [gunshot]
Michael: I gotta get more bullets in the gun.
Nick: What?
Michael: We gotta play with more bullets.
Nick: More bullets in the gun?
Michael: More bullets in the gun.
Nick: How many more bullets?
Michael: Three. That means we gotta play each other.
Nick: More bullets against each other?
Michael: We gotta do it!
Nick: What? Are you Crazy?
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“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”
Thomas Paine
Americans have chosen to surrender their freedom and liberty for safety and security. We’ve decided it is too much work to support freedom. We have allowed our government to be overrun by the military industrial complex, the financial industrial complex and the healthcare industrial complex. The safety and security we think we have is an illusion. We have neither. These deals with the devil will lead to the economic collapse of our Republic. At that time, we will have the opportunity as described by our forefathers, to abolish this government and start anew. Until that time we are destined to lose more freedom and undergo a long period of crisis and misery. It was our choice.
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“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
Winston Churchill
Please join me at www.TheBurningPlatform.com to fight for freedom and liberty.
128 Comments
bloodworm
Thanks for the article Jim.
The problem of 30 years of debt accumulation is being somehow solved by even more debt. This is insanity!
...and of course the 800 pound gorilla in the room - figuratively and literally - are all the Baby Boomers who will demand the services owed to them. This will pile on even more debt.
As much as I hate Bush for the hell he brought to this country, Obama may turn out to be a bigger dissapointment. I mean, we kinda knew Bush was an idiot, but I thought Obama was a pragmatist who actually had some analytical skills. I voted for him expecting the "change" he so professed.
His solution is to throw money at the problem.
Truth be told, I actually had some respect for Nancy Pelosi until a couple of weeks ago when she said the best way to stimulate the economy is to give people money.
Those of us who sweat and saved for years have been bitch-slapped by the Fed and Government.
polo
What do you think about fascism - the merging of state with corporate. That seems to be at least as big a threat as socialism. Andfascism has been in place since the Bush administration - corporate interests ruling all of us along with the assault on civil liberties.
And are you as outraged by the huge military budget and our immoral wars as you are by social welfare programs/health care? It seems that our military spending [thanks to the gaping jaws of the military industrial complex that must be continually fed] is as much of a threat as a health care program.
As a taxpayer who is deeply aware of and concerned about the debt, if we're going to go down the debt hole, I'd much prefer that my taxes support taking care of our citizens who are truly in need [and the number who are TRULY in need is far less than the number who currently receive Medicare, SS, and welfare] rather than killing foreigners and destroying their property in wars that are based on lies and the lust for oil and other resources.
I don't want to go back to the US as it was - a blind, greedy empire with a huge sense of entitlement [American exceptionalism being one of history's greatest delusions] seeking only to expand its reach and using propaganda to justify its actions [we're invading Kuwait to liberate the people - HAHA!]. I want us to move forward and use our freedoms to create new and better value systems that are not based on achieving and maintaining our power over others and exploiting them in the process.
The amt of money spent on military and all related expenditures is at least, if not more, than all the entitlement programs. Why not devote a column to that?
DavosSherman
Super read. A good fix would be what they did in the movie "Incredible Journey, the story of Hampton Dunes."
Alan
W
mulligan
Thanks Jim. Good article. In fact, if you survey the news available there are many, many articles that provide information as to why we are where we are and where we are headed. 9/11 was a wake-up call. It lasted for a few minutes. Unfortunately, those in power could care less. They are selfish, greedy, self-serving, ignorant, and lying politicians. And why not, they have hoodwinked us voter's for years and we bought the scam. Guess we thought we could put our hand in someone else's pocket but no one would be able to put his hand in our pocket. Future? In my opinion, it will take many more 9/11's to wake us up. And it could be too late. Time will tell.
Alan
When the bloated, rotting, stinking husk that is the United States finally collapses in economic and moral ruin, we Americans will only have ourselves to blame, for having been so lazy, stupid, shallowly materialistic and complicit in allowing a self-serving political and financial elite to hijack our nation, rape it, and then throw the dying body on the side of the road. All you Hummer-driving, McMansion-inhabiting, sports and American Idol-mesmerized, electronic gadget-obsessed fools are as much to blame as Washington and Wall Street. I am disgusted to have to live in the same perverted society as you, and ashamed to call myself an American.
Hard-Ball Jim
Nancy Pelosi ? Pushing health care for everyone ? Isn't she the politicista who wanted to impeach Bush for his eccenticities, secret testimonies from her rivals and be inaugurated as Presidentista if Obama and Biden are accidented ?
Baaah
Another impressive expose, a mind-numbing list of ways in which the USG is screwing us, a solid analysis of why PapSmear won't accomplish what it claims, won't provide "helath care for all," but will instead extend the claws a little deeper. And... ? We know this. We know the many scams, MkKain-Findgold Incumbent Reelection Reform, No Child Left Unindoctrinated, TakeMoreDrugs ItsOnUs, Cap-n-TradeAwayYourWallet.
And...? Listed under means of defense: the Constitution. under solutions: Ron Paul.
Great.
mjs034
If Medicare and Medicaid are as bad as you say they are (and your evidence is compelling), then no reforms, no matter how good they are, can possibly work. The only solution is a gradual phasing out of these programs until they are gone.
Why should a percentage of each of my paychecks go to fund some stranger's health care? What right does that person have to levy a tax on me?
TLaCour
To Polo the Compassionate:
"I don't want to go back to the US as it was - a blind, greedy empire with a huge sense of entitlement" is a statement issued from Propaganda-R-Us. It's been "empire with a huge sense of entitlement" since Teddy Roosevelt and his merry band of Civil Services, and a blind, greedy empire since Jackson, at least.
It is a view of America as it IS, not just WAS. A slanted, one-sided view, if partly accurate. But you don't diminish behavior by rewarding it. Don't like a huge sense of entitlement? Stop handing out the goodies in the name of "they're entitled" to receive said goodies.
TLaCour
Jim, although you know I sympathize with your Constitutional view, I have to remind you that the document AS WRITTEN is compatible with the basic thrust of this legislation. Frankly, I hope businesses and individuals will refuse to comply, go to court, and be vindicated like the New York City poultry-business brothers did in 1935. We need to see Fedzilla stopped, even by a holding action. But it won't last, this bucket leaks. The more Statist court of 1936 threw out the "unconstitutional" ruling of 1935 and here we are.
Some Founders insisted on constructions that were colored by their desire to have the actual words read one way only, like Madison did when he vetoed the Roads bill in 1817. Other Founders like Hamilton read the Constitution as broadly as the actual wording allowed, and Washington backed him. By 1821 Madison was writing everyone to say the expansionist interpretations, especially those of SCOTUS that gave itself powers not listed in the Constitution (judicial review), must be accepted for the sake of Union.
I know you don't WANT it to allow it, you know I don't WANT the document to be vulnerable on this, but an unbiased reading of the document permits this crapola. You just don't get to make a contract, insist that someone follow it as written, then complain when they do. Please read Brutus #5 or Why the Words of the Constitution Matter. We were warned.
Article I: Section 8 lists all the "Congress shall have power to" do stuff, including to gather funds by tax and to spend "to provide... for the general welfare" and "to pass all laws necessary and proper to carry into Execution the foregoing powers". The wording of these enumerations of Powers is no different than those enumerated in all the clauses between.
Section 9 lists all the "Congress shall not" stuff, with a few more added by the Bill of Rights.
10th Amendment explicitly restricts USG to the powers delegated under the Constitution.
Strictly construed, Article I grants Congress the power to do this shit, Section 9 doesn't forbid it, and 10th amendment doesn't apply.
A hard Truth to hear: the Constitution AS WRITTEN is a chimera. It is a fort with walls of mud built on sand that subsides and weakens irreparably with every rain, with every Statist reign. It is a ship with growing holes riddling its hull, and continuing to put it out to sea will end in Liberty finally foundering.
TLaCour
From Brutus #6
"But it is said, by some of the advocates of this system, "That the idea that Congress can levy taxes at pleasure, is false, and the suggestion wholly unsupported: that the preamble to the constitution is declaratory of the purposes of the union, and the assumption of any power not necessary to establish justice, &c. to provide for the common defence, &c. will be unconstitutional. Besides, in the very clause which gives the power of levying duties and taxes, the purposes to which the money shall be appropriated, are specified, viz. "to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare."
"I would ask those, who reason thus, to define what ideas are included under the terms, "to provide for the common defence and general welfare"? Are these terms definite, and will they be understood in the same manner, and to apply to the same cases by every one? No one will pretend they will. It will then be matter of opinion, what tends to the general welfare; and the Congress will be the only judges in the matter. To provide for the general welfare, is an abstract proposition, which mankind differ in the explanation of, as much as they do on any political or moral proposition that can be proposed; the most opposite measures may be pursued by different parties, and both may profess, that they have in view the general welfare; and both sides may be honest in their professions, or both may have sinister views.
"It is as absurd to say, that the power of Congress is limited by these general expressions, "to provide for the common safety, and general welfare," as it would be to say, that it would be limited, had the constitution said they should have power to lay taxes, &c. at will and pleasure... it would be found, in practice, a most pitiful restriction. The government would always say, their measures were designed and calculated to promote the public good; and there being no judge between them and the people, the rulers themselves must, and would always, judge for themselves."
Anonymous2
Great great article!
Swashbuckler
Acute financial distress will be visited on those people who are too lazy or stupid or naive to believe that the government will not confiscate citizens' assets when the collapse arrives. If you don't believe the financial markets can crash in a horrific way, I would urge you to get a copy of Black Monday, which was written by Tim Metz soon after the 1987 stock market crash. It is an insider's minute-by-minute account of what transpired during those six days. The author of the book used access from the largest players involved in the crisis, in writing his book. At the worst point of the crisis we were hours from the whole system crashing--banks, stock market, the works. There were simply NO buy orders on the exchanges. The market makers on the floor of the exchanges were specifically directed by the Fed officials, Treasury officials, and largest banks, to turn the markets. That's why a Dow Jones stock rose, like, for instance, 12 points on 2 HUNDRED share volume when the day before it had fallen 30 points on 14 MILLION share volume. All the Dow stocks WERE TURNED in this fashion, and as the market moved higher, confidence was restored and real buyers moved in. And the crisis was averted. And the government officials deserve to be commended for stabilizing the panic situation. The point here, and in the book, is that the Fed and other government officials did not know at the time whether their manipulation would work. There is no guarantee that the strategy will work again because the dynamics of the markets have changed radically since 1987. Had it not worked then, the consequences would have been catastrophic for the country, and by proxy, the world markets. You read that book and you will know beyond all doubt that it is EXTREMELY plausible for an irreversible breakdown of the system to occur. One that would take DECADES to repair or restore. And in the late eighties, the potential for nightmarish shit was microscopic compared to today. I mean, relative to today, the eighties were a fucking joke. Today's poisoned mortgages and hundreds of trillions $ in shit derivatives----please don't think everything will be alright simply because you can't conceive of a breakdown. My personal opinion is that a catalyst (probably China pulling the plug or a Hillary Clinton foreign policy blunder) may trigger a crisis sometime in the next couple of years Do whatever you can to legally protect your assets. Cover your ass. Regards, Swash
JAB
Jim - Correction about The Deer Hunter characters. Michael was actually Robert DeNiro, and Nick was Christopher Walken, if I remember correctly. Besides that, great article as usual.
JennJohnson
Healthcare is an unfortunate victim of its own success.
As medicine became better and better at limiting suffering and increasing one's quality of life for a longer and longer time span, insurance was no longer a means to replace income due to lost wages during times of sickness but to supplement rising medical costs that more and more people were unable to afford on their own. It started a cascading transfer of wealth from the healthy to the sick. As the baby boomers age and require more and more health care, the costs are only going to continue to escalate for the insurer and the insured. A massive transfer of wealth will have to take place from the younger generation to the older generation as the older generation is unable to afford the care they desire. Something will have to give. It is an unsustainable model both in the private sector and the public sector.
Anonymous
JQ, I'll bet the health care insurance you get is paid for by the major university you work for. If that's true, aren't you being a bit hypocritical here? In other words, you're saying that if someone doesn't earn enough in pay and benefits to afford health care, they should just go to the emergency room when they're at a point where providing their care will be much costlier. The chart you include in this post showing Health Care Spending as percentage of GDP actually shows other countries with more nationalized health care systems with lower costs. The US is more privatized than most other advanced industrialized nations. How do you account for that? Waste, corruption, and greed by the government, private insurance, and drug companies is a huge factor, but your posts are always extremely lopsided on the side of having a totally dog-eat-dog society. The world's problems will not be solved by black and white solutions.
BlackRockBurner
The 16% healthcare $$$ is fallacious. It includes much more than MD/Hospital/drug costs.
It DOES include contact lenses, boob jobs. jet helicopter transports, $4000 electric scooters advertised on TV, braces for your kids, Gucci eyeglasses, band aids, tampax, douches etc. Oh, and aspirin and dental floss. And don't forget your vitamins !
Jan
Great article and I'm glad to have the data about the numbers of uninsured.
But you don't mention the real reason for cost escalation (after third party payments). Almost the entire medical system is devoted to treating symptoms, not causes. The branch of medicine that treats causes is and has been under attack by the AMA, Pharma and their minions in the FDA.
We should all be paying cash for primary care. It is the only way to bring costs down and introduce real competition. Even Medicaid recipients should have some type of medical savings account. Medical practices that are cash only usually reduce their prices 30-50% and make as much or more money than before.
The second major cost reducer is reining in the FDA--Ron Paul has 3 bills to do just that--Can't remember numbers, maybe HR 3394,3395, 3396 They regularly remove low cost, effective treatments from the market because "pharmaceuticals can't compete with non-patent medicines" I'm surprised Ron Paul didn't mention this in his "plan"
Jim--You should check out the natural medicine practioners and pioneers and tell your readers about them. See: JV Wright, M.D., M. Hyman, M.D., A. Spreen, MD and functional medicine, nutritional medicine.
ReverseEngineer
If medical care isn't subsidized, then US Cardiothoracic surgeons would have to lower their prices to Indian levels in order to have any kind of reasonable client base. The number of people who can afford to pay out of pocket for a Heart Transplant is exceedingly small, and getting smaller by the day. Doctors most certainly don't want their paychecks cut, anymore than Ford workers want theirs cut. Of course, the AMA has a good deal more clout than the UAW. LOL.
The whole purpose of the Health Insurance plan is to sieve still more money into the hands of Pharmaceutical companies and Doctors at the top of the food chain. Big expensive proceedures are the lifeblood of the Golfing crowd. Whack out a bypass in the morning, hit the links in the afternoon.
With people too poor these days to afford the prices charged by Doctors and Pharmaceutical companies, the only place they can get their outsized paychecks from is Da Goobermint, and since they have such a strong lobby, they'll likely get it. Since the poor aren't able to pay the costs out of pocket, if any poor folks are gonna get Heart Transplants, then the shortfall has to come from the rich. If ONLY the rich get Heart transplants, then the Surgeons don't make enough money, because there aren't THAT many rich folks who need transplants all the time. Usually they buy only one of them anyhow, not two. LOL.
Anyhow, the answer to the problem is simply to stay under the threshold of income where you get taxed to pay for those other folks to get transplants on your dime, and rather get your transplant on somebody else's dime. This should not be too hard to do for most people, since they are either unemployed or their wages are being slashed by the day. This is only a problem for people who make a LOT of money, and there are fewer of those every day. Politically speaking, you'll find many more people who are in favor of taxing the rich to support the poor, since there are more poor people then there are rich people. Classic Robin Hood problem.
RE
jaw
Does anyone have the data on the benifits of our past and present presidents, congressman and senators? Or what the differeane there would be to our budget if they had only SS and Medicare benifits? After seeing the move John Adams and he left the White House on public transportation with no fan fair and now they are like rock stars with the tax payer paying for their rock star life styles.
Anonymous
Apparently the author thinks that women are property, like a BMW, e.g., his reference to "the right to drive a BMW X5, the right to a beautiful wife." If he had written "attractive spouse," then his writing would not be such an insult to more than half the population. Either that, or he assumes that his audience is entirely male. What an idiot! I feel sorry for his wife and his family. It must be painful to put up with such patronizing attitudes, day after day. He probably feels that he owns his children, as well. The old Roman paterfamilias, where the family included the slaves.
Anonymous
As long as any person is considered to be property, all people are considered to be property.
Is it any wonder that the government thinks it owns us when attitudes such as this still persist?
The hypocrisy of Quinn's article is just astounding.
JimQ
What happened to the good old days on TBP when I had to fight people all day?
I'm waging war on this same article on Seeking Alpha and Minyanville. I'm at my foul mouthed best. There are millions of liberals out there to crush. Join the fray.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/170514-america-the-nanny-state
http://www.minyanville.com/articles/economy-government-healthcare-obama-deficit-debt-medicaid-medicare-doctors-medical-malpractice-lawyers-congress-hospitals/index/a/25230
Anonymous
Well Jim, this one cuts the bounds. In previous personal email I've attempted to show you that when Progressives and Libertarians come together in Common Cause because they understand that Entrenched Capital is our joint adversary, we the American People will take back our country.
Of course you are unable to respond. I do feel very sorry for you and grieve for your self-righteous limitations that keeps you bound to serve what has become Democtratic Fascism, whereby well meaning people vote against the best interests of their families and themselves.
You're such a dodo head that you don't even realize that in your last two pics of Chris Walken wearing the red bandana, he is well past the time early in the movie when they were breaking out of capitivity. By then he is living in Saigon, and is a willing competitor in a gambling hall Russian Roullete game, for money. Like so many, he's been driven past logical thinking, so convinced of his sanctity and grace, he keeps pulling the trigger on his own-self, to shoot himself in the head, or not, if he's lucky, and all that for day money.
Kinda reminds me of some folks. Seem familiar??? Check the mirror.
Anonymous
JimQ is clearly a sensitive guy -- very, very hypersensitive about himself, so very, very touchy and driven to the crudest self-expression in response to any criticism -- I don't know how anyone can take him seriously. He obviously takes himself far too seriously for his own good. Well, enough. Now I won't have to bother wasting time reading his ridiculous emissions -- a man with a small vision to match his small heart.
Dsgruntled
Any type of punishment without a trial volates the Constitutional prohibition against "bills of attainder" and the principe of separation of powers. Only the judiial branch can determine guilt or innocence for a violatio of the laws, and the punishment for such. The IRS in NOT part of the Judicial Branch. Neither is the IRS Tax Court
Monetary fine also fail the requirement fro "due process" prior to deprivation of property.
The feds cannot force you to provide information on a tax return for a FINEABLE offense. A tax return is a PRIVATE PAPER, and any compelling (such as any type of punishment for failre to provide that information) is forbdden by the 5th Amendmnt and such a compelling is also a violtion of the 4th Amendmment as it constitute involuntary sarch and seizure
Language from two US Supreme Court case is cited below
Counselman v Hitchcock
It is an ancient principle of the law of evidence that a witness shall not be compelled, in any proceeding, to make disclosures or to give testimony which will tend to criminate him or subject him to fines, penalties, or forfeitures.
Boyd v US
It does not require actual entry upon premises and search for and seizure of papers to constitute an unreasonable search and seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment; a compulsory production of a party’s private books and papers to be used against himself or his property in a criminal or penal proceeding, or for a forfeiture, is within the spirit and meaning of the Amendment.
The seizure or compulsory production of a man’s private papers to be used in evidence against him is equivalent to compelling him to be a witness against himself, and, in a prosecution for a crime, penalty or forfeiture, is equally within the prohibition of the Fifth Amendment.
A proceeding to forfeit a person’s goods for an offence against the laws, though civil in form, and whether in rem or in personam, is a “criminal case” within the meaning of that part of the Fifth Amendment which declares that no person “shall be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself.”
And any compulsory discovery by extorting the party’s oath, or compelling the production of his private books and papers, to convict him of crime or to forfeit his property, is contrary to the principles of a free government. It is abhorrent to the instincts of an Englishman; it is abhorrent to the instincts of an American. It may suit the purposes of despotic power, but it cannot abide the pure atmosphere of political liberty and personal freedom
JimQ
In a rational political world, this 1,990-page runaway train would have been derailed months ago. With spending and debt already at record peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via politics.
Yet at this point, Democrats have dumped any pretense of genuine bipartisan "reform" and moved into the realm of pure power politics as they race against the unpopularity of their own agenda. The goal is to ram through whatever income-redistribution scheme they can claim to be "universal coverage." The result will be destructive on every level—for the health-care system, for the country's fiscal condition, and ultimately for American freedom and prosperity.
View Full Image
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
•The spending surge. The Congressional Budget Office figures the House program will cost $1.055 trillion over a decade, which while far above the $829 billion net cost that Mrs. Pelosi fed to credulous reporters is still a low-ball estimate. Most of the money goes into government-run "exchanges" where people earning between 150% and 400% of the poverty level—that is, up to about $96,000 for a family of four in 2016—could buy coverage at heavily subsidized rates, tied to income. The government would pay for 93% of insurance costs for a family making $42,000, 72% for another making $78,000, and so forth.
At least at first, these benefits would be offered only to those whose employers don't provide insurance or work for small businesses with 100 or fewer workers. The taxpayer costs would be far higher if not for this "firewall"—which is sure to cave in when people see the deal their neighbors are getting on "free" health care. Mrs. Pelosi knows this, like everyone else in Washington.
Even so, the House disguises hundreds of billions of dollars in additional costs with budget gimmicks. It "pays for" about six years of program with a decade of revenue, with the heaviest costs concentrated in the second five years. The House also pretends Medicare payments to doctors will be cut by 21.5% next year and deeper after that, "saving" about $250 billion. ObamaCare will be lucky to cost under $2 trillion over 10 years; it will grow more after that.
• Expanding Medicaid, gutting private Medicare. All this is particularly reckless given the unfunded liabilities of Medicare—now north of $37 trillion over 75 years. Mrs. Pelosi wants to steal $426 billion from future Medicare spending to "pay for" universal coverage. While Medicare's price controls on doctors and hospitals are certain to be tightened, the only cut that is a sure thing in practice is gutting Medicare Advantage to the tune of $170 billion. Democrats loathe this program because it gives one of out five seniors private insurance options.
As for Medicaid, the House will expand eligibility to everyone below 150% of the poverty level, meaning that some 15 million new people will be added to the rolls as private insurance gets crowded out at a cost of $425 billion. A decade from now more than a quarter of the population will be on a program originally intended for poor women, children and the disabled.
Even though the House will assume 91% of the "matching rate" for this joint state-federal program—up from today's 57%—governors would still be forced to take on $34 billion in new burdens when budgets from Albany to Sacramento are in fiscal collapse. Washington's budget will collapse too, if anything like the House bill passes.
• European levels of taxation. All told, the House favors $572 billion in new taxes, mostly by imposing a 5.4-percentage-point "surcharge" on joint filers earning over $1 million, $500,000 for singles. This tax will raise the top marginal rate to 45% in 2011 from 39.6% when the Bush tax cuts expire—not counting state income taxes and the phase-out of certain deductions and exemptions. The burden will mostly fall on the small businesses that have organized as Subchapter S or limited liability corporations, since the truly wealthy won't have any difficulty sheltering their incomes.
This surtax could hit ever more earners because, like the alternative minimum tax, it isn't indexed for inflation. Yet it still won't be nearly enough. Even if Congress had confiscated 100% of the taxable income of people earning over $500,000 in the boom year of 2006, it would have only raised $1.3 trillion. When Democrats end up soaking the middle class, perhaps via the European-style value-added tax that Mrs. Pelosi has endorsed, they'll claim the deficits that they created made them do it.
Under another new tax, businesses would have to surrender 8% of their payroll to government if they don't offer insurance or pay at least 72.5% of their workers' premiums, which eat into wages. Such "play or pay" taxes always become "pay or pay" and will rise over time, with severe consequences for hiring, job creation and ultimately growth. While the U.S. already has one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the world, Democrats are on the way to creating a high structural unemployment rate, much as Europe has done by expanding its welfare states.
Meanwhile, a tax equal to 2.5% of adjusted gross income will also be imposed on some 18 million people who CBO expects still won't buy insurance in 2019. Democrats could make this penalty even higher, but that is politically unacceptable, or they could make the subsidies even higher, but that would expose the (already ludicrous) illusion that ObamaCare will reduce the deficit.
• The insurance takeover. A new "health choices commissioner" will decide what counts as "essential benefits," which all insurers will have to offer as first-dollar coverage. Private insurers will also be told how much they are allowed to charge even as they will have to offer coverage at virtually the same price to anyone who applies, regardless of health status or medical history.
The cost of insurance, naturally, will skyrocket. The insurer WellPoint estimates based on its own market data that some premiums in the individual market will triple under these new burdens. The same is likely to prove true for the employer-sponsored plans that provide private coverage to about 177 million people today. Over time, the new mandates will apply to all contracts, including for the large businesses currently given a safe harbor from bureaucratic tampering under a 1974 law called Erisa.
The political incentive will always be for government to expand benefits and reduce cost-sharing, trampling any chance of giving individuals financial incentives to economize on care. Essentially, all insurers will become government contractors, in the business of fulfilling political demands: There will be no such thing as "private" health insurance.
***All of this is intentional, even if it isn't explicitly acknowledged. The overriding liberal ambition is to finish the work began decades ago as the Great Society of converting health care into a government responsibility. Mr. Obama's own Medicare actuaries estimate that the federal share of U.S. health dollars will quickly climb beyond 60% from 46% today. One reason Mrs. Pelosi has fought so ferociously against her own Blue Dog colleagues to include at least a scaled-back "public option" entitlement program is so that the architecture is in place for future Congresses to expand this share even further.
As Congress's balance sheet drowns in trillions of dollars in new obligations, the political system will have no choice but to start making cost-minded decisions about which treatments patients are allowed to receive. Democrats can't regulate their way out of the reality that we live in a world of finite resources and infinite wants. Once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, medical rationing is inevitable—especially for the innovative high-cost technologies and drugs that are the future of medicine.
Mr. Obama rode into office on a wave of "change," but we doubt most voters realized that the change Democrats had in mind was making health care even more expensive and rigid than the status quo. Critics will say we are exaggerating, but we believe it is no stretch to say that Mrs. Pelosi's handiwork ranks with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR's National Industrial Recovery Act as among the worst bills Congress has ever seriously contemplated.
Anonymous
Hey JQ! Why don't you and your kind just move to another country since you hate it here so much. You can gripe all you want about socialists, but that's not who is actually running things. Follow the money asshole.
anonymous2
You really do get the hecklers don't you Jim?
JimQ
Anonymous
You're such an idot JQ. You really don't know where the wasted tax dollars go do you? Or maybe you're just hoping to climb your way into the gentlemen's club so you can look down at the rest of the pathetic bastards? I see right through you.
SSS
I posted the following response to Alan's comments above.
Alan said: "I am disgusted to have to live in the same perverted society as you, and ashamed to call myself an American."
Harsh words, Alan, and for that, you get a thumbs down. I agree with some of what you say, but we still have a chance to right the ship of state. The chances are getting slimmer, admittedly, but I have hope. And I am NOT ASHAMED TO BE AN AMERICAN.
Who were the 9 thumbs up? Speak up!! Tell us why you are ashamed to call yourself an American. I'm betting that not one of you cowards will respond.
JimQ
By James Rowley
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Economists skeptical about a U.S. government-run health-insurance plan have new evidence to support their argument that it won’t force private insurers to cut premiums.
The Congressional Budget Office says a version of the so- called public option backed by House Democrats would charge “somewhat higher” premiums than the average private insurance policy offered on a government-sponsored exchange to be set up to sell coverage to small businesses and individuals.
That counters claims by President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the public option would charge lower premiums to “keep insurers honest.”
One reason premiums may be higher: Pelosi, seeking votes to pass a $1.055 trillion House health bill, decided against a “robust” public option, which would peg doctor reimbursements to Medicare rates to cut costs. Instead, she proposed that the new program negotiate fees it pays providers.
“The robust option had a lot more power to buy services from providers at much lower rates than private insurers paid,” said Paul Ginsburg, an economist who heads the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington. “That would have been a big deal.”
The House and Senate are considering legislation to expand health coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and try to rein in costs. The public option is among the most contentious issues, opposed by every Republican and by some Democrats, who say it would offer unfair competition for insurers such as Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. and Hartford, Connecticut-based Aetna Inc.
Vote Coming Up
House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters today the House will start debating the measure later this week, with a vote on final passage possibly as early as Nov. 7.
“It’s our intention to have the bill on the floor Friday or Saturday,” Hoyer said. A final vote would take place no later than Nov. 10, he said.
The Congressional Budget Office yesterday also reported that health-care costs would eat up as much as 20 percent of income for some families, even those getting subsidies, under legislation being considered by the House.
A family of four with an annual income of $66,000 would be eligible for $10,500 in subsidies if they purchased insurance on health exchanges created under the bill, and would still pay $10,000 to cover premiums, deductibles and copayments, the CBO said.
On the public option, the budget office estimated in an Oct. 29 letter to congressional leaders that rates the program pays to doctors and hospitals would “on average, probably be comparable to those paid by private insurers” that sell on the exchange.
Won’t Curb Benefits
The public option wouldn’t curb benefit payouts as much as private insurers by managing how people use health care, the CBO said. It would also incur higher costs because it would draw a “a less healthy pool of enrollees.”
“Attracting sicker people” and doing less “utilization management than private plans” would “put the public plan in a weak competitive position,” said Ginsburg.
The CBO estimated the House public option would attract about 6 million people. Some economists say that to dictate lower fees it pays to doctors and hospitals, the public option would need more enrollees.
Hoyer, of Maryland, said the CBO’s estimate rebuts the Republican argument that the public plan would “drive the private-sector insurance companies out of business.”
House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, a California Democrat, said the new program would “be competitive because it will not be putting money into shareholder dividends and executive salary bonuses.”
Questioned about the public plan’s competitiveness at an Oct. 30 conference call with reporters, Miller said it “would operate on a level playing field” that “in some years makes it more expensive than other plans, on other years it may be more competitive or less expensive.”
Unfair Advantage
Some economists also say the public option would have the unfair advantage of not being taxed and, if it loses money, to ask Congress to make up the shortfall.
“I am skeptical of the ability of the public plan to deliver meaningful competition while keeping within a break- even budget constraint,” said Leemore Dafny, a health economist at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois. “Sure, it will inject competition if they don’t have to break even.”
Republican lawmakers, insurance industry officials and some economists contend that the advantage of government subsidies would eventually push private competitors out of the market.
“It’s a risk,” said Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, the only Republican in Congress to show willingness to support a Democratic health plan.
Working With Democrats
Snowe said she’s working with Democrats who oppose the public option, which is included in the proposal Democratic Leader Harry Reid says he’ll submit to the Senate for a vote.
The public option would be included on the new online exchanges intended to extend insurance to individuals and small business owners. House leaders said the CBO estimates on premiums confirm that their bill will curb costs.
“This underscores that this legislation will control health costs and lower health-care premiums for families and individuals,” said Representatives Henry Waxman, Charles Rangel and Miller, in a joint statement.
Waxman, a California Democrat, is chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Rangel, of New York, heads the Ways and Means panel.
The chairmen said under their bill premiums for a family making $102,100 would be $15,000 by 2016. “This is well below the $24,000 family premium expected if Congress fails to act and premiums grow as projected under current law,” they said.
Quisp
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Winston Churchill
Seriously?? You use what an empiricist wrote about socialism? Of course Churchill said such a thing, he saw other countries as cheap labor and cheap goods. Why the British empire saw Americans [continentalists of the day] as socialists and we fought to get away from such greedsters.
Good lord Jim, we were once seen as socialists, or communists by these aristocratic let them eat cake people interested in screwing others over for their lavish lifestyles
Quisp
And if, and when, America fails [such as wall street has shown] it will be because of these parasites who see the people as useless eaters and created an empire and ALL empires thruout history have failed not because of socialism but because of empirical greed.
Who bailed out who?
Anonymous
So what is the real trigger point when we rise up as armed Americans and take this country back. Is it when we are taxed beyond our means to survive? To pay for programs that are pushed down out throats even when we know full well that we cannot afford them? The conservatives talk of winning back seats in the house and senate in 2010 and beyond but the reality is if we wait that long the greatest country ever to be formed will long since cease to exist. I am presently reading about George Washington's last stand. The night he crossed the Delaware on Christmas night in the middle of a raging Northeastern, down to 2,500 men, sleet and snow raging, burlap sacks for shoes, some with none, racked with colds, fever and God knows what all, no food, clothes down to tatters, blankets for coats, boats capzising making the crossing loosing both men and horses, every conceivable odd against them, knowing the time was now victory or death...and yet they pressed on and by chance a miracle was with them and through their sacrifiices, that we can't even imagine in this day and age, they caught the British sleeping and won forever the birth of our country. My God how we diminish what they indured to get to the point we are at today. I for one will still stand with Washington and his band with loaded gun to take this republic back from the brink if that is what it takes. Something tells me I am not alone
Sandra Moore
Markets distribute goods and services according to the ability to pay for these goods and services. People are willing to abide by this arrangement until the market price of necessities that they need to survive rises to the point where they can no longer afford the price.
At that point they have a choice: Either abide by the wisdom of the market which tells them they cannot have a roof over their head, food in their stomach, and medical attention for their kids.
OR...unfazed by the decision of the market they will fight; they will resort to violence to get what they need.
Presumably market adherents will fight back.
No wonder they want guns.
Except, what if former market adherents (ie, DUPES), become the ones on the short end of the stick, and realize that they themselves are on the short end of their formerly beloved "market"?
Bottom line.....People have, and always will fight violently when they are facing death and their children are facing death.
It's is easy to welcome such a confrontation when arrogance tells you that you (and the market) will crush these "losers".
But what if they crush you ?
And there will be many of them.
What if you lose the fight you lust for and the fight you are sure you will win ?
If so, you had better hope your foes are more flexible than you are.
If they are, all you have to worry about is digging up onions on the night shift for the rest of your life.
But if your foes are like you, that will seem like paradise.
Good luck.
SM
Anonymous
Hello, I live in Belgium where we have a government-run healthcare system. Solidarity is not an empty word, since have-nots can rely on medical care in the same way as the more priviliged in our society. In Belgium anyone can walk into a hospital and ask for assistance, which he will receive without discussion. (although we have to say that unpaid bills are a rising problem within a lot of hospitals) We have state of the art hospitals with overpaid doctors and underpaid trainee-doctors and nurses, but that is a global problem, I would say. The system works thanks to a yearly budget of 26 billion Euro, which is approx 10% of GDP and between 40 and 50 % of the yearly Belgian budget. Expensive? Depends on how you look at it. Every working Belgian and every beneficiary of an allowance of any kind (unemployed, pension etc) has to pay around 5% of his income for medical insurance. The same amount is covered by his employer (if any). This results in a "medical" budget where on average approx 2.600 euro per Belgian is spent every year. For example, we get a refund of doctors visits and medicines. Where a doctors visit costs around 25 euro, we get a refund of 21 euro. Where some medicines cost 25 euro per treatment, we only pay 10 euro etc etc. Getting a new hip will cost you a few hundred euro net cost. Basic dental treatment is practically free for kids under twelve. Of course people who suffer from long-lasting diseases or handicaps will have greater expenses, since not everything is covered. A lot of people pay extra for private insurance to cover these extra expenses.
Don’t we have problems? Sure we do, we are the most highly taxed country in Europe (apart from the Scandinavians) with a highest taxation scale of 50% not mentioning VAT (21%) on any product we buy and gasoline taxations (we pay 2.10 USD per liter of gasoline or roughly 8 bucks per gallon). But we drive small cars since Belgium is about the size of a napkin (just kidding) The medical care system is a yearly sorrow for the government (center-left coalition) and with the problem of aging, this doesn’t become any easier. Can we continue to afford ourselves this health-insurance system? On the other hand, letting go of the solidarity principle will divide our country into two camps, those who can afford medical care and those who cannot. And we are afraid that in a world where everyone takes care of his own insurance, the costs will not become less, neither will the social problems . When I look around, a lot of Belgians are complaining about the high taxation rate, but on the other hand they are aware that we live in a blessed country when you ‘re having health problems. Nobody wants to change that… for the time being. Belgium is a rich country with 10 mio inhabitants of which around 300.000 live beneath what we call the poverty-line, but with more than 30.000 euro-millionaires.
Right after World War 2 the Belgian population had to stand in line for a cup of soup and died of disease by the hundreds. We aren’t proud of our country in much ways, and a lot of things go wrong, but the fact that we were able to surpass these conditions without being stripped of the possibility to make progress individually ànd keep our "freedom" (or at least the illusion of it) is nothing to be ashamed of. Mixing government intervention with free enterprise is not an easy job, but in our case, it has worked more or less. 50 years of social security has improved the life expectancy to 85. Will it be running for another 50 years in the same way? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t mind. Every society has to decisions like the one tackled in this article on his own. When comparing your society to other countries and communities however, just comparing the financial aspects of systems is not enough, to my opinion. You have to take all aspects into consideration… Greetings from Belgium and good luck to all of you!
PS: I love the platform, if only for the controversial and critical thinking that most of the mainstream information lack so often
Hangnail
Belgium poster, I agree with Mr. Quinn. Good post. It is nice to hear a different perspective. It would be extremely hard to compare our two countries, and I'm of the mind that there is no way to compare the two, but that doesn't make your post any less worth reading and considering.
As one that was wounded in combat, and having had to go through the military/government health care "system," I can say that while the shit gets done, it doesn't get done efficiently. Worse, after care with the VA system is a real bitch. I'm a disabled vet, and have to deal with the VA on a semi-regular basis, and it well and truly sucks.
Quisp
Reform is about insurance reform. Not government health care. Health insurance is basically a Ponzi scheme. The healthy pay in and the sick 5% create 95% of the claims. The middlemen then use the pool of money and gamble with it. Health insurance has gone up some 120% in the last decade. And will do so again especially when their investment, well your paid in premiums, go awry.
The issue isnt government health care, no one is proposing that. Its breaking up the insurance union...umm association [cartel] of junket monkeys.
But when a union, yes AHIP is like a union, band together, like a cartel, they use legislation to protect profits. As for Jims socialism picture up there. Oddly the one with the gun is in red.
elected politickspointing a gun at the taxpayer. Arent subisidies a form of corporate socialism? Bailouts a form of corporate welfare? When did the founding fathers say america should be an empire? Where does it say in order to form a more perfect union we need false aristoi robbing us blind thru government earmarks, subsidies and grants and cronyism?
So many have fallen into the us vs them mentality when its them against us. Capitalism is the replacement of the currency with credit and debit. And guess who just printed some 600 trillion in money thru opaque derivatives bets?
Obama is doing what wall street wants. Same as Dubya. Privatize the profits and socialize the debt. Geithner was a protege of Paulson. Wall street is running the FED the treasury and also the SEC [Storch]
Its not socialism, its not conservatism. Its a kleptocracy. And both parties are in on the scam.
But hey, if you want Halliburton running things expect to get electrocuted by a bed pan as your recovering from tainted food and water
TLaCour
"Americans have chosen to surrender their freedom and liberty for safety and security. We’ve decided it is too much work to support freedom. We have allowed our government to be overrun by the military industrial complex, the financial industrial complex and the healthcare industrial complex."
...and one more: We have allowed our society to be overrun by the media-government complex.
"The safety and security we think we have is an illusion. We have neither. These deals with the devil will lead to the economic collapse of our Republic. At that time, we will have the opportunity as described by our forefathers, to abolish this government and start anew. Until that time we are destined to lose more freedom and undergo a long period of crisis and misery. It was our choice."
VERY WELL SAID! The Germans began their march to a totalitarian State in the Oh-Ohs, the earliest part of the 1900s, with a takeover of Healthcare. They were one of the earliest to adopt Universal Health Care, and one of the earliest to fall to Tyranny. The economic collapse that followed the Rape of Versailles led straight to a change of government, not in Form, but in Substance, with a terrible, long period of crisis and misery.
Now here we are in the next Oh-Ohs. Even if we don't cede another layer of Liberty (what and when we eat, exercise, drink, drive etc.) to Fedzilla now, as this bill will accomplish if adopted, we are headed straight for economic pain like none but our Elders knew at the same time Germany made its choice. Those Elders also chose a change in the Substance but not the Form of our government, the Substance of the Path we are on with this bill. It's the New New Deal, and it is certainly Social, but not Security.
ReverseEngineer
Churchill was in the business of maintaining power for his class. Of course he wasn't a fan of socialism.
What nobody talks about here is the Abject Failure of Capitalism. Its the Elephant in the room nobody on this Burning Platform wants to admit. Now that we have THIS failure on the books, the prior failures of some socialist states seem quite small by comparison.
I am reminded of the old saw about Computers and Human Error. "To Err is Human, to REALLY fuck up takes a Computer"
In this case it would be, "To fail economically takes Socialism, to destroy a Civilization takes Capitalism"
RE
BlackRockBurner
Health Care 'Reform' is nothing less than CONTROL. Obama's advisers already have their rationing plan developed.
Here's my spin ( fully accurate ) Dr. Scott Geller: Obamacare should frighten anyone who is or plans to grow old | news-press.com | The News-Press
Your MD 8 years from now will follow Gubbmint edicts, not what's best for you. Plagiarize it if you wish and have it published in your local paper. Bitching here will do nothing.
Check out the articles at www.aapsonline.org.