Fighting to Preserve Liberty in America
Judging by the two mail pieces I just received from my congressman, Tim Bishop, it looks like he has settled on his reelection strategy. After all, he doesn’t want to run on his record (ObamaCare, bailouts, Stimulus, trillions in deficit spending); with the demise of earmarks he can’t say he’s bringing home the bacon; since he is facing a re-match in his reelection bid, using the same smear tactics this time around will be harder; so let’s scare the bejeezus out of the seniors.
Newt Gingrich may have just killed his presidential bid in less than a week after announcing it. Aside from his support of ethanol subsidies, the old commercial sitting on the couch with Nancy Pelosi, he tops it off by attacking Paul Ryan’s budget that was approved by all but four Republican members of the House of Representatives.
He says the Ryan plan is too radical. Compared to what? ObamaCare?
While Medicare savings under the Democrats’ health care law and pending proposals would come mainly from reduced federal payments to doctors, hospitals and insurance companies, the budget put forth by House Republicans would cut spending by turning Medicare into a system of vouchers for future beneficiaries to buy private insurance, but in amounts that would not keep pace with the projected inflation of health costs.
The Democrats’ plan is to pay doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies less. How does that work in the real world? Doctors will refuse to accept more Medicare patients as will hospitals. So Medicare recipients may have coverage, but won’t have a doctor to serve them. You cannot bring down the cost of medical care by government fiat.
Ryan’s plan actually brings the free market into play by putting the decision making in the hands of the consumer. Of course, the Democrats say that amount Ryan proposes will not keep up with the rising costs of medical care. Aren’t these the same people who said if we did not spend nearly a trillion on the stimulus, unemployment would rise to 9%, wheras if we did, it would go no higher than 8%?
Paul Ryan showed the courage to tackle entitlements and with a credible plan. It may not be perfect, but it is a solid start. The Democrats’ “plan” is just more politbureau control from Washington dictating to the rest of us their failed solutions. It’s time for a change.
As for Newt, he can go back to the think tank, and re-think some of his positions.
That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.
(This is the last of a series of articles focusing on topics presented at the Cato Policy Perspectives 2011 conference held at New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel on Friday, April 8, 2011)
“What a difference a year makes” is short assessment of ObamaCare presented by Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute. “It cannot be fixed, it has to be repealed,” was his blunt conclusion.
As long as you are not Rip Van Winkle you should know by now that as Nancy Pelosi famously said, “We have to pass the bill, to find out what is in it.” Well, we’re finding out. We found out that it was true ObamaCare does double count $500 billion in savings, there are thousands of organizations asking for waivers from the program, and the individual mandate has been struck down by several courts.
The other day we read reports of Democratic Senators scrambling to create an oversight panel to prevent health care providers from dramatically increasing premiums over the next four years because, shockingly, costs are supposed to go down not up.
Yesterday, the Department of Health and Human Services released a report analyzing the effects of ObamaCare:
The sobering assessment by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services concludes what Republicans had warned about during heated debate — that the double-counting of Medicare spending — as both savings and as a means to shore up the debt-ridden government fund for seniors’ health care — means the cost is unrealistic.
The analysis also found that the law falls short of the president’s twin goal of controlling runaway costs, raising projected spending by about 1 percent over 10 years, or $311 billion, up from the $222 billion previous estimated.
Excuse me, captain, but was that an iceberg we just hit? We all know the Titanic sank on her maiden voyage, and it looks like ObamaCare is taking on water only weeks after being launched. As Congressman John Boehner said:
“According to his own administration’s analysis, the health care law the president signed one month ago today would violate his pledge to ‘bend the cost curve’ and force millions of seniors off their current Medicare coverage. This is in addition to what we already know about how this new law is squeezing employers with job-killing tax hikes and leaving middle-class families to brace for higher premiums,” he said.
When talk turns to repealing this law is Obama still smugly saying, “Bring it on”?
In their pledge of openness and transparency in government the House of Representatives takes some pride in putting the health care bill online for 72 hours before voting on it. Sounds like a good step, no? Well… that is until you to the math. If the bill they are voting on is 2,500 pages long you would only have 1.7 minutes to read each page provided you did not eat, sleep, rest your eyes, use the restroom for three straight days!
We have Nancy Pelosi’s famous cry for support, “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it”. Turn one-sixth of the economy over to the government, first, then find out what’s behind door number 1, door number 2, or door number 3. If you remember from that game show, what was behind one of the doors was a real stinker. The problem here is we got all three doors.
AT&T reports that they are writing off $1 billion to pay for compliance with the new health care bill. Guess where they are going to get that $1 billion? That’s right watch your phone bill. You are going to be paying for this health care monster in places you never imagined. Caterpillar announced they were writing off $100 million, John Deere $150 million, and AK Steel $31 million. So look for more expensive roads, farm equipment (food), and more expensive cars. This is from companies that have figured this out in less than a week. It will take time for thousands of other companies to tally up the cost.
Henry Waxman to the Rescue
But don’t worry folks, Congressman Henry Waxman is riding to the rescue:
Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, said he would hold a hearing next month to investigate the effects of the law on big companies. He asked the chief executives of Caterpillar, Deere & Company and Verizon for financial data to document the projected impact of the law on their companies, and he asked them to explain their accounting methods.
“The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs,” Mr. Waxman said, adding that he would be concerned if it drove up costs.
I’m sorry to have to say this, but he has to be the dumbest man in the House of Representatives. Members of the House are supposed to REPRESENT the people. The people have been screaming their opposition to this for months. Obama dared his opposition to campaign on repealing his prized piece of…er, work. Here’s news for you Mr. President, according to a Rasmussen poll 55% of Americans favor repealing this monstrosity.
But let me get back to Mr. Waxman, who is surprised that health care costs could actually increase. Listen to the American people:
Most voters still believe cost is the biggest problem with health care in America today, but most also think passage of the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats will drive costs even higher.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 54% rate cost as the biggest problem, a finding that has been consistent for months.
If Mr. Waxman got his head out of the sand or wherever else he conveniently parks it, and out into the fresh air, he might have realized that he is among the very few who actually believe this was going to lower costs, because there is nothing in this bill that addresses costs. It’s all about tweaking reimbursements to health care providers, which will accomplish nothing but drive doctors and other providers out of business, ration health, and expand government control. Oh, but wait, that is the Democrats plan.
The Silver Lining
But there is a silver lining. Communist dictator Fidel Castro loves it!
Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform “a miracle” and a major victory for Obama’s presidency
Bill O’Reilly, do you still think President Obama is not a socialist?
“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it” – Nancy Pelosi
The White House claimed, incredibly, that most Americans support ObamaCare.
“If you take the last 12 independent polls, and you throw out four by Rasmussen, whose results the White House doesn’t like, and you throw out six others that show a wide margin of opposition, then you have two polls with results consistent with the Washington Post poll showing a fairly small margin of opposition to the Democrats’ national health care plan. And that is Benenson’s case. By the way, the headline of his article? “Most Americans want health care reform.” – Byron York, National Examiner
Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, gushed on Fox News last night, about how ObamaCare was good for Pennsylvania. Why? Well, he said, today Pennsylvania is only reimbursed 50% for Medicare while under ObamaCare Pennsylvania will be reimbursed 90%. Very cool. Er, who’s picking up the tab for that extra 40%? That question goes to the heart of the Liberal/Progressive movement which is basically you are too damn stupid to recognize a shell game when you see one.
Unless the plan is to have ObamaCare paid for with the profits from GM and Chrysler, the only thing the government does for a profit, it is all a giant shell game. The giddy governor of Pennsylvania knows that this is a shell game and that extra 40% will either come out of Pennsylvanians federal tax pocket instead of their state tax pocket or it will be subsidized by citizens in other states through their taxes. Oh wait, no, there is always those evil drug and medical device companies to tax. But where do they get their money? That’s right taxes are built into the price of their products, so expect drugs and medical devices to cost more.
The Evil Health Insurance Company Myth
Obama & Co. jumped all over a 39% premium increase by Anthem Blue Cross in California as Exhibit A justifying their takeover of the health care industry. This is not going to be fixed with ObamaCare but only made worse. An example is given by a doctor who says for the last seven years he has been reimbursed $50 for an office visit under Medicare. In that time his expenses have risen 30%. (Quick check — if the good doctor gives his staff a 4% raise each year for 7 years that comes out, compounded, to about 30%). Under ObamaCare they are proposing a 21% reduction in Medicare reimbursement, so the doctor will now get a $40 reimbursement for an office visit. The doctor can do one of two things. He can stop seeing Medicare patients, or he can charge his other patients more to make up the difference. If he chooses the latter course of action, then private insurance companies, like Anthem, will have to pay for the increase. How do they recover their costs? That’s right by increasing premiums.
Just like you never hear statists blaming government polices of HUD, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac for the housing bubble that triggered the financial crisis and recession (it was all those greedy, evil bankers), you won’t hear them mention their policies regarding Medicare as triggering the premium increases. It was all about greed. So government will need to step in and make sure those greedy insurance companies cannot increase prices like they have. So expenses rise, premiums are capped, insurance companies fold, and voila you have a public option, which becomes the only option. Next to keep expenses from rising, health care will have to be rationed because there are no market mechanisms in ObamaCare to actually reduce costs. No tort reform. No elimination of 3rd party payers. No true insurance that protects against catastrophic costs while you pay for the routine, like all other insurance. Just government fiat. Obama can no more order health care costs to decline than he can turn off gravity.
News flash to people around the world living under socialized medicine who travel to the United States for critical care when they need it, that door will soon be closed.
Who Is Really Stupid?
Statists believe the average American is too stupid to make decisions, or should I say the right decisions, about their lives, health, safety, etc. We need the really, really smart people in government to tell us what is good for us and follow their instructions. Or…in November we can send them the message that they were really, really stupid to ignore what the American people were screaming at them, STOP!!!! If Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, et al, thought Americans were smart enough to look out for their own best interests, who are Pelosi, Reid, Waxman, Boxer, Rangel, Schumer, Dodd, et al, to say otherwise?
There’s a commercial that has been running recently that shows someone considering the purchase of a consumer item and they ask question after question about the product. In the next scene they are in the doctor’s office and when the doctor asks if they have any questions they hesitate and then say, “No.” The message is that you should ask as many questions of your doctor as you would of the salesman selling you a flat screen TV.
What if the flat screen TV were free? Or what if it was limited to a $20 co-pay? Would the consumer ask as many questions? The consumer is probably asking the questions because he or she is about to lay out $1,000 of their own money. If the TV costs you only $20 do you bother with the questions? If the TV doesn’t work, you can go buy another for $20, no?
For most of our health care plans we have what is called 3rd party payer. We go see the doctor and except for a nominal co-pay, someone else picks up the tab. But what if the health care consumer was put front and center in the process? How would that look?
Insurance as Insurance
We call it health care insurance, but it doesn’t look like any other insurance we may own. We buy insurance to protect ourselves from financial catastrophe, not to cover everyday expenses. If our house needs a paint job, we don’t file a claim on our homeowner’s insurance. If we need gas for our car, we don’t ring up the gecko at Geico. When we need food we don’t submit the grocery receipt to our life insurance company. So why is virtually every expenditure related to health submitted to our insurance company?
I was once covered by a health insurance plan, through my company, that cost around $10,000 per year. I was healthy and didn’t often need a doctor, but that didn’t affect my insurance premium. I found a plan that was a “high deductable” plan with a Health Spending Account. It worked like this. My insurance premium was cut from $10,000 to $5,000. In addition I opened a Heath Spending Account (HSA) that I could fund with up to $5,000 per year, tax deductable. So overall, if I fully funded HSA, the cost was still $10,000. So why do this?
The plan came with a high deductable of $4,000 per year, in other words, the first $4,000 were paid by me, not the insurance company. I could use the money in my HSA to cover that. But the kicker is that the money in an HSA rolled over from year to year and if I never used it, I could roll it into an IRA later. Do you think there is a strong incentive there for me to be involved in my medical care? Do you think I would ask more questions, before going to the doctor and when I met with him? You bet I would.
The Broken Health Care System
But how does our government screw this up? Easy. When I left that company and was out on my own and tried to buy the same type of policy I found that many plans were available until I told them where I lived. “You live in New York? Sorry, that plan is not available in New York for an individual. It is only available through companies.” I checked with my state insurance regulator and they said, “Sure, we have a plan like that for individuals. Do you make over $27,000? Oh, you do? Then it’s not available.”
So a plan that involves the consumer in making informed health care choices, which is the only way market forces can truly come into play, was not available for me by government dictate. But the federal government wants to take over health care and give it to everyone on the model of 3rd party payer where the consumer doesn’t care a whit what it costs.
Informed Health Care in Action
Fortunately, my experience being involved in health care choices didn’t evaporate with my ability to get the insurance plan of my choice. I was advised by my doctor that I was of the age to start screening for colon cancer. The most effective way to do this is through a procedure known as a colonoscopy. I will spare you the details of the procedure.
As an informed consumer I looked up the risk factors for colon cancer:
Okay, I have none of the above. What is the chance of dying of colon cancer? In the U.S. the chances are 0.017% and that is based on the whole population, regardless of whether or not you have any of the behaviors listed about, or about the same chance as being killed in a car crash. I decide to have the procedure.
The procedure gives me a clean bill of health and the recommendation is to repeat the procedure every 5-10 years. In processing my insurance claims, to be paid by a 3rd party, I noticed that the procedure cost $3,000 about evenly divided between the doctor performing the procedure, the anesthesiologist, and the hospital. So if I have the procedure as recommended, it would cost $10,000 – $20,000 to screen for an illness for which I had low risk, no history, none of the bad behaviors, a current clean bill of health. No thanks. If I had the plan that I wanted that could be $10,000 – $20,000 in my retirement plan. How many other possible diseases should I screen for and pay similar sums? As a consumer I am making a risk/reward judgment and in doing so, I have reduced health care expenses in the United States by $10,000 – $20,000.
In the ObamaCare plan, that money will be spent because the typical consumer doesn’t care if the procedure is done every year because it has no financial impact on them. Do you think that is why health care costs continue to rise? What doctor is going to take a chance that he did not recommend that procedure and find out that you and your trial lawyer are asking him why he didn’t because you contracted colon cancer?
The counter argument will be, “Well what if you get colon cancer and you could have prevented it if you had screened for it? What is that going to cost and who is going to pay for it?” Well, with my liberty still intact, I can make some further decisions. I still have that money, and more of it, in my HSA that I can use. If the cost of treatment exceeds $4,000 then my insurance company can use that premium money that I have been paying them for years without them having laid out one dime over that period due to my good health and good choices, to help with my treatment. Or I can make the personal decision, if I am say 80 years old, that I had a pretty good run and I would rather leave my wealth to my family, if the government isn’t salivating to grab that, than to spend it all to eke out another few years. I can choose to go quietly into that good night.
Liberty and Tyranny
I want to have the liberty to make those choices. Everyone having the liberty to make those choices will bend the cost curve down. The medical community, which is a business, will have the incentive to find a way to drive down the cost of a $3,000 procedure to say $300. If they did so, I just might show up every 5 – 10 years at that price. That’s how markets work. If your flat screen TV set, or your medical procedure is too expense the demand drops. If you find a way to keep lowering (get that? lowering) the cost the demand will rise. But if you don’t pay the bill, if you don’t see the bill, you don’t care about the bill. If you don’t care about the bill and no one else does, then the government gets involved and the problem doesn’t get solved. Your liberty gets taken away along with your money and the government tells all their stupid citizens what to do, because, after all, government knows best. Right?
If you look at President Obama’s record on what he says one day and one he says later when reality sets in, are we really ready to believe him when he says,
“Whatever plan we design upholds three basic principles,” he said. “First, the rising cost of health care must be brought down; second, Americans must have the freedom to keep whatever doctor and health care plan they have, or to choose a new doctor or health care plan if they want it; and third, all Americans must have quality, affordable health care.”
He told us we absolutely had to pass his $787 Billion stimulus package or the unemployment rate would hit 9%, but if the package passed, the unemployment rate would be held to 8%. It didn’t work. Unemployment is at 9.1% and climbing. He said bankruptcy for the auto companies would be disastrous for the economy. After pouring billions into the auto companies, where are they? In bankruptcy. It is estimated that his health care “solution” would cost between $1 and $1.6 trillion. Why should we believe it? What has he told us he would do that has actually come to pass? North Korea? Iran?
What confidence do we have that the government can do anything, other than national defense, better than private industry? The postal service? Amtrak? Farm subsidies? Earmarks? Speaking of healthcare what about Medicare and Medicaid? In a report from March 2008:
“We need to act quickly and effectively to address Medicare’s fiscal health, including enacting the steps proposed in the President’s budget, which would postpone the insolvency date of the Part A trust fund for ten years,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt.
A Modest Proposal
Before attempting to overhaul one-sixth of the U.S. Economy, why doesn’t the Obama Administration fix Medicare and Medicaid? Show us your stuff Mr. President. Not your charm, not your winning smile. The campaign is over. Prove that you can make these government programs work before you take on any more massive health care undertakings.
Two Doctors Operating. A Lawyer, A Bureaucrat, and An Insurance Agent Oversee the Procedure
In the category, be careful what you wish for, Ted Kennedy should be careful about pushing through Universal Health Care reform. It has been reported that this effort has taken on a sense of urgency because of Mr. Kennedy’s brain cancer. But what if we already had national health care?
Would Kennedy Receive Treatment?
Ted Kennedy will be 77 on Sunday. I wish him well. However in an opinion piece by Betsy McCaughey, she quotes Tom Daschle, who nearly became the architect of health care reform before his tax problems derailed his nomination.
Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.
In other words, sorry Ted, since any treatment is not likely to significantly prolong your life such that the expense would be justified, no treatment will be paid for. You will just have to pay it yourself or die. I guess the good news is that Senator Kennedy, like Senator Dascle, and most of the ruling class who pass these commandments down from Mount Capital Hill, are rich enough to pay for private treatment, if it is allowed by law. If not, they are rich enough to take a “vacation” to, say, India and while on vacation wander into a facility their for treatment by American trained Indian doctors.
But what about you and me? Oh dear, you better get your affairs in order.
Health Care Reform You Can Believe In
As long as the treatment received by a patient is paid for by someone other than the patient, the patient really doesn’t care what it costs. The liberal solution is to have the government take it over, and a bunch of bureaucrats will “act on your/our behalf” and make those decisions. The outcome of which is that you better stay healthy. Because if you don’t, you may not get treatment until you wait a very long time for your turn, or you may not get treated at all, if the bureaucrats rule the resultant quality of life is just not worth it.
Here’s what we should really look at doing:
More Liberty Under Fire
The government in proposing universal health care wants to mandate that everyone must have health care coverage. You will not have the liberty to choose. The government demands that you comply:
“comprehensive health care legislation should include a requirement that every American carry insurance.”
That’s the requirement, now comes the heavy hand of government:
“The ideas discussed include a proposal to penalize people who fail to comply with the “individual obligation” to have insurance.”
You must obey! The government has spoken!
Here’s a novel idea. How about implementing the above points first and fix the broken system that we have before we throw it out and install another new, massive, government program. After all we can always go to the government solution in the end, confident in the knowledge that these programs work extremely well and efficiently. (e.g., Fannie Mae {bankrupt}, Freddie Mac{bankrupt} , Social Security {bankrupt}, Medicare {bankrupt}, US Postal Service {$6 billion deficit, while CEO get $850,00 salary}).
What Would the Founding Fathers Say?
A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. – John Adams
