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Healtcare Reform $$$$$$$$$$

By Jim Odom

A friend on Facebook posted the following comment, "We must recognize the millions of WORKING Americans without access to basic, affordable health care insurance. It's about THEM, not pork barrels, mis-truths, and hysterical partisanship. We MUST find a way, if we care. And I'm not at all sure we do."

His comment made me think: Do we care about the millions without health care insurance?

What do we expect from government

First of all let's look at what the government should be expected to provide for us. Most liberals/progressives think We should be granted life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and free health care insurance, and free child care, and free homes for the homeless, and free fire insurance on those homes, and free transportation to work, and a government big enough to provide for every human need from the cradle to the grave.

The difference between liberal thought and conservative thought is this: The conservative/republican sees a need and takes money out of his pocket and gives. The progressive/democrat sees the same need and takes money from his neighbor to give. The recent need in Haiti is a prime example of how needs should be met. Americans came together in record numbers and gave to help the Haitians recover. They gave willingly not because the government took it from them under duress and gave it on their behalf, but because they had compassion. (Granted, some US aid was given too)

How much will health care reform cost?

The current plan before congress is estimated to cost between 1 trillion and 3 trillion dollars for the first ten years. Why such a wide variation in the estimate? As usual, you have to look past the "spin". Democrats use the first ten years and come up with just under 1 trillion dollars. Republicans point out that the first ten years include revenue from new taxes but the actual costs do not start and the plan is not fully implemented until the fourth year. So they count the ten year period as beginning AFTER the plan is fully implemented. Regardless of 1 or 3 trillion dollars, we have a difficult time "getting our heads around" a number that large.

It's not the government paying for it

Before discussing how to pay for any new Federal program, let's first establish that the Federal Government does not have any money. In order for the government to spend money on even worthwhile programs, they must first take it from individuals. Even the money contributed to the Social Security trust fund has been spent. When current baby boomers start to retire, the funds to pay them their "entitlement" must come from the current wage earners in the form of taxes.

The taking of these funds from wage earners creates a disincentive for them to work. I had an employee who reached retirement age and announced to me that she didn't want to work more than 15 hours per week. She had discovered that after she reached a certain level of income, the government took 50 cents of every dollar she earned. The same thing is true of businesses and corporations. As the government takes more and more in the form of taxes to pay for these programs, these businesses have less incentive to expand and hire new workers.

The current fiscal year budget deficit projected at $1.6 Trillion

Sooner or later someone is going to have to pay back the massive debt the federal government is running up. We can't keep depending on the Chinese to buy our bonds. The current debt is over 12 trillion dollars with $1.6 trillion being added this year alone. Let's suppose we decided to start paying back just the deficit we are running this year. If we paid $1,000,000 per day, for the next 4,383 years, we would ALMOST have it paid back. (That's one million dollars per day for over four thousand years). Or, we could pay it back at a rate of one billion dollars per month for the next 133 years.

Keep in mind, the figures above only are for paying back this year's debt not the entire debt we now owe. It also does not include any interest payments on the debt.

We just put our heads in the sand and let our grand kids worry about it.

What is the solution

There are free market solutions to making health insurance available without spending trillions of dollars on the problem. I will not go in to detail here but to say that government takeover of our entire health care system is NOT the answer. More on the solution in a later post. For now, let's decide: Yes there is a problem. Yes health care insurance and the entire health care system needs reforming. But no, we can't afford trillions of dollars that we do not have as a nation to fix the problem.

Let's give free markets and free people a vision of the need and ask them to solve it. There is nothing America cannot do. There is no need to ask big government to do for us what we can do ourselves.

Jim, as a conservative myself, I find myself in virtual complete agreement with you. I have heard it said that the difference between conservatives and liberals are that liberals react emotionally to an emotional problem - instead of "logically" -- whatever that word means (it means different things to different people).

I must say that you probably are not going to change the minds of those who disagree with you on this point. You are apt to get some passionate "beg-to-differ" responses.

I'm a very "logical" person myself (much like Spock on Star Trek), so I see your point. Even if emotionally you want to save the world, logically you have to find the resources. People should look at what they expect of the government based on what they do as a family. I personally would like to give to everybody who has a need. If you borrow and borrow to do it, soon you are bankrupt and not able to help anyone.

Let's look at health care reform as we look at auot insurance. If you are reckless, over eat, under exercise, and become obese or your children are obese than you pay a penalty on your mandatory health insurance. Amaricans need to become responsible.
Thank you for sharing, Jim.
Best wishes.
Frederick

I don't think health insurance should be "mandatory". I don't think it would even pass the Supreme Court's review of the Constitutionality of the bill if it contained that in the final version of the bill. Rest assured I will post another Intel with my thoughts on how to make the reform bill "perfect". (Just a tease to make you want to read the next post)

I'm not sure about the supreme court, Jim.
I do know that in the state of Mass., you pay a fine if you don't have health insurance.
Great subject.
Frederick

I did some research and you are certainly right. I'm not sure if there has ever been a challenge to the Mass law or not. I sell art. Wouldn't it be great if I could get a bill passed to REQUIRE everybody to purchase art?

America is one of the only countries where we pay so much taxes and the government won't give us access to decent healthcare. Not because they can't, it's because they don't care enough about human life. Amen!

You're right, the government doesn't care. That's my point. We need to take care of ourselves and each other and not rely on the government to do it for us. Love your neighbor enough to see a need and help.

The problem as I see it is that Health Insurance Company costs, risks and profits is not the same as the cost of medical care.

It seems to me these two costs are two separate issues and yet are talked about as being the same thing. If you had no health insurance and had to pay the costs out of pocket that would be medical care costs.

If you are paying health insurance premiums that is a totally different costs with added profits for the insurance company.

You're absolutely right. Of course, we need to come up with solutions to contain BOTH health care costs AND insurance costs. In a free market, if you lower health care costs, insurance premiums should come down. If instead, profits went up for the insurance companies, another insurance company should step in with lower costs of premiums

Jim, Although I'm not in the US, you make some cogent points which could apply to many countries.

Here in Australia we have healthcare, however, it is grossly underfunded, and there are huge waiting lists. At least we have it!

That's the very argument I make against "free" Government run health care. If you artificially lower the cost, and add more people to the dole, you are bound to create shortages and waiting in line. A person could die while waiting for treatment.

Coming from New Zealand, I can't understand why America is in such a state to have to need to provide healthcare for its people, at least those who can't afford insurance. Here we provide basic healthcare and education out of taxation.If you get knocked over by a bus here in New Zealand, you get taken by ambulance to a public hospital and get free healthcare. Taxation is like insurance in a kind of way.

If you get knocked over by a bus here in the US you get a trip in an ambulance and health care is provided for you at the hospital regardless of whether you have health insurance or not. That's where the arguments in favor of free government health insurance gets emotional instead of logical. The Federal Government has no business offering free health care insurance any more than they should provide free fire insurance for your house or car insurance or anything free for that matter. Someone has to pay for all the "free" stuff the government gives us.

To me this health care reform is much like having a car that needs a serious tune-up and going out and running it into a tree.

In this example doing nothing would have been better than totally damaging the car which is exactly what the Democrats have done.

They have taken a Health Care System that needed fixing and totally wrecked it and the economy now. They broke it they own it. See you in November.

Americans have a short memory. I hope they remember come election time. The voters threw the republicans out primarily because they were spending too much. Look what we got!

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