If Canadian Health Care is So Good

So, if the Canadian single payer health care system is so good, could someone please explain why the Premier (governor in US terms) of New Foundland, Danny Williams, is coming to the US to have his heart worked on? And why isn't the procedure he's having done available in his province?

And why won't he say what it is, and why won't anyone say if whatever it is can even be done in his country.

This is, by the way, the second high profile "single payer refugee" in the last few months. Johnny Hallyday, "The French Elvis" was flown from France to the US in December after they goofed on his heart surgery there.

For the folks that keep telling me single payer is better, please explain why the folks who need serious care keep coming to the US to get it, instead of one of the bastions of medical fairness. So if we adopt that type of system, then where will you go when you can't get what you need here?

Read The Full Post!

Note to the President

President Obama met with the GOP today, and was angry at them because they've opposed his initiatives. For the most part they've had good reason to oppose them, they aren't the ideals they were elected to congress to support.

Quick note, Prez, maybe you should get your own party in order before you start whining about the "opposition party" opposing you. You've had a year with a super majority in the Senate, and a big majority in the House, yet you've gotten nothing of consequence passed. You can't get your own party behind your ideas, and you are angry the other party isn't supporting them?

You are angry the GOP wouldn't support you on health care reform? They offered over 400 amendments between the two chambers, every one of which was shot down on a party line vote. They attempted to work with your party, your congressional leaders would have none of it. And now they have no bill. Mr. President, when you can't get a single RINO in the Senate to vote on your bill, you know it's too far to the left.

You are angry they wouldn't support the stimulus? CBO now says the bill will cost 850 billion dollars, not 787 billion, and you've had to change accounting methods three times to make it look like it's creating jobs. Yet every independent study so far says it hasn't. Maybe they understood that the bill wasn't about jobs, and that's why they didn't support it.

You don't like extending the Bush tax cuts because "billionaires don't need tax breaks". Here's the truth, Mr. Obama, when rich folks get a tax cut they invest it, providing the capital for other businesses to expand and create jobs. They don't stuff it in mattresses or lock it in a basement to count nightly. Venture capital doesn't materialize out of thin air, it's money that the investor class uses to take a chance on some small start up becoming the next Oracle or IBM. When you confiscate more of that money, that's less start ups that have a chance to suceed.

When you give the same amount to a group of a hundred million people the money is watered down. Some buy things which stimulates the economy, but as was seen last time, most paid their bills which doesn't do the same thing as tossing a hundred million bucks to businesses.

Read The Full Post!

No Hope or Change for Unemployed

So the Labor Department just released the unemployment numbers. The rate is now up to 10.2%, it's highest in more than a quarter century.

Back in 2003 and early 2004, moving towards the election season, we were bombarded with blasts at then President George W. about his "jobless recovery" and the 6 percent unemployment rate.

So how will the left spin their recovery that isn't just jobless, but actually shedding jobs? Remember the good old days, when Nancy Pelosi would blast Bush on jobs creation, complaining when only 80 or 90,000 jobs were created in a month? What will she say to President Obama who's touting other news that says we are in a recovery, when 190,000 jobs were lost!

Does anyone remember this graph, that was used to justify the 'stimulus' package earlier this year.

According to the Chart, unemployment should be about around 7.8% since we passed the stimulus. Instead, the number is literally off the top of the chart.

The flip side to unemployment is that our productivity numbers had their biggest jump in nearly a decade. It's normal to see productivity going up before jobs are added, but not at a 9% pace. In fact, it's up enough that people should really be worried about why the jobs aren't showing up.

Why aren't they? Fear in the business sector is the easiest answer. There is currently tons of new regulation on business waiting to be passed in Congress. Business' won't expand until they have a better feel on where things like health care reform and cap and trade are headed.

Here's an example. Say you employ 95 people, and your productivity for them is up 9.5% last quarter. You probably have enough work to add between 5 and 10 new workers. But if the House version of health care reform passes, that would put you at the magic 100 number. Now in 2010 your taxes or benefits package costs will increase greatly, you aren't a "small business" anymore.

So do you hire the workers you need, and hope that you increase profits enough to cover the expenses of not only the workers, but the new health care bill, or do you hold off and see what happens in DC?

If you have 100 workers right now, and know that the House is getting ready for a ramrod vote on Saturday, do you keep what you've got, or get rid of a few folks to get back under the onerous 100?

Read The Full Post!

Fact Checking Congress

The AP has a lot of faults. However, I give them credit for their FACTCHECK series of articles that they've been running. They've been pretty balanced, and gone against the grain of the MSM of late and been critical of President Obama and Congress.

The latest, a fact check on insurance profits shows something that Nance Pelosi, Harry Reid, and "The One"© don't want you to know, insurance company profits aren't that high.

WHAT!!! Wait, I was told they are making scads of money, and dead people are piling up so they can do it, how does that work?

It's actually pretty easy. If you only talk in dollars, and not percentages, it sounds like huge profits. When you actually look at the returns on investment and growth rates, the insurance industry is pretty far down on the list.

In fact, if you were writing a portfolio, most insurance companies would be in the sustainable growth category, an area you park money to keep up with inflation and mitigate risk, not to make a big profit.

Right now it might not even get into that category, with profits equalling only two percent of revenue. If you listen to the folks trying to demonize the industry, you'd think expenditures are only two percent of revenue, the rest going into some fat cat's pocket.

The other way the numbers are getting skewed is when someone wants to paint an insurance company as greedy they lump all profits, not just health insurance, into the equation. Companies that provide homeowners, health, life and auto insurance do have higher profit margins. Most of those profits come from the other products though. In fact, if you want to get mad, start looking up the profit to revenue margin on auto and life insurance, and ask why Congress isn't concerned about those.

So who makes more than insurance companies? Railroads, the folks who give you Tupperware, network and communications equipment makers (1ox insurance company profits), Coors brewing, Yahoo and others.

How come they aren't being demonized?

Read The Full Post!

Don't Get Cancer, Grandma!

Don't get cancer, Grandma, 0h, and don't have a heart attack, either. Why, well medicare is slashing it's payments to cardiologists and oncologists next year, that's why. The Wall St. Journal has a nice piece on the issue today.

EKG's and stress tests will have their reimbursement rate cut by 42%, and cardiac catheterizations by 24%. Oncologists are seeing similar cuts, with radiation treatment getting a 44% whack.

This has nothing to do with health care reform legislation, this is just next years Medicare reimbursement rate. If the Senate finance version of reform passes, those specialists will see even bigger cuts in their future reimbursement rates.

Jack Lewin, head of the American College of Cardiologists figures this years cuts will drive many doctors out of business, or force seniors to the back of the line for treatment.

Considering Medicare pays about $0.83 on the dollar to doctors as is, cutting some rates by 44% means they are asking doctors to provide services for less than half the actual rate they charge private insurance patients. Good luck getting that stent, stress test, or radiation treatment.

Read The Full Post!

Continuing Contradictions

Could someone please tell the Democrats to get their stories straight! One day House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tells the world that health care reform won't leave the House without a public option. The next day Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says that the bill probably can't leave the House with a public option.

And of course the president is still swaying too and fro on the idea of it being either a necessity, or a single piece of a bigger puzzle.

If the Democrats want to know why American's are confused, and therefore distrustful of their plans, all they have to do is read their own words. Confusion seldom breads concensus and is never the foundation for trust.

Read The Full Post!

Good Reading on Insurance Reform

The Wall Street Journal does what most local papers and other national media outlet's haven't been concerning President Obama's newest phrase "Health Insurance Reform"; they point out the facts, in two different editorials.

The first "The Truth About Health Insurance" points out something I did a few days ago, the reforms wanted by the administration won't save you money, they'll just drive your insurer out of business and cost you MORE!

They point out that New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts all have both guaranteed issue insurance laws (you have to sell a policy to anyone, even with pre-existing conditions) and Community Based Ratings (can't use a pre-existing condition to set premiums). Not surprisingly, those are the three most expensive states to by individual health insurance in. In fact, rates are two to three times higher than the rest of the country.

Evidently "fairness" only works one way in those states. It's more fair to require no wait insurance for the folks who get sick and need it now. Unfortunately the rest of the insured end up paying for them to be covered.

The second piece you should read is by John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods. They've reformed their insurance program, and save both the company and employees money. "The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare" lays out how they've done it, and why even their Canadian and British employees, with goverment provided health care want into the system.

The biggest reform they enacted? They turned employees into true consumers of health care. They actually shop around for services and treatments instead of just going to whatever doctor or clinic someone recommends.

They use a high deductible ($2500) policy paid for by the company and a Health Savings Acount, with another $1800 from company. The HSA rolls over each year, so if it's not spent, they don't lose the cash, and can save for a catastrophic event.

What they've found is the employees don't use the HSA money up every year to cover the deductibles, they instead do spend out of pocket for smaller expenses, and end up shopping and saving themselves money.

Mackey has some other great ideas on how to actually bend the curve down, as the President would like to do, but the CBO has pointed out, ObamaCare won't. Check out his ideas.

Read The Full Post!

I'm a Number in the Federal Health Machine

I forgot that it's that time of year again. Time for me to be counted, not by the census, but by the Veteran's Administration. You see, I was put into their system in July of 2003. Now, annually I need to be counted by them to make sure my local VA hospital gets funded for treating me.

I didn't make the appointment in July like I was supposed to, so in my weeks worth of mail I'm sure there is a frantic letter reminding me that I need to get it before August 31st (my actual retirement date). If, probably by the end of next week, I don't make an appointment I'll start getting phone calls reminding (badgering) me to get in.

This year we'll find out what happens when I don't make it by that day. I don't have a day off in my schedule until mid-September.

They call it an annual physical, but it's not. Physicals take more than 15 minutes, and consist of an exam, not asking me what my actual doctor has been doing for the last year. Most years they don't ask me about my service connected disabilities, the reason they are supposed to see me.

This illustrates one of the reasons I don't like government managed health care. It's not about providing good service, it's about numbers. You call in as many people as you can in an 8 hour day, talk to them for 15 minutes, and call it a "wellness check" and suddenly you are practicing preventive medicine, and "saving money for the system".

What you are actually doing is the same thing as public schools do on Attendance Day; getting your numbers up high enough to get more money from Uncle Sugar.

Direct government employees, like the VA doctors are trying to make a quota, they have to see X number of patients to justify their existence. Indirect doctors, like those who provide for Medicare or Medicaid need to see that number to make the abysmal reimbursement rates pay enough to cover the bills. Neither is as interested in providing good care as they are making ends meet, they don't have time to be interested.

Read The Full Post!

Indisputable

Indisputable. That's the word the President used today about the need for health care reform. The need is indisputable.... I think I'll dispute him anyway.

The need for minor reforms is indisputable. Ask anyone. The need for a major overhaul, basically being done in the middle of the night, with no time to read the bills before they are voted on is disputable.

If indeed health care reform is the major issue that must be tackled to save our country, shouldn't we be taking our time to come up with plan? Shouldn't we be open about it, and let everyone know what's in it? Shouldn't the folks in Congress who are voting on it have time to digest 1,000+ pages of legislation before it gets to a committee vote?

Well, if you believe the President the answer is no, it has to be done before the August recess, even if it means ramming it through before Congress even knows fully what's in the bill.

Want to see the cost of health care go down? Ask companies like Whole Foods how they've done it, and had satisfied employees. Ask Mayo how they are doing it. Don't let a bunch of policy wonks and bean counters make the decisions.

The folks at Mayo are doing a lot of work with treating of root causes, instead of symptoms. Sounds like common sense, but in the insurance/Medicare run medical business it's not. In the short run Mayo's approach costs a little more. In the long run it saves patients, and their insurance companies tons of cash.

Whole Foods uses health savings accounts to turn their employees into consumers of health care, instead of consumers of insurance. Suddenly both employee and company costs went down. Right now most folks get an MRI referral and go to the place their doctor recommends, and don't worry about the cost, because insurance picks it up. The folks using HSA's ask the price, and shop around for the best deal. Many doctors and clinics give a reduced cost to HSA patients because of the reduced paperwork load they have to deal with.

Medicare is a big part of our health care problem, yet congress wants to use it's failed policies as the basis for reform. Because the way Medicare contains costs is to just reduce payments to doctors, they find themselves ordering every test that can be justified for any ailment. If they order enough they can break even on medicare patients. When they can't, then they raise rates for other patients to make up the difference.

Get Medicare back to it's pre-1992 method of payment, the prevailing rate in a location, and doctors would be passing less costs on to the rest of us. Don't believe it. Look up the numbers, every year Congress has lowered the Medicare reimbursement rates overall health costs have seen a spike for non-medicare patients.

Insurance needs some reform, too. Unfortunately everything being discussed in congress right now basically means that the 81% of us happy with our coverage will probably lose.

Insurance is a risk pool, yet congress would like it to treat everyone the same. I'm a 45 year old, overweight out of shape, chain smoking (the links are hard to light), couch potato. I should pay more than the guy up the street who's the same age, doesn't drink, or smoke and who spends his free time bike riding and at the gym.

I should pay more because of my high blood pressure and cholesterol, and family history of heart attacks, yet some folks see that as "unfair". It's perfectly fair. I chose to take health risks, and should be punished by higher premiums. If I get off my ass and on the bike, and toss the Camel's, then give me lower rates.

Want to reform insurance? Make it possible for me to shop across state lines, which is currently illegal. Let a company in California decide it wants to take on high risk folks in Illinois at a discount and see how they do.

Require insurance companies to standardize their paperwork so doctors can get rid of a few of the admin assistants needed to process forms from 1300 insurance providers.

Require insurance companies to publish their grading criteria for underwriting policies, so that consumers have an idea of what's going to drive up their rates with which company, and so companies can find niches to fill when they realize others don't or won't cover certain things.

If the President wants to make a promise that everyone in America will stand up and cheer for, he should promise to veto any bill that doesn't require Congress to use the same system everyone else does. If he'd do that he could probably get the population to support a single payer plan payed for by selling off everyone's first born.

Read The Full Post!

Good Health Care Reform Reading

Need some good reading on health care reform? Try the Director of the Congressional Budget Office's blog. That's right, the director of the CBO has a blog.

Here's his preliminary analysis of the House proposal. Cheaper health care is going to increase the deficit over a trillion dollars? So much for President Obama's "revenue neutral" promise.

Here's the Director's letter to Charlie Rangel, explaining the budget consequences of just the insurance mandates in the bill. Just this portion increases deficits by a trillion dollars over 10 years!

Want to be scared? Here's his long term budget outlook. Keep in mind, it's based on current programs, not including the proposed legislation on health care. As he points out, current mandatory program spending (Social Security, Medicare, etc) is unsustainable. Now we want to add a hundred or so billion to that unsustainable trajectory each year.

A few things about the CBO, it's a non-partisan office. Congress in the past has agreed to use CBO estimates; not congressional staff estimates; when deciding what something will cost. The Democrats have tossed that idea out the window on health care reform. They don't want you to get someone elses numbers.

One of the problems with CBO scoring is that it uses "static" numbers to do it's calculations. It's almost always overestimated the effect of a tax increase, and the amount of deficit added by tax breaks.

In the case of health care, their trillion dollar increase in the deficit is based on the idea that none of the folks getting hit with a surtax on their income will adjust their income to reduce that tax burden. History shows us the vast majority of them will, and the amount of taxes collected will be considerably lower than what's projected.

Before you believe what your Congressman, Senator or President are telling you about the health care reform, check out those links. Then ask yourself, are you willing to pass that much deficit on to your children and grandchildren, since they'll be the one's paying for it.

Read The Full Post!

Obama-Care Looks Like Hillary Care

For those who wondered, it seems that Obama Care will look much like HillaryCare. though not as many details will come out, so as to keep us from bitching this time around. Considering Barack ran his entire campaign by not releasing much info other than he "hoped for change" that shouldn't be a surprise.

The Wall St. Journal has a nice piece on what Obama Care will probably look like. They base it on what Obama has said, who he's probably picking to run Health and Human Services (Tom Daschle) and the policy blueprint making it's way around the staffers of the House Finance Committee.

Basically, the plan that appears to be coming together will be three pronged. The first, govenment regulation of the insurance industry to require all companies that sell health insurance to do it at a group rate. An expanded Medicare that competes against the private companies will also be part of that insurance pool. Everyone gets to chose their policy, but as many states do now, the Fed's will be telling the companies what they have to have in the policies.

Second, and employer mandate that a certain percentage of payroll must be spent on health care, or you'll get a tax penalty. As the Journal points out, that number has to be targeted correctly. If the penalty is too low, a lot of companies will just dump their coverage and pay the fine. Why not save some money if you can.

The reverse is also true, though. If the percentage is set too high companies will just shed jobs in the US and move them elsewhere. We already have the second highest corporate income tax of all industrialized countries, adding to that burden will cause some to leave.

The third the Journal devined from Max Baucus' policy blueprint. That is an individual mandate to buy insurance, or face a tax penalty for failing to. Obama campaigned against this, but if he wants the rest of the package, the guess of the Journal (and me) is that he'll cave to this demand.

For those who can't afford the insurance, a tax rebate will be given to help pay the cost. Who is considered to not be able to afford coverage? According to the Baucus blueprint, families making less than FOUR HUNDRED PERCENT of the federal poverty level, or about $85,000 a yearfor a family of four.

The reason for not getting to wonky on the details? Obama learned from Hillary. She brought in about 3 million "experts" from every possible interest group to help build her plan. Instead they ended up with a brawl in the White House and nothing getting done. Obama will limit the number of folks coming in to give ideas, and limit the amount of information that comes out, lest we get unruly about the details again.

There will be interst groups that do bitch. Unions will be the biggest. While they claim to love the idea of universal care, their members may balk at it; and then you'll have them asking for an exemption for collectively bargained benefits.

Obama say's he'll exempt small businesses from the mandate, but the level that equals "small" hasn't been set. Is it based on number of employees, gross income of the company? Who knows, and we probably won't until it gets to the floors Congress.

Baucus' plan gives no idea of what it will cost. "Conservative" estimates are about $150 billion a year. That's a joke folks, even if Katie Couric can say it with a straight face. Medicare, which only covers about 44 million people has a baseline budget number for 2009 of $420 BILLION. Somehow, for 1/3 that amount, we think we can double the number of people in the program, and more than likely triple it.

Tripling may actually be a conservative estimate, too. Consider that insurance companies will be asked to write group rate policies for everyone, and Obama has already said that he want's no pre-existing condition clauses. When you do the math on that, companies are going to walk from the business. Not being able to charge more to folks like me who are overweight, smoke, drink, and don't exercise means that they will have to jack up everyone's rates to cover us slobs. That means selling insurance suddenly becomes less profitable, if at all, and they'll start walking from the health coverage business.

If anyone doubts this, New Jersey provided a great example in the late 1980's and early 1990's with their auto coverage mandates. By the time the legislature there was done imposing restrictions on what could and couldn't be covered, and charged extra for, most of the big insurance companies just pulled out of the state.

That of course is the utopian vision of the left. Get rid of the private insurance companies, and just let the government handle health care all together. Seriously, considering how well they've done with Medicare and Medicaid why would anyone doubt their abilities to handle it for the rest of us, right?

Read The Full Post!

Predictions For The Next Two Years

Here's a bold, against the grain prediction for the next 2 years. Barack Obama will NOT push the extreme liberal agenda many in Congress want, and supporters will demand.


Like it or not, and many on the left will be in the NOT category, Obama has a couple of problems with pushing the repressed liberal agenda through to law. It's another case of reality meeting rhetoric.


The first is the economy, stupid. He can't afford a bunch of new social spending when he's already looking at a TWO TRILLION dollar deficit for next year. That's a big number, but with the bailout, and another looming economic stimulus, and a Detroit Bailout there just isn't the money. He knows he can only raise taxes on so many, so far, and not finish killing the economy.


Second, history. In the last 32 years the Democrats have controlled both houses of congress, and 1600 Pennsylvania for a total of 6 years. They lost 2 of 3 in 1980, finally got them all back in 1992; and then lost the House in 1994, and the Senate a few years later. All of the losses are easily attributable to pushing to big a social agenda too fast and coming up with economically horrible game plans; 1994 being the best case in point of it.


If you look at the choice of John Podesta as transition coordinator; and probably senior cabinet member; and Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff Obama has grabbed a couple of Clinton advisers that not only know what was done right in those 8 years, but what was done wrong. They'll probably both work towards a somewhat moderate agenda until after the mid term elections. It's entirely possible they'll work on him, and congress, to push a close to centrist agenda until 2012, to ensure a second term and continuing majorities.


Third, it's still the economy, stupid. Some of the pet projects of Democrats are going to get held off on until the economy recovers. One of the surprises in the first 100 days will be that the union backed "card check" legislation won't get signed into law, it may not make it in the first two years.


Obama and his advisers are smart enough to know that increasing labor costs when the job pool is shrinking isn't a great idea. So it will be brought up to placate the union bosses who supported him. But then will die because of a GOP threatened filibuster in the Senate.


So what will liberals get to keep them happy? They'll see a reimportation bill pass, to allow buying drugs from Canada. They may even get some modest price controls on drug bought through medicare with a "negoiated price" on many popular drugs.


SCHIP will expand to higher income levels. It will be hard to demonize childrens health care when the unemployment rate is going up. The GOP may be able to push through a timeframe on the expansion though, or economic milestones that bring it back to the current level.


The Bush tax cuts that took 30 million off the tax rolls will get extended, and some of them will be allowed to expire, specifically say "Welcome Back!" to the death tax and marriage penalty. Capital gains may end up off the table for a while, but increasing withholding for Social Security, in some form, for incomes over $200,000 will probably happen.


Liberals will also get a "security agreement" with Iraq that will bring everyone home in a relatively short amount of time. They'll also claim any problems after they leave aren't their problem because of such an agreement. Anyone looking for a long term basing agreement such as we have with Kuwait and Bahrain will be sorely disappointed.

Read The Full Post!

George McGovern's Surprising Thoughts

George McGovern was the 1972 Democratic nominee for President (He lost, in case you forgot), and a Senator from South Dakota. So, much to my surprise, he wrote a piece fitting of a GOP capitalist called "Freedom Means Responsibility" in Friday's Wall Street Journal.

McGovern blasts both the right and left for their "paternalism" on issues such as sub prime lending, health insurance (especially regulations by states), and payday loans. Surprising issues to hear someone from the left argue about leaving alone!

I'm not sure if what he's writing about health care is a jab at government managed care as a whole, or just on the silly regulations many states have put into effect, you can read it and figure that out:

Health-care paternalism creates another problem that's rarely mentioned: Many people can't afford the gold-plated health plans that are the only options available in their states.

Buying health insurance on the Internet and across state lines, where less expensive plans may be available, is prohibited by many state insurance commissions. Despite being able to buy car or home insurance with a mouse click, some state governments require their approved plans for purchase or none at all. It's as if states dictated that you had to buy a Mercedes or no car at all.

Wisconsin is a great example, the legislators complain incessantly about the rising cost, but every year or so add something to the list that is "required coverage" to sell policies in the state. Oddly, they are the same legislature that is considering required "al a carte pricing" for cable TV, because requiring consumers to purchase channels they don't watch isn't fair to them.

He sums up the entire article in a thought that is surprisingly simple, but positively true:

The nature of freedom of choice is that some people will misuse their responsibility and hurt themselves in the process. We should do our best to educate them, but without diminishing choice for everyone else.

Unfortunately many in today's legislative world won't listen to him, believing that government knows best, or should manage everything to protect us. We, as the consumer end up paying for the paternalism, through higher health care costs, more difficult to get mortgages, etc. But, hey, at least we are safe, right.

Read The Full Post!

McCain All But Owns GOP Nomination

Much to the chagrine of conservative talk radio folks, Mitt Romney suspended his campaign today for the GOP nomination, all but handing it to John McCain.

Glenn Beck made an interesting point on the whole election issue in a recent posting at his site, noting that nothing would be better for him professionally than a democrat in the White House.

That might explain his recent ideas about who he'd vote for in a Hillary/McCain election. Beck and Coulter wouldn't be voting for Hillary as the best thing for America, but instead the best thing for their personal pocketbooks.

The problem is, that for the long term good of the country, Hillary or Obama would be a huge problem. Consider that 4 of the current Supreme Court Justices are over 7o years old. Should Stevens (87) and Ginsburg (74) decide to leave, who would you rather have appoint their replacement, McCain or Hillary? Yes, I know the whole "Alito arguement", which most of the far right hasn't listened to all the way through. McCain said that justice like John Roberts are the type he'd be appointing, guys who are conservative but not in a confrontational way as Alito can be.

Worse, consider if Kennedy or Scalia both 71 were to retire with Hillary in the White House. Replacing a reliable conservative and the current swing vote on the court with two Ginsburgs probably wouldn't be a great thing.

On the topic of health care, how many folks really think that after electing Hillary, and getting some sort of HillaryCare passed we could just undo that after the next election? If you raised your hand go to the corner and put on a dunce hat. Killing a federal program, especially ones that the arguements "for the children" or "saving grandma" can be applied to is impossible. Look at the fight over common sense market reforms for Social Security, making it so that it would actually grow at a faster rate than the government IOU's the trust fund contains do now. It didn't happen because it was demonized. Try and kill health insurance for a few million see how that works out.

On the subject of money, while McCain argued against the Bush tax cuts, he's said he'd make them permanent. Hillary and Barrack won't, period. Add to that the fact McCain's biggest arguement against them wasn't the class warfare one that Rush clings to like a life preserver, but the growth of federal spending. He wanted spending cut before taxes. Considering that position it's likely he'd actually try and cut spending from our bloated 3.1 trillion dollar budget. Does anyone think that either Obama or Clinton is going to champion smaller budgets anywhere but the Defense Department?

When I think of those three issues; whether I'm crazy about McCain's stance on some other things or not; I can't stomach the idea of a Obama or Clinton White House controlling them. If you can you've got a lot stronger stomach than me.

Read The Full Post!

Health Care Everywhere

Health care is popping up everywhere, it seems. The UAW and GM's biggest issue in contract negotiations is getting the union to take over management of retiree health care. Hillary wants us all to buy insurance, and Wal-Mart is opening clinics in it's stores.

GM is the "lead company" in the UAW contract negotiations. One of GM, Ford and Chrysler's goals is to move retiree health care from the companies to the unions. Contrary to the belief of some in the UAW, this isn't "unprecedented". Most smaller unions have run their health care systems for retirees for years.

One only need look at the steel industry to see why the companies probably SHOULDN'T run the retiree health care system. When that industry collapsed tens of thousands of retirees too young for medi-care found themselves with no insurance. Considering the shape of Ford's balance sheet, retirees should be thinking this might not be a bad idea.

Hillary has announced her plan to get everyone insured, mandate it! That's right, a federal law that says you have to have insurance, but with a tax credit carrot to get you to buy it. The problem there is the tax credit doesn't show up until months after you have to pay your premiums, little solice to those who already forgo insurance because they can't afford it right now.

We already offer a number of tax incentives for health care, from credits to income offsets, her plan (like many republican one's) would expand on that for those who's employers don't offer insurance, or have it at a high cost.

Her plan, to her credit wouldn't create a new bureaucracy, instead it would expand existing one's, by making current federal government health care programs available to everyone. And of course, there are taxes. If you are an employer and don't offer insurance, you get taxed. If you got a tax cut in 2002, it'll be going away.

The cost of her plan? Supposedly $110 billion a year to cover 47 million. I say supposedly because as I pointed out when Barack Obama and John Edwards came out with similar numbers in the summer, we can't cover one third less than that number on Medicare for 3 times the cost. How are we now suddenly going to become so lean in government provided (mandated) health care that we cut the cost that much?

The UAW and Wal-Mart, of all folks, could end up as sort of strange bedfellows in the whole health care saga. Wal-Mart is opening quick care clinics in a number of it's stores, which have prices far lower than most doctors offices and hospitals (80-90% less than an ER visit).

They also offer low cost ($4) generic prescriptions, even if you aren't insured. If the UAW does end up as it's retiree's health care insurer, Wal-Mart may end up as one of their best options to keep their costs down.

The UAW would be smart to look into reimbursing retirees for generic prescriptions, and low cost office visits at something like the Redi-Care clinic's at Wal-Mart at a 100% rate. If you chose to use a higher cost alternative, you get less of it back.

As John Stossel pointed out on ABC's 20/20 last Friday, more insurance may actually be the worst solution to our health care system's rising prices. Areas of medicine that traditional insurance doesn't cover, lasik eye surgery, and cosmetic procedures have seen their prices come down relative to inflation, while insured proceedures keep going up. Why? Competition in those fields of medicine make it imperitive to keep costs down. ER's and regular doctors who take insurance don't have that incentive, because the patients aren't paying for (most of) the cost.

He also showed how HSA's (Health Saving's Accounts) at places like Whole Foods had reduced their costs, but not cut the quality of care that employees got. Instead of a huge cost major medical plan, Whole Foods offers a catastrophic care plan, and a $1500/yr HSA to employees. The workers suddenly started "shopping" for doctors when they needed something, instead of just going to the first one they found in the yellow pages. After grumbling by some employees about the loss of "traditional" insurance they held a vote, and 77% decided they liked the new plan better.

Technorati Tags: Health Care, Insurance, UAW, GM, Wal Mart, Hillary Clinton

Read The Full Post!

More Please....

Governor Rod Blagojevich has realized that me made a mistake with his proposal for a $6 Billion dollar tax hike on Illinois business. The Mistake? It wasn't big enough! That's right, just like at the federal level, the state has a problem with getting enough votes to pass things, so it buys them.

In this case the Governor was already going to go after "big bad business" and make them pay for free health care for everyone, and now an extra billion for schools and (supposedly) property tax relief.

Once again, our elected officials have shown that when the votes aren't there to get their way, they'll look for another way to buy votes to get their pet projects.

The biggest problem with this whole thing is that health care and property taxes aren't the biggest issues that he should be looking at in the state budgets. Instead, he might look at the state's underfunded pension liabilities; a problem he's exasperated by funding other projects by deferring payments to that fund.

School funding is an issue, but it's one that could be addressed separately from the health issue, and probably get enough votes to pass on it's own merits if the right plan were presented.

Instead, Governor "Buy All The Votes" has decided that instead of taking care of existing problems; which may well require a tax increase; he'd rather create huge new layers of goverment, and probably future funding issues.

Technorati Tags: Illinois, Blagojevich, Health Care, Taxes, Business, Government

Read The Full Post!

Obama Called Out

I've posted a number of times about the Democrat's plans for 'Universal Health Care', and specifically about Barack Obama touting it as a major campaign theme, though it's not on his web site anywhere.

Yesterday in Las Vegas an audience member at a candidates forum asked Obama what his plan was, since it's no where to be found on his website. The answer is he doesn't have one yet, the campaign is young; but it's really important to him, and he'll have universal care in place by the end of his first term.

John Edwards claims he can pay for a 90-120 billion dollar program by simply removing the 2002 tax cuts on incomes over 200,000 per year. However, if you do the math on that, those 3.01 million people will each get a tax increase of just under 40,000 per year to pay for his plan.
(the math can be done here by dividing cell B160 by the amount the plan will cost). If you look at the 2002 tax numbers you'll see that he'll have to raise extra revenue somewhere.

Now, if this is true universal coverage, I want to know how, at $400 per person, Mr. Edwards is going to make this happen. Other countries providing universal coverage are spending between 3 and 10 times that per year per person.

Bill Richardson claimed he'll do it for about the same price, without raising taxes. Instead, he'll end the war in Iraq and use all the money for health care. Again, not telling us how he's going to cover everyone for under $500 per person each year.

Hillary say's (link is to new WaPo story) she's going to adjust the current system of employer based health care, and expand it by going after insurance company profits to cover the uninsured. With 45 million uninsured she'd have to get about 45 billion from the insurance companies per year to take care of that. While they've had decent profits, I'm pretty sure they weren't that high.

Dennis Kucinich, to his credit, called out the rest of the field telling them their band-aid approach wasn't going to work, and would cost too much. He wants to scrape the current system entirely, and start from scratch.

The problem with his idea is convincing the 85% of us who are covered, and 60% who are happy with it, that we need to give up what we have for a new government run program. Whie it would be the most painful way of doing things for the majority of us, from a pure standpoint of getting the system right Kucinich's idea is the only one that makes sense.

Technorati Tags: Democrats, Health Care, Insurance, Obama, Clinton, Richardson, Edwards, Kucinich

Read The Full Post!

Where's the Beef?

So, Barak Obama is running for President. Yahoo, really, Yahoo. One of the cornerstones of his candidacy is his thought of universal health care for America. He's mentioned it in a number of speeches, including yesterday's making his run officials. He tells us how important it is, but He's never given any specifics on how he's going to make it happen.

In fact, when you look at the issues section of his website, and click on the health care link, you find that there is no mention of this lofty goal. There is a lot of fluff, some of it recycled from George Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns (Medical Information Technology, Report Cards for hospitals and doctors). But no where is there a mention of universal health care, how it would work or where the money would come from.

I mentioned a couple of posts ago about some hurdles that have to be overcome to bring about universal health care, and Obama has, so far, addressed none of the issues with such a goal.

So, Senator Obama, I'll ask you that age old question "Where's the Beef?" when it comes to your desire for universal health care? How are you going to do this?

Technorati Tags: Obama, Health Care, 2008, Elections

Read The Full Post!