Wednesday, December 23, 2009
The Reid Plan, or a Better Way?
I had barely posted my previous submission and headed out the door for my 5 mile run/walk when the thought occurred to me, “I had failed to fully analyze and develop my thoughts regarding the cost of Reid’s plan.”
So, in an effort to correct that failure, I offer this update.
In my original post I discussed the addition of $518 billion in taxes associated with the Reid bill. I my rush, I didn’t consider that that $518 billion is over 10 years, not per year as stated. With that, the cost of “insurance” averaged per family of the “uninsured” is reduced to about $5,412 per year. On its face that’s a reduction, for those “families,” in the cost of their “health care insurance” at least as it relates to the American taxpayer when compared to the “average” cost of private insurance.
Score one for Reid.
But the Reid plan is not going to cost merely the $518 billion in new taxes. Democrats talk about a $1 Trillion cost over 10 years. Reid claims to pay for about half the cost of his plan through “found savings” in Medicare and other areas of health care.
That $1 Trillion expense, amortized over the “30 million uninsured” results in a cost per family of $10,477 per year, back above the cost of private insurance by 66%. So Reid’s plan will cost far more than it would to simply have the taxpayer foot the bill for private insurance for the targeted group.
But there’s one more step. While Reid’s plan calls for taxes starting in 2010, the “benefits don’t actually begin until 3 years later in 2014. So the cost of the Reid plan is actually amortized over 7 years, not 10 years. That means the cost of insuring the “uninsured” rises to $14,952 for each of our hypothetical families in the so called “30 million uninsured.” That’s an overrun of $8,624 per year, or 136%, above the average cost of private health insurance.
(Disclaimer, I do not advocate forcing taxpayers buy insurance for 30 million people, many who don’t have insurance by choice. I merely make the statement for the sake of the argument.)
No one who has observed Washington politics for any length of time believes the costing of Congressional legislation. There has never been a bill come out of Congress that cost what the legislation originally stated and never has it cost less. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say their cost projections are spot on.
Here’s where it get’s interesting. If, for the sake of argument, the taxpayer footed the private insurance bill for the 30 million “uninsured” to the tune of $60.46 billion, and Reid achieved his claim of $500 billion is savings from Medicare, et al, there would be no need for heaping $518 billion in new taxes on the American people.
In addition to letting Americans keep that $518 billion in their pockets to invest and spend in this economy, with the savings realized from his plan, Reid could cut taxes by $439 billion. That would be a huge shot in the arm for the economy and would serve to fuel economic growth and investment, creating jobs and reviving growth in all areas, including the struggling housing market.
On the other hand, if Reid followed true to his nature and didn’t trust the taxpayers with their own money, he could use the surplus to pay down the national debt. Now the following assumes that Congress will grab its collective self by the “neck” and make hard decisions, do away with waste, pork, gratuitous entitlements and unconstitutional programs that are better run by local and state governments. I know, that’s a huge assumption but let’s enjoy the fantasy for a moment.
For the sake of argument, let’s say they do it. They balance the federal budget, then take the $439 billion saved after buying private insurance for the “uninsured” and begin paying down the national debt, you know, that $12 Trillion behemoth that hangs over the head of every American like a guillotine and threatens our national security.
If they could bring themselves to do it, that is, pay down debt instead of creating more, after 13 years it would be cut nearly in half. By the time my young nephews and nieces were getting close to retirement 28 years from now the national debt would be history and they could enjoy a retirement free of the worry of a government that would tax away their savings and compete for the investment and interest earnings they should be receiving on their hard earned money.
As a further benefit, my family, along with the progeny of all Americans would be able to live in a world where their country and by extension themselves, could not be held hostage by the political aspirations of a foreign nation, i.e. China, Japan, OPEC, that is bent on threatening to collapse the US economy by demanding immediate repayment of debt held, or simply refuse to buy more.
That alternative reality, paying down the national debt, the US becoming a creditor rather than a debtor nation, would allow them to enjoy a prosperous and peaceful retirement in their “golden years.”
In either case, the “savings” that Reid claims to find would filter through to the rest of the health care system, resulting in decreased costs which in turn would mean insurance companies, with decreased exposure could lower the cost of health care premiums. That in turn would decrease the cost to taxpayer for both their own insurance plans and those of the formerly “uninsured.”
Taking those newly found dollars, individual Americans would begin investing them in the economy through direct investment or through spending for goods and service. That in turn would add even more fuel to the engine of economic growth.
So I stand by my original conclusion, there is a better way to accomplish providing health care insurance for Harry Reid’s target group. Again, I don’t agree with his premise, but using his premise and tools, there is a better way that would strengthen and grow the economy. Not become an anchor around our necks and drag us into a deep, dark abyss.
"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson
Labels: economy, Harry Reid, health care, insurance, interest rates, uninsured
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Health Care For Less?
So, the Harry Reid health insurance bill going through the Senate will increase taxes by $518 billion initially. I refer to it as the “Harry Reid” bill because it has no resemblance to the bills that came out of the Senate committees and was concocted under the cover of darkness over this past weekend.
Anyway, it will increase taxes by a reported $518 billion for the purpose of insuring the “30 million uninsured.” That comes to $17,266 per individual to insure all of these allegedly uninsured. Or, with the average family consisting of 3.14 persons according to the US Census Bureau, $54,217 per family.
So, I wondered, how does that compare to the average health insurance premium in the United States. Just how much do these “unaffordable” health insurance premiums the Democrats have so vilified as “too expensive” for the average family actually cost?
According to an article on About.com:
In a report (Individual Health Insurance 2009: A Comprehensive Survey of Premiums,Availability, and Benefits) made public in October 2009, America's Health Insurance Plans (a trade group representing health insurance companies) presented some interesting information that gives a sense of what health insurance policies cost when purchased by an individual.Across the country, the annual premium was $2,985 for a single person and $6,328 for a family. The annual premium was very different from state to state. For example, the premium for a family health plan in New York was $13,296, while a similar plan in Iowa was $5609. The annual premiums for health plans were also very different depending if the annual deductible was high or low. For example, family plans with no deductible had an average premium of $12686 each year, while plans with an annual deductible of $10,000 had an average premium of $5380 each year.
So while the premiums obviously vary widely according to the options a family selects, the average family health insurance premium costs $6,328 per year. Those “outrageous” private health insurance premiums actually cost $47,889 per year less than the “affordable” health insurance plan that Harry Reid has concocted when prorated over his target audience of an allegedly 30 million uninsured.
It seems that the Democrat plan to “lower the cost” of health care is actually going to cost eight and one half times more than what those nasty private insurance companies charge. Perhaps the citizens need to be investigating the excesses and illegal practices of Congress. It appears that the health insurance industry is actually doing a good job holding down the cost of health insurance.
If Reid had thought to simply buy insurance from the private companies for the alleged “uninsured” it would have only cost the taxpayers $60.46 billion. So it makes you wonder, what is this really all about? Is it about insuring the “uninsured” or is it about giving more power to Washington and socializing our national economy? The data would suggest it certainly isn’t about “cutting the cost of health care” as these bozos in Washington continually repeat.
Anybody ready for a tea party?
"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson
Labels: Democrats, Harry Reid, health care, insurance, taxes, tea party
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Like A Thief in the Night
The Senate, led by Harry Reid, is planning a preliminary vote on Reid's "health care" legislation at 0100, that's 1AM on Monday morning, December 21.
A vote in the middle of the night is very indicative of the nefarious nature of those trying to push this bill through. If it was good for the nation and had the support of the American people this vote would take place in the light of day, in full view on C-Span and in time to make the next day newspaper headlines.
That the Democrat leadership is sneaking around in the middle of the night like cockroaches speaks volumes.
Among other things, to get this bill this far Reid and his cronies has had to tighten rules against funding abortion, rules that will no doubt be stripped in conference. He also, apparently in a nod to his Hollywood supporters, stripped a tax on cosmetic surgery while throwing the youth who supported Obama under the bus by adding a 10% tax on tanning bed services.
This bill will add an additional $1 Trillion to the federal budget and while it is supposedly budget neutral, that is because the collection of new taxes will begin immediately, in some cases retroactively, while "benefits" won't start until 2014.
So while on paper the bill is "neutral" for the first 10 years, no one, at least on the Democrat side, is talking about what happens after that. Anyone with a 5th grade education can see that after 10 years, this bill will produce at minimum 30% annual deficits. That's before the inevitable excess costs inherit to every spending bill that has come out of Congress begins producing massive deficits.
If this bill passes, our government will have set in place the tool of its fiscal destruction and the collapse of the American economy. It may not be 5 or 10 or even 15 years away, but with this kind of reckless spending, no individual, business or, yes, even government can even hope to keep its financial head above water.
"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson
Labels: Democrats, financial crisis, health care, legislation, taxes
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Call and Write Your Senators About Harry Reid's Health Care Plan
Letters to my Senators regarding Harry Reid's "health care plan."
Dear Senator Nelson,
I implore you to respect the wishes of your constituency and vote against the pending health care legislation before the Senate. While the intentions of some may be good, the end result will be long term massive costs, increases in taxes and health care costs, and loss of services as budget restrictions force rationing of services.
The American people are far better at determining their own personal health care needs than 100 Senators and 435 Congresspersons who have little regard for the well being of their constituency.
To foist these overbearing measures on the 80% in order to supposedly provide for the 20%, a dubious justification at best, is not only wrongheaded, but indicative of the need for term limits to return elected officials to the states they hail from and limit political inbreeding in Washington.
We do not need the kind of health care reform Washington politicians are proposing, we need new representative who are more interested in statesmanship and the will of the people. Not a group of lemmings who blindly follow the party leadership.
Vote no on the Harry Reid led charge to decimate our health care system.
Dear Senator LeMieux,
Thank you for remaining steadfast in opposing the wrong headed and dangerous health care legislation pending before the Senate.
If our economy has even a possibility of recovery, this legislation will at best delay it, at worst, plummet us into a miserable decline.
The damage this legislation will inflict on the delivery of health care, on the health of individuals, and the economic health of families has been sorely underestimated.
Medicare currently costs many multiples of the originally stated cost. Senate Democrats have had to, in similar fashion to the University of East Anglia Climate "researcher", fudge the numbers and creatively skew them to show a "balanced" bill.
The truth is the ever increasing costs will result in massive deficits and/or unbearable taxation of American families that will be required after the stated 10 year “balanced” projections.
Thank you again for your stalwart opposition to this attempt to destroy our health care system, our economy and our nation.
I you haven't written and called your Senators, do so now, the time is short and the future of our nation and our economic well being is at stake.
Senate Directory: Look up your Senator and email him or her via the web mail application on their Senate website. Also check their Senate website for phone numbers or use the directory at TheOrator.com to call them. TheOrator weblinks to email your representatives may be broken. Try it before using the multistep process on the US Senate website.
"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson
Labels: Bill Nelson, George LeMeiux, Harry Reid, health care, politics, Senate, voting
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The cost of "my rights"
"A privilege is something we receive when someone else pays. The police and firefighters whose deaths we will remember this month on Sept. 11 in part purchased my "right" to walk the streets of New York terror-free." - Mindy Belz
Some might include "the home children live in, the bed they sleep in, the food they eat, the clothes they wear, ad nauseum." Sadly, many have put forth the argument that these "privileges" are "rights."
Many of yesterday's children have grown to become today's young adults who confuse "privileges" with "rights" and in the end determine it is their "right" to shove their hand, or better stated have government shove it's "hand," into the pockets of their friends, family, neighbors and fellow citizens to pay for what they erroneously believe to be "rights."
That's not only wrong; it's pure and simple, selfish, self-centered and self-destructive. No one has the "right" to someone else's property, wealth (great or small) or time unless there is an expectation of remuneration. Few have an understanding of the value of what other's have, that is especially true in children who are always demanding of their parents the latest in clothes, toys, electronics, entertainment, food with little understanding that there is a price to be paid for all and the source of that payment is finite.
Sometimes parents, in an attempt to please their children, quiet them, assuage their need to conform to their peer group or just feel like they are being good parents, will give into their child’s demands. That can lead to an unhealthy expectation on the part of the child that all their expectations are equally important and must be equally met. They may then extend that expectation to their adult expectations of what government and the taxpayer should give them, limiting their own social, moral, and financial personal responsibilities. They think it is their "right" to have what they want with no understanding of the cost.
Other times, a parent may be unable to provide for a child's demands for his "rights," or see those demands as unhealthy, and withhold some of those "privileges." The child may in young adulthood grow to think he was "abused" by his "unfair" parents and in rebellion turn to government as the "sugar daddy" to fill what he may see as "rights" but are really "privileges." Thus he demands from government, becomes a dependent of government, and ultimately becomes a slave to government to which he has ceded his power of freedom, and, perhaps, even life and death.
Much of the demand for "rights" in today's ongoing debate finds its root in the erroneous understanding of "rights" vs. "privilege" and the teaching our children have received in much of their education about the role of government in their lives. They have been taught that government is their source of everything and it is in government that they will find complete fulfillment of their needs.
Sadly, they have not learned that what government gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. There is no "zero sums" formula where there is no cost for added service. They have also not had the historical perspective of seeing that government rarely meets the promises it makes, nor does it create a program, policy, bureaucracy, benefit or entitlement that ends up meeting cost projections. Rather, without fail, legislative cost projections are exceeded by many multiples. What was sold as costing $100 million ends up costing $300 million. What was budgeted for $1 billion ends up costing $3 billion.
In the 1960's when Medicare was being debated in Congress, then President Lyndon Johnson, as a strong advocate of Medicare, counseled legislators that if they were to win the debate, and thus the vote, they had to move the debate off the subject of cost. He told them don't let the costs get projected too far out because it will scare other people:
"A health program yesterday runs $300 million, but the fools had to go to projecting it down the road five or six years, and when you project it the first year, it runs $900 million. Now I don't know whether I would approve $900 million second year or not. I might approve 450 or 500. But the first thing Dick Russell comes running in saying, 'My God, you've got a billion-dollar program for next year on health, therefore I'm against any of it now.' Do you follow me?"
That $300 million program now costs $408,000,000,000 in fiscal year 2009. That's $408 billion, 1,360 times its original projected cost and 14% of the federal budget. Medicare and SCHIP add another $224 billion to the current budget. Those plans have no incentive to hold down costs, in the twisted world of government budgeting, if an agency cuts costs and comes in under budget in one year, they are not rewarded but penalized.
Government also has no incentive to hold costs down, because it has the power of the legislative and judicial system to demand more and more taxation from the citizens it is supposed to protect. Yet, today's young adults, in their focus on perceived "rights" and "entitlements" fail to consider the ultimate cost of their demands for more and more government intervention in their lives.
We as individuals have a right to demand quality health care services from those we pay. We have the ability to go to a different provider when we are not served properly. We have that right because we are paying the bill, either directly or via individual or employer provided insurance plans. We pay for those plans either directly or as part of our compensation package. We have, not perfect control, but control nevertheless, over the direction of our health care.
Health care in the US is about 1/6th of our economy, which is 16% or $2.404 TRILLION dollars. That is 77% of the total US government outlay for FY2009. And some want to turn over control of that portion of our economy, no, our lives, to a faceless government bureaucrat.
Under a plan of "privilege" where my neighbor, friends and family pay for my health care via government controlled plans, whether the so called "public option" or government mandates, I become dependent on and responsible to that other party and the whims of bureaucracy to meet my very personal health care needs. To a people who know of the struggle of running up against a government bureaucracy like the IRS or Social Security or Medicare, where faceless individuals have near unlimited power over your income, your finance, your freedom, your health care and even your life, the thought of more invasion by government into the intimate area of personal health is an fearful affront.
Those who have no understanding or experience in these matters merely see it as a relief from the responsibilities of life. That's a relief they may one day come to regret.
"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson
Labels: children, federal budget deficit, government, health care, Medicare, personal responsibility
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
What is happening to our Republic?
"Treacherous leaders", "propaganda network." When one hears or reads these words it usually comes from the political apparatus of some third world dictator, not the president of the United States. But that’s exactly where they came from, and it wasn;t some harsh words for the leader of Iran, North Korea or Venezuela.
The Obama apparatus used these terms to demagogue his political opponents. This kind of language has never been used in the history of American politics. This organization is calling on its apparatus to call on their Senators on September 11 to pass the so called "Pubic Option" and "fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists." An amazing affront to the American people on the day we remember and mourn those whose lives were lost in the worst terrorist attack in this nations’ history.
His political apparatus is sending lesson plans to teachers to "guide" the classroom discussion both before and after the broadcast. This has all been characterized as message to "challenge students to work hard in school, to not drop out and to meet short-term goals like behaving in class, doing their homework."
Yet, what is the hidden goal? To build a relationship with children to disarm them and perhaps even divide them and their parents? We’ve seen this happen in other totalitarian societies. Nikita Kruschev warned America that communism would destroy her “from within.” Gain control of the classroom, and you have control of the nation.
"The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next," opined Abraham Lincoln. That works both ways. Obama’s guide, Saul Alinsky, and his friend, William Ayres, both taught that the battle is won in the classroom.
Now, with the battle for the future of America enjoined by the right, Obama and his minions are reaching for our very soul as they make a bold grab for our children. The question for us is, "will we stand idly by and allow this disgraceful and undemocratic, yes, un-American, political ploy in our children's classrooms go unchallenged, or will we stand and declare, 'Enough!'"
The administration already has a program to use the classroom to spread their message to children about the 2010 census. Some would say the purpose is more sinister, to spy on their parents. They have already called on American citizen to spy on each other and report "fishy" email and conversations to the White House.
They have taken bold measures to nationalize part of our finance and manufacturing sectors through "bail outs" and seek to take hold of 15% of our economy through nationalization of health care. In November 2008 the majority of voters succumbed to the sweet elixir of “hope and change.”
Is this the "hope and change" they wanted? To turn the world’s most successful democracy towards a socialist dictatorship? These may seem to be harsh words. But are we willing to speak soft platitudes while our nation is destroyed "from within." I pray not.
"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson
Labels: abuse of power, Barack Obama, Bill Ayres, census, children, classroom, demagogue, democracy, dictatorship, health care, healthcare, socialism, terrorism