The Entertainment Reform Bill

For decades now there have been a small but growing number of producers, entertainers, artists and directors (PEAD) who have made a disproportionate amount of revenue compared to the millions of other workers within the entertainment industry. Some of the PEAD rank as mega-stars, bringing in an income through fees and royalties that most people would agree is excessive. For decades this disparity has created a two class system within the entertainment world. At the same time fees paid by the general public have risen to a point where many Americans simply cannot afford this kind of entertainment. Millions of Americans are denied one of the most basic of rights: entertainment. It is imperative that Congress step in, take over the entertainment industry, and bring justice for those Americans who have lived without entertainment, especially the young. The Entertainment Reform Bill will introduce the right tools needed to make this dream a reality. This is just the beginning.

First, PEAD who see personal annual revenues over $250,000 will be levied a special tax rate investment that is 15 percentage points above all other Americans. Those PEAD who see personal annual revenues in excess of $1 million will incur a flat $250,000 per million above their normal tax investment obligations. These additional investment charges will help provide a more equitable entertainment community. (Parenthetically, we have not figured out a way to increase the revenue of those who earn the least, so for now we will resort to taking away from those who make the most, providing equity within the industry).

The second phase of this bill will be the start of the Rural Entertainment Mandate. Mega-star entertainers typically perform only in venues that hold over 10,000 people, which limit these kind of performances to urban areas. Rural Americans are denied this most basic right of entertainment. Under this bill, mega-star entertainers will be required to perform a minimum number of performances per year in venues that hold no more than 250 people and are in areas designated as "rural" by the Entertainment Commission.

Third in this bill will be a mandated limit in ticket prices. Entertainers must have their ticket prices approved by the Entertainment Price Structure Commission. This includes concerts, theater performances, and movies. Excessive pricing will incur a severe tax penalty.

Royalties to private individuals will be abolished. Any recognized royalties will now go into a relief fund that encourages and teaches conservative policies and ideals. For far too long this minority group within the entertainment industry has been treated unfairly, long denied of any equitable opportunities for success. The fund will help rectify years of abuse and intolerance.

Award shows will also be abolished. Americans have long been subjected to this exercise in excessiveness and self-absorption. These shows have served as an annual "in your face" event that divides America into a collective of those who have and those who have not. Additionally, no one should ever be signaled out for displaying excellence.

It is important to understand that with these measures, the federal government is not interested in running the entertainment industry. This is important legislation however as the federal government continues to make itself a larger presence in the lives of individuals, making life better for all. We must all do our part.

Coming Soon: Single Payer

If the health care bill signed today continues toward reality, there is no doubt in my mind that the inevitable future of health care in the U.S. is headed toward a single payer system. Private health insurance will become a thing of the past. Some people see this as a good thing. I do not.

First of all, why is it inevitable? The simple answer is because that is what the people on the left, particularly Obama, want. Their real desire is for the federal government to have full control over the money. Need a recent example? How about student loans. The health care bill was crafted to destroy private insurers. How long can they survive having to cover everyone, regardless of their risk? This is much like when lenders were mandated to lend money to people to buy a home who could not afford to pay back their loans. We all now know what happens when that takes place. People love the concept, as long as it is presented to them as something that is free. Imagine builders being mandated to install elevators in all homes with 2 or more stories. Yeah, I'd love to have an elevator in my home . . and it will be free. Free? Someone has to pay for it. Builders won't absorb that cost, they'll pass it along to buyers. So much for free. Same is true with health insurance. Someone has to absorb the cost of insuring millions of additional people, especially high risk people. When insurance companies are regulated to increase premiums by only so much, eventually they will be in a position where they are paying out more than they are taking in. Eventually they will go under.

The bigger issue though to me is that we have the federal government making promises to the American people (coverage for all with pre-existing conditions and no limits in benefits for example), but the only way they can achieve those promises is by mandating a private industry to fulfill those promises; all while conveying to the American public that this will come at no price to them. The larger question is what right does the federal government have to make such impositions on the American people in general, and on private companies specifically. People on the left will respond that this has been done in the past. They will point to federal regulations mandating safety measures or protecting civil rights. And they are right. But with each regulation and with mandate, a small sliver of freedom is taken away from Americans, forcing companies to either quit or move outside the country. Pretty soon, not only do those slivers start to add up, but eventually larger slivers are taken. And pretty soon you have a huge one, in the name of a health care bill.

One more thought: those on the left who embrace abortion do so on the notion of the right to privacy and the right of a woman to have full control of her body, absent of interference from the government. Wasn't their whole argument based on the concept that the government, by banning abortion, should not be able to tell a woman she has to have this baby? Shouldn't health care be a matter of privacy as well? What happens when the government starts making health care policies (mandates) as part of their socialist style health care that requires individuals to take certain medicine or bans certain medicine? Why are the same people who hate government interference when it comes to abortion now welcome government interference when it comes to all other matters of health care? To me it is the same disconnect the 1960 radicals had with their "down with the system" protests, all while embracing heavy handed dictators. Some things I just don't understand.

For Americans who have always wondered what it would be like to live in Europe, pretty soon you'll be able to experience it without leaving your home.

CBO Numbers for Health Care

Much is riding on the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) numbers concerning the health care bill. This past week the CBO reported that the health care bill will provide about $138 billion in savings for the deficit over the next 10 years. One point needs to be stressed here: the CBO can only issue a report based on the numbers Congress provides within the bill. If those numbers are not correct, or if there is no way those numbers will ever be realized, then the CBO numbers will be wrong. But the CBO has to go with Congress' numbers, with no qualifications.

To put this in perspective, let's say I want to buy a $1 million house, something that is beyond my ability. I fill out a loan application and tell the lender that I plan on marrying a wealthy heiress in about four or five years. In addition I plan on tripling my business, in large part by working 3 times harder than I do now. I attach numbers to these things, which in the end give the appearance that I will be making a lot more in 5 years than I do now. Additionally, I leave off of the loan application that I owe a neighbor $200,000. So, based on this information, should the lender give me a loan? If the lender was Nancy Pelosi, the answer would be yes. So what happens when I get this loan from Nancy Pelosi and none of these things come about. There is no way I can pay back the loan. I go in default, or bankruptcy.

This is essentially what is happening with the CBO numbers. There are two main sources of "income" that Congress has provided to the CBO to goose their numbers: 1) roughly $500 billion in Medicare savings by eliminating fraud, waste and abuse, and 2) a tax on cadillac insurance plans (mostly union related) that is supposed to be imposed starting in 2018 (roughly $130 billion). So, do you really believe that those numbers will become a reality? I sure don't. What are the chances that Congress, under pressure from unions, will repeal the cadillac tax? Even democrat leader Stenny Hoyer admitted that Congress will have to show courage in the future to make that happen. Yeah, right. And the $500 billion in Medicare waste and fraud? They have been talking about that for years, with absolutely no "courage" to do anything about it. And then there is the doctor fix in Medicare. That item, which has to happen, will cost an additional $200 billion; but that is a cost which won't look good on the CBO numbers, so it has been left off the health care bill and placed into a separate bill to be voted on later.

So when democrats throw around the CBO numbers, don't believe them. It would be like giving me a loan for my million dollar house, although I am still working on the rich heiress.

(un)Intended Consequences

I have a friend in Florida who is a financial/legal person with a large hospital. This guy understands policy and he understand economics. He told me that when stimulus money was sent to Florida early last year, there was a mandated provision that some of that money go to hospitals to hire more doctors. Sounds good. Problem is that there are a limited amount of doctors in the market, so when hospitals went to hire additional doctors away from other hospitals, those hospitals ended up having to offer their own doctors more money to stay. My friend said when this all started they were paying their doctors $130,000 a year. By the time it was over they were paying those same doctors $160,000, and they basically had the same amount of doctors. In other words, the stimulus allowed the doctors to get a $30,000 raise, and the stimulus paid for that, for a year. After that, the hospital was stuck with continuing to pay that additional amount on their own. No new doctors were hired.

It's always good to hear the back story of these "brilliant" moves by political leaders who apparently don't understand basic economics. Stories like this are the reason why I don't trust the numbers these people use to sell their health care reform, or why I don't believe their assertions will ever come about in the way they promise.

If Nancy Pelosi can put a definite number of how much money will be saved through eliminating fraud and waste in Medicare, that means she can point to where that fraud and waste is taking place. Why isn't she or anyone else going after that right now? Why do they need a bill to do that? If the bill does not pass, does that mean that she (they) will not deal with this waste and fraud?

If insurance companies are evil because they raise premiums 30-40%, isn't our federal government just as "evil" for raising our taxes, our debt, our deficit by those same percentages. I have no love affair for insurance companies, and I am definitely not anti-government; but democrats are falsely setting the insurance companies as the bad guys. The truth is their profit margin (3.3%) is rather small compared to most private industries. In fact there are 85 industries with higher profit margins. If Obama really wants to stick it to health insurance companies, make them compete with each other across state lines. Most monopolies, particularly the government, hate competition.

Obama Interview With Bret Baier

After watching Barack Obama's interview with Bret Baier Wednesday evening, I suspect that people who like Obama will believe that Baier was rude interrupting the non-stop talking of Obama, while those who don't like Obama will believe that Obama was defensive and never really answered any of the questions directly. One of the first questions was if this bill was so great for America, why has it been so messy trying to get it passed by Democrats who control both houses? Obama eluded that question.

What struck me most in the interview though was the question about Medicare. The question had to do with the double accounting taking place with the 500 billion "savings" in Medicare. That in and of itself is a huge question that, again, Obama didn't want to have anything to do with answering. Actually the answer he gave was the stuff for those who like to run fact checks. I doubt that anything he said was actually true. But what struck me more was his admission that Medicare is in deep trouble financially, to the tune of 38 trillion dollars. Medicare is essentially a government run insurance program, primarily for the elderly, started back in the mid 1960's. There are three ways you can describe what Medicare has become over the years: 1) heavily depended upon by elderly citizens, thereby making it impossible to change; 2) a cesspool for fraud and waste; and 3) a huge drain on our overall financial deficit. So the big elephant in the room question is this: how is this health care bill, with the inevitable takeover of all health insurance by the federal government, going to be any different than Medicare? What will prevent this entitlement from becoming an even bigger cesspool for fraud and waste, or from driving our economy into complete ruin?

I suppose the answer from Obama would be that with all Americans forced to carry insurance, younger healthy Americans will be paying into the system, helping to cover older and sicker Americans. Two problems: 1) what scheme does this sound like . . Social Security . . and we all know what great shape that is in; and 2) All that money out of the pockets of the young means that they will have even less to spend on buying a house or going to school or to save for eventually raising a family.

One other question that I have heard no one explain, even though Obama uses it over and over again in his talking points, with no one asking him how this actually will work: how do you cover people with pre-existing conditions and make it work financially? What happens when people hold off buying insurance (paying a penalty instead), then apply for insurance when they need it, knowing they cannot be turned down? Are there limits in how much coverage a person would get before someone comes along and says "enough". Right now, according to Obama, this bill will provide all things good and nothing bad. Somehow I just don't believe that. Apparently though, there are a lot of people who do.

Health Care Summit

A couple quick observations about the health care summit:

1) Enough with the anecdotes. Couldn't they from the very beginning just agree to do away with the stories. They are generally meaningless, most likely embellished, and waste time from getting down to the nitty gritty of making hard decisions.

2) Obama told them he hoped to wrap up by 4:15. They finished around 5:20. Lack of discipline, self-control and self-restraint on all of their parts, which is exactly the manner in which these people handle our money. That should be warning enough about how much to trust the numbers they casually throw out, and what they will ultimately do if given any control over health care.

Code Red December 15 DC Rally

Made it down to DC for the Code Red rally Tuesday. Not a large enough crowd to make Washington quake in their boots, but I kind of get the feeling that most people in Washington don't seem to care about their political futures anymore. Why else would these folks vote for a bill that, by all accounts, most Americans don't want? Second photo down is Laura Ingraham and SC Senator Jim Demint.

Health Care is a Buffet Meal

"This bill has caps on how much you pay, and it has NO caps on benefits you will receive". I don't know that I got the quote exactly right, but close enough to be accurate. This was Nancy Pelosi describing the health care bill just passed by the House on November 7. Please read that quote again, and think about it. Nancy is telling us so much here. First of all, Congress will tell private insurers how much they can charge their customers, placing limits on those charges. At the same time Congress will tell private insurers that they must cover anything and everything that a customer wants. First question: do we really want Congress interfering with private industry in this manner? Second question: how long can any business stay in business with this kind of business model? Third question: how long can the government (and the American taxpayer) sustain themselves with this kind of deficit creating model?

Nancy can promise lower premiums for government option health care because those premiums will be subsidized by taxes and/or by a growing debt. There is no other way to pay for it (don't believe any of their "promises" for cost cutting solutions). Nancy seems to believe that health care is basically a buffet lunch. You pay one fee and get to take whatever you like for as long as you like. Restaurants probably base their pricing on the idea that some people will eat a lot, but most people will end up not eating as much as they thought they would. For a restaurant, that model might work; for health care I am not so certain. Imagine if a restaurant was told by the government that they could only charge so much for their buffet, and then were also told that once someone paid, they were free to come and go throughout the day and even the week, all for that one low price. How long would they stay in business? Exactly. And this is the model that Nancy sees in her new health care bill. Do any of these people have a clue on how to run a business? Do they even have a clue on how to run a government? If what Nancy is telling you here sounds too good to be true, you are right.

Washington (Anti) Health Care Rally November 5

I made it down to DC Thursday for the (Anti) Health Care Rally. I did not take a sign or a gun or a swastika . . just wanted to be one more body against the Pelosi/Obama health care disaster. It was a bit disappointing because either the sound system was bad, or the speakers were not speaking into the mikes. Kind of hard to hear them, at least early on. I wasn't even sure who was speaking at times. I found it a bit ironic that the crowd applauded loudly for the large group of presumably Republican members of Congress when they marched out of the Capitol building down to the staging area. I guess it is mostly on the Senate side where many of the Republicans are spineless, but they also exist on the House side. Maybe the applause was intended for Michele Bachman, Mark Levin and Jon Voight. How many of the other members of Congress though would have taken the leadership to organize a rally like this? Very few I'm afraid.

The Art Of Selling

If I have a car that I have owned for 5 years and I want to sell that car to you, I would want to tell you about how great the car has been for me. If my intent was to be honest, I would tell you that it leaks oil and that my mechanic told me it would need about $2000 of repairs sometime in the next 6 months. If my intent is to sell you this car, I would skip all of that and just tell you about how great the car has been for me. The negative stuff would just discourage you, and I really want you to buy this car. I'm not being dishonest . . this really has been a great car for me. And if I am a really good salesman, all those questions you have about the condition of the car would be easily dismissed by pointing out how great this car has been for me.

With health care, President Obama and many of his fellow Democrats are trying to sell us a used car . . one that is a lemon. So far he has been all talk. Whenever you hear Obama talk about his health care plan (actually there is no Obama plan), listen to all the negatives he points out about the plan. There are no negatives. In his sales pitch everything about his plan is positive. Hhmmmm, that's strange. Almost sounds too good to be true.

In fact, Obama has all along been giving us one long sales job; and I know that I, for one, am getting really tired of it. Not worn down tired. I'm not anywhere near ready to buy this clunker. In fact I have already walked away, long ago realizing that this would be one big mistake of a purchase. Obama is everywhere: talking to school kids, addressing Congress, Leno, Sunday talk shows, and on and on. It seems to me the more he talks, the more people he is driving away. Add to that his Acorn associations and his crazy czars, plus tea party rallies and ridiculous charges of racism, soon Obama will lose the large part of the American public. It's already happening. His poll numbers are really, really low. People still seem to want to like him, but his policies are a whole different story. People just don't buy it. That's a good thing. The American public does not need a used car destined to break down, that is unless we pump even more money into it. We've all been there before, owning a car or an appliance that keeps breaking down. We keep spending money on repairs, to the point that we have to wonder if it is worth repairing anymore. Social Security, Medicare, Postal Service, Education . . all programs desperately in need of fixing. We pour more and more money into them, and they continue to break down. People are starting to wonder, is it worth it any longer?

Random Questions About Health Care

It seems to me the more President Obama talks about health care reform, the more questions there are about health care reform. No doubt it is a complicated issue; but there is a definite disconnect between what Obama says (promises) and what would actually take place in a real world. Is he lying? . . or is he naive? . . or is he right? I lean toward thinking he is just naive and that he really doesn't understand real world economics. Here are a few reasons why I think this:

Insurance Companies. When Obama says that he will demand that private insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions, and that

"They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses.... And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care",

he seems to believe that insurance companies can just absorb all of this without any affect on them or on policy holders. Or he is after one or both of the following: 1) he wants to force the private insurance companies to go out of business, and/or 2) he believes that insurance companies should not be profit making enterprises in the first place. This should scare any business owner. Imagine the government deciding that it is ridiculous how much barbershops charge for haircuts. Why should a person earning $30,000 pay the same amount for a haircut as someone earning $130,000? We will require barbers to charge less to people earning under $50,000. We will also require barbershops to cover, with no extra charge, routine shaves. To keep barbers honest, the federal government will set up public barbershops, offering discounted and subsidized haircuts. Yeah, this would have no affect on barbers.

Illegal Alien Coverage. This is a hot topic. Most Americans seem to believe that illegal aliens should not be covered under national health care. The president has made promises to that affect, even though he co-sponsored earlier in his career legislation that specifically included illegal aliens in health care coverage. On a practical level though, my question is this: Let's say that all Americans are covered, so people are supposedly not going to the emergency room for routine illnesses. Because everyone is covered, there is no longer a need to require emergency rooms to not turn people away. In fact emergency rooms would tell people to go see their government paid doctor using their government covered insurance to take care of their poison ivy rash. But on a practical level, what happens when an illegal alien shows up to the emergency room. Will the government or civil right organizations tolerate hospitals not providing health care to someone in need, even if they are here illegally? I doubt it. Will illegal aliens be covered? It might be through the back door, but yeah, they will be covered.

Fraud and Waste. The president says we will pay for health care reform largely through savings experienced by identifying and eliminating fraud and waste, particularly in Medicare. It would be really, really, really great if we could eliminate fraud and waste. So why have we not done it so far? On day one Obama could have tackled this without one piece of legislation. Has he tried yet? It doesn't appear so. Instead he wants to grow the very beast that seems to encourage fraud and waste. If my house was built with a lot of wood that easily rots, and I later build onto my house using that same kind of wood, how stupid is that? Wouldn't I have even more rotted wood five years from now? Compounding the issue is the notion that any monies saved by eliminating fraud and waste should go right back into additional spending, rather than paying off debt or perhaps even saving it, or giving it back to its rightful owner (the American public). This promise is a scam. Anyone who believes that Obama is serious about tackling corruption will believe anything.

Health Care, Housing, & Food

If health care is a constitutional right, then so is housing and food. All three are fundamental needs every person has (arguably housing and food more so), all are substantial pieces of our nation's GDP, all can be expensive for individual consumers. In that light, why shouldn't government be involved in fundamentally changing and reforming how we eat and where we sleep? Here is my modest proposal:

Let's start with food. There is no need for anyone to consume more than 2000 calories each day, and yet some people are wastefully doing that in one meal. Consider the amount of money saved if every person was limited to a daily diet of 2000 calories. Also consider how this program will turn fat and unhealthy people into thin and healthy people. A huge windfall for our health care system. I am proposing a Food Czar who will take care of administering this program. Anyone caught consuming more than their alloted 2000 calories will incur a 2.5% tax. The government will distribute coupons (to be known as Food Stamps) which will be the only accepted form of payment in purchasing food. Grocery stores found to not comply by also accepting dollar bills will incur a 7.5% tax.

Now to housing. It is fundamentally unfair that 50% of the people in the United States do not own their home. To rectify this, the federal government will buy all housing. People who currently do not own their home will have to rent from one of the government approved (owned) rental properties. People who currently own their home can keep it, for now. If they should move, they will have to turn their current home over to the government and rent from one of the government approved (owned) rental properties. If they still live in their home 5 years after this bill is passed, they will at that point have to turn their home over to the government and rent from one of the government approved (owned) rental properties. It should be noted here that the government really does not want to be in the housing business, and anyone who says otherwise is misled, lying, and un-American.

Whole Foods

Sometimes I wonder if by writing about things political, it has any affect on whether people would select me as their photographer for their wedding. After watching the response by ultra liberals to John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, and his opinions about health care, I have to imagine that yes it might affect the decision of some people. But to be honest, I don't really care. People can be petty and intolerant of other people and their opinions. I'm not quite sure why it should affect their decision though. My doctor had an Obama campaign poster hanging in his office the day Obama declared he was running for president. I did not change doctors. I go to him for medical advice and care, and I trust him. Period. I would hope people would treat me with that same kind of regard.

I do find it disgusting though what has been written about Mackey, as well as the boycotts these people are organizing against Whole Foods. I have no particular affection for Whole Foods. They are listed as one of the top 25 companies to work for though. They apparently offer great benefits, treat their employees very well, and generally line up with the liberal line of thinking on how to run a responsible company. They are non-union, so they have the union thugs to contend with, and undoubtedly the unions have seized on this moment to disgrace Mackey and Whole Foods. The flyer here (click on to enlarge) was being passed out by union members outside Whole Foods the other day. Pretty over the top in its wording. The UFCW website calls Mackey a "radical" for his stance against Obama's health care reform. Liberals seemed to love Mackey and Whole Foods, until Mackey took a stand against a policy pushed by their messiah. The nerve of this man.

A Reasonable Health Care Reform Proposal

I've been on this health care reform debate for some time now. Sorry about that, but this is important stuff for our country. A lot has been written denouncing the Obama plan for being a back door way for the federal government to take a fuller and deeper control over our lives; less has been written about what real reform should look like. A couple months ago I used an analogy about building motels and the need for choice. To take that analogy further, imagine the federal government mandated what every motel has to offer. Let's say that mandate includes everything from free internet to room service to ballrooms. Now, to be sure, motels already must conform to building and health codes, but after that motels are free to be different. It's those differences that make one motel cost $39 a night while the one next door is $139 a night. I'm usually fine with the $39 one. I don't need the ballroom or room service or the fancy bed sheets. If motels were mandated to offer not only everything, but the same things, chances are I would never have the $39 choice.

So what should real health care reform look like? How about the following:

1. Less regulation and fewer mandates laid on insurance companies by the federal government. Let insurance companies develop plans that don't cover every illness or disease represented by some lobbyist. If I am single with little chance of getting pregnant, why do I need pre-natal coverage?

2. Let insurance companies compete nationwide. I heard one senator mention that one of the problems with this is that coverage in northern Virginia costs more than in the midwest, so people in northern Virginia would be wanting to buy coverage from a midwest insurance company. Certainly companies can set a price structure depending on location, much like auto insurance companies do. Bottom line is competition and the inevitable result of lower prices.

3. Tort reform. This is the big elephant in the room that Democrats refuse to acknowledge. Reform the role lawyers play in jacking up costs in health care, and you could probably pay for all of those who are currently uninsured from that.

4. Reform Medicare. I don't have any proposals here, but this has been the government's attempt at federalized health care, and even while doctors continue to be underpaid through Medicare, it is still running a huge deficit. If Medicare was a stellar example of being a winner for everyone involved, perhaps a socialized style of health care would enjoy a better sell. On the contrary Medicare is in trouble and the government has been slow and ineffective in fixing it. That should be all the warning we need to have about the federal government's attempted takeover of health care.

Politicians make promises during election campaigns. While their numbers never add up and their promises seem empty, we let them slide because it is all part of the campaign. Health care promises are no longer part of an election campaign. Now the numbers need to add up, and the promises need to have substance and foundation to be believed. Obama is offering neither. His numbers don't make sense, his promises are not trustworthy. More and more people are realizing this, and consequently more and more people are unwilling to buy into the health care reform proposed by Obama and the democrats. For the sake of our country, this is a good thing.

My Town Hall Question

Mr. President: When it comes to health care reform, the only bill we have available to look at is the 1000 page bill in the House (H.R. 3200). When you tell the American people that detractors of health care reform are either misinformed or outright lying about the proposed legislation, by default you must be referring to this particular bill. Now, people smarter than me have read the entire bill, and they have in a very reasoned manner listed by section and page(s) aspects of the bill that they believe are troubling. Indeed, they have used the actual wording in the actual bill to make many of their points, points that you now describe as being false and/or misleading. For someone like me I have to ask myself, do I trust these people who have read the bill? Do I trust their assessment of the language, the intentions, the loopholes, and the ultimate consequences of this bill, or do I trust you?

The fact is that all of this is very confusing. You tell us that these people have it all wrong, and that the bill does not say what these people say it says; but I have yet to hear you point to any of the sections or any of the pages of the bill to make your point. In other words, you are asking us to simply trust you when you say that you don't want the federal government to take over health care, that we get to keep our own private health insurance, our own doctors, that all of this will cost us less and give us more, even though the bill seems to be saying the exact opposite. My question: would you provide the sections and the pages of the bill that support what you are telling us? As a follow up, if only one aspect of this bill were to survive, would you tell us the section and page(s) of the bill that you believe is the most important?

UPDATE: This following video is indicative of what I am referring to above. This video is on the White House Reality Check website. Everything that this doctor says, and everything that Obama says, is said without any reference to the actual bill. They make these promises and they tell us what they think we want to hear, but that doesn't matter if the bill says otherwise. Show me in the actual bill that congress might be voting on where it supports what you are promising.

Sheila Jackson Lee is Full Of It

Flipping through channels tonight, I caught Sheila Jackson Lee (SJL), Democratic Representative from Texas, being interviewed by Greta van Susteren. She was being asked about her behavior at this week's town hall in Texas. If you have not seen the video, while a woman was asking a question during the town hall, SJL pulled out her cellphone to talk with someone. This would be considered rude in just about everyone's book, but apparently not in hers. She did not think anything of it until called on it. But what is fishy to me is her explanation. She tells us that she was on a health hotline getting information about the health bill, which she claims she has read. I don't believe her excuse, and I don't believe her when she says she read the bill. Okay, maybe she read bits and pieces, let's say maybe 15-20 pages of the 1000. That way she can say in passing that she read the bill (just not all of it). I find the hotline excuse though highly questionable. I don't have a good explanation for why she would lie about that, other than talking with the health hotline sounds better than talking with someone about a dinner order. Thing is, who is going to fact check that? No one is going to make a request for phone records, although I wonder if those kind of records can be made public through the Freedom of Information Act. The woman asking the question said afterward that she was under the impression that SJL was talking with one of her aides in regards to recognizing dignitaries who were in attendance. This woman said this even after apparently having an extended conversation (according to SJL) with SJL after the town hall. In her interview tonight, SJL talked like this woman is her new best friend, and that she cares very much about her. Yeah, right. She also said she was all about listening to her constituents, but then proceeded to say that she was intent on convincing them that she is right about this health care bill, and that they are wrong. So much for listening.

If you are interested in reading someone else's thoughts on the health care bill, someone who has actually read it, my old college buddy Mark Hamilton has written a nice analysis of the bill.

He writes: "This bill is lengthy and boring with technical language making it extremely difficult to follow especially if one is not versed in the legal nuances of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. I’m a professional philosopher with the skill to decipher challenging reading, but this bill makes Aristotle and Kant look like a piece of cake. It will take bureaucrats years to explain and apply the intricacies of this bill and I doubt if more than a few Congressmen could even follow the train of thought.

The bill causes one to realize that we already have a large government controlled health care program called Medicare. The majority of this new bill is amendments to Medicare leading to a major expansion and overhaul of its system."

Health Care . . The Gateway Drug

On one hand we have health insurance companies who, as publicly held private enterprises, have managed to make pretty good profits. And while people have antidotal experiences when their insurance company let them down, by and large insurance companies come through for us when we file a claim. Now contrast that with government run programs, such as Medicare, or Obama's example . . the U.S. Postal Service. Both of these have been running at huge deficits. If they were private companies they would have gone out of business years ago. Instead, despite corruption and excessive waste, they are allowed to live on at our expense. We cover the difference through taxes and higher fees. If you were building a case for which system seems to work best, and which system we should be building upon, it seems obvious that private enterprise best serves our country and our needs. But if you owned a company, especially a struggling business trying to stay afloat, would you encourage people to use your competitors over you? No. You want their business. You need their business. And if you were in a position to legally put your competitors out of business, while you would think it wrong to do so, you would still entertain doing it.

No one knows what this health care reform bill will look like when congress votes on it, or what it will look like once it finally hits the president's desk, but even if it gets severely watered down, any doors left open for the federal government to exploit will eventually come back to bite us. Health care is a gateway drug for these politicians wanting a federalized, socialistic health care system in America. Once they get something passed that opens doors for more control, they will never be satisfied until they have full control. So far they have showed us their hand, much like Hilary showed her hand back in 1993. Back then there was no doubt that her plan (and her husband's) for health care was a greatly enlarged presence by the government. You would think in a capitalistic country that leaders would first try to solve problems within the context of capitalism, not socialism; and yet both the Clintons and Obama went right for the centralized government system as their solution.

Much of the fallback being heard at these town hall meetings is resistance toward socialist looking solutions, along with the accompanying spending, excessive taxation, and loss of personal responsibility and freedom. You could make the claim that, because of Obama's health care reform, our country has not been this divided in a long time. So much for the great uniter. I really have to wonder though if Obama really knows anything about what he is talking about. He publicly makes claims that are patently untrue: how doctors make decisions, how much doctors charge for amputating a leg, his own stance on single payer insurance, AARP's endorsement for his plan, This is important stuff, and since Obama is the face and voice for this reform, he needs to be accountable for what is in the bill. It would be good for him to have a 2 hour town hall with detractors to go in depth over significant aspects of the bill as it stands. By detractors I am not referring to a shouting match, but instead a reasoned back and forth. If he is going to make the claim that people will not lose their private insurance, then he needs to walk through those parts of the bill that put severe restrictions on private health insurers, explaining why those provisions are there, and what their ramifications will be on both the companies and on private citizens. Right now he gets away with just saying people will be able to keep their private insurance, and we're supposed to trust him on that, even through the bill seems to indicate something different.

Right now there is a lot of confusion over what the bill says and what people say is in the bill. 1000 pages of confusion. A 5th grader could read and understand our Constitution . . no confusion there. Right now we need some clarity.

Health Care . . Again

With all the town hall protests and unrest making the news, I'm kind of feeling like people are getting lost in the weeds over the issue of health care. Seems to me that the health care bill people are dissecting and arguing about is not really a bill yet. There are a lot of loose ends in it, so people are rightfully asking questions about what certain parts of it mean, but ultimately what a senator or congressman or the president says really doesn't matter, mostly because they really don't know what it says now or what it will say if and when it gets passed. There is absolutely no reason to believe politicians though when they claim that their reform will result in lower prices and better care. In fact I don't hear any Democratic politician telling us what the downside to this reform will be. Something has to give, either it will cost us personally or our economy in general a huge amount of dollars, and/or we will have to get by with fewer doctors, less care, and longer waits. If you believe what they are telling us, this reform will mean the best of everything for everyone. Yeah, right. No wonder we cannot trust them.

I said earlier that I thought people were getting lost in the weeds. By that I mean what I believe is really bothering people is that health care is just one more thing this administration wants to take over in our lives, regardless of the price. Add to it the billions spent on stimulus, bailing out banks and auto makers, cap and trade, energy, and on and on. Add all of these up, add up all of the money involved, add all of the government control, and you get one big, very obvious neon sign with lots of noise screaming "Our government is completely out of control!". I think what people are really saying is this: stop the spending . . stop the meddling . . stop the nonsense, before it destroys our country. Unfortunately, I don't get the impression that these politicians are listening. They know what is best for us. Yeah, right.

Something Doesn't Add Up

We keep hearing that there are approximately 45 million people in America without health care. That number has always been in dispute due to the amount of illegal aliens included, as well as the number of people who choose not to buy insurance (usually youth people) or people in between jobs. But get this: according to the 2006 census, the total population of the US is 297 million. The census reports that 202 million are covered by private insurance and that 80 million are covered by government health programs. 202 plus 80 equals 282. 297 minus 282 equals 15. So according to the 206 census, approximately 15 million people are without health insurance. 15 million is 15 million, a large number; but it is not 45 million. Do we really need to change the health care of 282 million in order to add on the other 15 million? Do we really need to turn over the entire health care system to the federal government? It would be like tearing down your entire house in order to remodel your half bath. Of course in the land of $5000 toilets, where Congress spends half a billion dollars to buy airplanes for their own use, you would expect this kind of nonsense.

Health Care Prediction

After being inspired by a comment made by Charles Krauthammer, I have a prediction on what will happen with Obama's health care reform. Krauthammer believes that ultimately what will pass this year will be some kind of health insurance reform legislation. If that ends up being true, my impression is that this will not involve any funds from the fed and will basically include any or all of the following: require insurance companies to cover people who in the past could not get insurance, require insurance companies to ignore pre-existing conditions, regulate how much insurance companies can charge for premiums, and regulate how much an insurance company can profit and/or earn. It would be a heavy handed way for the federal government to control the insurance industry, and ultimately health care, without the federal government having to outlay any funds . . for now.

If this scenario ends up coming true, health care will end up in the same position that the housing market found itself. In the housing industry, banks and mortgage companies were forced by the government to create mortgage vehicles and approve loans for people who otherwise could not afford to purchase a home. Traditional norms and standards that made sense for approving loans were abandoned. People on both sides of the aisle were excited to see home ownership numbers growing, but those numbers were built on unstable ground. As conditions changed and house values decreased, people who could not afford to pay their mortgage. So the government intervened, bailing out banks and taking greater control over how those banks operated.

Project out about five years from now. Health insurance companies, forced to take on clients who are wiping them out financially, forced to not be able to raise premiums without federal approval . . these companies will go under . . one by one. There to take over will be the federal government with its own insurance system . . and Obama's health care reform will finally take place. That is unless we can change the tide. It's time for a different kind of hope and change.