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.

Photography 101: Session 01

Casual photographers usually put their cameras on "auto" or "program", relying on the camera to do the heavy lifting. Many times this is okay, but not always. Sometimes you will get better images when you take control over your camera. I find this mostly when it comes to indoor photography, especially when using flash. I thought I would offer a short tutorial here to help people understand some of the basics of the camera. Knowing the basics will help you a lot when it comes to taking control of your camera.

Most decent point and shoot and d-slr cameras give you a choice of shooting modes. The basic modes (the ones you want to learn) are aperture priority, shutter priority, program (or auto), and manual. Some cameras have additional modes, or scenes, that you can use, but I would recommend just learning and using the basic modes. So what are these modes, and when would you use them?

First of all, a few items you need to keep in mind. The main objective is to achieve the proper exposure. There are a number of ways to achieve the number "1". You can add 1/10 + 9/10, or you can add 3/10 + 7/10, or 5/10 + 5/10. If "1" represents your proper exposure, you need to juggle between the right combination of aperture and shutter speed to achieve that proper exposure. Aperture (aka f-stop) runs with numbers like 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16; whereas shutter speed numbers run like 2/4/8/15/30/60/125/250/500, etc. Going from one number to the next is considered a "stop". Moving one stop in shutter speed has the same affect in terms of light as one stop in aperture. So using my number "1" analogy, if I change 1/10 to 3/10, then I have change my second number from 9/10 down to 7/10 in order to add up to "1". One more important thing here: the aperture and shutter speed numbers are fractions. You need to put a "1" above the number, so you have a shutter speed of 1/2 a second, or a shutter speed of 1/500 of a second. With apertures, 1/4 is a bigger number than 1/16.

Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Program modes are all auto-exposure modes. The camera is determining the proper exposure. All three of these modes should be giving you the same exposure. What varies between them is the combination of numbers.

Aperture Priority: Aperture deal with the lens. It controls the amount of light that comes through the lens. If it is bright out, you might want to reduce the amount of light coming through the lens by closing the aperture (setting it to one of the higher numbers). If it is dark, you would want to do the opposite. Apertures also control your depth of field, or in other words, how much of what you are shooting stays in focus. This also has a lot to do with the kind of lens you are using. In most cases it is best to open your aperture up as wide as possible, letting in as much light as possible through the lens. This allows you to shoot your image with a faster shutter speed. With Aperture Priority, you are setting the aperture where you want it, and then letting the camera determine the shutter speed.

Shutter Speed: Shutter speed deals with the camera. It controls how much light comes through the camera. A slower shutter speed allows more light to hit your sensor, but think about it, as long as the shutter is open, the camera is recording information. So if someone is moving, you will capture all the movement, which means blur. To eliminate blur you want to shoot at a high shutter speed. A higher shutter speed means that less light in coming through the shutter, so you very well may need to bolster the amount of light coming in through the lens by opening up the aperture. Remember, these two work together, and your ultimate goal is a proper exposure. Shutter Priority allows you to set the shutter speed you want, then the camera sets the aperture automatically.

Program Mode: Program mode basically lets the camera determine both the aperture and the shutter speed. Usually it tries to optimize both, which can be fine, especially when you are outside. But oftentimes you can optimize the aperture and/or shutter speed much better by using the shutter or aperture priorities modes. I personally use Aperture Priority almost all the time when shooting outdoor. I like opening up my aperture to the max, not only so I can blur out the background with my longer lens, but because it will give me the fastest shutter speed, which is usually what I want.

Manual Mode: Manual mode lets you set both the aperture and the shutter speed manually. This can be handy in difficult lighting situations when it appears that the in camera exposure meter might get fooled by the lighting, thereby giving you a wrong exposure. Manual mode also comes in handy when shooting indoor with flash. I shoot everything indoor in manual mode. More about that in another posting to come.

One more thing to keep in mind: there is a third element involved in affecting your exposure . . the iso setting. ISO is light sensitivity. Lower numbers like 100 or 200 means less sensitive to light than the higher numbers. In digital terms, higher iso numbers can result in more noise in your images, so you generally want to use lower iso numbers for cleaner images. One of the biggest breakthroughs in digital though is the advancement in iso quality. It used to be that shooting at 400 iso brought noise. Now, in the higher end cameras, you can easily shoot at 3200 or 6400 with minimal noise. Those higher numbers mean shooting in even lower light. ISO numbers jump in "stops" just like aperture and shutter speed, so raising the ISO means being able to compensate with higher shutter speeds.

Lots of info here that might be new to you. Read through it a couple times, maybe with your camera in hand. Some lower end point and shoot cameras don't have any of these settings on them, so you are stuck. A good reason to spend a few dollars more on a camera that has these settings.

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.

My Website

I'm in the midst of doing some renovation on my website, with the help of Mike Keene, master web designer and husband to my niece Kindra. This is a concept that I'm considering using on my homepage.

(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.

Things You CAN'T Do When You're NOT a Dog

Low Cost Wedding Photography

I stumbled upon this article by photographer Sharon Dawson concerning inexperienced wedding photographers and thought the closing remarks were full of wisdom. Thought I would pass it along.

"While finding affordable wedding photography that fits your budget is important, taking the guy with the cheapest package you can find is taking a huge risk. Many top-notch wedding photographers have made enormous adjustments in their prices to compete with the Canon Rebel Gang. Don't be fooled by flashy websites, prices that you should find suspect, and promises of glorious, award winning photography for a thousand bucks. Take the time to really talk to your prospective photographer and learn about their experience. Flashy websites can be bought; experience is earned."

California and Las Vegas

I just got back from my trip out to San Diego and Las Vegas. Got to spend time with cousins in San Diego, friends in Lake Elsinore, and then off to Las Vegas for the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International trade show. The trade show was great for me . . always good to learn some new things and get some inspiration along the way. Although I have been to San Diego a couple other times, this was the first trip where I felt like I got to actually see the sights. Point Loma, Balboa Park, the Midway, Coronado . . it was all great. Here are a few images taken with my little Canon G9. Would have loved to have had the big boys with me, but carrying the G9 makes traveling a lot easier.