Like hundreds of other really bad horror films, the healthcare bill has been revived for yet another sequel. Just like the movies, most of the actors are the same; except of course, the ones that were killed off in the previous movies. The main character has been resurrected for each new film even though the end of the previous films seemed to suggest this ghoulish figure had met its demise.
In the original healthcare fright, Universal care was created by the evil doctor, Baron Von Clinton. That was more of a suggestive film since the horror remained hidden from view behind the closed doors of the conference room where it was created. It threatened the nation until it was eventually killed by common sense.
In the first sequel, “Son of Clinton”; Clinton’s protégé, Barack Obama, recreated the evil doctor’s work but this creature escaped the house and invaded the Senate. Then there was “The Curse of Clinton” featuring Max Baucus. The creature was altered by a committee of meddling scientists. Larger than ever, it left the Senate and returned to the house where it was created. This lead to the next film in the series; “The Bride of Clinton”. The Bride of Clinton” staring Nancy Pelosi, has reached monstrous proportions after an additional 900 pages had been added. This one threatens to challenge your senses as early as Thursday in a theater near you.
In the original Frankenstein movies, the real menace was not the monster, but the scientist that dabbled in the areas of life and death traditionally reserved for God. In his attempt to create life, this misguided doctor created a monster. While he could reanimate the dead, he could not give the beast something he had no knowledge of; a soul. Just as Frankenstein created his monster through ignorance, Congress has now created their own monstrosity. They may know legislative language but they have no idea of what it would take to actually create a soul for this document.
They are not doctors so they do not understand medicine. Most have been in public service their entire lives so they have no idea how business functions let alone how to run a business. There is only one Congress so competition is simply an exercise in theory to them. They are legislators and anytime legislators try to write laws that directly control the mission of business or that attempts to hamper personal choice, it is doomed to end in failure.
Frankenstein was so engrossed in his quest to discover the secret of life that he never bothered to consider if he should. Congress is now so obsessed with passing healthcare legislation that they have cobbled up this hideous 1900 page monster from the dissected pieces of all of the other dead bills and now they intend to breathe life into it before they know the full scope of what it will do once it has opened its eyes.
This bill is intended to eliminate private insurance despite the Presidents promises. Within the bill it is stated that in 2013, people with private or small group healthcare plans will be transitioned to the ”exchange” where they can then get a plan acceptable to the Federal Government. Similarly, the only employer provided healthcare plans that can be “grandfathered” in, are plans that meet the benefit descriptions required in the bill and that are in effect prior to the first year of this legislation. Of course we all know that healthcare plans are annual contracts and the benefit levels and deductibles change quite frequently when the contracts are renewed. It’s safe to say that even though you have a plan that qualifies under the grandfather clause, that plan will no longer qualify if it changes in any way during contract renewal. The few employer based plans that remain grandfathered will most likely be the so-called “Cadillac” plans that they intend to tax out of existence by tacking a 40% surcharge onto the premium to help fund the public option or that cease to exist when they are forced to compete against a heavily subsidized public plan.
The plan creates a healthcare benefits board that consists of the Surgeon General and twenty-six additional government and non-government people that are appointed directly by the President or appointed by other Presidential appointees. This board will determine the benefit levels in the plan, the rate at which doctors and hospitals will be reimbursed (for the public option) and yes, the allocation of resources. It is this board that will be the “death panel”; not the end of life counseling everyone was afraid of.
You see the real aim if this legislation is not to insure that all American’s have affordable healthcare. Independent studies have already concluded that private insurance costs will triple under this plan and the premium costs for the public option or “Consumer Option” as Nancy Pelosi wants to call it, will only be marginally lower than private plans unless you qualify for the redistribution of wealth (subsidy for low income families). It is not about insuring the uninsured as the CBO states that this bill will only cover 2% of people under the age of 65.
The CBO says it will cost 1.05 trillion dollars in the first ten years even though the actual benefits don’t fully kick in until year five. That means that if the government keeps its promise to make the required cuts (which they have never done in the past) and keeps its promise to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse (which they have never done in the past), this bill will actually cost close to 3 trillion dollars in year five through year fifteen. In fact, the bill’s “budget neutrality” is a myth of creative accounting unless private care is eliminated, everyone is forced into the public option, allowing the healthcare benefits board to mandate lower reimbursement rates for healthcare providers; which is exactly what I think this is designed to do.
This bill is not about care, your costs or the uninsured. It has everything to do with the Federal entitlement programs that already exist. Medicare and Medicaid were in serious trouble three years after they were created. In 1968, Congress raided the Social Security Trust to use those funds to shore up Medicare and Medicaid. They then placed Social Security as a line on the Federal Budget and stuffed it full of IOU’s. Now that the baby-boomers are retiring, people are living longer than ever and Medicare and Medicaid are still a financial train wreck, the government needed to find an innovative way to get more money from the public to keep the Ponzi scheme alive. The healthcare industry represents one sixth of the United States economy and having that money run through the government entitlement machine first would keep the gears of that machine greased for an awfully long time before it would be in crisis again; or so goes the logic.
The problem with that logic is that the government has never managed any public entitlement program effectively, efficiently or with even a modest degree of success. As I said before; they not businessmen nor are they doctors; they are legislators and truthfully, they aren’t very good at that either. If this is in fact a plan to restore solvency to the Federal Budget only one of two things can happen. It will fail miserable (as usual), bankrupt the Federal Government and collapse our economy or it will reduce the healthcare system in this country into the same bureaucratic nightmare that England has had since World War II, where hospitals have longer lines than airports, benefits are rationed and care is determined by placing a value on life.
So here we are, November 3, 2009 and today’s election may spell life or death for the healthcare debate as President Obama is, in essence, on trial in three east coast races. A loss for Democrats in the three most visible races, New York’s 23rd Congressional District and the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races will signify that the nation is not in support of massive spending bills and the cut-throat politics that are being employed to pass them.
To borrow a phrase from the Clinton campaign…”It’s the economy stupid!” People that are out of work want to see government action that provides incentives to businesses that actually create lasting jobs. A half-assed stimulus plan that provides a momentary bump in GDP is not being seen as meaningful. The lucky people that still have jobs live in fear of losing them as every piece of legislation currently under discussion threatens new restrictions and taxes on the people that employ them and they know that if these bills pass, their employers will have to make hard choices about who will stay, and who will go. The real engine of the economy is on hold. No one in business is expanding until they know what their liabilities will be. Investors are holding off as well; after all, why should anyone place capital at risk if the potential gain might be taxed until the profits resemble what can safely be acquired through T-bills?
The trend is definitely over and the sun is setting on the FDR Democrats. Massive spending legislation, omnibus bills, high taxes, new entitlement programs and especially non-accountability in government are all out of fashion now. If NY, NJ and VA all turn on Obama, look for a mudslide in 2010. I say mudslide only because that describes the people that will be displaced far more accurately than “landslide” ever could.
Paul
In the original healthcare fright, Universal care was created by the evil doctor, Baron Von Clinton. That was more of a suggestive film since the horror remained hidden from view behind the closed doors of the conference room where it was created. It threatened the nation until it was eventually killed by common sense.
In the first sequel, “Son of Clinton”; Clinton’s protégé, Barack Obama, recreated the evil doctor’s work but this creature escaped the house and invaded the Senate. Then there was “The Curse of Clinton” featuring Max Baucus. The creature was altered by a committee of meddling scientists. Larger than ever, it left the Senate and returned to the house where it was created. This lead to the next film in the series; “The Bride of Clinton”. The Bride of Clinton” staring Nancy Pelosi, has reached monstrous proportions after an additional 900 pages had been added. This one threatens to challenge your senses as early as Thursday in a theater near you.
In the original Frankenstein movies, the real menace was not the monster, but the scientist that dabbled in the areas of life and death traditionally reserved for God. In his attempt to create life, this misguided doctor created a monster. While he could reanimate the dead, he could not give the beast something he had no knowledge of; a soul. Just as Frankenstein created his monster through ignorance, Congress has now created their own monstrosity. They may know legislative language but they have no idea of what it would take to actually create a soul for this document.
They are not doctors so they do not understand medicine. Most have been in public service their entire lives so they have no idea how business functions let alone how to run a business. There is only one Congress so competition is simply an exercise in theory to them. They are legislators and anytime legislators try to write laws that directly control the mission of business or that attempts to hamper personal choice, it is doomed to end in failure.
Frankenstein was so engrossed in his quest to discover the secret of life that he never bothered to consider if he should. Congress is now so obsessed with passing healthcare legislation that they have cobbled up this hideous 1900 page monster from the dissected pieces of all of the other dead bills and now they intend to breathe life into it before they know the full scope of what it will do once it has opened its eyes.
This bill is intended to eliminate private insurance despite the Presidents promises. Within the bill it is stated that in 2013, people with private or small group healthcare plans will be transitioned to the ”exchange” where they can then get a plan acceptable to the Federal Government. Similarly, the only employer provided healthcare plans that can be “grandfathered” in, are plans that meet the benefit descriptions required in the bill and that are in effect prior to the first year of this legislation. Of course we all know that healthcare plans are annual contracts and the benefit levels and deductibles change quite frequently when the contracts are renewed. It’s safe to say that even though you have a plan that qualifies under the grandfather clause, that plan will no longer qualify if it changes in any way during contract renewal. The few employer based plans that remain grandfathered will most likely be the so-called “Cadillac” plans that they intend to tax out of existence by tacking a 40% surcharge onto the premium to help fund the public option or that cease to exist when they are forced to compete against a heavily subsidized public plan.
The plan creates a healthcare benefits board that consists of the Surgeon General and twenty-six additional government and non-government people that are appointed directly by the President or appointed by other Presidential appointees. This board will determine the benefit levels in the plan, the rate at which doctors and hospitals will be reimbursed (for the public option) and yes, the allocation of resources. It is this board that will be the “death panel”; not the end of life counseling everyone was afraid of.
You see the real aim if this legislation is not to insure that all American’s have affordable healthcare. Independent studies have already concluded that private insurance costs will triple under this plan and the premium costs for the public option or “Consumer Option” as Nancy Pelosi wants to call it, will only be marginally lower than private plans unless you qualify for the redistribution of wealth (subsidy for low income families). It is not about insuring the uninsured as the CBO states that this bill will only cover 2% of people under the age of 65.
The CBO says it will cost 1.05 trillion dollars in the first ten years even though the actual benefits don’t fully kick in until year five. That means that if the government keeps its promise to make the required cuts (which they have never done in the past) and keeps its promise to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse (which they have never done in the past), this bill will actually cost close to 3 trillion dollars in year five through year fifteen. In fact, the bill’s “budget neutrality” is a myth of creative accounting unless private care is eliminated, everyone is forced into the public option, allowing the healthcare benefits board to mandate lower reimbursement rates for healthcare providers; which is exactly what I think this is designed to do.
This bill is not about care, your costs or the uninsured. It has everything to do with the Federal entitlement programs that already exist. Medicare and Medicaid were in serious trouble three years after they were created. In 1968, Congress raided the Social Security Trust to use those funds to shore up Medicare and Medicaid. They then placed Social Security as a line on the Federal Budget and stuffed it full of IOU’s. Now that the baby-boomers are retiring, people are living longer than ever and Medicare and Medicaid are still a financial train wreck, the government needed to find an innovative way to get more money from the public to keep the Ponzi scheme alive. The healthcare industry represents one sixth of the United States economy and having that money run through the government entitlement machine first would keep the gears of that machine greased for an awfully long time before it would be in crisis again; or so goes the logic.
The problem with that logic is that the government has never managed any public entitlement program effectively, efficiently or with even a modest degree of success. As I said before; they not businessmen nor are they doctors; they are legislators and truthfully, they aren’t very good at that either. If this is in fact a plan to restore solvency to the Federal Budget only one of two things can happen. It will fail miserable (as usual), bankrupt the Federal Government and collapse our economy or it will reduce the healthcare system in this country into the same bureaucratic nightmare that England has had since World War II, where hospitals have longer lines than airports, benefits are rationed and care is determined by placing a value on life.
So here we are, November 3, 2009 and today’s election may spell life or death for the healthcare debate as President Obama is, in essence, on trial in three east coast races. A loss for Democrats in the three most visible races, New York’s 23rd Congressional District and the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races will signify that the nation is not in support of massive spending bills and the cut-throat politics that are being employed to pass them.
To borrow a phrase from the Clinton campaign…”It’s the economy stupid!” People that are out of work want to see government action that provides incentives to businesses that actually create lasting jobs. A half-assed stimulus plan that provides a momentary bump in GDP is not being seen as meaningful. The lucky people that still have jobs live in fear of losing them as every piece of legislation currently under discussion threatens new restrictions and taxes on the people that employ them and they know that if these bills pass, their employers will have to make hard choices about who will stay, and who will go. The real engine of the economy is on hold. No one in business is expanding until they know what their liabilities will be. Investors are holding off as well; after all, why should anyone place capital at risk if the potential gain might be taxed until the profits resemble what can safely be acquired through T-bills?
The trend is definitely over and the sun is setting on the FDR Democrats. Massive spending legislation, omnibus bills, high taxes, new entitlement programs and especially non-accountability in government are all out of fashion now. If NY, NJ and VA all turn on Obama, look for a mudslide in 2010. I say mudslide only because that describes the people that will be displaced far more accurately than “landslide” ever could.
Paul
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