Health Care Reform in Context

Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I’m in a particularly poor mood today.  I see that Mr. Reid is hell bent on getting his disastrous power grab bill to the Senate Floor this weekend.  I see that Olympia Snow is willing (again) to sell her soul and to sell out her constituents just to grab a little power in exchange for a vote.  It makes me wonder why our elected officials seem unwilling to take on the important issues of the day but have lots of time to play politics.  Apologies in advance if this post is a bit less civil than my usual.

Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic

Pretend you are a Member of Congress, or a Senator, or the President.  There are lots of important issues for you to consider.

Quick.  Chose one of the following and make it priority 1 (one).  Once you have that, pick number 2 (two), then 3 (three) and so forth.

Education Reform

Energy Supply and Self Sufficiency

Economy – jobs

National Security

National Debt

Healthcare Reform

Environmental Policy

National Basketball League Salaries

Race Relations

National Infrastructure issues

Communications security

Where does Healthcare reform fall on your list?

Now tell me if Congress and the President have their priorities right.  Below are a few comments on some of the issues our government is concerned with today:

Health Care Reform - proposed cost (most analysts say this is VERY optimistic) $100 Billion per year more than now ($420 Billion for Medicare, $216 Billion for Medicaid) and will cover an additional 20 to 30 million people.

Medicare currently covers about 35 million people for an annual budget of about $420 Billion.  that means we spend about $12,000 per person covered.  That also means we are being asked to believe that a government healthcare option will cover 30 Million people for around $100 Billion a year, less than one third what the government pays now for each person covered by Medicare or $3,350 per person per year.

Energy Research and Development - Current Energy Department Budget is around $25 Billion total.  Does this mean that our government, for all its protests about gaining energy self-sufficiency, is about 30 times as concerned about health care as it is about energy (read ‘or about the economy’)?

Jobs were supposed to be created by injecting a Trillion dollars into our economy via the Recovery Act.  It looks to me like some of that money could have better been used to hire some people to run the Recovery.Gov website who could read and write.

Our National Debt is now in the ballpark of $12 Trillion.  That is just shy of our Gross Domestic Product of $14 Trillion.  Borrowing and spending at the rate of the first 10 months of the current government indicates a doubling of our National Debt in the next 5 to 7 years.  Does this not trouble Congress or the White House, or You?  How are you going to pay the $40,000 that you owe?  Or the $40,000 that your wife owes?  Of the $40,000 for each of your kids?

Are you as concerned about the Environment as our Congress?  When was the last time you heard anything come out of Washington about the safety of our water supply?  Our food supply?  How about Air Polution?  Do these things have anything to do with the health of our population?  Are they addressed in our ‘Health Care Reform” legislation which is pending?

What about National Security?  Are we more or less likely to suffer another 9-11 type attack today than we have been over the past half dozen years?  Are you at all concerned about the Taliban taking over Pakistan or at least gaining access to one of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons?  I am.  Does it make sense that the President is doing nothing to lead our armed forces and diplomatic service to resolve this problem?  For a candidate who said his predecessor was doing everything wrong (and was not concentrating on Afghanistan which was the war we should be fighting), to be 10+ months into his Presidency and to have done nothing to indicate he wants to lead us in this vital area strikes me as either cowardice or incompetence.

Education is a hot topic.  Are we losing the ‘battle of the mind’ to Asian countries?  Are we ignoring our most valuable resource, our children?  Is education something that should be left to the states?  Our Congress doesn’t seem to care since it seems to only have time for health care reform legislation.  I guess they must since their leader says, “….health care is the single most important thing we can do for America’s long-term fiscal health. That is a fact. That’s a fact.”  B.H. Obama to the AMA, June, 2009

In my not-so-humble opinion, the only thing that makes Health Care rise to the top of Mr. Obama’s agenda and Mr. Reid’s and Mrs. Pelosi’s is political power.  What you think is important is unimportant to them.  Health care reform is their ticket to even more power and control.  Little things like jobs and national security will take a back seat until they have their Health Care Reform (read power).

Have you called or written to your Senators to let them know how you feel?  They need to know.

Health Care Reform – Rationing Going Forward Without a Vote

The Obama Administration is hell bent on imposing some health care reform legislation on us.  I am convinced it will be the beginning of the end of the U.S. medical system that is the envy of the world.  What do I mean by that?  I mean that doctors all over the world look up to the medical innovation and the quality (not necessarily the delivery) of health care available in the USA.  I mean that when someone of means outside of the US gets sick or has a major medical problem, they want to go to the U.S. or have a U.S. team come to “fix them.”  When you have the freedom, when you are not controlled (completely) by government bureaucracy, you can take the risks needed to come up with the innovations that have driven most medical advances.  When you are paid a wage and have regular hours, your motivations change.  You get what they have in most European countries today which is an order of magnitude less than we have here in innovation.  You get a dwindling supply of doctors.  How many will be willing to go through all the hoops, the study, etc. to take a job that pays less than a medical equipment salesperson?

Okay.  I think you get the idea that I don’t like what Mrs. Pelosi, Mr. Reid and Mr. Obama are trying desperately to push down our throats.  If you still have doubts, see my other posts, here1, here2, and here3.

Now, about “going forward without a vote.”  It is not enough that the President and Congress are pushing with all their might.  Now they are imposing their plan for Health Care Rationing on us without our input and without legislation.  The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government panel that issues federal recommendations on preventive medicine, said that screening in a woman’s 40s does not save many lives and can do more harm than good.  Though this is just a recommendation, not law, it will lead insurers to write policies that follow the recommendation.  That means you will not get the procedure paid for in your 40s or but once each 24 months in your 50s and 60s.  In other words, since you will not be covered by your insurance for Mammograms except according to this Federal Recommendation, the effect is that Mammograms have been rationed by the Federal Government.

With the makeup of the USPSTF being mostly academics, I make the assumption they are more liberal than conservative and as such will back the aggressive “reform” program sought by the current administration.  To me this means that this is just the first step in Government Rationing.

Who needs Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi?

Please say Thank You

Xerox has a wonderful program that sends cards to our troops.  It is very easy.  Just go to the Let’s Say Thanks Webpage and choose a card and a greeting.  If you read the feedback that is on the site, you will understand how helpful this simple gesture is.  If you have a blog, post this.  If not, send it on to your address list.  Someone who is away from his or her family at the Holidays will appreciate your efforts.  Thank you.

Chutzpah, NY Times, The Ford Foundation, GM and Chinese Banks

Amazing news is being reported below the fold on page 43 of your friendly newspaper.  Can anyone help me understand the following?

1.  The Ford Foundation has just made a $100,000,000 (that one hundred million dollars) grant “to transform secondary education in the nation’s most disadvantaged schools.”  And to whom does the grant go?  A big chunk of it will go to the American Federation of Teachers Innovation Fund.  That’s right.  It will go to a teachers union.  If you want to see just how enthusiastic they are about this free money, watch the video at the AFT Innovation page.  Just the expressions on the faces of the Union Leaders will convince you that this is a group who’s enthusiasm will carry the day.  AFT President Randi Weingarten gets my vote as most charismatic speaker of the year.  Wow.

2.  G.M. has announced it will start paying back government bailout money at a pace of $1 Billion a month (plus $200 Million a month to Canada).  That announcement is hard to understand when G.M. continues to report large losses.  Do I sense a case of paying of your credit card debt with new credit cards?  Rather than work to cut costs, G.M. has decided to work harder to raise revenues.  To do that they are spending in advertising and promotion in the hope of getting sales back to pre Recession levels.  Doesn’t that sound like what governments do – raise taxes instead of cutting costs?  I almost forgot – G.M. is government.  There is an interesting article at SeekingAlpha that explains some of the confusing logic (or lack thereof) of G.M.’s Board.

3.  U.S. and Chinese officials are negotiating to allow (cash rich) Chinese banks to more easily buy interests in U.S. Banks.  I have no idea if this is a good or a bad idea.  I guess it is the logical extension of  TARP.  TARP took government money (taxpayer money) to prop up U.S. banks.  That money was financed by selling Treasury notes to the Chinese (among others).  Now, if we allow Chinese Banks to buy equity in small to medium sized US banks,  the banks get the money directly from the Chinese without losing much of it in U.S. government black holes.  Cutting out the middle man is almost always more efficient.

4.  A teacher in Elgin, Illinois has removed the chairs from her classroom and replaced them with exercise balls.  She claims students sitting on the balls (instead of chairs) pay attention better and are more focussed on their work.  Watch for the next big grant from the Ford Foundation to be for exercise balls.

5. I can’t even paraphrase this one, taken from James Taranto’s Best of the Web.  It is just too good as written:

• ”The argument against unions–that they unduly burden employers with unreasonable demands–is one that corporate America makes in good times and bad. . . . The real issue is whether enhanced unionizing would worsen the recession, and there is no evidence that it would. There is a strong argument that the slack labor market of a recession actually makes unions all the more important.”–editorial, New York Times, Dec. 29, 2008

• ”The New York Times News Service will lay off at least 25 editorial employees next year and will move the editing of the service to a Florida newspaper owned by The New York Times Company. . . . The plan for the news service calls for The Gainesville Sun, whose newsroom is not unionized and has lower salaries, to take over editing and page design.”–news story, New York Times, Nov. 13, 2009

Makes me think of the definition of CHUTZPAH sent to me by a friend yesterday:

A little old lady sold pretzels on a street corner  for 25 cents each.. Every day a young man would leave his  office building at lunch time, and as he passed the pretzel  stand, he would leave her a quarter, but never take a  pretzel.   And this went on for more then 3 years. The two of  them never spoke. One day, as the young man passed the old  lady’s stand and left his quarter as usual, the pretzel lady spoke to him. Without blinking an eye she said: “They’re 35 cents now!”

Communicating Simple Ideas

I was not significantly stirred by anything in the news this weekend to cause me to write a post.  I still think we need to make an effort to become more concerned about the effects of doubling our world population in the next 50 Years. I would love to know how to do that.  The key, of course is communication.  Communicating a simple idea can be a very difficult thing.  Please watch the video below.

I think it communicates a simple idea as well as it can be done.  It is a nice lesson and gives me hope we will find ways to communicate other important ideas and lessons.

The New Dark Ages? Where’s the Energy?

Tipped by a fine article in SeekingAlpha on Monday, I followed the link to a series of videos.  There are 8 videos of about 9 minutes each.  I cannot think of a better use of time , if you have any concerns for our future, than watching these videos.  Understanding the concepts that Professor Bartlett presents is critical to planning for our future. ( A disclosure: Nothing in this post should be viewed as investment advice.  Another disclosure:  I own oil futures and am betting on oil’s price to rise significantly. )

Now to the post I want you to read and understand.  My apologies in advance if in my haste to get this posted I have an error or two.  The main point is not an error.

Most data show that world population growth has averaged about 1.5% per year for the past 50 years.  The most recent rate is 1.15%.  For sake of argument, let’s predict that world population growth will average 1.38% for the next 50 years.  At that rate, the world population will grow from the current estimate of 6.7 Billion people to 13.4 Billion in the next 50 years, well within the lifetime of most people under the age of majority.

Now, let’s look at some of the consequences of this growth.  Agricultural production will need to double to feed 13.4 billion people.  Infrastructure needs will also double.  We will need twice the housing, twice the sewage treatment, and twice the highways, etc.  Each of these things will rely heavily on a need for more energy, likely twice what we use now.

Now let’s combine this knowledge (the doubling of population within 50 years) with the likelihood of finding and recovering sufficient energy sources over the same time to feed the energy needs of over 13 billion people.  We can argue numbers, but for sake of argument, let’s agree that current world oil consumption is just over 30 billion barrels annually.  Similarly, let’s assume the total world reserves are just over 1.2 Trillion barrels.  Without any growth in demand, 30 billion divided into 1,200 billion equals 40.  Forty years of oil remain, if there is no growth.  If you lay the population growth next to the depletion of our oil reserves, it is not a pretty picture.

If you believe the above scenario, and I think it is very close, what do we need to do to continue our lifestyle?

We could stop population growth.  It is worth considering what it would take to do that since most of the third world is growing at very fast rates. Africa is growing at a rate of well over 2%.  And if we did stop the growth of population, would that also stop the growth in energy use?

We could stop eating as much.  That probably would help most of us with our waistlines.  It might save lots of fuel and fertilizer.

We could discover lots more oil or coal.  I think we have been trying pretty hard for the past 5 years or so using the best technology available and really haven’t found enough to dent the need.

We could learn to use less energy.  This, too, is not real likely.  As third world nations mature and become more like the ‘first world’ modern nations, they tend to do it through the use of lots more, not less, energy.

Or, we could turn to alternative energy.  In 2008, in the US, we generated less than 50 million megawatts of electrical energy from solar and wind energy, a little over 1% of the electrical energy we produced.  President Obama has promised to double this amount in the next three years.  That’s an annual growth rate of over 23%.  First, that is not likely sustainable, but let’s assume we can grow alternatives at 23% per year, worldwide.  Our world generation of alternative energy would have to grow at our rate, also not likely outside of developed nations.  Even if this happened, we would double production every three years.  Again, assuming no growth in energy use, we would produce 2% of our energy from renewables in 3 years (by 2013), 4% by 2016, 8% by 2019, 16% by 2022, and about 1/3rd of our energy by 2025.  In 15 years, by growing alternative energy use by 23%, we can provide about a third of our CURRENT energy use with alternative sources.  In that same period of time, with population growing at 1.38%, our population will grow by just over 22% and with it, our energy use will likely grow a similar amount.

I know I have only included wind and solar, not hydroelectric, not tidal, geothermal, nuclear, etc.  I also know the pitfalls of projecting any growth rate, whether population or energy use or production.  I just have a hard time working out numbers that don’t tell me that:

Energy Production and Use and Population Growth will combine to dramatically alter our lifestyle over the coming years and yet neither seems to be a priority of our government or the governments of the world.

I hope I have stirred your curiosity enough to get you to watch the videos.  I would love for every member of Congress and the President to view them.   I think every man, woman, and child should see them.

Malthus was right.  Population Growth is going to bite us in the butt.

Here is the first of the videos.  Watch it first.  Then,  after viewing the second video Youtube, the link to the next one is always in the yellow bar at the base of the screen.  Do yourself a favor and watch all of them.

Veteran’s Day – Fly the Flag

Veterans Day has been a National Holiday since its proclamation by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in May of 1954.  It is celebrated on November 11 each year.  That day was chosen because it is the day that the Armistice was signed to end formal hostilities in World War I.

Veterans Day should stand as a reminder to thank veterans for their service to our country.  I encourage you to thank a veteran and fly the flag.  I think you will also enjoy the attached video.  Happy Veteran’s Day!

Who Supported H.R. 3962 ? And Why ?

The AMA leadership supported the Bill.  (I am informed that the AMA Membership did not support the Bill).  It is my understanding that they were offered higher Medicare Payments.  It is pretty sad to see people sacrifice their principals for a small increase in payments for a short period of time.  I also understand there were many very upset docs at the Houston meeting of the House of Delegates of the AMA this weekend.  They are upset at the sellout, and should be.

The AARP leadership supported the Bill. (I am told that the vast majority of Seniors did not want Medicare payments increased nor did 11,000,000 of them want Medicare Advantage benefits deleted).  Of course the AARP got strong weapons against their competition in the Medigap insurance arena in return for their support.  Talk about selling out your constituency.  As I said in an earlier post, I would quit both the AARP and the AMA were I a member of either.

The Trial Lawyers supported the Bill.  (They benefit from stiff penalties for any State that choses to limit attorneys fees or place caps on awards in Medical Malpractice Suits – payback for helping elect Mr. Obama and majority Democrats).

The SEIU supported the Bill.  Why not?  The Democrats claim it will give medical insurance coverage to almost 47 million more people.  More customers means more pay, more job openings, more money thrown at their industries.

The major Insurance Industry ‘leaders’ supported the Bill.  They like the idea that everyone will be required to buy insurance.  Sure they will be subject to huge new Government mandates for coverage, but they will have less competition so raising prices will be no big problem.

So the AMA ‘leadership’ sold out their rank and file doctors for a temporary fix to Medicare payments.  And the AARP sold out their seniors, especially those on Medicare Advantage, so they could sell more Medigap insurance.  And the trial lawyers avoided the dreaded cap on fees and the even scarier cap on damage awards by their huge contributions to the campaigns of many House Democrats.  The SEIU, of all these major interest groups, may actually be looking after the needs/desires of the bulk of their membership.  They are very short sighted but I think their members are as well.

Then there are the Congress Members who were bought off with minor provisions that helped them politically in seeking reelection.  The lone Republican to vote for the Bill comes from a normally strong Democrat Constituency and he was given special ‘incentives’ by the President.  He also cast his vote after the needed 218 yes votes had already been counted.  The ‘Blue Dog’ Democrats that were needed for the Bill’s passage were bought off with a last minute amendment that was to disallow abortion coverage in government mandated medical insurance policies.  That allowed them to keep their ‘right to life’ stance and still vote with the Democrats.

What is saddening about the whole thing, other than the fact that the bill will create huge deficits and spend more money than anything like it in over 50 years, is that the vote was political, not representative.  Instead of having our representatives vote for what was right for their constituencies, a majority voted  to keep their seats in Congress.

Watch This or Else

The Publisher (Jeb Bladine) of my local newspaper (The News-Register of McMinnville, Oregon) writes a weekly column called Whatchamacolumn.  This week he decried the lack of honest debate about health care reform and he recommended that everyone should watch a video he had recently seen.  It takes 30 minutes but has more logical, honest discussion of the issue than has come from Congress at any time since the debate began.

To become better informed about the health care debate, this video is the best half hour you will spend.

You can see the Dr. Ben Carson interview at http://www.wlos.com/template/healthcare_reform/videos/vid_8.shtml

(This is from ABC-TV channel 13 in North Carolina)

Please let me know what you think after viewing it.   Better still – send it on to your Senators and Member of Congress with your comments.

Thanks.

Read the previous four posts, Please

Please take the time to read the previous four posts:

Government Takeover

Price Fixing Does Not Work

It’s time to Quit the AARP and AMA

and

Draft Health Care REAL Reform Act of 2009

I won’t likely do any further posts until I have had time to respond to comments to these, unless, of course, Congress does something else stupid to make me want to spend the time to write another post.  Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.

Tom