Healthcare and Other Myths:
Good Morning
After a little Christmas time off, too much food, and some needed down time to reflect, I realized that it is necessary to continually go back to the basics.
Here is a question that I need a little help with. If you can’t afford to pay for your own health care, and no one that you know can afford to pay for their own health care; who then can afford health care? Seriously, I want to know.
But, before I get some of the standard answers, let me head them off at the pass. The first answer that I’m going to get is, “The government will have to pay for everyone’s healthcare.”
Let’s break out the Mikeronomics on that one. The government doesn’t have any money. They in fact have a revolving debt in the amount of some $50 Trillion in funded and unfunded liabilities. To put that in perspective, 50 Trillion seconds in the past, was 1,600,000 years ago.
So now that we have established that the government doesn’t have any money, where then would they get the loot to pay for heath care for one and all? Another wrong answer is that, “we would shut down the military and use the savings to pay for healthcare.”
Nice idea, but that would leave us with the same staggering annual fiscal requirements that we can’t fund today without sustaining massive deficits. To add to the problem, shutting down the military would put thousands upon thousands out of work. The taxes that currently pay their wages, would have been shifted to medical care and suddenly we would create a large sector of both unemployed and unemployable.
The next solution that I will get is, “we’ll take it from those who have it and give it those who don’t.” Let’s see how well that has worked in the past. Think NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO. Put the squeeze on those who have money and they’ll simply get their hat and excuse themselves from American business. Whoops, I was wrong; Elvis has already left the building. So that ain’t gonna work.
How about we just put the tab on the national debt? There are 78,000,000 baby boomers in this country who will start retiring, next week! Yep the first boomer hits 62 on
You see what we have here was a failure to plan. If the
If we didn’t have individual homes, autos, health and dental care, public education, 401 K programs, Social Security, Medicare, OSHA, Unemployment insurance, Workers Compensation, paid sick leave, paid medical plans, provided public safety, guaranteed minimum wage, guaranteed work rules, the right to unionize, and a continual list that would require page after page; then we wouldn’t expect these things.
We would instead be waiting for an airplane to land from another country that would kick some food out to us. But then we are about 231 years too late to change that.
We went on believing that government could expand forever and provide all of these wonderful things that we can’t afford to provide for ourselves; because we wanted to believe it. It should be government’s job to provide for us regardless of cost, economics, common sense, or logic.
In the end, math and physics ruled supreme, as was predicable from the outset. So where is the money going to come from? Growth in the economy? I will assure you that there are politicians who will promise the moon and sun, but then that’s how we arrived here to begin with; is it not?
In the end, government cannot give to you what it does not take from someone else.
“A government large enough to give you everything that you want, is strong enough to take everything that you have.” ─ Thomas Jefferson
Ron Paul may not be the answer to all of our problems, but he appears to be the only candidate running that understands the complexity of our economic realities. Dr. Paul is also the only candidate who is leveling with the American people. The truth isn’t always pretty, but it is always the truth.
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Hey Mike, My take on the medical care is that health insurance needs to be accessible to everyone. Employers should be responsible for lower income employees and government for lower income citizens. Insurance will have less impact on the medical industry which already is being kicked around pretty good. I feel that we need for all citizens to have access to healthcare for more than just their own personal reasons. With the diseases and terrorist germ warfare threats increasing dramatically the need for as healthy a populace as possible is very great. This should be included under the homeland protection dept. I would think the insurance route would be a lot less expensive than attempting to provide actual medical care through a government operation. Not to mention a lot better actual medical care would be provided. It would also require less government intervention which is always better. Here’s to your health Mike!
Michael,
Health care is the second most important issue in America. The first is that growth in not the answer.
We need sweeping reform to get the lawyers out of the medical business. We need more nurse practitioners and Physicians assistants to deal with the light work.
Insurance is getting so costly that I don’t know if it is an answer Michael. My wife and I were paying $1,000 per month for health insurance when we were both self employed, she went back to work simply for the benefits.
Every year another 1 Million people go without insurance due rising costs. The number one reason that business gives for moving out of the country is the rising costs of providing healthcare.
I don’t know what the answer is Michael, but you are right in that it isn’t government run healthcare. That is unless someone can show me how to pay for it.
Mike, The cost of insurance can be regulated, monitored, and adjusted much more easily than any other industry such as medical. The medical industry saves a fortune by using Medicare recommended pricing when necessary and writing off the difference between their scheduled pricing and Medicares. The amount they save on taxes keeps them happy and makes medical care more affordable to we who cannot afford it. Through tax incentives, Medicare pricing, and insurance monitoring the cost of affordable insurance for those unable to afford it can be kept reasonable. The insurance industry can and should be monitored the same as the legal gambeling industry since they are essentially the same in concept. As the latest article you ran(I forget the ladies name) shows, keeping our nation healthy is far more cheaper than letting us continue to slowly(?) descend back into the dark ages. We need more Henry Kaiser’s at the helm of our corporations and our country. We need to think of a way to run the government on a profit basis instead the dedt one we have now. Happy New Year Mike!
Michael,
Please read my comment back to Mary on today’s post. Kaiser wasn’t a nice guy, he never even thought of the concept. He was forced to provide care due to having government contracts such as Grand Colly dam.
He didn’t even come up with the system. Kaiser Permanente has been shut down in some states due the terrible care provided, you can look it up.
Mary posted this same article on Op-Ed and I answered it. We are trying to pass the buck to our kids and it isn’t right. Government is not the answer.
We do need change, much like I posted above.
You have a great New Year Michael, thanks for the post.
Well shoot Mike! There goes another captain of industry being demoted to buck private. I guess history really is written by the winners, at least until the truth finally outs! Don’t trust anyone over the age of 3 and keep an eye on those under 3. I knew Kaiser Permanente had really gone down hill but old Henry has been gone for some time now. The old saying about power corrupting just gets truer everyday. How do we put someone in charge of things without giving them power. There is a fine riddle! Maybe we just need to spell out the rules and regulations a lot finer than they are now. Bush and Cheney certainly need quite a bit of restriction clamped down on them. Have a good one!
It’s the pits Michael,
We have to cut spending and there is just not another way. The kids cannot under any circumstances pay the bill that we are leaving them.
Once spending is under control we can look at ways to provide healthcare.
There should be rules to follow for the president and congress, and all they would have to do is see that the rules were followed. But power is absolutely corrupting.