Rendering the Constitution Irrelevant

Throughout most of 2009, the liberal wing of the Democrat Party, the inhabitants of the White House, and the slavishly progressive mainstream media dismissed the Tea Party movement. They apparently assumed that the Tea Party was populated by the “fringe conservative” element of the Republican Party, which meant that their base was still solidly affixed. They apparently assumed that the Tea Party would not organize, which Tea Partiers have done – quite effectively. They apparently assumed that if they could force enough laws through by political will and curious expediency, the Tea Party would dissolve under the weight of new bureaucracies.

Moreover, leaders in the Republican Party foolishly believed that Tea Partiers would “return” to the fold after their period of wandering.

All of them were wrong.

Long before the Tea Party movement came into being, a quiet war was taking place in America. Popular talk-show host Glenn Beck has gained a huge following by connecting the dots between Cloward, Piven, Progressives, and the White House, which is symptomatic of the war. He has put together many pieces of the puzzle, and new pieces are fitting everyday. It’s no surprise he’s the darling of and inspiration for the Tea Party movement. He sees, and more Americans are beginning to recognize, that the goal of fanatical Progressives is not progress; their goal is rendering the Constitution irrelevant.

Progressives have long used the law, whether through the courts or the legislature, to force radical change. When propositions are repeatedly defeated in the public forum, progressives seek any and all alternative routes to push their agenda. They believe that they can effectively intimidate the American people, and strip them of their identity, through the weight of the law, regardless of Constitutional limits or safeguards.

Is it any wonder that they actively promote the flawed notion of a “living” Constitution? If the limits within the Constitution are malleable, they can be altered to expand the role of government on a whim. Is it any wonder that they slap the term “rights” onto initiatives or programs that are, in fact, privileges, thereby blurring the line between the two? They do not see rights as an inalienable, integral and inherent component of our humanity; rights, like “privileges,” are viewed as gifts of the State.

The more Americans they can convince of this twisted logic, the easier it will be to affect the kind of change informed Americans would otherwise reject.

The Impact of Insuring the Uninsured

The democrats (and some Republicans) are insisting that every American MUST have health insurance, and that by providing health insurance to those who do not currently have it will save America billions of dollars a year.

This logic is based on the frustrating fact that many uninsured Americans who need health care, DO GET health care, but do not pay for it. Some of them show up and emergency rooms and skip out on the bill. Some go to private doctors and either arrange to get free care or promise to pay and then fail to fulfill that promise. Others go to free clinics or clinics operating to serve poor and uninsured people.

I'm going to go on record saying that insuring the uninsured will not save billions of dollars a year in health care costs, and it will not save millions of dollars a year in health care costs. In fact, it will likely cost us more than it will save us.

Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that uninsured people (Americans and illegal aliens living here) run up 10 billion dollars a year in health care bills that they do not pay. I don't know if that number is even close, but for the sake of argument, let's just use that number.....

Now, someone has to make up for that 10 billion dollar loss. Who makes it up? Well, those of us who ARE insured do, basically. When someone runs up a bill and doesn't pay it, the cost of doing business for that provider has to be passed on, and it is (in essence) calculated into their cost of doing business. Their fees go up in order to cover those losses.

If we insure those people, the 10 billion dollar losses go away, and we don't have to make them up, right? Well .... not exactly. Instead of skipping out on 10 billion dollars in bills, that 10 billion dollars gets paid. And who pays it? The insurer. Whether it is a government-funded private program, an expansion of Medicaid or some other program, whoever is underwriting the insurance policy of those people will write checks for that 10 billion dollars. And where do they get the money? It has to come from somewhere, and it will come from the American Taxpayer. We who are paying the premiums for those previously-uninsured people will cover that cost by paying the premiums that are then used to pay those health care bills.

So, let me review and rephrase ..... The 10 billion dollars that was previously covered by insured Americans will be shifted and now be covered by taxpaying Americans. So YOU, if you're insured, will not pay for the costs of the uninsured. Instead, those costs will be covered by .... YOU, the taxpayer.

Now, doesn't that make you feel better.

Of course, those pushing for health care reform are going to argue that costs will decrease because the uninsured will no longer be going to expensive emergency rooms for treatment, but will instead seek treatment at "regular" doctor's offices.

Is that true, and does that really save money?

Well, yes and no.

It is likely/possible that those people who are now seeking care in emergency rooms will instead go to a "regular practice" to seek treatment. But let me ask: Does it REALLY cost that much less to treat a sore throat or a runny nose in a "regular" doctor's office than it does in an emergency room. Oh, I know the CHARGE is much less, but is the real COST that much different?

I would contend that the real cost for those people seeking treatment isn't going to be really different regardless of where they seek treatment. One of the big reasons the emergency rooms charge more for "basic" treatment is that they are covering the cost of the uninsured. (Yes, there are other reasons, too, including the fact that you are paying for a convenience). Once that increased cost factor goes away, the cost of operating an emergency room will go down. Furthermore, if a government-funded program starts flooding patients into private practices, and if reimbursements for these patients is less than for other types of insurance (like it is for Medicaid), the costs of "regular" private practices will go up faster than the revenues. Who will make up for these losses? The other patients. That would be you and me.

Those who support health care reform will also argue that health care costs will go down by insuring the uninsured because they will stay healthier and need less "serious" care because they will receive better preventive medicine.

I've already discussed how preventive medicine will cause costs to rise instead of decrease. But just to revisit that issue, in brief, visiting the doctor for hundreds of preventive care visits will increase health care costs overall, even if diseases and problems are diagnosed and treated earlier.

The bottom line is that anyone who tells you that they have a plan to save you money by creating a government bureaucracy and by cutting health care costs ... well, they are simply lying through their teeth.

Why Health Care Reform will NOT Lower Health Care Costs

Everyone on the left is telling us that they can lower the total costs of health care will health care reform. They can lower the costs even more with a single-payor government-run system.

Everyone on the right is telling us that they can lower health care costs with tort reform and competition.

Who is right?

Well, I'm going to contend that neither side is correct. And I'm going to back it up.

Let me start by saying that nothing we can do (realistically) is going to lower the total cost Americans spend on health care. I'll go a step further and assert that, with a few rare exceptions, there is nothing we can do to lower the costs to individuals for health insurance premiums.

The problem with the health care reform rhetoric coming from the blow-hards out of Washington is that they don't understand what is causing health care costs to rise. Health care costs are rising primarily due to four factors:

1. Our population is getting older. Remember baby boomers? The largest birth rate ever in America occurred between the years 1945 and 1963. Those Americans are now between the ages of 47 and 65. At what age do you suppose we start having a significant increase in health care costs related to getting older? Generally speaking, the mid-40s to the early-50s. Furthermore, people are living longer. People in the 80s and 90s are no longer the rarity that they were 40 or 50 years ago.

2. Our population is getting fatter. The increasing size of Americans should be alarming us all. The CDC has an alarming graphic on the increasing size of Americans over the past 20 years. Look back even farther to the 1950s and 1960s, and the change is even more dramatic. Forty years ago, it was exceedingly rare to see someone under the age of 40 with type II diabetes related to obesity and a sedentary lifestyle. Today, Type II diabetes related to obesity and a sedentary lifestyle is becoming pandemic among CHILDREN under the age of 18, and rampant among adults over the age of 20.

3. The advancement of Technology. If you went to the doctor in the 1950s or 1960s with a problem that could not be easily diagnosed, one of two things was likely to happen. If the problem didn't seem all that severe or acute, you were probably sent home to see if it got worse or it got better. If it seemed particularly severe or acute, you might have undergone an exploratory surgery. Today, if you go to the doctor for an unexplained illness or pain, you are likely to have an MRI, a PET scan, a CAT scan, expensive blood tests, other kinds of imaging, ultrasounds, sonograms, etc, etc. Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of tests can be performed to diagnose your problem.

That technology has to be paid for. We have a "Cadillac" health care system, and that top-of-the-line system costs money. Do you want to return to the technology of the 1950's, or would you rather pay for the expensive tests?

4. Research and Development of Drugs and Medications: Drug companies are evil. At least that is the conventional wisdom. Yet, these drug companies save our lives. Research is expensive. Like technology, research and development has to be paid for, and the payment comes in the costs of new and better drug therapies. Prior to World War II, the only drugs we had were a handful of antibiotics, a few vaccines (small-pox, polio, etc), and a handful of other medications. Now, we have dozens of alternatives for any given ailment (including, should I add, ED?). These drugs are part of the reason that we have an ever increasing life-expectancy.

With all the railing against insurance companies, and government options, and the uninsured and rich doctors, the four items I've listed are the PRIMARY reason health care costs keep going up. Which one (or ones) of those four things do you want the government to step in and change (by force, if necessary) in order to drive health care costs down?

Dereliction of Duty

Jobs must be our No. 1 focus in 2010. — Barack Obama, January 27, 2010.

So much for all that.

After a year of crisscrossing the country hawking his health care boondoggle, President Obama in his State of the Union address graciously took note of a separate, minor problem — America’s continued mass unemployment.

Obama’s first year in office saw the economy bleed millions of jobs and bottom out at the lowest labor force participation rate in 25 years. The official unemployment rate for December was 10 percent, a scary but misleadingly sunny number which failed to take into account the millions of Americans forced into part-time work or those who left the job market altogether in frustration and disgust.

Naturally, such dismal statistics got fair media play as 2009 wound to a close. So the president paid lip service to the jobs situation when he addressed Congress in January, 2010, promising to buckle down and concentrate on getting Americans back to work in the coming year. A lot of Americans, a lot of jobless Americans, likely gave a sigh of relief and uttered a hearty “it’s about time.”

Unfortunately for them, what came instead was a renewed frenzy to pass nationalized health care, and a corresponding neglect of the still dismal unemployment situation. The last weeks have seen 1) the release at last of the president’s own health care plan, 2) a much ballyhooed but still farcical health care summit, and 3) yet another public presidential plea (yawn) for the necessity of national health care. And now Obama is reportedly gearing up for yet another health care tour as his allies in Congress prepare to make their final push to pass this misbegotten legislation by Easter.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans continue to fill the unemployment lines or take menial work in order to have something on their resume besides a year-long gap of eating Cheetos and playing Guitar Hero. One can only conclude that Obama does not care whether you have a job or not, so long as he can force government health care down your throat.

Good News on the Jobs Front

The numbers are out for February and 36,000 more jobs were lost last month.

And that's good news, according to Harry Reid (D-Nevada). The Senate majority leader thinks that more job losses is a good thing. Yes, to be fair, he is referring to the reduction in the increase in the jobless rate.

What Reid doesn't want you to know is that it is the policies of Obama and Congress and the push for more anti-business policies, taxes and regulations that is preventing the private sector from creating jobs.

A little over a year ago, Obama promised that the unemployment rate would not go over 8 percent because of all the "shovel-ready" jobs that would be created. Of course, those jobs did not materialize. According to to those who track such things, much of the so-called stimulus money has not been used to create new jobs, but rather the funds have been used to make up for a decrease in tax revenues because of the recession.

The unemployment rate is still officially near 10 percent and is likely to stay over 9 percent for the remainder of the year. However, the number of "discouraged unemployed workers" is increasing, and the "real" unemployment numbers are over 17 percent, and likely approaching 18 percent. (These numbers are considered "soft" and are hard to track.) Virtually all economists are suggesting that the jobless rate is the worst it has been since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and is not likely to improve in the foreseeable future.

The administration is touting the great "economic recovery," but those who are out of a job with no prospects in the future are not feeling the recovery.

Maybe in a few months, Harry Reid will join the ranks of the unemployed. Of course, with all the perks a former US Senator has, he won't feel the pinch in the same way other unemployed citizens do.

Doing the Wrong Thing

We've all heard the democrats (and Republicans) tell us during the Health Care Reform debate/fiasco that "doing something is better than doing nothing." Last night, I even heard liberal writer Bob Beckel say that "doing the wrong thing is better than doing nothing?"

Oh, really?

I'd like to take Bob out to a tall cliff and give him only two options: Do nothing or jump. Do you think he'd still say that doing the wrong thing is better than doing nothing.

Of course, like my hypothetical cliff, there are more than two options, but I'd like to focus on just the issue of doing the wrong thing versus doing nothing.

In regards to health care, let's make the assumption that passing ObamaKare is doing the "wrong thing." (A stretch, I know.)

Doing the wrong thing could cost the government (the taxpayers) trillions and trillions of dollars that we don't have. Doing nothing costs the government no more than we are spending now.

Doing the wrong thing will decrease the quality of care. Doing nothing maintains the highest quality care available in the world.

Doing the wrong thing will result in health care rationing in which those most vulnerable, particularly the elderly and the most ill, will likely be left out to pasture to die. Doing nothing continues the current system of rationing health care to those who work for a living and can afford health insurance, and leaving deadbeats to seek health care from ER's (where they still get treatment if they need it.)

Doing the wrong thing will force doctors out of business. Doing nothing maintains our current levels of health care providers, which is still inadequate in some areas and in some specialties, but is still better than most places in the world.

Doing the wrong thing throws the constitution out the window. Doing nothing keeps it hanging by a thread.

Got any more?

Is Huckabee a "Progressive"?

Last night, during Mike Huckabee's program, he responded to a letter sent to him regarding his position on health care reform. He indicated that he favored an expansion of Medicaid to cover the uninsured, but that he differed with Democrats in that he wanted the insured to have to pay premiums. His position is that they should have a "vested interest" in keeping costs down and that helping to cover the premiums of a "government sponsored" program would do that.

I'm sorry, but isn't that a "progressive" position? By that, I mean, doesn't this move us one step closer to a government-run one-payor health care system?

Doesn't it also (in light of my two previous posts) violate the constitution?

Huckabee calls himself a conservative, and I'm sure in the current political environment, most others would brand him conservative, as well. However, the more I study government and how it is supposed to function (according to the framers of the constitution), the more I'm convinced that there is little difference between those who label themselves conservatives and those who label themselves liberals or progressives. They are all trying to increase the size and scope of government to suit their own ends ... not ours.

(While it's true that Huckabee is no longer holding political office), it is time to recall the whole lot of them, and find people who truly UNDERSTAND what the constitution says and are willing to take an oath to defend it.