Filed under: Economy, Energy, Environment, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Statism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Taxes, The Deficit, The National Debt, Unemployment
Rasmussen Reports that 71 percent of Americans are Angry at the federal government. That figure includes 46 percent who are Very Angry.
The latest national telephone survey finds that only 27 percent are Not Angry about the government’s policies, including 10 percent who are Not at All Angry.
Men are angrier than women. Voters over 40 are more angry than those who are younger. A majority of those over 40 are Very Angry. Only 25 percent of under-30 voters share that view. And the data suggests that the level of anger is growing. The 46 percent who are Very Angry is up 10 percentage points since September.
Only nine percent of voters trust the judgment of America’s political leaders more than the judgment of the American people. Americans now view being a member of Congress as the least respected job one can hold. Ouch!
Well, polls come and go, but if I were a member of Congress debating the health care bills now being considered, these polling results might just make me stop and think — or then again, maybe not. And that might be the very reason why voters are so very, very angry.
Filed under: Economy, Energy, Environment, Taxes, The Elephant's Child | Tags: ClimateGate, Computer Climate Models, Religion of Global Warming
Attaching the “gate” syllable to any hint of scandal, is a quick but trite way to say “pay attention, this is a scandal.” ClimateGate is a big one, but easily misunderstood. Climate “skeptics” do not claim that there has been no global warming. They quite agree that over the 20th century the earth warmed by around one degree.
The earth is always warming and cooling. The argument exists entirely about computer climate models that project a drastic warming in the future. Skeptics point out that the earth has been cooling since 2003, as the sun has gone quiet with almost no sunspots and there has been no warming at all for at least ten years. Climate models are unreliable, unable to predict today’s climate.
Skeptical scientists point out that increases in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere follow increases in temperature, and therefore cannot be the cause of global warming. As the earth has cooled , the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to climb. But not to worry, CO2 is not a pollutant, only a trace gas. The much-feared “greenhouse gases” are composed largely of water vapor — clouds, fog, mist.
Scientists are human, and have all the flaws that the rest of us have. Greed, covetousness, laziness, ambition and a tendency to make mistakes. Some of the best hypotheses just don’t prove out. The emails and documents of ClimateGate indicate a fair amount of that, but some fraud and attempts to silence those who disagree as well. The big deal is what governments and the media have done with the misinformation.
The quantity of things on which governments have rushed to spend trillions to prevent climate change, banish carbon dioxide, prevent dangerous rise of the seas, ban the drilling for carbon-based fossil fuels, tax the economy into poverty with cap-and-trade laws — is almost endless. The list goes on and on. I saw a photo yesterday of a Dutch ship spraying sand which the tide would carry in to reinforce the dikes that protect the Netherlands against the rise of the seas predicted by computer climate models. This is costing billions, and the seas won’t rise.
Europe is far deeper into the religion of global warming than we are, but governments believe far more than their people do. It is hard to tell if government bureaucracies actually believe that climate change is a real problem, or if they just believe in using a ‘crisis’ to gain power and increase taxes. I think it is safe to assume that our representatives do not go home at night, after a hard day of failing to read the legislation they vote for, to study up on the science of climate change.
Carol Browner, socialist climate czar, said that “the science is settled.” Nothing to see here — just move along. She added that she would stick with the “consensus” of the 2,500 (what?) climate scientists on the IPCC. (Ms. Browner, the UN’s IPCC states clearly on their website that they do not do original science). And there is no “consensus” in science. See Scientific Method.
Well, there you have it. Obama will go to Copenhagen and promise to reduce CO2, which will only happen if the economy falters further. The EPA and the Department of Energy will spend vast sums encouraging solar energy, which will produce small amounts of energy only when the sun shines. They will spend even more on wind energy, which will continue to produce only a miniscule amount of our energy needs when heavily subsidized. Nothing will change. The “science is settled,” and “consensus” rules.
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Economy, Health Care, Statism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democrat Lies/Dirty Tricks, Harry Reid, Socialism
It looks as if Harry Reid has the 60 votes he needs to pass his health care bill to the floor. This is a procedural vote, but an important one, and Republicans may not be able to keep the bill from passing. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has used every trick in the book to get the votes he needs. Scheduling the vote for a Saturday night when all the senators were anxious to be off on their Thanksgiving vacation provides an extra bit of urgency. Bribes for reluctant Blue Dog Democrats ((moderates) like the $100 million for Louisiana Senator Landrieu’s constituents written into the health care bill show how it is done.
I would dearly love to see a quiz ordered, on the senate floor, to see just what the senators know about the bill that they are voting for. I suspect not much. After all it has only been available for a couple of days, and it is 2074 pages long. No one has had time to read the whole thing, understand it and analyze its consequences.
The gimmicks (cheats) used to get a favorable rating from the Congressional Budget Office are quite amazing. The “Doc-Fix” is a big one. They cut the Medicare reimbursements to physicians for their services, and right now the payments to doctors are far under the doctors costs. What happens when you do not reimburse doctors fairly? They quit accepting Medicare patients. (Same thing for Medicaid). Senators know this, so will pass a separate bill putting back the reimbursements they removed. Since only the cut is part of the bill, the CBO will find that it cuts costs. (Lie, Cheat, Fraud).
The CBO estimates costs over a ten-year period. So the taxes and fees commence next year, but the bill doesn’t take full effect until 2014 when the costs begin. That’s how you make it seem cheaper. Over 20 years, the true costs will be $4.9 trillion, though every health care bill anywhere, Medicare, Medicaid, the States’ plans have all cost far more than estimated — except for the Medicare Drug Plan. That came in costing less than the estimates because of the “donut hole” provision which encouraged seniors to make wise choices to keep the cost of their prescriptions down. The Democrats, of course, plan to eliminate the “donut hole.” There is no end to their folly.
How about this bit: according to Keith Hennessey, 16 million uninsured Americans pay a penalty tax. 8 million uninsured illegal aliens will not have to pay a penalty tax.
Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) have been increasingly popular. In 2006 only about 1% of adults with private insurance had HSAs, by this year it is up to 4%.
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, whose members dominate the HSA market, says that enrollees are more likely than those with traditional insurance to be better consumers. They’re more likely to track expenses (63% to 43%), save for the future (47% to 18%), and search for information on physician quality (20% to 14%). They’re also more likely to participate and see results from wellness programs like weight loss, fitness and smoking cessation. This makes intuitive sense: They’ve got skin directly in the game.
David Goldhill, a media executive, recently wrote in the Atlantic Monthly that if a 22-year-old starts at his company today earning $30,000 and health costs grow at 3%, by the time he retires he’ll have paid out $1.77 million in premiums, lower wages, out-of-pocket costs and both sides of the Medicare payroll tax.
If all that money were instead available via an HSA, including by borrowing against future contributions, “wouldn’t you be able to afford your own care?” Mr. Goldhill asks. “And wouldn’t you consume health care differently if you and your family didn’t have to spend that money only on care?”
About 40% of tax-filers with HSAs earn under $60,000 a year. Naturally the Democrats eliminate Health Savings Accounts. And of course, the Reid bill subjects all private health insurance (you didn’t think you would escape this, did you?) to detailed Federal regulation. Those clever bureaucrats (who can’t even read the bills they vote for) know better than you or your doctor what health care you should be allowed to have.
The Republican plan would shrink the deficit by $61 billion at least, without accounting gimmicks. Can’t have that!
ADDENDUM: The National Federation of Independent Business has come out in full force against the Senate health care bill. It does not address their number one problem: the unsustainable cost of healthcare. They oppose it due to the amount of new taxes, the creation of new mandates, and the establishment of new entitlement programs. The costs far outweigh any benefits that businesses might have reallized. Why are they speaking up only now? The bill has just become available — all 2074 pages.
Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Progressivism., The Elephant's Child | Tags: Incompetence, Unemployment, Creating or Saving Jobs
The government’s Web site, recovery.com, that is supposed to be the administration’s effort at transparency in informing taxpayers just how their stimulus dollars are being spent — and which spends $84 million to do so — shows that $6.4 billion has been spent to create jobs in 440 congressional districts that do not exist.
For example, the 15th Congressional District of Arizona, where 30 jobs were saved with $761,420 in spending, according to Recovery.gov, the official government Web site. ABC News reports:”There is no 15th Congressional District in Arizona, the state has only eight districts.”
The site reports that North Dakota”s 99th district received $2 million in stimulus funding. North Dakota has only one congressional district. Washington D.C. supposedly contained 35 congressional districts according to the Web site.
Phantom Congressional districts are only part of the problem. The administration wants to laugh the whole thing off as ordinary human mistakes. Republicans in Congress warned that the hastily passed stimulus bill would be subject to massive fraud. Though creating non-existent districts is a little over-the-top. It didn’t even take an Inspector General to find this fraud.
There have been reports, long before the fake districts surfaced, of pretend jobs, of pay raises called new jobs, of stimulus funds going to supporters, and even simple confusion about government paperwork. There are no indications that the administration will fess up, nor that anyone will get more than their hands slapped, in spite of Michael Ramirez’s wonderful cartoon from Investors Business Daily.
Jonah Goldberg reported on “Chicago Math,” November 4, in the Corner: from the AP:
President Barack Obama’s economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
Some Head Start preschool programs reported that stimulus money saved the job of every staff member who received a cost-of-living pay raise, according to their filings. Some colleges and universities counted every part-time student work-study position as a full-time job, according to their reports, which are published online at recovery.gov. (…)
“Holy moly, that’s not right,” Teresa Cox, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency in Salem, Ore., said of her organization’s report. It indicated that 205 jobs were created or saved with the agency’s $397,761 federal grant. The money, she said, was used for pay raises.
Economist Veronique de Rugy noted in The American that stimulus funds did not target high-unemployment states, and has a lovely chart to plot the number of “jobs created” for each 100,000 people in every state’s labor force and the corresponding unemployment rate in that state.
Now that the real unemployment rate — the one that includes people who have quit looking, those who are working part-time while wanting full-time employment — has climbed to over 17 percent, the administration is going to have a symposium on trying to figure out how to create jobs. The problem is that they have no idea, no idea at all.
ADDENDUM: Watchdog.org has posted a guide to the Stimulus, District by (Phantom) District. Learn to what non-existent districts in your state, real funds have supposedly gone. According to the list, Washington state’s (phantom) 39th district got $300,000, but didn’t create a single job. The OO district created three jobs for only $2.25 million. Since the districts don’t exist, where oh where has the money gone?
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Economy, Energy, Environment, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Jobs in China, Stimulus, West Texas Wind
Since the beginning of September, of the $1 billion in clean-energy stimulus money, $850 million has gone to foreign wind companies. Doesn’t take a hastily planned “jobs summit” to discuss why this possibly isn’t the way to create American jobs.
The eleven U.S. wind farms that received money from the Treasury are importing 695 of the 982 wind turbines to be installed, creating 4,500 jobs — overseas. That’s way more than the number of jobs created in the United States.
A joint venture of American and Chinese companies has unveiled plans for a new $1.5 billion, 36,000 acre, wind farm in West Texas consisting of 240 Chinese-made turbines. The project is seeking government stimulus funding for 30 percent of its costs. Best estimate is that all this money will create a grand total of 30 permanent jobs.
Bailouts and stimulus funds always fail to work as advertised. (There is a history to be studied). And they always cause more problems than they solve.
Wind energy is always subject to vast amounts of hype. They talk in “rated-capacity” instead of actual energy. Jon Boone explains at Master Resource:
A wind project with a rated capacity of 100 MW, for example, with 40 skyscraper-sized turbines, would likely produce an annual average of only 27 MW, an imperceptible fraction of energy for most grid systems. More than 60% of the time, it would produce less than 27 MW, and at peak demand times, often produce nothing. It would rarely achieve its rated capacity, producing most at times of least demand.
William Tucker explains that the “Age of Renewables” will really be an age of natural gas, or we’re not going to have much electricity:
Windmills and solar plants generating base-load power are little more than a nuisance to electrical-grid operators. They’re very difficult to incorporate because they’re intermittent and unpredictable. It’s like trying to walk a high wire and having somebody shake the wire…
Wind, however, comes and goes. It’s hard to predict for more than a few hours in advance — an unpredictability aggravated by the physics of windmills. Electrical output varies with the cube of wind speed.
There’s a simple solution, however — couple wind and solar with natural gas turbines. These are basically jet engines bolted to the ground. They don’t boil water so they can be started and stopped in just a few seconds. It’s a very expensive and inefficient way to generate electricity but good for short-term output. Most utilities have “peakers” that sit around all year waiting to meet those few hours during the summer when utilities strain to meet peak demands.
So the solution to wind and solar’s intermittency is to put a natural-gas turbine next to each windmill and solar panel. They can even be hooked up by computer. Then every time the wind dies down or the sun goes behind a cloud, the gas turbine can be fired up. That way consistent voltage balance can be maintained. (If voltage on the grid varies by more than 5 percent it can either cause blackouts or damage electrical equipment.
This works only with very large subsidies. No big subsidies, no renewable energy. Across the world without government subsidy, wind farms shut down. But they are such a lovely Utopian ideal. Trouble is the hopenchange crowd just do not learn from facts, physics or history. They keep insisting that this time it will work!
Filed under: Economy, Law, Progressivism., The Elephant's Child | Tags: All in One Month, October Deficit, Shut Down the ATM
The deficit for the month of October — only this last month, $1.5 billion more than was expected by economists — is $176.4 billion. In one Month!
ADDENDUM:
Here’s the Wall Street Journal with more details:
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Environment, History | Tags: Al Gore, The Free Market, Czech Republic, The Cold War
I have often recommended the videos of the Hoover Institution’s Uncommon Knowledge. Each is about 7 minutes long, presented one each day, for a week. Peter Robinson interviews serious people with serious ideas about current events and history.
This week’s guest is Vaclav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic. He was born in Prague in 1941 during WWII, grew up in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. After earning a doctorate in economics he pursued a career in academia and at the Czechoslovak State Bank. Immediately after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Klaus entered politics. A founder of the Civic Democratic Party, he served 1992 to 1997 as prime minister of the Czech Republic. In 2003 he was elected president, a position to which he was reelected in 2008.
The first segment concerns the events of 1989, the year the Berlin Wall came down. The second segment is about the parallels to be drawn between a united Europe and the late Warsaw Pact. In the third, Mr. Klaus takes on Al Gore and points out the similarities in ideology between communism and environmentalism. And the Thursday segment is about how he became an advocate for the free market while studying economics under communism.
The previous interview was with Victor Davis Hanson, classical scholar and military historian and Robert Baer, former CIA agent who served in the Middle East, discussing with Peter Robinson the problem of Iraq. It is a stunning conversation.
All of the previous Uncommon Knowledge interviews are available in the NRO archives. I cannot recommend them highly enough. Try one segment of your choice. I’ll bet you get hooked!
Filed under: Economy, Law, The Constitution, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Eminent Domain, The Kelo Case, The Supreme Court
Do you remember Kelo v. City of New London? It involved the constitutional question of eminent domain, which has traditionally allowed governments to condemn privately owned land only for a public purpose such as a needed bridge or a freeway, a use that serves all the people.
The Supreme Court’s 2005 decision stands as one of the worst in recent years, handing local governments the option to seize private property in the name of “economic development.”
Suzette Kelo’s little pink house in New London, Conn. was seized by private developers for a project including a hotel and offices intended to enhance Pfizer Inc.’s nearby corporate facility and New London’s tax base.
In the late 1990s, politicians in New London were desperate to fix up their aging and ailing town. The city set up a private, non-profit entity which set about making a plan for a new New London.
The centerpiece would be a massive research and development facility which Pfizer needed, and they were right across the river in Groton. The politicians picked a 24 acre lot and sold it to Pfizer for $10, and added on some special tax breaks, including cleanup of the lot.
Sweet deal, but Pfizer wanted it sweetened a little more. The old Victorian houses in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood next door were not what Pfizer envisioned. They thought a high-rise hotel and luxury condominiums would be just the thing.
The development corporation, empowered with eminent domain by the city, condemned the homes of anyone who wouldn’t sell at its appraised value. Suzette Kelo and others sued to block the condemnation, and fought it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
There the five justices ruled in favor of the developers. America was shocked. The Court cited the development plan’s “comprehensive character” and the politicians “thorough deliberation.” And besides, it would improve the tax base and attract needed jobs. The city and the state spent around $78 million to bulldoze the homes.
But the development never happened. Pfizer merged with Wyeth, decided to close its research and development offices, and move back across the river with some 1400 jobs. The property remains vacant, overgrown with weeds and rubble. No jobs, no business. And Kelo remains one of the most reviled decisions of the Supreme Court in years.
In the face of the outcry, many states have taken action to strengthen eminent domain. But Kelo must be repealed.
Filed under: Economy, Law, Liberalism, Progressivism., The Elephant's Child | Tags: Consequences, Do-Goodism, Sanctuary for Illegals
The King County Washington, (Seattle) County Council on this day declared that King County would henceforth be a Sanctuary County for illegal immigrants.
Newly elected, SEIU sponsored, King County Executive Dow Constantine will replace Ron Sims who has gone back to Washington D.C. as President Obama’s Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The Sanctuary vote will be one of Mr. Constantine’s last as a council member, and as a major liberal, his vote was the deciding one.
The Sanctuary designation makes it illegal for county employees to inquire about immigration status of people with whom they come in contact. Word is apparently out in the illegal community that King County has rolled out the welcome mat for social services, benefits and welfare. Mr. Constantine has been particularly interested in cutting down on the prison population.
Coincidentally, King County’s budget is deeply in the hole, and unemployment is rising, but I’m sure that is just a coincidence. Boeing is moving to South Carolina.
Does it occur to anyone that encouraging illegal immigrants to come to Seattle will — increase unemployment for King County residents? Employment of illegals has never been a matter of, as is much quoted “jobs Americans won’t do”. They take jobs that Americans would be happy to do, and do it for less. Liberals just don’t get “consequences.”
Liberal do-goodism is going to do us all in.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Progressivism., The Elephant's Child | Tags: Government Motors, Fiat, Chrysler, And an Unknown Future
This picture is here because it makes me laugh. I don’t know what those things are. We once called them Pelosimobiles. From Greg Pollowitz writing in Planet Gore at NRO:
Fox News reports:
Chrysler has disbanded a team of engineers dedicated to rushing a range of electric vehicles to showrooms and dropped ambitious sales targets for battery-powered cars set as it was sliding toward bankruptcy and seeking government aid.
The move by Fiat SpA marks a major reversal for Chrysler, which had used its electric car program as part of the case for a $12.5 billion federal aid package.
As late as August, Chrysler took $70 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a test fleet of 220 hybrid pickup trucks and minivans, vehicles now scrapped in the sweeping turnaround plan for Chrysler announced this week by Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne.
Government Motors is still planning on producing the Chevy Volt, which GM in its day thought was not marketable. It goes 40 miles on an electric charge (in theory) and costs around $40,000. Then it turns into a regular fossil-fuel burning car with a very small engine. But somewhere in this process of the government running the car companies with union advice there must be something that works. Or then again maybe not.
Filed under: Economy, Health Care, Progressivism., Taxes, The Elephant's Child | Tags: big government, Huge Bureaucracy, Very Costly Bureaucracy
A while back, we posted a chart of the bureaucracy created by the House Democrat’s Health Care bill, which shows the many offices, committees, groups, programs, corps, centers, committees, funds and departments that would insert themselves between you and your doctor and your health care.
It’s pretty horrifying to consider all those bureaucrats with their sticky fingers deciding what you can have and what you shall do. The white parts are the existing bureaus. The colored parts are what is added by the bill.
Well, if you remember, that bill came in far too expensive, so they went behind closed doors and reworked the whole thing , so they got everyone’s favorite give-aways in and figured out new ways to bring the cost down. That part was hard, but they figured if you started paying the taxes and penalties right away, but put off any of the costs until 2014, that was a good way to make the costs over the next ten years look much, much better.
But just about everybody in the back rooms had things to add, and some had to be added as bribes for people who didn’t want to vote for the bill. So here is the new chart of the bureaucracy for PelosiCare. You will be astounded by how much they have added. I was. You will recognize the original chart in the center.
The thing is, it doesn’t matter what they have to promise, or what they exclude to get votes. Their plan is to get the government firmly in control. Then they can put back in the things that they took out. They can tinker and ration, refuse treatments that they think are too expensive, or medicines that are too new. They are already planning to tax wheelchairs, pacemakers, artificial hips, hearing aids and other medical equipment.
We have the world’s best health-care system. It has some problems that are pretty easily solved. But when you refuse to indulge any of the proven ways of saving money, as Democrats have, all that is left is rationing, or paying less for everything. When you pay less, you don’t get the same goods.
The purpose of the American health care system is saving lives. The purpose of the Democrats’ health care plan is saving money.
Filed under: Cool Site of the Day, Economy, Taxes, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Government Failure, National Debt, Useful Website
Prowl around enough on the internet and you find all sorts of useful websites. Here is the National Debt Clock, but it is far more than that: Call it
“The Control Panel for the Ship of State.”
We live in perilous times, and we need citizen activists who are willing to get informed and make themselves heard.
If you want to speak to your representatives in Congress, you need facts with which to confront congressmen who are often poorly informed, and do not read the bills on which they vote.
Besides, it’s kind of fun. Just don’t go there when you’re worried and can not sleep.
Filed under: Economy, Environment, Progressivism., The Elephant's Child | Tags: Economy, Socialism, Democrat Corruption, Politics
Every time I think that there is not another word to be said about the “Cash for Clunkers” program, another bit of information turns up, demanding to be mentioned:
WASHINGTON — The most common deals under the government’s $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program, aimed at putting more fuel-efficient cars on the road, replaced old Ford or Chevrolet pickups with new ones that got only marginally better gas mileage, according to an analysis of new federal data by the Associated Press.
The single most common swap — which occurred more than 8,200 times — involved Ford F 150 pickup owners who took advantage of a government rebate to trade in their old trucks for new Ford F-150s. They were 17 times more likely to buy a new F-150 than, say, a Toyota Prius. The fuel economy for the new trucks ranged from 15 mpg to 17 mpg based on engine size and other factors, and improvement of just 1 mpg to 3 mpg over the clunkers.
Well, that worked out well. You might want to keep this bit of Congressional competence in mind. It’s not getting better as the bills get bigger.
Filed under: Economy, Law, Progressivism., Taxes, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Economic Illiterates, Frightening Estimates, Health Care Bills
Oh My! The Republican staff on the Senate Budget Committee has published an estimate of the cost of H.R. 3962 (the Affordable Health Care for America Act) when fully implemented over ten years: $2.4 trillion.
In August, Stephen Parente, a University of Minnesota expert on health-care financing (and former volunteer policy advisor to the McCain campaign) came to the same conclusion.
The biggest player in the health-care debate right now isn’t Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, or even President Obama. It’s the Congressional Budget Office, which is responsible for estimating the costs of proposed legislation. After the director of the CBO on July 16 testified that none of the health-reform bills in the house or Senate would reduce the rate of increase in federal spending on health care, congressional efforts fell into disarray. Many policymakers began searching for a way to get costs below the CBO’s frightening estimate of $1.1 trillion over ten years. Others attacked the CBO, calling its estimates irresponsible.
This should really worry the Blue Dogs in the House. The American people are far more concerned about the economy than they are about health care or climate change. They want unemployment addressed and spending brought under control. Mr. Parente also says:
Over the last few months, my colleagues and I at the consulting firm Health Systems Innovations have provided cost estimates of health-care reform to both Republican and Democratic members of Congress…We believe that the Democratic bills currently under consideration in the House and Senate would cost $2.1 trillion and $2.4 trillion respectively — much higher than CBO’s figures.
CBO estimates of health care costs have usually vastly understated real costs as the Wall Street Journal demonstrated. Why are the Democrats in Congress seemingly intent on National Suicide?
Filed under: Economy, Health Care, Politics, Progressivism., Taxes, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democrat Corruption, Health Insurance, Liberal lies, Medicare
Polls tell us that most Americans who have health insurance are quite satisfied with it. Most Americans are well satisfied with the health care that they receive, including a lot of people who are uninsured. So what is so wrong with our health care system that requires reorganizing one sixth of our economy?
- Some Americans are uninsured and cannot afford health insurance.
The first number was 46 million uninsured. Then it went down to 30 million when illegal immigrants were excluded from the list. When you remove those who are already entitled to insurance from an existing program, and remove those who can afford health insurance but choose not to purchase it, you are left with somewhere around 9 to 12 million who need help. The current House bill still leaves something over 20 million people still uninsured. - Some people are uninsured for only fairly short periods between jobs.
Many of these folks find Cobra Coverage too expensive. Nothing in the bills addresses this problem. - There are huge amounts of fraud and waste in Medicare — estimated at $60 billion. Completely unaddressed. Medicare funding is being sharply cut ($150 billion) to reduce the cost of the legislation. Medicare is going broke. That is also unaddressed.
- Health insurance just costs too much.
Private insurance premiums could triple under ObamaCare. Government health insurance premiums could increase by $4,000 per family by 2020. Unaddressed.
- Health care just costs too much.
It will cost far more under ObamaCare. Things that are proven to reduce costs like medical liability (defensive medicine) are not only not included in the bills, they are specifically excluded. Trial lawyers are second only to labor unions in their financial support for Democrats. Some of the increased costs will come in the form of taxes. The Senate bill proposes a brand new tax on medical devices like heart valves, pacemakers, stents, artificial hips, insulin pumps; a ten-year $400 billion tax on all implements that retail for $100 or more. It works out to an $11,000 surcharge on every worker employed in that industry. Consequences —massive job losses, squashed innovation. - Health insurance can’t follow a person to a new job, it’s not portable.
This is completely unaddressed.
- Health insurance cannot be purchased across state lines, and in some states there is little choice among insurers.
Unaddressed, since the object of ObamaCare is to funnel everyone into single-payer government-run health care. - States must bear much of the cost of Medicaid, and they are going broke. ObamaCare funnels many more people into Medicaid, increasing costs to the states without reimbursing the states. Unaddressed.
What is it that is known to cut costs, improve ways of doing things, increase innovation and preserve and prolong life? In the vast history of the world, it has always been freedom and the free market. People create when there are potential rewards for their innovations. Doctors devise new treatments when they are not restricted by 1,990 pages of rules and mandates that punishes them for not following the rules, but interacting with patients. The word “shall” appears in the House bill 3,425 times — each time a mandate about what one must do.
Democrats believe that 111 new agencies, programs and bureaucracies filled with smart people (like their supporters and friends) can fix all the things that are wrong with health care.
Health care takes place only between doctor and patient — those bureaucrats wandering around the halls of Congress can’t fix your hurts, no matter how much they tinker with legislation.
It took years of study, learning and practice to produce the physicians who can fix our hurts and do their damnedest to cure our diseases and prolong our lives. Each of us is different. We are not the same — but products of our genetics and our environment and our habits, and we cannot be healed by either Nancy Pelosi’s or Harry Reid’s efforts to control our lives.
Democrats have not learned from evidence. People who have experienced government health care in countries around the world have urged us: “Don’t do what we did.” Democrats ignore countries who are going broke from their efforts to control health care. They do not learn from countries that are unnecessarily killing their citizens by rationing care. And so they are repeating those errors. The Democrats will ration. It is inevitable. It is the only way they have left, because they will not do any of the things that would cut costs.
It was never about health anyway. It is only about control.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Economy, Progressivism., Taxes, The Elephant's Child | Tags: "Cash for Clunkers", $24, 000 a car, Economic Illiteracy
The “Cash for Clunkers” program continues to provide entertainment. It seems that the stimulus program which offered new car buyers a maximum $4,500 (taxable) for turning in an old gas guzzler, cost American taxpayers $24,000 for each new car sold.
According to an analysis by the automotive information form Edmunds.com in Santa Monica, California, the government could have done almost as well if they had just given the cars away.
Now, GMAC Financial Services Inc. and the Treasury Department are in talks to prop up the lender with its third bailout. The U.S. Government is likely to inject $2.8 billion to $5.6 billion of capital into Government Motors financial arm, on top of the $12.5 billion that GMAC has received since Dec. 2008. But they want to keep making loans to people who cannot afford to pay them back. Time to set the brakes.
