Health Care and Other Stuff

Health Care and Other Stuff
I actually listened to Obama’s speech last night. I will give the man good grades for being an orator but long on rhetoric lacking in specifics. However, here is MY opinion on several things:
Health care reform is needed. I haven’t run into anyone, no matter the political persuasion that doesn’t agree. The debate is how to achieve reform and who is to administer it is the bigger issue. I have some of my own ideas to add. This is by no means comprehensive, just talking points--
Tort Reform- This is a tricky area. We all know of doctors and hospitals that quite frankly are incompetent and those need to be held accountable for negligent acts that results in death or permanent injury. How much to hold those accountable are the questions. Allowing liability attorneys to run amuck is not the answer. I believe Texas where I live have tort reform which limits the amount of damages. Some tort reform also cuts down on frivolous actions brought on by unsavory attorney’s trying to make a buck by making the plaintiff pay the defendant damages if they lose. Obviously someone bringing this type of action stands to lose big. The downside of this is those that should bring actions don’t in fear that their attorney will lose the case. Tort reform is a two-edged sword. You can bet lawyers lobbyists are greasing major palms in DC and never want this to see the light of day, democrats, and republicans or otherwise.
Pre-Existing Conditions- This has always been an out for insurance companies. This needs to be banished no matter what reform happens, everyone I know agrees. Why should anyone be negated for 6 months or more due to a job change especially if that job change was involuntary? It’s time insurance companies come clean and by the way, the reason that government gets involved in our lives outside of idealism is that free enterprise( oxymoron) involves a great deal of unbridled GREED by huge corporate interests among others and public outcry for THE GOVERNMENT TO DO SOMETHING. Don’t you know politicians love it? How about free enterprise, become more enterprising and come up with marketplace ideas that will work and how about the government not trying to figure six ways to Sunday of how to tax it to death? Is it possible that CEO’s can live on less than a few million dollars a year and not have homes spread out across the globe? Take a Disney cruise every now and then and get down with the ‘little” people.
Illegal Immigration – Get to the back of the line please. I’m not against anyone no matter who, what and where they are from trying to do better. That does not mean doing better is freewheeling in the US as a means to an end. Go back to your country of origin and if things aren’t quite working out the way you like it there, then start a revolution and correct it. I’m tired as a natural born citizen who happens to be white, 58 and male being put to the back of the line. It’s not your turn because you have suffered more than I and it’s only fair that I spend time on the bench so you can rifle our social services. I have forefathers who built this country ground up and they all suffered, so take your suffrage act to another stage with you on the way out of the door. Starting now, if an illegal immigrant is treated in the US, the full amount of that treatment should be billed back to the country of origin for payment if the illegal immigrant can’t pay which usually is the case. If the country of origin refuses to pay for that treatment, then whatever aid we are doling out to that country gets offset by the amount of billings. Let’s not make this a government issue but a private issue. Private enterprise could do the billings and collections and not create another government run bureaucracy and we could send Dog the Bounty Hunter to enforce collections if necessary!
Taxing small business 8% of payroll to offset non-participation- Okay Obama, when did you own a business? This is absurd to say out of one side of your mouth that small business is the backbone of the American economy and then tax it for not participating. It’s not a tax but a penalty for not going along with the game plan. It’s a fact that 90% of small business fail in the first 5 years. Are we shooting for 100%, and then penalizing it for non-participation will insure that. I have started several small businesses (let’s call them micro business) and I can tell you it’s not a picnic. It is a lot of work and most are done on shoestrings, I know. Banks are not business friendly, and will not loan you a dime but they want your checking, savings and any other investment vehicles deposited into their institution. Unless you can collaterize you have nothing. I was fortunate enough at one time to actually grow a business to a point where I could offer health insurance to my employees. It gave me great pleasure to know that I could do that by being an enterprising and growing business, not because I was being forced into voluntary compliance (another oxymoron)- Give up on this idea
Indigent Care – I’m sure hospital emergency rooms are fed up with seeing the same people show up for emergency care due to gunshot, stab wounds, drugs, alcohol and such. You know the ones. These are the ones who are trying to do themselves in by their actions and they just keep doing it and keep showing up. I’m not advocating non- compassion,, God knows we need more, but there has to be a limit. I realize that a lot of them have mental issues, but maybe if they didn’t involve themselves in the ways they are going, they wouldn’t have mental issues. Not all, but some. I’m sure the think tank philosophy on this is they are collateral damage and it comes with the territory so why try to think of anything else. Where are the mega churches? Instead of begging for money endlessly and selling your books under the guise of evangelism why don’t you hit the streets with your “partners” and make a real difference. Those of you who “claim” you have the power to “heal” why aren’t you doing it? If I believed that I had the power to heal people by touching them, I would be in every hospital non-stop and then we wouldn’t have any need for health care! Get off the TV and get out on the streets and not just around the Holidays as to make a show. I’m sickened by your unfettered and unscriptural fleecing of others for personal gain. Praying over letters, handkerchiefs, trinkets as “healing’ methods is a joke. Wake up America and THINK for yourself.
Funding Health Care by eliminating waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid- Surely you jest. If you know that there is $500 billion of waste and fraud in these services, then studies have been done to discover this. If so then you know the source of the problems. What is being done NOW about that, and WHY hasn’t anything been done about it before? Why haven’t Republicans or Democrats done anything about it in the past? Political football maybe? No one gets any points here, if you know it then do something about it w/o creating more waste. Seems to me these oversight committees have poor vision. Let’s get real about how to pay for things. Yes, eliminating waste and fraud is a good step, but the likelihood of any significant gains there is unrealistic. It takes money so can anyone say TAXPAYER?
Funding Abortions- Nope, all that does is encourage bad behavior. Please don’t give me this women’s right argument. That’s intellectualism and has nothing to do with rights. Unwanted pregnancies? Then quit having sex or UNPROTECTED sex. I know I am stepping on toes but I don’t care. Your unwanted baby could make another couple happy that can’t have children for one reason or another. That baby could become somebody some day, like PRESIDENT, and do some real good. My paternal grandmother died at the age of 26 in 1929 from a botched abortion and subsequently bled to death. I’m not banging drums for “safe” abortions. In my book abortion is legalized murder. Hope your toes didn’t get too bruised. You men that get women pregnant and then desert them, step up to the plate. If you don’t then you are not men just nanny’s and all the tattooing in the world doesn’t make you anything other than trash.. 70% of black babies born today are born out of wedlock, and 15% of the remaining 30% desert, leaving 15% of blacks with a family. Can you say crime? Black people do your race some good and someone please step forward and say it. Are you listening REVERENDS?
Enough already—
Jeff