Just read an article in The Week which describes the universal healthcare program in Massachusetts which sounds strongly similar to the program the Feds want to pass now. One of the main points of the article is that Massachusetts, when originally drafting and passing the plan, never took into account the rising costs of healthcare. Thus, when the recession hit, more people were out of work, more people applied for the state subsidies for insurance, and tapped out the insurance fund. The rising healthcare costs fueled a $9 Billion gap, which took away money from education, public safety, and other services.

Similarly, the government plan fails to address the rising costs of healthcare. No way are they going to discuss putting caps or limits on payouts if they want the healthcare industry on board with the plan.

Is it just me or does it seems like the word “Pyrrhic” is everywhere? Every time I read a news article lately, it seems as though the word “Pyrrhic” gets implanted.

]]> http://rabidliberal.com/2009/07/06/the-word-on-the-street-pyrrhic/feed/ 0 rabidliberal Murray http://rabidliberal.com/2009/07/02/forced-to-buy-health-insurance/ http://rabidliberal.com/2009/07/02/forced-to-buy-health-insurance/#comments Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:28:07 +0000 rabidliberal http://rabidliberal.com/?p=240 ]]>

Under Sen. Ron Wyden’s the proposed Senate Bill, people who refuse to buy health insurance will be fined over $1000/year.

Called “shared responsibility payments,” the fines would be set at least half the cost of basic medical coverage, according to the legislation.

I’m sorry, I didn’t vote Democratic so they can fine me for not choosing health insurance. As I have said before, I shouldn’t be forced to foot the bill for folks who choose to eat fast food three times a day. The cost for these programs will only go up. And they continue to take more money out of my paycheck to pay for these programs. Yet my pay isn’t going up that fast, which means I’m making less.

According to research done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, National Public Radio, and the Harvard School of Health, health insurance costs individuals an average of $4,800 annually. The cost for families to get insurance is even higher, at around $12,000 annually. These kinds of costs would push many people over the edge financially. How does Sen. Wyden propose that we pay for more people who will be unable to afford food, housing and education if they have to pay for health insurance? Effective health-care reform would be better accomplished by other means. Sen. Wyden’s own proposals to switch America from employer-based to individual health-insurance markets, for example, would do a great amount of good by encouraging competition and innovation without making life harder for the people having the most difficult time getting insurance.

Why not have individual health insurance markets? I can choose my car insurance, life insurance, cell phone provider, internet provider, cable tv provider, etc? Competition would create lower prices.

In Europe, where health care is free and state run, many experts say we may be going down a slippery slope.

Europeans have some of the world’s best hospitals and have made great strides in fighting problems like obesity and heart disease. But the system is far from perfect.

“What we can be proud of in Europe is the ground rules, that everyone has the right to health care,” said Jose Martin-Moreno, a health expert at the University of Valencia in Spain. “But the implementation has been difficult and one size does not fit all.”

Critics say the policies are often driven more by politics than science. Last week, Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised that patients unable to see cancer experts within two weeks would get cash to pay for private care. Brown had previously argued against paying for private providers and some say the reversal may be a gimmick to boost his sagging popularity.

A World Health Organization survey in 2000 found that France had the world’s best health system. But that has come at a high price; health budgets have been in the red since 1988.

“I would warn Americans that once the government gets its nose into health care, it’s hard to stop the dangerous effects later,” said Valentin Petkantchin, of the Institut Economique Molinari in France. He said many private providers have been pushed out, forcing a dependence on an overstretched public system.

“The minute you make health insurance mandatory, people start overusing it,” said Dr. Alphonse Crespo, an orthopedic surgeon and research director at Switzerland’s Institut Constant de Rebecque. “If I have a cold, I might go see a doctor because I am already paying a health insurance premium.”

The legislation bandied about by the Dems will require, -force-, people to buy in health insurance.

Senior House Democrats drafting health care legislation are considering slapping an unspecified financial penalty on anyone who refuses to purchase affordable health insurance, a key committee chairman said Monday.

Plus, they want to add more taxes in order to pay for the healthcare they want to provide to the uninsured:

In addition, officials said Democrats are considering a new tax on certain health insurance benefits as one of numerous options to help pay for expanding coverage to the uninsured.

I’m all for providing care to people who need it, and can’t afford it, but there has to be a better way than by forcing the rest of us into buying it, and taxing us on top of that.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s health committee drafted a bill that would require employers to offer health care to employees or pay a penalty and would require everyone to purchase insurance. In addition, private companies would have to compete with a new, government-sponsored, health care plan.

First of all, the government shouldn’t be forcing people to buy health insurance. Secondly, they shouldn’t be forcing employers to provide health care. Let’s see, the postal service is about $2 billion in the red, they can’t figure out how to fix social security, and Medicaid coverage has been bad for many years.  And how are they going to pay for this additional social program? TAXES. Why should I be forced to pay for health insurance for those who continue to eat at McDonald’s three times a day? I’m being taxed to death as it is.

Instead, we should be allowed to pick a choose our own health insurance. Just like I can pick a choose my cell phone service provider, cable TV and internet provider, life insurance, home insurance, car insurance, credit cards, and bank services,  I want to be able to pick my own health insurance provider. Competition would increase and prices would decrease, I’d keep more of my money from my paycheck.

And I thought “Change” was coming. Sounds like it’s the same ‘ol situation. Obama and pals are “outraged” at the bonuses AIG execs received while at the same time they’ve taken the company to the crapper. However, Senator Dodd, as well as Treasury Secretary Tim Geitner knew about the bonus payouts, new they were going out, and even approved of it.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, who originally proposed the executive compensation provision, said he did not include the exemption clause, which said new rules “shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009.” In an interview with CNN, Dodd denied inserting that exemption at the 11th hour, and insisted he doesn’t know how it got there. “When I wrote the language there was no such language like that,” Dodd told CNN Tuesday. Multiple Senate Democratic leadership sources also deny knowing how the exemption got into the bill. The mystery isn’t just how what was effectively a protection for AIG was put into the stimulus bill — it’s also how a provision intended to prevent AIG from giving executive bonuses, was taken out. The Senate passed a bipartisan amendment proposed by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R- Maine, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, that would have taxed bonuses on any company getting federal bailout dollars, if the company didn’t pay back the bonus money to the government. But the idea was stripped from the stimulus bill during hurried, closed-door negotiations with the White House and House of Representatives.

And yet now they’re “Outraged”. Senator Grassley even suggested that the AIG execs to commit suicide.

Look, AIG shouldn’t have given out bonuses after claiming that they needed a bailout. But at the same time, we have a bunch of charlatans in Washington who are feigning outrage just because the American people who elected these jokers are outraged. They are reactive instead of being proactive.

A nice article in OregonLive.com, which echoes the sentiment of many, regarding the Mortgage Bailout. Basically asking the simple question “what about all the people who bought houses, have been budgeting, cutting their expenses, and paying their mortgage ON TIME??? What about the people who know how to live within their means?

But back to Mr. Obama and his plan to bail people out of mortgages that many had no business taking on in the first place: He’s making a lot of us who bought homes we could afford — rather than homes that put us on the financial edge — look like complete chumps, has-beens and idiots.

His plan would take billions of taxpayer dollars and give them to banks and investors so they could lower borrowers’ interest rates and make other changes to the terms of their home loans. This is exactly the sort of thing that I worried about when Obama talked to us about being our “brother’s keeper” in his convention acceptance speech. His plan will teach people to be even more irresponsible with money; to acquire more and more and more because the threat of failure is getting lower and lower.

Complete CHUMPS!

Sad news. Joe Ades, the guy who for years sold vegetable peelers on the streets of New York (mainly in Union Square, but I’ve seen him downtown near Fulton Street) passed away this past weekend. He was 75. More from the NYTimes…

Violence is no solution to any problem. And stories like this makes me feel depressed and helpless:

Members of the Samouni family said that they were rounded up late Sunday night by Israeli soldiers and ordered to gather for their own safety in a single dwelling in the impoverished Zeitoun district of Gaza city, a Hamas stronghold. The next morning, they said, the building was shelled.

In it’s report on Friday, the United Nations agency confirmed the family’s account, saying that 110 people had been forced into the house on Sunday. “The next day the house was shelled,” Allegra Pacheco, an agency spokeswoman, told BBC television, quoting unidentified witnesses.

Reading about innocent victims being killed, and especially seeing pictures of dead or injured young children makes me sick to my stomache.

This needs to stop, and stop NOW! I’m no fan of either side of this conflict. I think there is enough blame to go around. I understand Israel wants the rocket fire from Hamas to stop. But this is not the way.  The UN is reporting that 33% of the Gaza dead are children. I can’t understand why other countries haven’t stepped in to stop this horrer. Even more mind boggling is that our own government passed resolutions supporting this incursion into Gaza.

]]> http://rabidliberal.com/2009/01/09/these-are-sad-times/feed/ 2 rabidliberal http://rabidliberal.com/2008/12/30/2010-the-end-of-the-usa/ http://rabidliberal.com/2008/12/30/2010-the-end-of-the-usa/#comments Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:49:27 +0000 rabidliberal http://rabidliberal.com/?p=204 ]]>

According to the WSJ, Russian academic Igor Panarin predicts that the good ‘ol USA will dissolve due to “mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation” which will then cause a civil war, as early as next fall.

The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in. California will form the nucleus of what he calls “The Californian Republic,” and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of “The Texas Republic,” a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an “Atlantic America” that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls “The Central North American Republic.” Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

Read more in the Wall Street Journal.

Considering the Soviet Union collapsed, it’s always a possibility, albeit  a remote one.  I kinda think we’re better than that.