Most of us frown upon stealing from another regardless of the reason and regardless of the wealth of either individual. When a government does it in the name of reform we seem to go numb.

I have a right to life which includes a right to dispose of the fruits of my labor as I see fit. To deny me this right is to deny me the right to support my life. There is no such thing as ‘partially’ destroying a right. You can not create some new medical “right” (which is an economic “right” rather than an unalienable provided in the Constitution) without negating the right to property, and thus the right to life. This is true of any so called economic ‘right.’ If someone receives without working, then someone has worked without receiving. If the “work without receiving” was not voluntary, that man or woman is a slave. This is wrong and needs to be called wrong for the right reasons. It is to bleed dry the life from the healthy and productive in the name of fighting disease. This is true in all economic endeavors that place the so called interests of group or “society” above the actual, self evident, rights of the individual. It is especially ugly to do so in the name of health.

The bigger issue I see now is the mounting debt – the president’s own people missed by $2T in forecasting future debt in only a 90 day time frame. I’m concerned about what the largest peace-time debt will mean to my son and daughters as they grow through life. I would predict that they will be the first generation whose standard of living is less than the generation before them. I blame this squarely on both parties, as both have continued to spend – something you and I and everyone on this board cannot do. Based on our presidents calculations (and some believe them light), we’ll have a debt to GDP ratio of 76% by 2019, unheard of since WWII. Some suggest it may actually be closer to 100%. The largest it has ever been is 24%. This before we spend any money on health care reform.

We’ve become accustomed to the government borrowing to meet its obligations – something you and I cannot do indefinitely. If debt to GDP ratios do hit 75-100%, who will continue to buy our debt and finance government spending? No one. Thats a disaster far greater than the small potatoes on the table now called “reform”.

Regardless of party, one must face up to the mounting debt. We need to have people in Congress who have worked for a living, are not lawyers, are not career politicians and who have a respect for the constitution for which they have sworn to uphold.

I used to be quite generous – I’ve helped build churches, raise poor children in the US and elsewhere and a thousand other causes. Charity was always important in this country and plentiful before the income tax. It was part of a sense of personal responsibility NOT forced upon me by a government.

I saw a poster the other day who was attempting to argue that health care premiums are just too expense after paying for all the other expenses (mortgage, cars, etc…). I gently responded, if health care is so important to you, then why is that premium last on your list after you pay for all the consumerism you’ve just innumerated? No answer. He was so caught up in keeping up with the Jones that there just wasn’t any money left for health care – so is it really that important? Mre than the house you really can’t afford, that third car, Jimmy going to private college vs state college, etc…?

I ask again, as my grandfather would ask today, “What business of yours (congressmen) is my health?” and “Where is your sense of personal responsibility?”

I could go on with that but its useless drivel. Those that get it, get it. Those that don’t, don’t. Instead, let me offer an olive branch to those that will not consider a solution without a public option. I am willing to change my mind and support a public option solution if it includes all of the following components.

- It replaces Medicare and Medicaid
- Those who can afford it pay fair premiums (based upon published actuarial tables) for the coverage (no subsidy provided by the government)
- The legislation must include a full summary plan description (description of exactly what is covered and what is not)
- Excepting coverage provided to those unable to pay (I am sure there would be discussions about the wage cutoff) the plan must support itself without additional subsidy.
- All required funds must come from “individual income taxes” and not corporate taxes, penalties or other hidden fees.
- The public option can not use the power of the government to dictate prices to providers. They can of course dictate what they will pay for particular procedures, treatments and/or drugs.
- The government can in no way encourage, induce or force any individual or group of individuals to participate in the public option
- The public option will be subject to all legislation and rules, both state and federal, that the rest of the healthcare industry is.

If the government is a better administrator, the costs will bear that out and more people will join the public option. If they fail, only those that have no other option for insurance will be covered and tax payer costs will at least be mitigated.

Any takers? Any thoughts?

PS – The Government is a business, businesses buy the government. Trusting either business or government is equally foolish.

Some cannot see the difference between wanting control over one’s resources and greed. Greed is the desire for more by any means usually by means other than honest earnings.

I am not greedy, but, quite contrarily, often ridiculed as too generous. I do however, believe that the only honest and viable user of my goods is me. Someone else using what is mine is theft, except by taxation. Thereby, government is the only lawful thief around. Where will the greedy be found? Where the most gain without risk is found? Government!

Who has benefits and salary for life regardless of performance? Corporate CEOs? No! Wicked insurance companies? No! If not these among these egregious mongrels, then where? Government!!! Paid for by the workers tax dollars!!! Can you get a lifetime salary with benefits without relation to job performance? Can you vote to increase the wages your employer gives you?

We need to lessen government’s power over us and remove the lure of corruption brought by bigger money than found in any corporation. The power to tax or perhaps better described as extract revenue from citizens and spend according to the whims of politicians and government agencies needs to be decentralized and thereby nearly eliminated. Greed like poverty will never be fully eradicated, but it is so profoundly advanced by big centralized government.

Apparently, you have overlooked the provisions in HR 3200 section 102 designed to protect my right to keep my current coverage. It does no such thing. 1) It limits what coverages can be kept; 2) It prohibits cost of living type adjustments to coverage costs; 3) It amazingly PROHIBITS new enrollments in even the approved coverages that are permitted, while penalizing employers who are not offering coverage to ALL employees. If an employer cannot enroll new employees, how can they possibly comply? No new hires? (Poor encouragement with so many unemployed) Do they expect employers to gleefully continue to offer the coverage presently offered after they are forced to pay the penalty as if they offered no coverage due to new employees not being allowed to have the grandfathered plan? One need not read further to quickly realize the legislation is less about providing more coverage for Americans. It is designed to get employers to so called willingly drop coverage in lieu of the fee, which all employers subject to the law would end up paying even if they had an excellent no cost plan for employees. Again, the first new employee renders the employer non-compliant with the law and the fee (8% of payroll) applies from that point forward.

Reading the rest of the bill offers no additional consolation nor hint of genuine initiative to better the state of the common citizen. It does, however, grant unprecedented controlling mechanism to unelected government entities to exercise control over something as fundamental as health care.

In the market place, I have choice without direct penalty. The insurance company cannot lock me up, or take away my home, but we have a government who can. My employer cannot force me to work for them. True, there are consequences for my choices, but I am getting to choose those consequences, and govern the remediation of them. Government does not afford me that, it simply tells and often unmercifully punishes for non-compliance.

If I disagree with a tax, I cannot choose to ignore it without the government exercising the authority to take my possession or imprison me against my will. The free market has no such power. The bank can cease collateral offered, or garnish a meager portion of wages, but cannot clean me out completely or imprison me. So yes, I prefer to fall to the mercy of free market ahead of government against my will. Everyday of the week! For richer or poorer, in sickness or health, for I have espoused freedom ahead of other fleeting things.

Interesting how you mention “unfettered” free market. we do not have unfettered free market existing today. In fact, many of the problems with health insurance could be quickly (and might have already been) resolved, if government did not prevent various venues of solutions. An unfettered free market would dictate the ability of insurance companies to insure any individual or group of individuals, but government will not allow certain groupings of people for insurance purposes. If employment was not the most readily available means for group coverage apart from government coverage, we would see competition in the insurance market not only among insurers seeking groups to cover, but between the venues for acquiring group status. Having group coverage access apart from employment would further eliminate the side effects of job loss or change. The only group of individuals affected by preexisting coverage limits that justly deserve protection are largely those who have lost coverage due to job loss, and do not again qualify for coverage until credible coverage is expired. If group coverage could be affordably acquired through other non-employment based groups, this problem could be resolved. For those who choose not to have coverage due to personal choice, the absence of premium is just reward for the cost of care once something arises. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I cannot buy house insurance once the fire starts and expect coverage, so likewise it is fitting that the same be true for medical or any other insurance.

As for huge corporations and such, government has fostered these in many ways. Survival, which is a prime objective of any business, is often tied to managing the hurdles placed by government, or fertilized by government funding via grants, subsidies and contracts. So often, the huge ones are getting paid to middle man small independent businesses actually doing the work. This fosters lobbyists, etc. which more and more each day push us further from our origins as a nation. If markets were set free from the unnecessary hurdles, solutions abound, but when government hinders market influences (pure competition) problems abound.

I do not find consolation in the voting rights of citizens. How much effort has been put forth to stifle honest election processes. I live in a state where our government was “forbidden” by the federal government from requiring positive identification to vote. How can we trust a government that resists integrity in something so basic as an honest American election? The notion of disenfranchised voters, those who either choose to or cannot obtain valid id even for free, have a right higher than the right of true American citizens have to the absence of non-citizen interference in their voice in leadership. If I am too lazy or unconcerned about voting to go to the poll, are we soon to require someone bring a ballot to me? If I am too lazy or unconcerned to register, should that be treated any different than getting a free ID card? Should I be allowed vote anyway? Another example of our how our nation’s foundation is eroding away.

How many expressed disdain for Bush, yet he was in office 2 terms? Can we remove Congressmen from other states? No, but they can collectively override our representation and dictate laws upon us. This was not the foundation of our government as designed and put forth by our founding fathers. The federal government was greatly limited in its scope and responsibilities. States had a greater role, which permitted more customized government representation for its citizens.

The American population is increasingly becoming more child-like in its dealings with government. A bag of goodies, and all wiser judgement is forfeited. We need to get some backbone (will power) and tell Washington NO. As long and the more we seek their ‘goodies’, the weaker we will become as citizens and a nation. This nation was formed, not on the back and strength of government, but individuals with the drive and resolve to act. If this strength and will to do for onesself continues to wane, where shall strength be found in the day of need? A drafted soilder is the poorest soldier on average. (Please do not misuse my words, I am referencing the unwilling soldier, not a drafted one who then chooses to serve valiantly, that one is then motiviated by inner will not dictated orders) A soldier who does not personally know and be motivated by what is being fought for, does not constitute the strongest army on earth. Our forefathers were not regimented well-skilled armies, yet they won. How, the earnest fervent yearning ffor the freedom they sought motivated their inner strength and ingenuity resulting in an inquenchable force stronger than the finest of armies of the time.

They did not hope and trust in a government, but instead formed a government intended to preserve that for which they had risk and given life and limb. A government that responded to the voice of the people not a government to whom the people must respond.

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.”
Thomas Jefferson

To those who do not want to be told what to do with their bodies and health, they can stay within the present system when insurance companies tell them what to do instead of US government. However, those who rather trust the government should have this option too.

Some argue the purpose of the government is to promote the general welfare and things like nationalized health care does so. But the founding fathers had a different meaning for the words general welfare:

“With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” – James Madison

I neither lean towards the right or left and have not voted in either direction. I have tried to vote for America and for freedom. I have not been a fan of any government program going back to Medicare in 1965, or the War on Poverty (that is still going with no results), or any other program that redistributes the fruits of one’s labors to others. This is not something that for me has arisen in the last 6 months, but throughout my entire work experience.

The government should regulate commerce such that we, for example, are not left with banks to large to fail, but they were never intended to run commerce. They should not be in the housing business hawking sub-prime loans through F&F and now FHA & Ginnie. They should not own car companies or insurance companies. They should regulate (and we’ve failed to do that properly over the past 30+ years), not operate.