My Boy

There are various stages in the life of a young man: Infant, Baby, Toddler, Little Boy, Boy, Young Man, Tween, Adolescent, Teen, Young Adult, etc. Each stage has it's own rite of passage, if you will. If there was any doubt, Today, Full House solidified his "Boy" status.

Every now and then (ok, basically all the time), Full House and I wrestle. He jumps on me, I tickle him, he climbs on me, etc. Today, as he was running to jump on me, I rolled over. As I did so my elbow came in contact with his bottom lip.

Did he cry? Nope. Did he scream? Nope. Did he bleed? Yup.

There you have it, my little Full House bled without shedding a single tear.

Now I have a Boy.

The Bill (Post I)

Sunday, by the narrowest of margins, the House passed a Healthcare reform bill. First, let me say how phenomenally pleased I am that this version of the bill does not include a "public option." The Government will not be entering the market as a healthcare provider.

Now, allow me to blast this reform bill. According to the Obama administration this bill will provide coverage for 30 million Americans who do not currently have it and will cause health care premiums to decrease for those that do have it.

(In rereading my complete and utter dismantling of this bill, I'm seeing that the post is very long. Due to the length of this post, I've split it into several updates. For your convenience I'll list here a table of contents, if you will. Read the portions that interest you.)

Post I (This post)

Problem 1: An assumption made by the crafters of this bill.

Problem 2: Consequences if individuals choose not to pay for health insurance.

Post II (The next post)

Problem 3: The ramifications of fining companies that don't provide coverage for their employees.

Problem 4: The bogus claim that this bill will somehow decrease health care premiums

Post III

Problem 5: The ridiculous way this bill plans to pay for itself.

Problem 6: The type of coverage that companies are now required to offer.

Post IV

Problem 7: The Constitutionality of this bill

Problem 8: When everything is scheduled to take effect.

Final thoughts

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Problem #1
An assumption made by the crafters of this bill
This bill assumes that the 30 million Americans without healthcare all want it. I didn't have healthcare after I graduated from college until about a month before I got married. I didn't need it. I didn't want it. This bill would have punished me for making that financial decision. There is a clause that allows young adults to stay on their parents healthcare until they are 26 instead of 22 as it is now. So either I get punished (with a fine) or my parents get punished by having to continue to pay for a family plan rather than an insured plus one. People should have the freedom not to carry healthcare, just as we have the freedom not to carry life insurance, home insurance, or mortgage insurance. One more thing, allowing "children" to remain on their parents plan is great if you want to continue perpetuating the growing problem of "twixters!"

Problem #2
Consequences if individuals choose not to pay for health insurance
Any American without healthcare by 2014 could be fined. For the first year the fines would start at about $95 (and then in fine print "or 1% of your annual income, whichever is higher") Who makes $9,500 a year?! Then next year the fines could increase to a starting amount of $695. Individuals and families who make less than a certain amount would be exempt from these fines. Oh yeah, by the way, the people exempt from the fines would be eligible for Medicaid. A state-based, state and federally funded health care program that they wouldn't have to pay for! So the people who are exempt get free healthcare anyway!

Please keep reading on the next post:

The Bill (Post II)

Problem #3
The ramifications of fining companies that don't provide coverage for their employees
Companies that don't provide healthcare coverage for their employees will be fined. The fines would be up to two thousand dollars... per employee! Small business (companies with 25 employees or less) will get a tax credit that would cover anywhere between 35 to 50 percent of the cost of providing coverage for their employees. Large companies (50 or more) would be subject to the fines. The first 30 employees would be exempt from the fine. What's this going to do? Cause a lot of people to lose their jobs! If I'm a company of 30 employees, with this bill I now have to provide all of my employees (not just full time employees) with insurance and I'm not eligible for the tax credit because I have too many employees! Ok, say good bye to five employees. That cuts my healthcare costs and qualifies me for the tax break. Of course, if I'm a small business of 12 and I'm working really hard to stay afloat that 50% tax credit isn't going to do me as much good as it may seem. I've got to front the cost of the coverage for my employees and then wait for tax time to learn that I'll be sending less money to the IRS. That's not money the government is giving me. That's more money going out of my business that I might have been using to pay for supplies, or another employee. "Sorry, Jimmy, I have to let you go because I have to provide healthcare for everyone else."

Problem #4
The bogus claim that this bill will somehow decrease health care premiums
There is no possible way this bill will decrease people's premiums. Healthcare providers can no longer refuse coverage. That's like telling auto companies that they can't decline policies. What would happen to your auto policy if the company you were with was forced to accept the risk of all of the reckless 19 year olds? Well, the insurance companies would charge them more, right? Insurance is "shared risk." Sure they'd charge the 19 year olds more but do you really think the insurance company is going to recoup the $400,000 they just paid out by charging the inexperienced youthful drivers $3,000 a year? Just a little calculation for you: it would take over 100 years for the insurance company to get the money it paid out. That means they are increasing your policy as well. Here's another reason this bill will not decrease premiums. With this bill, it's not legal for insurance companies to charge sick people more than well people. "Great! Those sick people will really get a break!" There was a school system that wanted to give it's best teachers a bonus. The teacher's union said, "no no! If you give them a bonus you have to give all of us a bonus. We're a union, you can't treat us differently." The school system agreed and didn't give anyone a bonus. This will happen here. "Oh, we can't charge the sick more than the well people? Ok, guess what well people, you are now paying what the sick people pay." If this doesn't happen, health insurance companies will go out of business. (perhaps that was one of the goals of this legislation.)

Please keep reading on the next post:

The Bill (Post III)

Problem #5
The ridiculous way this bill plans to pay for itself
For those that cannot afford healthcare, the government will subsidize it. So we can expect, at this point 30 million Americans to have subsidized insurance. We can add to that all of the people that are going to loose their jobs because of the requirements now on businesses. So we've got over 30 million people for whom the government will pay at least a portion of their insurance. Where is this money going to come from? Fines from companies and individuals won't be enough to pay for it. We all know what that means: tax increases! The payment for this bill will come from new taxes on medical procedures (which will just cause health care costs to increase even more), increased taxes on pharmaceuticals (hitting the elderly and the sick), taxes on "expensive" healthcare coverage (meaning those who can afford really good coverage [of course, I'm sure the Congresspeople are exempt from this]), and cuts in reimbursements to doctors and hospitals from Medicare (yet again, targeting the old). Many experts say those still won't be enough and are predicting higher general tax increases to make up the difference. Hmm, I wonder, will the government also subsidize some of the individual fines they are charging as well for those that can't afford insurance but aren't poor enough to qualify for the subsidized version?

Problem #6
The type of coverage that companies are now required to offer
I have to carry things I don't need. If I'm an individual male, my healthcare still has to provide me with maternity and pediatric coverage. I cannot find a way to lessen my costs by rejecting such coverage.

Please keep reading on the next post:

The Bill (Post IV)

Problem #7
The Constitutionality of this bill
It is unconstitutional to require Americans to carry private health insurance. Obama compared it to requiring people to purchase auto insurance. Here's the difference. Auto insurance is only required if you choose to drive. There is no choice in this legislation. What, if I choose to breathe I have to have healthcare? Where is the outrage from those shouting about the government's infringement on our civil liberties because of the Patriot Act? Oh, the people shouting about that "evil" piece of legislation are the same people trampling my civil liberties by requiring me to purchase healthcare on the open market. This bill is completely unconstitutional and needs to be prominently labeled as such.

Problem #8
When everything is scheduled to take effect
The majority of these provisions don't go into effect until after the mid-term elections and after Obama runs for reelection. The Democrats can wear the laurels of healthcare reform upon their brows without having to answer for all of the inevitable negative consequences. At the mid term elections in 2010 the politicians will point out how all of the drastic doomsday prophesies of the Right have not come to pass. As Obama runs for reelection in 2012 he will continually mention the victory of healthcare reform that he was able to pass because he will not have to face the ramifications of it as it still will not have taken effect when he is trying to retain his office. This bill isn't actually law until 2014! And if we look far enough into the future, two years may not be enough time for the damaging effects of this bill to become fully evident. That means in 2016 the Democrats may still be singing the praises of this destructive bill!

Final Thoughts
Thanks for making it this far!
Once again I'm seeing this action as simply a calculated stepping stone to a single payor government run system. Let's say the Supreme Court does shoot this bill down as being unconstitutional. Rather than ditch it entirely, the legislatures may say, "Well, we can force people to pay into Social Security because it's government run. We'll just require people to carry government insurance. That's legal." Either that, or, with well people paying the same as sick people they begin choosing to pay the fines rather than carry insurance. People pulling out of insurance companies causes them to raise the premiums on those who stay forcing more people out of the system. Private healthcare collapses and the government swoops in as the apparent savior. Like Senator Palpatine, they save us from the destruction they caused. Either way, as I've said before, the crafters of this bill are either oblivious or devious and I don't want either type of person in power in my country!

Let's hope there's still a way to kill this bill.

(Resource)

Bad Religion

A few days ago, I realized why I hadn't posted for some time. I wasn't paying much attention to the news. I refuse to watch network news. I have had to eat at my desk so I haven't been watching the cable news station on in the cafe. I don't read the newspaper. I listen to either sports or classical music to and from work.

Then I received a gift: a waterproof radio. The only few minutes of the day that I have to myself, now I can listen to the news. I did it for one day because I got so annoyed by what I heard. Three posts created themselves in that one day. I haven't turned the radio on since.

Here's one of the stories I heard:

"Trade in your Bible for free pornography."

An Atheist group is providing pornography if people will turn in their religious texts. I'm sure you can imagine my wrath if the only acceptable trade-in were a Judeau-Christian Bible. But, true to what their name suggests, the Atheists were accepting any religious text. (I wonder if they would have accepted this Bible)

This is a question for all of my atheist readers (of which I know I have at least two). As an Atheist, do you honestly believe that these images, (images that objectify women, images that have ended marriages, images that have been known to cause eating disorders in women, images that have been proved to lead to violence against women) do you believe that these images are less destructive than ancient writings that (for the most part) encourage their followers to love others?

Now, I understand that some people might say that it's not about what the books say, it's what they lead to. I completely admit that a lot of people have done a lot of bad things and used religion to support it. The Crusades. Hitler used religion to back his psychosis. Jihad. But I realized something:

The solution to bad religion is NOT less religion. The solution to bad religion is good religion.

Why is this such a revolutionary thought? This only makes sense. The solution to bad food is good food, not less food. To combat bad employees, you get good employees, not fewer employees. If Hollywood is making bad movies, the answer is not fewer movies, it's good movies!

I just hope the protesters conducted themselves with love.