The Land of Ozz

Why would Obama do this now? Maybe to befriend enemy states or to “pursue our ultimate vision of a world without nuclear weapons”. NO…Think about it.  It’s all about the money. The largest honey pot in the US budget in democrats’ eyes is defense. The DEMS need cash to fund Obamacare and they are quickly going after the biggest piece of the pie in the national budget. The signing of this treaty in the wee hours of the night (most Americans were sleeping) moves to cut nukes by 33% and delivery mechanisms by 50% over a seven year period. The timing of day in signing this treaty was by design because most Americans will be outraged by this and rightfully so. This treat significantly reduces our nation’s defense posture.  Before you add a comment and argue like one Twitter User saying, “Start is a bilateral reduction of mostly old nuclear arms” you should reread the quote from President Obama listed above.   Obama has a “vision of a world without nuclear weapons.”  He is after all nuclear weapons not just the old ones.  Yes Ronald Reagan had a similar stance as Barack Obama on nukes and he was just as misguided and naive as Obama on the subject of nuclear deterrence.

This treaty is nothing more than a democrat license to begin to cut the defense budget immediately. Cuts in the defense budget next year (to cover Obamacare cost shortfalls) will be justified by this treaty.

BONUS: Obama will be the first individual in history to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize two years in a row!

Better Solutions

Educate people on how to seek jobs that offer good health care insurance plans rather than just giving them the plan for free. Then if employers don’t pony up the plans then they don’t get the quality labor. Like the bumper sticker says, “Share my work ethic not my wealth.”

Prove the cost saving first before banking a new entitlement program on a theory.

Restrict law suites against doctors so they can lower there overheard (liability insurance) and in turn lower costs for everyone. This would also help cut down on unnecessary tests that doctors often order simply to cover their back side.

Now those are common sense ideas.

Reasons why I don’t like it

Health insurance coverage for those who don’t need/want it results in care being slow to delivery for all. It is a natural progression. Some people will abuse the “free” health care because it has no value to them due to never having to work to pay for it. Unnecessary “free” tests for the freeloaders will force those who really need the tests for  the detection of life threatening illness to wait in longer lines at the very least.

This bill floods a struggling system serving the least among us (Medicaid).  Oh…and I don’t want my tax money paying for abortions…PERIOD.

It is estimated to cost approximately $567 per person from each of the remaining US citizens to pay for health insurance premiums for the 30 million uninsured that President Obama wants to cover with his plan.  Here is the math:

Yearly Premiums: $5,270 each*

Total Yearly Premiums for 30 million people: $158,100,000,000

Cost to the remaining US citizens:

$158,100,000,000/279,000,000** = $567 per year per person (every man, woman, and child) in taxes… if the cuts/savings in Medicaid and Medicare don’t work… and they won’t because any savings to Medicaid and Medicare will be consumed because both programs are are already underfunded and rapidly growing.

“The states and the federal government share the cost of Medicaid, which saw a record enrollment increase of 3.3 million people last year. The program now benefits 47 million people, primarily children, pregnant women, disabled adults and nursing home residents.” NY Times

*Based on average of annual premiums for all federal government Fee for Service Nationwide non-postal individual plans.  These are the same plans Obama refers to regularly when he says he will be “giving tens of millions of Americans the exact same insurance choices that members of Congress will have.” This number is actually fairly low considering the average spending per Medicaid enrollee is almost $7,900 per year.
**Estimated USA Population as of July 2009: 309 million (309-30 = 279)

Keep in mind that these numbers only estimate what it would cost to get these people covered with “health” insurance and not dental or vision which Obama has been saying verbally that he will deliver access to in his plan.  There is also the additional cost of deductibles and co-pays is not included in these estimates. Oh…and these estimates do not consider the FACT that all premiums will increase if insurance companies suddenly are required to cover pre-exiting conditions.

Related articles by TheOzz:

Health Care for Small Business – Obama’s Plan

Government Health Care – Personal Concerns

Mandated Car Insurance

“…Medicaid reimbursements covered only 65 percent of actual costs…The county’s Medicaid rolls have grown by 37 percent since 2001, and the program now pays for half of all childbirths.” NY Times

This may be the future of government run health care insurance.  The NY Times did not mention how this compares to what President Obama is proposing for the remainder of the uninsured Americans but some questions do need to be asked:

• How will doctors be able to remain in business if the government sponsored plans can’t even cover the doctors’ costs?
• How will government funded insurance accommodate surges in unemployment that causes record enrollment increases like Medicaid experienced last year?
• How does the Obama plan address issues of patients having to drive two hours to find a doctor to take Medicaid or other government sponsored plans?

The comparison between car insurance and health insurance fascinates me.  Promoters of mandated health insurance often use car insurance as an example of how government requires citizens to purchase insurance.  What I intend to do here is explain some differences between mandated car insurance and mandated health insurance.

First car insurance is mandated by state governments not the federal government.  Car insurance is only required in my state (SC) if you own a car that you intend to register.  Every car owner is not mandated to purchase automobile insurance.  Yes folks, you can own a car in this area of the country without automobile insurance as long as you do not plan to put a license plate on it. You do not have to insure a car that you buy for the purposes of private use on private property.  The old 1964 Ford Fairlane that I drove around our little 26 acre hog farm as a child required no automobile insurance. THe picture above shows me at about 9 years old chaufering my 3 year old sister and my dog Duke around the farm.  The car probably cost my dad a few hundred dollars and he was willing to risk that investment by allowing me to operate that vehicle without insurance.  By the way, do you think the government insured all of those clunkers that they recently purchased during the cash for clunker scam?

The second and arguably a more significant difference between government mandated car insurance and the proposed government mandated health insurance is that type of insurance that is mandated by the government is liability insurance.  Liability insurance protects everyone except the owner.  Yes the liability insurance does help protect the owners assets but it does not insure the health or car.  That type of insurance is not mandated by the government.  Some lenders require insurance to cover the car as long as a lean is carried on the car, but that is not government mandated.

My wife wrote a comment on Facebook that I want to follow up on. Mrs Ozz said:

“The idea of universal health care for our family is SCARY! At least we would still have Medicaid for Caden but who knows how that would change!”

While the Medicaid program that Caden is on works well for us college educated middle class folk…I seriously don’t know how uneducated (illiterate) people get it for their children.  The red tape and paperwork processes to get approved are horrendous.  You not only have to be able to read and comprehend the applications, but you have to have good records.  I was told to expect it to take 4-6 months to get Caden approved.  I had good records and followed the instructions and got the approval back in a few weeks.  The paperwork was heavy on the front end but has been almost non-existent on the back end.  These government run programs like Medicaid don’t provide specific benefit information like private health care.  You never get an explanation of benefits (EOB) from medicaid and from what I have seen there are no processes for reimbursement if you do pay for something out of pocket.

Caden has been covered by Medicaid (Katie Beckett – TEFRA program) since birth which was almost five years ago.  Children who qualify for TEFRA Medicaid are defined as follows:

These are children age 18 or younger that live at home and meet the SSI definition of disability for a child and meet the level of care required for Medicaid sponsorship in either a nursing home, ICF/MR or an acute care hospital. The parent’s income and resources are not considered in determining eligibility… Source

That definition gives me a reality check on how serious Caden’s conditions have been since birth.  What they are basically saying is that if the family is not willing or able to care for the child then they would likely be institutionalized if a suitable home could not be found.

This medicaid plan has worked for us but it has had some bumps in the road.  Beginning in 2008 the state of South Carolina began outsourcing Medicaid to private industry (HMOs) so this particular “GOVERNMENT” health care is no longer run by the Government in most cases.  We opted out of the HMO choices which were offered through SC Healthy Connections Kids and went back to fee-for-service Medicaid after being forced into an HMO that did not even provide coverage for most of Caden’s care.  The HMO we were auto enrolled into has only one participating hospital within 100 miles and it is not the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Children’s Hospital where ALL of Caden’s inpatient, outpatient, and surgical work has been provided since birth.  As a matter of fact MUSC is the only hospital in the state that performs pediatric cardio-thoracic surgery. So why they choose an HMO for Caden, a child with congenital heart defects, where the only hospital in the state that can provide care is a non-participant in the HMO is completely illogical?

The scariest part of government run health care for me is the lack of equal value on life.  Many health care professionals believe that kids like Caden are a burden on families and society.  For instance, the women’s clinic where Mrs Ozz got most of her prenatal care went out of their way to make sure that we knew that we “had choices” during the pregnancy.  They made sure that we understood how difficult it would be to care for a special needs child and that we did not have to put our family through that.  Never mind that a life is a stake here.  They were basically saying that our family could have lived an easier life if we had chose to end our baby’s life at approximately 26 weeks in the pregnancy.

The mentality behind government health care is similar in that there seems to be no regard for the life of the patient if cost high and end of life are possible anyway.  You may remember that President Obama has made it pretty clear that some life saving procedures may not be worth performing on some patients.  I see this attitude held by some politicians along with their lack of value for all life to be the precursor to a slippery slope into situations like the one Dr. Bernhard Moeller faced in Australia.  The doctor was denied a visa because his son had DOWN syndrome and that would have caused a drain on taxpayers through the Australian government health care system.  And where does it all go from there?  When does the government decide to stop prenatal care or even force abortions on women who are carrying babies with known life threatening conditions that will almost surely put a drain on the taxpayers if the child is allowed to become a citizen?

The assessment of Dr. Moeller’s family medical needs were likely accurate if his son’s care cost anywhere near as much as my son Caden’s care.  Our family takes out at least twice as much benefit from the health insurance system as we put in during an average month even when there are no major procedures or extended hospitalizations.  Major surgeries along with associated hospital stays are particularly draining on the insurance system when they do occur.  Let me provide some personal details to clarify by using the first two months of Caden’s life.  I stopped adding the bills when the total passed $330,000 so we will use that number as a reference since we know that the first two months was at least $330K for Caden’s care.  My current insurance plan premiums are about $13,445 per year for our family coverage for Blue Cross Blue Shied Standard (non-postal rates).  While I was not a government employee at the time of Caden’s birth my plan was similar in benefit and premium costs so the example here is fairly representative.  Like most plans I pay a portion and my employer pays the remainder of the premiums to the insurance company.  At $330K in bills for those two months of care that means that it took more than 24 employees worth of yearly insurance premium contributions to cover the first two months of Caden’s hospital care after birth.  Caden has also had several other major surgeries since birth so these first two months is only a small example of what health care costs for a child with complex medical conditions.  For example Caden’s regular ongoing care today totals in excess of $2,000 per month due to tube feeding supplies, therapies, medications, specialist visits, and associated tests.  That is nearly double the monthly premiums ($1120) being paid in total for my family between me and my employer.

So the scariest part of the government run health care model is brought to light in Australia’s denial of Dr. Moeller’s visa.  If that example runs it’s course in the United States then Caden’s care might be categorized as too costly and the system might have to drop him from coverage if the politicians and burracrates get too involved in the process.

I suggest that we send a $13 check or money order to our Senators and Congressmen to make a point on how serious we are as average Americans in opposition to this bill.  A commenter on one of my other posts has inspired this idea.  Bill says:

I assume that you Christians will return any money that will be sent to you per the stimulus bill. it only right that you do not accept this money but rather send it to a a person in need. Your gift will help those in need may the good lord bless you kind republicans.

In response to Bill I would argue that “you Christians” are already personally giving more to those in need than President Obama.

Although liberal families’ incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227). RealClearPolitics

Most of us are already giving to the needy and will not be hurt by giving back just one weeks’ worth of what the average American is going to see from this stimulus in tax credits.  Join me by mailing a $13 check or money order to your Senator or Congressman within the next week.  We need to make sure the checks are made out to someone who can actually see that the money is used for those in need of help.

Stand by for more information.  Follow me on Twitter or subscribe to this blog by email or RSS feed for further instructions.

UPDATE: Obviously Senator Jim DeMint and his aids are too busy to respond to constituants.  I did try to contact him to see if such an effort as mention above would do any good? While Senator DeMint has been on the right side (no pun intended) of all the spending bills, he has done a poor job on constituant serviecs.  He must be thinking more naitonally in terms of the 2012 presidential race.  It should not be too hard to give Obama a run for his our money in 2012 since he barely beat McCain and is not fairing so well out of the shoot.

The perfect storm is brewing and few people can read the signs. Many in Washington wrongly believe the root of the economic problems are in the housing market. I believe that the root of the entire economic meltdown is rooted in greed and no amount of government programs, tax cuts, or funny money from Washington with fix that root cause. A lot of people and businesses are going to have to feel some real pain before this problem goes away.

As the news slowly trickles out of Washington on how the stimulus/bailout/rescue will actually be spent, we are learning more every day that very few politicians expect this bill to create or save a mass of jobs within the next two years. As a government civil service member I can assure you that major infrastructure projects will not translate into jobs very fast. The programs have to be staffed and then the contracts have to written and then the contractors have to develop plans, etc, etc. Most of the benefit of this stimulus will likely begin to be realized in U.S. economy in about three years as admitted by most of Washington. Yes that is very convenient timing for a presidential reelection bid but I think the economic problems could correct themselves in about that amount of time even if congress does absolutely nothing. But by doing nothing they will not be able to claim credit for casting a vote for “something” which they think “is better than nothing”.

The disturbing reality of the state of the U.S. economy came to me in a headline titled Visa Reports Profit Rose 35% with Increased Use of Cards. The NY Times did not explain this news in the same way I perceived that headline at first glance. The first thing I thought was that record job losses plus lower retail spending equals a high likelihood that folks are using their Visa credit cards and “convenience” checks to pay their mortgages, utilities, and car payments. So the “Increased Use” of Visa is probably not good news for our economy if you get down in the weeds of how that credit might be being used. Since the magic carpet (stimulus) from Washington is not expected to land in a neighborhood near you any time soon to create or save jobs this makes for the perfect storm. The more jobs that are lost the more likely we are to see non-traditional expenses put on credit credit cards. Then when the credit limit is reached before the new jobs reach the unemployed credit card owners, well you get the picture I am sure. The exact timing of when this storm will hit hardest is dependent on the amount of credit the average jobless head of household has available after the loss of their job. Once the income stops and the bottom is reached (top of credit card limit) then there will be no ability to get refinanced and you might start seeing homeless rates rise like only a small sample of the U.S. population is old enough to remember from the 1930’s. The notion that fixing the housing market will solve all the problems is a fantasy. A borrower without a job is not going to be able to pay mortgage payments even at 0% interest. No amount of mortgage system overhaul, tax cuts, or infrastructure projects are going to solve the rapidly rising unemployment numbers.

The stimulus programs implemented by President Bush did not prevent this economic meltdown and the stimulus being sold by President Obama and his friends in congress will not fix the economy. What exactly this country will look like once the perfect storm comes ashore is impossible to forecast but you should prepare to witness some extreme damage.

Higher unemployment + increased use of credit = more foreclosures to come

The word socializism (some spell it socialisism) is not found in dictionaries or even on Wikipedia. Simply put, it is the value system that results from being socialized. Americans parents will eventually reap what they sow. The 2008 Presidential election win for Barack Obama will likely be credited to the young Americans in this country. Parents who have sent their children into the government run schools and universities without a second thought about what their children were being taught should not be surprised with the values that are appealing to the young voters of this country these days. I went through a spell of detox after I left public education as did my wife. Had this election been held ten years ago my wife and I would have likely voted for Barack Obama based on the beliefs that had been given to us oh so subtly through our country’s public education system. It took a maturing process and a realization that I did not want the government deciding what if any moral character training would be given to my own children. I believe that parents make the best choices for their own children. A liberal democratic run government has proven that they think they know better than parents what is best for children. I will remind you of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in 2006.

“…parents of public school children are not possessed of a constitutional right, either under the
Substantive Due Process Clause or the related right to privacy, to restrict the public schools from providing information on the subject of sex.”

These are the types of decisions you can expect from judges appointed by liberal democrats.

A majority of the children in this country are growing up in a system that teaches them that the system knows what is best for them.  Joel Belz wrote in the November 1/8, 2008 issue of World Magazine in an article titled Children of the state and said:

” Socialized medicine? Most of us recoil at the idea. Socialized airlines? Reminds us of Aeroflot. Socialized banks? When it happened last month, it terrified us.

But socialized schools? Nine out of ten of us patronize them regularly…

…With a nine-to-one edge in value shaping influence, why shouldn’t the government be producing products who think government-sponsored-everything is best?”

We see Barack Obama chosen as the next president of the United States even though he is likely to fight to have the government decide for Americans:

• When a person dies (abortion and euthanasia)
• How much can be earned and still be fair (wealth redistribution)
• Where children go to school (limited choices in private or home school)
• What children learn (including things like sex ed at very young ages and evolution only science)
• What talk show hosts are allowed to say (fairness doctrine)
• Who provides you medical care (nationalized health care)

Let us hope and pray that Barack Obama does as he says and not as he has done in the past. He has made some fairly appealing promises about uniting the country during his presidential campaign. However his voting record leading up to his presidential bid does not line up with what has been coming out of his mouth.

“Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal’s 27th annual vote ratings.”

That is a quote from the National Journal annual assessment of how politicians vote during their terms of office in Washington.

The liberal Democrats tend to lean towards a philosophy of allowing the government and public school systems to prepare children to make wise choices on issues like the ones mentioned above.  I disagree.  I believe that parents do a better job of preparing thier children to make wise choices on these subjects.  What do you think?