Obamacare is now the law of the land.  The Democrats have managed to enact health care reform into law and are now willing to let the citizens of the US actually see what is included in the bill.  Since the health care reform bill is about 3,000 pages of legalese that very few of us can read easily we are reduced to reading summaries prepared by those that are willing to endure the pain of actually reading the documents.

My conclusion after reading several summaries of the bill is that the big winners are the tax accountants that will see their business increase dramatically because fewer Americans will be able to figure out their federal tax obligations due to all the tax changes included in the bill.  Our Form 1040 instruction booklets will set a new record for tax twists and turns that will separate more money from tax payers and increase the number of American citizens that pay very little or nothing for all the services they receive from the US government.  Is there a lawmaker that ever met a tax line item work sheet they didn't like?  It appears the whole point of the tax code is to make work for lawyers and accountants.  All the effort that goes into tax preparation and collection at all levels of government is overhead on our economy that contributes nothing to our nation's well being or economic development.  The Democrats are the party of excess overhead.  Too much overhead kills any business and Democrat enabled government overhead will kill the the US economy if left unchecked.  Just look at the projected increases in government spending as a percentage of GDP in the next few years, reaching 25 percent, due to the increases in entitlement programs.

Oh by the way.  Social Security is now in deficit six to seven years earlier than expected.  Are we supposed to borrow even more money from the rest of the world to pay for the most basic of all entitlement programs?  George Bush, to his credit, tried to get the Congress to address the issue in 2005.  Many people didn't like Bush's approach to solving the Social Security problem but at least he tried to get Congress to solve a very well known and understood problem.  While Obama focused on the HCR bill, Social Security ran out of money during the current recession.  What about the $37 Trillion dollars of unfunded Medicare liabilities for the future?  HCR did nothing to solve that problem.  Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, US government guaranteed housing financing and our national tax system are driving our nation into the ground.  There is no free lunch.  There is no bucket of money that the US government can spend without impacting all of us.

The saying goes "Nero fiddled while Rome burned".  Obama and the Democrats are fiddling with health care reform while our economy is burning up with entitlement programs.  All of these programs cannot be funded at current levels without bankrupting the USA.

TPM


 

Today I received a notice from Carefirst BlueCross BlueShield concerning my monthly premium for our health insurance for the next 12 months.  Carefirst is increasing our costs by 18 percent.  There is no explanation as to the reason why my premiums are increasing so dramatically.  Carefirst claims "to earn less than one penny from each dollar of premium revenue we generate in 2010 and this goes into our reserve for your protection".  Last year my premium notification was for an increase of approximately 40 percent.  Instead of paying this huge increase I changed our insurance to our current coverage which has a large deductible and a lifetime coverage cap.

I accept Carefirst's statement that the increase is not driven by their profit margin.  Therefore, the increase can only be driven by a few items.  One possibility is a much larger cost of service in the insurance pool with a constant or decreasing numbers of people covered by the pool.  If lower cost people are leaving the pool and high cost individuals are demanding more services that would explain the increase.  Another possibility is that the pool coverage is increasing but the cost of care is dramatically increasing due to increasing provider direct cost or overhead cost, provider inefficiency, expansion of medical procedures that are covered or some other cost impact.  One other possibility is that the overhead cost of Carefirst materially increased.  Or a combination of the items listed above could have occurred.

My initial reaction toward Carefirst was negative when I received my notice today.  However,  I would really like to know why my premiums increased.  Since there was near zero inflation during the most recent year this big cost increase was not due to wages, cost of goods or other items directly tied to the inflation rate.  This rate increase could only be tied to fundamental changes in the structure of the insurance business.  Are hospital overhead costs dramatically rising due to services being provided to uninsured US citizens or legal and illegal immigrants?  Are doctor's medical insurance costs rising so fast due to lawsuits that they must materially raise their visit costs to cover their insurance costs?  What are the facts?

I don't see how Obamacare solves the problem I am complaining about.  We don't the know the basic facts about what is happening within the health insurance system.  How does Health Care Reform address these issues?  Adding 30M people to the health care system doesn't seem like a path to lower health insurance premiums.  Is the cost problem driven by an aging population with baby boomers needing to see a doctor for every minor sniffle? 

The only way I see to lower medical insurance premiums is to increase the deductibles and make families take care of minor medical issues with their own funds.  This will force a reduction in doctor's visits and minor procedures.  The same thing needs to happen for free services.  Hospitals and other service providers need to put the dollars they spend on helping uninsured people that can't pay their bills in a separate account that is not treated as overhead on paying clients.  These services need to be supported by charities.  If funds are not available from any source, hospitals need to stop providing free services. I know this is a harsh approach but why should people that are paying their bills be forced to pay for those that can't pay. 

There are not an unlimited amount of funds available to cover every medical issue for every person in the US.  Rules have to be created that keep costs at reasonable levels.  Some people will have to go without services at some point if they can't pay their own bills.  We need to carefully ration health care (including Medicare and Medicaid) for those that can't pay their bills. 

I and most people that pay their own health care medical premiums have had enough of exhorbitent cost increases.  We need health care cost reform but not a national medical welfare system.

TPM

Karl Rove admits the truth about George Bush and the Iraq invasion.  You must read the following article in Politics Daily,  http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/03/karl-rove-admits-mistake-in-advising-bush-on-iraq-invasion-respo/

TPM

I sent the following email to MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Mathews show tonight.

Chris Mathews.

As you stated at the end of Hardball today the US does need health care reform.  However, the US government has proven that it doesn’t have the capability to manage major programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.  All of these programs are headed for eventual bankruptcy because the Congress and the Federal Government have mismanaged the benefits and revenue streams over decades.  The Federal Government can’t manage any program effectively from a financial perspective.  The last thing we should do is give the Federal government an expanded role in US health care services. 

I also agree that the US must act like adults as a nation.  The first thing we need to do is get our financial house in order and stop spending money we don’t have today and will never have.  Our financial system is a lie and every “adult” knows the truth.  I suggest you turn your focus to our nation’s financial mismanagement by both Democrats and Republicans over decades.  We need to address this issue, our country’s most critical long term problem, as soon as possible.

I hope you reach adulthood soon.

TPM