I wanted to take a quick moment to let you all know that I will not be blogging until December 10th. The reason for the delay is we are redoing the website and my goal is to deliver a daily blog, Monday through Friday, that really focuses on asking questions, getting clear on what the real issue the medical community and the insurance community have against pregnant moms and their unborn babies. I am really bothered by the attitude that is being taken against "Moms in the Middle." This is a cause worth fighting for and I hope by the end of 2009 that I don't have to blog about this anymore because we have come up with a solution that works for everybody, but especially Mom and her unborn baby.
Success is Choice!!!
Aaron Bouren
Advocate Aaron
PS - See you back here on December 10th.
Joe the Plumber for President
That last presidential debate was, well, so polite. There was a jab here and there, but no killer strokes. McCain seemed to try, but not very hard. Interestingly, the very next night I saw the two presidential candidates in rented white tie and tux making out like standup comics. It all makes me want to puke.
McCain was right when he said that the big winner in the debate was Joe the Plumber (I’ll just call him JP). In case you’ve been living under a rock lately, JP is the guy who politely confronted Obama about his tax plan. JP is doing well, you see, and after years of hard work he might actually make $250,000. He merely asked an obvious question. How does raising his taxes help other people? How does it encourage him to work hard and do better? How does it help his employees? How does it help to expand his business?
The answer is that raising taxes for some and then giving tax credits to others on the basis of class warfare is not good for anybody. This is especially true when you consider that half the people who would get the “credits” already pay no taxes at all. Their “credits” are just welfare by another name. And by the way, because Obama would let the Bush tax cuts expire, those below $250,000 who pay taxes might just end up paying more, too. In essence, Obama would pay people to have low incomes and tax people who have high incomes. Since income has quite a bit to do with market value – i.e. productivity – Obama’s beliefs apparently say that his notion of equality is far more important than a high or rising standard of living – or freedom.
JP got it right in interviews since his encounter and the debates. He pointed out that “sharing the wealth” is socialism. We are talking about substituting the preferences of maybe a few hundred people (Congress and some bureaucrats) for the decisions of millions.
But that is the least egregious problem with the welfare state mentality. The worst part is the violence involved. Markets are peaceful. Individuals come together and agree to make exchanges. Because of varying amounts of expertise and knowledge, our exchanges actually make the economic pie bigger.
Let’s contrast that with socialism. The violence inherent in taxation is generally hidden because most people pay their taxes. We don’t object to a lot of taxes because we get roads, police protection, and other things in return. But wealth redistribution? What does that do for JP? Nothing.
So, let’s suppose JP decides not to pay that tax bill. It is, after all, a lot like him sending somebody a bill when he’s done no plumbing for them. It’s a lot like stealing, and nobody, including JP, would expect somebody to pay a bill when nothing has been done in return for the money. What would his refusal to pay get him? He’d get the joy of spending time in an orange jumpsuit inside a shared jail cell, spending his time worried about getting a prison enema.
But Obama doesn’t want to stop with simple wealth redistribution. He wants to expand government-provided health insurance. Effectively, he wants to continue this nation’s long march to socialized health care. And what will we get for that? Judging by Britain, Canada, and practically every other nation on earth, we’ll get long lines, we’ll be told which doctor to use, and we can all kiss medical innovation goodbye.
Heck, we don’t even have to look at Europe. Let’s just look at U.S. history. The Pilgrims started out as communists. For three years they practiced socialism in agriculture and they nearly starved themselves to death. They solved their famine problem with private ownership and market trade. Here’s what William Bradford, governor of Plymouth Plantation, had to say about socialism:
(C)ommunity of property (so far as it went) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment … This feature of it would have been worse still, if they had been men of an inferior class. If (it was thought) all were to share alike, and all were to do alike, then all were on an equality throughout, and one was as good as another; and so, if it did not actually abolish those very relations which God himself has set among men, it did at least greatly diminish the mutual respect that is so important should be preserved amongst them. Let none argue that this is due to human failing, rather than to this communistic plan of life in itself. I answer, seeing that all men have this failing in them, that God in His wisdom saw that another plan of life was fitter for them.
Would we listen to this wisdom. Would that make John McCain take what is at stake seriously enough to get angry. Would he and everyone else in this nation consider freedom and liberty important enough to fight for. Unfortunately, it looks like we will have to learn the lessons of the Pilgrims all over again. Perhaps when people die from lack of quality health care, for lack of medical innovation, and for lack of a nation like the United States that treats people from all over the world when they can’t get treatment in their own socialist nations – perhaps then, we will, like the Pilgrims, turn away from “this communistic plan of life.”
Fighting Mad,
Advocate Aaron
McCain was right when he said that the big winner in the debate was Joe the Plumber (I’ll just call him JP). In case you’ve been living under a rock lately, JP is the guy who politely confronted Obama about his tax plan. JP is doing well, you see, and after years of hard work he might actually make $250,000. He merely asked an obvious question. How does raising his taxes help other people? How does it encourage him to work hard and do better? How does it help his employees? How does it help to expand his business?
The answer is that raising taxes for some and then giving tax credits to others on the basis of class warfare is not good for anybody. This is especially true when you consider that half the people who would get the “credits” already pay no taxes at all. Their “credits” are just welfare by another name. And by the way, because Obama would let the Bush tax cuts expire, those below $250,000 who pay taxes might just end up paying more, too. In essence, Obama would pay people to have low incomes and tax people who have high incomes. Since income has quite a bit to do with market value – i.e. productivity – Obama’s beliefs apparently say that his notion of equality is far more important than a high or rising standard of living – or freedom.
JP got it right in interviews since his encounter and the debates. He pointed out that “sharing the wealth” is socialism. We are talking about substituting the preferences of maybe a few hundred people (Congress and some bureaucrats) for the decisions of millions.
But that is the least egregious problem with the welfare state mentality. The worst part is the violence involved. Markets are peaceful. Individuals come together and agree to make exchanges. Because of varying amounts of expertise and knowledge, our exchanges actually make the economic pie bigger.
Let’s contrast that with socialism. The violence inherent in taxation is generally hidden because most people pay their taxes. We don’t object to a lot of taxes because we get roads, police protection, and other things in return. But wealth redistribution? What does that do for JP? Nothing.
So, let’s suppose JP decides not to pay that tax bill. It is, after all, a lot like him sending somebody a bill when he’s done no plumbing for them. It’s a lot like stealing, and nobody, including JP, would expect somebody to pay a bill when nothing has been done in return for the money. What would his refusal to pay get him? He’d get the joy of spending time in an orange jumpsuit inside a shared jail cell, spending his time worried about getting a prison enema.
But Obama doesn’t want to stop with simple wealth redistribution. He wants to expand government-provided health insurance. Effectively, he wants to continue this nation’s long march to socialized health care. And what will we get for that? Judging by Britain, Canada, and practically every other nation on earth, we’ll get long lines, we’ll be told which doctor to use, and we can all kiss medical innovation goodbye.
Heck, we don’t even have to look at Europe. Let’s just look at U.S. history. The Pilgrims started out as communists. For three years they practiced socialism in agriculture and they nearly starved themselves to death. They solved their famine problem with private ownership and market trade. Here’s what William Bradford, governor of Plymouth Plantation, had to say about socialism:
(C)ommunity of property (so far as it went) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment … This feature of it would have been worse still, if they had been men of an inferior class. If (it was thought) all were to share alike, and all were to do alike, then all were on an equality throughout, and one was as good as another; and so, if it did not actually abolish those very relations which God himself has set among men, it did at least greatly diminish the mutual respect that is so important should be preserved amongst them. Let none argue that this is due to human failing, rather than to this communistic plan of life in itself. I answer, seeing that all men have this failing in them, that God in His wisdom saw that another plan of life was fitter for them.
Would we listen to this wisdom. Would that make John McCain take what is at stake seriously enough to get angry. Would he and everyone else in this nation consider freedom and liberty important enough to fight for. Unfortunately, it looks like we will have to learn the lessons of the Pilgrims all over again. Perhaps when people die from lack of quality health care, for lack of medical innovation, and for lack of a nation like the United States that treats people from all over the world when they can’t get treatment in their own socialist nations – perhaps then, we will, like the Pilgrims, turn away from “this communistic plan of life.”
Fighting Mad,
Advocate Aaron
Making Ends Meet
Being pregnant and uninsured is often just the beginning of a woman’s potentially long battle with the health care system. Many hospitals charge the uninsured up to five times the amount they charge a patient with insurance. Hospitals are willing to negotiate lower prices with insurance providers, but not with individuals. Medicaid sets price limits for the amount it will pay for procedures, but nobody sets limits for the amount the uninsured pay.
Costs for a regular, vaginal delivery range from $5000-$8000. Double or triple that amount and a woman who can’t afford insurance in the first place can quickly find herself unable to keep up with her bills. Several groups—from the American Hospital Association to the CBS Evening News—have chronicled the effects of hospital price gouging.
Doing the right thing isn’t a futuristic, utopian impossibility, however. Hospitals in Minnesota have agreed to charge their uninsured patients a rate which is in line with what insurance companies pay for the same services. They are also revising the way in which they collect debt. Kudos to Minnesota, but with the nation’s lowest percentage of uninsured (9.7%), they may be able to move more quickly than states that meet or exceed the national average (18.9%).
In the American Hospital Association’s “Hospital Charges Explained” they state that patients with Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance comprise 90 percent of a hospital’s charges. They say that because of the reduced pricing these agencies negotiate, most of their patients underpay for medical services. That leaves the uninsured to foot the difference. They say hospitals, after all, have to make ends meet.
Costs for a regular, vaginal delivery range from $5000-$8000. Double or triple that amount and a woman who can’t afford insurance in the first place can quickly find herself unable to keep up with her bills. Several groups—from the American Hospital Association to the CBS Evening News—have chronicled the effects of hospital price gouging.
Doing the right thing isn’t a futuristic, utopian impossibility, however. Hospitals in Minnesota have agreed to charge their uninsured patients a rate which is in line with what insurance companies pay for the same services. They are also revising the way in which they collect debt. Kudos to Minnesota, but with the nation’s lowest percentage of uninsured (9.7%), they may be able to move more quickly than states that meet or exceed the national average (18.9%).
In the American Hospital Association’s “Hospital Charges Explained” they state that patients with Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance comprise 90 percent of a hospital’s charges. They say that because of the reduced pricing these agencies negotiate, most of their patients underpay for medical services. That leaves the uninsured to foot the difference. They say hospitals, after all, have to make ends meet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
