Sauce for the Goose

You probably know the saying, “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”  It flies in the face of double standards.  It says that if you can do something, so can I.  Conversely, if some consequence for bad behavior for you is fitting, then the same consequence is fitting for me if I do the same thing.  Everybody plays by the same rules.  It’s the antithesis of means testing. Let’s look at this with a bit of retrospective regarding last year’s failed Swine Flu (H1N1) pandemic.  Please don’t get me wrong.  My heart goes out to all the families who lost loved ones due to the disease.  My criticism is with its handling.

States do means testing for their benefits and tax policies.  Hospitals do means testing for how much they charge their patients.  Rich patients or those with insurance pay more than poor patients with no insurance.  State-run clinics means test for how much patients pay for their services.  Means testing determines Medicare coverage.  Means testing determines how much of your Social Security income is taxed.  Means testing is a way to regulate the supply or cost of a good or service by manipulating the price paid by the consumer.

Businesses don’t do means testing but they do practice supply and demand.  The price of oil goes up therefore making gas more expensive.  Some people modify their driving habits to use less gas and thus not spend as much.  If things cost more then either you spend more or you cut down on your consumption.

Means testing is as well ingrained in the health care industry as supply and demand is in the rest of the capitalist system.  So why are states upset when pharmacies vary their charges for Swine Flu or other vaccines?  Some claim price gouging such as what happens when stores jack up the price of water after a hurricane cripples the water supply of a town or region.

The problem? There were claims this last flu season that the varying cost of Swine Flu vaccine from state to state and within a state, sometimes by as much as $75 across the state, was price gouging.  Ignore the fact that some pharmacies have to mix their own formula for children’s doses (ever hear of increased labor costs?  Ever hear of malpractice insurance?  Someone has to pay for them to take the risk of mixing the vaccine themselves.)  Ignore the fact that the vaccine itself was in short supply in some places.  One place charged $49 and another charged over $90 for the same dose.  Often these were in the same area and it was relatively easy to get from one place to another.

The solution?  Chris Dodd, retiring Democrat Senator from Connecticut, wanted a government investigation and the Mississippi State Attorney wanted people to report any price gouging they found.  Of course this begs a very important question.  What is price gouging here?  If the drug store I visit charges $90 I should report them, right?  Forget the fact that I can go to another pharmacy across town and pay only $49.  The government needs to do something for me because I’m too lazy to shop around!  His committee investigation should have its results about a year and a half after the Swine flu has long subsided and the next flu season that’s coming kicks in so don’t hold your breath for meaningful results.  Perhaps they’ll have something before the next manufactured “crisis”.

I don’t know what Dodd’s committee intends to accomplish.  Maybe he’s jealous over the competition for medical care dollars.  Maybe he’s looking for ways to get pointers on how to ration health care under the guise of caring what happens to you.  Maybe it’s good that he’s retiring.

I don’t see how the variation in prices for H1N1 vaccine was price gouging but then again, I’m not a government hack, so what do I know?  It’s supply and demand.  You want what I have, here’s the price.  If enough people refuse to pay the price and go somewhere else, maybe I’ll consider lowering my price before the vaccine I’m holding goes bad or isn’t needed.

Don’t like the price, maybe WalMart has a better price.  Not everyone advertises “Always low prices … Always” (or at least used to.)  Use your phone and call around.  By the way, at what price is it gouging?  Who sets the standard?  Maybe we need to fix the price and be done with it.  Hmmm… Sounds like socialized medicine is one more step closer.  The current year’s flu vaccine is currently about $25 at my local food store pharmacies.

What do you think ObamaCare will do?  Means testing is the centerpiece of government programs.  Government bureaucrats, not your doctor, will regulate how much health care you can get.  They will limit the supply regardless of the demand.  They will limit it depending on your income, age, and current health.  Ignore the fact that health care is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution as a federal responsibility.  They will control your access to health care and you will lose your freedom of choice about it.  Get used to it.  It’s coming.

People look to the UK for the model of government- run health care.  The claim is that it is second to none, and it is … when you can get it.  The trick over there is convincing the government that you truly are worthy of being treated for your ailment.  The same will be true here.

Socialized medicine only works when the government has enough of your money to spend freely.  As the amount of your money decreases, so does the quality of the health care they’ll allow you to receive.

I can hear the campaign slogans in the New World Order: Want a vaccine?  Then vote for me!  I’ll make sure you get it or die trying.

The Populist Movements aren’t so Popular Any More

People can be fickle.  Popular opinion changes.

Global Warming is cooling off.

Universal Health Care isn’t universally desired.

What has happened?  Have the people become fickle?  Has apathy set in?

I truly believe that the American public is not as stupid as many politicians and ideologues want to believe.  As it has been attributed to President Abraham Lincoln, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”  Given time, truth will come out and people will have an opportunity to assess the facts.

We live in a day of sound bites.  The sound bites are chosen either to promote an agenda or to capture the audience’s attention and make the story more interesting than it really is.

We need to beware of quick actions by Congress whether it’s for the health care bill or anything else they want to pass.  All too often the details don’t come out until it’s too late.

The government doesn’t even have a clue about how much health care will cost. Even the CBO, Congress’ accountants, think health care spending for just the first 10 years will be at least $1.2 Trillion more than the Obama team estimates.  Are these people educated by the public school system and that’s why they can’t do arithmetic?  This is especially worrisome because the Obama plan has taxes and little spending in the first 5 years.  Expenses don’t kick in until six years out.  So, if all that money plus $1.2 trillion more is needed in years 6-10, how much more will we dig our grandchildren into debt in years 11-15?

If you need proof of bad arithmetic, take the government’s estimates for Social Security at any time in our history.  Take their estimates for Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, food stamps, or any other funding estimates for the War on Poverty for The Great Society.

The American people are increasingly suspicious and loathsome over back room deals to buy congressional votes at the expense of the rest of the country and they’re at it again. Why should Connecticut get a hospital and not the rest of us?  If you’re sick, will you fly to Connecticut for treatment?  Why should Florida senior citizens keep some medicare benefits the rest of us will lose?

Why do they have special money for Massachusetts?  I thought they had a model government-run health care program already.  Why do they need special money if their plan is so good?

The current bill is so bad that even the ruling party can’t get its own people to agree to vote for it.

I’ll ask the question again.  Can government really run health care? Look at the problems we have had (and still have) with the VA hospitals that are supposed to take care of the brave men and women who have sacrificed limbs and health to keep us free.  Look at the Swine Flu so-called “pandemic” that didn’t pan out.  Look at the government reports that say that women don’t need as many mammograms (but they’ll still pay for Viagra).

If the program isn’t good enough to stand on its own and you have to buy votes with special projects, the program simply isn’t good enough.  Kill it and start over, or maybe better yet, just kill it.

A New Beginning, a New End

January.  It is the month named after Janus, the Roman god who had two faces (maybe he was a political deity?).  One of Janus’ faces looked forward to the future and one looked backward.

As we begin a new year we can see endless possibilities. We see significant challenges ahead. It is a time to contemplate what we will do and all that we can accomplish in our remaining 1,085 days until the world is destroyed on December 21, 2012.  That is, ignoring the fact that just as the Mayan Calendar will recycle on that day, our calendar recycles every January 1st.

If you didn’t know better you would think it was just like any other day, but you do know better.  If you didn’t make your charitable contributions before January 1st, you can’t count them for 2009.  Your income tax is based on the income you earn on or before December 31st.  Many counters stop and restart again on January 1st.  You will throw away one old calendar and start a new one.

But it’s not just a resetting of days.  Many things will be impacted by the fact that we have a new year.  New laws will go into effect.  Some things stop and others start.

Which direction will our economy head? Where will our civilization take us? To where will society lead us?  We’re just 20 days shy of President Obama’s first anniversary.  How has he fared so far as President?  How has congress fared?

I claim no prophetic or psychic powers but I have a few predictions for 2010 and into 2011 and 2012 (some things cannot be implemented overnight).  Here they are.

• Global Warming will continue to be a hot subject even in the face of declining world temperatures and mounting evidence of fraud.
• The US government will continue to head toward deeper and deeper socialism.
• The Democrats will lose the House of Representatives due to their failed agendas and policies.
• The federal government will take over the banking industry in the face of increasing bank failures and under the guise of it being too important to be left in the hands of Boards of Directors and stockholders.
• Terrorist attacks against the world’s democracies will increase in number and ferocity.
• The Swine flu (H1N1) scare will fizzle out and be quietly ignored as the non-pandemic that it is, but that “it could have been serious”.
• There will be fear mongering surrounding a new bogus “health crisis” that will be drummed up to force acceptance of nationalized health care.
• The government-sponsored “health experts” will show that they’re not sexist by declaring that men need not get regular prostate cancer screenings.  This will be only one of a list of “unnecessary” tests and procedures to save the nationalized health care system money.
• The US and the world will experience a resurgence of the recession because businesses growth has not come from increasing sales but only from cutting expenses.
• The International Monetary Fund will start to produce the new “one world currency” and sell “souvenir” coins that countries will start to accept as legal tender.
• Federal mandatory (and unfunded) extensions to unemployment benefits will cause at least 5 more states to face potential bankruptcy and have to cut other services to continue these payments.  The federal government will find that it must go so far as to nationalize unemployment benefits to make sure the program is “fair”.
• More and more American citizens will take the jobs that previously only illegal immigrants have held and thus start a class war between the two groups.  Illegal immigrants will demand federal assistance under the nationalized unemployment programs because they cannot find work.
• Gold will hit, hold for a short time, and then cross $1,300 per ounce.  Depending on inflation it could soar to $2,000 an ounce (I’m not sure what that is in the new one world currency but we’ll find out).
• Speaking of inflation, the Federal Reserve will be unable to stop the inflation caused by the unsupported printing and injecting of bailout and stimulus dollars into our economy.  Interest rates may even hit double digits and even surpass Carter-era inflation to slow things down.
• There will be a major disaster at China’s Three Gorges Dam.
• Lastly, the world will not end on December 12, 2012

How accurate will I be?  I don’t know but let’s see next year at this time how I am doing.  Maybe I could start predicting the weather.

Happy New Year and Peace on Earth to people of good will.

Is What they’re Smoking Covered by the Health Plan?

It can’t just be the power.  Either something is infecting them or they’re on some kind of fantastic drugs, but Congress has to be out of touch with reality if the current debate on the health care bill is any indication.

The health care system can be fixed of its ills.  However, Congress just seems to make things worse all the time.  Is the “public option” (read that government-provided insurance) on or off the table?  USA Today reports that pork barrel politics are not dead when it comes to healthcare.  There is plenty of pork in there, pork that only adds to the cost.  Remember, the original bill was almost 2,000 pages long.  Has anyone who has to vote on it bothered to read this latest copy of the bill to see what was put in it?

However, the most amazing thing about this debate is the desire by some to allow younger people to buy into Medicare.  Think about it.  How many times have you seen “We’re sorry but we are no longer taking new Medicare patients” signs in your doctor’s office?  Will they be able to buy into Part A and Part B?  What about drug coverage?  And remember drug coverage was designed for people who are on long-term drug regimens.  It’s for people who need to take the same drugs every day for years if not until they die.  How many younger people are on that kind of drug therapy?  Could it ever work?  If you look rationally at it, I can’t see how.

There is good news, however.  Since the government also runs the establishments that decide if procedures are medically necessary, if they need to save money, suddenly you’ll find that some procedure or therapy is overrated and no longer necessary. Oops! Not gonna pay for it!  You hurt your arm?  Who needs an x-ray?  Suck it up and walk it off.  You’ll hear arguments like, “When I was young I didn’t have MRIs as I walked 3 miles through the snow to school uphill in both directions.  Why do you think you need them now?”

Remember these are the same people who warned us of the dire H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic that’s now been downgraded to a mere epidemic.  Why has it been downgraded?  Is it because they called it wrong in the first place? Did they run out of vaccine and don’t want people to think they need it any more? Is it because they just don’t want to treat the people? Are they embarrassed over the problems with vaccine distribution?

There’s a reason why the medical establishment is not the insurance industry (for the most part).  When the two become one through socialized medicine, the same ones who have to pay for your treatment will be the ones who decide if you get it or not.  Another way to say it is that the ones who pay the bills will decide if you live long enough to generate a bill for them to pay.

Is the coverage all encompassing?  They won’t pay for your mammogram but they will kill your baby for you.

One Flu Overly Cuckoo? Next!

[Author’s note: Let me apologize for the delay of this posting.  I was traveling and when I returned home, my network had fried while I was gone.  It has taken me this long to get most things back up and running.  So, on with my thoughts.]

Hardly a week, nay, hardly a day goes by without someone from the government demanding that you get a vaccine to guard yourself against the H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic.  But then the next article you read bemoans the lack of Swine Flu vaccine doses.  People have to wait in line and be prioritized for the vaccine.

Prioritized for the vaccine?  Hmmm … I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on television but prioritization sounds an awful lot like government-sponsored health care, doesn’t it?  Someone is deciding for you if and when you will get the medicine that someone else says that you need.  ObamaCare isn’t even implemented yet and already the government is deciding if you are worthy to receive advance treatment for a disease you might catch.

Reports abound about the side effects and even adverse reactions to the H1N1 vaccine.  One has a gut-wrenching decision as to whether or not to take it or give it to one’s children.  Enough questions have arisen that there is now a government study group to look into the safety of the vaccine itself.  Can you believe it?  The government is studying whether the government has called it correctly.  Is this the fox guarding the hen house?  That remains to be seen.

We live in a crisis generation.  Everything is a crisis.  We have a health care crisis, a housing crisis, a climactic crisis.  Every day we hear Chicken Little say that yet another part of the sky is falling.  What’s going to happen (I ask rhetorically) when something truly bad happens?  Don’t get me wrong.  Sixteen (or more) percent unemployment is not good for the economy or for the people who are unemployed but do we see soup lines and bread lines as with the truly Great Depression?  We need a dose of sanity here.

I bring that up because you cannot hear a report or read an article without linking “H1N1” and “Swine Flu” with the word “pandemic”.  The dictionary requires that a pandemic be geographically diverse or exceptionally prevalent.  Reports show that although some people are especially susceptible to the disease, from a numbers standpoint it’s generally no worse than the seasonal flu is every year.  Now, things may change as the flu season progresses but as of right now, even with the lack of vaccine, mankind is not on the verge of extinction.

Again I ask: With all of this “crisis” mentality hitting us from every side, what will we as a society do when something truly tragic happens?  I really don’t know.  If you do, please append a comment to this blog entry.

Of course all this begs the question of where the PETA people are when you need them.  I have not heard Bob Barker or anyone else demanding that we vaccinate our pig population against this disease that was named after them.  Is that because they secretly know that there ought to be some payback for the pigs for giving the flu to us?

What’s my take on this?  If pigs are so smart, as many animal rights folks are so quick to point out, let them develop their own vaccine!

Regardless, what crisis awaits us next?