Government should reserve public finding of health care for poor and provide tax breaks to all for private health care. The Government and private charities can provide a sound and effective public safety net. Only about 5% of Americans need that kind of help. A “public option” will increase the burden on taxpayers by about 100 million people. Medicare is already bankrupt with 42 million people and $86 trillion in debt that has no funding. The government should not mandate that Americans buy high priced, low value health insurance enforced by a tax penalty.
Patients should decide how much to pay for routine annual medical care and reserve health insurance for rare catastrophic events. When patients are financially empowered they can drive down costs and they can demand the time they deserve with their doctors to find out if tests, procedures and medications they are prescribed are really needed. When regulations are released or ended on health insurance and tax policy, health insurance will be affordable. Health Savings accounts should be expanded (tax free) and catastrophic accident and sickness insurance should be purchased for the few times in your life when needed by a patient. The government is not the solution and neither are insurance companies. People are the solution. 300 million payers are more effective at driving down costs than a handful.
Some Facts….
Medical Inflation is Caused by Control of Health Care dollars by Big Government and Big Insurance Corporations. Medical Costs are out of control due to payment of medical services by third party payers - parties that are outside of the patient physician relationship. Only by paying directly for routine annual medical care can Americans drive down the costs of health care. When Consumers tell doctors and hospitals to justify the need for every test, treatment and procedure – and their costs – medical costs will drop. When Patients rarely have severe sickness and accidents, they can be 100% covered by low cost, high deductible catastrophic health insurance. Also, citizens are forbidden from buying lower cost, but just as valuable, health insurance from other states. This drives insurance costs up and must be stopped. States should also refrain from mandating unneeded benefits like acupuncture, chiropractic care and hair prostheses into insurance plans as this drives up costs and make consumers buy coverage for things they do not want.
The Government is Making Health Care Coverage Promises it Can’t keep. The Government can’t afford the Medicare, Medicaid or SCHIP programs but is asking the taxpayers and their children (through debt) to pay for health care for tens of millions of more Americans. Medicare is effectively Bankrupt as there are not enough funds from Medicare taxes to cover costs. Since 2007, Medicare has required funds from general taxes to cover costs. Medicare would require $84 trillion to covered all American lives now to be covered in the future. This debt has nothing backing other than paper IOU’s in a filing cabinet in West Virginia . Americans will have to borrow from China to pay for their health care and leave their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren with crushing debt. Against all Reason, Congress seeks to add substantially to this debt possibly through a “public option” to purchase health insurance which has bee estimated to drive about 120 million Americans from private health insurance to the government rolls. There is a better way.
Myths and propaganda are being used to justify the wrong kind of health system reform while real problems and real solutions are ignored. Of the “46 million uninsured Americans” claimed, 9.7 million are not even Americans. 16 million can afford health insurance but choose not to buy it while only about 8 million are chronically uninsured. Medical costs account for only about 5% of bankruptcies. Americans receive the best medical care in the world and claims of “1/2 the proper care” are based in pseudoscience and false definitions of quality. All Americans are guaranteed medical care if they go to an Emergency room regardless of ability to pay. Insured patients are far more likely to use an emergency room than uninsured. Myths and propaganda are designed to create a “crisis” mentality to give politicians and big corporations an excuse to take more power to themselves.
Rationing is the only way to control costs if third parties control all of health care financing. As more money for medical care is placed in the hands of government and big insurance companies, they will resort to rationing. Big Corporations are likely to gain near monopoly power and will have little competition to incentivize them to have only a fair profit. They will have big government on their side to keep competitors down and hand them more power over medical care. In the end, rationing will be used to generate profit levels that can’t be achieved in a truly competitive market. The Government will ration because they won’t be able to afford all the medical care that is demanded. This will occur through hard rationing created by the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness who will determine what treatments are justified based on cost. Soft rationing will occur as people die waiting for treatments that save and extend life.
Universal Coverage by health insurance is neither achievable nor necessary while Universal Access to medical care is. There is no need for every American to own health insurance. Efforts have failed many times in this country, most recently in Massachusetts where 3% of its citizens remain uninsured despite a mandate for all to buy health insurance. Proponents admit that they use the goal of “Universal Coverage” to justify expansion of government and corporate control of medical care and worry how to pay for it later. Far more important is the ability to see a physician or receive care in a hospital when needed. Many patients with “Coverage” (e.g. Medicaid) can’t access medical care because the plans don’t pay fair market value for the services sought. They thus wait to see specialists in remote cities and over-utilize the ER for basic medical care. When patients are economically secure and in control of their own health care financing, they are far more likely to be able to access medical care when they need it.
An Individual mandate to buy health insurance is a slippery slope to socialized medicine and leads to many unintended consequences. The state of Massachusetts has mandated all of its citizens to buy health insurance and applies a tax penalty to those who don’t. This has been accompanied by vastly prolonged waits to see a primary care doctors since the “low cost” plans created by government for coverage don’t pay for the cost of services. Public hospitals who see indigent patients are in severe financial trouble. The State is creating cookbook medicine and rationing protocols to control costs. They are requiring bailout money from Washington D.C. and placing increasing burdens on taxpayers to make end meet. This system is likely to be proposed by Congress this summer and can’t be allowed to pass.
Doctors will be forced to comply with government rationing protocols through use of cookbook medicine and electronic medical record systems. The government and insurance companies want to tell your doctor what medical care to provide and what care not to provide to patients. They are creating “best practice” and “pay for performance” protocols that don’t help patients. They are then creating “report cards” to grade how well doctors comply with the cookbook. They seek to financially penalize doctors who don’t comply with the protocols. To get good grades, for these cookbook protocols doctors and hospitals have been shown avoid sicker and riskier patients, “game” the system, and use the cookbook protocols for the wrong patients as they case a wide net. The poor and minorities are harmed even more strongly by these approaches. Doctors and nurses must take valuable time away from patients to enter data into computers for the third parties to create the grades. Pop-up computer windows will slow doctors down as they are programmed to force a doctor to follow the cookbook. These expensive Electronic medical record systems drain money from actual patient care and are security risks for private patient information.
Medical Care will only get better under a free market system. The many miraculous advances in medicine over the last century have arisen because they were motivated by seeking an honest profit for their creation. While scientific work and altruism motivated many initial discoveries, companies seeking to grow their businesses brought us things like: Miracle drugs, advanced medical imaging, spinal implants and joint replacement hardware, brain and heart pacemakers, cancer drugs and radiation treatment. More innovations in genetics, medications, surgery and early diagnosis can be ours if we let the free market engine of the American economy work its same magic. Under current proposals, government seeks to remove the profit motive for medical care and insurance companies seek to provide only basic medical care as they collect premiums and deny care. This will cause the science and technology of medicine to “Stall” at the year 2010. Furthermore, when patients privately contract with their doctor for medical care, they can force prices down and force doctors to spend more time with them. This will drive down costs, increase quality and patient satisfaction. Also, doctors and business should be granted the freedom to open up focused and lower cost medical facilities that patients want and “certificate of need” laws should change as they grant hospitals protection from competition that can drive down costs and increase variety and quality of services.
Government and private charities have the capacity to take care of the poor. What about the poor? There will always be those with lower incomes that need help to receive needed medical care. Americans are generous and – if freed from crushing tax and debt – will fund charity care which was common prior to the creation of Medicare. The government should also help pay for those of lower incomes directly and help others with government reinsurance of insurance plans for high risk patients.
The tax code needs to be changed to grant Medical financial power to Americans, not to force Americans to act against their interests or grow the size of government. Tax treatment of medical costs are a relic of World War II when the government fixed how much workers could make on the job. To retain workers, corporations were allowed tax breaks if they provided health insurance. However, since that time individuals have been forbidden from getting the same tax break for insurance if they bought insurance outside of work. This has caused insurance companies to sell insurance to employers –not directly to consumers. The tax code should be changed to ensure every American gets a tax credit for indivudal and family health insurance converage. Lower income Americans can have a more generous credit as a voucher to purchase health insurance. Tax benefits of Health Savings Accounts and high deductible health insurance should be protected and expanded.
Despite the fact funding for public safety and education are being reduced, state lawmakers are still considering a questionable mass transit program know as Commuter Rail. Never in Florida history has so much pressure been applied by special interests on our lawmakers. There are some 200 paid lobbyists in Tallahassee pushing Commuter Rail. And the people paying those lobbyists are not the taxpayers. The taxpayers are taking time off work to pay their own way to Tallahassee to stop the rail project.
There are three reasons the taxpayer is overwhelmingly against commuter rail;
1. Commuter rail will lose $100 million a year and forever hurt funding for more important functions of government. 2. The Commuter Rail deal pays CSX way to much money and the insurance liability will hit the taxpayer in the wallet in a big way.3. Commuter rail has questionable benefits outside of a few special interest groups. Just today Channel 13 in Orlando conducted a poll which found 60% are against Commuter Rail for these reasons. And these people live in Central Florida. Imagine how people in other parts of Florida feel about their tax dollars going to a questionable rail project they will never use.
Our elected officials need to wake up to the fact that 50,000 Floridians attended "tea parties" April 15th. On a work day 50,000 taxpayers came to protest government spending. They came to protest spending projects just like Commuter Rail. The only reason the rail project is still alive is because opponents are getting bought by the promoters of commuter rail. The Senator with the swing vote in an important committee today received a tax increase on rental cars. Everyone that objects gets some payoff that ultimately comes at the expenses of the taxpayer. It is a bad deal made worse with these payoffs.
Please email the state lawmakers below and tell them to give Commuter Rail a rest. Tell them you will remember their vote on this issue the next time you vote. By taking the time to email these legislators you will save the taxpayer $10billion over the life of Commuter Rail. More importantly it will preserve funding for education and public safety. bennett.mike.web@flsenate.gov detert.nancy.web@flsenate.gov garcia.rudy.web@flsenate.gov lawson.alfred.web.@flsenate.gov oelrich.steve.web@flsenate.gov dean.charles.web@flsenate.gov crist.victor.web@flsenate.gov peaden.durell.web@flsenate.gov Please take the time to visit our website and review the petition to limit government spending. Let's take back our government. Matthew Falconer Orange County Taxpayer Budget Review Board www.TaxpayerBudgetReviewBoard.orgwww.LowerTaxesNow.org matthew@LowerTaxesNow.org
April 17, 2009
Open Letter to Senate President Jeff Atwater about double dipping!
by: Rod Moren
Senator Jeff Atwater, Request you intervene and reconvene the Senate Govt. Oversight and Accountability Committee, before the current legislative session adjourns in order to terminate the present state law allowing any state public employees to double-dip which is crippling the states economy and morale. If these public employees decide to retire, they should be able to live on that amount and not collect their retirement pay while still receiving their full salary. How can you as a taxpayer and the legislature allow these people to continue double-dipping in this recession? Florida's citizens & taxpayers will think you don't care about them if you don't terminate the present Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP ) which allows state public employees double-dipping, asap. Request you take immediate actions to reconvene the above committee in time to terminate the present DROP tainting you and the legislature and to restore my ,and other Florida taxpayers. faith in the Florida leaders and representatives.
Sincerely,
Mr. & Mrs. Rod Moren
March 5, 2009
Open Letter to Governor Charlie Crist: Lobbyists legal or not?
To the Governor of Florida, The Honorable Charlie Crist, I read in the Tuesday Times newspaper where, last Monday, all of our Florida representatives were allowed to receive checks from lobbyists "legally? " and state representative Bill Heller saying that his accepting these checks will not necessarily mean they'll influence his vote. If that were the case, the lobbyists would not contribute to him, or any other representative, as it would not benefit the interests/companies who hire them. This "legal?" loophole needs to be closed quickly in order for the citizens of Florida to have equal influence with their representatives. And if this loophole cannot be closed through Florida legislative channels, then all those representatives should be identified through your office and the media channels by some public service group/PAC, such as the Florida Taxpayers Union ( FTU) , thus, hopefully, resulting in the applicable representatives being voted out in the next election. Request you take immediate actions to correct/rescind/nullify the above lobbyist funding "loophole" in order to return voter control of their state representatives and government. I am looking forward to receiving your response to my request in the near future. Thank you.
Best regards,
Mr. Rod Moren, Way Overtaxed Taxpayerand an FTU member
July 19, 2008
Are American consumers tapped out?
by Lawrence Crenshaw
This is the undeniable question. People have been living on credit cards and money from refinancing their homes for such a long time that they have forgotten how to live on a paycheck. This is a sad realization but americans have forgotten the basics of living within their means. It is not entirely their fault as financial institutions, credit card companies and the no interest, no payment fee mentality has contributed to this fiscal mess. We are all guilty of wanting so much, and we are made to believe we can have it all. Every day we are bombarded by credit card offers, zero interest, no payment plans for just about anything from refrigerators to furniture groups to big screen TVs. It's enticing but its also dangerous. A lot of people have gone to support groups to learn to curtail this behavior and many more need to.
The truth is , we have hit judgement day too pay the bills, We are no longer able to refinance homes for addtional cash, our credit card bills are maxed out and a lot of people can not even make the minimum payment. This has caused a trickle down effect nationwide from mortgage foreclosures, to credit cards to banks themselves. People are defaulting on many of their debts because we were distracted from doing the right thing.
The pain obviously will mean a lot of wealth will have to disappear, and people will suffer in order to make things right. Government is trying to keep the ship upright but can not bail out everyone. As americans we will ride out this rough patch of economic activity and become a better society for it. Legislation needs to do their part as well by passing bills to make it more difficult to obtain creative financing in the future. Credit card companies should be restrained, limiting their advertising. No payment-- zero interest offers should have clarification to make sure people understand the installment contracts they are signing and placing limits based on credit worthiness.
To answer the question "Are we tapped out" I'd have to say we are but not by choice. I noticed a sign in the store the other day that pretty much said it all. "I can't be out of money because I still have checks left."
July 2, 2008
Stimulus check for essentials.
Prices of basic services are skyrocketing. Forget about getting that big screen TV or outdoor bar-b-que for the summer. If you were wondering what to do do with your government stimulus check, look no further than your household essentials.
At last check compared to last year, electricity per 1000 kilowatt hours will set you back about $27.00 per month more. Natural gas will be 33 percent more, oil thus far is 54 percent up over last year and 6 percent more for coal. Cable TV bills are also inching up for packaged services. What was $99.00 per month for internet, cable and phone will now be $109.00 per month plus $1.00 extra for each cable box.
We see it everyday but people that are living on retirement dollars are experiencing it now. Groceries and food staples are hitting all time highs. Detergents and paper, and household cleaners are going up approximately 20 percent across the board.
So the next time, somebody says, what are you going to do with your government check to make sure those dollars prop up the economy, You tell them..it was spent before the check arrived. post, Richard G.
June 29, 2008
The warning signs of a slowing economy
As if you didn't realize it already, and most people have, forces at work are stripping most americans of their ability to pay for basic needs. The people of Florida are at the breaking point. A slow transition has our society going to a two tier class system. The middle class is fast becoming a relic. Our system as it stands, and now runaway inflation has costs escalating at an alarming rate, faster than we have the ability to pay. Florida Progress has just announced increases that could top 20 percent more in the next couple of years. Oil costs have risen so much that they have to recoup more of our hard earned money. I am personally a distributor for air-conditioning supplies and I have seen three increases since January for aluminum, copper, and brass. Another increase is slated for mid August that wll have most people standing on the sidelines unable to buy. Most manufacturer representatives have told me that the cause is China and other emerging nations that are using our raw materials in great amounts. Copper, concrete and most building materials are being exported to such a degree that they cause spiraling costs at home. We just recieved a notice yesterday that Fasco, AO Smith motors would be another 8-12 percent higher starting July 8th. Obviously due to copper costs. Equipment costs due to the higher SEER (seasonal energy efficiency ratios) while good have come at a horrible time. This new set of regulations have prices for equipment at an all time high. New SEER ratios preclude people from buying one piece of equipment, whether it be an air-handler or a condensing unit, they now have to buy both to be compatible. Throw in the new mandates from the Montreal protocol for refrigerants usuage and phaseout dates on R-22 for R-410 and you have a real mess, during a rough patch in the economy.
If anybody tells you that inflation is in check.. They better double check their sources. With people paying so dearly for basic needs, there is no longer any disposable income to spend on our area restaurants, home improvement warehouses or other infrastructure that makes our Cities and Counties run.
To sit back and wait for things to change is not an option. We need to stimulate the economy back to health. We need to cut property taxes, and start running a leaner more manageable government at both the state and local levels. Less taxes and regulations are a great place to start. Stop saying yes to every company that comes before a regulatory meeting. Property insurance reform is also needed now, perhaps new state sponsored windstorm protection could prove to be an answer. Doing so will help our government,by allowing people to retain more of their hard earned money to purchase goods and serices from our local businesses and merchants thus energizing our state revenue system. This in effect would be a huge stimulas check not unlike the one the country is doing now. We need to keep our existing infrastructure intact with our tax dollars and not invest in future infrastructure until we have stabilized the situation in our own backyeard.
