How Republicans Win 2012 – Options

For my 100th blog post,  I decided to let you in on how the Republicans can create a strategy that will improve our system and economy, resonate with voters, and defend against Democrats.  It all comes down to one thing, giving citizens options.

I love having options, it is essentially a form of freedom.  I believe Republicans need to develop programs where people can choose between the current system and a new system.  Giving citizens the option between old and new eliminates the fear of the new.  Further, Democrat’s entire election campaign is around generating a fear of the Republicans.  For example, they have commercials of a Paul Ryan looking figure pushing granny off the cliff.  Just this past weekend, David Axelrod labeled Republicans a “reign of terror.”

I want to give a you few examples of options:

• Social Security –> the Chilean model essentially privatizes gains and socializes loses.  Basically, people would be given the option to stay with the current system or invest a portion of their social security dollars (instead of paying the full tax) to a private investment.  If the private investment does not meet the payout they would have received with the government social security check, they are paid the difference by the government.  It benefits the citizen because people typically get paid more privately than with social security, less money is paid out to citizens because their investments worked, preventing the system from going bankrupt, and there are still people paying in for those who want to stay on today’s version of social security.
• Medicare –> Did you know it is cheaper for us to pay citizens about $15,000/yr. for them to get their own private insurance than it is for them to be on medicare?  If we give people the option to do the private version, we would save money, even if only 10% did it.  Further, insurance is all about risk for the insurance companies.  If they have a larger pool of people paying in, it reduces the risk for them, increasing their ability to make insurance more affordable..
• Tax Code –> What if we had the ability to choose between the current tax code and paying a straight 20% of earned income without any deductions? If I had the option of paying a straight 20% instead of going through the confusion of our current model, I’d probably choose the easy path.

Obviously, the examples I gave are extremely complicated.  However, I wanted to illustrate some ways that we could create platforms that provide options.

I believe Republicans are trying to convince the American people that we need massive changes.  However, people do not like change, especially big change.  The public opinion of an entire nation cannot turn like a speed boat, it is more like a massive air craft carrier that takes miles to slowly turn around.  By offering options, it allows people time to get comfortable with big ideas.  The great thing about the private options presented is they will naturally become popular because they will typically put more money in people’s pockets.

Romney and Republicans need to market options more than the big ideas.  They need to tell Democrats, “If you like the current system, keep it.  Meanwhile, us 50% of Americans (the Republicans) will take the private options, make more money, and help cut the national budget.  You’re welcome Democrats…you’re welcome!”

Healthcare Bill Passes

The House passed the Senate Healthcare Bill 219-212 and the Reconciliation Act 220-211.   President Obama still needs to sign the bill Tuesday or later.  After the President signs it, the Reconciliation Act will go to the Senate to be passed.

Many conservative blogs will focus on how American’s did not want this bill and that it is an outrage.  My most recent post discussed the poll results to help you understand what people think.  However, many people were against the Iraq war with a similar passion and Republicans did not listen to them, so it is difficult to argue that Congress should do exactly what the polls say, although I wish they would have in this case.

That being said, I think this vote tells some important things about the parties:

Republicans: I have been critical of Republicans for spending too much under the Bush administration.  However, in this case (as well as the stimulus bill), every single Republican (all 178) voted against the bill.  The Republicans are building credibility as the party for lower spending and lower taxes.  Voters will not see the majority of the taxes and programs until after the 2010 election (as a lot of programs do not start until 2014), so the Republicans are still going to have to be innovative to win big in 2010.

Democrats: Democrats have an agenda and they are going to do whatever it takes to get things done, even if it means making back room deals and doing it without any bi-partisanship support.  I find it interesting that so many Democrats changed their mind at the last minute after pressure from leadership. Watch for a lot of pork to follow to support candidates who changed their minds as a payback.

This conservative blog has been fighting against the healthcare bill for quite a while and to do so now could potentially be repetitive (there are numerous healthcare articles I have written if you wish to partake).  Once everything is done, I’ll read the long freaking bill and try to offer more specifics.

This healthcare legislation is monumental; the only legislation I can think of that has been this big is social security and medicaid, which are both broke right now.  Maybe this government run program will be different, but I doubt it.

Healthcare Poll: Americans DO NOT WANT THIS BILL!

The most recent Rasmussen Poll from earlier this weekend revealed that America does not want the Health Care Bill that will be voted on by Congress today.  I am going to ignore the fact that the Democrats had to make “deals” to pass this bill, had to do it on a Sunday, which has the least number of people who watch the news, and stick to the facts of the poll:

• 54% oppose the bill, while 41% favor the bill
• Party Breakdown:
  • Democrats: 74% approve plan
  • Republicans: 87% oppose plan
  • Independents: 59% oppose, 34% favor plan
• 57% believe costs will go up, while only 17% believe costs will go down
• 54% believe the care will get worse
• 81% believe the costs will be higher than projected
• 57% believe the bill will hurt our economy
• 55% wish Congress would just start over
• 20% believe Congress will understand the bill before they vote for it

There are other polls, such as the Gallup Poll (48% oppose vs. 45% support), that are a little bit closer.  The only poll I could find that kind of says that people support the bill was MSNBC, which had 46% say it would be better to pass the president’s plan and make changes to the nation’s health care system, versus 45 percent who would prefer not to pass it and keep the system as it is now; they definitely worded the question interestingly.  However, in that same poll, 36% said Obama’s plan is good vs. 48% who think it is a bad idea.

In short, the Rasmussen Poll states that the majority of Americans think the bill will make costs go up, care will get worse, and it will hurt our economy – the exact opposite of what the bill hopes to accomplish.  No wonder the Democrats have had to play games in order to pass this bill.

MN Gov. Pawlenty Gives Health Care Plan

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, or T-Paw as he is sometimes called, submitted his plan for healthcare reform in a Washington Post Op-Ed.  As Republicans are looking for solutions and a leader as they head into the Feb. 25th Healthcare Summit with President Obama,  I think they should listen to Governor Pawlenty.

The article highlights 5 simple ways to reform healthcare: incentivize patients to be smart consumers, pay for performance, liability reform, interstate healthcare insurance, and modernizing health insurance.  All five ways are common sense to me.  Some of the ideas have worked well in Minnesota, while other ideas (such as interstate healthcare) have yet to be implemented.

The United States is supposed to be the great American experiment in which different states have the sovereignty to try different ideas to see what works and what does not.  In Massachusetts, they tried a universal healthcare system (Commonwealth Care) and did not work well at all.  The big issue was their poor projection of costs of the program, which are already about 20% more than they anticipated in just 3.5 years after implementing the new policy.

Adversely, Pawlenty’s plan has worked well in a liberal Minnesota because the ideas make sense (increase competition, better information for consumers, etc.).  I hope the Federal Government can either learn from Minnesota and implement simple ideas or leave universal healthcare for states to decide.  Based on what happened in Massachusetts, I do not believe many states would  adopt the policy.

Sustainable Healthcare Solutions

There are a lot of solutions for healthcare in the current House and Senate bills, with the major focus on getting the 31 million Americans who do not have health insurance to be covered.  Most of the solutions have been around the government (i.e. the taxpaying Americans) paying for these people to have insurance.  How sustainable is this general philosophy of solving problem?

It is inevitable that government expenses are going to go up if you begin a new program that pays for millions to get healthcare.  The tax increases proposed by the Democrats theoretically take care of all the expenses so that it doesn’t increase our debt…for now.  In 1980, U.S. healthcare expenditures were around $238 billion.  In ten years, it jumped to roughly $714 billion.  Nearly 20 years later to 2007, the U.S. spent over $2.2 trillion on healthcare, which is a 925% increase in less than 30 years ago.

What if we have another 900% increase in the next thirty years?  Can you imagine the amount of taxes we will have to pay?  I think we need to revamp the entire discussion around healthcare to begin talking about sustainable healthcare solutions.  Instead of asking, “How can we pay for those 31 million without insurance?”  We need to begin asking, “How can we stop the massive increases of healthcare costs so that people can afford to pay for themselves?”

We do this through a series of simple bills that people can rally behind.  I could write a bill that was no longer than 5 pages of tort reform that puts a cap on medical malpractice suits that would reduce costs (Missouri’s bill is about 4.5 pages).  It may not reduce costs a lot, but it is one step that we know would reduce costs a little bit.  I could write another bill that was around 5 pages that allowed insurance companies to sell across state lines to increase competition and thus,  reduce costs.

After that, I would write a bill that would be about 10-15 pages that would allow people to form their own groups to get discounts from insurance companies.  Currently, the law states that pretty much only businesses can get a group discount on health insurance.  I belong to a church that has 7,000 members and I have over 700 friends on facebook.  Both groups would contain more members than the average number of employees in a U.S. business.  More group discounts would equate to cheaper costs as well.

In about 20 pages of legislation containing three easy ideas, I could make our healthcare cheaper in a month for everyone.  However, the current healthcare bill in the senate is 2400 pages and will most likely increase taxes for the majority of Americans.  We do not need such a massive bill to drive change for these people who cannot afford health insurance.

I do want to state that I do feel sorry for those that cannot afford medical insurance, but I sometimes wonder how many really cannot afford it, when looking saving/spending statistics in the U.S.  In the 1960’s, the average American saved 6-10% of what they earned.  In the late 1990’s, that percent dropped down to 2% and in 2005, the percent people were saving actually went into the negative territory.  In other words, they were spending more than they were earning.  So, when we say 31 million people say they cannot ‘afford’ health insurance, I wonder what they are spending their money on.

How many of those people have a cell phone bill that could be exchanged for health insurance?  How many have a cable/internet bill they could exchange for health insurance?  How many could take the bus instead of buy a new car?  More importantly, we need to understand how much cheaper would we have to make insurance to make it ‘affordable.’  Of those 31 million without insurance, how many could afford it if it was just $15 cheaper a month (which my 20 pages of legislation could potentially get us)?  

After you take all of those people out, there would obviously still be people without health insurance, but it would be a drastically smaller number and cost our government a lot less. Congress needs to think about how they can help people help themselves rather than try to take control.

Unions and Democrats Cut Healthcare Deal

A few days ago, I mentioned that the unions were upset with President Obama and Senator Reid because they both supported a tax on expensive healthcare plans, otherwise known as ‘cadillac’ plans.  After the unions expressed their frustration, President Obama and Democratic Representatives from Congress set up a meeting with union leaders.  I speculated that there would be back room deals made so that the unions came out on top.

Today, this conservative blog was yet again proven correct when they announced that the new proposed 40% tax increase on ‘cadillac’ health insurance plans would not apply to union members.  The White House called this “solid progress” to a final bill and Pelosi agreed.  Not only do the rest of Americans who are not union members have to pay the tax (those that qualify for the ‘cadillac’ plan anyway), but with union members being exempt from the tax, the bill comes roughly $60 billion short in revenue, increasing the odds that the rest of us will either have to pay more taxes of some sort or our healthcare will be rationed in some way to stay within budget!  This is absolutely insane that he can pick and choose who pays taxes based on their affiliation to a private group.

President Obama promised open dialect that would be transparent for every one to see, yet another back room deal was made behind closed doors.  President Obama promised that he would not pander to special interests, yet he invites them into a special meeting and concedes many items to them to ensure their happiness.  President Obama said he would reach across the aisle, yet Republicans are not even allowed in the room to discuss the bill.

While I am not going to pretend there has never been a Republican that has failed to keep a campaign promise, it is a fact that President Obama has failed to keep many campaign promises just as Bush 41 failed to keep his promise of no new taxes.  President Obama must be pretty confident in himself if he thinks he can continue to break promises without an reaction from voters; I have a feeling that the voters in 2012 will react to Obama’s broken promises much like they acted towards one-term President, Bush 41, in the 1992 election.

Read Between the Lines!

I apologize for not posting for a little while, I’ve been trying to do some legal research into a lot of what is going on with health care and other programs.  Instead of hearing it from other people, I wanted to ensure that I was giving sound data being that there is so much mudslinging going on right now.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to give exact page numbers with links to the bills in future postings so you can look up the facts yourself and show your friends to the bills.

The difficult thing is that they are kind of passing legislation in a confusing way.  For example, President Obama says that the health care bill will not be offered to illegal aliens – right now, they can go into emergency room and get care – do you believe that in the future, hospitals will turn away a pregnant lady?

Republicans proposed amendments to H.R. 3200 when it was in committee requiring verification of citizenship before applying for coverage, but that amendment was rejected by the Democrats.

On page 143 of the 1,103 page proposed bill it does say “No Federal Payment For Undocumented Aliens.”  Further, it does say, “Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.”

Earlier in the proposed bill in Section 242 it states, “IN GENERAL. — For purposes of this division, the term ‘affordable credit eligible individual’ means, subject to subsection (b), an individual who is lawfully present in a State in the United States”.

It would appear that the Democrats are doing their jobs in not allowing illegal aliens to get health care. HOWEVER, because the Democrats denied the amendment to require identification, the illegal aliens can still get care.  The Congressional Research Service (the nonpartisan research arm of Congress) stated, “H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitizens – whether legally or illegal present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently – participating in the [Health Insurance] Exchange.”

The door was left just open enough (no verification provisions) to allow illegal aliens to receive taxpayer subsidies to purchase private health insurance.  They may not be able to get everything a citizen can, but will be able to receive affordable care.

It is extremely complicated…the moral of the story is that you have to Read Between the Lines…and even then, it CAN be interpreted either way.

Life is About Choices!

Amidst all of the politics, I cannot stop thinking about the choices we get to make in the U.S.  You can choose what kind of car you want to drive, what job you have, how many kids you and your spouse will have, where you want to live, where you want to travel for vacation, who you want to vote for, whether you are going to spend your money helping your kids through college or buy fancy things, whether you want to get up and run every morning or stay in bed and eat donuts, etc.  It is amazing how much personal freedom we really have!

While discussing healthcare, I often hear people  say there is no affordable healthcare.  I didn’t mind people saying it for a while, but I just cannot hear it anymore.  Let me share a short story.

My second week of college, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer during a routine physical.  I had surgery to get it removed, radiation to kill any remaining cells that the doctors may have missed, and now I have to take a pill everyday for the rest of my life.

When I went to get health insurance, there were companies that wouldn’t accept me and there were others that were going to make me pay a lot of money.  I wasn’t upset about it because I understood that I was a bad investment for an insurance company.  I was going to have to pay more because I was unhealthy and would cost more; it seemed like common sense to me.

At that point, I had three main choices: go without healthcare, pay a lot of money for healthcare somehow, or find a company to work for that provided affordable healthcare.

I choose to work for a large corporation that had a great healthcare plan.  Because of the size of the corporation, I pay the exact same amount as everyone else.  Working for a large corporation was not my first choice at the time, but at that point in my life, it was the most economical.

Sometimes life is tough – I obviously never dreamed that I would get cancer.  My priorities drastically changed and I had to make some tough decisions.  Instead of our government trying to make decisions for us (mandating we buy health insurance), our government should do what it can to give us more private choices.  I’m going to give two examples:

• Companies cannot sell insurance across state lines, so insurance companies only need to compete with local groups instead of competing nationwide.  Decreased competition raises prices and decreases choices.
• A corporation can get a group health insurance discount, but a bunch of people in a church cannot set up a group to get a similar discount.  Our government could get rid of these laws and allow more people to get group discounts.

One of the reasons I started this conservative blog is to help and empower people to make the right choices. There are some tough choices to make, but everyone has the ability to make their own life choices.  Good luck!

Let’s Talk Tort Reform

One thing that we have heard very little about in the healthcare debate is tort reform.  I thought I would share some insight into our current situation and discuss what tort reform could mean for you.

The stats:

• 52% of  jury awards are greater than $1 million in medical liability cases – the average is $4.7 milion
• With no limits, there have been verdicts as high as $100 million
• Roughly 3/5 OB-GYN’s have been sued at least twice
• The average cost for defense lawyers is $87,720 (if you ‘win’ the case, you’re still down over $87K)
• In cases where plaintiffs won the verdict, only 28% of verdict went to plaintiffs (the rest went to lawyers and administrative fees)
• Medical liability costs rose by over 1600% from 1975-2000, reaching over $26 billion by 2003
• 79% of doctors report that they ordered more tests than they normally would due to litigation fears
• 45% of U.S. hospitals report that liability payments have caused a loss of physicians (decreased supply equates to higher cost)

Filing a medical suit is currently a pretty easy task – it costs a little more than a small filing fee.  Pair the ease to file a medical suit with the precedent for large multi-million returns with little merit, and it is no wonder that many people file medical malpractice suits.

Every time there is a law suit filed, it increases the costs of the doctor and the hospital to cover this payment.  The double negative is that it also means that doctors order extra tests to ensure that they did everything to ensure that the patients’ needs were met.  All of these costs go downhill to the customers.

A couple of easy things that the government can do:

• Increase costs to file a medical malpractice suit
• Develop top-end limits for medical malpractice claims [no more $100 million suits – Texas limited their damages to$750,000, President Bush proposed $250,000 limits]
• Re-write medical best practice so that unnecessary tests are not performed for defensive reasons [if people are worried about substandard care – they can mandate that the doctor present options]

These cost reducing solutions would decrease the costs of healthcare for everyone by eliminating unnecessary testing and decreasing the liability costs of doctors and hospitals.

Left Media?

In June of this year, ABC hosted a hour long healthcare special with President Obama.  It was essentially an infomercial trying to sell his healthcare plan during prime time television.  Now, the League of American Voters, a non-profit organization that prides itself on representing American voters and taxpayers, is being denied by ABC and NBC  to run an ad that opposes Obamacare.

The ad is 33 seconds compared to Obama’s 3600 second special and has a board certified doctor speaking against Obama’s health care plan.  ABC’s main argument for not airing the ad was that it was ‘partisan.’  Conservative groups didn’t ask for an hour to share their plan, they simply paid for a commercial to try to offer an opposing viewpoint from a registered neurosurgeon.

While I believe that the media can tend to lean left, I never make a big deal about it.  However, the media cannot escape criticism when they have such inconsistent standards.

Why is everybody afraid of dialogue and debate about healthcare?  Newt Gingrich has openly said that he is willing to debate anyone on healthcare.  Where is the courage from other leaders?  If Obama used a Republican idea that worked well, would anyone be offended?  I actually think Obama would gain a lot of credit reaching across the aisle.  Instead, the left has collectively (while not always collaboratively) shut down dialogue and diversity of thought on this issue.

This is another great reminder that we need to diversify our information gathering beyond the major network media outlets.