Chinese see least threat from global warming; Japanese see the most

In 2001, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics Milton Friedman penned “How to Cure Health Care“. Given the United States’ budget deficits, its current economic malaise and an impending entitlement catastrophe, one would hope that Congress would strongly consider Friedman’s insights for its health care agenda.

Of course, with the current crop of Democrat Statists in power, you’d be wrong.

Friedman’s prescription was elegant in its simplicity. It leveraged free markets and the power of individual decision-making. And it provided a road map for addressing the Medicare train-wreck.

The high cost and inequitable character of our medical care system are the direct result of our steady movement toward reliance on third-party payment. A cure requires reversing course, reprivatizing medical care by eliminating most third-party payment, and restoring the role of insurance to providing protection against major medical catastrophes.

[Repair the broken entitlement programs] …end both Medicare and Medicaid, at least for new entrants, and replace them by [offering] every family in the United States …catastrophic insurance (i.e., a major medical policy with a high deductible).

[Repeal the tax exemption for employer provided medical care] …end tax exemption of employer-provided medical care.

[Deregulate insurance so that consumers can shop for a la carte coverage across State lines] …remove the restrictive regulations that are now imposed on medical insurance—hard to justify with universal catastrophic insurance.

[Increase the use of Health Savings Accounts] …Medical savings accounts offer one way to resolve the growing financial and administrative problems of Medicare and Medicaid. It seems clear from private experience that a program along these lines would be less expensive and bureaucratic than the current system and more satisfactory to the participants. In effect, it would be a way to voucherize Medicare and Medicaid. It would enable participants to spend their own money on themselves for routine medical care and medical problems, rather than having to go through HMOs and insurance companies, while at the same time providing protection against medical catastrophes.

The current bills working their way through Congress are diametrically opposed to Friedman’s counsel.

The Democrats’ intent is obvious to any student of history: they concern themselves with increasing the power of a centralized, authoritarian government. And they repay their constituencies including the union shock troops of Socialism and the trial lawyers.

A federal authority that will control all of your private health care data. A federal authority can reward and punish individuals by offering or withholding health services. A federal authority that will garner ever more control of your private property, asserting that with just one more tax, or one more regulation, it will be able to provide a final solution.

A federal authority will control not just your financial future, but your physical well-being. In doing so, it will have the ultimate power over the people.

We do need catastrophic insurance… if only to protect us from the impending disaster that will be the Democrats’ authoritarian health care.

Deutsche Bank predicts that the percentage of underwater mortgages in the U.S. will reach 48% by the first quarter of 2011.

Now combine this forecast with the fact that a negative loan-to-value (LTV — or “underwater”) mortgage is “the single most important factor” in a foreclosure, based upon a study of millions of individual loans.

Now add in the fact that some expert observers believe that an enormous block of homes — whose mortgages have already defaulted — are being hidden by banks to avoid the impact of write-downs on their balance sheets.

[This] “Shadow inventory has the potential to give us another leg down on home prices during the second half of the year,” said Steven Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics in Danville, California… “It appears that there is a significant amount of shadow inventory in the form of bank owned properties, which will continue to grow with the rising in delinquencies,” he said…

Doctor Housing Bubble concludes, “…with those toxic Alt-A mortgages, how many homeowners are going to opt for the ridiculous modifications that basically make them lifelong renters with zero mobility? …Summer selling season is nearing the end and we are now going into the slow selling season with shadow inventory coming into the light.”

Buckle your seat belts: it would appear that a major deflationary spiral has yet to unwind.

Each foreclosure harms the prices of neighboring homes; this leads to more underwater mortgages; which, in turn, results in more foreclosures… rinse and repeat until done. And banks will have to continue hiding as much shadow inventory as possible, especially in California, to prevent a real financial crisis.

Now consider that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were at the epicenter of the housing meltdown, purchasing and repackaging all sorts of toxic mortgages. And Congressional Democrats are blocking an investigation into those entities.

Given this outstanding track record, it’s no wonder voters are so excited about the Democrats’ effort to take over another one-sixth of the economy: the health care system. And it’s a good thing we have such an experienced hand, with a phenomenal track record of economic achievement, serving in the White House.

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• Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!
• Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed!
• Page 42: The “Health Choices Commissioner” will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.
• Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.
• Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.
• Page 65: Taxpayers will subsidize all union retiree and community organizer health plans (read: SEIU, UAW and ACORN)
• Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan.
• Page 102: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled: you have no choice in the matter.
• Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No “judicial review” is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed.
• Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages.
• Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives.
• Page 126: Employers MUST pay healthcare bills for part-time employees AND their families.
• Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll
• Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll
• Page 167: Any individual who doesnt’ have acceptable healthcare (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of income.
• Page 170: Any NON-RESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay for them).
• Page 195: Officers and employees of Government Healthcare Bureaucracy will have access to ALL American financial and personal records.
• Page 203: “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax.” Yes, it really says that.
• Page 239: Bill will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors and the poor most affected.”
• Page 341: Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans, HMOs, etc.
• Page 354: Government will restrict enrollment of SPECIAL NEEDS individuals.
• Page 425: More bureaucracy: Advance Care Planning Consult: Senior Citizens, assisted suicide, euthanasia?
• Page 425: Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney, etc. Mandatory. Appears to lock in estate taxes ahead of time.
• Page 425: Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney, etc. Mandatory. Appears to lock in estate taxes ahead of time.
• Page 425: Goverment provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in death.
• Page 427: Government mandates program that orders end-of-life treatment; government dictates how your life ends.
• Page 429: Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient’s health deteriorates. This can include an ORDER for end-of-life plans. An ORDER from the GOVERNMENT.
• Page 430: Government will decide what level of treatments you may have at end-of-life.
• Page 469: Community-based Home Medical Services: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 472: Payments to Community-based organizations: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 489: Government will cover marriage and family therapy. Government intervenes in your marriage.

What is it with Democrats? The only medical services that they don’t want to ration are abortion and assisted suicide!

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“1. If the major provisions of the health care bills will not kick in until 2013, four years from now, why the [hurry] to pass a thousand-page bill before the August recess, a bill you admit that you haven’t fully read yourself?

“2. You have said your health care bill will cut costs and not increase the deficit. But, independent analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office contradicts both claims, saying it will raise costs and increase the deficit by $240 billion in the first ten years. What independent analysis will you provide that supports your claims and refutes CBO’s?

“3. You have repeatedly said that your health care bill allows any American who likes their current employer-based plan to keep it. But the most comprehensive independent analysis available, by the Lewin Group, contradicts your claim and found your bill will force over 80 million Americans to lose their current coverage. Will you provide independent analysis to refute this study?” And Obama won’t. He doesn’t debate. He clears the field. He gets rid of opponents. He does not debate issues. He does not do that. He has his ideas — and they are his, and they are right, and they’re going to happen come hell or high water — and we don’t even have the right to disagree. We are being uppity if we disagree with this man’s brilliance.

“4. Your own record in the Senate reveals you spent years voting against nearly every reform to make health care more affordable and accessible, but this week you said that opponents of your plan are ‘content to perpetuate the status quo, [and] are, in fact, fighting reform on behalf of powerful special interests.’ Which specific elected officials will you cite that have proposed to keep the status quo, and is that how you characterize the opposition of the 52 Blue Dog Democrats in the House…?

“5. Yes or no question: Will you guarantee pro-life Americans that, under your plan, they will not be forced to subsidize elective abortions?”

No tax increases for Americans earning less than $250,000?

There are all sorts of tax increases on all Americans in this bill: the payroll tax increases, the individual worker tax increases, small business tax increases. First of all, there is a 2.5% of income tax if you don’t buy health insurance. Then if the business does not offer their employees health insurance they must pay an 8% payroll tax per worker for all of their wages. On the small business tax, the so-called “millionaire” tax, roughly half of the income that is taxed is small business income. If you look at all those businesses in the industrial parks throughout Wisconsin, those are what we call subchapter S corporations, sole-proprietorships, they are technically small businesses and they are the ones that pay this tax. This is where our jobs come from.

(Update: Congressman Ryan confirmed that H.R. 3200 would violate President Obama’s pledge that no American earning less than $250,000 would be hit with higher taxes)

Deficit neutral?

The math that I have, and I serve the head of the Budget Committee for our party, says that they are $300 billion shy of that. But what the Congressional Budget Office is telling us is even if they actually get this bill to be technically budget deficit neutral in the first ten years there is no way in the long run, meaning year 11 and on, that this thing is going to budget neutral. The expenses are escalating at a huge pace. The tax increases to pay for it don’t grow as fast. And so what we are doing we are creating a brand new entitlement that will rival the size and liabilities of Medicare and Medicaid.

(Update: After the House Ways and Means Committee passed the legislation, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that H.R. 3200 would add $239 billion to the federal budget deficit)

Why the rush?

Nobody among my colleagues who will debate this bill today has read it. We don’t have a real cost estimate. We don’t even know what this bill costs. So nobody knows what costs. Nobody has read it. It’s moving through committee today. They want to have on the floor the week after next to pass. The reason is: time is their enemy. The more time that the public gets to see what is in this the bill, the more time that the public sees that this really is a government takeover of health care, a huge tax increase on workers’ paychecks and on small businesses, the less likely they will pass it. The lesson their learned in 1993 from the Clinton experience was if you let the bill hang out there for a number of days – let alone a month or two – it dies. They will lose support from their own ranks. That is why they have to move really fast before people actually see what it is all about.

On getting the American people engaged in the debate

The real question here is: what is August all about? Is August the month in which the American public gets informed and engaged, public opinion turns, and Congress responds? Or is August just one of those months where everybody goes to the swimming pool, doesn’t not really get engaged, and then Congress comes back with the bill together and pass it in September? That’s the question. This bill is going to pass the House I think. This bill probably will pass the Senate. The question is when we come back from the August recess what will the conditions look like. Will the public get engaged in this legislation or not?

The dictionary defines the word Czar as; an emperor or king, the former emperor of Russia, an autocratic ruler or leader, and any person exercising great authority or power in a particular field. The Obama administrations likes this nick-name and happily appoints Czars of industries and sectors of the economy on a whim.

Two of these Czars; Van Jones and Carol Browner are self proclaimed a communist and a socialist. Both have publicly claimed to be reshaping the American economy, empowering the poor, and reducing our dependence on oil. All admirable goals, but at what cost? Could reshaping the American economy mean giving more control to congress and taking control away from the consumer? Will empowering the poor mean more class warfare against the successful? Could higher energy taxes and higher prices effectively snuff out the US energy industry?

As the average and semi-quiet majority, we need to listen carefully to what this administration is saying. Sometimes we need to call a spade, a spade.

Five arguments Republicans must make.

By KARL ROVE

It was a sobering breakfast with one of the smartest Republicans on Capitol Hill. We can fix a lot of bad stuff President Barack Obama might do, he told me. But if Mr. Obama signs into law a “public option,” government-run insurance program as part of health-care reform we won’t be able to undo the damage.

I’d go the Republican member of Congress one further: If Democrats enact a public-option health-insurance program, America is on the way to becoming a European-style welfare state. To prevent this from happening, there are five arguments Republicans must make.

The first is it’s unnecessary. Advocates say a government-run insurance program is needed to provide competition for private health insurance. But 1,300 companies sell health insurance plans. That’s competition enough. The results of robust private competition to provide the Medicare drug benefit underscore this. When it was approved, the Congressional Budget Office estimated it would cost $74 billion a year by 2008. Nearly 100 providers deliver the drug benefit, competing on better benefits, more choices, and lower prices. So the actual cost was $44 billion in 2008 — nearly 41% less than predicted. No government plan was needed to guarantee competition’s benefits.

Continued…