Michael Smerconish & President Obama

I just have to sound off about Philadelphia talk show host Michael Smerconish and his interview with President Obama yesterday.

First off, Michael's radio show is one of the best talk radio shows on the air. Unlike Rush and Glenn Beck and these other guys - Michael actually has an honest point of view on subjects instead of simply being against everything President Obama and the Democrats are doing. He actually supported Obama during the election despite being a Republican. He falls into the category of "conservative talk radio" but that is not really accurate.

During the interview President Obama was asked about the government takeover of the car industry, banks and health care. In his answer the President made the statement about how the Government has done helpful things and cited the enactment of Social Security and Medicare as examples. He made the statement that people protested those as Socialism but now that they have it they scream anytime someone tries to get rid of it.

Precisely Mr. President! That is exactly the point! Social Security is about to go bankrupt and will inevitably lead to higher taxes. It is the biggest ponzi scheme out there - it works the same way Bernie Madoff's scheme worked. Medicare is in the same boat - well it's not a ponzi scheme but it has set us up for higher deficits and higher taxes. Both of those programs ARE socialistic and are now a huge burden on our society and are very difficult to get rid of. They are also huge political tools - politicians know they have a built in voting public in those people who are dependent on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Why would we want more of that?

People were correct to protest those programs back then as they are correct in protesting further expansion of government sponsored entitlements now. These things are very insidious. Which brings us to the next point: is President Obama involved in some conspiracy to have government control every aspect of our lives? I don't know but I don't think so. Rather he is misguided.

It can certainly seem great when a populace turns over power to an intelligent and benevolent person and he does a lot of good with that power. Especially when he uses that power to do something you like! But what is often not looked at is after that power has been granted to an institution (like the Presidency) it opens the door to potential malevolent use of that power. Too often we see government programs seemingly meant to be helpful get used to the profit of special interests and the harm of the populace. The truly large special interests love socialism, fascism and communism - they all involve central political control of large amounts of people/markets. Such special interests already have politicians in their pockets and use the governments power to suppress competition and free markets that threaten their interests. As a matter of fact that is already happening in our health care system. There is no free market and insurance companies are being regulated already and one aspect of that regulation is that they are forced to cover certain medical procedures and drugs that are ineffective at best and profit motivated.

Don't you think it is interesting that Big Pharma has already struck a deal with the current administration in terms of what will happen in health care reform? And guess what - part of that deal is to curtail competition!

We already know that the large special interests in that industry have infected both sides of the aisle. In the end they seem to be playing us like fools - damned if we take the currently proposed health insurance reform and damned if we stay with the same thing. They don't care. It is interesting to see both Democrats and Republicans accuse each other of being in Big Pharma's pockets. I guess that's the most honest thing happening out there!

Healthcare. Paul Krugman and Switzerland

Last Sunday New York Times columnist Paul Krugman criticized the U.S. health care system making statements about how great socialized medicine is in other countries like Canada, Britain, France etc. He even cited the health care system of Switzerland as being an improvement over the U.S. system.

I guess it is not obvious to these pedantic columnists that looking at systems being used in countries with one-fifth (or much less) the population of the U.S. might not be the brightest thing to do. Switzerland barely has a population larger than the Philadelphia metro region and certainly lacks the cultural diversity. That can be said of Canada, Britain and France as well which have larger populations but still don't come to more than 25% of the U.S. population. None of those countries touch the religious, ethnic and cultural diversity of the U.S.

Think about it - here one big fight with the public option is about whether abortions will be covered. Many U.S. citizens find abortion immoral and don't want the Government forcing them to pay for it under any circumstances. I am not expressing any opinion on that issue but this country was founded on freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. Wouldn't the Federal Government forcing a Catholic to pay for an abortion through tax funded subsidies be a violation of church and state? What about another "religion" in this country that promotes abortion because they want to control population explosions amongst the "undesirables" in society (take a guess who those are and if you don't believe me Google Margaret Sanger the founder of Planned Parenthood). Those interests won't rest if abortion is not covered by the government plan. One could argue that they are using the government to forward their "church". In other words we have many different cultural and religious factions and health care choices are often modified by religious belief and cultural preferences. Trying to get a consensus for a large federal insurance plan that all tax payers will be forced to contribute to is simply not possible.

So how do we deal with that? Well if instead of moving toward a more socialized system for health care we moved to a free market system for health care then you get to decide for yourself. The problem of skyrocketing health care costs can be directly traced as coming from the limitations on competition resulting from the current government regulation. Do we really want more of that?

Our nation is not like the European nations and was founded on principles that promote diversity and freedom of choice. I for one want to keep it that way. After all if you want European socialism you are free to move to Europe and enjoy the security they offer. Me, I'd rather have my freedom and that includes the freedom to choose where my money gets spent.

Health Care Reform: Real Change

Being bombarded constantly with the health care reform or more aptly - health insurance reform - I can't help but voice my frustration. Perhaps it will help me feel better. Now I am a bit of a radical and the change I propose would be real change. People are advocating for single payer insurance (where there is only one large insurance entity thus only one entity that pays health care bills) or continuing with the current multi-payer system. The real problem here is that both of those systems are still third party payer systems. In other words the person seeking health care is not the one paying for the service.

This is the root of the problem and we are not even looking in that direction! Believe me you do not want someone else paying for your health care. A third party by nature has in their main interest controlling cost. Health care providers like doctors are then put in the position of having to satisfy the requirements of the third party provider rather than the patient.

Why not set up health insurance just like any other insurance like life insurance where you can purchase fixed amounts of coverage based on what illness you might contract? Should you develop some illness you would receive a lump some payment to help pay for the costs of curing your illness. This would have a couple of effects: First it places a much greater focus on coming up with cures for illnesses rather than treatments. A patient would not be limited in any sense to where they seek treatment and payments to doctors would come in cash from the patient. This would save a ton of money in administrative costs. It also now makes the healthcare industry compete for payments from the party most interested in getting cured - the patient. Insurance companies can also manage their exposure to risk better - they will always know their exposure when someone gets an illness - which will help them offer better plans.

The last thing we want is the government to become the single payer for health care. Why? Because the government has the power by law to force us to pay for things we may not want. It is the only set up where healthcare costs can continue to explode and we would have to pay for it by law! Is that really a situation you want to be in? Factually it is "more of the same" of the system we already have in place.

So lets bring about real change for our health care system - don't bring about single payer or stay with any variation of third party payer like employer based group healthcare plans. ce.