Tag Archives: Medical

Commentary

Keith Hennessey explains the looming crisis of entitlement spending

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This is the best post I have ever seen on the problem of demographics and entitlement spending, which is due to explode in about a few years. I’ll summarize so that you will click through and read this post for yourself. There is almost no text in the post, it is all graphs, and they are self explanatory. It will take your about 5 minutes to scare yourself into a coma.

Summary of the post:

  • There are 3 entitlement programs: social security, medicare and medicaid
  • These programs are funded by taxes on young people who are still working
  • These 3 programs currently cost 9% of GDP.
  • By 2050, the costs will have doubled to 18% GDP.
  • Some of this increase will be due to excess growth in health costs
  • And some of this increase will be due to demographics

Let me talk more about the demographics problem:

  • More people are living longer
  • That means that benefits are being paid out over more years, per person
  • A huge group of babies from the Baby Boom started retiring in 2008
  • But the number of younger workers who pay their benefits is not growing fast enough
  • The number of workers needed to pay each retiree’s benefits is shrinking
  • Taxes will have to increase, or benefits will have to decrease

Please read the article. It will help you to put Obama’s massive spending and tax hikes in perspective. By the way, this is a great post to forward to your friends and neighbor’s who voted for Obama who do not like to read about economics and finance.

News

Patients United gets advanced copy of Obama’s health care plan

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And the news so far is not good…

Hot Air has the story, along with a video of Amy Menefee from Patients United Now. (H/T Stop the ACLU)

The bill is HUGE, so right now conservative bloggers are scouring it to find out what’s in it.

Here’s what Ed Morrissey found so far in the bill, on pages 39-40:

(1) IN GENERAL – A State shall keep an accurate accounting of all activities, receipts, and expenditures of any Gateway operating in such State and annually submit to the Secretary a report concerning such accountings.

(2) INVESTIGATIONS – The Secretary may investigate the affairs of a Gateway, may examine the properties and records of a Gateway, and may require periodical reports in relation to activities undertaken by a Gateway.  A Gateway shall fully cooperate in any investigation conducted under this paragraph.

Ed writes:

“Gateway” means “provider,” and this appears to do away with that pesky Fourth Amendment, which normally requires search warrants and probable cause to access the records of individuals and businesses.  Not under ObamaCare!  Now, everyone belongs to the government … rather than the other way around.  George Orwell, call your office!

Amy Menefee’s group is running this TV ad to help Americans to understand the perils of single-payer health care by learning from the Canadians, who are stuck in waiting so long that they die, or bite the bullet and come here to pay out of pocket. Patients United Now has the entire 167 page bill online and it is searchable, for those of you who would like to take a look at it.

My previous post on socialized medicine linked to even more horror stories from other countries with socialized medicine.

UPDATE: Commenter ECM sent me this story about how the CBO is not counting the costs of mandatory health care for the uninsured in their estimates, because they are charging it against private insurers!

Typically, the CBO scores legislation only after it has been finalized. But in a May 27 issue brief, the CBO took a proactive stance on budgetary treatment of proposals to change the nation’s health insurance system. A federal mandate requiring individuals to have a minimum amount of health insurance would not be counted as a government expense “because the federal government imposes a variety of mandates on private entities whose associated costs are not included in the budget,” said CBO director Douglas Elmendorf in a blog explaining the brief.

NOT GOOD!

Commentary

Featured blog: Pursuing Holiness

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I’ve been featuring a lot of conservative women lately, and not just Marsha Blackburn and Michele Bachmann. Earlier this week I featured Dawn Eden, who is a champion of chastity, and Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse who champions parenting, men and the family. (I found a very frank, funny podcast by Dr. J where she is speaking to a Catholic church about chastity, marriage and parenting – her podcast feed is here)

How are women different than men?

Here are some ways that women are different than men:

  1. women tend to favor gun control, because guns are loud and scary
  2. women tend to emphasize having their needs met by Christianity over theology and apologetics
  3. women tend to favor compassion and forgiveness over responsibility and moral obligations

Well, let’s just see what Laura over the Pursuing Holiness blog thinks about all of that!

1. Laura likes guns

She writes:

Consider, for example, the New Bethel Church in Louisville, KY. Pastor Ken Pagano has decided to have a Gun Day at church. The Gun Day will include patriotic music and gun safety information. After all, recent shootings at churches have illustrated the need for responsible, defensive gun ownership.

I thought to myself, Sweet, maybe I should convert to the Assemblies of God and be a part of this.

Read the rest here.

2. Laura likes God

She writes:

What if church was about worshiping and learning about a holy and sovereign God?  A radical idea, I know.

…What’s the point of filling a church with benchwarmers, or in turning a church into a community organization where people perform service in order to fulfill their own moral code instead of for the glory of God?  We have a country full of people and groups intent on self-gratification.  If the church is no different, people may as well sleep in on Sundays.

Read the rest here.

3. Laura likes moral obligations

She writes:

Is there something morally wrong about being required to pay for [medical] services we willingly received? It’s far more morally wrong to have people throw in the towel and just refuse to pay, but even that is an option that society chooses to accept via bankruptcy laws.

I really don’t understand why people are buying into the idea that it’s some massive, morally unsound, unfair burden to pay for the medical services that they willingly received.  It’s entirely fair.  You asked for those services, you accepted them, and now you need to quit whingeing and pay up.

Read the rest here.

Laura’s blog is called Pursuing Holiness.