Tag Archives: News

Monday, September 14, 2009

ATTN: Republican Members of the House and Senate

We’re all concerned about the deficit, about government spending that’s out of control, about an inexperienced, naïve President who fervently believes in the power of government to influence the private sector, almost regardless of the cost.

The good news is that President Obama has pledged, time and time again, that he will not sign healthcare reform legislation that increases our budget deficit. Fine, let’s call him on it.*

It’s simple. All you need to do is require that the President and Democrats in Congress agree to put a reasonable limit on the deficit as a condition for Republican support for healthcare reform. Demand “fiscal responsibility.” What could be more consistent with the classic definition of “Republicanism”?

One of two things will be true. Either the President will decline in which case it will be obvious that he doesn’t really support limited government spending and/or believe in his ability to accomplish prudent fiscal management, or he’ll agree, in which we’re all better off for it and Republicans running for office everywhere will get credit for having suggested the idea in the first place.

Can you imagine a President or Congress which, particularly under the circumstances, declines to limit the budget deficit even to levels in the trillions of dollars? Whatever the outcome, it’s not often that an entire political party finds itself in such a profoundly win-win situation. To fail to take advantage of it would prove to me and the American people that you (the Republicans) deserve to be a minority party.

*If you have time, you might want to read, “Calling the President Out,” published Friday, September 11, 2009.

-wf

Monday, August 31, 2009

“Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.”
– Thomas Jefferson, 1808

So where is Mr. Jefferson now that we need him?

If you’re interested, here are some recent posts on the issue of healthcare reform legislation…

“A Bits and Pieces Approach to Healthcare Legislation”
(#1: Pre-Existing Conditions)

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #2: Overcharging the Uninsured”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #3: Buying Prescription Drugs from Canadian Suppliers”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #4: Coverage for Illegal Aliens”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #5: Coverage for People Who Can’t Afford It”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #6: Standardization of Forms”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #7: Making Cigarettes Illegal”

“Obamination: The Fallacy of the Public Option”

-wf

Sunday, August 30, 2009

This is the seventh installment in my “Bits and Pieces” series which is intended to encourage Congress to approach the objective of healthcare reform one issue at a time, rather than overwhelming itself and the American public in a ridiculous attempt to devise a single piece of all-encompassing legislation. Like this last sentence, it’s too complex, too much to do in a single breath.

This seventh topic isn’t part of the Obama Administration’s agenda for healthcare reform, but it should be. It’s certainly consistent with the spirit of healthcare reform, with the notion that it’s better to spend money keeping people healthy than wait and have to spend even more helping them get better – or worse, treating the likes of heart disease, lung cancer and emphysema.

Simply put, I want President Obama to endorse, and Congress to legislate the end of tobacco products, especially cigarettes, which extensive scientific research and the Surgeon General have long ago confirmed to be bad for our health.

It is a ridiculous contradiction we can no longer afford to accept that the same government that mandates the printing of serious health warnings on tobacco products would allow those products to be produced, sold and consumed. Why not do the same for hard drugs, legalize them as long as the manufacturers include an appropriate warning, or do the same for cribs and automobiles whose design defects might imperil our children or passengers? “It’s okay if it’s dangerous, as long as we warn people before they buy it,” is not supposed to be our government’s approach to protecting public health, the power and influence of any industry notwithstanding.

Smoking in public is already banned by many jurisdictions around the country. It’s high time we made it official.

We need to ask ourselves this simple question: Is it reasonable to ask all the American people to spend substantial amounts of their money to allow a minority to enjoy its addiction to smoking? Sound harsh? You bet, but who among us can rationalize continued tolerance for the adverse effects of smoking?

Medical insurance underwriters should be required to cover programs to help people stop smoking, and we need to do as much as we can, but no more than we should, to help the tobacco producers, related companies and the local economies dependent upon the sale of tobacco products transition to alternative, more healthy pursuits. But the sale and use of tobacco products has got to stop.

If you’re interested, here are some related posts…

“A Bits and Pieces Approach to Healthcare Legislation”
(#1: Pre-Existing Conditions)

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #2: Overcharging the Uninsured”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #3: Buying Prescription Drugs from Canadian Suppliers”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #4: Coverage for Illegal Aliens”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #5: Coverage for People Who Can’t Afford It”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #6: Standardization of Forms”

“Obamination: The Fallacy of the Public Option”

-wf

For additional reading… “$2.03 Trillion: How much are we willing to pay because some Americans need to smoke?” published on the Wordfeeder, December 8, 2009.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

“Yes.” I mean, “Of course.” It’s obvious that there would be significantly greater efficiency were the government to mandate that medical insurance forms and the terms they use to document illness and facilitate payment be standardized. Likewise for medical records. If ever there was a “no brainer” in the march toward healthcare reform, this is it.

And yet, it remains undone. Why? Because it’s exactly like my friend and her kitchen. She won’t replace her refrigerator, even though it’s safer keeping perishables over one of her air conditioning vents, because she’s waiting until she can redo her entire kitchen all at once. One of the burners on her stove died months ago. Rather than replace it, the burner that is, she’s limping by with the remaining three until she can remodel the whole room. Oh, the floors in her condo, except for the bathroom, are hardwood, so she can’t refinish the kitchen without doing the floors in the whole place. You get the point. It’s all or nothing – and she can’t do it all, so it’s nothing.

Unfortunately, while that approach may be tolerable in my friend’s condo, when it comes to healthcare reform, failure to act, even on bits and pieces of the problem, is inexcusably expensive and, in fact, actually hurtful to the well being of our people. So what are the President and Congress waiting for? They’re waiting because they’ve got their heads so far up their tushes, blinded as they are by the glory of comprehensive, all encompassing healthcare reform legislation, that they’ve lost track of why we need this legislation in the first place. (If I have to spell it out for you, then you’re part of the problem.)

Breaking down the process of healthcare reform legislation into separate laws related to specific issues is the better way to do this. Problems, the solutions for which are easier to resolve, will get done, even while the President and Congress continue their debate on more esoteric, more politically charged legislation. In the meantime, we’ll be making progress. They’ll be less of the “You give me this, I’ll give you that” process that makes it so hard to form a majority consensus in both houses in support of complex legislation.

President Obama should take the leadership, should show the maturity and common sense intelligence to stop the current mess, and encourage individual issue legislation, “bits and pieces,” one problem at a time. But he’s not going to do that, because he doesn’t get it, because he’s forever campaigning and winning for him is more important that the fundamentals of what the legislation is intended to accomplish. The Democrats in Congress are, for the most part, useless. That leaves the Republicans to whom I offer two trite, but nonetheless applicable words of advice: Carpe diem, preferably in time to make it count for the 2010 elections.

If you’re interested, here are some related posts…

“A Bits and Pieces Approach to Healthcare Legislation”
(#1: Pre-Existing Conditions)

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #2: Overcharging the Uninsured”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #3: Buying Prescription Drugs from Canadian Suppliers”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #4: Coverage for Illegal Aliens”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #5: Coverage for People Who Can’t Afford It”

“Obamination: The Fallacy of the Public Option”

-wf

Saturday, August 22, 2009

If you’ve been following this series, as legions of you have, you know that I’ve been arguing that the President and Congress should give up trying to craft a single, all encompassing piece of healthcare reform legislation in favor of writing new law on each of the major healthcare reform issues, separately. (If you want to know why I suggest this segmented approach, you need to take a look at “A Bits and Pieces Approach to Healthcare Legislation”, published August 19.) Regrettably, the President and Congress don’t read my stuff on a regular basis, so no luck so far.

Of the five healthcare reform issues I’ve covered, this is the hardest because the costs are potentially so high, because if there is one seminal reason for why we need healthcare reform legislation, this is it.

The first step should be a joint resolution which affirms the right of all Americans to some level of healthcare regardless of their financial means. To be clear, the implication is not the government should provide medical services to anyone. Far from it. I’m adamantly opposed to any government-provided services, including medical insurance. What the government should do instead is subsidize the cost of private sector medical insurance for those who can’t afford it.

In a previous piece on the subject (“Overcharging the Uninsured”) a briefly mentioned that the government might offer a form of guaranty, like mortgage insurance, to underwrite the payment for healthcare services by people who are uninsured. In fact, for what I think are obvious reasons, I’d prefer that everyone be covered by a minimum standard policy. By far and away, making sure that everyone has medical insurance, including the 40 to 50 million Americans who currently don’t, is the most administratively efficient, cost effective and otherwise desirable means of accomplishing universal healthcare.

How much will it cost to provide insurance for the uninsured.? Well, I don’t know. What I do know is that the first thing we need to do is define how and by whom this minimum standard should be derived, and then what this minimum standard should initially cover. This is the proper role of government. Bring together experts from the healthcare and underwriting professions to determine the standard policy we will define as the minimum coverage everyone will have. If the Administration and Congress have already defined this standard policy, my apologies. I’ve obviously missed it. In fact, I think they’re so lost in space in their glorious pursuit of a single piece of comprehensive healthcare legislation, that they’ve missed the most obvious point. You can’t tell how much something is going to cost until you know what it is you’re buying.

What is the minimum policy we want everyone to have? What is the private sector cost of this coverage? How many of our citizens will need how much help subscribing to that coverage? And now, only now will we know how much universal healthcare will cost. Yes, of course, we’ll need to take into account the savings from new government regulations which mediate non-competitive influences that have kept prices above competitive levels. The good news is that breaking down healthcare reform into its core components will make defining and estimating the effects of these adjustments all that much easier when we write the law on this particular issue.

“Check please! …Oh, my God!! Waiter, is that a real number or were you doodling?!” Yes, it’s going to be one hell of a bill. Lots of zeros. Which we’re going to pay for how, exactly?

The good news is that we can start by subtracting the costs we’re already incurring to provide healthcare for the uninsured. How much would we save, in other words, if everyone had adequate coverage? Figure that out, and subtract it from the cost of the program. What’s left we’ll cover either by new taxes and/or by cutting back somewhere else. Personally, I believe in doing whatever it takes, that universal healthcare is that crucial to our society and economy – provided we balance the budget which I’m pretty sure is a concept we’re going to have to explain to President Obama and many Democrats in Congress v e r y s l o w l y. There will be heated debate, but at least that debate will be focused on this specific question rather than confused by the myriad of issues the President and Congress are attempting, in vain, to resolve all at once.

Addressing these five issues I’ve covered, with individual legislation, turns out to have an extra benefit I hadn’t anticipated when I first made the suggestion. That benefit is in all the issues, programs, agencies and government, pardon me for saying so, “crap” that single issue legislation hasn’t covered. We’ve passed 5 laws which have redefined healthcare in America. There’s more we could have done, but major systems need time to transition, something President Obama doesn’t understand. The “bits and pieces” approach allows us time to adjust, to make corrections, to understand implications that we didn’t anticipate. I like the approach almost as much for what it doesn’t try to accomplish as for what it does.

Bit and pieces, ladies and gentlemen, one issue at a time. This notion of comprehensive healthcare legislation is making a mess which may just cause more problems than it solves. President Obama’s notion that some healthcare reform is better than nothing is poor management that smacks of Presidential inexperience and arrogance the American people can’t afford. I understand why the Democrats put up with it, but the Republicans? This is their chance to demonstrate reasoned, intelligent, mature leadership through an alternative approach to the problem. Unfortunately, it’s an opportunity they seem hell bent on wasting.

If you’re interested, here are some related posts…

“A Bits and Pieces Approach to Healthcare Legislation”
(#1: Pre-Existing Conditions)

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #2: Overcharging the Uninsured”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #3: Buying Prescription Drugs from Canadian Suppliers”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #4: Coverage for Illegal Aliens”

“Obamination: The Fallacy of the Public Option”

-wf

Friday, August 21, 2009

As the “#4” indicates, this is my fourth piece which promotes the notion that President Obama and Congress should abandon all hope of resolving the problems of healthcare reform within a single, all encompassing piece of incomprehensible legislation. What they should be doing instead is writing new law for the individual issues of this debate, one at a time. This example is about coverage for people who are here illegally. (See the links to related pieces below.)

Well, should we? Should we allow government subsidized resources to be used to provide healthcare services to people who are not legally in this country? No, of course not. The result of doing so would be an overwhelming flow of illegal aliens coming here for medical care. We can’t handle it. We can’t afford it, and the American people aren’t going to allow it.

The one obvious exception will be services for bona fide emergencies. The question then becomes, what do with do with the illegals to which we provide these emergency services after their stay in the hospital is over? It’s obviously something legislation is going to have to address.

Administratively, it’s not complicated. “Illegals,” for the purposes of our new healthcare legislation, are people who can’t present proof of citizenship, other legal status or insurance which is acceptable to the medical services provider.

See how much easier it is dealing with these issues separately? How much simpler and more cogent the debate when the focus is narrowly defined? To be political for a moment, you’d think the Republicans would seize the opportunity, step away from the fray that is comprehensive healthcare legislation and take the lead in this debate, one issue at a time. My guess is, the American people would love them for it.

I can hear them now, at a joint press conference called by Republican leadership in both houses… “We’re not being obstinate. Far from it. We’re doing our job, fighting for the American people. Healthcare, intelligent, affordable, comprehensive healthcare reform is so essential that we are recommending what we to believe to be a smarter approach to developing the legislation the American people deserve. Accordingly, over the next few weeks, Republicans in the House and Senate will be introducing individual pieces of legislation, each addressing a major issue related to healthcare reform which we believe will engender consensus support.” Is this a great country, or what?

If you’re interested, here are some related pieces…

“A Bits and Pieces Approach to Healthcare Legislation”
(#1: Pre-Existing Conditions)

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #2: Overcharging the Uninsured”

“Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #3: Buying Prescription Drugs from Canadian Suppliers”

“Obamination: The Fallacy of the Public Option”

-wf

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Earlier today, I published two pieces encouraging President Obama and Congress to abandon their efforts to pass all-encompassing healthcare legislation in favor of writing new law to address individual issues.* This third example is about protecting the right of Americans to purchase confirmed brand name pharmaceuticals from Canada – and other countries, for that matter.

Earlier this month, President Obama made a behind-closed-doors deal with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America which promised to discourage the importing of their products from Canada, among other considerations, in return for their support of his legislation.** That was a mistake by President Obama for several reasons, not the least of which is that it discouraged competition at the expensive of the American people.

That pharmaceutical manufacturers would sell our Canadian friends the same drugs they sell us, but at significantly lower prices because they can get away with charging more here, in the United States, is equally reprehensible. I do not, however, recommend that our government tell the manufacturers what to charge. Setting prices should be left up to the economy. It’s the government’s responsibility to make sure that economy is competitive – and to do so by regulation, not by direct participation.

Here’s a simple legislative solution requiring well less than the Congressional standard 1,000 pages… Other than protecting us against fraudulent representations on the part of foreign suppliers, there should be no restrictions imposed by our government on the buying of brand name pharmaceuticals, and perhaps generics also, from legitimate Canadian suppliers. Pass that law, and the price of prescription drugs charged by American manufacturers will pushed down to where they belong.

You know, if I keep this up, we may just be able to wrap up the entire healthcare reform problem by later this evening. Ironically, I’ve got to get back to work, making sure we do enough business to afford medical insurance for our employees.

*“A Bits and Pieces Approach to Healthcare Legislation” and “Bits and Pieces Healthcare Legislation #2: Overcharging the Uninsured”, both published today, August 19, 2009.

**”The Not So Transparent Presidency of Barack Obama”, published by the WordFeeder, August 11, 2009.

-wf