As I start this blog, I want to remind our viewers this is my opinion, and unlike our newscasts which are dedicated to providing balanced coverage and information as well as giving both sides to the story, this blog is an expression of personal observations and opinions.
In speaking about getting universal health care, President Obama has said “we must act now”, we “cannot slow down”, we must move forward “as quickly as possible”. My question is why?
How many of you have purchased a car? Times have changed in the car business, but as I listened again today to President Obama warn of “dire consequences” if we do not pass a health care bill immediately. I flashed back to what I felt like when I first purchased a car as a young man. The salesman pitched me hard on why I should “buy today”, and I ended up sequestered in a sales manager office for hours as the sales person, sales manager and finance manager worked me over to sign today because “you will not get the same deal tomorrow”.
As I listen to the President (and Nancy Pelosi and others) do their best to push through various legislation and make new laws at lightning speed with proclamations of “we must have this now” I keep getting a disconnect. As a businessman I keep asking the same thing that I hear more and more people asking as well: “how will you pay for this”? Unfortunately, the more this question is asked, the more we hear the same type unsubstantiated promises without any evidence of fact. Frankly, the President is giving the impression of a suitor who is trying to convince his fiancée to marry him before she discovers his weaknesses and changes her mind.
What are the dire consequences which would require the congress and senate to pass “thousand page bills” they have not read? Since when is it a proper business practice to sign long-term agreements, which include incomprehensible spending (we currently have a trillion dollar national debt deficit and the estimates for Universal Health Care are from $1.2-$2.2 trillion dollars), without reading the consequences of the contract? Most managers would lose their jobs if they signed contracts they did not read or understand. Unfortunately, our politicians continue to freely admit they have not read the bills they are signing.
For example, the majority of the congress said they did not read the stimulus bill. They said the same thing about the Cap & Trade Bill. Now we are hearing they have not been able to read the Universal Health Care Bill. The difference is, unlike what would happen in private business, these politicians are not getting fired for their failings. Even worse, these politicians have now burdened all the people who elected them as well as several generations of people who will suffer the effects of their non-reading decisions long after they have left office, going to their guaranteed pensions on the backs of a struggling citizenry.
When I was in college, I sold books door-to-door. Clearly printed in our contracts, which we were required to point out was a clause to protect the consumer. This was a “3-day cooling off period”, meaning that the customer had three working days to change their mind after you sold them the books. This cooling off period was a law put in place to protect the consumer from the aggressive and rushed tactics of unscrupulous salespeople. I can tell you that as a young college student and salesman, nothing could be worse than losing your sale after you have put in the time and effort to make the sale. I decided that the only way to avoid this consequence was to have the customer fully understand every aspect of what they were purchasing as well as the method they were using to purchase or finance the product. This proved to be a good strategy, since not only was I one of the top book salesman in the country, I was even more proud of the fact I had the lowest return rate…in two summers of selling, I only had 3 people cancel their sales.
Let’s contrast this concept with what we have seen manifesting itself in the laws the congress have passed or are trying to pass. The insanely large “stimulus bill” was passed because we were told that we must have it to keep unemployment under 8% and the end of Wall Street, and to protect our car companies from bankruptcy. Congress didn’t read the bill, but passed it full of entitlements and pork projects and what has happened? Unemployment is now almost 10% and headed for 15%, GM and Chrysler are bankrupt and Wall Street just came out this week with huge profit margins while everyone else suffered. How could this bill pass the congress and senate without being read? We were told it was “too big” and the politicians didn’t have sufficient time to read it!
Congress then passed the CAP & Trade bill, which is another bill loaded with special interest entitlements. This bill has financial incentives that will make a few companies wealthy while making the majority of U.S. business and consumers suffer due to punitive restrictions. Congress passed this and sent it to the Senate for ratification and did this despite the fact this bill will make the U.S. non-competitive versus every other country in the world at a time we can ill-afford to be less competitive. The CAP &TRADE BILL WAS IN EXCESS OF 1300 PAGES. It included a 300 page amendment added (literally) a few hours before the vote. Once again, no one read this bill, and yet is passed congress. Cap & Bill went through congress despite the fact it lacked the support of an organization who you would think would be its greatest advocate, Green Peace. It passed despite the fact more and more experts are coming out against the concept of global warming, with over 7oo scientists going on record to oppose it.
The facts are since 2001 the earth’s temperatures have flat-lined, and that has happened despite growing concentrations of the C02 gasses. Scientist’s peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. No one seems to be listening because anyone disagreeing is shouted down by strident voices and mocking media reactions. Here is some worse news; the global financial crisis has leaders in all other countries saying they will not support taking the same type of extreme measures the Cap & Trade bill espouses. These world leaders know the science proposed under Cap & Trade would require them to hamstring their economies in order to rein in carbon, and virtually every one of the developed countries and all of the developing countries including China and India have flat out refused to participate.
Once again, the methodology is the same…rush, rush, rush. Don’t think, just react. Pass bills without reading what they say. Health care is our current emergency. We must pass a bill now, we cannot delay or wait. Every single day the President is on camera pushing this agenda. Next week he has “twittered” that he intends to speak about this subject again in prime time. Why is this essential? How is this more important than job creation and turning around our economic malaise? There are many questions to answer about statements we are being told, including how many of those 50 million uninsured are really uninsured? How many of that number are actually citizens and how many voluntarily choose to not be insured. The real numbers of need seem to be much less…perhaps 12-15 million. What is the correct figure and how do we arrive at it?
Most importantly, how will we pay for this universal health care because we cannot do it by simply “taxing the rich”…everyone agrees that won’t come close to covering the cost. This week we heard the proposal of raising the top tax rate to 55% versus the top tax rate in France, which is 43%. Perhaps this is why a friend told me today that several huge companies from the U.S. are investigating the relocation of their corporate HQ to Vancouver, Canada because the executives of these U.S. companies are increasingly concerned as to what is happening in the U.S.
As we consider universal health care we should look at what happened in Massachusetts this week, Boston Medical sued the state for their unfair practices in doing the state universal health coverage and the legislation has proposed dropping all “legal” tax-paying immigrants from the universal coverage system. There is a 50 day wait in Massachusetts for major medical care…what will happen if universal health care is put in place all over the U.S.
In addition, what will happen to the U.S. medicine and treatment, which is currently the best in the world? Will it cease to exist? For example, here is a small part of the 1008 pages (currently) on the health care bill. INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | (Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:20 PM PT) got their hands on the bill and found this: "Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.
This means, after the date this bill becomes law...no private insurer can sign up new clients. That is note theory, it is fact. According to the House Ways and Means Committee this means: Private individual market plans in existence in 2013 won't be able to enroll new members (except dependents) and no new plans can form. Of those in place, they also can't change their benefit package cost-sharing etc. All new individual policies must be sold via exchange starting in 2013 Health Insurance Exchange run by a commissioner (Second 141 and 142), Gov run plan Second sets up (Sec 221) of bill.
Translated into simple terms that we can all understand, this means the federal government, the same ones who have Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in virtual Chapter 11 will be running the Exchange and private insurance will cease. What does any unbiased third party think will happen with just this small portion of the “Universal Health Plan”? One word: disaster.
Here is a message that we as citizens need to be giving each of our congress people and to each of our senators. It is one word: S-T-O-P. Ok, perhaps it is two words, STOP NOW. We cannot continue to be told the stimulus bill is working when it is not. We cannot be told we must speed up when everyone who has any common sense can see that obvious that we must slow way down and evaluate what we are doing.
Here is what we do know. Financially things are the worst they have been since the great depression. People are losing jobs and homes because businesses are laying off people, giving them furloughs, or shutting their doors. Government controlled business is NOT the answer. Nationalizing business efforts has never been the answer. If businesses continue to go out of business, we will not be able to recover.
When I drive to work I see for sales signs and empty spaces where, just a few months ago, there were car dealerships, retails stores, fast food outlets, and many other places of business. We need to do whatever it takes to encourage businesses to stay in business or open up a business. That is what we need to incentivize. We need to provide the method to give our businesses the ability to hire more people to work in those businesses.
Finally, we need to create real jobs, not some new government bureaucracy jobs that will give nothing back to our economy. If we want to stimulate the housing market, let’s give people bigger tax credits or allowances for buying them. If we want to create jobs, let’s incentivize business to create more jobs. If we want more energy, let’s go to every part of our country and our oceans that we already know have natural gas, oil and coal, and go get it. Let’s build more refineries to produce it for our energy needs. Then, with that energy, let’s require a percentage of those energy profits to create additional green energy sources. Let’s be smart with what we have, and use it develop what we don’t have. Let’s not restrict, repress and drive up prices and dependence on foreign oil by not using our own natural resources.
Can we turn all of this around? Yes we can, but government control is not the answer…it has never been the answer. We were told we would have 600,000 new jobs with the stimulus bill by the end of September and so far we have lost 2.6 million jobs since the stimulus bill was passed. As I was writing this blog our vice-president said the only way to avoid bankruptcy as a nation is to continue spending. In addition, it was announced that China, who own much of our debt, grew at +7.9% and it seems obvious, American is now at risk at losing its financial place on top of the world.
In addition, we cannot do it by rushing ahead without thinking. This will not happen with legislation that our politicians have not studied, debated or READ before making them the law!!! Let’s demand of our politicians what we would demand of ourselves. Let’s be smart which means we need to take the time to know what you are doing before you do it. In other words, do not rush, be thoughtful, and come up with alternative solutions and discuss different ideas that might give us better choices.
For goodness sake, let’s not rush off the cliff before knowing if there is water deep enough to break our fall. We need to speak up, exercise our right for free speech, and use the same language with our President and Congress that our school guard uses on drivers entering the school drop off zone; JUST SLOW DOWN!
