Keeping Insurance Workers Employed in Tough Times

Universal Healthcare Is the Way of the Future, but the Democrats want to transition in a way that will save hundreds of thousands of insurance-worker jobs. Leave it to President Obama and the Democratic members of Congress to think of more than just the tremendous damage done to the country under our longstanding, for-profit system of excessive costs for mediocre access to the world's best healthcare.

Today, the Austin American-Statesman Reports that Iowa Republican Senator Charles “Chuck” Grassley called the public option a “slow walk towards government-controlled, single-payer health care.”

Well, At Least Senator Grassley Finally Gets It:

Universal Healthcare Coverage Is the Way of the Future. But the Democrats want to transition in a way that will save hundreds of thousands of insurance-worker jobs.

One Thing America Doesn’t Need is another industry going belly up. We’ve already bailed out the investment banks and the debt insurers and the automakers. We can’t afford to put all of the insurance companies out of business, too.

(Read the Story Here: “Senate panel rejects government-run health plan" )

Fortunately the “Public Option” of the Post Office has shown that the government-run plan and the private competitors such as FedEX and UPS can both survive. We have a road map before us, for putting a government-run unit in competition with the private sector, so that both sides win. The millions of Americans who want to get their insurance where they work, and pay $6.00 or $12.00 to send a letter, can do so. The millons of Americans who want to get their healthcare coverage through the government’s public option, and pay just 44¢ to mail a letter, can do it that way.

It’s Time to Apply the Post Office/FedEX Model to Keeping Americans Alive. And we can do it at a “slow walk” that doesn’t put more Americans on the unemployment lines. It’s a win/win/win situation where everybody gets what they want—at a cost that all of America can afford.

But the Republicans Will Have None of It. After all those years of hidden health-insurance taxes to pay for prisoners, Senior Citizens, illegal immigrants, the military, and the poor, the Republicans would rather fight for the status quo.

You Might Think That Republicans Would Rather Not Put Any More Americans out of Work. Despite the economic damage of the past years, you would think that all of America—Republicans and Democrats alike—would want to keep more Americans working.

So What Does Senator Grassley Really Have against a job-saving, cost-saving healthcare reform plan—that stops the hemorrhaging of the insurance industry—with a “public option” that keeps the insurance industry in business for as long as possible? Is it the same thing as the way that Senator Grassley disdains the Post Office for charging just 44¢ to mail a $12.00 letter?

Go Figure....

Regards,

(($;-)}
Gozo!

If the “Public Option” Post Office....

.... Was Good Enough for the Founding Fathers, how come “public option” healthcare coverage isn’t good enough for us?

Do Today’s Conservative Democrats and Republicans in Congress really think that they can do better for America than Benjamin Franklin did? (Franklin, you may remember, became America’s first Postmaster General back in 1775.)

Previously, I took Iowa’s U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley to task for preferring that Americans pay $6.87, or even $12.16, to mail a letter anywhere in the country, when USPS—the United States Postal Service—will deliver the same piece of mail for just 44¢.

(Read the full post here: What Did the Post Office Ever Do to Senator Grassley?)

The Original Public Option, the United States Postal System, did eventually give way to something else—something that clearly serves a valuable role. In the wake of government domination of the postal delivery system, changes were made that spawned UPS and FedEX. And if these companies did not exist and thrive now, then the vital purposes of free-market Capitalism might go unserved.

So Why Not Test This Process Again? How about if Congress once again gives America what it gave us with the establishment of the Post Office? How about another “public option,” to give those of us who want it, the healthcare coverage that we want this way, while the rest of America can continue to freely support the private-sector insurance?

Many Americans Currently Use FedEX and UPS in addition to, or instead of, the United States Post Office. And that is as it should be. Free-market enterprise is the backbone of the American economic system. But we still rely on that Post Office “public option,” too.

It’s Not Clear Why So Many in Congress believe that they know better for us, than we do ourselves. Why so many in Congress feel compelled to protect us from the kind of healthcare protection we believe we need, is a real mystery. Why so many in Congress might even fight old Ben Franklin, if he were pushing his government post-office option today.

Many Americans Believe That Government can’t do anything right—whether it’s to Medicare, the VA, the Post Office, or the Internet.

But the Rest of Us Have Faith that a government—of the people, by the people, and for the people—has the best chance on the planet of making things work for everybody.

Americans Want Congress to Put These Theories to the Test. If the public sector wastes too much money, and can’t get it right, the private sector will prevail and thrive.

All Americans Should Be Allowed to Test this Out. The private sector can continue using the free-market system to provide millions of Americans the valuable doctor/patient interface that they have given us for decades. While the “public option” demonstrates whether it can offer something better.

It’s a Fair Test. It’s a True Test. It’s FedEX and UPS versus the United States Government, all over again. In the original version, the private sector and the public sector both have survived. Let’s see what happens this time around.

It’s Time for Conservative America to Prove that the kite-flying inventor of bifocals was wrong. It’s time to let the rest of America access the healtcare coverage that we want.

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

Fiscal Conservative Challenges Obama to a “Big Government” Bet

As an Unwavering Fiscal Conservative, I want America’s fiscal house put back in order. The question seems to be how we do it. For some good reasons, free-market competition in the health-insurance industry actually interferes with competition in the medical field. Our access to medical treatment continues to get worse, as the price continues to skyrocket, and our private insurance companies, despite their best efforts to squeeze down the cost of our dollars going to doctors and hospitals, instead just get in the middle and keep the profits for themselves.

The "Bet" in the Old Life Insurance Joke goes something like this:

Life insurance is where the insurance company bets you that you’ll live forever.
You bet them that you’ll die first.
You put up the money in advance.
Somebody else collects when you die.

Either way—you lose!

Competition Makes Our Free-Market System Work. But for too long in the world of catastrophic-health insurance, competition has gone missing. Texas, where I live, has a population of about 24-million swaggering cowboys and cowgirls, but that's clearly not a big-enough market for insurance competition to flourish. And tort reform—which was passed here quite a few years ago—hasn't done the trick of stopping unnecessary tests or high medical costs.

Insurance Companies Earn the Profits that they need to stay in business, while everyday Americans suffer from exorbitant premiums that keep salaries low, from policies that are withdrawn or used up just when they are needed most, and from policies that ration the care that the medical profession delivers—by demanding too little care in many cases, and encouraging too much waste in others. The medical profession gets shorted, the American people get shorted, and the insurance companies manage to eke out an immodest, but necessary profit.

Since Competition Is What We Want, let’s put health-care insurance to the free-market test of capitalism. President Barack Obama has proposed a tiny bubble of an insurance product, expected to cover less than 5% of the population. This “public option” will receive no tax dollars and will add not a dime to the national budget, but give those Americans who believe that government does some things best a chance to have their ideology tested.

Can Government Deliver Healthcare? Affordable healthcare? Without going broke? Or is this another foolish Liberal fantasy? 

Let’s Let the Free Markets Decide:

President Obama, America Issues You a Challenge. Either your “public option” can do the job of insuring Americans directly or of stimulating better competition throughout the country, or else you shut it down.

America Can Give You Five Years. We can afford this test, when the lives of so many Americans are at stake, but we can only afford so much. Whether the question is an ideology of entitlement or an ideology of greed, you’ve got five years from Day One of the passage of the healthcare reform bill.

But Then When This “Public Option” Fails, or blows through its budget, you owe it to the American people to shut it down.

The Clock on the “Public Option” Starts Ticking Soon.

You Have Five Years.....

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!