A Powerful View on Medicare Expansion

Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford gave a speech today at the opening of the 2013 Florida legislative session. Below are his personal views on the subject of whether Florida should accept the Medicare expansion that is part of Obamacare. His words are both true and painful.

Perhaps one of the most challenging questions we’ll face this Session is whether we should expand Medicaid.

Let me start by saying, I know this is a very difficult issue.

Passions will run high and principles will clash within this chamber.

On the matter of expansion, allow me to depart from the message of the House for a moment, and speak to you about my personal views.

First of all, let me say, I believe in the safety net.

My family has benefited from the safety net.

As many of you know, I grew up in a family of nine children. My father was self-employed and did the best he could to provide for us but we never had health insurance. We could never afford health insurance.

My baby brother Peter was diagnosed with cancer when he was 13 months old. He was in and out of the hospital for seven months.

My Mom and Dad basically lived at the Ronald McDonald House – because they couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel.

After two major surgeries, Peter lost his battle with cancer and my father found himself with a mountain of medical bills that he could never afford to pay.

It was the safety net that picked my father up.

It was the safety net that picked my family up.

I will continue to believe in – and fight for – a strong safety net for Florida.

Because the measure of our state is not how well we take care of the rich, but how well we take care of the sickest and weakest among us.

But Members, I also firmly believe that a government that grows too big, becomes too intrusive, and fosters too much dependency will threaten our liberty, our freedom and our prosperity.

Members — I am opposed to Medicaid expansion because I believe it crosses the line of the proper role of government

I believe it forces Florida to expand a broken system that we have been battling Washington to fix, and I believe it will ultimately drive up the cost of health care.
This inflexible plan, thrust upon us by the federal government, is not aimed at strengthening the safety net.

It pushes a social ideology at the expense of our future.

The trouble with this social experiment is that it is destined for failure.

The notion that we’re going to receive free money from the federal government is laughable.

This is the same federal government that has not passed a budget in nearly four years.

This is the same federal government that spends 1.2 trillion dollars more than it takes in in every year.

Florida is being tempted with empty promises to comply with policies we would never pay for
if we knew the true cost.

They’re trying to buy off states one by one.

I am not buying it. Florida should not buy it.

Because their failure to deliver has such high stakes for Floridians.

If they get this wrong, we are on the hook.

It would be far easier for me, and for us, to simply say yes to the so called “free money,” enjoy the accolades for a few years, and leave office knowing that the true cost will come
due long after we’re gone.

It’s not right, and it’s not what I signed up for.

Florida’s governor disagrees, seeing a moral imperative to provide expanded Medicare so long as it is fully subsidized by the Federal government (borrowing even more against our children’s future).

Mr. Obama and the Democrats are trying to force us all to expand health care subsidies to the exclusion of economic opportunity and growth while we increase dependency and bankrupt the country.

Will Weatherford is right and we need to tell our congressional representatives to de-fund Obamacare now.

You can send Will a thank-you here.

Regards, Pete Weldon
americanstance.org

Public Comment on Female Contraception Mandate

I submitted my public comment on this issue as included below and encourage all concerned to do the same. Click here to offer your comments on these proposed regulations.

_______________________

February 8, 2013

TO: US Department of Health and Human Services

I offer the following as a public comment concerning RIN 0938-AR42: Coverage of Certain Preventive Services Under the Affordable Care Act.

The proposed regulations attempt to selectively address faith and conscience based objections to a government mandate that organizations offering health insurance plans be required to pay for free contraceptives for their female employees.

After considering the regulations and the government’s arguments in support of a mandate any reasoned citizen might ask whether those praying at the altar of government should be entitled under our Constitution to impose their will upon those who pray at a religious altar, or upon those unaffiliated with a recognized religion having conscientious objections to paying to socialize the cost of female contraception.

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, Deputy Director of Policy and Regulation at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services held a conference call on February 1, 2013 to announce revised proposed rules for socializing the cost of female contraceptives as those rules impact religious organizations.

Of particular note in the conference call was a question by an NPR reporter and the response of Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. The reporter asks whether it isn’t really the insurance companies who will be paying the cost of free contraceptives given to employees of religious organizations who request such coverage under the proposed rules, or won’t the Federal government really be paying the cost for those employees under self-funded health insurance plans offered by religious organizations?

In response, Ms. Brooks-LaSure notes that since “studies have shown” overall health costs are reduced when female contraceptives are provided free, insurance companies will realize an overall cost savings by paying for those costs. If this were true, in an open and competitive market, insurance companies would voluntarily include free contraceptives within coverages as doing so will save both the companies and the employees money while improving health care, and there would be no need for us to pay Ms. Brooks-LaSure’s salary let alone have to deal with a new 80 page proposed rule or any free contraception mandate at all. If free contraceptives actually reduce overall health care costs as claimed by the government, a competitive insurance industry would be foolish not to offer such coverage in all health plans, and those women declining free contraceptives would then rationally be subject to a higher, rather than lower premium payment.

Again, in response to the question as directed to self-insured organizations, Ms. Brooks-LaSure notes that the user fees under the Affordable Care Act paid by health plan administrators would be credited for the cost of providing the contraceptive coverage. While Ms. Brooks-LaSure doesn’t think that means the Federal government is paying for that credit, the reality is that we would be paying, as user fees supporting the government’s over site of Obamacare are reduced through such credits, which dollars will necessarily be made up from another Federal bucket.

The emptiness of the government’s reasoning in proposing religious exceptions reveals that those same flaws exist in the reasoning underlying socialization of the cost of female reproductive health services in the first place. What we really have here are competing belief systems, the Obama administration/HHS versus personally held religious beliefs and individual conscientious objections. No religion is entitled to impose its moral views on American citizens and no government is entitled to impose its moral views on any religion or individual.

The American solution to increasing access to female contraception is to make such products available over-the-counter and to provide Federal regulation requiring state laws to assure open competition in the health insurance markets.

Regulations such as those proposed here legitimately incite the resentment of millions of Americans who cherish their personal freedoms. Such regulations are completely unnecessary to the end of increasing access to female contraception and constitute an unacceptable intrusion into our private lives and pocketbooks, and an unacceptable challenge to our right to act in ways consistent with our individual moral beliefs.

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Regards, Pete Weldon
americanstance.org

The Education of James Taylor

Prior to performing a verse of America the Beautiful at Mr. Obama’s recent 2nd inaugural, singer/song writer James Taylor appeared on the Charlie Rose show and offered some interesting commentary on “corporate” America. Watch and listen here (his political commentary begins at about 28:35).

As a former singer /song writer I greatly admire James Taylor’s music and his career. What struck me as odd, however, was his complete misunderstanding of the realities of “corporate” America and the counter productive thinking and policy that comes from such misunderstanding. In the political world, James Taylor’s misinformed views are an example of “liberal think” that destroys opportunity in the name of “humanity.”

Here is a portion of James Taylor’s comments:

America is such a noble experiment. It’s really the light of the world. A lot of people are angry at us but mainly because of our, sort of, corporate colonialism that we practice. That’s not the American people. Those are individuals who are acting badly. That’s Standard Oil and Union Carbide in Bhopal, BP in the gulf. That’s a real problem for the future. Aside from carbon in the atmosphere, what we do with corporate organization and corporate power and how we make it serve human beings and the largest number of human beings at that, and not just enslave human beings and, you know, march backwards, that’s a big, hmmm, Gordian knot for human beings to deal with, this question…. because corporations don’t have the same human priorities… The Supreme Court and the Citizen’s United decision not withstanding, corporations are not human. They have a very selective and a very limited and not very humane priority (Charlie Rose interjects, and a very different mission)… and a very different mission. A robber Barron will at least put his name on a hospital, I know you will see a lot of football stadiums with “Enron” on them or whatever, … but the point is these things (corporations) use portions, little slices of people and there are three people waiting to take your job and do that little, you know, dedicate that little part of yourself to that number being as large as it can be, and that’s not… its just incomplete is what it is, its not whole and its not human. I think other countries have done a better job asking corporate power to serve human beings better than we have.

Mr. Taylor’s references are dated.

Standard Oil was broken up in 1911 and it can be credibly argued that its broad influence over petroleum production and distribution made possible the economic transition from group transportation (trains) to personal transportation (automobiles), adding significantly to individual freedom. No longer are individuals restricted to a small geographic area to find work and exercise a desire to travel, thanks to the personal automobile.

The “Bhopal” event occurred under Union Carbide’s ownership of a chemical plant in India in 1984. Union Carbide has been owned by Dow Chemical Company since 2001.

The “BP” Deepwater Horizon gulf oil leak occurred in the spring 0f 2010.

It can only be Mr. Taylor’s imagination that leads him to believe the “corporate” nature of these companies resulted in “bad behavior” that did not and does not serve human needs. Note that the consequences of these industrial accidents were paid for dearly by both the management and owners of the effected corporations, setting examples that promote responsible behavior. Also note that there is no evidence that government ownership or regulatory control of the means of production would avoid the occasional industrial tragedy (see Chernobyl, Three mile island, and Fukushima Daiichi). Finally, there is evidence that government regulation and favoritism interfere with the operation of markets in ways that negatively impact humanity through increasing prices and limiting choice (see as examples ethanol mandates, Obama Care, and the Dodd/Frank legislation).

Mr. Taylor then moves from stereotyping bad “corporate” behavior to stereotyping “corporate” priorities. Let’s accept that those priorities as seen by Mr. Taylor are limited to financial greed. Now it is time to understand what a “corporation” is and why it exits.

Like money, corporations, are man made structures designed to serve a purpose. In the case of money that purpose is to provide a trusted means of exchange between people that simplifies trading. In the case of corporations that purpose is to simplify the organization of resources so as to provide humanity with goods and services in an efficient manner. Note that the customers of corporations voluntarily enter into purchase transactions to meet their needs. Note that government imposes such things as an ethanol mandate through the force of law, not voluntary exchange. Which approach truly serves humanity? Which approach takes risks to invest in technology and production so that new products come into being to serve humanity? OK, the “Furby” may not serve humanity in any sense other than providing a curious entertainment but certainly laparoscopic surgery and wireless networks and smart phones do, as do supermarkets and materials and chemicals and fuels and restaurants and accountants and lawyers and doctors and hospitals, and …..

The next presumption that corporations “use portions, little slices of people and there are three people waiting to take your job” is false. Corporations offer job opportunities resulting from voluntary demand for goods and services they produce. Remember that no one is compelled to buy a Big Mac, or a designer dress, or a new home, or car, or smartphone, or six pack of beer. Yet, the corporations that meet these human needs take the risk that the customers will be there tomorrow and in doing do employ millions of people who have personal ambition and a desire to learn and apply their knowledge in meeting society’s needs (that is, they are willing to work). The last time I checked no one was being compelled to work for IBM, or Exxon, or Johnson and Johnson. However, the government is now compelling all citizens with health insurance to subsidize the cost of female (not male) reproductive health services, some in violation of their religious faith. Lastly, many US corporations live by credos that list the shareholder’s interest last in line exactly because they understand that their long term profitable survival is what, in the end, creates value for both humanity and for those who take the financial risk to make it all happen. Here is a corporate credo Mr. Taylor should read.

No one I know has ever proposed that a corporate interest represents the interests of all of humanity. This may well be why democratic governments over the years have sought to use tax revenues to supplement those human needs not directly served by a job. It is also why we have many other forms of organization including union, religious, social, charitable, and political organizations. In fact, in America the Beautiful you are free to start any organization you want and prove there is a market for your ideas by getting others to give you money to support your cause, whether it be corporate or otherwise. That is what Citizen’s United is all about; more speech, not less.

Regarding this last offering from Mr. Taylor, “I think other countries have done a better job asking corporate power to serve human beings better than we have.” It is not a given that “countries” (he means governments) have some moral authority to “ask” (he means impose) rules on corporations to “serve human beings better,” whatever that means. Morality is not the purview of government. Government actions only reflect the morality of the citizens. Mr. Taylor would do well to update his perspective for contemporary reality. It is the power of centralized government that imposes regulatory mandates founded in righteous misconception, that accrues $80,000,000,000,000 in unfunded entitlement liabilities with no plan to reduce those liabilities to manageable size, that is more than $16,000,000,000,000 in debt with no effort to reduce that burden, and that spends more than a $1,000,000,000,000 more per year than it takes in revenue. This runaway abuse of power by the government exceeds any negative impacts of corporate power by orders of magnitude. Who is going to pay for this? Corporations, at least, are accountable to the realities of the markets. Government is accountable to the voters, a majority of whom have accepted government bribes, accepted money and favors to satisfy their short term desires while they burden their children and grand children with unsupportable debt and lost opportunity. So much for the morality of government and its role in serving humanity.

James Taylor is a brilliant man and I encourage him to read and understand more about our national government and our modern welfare state, and where they are headed. When he is done understanding, he just might want to form a corporation whose mission is to fix it.

Regards, Pete Weldon
americanstance.org

Absurdity Meets Tragedy In The Great Fiscal Farce

The United States Consumer Protection Bureau (CFBP) is a new agency accountable to no one, created by the Dodd-Frank financial legislation of 2010, and conceived by our long time Fairy Godmother and new Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren.

I apologize if I seem a bit cynical and despondent at having to pay for a Federal agency whose primary purpose is to require providers of credit to be responsible for the inability of their customers to assume responsibility for the loans they freely enter into. So, as the chosen ones force us all to pay to protect the stupid from their stupidity, please indulge me while I point out the absurdity of it all.

As recently pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, the Dodd-Frank financial-regulatory overhaul amended existing lending laws by making banks legally responsible for determining that a borrower has the ability to repay a mortgage.

The CFPB is charged with spelling out how banks can satisfy the new mandate. The “qualified mortgage” definition being issued by the agency essentially says that if a loan meets certain criteria, then regulators—and courts—will assume it was appropriately underwritten. Clearly, banks will not underwrite “unqualified mortgages” for fear of being sued or fined for less than responsible lending as seen through the eyes of the CFPB.

Under proposed rules from CFPB, loans would be deemed “qualified mortgages” if borrowers are spending no more than 43% of their pretax income on monthly debt payments.

Understand this clearly. The government is saying that in order to assure our nation’s financial stability, a person wishing to borrow money to buy real estate will not get a mortgage unless the monthly debt payments (the amount borrowed plus interest paid in installments over the term of the loan) total less than 43% of the borrower’s monthly pretax income.

Now for a short reveal on our Federal fiscal standards.

The Federal Government has recently been taking in less than $3 trillion a year in income while spending about $4 trillion a year. I refer you to pages 26 and 27 of Mr. Obama’s 2013 Federal budget historical tables.

If the Federal Government were held to standards it insists upon for mortgage borrowers it would only be able to borrow an amount supported by the required annual repayment of principal and interest at no more than 43% of its annual income.

If the current debt were managed as a mortgage loan under the 43% CFPB income standard, the federal government would have to pay off over $1 trillion of debt and interest a year out of its less than $3 trillion annual income, and it would receive no further credit. Yet, the federal government is not paying off any debt and instead is borrowing an additional $1 trillion a year, adding to our $16+ trillion in debt.

But, I ask, what about our nation’s financial stability? Perhaps the United States Consumer Protection Bureau and Elizabeth Warren can protect us from the government.

Regards, Pete Weldon
americanstance.org

Memo to Republican Leadership – Shut It Down

Mr. Obama publicly and accurately defined the essence of our entitlement/fiscal problems in his speech of April 12, 2011. It is clear that he fully understands the issues. In this speech Mr. Obama demagogues the Ryan entitlement reform plan, while claiming the power of government will squeeze suppliers to reduce health care spending, proposing to reduce military spending, and insisting on increased tax rates on high incomes while reducing tax deductions, all resulting in what he claimed then would result in a $4 trillion reduction in the national debt over 12 years. This assertion is a semantic convenience, or lie, as Mr. Obama’s own 2013 budget projects the national debt rising from over $16 trillion in 2013 to over $25 trillion in 2022. (See page 64 here.) Mr. Obama never offers specifics on spending reductions. Mr. Obama never once mentions the fiscal benefits of economic growth in this speech, while he repeatedly associates only government spending with the term “investment.”

Now that he has his tax increase and reduction in tax deductions in hand, the only way to force Mr. Obama to engage in entitlement reform is for the House of Representatives to refuse an increase in the debt ceiling and be prepared to shut down the government until Mr. Obama and the Senate agree to specific entitlement changes that will, at a minimum, eliminate unfunded entitlement liabilities over time, and preferably, result in immediate and long lasting reductions in such spending.

The only way to support such a course of action with the American people is on moral grounds, superior in substance to the righteous unsupported morality and lack of specifics continuously offered by Mr. Obama.

That superior moral substance lies in the reality that Mr. Obama’s words are inconsistent with the fact that his only tangible achievements in office to date are limited to giving away free stuff paid for with trillions of dollars in debt that our children will have to repay.

Republicans need to make a broad public effort beginning now stating clearly why Mr. Obama has been wrong on the moral arguments and needs to agree to structural entitlement reforms to secure a future of opportunity and not debt for our children and our nation.

Republican leaders need to get their bull dogs in front the network cameras, editors, and political blogs now and keep them there until Mr. Obama accepts a meaningful compromise that leads us to fiscal sanity.

If Republicans cannot effectively make the superior moral argument to put public pressure on Mr. Obama they deserve what they get in return, which will be both nothing now and lost elections in 2014.

Regards, Pete Weldon
americanstance.org