TINY MINDS

Archive for the ‘Bloviating’ Category

I just got asked yesterday on Twitter why I am against the so-called “public option” in the so-called “health care reform” proposals now pending in Congress.

Actually, I’m not against a “public option” — we already have one, and it’s called Medicaid — a program that ensures that the poorest and least insurable among us are covered in the health care system.

Seems to me that there are four simple things we can do to improve health care in this country:

1. Tort reform — limit punitive damages, and require arbitration before awarding people like John Edwards tens of millions of dollars paid by doctors and hospitals for malpractice insurance. The money freed up could easily amount to billions in savings to the current system, making insurance and services more affordable.

2. Create “assigned risk” pools, not unlike how car insurance works, to handle people with pre-existing conditions. We could even throw some money at subsidizing the programs, set up on the state level.

3. To cover those not already covered by Medicaid (some studies report that quite a few people who are currently “uninsured” don’t even realize that they qualify for Medicaid), up the income eligibility levels to allow more people who can’t afford private insurance to be covered. At the same time, expand Medicaid to cover wellness issues such as regular checkups, health education, smoking cessation and substance abuse treatment.

4. Once we’ve done the above, require everyone to have a basic basket of health insurance. This would spread the costs over those people who have “chosen” not to have health insurance because they are perhaps young and healthy, but could afford health insurance. We require all drivers to have liability insurance; we should do the same with health care, since more and more it’s being deemed an essential “right” (although I hate using that word), and at the very least is not refused to anyone at the emergency room. Free riders who are able to help pay should do just that.

Next, let’s see how we can make Medicaid and Medicare more efficient and effective before spreading these systems over the whole thing. Let’s keep the government from competing via subsidies to the “public option” against a system that 80% of it’s customers are happy with. Once we’ve accomplished the above four items, and we wait a couple years, we can guage the results and see what else we should do.

Creating a gigantic government bureaucracy to solve a problem that is only a problem for a minority of the populace, when it could be helped greatly by a combination of tweaking the way we do things and subsidizing our most needful citizens, makes a lot more sense to me than blowing up what we have and moving to the so-called “public option.”

Thoughts?

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I distinctly heard Obama say “Now, I don’t like big government” in his speech last night — but it’s not showing up in the transcripts.

Talk about chutzpah.

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I didn’t write these, but I did receive them in my in-box, which is pretty much the same thing, isn’t it? Anyhow, thought I would share:

New Stock Market Terms

CEO– Chief Embezzlement Officer

CFO – Corporate Fraud Officer

BULL MARKET– A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius

BEAR MARKET– a 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.

VALUE INVESTING– The art of buying low and selling lower.

P/E RATIO– The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.

BROKER – What my financial planner has made me.

STANDARD & POOR– Your life in a nutshell.

STOCK ANALYST– Idiot who just downgraded your stock.

STOCK SPLIT– When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.

MARKET CORRECTION– The day after you buy stocks.

CASH FLOW– The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.

YAHOO – What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.

WINDOWS– What you jump out of when you’re the sucker who bought Yahoo at=2 0$240 per share.

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR– Past year investor who’s now locked up in a nuthouse.

PROFIT – an archaic word no longer in use.

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I am SO stoked that the RNC has elected Michael Steele as the new chairman. I’ve met the man, and he’s not only a clear-thinking conservative, he has the kind of charisma that the party needs to move forward.

Congratulations, Michael and RNC — you’ve done a good, non-tinyminds kind of thing with this latest move.

GOP elects first black national party chairman.

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So the GOP is out in the woods again. Boo hoo. We have only ourselves to blame.

We should blame ourselves for not being conservative in deeds as well as rhetoric. We should blame ourselves for trying to be “compassionate” with other people’s money. We should blame ourselves for allowing the movement to be distracted by wars. Wars happen — but the rest of our economy, our society, our culture goes on at the same time and must be addressed. We have elected leaders in the party who are technicians and networkers, not charismatic representatives of the conservative point of view. We have assumed that money wins elections. It doesn’t. Elections are won by big ideas married to big personalities. We had neither on the ticket this time around.

I could go on and on about what went wrong — but instead, I will be posting on how we can get it right next time and in the future.

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