My last post stirred up a lot of debate and some highly critical comments.

Before I get into today’s post, I would like to point out that the author of the original post (below) was not referring to the current House Bill, but the underlying document that the house committees used to draft the bill. I have also read the bill (the PDF that Karen S refers to in her comment) and although several of her assertions are correct (the bill did change from the founding document referenced), there are still a lot of problems with this bill as it stands. The main one being draconian mandatory provisions and control over procedures and outcomes.

One reader pointed out that I was treading on dangerous territory bringing a political subject into an Internet marketing blog. I admit I did that with some trepidation. When you write a blog, one of the things you always struggle with is maintaining your focus and position. But this blog is aimed at seniors. The focus is to help seniors make, save and invest money. Some of you may disagree, but I reasoned that the cost of health care for retirees living on fixed incomes fall within that position.  No matter what the outcome of the current fight over health care, a large part of the financial burden will fall upon seniors.

When you look at the numbers of people who will retire, and qualify for Medicare over just the next ten years, there is simply not enough money to fund Medicare at current levels of service and benefits. The unfunded costs are in the trillions of dollars. There is no question that cuts in Medicare are inevitable no matter what party is in power.

The important thing to remember is that any bill only shapes the broad outline of what the rules will look like. Once a bill is passed and signed into law,  a government agency will be set up to write the regulations and administer the operations. This new, yet to be named, agency will proceed to write the actual rules and regulations and it will administer the plan.

This new agency, staffed by unelected bureaucrats, will have enormous power to shape our health care service and outcomes. None of their employees, or the members of congress, will be affected by the regulations because government employees are covered by a government-paid, not a government-run, gold plated private health care plan.

Remember the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA)?  When  OSHA first started it dealt with major industrial safety concerns. But over time they morphed into a draconian workplace administration bureaucracy. OSHA started out with less than 200 pages of regulations. Today the OSHA regulations run over 3000 pages and they have to power to fine, and even jail (through civil procedure), employerswho do not comply. Once government bureaucracies are created they take on a life of their own and the congress rarely reigns them in.

Yes, we need fixes to Medicaid, Medicare and private health insurance, but there is a big difference between government-paid health insurance and government-run health insurance. There is also a big difference between fixing some of the problems and overhauling how health care is delivered.

I know that plenty of  people are against any form of government interference in health care, But, if the government wants to force people to purchase private health insurance and pay for people to get coverage who can’t afford it, I could live with that. And if government wants to force insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, I am OK with that too. But we don’t need the government running a health insurance company and making decisions about what procedures, drugs and outcomes we receive. And I don’t need mandatory end-of-life counseling. We are seniors –not children!

We currently have a shortage of about 200,000 doctors in the United States. If this bill, or a close version of it passes, it will cover an additional 40 million people with health insurance. Since we need about 1 doctor for every person covered, that means we have to come up with an additional 400,000 doctors –but the American Medical Association has dragged their feet approving new medical schools so much that universities are trying to find ways around the AMA stranglehold. If you have to wait in long lines now to see your doctor, think about what it will be like when there are an additional 40 million people –many of them illegal immigrants, standing in those lines.

Polls now show that opposition to the current bill has passed the 50% mark and is climbing every week as people learn more about it. But congress and the White House are still trying to sell it to the point where they are sending Union goons and Acorn thugs to congressional town hall meetings. Congress and Obama have touched a very sensitive nerve. I can’t remember any issue since the Vietnam War that has raised the political debate to the level of anger and passion people are now showing.

But congress is slowly getting the message. Capitol Hill pundits are now forecasting  that the Senate is likely to come up with some type of Health Care Lite compromise that they will take to the house.  They weren’t really worried until they started to lose seniors who are one of the most reliable constituent groups. It got so bad that when the AARP rolled over and endorsed the plan, the AARP was flooded with members cancelling their membership. One poll (I think it was Rasmussen) I saw last night showed that opposition by seniors was now at 46% and climbing. Since over 70% of seniors reliabley vote Democratic that is pretty astounding.

We have four more weeks until Congress reconvenes. It will be interesting to see how this develops. Whether you agree with me or not, I urge you to make your thoughts known to your congresspeople and senators. This subject is too important to ignore.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 7th, 2009 at 5:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.