What the President Said Versus What He Meant

What the President Said in His Speech
1. If you currently have coverage, nothing will change - same plan, same doctors.
2. The bill will disallow insurance companies to deny for pre-existings and/or drop coverage in the middle of treatment.
3. Insurance companies will not be allowed to cap benefits in a given year.
4. All plans will require out-of-pocket maximums to protect consumers.
5. An insurance exchange will be created for those who do not currently carry coverage, and private companies will compete against one another.
6. Tax credits will be provided for those who cannot afford coverage.
7. Individuals will be mandated to carry coverage.
8. Businesses will be required to offer coverage if operating at a certain level in gross revenue.
9. "Death panels" are a fabrication proposed by those who desire to derail reform efforts.
10. Illegals will not be covered, even though opponents purport the lie that they will.
11. Abortions will not be funded by federal dollars.
12. A public option will be used potentially by 5% of uninsureds and must be self-sustainable.
13. President Obama will NOT sign into law a bill that adds to our current deficit.
14. He will create a commission to identify waste and best practices, and most of the money to pay for the bill will come from this identification process.
15. He will panel together experts for beta-testing purposes to examine the effects of tort reform in certain areas.

What the President Meant in His Speech
1. If you currently have coverage at a small employer and they'd rather be fined 8% than offer health coverage because it's less expensive that way, they'll drop you and force you to go into the insurance exchange.
2. If you eat Cheetos and bon-bons all day and down a 12 pack of Coke at work 5 days a week, never exercise and smoke 3 packs of Reds a day, insurance companies cannot deny you coverage.
3. It's okay if one person causes everyone else's premiums to rise.
4. I'm okay with an out-of-pocket max (indemnity plans are out!)
5. Private companies must agree to the government's requirements for coverage, can't deny you, can't rate you up, but must still compete with the cheaper government plan.
6. Tax credits should be provided for EVERYONE, not just the poor!
7. Mandating coverage = one step closer to Big Brother being more than just reality TV.
8. But we know you really won't want to offer coverage when it's cheaper to take the fine - come on over to the government plan, employees of businesses of all sizes!
9. Mandating end of life counseling by government bureaucrats is IN THE BILL - page 425-430, read it for yourself!!!
10. That was the best, when some jabronee yelled "LIE!" and all the Dems went, "ooooohhh."
11. Abortions are already funded by federal dollars (hello, Planned Parenthood).
12. Does the President really think that if 5% of the sickest, poorest people pull their resources together for a health care co-op that it would really be self-sustaining?
13. CBO says otherwise.
14. This is the quintessential kicker of the speech - the President wants us to believe that he can identify waste created by a government agency (Medicare and Medicaid) to pay for another government agency (Public Option)? Does he sincerely believe we're that idiotic?
15. Still not sure why Dems are so opposed to tort reform.

As an insurance agent, if people are forced to buy a policy, it will line my pockets, but it's not the right answer for our health care crisis. Even more, the weakest portion of the President's speech was his half-hearted attempt at convincing us how he'll pay for it - MOST of his proposals are paid for by eliminating waste? Then why haven't we done that already? Is a government mandate really necessary? And where's the other money coming from? And what about the increasing debt indicated by the non-partisan CBO? And when did government EVER streamline anything?

FINAL VERDICT
President Obama, though charismatic and verbosely articulate, failed to answer the glaringly obvious question on every concerned Americans mind - how on earth will we pay for this?

I want reform as much as everyone else; I see good folk denied coverage nearly every week. But until we as individuals start taking responsibility for our health, our choices, and demand our voices be heard by those in Washington who look to genuinely represent their constituents, true health care reform is as fleeting as the morning mist on a summer Florida morning. And quite frankly, the way things are going, we have bigger fish to fry than simply reforming America's health care.

Retraining our Minds about Health "Insurance"

We really need a different term for "health insurance" than, well, health insurance. Let's think about it:

Car insurance - How many people go to All State so they can drive headlong into a light pole after insuring themselves?

Home owners insurance - I live in Florida, and I don't know of anyone who prays for a hurricane so they can test how well State Farm pays claims!

Life insurance - Unless you're an unethical despot looking to fraudulently scam the system, no one's looking to use this type of insurance any time soon...

Insurance, by definition, is about transferring the risk of the unknown, unbudgetable expense. But most people, especially those with group plans, view health insurance as something to be used, rather than something to be avoided, but there when you need it. Health insurance, then, really shouldn't be called insurance, but rather a medical services plan.

In 2004, the government paid for 45% of all health care costs, private industry paid for 36%, and individuals paid for roughly 15%. According to Alan Reynolds, senior fellow with the Cato Institute, in 2008 the government accounted for 60% of health care spending, putting private industry still at 36% and individuals at 3%. Why the increase in government involvement?

Perhaps because private industry has incentive to keep costs down, and so do individuals (at least theoretically). If I want to keep my costs down, I know eating healthy meals, regularly exercising, and avoiding stressful situations will lead to better health...the insurance companies know the same. The government has no incentive because they have discretionary funding at the taxpayer's expense to treat whomever they will, regardless of the lifestyle of such a patient.

Which goes back to the idea of our health needing "insurance." It's far more economical to take individual responsibility for our health - by healthy eating, regular exercise, not smoking - than it is live abhorrently selfish lifestyles and ask the government to rescue us when we're sick. Health care reform is necessary only in that we need to retrain how we think about the role of insurance in the debate.

We should be letting Congress know that we desire individual liberty when it comes to our health care and affordable insurance to cover us when, after doing everything right, we need chemotherapy treatment because of the random ravages of cancer. When we understand the definition of "insurance" we'll finally mitigate the price of health care.

Could We Really Resist such Power and Wealth?

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, campaign donations from health care interests already top $19 million thus far in 2009, with 40% of those donations going to the five Senate and House committees that are responsible for reforming health care. Republican Senator Grassley from Iowa, who saw $53,000 in donations during the first quarter of '09, saw his health care contributions influx to over $125,000 during the second quarter.

According to Grassley's spokesperson Jill Kozeny, Grassley "accepts campaign donations that are legal and come with no strings attached."

Hmmmm...

Do I really think there are no strings attached? If I really expect to receive all those donations from special interests, am I not going to go ahead and push for their agenda? Do I really want to get reelected?

And therein lies the problem. In one sense I have no qualms with the way business is done in Washington - you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. On the flip side, money and power have become so entirely synonymous that I find myself having liberal tendencies of wealth-spreading in the deep recesses of my mind, and that's utterly frightening!

I suppose when you have the power you want to keep it, and money solidifies that ambition. I don't have the power so of course I see the plank in my brother's eye, but if any of us were in Senator Grassley's sneaks, could we truly resist the benevolent showering of praise, money and adoration? Or would we play the part of the whore?

Don't Give in to the Hype

Hype is totally overrated. Like MJ coming back as a Wizard, Y2K, or global warming, it leaves you like a flat tire on the side of the road. And even though you know how to put the spare on, the thought of actually doing it deflates you even more, if that were possible.

What I mean is this...living in Florida, and maybe it's like this everywhere, I pass by about 20 billboards a day telling me - a la, telling everyone - that breast enhancement, liposuction, and cosmetic surgery are keys to happiness. In an hour TV show I'll sit through three Viagra-esque commercials, one penile enlargement ad, and countless half-naked body spots directed at both consciously and subliminally convincing me that if I don't look like Brad Pitt I ought to at least spend my life savings trying.

Don't get me wrong, I have a little man-crush on the guy, but I'm not about to go out and get hair implants just because some marketing windbag on the 33th floor somewhere has his own insecurities about the teasing he endured as a 4th grade schoolboy.

And yet there's this sense of entitlement we have that says we should be our own person, follow our dreams, don't worry about what people think. It sounds healthy but it's veneered over with a false sense of self because we fail to recognize that it's really not okay to be 5'2" and weigh two and a quarter, nor is it okay to go get lipo to take away the symptom without addressing the root problem.

I guess what I'm advocating is that if you really want to swim against the current, if you really want to "be your own person," then start by recognizing the illegitimacy of both extremes. God has not created us to be who we're not, but he hasn't created us to live a lie either. We've been exactly fashioned in imperfection, and it's only by acknowledging our shortcomings that we can see our strengths, thus enabling us to reject the hype of either spectrum's end.

Why Health Insurance is not really INSURANCE at all

I read an interesting article today regarding the Myth of Health Insurance (http://tinyurl.com/c7glos if anyone cares to read the whole thing). The long and short of it is this - health "insurance" has little to do with health and nothing at all to do with insurance. Before you dismiss him as a zealot, ask yourself a couple of questions:

1) The last time I bought car insurance, did I immediately go out and wreck it so I could make a claim?

2) Have I filed a homeowners claim recently with (Allstate, State Farm, etc) because the faucet was leaky, the downspout came off, or the flooring was dirty?

The truth is, insurance, by definition, is transferring the risk off of yourself onto someone else in return for paying a premium; that way they assume responsibility should something go wrong. In other words, no one buys car insurance, homeowners insurance, life insurance, or any other kind of insurance with the itching irrational desire to go out and use it! Yet that's the idea to which many subscribe - I pay a premium, the insurance company should cover everything!

The question we must ask ourselves is, is health care an inalienable right or is it a commodity to be sold on the open market place? The author's position is that is it "immoral and impractical" for us to reject personal responsibility for our health and take a position of entitlement when it comes to health. After all, why should I pay the same premium as you when you've drank your liver under the table, smoked your lungs to hell itself and ate your way into stardom on The Biggest Loser?

The moral dilema is not whether or not we should provide health care to all, but rather at what point our eschewing of personal responsibility becomes negligent enough to punish.

I have to say, he's got a point.

People Are Mad at the Government...(and why I'm really not)

The month of August has seen town hall after bloody town hall, talking head know-it-alls from every news outlet you can think of, and political pandering from your favorite local representative (btw, if the Spirit moves you, contact your local representative - http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml#fl).

On one hand it's been great to see the passion return to the heartland and not be dominated by the fringe outskirts of Los Angeles and New York, but in another sense it's disheartening to see such lack of self-control from so many of these good folk. And make no mistake, I think they're good folk, and when you tick off good folk for long enough, they'll fight back.

But really, the government isn't the problem. Don't misinterpret me, I didn't vote for our current president and wasn't too happy about how the former one spent his last 2 years in office. The real issue is not these institutions, but rather good ol' individual American apathy. We got so used to the glitz and glamour of the wealthiest nation on earth that we got arrogant; we felt entitled to such wealth, and assumed we'd continually increase it....increase it without acknowledging the One who enabled us to get here in the first place. Entitlement gave way to apathy, and before we knew it, our representatives - not all, to be sure, but many - hijacked power from the people who were too self-absorbed to care about whom they weren't electing. And now, it's an ever-loving mess.

So should people be mad at the government? Sure, knock your socks off. But I'm not - I'm mad at myself, because I fell into the same apathetic trap of everyone else.

Surely I'm not the only one who will admit it...

Getting Started

I tried blogging a few months back, but quite frankly, I wasn't ready. Not that you have to have a PHD in blogging to actually write a blog, but I didn't have the right mindset, the right direction, the right focus.

Really, there are two types of people in the world:
1) those who jump in the water with both feet, and
2) those who tipsy-toe their way into everything they do.

Of course, there are the self-starters who "make their own luck" and all that narcissistic boasting, but that's just insecurity misplacing itself for confidence. I don't think one way is better than the other...in fact, both mindsets are needed; I suppose the goal is to decipher when to jump and when to wade.

I say all that to say this (one of my favorite "redirectors" of all time) - I think I'm finally beginning to understand how social networking, be it blogging, tweeting, facebooking or whatever, can leverage your position as a person, friend, business partner, etc. Work is the most boring thing in the world to me, but for most people it isn't...since I live on this planet and it's important to others, how I choose to engage others in the workplace qualifies as an essential. Engaging with social mediums such as Jeff Fordable, then, is essential - not because it's going to make me a lot of money or produce a lot of friends - but because it builds character necessary to endure that for which I'm not necessarily gifted.

I'm excited to see how this all plays out.