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Like one of the drug addicts it demonizes, Congress spends all of its
days fawning for campaign contributions and for pork-barrel rewards.
Any other kind of Congressional work is controversial, a waste of
time, irrelevant and not why the members came to Washington.
Why do overly powerful legislatures always descend their nation
into chaos?
Because an
all-powerful legislature entices the wrong sort of people to seek to
conduct the government’s business while deterring potential candidates
who have the public benefit mainly in mind.
Indeed, it takes a cheat of sorts to wish to divvy up half of the
nation’s treasure largely on a campaign-money basis.
Oppositely, it requires a person of integrity to limit the
exercise of political power while in office and to think of others
primarily in making decisions for the public.
At times of danger the nation is especially at risk from a
fattened, corrupt legislature.
The utter failure that is the present United States Congress will
be on display as never before soon when the economy completely collapses
under the crash of the last federal bubble.
Washington will surely then
focus on recrimination since myth-making will be much more difficult.
With the dollar imploding at
home and across the globe, there will be no further stimulus programs
possible to fight the Greatest Depression.
The central underpinnings of Washington will be punctured.
Congress will be convulsed with mud fights.
Our national fate in peace or war will lie with the President and
the courts and the protest marchers.
So, finally, in the painful light of devastation, without the aid
of terms limits or sane congressional district lines, most incumbents
will be leaving Congress before January, 2013.
The American electorate will have finally had enough of the Big
Lie.
Hopefully their successors will be of a drastically different
character.
Editor
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from person to person, or from year to year, through our lifetimes.
To make that purchase more rational, we use insurance. Health Care
insurance really does two things, and should do a third it does not as
it now exists.
First, as with any insurance, it spreads the risk of major expense over
a large population. Most of us will never need a heart transplant or
spinal surgery, but if we do, we will need it very, very badly, and few
of us would have the cash on hand to pay for it. So, we pay our
premium each month (or, more likely, our employer does) and hope we
never need to use the insurance.
Second,
insurance acts as a bargaining agent, negotiating a price for routine
health care we could not get as individuals. Most health care insurance
today operates as a Participating Provider Organization, with providers
agreeing to a negotiated rate for their services in return for market
share. These agreements result in lower fees than you would
otherwise pay, but as providers become more successful, they often cease
participating in PPO’s which have deeply discounted fee schedules, so
you sacrifice some choice of practitioners. HMO’s have even more
restricted reimbursement for providers and thus fewer providers
participate.
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The third thing health care insurance could, and should, do, but
as currently configured does not, is to level our costs over our
lifetimes. Typically, we have higher health care costs as we
age, finishing with extremely high costs in our last six months
or so of life.
This is
where employer purchased health care insurance, which originated
during World War II as an exception to wage and price controls,
fails as a method for buying health care. Our employers have no
certainty we will still work for them in 30 years, so they have
no incentive to pay more when we are young to lower our premiums
later.
When buying insurance, it makes sense to buy guaranteed
renewable, level premium, lifetime individual health
insurance, but because of the enormous advantage our tax
laws give employer
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JUSTICE DENIED
(Cont. Page 2)
office the people who have imploded the country’s
standing.
However, the hurricane wrought from the misdeeds of Washington and Wall Street is just arriving.
The days of our modern gentry are indeed quite numbered despite
present appearances.
Homeless in their millions and the return of hunger to America will overwhelm the power of
money and incumbency finally.
People will finally awaken to a harsh reality.
As predicted by Gerald Celente and others, a new national party
guided by the cast aside principles of the United States Constitution
will rise in 2012 hopefully to govern our nation.
Its main competitor may be an amalgam of the discredited parties singing
a siren’s song of American fascism.
That party may be led by Barack Obama if he has the staying power
in the wake of the collapse.
It will be a choice between historic America and a fallen,
bleeding superpower trying to regain its former glory.
Should freedom prevail in 2012, those who have committed crimes
in powerful places will finally face punishment for what they have done.
Bailouts will end altogether along with the general idea of a
free-ride on the government.
Free markets and the Bill of Rights will be restored.
So will the principle of enumerated federal powers.
America will lead the world by example without the use of force.
It will be a nation reborn.
In the heart of a fire, America will have come full circle
philosophically to its founding point, back from tyranny to liberty.
Editor
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HAMPTON ROADS
(Cont. Page 2)
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These events will transform Hampton Roads more so than
just about any other place in the nation.
Few families on any given block do not have a rather
direct reliance on federal dollars steadily flowing.
Tens of thousands will suddenly become needy at the very
time the old government “safety net” is proving to be illusory.
How local leaders contend with the chaos and despair will
largely determine how deep and how violent the morass becomes.
Will disintegration toward a new economy be largely
orderly or will the cities instead become war zones?
Tensions already exist in the seven Hampton Roads
fiefdoms, tensions that are certain to multiply.
Business leaders large and small need to take care of
their productive people and loyal customers no matter what.
A selfless approach to the future would inspire
confidence in meeting the challenges.
All belts must be tightened.
Able-minded, unproductive people need to find a way to
fend for themselves.
Cultural and civic leaders must write the story of the
Greatest Depression in an accurate way: America lost its way
leading its people to disaster, but traditional American
idealism has returned to once again lead the world toward
prosperity in freedom.
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The people in government need to accept that the
way to recovery requires the downsizing of their domain
in ways they have not conceived.
The public sector must shrink much more than the
private sector has, including the public education
monopoly.
Political leaders need to inspire the people to
realizing that the future has now been placed back in
their control, that individual hard work, ingenuity and,
yes, integrity is the new way to get ahead in Virginia:
liberty and equality for all citizens under a just
government has finally dawned.
The new Hampton Roads, five hundred thousand
citizens strong, could then challenge for the title of
the most productive port and able people of the world.
Editor
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See the ALASKA FREEDOM NEWS
Coming Soon!
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purchased insurance, that kind of
health care insurance does not exist. Such insurance does exist in the
disability insurance field, which does not have those tax consequences.
In these plans, your premium, when you are young, is higher than it
needs to be to cover your risk of serious illness at that age, and you
accumulate a cash-plus-interest balance which will be drawn down later
as you age to cover your increasing risk as you age. Your premium is
determined by your age and health at the time you start the policy and
continues the same, adjusted only for inflation, as long as you pay the
premium. The availability of such insurance would give us
incentives to become insured as young as possible and would protect us
from loss of coverage throughout our lives.
While large businesses and major chain stores can spread their
risks over thousands of employees across the country, the
Mom-and-Pop store on the corner with five employees must go it alone.
State and federal regulation of insurance prevents small employers from
joining together to form groups large enough to negotiate reasonable
rates. If like kind small businesses across the
country, with all their thousands
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of employees, were permitted
to band together as a group, their bargaining position would be
on a par with WalMart. These State and Federal turf battles on
regulation are the reason most employees of small businesses are
not offered health insurance.
States also require all health insurance to cover certain
diseases and health care needs, whether the purchaser desires
that coverage or not. The list of mandatory coverage is as long
as it is irrational. Those included are determined by political
activism with no regard to economic impact. Requiring all
insurance to provide for those risks spreads those risks and
makes such care cheaper for those who need it, but only at the
expense of those who are not at risk.
All of these
problems with the affordability of health care originate from
well intentioned government interference in the marketplace. The
solution is to remove these obstacles to the free market. Many
are simple to accomplish if we have the political will.
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States
also require all health insurance to cover
certain diseases and health care needs, whether
the purchaser desires that coverage or not. The
list of mandatory coverage is as long as it is
irrational. Those included are determined by
political activism with no regard to economic
impact. Requiring all insurance to provide for
those risks spreads those risks and makes such
care cheaper for those who need it, but only at
the expense of those who are not at risk.
All of
these problems with the affordability of health
care originate from well intentioned government
interference in the marketplace. The solution is
to remove these obstacles to the free market.
Many are simple to accomplish if we have the
political will.
Regulation of health insurance should be limited
to the enforcement of the insurance contract.
All mandates should be eliminated, as well as
all restrictions preventing the formation of
voluntary groups across state lines. True,
health insurance contracts are very complex, and
we would not want to have to become experts on
health care in order to evaluate a contract, but
that is what
insurance
agents are for, to guide us to a good policy
through the free market.
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We need to
restore the General Practitioner to his primary role in
health care by limiting his liability to the standard of
care of other GP’s when he performs services also
provided by specialists, providing the patient is
informed that specialists are available for that service
and he makes the informed decision to receive that
service from the GP.
Finally, and
most importantly, tax treatment for employer provided
plans and private plans should be the same. This could
be accomplished by allowing employers to contribute to
employee Health Care Saving accounts on the same basis
they now can contribute to their company plan.
Given a chance, with government's meddling thumbs off
the scale, the free market will bring us the health care
we need at a fair price, just as it does with everything
else we need and want.
Dr. Donald Tabor
Vice-Chairman
Tidewater Libertarian Party
www.TidewaterLiberty.com |
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