Do We Need More Taxes?

   Doesn’t extra tax money go to programs that rebuild infrastructure, invest in future prosperity like education and research, provide opportunities for people to escape poor circumstances, and other things that benefit us all? 

That would be wonderful if that was how it worked. In reality, most of the money goes to pay government workers. After that, much of it goes to reward either the voters that support those in power or the donors to their campaigns. Rebuilding infrastructure becomes awarding an overpriced contract to a friend or family member of a legislator to build an unnecessary project. Money for education and research goes to further political gain. The opportunities to help the poor, with the SNAP and WIC program being excellent examples, actually funnel money to large business interests with armies of lobbyists.

Government spending almost always revolves around funding for political expediency and power gain than actual need. Politicians are adept at shifting the focus away from themselves with side issues like, “We must help the poor,” and “If only the rich were paying their fair share.”

The Main Problem With Government Funded Healthcare

Should Taxpayers Pay?

The largest problem with using the government to fund healthcare is defining what products and services equal “healthcare.” Does it include exotic herbs? Rhinoplasty? Chiropractic and Naturopathic medicine? Gym memberships? Faith healing? Nutritional counseling? Personal Training?

If somebody has a sore back, does it include only a trip to a doctor and an opioid prescription or the latest in laser back surgery? Does it include two years of physical therapy with a back specialist or Chiropractor?

Each of these decisions and millions more are why politicians have actually avoided the issue of health care in the United States. Both the ACA and the AHCA involve only for how much health insurance the government should pay.

Even if there were no business interests involved, some constituents would want lawmakers to make what they define as healthcare more affordable. There can be as many definitions as to what constitutes healthcare as there are voters. For example, some don’t consider breast augmentation as medically necessary, some consider it “psychologically necessary.” It could cost taxpayers $1 Trillion or more over a ten year period if government decides to pick up the tab for breast augmentation.

That is why it is best to have consumers pay for their own health care.  Some consumers may opt for a trip to the doctor and some may prefer a trip to the herbalist.  Without government interference, market forces will decide how much each of these services will cost.  

How Do We Make Health Care Affordable?

We have examined some of the difficulties of single payer healthcare.  For some reason ( I would guess lobbyists) both the proposals of the Democratic (ACA aka Obamacare) and the Republican (AHCA) have nothing to do with healthcare costs.  They both focus on regulating insurance and coverage.  So how do we make health care affordable to the largest number of people?  There are many ways, but lets talk about the few that would have the largest effect in the quickest fashion.


1.  Get rid of the American Medical Association (AMA monopoly).  In the United States, a myriad of laws create an unnecessary system where access to health care and medication is controlled by people licensed as "medical doctors."  There are plenty of other health providers, including nurses, pharmacists, physician assistants, midwives and nutritionists who can take care of many health needs less expensively than doctors.  For example, in some areas nurse practitioners conduct sports and pre-employment physicals at 1/10 the cost of using a medical doctor.  Over the counter medications from a pharmacy are usually much less expensive than prescription medication.

2.  Increase price transparency.  There are two major problems with the pricing of medical services.  The first is that they are not published.  It is almost impossible to determine the cost of a procedure before it is performed.  Costs vary greatly from provider to provider and patient to patient.  The other problem is the lack of advanced agreement on price.  Health care is the only industry in which people pay at the time of service, only to receive a bill for hundreds or thousands more several weeks or months later.  Imagine eating a meal at a restaurant, then receiving a bill for $5,000 six months later.  Isn't that insane?  Yet it happens often with medical care.

3.  Abolish government mandated coverage.  Many people may remember when insurance did not cover pregnancy.  Men, children, women over fifty and others who did not plan on getting pregnant did not have pregnancy coverage.  Women of child bearing age could buy pregnancy coverage as a rider for about $30 a month.  Now, everybody has the cost of pregnancy included in their coverage, whether they will ever need it or not.  Many women bought such coverage, some didn't and some used a midwife. There are now dozens of these things which are mandatory.  Since insurance also usually covers preventative care at the medical level, access to care goes through expensive medical doctors rather than less expensive health professionals.  Because of the mandates, a select group of people pay slightly less for coverage of those conditions.  However, overall they pay much more because they are paying for coverage which they don't need.

4.  Insurance coverage for critical, not routine care.  By mandating that insurance companies cover routine visits to the physician and screenings, many parts of the market are distorted.  People go to the physician rather than a less expensive alternative.  People do not know the true price of seeing a physician, so they do not shop for a lower price.  Physicians can charge horribly distorted fees, because their patients are not the ones paying and won't complain.  Insurance rates rise exponentially as people who would not pay full price out of pocket to see a doctor are willing to pay the smaller co-pay. Premiums for insurance that would to cover all serious conditions and prevent people from going bankrupt would cost almost nothing compared to the current structure of insurance which covers all sorts of procedures, needed or not.

These are just a few of the measures that would have a great impact.  There are other measures, such as dealing with the cost of medical education and student loans.  However, these are the issues that Congress should be debating rather than regulating insurance coverage.  The issue is to lower the cost of health care, not create a government bureaucracy to insure payment of higher costs.

Why Not Single Payer Healthcare?

Do you really want healthcare like single payer telephone?

Many people in the United States are old enough to remember that prior to the 1980s we had single payer phone service in the United States. Instead of purchasing your own telephone, you were required to rent a phone from the phone company. If you lived in an area where you were allowed to have more than one phone, the cost was often prohibitive to all but the wealthy.  Having a house with two phones was very rare and almost nobody had more than one phone number.  Calls were charged by time and zone called.  Talking to a friend down the street for 10 minutes could cost $5.00 for a "long distance" charge if they happened to live across the zone line. Businesses paid the equivalent of $400/month in today’s dollars so that they could call or be called by everyone in the city without the added "long distance" charge. Receiving a new telephone could take months and people had to stay home for a day or two waiting for a phone technician to arrive. Technological advances that improved the customer experience were stymied.

The best case scenario is that single payer healthcare in the United States would work much like single payer phone service. The worst case scenario is that single payer healthcare would work like current healthcare in systems like the Veteran’s Administration or the Indian Health Services.

Federal court overturns firing of ex-director of Phoenix VA

The Myth of Equal Opportunity

The idea of equal opportunity is in many ways a myth. In ways we are all the same, however we also all have our differences as human beings. Some are taller, faster, smarter, better looking, whatever. The three hundred pound athlete has a better chance to become a Professional Football Player, the 100 pound person has a better chance to become a Jockey. Should we give the tall child drugs that stunt their growth so that their classmates will have an “equal” advantage to play basketball? Should we refuse an education to the smart child, which happens in government schools, so that the other students will have an “equal” chance to succeed in the academic setting? Maybe we should disfigure the good looking?

Every individual has an advantage over most other individuals in some way or another. There are exceptional athletes who aren’t that bright, people of genius intelligence who can’t walk straight and people born to incredibly wealthy parents who become afflicted with physical or mental disabilities. You can create equal opportunity by taking freedom away. The problem is that everyone can only be equal at the lowest level. You must break the legs of the talented athlete so that their opportunity is equal to the person born with a disability, you must lobotomize the genius so that they have equal opportunity to the person who is mentally slow, and everyone must live in poverty, so that nobody has more than the person who does not manage money properly or decides that sitting on a beach is preferable to working.

That is why freedom is so important. Only in a free society does everybody have a chance to use what talents they have to choose the life they wish to live. Some will be wiser, some will have more money, some will have better health, some will be better looking and some will be more athletic. Some will have more successful relationships and some will be happier. Some will enjoy sitting on a beach. It’s a little messy but it beats squandering all the world’s talent so that we all have an “equal” opportunity. The only way we all have an “equal” opportunity is if we all have no opportunity.

The National Debt

All recent presidents have left office with a huge national debt. I think there are two reasons for this:

1. The purse strings of the nation are controlled by the House of Representatives. The members of Congress know that the American public is ignorant enough that talking heads can blame deficits on the president.
2. It is easier to buy votes and power by borrowing money than by finding a source of income. Especially if you know you’re not the one who has to pay the money back.

One of the ways to combat deficit spending is to stop thee unproductive argument of "This or that president was better for the economy."  In reality, the president has little control on the economy or overall government spending.

Workplace Diversity: A Conscious Conservative View

It is best to hire whoever will bring the most profit to your business. So hiring decisions should have nothing to do with a person’s social or ethnic background. What it has to do with is what skills a person has and how they will apply those skills to the job which you need completed. If somebody keeps an open mind and concentrates on maximizing profits, they will necessarily end up hiring a diverse workforce of all types. One of the most overlooked types of diversity is psychological. There are people who naturally lean towards being more analytic, more organized, more action oriented, more empathetic, etc. Having a mix of these people in the right positions is more important than gender, social or ethnic background.

Diversity problems in the workplace usually come from two sources. The first is that rather than maximizing profit, people in large organizations want to build empires within the organization. That leads to hiring relatives and people who appear “loyal” over people who are competent. Often that will destroy diversity because it leads to people hiring people like them. The second source of problems comes when the organization tries to fix the first problem by creating some sort of arbitrary “diversity policy.” These policies invariably focus on simple, measurable external factors like ethnicity, gender or age. They miss the more profitable aspects of diversity such as differences in temperament, values, wisdom and emotional intelligence.