State of the Union: Pass Me the Tums
It started out okay…a few bones thrown toward immigration reform and energy initiatives. By the end, my stomach was in knots.
Did I hear Bush right when he said he wanted to authorize mercenaries? Well, he didn’t call them mercenaries, but look at the text of what he said:
A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. And it would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.
Now “civilians with critical skills” could be people with medical, mechanical or technical expertise. Pilots, doctors, nurses, EMTs. But it could also mean other types of expertise, and that falls into my definition of a mercenary.
On other topics, this one struck me as the most absurd:
We need to expand Health Savings Accounts … help small businesses through Association Health Plans … reduce costs and medical errors with better information technology … encourage price transparency … and protect good doctors from junk lawsuits by passing medical liability reform. And in all we do, we must remember that the best health care decisions are made not by government and insurance companies, but by patients and their doctors.
As to the expansion of HSAs — studies are showing that most employees do not feel that they are benefiting from HSAs. HSAs are a way for employers to shift the burden for the cost of health insurance onto the employee, and most employees do not feel that they have the knowledge or the tools at hand to properly allocate the meager funds allowed into a Health Savings Account.
As for the other platitudes about patients and doctors, let’s just call that for the BS that it is. Bush is a great crony of the Caremark directorate which makes millions getting between patients and their doctors. There is much to be done with the healthcare system, but throwing tax credits and deductions at the problem is NOT the solution.
There’s much more, but I was left with such a case of indigestion after listening, and so stressed that I haven’t really organized my thoughts very well.
Technorati Tags: Bush, State of the Union, Iraq, healthcare, HSA
Sphere: Related ContentGovernment-Mandated Wellness?
Via Kevin, MD, it appears that Americans are in favor of government-mandated wellness programs.
Let’s think about this for a minute: Mandated exercise? Do you want the government in your refrigerator?
Here’s my dirty little secret: I have a weakness for powdered sugar mini-donuts. I’m not obese, not even overweight. But I love those mini-donuts on occasion. Will the donut police haul me away, raise my health insurance premiums, deny me coverage?
Before we’re so quick to shout out for wellness mandates as a matter of law, let’s stop and think about how far that can go. Big Brother will be watching — are you ready for that?
Technorati Tags: healthcare, wellness, healthcare policy, mandate
Sphere: Related ContentIf you thought I exaggerated…
…in my last post about taxing fast food, don’t miss today’s New York Times article, “For a World of Woes, We Blame Cookie Monsters“.
The idea of using economic incentives to help people shed pounds comes up in the periodic calls for taxes on junk food. Martin B. Schmidt, an economist at the College of William and Mary, suggests a tax on food bought at drive-through windows. Describing his theory in a recent Op-Ed article in The New York Times, Dr. Schmidt said people would expend more calories if they had to get out of their cars to pick up their food.
“We tax cigarettes in part because of their health cost,” he wrote. “Similarly, the individual’s decision to lead a sedentary lifestyle will end up costing taxpayers.”
You think it’s limited to cigarrettes and tobacco products? Think again.
Technorati Tags: No on 86, tax initiatives
Sphere: Related ContentProp 86: Tobacco, but not Big Macs?
California’s Proposition 86 is a prime example of using emotional buzzwords to induce voters to stop thinking and follow the jargon trail like sheep. Helen Beebe of Simi Valley wrote an emotional and passionate editorial for today’s Ventura County Star calling for Californians to vote for Proposition 86 as a way to “fight back against the tobacco industry.”
She goes on to say :
The money that will come from Proposition 86 has been assigned to assist with a variety of health concerns. Tobacco education and cessation is one area of concern.
Let’s be clear: They intend to tax tobacco products to pay for unrelated health concerns. There is no oversight to how the money is spent and there is no accountability to anyone for how the funds are allocated.
But Helen glosses over that and calls us all to action in her final paragraph:
Proposition 86 is about saving lives! It is about keeping children from ever starting the addictive smoking habit. It is about increasing the availability of public health services for everyone. It is about creating a healthier California for all of us!
Baloney. Proposition 86 is about everything but saving lives. It is about shoving agendas down people’s throats, funding programs which would not otherwise be eligible for funding, and backdoor social engineering. If it were a computer virus it would be classified as a worm, spreading and infecting as many as possible.
If it were about saving lives, proponents would be slapping a $2.60 tax on Big Macs, or candy, or ice cream, since obesity is the number one killer and cause of health expenditures in the US.
If it were about saving lives, proponents would be directing the funds toward life-saving research.
But it’s not about saving lives; it is about an anti-tobacco agenda permitted to run amok.
If you’re comfortable with the idea of seeing this type of a tax on convenience foods or condoms or the Internet, or whatever the next target of the tax-em-Nazis might be, then by all means, vote for it. But success with a measure like this really means failure of a system in this country that has served us well for more than 200 years and one whose revolution began, in part, because of unfair and burdensome taxes for which the people saw no benefit.
Technorati Tags: Prop 86, taxes, tobacco, anti-tobacco, niconazi, No on 86
Sphere: Related Content
