Obamacare will become single-payer system; an Alternative.


Why would that happen. Lets take an example. The Democrats have
determined that everyone in the country should have an automobile.
Anything less that that is unfair and is a direct cause of economic
inequality. Depriving a person of a car condemns that person to a
lifetime of lower wages and a lower standard of living. For these
reasons, the US Congress passes a bill mandating that all persons should
have an automobile. The President signs the bill (CarBill) into law.

Today, there are 2 1/2 American automobile manufacturers. Of those,
one and 1/2 are owned and managed by the government. Because cars
are so expensive and in an effort to carry out the CarBill, President
Obama lowers the prices of some of the cars in his one and 1/2
car companies, Chrysler, and General Moters company. This
forces Ford to lower the prices also, but if Ford lowers prices, it will
lose money. Ford must compete with 1 1/2 companies that do not have
to make a profit and don't [e.g. Amtrak, USPS].

To further drive prices down, the President increases
taxes on larger cars -- those that GM and Chrysler no longer make.
He does this with a direct excise tax on big cars and by increasing the
gasolene tax. The problem is people are still buying the big cars
and the number of people without cars remains stubornly large.
By increasing the prices of big cars, GM and Chrysler can drive
customers to their brands where Ford cannot compete.
In a very short time, Ford declares bankrupcy and the government
takes over Ford also. Thus, the US Government has entirely
consumed the three American Automobile manufacturers. Eventually
everyone gets a car and the government owns the former
America automobile companies.

This is similar to what will happen with a public option in the health
care bill. By not having to make a profit, the government basically
causes all its "competitors" to lower prices until they go out of
business, When they do, the government swoops in and scoops up the
abandoned now uninsured people into the government program. Without
much further ado, the public option plus private insurance options of
today become single payer system of tomorrow. In fact, that
has been President Obamas plan from the beginning, when
he blessed single payer as the goal:

  "'If you're starting from scratch,' he [Obama] says, 'then a
  single-payer system'-a government-managed system like Canada's, which
  disconnects health insurance from employment-'would probably make
  sense. But we've got all these legacy systems in place, and managing
  the transition, as well as adjusting the culture to a different
  system, would be difficult to pull off. So we may need a system that's
  not so disruptive that people feel like suddenly what they've known
  for most of their lives is thrown by the wayside.'"

It's the difficulty of the transition and the cultural shock that
prevents him from going directly for single payer.

Why is "single payer" bad? Social security is single payer and a
singularly bad investment most of the country has been forced to join.
A good earner will achieve a 1% return on investment and loses it all
if he dies. The average black man makes a negative interest on his
investment -- he is unlikely to collect even the money he contributed.

A monkey could have made better use of the money that the Social
Security plan. Is there any doubt that the same political winds that
swept Social Security into a pay-as-you-go system that requires an ever
increasing payroll tax to fund will overtake Obamacare?
As the program matures, the maximum age for hip replacements
will steadily decrease. Will our government eventually have to outlaw
private medicine because rich 75 year old people can get hip
replacements but poor ones cannot?

Government in Health care is the most depressing thought for America I
can imagine.

ALTERNATIVES

Rather than have the government create this tarbaby, why not fix real
problems. Here's a couple simple laws that should pass in a heart beat
(but won't due to partisan politics):

1. Tort Reform [To Trial Lawyers Assoc. - If Health care is
       nationalized, and doctors are paid by the government, why
       would the government let you sue a doctor? Think about it.]

2. These are rules for all health insurance companies:

     a. You must offer health catastrophe insurance
     b. You must offer planned health care account [annual checkups,pregnancy,childbirth]
     c. No one can be refused.
     d. Entire account is transferrable to another company
     e. Accounts should be able to survive 12 months with no contributions
        and remain active.
     f. Contributions to planned and catastrophic plans are not taxed.
     g. All insurance companies have 2 years to comply.

     There is an issue here of whether or not the US Constitution
     supports such a law. I believe it does. However, if this
     particular law can be written and agreed to by 90% of the US
     congress, then if there are doubts about its constitutionality,
     some minor but precise rewording of it could be converted into an
     amendment to the constitution. Full bipartisan support would assure
     passage of the amendment. However, I do not belive we want to
     California-ize the US Consitituion [California's constitution
     has 340 pages]; avoiding an amendment is much
     preferred.

The above two deal with a lot of "problems" with the current health
system. Another problem is poor people simply can't get reasonable
health. Here are two alternatives for fixing that:

3. Open free clinics and hospitals - This would have to be cheaper than
   $100B/yr and would bring health care to people directly, simply and
   immediately.

4. Invent "health stamps". These are like food stamps. However unlike
   food stamps they cannot be converted to cash. George Wallace gets
   a health stamp that only George Wallace may use. Health stamps are
   legal tender at all hospitals and clinics.

There are a number of complexities with many other Health care issues
that are not addressed here. However, these suggestions would make a
serious dent in the stated problems of the American Health care system.

Government should coerce the private companies to do better.
These suggestions are only a partial solution that would
make an excellent, cheap and instantanious start now.

Time is money (wasted)

The infamous Stimulus bill is scheduled to spend money over a three
year period. The result, we can see, is that the job creation rate is
less than desireable. The Stimulus bill is based on a questionable
theory that government spending of $1.00 creates $1.60 of value
in the economy. The analyses I have read on that number do not
realistically integrate the time delays associated with a huge
government bureaucracy discussing how to spend the money, once the
theory of government spending has been embraced. They also do not
address the concept of scatter -- the government requires $2 to spend
$1 on a useful stimulating project. The other $1.00 goes to
pork projects, federal and state government administration and the
unspent remainder. (While the 2 to 1 ratio is a guess, the ratio is
real and non-zero. One needs only add up the spending projects
in the Stimulus and Omnibus spending bills to get a general idea
of this ratio.)

One of the differences between Government spending versus tax cuts
is time. Money allocated to government spending is subject
to time delays that tax cuts do not suffer. Decisions about when the
money is available, which projects to fund, how to get the money
to the states, how the states will allocate the money and when the
actual projects start mean that a stimulus bill today will result in
some spending spread out over years and little money getting into
the economy quickly. While this delay happens, the economy can change
significantly. The target of the bill is a moving target.

For all government based spending programs, consideration must be
included for "discussion". Discussion means writing a bill and
submitting it to the House of Representatives, sending the bill to
committees, adding pet projects, rewriting pet projects'
in subcommittees and passage of the bill in the committees and
the House. Next the Senate gets involved and sends the bill to committees,
adds its pet projects changing the bill from the House version, avoiding
filabuster by adding more pet projects to keep the opposition from
filabustering and finally passing the Senate version of the bill. Then a
resolution must be derived by House and Senate joint committee to iron
out the differences, possibly producting a new bill. The bill
must then be signed by the President. "Discussion" takes time
and creates the scatter mentioned above -- multiplying the cost
of the stimulus and delaying its effect.

The most recent version of this game took more than a month and
resulted in a bill that no one read. It was signed into law and
now the Federal government will try to spend $800B over three years
ostensibly for creating jobs but in reality, just spending money,
sometimes creating jobs. In addition, many or even most of the
jobs created will disappear before the bill expires.

To date, the success of government spending technique for
stimulating the economy is difficult to defend.


Contrast this with a tax cut. There are two kinds of tax cut. The first
is for individuals and the second is for businesses. Consider the first.
The time required for passage and the complexity of a tax cut bill is an
order of magnitude simpler than a government spending bill. The Spending
bill can be full of favoritism, prejudices and paybacks that
a simple tax cut cannot suffer.

As soon as the tax cut is effective money flows into the hands of
people who will either spend it, save it, or pay off bills.
The money is freed continuously and synchronously
with the effective date of the tax cut and continues to be freed.
If people spend it, the result can be a 3 year acceleration of
economy stimulus versus money scheduled to be spent by the federal
government 3 years from now to address a problem that could well have
disappeared by that time.

If the money is saved, banks holding those
funds will lend it creating investment in new private development.
Bank investments also stimulate. Stimulation investments from bank deposits
are slower than direct spending by individuals but they last longer than
government stimulus because they can be used
for capital investments that result in products which go to market.
Government funds can only be spent on
projects - which translates to wages which may result in capitial
assets (road, bridges,etc) but yield no products.
Private investment is targeted at making a profit which employs people
long term. Public investment is targeted at infrastructure which
produces no products or long term employment. One grows the economy, one does not.

Finally, for those consumers who pay off bills, they will eventually
spend more money either when their bills are sufficiently low or
when the are dept free. In both the savings case and the bill
paying case, the consumers and economy receive a permanent benefit.

For a business tax cut, businesses will make more money and have a
higher probability of reinvesting their money -- now that they have some.
Reinvestment means growth which is what a stimulus should stimulate.

Tax cuts are government spending also. They just spend the money more
efficiently than handing money over to a federal government, who then
must write legislation to spend it. The legislation is subject to
political maneuvering and dilution of purpose. After the bill is
passed and becomes law, it then goes through the same political
process in each state and each level of government, each also requiring a
percentage cut to pay for the administration of the money.

The time associated with the government spending approach is money.
It is money lost because while the economy is changing, the government
is arguing over who gets how much money and where it should be spent and
when it will be spent. While the economy is changing, the money
is being doled out in small increments not addressing today's problems,
but what the politicians thought the problems would be 3 years ago.

Because of Scatter and time delays, I can conceive of no convincing
argument that a government spending program can accomplish anything
useful. Here is an argument, but it is fantastic.

  The Federal Government will start next week to spend
  money on all building projects that have real assets
  as a result. The money will be given directly to
  contractors [bypassing state and local governments entirely]
  who will be on a performance contract basis
  of complete or not be paid in full. All money for the
  project will be put in escrow (so the federal government
  cannot renege). Either the company completes or abandons and
  someone else completes and collects. (Reasonable details
  to be worked out.)

No such statement could credibly come out of our federal government,
but only such a statement could reasonably convince me that
government spending is a useful solution to our economic problems.

When you have a government that is as large as our federal government,
to expect much more that bureaucratic solutions that always bog down is
to believe in miracles. The current theory of government spending to
stimulate the economy is simply sophomoric. Consider the examples of today
and the 1930's to convince yourself that when the spending dies,
unemployment rises. Government spending, per se, does not stimulate
the economy; tax cuts do.

Ed Bradford
Pflugerville,TX
egbegb2 AT gmail DOT com

From HR 2998

[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.2998:]

comes:

--------------------------
        ...P318
   (f) FEDERAL ENFORCEMENT AND TRAINING.ÎíÎñ
13 Where a State fails and local governments in that State
14 also fail to enforce the applicable State or national energy
15 efficiency building codes, the Secretary shall enforce such
16 codes, as follows:
17 Î÷ÎõÎ÷Îõ(1) The Secretary shall establish, by rule,
18 within 2 years after the date of enactment of the
19 American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,
20 an energy efficiency building code enforcement capability.
22 (2) Such enforcement capability shall be de-
23 signed to achieve 90 percent compliance with such
24 code in any State within 1 year after the date of the

          p319
1 Secretary's determination that such State is out of
2 compliance with this section.
3 (3) The Secretary may set and collect reason
4 able inspection fees to cover the costs of inspections
5 required for such enforcement. Revenue from fees
6 collected shall be available to the Secretary to carry
7 out the requirements of this section upon appropria-
8 tion.
9 (4) In any jurisdiction to which this subsection
10 applies, the Secretary shall coordinate enforcement
11 of the national energy efficiency building code with
12 State and local code enforcement of other building
13 codes.
14 (5) In any jurisdiction to which this subsection
15 applies, the Secretary shall enhance compliance by
16 conducting training and education of builders and
17 other professionals in the jurisdiction concerning the
18 national energy efficiency building code.
19 (6) The Secretary shall coordinate with profes-
20 sional organizations representing code officials, ar-
21 chitects, engineers, builders, and other experts to de-
22 velop training curricula concerning the national en-
23 ergy efficiency building code.

1 (7) If the Secretary enforces such codes under
2 this subsection, the Secretary may, as appropriate,
3 redefine violations of such codes.
--------------------------

If this doesn't scare a lot of people then those calm "intellectuals"
must want a federal government in exclusion to any other, local,
city or state.  The concept of the "Administrator" taking over
building codes for an entire state and inspecing a house at the
point of a gun [here's the fee; pay it or go to jail] is so beyond
the pale that I don't belive I am reading this in a bill that passed
in the House of Representatives.

Please, Americans, all of you write to your Senators and and tell them
forcfully to veto this bill.  There are more morsels in this bill that
are almost as unpalatable.

From HR 2998

[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.2998:]

comes:

--------------------------
        ...P318
   (f) FEDERAL ENFORCEMENT AND TRAINING.ÎíÎñ
13 Where a State fails and local governments in that State
14 also fail to enforce the applicable State or national energy
15 efficiency building codes, the Secretary shall enforce such
16 codes, as follows:
17 Î÷ÎõÎ÷Îõ(1) The Secretary shall establish, by rule,
18 within 2 years after the date of enactment of the
19 American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,
20 an energy efficiency building code enforcement capability.
22 (2) Such enforcement capability shall be de-
23 signed to achieve 90 percent compliance with such
24 code in any State within 1 year after the date of the

          p319
1 Secretary's determination that such State is out of
2 compliance with this section.
3 (3) The Secretary may set and collect reason
4 able inspection fees to cover the costs of inspections
5 required for such enforcement. Revenue from fees
6 collected shall be available to the Secretary to carry
7 out the requirements of this section upon appropria-
8 tion.
9 (4) In any jurisdiction to which this subsection
10 applies, the Secretary shall coordinate enforcement
11 of the national energy efficiency building code with
12 State and local code enforcement of other building
13 codes.
14 (5) In any jurisdiction to which this subsection
15 applies, the Secretary shall enhance compliance by
16 conducting training and education of builders and
17 other professionals in the jurisdiction concerning the
18 national energy efficiency building code.
19 (6) The Secretary shall coordinate with profes-
20 sional organizations representing code officials, ar-
21 chitects, engineers, builders, and other experts to de-
22 velop training curricula concerning the national en-
23 ergy efficiency building code.

1 (7) If the Secretary enforces such codes under
2 this subsection, the Secretary may, as appropriate,
3 redefine violations of such codes.
--------------------------

If this doesn't scare a lot of people then those calm "intellectuals"
must want a federal government in exclusion to any other, local,
city or state.  The concept of the "Administrator" taking over
building codes for an entire state and inspecing a house at the
point of a gun [here's the fee; pay it or go to jail] is so beyond
the pale that I don't belive I am reading this in a bill that passed
in the House of Representatives.

Please, Americans, all of you write to your Senators and and tell them
forcfully to veto this bill.  There are more morsels in this bill that
are almost as unpalatable.

From HR 2998

[http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.2998:]

comes:

--------------------------
        ...P318
   (f) FEDERAL ENFORCEMENT AND TRAINING.ÎíÎñ
13 Where a State fails and local governments in that State
14 also fail to enforce the applicable State or national energy
15 efficiency building codes, the Secretary shall enforce such
16 codes, as follows:
17 Î÷ÎõÎ÷Îõ(1) The Secretary shall establish, by rule,
18 within 2 years after the date of enactment of the
19 American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,
20 an energy efficiency building code enforcement capability.
22 (2) Such enforcement capability shall be de-
23 signed to achieve 90 percent compliance with such
24 code in any State within 1 year after the date of the

          p319
1 Secretary's determination that such State is out of
2 compliance with this section.
3 (3) The Secretary may set and collect reason
4 able inspection fees to cover the costs of inspections
5 required for such enforcement. Revenue from fees
6 collected shall be available to the Secretary to carry
7 out the requirements of this section upon appropria-
8 tion.
9 (4) In any jurisdiction to which this subsection
10 applies, the Secretary shall coordinate enforcement
11 of the national energy efficiency building code with
12 State and local code enforcement of other building
13 codes.
14 (5) In any jurisdiction to which this subsection
15 applies, the Secretary shall enhance compliance by
16 conducting training and education of builders and
17 other professionals in the jurisdiction concerning the
18 national energy efficiency building code.
19 (6) The Secretary shall coordinate with profes-
20 sional organizations representing code officials, ar-
21 chitects, engineers, builders, and other experts to de-
22 velop training curricula concerning the national en-
23 ergy efficiency building code.

1 (7) If the Secretary enforces such codes under
2 this subsection, the Secretary may, as appropriate,
3 redefine violations of such codes.
--------------------------

If this doesn't scare a lot of people then those calm "intellectuals"
must want a federal government in exclusion to any other, local,
city or state.  The concept of the "Administrator" taking over
building codes for an entire state and inspecing a house at the
point of a gun [here's the fee; pay it or go to jail] is so beyond
the pale that I don't belive I am reading this in a bill that passed
in the House of Representatives.

Please, Americans, all of you write to your Senators and and tell them
forcfully to veto this bill.  There are more morsels in this bill that
are almost as unpalatable.