Statist

Connecting the Dots on Healthcare – Hal Scherz – Page 2

Just one reason that Medicaid expansion is a bad idea. (There are more at the source.)

 

The GOP Governors who are expanding Medicaid at the behest of the federal government are helping to facilitate and accelerate this process, paving the way for full government run healthcare. Insurance companies will be unable to compete with the federal government, which is acting as both a player in the insurance market and also as the referee in the system, until private insurance companies cease to exist in healthcare.

via Connecting the Dots on Healthcare – Hal Scherz – Page 2.

Intrusive “Census” questionnaire

A friend asked us what to do about the latest “American Community Survey,” received from the US Census Bureau. There is a possibility of a $100 to $5000 fine for not filling out the questionnaire, although I can’t find a record of anyone ever being prosecuted.

Seriously, I don’t care what sort of security or  “confidentiality” the Bureau promises, do you want to tell any stranger what time you leave your house to go to work?  And isn’t it bad enough that we already have to tell the IRS exactly how much your income was last year and exactly where it came from?

If, like me, you think these are too many questions, questions that are too personal and invasive, take the time to call your Congressman and our Texas Senators.

Representative Lamar Smith – Congressional District 21                 Washington Office  (202)225-4236       San Antonio Office  (210)821-5024

Senator John Cornyn  Washington Office (202)224-2934      San Antonio Office  (210)224-7485                                       Austin Office  (512)469-6034

Senator Ted Cruz     Washington Office (202)224-5922    San Antonio Office (210)340-2885                                                            Austin Office (512)916-5834

Review & Outlook: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad ObamaCare – WSJ.com

30 day review and comment, dump of regulations, and still no one knows what we’re dealing with, come January 1st:

 

To take one example, for the better part of a year states and groups like the bipartisan National Governors Association and the National Association of Medicaid Directors have been begging HHS merely for information about how they’re required to make ObamaCare work in practice. There was radio silence from Washington, with time running out. Louisiana and other states even took to filing Freedom of Information Act requests, which are still pending.

Now post-election, new regulations are pouring out from HHS—more than 13,000 pages so far and yet nuts-and-bolts questions are still unanswered. Most of what we know so far comes from a 17-page question-and-answer document that HHS divulged this week, though none of the answers have the force of law and HHS says they’re subject to change at any moment.

HHS is generally issuing rules with only 30 days for public comment when the standard is 60 days and for complex regulations 90 days and more. But the larger problem is that HHS’s Federal Register filings reveal many of the rules were approved in-house and ready to go as early as May. Why the delay?

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In other implementation hilarity, no fewer than 18 Democratic Senators and Senators-elect came out last week against ObamaCare’s $28 billion tax on medical device sales—and not just the usual penitents from Massachusetts and Minnesota. The list includes Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Patty Murray.

“With this year quickly drawing to a close, the medical device industry has receive little guidance about how to comply with the tax—causing significant uncertainty and confusion for businesses,” they write about the tax most of them voted for.

The last entitlement to get off the ground was President Bush’s Medicare prescription drug benefit. Those rules were tied up with a bow by January 2005, giving business and government nearly a year to prepare—and that was far simpler than re-engineering 17% of the economy. No one knows where the current magical mystery tour is headed, especially not HHS. via Review & Outlook: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad ObamaCare – WSJ.com.

Blowin’ Smoke: Willie Nelson and the Constitution

I’m in the middle of reading Willie Nelson’s latest book, the semi-biographic stream of consciousness, Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road.

I enjoy the stories about his life and family, but I’m continually irritated by his confused comments on politics and ethics.

It really knocks me for a loop when I encounter someone like Mr. Nelson, who has obviously thought long and hard about certain issues but doesn’t seem to understand the basics of ethics or logic. Because he doesn’t know *why* some things are right and others are wrong, he ends up proving one of the homey proverbs he quotes in the book: if you don’t stand for something, you’ll end up falling for anything.

I love to hear Willie Nelson and his songs. My husband and I went to see his band play at the Majestic Theater in San Antonio last January and were very impressed by the Nelson concerts — both of them. Lukas Nelson’s band, Promise of the Real, opened for his father and sons Lukas and Mikah joined the Nelson family on the stage.

It’s tempting to reference Laura Ingraham’s book, Shut Up and Sing, along with the theory and demand behind it. Just because a person is a great singer, songwriter and guitar player, doesn’t mean he’s a great person, much less that he’s a great philosopher or thinker. It certainly shouldn’t mean that his philosophy should be given greater weight than that of other people because of his celebrity and access to the press.

The fact is that Mr. Nelson is a leader and he influences a large number of people. It’s a shame it’s not for the right reasons.

In this book, Mr. Nelson praises the Occupy Wall Street protests, says he agrees with Warren Buffet “that it just ain’t fair for people like us to have all the advantages,” and states that the Second Amendment shouldn’t apply to today’s weapons because they aren’t designed for hunting, only for killing people. His religious comments are mostly just silly ramblings.

However, the cause Mr. Nelson is best identified with – and the one for which it would be simplest to correct his logical errors – is the legalization of marijuana. He writes about his founding of the “TeaPot Party” in the book. Mr. Nelson’s reason for legalizing marijuana is simply that people want to smoke it and there are other legal substances that are worse. And he proposes a Statist’s plan as flimsy as his utilitarian ethic: “Tax it, regulate it and legalize it!” to raise money for the Government:

 It’s already been proven that taxing and regulating marijuana makes more sense than sending young people to prison for smoking a God-given herb that has never proven to be fatal to anybody. Cigarettes and alcohol have killed millions, and there’s no law against them, because again, there’s a lot of money in cigarettes and alcohol. If they could realize there is just as much profit in marijuana, and they taxed and regulated it as they do cigarettes and alcohol, they could realize the same amount of profit and reduce trillions of dollars in debt.

Nelson, Willie; Friedman, Kinky (2012-11-13). Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road (p. 20). William Morrow. Kindle Edition. (accessed 12/03/2012)

It might surprise some people that I – the self-proclaimed “hot air under the right wing” – agree that marijuana shouldn’t be illegal to grow, own or use. I base my belief on a plain reading of the US Constitution. How on Earth can our Federal government outlaw a plant that literally grows like a weed and doesn’t require manufacturing or processing to use? In fact, my theory as to why the plant is illegal is because it would be hard to regulate and tax.

Or maybe not.

Back in the mid-1990’s, I attempted to grow a traditional herbal medicine garden and ran into trouble obtaining Oriental poppy seeds, Papaver somniferum. Most of the orders I placed were cancelled, so I started doing some research. I learned that the Clinton Administration was raiding gardens and arresting people for growing and sharing the seeds of heirloom plants passed down from their mothers. This was in spite of the age-old use of the plants in gardens and herbal medicine, as well as the ready availability of food grade fertile Oriental poppy seeds for cooking and baking.

The more I thought about it, I came to the conclusion that the Federal government’s “War on Drugs” is not Constitutional and it’s not conservative. I agree with Mr. Nelson that this “war” is a costly abuse of government that strengthens organized crime and too many American freedoms have fallen as collateral damage. But the reason is not because people want to abuse drugs or because the Government could make money off the taxes. It’s because there’s no justification for outlawing a plant in the Constitution.

This is what happens when we the People don’t know our own Constitution and allow our Legislators to habitually pass abusive laws:  the infringement of our inalienable rights.

Medical Regulation, Texas Style

The Texas Institute for Health Care Quality and Efficiency Draft Report is posted for public comment.

You only have a day and a half to comment, since the next meeting of our Board of Directors is Thursday, November 15th. All comments should be sent by 1 PM on Wednesday, November 14th.

Report to the Texas Legislature on Activities to Improve Health Care Quality and Efficiency
Report Number: 2012-001

The following downloads are available:
Report 2012-001: 2012-001-Draft-Report.pdf
Appendix E: AppendixE.pdf
Appendix F: AppendixF.pdf

Instructions on submitting your comments are here.

Now, for a few comments on my observations as a Board member:

Believe it or not, the time frame from the passage of the legislation in SB 7 last June, 2011, to today and in anticipation of preparing for legislation beginning in January, 2013, is too tight. The Institute’s staff and coordinators did a good job of herding cats in the Board. In addition, the Board members worked hard to make all the meetings, to participate, and to contribute. We have met at least once a month, sometimes more than twice, since our appointment. The Board isn’t paid or even reimbursed for expenses by the State, and many gave up work in order to attend meetings far from their homes.

I haven’t commented on the draft until now, because the Board received our first full copy for review and comment on November 2, and comments were due by 5 PM, Election Day, November 6th. We’re all appointed by the Governor — it stands to reason that a few of us would be actively involved in the election and campaigns. I didn’t even open the email until Nov. 7.

I’m not happy with the length of the report, but I guess the nuances of our discussions over the last few months needed to be documented somewhere. Go to the page 34 in the pdf, numbered “26” in the Draft, for the actual recommendations made by vote in the Board meetings.

Finally, my main concern has been with the bureaucracy and regulation that the members of the Board have sometimes appeared to support. In the end, I believe that we have limited recommendations for regulation and “hassle factors” more than some would like. My hope is that the Legislature will decide to focus initially on implementing any new measures in our own State health plans and not interfere directly in private health care practice and systems, except where and when the State foots the bill.

Since President Obama won reelection, I believe that the ability of the 83rd Texas Legislature to adapt and react to Federal Regulations  – Obamacare – will be improved by the work of the Institute.

Governor Rick Perry tells Obama Admin, “No!” #TxSen @GovernorPerry

Governor Rick Perry has made it official: Texas won’t expand our Medicaid to cover all adults up to 133% of the Federal Poverty level. The ACA Medicaid expansion does not allow any requirements other than income. No need to work, no asset limits, no medical need or other hardship.

Here’s the Press Release from the Governor:

July 9, 2012

Gov. Rick Perry, in a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, today confirmed that Texas has no intention of implementing a state insurance exchange or expanding Medicaid as part of Obamacare. Any state exchange must be approved by the Obama Administration and operate under specific federally mandated rules, many of which have yet to be established. Expanding Medicaid would mandate the admission of millions of additional Texans into the already unsustainable Medicaid program, at a potential cost of billions to Texas taxpayers.

“If anyone was in doubt, we in Texas have no intention to implement so-called state exchanges or to expand Medicaid under Obamacare,” Gov. Perry said. “I will not be party to socializing healthcare and bankrupting my state in direct contradiction to our Constitution and our founding principles of limited government.

“I stand proudly with the growing chorus of governors who reject the Obamacare power grab. Neither a “state” exchange nor the expansion of Medicaid under this program would result in better “patient protection” or in more “affordable care.” They would only make Texas a mere appendage of the federal government when it comes to health care.”

Gov. Perry has frequently called for the allocation of Medicaid funding in block grants so each state can tailor the program to specifically serve the needs of its unique challenges. As a common sense alternative, Gov. Perry has conveyed a vision to transform Medicaid into a system that reinforces individual responsibility, eliminates fragmentation and duplication, controls costs and focuses on quality health outcomes. This would include establishing reasonable benefits, personal accountability, and limits on services in Medicaid. It would also allow co-pays or cost sharing that apply to all Medicaid eligible groups – not just optional Medicaid populations – and tailor benefits to needs of the individual rather than a blanket entitlement.

Gov. Perry has consistently rejected federal funding when strings are attached that impose long-term financial burdens on Texans, or cede state control of state issues to the federal government. In 2009, Texas rejected Washington funding for the state’s Unemployment Insurance program because it would have required the state to vastly expand the number of workers entitled to draw unemployment benefits, leading to higher UI taxes later.

In 2010, Gov. Perry declined “Race to the Top” dollars, which would have provided some up-front federal education funding if Texas disposed of state standards and adopted national standards and testing.

To view the governor’s letter to Secretary Sebelius, please visithttp://governor.state.tx.us/files/press-office/O-SebeliusKathleen201207090024.pdf.

New England Journal of Medicine: “The Health Care Jobs Fallacy”

Attempts to justify increasing intrusion of the Federal government into health insurance and health cost distract from the purpose of the practice of medicine, which is to treat patients.

Remember when doctors talked about “medical care” of individuals, not “health care” for populations?Remember when medicine was an “art,” not an “industry?” People aren’t machines with interchangeable parts and neither medicine nor “health care” are amenable to assembly line production, except in very rare instances.

The bottom line is that employment in the health care sector should be neither a policy goal nor a metric of success. The key policy goals should be to achieve better health outcomes and increase overall economic productivity, so that we can all live healthier and wealthier lives. Our ability to ensure access to expensive but beneficial treatment is hampered whenever health care policy is evaluated on the basis of jobs. Treating the health care system like a (wildly inefficient) jobs program conflicts directly with the goal of ensuring that all Americans have access to care at an affordable price.

via The Health Care Jobs Fallacy — NEJM.

Penumbra of a tax

It’s not tax enough to invoke the Anti-injunction Act of 1987, but it will be collected by the IRS so it’s a legal, Constitutional, tax?

Maybe it’s just a shadow of a tax?

The Roberts decision on the mandate to purchase health insurance, is more confusing to me than most legal decisions. I keep looking for a way to untangle what appears to be circular contradiction, rather than logic. Here’s the best summary I’ve found that seems to say that the money the IRS collects is a tax, not a penalty for breaking the law:

Such an analysis suggests that the shared responsibility payment may for constitutional purposes be considered a tax. The payment is not so high that there is really no choice but to buy health insurance; the payment is not limited to willful violations, as penalties for unlawful acts often are; and the payment is collected solely by the IRS through the normal means of taxation. Cf. Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co., 259 U. S. 20, 36–37. None of this is to say that payment is not intended to induce the purchase of health insurance. But the mandate need not be read to declare that failing to do so is unlawful. Neither the Affordable Care Act nor any other law attaches negative legal consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS. And Congress’s choice of language—stating that individuals “shall” obtain insurance or pay a “penalty”—does not require reading §5000A as punishing unlawful conduct. It may also be read as imposing a tax on those who go without insurance. See New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 169–174. Pp. 35–40.

Many of us have complained that laws and regulations have become too complicated, that no one can keep up or even avoid inadvertently breaking laws here and there. But this law is even worse because it forces action and taxes or penalizes the failure to act according to the Government’s determination of what is for our own good, rather than punishing an action or inaction that infringes on the rights of another.

To repeat hundreds of others, including the Justices who wrote the dissenting report, what are the limits of the Government once it can charge me for not doing some act?

All I can say is, vote to overturn the ObamaTax.

Liberty Movement 101 (or Re-love-ution 10.1)

Check out the ongoing comments on my post at TexasGOPVote.org, if you’ve wondered about the philosophy of the Ron Paul supporters who are trying to win control of the Republican Party. They reaffirm my conclusion after years of flirting with (capital L)ibertarian philosophy: the Libertarian Party is not compatible with conservatism. Conservatism advocates small government, with a few rules, while utilitarianism, and especially objectivism, celebrate license rather than liberty and all too often de-volve into nihilism.

I can sympathize with the proponents of Libertarianism, having spent years participating on the Libertarians for Life list-serve in the ’90’s and early 2000’s. I even tried out to justify “Christian Libertarianism,” which I’ve concluded is an oxymoron. (Check out the blog, Vox Popoli, which, unlike most Libertarian groups, supports traditional marriage.)

The comments at TexasGOPVote.org by one man on marriage were probably the most enlightening:

If two men or women want to get into a contract we see as morally wrong, who are you or me to tell them no?? They don’t have to accept our definition of marriage, and we don’t have to accept their definition of marriage, but neither one of us have the right to use government force to make the other accept our values. That would be Statism. Additionally, faith is a gift, and not all are blessed with it. You, nor I have the right to claim we know that which is unknowable. We can speculate, and we can have faith, but we cannot judge others who may have different beliefs.

These aren’t the first time we’ve heard/read/countered these arguments. Remember the calls for “open marriage” and “do your own thing” in the ’60’s? Demands for restructuring marriage and the family are pervasive in virtually every historic “revolution” EXCEPT the American Revolution, which was based on Judeo-Christian principles:  from the enclave that gave us the Enlightenment, to the French Revolution, to the Soviet Revolution and the various social experiments of the 20th Century.

Conservative Advice For @MittRomney, @NewtGingrich2012, @RickSantorum

When Conservatives refuse to vote, we don’t just get fewer Republican voters. We end up with candidates chosen by the least knowledgeable voters.

Conservatives are the foundation of the Republican Party, the remnant that has opposed “statists,” “centrists” and “moderates” for years. We are the ones who the Reagan Democrats joined; the glue and pegs that held together his famous 3-legged stool. We know what the Left re-learns each election cycle but our own Party never seems to: Americans vote to the right of center.

To “Teach Them A Lesson” many Conservatives sat out the 2006 and 2008 elections and a others crossed over in the name of Chaos. The result of both strategies was the defeat of strong candidates in some Primaries, leaving Conservatives with a choice between a RINO, a Democrat or an under-vote. Many who appropriated the title of “conservatives” – those who had never been active (or even voted) in the Republican Party before and those who spent their “meet-up” time with the Libertarian Party – used any and all opportunities to infect the Party with their discontent in the name of “Re-love-ution.”

      The Democrats won a super majority in the House and Senate as well as the White House, allowing Nancy Pelosi to turn off the lights and kick reporters out of the Chamber and Harry Reid to pass “Obamacare” at midnight on Christmas Eve. Chris Dodd, Charlie Rangel, and John Conyers wielded Committee chairs when they should have been indicted. The media ignored our plainly stated opposition, under-reported our numbers and drowned out our voices as they proclaimed that we lost because the Left better represented the voters and the Country was ready for “Change!”

    The Democrat Senate refuses to pass a budget for the third year and the Obama told the Catholic Church she has a year to overturn 2000 years of doctrine on abortion.

     In spite of 2010 Tea Party victories and a Republican House, our Party had a hard time staying on task.  The “moderates” and some of our conservatives decided to woo independents. Last year’s CPAC invited gay GOProud  and Ann Coulter joined their Council. The Big Tent began to look more like a Circus Tent.

      The media and Democrats now claim the Tea Party is dead and that we’ll see a repeat of 2008 in November, 2012.

      Conservative voters deserve respect, if only for the power of our numbers. Even in 2006, where Conservative voters turned out to vote, Republicans gained offices. Show us you are listening, convince us that you have learned from the mistakes of your own and the Republican Party’s past.

      Republican candidates should search for common threads in our Republican Party Platform, Newt Gingrich’s Contract from America from 2010 and the videos and bloggers’ accounts of those early, nearly impromptu, Tea Party events in February through April, 2009. Send staff to CPAC this week, not to campaign but to listen and learn what Conservatives are concerned about, now.

What would I do to get the Tea Party and Conservatives to turn out to vote and support the Republican Party? Go Right, Candidates!

Would you force Jews and Muslims to sell pork?

Starting next year, religious groups will have to push aside their core doctrines and pay for pills that either prevent pregnancies or end them.

“[I]t would be like the government mandating that all delis, even Kosher delis, serve pork products and then justifying it by saying that protein is healthy, and many Jews don’t follow Kosher laws and many non-Jews go to those delis,” writes Michael Doughtery of Business Insider. “The law wouldn’t technically ban Jews from owning delis, but it would effectively ban their ability to run them according to their conscience.”

via FRC Homepage.

Please let your Representative and Senators know that the new Obama Administration conscience rules and the requirements for insurance are not freedom.

@GovernorPerry to Blitz: “You guys are a bigger pain than the back surgery.”

Governor Rick Perry was grilled by Wolf Blitzer on CNN‘s Situation Room on Wednesday, December 7, with frequent interruptions and repetitious questions. (Full transcript, here.) “Blitz” once again earned the nickname given to him by Herman Cain.

The Houston Chronicle, which leans far to the left, reported on the interview in a blog entry entitled, “Perry talks about pain meds, gay Scouts and the VP job”