SHEEP'S CLOTHING - OBAMACARE DECISION

My gut reaction so far....

Disappointing, but who is really surprised?  I guess I shouldn't be.  Is it Constitutional for the Federal government to force the public to buy a service or a product, or be punished if you don't?  And then call it a tax?  This is already being done and will continue to be done as long as the "progressive" left dominates both parties and the entire federal government. Since Franklin Delano Roosevelt set up the Social Security Administration, the public has been forcibly taxed for a social welfare program.  Since Lyndon Baines Johnson set up Medicare and Medicaid, the public has been forcibly taxed for a medical social welfare program.  Since the Federal government some time ago decided to allow millions of illegal immigrants into this country and gave them free healthcare and educations, the public has been forcibly taxed to provide these services for them.  States have been bankrupted by the herculean effort to provide.  I am sure there are more examples, but those are the ones that instantly come to mind. 

Another aspect of this entire scene struck me today and that is Ruth Bader Ginsburg's age.  Now that SCOTUS has brought forth this appalling decision, she can step down and Obama can replace her with someone equally Socialist "Progressive" on the court.  This takes Romney's options for Supreme Court nominations off the table, unless one of the others dies or becomes incapacitated.  Not that Romney would be any guarantee of anything when you realize that GW Bush appointed Justice Roberts who gave the deciding vote on this.  I am wondering where is the store where they sell the sheep's clothing for these people. 

Yet another aspect of this is the short term boon that insurance companies will gain....that is BEFORE they are overwhelmed and go belly up after which the Feds bail them out and take over all of it. Truth is, the Feds have just taken over all of our health care, but the insurance companies are temporarily the middleman.  If it isn't repealed, we'll just have to see how that goes.

Then there is the fine.  (tax?)  I see a correlation in this to the light bulb ban, believe it or not.  The incandescent bulb was banned, but the replacement for it was a more expensive, inferior product benefiting light bulb producers such as GE.  Even though the fine doesn't exist, you are forced to purchase what GE produces....just like you are forced to buy what the insurance companies and the government collude to produce in health care policies.  Is this fascism?  

As Obama has already said, this Obamacare monster is just a stepping stone to the real goal and that is single payer.    

1776 was 236 years ago.  Evidently the blood that was spilled and the fortunes lost to gain and preserve freedom for Americans was all for naught.  Incrementally, deliberately, and ever so insidiously, over a hundred years now, our Constitutional freedoms have been frittered away in small bits and large chunks.  Today's SCOTUS decision is one of those large chunks. 

The early Patriots threw the tea in the harbor to show their disgust with the taxing powers of the King of England.  How do you throw your health care into the harbor?  You can't.  How do you throw your retirement in the harbor?  You can't.  

If Roberts is right, that the entire question relies on the taxing power of Congress, this country better have an epiphany on Congress. Yes.  Was that his strategy, as some are suggesting today?  Did Roberts give us an out?  No one knows.  But it goes beyond Congress, in my humble opinion.  The policies of the Socialist left have permeated Congress and both parties, yes.  But it is the President in these situations who drove the Socialist goal home.  It was FDR, LBJ, and now BHO who have set the stage and signed Americans into slavery, taxing for Socialist goals.  When a President of the United States not only fails to uphold the Constitution, but creates a monster such as these Socialist programs are, I can't help but wonder how deep the flaws go that an anti-Constitutional person swears to uphold the Constitution when taking office, but then turns around and trashes that very Constitution, trashing the freedoms we are guaranteed.  When Congress puts a bill in front of the President to sign that is un-Constitutional, when does the President veto it?  When is it treason?  When is it impeachable?  When?  Evidently never, according to SCOTUS. 

This Obamacare Socialist healthcare system will fail all of us.  At for the Nov. election, I am expecting massive voter fraud, thousands of illegals voting, and no way out in November.   If Romney wins, we can hope that Romney will do everything he can to repeal it, that Congress will repeal it.  But by then, how much of it is already implemented?  The only slightly viable possible avenue out of this Obamacare debacle may be "nullification" by the States.    

Frankly, I'm sickened by the whole circus we are watching.  Have enough people figured it out yet? Or do they even care? 

IS HEALTHCARE PERSONAL OR NOT? YOU BREAK IT - YOU OWN IT!

I don't usually find it necessary to divulge my personal life decisions to back up my opinions here on this blog. Usually I can find lots of other examples, facts, and opinions to support what I would like to share. But in the case of healthcare, I am going to share what this one woman's (my) life experience is to help support my argument. I'm doing this because I want the government to get out of my healthcare and stay out forever, amen.

Backing up a long way to when I was raised in a thriving middle class family in a small town, I will just say this: medical care was accessible and affordable, insurance was mostly for catastrophic circumstances, nursing care was wonderful, medical care was personal, and we knew who our medical professionals were. People did not go to the Dr. or the hospital unless there was a real need. By real, I mean something that could not be fixed with homeopathic remedies. The only checkups required had to do with schools for athletic participation. Vaccinations were required to participate in schools for the sake of eradicating infectious diseases. I knew of no one who could not afford or access healthcare if they needed it.

Flash forward to the 1970's. After Johnson in the '60's enacted Medicare and Medicaid, insurance rates rose and government regulations began to intervene in the medical profession. Granting that medical technology advancements would cause prices to rise somewhat, and inflation would effect the prices as well, the costs to families was still mostly within reach. The birth of my first child cost $185.00 for three days in the hospital in 1973. The entire price of bringing him into the world, including the preliminary pregnancy checkups was under $500.00.

Flash forward to 1986 when I had two young children and went through a divorce. From that point on, for 13 years, I lived without health insurance. By 1991 I owned a small business with 3 part-time employees, 2 full-time employees, and 50 independent sales reps who were commission only reps. There was no way at that time my business could afford a health coverage policy for such a small pool of employees. Insurance rates were escalating yearly. Even then, one could still afford, out of pocket, regular checkups. As I recall, during those 13 years. it was $18.00 to $24.00 to see the Dr. for a virus or a cold with a nasal infection. During those years I had a broken leg (can't remember the cost of that with emergency room and follow up care) and a minor surgery that cost around $2000.00. The most difficult of costs for me at the time were dental crowns that cost $300.00 per. I needed 3 of them during those years. I would have loved to have a "catastrophic" insurance policy with a high deductible of $5,000.00, or something like that, but could not find one that either existed or that I could afford. ( Being a person of faith, I'm sure the Good Lord protected me from that "catastrophe," so I could continue to raise my children and take care of my family.) Other than that concern of an unaffordable catastrophe, I was perfectly willing and happy to pay for all of my medical care out of pocket. I would still be happy to do that if the costs were still as affordable as they used to be.

Flash forward again to the early 2000's. The cost of going to the Dr. for a cold, infection, virus treatment, or non-life threatening events had gone up to over $60.00. (Now I think it might be $80.00 or more.) I married in 1999 and due to my husband's employer policy, I once again had insurance coverage. Dental crowns today are $800.00. (From $300.00 to $800.00 in less than 20 years' time. Whew!) Insurance rates are high and higher. What I could not pay for insurance earlier in my life is now only affordable because of employer co-pays in a larger insurance pool.

So what has caused the cost of medical care to go out of reach for most people? Someone please tell me? I'll give you my opinion.

One would expect some inflationary rises in medical care just because that exists in all of our monetary policies. You could look at supply and demand, with more people and fewer medical professionals. Those two aspects would increase prices to some degree, no doubt. Nothing costs the same as it did even a few years ago. But what would make healthcare unaffordable for most people. As you can tell from my story above, insurance was already out of reach for a relatively young small business owner by the 1990's. But in the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's my Dad was a small business owner with under 4 employees and he could easily afford health insurance for his family.

Throw in all of the advances in medical technologies, the increasing population (demand), but then, throw in Medicare and Medicaid. Every medical bill you and I pay has built in it an increase to cover the costs of patients who are under those two programs. Every use of equipment has that built in cost as well. Yes, you might say, wait a minute, "Aren't people paying into those programs through taxes and withholding?" Obviously government programs have skewed the patient cost ratio because the answer to that is, "Yes, paying, but not covering enough." Why? We were in much better shape on medical expenses before Medicare and Medicaid. The government (Lyndon Johnson and Co.) wrecked the system. Medicare is a disaster in much the same way Social Security is a disaster due to demographics. The government socialist program of Medicare has done what all socialist programs do, i.e. intervene in the market in such a way as to make everyone miserably poorer.

Article from the Clinton era debate on government run healthcare.

"Let's go back to 1965, when Congress passed Medicare and Medicaid.

Most of the elderly already had health insurance. The poor were treated at city, county and charity hospitals. The right to emergency treatment, regardless of insurance, had been enacted under Eisenhower. Medical care was available to only slightly fewer people than now. But medical costs were less than half today's level - 5.9% of the economy.(1)

Since 1965, health costs have more than doubled, to 14% of GDP, and are projected to triple by the year 2000 (2). Government now pays over 43% of all medical costs (3) - and shifts billions more to private insurers. From a 1991 CBO report: Medicare was underpaying hospital average costs by 12%. Medicaid was underpaying hospitals by 12%., and paying doctors 31% less than Medicare rates. (4)

When government underpays, providers shift their costs to private insurers and cash customers."

Reason TV article on how Medicare and Medicaid caused the rise in health care costs.

"The rapid rise in health care costs is primarily the consequence of government policies."

It makes me think of the shopping admonition: "You break it, You own it." The progressive leftists live by that phrase. They break everything and then they own everything. But my healthcare is mine. I don't want some progressive leftist government bureaucrat making those decisions for me, or even knowing anything about me. They broke it. They should never be trusted with your healthcare or mine. Ever. They break everything. And they will break you and me and our nation with government run healthcare. They already have. The answer is to get them out of it. Pray for the Supreme Court to at least begin dismantling Obamacare and the progressive leftists' take over of your life and mine.