It’s hard to turn on the news right now without hearing something about health insurance reform. I’ve been having a lot of discussion about this with friends and family, and have spent a good deal of time over the last month researching the core issues at the heat of the debate. After talking through the issue with friends of just about every political persuasion, I feel like I have a pretty good opinion on the matter. I decided to write a post about it to argue my position, and perhaps persuade a few of you to get involved.

The Issue

In case you don’t frequently watch the news or read political blogs online (I wouldn’t blame you), the issue that’s dividing the nation right now is H.R. 3200, the proposed health care/insurance reform bill that would dramatically alter how our nation cares for its sick. A large part of the controversy behind the bill is the speed at which many Democratic leaders are pushing for it’s passage. Although the changes in the bill wouldn’t take effect until 2013, President Obama is pushing for a bill to sign into law by early in the Fall (formerly he was pushing for August).

You can read the bill for yourself here: H.R. 3200. Yes, it’s more than 1000 pages.

The Noise

President Obama favors this bill as a proposed solution to control the ever-increasing cost of health care by injecting a government-run “public insurance option” into the marketplace. By introducing this option, he and other liberal leaders expect to create competition against private insurers and provide coverage for millions of Americans that don’t currently have health insurance. They propose to pay for this new service by leveraging a new tax on the richest citizens in our nation and through other savings by increasing the efficiencies of our current system. The President repeatedly tries to defend this plan by assuring Americans that they can keep their own doctor and will likely keep their current insurance plans.

Republicans and conservatives are telling a different story. The leading cause of concern is the loss of personal liberty in making medical decisions, along with the enormous burden of another entitlement program. They argue that the plan currently proposed to the American public by The President’s administration and Congress is significantly watered down from what is actually in the bill itself. Many of these leaders accuse The Democratic plan of being a short road to socialized medicine that would put our nation further into debt and decrease the quality and availability of care for all Americans.

The public is not convinced either. Over the past few weeks our elected representatives have been faced with angry town hall meetings where their constituents are showing up in mass to oppose the current legislation. Liberals blame the crowds on sneaky conservative “astroturf” organizations, while conservatives merely propose that it’s the American public wanting to be heard. Needless to say, there’s a lot of noise to sift through in order to find out what’s really going on.

The Reality (as I see it)

Although I have very conservative political beliefs (I identify most with the Libertarian Party), I always try to step back and take a look at important issues like this with open eyes and a clear mind. With that said, after reading up on this bill and our current administration’s stated goals on this issue, I can state with confidence that this is some of the most frightening and unconstitutional legislation that I’ve seen proposed in a long while (which is saying a lot considering the two ridiculous bailout packages our leadership passed over the last year). Here’s what scares me about it…

They Want to Pass it Quickly

Any time our leaders want to rush something through to vote with a sense of extreme urgency and fear (”we can’t afford to wait any longer!”), that should be a huge red flag to the American public to slow down. Our leaders recently told the public that we URGENTLY need to pass unbelievable spending bills in the name of stimulus to get the economy back on track. Do you know how much of that “WE NEED IT RIGHT THIS SECOND” money has currently been spent? 10% (~77 $Billion of the First $700 Billion Bailout Bill). Think the taxpayer will ever get the rest of their own money back? Fat chance.

The Goal is to Eliminate Private Insurance

Our President has made it clear on several public occasions in the past that his ideal health care system would be a government-run, single-payer health care system (a fancy term for socialized medicine). If that weren’t enough, the current bill is full of scary rules that will basically force private insurance companies out of the marketplace and force your employer to auto-enroll you in the government insurance plan (page 145 of H.R 3200). Make no mistake… this is a government takeover of the entire industry. How can private insurers compete when the 800-lb gorilla makes all of the rules and doesn’t have to pay taxes?

The Government Will Make Your Health Care Decisions

Here are a few fun inclusions in the bill that you may not be aware of…

(Updated: I have changed and updated this list to include only the items that I could fact-check enough to feel confident about. The second item is a little wishy-washy, but there’s enough supporting evidence for the argument that I’ve left it on the list.)

• Page 30 (Section 123): A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you receive (without an appeals process like private insurance).
• Page 50 (Section 152): All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with health care services through the public plan. (Although not explicitly listed, there is debate that non-US citizens would be covered under this plan due to the loose legal wording.)
• Page 72 (lines 8-14): All private health care plans must conform to government rules to participate in a Health Care Exchange.
• Page 84 (Section 203): All health care plans sold to individuals must participate in the health care Exchange!
• Page 124 (lines 24-25): No entity can sue the government for price fixing, and no judicial review would be permitted against the government.
• Page 167 (lines 20-23): Any individual who does not have acceptable health care (by government standards) will be taxed 2.5% of their income.
• Page 127: If your doctor accepts the government insurance (and almost all eventually will), the government decides how much they get paid for their insured services. No more incentive to excel or innovate.

That doesn’t sound like a plan that would leave the rest of our health care plans unchanged.

Other Objections

Here are a few other things that have me worried…

• We can’t afford it. Our nation is up to its eyeballs in debt to China and is in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression (thanks to previous government intervention). All of our taxes will go up and we’ll just add another bankrupt program on top of Social Security and Medicaid. Don’t even get me started on taxing the rich; the top 1% of earners in our nation already pay more taxes than 95% of the rest of our nation. They’ll just cut jobs and reduce charitable giving to make up the difference.
• Socialized Medicine is a wreck. I can’t comprehend why we would want to head this direction. The wealthy from other nations travel to America when they need medical care, not the other way around. Almost every socialized medical system has insane waiting lists for common procedures, and serious illnesses like cancer are almost a death sentence.
• It’s unconstitutional. Our founding father’s fled their countries to escape the burden of excessive taxation and government intervention in their lives. Our nation must get out of the mindset that the government needs to care for us in every capacity. We need more freedom and lower taxes so we can use our own money to care for ourselves and those in need around us. In addition, it’s unconstitutional for the government to take from its wealthiest citizens to give to other citizens, even if it’s for a “good cause.” The government shouldn’t get to decide how its citizens should be charitable.
• It appears that taxpayers would pay for abortions… regardless of your moral/religious beliefs. You can read about this here. (There’s also some good discussion about this issue in the comments below.)

What Should We Be Doing?

From what we’re being told, you would think that this bill is the only option to save American Health Care. The reality is that a lot of smart people have thrown out some great ideas that would actually lower the cost of health care without a single taxpayer dime. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Enable Insurance Companies to Compete Across State Lines. A few years back, I realized I was paying out the nose for car insurance. After looking around for a little while online, I found a great company in Indiana that saved me almost $1000/yr. We need to loosen regulation to allow medical insurance companies to fight to the death over our money. Good companies would get more money, and consumers would have more choices; everybody wins.
• Loosen regulation on what must be required coverage. I don’t smoke or drink, and am blessed not to struggle with mental illness or obesity. Why should I have to pay for coverage that includes treatment of these illnesses? Loosening regulation on required coverage would make insurance cheaper for everybody.
• Raise deductibles and actually pay for your yearly health care needs. Yes, I’m actually proposing that the average American pay for their doctors visits and routine care up to a certain point every year. The government can make this easier on us through the use of tax-free Health Savings Accounts. This would restore insurance to the proper role of covering unforeseen medical emergencies, thus raising the affordability of health insurance to everybody. It would also eliminate unneeded emergency room visits and artificially inflated health care costs (like hospitals charging $20 for a box of Kleenex just because they can get away with it due to your full insurance coverage).
• Fund private charities and organizations to care for the needy. There are hundreds of loving organizations out there built around meeting this specific need; they’ll do a better job of helping people than the government would any day of the week.

Call Your Congressman

I hope by now that I may have convinced you of the need to seek free-market solutions instead of the ridiculous growth of government control that would come along with this current Health Reform Bill. Please don’t stand on the sidelines; if you agree that this is a terrible plan for America, call/email your congressman and let them know that you expect them to actually represent you and your values. If they don’t, be sure to vote them out of a job in 2010.

For those of you that live in the Hendersonville area, I strongly encourage you to call Bart Gordon’s office and voice your opposition to his support of this bill. He hasn’t represented us for a long time, and it’s time to make our voices heard. You’ve heard my opinion. Feel free to discuss in the comments below.

We would appreciate your prayers for safe travel and divine appointments as we serve overseas. If you would like to follow the progress of the trip, you can get the latest news every day at http://blogs.longhollow.com/france09. We’ve also set up a special Twitter account just for the trip that you can follow here.

Look for lots of stories and photos when we return!

Me, Lauren and my Dad decided to go spend the morning at a local firing range since it was such a gross day outside. We fired a Glock 19 9mm pistol and a .357 Smith & Wesson Snub Nose; I have to say, we probably had more fun than we should’ve (with the exception of the guy in the lane beside us who was firing a hand cannon - no idea what exactly he was shooting, but it was ridiculously loud). Check out the video below…

Mr. Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents — from George Washington to George W. Bush — combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.

Once again, let me state that I’m not trying to be anti-Obama or anything; I’m just completely freaked out by the direction the government is taking us right now.

Let your voices be heard people.

]]> http://www.ericandlauren.com/?feed=rss2&p=478 http://www.ericandlauren.com/?p=465 http://www.ericandlauren.com/?p=465#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2009 04:32:24 +0000 Eric http://www.ericandlauren.com/?p=465 “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.” - Edward R. Murrow

Let me preface this by saying that throughout most of my adult life, I’ve only had what I would consider a passing interest in politics. I always find the elections interesting and will follow geopolitical topics and foreign policy from time to time, but I’ve rarely paid much attention to the partisan bickering and inevitable flip-flopping that goes on in Washington.

All of this has changed for me recently, as we’ve elected a new leader and have entered into a monumental economic crisis. As I’m beginning to dig a little deeper beyond the glossed over governmental PR department that the media has become these days, I’m uncovering a lot of things that make me frightened for the future of our nation.

As I’ve blogged about in the past, it’s safe to say that I am no fan of the strategy our leaders are pursuing to “fix” the current economic meltdown. It seems like it’s only been a few months since our leaders pulled a “chicken little” on our citizens to scare a reluctant House and Congress to pass an absolutely ridiculous 700 Billion dollar bailout bill. Our leaders chose to plunge our nation deeply into debt to put a band aid on many businesses that were already largely terminal to begin with. Now, several months later, we’re realizing a good chunk of this money has been squandered or is unaccounted for after our leaders blindly made one of the worst financial decisions in our nation’s history. As many predicted, the bailout package had no effect on the economy and the stock market continues to free fall (only now our nation is even more up to it’s eyeballs in debt).

Only a matter of days ago, our leaders passed another monumental “stimulus” package with an even larger price tag, but for some the sticker shock didn’t appear too bad this time around (after all, what’s another 787 Billion dollars when we can just create this money out of thin air, right?). Once again, the package was passed in a matter of days, with a large majority of our leaders claiming they didn’t even read it! This package is absolutely loaded to the gills with pet projects and wasteful spending that is even more appalling given the pretense with which it was sold to the American public.

If the financial implications weren’t startling enough, many of our leaders have sneaked in foundational laws for dramatic changes in the way our country will work in the future. Using fear as a catalyst, they’re somehow passing huge chunks of enormous legislation under our noses; our internal alert signals should start ringing like crazy any time a politician tries to pass urgent legislation with fear as their primary motivational tool.

I think the average citizen (yours truly included until recently) just doesn’t realize the cost of the decisions we’re making right now. Since we don’t understand economics, we just assume that the Fed can keep printing more money out of no where and it will all just balance out in the future somehow. Since we aren’t too interested in how other governments work, we don’t understand why it might be a bad idea to go in on another “new deal” with a bunch of other nations and their economies (most other economies are tanking even harder than we are).

Most of all, I believe a large majority of us have completely lost touch with what makes America great. Instead of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we’re buying into “fairness” for everyone and government programs to take care of us. We’re beginning to see the possibility of success and wealth that have made our country so strong (and so inspiring to millions of immigrants) being replaced with a sense of entitlement where home ownership and a regular pay check is a right, not something fought for and earned.

It seems like we’re becoming more content with leaving the wonderful foundations our country is built on behind us; because our generation is scared and has lost the grit in it’s gut, we’d rather be passive and give away more control to the government (giving away more and more of our rights in the process). We’re being told that higher taxes are a duty we should take pride in. We’re being told that the government knows better how to spend our money, manage our health and provide for the needy than we do. Heck, we’re even being told that our free speech shouldn’t be quite so free, and we probably shouldn’t be trusted to defend ourselves and our families.

We’re being told that the government is the answer instead of the ingenuity and determination of the American people.

The thing is, I’m not buying it, and I have a sneaking suspicion that many of you feel the same way. You feel helpless when you see us going into utterly insane levels of debt to circumvent capitalism and bailout broken business practices. You feel sick as you watch your retirement account waste away more every time the government tries to get involved to fix things. You feel angry when you see our leaders try to take over more parts of our lives when you see how messed up current government-run social programs are (Medicare and Social Security anyone? I for one can’t wait to visit the waiting room that’s run by the same people that control the DMV and Post Office!).

If you feel the same as I do, I urge you to join with me in taking a stand for the America you believe in. These ridiculous and continuing (here comes another one!) spending packages and moves towards socialism have got to stop. Write your congressmen and representatives - make your voice heard when you disagree. Instead of being passive and keeping in line with fashionable opinions, speak up with your peers about your opinions on the health of our nation and the direction we’re heading. I truly feel that many of us, on both sides of the political fence, feel the same way.

Somehow we’ve developed the crazy concept that elected officials somehow know best, and how dare we criticize their decisions?! Free speech and the ability to inspire change is what makes this country great! There’s a reason we have elections so frequently - sometimes you have to fire the idiots and elect better people to do the job (don’t forget, they work for US!).

As I wind down this post, by now I’m sure you think that I believe government to be some sort of evil entity; I assure you this is not the case. You may also think I’m writing this to air my political grievances with President Obama, given my expressed skepticism in the past. This is not purely the case, as it takes more than one person in power (including passive, overly trusting citizens) to make some terrible decisions. For the record, I’m not convinced McCain would be doing much better right now given his support of the first bailout; we need to look beyond this two-party political system to get some fresh blood and ideas in office.

I do believe it is important that we remind ourselves every so often that our nation was created to escape the rule and excessive control of a government that presumed to know better than it’s people. We must never forget the rare and unique gifts of freedom and liberty, and the price our forefathers paid to hand them down to us. I hope we can give our children the same inheritance.

My goal was to make it easier to use/nicer to look at and built it with future technologies in mind. Take a look and leave me some constructive feedback

It makes me laugh every time I watch it.

Isn’t it strange how listening to certain albums can take you right back to the point in your life when you first discovered them? For instance, listening to One Part Lullaby by The Folk Implosion takes me right back to working at the movie theater in my Junior year of High School; listening to The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips takes me right back to the weeks Lauren and I began dating. It’s wild how music can do that.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at the last year to see what albums had the most playtime for me. Click the links throughout the list if you want to listen yourself… I recommend all of them!

Jan-Feb 2008 - In Rainbows - Radiohead

This one comes as no surprise since Radiohead is definitely one of my favorite bands; I became obsessed with them in college, and if you did any work in the DMS lab at Union, you’ll know that they were pretty much all that we listened to in there (when Donnie Darko wasn’t playing, of course). I think this is their best album since OK Computer. Favorite track: House of Cards.

March-May 2008 - Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem

I picked this up on a whim on day at work and listened to it for weeks straight without listening to anything else. If you want something upbeat that WILL stay in your head for months, this is the album. Favorite track: Someone Great.

Summer 2008 - Viva la Vida or Death and All of His Friends - Coldplay

As I’ve mentioned on here before, this one surprised me as I thought Coldplay was through after being bored by X&Y. Instead, they turned out one of the best albums I’ve heard in years. I’m normally not a fan of mainstream albums, but this one is pretty phenomenal from start to finish. Favorite track: Lovers in Japan.

Sept-Nov 2008 - Boxer - The National

I picked this up on the recommendation of a friend, and was really pretty underwhelmed by it at first. Then it sunk into my skull and now I listen to it all the time. I’ve heard it said that this album sounds like a midnight drive, and I’d probably agree with that. Favorite track: Squalor Victoria.

Nov-Dec 2008 - The Rhumb Line - Ra Ra Riot

Lauren got me hooked on this one… holy moses it’s great. Much like the Coldplay album mentioned earlier, there’s really not a track on here that I skip through. Favorite Track: Too Too Too Fast.

Right Now - Merriweather Post Pavillion - Animal Collective

Wow - I’m obsessed with this album right now. Though not for everybody, if you’re looking for something totally different to listen to that you’ll find yourself humming constantly, this is the album. Favorite Track: My Girls.

Have an album you’d like to recommend? Please do in the comments below!

As I’ve mentioned before in previous geeky posts on here, I was a diehard Windows fan until we bought our first Mac back in late 2005. Since I’ve been firmly entrenched in the Mac world for the last 4 years, I thought it would be fun to install the beta of Windows 7 and see what Microsoft has been working on recently.

I grabbed the 64-bit Windows 7 beta from Microsoft and installed it pretty painlessly through Boot Camp on my MacBook Pro (2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM; just acted like I was installing Vista and it worked without a hitch). It should be mentioned that the installation was pretty painless, and much quicker to install than probably any OS that I’ve done a clean install of in the past; well done Microsoft!

So, let’s get down to the details, shall we? While Vista felt like a slower version of XP with a fresh coat of paint, Windows 7 feels a little more like a new approach to Windows, and mostly for the better. Although it’s basically just Vista with a tweaked UI, the interface is surprisingly minimalistic at the outset; the new taskbar is pretty much the meat and potatoes of Windows 7, so lets start with that.

Well, it’s pretty much a rip off of OS X’s dock, but after using it for a few days, I’d say that’s a good thing. I’m not a huge fan of the blockiness or the icon spacing, but it is certainly much nicer to use than the unmanageable row of minimized windows I’m used to seeing in XP and Vista.

Unseen in my screen grabs are the nice “Aero Peek” hover effects you get when you move your mouse over the icon of an open program; little thumbnails pop up of all the open windows in that program and expand to full size when clicked. Combined with Vista’s Flip 3D, this is pretty much Microsoft’s answer to Exposé on OS X. I found Exposé to be more helpful in practice, but Aero Peek was certainly a nice UI tweak.

Moving on, I really liked the redesigned start menu and the use of “jump lists” when you right-click on a program’s icon. Right-clicking now gives you the usual info, along with program specific information that’s pretty useful (recently opened files, playback controls for media, etc). Once again, it’s similar to OS X’s dock (and maybe slightly superior in this respect).

Speaking of similarities, it’s almost comical how much Windows Explorer resembles Leopard’s Finder windows now… take a look at the screen shot above. I found getting around the system was slightly easier than in XP/Vista, but I prefer OS X’s lack of clutter in the Finder.

Performance-wise, everything was very snappy on my relatively-new MacBook Pro. Although the Aero interface may be a little heavy-handed with animated transitions and general flashiness, overall it was attractive and responsive (not sluggish like my experiences with Vista). It should be noted that it appears to be a much more energy hungry operating system than Leopard; my four hour battery life in OS X was only 1.5 hours in Windows 7, though the lack of good power management in the beta may be to blame.

So, is Windows 7 worthwhile? From my brief experience, I’d say that it’s very promising, but still trailing OS X by a long shot. Beneath the nice new paint job lies the same basic Windows that you’ve used for the last 15 years, which may not be a bad thing depending on the user. For me, it’s all the extra features and polish built into OS X out of the box that make it far superior still. As I’ve waxed on about recently, the features in OS X that I use so frequently (Spaces, Time Machine, Quick Look, etc) are desperately missed, even when I’m using the latest version of Windows.

If you have a decently powerful machine running XP, I think Windows 7 will be a worthy upgrade to consider when it releases sometime this year. Microsoft is genuinely taking it’s operating system in the right direction.

However, if you’re on the fence about purchasing a new machine, I still think a Mac is the best option.

Have you played with Windows 7? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I laughed so hard at this I nearly threw up…