Political Common Sense for America - Newsletter

Here is the link to this week’s Political Common Sense for America - Newsletter. This week I discuss: Unwed Mothers, Job Killer Tax Regulation, and Pres. Obama’s dereliction of duties. Old Grumpy Guy can’t stand the self-righteous attitude of the politicians.

Just click on the following link:

http://www.thefranklinparty.org/Newsletter/vol41-080610.pdf

You can also find an archive of all the past newsletters at:

http://www.thefranklinparty.org/Newsletters.html

Please feel free to pass this on to friends and family; and as always, thanks for your email comments and continued support!

Who is Dr. Donald Berwick?

Dr. Donald Berwick is now in charge of a larger share of the U.S. Budget, then the Pentagon. He was put in place with no vetting or discussion because our leaders in Washington don't care about the Constitution or your opinion. They have systematically taken your taken your vote and made it worthless. Check out who Dr. Berwick is and how he intends to run the most important agency in the government. This is part of the Political Common Sense for America video series.

Healthcare Hypocrisy

I’m really sick and tired of being told how we need to spread around the risk and cost of healthcare and health insurance. How about spreading around a little more personal responsibility? Why do the people who make an effort to stay healthy have to cover the majority of the cost burden for those too ignorant or foolish to take care of themselves?

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that the poor child who has leukemia, or similar illness, should be covered. It’s not his or her fault. They didn’t do anything wrong, but the person who smokes 2 or 3 packs of cigarettes needs to either quit or pay more. This goes for those who are severely overweight too. Think of the cost savings if we could cut lung cancer by 20% and diabetes by 20%. Yet, we don’t hear about any incentive plans within the current legislation to positively reinforce good behavior.

Instead what we have is a President, who instead of focusing on national security and Chinese relations, is parading around the country promoting a healthcare bill that few American citizens want. It’s ironic since he is one of the people that has ignored personal responsibility and expects myself, and others, to pay for the illnesses he will most likely get from the smoking habit he continues to nurture. Does anyone else take offense to having a person who can’t manage his own health risks wanting to have ownership over ours? It’s almost like hiring Fat Albert as your personal trainer. How do you think that would work out?

Lastly, I am at a loss for how they keep coming up with the 30 million uninsured Americans. No matter how I look at it, that number includes people who are not citizens. It’s one thing to cover those citizens that have less, but those from other countries that have less…I don’t think so.

Senate Bill Hurts Construction

by the Small Business Owner

Under the new provisions in the Senate Healthcare Reform Bill, Senator Merkley (D-OR) singled out small construction firms for harsher treatment than any other industry. Most employers with fewer than 50 workers who don’t offer health coverage are exempt from fines and the new regulatory regime that applies to larger employers. The newly added provision aims at construction firms employing as few as five workers. They will be subject to health care coverage fines and regulatory requirements.

All construction firms (and only construction firms) with more than five employees will now face fines if they don’t offer health care benefits or if the benefits do no not meet a minimum requirement. Employers must cover 60 percent of the actuarial value of an employee’s premium. If an employee’s share of the premium exceeds 9.8 percent of their household income, then the employee can opt out of the employer provided coverage and receive government subsidies to help offset the costs. The employer can face penalties of $750 per full time employee if the coverage does not meet these requirements.

The construction industry has one of the largest unemployment rates and both residential and commercial contractors are desperately trying to stay afloat. Why punish small business? It’s all about Union control, which wants to put the small non-union shops out of business. Shame on Congress for manipulating our laws to satisfy the greed and the desire for power of Union leadership!

Breast Cancer Diagnostic Rationing

Has politics already gotten in the way of good healthcare? On Monday, a government task force said that most women don't need mammograms in their 40’s and should get one every two years starting at 50. This is a break with the American Cancer Society's long-standing position. What's more, the panel said breast self-exams do no good, and women shouldn't be taught to do them.

At a time when more and more women are finding early diagnosis of breast cancer the difference between life and death, this government task force’s findings seem insane. Is the plan to let women in their 30’s and 40’s go virtually unchecked, potentially missing any chance of early detection? If mammograms are not an effective tool, then where is the prescription of another diagnostic method? There is no mention of other scans or DNA/RNA cataloging.

False positives, and cost per life, are not a good enough reason for sticking our heads in the sand. This is politics at its worst. If this diagnostic technology doesn’t work, then why keep it for women in their 50’s? Once again, this is about conservation and reduced consumption, but this time it isn’t about light bulbs or gasoline. It’s about the lives of our mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters. Washington, spend more time funding and approving better diagnostic technology and less time on rationing.

AP article

Defacing the American Flag

I take offense to this video defacing our flag.

YouTube Video

I don't believe that Freedom of Speech includes defacing the flag. It's a symbol of the blood shed to insure our freedoms, so to disrespect it is to disrespect the lives and limbs given to defend it.

Single Payer Profits for Insurance Companies

I just did a tour of the country looking for potential Independent Congressional candidates.

One highlight of my trip was a discussing with an Executive of a health insurance claims processing company. When I asked him how bad would a single payer, government run, system hurt his business; he just laughed. He educated me on the fact that his company and most of the big insurance companies would benefit from a single payer system.

See Medicaid and Medicare claims aren't processed by a building full of civil servants. No, the government subcontracts it out to the insurance companies to manage. The single payer system would end up being the same model. This part of the business is the most profitable and consistent. Unlike the insurance side where there is a lot of risk, this side of the business is easily forcasted. See, the risk now would fall on the tax payers and be managed by the government. This will be a huge win fall for a few of the insurance companies and the rest will fall off planet, reducing any potential competition completely.

So, in the end, are we really going to be making the big bad Insurance Industry pay? Or, are we going to do what we did on Wall Street? Let the government pick the winners and the losers and let the average U.S. citizen pay the price.

Rep. Eric Massa (NY-D) - Elitist or Fascist?

Recently, Rep. Eric Massa (NY-D) was caught on tape explaining to a group at Net Roots that he would vote for the Healthcare Bill even if it wasn’t in the best interest of his constituents. He even went a step further, when asked if his district was 80% against the bill, “would he still vote for it?” He answered, “Yes.”




Click here to watch the video

Elitism is when someone thinks they are better than everyone else. Fascism is when a small group of people feel the general population can’t make decisions for themselves. My question to you is, “Which is Rep. Massa?” He surely isn’t a Democrat in the truest sense of the word. This is the type of people who are ruining our political system. They sell themselves as the people’s candidate, but instead they could care less about the citizens. What they want is to further their own causes and those of the special interest groups that finance them.

Dean tells the truth about Tort Reform

Finally, they admitted what has been obvious to so many of us.

Howard Dean said, “The reason tort reform is not in the [health care] bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on. And that’s the plain and simple truth.”

This is what I have been saying for months. Our congressional leaders are being led by the nose by PACs, 527's, and other special interest groups. There is no question that "We the People" are taking a back seat. If they really wanted to lower healthcare costs, in turn make it available to more people, then the easy four steps would be:

1. Tort Reform
2. Interstate Competition
3. Manage Illegal Immigration
4. Dislocate the Employer - Insurer relationship

The best part is they could do these one at a time and measure the success of each one. It would create the change we need and at the same time not muddy the waters with issues of control or partisanship.

Healthcare Bill - Eliminate Defensive Medicine

The right and the left have both gone out of bounds. Rep. Pelosi saying that it is un-American to voice your complaint with the healthcare bill and Sarah Palin talking about “Death Panels”; they should both be ashamed of themselves. The healthcare bill is supposed to make healthcare insurance more affordable and more available. Balderdash!!

Our entire Congress should be investigated for bribery. Why is there no conversation on Tort Reform? Where is it in the bill? Politicians know where their bread is buttered. They don’t want to risk the hundreds of millions of dollars tossed into campaign coffers every year by the Legal industry. It’s just another example of big business buying votes.

For those of you who say, “…reducing malpractice insurance won’t make that big a difference…” I say, “Show me the facts.” The legal costs are the small part of the equation, although PointofLaw.com recently cited that previous estimates of the overall impact of Tort Reform were greatly understated. The real issue is that our medical professionals have taken to practicing Defensive Medicine.

Defensive Medicine is the practice of ordering tests and procedures that aren’t necessary, but protect the medical professionals from the possibility of a lawsuit. In 2005, the Journal of the American Medical Association said that 93% of specialists in Pennsylvania admitted to practicing Defensive Medicine. In Massachusetts, a 2008 survey showed that 25% of all imaging tests were purely for defensive purposes. Although it is hard to quantify, because it has become so pervasive within the medical establishment, it is estimated to have increased overall medical care costs by between $100B and $200B. Even on the low side it comes to almost a 10% savings in healthcare costs, yet we don’t even hear a whisper.