Thursday, June 25, 2009
International Norms?
What's with Obama referring to "international norms" when reasoning why the Iranian government is out of line? If Hitler had prevailed in WWII, or if the Soviet Union won the Cold War, or if militant Islam gets it's way, international norms would be quite different from what they are today. Obama can't bring himself to recognize that we as human beings are endowed by our Creator with certain unailenable rights, including Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. For Obama, rights are whatever he or government says they are.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Healthcare Solution, Personal Responsibility or Tyranny?
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ~ C. S. Lewis
It is alarming to think that the United States is on the verge of such a tyranny. Should President Obama succeed in passing socialized health care (no matter what he calls it), there would be nothing standing in the way of government bureaucrats regulating any behavior on the basis of keeping health care costs down. From the kind of car you drive, to the type of food you eat, to your recreational activities, nothing will be immune from regulation, taxation, and red-tape hassle. It would indeed be a tyranny of the worst kind.
There is an alternative to socialized medicine that would actually work, would actually bring costs down, and would make health care more affordable to all. It’s is something that this nation was founded upon and helped make us so great. It’s called personal responsibility.
Safeway, for example, believes that well-designed health-care reform, utilizing market-based solutions, can ultimately reduce our nation's health-care bill by 40%. The key to achieving these savings is health-care plans that reward healthy behavior. As a self-insured employer, Safeway designed just such a plan in 2005 and has made continuous improvements each year. The results have been remarkable. During this four-year period, Safeway kept their per capita health-care costs flat (that includes both the employee and the employer portion), while most American companies' costs have increased 38% over the same four years.
TORT Reform would dramatically reduce costs as doctors would no longer have to administer every inconceivable test under the sun when a patient comes in with a headache out of fear of frivolous lawsuits.
The ability of insurance companies to offer lower coverage, less expensive plans to healthy young people would dramatically lower premiums. Instead, insurance companies are forced to include hundreds of procedures that most people never use in their plans, making insurance unnecessary for some and unaffordable for many. People would be able to choose coverage that works for them, not the unnecessary coverage that is currently forced on them by our benevolent government.
However, none of these steps are being proposed or even considered in Washington. This should come as no surprise. Steps like these would mean that the government has less control over individual behavior rather than more. What's wrong with that? After all, it’s for our own good, right?
It is alarming to think that the United States is on the verge of such a tyranny. Should President Obama succeed in passing socialized health care (no matter what he calls it), there would be nothing standing in the way of government bureaucrats regulating any behavior on the basis of keeping health care costs down. From the kind of car you drive, to the type of food you eat, to your recreational activities, nothing will be immune from regulation, taxation, and red-tape hassle. It would indeed be a tyranny of the worst kind.
There is an alternative to socialized medicine that would actually work, would actually bring costs down, and would make health care more affordable to all. It’s is something that this nation was founded upon and helped make us so great. It’s called personal responsibility.
Safeway, for example, believes that well-designed health-care reform, utilizing market-based solutions, can ultimately reduce our nation's health-care bill by 40%. The key to achieving these savings is health-care plans that reward healthy behavior. As a self-insured employer, Safeway designed just such a plan in 2005 and has made continuous improvements each year. The results have been remarkable. During this four-year period, Safeway kept their per capita health-care costs flat (that includes both the employee and the employer portion), while most American companies' costs have increased 38% over the same four years.
TORT Reform would dramatically reduce costs as doctors would no longer have to administer every inconceivable test under the sun when a patient comes in with a headache out of fear of frivolous lawsuits.
The ability of insurance companies to offer lower coverage, less expensive plans to healthy young people would dramatically lower premiums. Instead, insurance companies are forced to include hundreds of procedures that most people never use in their plans, making insurance unnecessary for some and unaffordable for many. People would be able to choose coverage that works for them, not the unnecessary coverage that is currently forced on them by our benevolent government.
However, none of these steps are being proposed or even considered in Washington. This should come as no surprise. Steps like these would mean that the government has less control over individual behavior rather than more. What's wrong with that? After all, it’s for our own good, right?
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