You have GOT to be kidding me

Seriously ... they're kidding right? Well ... I guess they did just say that you could keep your current plan if you liked it ... they never actually said you could get a new one...

Of course who believed in the whole 'leveling the playing field' and 'promoting competition' lines they kept spitting out there anyway? I mean ... come on ... the exchange ... that's the way you want to go ... insure thousands of nameless people in a huge pool (that will eventually include every citizen of the US) ... forget individuals ... individuals are bad ... they think for themselves .... they question ... they might actually have better ideas ... but we're the government and we can't have that. No sir, none of that individual health coverage, just jump in the pool with everyone else so that everyone can have the same crappy health care as everyone else.

Want a Doctor apointment, what's your social security number? Oh, we only see that prefix on the first of the month, and we're already booked up for next month ... we have an opening on the first of november, can you make it at 8am?

A government plan is NOT the way to fix health care in this country ... there are a plethora of ideas out there that would help, but most of them give MORE power and responsibility to the individual and as a result they never get any attention in DC. Hermain Cain had a good article back in April collecting ideas from a couple of different sources as a way to combat the callers to his show claiming that conservitives are nothing more than a party of 'no'.

The cliff is getting closer ... do you have your parachute yet?

Pay to Retire?

Okay ... my wife pointed this one out to me and ... well ... it's just too wrong to not say something about it. (BBC News Article)

For those of you that don't feel like following the link the basic premise of the story is that in the UK they are discussing a plan that would require all citizens to pay up to 20,000 pounds (at today's rate that would be $32,840) in order to pay for health care costs.

Yes ... that's right ... in order to retire you would potentially have to pay the government over 30,000 dollars and in exchange "a certain amount of social care would be provided free to everyone."

...

A "certain" amount....

Um ... yeah. I'll buy that ...

So why is this being considered? Because the current system isn't 'fair enough' ... you see 75% of the population has over the 23,000 pounds limit in their retirement savings to get government funding for their care. These people often have to spend their savings on their health care ... this is just not fair!

Wait a second ... let me get this straight ... 75% of the people have over 23,000 in savings, but have to spend that on their health care and that's bad. So the answer is to seize 20,000 from them when they retire in order to, um, pay for their health care. So instead of THEM having to spend their savings for it, instead the government is simply going to SEIZE it from them before hand; yeah ... that sounds like a perfect government plan. And I'll just bet that the service they get for that 20,000 is going to be the same as if they had paid 20,000 before this government intervention.

This type of plan will likely significantly increase the demand for the public care, and likely will not significantly change the supply of personnel to handle the public care. The obvious result of which will be higher costs to the taxpayer than the 20,000 pounds will cover (as governments seem all to adept at ignoring things that will increase the costs of such programs) and worse care for the elderly that need it. This will result in elderly care being rationed even more or higher taxes on the producers of the economy, most likely it will end up being both.

Here is a thought ... lets stop worrying about being 'fair' and put some thought into things. Okay ... it sucks having to spend your 20,000 on medical care when you get older, but does having the government take that 20,000 away from you really suck any less? Is having to 'spend most of their savings on care' worse than having the government take most of their savings to pay for care? Seriously ... on what level is this even remotely logical?

Okay ... admittedly the plan does say 'make payments up to 20,000 pounds' ... so it is assumed that people with less savings would have to pay less than that ... but realistically that doesn't make the plan any better ... it will still increase the workload and cost of maintaining that public care system, and I would be willing to bet that the income generated in the end will not match the increased cost of the program. It's just another way for them to take from those that worked hard, made good choices, and saved so that they can give it to those that were too dumb or too lazy to do it for themselves.

Maybe I'm just becoming a cold hearted bastard as I get older ... but I think that more often than not in life you get what you deserve ... what you earn. I don't believe that anyone has a right to the property of another and that property includes their retirement savings. They have exchanged a part of their lives for that income in the first place, they did the right thing by saving it so that they could enjoy their retirement, they made the right choices, exercised restraint in their spending during their working years to get to the point where they could retire and have some of those savings to enjoy. Now the government wants to come along and mandate that they pay a portion of those savings to fund health care? And predominately fund health care for those that didn't work hard enough, or save smartly enough (or at all) but now want to enjoy the same care as those who did.

Those that work for it and save deserve better lives and better retirements ... those that don't ... well ... you do the math.

Excuse me, Mr. President

I have to say that the President's foreign affairs abilities have been less than stellar lately. Iran is in turmoil over and threatening, arresting, and killing their own citizens because of an election dispute, and Obama stays virtually mute on the subject. North Korea threatens to launch a missile at Hawaii (and to wipe the US off the map if we start a way .... and doing anything so much as looking at N. Korea cross eyed will be viewed as an act of war.) and Obama says nothing.

Now, in theory he stayed quiet on Iran in order to not give validity to claims that the demonstrations were a result of outside interference. It didn't work, mind you, and the Iranian 'president' called Obama out directly stating that he thought Obama would be 'different' and not 'meddle' in Iran's internal affairs ... wondering where Obama's 'change' was now.

Okay ... so seeing that keeping quiet did not work out the way that he expected along comes the situation in Honduras. For those of you that haven't been keeping up with that story I'll give you a brief run down:

President Manuel Zelaya is upset that he's nearing the end of his term ... and by the Constitution of Honduras he can not run for re-election (the president having a 1 term limit defined in the constitution.) so he demands that a ballot be taken to open a constitutional convention to change the constitution.

The Honduras Supreme Court says - 'No, you can't do that, the Constitution specifically states that only the Congress has the authority to call for such a ballot.'

President Zelaya, however, doesn't like that answer so he says that he is going to go through with the ballot anyway, and his good buddy Hugo Chavez of Venezuela prints up all the ballots and ships them over to Honduras where.

The Military seizes the illegal ballots under order of the Supreme Court and Congress.

Zelaya gets very upset about this and fires the head of the Military ... the Supreme Court steps in and again tells Zelaya that he doesn't have the authority to do that. Zelaya reluctantly reinstates him to his position.

Zelaya, however, takes the ballots and announces his intent to distribute them anyway.

The Military (with the support of the Supreme Court and Congress) arrests Zelaya and Congress names an interum President until the normal elections. The replacement is even from the same political party as now Ex-President Zelaya.

To Obama, however, this is a travesty and the new government is illegal and should return to control to the ousted President, Manuel Zelaya.

Wait a tick here ... let me make sure I've got this right.... The President is over stepping his authority left and right and blatantly defying the court and congress .... but their arresting him (in accordance with the country's constitution) is somehow illegal?

Now did Obama just jump the gun because of the criticism he received for being slow to respond to the Iran and N. Korea issues ... or is there a deeper issue?

Does he not want people to realize that a President doesn't really have ultimate power over the universe? That there are limits to the powers of a President and that a President seeking to over reach that authority can (and should) be removed as necessary to maintain a legal sanctioned government?

I mean ... if the Supreme Court of the US were to step up and say 'Excuse me, Mr. President, you do not have the right or authority to seize control of private industry, it is illegal.' What, exactly would he do? And if he continued would the Court have the guts to enforce the law and arrest him?