Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it.

There are a few things [...]]]> Last week, with a clear majority of Democrats in the House, Pelosi was finally able to cajole enough of her own party members to vote for a 2700 page bill that, as she said, “we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it…”

Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it.

There are a few things in the bill that are actually good.  But they are few and far between, easily outweighed by backroom deals (i.e., the sweetheart deals that Obama “promised” would not be in the bill or he wouldn’t sign it… oops, another promise he broke), unparalleled expansions of the federal government, and many other problems that I will describe below.

Before I begin, just a couple of facts:

• There are real and meaningful things that can be done to attack the costs we pay for our health care.  These are not new ideas, but things we have all been talking about.  Unfortunately, what was passed last week ignored almost all of them (check out the GOP plan).
• 55% of Americans are in favor of repealing this bill.  57% believe that this bill will raise the cost of health care; that’s almost 6 out of every 10 Americans.  Source: Rasmussen
• Specific language in the bill exempted all members of Congress, and even sone of their staff members, from Obamacare.  That sends a message clear as day that this legislation stinks, and they want no part of it.  As for the rest of us, they obviously couldn’t care less.
• 45 million Americans are not uninsured.  Remember when the Democrats kept touting that number?  That included illegal aliens (oh, by the way, amnesty for the 15 or so million illegal aliens is next).  So that leaves 30 million uninsured Americans, right?  Wrong.  That number includes all of the folks that got laid off, quit or were fired in the last 6 weeks.  And it includes the number of young people who choose not to buy insurance of their own free will.  Subtract those folks out, and you are left with about 12 to 15 million Americans that consistently over time cannot afford health insurance.  We can provide that to them by expanding Medicaid, a socialized health insurance program that already exists, but isn’t doing too well.  We don’t need 2,700 pages, months and months of debate, and a new tax burden to solve this problem.
• Socialism, by definition, reduces individual freedom and choice.  And it does this off the backs of hard working folks.  Paraphrasing Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
• Physicians against the Health Insurance bill: 62.7% (New England Journal of Medicine, read all of the results, they are eye-opening!)

Let’s Talk Insurance

Let’s start here, since this is probably close to the hearts of most of us.  What is health insurance?  Remember, this bill is not about health care.  We have the best health care in the world.  It is about health insurance.

And like car insurance and life insurance, health insurance is a gambling game.  The insurance companies use statistics and specific knowledge about you to assess how often and how much they will have to pay out on you, and then sets the premiums appropriately.  So to be 100% clear, these companies are not in the business of providing health care savings plans.  That is not their mission; that’s not how they’re setup.  For example, when I had a few speeding tickets (cough cough), my car insurance premiums went sky high.  I don’t blame the insurance company; I was a risky bet.  Now that my tickets have fallen off my record, my insurance premiums are thankfully back down where they belong (thank you radar detector).

But those with pre-existing conditions complain that their situation is not in their own control, and thus, they should not be punished with higher premiums.  And for those that cannot get coverage because of their pre-existing conditions, want someone (or some legislation) to force companies to cover them.  Well, speaking as one who has had a pre-existing condition (a rather painful one) for most of his life, I have to say, that’s the way the world works: it’s not fair.  The world, or our government, or any government for that matter, was not set up to swoop in like a superhero and cure you of all of the things in your life that you don’t like.  We are all dealt a hand, and unfortunately, some people get better cards than others.  It sucks, but that’s the way the world works.  And if you have a bad hand, you need to plan for it.  I wish I had the money of one of these over-hyped actors that we see speaking out in favor of Chavez or other cruel dictators.  But alas, I do not.  On the other hand, I do get to enjoy the smile on my daughter’s face, the touch of my wife, and the feeling that comes with hard work accomplished.

Let’s go back to the car insurance example.  Unlike health insurance, car insurance companies are allowed to compete for your business across the entire country.  Imagine that.  What this provides is strong competition among these companies.  And with competition, we, the customers, receive higher quality for lower prices.  Capitalism at work.  Hooray!  So imagine what our premiums would be if the same were true for health insurance companies.  Unfortunately, this is not anywhere in the 2,700 pages of Obamacare.

Instead, with the passage of this bill, we will be forced into purchasing some sort of health insurance.  As the growing number of states who have joined the suit against the federal government clearly attests, this is unconstitutional.  Our government can no more force us to buy Coca-Cola than it can to buy insurance (remember: driving a car is a privilege, not a right).  Going back in history, when FDR saw the depression in our economy as an opportunity to begin socializing this country, he pushed for Social Security.  Back then, it was a fund that we were forced to buy into.  Again, suits were made against this, but with a cowed Supreme Court, they changed the language so that Social Security became a tax.  Now, we all pay this tax into a fund run by the government that most of us reading this article will never see any benefit from.  Ever.  Another huge government entitlement that is unconstitutional, creates huge government agencies, and that ultimately fails.

I will discuss the problem with federal jobs below in a moment.

But back to the health insurance companies.  Once we have a government option, and believe me, we will all be paying into it one way or another, it will spell the end of free market competition among insurance companies.  And if we don’t pay into the public option, then we will pay IRS fines.

Let’s talk about this another way.  What if Obama decided to bail out, say Pepsi, not that it needs the government to bail it out, but let’s just say he wanted to socialize a soda company, he would provide us with a public soda company.  And, to complete the analogy, he would soon discover how hard it is to compete in a free market where people have choice.  To solve this little pesky problem, he will then force all of us to pay a small soda tax.

Oh wait, that’s already being considered.  That’s right, they believe we aren’t smart enough to stop drinking soda and other “sugary” drinks on our own, so the government is handling that for us.  Nah, we aren’t a socialized country at all.

Anyway, back to the example.  By forcing us to prop up yet another failing government entity, the new ObamaSoda company is able to lower its prices beyond what any profitable company is able to do.  Say good-bye to Dr. Pepper, Coca-Cola, or any of the other drinks out there.  Now, all we have is the public option: ObamaSoda.

And that’s how we get to a single-payer plan.  Don’t believe me?  Would you believe them?  They have already admitted it publicly: Obama, Frank, Sebelius, Emanuel, Schakowsky, Hacker and many others.  They are being open and honest about it.  As Schakowsky said, “this is not a principled fight.  This is a fight about strategy for getting there…”  In other words, get to single-pay any way you can, which includes lying, twisting House rules and regulations, and worst of all, ignoring the will of the American people.

The Problem with Government Jobs

Certainly, the federal government needs civilian employees.  There are specific duties outlined in our Constitution and the Federal Papers that describe the essential roles of the federal government.

Essential.  That’s an interesting word.

Having lived in and around D.C. for the majority of my life, I have seen a number of winter storms.  Now while I have since escaped the clutches of D.C., I could not escape the reports of the huge snow storms that befell the region this past winter (insert funny Al Gore Global Warming joke here).  When this occurs, notices, emails, local TV stations and local radio stations tell folks that only essential government employees should risk going to work.  Not being a government employee, I would often venture out to work.  Not too bright on my part, but it was extremely interesting to note that no one, and I mean almost zero, was on the road on during these times.  Now, if you have ever lived or worked around D.C., you will understand the percentage of people that work for the government in some capacity or another.  And you will also understand the horrendous D.C. traffic.  So when I say the roads were empty, it was an unbelievable sight.

So this begs the question: just how many people are there who work for the government and are non-essential?

Why is this important?  In a previous article, I describe briefly the difference between government jobs and private sector jobs.  Private sector jobs use natural resources to produce goods and services that are in demand.  People pay a fair market price for these goods and services; this money is then used to provide these employees with salaries.  Seems quite natural.

Government jobs, on the other hand, take that same story and turn it completely backwards, upside down, and inside out.  They begin by taking a portion of your hard earned wages which they use to pay the salaries of all of the government employees.  The government employees then provide us with something that most of us don’t want, can’t use, or doesn’t work right.  Think the USPS, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and on and on and on.

So to review, private sector jobs in a free market give us something of value, for which we pay a fair market price. Government jobs require some portion of our hard-earned wages, sucking away at the country’s overall wealth and health, and typically produce inferior quality goods and services that could not compete in a free market.

While, as I said at the top of this section, some government employees are crucial to the function of our government.  And I would guess that like private sector employees, they work hard and want to do a good job.  But by definition, they survive by our own sacrifice.  And more often than not, they often receive imbalanced perks that make no sense.  Refer to the New Jersey government employees that pay $124,000 into government pension and receive over $3,800,000 back when they retire.  This is not an isolated example.  I would suggest you do some research of your own to see just how bad it really is because you aren’t going to hear about it from the mainstream media.  And where does all that extra money come from?  You guessed it.  Your wallet.

And this is important because Obamacare outlines a huge expansion of our federal government.  That means thousands upon thousands of new federal employees, whose salaries we must now pay, and whose federal pensions we must now support.  Don’t believe me?  Then believe them.  This is their own chart:

Democrat's Health Plan Government Expansion

The Price Tag

The CBO placed a price tag of around $940 Billion dollars for all of this.  Of course, that number is basically a wild guess –a SWAG in business terms –because the bill is not completely defined.  That’s right: after months and months of debate, and over 2,700 pages, it’s still incomplete.  Please remind me –since these folks will be looking for jobs come November –not to hire them to do…well…anything.  I wouldn’t let them babysit a stuffed animal.

So, at the end of all this, we really have no idea how much this is going to cost us.  Only, we know it is going to cost us.  And based on what we have seen of government programs, they always exceed the expected budget, and always raise the bar to new levels for tax-dollar waste.  And as I just pointed out, let’s not forget all of the wages for the thousands and thousands of new federal employees that we will now have to pay for.

Conclusion

This monstrosity that is Obamacare does not help us in any of the ways that are important.  It does not attack the difficult but obvious things that have been shown to help people, like tort reform, allowing insurance companies to compete across the entire country, or providing catastrophic insurance options for the young and healthy.

What it does do is take us further down the road of socialism, and increases the government control over our lives.  It removes our choice.  And it turns its back on our Constitution and our Founding Fathers, and the very reason this country was created.

And finally, a note to Obama: if you want to spark job growth, don’t create federal jobs.  Instead, do what Ronald Reagan did.  Make it easier for businesses to hire folks, lower their tax burdens, and then, get out of the way.