Whisper's Blog

In the Wall Street Journal, Stephen Moore looks at the results of a new Gallup poll, which found that Americans believe Washington squanders half of every tax dollar. He argues that this information suggests that Americans want a radical shrinking of government.

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Karl Rove writes in The Wall Street Journal that in order to flip the health-care debate to his advantage President Barack Obama needs to offer a substantive concession.

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Across the nation, there is a sense that average Americans are being hurt by powerful forces that prosper at their expense, in an economy that is unfair, with institutional, financial and political power aligned against them.

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Tracking Your Taxes: Taxpayers Pay for Congressional Travel to Exotic Lands
Many Americans hit hard by the recession have been trading their annual family getaways for summer “stay-cations.” But the economy apparently has done little to ground members of Congress.

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Malpractice Legislation:
One of the things all these elected officials keep trying to tackle is malpractice insurance. They say it is one of the causes of high medical costs.

In the first place if a doctor or medical institution makes an error in judgement and causes harm to a patient, and the patient sues for damages the case is heard in state/local courts, not federal. Each state must determin the rules and regulations governing tort claims within their jurisdiction, including putting caps on jury awards. This subject has no business being discussed on a federal level, and most definately should not be included in federal legislation. Any attempt to do so would infringe on states rights, and thereby be unconstitutional.

Mandated Health Insurance:
A person making minimum wage earns $1160.00 a month. After FICA, (SSI & Medicare stuff), he/she would bring home around $1050.00 a month if no income taxes were withheld.

Monthly expenses: rent-$350.00, utilities, (heat, lights, water, garbage, phone)-$150.00, transportation-$100.00 , food & staples, ($10.00 a day)-$300.00.
Grand total expenses- about $900.00. This person has $37.50 a week left over to buy clothes, cover holidays, birthdays, unforseen events, emergencies, entertainment etc., that is if he/she didn’t pay a dime of income taxes. Our government wants to mandate that everyone has health insurance. They want employers to provide insurance for their employees. They are suggesting fines for businesses and individuals who don’t have medical insurance.

Has anyone stopped to think what the employer is already paying? The average employer already shells out around $2000.00 a month in wages, SSI taxes, and liability insurance per minimum wage employee working a 40 hour week. Not counting operational overhead the employer needs to sell around $4000.00 of product a month to pay for one employee. He/she needs to sell at least another $3000.00 of product to cover minimum business overhead. None of this includes lost products that didn’t sell, or that were damaged or stolen.

A single employer with one minimum wage employee would have to pay out a minimum of $300.00 a month, (to be legal under the suggrested healthcare reform bills), to insure himself and the employee. That means the business would have to generate close to $13,000.00 a month in sales to pay minimum expenses, and for the owner to take home minimum wage.

Based on these numbers a business has to do $156,000.00 a year in sales to clear a minimum wage salary for one employee and the business owner, and to keep them both insured.

Let’s Talk Reality
Last month my ninety one year old mother in law fell and broke a pin in her hip replacement. Day one: She was in the emergency room, the xray room, then surgery, then recovery, then ICU, then a general patient room. She received xrays, blood for transfusion, lab work, anesthesia, and pain meds, plus the services of the medical staff, as well as maintenance, janitorial and billing department personnel.Day two through day 21: She was moved from the hospital to an after care clinic where she stayed until she recovered, and then she went home. Her hospital/after care bill was $120,000.00.

According to all the reports we are hearing these days her bill was such an enormous amount because of all the uninsured individuals who use the hospital. I call foul. Her hospital bill was astronomical because the hospital has raised prices to clear a profit.

The priciest assisted-living care center in her town charges around $3000.00 a month for an apartment (costing around $750.00 a week). It includes the room, utilities, meals, aides, and an on-staff RN. The after care facility provided her with a room, utilities, meals, aides, Rns, and LPNs. If you quadrupled the cost of care for those 3 weeks she spent in the after care facility based on the assisted care fees the cost would be $9000.00. Even if you doubled that amount it’s $18,000.00 which is a far cry from $120,000.00. You’ll never convince me that the services she recieved that first day cost anywhere near $100,000.00. Somebody somewhere made out like a bandit.

Think about it. Most towns across America don’t have more hospitals than they know what to do with. In other words the vast majority of medical institutions have little or no competition. These places are businesses trying to turn a profit just like any other business. Their advantage is they are in the business of life and death, and their customers don’t come to see them because they are sick of the shade of carpet in their living room. The downside to their business is they have to deal with people who can’t afford their prices, but have to have their services.

Medical Insurance Rates
Premiums keep going up. Why? Medical fees keep going up which forces insurance companies to raise their rates. They are in business to make money just like medical institutions, and doctors. Somewhere somebody got the idea that medical care should be an altruistic act. If you believe that, the next time you have a major leak in your plumbing call a plumber and ask him to fix it for free, or ask your county commissioners to pay the tab.

If the government really wanted to fix the problem they’d create a program that funded students in the medical field. After receiving their license to practice those students would be commited to work a specified amount of time at a reduced wage in medical institutions throughout the country. Such a program would reduce the cost of medical personnel for clinics and institutions. This would reduce their expenses. Insurance rates would stabalize because the cost of medical care would level out. The country could turn out more doctors, nurses pharmacists, and technicians which would create competition in the medical marketplace.

But the government is in love with the idea of socialized medicine, and no matter how you slice it if the federal government gains control of anything to do with medical insurance, medical institutions, or the pharmacy industry we are going to pay for it financially because of higher taxes, physically because of sub-standard medical care, and emotionally because we will have lost another freedom.

Now that a third ACORN video has surfaced, a pattern emerges of ACORN workers willing to help people engage in prostitution, tax fraud, housing fraud, and even human trafficking. Under federal law, a RICO investigation is now warranted. Three strikes and you’re out, ACORN.

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EXCLUSIVE: W.H. collects Web users’ data without notice – Washington Times

The White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube without notifying or asking the consent of the site users, a failure that appears to run counter to President Obama’s promise of a transparent government and his pledge to protect privacy on the Internet.