Yes, that's right, sports fans, your ol' Pope (Pope John The
Tall of the All John All The Time World Church and Gambling Casino; see above for the explanation of my meteoric rise to this lofty pinochle) is finally
back from his self-enforced hiatus from writing here on the blog for the AJATTWC;
I'm sure you've missed me terribly.
All I can say is that I've been busy; being Pope has some
tremendous duties and responsibilities: there's all those holy cards to bless,
all that sacramental wine to be tasted and approved, keeping track of the
Sisters from the Society Of Our Lady Of The Holy Fundament (see my post dated
6/10/11), boy, the list just goes on and on, much like I do sometimes.
Anyway, I'm back, and like it or not, I have some comments I
want to make, so there.
I was recently made aware of a video by a man named Dave
Ramsey by someone close to me, and after viewing Mr. Ramsey and listening to
his remarks in said video, I thought I might take a moment (or two) and
respond. (If you're not familiar with Mr. Ramsey, I quote from the WikiPedia
article on him:
"David
L. Ramsey III is an American financial author, radio host, television
personality, and motivational speaker. His show and writings strongly focus on
encouraging people to get out of debt.")
I have on several occasions availed myself to Mr. Ramsey's
radio show and some of his various writings, and I will tell you that I like
his ideas and mostly agree with his points of view. He is engaging, articulate,
funny and, as far as I can tell, clear-thinking.
The video (see below for the link) that he produced was
entitled "Dave Ramsey lays out the facts of Obamacare for both Democrats
and Republicans", and was featured on the website Poor Richard's News on
October 11th of this year. In it he gives his take on the Affordable Care Act,
and it's implications for all of us.
Mr. Ramsey makes the theme of his talk "do the
math", and repeatedly returns to that phrase throughout; his general idea
is that, Democrat or Republican (and I assume those of our citizens who are
Libertarians, Green Party, National Socialists, et. al., are included as well), everyone
should do the math on Obamacare and realize that, gee, guess what, our health
insurance premiums, for those of us who have existing healthcare policies, are
going to go up as a result of the enactment of the ACA.
As far as I can tell, he's right: somebody is going to pay
for all those cheap health insurance policies. And that somebody is all of us.
Now a little "full disclosure" here:
A) I have considered myself a "moderate
Republican" all my adult life, having voted for GOP Presidential
candidates starting in 1972 with Richard Nixon, and continuing through 2004
when I finally broke with the Party and voted for John Kerry, because I
couldn't imagine another four years of that crack-brained moron George W. Bush.
I made another break in 2012 when I voted for a third party candidate, namely
Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, when I felt that Mitt Romney had no more
business being President than my 10-year old grandson, and I couldn't bring
myself to vote of Barrack Obama.
B) I agree completely with the views expressed by Dave
Ramsey in his video.
I do not like Obamacare, for reasons too numerous to delve
into here; suffice to say that many of it's prime characteristics are anathema
to me as a small-government, controlled-spending, personal freedom first
Republican kind of guy.
The problem (you knew there was one coming, didn't you?)
with Mr. Ramsey's position is this: Dave, it's easy to be against something you
don't like or of which you disapprove; how about some concrete, positive ideas
as an alternative for a change?
Our genius GOP legislators in the Congress just recently
managed to hamstring this country once again with their hair-brained idea to
shut-down the Federal government and force a reexamination of Obamacare, with
the thought to defund it. In the process, they damaged the fragile recovery our
economy is experiencing, cost the country an estimated $24 BILLION in lost
business and lowered our already shaky esteem in the world marketplace.
And in the midst of all the rhetoric and accusations back
and forth between the Republican Tea-Party Congressmen and the President, not
once did I hear ANYONE advance a viable alternative to the ACA.
And like it or not, as Mr. Ramsey keeps repeating in his
video, everybody should do the math, but that's not enough; somebody, somewhere
needs to stand up and take it one step further and suggest a better idea.
Because we have approximately 46 million of our citizens
here in this country that lack healthcare insurance, and thus, access to care
for their medical needs.
46 million people with no insurance that allows them to see
a doctor, get treatment for a sickness or injury, a prescription for
medication, or any other healthcare-related process.
And the math is that these 46 million people will eventually
show up at clinics and emergency rooms in need of help for an sickness/injury,
which by the way might have been completely avoided had they had access to a
doctor's ongoing care in the first place, and lacking the ability to pay for
their treatment (and Federal law says the healthcare provider must treat them),
they run up bills that are then absorbed by the hospital/clinic/whatever, and
guess what, folks: that expense is then added on to the cost of ALL of our
healthcare, in the form of increased fees for doctors, nurses, facilities,
medicines, etc. and passed on to all of us.
Don't believe me? Get a hold of a hospital bill and see what
they charge for a dosage of Tylenol.
Yep, do the math: the lack of health insurance for all
Americans costs each of us plenty.
Now I suspect that Mr. Ramsey, given his points of view and
proclivities, is a very conservative Republican, and good for him; for example,
he drags out the very GOP talking point of "privatized" Social
Security accounts for each person in the country. (Investing in mutual funds
for the average person as an alternative to Social Security? Brilliant. Let me
give you a quote from the prospectus from one of the funds I'm invested in:
"As with any mutual
fund, there is no guarantee that the fund will
achieve its objective. The
fund’s share price fluctuates, which means you could lose
money by investing in the
fund."
Yeah, great idea, dude.)
He also mentions the rights of all of us under the 2nd
Amendment, and I haven't a clue what that has to do with Obamacare, but,
whatever.
So I have a feeling that, given Dave's rather conservative
approach, he's not going to like my "better suggestion" to the ACA,
something that he didn't have in his speech. Ready? Here goes:
One-payer. As my daughter would say, easy-peasy. Or at least extend Medicare-like benefits to all U.S. citizens.
Yes, that goes against everything the GOP stands for and
believes in (as do I): the free-market system, the profit principle,
entrepreneurship, apple pie and the American flag.
Big pharma, hospital corporations, doctors, insurance
companies, all those folks would have to find ways to survive in a climate of
"walk into an emergency room or a clinic or doctor's office, present your
ID card, receive care or treatment, no charge."
I can hear all the air being sucked out of the room while my
Republican friends read this. But it would cost less if everyone took a fair
cut and just provided quality care, period.
Dave mentions "communism" in his video, and that's
what one-payer healthcare probably sounds like, right? But
"communism" is defined in my dictionary as "an economic theory
or system of the ownership of property, means of production and distribution by
the community or society".
Nobody is going to own Merck, or Blue Cross or ABC Hospital
Corporation but the stockholders; the distribution of funds would just be
different.
One-payer, everybody is covered.
Do the math, Dave, because either way, under the present
system or under Obamacare, it's costing us all.
And we're all getting screwed.
Love and stethoscopes,
PJTT
