"The defenders of the status quo are bankrupting America"

Obama putting heavy imprint on big speech - CNN.com: "'The defenders of the status quo are bankrupting America,' the administration official said of Republicans.

Yes, the Whitehouse is blaming republicans for bankrupting America. Not the four trillion dollars of budgeted debt that the current Democrat controlled Whitehouse and administration have run up; Not the projected doubling of our National Debt over the next ten years.

Yes, there is a problem with healthcare. Many of us can't afford it. I think that the problem is that insurance companies pay most of our health care costs. It is the "deep pocket" syndrome. When someone else is footing the bill, we tend to not care about cost.

Take car insurance for example. In most states of the U.S. it is mandatory to carry liability insurance. If your car is financed, then the bank requires that you carry comprehensive insurance to protect their collateral for your loan.

So you get into a fender-bender, pay a small deductible and someone else pays the rest of the bill. Sounds fair right?

Recent collision tests of mid-size family cars (supposedly the safest) showed that 2-5 mph collisions resulted in up to $3,000 in damages! What happened to those 5 mph Federally mandated bumpers so that there would be no damage? The bumpers are still there. Anything much faster, i.e. at real world speeds, means that the car is totaled and the insurance company has to pay it off. It is totaled not because of the damage itself, but because of the repair costs to the insurance company make it cheaper to scrap it than to repair it.

Here's an example from my personal life. About 20 years ago, I'd borrowed a motorcycle from a friend. While riding it for the weekend, I left my 1971 Pinto parked on the street in front of his apartment. Now granted, my 18 year old Pinto wasn't a classic, but it was in darn near perfect shape with a recent paint job and no damage. The car was a great commuter car.

That night he calls me that I need to get over there right away, that my car had been hit. A young lady was sitting in his living room crying when I got there. Totally stoned on marijuana, she'd left her boyfriend's apartment next door, gotten in her car and (supposedly) her foot slipped off the brake onto the gas. This made her car launch across a parking lot, over the sidewalk and curb and strike the right front fender of my car. My car was knocked into the street at a 45 degree angle to the curb. The visible damage was to the fender, hood, right headlight area and grill.

I worked out a deal with her father to keep her from going to jail and a drug conviction. A very reputable body shop quoted me over $2,000 for the repairs. When I objected, I told him I was paying cash. The price immediately dropped to $800.

Now let's look at health insurance. The difference here is that most hospitals don't give a cash discount like that.

Back in July, I had a colonoscopy. Despite the jokes and horror stories going around, it wasn't a bad experience, except for the "cleansing" prep the day before. For those who don't know what the colonoscopy is, it is a check for colon cancer and a test that especially men for some reason should have every five to ten years once they turn 50. It is a simple test, they put you to sleep and insert a cable that has a camera attached up your butt and go in about four feet.

So far, I've gotten bills from the doctor, the hospital where it was done as a day surgery, the lab that analyzed the polyps that were removed, the anesthesiologist, and I think there is one in there somewhere from the janitor.

Now... I have no clue as to what something should cost, but I'd originally guessed that the colonoscopy would run about $1,000 as it is a simple procedure and only takes a couple of hours.

Naive me.

The Doctor's office charged $720, the Anesthesiologist charged $1,100 and the hospital they used charged $6,136!

The total bill (Not including labs or janitors) came to almost $8,000!

Of that I had to pay $888.69 out of pocket and the insurance company paid $2,336 and disallowed the rest.

Another example. I had a doctor visit in June at a local clinic. Nothing fancy at all. Just checked height, weight and BP and a consultation with the doc to get a prescription renewed. I paid a $25 co-pay. The clinic bill the insurance company $138.60 on top of that. The insurance company paid $13.30. Now if I was a cash customer, it'd have cost me the full $138.60. On the other hand, the clinic will probably get that $13.30 every month as an HMO provider whether I go there or not. That means that if I go once a year, billing wise, they've almost broken even.

Now in September, I visited the medical community again. And I shudder to think of the bills. Paramedics, ambulance ride, four to five hours in the emergency room, three calendar days in the cardiac care unit, two cardiologists, two doctors (all four of whom I saw for maybe 20 minutes total) and untold lab tests.

That will certainly exceed the $5,200 a year I pay in insurance premiums.

So who is bankrupting America?

The most visible group is Congress. As I've pointed out before, they are the ONLY ones in the Federal government who can spend money. If a penny is spent, a penny taxed, something regulated or something deregulated, it is because that body of 535 people approved it. Congress tries to pass the buck for bad things "We inherited this" (from themselves) and blame past presidents of "the other party"... presidents who can't spend a penny.

As it currently sits, they are working to bankrupt America by running up the national debt and bringing on hyper-inflation. Many of the countries who have been buying our debt, most notably China, are more and more reluctant to do so.

If that wasn't bad enough, we older Americans are doing our share. In 2007, 60% of our population was supporting the 12.6% over 65.

By 2020, just eleven years away, another almost 100 million of us will reach retirement age.

That's 1/3rd of our population.

That's 1/3rd of our population added to medicare and social security rolls.

Since Congress stole the Social Security trust fund to pay for the Viet Nam war, it has been pretty much a pay as you go Ponzi scheme since then with the working citizens paying for the benefits of the retired citizens.

In 2015-2020, there won't be enough paying in to pay the promised benefits.

So there are only three solutions:

1. Take more from the workers
2. Borrow the money to make up the difference
3. Reduce costs

Option 1, like any tax is distasteful and could be political suicide for any member of congress who pushes for it.

Option 2, is already a non-starter as we are so heavily in debt that no one really wants to loan us the money. And it is only going to get worse.

Which leaves us with reducing costs. Despite claims of this health bill not competing against insurance companies, the only way for the Federal Government to reduce medical costs is to ration health care. The President is scheduled to mention this in his speech tonight. I haven't had time to see if he did. But one of the things mentioned as a push to "cap end-of-life healthcare expenses". Meaning that someone in government will decide just how much money will be spent on old folks.

This ties into the other way to reduce expenses. Reduce the number of people running up the expenses and collecting Social Security. I.E., kill off the old folks.

Face it, most of us who reach retirement age pay little into the tax system. We no longer work to fill the Federal Pig Trough. So those of us who are that age, not millionaires and not politicians are a drain. Instead, we're taking money from the Feds.

So since we have no value to them, they'll give us our gold plated watches, put us out to pasture and then withhold our healthcare so that we die and they don't have to support us.

President Obama and Congress swear that this isn't the case. We all know that politicians lie. We almost expect it of them.

(Via CNN.)