THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT FUNNY!

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT FUNNY!

(The Foundry, Investors.com, The Heritage Foundation)

(Business News, Coto Report, Americans for Tax Reform)

(Meghan Foley, Frazer Chronicle)

 

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, what’s the deal with something that should have been addressed a long, long time ago? Here are a few easy questions that popped into my mind this morning regarding this seemingly thorny issue. Before you answer any of these questions, the reader must be totally honest…..not to me, but to yourself!

If you allow partisanship, or follow the blind conviction of your peer group to taint your honest answers to my questions, you will fail not only me…..but yourself. If you are pressured to answer my questions while not relying totally on your own experiences and opinions…..you will lose!

These questions are from my own experiences, from a time when I didn’t act and conduct my life in a responsible way. I was swayed by the ignorance of youth, and the attitude of invincibility, it’s an attitude that clearly 90% have during their young adult life!

The questions are as follows, remember, to be honest and to answer each query in your own word:

 

A. Do you think that a hospital emergency should not serve as a doctor’s office for the uninsured?

B. Do you think that one of the benefits that employers offer to its employees should be health insurance?

C. Do you think that any person who has enough money to seek private health coverage should be exempt for paying a tax to cover those people without health insurance?

D. Do you think that people who do not abide by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act rules and regulations should be fined as prescribed by the act?

E. Do you think that states who do not abide by the act should be fined, or a portion of federal funding withheld?

F. Do you agree with the effective schedule of enacting dates?

G. Do you feel that you are knowledgeable about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act?

H. Do you fully understand how the plan will be funded?

There you have it, eight questions that will either answer the depths of your knowledge about this most serious of issues, or will show how much you still need to learn. The days of letting the government that we elect do our bidding is at an end…..and probably has been for quite a while.

We need to be aware, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a perfect example of what I am talking about. There are three basic health insurance plans that are used today, a single payer, where the federal government picks up the cost, a two tier, where the federal government provides basic, medical care necessities while a secondary tier of care exists for those who can purchase additional health care services.

And thirdly, Health Insurance Mandate, the practice that currently the United States uses, and which the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act…..Obamacare will replace. However mostly at the present time, in the United States, health insurance is either offered by employers, or paid for by private individuals.

 

YOU’D BE SURPRISED

At least I was the number of countries that have single payer or government payer plans that are in place, sixteen at the present time, with Cuba and Costa Rica coming on board to swell the number to eighteen, with government provided care.

 

There also are nine countries with a two tier system in place, the basic necessities practice of health care and the additional health insurance paid for by the citizen. The thing that really blew my mind was the fact that some of these programs had been in place for decades, and in Norway’s case, coming up on one hundred and one years!

 

Outside of the United States, I guess IN THE REAL WORLD; equal health care has been practiced for a long, long time. All the while the U.S. has been sitting on its collective hands and allowing the health care industry to dictate the speed at which the industry will change.

 

When the United States Supreme Court allowed President Obama’s health care plan to be uncontested, over time, over time it will become the law of the land. The individual mandate was the most contentious provision of the health care act. In 2014 most Americans will be required have health coverage. Those who do not comply will be forced to pay a financial penalty to be phased in through 2016.

 

I totally understand that the health care industry, overall needs to make a profit, but band-aids that cost $50 bucks, or two aspirins that cost a whooping $75 each I’d say were just a tad-bit overpriced. I know the aspirin price to be accurate because it’s what my wife’s insurance company was billed a couple years ago.

 

I ALSO UNDERSTAND BUSINESS AND THEIR FEAR

I worked for a news delivery company in the late 1990’s, and during my two years with the company, I never once received a raise, nor was I offered any benefits…..like health insurance. The company was small, 30 or 40 employees, and having to pick up health insurance coverage probably would have broken the back of the company.

 

However I do not understand how this guy wouldn’t give raises, (it wasn’t just me, it was everybody) he bought a 70’ motor home that was rumored to have cost the man $200,000. In other words, by not granting raises, and by not offering benefits of any kind, this jerk went out and bought himself a gaudy whistles and bells motor home that half of his working staff could have traveled in very comfortable.

 

Like a whole bunch of politicians keep saying, “business reinvests” it’s why government should offer incentives and tax-breaks, these people will create jobs to help make the economy strong. FLASH, I don’t call washing an R.V. creating jobs.

 

A mandate that forces employers to obtain health insurance for their employees is not the right way to go either…..yes, I agree with those folks who cry poverty and doom and glum regarding the idea of this mandate. Health insurance should be a right of every citizen in the United States, if a person can afford to pay for his own care, that is great…..but does not relieve any kind tax that everybody will eventually pay for the service.

 

Obamacare will not drive less skilled workers out of full-time jobs, business has always found a way to circumvent whatever new standard is forced on them by government, it’s the nature of the beast. This health care act ultimately will be no different.

 

Will taxes go up…..absolutely, could it be any other way, with a new service for the American citizens, tax money will be necessary to pay for the service. When will we ever get over this idea that our federal government is us? Our Federal Government is nothing more than a group of officials that we elected into office to devise ways to spend the taxes that we pay!

 

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, (Obamacare) for a country that boasts itself a world leader, and the most affluent country in history should afford nothing less to its citizens than the best possible health care.

 

Okay Obama and his medical directors do sound a bit condescending, but I’ve talked to some people who have absolutely no clue about what Obama’s health care act really is all about. Will the act break the bank…..of course not; remember we paid for health insurance for millions of Iraqi’s…..”oh yes we did,” should we not accord the same for…..us?

 

It’s time to quite bickering, quite the damn political posturing, sit our collective butts down, roll up our sleeves, and work together to make the question of health care the best in the world.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!