Under the Oak

Rowan Scarborough, of HumanEvents.com, is drawing attention to the fact that the White House is delaying making a tough decision about Afghanistan because it could hurt them in the Health Care debate on Capital Hill.

At the heart of the matter is spending. The White House has figured in big savings in defense spending over the next five years, creating more money for the president’s big domestic programs, primarily health care. Those savings come from, No. 1, terminating weapons programs, and, No. 2, bringing troops home from Iraq. . .But if troops freed up in Iraq simply move to Afghanistan, war costs will go up, not down, as will the huge federal deficit. And Obama’s whopping health care bill would likely run into more detractors on Capital Hill.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not entirely sure that I like the idea of us sending more troops to Af-Pak, but I definitely do NOT like that the President is delaying a vital war decision based on Obamacare’s floundering in Congress.

Think what you will about W, but at least the man could make bold decisions without biting his nails over his own political well being.

I’ve been thinking for a day or two how I might express my absolute disgust at the notion that strong opposition to Obamacare is based on race. This basic idea that opposing Obama = racism has been floating around almost since election night, but in the past week (out of desperation) it has been taken up by mainstream media (E.g., Dowd), former presidents, and congressmen. Thankfully, I don’t have to dig too deep to find the words because Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, has beat me to it.

I actually kinda like Obama as a person. He seems like the kind of guy that it’d be fun to hang out with…maybe shoot some pool…play some chess. That kinda thing.

His crazy-liberal agenda. Not so much. And many (the majority) of Americans aren’t too keen on it either. For instance, I don’t know very many people willing to pay $1761/yr to SAVE THE PLANET from CERTAIN DOOM. On health care, the president stood before congress and claimed that a program which brings 30 million new insured patients, government regulation, and no rationing is “deficit neutral.” Given that this is MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE, I think it is safe to say that Joe Wilson’s outburst, admittedly inappropriate in the room itself, was appropriately echoing through living rooms across the country.

Does opposing the President’s outrageous agenda make Joe Wilson, me, or anyone else a racist?

If so…well…then I’ll just have to be a racist…who doesn’t judge people based on something as silly as the color of their skin…err…yeah…one of those…

In other news: Obama has decided that making Putin and Mother Russia happy is more important than protecting ourselves and our allies from nuclear tipped missiles.

And to think, we’re not even 1/4 of the way through Obama’s presidency.

Today, the Republicans are offering An Alternative to Obamacare in the form of the Patients’ Choice Act. I am by no means an expert on health care (just mine) or on health insurance, but this sentence alone has me sold:

We do this by first ending the discrimination in the tax code that rewards corporations and employers for offering insurance yet offers no benefit to the unemployed and is unfair to the self-employed.

As a preacher, I don’t have health care provided by an employer (God didn’t care much for the tax incentives). The health insurance companies offer plans for self-employed and unemployed folks, but they are very expensive. When I moved from Kansas City to Clovis, NM, I was paying almost $200/month for a bare minimum coverage plan. After living in Clovis for six months or so, I received a letter informing me that starting with the next month, my premium would be almost $400/month and giving a detailed explanation of how each of the coverage areas was being cut in half – half the coverage, twice the cost. I haven’t had health insurance since then. I’m hoping to change that when I pay off the credit card (October? Maybe!), but I fully expect it to be in the neighborhood of $300-$400/month. That is a lot of money that could be going to paying off debt, buying a decent mattress, gym membership, etc. You know…the kinds of things that would improve my health dramatically. It is very hard for me to justify that monthly expense given that I haven’t even been to a doctor in five years (I know, I know…its still a huge risk).

What the Patients’ Choice Act does (among other things…some of which I don’t really understand) is sever the tie between health insurance and employer which never made sense anyway. Why should my health insurance be tied to my employment? How many people are sticking to jobs which they do not like or are not good at because it provides health insurance? How many times have we heard someone say something to the effect of “well I’d like to quit but we have the kids on my health insurance and it would cost XXX more per month if it was just (the spouse) working”. How does that make sense? By rending apart that which Government has put together, the “playing field will be equal” as the liberals like to put it. We “self-employed” people will have the same chance for affordable health insurance that other folks have. I suspect that not having people working jobs they don’t like (and likely are not productive at) will be a healthy thing for our economy as well.

Finally, our bill accomplishes these goals without spending any new federal money, or raising taxes. If this sounds too good to be true, we would note that the problem in health care is not that we don’t spend enough, but that Americans aren’t getting enough value for their dollars. On a per capita basis, America spends nearly twice what other industrialized nations spend on health care yet we are hardly twice as healthy.

The American people deserve better. Congress should be looking to 2040, not 1940 or 1965. We can achieve universal access to quality, affordable health care without bankrupting our children with trillions more in debt or imposing draconian tax hikes on all Americans. It can be done, and the Patients’ Choice Act shows us how.

Emphases mine.