If I Ran The United States, How Would I Attempt To Modify It?

Suppose you awakened one morning to discover that you had been appointed imperial leader of the United States while you slept. What would you do with that ultimate human power? Would you rule or would you govern? Would you dictate or negotiate? Would you desire to be reasonably benevolent, or would you rule with an iron hand? Would you have personal advisers or boot-licking lackeys? If you chose to have advisers, would you actually listen to their advice and carefully consider it, or would they simply be "window dressing"?

The world of politics is treacherously labyrinthine, as evidenced by the almost annual coups d'état (the sudden, illegal deposition of a government) somewhere on this planet. For centuries a ruler's worst enemies were his closest relatives (it was a matter of "succession to the throne")! Second place on the "enemies list" seems to have been held by the general(s) in charge of a ruler's military forces, and Julius Caesar was stabbed twenty-three times - unto death - from dagger wounds inflicted by members of his own Senate.

Today, total strangers are also assassins of leaders. In 1950 an attempt was made on President Harry Truman's life by two Puerto Rican nationalists. Lee Harvey Oswald, with no known relationship to President John F. Kennedy, took that President's life. A lone Turk attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II. The Pope was shot and severely wounded as he entered St. Peter's Square in the Vatican. The would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, was a member of a Turkish terrorist organization known as the Gray Wolves. The list goes on and on, showing perhaps hundreds of attempts we have never heard of.

Politics and large scale leadership positions can be a very dangerous place for those who have the strength of their convictions, but a safe-haven for the cowards of the world. Someone once said that "The United States of America has the best politicians money can buy", and money apparently does buy them. Who - enjoying good mental health - would spend millions of dollars running for an office that only pays in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars? An altruist? If you can show me an altruist in national politics, I'll show you a nun in a brothel!

If I became the Grand Poo-bah of the USA, there would definitely be some changes made. Let's begin with the most hotly debated issue affecting primarily the southwestern United States - "Immigration Reform": We have federal laws in-place forbidding entry into our country without the proper authorization, but the feds choose not to enthusiastically enforce those laws. Illegal immigrants have demonstrated their disregard for our laws simply by their unauthorized presence within our borders. Our government, disregarding the will of the people, has chosen to reward the illegal aliens by allowing them to not only remain in the country, but to provide them with benefits that average American citizens are denied. What's wrong with this picture?

In my world here's what undocumented visitors to our country would get... NOTHING!

1. It would be a violation of the law for illegal aliens to be given bank loans and, if they were given, the loan officer, the bank manager and the president of the bank issuing such loan would be arrested and prosecuted.
2. Housing would not be available to anybody unable to prove citizenship or government authorization. Anyone providing housing in violation of that law would be subject to arrest and prosecution.
3. Medical care - for anything other than life saving procedures - would not be available to illegal aliens. Hospitals would be required to report anyone without documentation - who requested a life saving procedure - to Homeland Security/I.C.E. Division. Failure to do so would make the offending medical personnel subject to arrest and prosecution.
4. Illegals would not be eligible for welfare, unemployment insurance or Social Security benefits. Any agent of a municipal, county, state or federal agency permitting illegal aliens to apply for such benefits would be subject to arrest and prosecution.
5. Any child born to an illegal immigrant would not receive automatic citizenship status upon birth. The child is determined to be as illegal as the parent(s) inasmuch as it was transported into the USA in violation of our immigration laws.
6. There would be no amnesty for reasons other than political persecution, and even then amnesty would be on a case-by-case basis. There would be no automatic amnesty.
7. Border enforcement would be the responsibility of the "National Guard". What is the purpose of a "National Guard" if not to guard the nation? The Governor of each state has the right and responsibility to activate that state's National Guard in times of emergency. What's the emergency? A subtle, silent "invasion" of our country - primarily across our southern borders.
(The presence of a foreigner in Mexico without proper authorization is classified as a felony. The penalty for the first offense is imprisonment, not to exceed 2 years. The penalty for the second offense is imprisonment, not to exceed 10 years. The Mexican government seems to take its sovereignty much more seriously than the US government takes ours.)


My second objective would be the elimination of Obamacare - the mandatory national health care program. The people don't want it... but the left-wing, bleeding-heart, Marxist, liberal-"progressives" in charge do. It's just another way for the government to increase citizen dependency upon the "Nanny State".

1. The government does not have the Constitutional authority to require citizens to buy a non-competitive government product or service, nor do they have the authority to monopolize any industry by legislating its competitors out of business. On the other hand, the current administration doesn't seem to be aware that we even have that pesky document call the Constitution.

2.Healthcare for all U.S. citizens is desirable, but those of us who have our own health insurance should not be forced to purchase that demanded by the government. Again, life-saving procedures should be available to all, regardless of their ability to pay. Colds, sprains and other sources of discomfort not being seen as "life-threatening" should not be treated on the public dime. Deal with it - as responsible people have for centuries.

3. No single "class" of people (i.e. - illegal residents) should be free from any taxation imposed upon the majority of citizens. Nor should our elected officials be free from the same healthcare system that would be forced upon the general population.

4. Healthcare should be available nationwide, and at reasonable rates in a competitive environment. Competitors should not be restricted to providing coverage only in a particular state or region as they are now.

Next I'll tackle "Outsourcing". This is probably the single greatest source of unemployment in the United States. Outsourcing is the practice of establishing production facilities and/or subcontracting the production of U.S. goods and services to a foreign nation. Why are manufacturers turning to outsourcing more and more? Quite simply it saves them money. How? Because the countries that are benefiting from outsourced American jobs do not have to engage in collective bargaining with the AFL-CIO and the SEIU. Labor Unions are responsible for the recent collapse of two-thirds of the U.S. automotive industry. Automotive assembly line workers in the U.S. (who may not even have a high school diploma) are making (as opposed to "earning") - on the average - approximately 60% more in their pay and benefits package (negotiated by the UAW, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO) than a tenured college professor. At the same time, we still produce an inferior automobile compared to Japan and much of Europe. Why? Because the union contracts make it almost impossible for Ford, GM and Chrysler to fire anybody. The attitude has become one of - just show up for work even if you don't do anything of quality... or anything period, since they can't fire you without facing potential work stoppages from your union brethren. How would I rectify this situation?

1. Eliminate labor unions. (I can hear almost the screams of outrage from the brotherhoods now!) I can understand why they love their union-supported "job". Union members are at the very top of the labor pay scale - stopping just short of junior corporate executives. In closed-shop states (union membership required in order to work) the cost of living is based upon union-scale wages, which is fine for the workers of that state. However, the increased cost of that which they produce, and consume, is felt nation-wide.

2. Collective bargaining between the employees and the corporation/company for which they work would be allowed in order to establish a fair wage and benefit package for the workers. There will be no outside involvement other than independent arbitrators

3. Any American corporation outsourcing jobs outside the 50 United States and its Trust Territories would be required to do the following:

a. Pay normal import taxes upon any product produced either by their overseas corporation, or any foreign subcontractor.

b. Pay complete unemployment compensation, including medical insurance, for each American job or product outsourced to a foreign location.

c. Any American business entity establishing its headquarters overseas will be treated as a foreign corporation and subject to all tariffs imposed upon a foreign corporation, plus be subject to a tax equal to the cost of providing American workers - equal to the total number of foreign employees of that corporation - with unemployment insurance, including medical benefits.

And THAT'S just for openers!

YOU ARE OWED NOTHING EXCEPT AN OPPORTUNITY TO FAIL ON YOUR OWN!

(and if you don't... CONGRATULATIONS!)

Are We As DUMB As Our Elected Representatives THINK We Are?

Hav yu goten thee impreshun that hour politishuns thenk We the People ar stoopid? We seem to provide genuine proof of that opinion by our voting records. We repeatedly put the same worthless people back into office, even after they have shown their disdain for what the people who put them into office really want.

If our politicians were half as smart as they think they are, they would be serving their constituency rather than "servicing" them. Obama just finished his "Health Care Summit", loaded of course, to his advantage - 20 Democraps and 17 mostly RINOs (Republican In Name Only). There was no discussion... simply a lecture by The Chosen One, laying the blame for his failure to move Obamacare through the House and Senate at the feet of the Republican party. That's politics for you! The Republicans are reflecting the true desires of the majority of Americans - we do not want or need a socialist takeover of health care by the Government. It is not cost effective, it will increase taxes. It will result in longer waits for treatment and, in some cases, the wait will be too long. It will cover those who are not citizens of this country, most of whom - if working at all - are working for "cash under the table", and are therefore not paying into the system. It will overtax our existing medical workforce, resulting in qualified medical personnel leaving the field, placing an increasing burden on those who remain, resulting in even longer waits for medical treatment.
Many doctors have said they would give up the practice of medicine should Obamacare become law. More government interference is not the answer to our health care issues. Tort reform is a partial answer. Severe reductions in the cost of medical training is another partial answer. Reasonable (40% - standard retail markup) profit margins on medical supplies and equipment would reduce expenses, which should reduce patient costs. Allowing the sale and purchase of health insurance across state lines would increase competition, and should therefore reduce premium costs. Including small businesses in large "Group Plans" thereby reducing premium costs. Insurance companies should be responsible for covering preventive care - which may cost them only a small fraction of what corrective treatment would cost.

I am a recipient of Medicare now, having paid into it almost all my working life, and continuing to do so in retirement. My personal physician recently put a letter out to all his patients the general thrust of which was: Doctors lose money on every Medicare patient they treat. This is true throughout the state OMA, and the national AMA. If national health care becomes a requirement I will have to cease treating Medicare and Medicaid patients.
I may be carrying that statement to the wrong conclusion, but it appears to me that although we will have Medicare coverage, we seniors will be unable to get treatment under it. What is the practical difference between that and being uninsured??
Then we will have millions more without usable medical coverage - which we will probably continue to be charged for via Social Security deduction. Where is the gain in that?

Health Care Reform for Dummies - Part II

This is my very own improved plan for health care management in the United States of America...

Government regulation is probably needed in the following areas:
1. Medical Equipment Manufacturers - Regulation is needed to reduce the obscene profits on medical hardware. Profits in the $800,000+ range for one low-end Magnetic Resonance Imager (MRI) have surpassed reasonable profit, and entered the realm of profiteering. R&D and associated production and marketing costs should be amortized over the estimated life of the equipment - let's call it 10 years. This would eliminate the temptation to attempt to recoup all expenses in the first 10 units sold. All expenses in R&D, production and marketing would be tax deductible for the corporation during that 10 year period - but the corporation would not be tax exempt.

2. Medical Supplies Manufacturers - This would include expendable single-use supplies such as bandages, tongue depressors, disposable hypodermic syringes, catheters, cast materials, etc., and would be regulated essentially the same as above.

3. Pharmaceutical Manufacturers - No more gouging the American people. If product "X" is only worth $3 in Bangladesh, Indonesia, India or Somalia, then it's only worth $3 on this planet. Regulation would be essentially the same as #1, above.

4. Hospitals - This is basically the retail part of the business of medicine. The hospitals are not only saddled with the expenses forced upon them by equipment, supplies, and pharmaceutical manufacturers, they have the additional overhead expenses of personnel to cook, clean to hospital standards, and provide security within the boundaries of the hospital campus. Then there are the professional costs and wages. The average MD in the USA makes $171,000 per year. That's good money. The average nursing school graduate is paid an average of $22 per hour during the first year, and by the fourth year can be earning $25 per hour, average. To offset their overhead expenses hospitals charge about $5 for a band aid and $8 for an aspirin, and about $1,000 a day for a room! Hospitals should be regulated insofar as charges for consumables (supplies and pharmaceuticals) goes. Cost + 40% is the generally considered the retail standard markup, and that should work for hospitals too - as long as the rest of the medical system is working as it should.

5. Doctors - Doctors should be permitted to practice medicine using their best judgment, and nobody other than their immediate supervisor or the medical licensing board should be allowed to interfere. Doctors should be protected against outrageous lawsuits by capping suits against medical professionals at $500,000. Having a ceiling on malpractice lawsuits should reduce a doctors cost for malpractice insurance, and allow them to charge substantially less than $10 per minute for their time. Many doctors are paying $150,000-$200,000 annually, and a few pay even more for insurance. However, the majority find themselves in the $60,00 per year category. Now we have a chicken-egg-chicken situation... are doctors paying exorbitantly high premiums for insurance because they charge a lot for their services? Do they charge a lot for their services because their insurance is so high? Do they pay a lot for insurance because they may be sued for ridiculous amounts of money? A doctor's malpractice premiums are probably outrageously high because they do get sued for ridiculous amounts of money - by US! We are the primary driving force behind the exorbitant cost of health care. Lawsuits, non-payment for services, equipment costs, student loans to cover outrageous medical school costs, etc. all figure into the equation used to determine what 10 minutes of MD time is worth.

6. Health/Medical Insurance Companies - Most insurance companies are publicly traded, which means they are listed on one of the several stock exchanges, and are available to individuals, consortiums or other corporations to purchase stock. The insurance companies, as do all publicly traded corporations, have an obligation to their stock holders to show quarterly profits and pay dividends to the investors based upon the amount of money they have invested. Adding known "risk" to the group comprising policy holders increases the possibility of payouts and reduces the probability of producing those dividends. The uninsurable were classified that way for a reason - RISK! Insurance companies like to take money, and hate to part with it. If the insurers were forced to accept previously uninsurable clients, one of two things would have to happen:
a. The risk presented by the uninsurable would have to be paid for with higher than normal premiums... so high they would undoubtedly be unaffordable to 90% of those desiring insurance coverage, or
b. The premium rates of all insureds would have to be increased to offset the potential for increased losses by the insurance company.
Health/Medical insurance companies must be allowed - better yet, make that required - to sell policies in all 50 states, thereby increasing competition, and through that competition for the available health insurance $$, lower the costs of health insurance. In order for this plan to be cost-effective all the elements must come into play. And, sadly, the uninsurable must remain the uninsurable. Let the doctors and hospitals do a little pro bono work now and then, and make it completely tax deductible.

The "bottom line" is:

It is human GREED that keeps our health care costs in the stratosphere.

(Oh, yeah... and I did this with about 2,200 pages fewer than Congress!)

The Realities of Insuring The Uninsurable - THE HEALTH CARE CRISIS IN AMERICA!

The latest iteration of the Democrats health care bill includes wording that, in effect states: "Government approved health care insurers (and they must all be "government approved") must provide insurance to those with preexisting conditions at the same premium rate as other insureds of the same demographic."That sounds wonderful on the surface, especially if you are one of those people who are currently uninsurable... but, when you look at it strictly from a business standpoint it presents quite a challenge to the insurance industry. Take just a second here to think about how you would handle the challenge if you were the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield, or one of the other big health insurance companies, keeping in mind that all insurance companies set their premiums based upon risk. They have people called "actuaries" (recently there has been a trend toward calling actuaries "risk managers") whose only job is to evaluate the risk factor (risk of potential payout) involved in issuing policies based upon gender, age, physical condition, alcohol or drug usage, smoking/non-smoking, occupational hazards, etc.. (I'll wait while you do that...).

Do you have a plan of action now? Well, we're proceeding regardless.

Most insurance companies are publicly traded, which means they are listed on one of the several stock exchanges, and are available to individuals, consortiums or other corporations to purchase stock. The insurance companies, as do all publicly traded corporations, have an obligation to their stock holders to show quarterly profits and pay dividends to the investors based upon the amount of money they have invested. Adding known "risk" to the group comprising policy holders increases the possibility of payouts and reduces the probability of producing those dividends. So, what are your options as CEO?

1. Maintain the status quo and do nothing. Continue to issue policies at the same premium rates even though you have been forced to accept 500,000 clients previously designated as uninsurable due to preexisting conditions. In about a year you can either ask the government for a bailout... or file for bankruptcy. Bad choice.

2. Work the technicalities of the government mandate to your favor. Government approved providers "must provide insurance to those with preexisting conditions at the same premium rate as other insureds of the same demographic." Increase everybody's premium costs to that which the previously uninsurable policy holder would have had to to pay prior to the government edict. This would probably make you oodles of profits, your stock holders would love you, and you would be "last seen" as you were forced into the back seat of a late-model black Chevrolet Suburban, with dark desert tint on the windows. Sadly, this may well be your best option.

3. Close your doors now and avoid the inevitability of financial collapse. This is the option the government would prefer you take... thus leaving a clear field for them to take over the health care industry in its entirety, and making the American people just that much more dependent upon "Nanny Government". Making it financially unfeasible - by way of draconian laws and unnecessary taxes - for publicly owned corporations to do business in the health care industry is precisely what the socialist government of Barack Obama plans to do. McDonald's is always hiring (or was... back when we had a few extra dollars to spend on a quick lunch or dinner).

Right now the insurance companies are in a lose-lose situation. They have been demonized by the government and the left-wing media since Obama began his "Change we can believe in" campaign. It's really more like...

or

Understand that I am not a big fan of giant corporations. Especially those selling health insurance. They've been bending us over for the last 3 or 4 decades! Most of the costs are nothing more than greed. Whose greed? The patient. Want to know why medical care is so expensive? Besides the 16 million illegal aliens that are getting it at no cost to them, because the rest of us are paying for it. Because there are no caps on malpractice lawsuits, and many doctors are paying over $200,000 a year in malpractice insurance premiums! Naturally, those costs are passed along to their patients. People are greedy... and they will sue at the drop of a hat! That's one thing that keeps our medical insurance costs high. Then there's the $800,000+ profit in one MRI machine. More corporate greed! How about those $5 hospital aspirins and the $8 band aids? Where do these hospital administrators shop for their supplies ... Neimann-Marcus? But, again, hospitals have to offset the losses from non-payment for services - and greedy vendors - somehow, so they just pass it along to the beneficiary of those goods and services.

The bottom line is that it all comes back upon those of us who act responsibly by having health insurance, or paying for our medical treatment ourselves. The bill falls in our lap either directly (paying our own medical costs) or indirectly (purchasing insurance at high premium costs or paying higher taxes). Like all businesses, the costs of doing business are passed along to the consumer. The hidden costs involved in thefts and loss prevention personnel are passed along. Any business-related expense that can be passed along is passed along (and the rest are written off their income tax)!

Probably the best approach to resolving the health insurance crisis in our country is to not just allow interstate insurance sales, but to require it. This should result in lower overall costs for health insurance due to increased competition for the available health care $$$.