While I have not blogged here again for a while, I hope to have more regular posts now that I have finished school and will hopefully have more free time to be able to devote to the readers of this site.
I feel compelled to blog today about not just one topic, but an array of several topics that have come up over the past several weeks. From Health care to "backdoor deals" being made in Washington D.C., to increased taxes on just about everyone in the country but those with special interests in Washington, I feel that our country is going down a very dark road, one that could lead to our status as the greatest nation in the world to be jeopardized.
As recent as last night, the President and other leaders of our country have made "backdoor" deals with Union Workers to delay taxing their "Cadillac" health insurance plans until 2018. When the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) priced the current health care plan, they may have estimated that it would cost less than a trillion dollars (That's 1 + 12 ZEROS my friends), it will actually cost much more than that after 2019, to the tune of over TWO TRILLION dollars. Our country simply cannot afford this most massive conversion of private industry to government bureaucracy. And now, with the White House and Congressional leaders making special deals for Congressional Members and Unions alike, the first portion becomes even more expensive, and is quickly approaching the trillion dollar threshold that the president himself promised wouldn't happen after taking office just last year.
I am a BIG supporter of common sense health care reform, including health care reform that makes it easier for people in the United States to have better health care, and more access to health care. I am also a big supporter of allowing health insurance companies to sell policies across state lines and removing the state-by-state requirements that are not common sense (such as certain states requiring insurers to cover massage therapy as a covered medical expense). This will make insurers compete for members, which will not only decrease the so-called risk pool, and allow monthly premiums to be significantly decreased. While I have not been able to read the entire 2000 page health care bill (which can be another blog post in itself!), I have not heard that this is a provision in the current legislation before Congress.
As a soon-to-be registered nurse, I know that all people should have access to health care, but all people should also have equal access to health care. While I understand that people on welfare cannot afford paying certain fees and co-payments for services and medications, I feel that alot of the current budgetary crunches in the states could be solved by increasing co-payments for patients on the state Medicaid programs. As I have just moved from one state to another, I have begun to realize that people on Medicaid get free health insurance (which I knew), and pretty much free prescription insurance with almost no co-payments. In Kentucky, people on the Medicaid program only paid $1.00 per prescription, and here in Georgia, they only pay between $0.50 to $1.00 per prescription. When even our nations heroes, our men and women in the armed forces who are fighting for our freedom and liberty have to pay more than that (generally a minimum of at least $3.00), while still making just a little bit above the poverty line themselves, I strongly feel that people on welfare should also have to pay at least a little more than nothing. We must all do our share to make health care reform a reality, including the poor and the rich alike.
While that was my discussion of health care, I cannot close this post without discussing the coming taxation that we will all be experiencing in this President and Congress get their way. We must understand what will happen when the President and Congressional leaders (Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid) get their way, and start to tax the citizens of our great country. Taxation will not only affect those that the taxes are aimed at (such as the newly announced tax on Wall Street banks), raising the corporate tax rates, etc, but it will also affect people who these taxes are not aimed at. Apparently our leaders in Washington D.C. have not even taken a simple basic economics class, because if they had, they would understand that by taxing people at the top, you also inadvertently tax people at the bottom as well. What this means is that regular normally people like you and I will pay more for those goods and services that are necessary to our survival and livelihood. When this happens, people will not be able to afford basic goods and services (vehicles, groceries, fuel), more people will end up on welfare, and more taxes will need to be levied on those that are not on welfare to pay for those are. This is a very dangerous road, because this system of redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor, these "Robin Hood Politics" if you will, will lead our country down a very dark path; a path that will lead to the destruction our lives as we know it.
My final message in this blog post to all who read this is this the following:
- Be Informed! As citizens of this great country, we must be informed about what our elected representatives in Washington D.C. are doing to us, and to our country. We must understand how our government is currently corrupt, and how it needs fundamental change. Our government no longer represents the people of the United States, they only represent themselves and the special interest groups who lobby them (which should also be done away with!)
- Write Letters and Make Phone Calls! We must make our elected individuals hear us, and we must make them understand that they answer to us, the people of the United States. Our elected individuals need to know that they are just that, OUR elected individuals, and that they work for us, and are paid by us, the American Taxpayers.
- Finally, Demand Transparency! We must know what our Congress and White House is doing at all times. They are not elected by us to perform "backdoor" deals on health care and other EXTREMELY IMPORTANT issues facing our country. These important issues should also not be decided solely by our elected representatives, as they do not know how their big ideas will affect the "real world" until it is too late. We must be able to see what our leaders in Washington are doing at all times, because they do not have our best interests at heart, even though that is what they are elected and paid to do.
As a final thought, we are no longer the Republic that we were founded on. We no longer have the freedoms and liberties that our founders fought for and that our armed services members continue to fight for every day. While we are free to do many of the things that we want to do, our daily lives are also dictated by what happens in Washington D.C. While we technically still are a republic by governance, we are quickly becoming an oligarchy, where the rule of a few (our President and Congress) dictate the lives of the many.
