Saturday, June 30, 2012

And the SCOTUS Upholds. . . WE THE PEOPLE!

No one in their right mind would say they didn't get their money's worth in drama last week. The SCOTUS handed down a ruling that was universally loathed on both sides of the aisle, but under the hood this was a finely-tuned engine poised for full power to be unleashed. The people of the United States of America have had the power returned to them if they can seize it.

Benjamin Franklin
It calls to mind the immortal words of Benjamin Franklin, a representative to the original Constitutional Convention. Their deliberations gave us, for perhaps the first time in all history, a republic with the three basic divisions of government, the legislative, executive, and judicial, mutually and completely independent the one from the other, under which it is not possible for any branch of government legally to set up a system by which that branch can first conceive what it wants to do, then make the law ordering its doing, and then itself, judge its own enforcement of its own law, a system that has always brought extortion, oppression, intimidation, tyranny, despotism, a system that every dictator has employed and must employ. May we never unravel those underpinnings.

And when it was done, a questioner asked Benjamin Franklin, the first American, “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a Republic or a Monarchy?” To which Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” In the sweltering record-setting heat (an apt metaphor) of the SCOTUS ruling handed down last week in Washington D.C., Franklin's response still resonates. We know we can keep our Republic, the question looms. . . Will we?

I wrote about us having to take a stand and stop having it both ways some months ago. We are at the inflection point now as never before, thanks to the SCOTUS ruling this week. The hint it was a historic court decision was all the histrionics that followed from both sides. Clearly, the legal victory belonged to the Obama administration. On a 5-4 decision the Affordable Healthcare Act was upheld by the finding that the individual mandate was indeed a tax, it was constitutional and Congress had the full authority to do that. Predictably both sides claimed victory.

The Republicans were delighted on three counts - the Commerce Clause, long abused with its meanings expanded beyond belief for decades was finally curtailed. You cannot mandate activities of the American people for something no one has done yet, the Roberts opinion stated. Medicaid expansion being forced upon the states was also slapped down. And they even found something to like in the Court's definition of the mandate as a tax, not a penalty. They will be able to remind everyone that Obama lied about there being no new taxes here, when in fact (as I stated repeatedly) this represents the largest tax increase to pay for the largest entitlement program in the history of the world.

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT)
The Obama administration, of course, loved the legal victory of the Obamacare law being declared constitutional after all. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), however, argued it will be a short-lived and hollow victory in the end. Why? Because he believes the American people will rise up in revolt and revulsion over this decision and slap down the legislators who gave us this monstrosity of a law in the middle of the night without one single opposition vote to sustain it. Love the optimism there.

Here's what Chief Justice Roberts did for the nation last week. He actually said something no one had predicted he would say. Everyone in the nation was poised for the ultimate arbiter, the Supreme Court, to finally settle the argument once and for all, and to tell all the children that "father knew best." Instead, here's what John Roberts said that will enshrine him in the pantheon of American jurisprudence forevermore: “It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.” 


Wow! How refreshing is that? This is a restatement of the plan of salvation: Men are free to choose. Free agency, the power to choose, is a gift of God. We are endowed with it by our Creator. In 2 Nephi we read: "Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself" (2:16). Further, "Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves — to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life" (10:23). And in modern revelation the Lord said, "Behold, I gave unto him that he should be an agent unto himself" (D&C 29:35).

Joseph Smith
The Prophet Joseph Smith described agency as "that free independence of mind which heaven has so graciously bestowed upon the human family as one of its choicest gifts"(TPJS, 49). The word "free" is also used to describe free agency in this hymn Latter-day Saints have been singing since our first hymn book in 1835:

Know this, that ev'ry soul is free
To choose his life and what he'll be;
For this eternal truth is giv'n
That God will force no man to heav'n.
He'll call, persuade, direct aright,
And bless with wisdom, love and light,
In nameless ways be good and kind,
But never force the human mind.
— Hymns #240

We made a political judgment with our freedom of choice in 2008. The pendulum swung in favor of the Democrats. Both houses of Congress and the White House were swept. No one, even the Supreme Court, was available in the end to change those consequences. John Roberts reminded Americans last week it was time to grow up, take off the training wheels from our wobbly attempts to ride the bicycle of freedom of choice and to stop looking for a savior to fix things. The savior did not emerge in Barack Obama, and Roberts wasn't about to insert himself or his court into that role either. Ultimately, Roberts declared, the power for good or evil is in your hands America. Choose well.

Mitt Romney
Conservatives should be dancing in the streets. Roberts gave us exactly what we believe in - a battle cry for freedom, less top-down, government-and-courts-driven dictum, and actual liberty for the people who can decide (if we will) to elect people to Congress who won't tax us and obligate us to unsustainable spending with debts we cannot pay. The choice, said Roberts, is all yours. And the big winner here, I have to believe, is Mitt Romney. Perhaps never since George Washington has a presidential candidate represented that political philosophy more eloquently and completely.

President Barack Obama
Liberals who believe in a cradle-to-grave entitlement existence under the "parental" control of an empowered tyrannical executive run rampant on individual freedom got exactly what THEY wanted - additional control of another 18% of the GDP - the healthcare industry. They now have the funding mechanism under the taxing authority of the United States government to make their progressive agenda a reality after 100 years of trying. Victory at last! Power to the oppressed! And it's all constitutional. The Constitution was crafted by the people, for the people and of the people. It granted enumerated and limited powers to the government and virtually everything else to the people. When government asserts powers it does not possess and encroaches into our individual freedoms, the only way tyranny can be curtailed is by the people. It may yet be the case that no one in the history of this Republic may be judged in the final analysis to represent tyranny more completely than Barack Obama.

Only the people are empowered to adjudicate the winner of this debate on November 6th.

Chief Justice John Roberts
Roberts just did exactly what the nation could not have foreseen. He has literally handed back to the free people of America a very unpopular piece of legislation (I'm intentionally using restraint here) that was crammed down our throats against the wishes of the majority by a minority suddenly emboldened with the votes to do it. Now, if we really mean it and we are truly unhappy with the results of the election of 2008, we can either fix this aberration (if I'm right and that's all it is) at the polls on November 6th, or if I'm wrong we can live forever with the consequences. It seemed the electorate rose up in the 2010 mid-terms and put a stop to the runaway train by returning control of the House to the Republicans. Will the trend continue in 2012? Victory in the Senate races is paramount.

I am setting aside all the punditry and the loud protestations I've heard from both sides in the aftermath, and I will make this bold declaration: I liked what happened and what I've read in the actual opinions of the justices since the ruling was handed down. I like it because it retrieves accountability for our actions as a free people from the Executive Branch and the Courts. Our elected representatives in the Congress should now be right where they belong, in the cross hairs of every freedom-loving person in America with a ballot in their hands.

I like the idea of having a Mulligan, a chance to re-educate Americans with the reality our policy and process should begin and end with us. It starts with an informed vote, and electing representatives more carefully than ever before, people who will actually represent our collective will in Washington D.C., and will resist the few who represent the minority who would destroy us from within.

So now it's "game on" time. I hope we can throw off the idea that government is somehow the benevolent dictator of our future and the dispenser of our freedoms. The people in Washington are there only because we put them there.

Forget that routinely a minority of the electorate show up to vote. That should and must change if we are to preserve the Republic Benjamin Franklin and the others gave us. They must become our willing minions, not the other way around.

I suspect Roberts knew full well what the risks would be in handing down the majority opinion that the Obamacare law was found constitutional. Too many people will see that headline and continue to quietly go about their lives without further adieu. Factor in the complacency of many who have grown to love the idea of government checks flowing into their mailboxes on a regular basis. That is precisely what Obama and the left will bank on.

The spin has already begun. Astoundingly, what do we hear from the White House after the definition of the word "tax" has been rendered? "It's not a tax." Really? No one has done more damage to their loose familiarity with truth, justice and the American way than this administration. Well, they are transparent to anyone with eyes to see.

Between now and November little will change to measurably improve the anemic economic recovery with which we are saddled because of the policies of this White House. The MSM will continue to remind us of the "victory" in this bill being upheld constitutionally, but in the end the court of pubic opinion will prevail.

In their heart of hearts, surely Americans realize there is no free lunch, no "something for nothing" reality. . . don't they?

I'm not one who is going to bash John Roberts into oblivion. I prefer instead to think he just punted the ball deep in his own territory on fourth down with the game clock expiring and said to the American people, "If you want a touchdown, you now have the final possession and go make it happen."

We may be confused as a people with the cacophony of political rhetoric, but in his case Chief Justice Roberts was clear-eyed and deliberate. We, the people, brought the ball to the game and after the final buzzer sounds we still own the ball regardless of how battered and bloodied it may be.

I'm often wrong on political predictions. I certainly could not have envisioned what Justice Roberts just did. But I do know God is still invested in America, and her destiny will not be denied if the people who sustain her and all her ideals are still alert. Who knows, this loathsome burden on the American taxpayer may not even be the law of the land come January. Already governors are rising up in opposition and refusing to implement its provisions in their states.

If you're still reading, I advise taking the long view here. Resist the desperate voices, tune out the pundits, turn off the TV, instead listen to the quiet whisperings of your soul. John Roberts may have just saved the Republic. . .if you can keep it.

I think we can.

14 comments:

  1. Well written and thought-provoking.

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  2. I always considered myself a good conservative Republican over the past 50+ years, and voted accordingly. However, the party lost its way during the two terms of the Bush administration so I will be changing my vote in the upcoming election.

    Not only did the Republican led administration get us into a war we should not have been in, but it also did a very poor job of executing it. To cap things off, it tried to fight two wars without taking the sensible actin of raising the necessary revenue. Following these debacles, it then allowed the nations financial firms to pull all kinds of shenanigans, causing the greatest recession our country has ever seen. These combined actions are the primary reason for the huge deficit we now have!

    Anyone with common sense should be able to see that the Republican party got our nation into its worst condition since the great depression, and is now trying to ensure us as being the only industrialized nation in the world that does not provide decent health care for its people.

    Enough already! Let's pull the blindfold off and vote for the party trying to get us back to being a highly respected nation...and one that cares for it's needy.

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  3. To Ano ymous July 1 at 10:58....
    I believe your passionate reply iterates the problem at hand so very well. The problem for us it to determine (within the purview of a democratic system) who is responsible for the economy of the state and the individual, and who is responsible for the safety of the state, its people and democracy itself?

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  4. Here's the problem with the liberal agenda in one sentence: Liberals want the government to the do the job of relief for the poor that was originally carved out in tax policy for individuals, churches, non-profits and charities. When government steps in to provide a cradle-to-grave solution to every social ill, then we go far beyond the traditional roles of government and charities. There is little doubt we have been on the road to socialism for a very long time in America, and its proponents have yet to conclude it is unworkable and unsustainable without massive reform. There are many reasons the task has been kicked down the road, but chief among them is the borrowing rates for US debt have been so low. The urgency of reforming entitlement programs will not be realized until interest rates go higher, and by then we will have squandered the opportunity. I'm going to make an observation that I hope proves out - I think people will fill the voting booths in record numbers to make their wishes known. Judge Roberts has given us our last best chance to dispose of this egregious assault on the freedoms of Americans.

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  5. I fully agree that our nations leaders should not follow the agenda proposed by the so-called "liberals" who feel the government should take care of its people from cradle to grave.

    However, being an octogenarian who has seen way too many people suffering because they could not afford medical care, I'm totally convinced that the Affordable Care Act is one of the best things that has happened in this country for many, many, years. Granted, some of it's provisions should probably be revised, but there's no way it will ever be repealed by those who subscribe to the philosophy of "survival of the fittest"!

    Far right political types can always use rhetoric filled with platitudes, and religious sayings, in an effort to support their viewpoint but there's no way any of this can justify the lack of health care for those who cannot get it....in many cases through no fault of their own.

    Thank God we had a Supreme Court Chief Justice who had enough compassion to not let politics deter him from doing the right thing!

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  6. You have summarized perfectly the need for reform of the healthcare industry - the EXPECTATION of receiving the ever-increasing list of benefits from the government is now deeply entrenched in the American psyche. You state the case with precision: ". . . [I have] seen way too many people suffering because they could not afford medical care." And we all have, haven't we? So we subscribe to the tempting thought that our federal government should take care of them and the poor among us should be subsidized by a redistribution of wealth from those who can afford it to those who do not have it.

    When we undertake social re-engineering on such a grand scale, however, we undermine the productive elements of our society and constrain the wealth creation engine because the incentives are removed.

    Everyone is horrified about the mounting debt ($5 Trillion during Obama's first term), and there seems to be no political will to undertake the obvious job to rethink and to reform the underlying assumptions that are completely unsustainable based on the demographics that are staring us in the face. Every day 10,000 baby boomers like me are retiring, applying for Social Security benefits and Medicare. The burden on the system is extraordinary and getting steadily worse as the number of workers paying into the system dwindles. The problem is obvious - everyone thinks we should reform the system that has created the social "safety net" for seniors, but ask a senior like you what you would give up, and everyone loves the idea that they should continue without interruption and even will state they should and must be expanded to include all who cannot currently access healthcare.

    That's all well and good - give us insurance under our parents' plan until we are 26 years old, give us insurance where we will be guaranteed coverage regardless of our pre-existing conditions, and give us prescription drug benefits when we're older that are subsidized, and give us access to major surgeries like knees, hips and shoulders replacements, cornea transplants, heart, liver and lung replacements (it's now a very long list thanks to advancing medical technologies), and no one ever stops to ask, "How is all this going to be paid for?" The liberals's answer is an easy one - the government will provide. However, the government has only one way to pay for it - it has unlimited taxing authority, as upheld by this latest SCOTUS decision. The only way to slow down the taxing authority is to elect people who will not abuse the privilege, and that hasn't happened in seventy years. Both parties are guilty of reckless spending habits, but now that mindset is on steroids.

    The debate before us this November is a simple choice between what is realistic and manageable given our current economic and fiscal situation as a nation, and what is little more than ethereal political gas promising an endless list of unfunded candy for the masses.

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  7. Defining Obamacare's mandate as a "tax" (which it is in reality) has now unmasked the plan to pay for it. Those who refuse to subscribe to the government program will pay the tax, and a list of other taxes embedded in the legislation that is now the law of the land is growing day by day as the particulars are spelled out. At some point (I'm not certain when it will occur, but I maintain the inflection point cannot be far off), Americans will rise up and demand a cessation to the tax and spend mentality that has sustained the politcal class from both parties for far too long. Yesterday I reviewed the Federalist Papers and excerpted some quotes from our founders about their core belief THE PEOPLE were to be the ultimate adjudicators of every question. And so it is.

    I don't envy the task ahead for whichever candidate for the White House prevails. If it's Mitt Romney he'll inherit the mother of all turn arounds, and maybe that's exactly what is needed. Based upon his first term, it is clear there will be no attempt to reform the agenda under an Obama second term.

    We have to provide a safety net, I'll reluctantly grant that, but it must be redefined and reformed on how we go about it. The ACA is NOT the way to do it. There must be means testing for our entitlement programs, new expectations must be set in place for younger workers in the system today, and a voucher system like the one proposed by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan would be advisable, allowing people to exercise free market choices and choose their level of insurance from major medical deductibles up to Cadillac plans if they can afford it. Healthcare plans must be unhitched from employers and handed back to consumers regardless of who employs them. Continuing down the path of Medicare and Medicaid by handing even more reins of healthcare administration over to the federal government is a horrible idea.

    If you lean libertarian, of course, you would scrap the whole mess and let everyone fend for themselves.

    I can predict this much with some degree of certainty: We have a window of undetermined time in which to put our fiscal house in order in this country. As long as interest rates remain as low as they are, there seems to be no urgency. However, when rates begin to rise again (and it will happen as our credit worthiness as a nation declines), the window will slam shut and the opportunity we now have for reform will disappear. Events will overtake us and we will have lost our ability to make choices.

    To leave politicians in charge of this process who have given us no federal budget for three and a half years, and who have ginned up "stimulus" spending that did nothing to put people back to work is unthinkable. The state of the economy as people enter the voting booth in November will be the determining factor in who wins the White House. Whichever way that election goes, the one that is more critical to me is who wins control of the Senate.

    I don't expect much from Congress (my expectations are lower than they've ever been), but expecting the Senate to adopt a realistic budget is not asking too much in my humble opinion.

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  8. I'm sorry to have to refute your thinking, Mr. Goates, because I have always considered you to be an intelligent person. However, I fully agree with the thinking of the octogenarian who made the comments about the Affordable Care Act on July 4...and I happen to be one of those who will be forced to pay more tax because of this act.

    While our free market system works well in many regards, healthcare is not one of those. This has been proven in practically every industrialized country in the world.

    Unfortunately, too many in our country, including you, are trying to hold on to the cold hard capitalist system in every regard...much to the detriment of the under privileged in our society who are being deprived of basic human decency when it comes to health care!

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  9. And that, my friend, is why I prize our Republic - we can agree to disagree.

    Turning over the American healthcare system to be totally and completely managed by the federal government is just about the most heretical and antithetical idea to liberty I can imagine. Oh, but wait a minute, we already did that a long time ago when we passed Medicare back in the sixties.

    We have become so accustomed and comfortable with the idea that government is our benevolent dictator we are actually becoming more and more at ease that it can accomplish the feat without a single thought to the contrary.

    Here's where the thinking becomes faulty. There IS a cost associated with accepting everyone into the government system without regard to pre-existing conditions, and there IS a cost associated with suddenly inserting millions of lives into the system of managed care. Care is already rationed by insurance companies who have refused coverage to those they select against as they manage the risks associated with catastrophic diagnoses. Imagine the rationing that will go on when no one is excluded and you add millions to the ranks of those who must be treated and their medical conditions are more severe. That's why people in your "industrialized countries" wait for months to get treatment and many die while waiting. And you see this as an improvement? Forget about a "partnership" with free enterprise, as currently being posited. Government will have it all. That cost will be funded by escalating taxation and the level of care will dramatically decrease.

    Believe it or not, when Medicare was first introduced the politicians assured us the system would not cost the taxpayers a nickel because it would be self-funding for all. Sound familiar? We all know how that turned out. The only reason retiring baby boomers are clinging to the hope that Medicare will provide a benefit to them is that they paid into the system while they were working. They have come to view it as a "right" and an "entitlement." They have become dependent upon government. But the actuarial realities are suspect at best.

    To think government can become the compassionate dispenser of healthcare without a commensurate cost being passed along to taxpayers at a time when they can least afford it, coupled with rampant government debt obligations and unfunded entitlements seems to me to be the height of folly. We are being told by the other side favoring government control that this is in the best interests of our society.

    Why are we so comfortable with the thought? Because the top 20% of wage earners in this country are already paying 94% of ALL income tax being collected. We'll just let Obama charge the wealthy, transfer their wealth to the impoverished among us and presto, all is well. Right? If Obama's latest proposal is adopted (and it won't be), it would return $85 billion in additional taxes in one year, according to the CBO. The voracious appetite of our federal government is like a black hole, and too many people believe the government has endless deep pockets that will never be empty. Well, taxing the rich can be such a comforting thought, but it is a false idea, since that amount is what the federal government spends in EIGHT days! And you want to continue letting these math-challenged idiots have the reins of healthcare too?

    Don't compare America, please, to "practically every industrialized country in the world." Their government-run healthcare systems (England comes immediately to mind) have survived only because the citizens are being taxed in excess of 50% of their incomes for "free healthcare." It's a sham. Those other countries don't come close in magnitude to America in terms of the diversity and the demographic make-up. Not a fair comparison at all.

    But what do I know, I'm not very intelligent.

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  10. "That's why people in your 'industrialized countries' wait for months to get treatment and many die while waiting."

    As I said in my last entry, Mr. Goates, I've always considered you to be an intelligent person, but statements such as the one above is causing me to have second thoughts.

    I have several Canadian friends, one of whom I was raised with that became a Canadian citizen when he was selected as the minister of a large church in Vancouver. I have been told by each and everyone of them that they consider the Canadian healthcare system to be considerably better than ours here in the U.S.. They stress that this is particularly so for those with preexisting conditions or low income, and that the above statement (commonly cited by those who oppose the Affordable Care Act) is a total myth. According to them, the only lengthy waiting time ever incurred is for something that does not pose a danger to their well being....such as elective plastic surgery.

    I'm a resident of Texas where we have 6,000,000 uninsured people, and a GOP governor who is apparently quite willing to let these folks suffer and die rather than deviate from the policies being pushed by the extreme right types in congress who are opposing the Affordable Care Act...but have not come up with anything to help fix our broken healthcare system.

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  11. You and I won't settle it here, and not to belabor the conversation, but we haven't even talked about Medicaid, which routinely hands out public dollars to the poorest among us, certainly a worthy government goal, as your comments points out above.

    However, between 1980 and 2011, the spending for each person in poverty jumped from $4,300 to $13,000. And for what? Do politicians ever stop to examine where this spending has gotten us? ("War on poverty has been an abject failure," Deseret News Editorial, July 15)? I saw an article recently from a budget manager with the Utah Department of Health, which manages the state Medicaid program. His name is David E. Rabiger.

    Said he, "Medicaid is by far the single largest federal program for the poor and probably makes up the majority of the $13,000 per person spending above. Every state in the union has the option to participate in the Medicaid program with a 70/30, federal/state, funding participation ratio for Utah. One needs to be a very poor adult with children to qualify for this program with little income and no assets. The state can control much of the cost by determining who qualifies and what optional services they will cover under the State Medicaid Plan."

    Since 1980, the Medicaid program has been under the control of a very conservative Republican legislature here in Utah, not unlike what you are seeing in Texas. In spite of this most conservative political philosophy, the program has expanded from 52,459 clients in 1980 to 232,853 clients in 2011 — a 4.5-fold increase. There has been a dramatic increase of 73,000 clients since the 2008 Great Recession. However, Medicaid service expenditures have increased from $88 million in 1980 to $1.869 billion in 2011 — a 21.4-fold increase.

    The exceptional rise in expenditures can be attributed not to the war on poverty programs in Washington but to uncontrolled, inflationary costs in the medical industry as a whole, which have averaged over 10 percent per year over the same period of time. Total medical costs in the United States have grown from about 6 percent of GDP to 18 percent of GDP in the same time span.

    When we compare the U.S. with other countries in terms of cost of care vs. average life expectancy, our costs are two to three times per capita compared to other developed countries with national health care systems, but we routinely achieve better health outcomes. The big difference is our inability to control health care cost in the U.S.

    Clearly the U.S. model for financing and providing care falls way short of what other countries are able to deliver. In America, over half of the health care expenditures in the U.S. are paid by taxpayers for Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, VA, active military and civilian public employees. But since our costs are two to three times as high relative to other countries, we already pay as much in taxes as the countries with national health care systems that provide universal coverage. From a conservative perspective, the socialist countries seem to have a superior model for cost control and delivery of care.

    The political right is unhappy with "Obamacare" for expanding government health care to the uninsured. The political left is equally unhappy for its failure to provide universal coverage at an affordable price. The fundamental problem is high and uncontrolled cost, and no political party is discussing a workable solution to the problem.

    The Brookings Institution fails to do a proper analysis in the root cause of the increase in welfare per capita expenditures for the poor. The war on poverty will be a bottomless pit unless we can control runaway health care cost.

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  12. Now, Mr. Goates, you're sounding more like the intelligent person I've always perceived you to be.

    I fully agree with the following statements you made in your last comments:

    (1) "When we compare the U.S. with other countries in terms of cost of care vs. average life expectancy, our costs are two to three times per capita compared to other developed countries with national health care systems, but we routinely achieve better health outcomes. The big difference is our inability to control health care cost in the U.S."

    (2)"Clearly the U.S. model for financing and providing care falls way short of what other countries are able to deliver. In America, over half of the health care expenditures in the U.S. are paid by taxpayers for Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, VA, active military and civilian public employees. But since our costs are two to three times as high relative to other countries, we already pay as much in taxes as the countries with national health care systems that provide universal coverage. From a conservative perspective, the socialist countries seem to have a superior model for cost control and delivery of care."

    We all know that the U.S. healthcare costs are too high to be sustainable, but there are solutions available. There is a lot of waste--too many tests, too many "procedures" by specialists, too much fraud, too much poor decision making in hopeless end-of-life situations, etc.

    We all need basic medical care and should have it, but for it to be financially sustainable, we will have to have rules about what the healthcare system will pay for, and what it won't pay for.

    For those who say we cannot afford to offer basic healthcare to every citizen, connecting those who do not have insurance with a primary care physician, as the Affordable Care Act offers, will be much more effective than having them go to the hospital emergency rooms where it is very costly and inefficient...and in the long run much less expensive.

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  13. The ACA should simply be scrapped and we should begin anew to find a new way forward. The SCOTUS wouldn't do it, so the citizens will have to find elected officials who will have the political will to implement the cost containment and care delivery solutions. . . which I think was my original point. ;-)

    Congressman Jim Matheson (D-UT) said it best: "It [the ACA] simply costs too much [a fact no one can dispute], and it reforms too little."

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  14. Mr. Goates, as I stated in an earlier commentary, our healthcare industry does not work efficiently in a free market system...and never will until some mandated controls are put on it. This is rather well documented in the following article recently appearing in the Austin American-Statesman newspaper.

    http://www.statesman.com/news/local/patients-take-frustrating-labyrinthine-journey-to-uncover-hospital-2420204.html?cxtype=rss_ece_frontpage

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