I heard the term “immoral profits” today from Nancy Pelosi in reference to the insurance companies’ financials and it floored me. I have never heard two words put side by side that don’t deserve it more in my life. In fact, I’m not even sure I know exactly what that means when you look at the words individually. I do; however, know what she is attempting to convey and it is something that is at the crux of the liberal mindset.

We’ve heard this type of talk for months now – it’s always been around, but Obama has made it mainstream. In terms like “spread the wealth” and new taxes for only those that make over $200k. The message is that people (and organizations) that make a lot of money should feel guilty because there are a ton of people that don’t and the rich should give all of their money away to help elevate the financial status of the poor and we should all have basically the same.

Any capitalists out there? Hello! You should be IRATE at this because you know that the reason people (and most organizations) amass wealth is because somewhere, somebody found the goods/services they offered to be valuable and are willing to part with some of their hard-earned money to acquire it. In a capitalistic society – innovation (doing it better, cheaper, faster than your competition) drives profits and if left alone, you either challenge the big dog in your market or you go out of business. Since the beginning, more chose to challenge than go home and the result of this effort is the greatest nation on the planet. Competition, not government intervention is the key to making sure the markets stay (and remain) reasonable.

Take Apple for example. Did they create the first portable music player – no, but the iPod has blown all others away and is now synonymous with portable music. How did that happen? Innovation. Apple developed better hardware (sleek, sexy) and a better interface (simple, functional) and then made it affordable. That’s innovation and it has made Apple a literal TON OF CASH. Are their profits immoral? Of course not.

So what makes insurance companies profits immoral? Nancy would say it’s because they deny claims to sick people to protect those profits. Profiting while people suffer when something can be done about it. I guess that is the immoral part of the term.

The problem with demonizing profits in this way is that there isn’t a clear-cut delineation of where profits could be considered moral. Would any profit be OK? Who gets to decide? Turn on the TV and you’ll find the answer. Obama, Pelosi, Reid – they get to decide, or they are trying. They want to use these terms to make you think that the redistribution of wealth from those that have it to those that don’t is the moral high ground and anyone that doesn’t agree needs to be shut down or taken over.

Just watch out for the references – “big oil”, “big banks”, “big medical”, “big insurance”, etc. Most of us don’t make enough money to be personally affected, but our employers do. Most of us don’t need to be concerned about being in the top tax bracket and having our wealth stolen to support more and more programs that don’t work. But I think we all want to know  that the possibility for financial independence is obtainable. Allow the liberal politicians to have their way and you can kiss that dream goodbye.

Your voice and your vote are the only tools you have to affect change in this country. Write, talk, send smoke signals – whatever it takes to send a clear message to Washington that you want profits to be encouraged, not demonized; less, not more taxes; less, not more government intervention; and to SLOW DOWN the amount of change being introduced. How can they tell what works when they are changing hundreds of variables at the same time? They can’t,so perhaps…just perhaps, they aren’t interested in actually fixing anything…chew on that one for a bit…

I’ve been stewing over the constant dribble over health care reform coming out of Washington and I’ve had enough. It is time for us all to snap out of the trance, put the Kool-Aid down and get our heads into the game. What set it off for me is this excerpt from an e-mail sent by the Whitehouse.

“Over the next month there is going to be an avalanche of misinformation and scare tactics from those seeking to perpetuate the status quo. But we know the cost of doing nothing is too high. Health care costs will double over the next decade, millions more will become uninsured, and state and local governments will go bankrupt.”

There are several things to take now of here, so let’s dive right in (hang with me – it’s a bit wordy).

1. I don’t think anyone – no matter what political party or affiliation – is asking for the status quo to be perpetuated. Health insurance costs too much and is, consequently, harder and harder to get (and keep in some cases). This should alarm us, but the source of that alarm is what is in question. The Whitehouse and Congress want you to believe that nothing can be done about the “cost” of  medical treatment and the trouble lies in the insurance companies. I’m here to tell you that is a bold-faced lie. Insurance companies are like any other for-profit company. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their stakeholders to stay solvent – i.e. make a profit. As such, they hold to the same supply/demand macro-economic principles everyone else in a capitalistic society does, which is to say that if their costs go up, their retail prices go up.
2. “Health care costs will double over the next decade.” – I’m sure someone has looked at trending from the past several decades and can project the doubling of health care costs over the next 10 years, but in no way should we believe it to be gospel. Nobody can tell the future and to word this in this way only serves one purpose – to scare you into thinking that this has to be dealt with sooner rather than later.
3. If that weren’t enough, to say with certainty that millions more will be uninsured and the eventual consequence is bankrupt state and local governments is OUT OF LINE. In the last 233 years, there has NEVER been a bankrupt government. Do you know why? Because they all have the ability to raise taxes or adjust budgets. Don’t buy this – it isn’t true and the sky isn’t falling.

Back to the real reason you are still reading – the real story. Creating a government-run, tax-funded insurance option doesn’t address the costs, but it does do something else that should make you take notice – it adds competition to the market that is not only unfair, it is un-American. Capitalism demands that competition be part of the mix for fairness and equality TO PROTECT THE CONSUMER. Without competition, we have monopolies, and monopolies are bad for us – remember the telecom breakup of the ’80s?

If the Federal Government can “set” the cost of coverage without regard to natural market pressures (profit & loss largely), they in essence become a monopoly and the rest of the market has no way to compete and therefore no way to survive. The President knows this. Congress knows this. It is what they are counting on. They don’t want private insurance companies to survive because they desire more control over our lives – in part, to justify their own position and to further the agenda of big government, higher taxes and more control.

Taking this to the logical conclusion – without alternatives to the government-run option, we end up like Canada and the UK…there simply isn’t a way to avoid it because the real problem isn’t being addressed, which is the high costs associated with medical services. If the President and Congress wanted to fix the health care problem in America, they would have started there – as it is the most logical place to start. If health care costs are PROJECTED to double over the next decade, are we helpless to prevent that? I think not.

What are the contributing factors to the rise in the COSTS of medical services?

• Advancement in technology | This is a natural (and good) progression. Better technology should eventually lower health care costs as it helps to diagnose faster and more accurately as well as speed the treatment/healing process. We want this to continue and I think we all are willing to pay for it, but what if research hospitals can’t fund research because the government is controlling their profits? You know the answer…
• Malpractice insurance | The courts have done this country a huge disservice in providing a place to attract medical lawsuits. The millions upon millions awarded to those cases are paid via malpractice insurance. And because insurance companies are subject to profit/loss pressures, they must consequently raise the rate for said insurance. The doctor has no choice but to pay the increased premiums and consequently passes that along to you and me in his/her rate.Limit the amounts awarded in medical malpractice suits and the premiums come back down and so will the rates – all a natural consequence of competition in the marketplace. This is known as tort reform.
• Uninsured care | Nobody is denied emergency care in America. Again, something we can almost all agree that is good WHEN RESERVED FOR AMERICAN CITIZENS. A large portion of the costs for uninsured care comes from illegal aliens (I use the term on purpose) as they can’t get insurance BECAUSE THEY ARE ILLEGALLY IN THE COUNTRY. So, this cost is linked to another failure of our government – border security and immigration law enforcement. The hospitals therefore are forced to pass those costs on to those that actually pay the bills, which hits the insurance companies first and so on and so on…

I’m sure there are others as I’m not an expert in the field – my degree is in Physics and I design websites for a living, but even I see bad things ahead.

So what are we to do? First, tell your representatives and senators to slow down. Health care reform is a HUGE issue and should not be taken lightly and needs much debate and investigation. We didn’t get into this mess in a week, and we won’t get out of in a week. In fact, how about we focus on the economy and then tackle this issue? We must not let present-day circumstances force us into thinking that we can’t wait. We can – we have – we must.