Medical Care Costs

Thomas Sowell has written another great article. In it, he discusses the fact that just because you pay less at the doctor's office doesn't mean the actual cost of your medical care is lower. The cost has just been shuffled over to taxes or some other gotcha. He likens it to the pea in the shell game that you might see at a carnival. He then goes into reducing costs via cutting salaries.

Britain has had a government-run medical system for more than half a century and it has to import doctors, including some from Third World countries where the medical training may not be the best. In short, reducing doctors' income is not reducing the cost of medical care, it is refusing to pay those costs. Like other ways of refusing to pay costs, it has consequences.

Ah consequences. That is what Americans lack: the ability to accept and give out consequences. We want everything to consequence free. We want to sleep around AND not have to worry about STDs and pregnancy. We want to ditch our kids in day care AND have a great relationship with our kids. We want to have the best medical care in the world AND not pay for it.

And are we really so stupid to believe that the government is capable of doing ANYTHING efficiently? Are we really so gullible to believe that red tape and bureaucrats can give us more for less? Good grief.

He ends with a section on ways to get the cost of health care lower without craziness.

The high costs of "defensive medicine"-- expensive tests, medications and procedures required to protect doctors and hospitals from ruinous lawsuits, rather than to help the patients-- could be reduced by not letting lawyers get away with filing frivolous lawsuits.

If a court of law determines that the claims made in such lawsuits are bogus, then those who filed those claims could be forced to reimburse those who have been sued for all their expenses, including their attorneys' fees and the lost time of people who have other things to do. But politicians who get huge campaign contributions from lawyers are not about to pass laws to do this.

I like his plan a lot better than the government take over.

New Taxes in the New Obamacare Bill

I am glad that there are people out there that are willing to read the "Affordable Health Care for America Act". One of them is Yid with a Lid. He has written a post that enumerates the new taxes that are in "Affordable Health Care for America Act". I am starting to find the name ironic.

His list includes 13 new taxes. I encourage you to go there and read about all of them. Then write, e-mail, call, and politely bother your Senator and Representative about not voting for this bill.

I am sure more smart, patient people will read this bill and post more nutterness from it. I plan to stay tuned.

My Great Story Campaign

The National Down Syndrome Society has launched a campaign that I find heart-warming. It is called My Great Story. It honors the achievements of those with Down syndrome. The man in the picture above is Sujeet Desai. He plays 6 musical instruments and has traveled all over the world giving performances.

All of the people that I have met with Down syndrome have been such kind and loving people. It is such a sad waste that about 90% of babies suspected of having Down syndrome are aborted. One father has taken a stand to inform others about the beauty of people with Down syndrome and the sadness of aborting them.

Homeschool Happenings v. 5 (2nd six weeks)

We are in vacation mode having finished our second six weeks of the year a week and a half ago. I guess a better way to say it is that is my kids are in vacation mode. I, on the other hand, am working to get things done that I don't do during "school" like dental appointments, car maintenance, vacation planning, etc.

We made good progress the last six weeks, but did have to take a week out do to all of us being a bit under the weather. My son finished his first grade Bible Reader. I am hoping to get him up to grade level (he is in 2nd grade) by the end of the year. He wanted to continue doing Bible reading for the main part of his reading. I had to search far and wide to find one on his reading level that wasn't too inane. I decided on the Day-By-Day Begin to Read Bible. I am still not completely satisfied with it, but it seems to be pretty good. We have also made progress (slowly) on the quilt. The kids pin the strips in the order that they want and I sew them. These in the picture were the first four that we finished.

During this off time, the kids finished the last of the 12 Keeper of the Faith badges that they needed to get the honor badge. They were pretty proud of that, and we went out to eat to celebrate. Here is a list of the badges they completed over the last year. My son- birds, baseball, coloring, hand tools, pets, loving others, prayer warrior, art, puzzles, swimming, Bible reading, and photo albums. My daughter-birds, baseball, prayer warrior, pets, loving others, painting, puzzles, cooking, table setting, swimming, Bible reading, and singing.

We are still having a great time. Maybe next post I will tell about some of our adventures during this 2 weeks off.

And BTW, there is a good article at Caffeinated Thoughts about education and how far we have fall in that respect since the founding of this country. You should really check it out. This cartoon was part of the post.

If Republicans Can Still Hear. . .

This recent Rasmussen poll should be a giant wake-up call. The poll claims that 73% of the GOP base thinks that the Republicans have lost touch with the base. That looks about right where I am sitting. Only 15% of those Republicans planning on voting in the primaries said that the Republicans in Congress have stood for the base.

I think the problem for the Republican party is not only their performance but our confidence even if they promise real conservatism that they will actually follow through.

ParentalRights.org Contest Winners

ParentalRights.org recently held a contest called PROclaim 2009. There were several winners. I am posting one, but I encourage you to go watch the rest of them here.

Capital and Poverty

I found an old yet interesting article by Thomas Sowell the other day. It is a review about a book The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto. Here are a few of the paragraphs.

It is not really capitalism but poverty that de Soto is most concerned about. He finds most Third World poverty to be both unnecessary and grossly misunderstood.

In many Third World countries, the underground economy is larger than the legal economy, and the total wealth of all the poor "dramatically outweighs the total wealth of the rich."

de Soto's calculation is that the total value of all the real estate held, but not legally owned, by the poor is more than 20 times all direct foreign investment in the Third World and more than 90 times all the foreign aid to all Third World countries over the past three decades.

The crucial theme of the book is that this vast amount of wealth cannot be used, as it is in the west, as investments to create still more wealth and rising standards of living. That is because real estate, businesses and other assets in the underground economies of the Third World cannot be used as collateral to raise capital to finance industrial and commercial expansion. Illegality also creates other economic handicaps.

Third World peoples "have houses but not titles, crops but not deeds, businesses but not statutes of incorporation." Why then do they not get legal titles? Because it can be an unbelievable ordeal, especially for people with little education and in countries where red tape is virtually boundless.

He also gives details on what it takes to legally own property in other countries. The length of time (up to 19 years) and the number of steps (sometimes in the hundreds) is almost jaw-dropping.

That brings me to the questions: How much of poor countries' poverty is self inflicted by their own crazy laws? And do we hinder more than help by sending aid? Would our money/time be better spent in spreading the idea of property rights among the people? Would that motivate them to change their own government?