Get away from healthcare and let the insurance system die a natural death in the marketplace. What we are watching as insurance premiums go up and up is actually what Paul Krugman called its "death spiral." The announcement by one provider that it would raise the premiums of all the independent insurance holders in California by 30% is a statement that their model is failing. In fact, it failed long ago by any honest assessment.
Why is Wellpath raising the premiums by such a large amount. Irritated at Fox News for suggesting that they were doing nothing but giving the Democrats red meat in this battle, one Wellpath executive told the Fox listeners why this was happening. Of course no one listened. This attempt to bring needed repairs to our system has produced nothing but hypocricy, irrational screaming, and outright demogogory on the right side of the political aisle. What is it that these people will not face?
Here is what the insurance executive tried to tell Fox News. At the present level of premiums, so many well people have decided to go uninsured that the ratio of well to sick has fallen and thus put more pressure for taking care of the sick onto the sick. In other words, if you have medical needs and buy insurance, then the amount of your medical bills that you are going to have to pay has risen because there are less well people in the pool to help pay your bills.
Here is what the insurance executive did not tell Fox News. At the elevated premium level after the 30% increase, Many fewer people will buy insurance, because they can not afford it, making the burden heavier on the sick, which will produce more increases, which will lead to less people buying insurance. The death spiral actually started about fifteen years ago and is accelerating. In the last year, two million more Americans have been dropped from the insurance premium paying population, either by the companies because they were costing too much or because they found they could no longer afford the premiums. Flush your toilet friends and see what is happening to the system that we have.
Indeed, market forces are going to be the downfall of the health insurance industry if we do not interfere to prop them up, and that is what the present Democratic bill has done. Forget all of the garbage about Obamacare and all the other mindless chatter about people in the government deciding who gets what care. That is the garbage of the mindless. What is happening is that we are seeing that the marketplace can not adapt to contridictions that are inherient in the whole health insurance and healthcare monster. When maximums are achieved at one location it is only because of extreme and undesirable deficiencies at another location in the complex system. When profit is the primary motive of all business interests involved, then "you win-I lose " situations multiply. When you ask some guy in Des Moins to pay $1,500 per month so someone in Kansas City can be cured of cancer, and then next year you demand $1,950 per month from that man because the guy in Chicago quit paying the $1,500 he was paying, and the next year to ask for $2,400 from the guy because the guy in Dallas also quit paying his money, then the guy in Iowa is going to figure out sooner or later that he is getting suckered. Many of our citizens have already figured that out and more and more are doing so. That is the death spiral.
So, I propose that we get as far away from health care as we can get. I openly suggest to all who see themselves as non-users of insurance benefits to quit paying the tax, since it is optional. Let this system die a natural death inside the free marketplace, because, left to itself, it will die. Moreover, it will do so within the next ten years. Put all the money you might put into health insurance into a healthcare savings account, barter, deal, and do whatever you have to do to reduce the costs you do incur. It is time to let these self righteous ideologues and their system die. Let the marketplace work.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
A Little Loss of Courage
Merle Haggard sings a song he wrote, "Mama's Hungry Eyes", in which he has the line, "just a little loss of courage as their age began to show." Over the last several years, and especially as it applies to my own father, this line has hit home in ways that I never would have considered. There are often a lot of ways to describe a single series of events, and the poet that finds the most meaningful or tersest description certainly may own rights to the naming of that series of events. I think that Merle owns the naming rights to the events that I saw in my father, and am sure are repeated in the population over and over.
My father, like most people, was many people and I certainly do not have ownership of the total Clyde Moore. But, no one can deny that he was a driven man who saw the world as standing in his way. His central daily task was to use machete, fists, verbal assault, or whatever it took to cut for himself a way through that jungle growth that was composed of every kind of vine hostile to his ambitions. He was a fighter and his first thought about you or anyone else that he encountered was that you were put there to be outdone, outsmarted, out-fought, or outworked.
Sometimes I use the word "bully" to describe him. If you show me your definitions of a bully, then I can certainly show you how Clyde Parks Moore fit those definitions. The thing that bothers me so much today is that I can also show you those same characteristics in varying degrees in all his sons, including me. But, the word bully has such a limited scope, and omits so much of the man, that to just call him a bully would be unjust, and simply not sufficient.
So what happens when a man with the drive of my father finds that he no longer has the physical and mental prowess to meet the world on his terms and must subjugate his will to the will of others? What happens when he finds that it is not his drive but his undeveloped skills of negotiation that will best help him accomplish his goals? What happens when he has no choice but to wait upon others and their schedules to get the help he now has to have to simply get from here to there?
Before I go on with this, let me say that as my father was in the throes of his severe loss of abilities, just when he had to rely upon others for help, there were complicating factors with my mother and her condition that set up terrible clashes between he and I which should never have happened. But, I was the last person that my father gave up on bullying for a bunch of reasons, and those clashes happened. I am not writing this as some sort of absolution of my own sins. I should have been smarter, but I was not.
Nothing about my father's last years bothered me so much as his giving up on the courage that drove him for so many years. He began to surrender that courage at the age of 62 because the government had told him that they would be somewhat responsible for him at that age through Social Security. By the time he was 65, he had made the transition to retired, and he never pretended to be anything but retired in the 24 years he lived after that. The word retired carries with it the justification for the surrendering of courage, and so he let it slip away from him long before there was any physical reason for him to do so.
My father spent a lot of time in his years between 62 and 89 playing the role of the senior citizen. He traveled on buses with his friends. He attended a weekly meeting of senior citizens and served as its co-president twice. He and my mother developed friendships and got together regularly with others their age to play card and board games. He worked in his shop making all sorts of wood items, something that he was sort of a natural at doing. His work was beautiful. and imaginative.
For 27 years, that was my father's life, mostly because the government had set up programs that allowed him to lose courage, lose vitality, and lose desire to get any of it back. Those 27 years equals the total of the years of my brother and his son, who died early due to cancer. What Merle Haggard described as a little loss of courage, my father, because the government told him he could, surrendered as if he were going to be able to simply molt like a bug and take on a new and better skin.
The contrast with my mother was striking. She worked until she was past 80 years of age and was suffering from dementia so badly that she could not and did not desire to perform. She may have done so to earn the money they needed to live the life they wanted to live. She may have done it to make sure that I had workers. She may have done it simply to remain vital, but she did it. She never gave up on the person that she had been all her life. She never lost courage.
As we go through the wars to get this country back to working for its citizens by getting its citizens to work for it, we have to face the notion that there is some magic age when we define people as insignificant, but very worthy of our support regardless of the cost. We are wrecking our economy by sending $7 upward in our society for every $1 that is sent downward. This has to stop or we will not have a country much longer.
I have seen the forces within my own family to not only keep this up but accelerate it. I have watched, and participated, as rather than take on "family responsibilities" we relegate those responsibilities to the government. I have watched as my siblings denied the moral obligation to limit the taking of government money by allowing a natural death to happen. This is not a problem that "they" are causing. It is a problem that "we" are causing.
In an ideal world, I have no idea how my father's last 27 years would have played out, and I do not want to know. This is not an ideal world, never has been, and never will be. But, knowing that nature will create those conditions sooner or later which will lead to "a little loss of courage" why do we speed up the process? Why, if the government is going to get involved, is it not encouraging people to delay that process until nature demands it? Why do we give people the tools to give up courage early when those tools are bankrupting us?
God bless every one of you who is 65, or 70, or more, who goes to work on a regular schedule and maintains his or her vitality. My Aunt Lib, who also worked for me, worked on until she was about 87. She always said that if she stopped then she would just die. For her the choice was work or die, and she worked, God rest her soul. If only there were tens of millions of others out there like Aunt Lib, then we could get our country back. If only.....
My father, like most people, was many people and I certainly do not have ownership of the total Clyde Moore. But, no one can deny that he was a driven man who saw the world as standing in his way. His central daily task was to use machete, fists, verbal assault, or whatever it took to cut for himself a way through that jungle growth that was composed of every kind of vine hostile to his ambitions. He was a fighter and his first thought about you or anyone else that he encountered was that you were put there to be outdone, outsmarted, out-fought, or outworked.
Sometimes I use the word "bully" to describe him. If you show me your definitions of a bully, then I can certainly show you how Clyde Parks Moore fit those definitions. The thing that bothers me so much today is that I can also show you those same characteristics in varying degrees in all his sons, including me. But, the word bully has such a limited scope, and omits so much of the man, that to just call him a bully would be unjust, and simply not sufficient.
So what happens when a man with the drive of my father finds that he no longer has the physical and mental prowess to meet the world on his terms and must subjugate his will to the will of others? What happens when he finds that it is not his drive but his undeveloped skills of negotiation that will best help him accomplish his goals? What happens when he has no choice but to wait upon others and their schedules to get the help he now has to have to simply get from here to there?
Before I go on with this, let me say that as my father was in the throes of his severe loss of abilities, just when he had to rely upon others for help, there were complicating factors with my mother and her condition that set up terrible clashes between he and I which should never have happened. But, I was the last person that my father gave up on bullying for a bunch of reasons, and those clashes happened. I am not writing this as some sort of absolution of my own sins. I should have been smarter, but I was not.
Nothing about my father's last years bothered me so much as his giving up on the courage that drove him for so many years. He began to surrender that courage at the age of 62 because the government had told him that they would be somewhat responsible for him at that age through Social Security. By the time he was 65, he had made the transition to retired, and he never pretended to be anything but retired in the 24 years he lived after that. The word retired carries with it the justification for the surrendering of courage, and so he let it slip away from him long before there was any physical reason for him to do so.
My father spent a lot of time in his years between 62 and 89 playing the role of the senior citizen. He traveled on buses with his friends. He attended a weekly meeting of senior citizens and served as its co-president twice. He and my mother developed friendships and got together regularly with others their age to play card and board games. He worked in his shop making all sorts of wood items, something that he was sort of a natural at doing. His work was beautiful. and imaginative.
For 27 years, that was my father's life, mostly because the government had set up programs that allowed him to lose courage, lose vitality, and lose desire to get any of it back. Those 27 years equals the total of the years of my brother and his son, who died early due to cancer. What Merle Haggard described as a little loss of courage, my father, because the government told him he could, surrendered as if he were going to be able to simply molt like a bug and take on a new and better skin.
The contrast with my mother was striking. She worked until she was past 80 years of age and was suffering from dementia so badly that she could not and did not desire to perform. She may have done so to earn the money they needed to live the life they wanted to live. She may have done it to make sure that I had workers. She may have done it simply to remain vital, but she did it. She never gave up on the person that she had been all her life. She never lost courage.
As we go through the wars to get this country back to working for its citizens by getting its citizens to work for it, we have to face the notion that there is some magic age when we define people as insignificant, but very worthy of our support regardless of the cost. We are wrecking our economy by sending $7 upward in our society for every $1 that is sent downward. This has to stop or we will not have a country much longer.
I have seen the forces within my own family to not only keep this up but accelerate it. I have watched, and participated, as rather than take on "family responsibilities" we relegate those responsibilities to the government. I have watched as my siblings denied the moral obligation to limit the taking of government money by allowing a natural death to happen. This is not a problem that "they" are causing. It is a problem that "we" are causing.
In an ideal world, I have no idea how my father's last 27 years would have played out, and I do not want to know. This is not an ideal world, never has been, and never will be. But, knowing that nature will create those conditions sooner or later which will lead to "a little loss of courage" why do we speed up the process? Why, if the government is going to get involved, is it not encouraging people to delay that process until nature demands it? Why do we give people the tools to give up courage early when those tools are bankrupting us?
God bless every one of you who is 65, or 70, or more, who goes to work on a regular schedule and maintains his or her vitality. My Aunt Lib, who also worked for me, worked on until she was about 87. She always said that if she stopped then she would just die. For her the choice was work or die, and she worked, God rest her soul. If only there were tens of millions of others out there like Aunt Lib, then we could get our country back. If only.....
Friday, February 5, 2010
Of Sickness, Health, Old Friends, and Family
Remember when the news of the day was the new car, the new child on the way, the new school that the kids would enter this year, the problems on the job, or the promotion? Somewhere in your twenties you enter that world and it goes on and on as if it were never going to end, and then silence, it is over.
The last kid goes off to college and the house has an eerie silence in it that all the televisions and radios can not fill. You walk into bedrooms once almost off limits to you and look around, waiting for what was to come to life, and noting happens. Finally the telephone rings and one of the children tells you that they would love to see you, but it may be next month, or the next, or the next. You adapt.
It is sort of a blessing that your own parents are in more need of your time and energies now, and you jump headfirst into their problems, and you start calling up and talking to people who you have known along the way who got lost. You join in community efforts more and you get involved in other interests, writing or working sudoku puzzles. When you get the chance, you go on extended trips to places you always wanted to visit.
In the twinkling of an eye, grandchildren are born, parents pass on, and you find yourself sitting in front of the computer, signing up for Social Security and Medicare. Little back and leg problems become chronic, and you spend a lot more time in the doctor's office or other medical facilities. Sisters, brothers, inlaws, friends, and other acquaintances start having problems that are even more chronic and life threatening.
You go to the mailbox and there is a letter from an old friend's wife saying that Larry died a couple of months ago after an extended illness.
Three years ago, while working in High Point, you stopped by to see Larry and Kathy, old college friends, and had a great couple of hours but you knew that Larry was headed for big problems, but, though you are in his town many times, you fail to followup, and he is gone. But, like magic, another old college friend calls you up and tells you that he has letters you wrote him when in college and he wants to give them to you. You drive across town to see him for the first time in 35 years and you find there is a kindred spirit that is sort of in the same place in life that you are, again, and the communication is very satisfying. There was a reason that you were buddies 45 years ago.
What is it going to take for me to like this thing they call old age? For one, a lot more contact with my grandchildren than I have been able to have over the last six years. Another is for family members to tear down the religious and political fences they have constructed to corral their friends and keep out their enemies. I really do not give a damn about either your politics or religion any longer, I care about your humanity. Us old geezers are close enough to finding out the real truth about religion and we need to stop dividing up the world into those who think like us and those who don't. My soul belongs to me, not you, so, stay off the turf.
But, it is also going to take as much reuniting with old friends as possible. I want to sit and talk with Dennis Franklin and Robbie Cannon, Joe Miller and Jimmy Mullis, and all the others that were once such a great part of my life. I want to share the pain and the agony with my family members who have been there all my life. I also want to share the joy and the rewards of a well spent life.
Morrison and I have been partners in business for 31 years. I want to be one of the people he and Connie talk to about her bout with cancer. I want to console and elate her as she takes this unwanted journey. I want to talk with both of them about the great projects that we have tackled together, nearly always with astonishing success. I want to gloat over the awards won and the people made happy by our work.
And, I want to make new friends and enjoy those that circumstance or propinquity have brought into my life. I want to go out and drink a cup of coffee now and then and talk about life, politics, and baseball scores.
Like the other parts of my life, this one will also pass, and I want it to be worth the living just as the other were. The death and sickness notices will come, and I accept that as a part of this phase of my life, but I demand there be balance.
The last kid goes off to college and the house has an eerie silence in it that all the televisions and radios can not fill. You walk into bedrooms once almost off limits to you and look around, waiting for what was to come to life, and noting happens. Finally the telephone rings and one of the children tells you that they would love to see you, but it may be next month, or the next, or the next. You adapt.
It is sort of a blessing that your own parents are in more need of your time and energies now, and you jump headfirst into their problems, and you start calling up and talking to people who you have known along the way who got lost. You join in community efforts more and you get involved in other interests, writing or working sudoku puzzles. When you get the chance, you go on extended trips to places you always wanted to visit.
In the twinkling of an eye, grandchildren are born, parents pass on, and you find yourself sitting in front of the computer, signing up for Social Security and Medicare. Little back and leg problems become chronic, and you spend a lot more time in the doctor's office or other medical facilities. Sisters, brothers, inlaws, friends, and other acquaintances start having problems that are even more chronic and life threatening.
You go to the mailbox and there is a letter from an old friend's wife saying that Larry died a couple of months ago after an extended illness.
Three years ago, while working in High Point, you stopped by to see Larry and Kathy, old college friends, and had a great couple of hours but you knew that Larry was headed for big problems, but, though you are in his town many times, you fail to followup, and he is gone. But, like magic, another old college friend calls you up and tells you that he has letters you wrote him when in college and he wants to give them to you. You drive across town to see him for the first time in 35 years and you find there is a kindred spirit that is sort of in the same place in life that you are, again, and the communication is very satisfying. There was a reason that you were buddies 45 years ago.
What is it going to take for me to like this thing they call old age? For one, a lot more contact with my grandchildren than I have been able to have over the last six years. Another is for family members to tear down the religious and political fences they have constructed to corral their friends and keep out their enemies. I really do not give a damn about either your politics or religion any longer, I care about your humanity. Us old geezers are close enough to finding out the real truth about religion and we need to stop dividing up the world into those who think like us and those who don't. My soul belongs to me, not you, so, stay off the turf.
But, it is also going to take as much reuniting with old friends as possible. I want to sit and talk with Dennis Franklin and Robbie Cannon, Joe Miller and Jimmy Mullis, and all the others that were once such a great part of my life. I want to share the pain and the agony with my family members who have been there all my life. I also want to share the joy and the rewards of a well spent life.
Morrison and I have been partners in business for 31 years. I want to be one of the people he and Connie talk to about her bout with cancer. I want to console and elate her as she takes this unwanted journey. I want to talk with both of them about the great projects that we have tackled together, nearly always with astonishing success. I want to gloat over the awards won and the people made happy by our work.
And, I want to make new friends and enjoy those that circumstance or propinquity have brought into my life. I want to go out and drink a cup of coffee now and then and talk about life, politics, and baseball scores.
Like the other parts of my life, this one will also pass, and I want it to be worth the living just as the other were. The death and sickness notices will come, and I accept that as a part of this phase of my life, but I demand there be balance.
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