Tuesday, November 24, 2009

My Healthcare Solution For The U.S.

I wrote this back in July and never posted it. Time to weigh in...

(A) There is nothing wrong with health care in the United States. The Healthcare debate is about money.

(B) Today in the U.S., whether you can pay for it or not, everyone gets some form of healthcare.

(C) With US population growth near zero, the healthcare costs of the U.S. will be basically flat plus inflation in the future.

(D) There are three "costs" that occur within the healthcare system that do not contribute to healing and prevention. (1) Fraud, (2) Poor Productivity, (3) Insurance Company Profits. All three of these must be eliminated which further ensures point (C) above will be true.

(E) Fraud and Poor Productivity can be eliminated through the use of Information Technology provided some effort is put into business process re-engineering.

(F) Insurance companies would be required to operate at zero profit plus investment recap for their health insurance units. They can also leverage their back office operations with their other "for profit" insurance units (auto, home, etc.) to gain some economic advantages.

(G) Since Federal and State governments of the U.S. already provide more than 50% of the health care insurance coverage already, a government provided insurance option can be provided for those not wishing to buy private insurance. Government insurance programs for the poor and aged would continue as they do today.

(H) Those who remain uninsured, consume healthcare services and then refuse to pay for those services will be pressed into community service at healthcare institutions until their debt is repaid.

(I) Businesses may provide insurance coverage for their employees and/or self-insure as a means of retaining talent.

(J) Second amendment rights will ensure the government won't ration health care because the American people won't stand for it. The politicians will lose their jobs or worse.


Today my parents are covered by US government provided medicare and they buy additional insurance ("medicare supplement") from a private insurer to cover things that Medicare does not provide. What is wrong with that for all US citizens?

You see, if the arguments could be reduced to the facts and points above, we could make progress. But there are groups at work who are positioning the legislation such that their real agenda can be carried out later. And it is these groups for which the common citizens are most afraid and why protests are mounting:


#1) The anti-population crowd that believes there are too many people already and that death should be hastened for the unproductive and reproduction should be curtailed. Their basis lies in the belief that the planet's biggest problem is people.


#2) The anti-capitalist crowd who believes that anything that provides equal opportunity without equal outcomes must be eliminated.


#3) The anti-freedom crowd who believe that they know what is best for people and plan to use the provision or denial of healthcare to control people.

#4) The usual suspects that create massive legislative works in order to enrich themselves, their friends, or people who helped them get elected in the last election.

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Federal Reserve concerned about its own solvency

Took a vacation from blogging for 2 months but the latest FOMC report from the Federal Reserve has gotten me back in action. Pretty short read. The whole text can be found here: http://federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20091104a.htm

Federal Reserve people are like scared ducks in a pond. They look calm on the surface but underneath the water they are paddling furiously. That's why you need to really look at what they are saying in these reports because it all sounds quite benign. It isn't.

"In order to promote a smooth transition in markets, the Committee will gradually slow the pace of its purchases of both agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities and anticipates that these transactions will be executed by the end of the first quarter of 2010."

Agency debt is one of the reasons the financial collapse started. Agency debt is created by surrogates of the US Government created by the US Government. The US Government has taken no action AT ALL conerning US Sponsored Agencies, their policies, practices nor the legislation that mandates their actions and behavior. Everything that has caused the intial problem has continued, unabated, and even somewhat augmented by stimulus activity.

The Federal Reserve bank is basically saying in their report, "We've been buying your crap to keep you afloat. While we were risking our own solvency, you did nothing. Starting 2Q10, you are on your own".

===> If you are in the US and most of your holdings/cash are US dollars, you probably need to find an entry point to buy more gold. The price of gold is not going up. The value of the dollar is going down which makes it look like gold is expensive. We are just getting started.