Health Care Reform

While I was away on vacation, Health Care Reform passed. While the bill was presented as a bill that was funded, this was simply a lie.

The bill included revenue from the government taking over the national student loan program (which it won't and besides has nothing to do with health care).

It included Medicare cuts to physicians, that will be restored with a subsequent bill.

In addition, the bill added taxes on passive income to fund Medicare and therefore the revenue from this new tax was not really relevant to the incremental cost of this bill.

As written today, the initial cost of the program will be funded by young healthy people who previously opted out of the cost of health insurance, selective health care providers, and individuals with passive income.

Obama seeks to "finish" the transformation of America into the Great Society. However, to realize the vision of the Great Society, we must use innovation and not income redistribution as the primary means of funding new entitlements. We must restructure our health care delivery system to make it more efficient and to utilize resources more effectively.

Otherwise, America is likely to move towards an American form of European socialism, which in time leads to a nation's decline. Eventually, this decline will reflect itself in every aspect of our standard of living.

In closing, the passing of the Health Care Reform bill will create the largest redistribution of wealth since the social programs of the 60s. In addition, over time it will transfer wealth that would have gone into investments to consumption and therefore make our nation as a whole poorer.

When Obama ran on "change we can believe in", I was skeptical. Now I am more so. As someone who has spent a career in health care doing turnarounds, I know that the only sustainable way to increase the standard of living of a group of people is to either increase the "revenues" of the group or decrease the "expenses" of the group. It doesn't matter whether we are talking about a family, a community, a business, or a nation.

The Health Care Reform bill failed on both accounts. Bottom line, while I favor many of the "ends" of the Health Care Reform bill, I cannot support it. If given a chance, I would vote to repeal it until a better "means" of achieving those "ends" were put in place. I may get my first chance at doing so this November, I just hope there are candidates with real vision.

In closing, this blog is not intended as an endorsement of the Republicans or a condemnation of the Democrats, since both parties since focused on power more than the future of the nation.