Responsibility #86

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=110 BGCOLOR="#666699" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04900840erlcjm.png"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>NATIONAL SECURITY--Structural,Moral,Economic,Domestic,International</B></FONT><B>     |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="NATIONAL SECURITYStructural,Moral,Econom"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id33.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility Contents"><U>Responsibility Contents</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id34.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 1"><U>Responsibility #1</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id35.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 2"><U>Responsibility #2</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id36.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 3"><U>Responsibility #3</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id37.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 4"><U>Responsibility #4</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id38.htm" 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President, et al,"><U>Health Care Letters to President, et al, 8/24/94</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id123.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Arguments for Delay in Enactment of a He"><U>Arguments for Delay in Enactment of a Health Care Bill</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id124.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Post WORLD WAR IIPost COLD WAR Deja Vu"><U>Post WORLD WAR II--Post COLD WAR Deja Vu</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id125.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 89"><U>Responsibility #89</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id126.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 90"><U>Responsibility #90</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id127.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 91"><U>Responsibility #91</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id128.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 92"><U>Responsibility #92</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id129.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 93"><U>Responsibility #93</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id130.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 94"><U>Responsibility #94</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id131.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 95"><U>Responsibility #95</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id132.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 96"><U>Responsibility #96</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id133.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 97"><U>Responsibility #97</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id134.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 98"><U>Responsibility #98</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id135.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Structure of Our Nation is Unsound"><U>The Structure of Our Nation is Unsound</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id136.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ltr. to Editor, 3/19/96, Property Taxes "><U>Ltr. to Editor, 3/19/96, Property Taxes and Education Funding</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=190 BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" TEXT="#080000" background="04311c00egdysm.png"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=370 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> Responsibility #86</div> <div> To the People of the United States of America:</div> <bR> <div>      <U>6th postscript, April 1994</U>.  In essays #72 through #85, we have been examining the extent to which progress has been made, in resolving problems addressed in prior RESPONSIBILITY papers, during the terms to date of the current President and Congress. Covered so far have been <U>Deficit/National Debt Reduction</U>, <U>The </U><U>Economy/Interest Rates</U>, and <U>Taxes/Appropriations/Organization Reforms</U>.  In April and May 1994, Health Care climbed to top billing in national debates.</div> <bR> <div>      <U>Health Care</U>.  STOP THE MUSIC!  There is cacophony, distrust, dissension, fear, and uncertainty in the air.  The nation is not ready to proceed with a new health care commitment.  </div> <div>      There are six congressional committees with major jurisdiction over health care.  Each is attempting to write its own plan, which will be melded by the leadership, before getting to the House and Senate floors.  In reading the newspapers, it is difficult to keep track of how many plans have been put forward, much less to digest and recall the details of each proposal. There are the Clinton plan, the Cooper bill, the Gramm bill, H.R. 3080, McDermott's single payer bill, the Chafee bill, the Kennedy plan, and perhaps others.  </div> <div>      A number of states have jumped the gun with health care actions, that may or may not prove compatible, with what is eventually enacted by the federal government.  For example, California has a single-payer health plan initiative; Arizona has enacted the Accountable Health Plan of Arizona and state tax-exempt medical savings accounts.</div> <div>      Partisan politics is paramount in all this.  [What else is new?]  But there is also legitimate concern, for various provisions of the plan forwarded to the Congress by the President, and to opposing provisions favored by other bill sponsors.  In all cases, federal and state, the proposals fail to address the fact, that health care reform cannot proceed without adequate prior or concurrent definition, of what the nation will do about other problems that are interrelated with, and mutually impacted by, this endeavor.</div> <div>        </div> <div>      Were the Defense Department to forward to the Congress a major weapon system proposal from one of the military services, with the extent of definition comparable to the present health care plans, it would be denied authorization and appropriations. It would be sent back to basic or applied research stages.  </div> <div>      The Congress would tell Defense, that it had not adequately pinned down the threat, that the proposal is meant to meet.  It would say that the Department has failed to make its case, that the proposed system is a good and necessary replacement, for the system already in place.</div> <div>   </div> <div>      The Congress would decry the lack of consideration, that Defense has given to how the proposed system fits in with the needs, to meet other threats to the well being of the nation.  The Department would be advised that the greatest threat to the nation, for the next several decades, is deficit spending and the effects of the huge national debt.  Defense would have to identify other military costs that could be eliminated, without jeopardizing the well being of the nation, before a new proposed system would be given consideration.  </div> <bR> <div>      The Department would be admonished, to provide a greater confidence level, that the effects of the development and introduction of the system on the economics of the nation are predictable, and not deleterious.  Before resubmitting a proposal for the weapon system to Congress, Defense would be required to have a better handle on short and long term cost projections, and the program schedule for phasing in the superseding system.</div> <div>      Unfortunately, at the moment of this writing, the nation faces the prospect that the scalawags in the Administration and the Congress (and certain state Governors) will put the 1994 election (plus posturing for the 1996 contest for the Presidency) ahead of good government.  The pressure is extreme, to make the compromises deemed politically necessary, to pass a Health Care Plan now, regardless of the risks to the nation.  FULL SPEED AHEAD, DAMN THE TORPEDOES!   </div> <div>      Let us return briefly to relate the implications of health care, to the three subjects already discussed in this 6th postscript.</div> <div> <U>Health Care and the Deficit/National Debt</U>.  In the game of national finances, before the terms of the 103rd Congress and President Clinton,  we were already into "overtime".  "Sudden Death" could end the performance at any time.  With the end of deficit financing not in sight, with the paper-thin thickness of the ever-expanding national debt balloon, with the unfathomable depth of federal guarantees, any blade of grass could deflect the ball from the cup.</div> <div>   </div> <div> Any deficit financing in a Health Plan is unacceptable.  Any new taxes, that would detract from the ability of the federal government, to eliminate the deficits due to all other spending, and to begin paydown of the national debt, should be taboo.  Any new federal guarantees, or impediments to reducing the present extent of guarantees, are a burden the government cannot undertake.</div> <div> <U>Health Care and The Economy</U>.  Presidents and Congresses since 1981 have taken at best, minuscule steps toward balancing the budget.  They have taken no steps toward reducing the national debt.  Instead they have hung on to a "wing and a prayer" that someday, somehow, the nation would enjoy prolonged, robust economies, sufficient to atone for all our past financial transgressions.  Some would still have us irresponsibly worship at the idol of the Laffer curve and the trickle-down theory.</div> <bR> <div> It is reported that health care constitutes one-seventh of our economy.  No defense or space or other national program has ever approached such a magnitude of responsibility.  Yet, the Clinton and others of the health plans being debated would mandate heavy burdens on businesses.  All mandates on businesses inhibit their competitiveness in the market place, and/or result in higher prices for their products and services.  In any case, the economy will be adversely effected, further exacerbating the lack of solutions to  the deficit/national debt and other national problems.   </div> <div> The Clinton and others of the health care plans being debated would move this huge slice of our economy, in the direction of monopolistic and oligopolistic principles.  They would put most all eggs in the basket of insufficiently proven modes of health insurance and care providers.  The result could spell disaster.</div> <div> <U>Health Care and Taxes/Appropriations</U>.  It appears that the President and the Congress are determined to repeat the errors of the Social Security, Medicare, and Supplementary Security Income programs.  They would again convince the naive electorate that there are free lunches.  The voters are again to be fed the opiate, that the pains of paying for guaranteed health care can be relieved, by passing the burdens through mandates on businesses. FOOL ME ONCE, SHAME ON YOU; FOOL ME TWICE (or more times), SHAME ON ME!</div> <div>   </div> <div> Premiums paid by businesses will be recouped from the consumer or, more likely, by reduced wages to the employees.  Subsidies paid by the government to small businesses, to enable them to comply with mandates, will result in increased taxes paid by someone, sometime, in some form.  </div> <div>      In the next paper, we will discuss what should be done, before the music of health care legislation is started up again.</div> <div>                     Publius IV</div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id120.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 87"><U>Responsibility #87</U></A></div> <div> Back to: <A HREF="id33.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility Contents"><U>Responsibility Contents</U></A></div> </td> </tr></table></body>