This is the Turning Point

This is the day that made the election of Mitt Romney a certainty! Today was the turning point in this campaign that will ignite and empower the conservative wing of the Republican Party behind Romney, which was previously a concern given his reputation as a moderate. His promise to repeal this travesty as his first act as President will propel him to a convincing win.

We already know that we have the greatest health care system in the world based on quality and access. We know that even those who are uninsured, for whatever reasons, get quality care at the expense of those who can afford insurance. We have now handed this system over to the government and they have concocted a 2,700 page description of how they will run it, and the document is totally incomprehensible even to those professionals who currently are part of it.

We have seen premiums go up anywhere from 10% - 30% in the past year as we prepare for enforcement, compared with a much smaller rise in health care costs in the previous 4 years. Also, we have seen the various “glitches” that have occurred as we try to understand it, such as the violation of our First Amendment rights related to freedom of religion. Once again we have been deceived by this President, who sold this as a mandate when in fact it was a tax increase on all Americans and he did not have the guts to admit it. He left it to the Supreme Court to say it was a tax in order to be constitutional.

What this means to us, the consumer, concerning the impact on quality and accessibility, is virtually unknown. But what we do know is that if you are on Medicare there is now $500B in benefits that you will lose, much of which will go to Medicaid under State control which will be funded by the government for the first year. States than have the option to opt-out if they are concerned about their ability to sustain that program long term. If they do, the cost will go back to federal taxpayers. Also, those who have their health insurance through their employer may lose it and be force to buy it independently at a higher premium if they want the same coverage, should their employer elect to opt-out and pay a fine if it makes economic sense.

This may be a temporary victory for Obama, but it was earned on a technicality, since the President has repeatedly denied it is a tax. He has now violated another promise to the American public and it will unseat him in the final analysis. The unbiased Government Accounting Office has said that the Affordable Healthcare Act is unaffordable, because it will cost at least $2 trillion more than originally estimated and further exacerbate our debt problem. We are now on the path of socialist Europe in healthcare. Let’s make sure we repeal it before it is implemented in 2014 and becomes an entitlement that we can’t get rid of.

I hope it makes you work harder towards unseating this Administration and electing a President and Congress that will undo this fiasco.

Vulture or Crony - Pick Your Poison

This President seems to have a knack for being on the wrong side of the argument on most issues and the fact that his campaign is continually on the defense bears this out. His recent attack on Governor Romney’s so called “vulture-style” of capitalism as opposed to his “crony-style”, as he moonlights as CEO-in-Chief, is a futile attempt to justify the fact that an economy driven by political favoritism is preferable to one run by the pursuit of profit.

Of course, the scientists who work for the Energy Dept (their leader is a Nobel Prize winner) were a bit turned off by this profit thing, and decided to hand Solyndra a $535M loan guarantee even as government accountants said this was a loser. So the White House said let’s have the IRS triple the tax credit for Solyndra customers which would offset the fact that they were not competitive, not recognizing the fact that when you are in a global market this doesn’t work! So 1,100 people get laid off, no severance, no vacation back pay, but there still was room for $370,000 in bonuses for 20 “selected” employees.

In another flagrant case of crony capitalism, let’s look at Obama’s Detroit venture. The campaign is crowing about the success of saving GM and Chrysler. Yes, they are both still operating but they arguably would be at the same place if they went through an orderly bankruptcy like the steel and airline industries did which made them more competitive. Instead, with Obama’s capitalism we hand a total of $83B to both firms and give the UAW union controlling ownership as a prize for causing the bankruptcies in the first place. In turn, the UAW bars 2,500 non-union laid-off workers from transferring to other plants. Wow, this is beginning to look somewhat vulture-like! Also, let’s forget about contract law and screw the unsecured bondholders in favor of the union. All those bonds go belly-up and all those people who invested in GM and Chrysler for their retirement, well, they just have to work a little longer. That is, if they can keep their job.

Also, lets subsidize GM’s electric car and give everyone who buys one a $10,000 tax credit. No wonder GM is doing well, they have a gigantic loan for which they don’t have to make a payment for another two years, and all their money-losing activities are subsidized by you and me. Even Barney Frank can run that company and make it look good, at least, for a while.

OK, now you decide. Do you want Obama crony capitalism, which is driven by political favors, subsidies, mandates, and tax credits or Romney vulture capitalism driven by profit? At least when vulture capitalism fails its private money that suffers, not you or me. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take vulture every time.