So, how much will YOU pay for Obamacare?

The Supreme Court rendered it's decision on the legality of Obamacare this week. This post will not discuss that here. That's for another day and another column. Today is about the intended and unintended effects of this new far reaching federal legislation. But mostly, its about the massive cost of Obamacare. As the President and the Democrats envision it - Obamacare will add 30 million new people into the healthcare rolls. On the surface, that sounds great. 30 million people with medical coverage who didn't have it prior. But eventually someone will have to pay for it and that someone is... (Get ready. Here it comes) You. That's right. You will be the benevolent benefactor to most of these new enrollees. How? Will it is complicated and yet quite simple. Here goes.

We all now know that despite what Mr. Obama told you back in 2008 and 2009, his healthcare plan mandate is actually a tax, not a penalty. The Supreme Court just said so and this time, Obama didn't even flinch when they said it. Those who don't have insurance must buy it somewhere or pay a penal -  OOPS, tax. Many of these people can't afford coverage or else they already would have had it. So the government will subsidize their premiums through your taxes which will most certainly increase to cover the cost of the subsidies.  If you get your coverage through your employer as most people do, expect them to trim benefits to reduce costs. A Pew Research poll recently stated that 68% of employers are considering reducing benefits, deductables and yes, salaries as a way to keep their operating costs down. The same survey found that 71% of employers would consider hiring only part time workers instead of full time workers so as not to have to provide medical benefits. But it gets worse...

Pennsylvania for instance, will have to absorb as many as 700,000 new people enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid at a cost of $2 billion. Where do you think the Commonwealth is going to come up with that kind of scratch?  Hmmm. If you guessed you through increased taxes... Bingo! You win! Or do you?

The governments estimated number of new physicians that will be required to execute Obamacare is 160,000. As a member of the healthcare community, I hear all kinds of conversations. And I can tell you there is no way a number of new physicians even close to that figure will be coming anytime soon. In fact, at the rate that current physicians are choosing to retire because of this massive interference in medicine - that 160,000 number is probably way, way too low. Try doubling it. Medicare & Medicaid reimbursments have fallen so much that medical offices must see many more patients a day to break even. My Mother had two recent doctors visit. In both of those visits she saw a PA (Physician's Assistant) not a doctor. Even with a return visit to further investigate her problem, the PA mis-diagnosed her condition as "geriatric menapause" assuring her everything was normal. Only after she had a hospital stay for appendicitis did they catch the tumor she has growing near her Uterus. The doctors at the hospital couldn't believe that a simple ultra-sound wasn't performed. I'm sure there are fantastic PAs out there. It is not my intent here to maligne them. But a PA is not a substitute for a doctor anymore than a window is a suitable substitute for a door.
In any case - get used to seeing a lot of PAs in your future and a lot less doctors. As for specialists, you'll only get to see the ones you can afford. (They can afford to be pickier about who they see) And since they are even fewer in numbers, and since 30 million new potential patients will be coming their way - you may wait a long time to see the front of the line.

As with most government programs, this one is going to end up cost a lot more than originally envisioned. In 1965, Congress estimated that Medicare would cost about $5 billion by the year 1990. In 1990, the actual cost of Medicare was $95 billion. See where I'm goin' here?  When was the last time a government estimated cost of a program was actually correct? If the cost of Obamacare is even a fraction of the Medicare error ... well, you get the idea. And the bill.

I wish I lived in that fantasy world some do, who think that a major program like this wont cost much if anything. But I live in the real world. And I'm old enough to see the history and patterns of Washington's wild spending and it's dismal outcomes. While smaller more simple ajustments to the current healthcare situation would have been cheaper and easier to put into effect - like allowing insurance companies to compete against each other across state lines - we have been saddled against our wishes with this massive intrusion. Fortunately, we do have a method to undo this mess. Its called an "election". On November 6th I will be voting to elect the people who are commited to repealing Obamacare not to mention promote fiscal sanity and job creation.  However, if Barack Obama is re-elected and Obamacare is allowed to stand, we will have missed the one possible chance we had to return to sanity and reclaim the most fundemental rights our founders gave us.

Evil prospers when good men do nothing.

There were a number of photographs I could have posted. Some included pictures of six year old children lined up on the ground - all dead. Others showed entire families slaughtered on the living room floor. Some were more graphic than others. Ultimately, I settled on the photo above. It shows death and grief. It show the results of President Assad's assault on his own Syrian people. It shows a type of genocide, one inflicted upon a people within their own borders by their own leader, because they dare to want to live in freedom. Since the uprising in Syria began, thousands of civilians have suffered and died at the hands of Assad's regime. If you show any sympathy for the uprising, you and your family are targeted for assassination. Entire cities sympathetic to the freedom fighters are systematically attacked. Not because they are of a military or strategic importance, but because Assad's forces hope to punish those who dare speak up. And while all this goes on... we do nothing.

China and Russia continually veto any UN resolutions that are critical of Assad. Imagine the arguments they must make in the UN chambers against these resolutions. They should be embarrassed but I doubt they know how. While innocents are slaughtered - they argue in favor of those who do the slaughter. I am reminded of the old saying - "All that is necessary for evil to prosper, is for good men to do nothing". We are a good people of a good country. Yet we do nothing. Resolutions fail. Assad continues to kill. We protest. More children die.

I've not heard one person speak in favor of committing American troops in the Syrian cause, and you wont hear it from me either. But U.S. foot soldiers are not necessary nor are the rebels asking for any. What they do want is a chance at determining their own future. That future will be determined for them if they do not have the arms to liberate themselves from tyranny. It would be nice to think that rational conversations among nations and tyrants could resolve such matters. The truth is - they seldom do. Liberation comes at the end of a gun. It was true in WW I, WW II, the 1991 Gulf War, the Iraq War and our own American Revolution.

I cannot imagine how empty the Syrian people must feel. Eager and ready to fight against their own evil and no one will give them the tools to defend themselves. Meanwhile we sit by and beg the U.N. for help. Why must the United States beg those who facilitate this carnage? We should immediately define evil in the name of Bashar Assad. Automatic weapons, rocket launchers, food and medical supplies must be airlifted to the regions where the rebel strongholds exist. We admitted to having "eyes and ears on the ground"  (CIA) in Syria just as we did in Libya. These efforts can be coordinated with minimal effort and costs. The payoff could be the fall of one pillar of evil within the middle east that includes Syria and it's ally, Iran. Russia and China support both these rouge nations. It is time to offer tangible support of our own - and not in the way of meaningless U.N. resolutions. There are those nations who would follow if we led. But clearly, it must be us who leads.

The United States, whether we like it or not, has some responsibility to support those who, like us 236 years ago, sought to throw off the shackles of a tyrannical oppressor. And like us, asks only for the tools to gain that freedom. Can we deny our help to those who seek the same today - as we did so many years ago? In 2009, the United States said nothing during the demonstrations in Iran. Not a word of support. Not a syllable. And they died in the streets asking us why we remained quiet. That was not leadership. We stayed silent and the brave died. Now we have another opportunity. History may well note that this was a defining moment in time. The question is - will it note the liberation of the oppressed with the help of the standard bearer of liberty, the United States? Or will it note the deafening silence of good men who allowed the slaughter to continue?

When "Green jobs" don't produce the green.

Still think the government can run the economy better than those rascally capitalists? Well, a couple of years ago the President and his party opted to stimulate the economy with $800 billion borrowed from China that your kids and grand kids will have to pay for. Included in that package was a mere $90 billion for so called "green" jobs. At that time the President boasted that this package would produce 200,000 jobs annually over the next 3 years. Three years later... let's revue.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, that $90 billion has produced 16,000 jobs since its inception at a cost of... (drum roll) $5 million per job. According to my calculator, that means 584,000 less jobs that promised. And at $5 million a job - hardly cost beneficial. But the government can afford to waste our money in such a manner because it cost them nothing. They'll just add it to our tab which currently is approaching $16 trillion.

In the real world where those evil, dastardly capitalists live - you can't afford to blow $90 billion and then tell the stockholders; "Hey, at least we tried".  Yet that is exactly what the President and his party want to tell us. Besides $90 billion is only a small fraction of the $800 billion stimulus package. Kinda' make you wonder how they pissed away the other $710 billion, doesn't it? Considering how much we had to borrow for this fiasco, you'd think we'd be seeing better results. But we aren't and here's why.

First. Economics 101: Governments can't create jobs or wealth.
Economic growth is created when investors risk capital in a venture. If it succeeds, they make a profit... eventually. They hire people to work in this venture. Those people use their income to buy goods and services from other workers who produce other things. All these workers pay taxes. The government uses those taxes to (hopefully) run necessary elements of the government. (Have you noticed that so far the government hasn't done shit in this success story. Good. You're catching on) The government can help facilitate this process by keeping the tax burden on both the company and workers low. But when the government promises more and more entitlements that it can't afford - they have to increase taxes. This robs both the investors and the workers of capital they could better spend elsewhere - like buying goods and services from other workers which keeps this whole scenario rolling.

When the government decides who will be the recipient of the D.C. cash cow, we get things like Solyndra, the solar panel company that Obama gave $550 million which went bankrupt. (Another half-a-billion dollars lost) When you add a billion here and a billion there, it starts to add up to real money! The government cannot create winners and losers. That's what the free market is for and it works quite well. If Solyndra had been such a great offering, why weren't there hundreds if not thousands of private investors lining up to invest their money? Hmmm. Maybe they know something that those brainiac politicians don't.

I'm something of an amateur American historian. And having read the words of our founders, I can tell you they never envisioned a federal government with such sweeping powers and debt. In fact, Jefferson (Tom not George) said that every generation owed the following generation a government without debt to inherit. One can only imagine how he would grasp that 16 trillion number. I've been hearing about the savior of green energy since I was 10 years old. In the decades that followed, that cheap, free energy source we've been promised is neither cheap or free. And is incapable of sustaining itself without government money. Even GM (the recipient of a government bailout) ceased production of its flagship eco-car the Chevy Volt because demand was non-existent even with $4.00 a gallon gas.

I don't doubt that one day our cars will be propelled by non-polluting and plentiful sunshine and lolly pops. But that day is not coming upon us anytime soon. Till then, we better start a real national energy policy that includes drilling here as well as developing new sources of energy. And it can all be done without Washington's involvement and our money. In 1977, President Carter started the Energy Department. Since then, the cost of energy has skyrocketed and no solutions have been developed or enacted. Yet this department  has grown in personnel and budget by 500%. If this was a company - any company, it would have and should have folded decades ago. But don't worry. If we run out of money, we can just borrow more. What's another trillion between the generations anyway.