Sunday February 21 2010 by John Hanevy.

“One year later, it is largely thanks to the Recovery Act that a second depression is no longer a possibility.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33052.html#ixzz0g95ywGwM

Never? I don’t think the Recovery Act can guarantee that! I also don’t think we are out of the woods yet–unemployment is still at 9.7%, that’s a lot of people out of work and not spending money. 70 per cent of our economy is based on spending by consumers, so it will be a rough ride until we get unemployment down. Creating government bureaucratic “jobs” won’t do it, we need to lower taxes to encourage businesses to expand, instead of encouraging them to layoff people due to mandated health care!

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Sunday February 21 2010 by John Hanevy.

Newt Gingrich recently asked his readers on Twitter:  What should be done to reduce health care costs? Here is my response.

Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines.

Allow small businesses to form “pools” to increase their bargaining power with insurance companies. Allow these “pools” to occur across state lines.

Allow insurance companies to continue their process of “pooling” individuals, or companies, into group plans. Let the free market determine who should be in these plans,what benefits should be provided, and what the cost should be.

Provide incentives to encourage small businesses who currently do not offer health insurance to join a “pool”. Gradually phase the program out.

Don’t allow government to play ANY role in determining the type of care, or medications allowed to a patient.

Preserve the confidential doctor-patient relationship.

No mandatory “end-of-life” discussions! This is a personal matter that the government has no business passing legislation about!

Don’t mandate, or restrict, any form of preventive care.

Allow importation of drugs from other countries, like Canada, that have proven their safety controls are adequate.

Don’t mandate insurance for anyone who doesn’t want it. Some people are on a very tight budget and just can’t afford another bill–which would be caused by the extra money which would be taken out of their paychecks to pay for their health care.

Don’t allow illegal immigrants to benefit from any taxpayer-funded, or subsidized, health care plan. Enforce our current immigration laws, fine, or deny federal funds, to any state that refuses to comply with immigration laws, or that allows sanctuary cities to exist.

Don’t pass a national health care plan. Allow the free market, and the American citizens continue to make informed choices about what, if any, coverage they need.

Continue to fund existing programs for the poor on a needs-based model. Find ways to consolidate clinics and staff where possible, to reduce costs.

Pass tort reform to stop excessive awards for frivolous lawsuits. Penalize those who file frivolous lawsuits, disbar lawyers who continuously tie up our courts with such lawsuits.

Streamline, or eliminate, current regulations on doctors and hospitals that are of limited, or no value, to reduce paperwork costs.

Modernize communications between doctors, patients, hospitals, insurance companies, and other related parties to save time, and further reduce costs. As a side benefit, this would also create jobs!

Create an “assigned risk” pool, similar to what exists for auto insurance, for those patients who can’t get coverage due to pre-existing conditions, or other problems. This would spread the risk among all insurance companies and their groups, preventing any single group from being overburdened with high-cost patients. This would also help stabilize the costs of group plans which can fluctuate due to changing risks.

This is just a short list of what could be done–I’m sure I’ve missed many more ideas.

If you’d like to weigh in on this topic,  Go Here : American People’s Online Health Summit

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Wednesday February 10 2010 by John Hanevy.

There is some good news this week–there is a court case challenging (former NY carpetbagger), Hillary Clinton’s  eligibility to serve as Secretary of State. Seems you can’t vote to increase the salary and benefits of an office that you may be appointed to. Even though the increases were rolled back by Congress before she was appointed, there is a question whether this is legal or not, since the Constitution expressly forbids any senator or representative to be appointed to any U.S. civil office if the “emoluments” were increased during the time for which they were elected. Hillary Clinton voted 3 times to increase the salary of the Secretary of State position while serving as senator of NY.

Here is the relevant clause of the Constitution, Article I, section 6, clause 2 :

“No senator or representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been [increased] during such time.”

So now we have both “President” Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s eligibility to serve being questioned.  So it’s possible we may be rid of both of them—be still my heart! 

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