More govt. won't fix health care

President Obama wants sweeping “reforms” to the American health care system that will lead down the dark path to socialized medicine. But it's not more government we need to reform health care—it's more freedom. The thought of nationalizing healthcare is tantalizing for many Americans. Yet socialized medicine would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, create lengthy, life-threatening wait lines, push out private industry and result in inferior care. Not to mention that nationalized healthcare is not truly free because somebody is going to pay for it—and that somebody is you, the taxpayer. In order to compensate for the costs, our taxes would have to go up, violating the President's pledge against raising taxes on the middle class.

Consequently, private healthcare operations would be crowded out. Those who are paying for their own health coverage would also be paying for those who are under the new government program, eventually discouraging them from maintaining private coverage and, inversely, encouraging them to switch to the cheaper government program. Additionally, the government could initiate regulations and policies to benefit its program over competitors, and many employers will determine that it is more economical to drop their health insurance plans due to the increased financial strain the new program would force upon them.

As with the U.S. Postal Service, any entity run by the government has a striking advantage over private industry. The USPS posted a record-breaking loss in the second quarter of this year of 10.5%, or $1.9 billion—the largest drop in 38 years. Assume for the moment they were to lose more and more money over the course of this year as they lose business, and assume that the very same thing is happening to competitors such as FedEx. USPS, unlike FedEx, has the benefit of taxpayer money to back it up. This has the potential to stifle competition significantly were this hypothetical to play out.

Take Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. While it was never written down on paper, everyone understood that should something happen to either financial institution, the government would be there to back it up. As these examples prove, government programs and government-sponsored enterprises have a unique advantage over their private sector counterparts that, as inefficient as they may be, allows them to continue irrespective of the negative results of their activities. There is no risk when the government is backing you up.

And as the CATO Institute’s Michael Tanner put it, “Government would compel Americans to purchase health insurance, controlling its content, how much we pay, and the relationships between insurers, doctors, and patients. Government bureaucrats would determine whether Americans received certain medical services.”

To the President’s argument that the program would serve as a sort-of support system only for those who can’t afford it, look at Social Security. When FDR began that program in the 1930s, it was intended as a supplement to personal retirement plans, not the primary source of retirement income that it is today. In this case, a program meant as only a support system has grown to be the primary source for retirement funds.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The United States' healthcare system contains the greatest innovations, the highest-quality care and some of the best doctors in the world. The problem with our healthcare system is the disparity between those who can afford it and those who cannot.

President Obama is right that we need reform. The status quo is unacceptable. But his nationalization answer to “cutting costs” does not address the fundamental reasons healthcare outlays are so great. The plan will do little more than inject more government spending and bureaucracy into the industry. The way to fix this is not with greater government control or a new government program, but through more freedom in the marketplace.

The healthcare industry is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country, with the net cost of regulation estimated by Duke University Professor Chris Conover to be $169 billion a year. As with any industry, in order to pay for the dictates of the government, institutions of health are forced to raise costs, which extends to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Government regulations and policies have essentially mandated a third party-based system that forces the consumer to work through health insurance companies, HMO's, employers and other middlemen that pay the supplier. 84% of all personal healthcare spending is made through private health insurance, the government or other private expenditures that are not directly from the patient.

Simple human nature tells us that when someone other than the consumer is doing the paying, demand will rise. Why? Because when an individual is separated from the spending and someone else is paying the costs, consumers are encouraged to use the service more as the incentive for individuals to save for themselves diminishes. After all, the mentality goes, if someone else is paying for it, why should I care?

Likewise, basic economics tells us that as demand rises and supply remains stagnant, prices (premiums) will inevitably go up, which in turn disadvantages those who pay directly, such as the self-employed.

Encouraging the third-party system are tax exemptions for employer-provided health insurance that the millions of self-employed and small business owners and workers who pay on their own do not receive. The government incentives, policies and regulations put in place, in large part by the federal tax code, serve to do nothing more than exacerbate the problem.

The layman's prescription for health reform is increased competition and market freedom. Not a day goes by where we don't see commercials for Geico, AllState and other car insurance companies competing over who provides the best service at the lowest price—competition absent from healthcare because of the third-party system. Insurance companies aren’t competing for individual consumers—they’re contending for large corporations.

To fix this, the healthcare tax exemption needs to be equalized across the board so that everyone, not just the middlemen and large corporations, will benefit from it. That means small businesses as well as individuals. Tax-free health savings accounts need to be expanded, thereby helping individuals to purchase their own health insurance or pull from a pool of money when they need to.

Adjusting the policies and regulations perpetuating the third-party system, like the tax exclusion, would increase competition by allowing consumers to shop around on their own, decreasing costs substantially while maintaining high quality. Furthermore, due to the high cost of regulation, deregulation is critical to opening up the market.

Of course these are just a few starting points that only scratch the surface, but one thing is undeniable: The question is not one of government versus status quo or big business versus government, as the President is trying to frame it. It goes well beyond that.

It's not more government we need to solve healthcare—it's more freedom.

Jimmy Sengenberger is a political science student at Regis University in Denver, a 2008 honors graduate of nearby Grandview High School, a national organizer for the Liberty Day movement, online radio host, and a columnist for the Villager suburban weekly. His website is SengCenter.com. He is also College Liaison for BackboneAmerica.net, working through the Backbone Americans group on Facebook.

Liberty's the answer, year-round

It’s not hard to love Independence Day. There are fireworks, picnics, baseball games, and a long weekend. What’s more, the air is filled with patriotism. On the Fourth, it seems everyone is thankful for freedom and proud to be an American. My Fourth of July wish is for this attitude to last all year long. Our public dialogue these days seems to focus on pragmatic questions, like “How much will taxes go up?” or “Can government spend enough money fast enough to mitigate unemployment?” That sort of talk is a missed opportunity for those who believe in both America’s greatness and its founding principles.

Today we are celebrating the act, two hundred and thirty-three years ago today, of fifty-six courageous patriots who signed the Declaration of Independence. Together with the framers of the Constitution, signed some eleven years later, these founding fathers birthed a nation based on individual freedom and its corollary, a strictly limited government.

This risky experiment was a tremendous success. The freedoms built into the American system led individuals here to create the world’s leading society – the most innovative, the wealthiest, the most charitable, and arguably the most moral. While other countries labor to keep their citizens from leaving, America is a beacon of hope for immigrants around the world who want the freedom to make their dreams into reality. America rebuilt Japan and Europe after World War II. Millions around the world, in places like France, South Korea, Bosnia and Iraq, owe their freedom from tyranny to the U.S. We provide 60% of the world’s food aid, and we are spending $15 billion fighting AIDs in Africa.

There is a sentence in the Declaration that we all know by heart: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This stirring sentence is, of course, an ideal. While at times, our nation has fallen short, striving for this ideal has made America the world’s greatest country. I’m proud to be an American, and if you’re an American you should be proud, too. So let’s talk about it!

Even on the other 364 days of the year, let’s remind others what’s special about this country and push to preserve it. Whether we’re talking about health care, taxation, or environmental policy, let’s remember to ask what’s consistent with America’s tradition of liberty. When my father fled Communism and came to the United States in the 1940s, he was not seeking someone to pay his dental bill – he was seeking freedom. When the subject is foreign policy, let’s bring up America’s special role in the world. If we’re talking about regulating what a Cheerios box says, or about campaign finance laws, let’s talk about freedom of speech and what our founding fathers endured so that we would have the protections of the Bill of Rights hundreds of years later.

Let’s change our public dialogue – whatever the question, make the answer, “liberty.”

May God watch over our uniformed men and women, fighting for our freedom this Independence Day, and may God bless America.

Ritter learning too slowly on budget

Grappling with declining state revenues makes for some very unpleasant budget choices, as Gov. Bill Ritter and the Democrat majorities in the state legislature learned over the past 12 months. It's fair to criticize those choices, including the governor last year denying for several months that a problem existed. Yet anyone who has shouldered the responsibility of balancing a budget during a recession understands that learning from your own mistakes is inevitable.

Learning, however, is essential - both to sound fiscal policy and to political credibility. That's why it was astonishing to hear Ritter and leading Democrats dismiss the need for a special session of the legislature on the very day they acknowledged that the state will start the new fiscal year nearly $400 million in the hole.

Anticipating further economic deterioration, legislators gave Ritter the authority to "borrow" up to $500 million from next year's budget to pay this year's bills. Based on new projections by Legislative Council economists, about half that amount will be needed.

Moreover, legislative economists forecast tax revenues for the new budget year, beginning July 1, to be $135 million less than budgeted and $874 million short over three years. Those economists prudently expect the recession to continue into 2010 in Colorado and foresee possible recovery "at least a year after that."

That's the point at which this scenario takes on an incredible aura of déjà vu.

Economists in the Governor's Office of State Planning and Budgeting (OSPB) paint a much brighter picture, forecasting a recovery later this year. That outlook enables OSPB to expect an additional $1.3 billion to spend over the same three-year period.

Last September, Legislative Council sounded the alarm early enough for the governor and legislature to call a special session just three months into the fiscal year - ample time to revise the budget and mitigate the shockwaves to affected programs and participants.

Instead, the governor boldly proclaimed, "One of (the forecasts) is pretty significantly wrong," and according to the Denver Post, he "made it clear" that the error wasn't in the projections from his office. Days later when the Wall Street financial crisis struck, Ritter ordered a "hiring freeze" which, it turns out, wasn't nearly as frigid as advertised.

In December, with half of the fiscal year passed, Legislative Council pegged the budget shortfall at $631 million. Ritter's OSPB forecast a mere $70 million deficit. Two weeks later, OSPB admitted it had used "outdated information" and issued a new estimate of $230 million in red ink.

By the time the legislature convened in January, the remaining choices were severe cuts, exacerbated by months of inaction, or accounting gimmicks that postponed the day of reckoning and made balancing the 2009-10 budget even more difficult.

Choosing to procrastinate, legislators tried yet another dodge by attempting to extort $500 million which employers had paid into the state's fund for injured workers. Then they wiped away budget caps that restrain spending in good years - as if that would somehow create more money amid a withering economy.

Finally, after raiding trust funds, re-imposing a property tax on senior citizens, and accepting a federal bailout, they proclaimed the budget balanced.

With prescience, Republican leader Sen. Josh Penry observed, "This budget will be out of balance on June 20."

And so it is.

Incredibly, Governor Ritter and Democrat legislators seem headed for another year of budgetary brinksmanship, placing all their bets on a quick economic recovery.

For five years, Democrats have controlled the legislature and for three years the governor's mansion. Colorado taxpayers are right to expect that, after blundering through a year of budgetary mayhem, Ritter and Company will learn from the past and make prudent choices this time.

Into a twisted future with Gary Wolf

Imagine a world in the near future where the Left has saddled pro sports with quadriplegic refs, transgendered concessionaires and stuttering sportscasters. Now the festering forces of radical feminism have decided to launch a direct assault upon the blatantly oppressive, misogynist and patriarchal world of “maleness” that is professional football. Such are the premise and storyline of a new novel by author Gary Wolf. A rational person in a rational world should be able to say all this is silly, ridiculous, and prone to flights of fancy. Unfortunately, in the first decade of the 21st century the subject matter and conjecture found in the pages of The Kicker of St. John’s Wood is not so far-fetched and is indeed instead a remarkably accurate and reflective look at the forces, feelings and mindset of the modern-day Left.

Wolf takes us to the 2020 Super Bowl, which has been chosen as the stage to debut the first female professional football player and to announce a major revision in American politics. Both gambits end in dramatic failure, however, and this sets the stage for place-kicker Jayesh Blackstone, born in London of Indian heritage, to be involved in a high stakes game of intrigue as he discovers the courage to fight to be a free American.

Blackstone is selected to be used and manipulated by the administration as a symbol to attack European imperialism and to establish a National Electoral Fairness Commission. Monitored by the United Nations Special Advisory Institute on National Expropriation, it is the final blow against “religious fanatics, stolen elections, the last vestiges of sexist domination, the exploiters of developing nations, and all those whose goal has been to exclude women, minorities, and newly-arrived Americans.” All steps are taken to ensure the most progressive norms of political conduct in the world today.

In addition to the political conspiracy and intrigue, the character of Jayesh Blackstone is taken on an internal journey to discover the draw of his own heritage and native country. He also experiences the love of two women, the struggle to choose between them, and the sacrifices and dedication that embodies true friendship along the way.

The Kicker of St. John’s Wood is definitely one of Gary Wolf’s best novels to date, and a frightening reminder of the fast track of idiocy this country has decided to follow that increasingly defines humanity exclusively in terms of race and gender. I found it to be a page-turner filled with twists, turns, and unexpected surprises throughout the story. It is also an eye -opening book that helps to remind that each and everyone of us will eventually have to decide if we have the personal fortitude, character and courage to choose to do the right thing and oppose the whirling forces of Progressivism, Multiculturalism, Diversity, Political Correctness and “Tolerance” that increasingly dominates every aspect of education, business and even your daily life. Will you be like Jayesh Blackstone and be willing to risk professional and personal attacks, slander, and even worse for what is right and true?

This book is the story of one man’s struggle with that question and the series of choices he must face as he discovers the difference between being a serf to the system and a free citizen. Not all know the difference but the choice is one that all will soon have to face. The end result of the agenda and catalogue of “isms” of the modern-day Left is lunacy and few do as fine a job as Gary Wolf at pointing that out through the medium of speculative fiction.

The Kicker of St. John’s Wood is available for sale at Amazon and all other major online publishers. You may also visit the author’s website at http://awolcivilization.com/ for direct links to the book's page at the various online stores and the opportunity to read the first chapter online. Gary Wolf was formerly an analyst and commentator on international and strategic affairs. He was raised in New York and London, lived for six years in Paris, and currently resides in the state of New Mexico. Wolf is also the author of The Embracer, Shaya, Alternating Worlds and Workshop of the Second Self.

David Huntwork is a conservative activist and freelance columnist in Northern Colorado where he lives with his wife and three young daughters. He strongly believes in the importance of Faith, Family, and Freedom as the formula of success for a good life and a healthy nation. You may view his bio and past columns at: http://DavidHuntwork.tripod.com.

Fame is fool's gold

Except for flipping burgers at Jack-In-The-Box, I earned my first paycheck as a professional actress. My mother put me on the stage when I was three years old, and her enchantment with Hollywood was not unlike that of Mama Rose, the determined stage mother in Gypsy. I like to affectionately refer to her effect on my early childhood as a little like "Ethel Merman on steroids." Consequently, I've always been fascinated by the public's obsession with fame and the famous. From my vantage point, the trend has only intensified since my early days, shaking my tutu on the stage at Elitch Gardens. Michael Jackson began his life as the extension of his parents' drive and ambition and we watched his particular way of dealing with it as he grew into an adult performer. Like so many others who are not famous, he was a child as an adult because he was forced into adulthood, as a child. That's a cultural phenomenon for another article. Living as an extension of others was all he had ever known, and he recreated that pattern which came to enslave him yet again.

Hollywood values certainly didn't help matters, as appearances are everything in Hollywood. I was not surprised to learn that Jackson himself did much of the 'leaking" designed to keep him in the public consciousness. But what is it that makes the public so drawn to the hype that Hollywood dishes out, even when we know there is a feeble wizard behind the curtain, manipulating what we see and how we see it? Why have so many others aspired to this lifestyle despite the ugly underbelly and the serious, dangerous pitfalls? Isn't that what is behind the explosion of Facebook, YouTube and reality TV?

The thirst for fame can be as powerful a drug as Oxycontin. The more intense the addiction, the less likely one is to believe that they are "enough" just as they are. Such a deep sense of inadequacy can never be healed by the illusion of adoration by thousands or even millions, who know only the packaged image rather than the real person, with all too human frailties. A true friend after all, is one who knows you---and likes you anyway.

Those who have attained the coveted commodity can never live up to the romanticized image either, even if they've begun to believe their own hype. Some feel like an imposter and others find a depth of lonliness in so much superficiality. In many cases, the same adoring fans hide jealous glee when the idol falls of his pedestal. Isn't our First Commandment about idolotry? It is as relevant today as ever before.

Perhaps this is one of the root causes for the rampant drug use, profound depression and high suicide rate in Hollywood. The same goes for those who will do anything necessary to join the ranks. I have nothing against "show biz" but I've grown to love the small realities of life and the knowledge that truth is always more fascinating than fiction. It takes longer than we would like In some cases, but eventually, the truth will out.

Could some of this be an explanation for the idol worship of Barack Obama? That's a cultural phenomenon for another article.