So I called Idaho Power to see if there was some mistake.  Guess what, they told me that they replaced my “old” meter with a “new” meter in March.  Apparently, this meter is more “accurate.”  How?  I don’t know.  But it seems fishy to me.

If Idaho Power is going to measure nearly triple the electricity use without notification, does that mean that they should lower the rate by a third?  Just asking.

Richard Zuercher

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So I guess that is it not important to have “knowledgeable” people in your office in the month that the President wants to pass the most comprehensive and important piece of social legislation since Medicare passed in 1965.    Don’t worry, though.  It still didn’t stop me from asking questions.

Minnick’s position on health care is this:

• First, reforms must be fully funded.
• Second, comprehensive, affordable health insurance must be made available to all Americans.
• Third, no “socialized medicine.” The health care system of insurance must be private – not run by the government.
• Fourth, insurance companies must be required to make insurance available to everyone regardless of age, employment status or preconditions.
• And fifth, reforms must reduce costs, not just expand coverage.

So here’s my case.

Step One: Reforms must be fully funded.

According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and theJoint Committee on Taxation, “CBO and JCT estimate that, on balance, the direct spending and revenue effects of enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would yield a net reduction in federal deficits of $130 billion over the 2010-2019 period.”  Not only is the Senate bill fully funded, it will actually reduce the budget deficit.

Step Two: Comprehensive, affordable health insurance must be made available to all Americans.

See Step Four

Step Three: No “socialized medicine.” The health care system of insurance must be private – not run by the government.

The Senate bill does not include a public option.

Step Four: Insurance companies must be required to make insurance available to everyone regardless of age, employment status or preconditions.

According to the Senate Finance Committee, “A high-performing health system would guarantee all Americans affordable, quality coverage regardless of age, health status, or medical history…Reforms proposed for the individual and small group markets would ensure a competitive insurance market in which plans compete on price and quality rather than on their ability to segment risk and discriminate against individuals with pre-existing health conditions.”

Step Five: Reforms must reduce costs, not just expand coverage.

How in the world can we reduce costs AND expand coverage?  How about we do the following:

Form insurance exchanges to create more competition–reducing costs and expanding coverage

Reduce excessive prices, including those of supplemental plans enrolling Medicare beneficiaries

Moving to value-based payment in Medicare to eliminate wasteful spending

Tax generous insurance plans to reduce overall medical costs

Empower an independent Medicare advisory board to improve efficiency

Combat Medicare fraud and abuse

Invest in information technology to streamline medical communications

Reforms that are all included in the Senate bill.

Of course, most would say that Minnick would never support the passage of any version of health care reform. That’s why he said, “The House bill is only a first step. I am hopeful that other proposals will take a fiscally sound, bipartisan approach to the problem of health care reform. I look forward to working with my colleagues and eventually passing a more balanced bill…”

But wait, if that wasn’t enough, most would say that Minnick would only support health care reform if his constituents supported it too.  That’s why he said, “The vast majority of Idahoans want improvements to the health-insurance system.”

Apparently, the Senate Bill–meeting all five of Minnick’s criteria–is not a sufficient step toward a fiscally sound “bipartisan” approach, despite a VAST majority of Idahoans who support improvements to the health insurance system.  The only real argument to be made here is that the Senate bill is not “bipartisan.”  Aside from the political maneuvering of the Republicans who have vowed to oppose nearly every Democratic policy proposal, would it warm Minnick’s heart to learn that a Republican indeed voted for the Senate health care bill in the Finance Committee?  Or that a Republican voted for the much more liberal House version of health care reform?  Or that national polls indicate strong bipartisan support for the individual proposals contained in the both versions?  Or that there are Republican governors who support the comprehensive health care reform?  Or that the President himself has included several Republican proposals in his comprehensive health care reform package?

The Senate bill certainly isn’t perfect–just like Minnick’s logic on health care reform.

Even when non-AQ teams prove it on the field, voters can choose to not respect the victory.  Shame on the coaches and media voters.

Richard Zuercher

I support comprehensive health care reform.

The status quo will not solve the problem of 50 million Americans uninsured or under-insured.

The status quo will not stop insurance companies from denying coverage to the sick.

The status quo will not solve the ballooning costs of health care in America.

The status quo will only make Americans increasingly unhealthy.

A VOTE AGAINST REFORM IS AN ENDORSEMENT OF THE STATUS QUO.

I urge you to put politics aside.  Don’t let specific provisions in the bill you disagree with be a reason to reject it.  The proper role of government is to provide for the general welfare of the people.  You are the government.  It is your responsibility to change the system to make Americans healthier.

Thank  you very much.

Please copy and paste this message and send it to your representative.  Follow the links provided to the right of this post.  Thank you.  The dream will never die.

Richard Zuercher

Conservatives have been screaming their heads off for the last month in opposition to Democrat led reforms calling it socialist, communist, and fascist.  They are using their best tools, in the most organized fashion, while heavily funded, and with more cohesion than ever.  They have stoked enough anger and fear into good Americans that many of them believe in their hearts that President Obama, a non-citizen, is pushing governmental policy intended to explode the national debt, cripple private industry, enslave the working population and euthanize the elderly and infirm.

And us.

Oh yeah.  We got this “public option.”

No wonder we’re losing this debate.

I’ll tell you what we have.  We have the Trojan Horse inside Congress.  We have five committees out of six supporting a single-payer, government-run health insurance plan.  A plan that would inevitable make private insurance pay the price for their decades of despicable actions.  Cutting coverage, rising premiums.  Deductibles.  Cause we want to make sure you are really sick before we take a chance on saving your life.  $250 per month so that I can still pay $4000.00 deductible, $80 co-pay, 20% of the rest.  Junk.

And I’m one of the lucky ones.

To think that there are some who will never know that one day they might be able to make enough money to declare bankruptcy from hospital expenses and denied claims pains my heart.

The public option would not only punish those responsible for helping create one of the most detestable domestic humanitarian crises in recent history, it would also release the American people from a financial stranglehold.

We spend more money per capital than any other industrial country for the worst health care.  We get worse care than many developing countries.  We pay hundreds of dollars for prescriptions that Canadians pay mere pennies.  Why?  Their taxes are higher.  But they pay fewer tax dollars toward health care costs than Americans pay in health care premiums.  And they don’t have a deductible.   Sure, they may have to wait a few weeks or months to get knee-replacement surgery, but they won’t have to pay for it when they get it.  Nor will they pay co-pays, deductibles, fees, advertising, CEO bonuses.  Tears, sorrow, loss.  Funerals.

Notice when France and Germany came out of recession?

Socialism outperforming capitalism.

Why not just call our public plan what it is.

THE PUBLIC OPTION IS WHAT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR.

Socialized medicine.

No longer will saving a rich one’s life be more profitable than a poor one.

Please contact your representative and tell them you want the government to take over medicine in this country.  Tell them that you want them to support the public option because it will eventually lead to socialized medicine.  And that socialized medicine is the morally right thing to do.

I told my friend that Medicare (a government-run, single payer health care system) reports higher customer satisfaction, gives patients more choice in who their doctor is, and costs less per patient than private insurance. While the private market attempts to insure people who the industry considers low-risk, Medicare insures people who routinely require frequent doctor visits and expensive prescription drugs-and it still costs less than the private market.

My friend chuckled and said, “Well if you like Medicare so much, why don’t you just buy it?”

I chuckled. I am only 26 years old and will not be legally eligible for Medicare for another 40 years. I told my friend that the “public option” is like Medicare for anyone who wants to buy it. “Moreover,” I said, “The public option is likely to be even cheaper because the younger-and healthier-population likely to choose to buy into the program are a lot less expensive to cover than the elderly.”

My friend realized that he was losing this argument. So he quipped, “By that logic, everyone would want to buy the public option. If that happened, then the private market would be run out of business.”

“If that happened,” he continued, “then people would lose their jobs in the private market. And then government would be in control of our medical decisions.”

Did I really have to explain to him what our Democracy is all about? Did I really have to point out to him that if everyone wanted the public option, then they should get that option-even if it meant a private industry would be broken?

In the 1800s, fire departments were private entities. When there was a fire, sometimes two or three different crews arrived and tried to put out the fire. Competition. Sounds good, right? Wrong. Poor areas rarely attracted private fire brigades. And when a “worthy” structure caught fire, crews often brawled with each other for the “rights” to extinguish it so they could get paid (and often pillaged the blazing structure for valuables to sell). Although many fires were competently dealt with, people became aware that for-profit fire-fighting was not in the best interest of the people. The modern, government-run fire department was born from the ashes of the private industry’s failure. With a modest tax increase to pay for it, we now all have a “right” to fire protection. Most of the private fire-fighters took jobs working for the government-run fire department. Others lost their jobs.

I told me friend, “Our health insurance industry is brawling over the “rights” to insure the healthiest and wealthiest individuals, while leaving the neediest and sickest behind. I am not afraid of a government-run system because the government is WE THE PEOPLE. If you trust the government to put out a fire, you can trust the government to provide medical insurance. And it works! Old people love their Medicare!”

“I haven’t thought of it that way,” my friend begrudgingly admitted. “You mean to tell me that the public option will cost less AND provide better care?”

“Yes.”

“Why haven’t we done this sooner?”

Good question.

Don’t forget that they have been given free money and the ability to borrow at .25% despite being proven to be one of the biggest credit risks by losing billions of dollars during deregulation in the last 10 years.

Are there any new banking programs for people who need a lower rate in these troubled times?  Or did these banks just pocket the money so they can ride out the storm in a nice government shelter while the rest of us are forced to swim the tidal wave?

We have a good income.  We make our payments on time.  We’ve been making payments on all sorts of debt for many years.  Now is our chance to consolidate that debt at a low interest rate, deducting that interest from our taxes, and possibly have the ability to make improvements on our house.  If that isn’t enough to get a loan, I don’t know who in the world would qualify.

Take me to the land where everyone is a millionaire–even the millionaires who were saved by a government bail-out–because it seems as only the wealthy deserve “equal” treatment.

Richard Zuercher