Delaware Health Security Act – Obamacare…Locally

That’s right folks, you thought Obamacare was about to die a brutal partisan death at the hands of the 5 “conservative” Justices on the Supreme Court?  You thought America was going to be spared the pain of trillions of dollars in healthcare costs thanks to the monstrosity that is Obamacare?  You thought that single payer healthcare was about to be defeated?  You thought that finally, public dislike for the healthcare law had won out?

Wrong!  Now, with Obamacare dying a brutal death nationally, the states are taking up the cause and rallying to make sure that if Obamacare is defeated by the High Court, that it will still be implemented.  In a move that can only be described as brazen and a direct show of force, the Delaware Democrat Party, led by Jack Markell (who like Obama, has hidden behind a prominent Democrat Representative with regards to sweeping healthcare legislation) has pushed out House Bill 392, the “Delaware Health Security Act” with just 7 days left in session.  HB 392, is universal healthcare coverage just like Obamacare except, the Delaware Democrat Party isn’t shying away from something that Obamacare had to hide, it’s a single payer system.  In fact, the law specifically calls itself a single payer system a number of times.

What is a single payer system?  A single payer system is where all the citizens are lumped into a single large insurance pool, regardless of medical status and pay into the pool.  The pool owner (in this case the State of Delaware) then becomes the “insurance provider” and replaces any and all private insurance companies.  That’s right, I said REPLACES ALL PRIVATE INSURANCE PROVIDERS.  So if you like your insurance…oh well.  Think of it as if all of Delaware, every person in the state, was suddenly thrust onto Medicare/Medicaid.  That’s basically what single payer is.

It sounds like single payer could reduce costs, has it been tried anywhere else and how did it work?  Like many progressive utopian ideas, single payer healthcare does SOUND great, that is until you look at how it actually works and how implementations around the world have worked – or – well, not worked so well.  See, the large pool of Delaware citizens (900,000+) would cost a lot of money to insure.  Money we don’t have today.  Delaware already has the 8^th highest Medicaid expense per capita in the country according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.  More money is spent today on Medicaid than on education in Delaware which means that Medicaid occupies more than 1/3 of the entire state budget.  This is with 1 in 4 Delawareans receiving Medicaid assistance.  Now imagine if you multiplied that to 4 of every 4 Delawareans on Medicaid.  The budget would explode.  Of course, the folks in Dover do have a remedy for this.  Their plan is to create an additional 4%-9% tax (and we all know that “planned taxes” are always MORE than we’re told) on Delawareans and Delaware businesses.  As healthcare costs rise, so will the tax burden.  Just to make sure we’re not taking this out of context, let’s look at the wording of the bill itself:

§1606. Purpose of the Delaware Health Security Act.

The purposes of this Chapter are to:
(1) Guarantee every Delaware citizen, and out-of-state citizens who receive health care coverage from Delaware employers, all necessary health care services offered by the provider of each citizen's choice;

Where else has this been tried and how has it worked?  The single payer system, also known as “Socialized Medicine” is the system in use in many European nations and in Canada.  Canada is the source most often cited case and so let’s take a look at the Canadian model:





Reuters reported that back in 2010, Canada began to reassess its healthcare system as costs soared.  In the piece, medical costs for Canada’s single payer system ate up 40% of the budgets for provincial governments (similar to our states) and that was at a total cost of $174 billion.  At the end of last year, the Canadian Institute for Health Information issued a report that health spending in Canada topped $200 billion.  They listed three main things as major contributing factors to the increase in costs.  Compensation of healthcare providers, increased use of services and an evolution in the types of services were at the top of the list.  This is an interesting problem because on one hand, you want doctors to be well paid so that the smartest and most talented people will seek out that role as a career, on the other hand, when you’re a government and spending tax dollars, you have to maximize your savings.  This is why government sponsored medicine is such a slippery slope.  How does Canada’s compensation for doctors compare to the U.S.?  Well, recent studies have found that U.S. doctors make far more than Canadian doctors and there are more doctors in the U.S. per capita than in Canada.  The question comes down to this, would you prefer a public system where doctors are paid less and less each year (unless spending soars with the salaries of doctors) and see more and more talented individuals not choose a career as a physician or would you prefer a private market solution where the cream of the crop rises to the top and we get the best care available?  Increases in the use of services, especially as the population gets older (as it is here in America) rose dramatically.  The types of services that Canadian patients are receiving is also a part of that cost increase.  Now, it should be pointed out that routine treatments received here in the U.S., such as CT scans and MRI machines are new technology in Canada.  How much different?  There are nearly 8,000 MRI machines active in the U.S. today while just 281 devices are active in Canada.  To put that in perspective, for every 1 million Americans, there are 26.5 active MRI machines while in Canada there are just 6 for every 1 million people.  The numbers are staggering and if healthcare costs are soaring in other countries who employ socialized medicine with inferior and less costly treatments, what can Delaware expect?

Ok, so costs will rise but what about the quality of care?  Canadians wait for their healthcare.  Today, in Delaware, if you are sick, you can see your family doctor in a matter of a few days or even a few hours based on where you live and the severity of your illness.  Hospital visits are often complained about for wait times in the scope of hours and wait times to see specialists are again days to perhaps a couple of weeks.  A 2009 study by Merritt Hawkins in 15 major U.S. cities found that the longest wait time to see a family doctor or a specialist in the U.S. was 49.6 days in Boston (Massachusetts already practices a form of socialized medicine similar to Obamacare) .  That’s a maximum of 7 weeks and the next closest city, Philadelphia clocked in at just over 3 weeks.  These are maximum wait times.  In Canada, general surgical specialty patients are experiencing average wait times of 11.3 weeks.  That’s nearly double the longest wait times experienced in the U.S.  For neurosurgery, Canadians can expect to wait almost 32 weeks or 7 months and for orthopedic surgery, the wait is expected to exceed 8 months.  These are median actual wait times in Canada.  To put this in perspective, the overall median wait time for specialty treatment, from primary care physician to treatment is 17.3 weeks or 4 months.  That’s almost three times the clinically reasonable wait time of 6 weeks and almost 4 times the wait in Boston.

So, after reading this, are you excited about the new single payer healthcare system, matching Canada’s system that is coming to Delaware?  No?  Me either.  Folks, now is the time to make your voice heard.  Now is the time to stand up for yourselves and tell the politicians in Dover that enough is enough.  Delaware might not be in the same fiscal condition as California (yet) but we’re definitely not helping ourselves by continuing to tax and spend like our economy isn’t in crisis.  More than 30,000 Delawareans are out of work today and our fiscal stability is teetering on the brink of disaster.  We HAVE to stand up and step out of our comfort zones.  It’s time to show these politicians in Dover that we’re not going to keep sending them back to Dover to make things worse.  Send a message, send John Kowalko, Earl Jaques, Ed Osienski, Bruce Ennis and Tony DeLuca home. 

Senator Ennis is facing T. Scott Unruh this November…support him by clicking here and let’s make sure Bruce Ennis goes home.

I am opposing Senator DeLuca this November…visit my website by clicking here and tell the Dover elite that we’re not going to accept the same old thing anymore.

Kowalko, Jaques and Osienski are currently unopposed.  I challenge you to find someone to take on these brazen characters.  Who’s going to stand up and be counted?

Reduce Regulations - Create Jobs

Delaware needs jobs and we need to look no further than Texas to see how to get them, reduce regulations, lower taxes and encourage small businesses to grow and expand. There are two practical ways that the General Assembly and Governor Markell can get Delaware on the fast track to recovery: Pull out of RGGI and Obamacare. Representative Jack Peterman had a bill (H.B. 86) last year that would have accomplished the first part of this and Representative Deborah Hudson submitted a bill, the Delaware Health Freedom Act (identical to H.B. 353 from 2010) that would have allowed Delaware citizens and businesses to opt out of Obamacare.

What stopped these bills? In the case of Rep. Hudson's bill, it was killed in committee two years in a row by the House leadership. The split was along party lines with Democrats objecting and Republicans supporting. In the case of Rep. Peterman's bill, it was tabled by John Kowalko's energy committee which is made up of 5 Democrats and 3 Republicans.

The bottom line here is that in 2011, Delaware Democrats killed two bills that would have immediately ADDED jobs in Delaware and instead relegated us to massive layoffs and barely hanging on to our already too high unemployment rate. The fact is that nothing is going to change until we change it and what needs to change is the leadership in Dover. We've got too many legislators who are really nothing more than glorified lobbyists for unions, state & local governments and special interest groups. It's time to replace double dippers like John Viola (my opponent) with fresh ideas and people who aren't beholden to special interest groups.

If you help me get to Dover, I will cast my first vote for NEW leadership in Dover. I'll vote for fresh ideas and a new approach to job creation and with enough other like-minded representatives from around the state, we'll build a new leadership team and we'll work with our colleagues and with Jack Markell to make sure that these things get done and that Delaware moves forward on job creation and economic growth. Delaware needs us, let's work together to make sure that we put Delaware back to work.


http://legis.delaware.gov/LIS/lis146.nsf/vwLegislation/HB+86/$file/legis.html?open – HB 86

http://legis.delaware.gov/LIS/lis145.nsf/vwLegislation/HB+353/$file/legis.html?open – HB 353

A Good Day for Conservatives in Delaware

I awoke this morning, as I do every morning, casting an eye toward my email notifications and The Blaze and flipping on the TV to Fox News (let's face it, Fox is the most credible although now and again I do enjoy checking out Robin Meade over on HLN) to see the latest headlines.  I confess, I have long since stopped paying daily attention to the local "newspaper" The News Journal (unflattering nicknames omitted) and rely on those who can still stomach its almost constant barrage of liberalism to inform me of its contents.  I had errands to run this morning and so I was out of the house for a more extended period than normal.  My buddy Lee calls me just about every morning to discuss issues of the day or events from the previous day/evening and so his call this morning as I was shuttling the kids around to daycare, school and Doctors appointments was not unusual.  Lee is often excitable so I was not surprised to hear the tone in his voice but the words were surprising: "Did you see the Journal today!?"  I confessed, as I often do, that I had NOT seen it but I was curious about what was in it.  He informed me that NRG Bluewater Wind had suspended a plan to take the next step in creating an offshore wind farm off the Delaware coast and that Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart had submitted a waiver to exempt Delaware from the Obamacare plan.  Once I returned home from my errands I did a little digging and even more good news came in, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie decided to pull New Jersey from the 10 state RGGI Cap and Trade plan which States from Delaware to Maine have found themselves mired in.  Of course, Founders Values had met last night on the RGGI topic and specifically on its repeal from Delaware law, so it was especially exciting to see that New Jersey had taken that step.  My research into what actually took place left me, well, even more excited and enthused because each of these stories affirmed conservative positions that the left has consistently tried to portray as radical and crazy.  I'll break down my findings on each story below.

 

Delaware Insurance Commissioner Requests Obamacare Waiver
My initial reaction was that this had to be wrong.  Delaware, my state and the home of Vice President Joe Biden, whose son Beau, in his capacity as AG has refused to participate in the multi-state lawsuit against Obamacare (that's not the only thing he has refused either) was going to request a waiver to opt-out of Obamacare!?  WELL....not exactly.  What Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart wants is a waiver to suspend a new rule (read: regulation...see: Cass Sunstein) that mandates that insurance companies use at least 80% of premium payments for health care payouts and not for administrative costs (salaries, advertising, profit) otherwise they must refund that money to the customers.  At first blush, as someone who pays for health care through insurance premiums, this sounds like a fair idea.  That is until I look at it from the perspective a business owner.  Why is the government now coming into MY business and telling me that my business model isn't working?  Who are they to do that?  Assuming that I am not actually defrauding my customers, that is that the plan they pay for, the agreement we have on how much coverage and on what is covered is adhered to, who is the government to come in and say "No, you can't do that, you have to spend MORE on payouts."?  I discussed this with my wife and she took my initial position, that there needs to be SOME regulation to ensure that a company doesn't, for instance, fall into a position where they cannot afford to pay your claim and you are left to cover it yourself.  "But hold it", I said, "there are already laws that prevent these companies from doing these things.  The contract itself holds the insurance company liable for whatever level of coverage the parties agree upon."  So this argument holds no water....but I wondered, why would the government do this?  Is it purely for control over the private health care providers?  The answer is no, well, kinda.

The government DOES want control of the private health insurance market but that is only because the market won't go quietly.  Think about what this regulation would do to health care providers:

1. It would force smaller, less expensive insurance companies out of business because they would no longer be able to afford to advertise and compete with larger insurance companies with bigger customer bases.
2. It would contract company staffing levels to a point where it would actually become completely unmanageable and inefficient.  There is something to be said for a lean staff, but forcing these kinds of reductions in administrative costs, while INCREASING regulatory responsibilities thanks to even MORE government regulations being tacked on thanks to the Obamacare bill, would result in a bottleneck and major delays, resulting in Dr.'s not being paid, patients being denied and a shutdown of many companies and potentially the industry as a whole.
3. It would result in premiums skyrocketing to cover the costs of advertising, increased regulations AND increased payouts to Dr.'s or returns to customers.  It would also make the business of health insurance an unprofitable industry and discourage new companies.

So, what does all this mean?  Why is government getting involved?  Well, remember that the left did not see Obamacare as an end result, it was just a stepping stone to a single payer system.  See John Conyers in his own words (COURTESY BREITBART.TV...he gets cranky when you don't put up a neon sign that material belongs to him...):

So, if you take people at their own words, you have to wonder, is this what their regulations are intended to do?  Drive companies out of business, drive premiums up and create outrage amongst the people, drive the industry into the doldrums?  If so, this is the way to do it, and if not, why would they do something so oppressive to the industry?  Likewise, while Karen Weldin Stewart is at least asking for relief for Delaware insurance companies, it begs the question, isn't it about time Delaware opened up and allowed more competition in the market and stopped playing games with just a handful of companies?  More competition would only decrease prices and increase coverage.  So what say you Karen?  How about a little more competition and a little less begging for table scraps?

 

Chris Christie Pulls Out of RGGI

Gov. Christie, who has captured much of the conservative spirit by taking on Big Education (read: New Jersey Education Association) and who has caught the ire of conservatives for his support of climate change and Cap and Trade, has recaptured some of that conservative spirit by not only changing his mind on climate change, but for acting on it and pulling New Jersey out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).  RGGI is a regional cap and trade scheme developed to allegedly reduce CO2 emissions and combat climate change by charging CO2 emitters for their output.  Delaware is also engaged in the plan, despite best efforts by Republican legislators and individuals from across the political spectrum to end Delaware's involvement in the program.  Mr. John Nichols, a regular citizen who got involved in the RGGI repeal debate after he investigated what it would entail for him to install solar panels on his own roof.  What he found on his journey was that, simply put, without direct subsidies from the government, solar energy (and wind) is not sustainable.  In fact, he found the more he looked, that solar energy is nothing more than affluent people, who can afford a $30,000 plus solar system, taking direct subsidies from the poor and middle class to install it.  He found it to be morally wrong as does anyone who truly understands the process.  To force the poor and middle class to pay for the luxuries of the upper class is reprehensible.  Nichols sought out climatologists and government leaders for answers to his questions and has built a detailed history of the "green energy" movement and the effects on Delaware and "climate change".  Using their own words, Nichols shows the convoluted and confusing structure that is in place and squeezing the life out of the American energy market.  Now, Gov. Christie has caught on to what Nichols has been saying, that RGGI is doing nothing to affect climate change and is wasting hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars.  Gov. Christie said "This program is not effective in reducing greenhouse gases and is unlikely to be in the future.  The whole system is not working as it was intended to work. It’s a failure."

 

NRG Bluewater Wind Delays Wind Farm

This one made me chuckle a bit.  NRG Bluewater's wind farm off the Delaware coast has been a problem since the day it was proposed.  Bluewater has taken every government dollar it could since it started negotiating with Delmarva and the state.  Their practice of crony capitalism to influence the state and gain favor among the legislators has earned them millions of dollars in subsidies and concessions from the state and Delmarva.  Legislators pressured Delmarva Power to purchase more and more power from Bluewater and even when Bluewaters parent company went belly up in the economic crisis and the project was purchased by NRG, legislators demanded more and more.  Even still, NRG Bluewater relied on portions of the $26 BILLION (Big Oil gets $21 Billion) in direct payment subsidies to complete their project or even to see through the next phase.  I feel the need to explain the way subsidies work here because I know there has been a lot of distortions out there.

Everyone RAILS against BIG OIL for their massive taxpayer funded subsidies right?  Big Oil's "subsidies" aren't subsidies at all, they are tax credits and deductions that are offered too ALL businesses, not just "Big Oil".  For instance, "Big Oil" receives a deduction for the depreciation of assets, the more oil they suck out of the ground, the less oil there is, the less value is left in the ground.  "Big Oil" is allowed to deduct that depreciation of value in the land which is considered an asset.  It's no different than the equipment depreciation allowance for any other business from the local pizzeria to a construction company and so on.  Big Oil doesn't get any direct subsidies (payouts) from the government.  Despite all the noise and screaming from the left, they simply are allowed to write off the same depreciation, losses and assets as other small, medium and large businesses.  The "lost revenues" from "Big Oil" are simply less money squeezed out of companies by a bloated government.

Big Wind however, receives DIRECT SUBSIDIES, meaning that the government takes dollars from the Treasury and gives them to the wind power company.  Big Wind gets $26 Billion (that's $5 Billion more than Big Oil's tax breaks) in direct payment subsidies from the federal government.  And this is for an industry that Steven Chu, White House Energy Secretary has described as "mature".  The facts bear that out as well, wind energy has been around for more than 30 years and it's nearly reached it peak zenith.  In fact, with all the money poured into "alternative energy", America gets around 10% of its power from "renewables".  For $26 Billion, we get around 2%-3% of our power needs and while Oil provides very little POWER (if you take out vehicle power)...natural gas, often found along with oil, provides more than 20% of our power. 

 

So given all of these facts, I was actually delighted to see that NRG cited the reduction of government subsidies as the reason that it had to delay progress on the Bluewater offshore wind project because it shows that wind power, for all it's sustainability in terms of ecology, has exactly ZERO sustainability economically.  It REQUIRES massive investment from the taxpayers to provide energy that is 2 and 3 times as expensive as energy from domestic sources such as coal and natural gas.  Add to this the fact that even Chris Christie, once a believer in Cap and Trade, has abandoned support for the RGGI debacle and has admitted that it simply does NOTHING to affect climate change and you see the proof that Cap and Trade is nothing more than a great big scam.
 

Gov. Dupont is a TEA Partier

Former Delaware Governor Pete Dupont is one of the most respected living politicians in the state and when he speaks, Delaware listens.  Gov. Dupont is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal and other national publications.  During his tenure as Governor, Delaware experienced a rapid and expansive growth and for that reason, Delaware looks to him as a leader to this day.  He is a fiscal conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan and Calvin Coolidge, cut the taxes, reduce the spending and adhere to the Constitution.  Pete Dupont is in fact, a TEA Partier.  Gov. Dupont even honored the Delaware TEA Party groups by being the headline speaker at the 2010 Wilmington Tax Day TEA Party held annually at Dravo Plaza.  He addressed a crowd of hundreds who turned out on April 15th and he called for government to reduce spending, cut taxes and shrink the size of government across the board. 

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this week, Gov. Dupont explains the Nov. 2nd elections and calls Obama to the carpet.  He calls for Obama and the new Republican majority in the House to shrink government and remove burdensome regulations so businesses can expand again, cut taxes to stimulate the economy as the Reagan, Kennedy and Coolidge administrations did before them, reduce government spending by cutting discretionary spending and finally to repeal and replace Obamacare with common sense alternatives.  He cited a 136 page rule inserted by DHSS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that places the federal government into a role traditionally held by the states.  He left out however, a regulatory reform from the radical Dr. Donald Berwick and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services that will create the much maligned "Death Panels" that Democrats (including President Obama) promised would be removed from the health care law.  Berwick's rule will allow doctors to be paid for providing "end of life counseling" which will be used along with "Comparative Effectiveness Research" to determine the most cost effective future treatments.  By creating an incentive for doctors to "counsel" seniors as to how long they may or may not want to live, the government is effectively removing choice from the equation.  Medicare doctors, who already enjoy a unique control over their patients, will have a financial reason to ensure that every patient receives counseling on how long they should live. 

In the end, Dupont calls on the new Republican House to "Get to it" and begin the work to reform government.  Understanding that the road will be hard and paved with bumps, the new Congress and the improved Senate must fight to reduce the size of government, limit spending, reduce the tax burden and replace Obamacare with common sense reforms while returning choice and competition back to the people and the states.  Gov. Dupont is a TEA Partier at heart and he espouses the values and the principles which we hold dear.  In Delaware, we could not have a better man to look to for guidance as a grassroots movement.  I join Governor Dupont in his support of the new look Congress.  "Let's get to it".