One Trillion

I have some problems with the health care reform legislation that is currently being debated in the Senate. The fact that it’s meant to move the nation closer to Socialism is primary I suppose, and that it is intentionally over 2000 pages in length in order to keep people from being able to know and understand what’s in it. I don’t like the fact that it was designed to tear down and completely restructure a system that, while flawed and in need of reform, at least fits the national culture. I don’t like the fact that the new system is now being put together as if by a committee of tailors, each with a different sense of style and ideas about what the garment should look like. There is no pattern or plan, and what should be undertaken with all caution and an eye on the future is being rushed in order to take advantage of the political moment. But as much as all my other problems, I am troubled at the cost: over one Trillion dollars. And that’s a conservative estimate that relies on a whole slough of assumptions all converging to the same point at the same time. If past experience with Medicare is any indication, the costs could be off by as much as a factor of ten. But however educated that guess, it’s still just a guess. What is not a guess is the one Trillion dollar number now in front of us. People have grown used to hearing the numbers: Millions (Lottery); Billions (Oprah, Gates, Buffett), but the only place you hear the term Trillions of dollars is when you talk about the US economy. I think people would be well served it they knew just how big a number one Trillion is. So to that end I have compiled a list of references just to put a Trillion in context.

We begin with a simple unit of measure that everyone can appreciate: the Dollar bill. You’ve seen it before. It has George Washington on the obverse (face side) and a big ONE, the pyramid and the eagle on the reverse (other side). It’s 6 inches long, 2-1/2 inches wide, and 43/10,000 of an inch thick.

One Trillion of anything is one million piles of one million each.

One Million one dollar bills weigh 2,202 pounds. One Trillion Dollars collected all together would weigh over two Billion pounds and take a fleet of 55,065 semi tractor trailers to haul it.

Laid end to end One Trillion Dollars would stretch 94,696,969 miles. This is a distance three million miles farther away than the sun. So far that it would take light 8-1/2 minutes to make the trip.

That distance 94,696,969 miles would take you from the Earth to the moon and back 198 times. You could travel around the Earth 3,809 times.

If you were to neatly stack One Trillion new bills, it would make a stack 67,866 miles high. Carefully lie it down and it would wrap the Earth 8-1/2 times.

If you wanted to cover some of the Earth, you certainly could. One Trillion Dollars would cover a square area 61 miles by 61 miles. 3,736 square miles.

You would have to flood a regulation NFL football field (excluding end zones) to a depth of 30 feet and 8 inches to accumulate One Trillion Drops.

And finally:

If one day you turned your kitchen faucet on full flow and then got distracted........ you could leave the house, go to college, complete your degree, date, marry, start a family, get divorced, date, re-marry, start another family, and 9-1/2 years later when you went back to your house, you would be there in plenty of time to shut off the water before One Trillion drops had gone down the drain.

I’ve composed this blog to try and illustrate the magnitude of one small piece (one trillion) of what I consider to be the main problem that our nation faces today, and that is runaway entitlement spending. Our legislators, for as long as I can remember, have pandered, wheeled and dealt, and greased the ways for their own political ambitions without regard for the future. Sometimes the spending has been done with the best of intentions, but still with no regard for the true affordability of the “project”. And now my son and daughter along with you and I, and your sons and daughters, as citizens, owe over $39,000 to the national debt. In a few years when they begin their working lives that number will suddenly jump to the $111,000 the each tax “payer” now owes. It saddens me to know that in 5 years no matter what we do this number will be much higher.

We are living in a remarkable time. Depending on your point of view, it may be either transformative or catastrophic. Whatever your politics I beg of you to please pay attention to the numbers, to know just how astronomical they are. When you hear that the Senate has a One Trillion Dollar bill under consideration or that they plan to extend the national debt ceiling by One Trillion Eight Hundred Billion Dollars (increasing our credit limit) I beg of you to think of the numbers and ask yourself “can we afford this?” Ask yourself: “do I have the right to obligate my children and their children, and theirs to a lifetime of debt repayment?”.

And that’s what an average guy thinks.

Fundamental Right to Health Care

Do we as citizens of the United States of America have a fundamental right to health care services? That is a large part of the discussion currently at hand. I would hold that we do not. Health care is (as implied) a service which can be purchased, or not. I have a right to purchase as much or as little as I can afford, or choose.

I also have the right to educate myself and to provide health care services to others. For providing these services, I have a right to expect compensation commensurate with my skills and the demand for those skills.

I also have the right to open a business to provide health care insurance. The simple explanation for this is that to my large pool of customers I agree to pay for certain health care services should they be needed. These would normally include needs resulting from accidents or the onset of disease. Out of my pool of customers, some will always be healthy, and never require these insured services and it is from monies paid by them that I will pay the agreed on expenses of my customers who are less fortunate. However, I must be careful not to charge too little for my promise to pay, and not to promise to pay too much in relation to what I charge. If either of these conditions exists, then I will not make a profit and my efforts and capital will be better and more productively spent in some other area of business.

As a consumer I have a right to expect that the health care services that I buy meet certain standards, and the government has licensing boards set up for that very purpose. I also have a right to expect that the companies that I buy my insurance from are treating me fairly, but this is not an industry that needs to be tightly regulated by the government. All the government need do in this case is to insure competition. To insure that I have the option to buy my insurance from whoever will sell me the services I want at the lowest price. That’s all. Competition (market forces) will then depress prices to the fair market value.

I also have the right as a citizen and consumer to expect that the civil justice system will protect me from the malpractice of incompetent healthcare providers. But I also have the right NOT to have my health care and insurance costs increased because of the practice of extremely defensive medicine, frivolous lawsuits and outrageous jury awards for pain and suffering fostered by trial lawyers who have nothing to lose by filing suit, and juries who believe insurance companies are bottomless wells of money. The government can be constructive here by setting reasonable standards for medical tests, limits on compensatory and punitive damages, and some disincentive to discourage the malpractice “lottery” industry.

The United States is a country that was built on self reliance and free market principles. If government run health care were as good as an idea in practice as it is on paper, people would be traveling to Canada, Great Britain and Cuba for services. We are also a nation with great compassion for our fellows and a desire to assist those less fortunate than ourselves. We need to make the relatively small regulatory changes to the health care and insurance systems we have in order to make them more consumer, and market friendly and then provide for the under served with any necessary tax credits and subsidies to make sure that no one goes without.

And that’s what an average guy thinks.

Pulling The Plug On Grandma

I wish that Sarah Palin hadn’t used the term “Death Panels”. It’s got a nice loud attention getting ring to it, but it’s hard to back up. No one has written “death panel” into a health reform bill. Part of the problem as I see it is that no one knows WHAT the heck is in there. It’s a thousand pages that reads like stereo instructions. The bill as it came out of the House of Representatives wasn’t written by our representatives, but by their “advisors”, and it appears as though no single person has complete knowledge of the whole thing.

The “devil is in the details” we have all heard said, and since we can’t know the details of the 1000 + page monstrosity, let’s take a look at the circumstances. H. R. 3200, as it is known, was reported out of committee on July 30, just one week before the House of Representatives was to adjourn for the summer break. The intention of the majority party had been to have it approved, voted on, and signed into law before the summer recess. Thank goodness that didn’t happen, but what was the rush? It was said that it was “critical” to the economic recovery that the bill be passed. This was the same technique used for the $800 Billion stimulus package that has only been 10% spent at this writing. The economy shows signs of recovery, so why not take back about 75% of the total. That would save us $600 Billion right there. I know the real reason that there was such a rush to pass the legislation and so does everyone else who has raised kids through their teen years, or been a teen ager themselves. The reason is that the more the parents or the people with the money or the responsibility know about a request the less likely they are to agree to it. The President’s chief of staff, Rham Emanuel, has said that “you should never let a crisis go to waste”. That during a crisis “you can do things that you never thought you could do”. And so, during difficult times it behooves those in power to either generate a crisis, similar to the way Hugo Chavez does when he warns the people of Venezuela of an impending attack by U. S. forces, or you just shout “FIRE” at the top of your lungs and expect people to give you whatever you need to fight the “fire”.

What’s in a 1000 page bill? Most of us can’t know. We trust our legislators to know, but now it’s become evident that they don’t know, and that some if not many of them don’t care. We can know that they (the administration) have tried to rush this legislation through before it could be analyzed and we can know the philosophy of the President and his advisors. This we can know from their previous words. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother to the President’s chief of staff Rham Emanuel and a healthcare advisor to the President wrote in an article published in the Hastings Center Report, “Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed.” Not guaranteed. Health services. So. Here are Sarah Palin’s “Death Panels”. Who decides what prevents an individual from “being or becoming participating citizens”. Who decides who lives or dies if it isn’t a “death panel”?

That’s just what an average guy thinks.

Single Payer System

Lets us stipulate a couple of things up front: A) Even though it’s not perfect by a long shot, the health care system in the U. S. is perhaps the best in the world, attracting high profile cancer and cardiac patients from around the world. B) The health insurance sector needs some work.

All of this hubbub about health care is causing me a great deal of angst. Not because of the health part, or the insurance reform, but because of what’s being referred to as the “public option”. It should be referred to as the “government option”, because that’s what it is.

To start with, the administration led off with a huge economic stimulus package. It was CRITICAL that we act immediately to save ourselves from sliding into a DEPRESSION. Now about 10% of that $800B dollars has been spent and the economy (according to administration sources) has begun to show signs of recovery, but I don’t hear anyone saying that since the recovery has begun perhaps we should return 90% of the stimulus for a credit on our national credit card. Instead, we are being told that even though the recovery has begun, it is once again critical to the recovery that we adopt a sweeping overhaul of the entire health care system. Well, it’s critical alright, but only to the administration and its plans to socialize the health care system. I hate to use that word (socialize) but what else is it?

The President has said (in speeches over the last 5 or 6 years) that he favors what is called the “single payer system” “the public option’. That single payer is the federal government. He’s said it again and again, noting that it may not be wholly achievable at first, but incrementally over 10, 15, or 20 years. Top Democrat legislators seem to share his views. And the public option will mean “No Option At All”.

The President and his advisors are all adherents to Rham Emanuel’s edict of “Never Let a Good Crisis Go To Waste”. The economy’s in the toilet? Ram through a HUGE stimulus package that funds every pet project of every majority legislator, is only partially needed and may or may not do any good. Who’s going to oppose it? The economy’s still in the toilet? QUICK! Ram through a health care revolution before anyone has a chance to read it or even know what’s in it.

If this nonsense doesn’t stop, this is what will happen: The federal government will establish a program similar to Medicare or Medicaid…… Call it ObamaCare just for fun. It will be set up to provide “competition” to private insurance companies and to provide coverage for those that don’t have any. There’s argument about how many “AMERICANS” that actually is, but for sure it will be all of the 12 to 15 million aliens who are residing here illegally now. They can’t work here legally, penalties for companies and persons who aid them are high, but under ObamaCare they will receive the best that the rest of us taxpayers can offer. This is a subject for another time.

Initially, this won’t be that big a deal, but the feds have real deep pockets (as we know) and as time goes by, private companies won’t be able to compete. Take me as an example….. I’m in the job market, and I have to have $20/hr just to make ends meet. But old John across the street has a rich uncle (we can call him Sam) that makes his house payment for him and he only has to have $16/hr. Who’re they gonna hire? Forget that I’m better looking and better at what I do. They can get John for 25% less that what I need to survive…… John’s gett’n the gig and I’m gonna have to ….. go for retraining I guess, or put my house in foreclosure. And so the ObamaCare program will grow and grow and efforts to control it will be more useless every year because the voter base that’s enrolled in it will get bigger and bigger.

Eventually there won’t be any private health insurance and there will be a “single payer” system. When this happens only the very wealthy (self insured) will have access to the system that most of us take for granted now.

And that’s what an average guy thinks.