If you are unaware of the raging political battle over contraceptives and ACA, congratulations – you appear to have a life. [That’s the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or PPACA for those with patience or military background, aka Obamacare.]
Unfortunately, I think many folks are ignoring this in disgust when they should be very interested indeed. The issue has very little, or even nothing, to do with either women’s rights or religious freedom. Once again, our political Parties and the parasites that make a living helping with their 24/7 propaganda campaign have successfully taken our focus from the very important key issue. They have too many of us taking sides in a bogus fight that intentionally obscures the real issue. Our forth estate has once again completely failed to point all this out choosing instead to enjoy making money from frivolous sensationalism.
The issue boys and girls is that big government is once again mandating the conduct of private industry in a free market economy. To make matters worse, big government is further distorting the public’s dreadful lack of understanding of the critical role of insurance in our lives and economy. These guys think we’re stupid.
The Administration – not Congress because they abdicated their responsibility on this subject to the Executive Branch – has mandated that private insurance companies will provide a product to their customers free of charge. That should be anathema to all Americans and anyone who isn’t a communist and – oh by the way – should be unConstitutional.
This is a serious enough problem on its own but there is a second still important component at work here – bear with me if you can.
Insurance is for protection from catastrophic events. If we break a dish or wear out a TV, we buy another one. We know these things are going to happen – not only to us but to everybody in the free world. So, we don’t pay a premium to an insurance company in order to get part of our money back when the TV wears out.
We buy fire insurance for our house because if it burned down we could not possibly afford to pay off the mortgage and build another house. Luckily, there are zillions of homeowners and only a tiny percentage of houses burn down each year. This creates a role for insurance. We all pay in a little so that there is plenty of money to rebuild the homes of the unlucky few. The insurance company makes a living collecting the money and guaranteeing the protection. This is an ancient and incredibly important function that is woefully misunderstood by the general public to the peril of our nation and economy.
Insurance companies paying for affordable items that we freely choose to use is not insurance. Saying otherwise distorts this critical economic function.
The Obama Administration – for reasons they think are important – is using private industry to redistribute wealth. Redistributing wealth is controversial and usually outright contrary to American public opinion, so the Administration is hiding it. And in hiding their process, they are further distorting important public understanding of insurance and perhaps setting a president for far more intrusive and expensive distortions later.
It is dead wrong for the government to do this about contraceptives and when it comes to government, precedent is everything. I may be somewhat in the weeds with this but it could hardly be more important. This is wrong; federal government authority and redistributing wealth should be at the heart of the public debate – not churches or women’s rights. [Arrrrrr. What in the Sam Hill are “women’s rights” other than a bumper sticker on some propaganda wagon? I think we’re all in this together.]
I’ve made my point but if you care to go a little further, there is a part of the Administration objective with which I can at least sympathize.
I don’t believe that there is a citizen anywhere that thinks abortion as birth control is acceptable – not even committed pro-choicers such as me. Preventing unwanted pregnancies, especially among children, but also among all unmarried women is an essential component of breaking into the culture of poverty. I’m happy for the religious folks who think that abstinence is the answer – good for them and good luck but we know this isn’t for everyone.
Anyway, I think we all know there would be a far fewer Bible thumpers if they practiced what Deuteronomy demands.
… [if any bride is found not to be a virgin] … Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die.
Deuteronomy 22:13-21
Democrats are also forever thinking that they can mandate personal conduct. These guys think that people who buy cell phones, cheese burgers and cable TV don’t use condoms because they can’t afford them. The kids can and should get free condoms almost anywhere but they won’t use them.
All of that aside, I think birth control should be free to everyone – every little bit helps. In that the Administration is probably right. But the cost should be direct rather than hidden and borne by local government and charity – this is the stuff the feds should not be trying to do.
But this is our government today – doing far too much while in the pursuit of doing more. And the state of our politics too – getting us to take sides in a fabricated dispute designed solely to keep us off the main problems and solutions. Our forth estate has abdicated all responsibility for keeping the politicians and activists honest – they’ve simply taken a side or both sides simultaneously. And we are drinking the kool-aide.
Well, if you got this far, perhaps you’ll allow me a further rant about insurance as it could apply to Social Security.
We argue about whether SS is an entitlement or a contract – more on that later. SS was never intended to be insurance though I think we should convert it to that. Certain members of my incredibly selfish generation are too senile to listen when reformers talk about reform and make it totally clear that no one over 55 would be affected. Personally I think retired people who can afford it should lead by example and participate in any serious reform – we made this mess; it was our watch.
Forcing grasshopper people to act like ants is a good idea. Even some of the ants will find that circumstances leave them without savings and too old to work when winter comes. We’ll have to decide whether to we wish to be forced to save enough to get by in retirement or whether we want to be forced to save enough to live like kings in old age but a safety net is essential.
[I assume everybody knows that ants work all summer building their mounds and storing food there for the winter while grasshoppers eat all summer, store nothing and die when winter comes. A percentage of all human beings, are and always will be, grasshoppers.]
Current practice has us accounting for SS as an entitlement. We don’t charge actuarial premiums and hold them for eventual claims, we charge current workers part of what we need to pay current recipients and borrow the rest. Social Security is not a contract as some fools want it to be.
There was and is a promise made to those paying FICA taxes and a promise is a contract. Unfortunately, we cannot make an enforceable contract with ourselves – think New Year’s resolutions. Deny it as you wish but government is us. And we don’t have a contract with our grandchildren; they never agreed to service our liabilities and debt. They can’t turn us into Soylent Green but they can and perhaps should take away our wine money and internet connection. Those of us in the greedy generation should be ashamed to say we don’t care what problems we’re handing to our grandchildren or deny responsibility for what happened on our decidedly narcissistic watch.
As part of a permanent fix to SS, we should be looking at insurance rather than entitlements – regulated, private company administration rather than government administration. Those that think we should eliminate Social Security altogether, don’t think. Americans are always going to feed the grasshoppers as well as the unlucky among the industrious.
We should have actuaries – private industry ones – calculate what the taxes have to be in order that the retirement income we want will be there if we get there. We have to decide in advance whether we want the payout to be subsistence or luxury level and then pay for it and in retirement, live with it. The system has to be mandatory but to keep premiums down, it could be insurance. If we do well in life and don’t need it, then Social Security could pay us on a graduated scale to the point where Bill Gates and Warren Buffet would get zip.
One last point, I promise. I’ve written this before but I still hear the delusional and the partisan insist that the Social Security Trust Fund is a real thing paying out real money to real people. That.is.not.so.
You may also have heard that the “trust fund” ran out of money last year or that it will run out of money soon. That is factual accounting for fiscal nonsense. What folks are saying is that if there had been real money set aside to pay benefits then the program would be bankrupt soon anyway.
There is no money in the trust fund. There are treasuries there. If you own a treasury bond, it is real money. If the government owns a treasury bond, as the trust fund does, it’s worthless paper. It’s a lie created by Congress to hide the true extent of the debt and deficit. We jail business men for exactly this kind of accounting.
Think of it like this: you have a piggy bank with a hundred dollars inside. You remove $100 from the piggy and spend it but you write, “IOU $100,” on a slip of paper and put in the piggy bank. If you now believe you have a hundred bucks in savings in the piggy bank, you are qualified to be a Congressman.
Thanks for reading.
