Sore Losers: Republicans and Obamacare

There's a huge cry in the Republican party of the United States about the Affordable Care Act - or rather Obamacare.  The Tea Party Caucus, the Libertarians and the full fledged Republicans are crying over what they have been referring to as socialized medicine since day one of the argument - not to mention its passing.  Since the ACA passed, it has been repealed by the House of Representatives (Tea Party controlled) 41 times, and now the government is being held hostage by the same people who look to de-fund what the health care act is.  Whether for or against Obamacare, the first thing one should know about this is that it does not socialize medicine across the board - it socializes treatment for people making less than $30,000/year, or families making less than $75k.

Here is the main summary of the Bill according to wikipedia - just in case you haven't actually looked at what the Republicans are calling socialized medicine.  As you can see, the bill only sets guidelines and regulations for the market - as the government has done in nearly every other market in the country - and sets up an exchange for the insurance companies to use for competition purposes.  They will put their quote on the exchange and the people will choose which one they can afford.  If they use the exchange - they will receive a tax credit.  If they do not use the exchange and have insurance, nothing happens.  They have insurance - there's no tax.  If they have low income and make less than 133% of poverty income - as I said somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 - they will be eligible for a tax credit which they can either take in advance or the following year.  This tax credit pays for the insurance - which is set at a premium rate of 4-5% of the person's income.  The companies agreeing with this will be subsidized by government funds, but will not be run by the government outside of the regulations the government dictates.

If you are at 133% of poverty or lower, then you will be eligible for medicaid - and the federal government will give increased funds to the state providing the medicaid insurance.  Medicaid is a state run institution and paid for with medicare and social security taxes - which many people receive in a lump sum at the end of the year during what's known as tax season through what's called a tax refund.  So, if one is poor enough to receive this portion of taxes back, then one will actually receive less than what they normally get, as they will be paying with those tax refunds.  In essence, those people crying about having to pay for someone else's insurance do not have ground upon which to stand, unless they're complaining about making insurance cheaper for grandma and grandpa.

Yet, for some reason, the Republicans and conservative 'intellectuals' argue that Obamacare will destroy health insurance.  How, when all parts of the law allow more choice, better prices, and tax breaks, could it destroy health insurance as a whole?  One would think that everyone having health insurance would be a good thing for health insurance companies since more people would be included in the pool, and health insurance companies could charge more people with premiums.  However, this is not what Republicans see.  What they see is something entirely different: Change.

Many of them are scared of change - they have seen the previous medicare (which they have gutted in the past) as well as medicaid (which they also gutted) become ineffective (because they were both gutted) and many doctors deny people using medicaid and medicare (since reimbursements for healthcare costs are slowed now that they have both been gutted).  However, if one does some research, one can easily find a great resource that shows where and who supplies care for medicaid or medicare treatment (I found my link by googling medicaid and medicare doctors - as simple as that).  So, while it may not be the same one you wanted, it will be a doctor.  If you already have insurance - the doctor will remain the one you already have.  So, that argument is pretty flat.

The other argument is jobs - it's a job killer.  Despite the fact that Health careers have sky-rocketed since the passing of the law and its eventual implementation, and insurance jobs within the health sphere have increased drastically, Republicans argue that full-time work in other fields will drop drastically, and we'll see the advent of the two-job part-time workers.  However, based on the results of the first Obamacare
 incarnation - Romneycare - the proof just isn't there.  Maybe people like Wal-Mart, MacDonald's or others will do so, but we already know that they have been unethical for quite some time, and we expect such a thing from their corporations.

The last thing is the real argument - meaning the only one that holds up: premiums will rise.  This was explained to us by Obama during the voting, and the election, saying that initial costs will rise.  Why?  Taxes to the insurance companies for specific things for which they typically charge the patient - medical devices.  They will garner about 47 billion dollars to help provide the subsidies to insurance companies on the exchange to promote cheaper health costs.  However, the costs do not go up unless you choose not to use the insurance exchange.  If you use the insurance exchange - which they don't mention in article - you receive a tax credit and a break - and get a specially reduced cost if you are a low income person or family.  Yes, if you go off on your own and buy insurance from a company directly, you will be paying more.  However, if you sign up for the exchange - which can be done by googling it, or clicking on this link - you can end up saving money because of the exchange's government funding.

Bipartisan?  Hardly

Yet, even though the Republicans have been proven wrong time and time again, they continue to rail.  Why?  Why do the Republicans take every answer given by liberals - who seem to be the only ones trying to solve problems with the marketplace - and squash it like a bug?  They seem only to complain about what's there, and the only answers they have are tax cuts for the wealthy, subsidies for big oil/coal/gas, and cuts to social programs.

Now, as the government shutdown becomes imminent, politicians are quick to point fingers at each other. Republicans blame Democrats for not budging on the de-funding of healthcare, and the removal of mandatory over-time pay.  Democrats blame Republicans for being bull-headed.  I would side with the Democrats on this one - only because I believe I know why the Republicans do not want Obamacare to be implemented.

In my humble opinion, based on the past five years of turmoil and conservative backlash to having a black president, there has been a Republican elephant sitting in the room.  This elephant is the Republican/conservative idea that black people are the only people/majority of people who benefit from social programs such as SNAP assistance and social security welfare programs - outside of grandma and grandpa.  This is flawed - while it once might have been, the numbers have evened out and are now weighted towards poor white people in communities where jobs have disappeared.  I hate to think this, but I have to wonder if it's true.  Why else have these Republicans been so staunchly opposed to a man doing what needs to be done to save the majority of the country?  Why else would people throw such hatred against a man who has done nothing more than what his predecessors have done?

It is my belief that these politicians, funded by old school racist money-holders who still cling to Southern Strategy doctrine, are working so hard against Obama - like no other president has been subject to - because Obama represents the forward progression of social reform and equal rights.  Obama also represents what the big money guys fear the most: wealth redistribution.  So, what do they do?  They pour money into elections throughout the country for Republican candidates and work tirelessly to pass laws that will help them keep their money, give them corporate subsidies, and break the ability of the workers to rise up against them.

I think that is the main reason why people have been arguing something that is just not true, or something that already exists in a private forum.  They argue that Obama is going to take your money to pay for someone else's insurance.  But, even if you keep your own private insurance, or choose not to have insurance, you are paying for someone else's insurance, or someone else is paying for your treatment.  It's already happening - Obama is just making sure that everyone pays for everyone else, instead of having the many pay for the unfortunate few.  Would you rather have your premiums go up because Stan - the broke carpenter - can't find a job doing what he does and can't afford insurance, and goes to the emergency for care for which he won't pay... Or would you rather have your premiums go up for one year, then steadily drop because everyone's chipping in to the larger pool - including broke ass Stan?

Another fear they voice is the idea of death panels - which is ridiculous.  Death panels, in Obamacare's incarnation, already exist within each insurance company currently running.  If you need treatment, there is a panel already choosing whether or not the treatment is something you need or something you should just pay for yourself.  The reason Obama has placed them in the ACA is because they already exist in the private forum, and the government will use it as a final check to either enforce the insurance company's existing decision, or reverse it to force them into giving you coverage.  In essence, they act as market regulators.  But Republicans - or rather their wealthy supporters - don't want regulators, and therefore argue incessantly against them.

Then there is the fear upon which they play that talks about how the government is going to insert itself into the medical field and force unnecessary tests and procedures upon you.  The Koch brothers made a few ads that try to instill that fear within the young.  Of course, the fear is only trying to get young people to engage in civil disobedience by not getting healthcare through the exchange.  If they don't go through the exchange, they won't get the tax credit, and the premiums will be expensive.  If they just don't get healthcare, they get taxed anyway, and end up paying what they would have - if note more - had they used the exchange in the first place.  After a few more ads from those brothers, a doctor debunked the fears with this video.

These arguments are just indicative of the Republican strategy of fear.  It has been used for the last 13 years to such a great extent - in security (fear the terrorist and give up your rights), military (fear foreign powers and let us go in there and bomb people), social welfare (fear the poor people trying to get your money) and taxes (fear the government trying to take your stuff).  It really makes me sad that the only real strategy Republicans have left is fear, and that conservatives are responding.

As the Republicans work to shutdown the government - using fear to bolster their reason - I wonder why they really don't want the Affordable Care Act to succeed.  Why would Ted Cruz - whose home state of Texas would actually benefit greatly through the ACA's implementation - want to fight so hard against it when, in the long run, doesn't make a huge impact on the nation's spending due to the revenue increase the taxes create (according to the CBO)?  Well, if I were a political party who has been classically against social programs (fear communism), and I saw a bill that might work, and knew, based on Massachusetts's own success with Romneycare, that such success would make whichever party implemented the law very popular with the people, I would try to stop it from being law.  Not being able to stop the law, I would probably try to sabotage the law.  Hence the attempt to de-fund, followed by the subsequent delay in the mandate and the tax on medical supplies.  The Republicans are trying with all their might to destroy a possibly popular program because they don't want to lose power.  In essence, the only reason the Republicans are trying to de-fund Obamacare is because they know it will work.  If it works, the Republicans - who have been staunchly against it from the get go - will look like idiots and lose their House majority.  So, instead of trying to fix it and claim credit for mending a broken machine, they try to sabotage it with ridiculous arguments.

It shames me and saddens me to a huge extent that government programs and jobs are going to suffer because a political party wants to win - whether Democratic or Republican.  It's the only reason I can see all this hoopla as viable anymore.  Republicans have asked for a stall in the mandate so they can win the Senate in 2014 and then repeal the law.  They want to remove the tax so the exchange cannot give the subsidies to the people like the law demands.  It's all part of a scheme to keep their power base solidified, and the more they try to de-fund/repeal the law, the more they lose, the more they reveal their true intentions to the people.

They've stripped social security, the rights of unions, medicare, disability, and SNAP assistance at the federal level.  At the state level, they have implemented the Right to Work laws - which remove people's ability to hold their employer accountable for poor working conditions, poor treatment, and accountability - implemented moral legislation (adopting unconstitutional state religions, promoting vaginal ultrasound procedures for abortions) and have removed voting rights for minorities and poor voters.

Yet, what do they support?  Oil, oil, and more oil - plus removing EPA regulation on business, and supporting more tax cuts for big corporations.  So, how does one pick oneself up by one's bootstraps when the party telling one to do so removes one's ability to do so?  It's just indicative of a failed and flawed reasoning, and a product of the idea that an individual is more important than a community.  Our social organism has long been separated by the idea that the individual counts more than the community.  The reasoning is that if one cares for one's own needs, then the community can prosper because the individual doesn't have to count on or depend on anyone.  It's a belief that's espoused by people of wealth, who do not understand that they are just as dependent on people buying their product - whether abstract or concrete - as the people are for the jobs those wealthy people can create if given the opportunity.  It's a belief that the people of wealth built their own intellect and wealth, and did not have any support or help along the way.

I say it is flawed because no one is a product of themselves alone.  Everyone, no matter how great or small, receives aid from someone else - whether it's rich mammy and pappy, the professor giving a strong lecture, the teacher showing the student how to reason and think critically, the bus driver taking the child to school, the police officer putting social order in place, the fire-fighter keeping one's house safe, the church-goer giving the needy family a Christmas present, or the consumer supporting the big corporation making the necessary item - the social organism is entirely connected.  To say it is not is a fallacy and a skewed logic.  To promote the idea of individuality while removing the individual's ability to get ahead is a lie and a way to steal one's power in order to give it to another.  Who do the Republicans support?  Who supports the Republicans?  Answer the second, and you'll answer the first.  Based on the laws they implement, the Republicans support big business, big oil, gun manufacturers, and fossil fuel burners, which, in turn, means those they support return the support.

It's time to give the power back to the people.  In my personal opinion, the single most devastating thing that could happen to our country is if the Republicans are given more power, or returned to their seat of power.  The only thing one could do to hurt the country more than electing a Republican to office would be not voting, and letting someone else have your voice.  I recommend voting for anyone other than a Republican during the next election.

Where is the art in this whole debacle?  I could say blind ignorance, I could say willfully sleeping.  What I will say, however, is that the art resides in the image of the person suited in power, smoking the cigar and puffing the smoke all over the people upon whom that person stands.  The Republicans are taking advantage of the people who vote for them - do yourself a favor and elect someone else.  Independents or Democrats - as long as they aren't Republicans.

Last thing:  We need to make a law that removes Representative and Senate pay altogether as a FIRST option if the government either defaults, shuts down, or grind to halt for any other reason.  These guys work for us, we do not work for them.  It's time to remind them of that fact.  

  

Raising the Minimum Wage - the Fight For and Against

Ah, the minimum wage.  How the arguments get heated from both the right and the left.  I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about the minimum wage.  I asked why it would be such a problem for people to have a few extra dollars per hour.  He rattled off a laundry list of conservative arguments: Companies wouldn't want to hire any more people; inflation would raise more; the economy would get weaker; we need to let the free market decide on the wages.

When I was debating the pros and cons with this friend, I noted that the minimum wage hasn't risen since 2009.  Back then, food costs were lower, gas prices were lower, and energy costs were half of what they are today.  He told me it would behoove us more to lower the cost of living as opposed to raising the standard wage.  

This argument perplexed me.  The cost of living is something based on supply and demand.  The more one demands the supply, the higher the cost of the supply becomes.  When one has a city, like New York, where people are competing with tens of millions of other people to get that one thing they need, or the energy they must have to power their AC/heat/computer/lights/etc., the cost cannot artificially go down unless the government spends money, or the company producing the product lowers their price.  If a company's sole design is to make profits, why would it drop the price of a scarce commodity when it's in demand?  That would be opposed to the logic of the free market.  If a company is making money on the supply they have, and they raise the prices to increase profits - yet do not increase the wages paid to employees making the supply - then the employees have a harder time buying the supply demanded.  They then have to cut out other things in their lives to afford the necessary supply.  If the company's product is unnecessary, then chances are even their own employees will stop buying their product because of the high cost and low wage.

Case in point: MacDonald's in 2006 charged between 4.99 and 5.99 for value meals.  The costs now are between 5.29 and 7.29 on average.  Yet, the wages of the employees have not changed, despite the fact that average MacDonald's employees are in their 20's - 30's and have been working there at least 9 months (where the company once set the first raise benchmark).  In order to make money, the company - rather than pay its employees more - reduced the cost of production by purchasing cheaper, less healthy food.  They kept the wages the same, and have increased profits by more than 3 times what they once were.

MacDonald's is only one example of how a company gets around raising their employee wages to make more money by spending less.  But the fact remains that the minimum wage is 30% lower than what it should be if it were doing as it should and adjusting for inflation.  I have my own theories on why people refuse to increase the minimum wage - but I think the flood of misinformation helps.  Here are some facts from a site dedicated to restoring the minimum wage.  It's pretty biased towards the raise, but it makes some good arguments.

The fact of the matter is, with more people able to afford their daily necessities, more companies would be making more money.  If gas prices are on the rise because of inflation, and we can grudgingly accept paying $3.59-$4.29 per gallon of gasoline so big oil can keep making big money, why can we not accept the idea of federally enforcing a minimum wage standard that makes those companies pay enough to help the workers afford the gasoline they need to get to work?

The big businesses would not suffer, but they are the ones making the largest of arguments.  It would be the small business that suffers from a raise in the minimum wage.  An NPR report looked at both the pros and cons of raising the minimum wage, and found that most of the companies negatively affected were small businesses.  These businesses would have long-term employees demanding more, which would mean the people running the business would have to take a pay cut to afford such employee benefits.  This is a good argument against the minimum wage - but only because it shows factual evidence as opposed to ideology.

Another flawed argument is the idea that it would cause inflation to raise.  However, inflation and the value of the dollar - being relatively opposed - are not affected by how much people make of the already created dollar, but by how much people borrow, or loan, from the banks.  In a fractal reserve system, money is first lent to from the central bank to the commercial banks.  The commercial banks then hold a fraction of the original deposit and loan out the rest - when the other banks deposit the loan in the commercial bank, the commercial bank treats it as a new deposit, not the same money they lent out.  This practice is followed by the other banks who loan money out to consumers. So, in essence, as new mortgages are bought by consumers, and sold by banks, and new loans are given to businesses so they can pay their bills and suppliers, deposits are made and inflation increases.  This is done so in a Fibonacci sequence coil that continues to spiral endlessly with the relatively small amount of money it originally took from the central bank.  In the end, because we can't pay for what we want when we want, and we get loans to buy those things we want (or convince ourselves we need), whether through credit cards or banking industries, inflation occurs regardless of how much we get paid.  It would be sound reasoning to think we could stem the tide of inflation by increasing the pay of workers so they could afford more without borrowing, and so businesses could earn more so they wouldn't have to borrow to pay bills.  Increasing the minimum wage will not increase inflation as much as banks, credit card companies, or retail businesses and restaurants already do.  The amount of money they'd receive would be a drop in the bucket compared to the flood waters of inflation pouring over us.    

Even a majority of Republican voters demand better minimum wage (62%).  In a Huffington Post aggregate story, there was proof showing that less people, if the minimum wage were increased, would require the need of SNAP assistance because they would end up making enough to cover their food costs.

It frustrates me to see so many people quietly comply to pay higher prices for necessities such as food, water, gas, and energy, yet argue so fervently against higher wages for the people working for the suppliers of those necessities.  The most remarkable thing is that most of the people arguing against it are doing so because they do not believe people deserve a 'raise' simply because it's the legal standard.  They believe that the people should go out and get a better job, or earn it through hard-work; that minimum wage jobs are there to spur people to get better jobs.  I'm sure they would if there were better jobs available.

However, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics, the jobs that pay well are on the decline, while Retail (which includes restaurants) continues to show increased employment.  This is because the jobs that would normally have under-educated or less education requirements are on the decline.  Manufacturing jobs are no longer as plentiful because they are being outsourced to China.  This leaves retail, fast food, service and restaurant industries taking up the slack.  If those jobs only pay minimum wage, and make sure to keep the employee under full-time hours, then the employee receives no benefits, a low wage, and will have to remain on SNAP assistance and continue to be seen a 'burden' for society.

Another factor going into the inability to find a 'better' job is that most of the people working those underpaid positions do not have the resources to find better jobs.  Unless they receive hand-outs from friends or family, they can not afford a computer and the Internet with all the other services for which they have to pay.  They pay for rent, they pay for utilities, food, gas, and what their kids might need if they have them.  Most of the times, they are only able to afford just enough to keep going to their low-wage job, and pray day in and day out for the one break they need to find a better position in life - so they can join the median income yearly wage earners(I linked the wage in 2011). It's either that, or they become drug dealers/gang members/criminals in their poverty income neighborhood, self-employed and offering services to others at a discounted rate to do good business, or get discovered by some random talent agent from American Idol when/if their minimum wage job gives them time off.

I think it's funny the people who have found their 'better' job feel they keep their positions because of their hard work - when a majority of Americans are only working hard enough to not get fired.  I think it's a bit hypocritical that people who understand the struggle of finding a good job argue that people who are complaining about minimum wage should just be quiet and find a better job.  It reflects the notion that poor people are not poor because of their circumstances, but because they are lazy.  If they were truly lazy, they would be living off of someone's couch, arguing that they should not have to clean up after themselves, should not have to find a job, or should not have to contribute to their household for whatever reason they can find.  I know lazy people - some of them work, some of them don't.  But the real indicator is that they are really too lazy to care about this argument.  If people arguing for a minimum wage increase were truly just too lazy to find another job, we would not be hearing from them.

Sometimes, the people arguing have been looking for better jobs for years, and have not been able to find them or gain interviews because of their lack of experience or education in the field.  Many can not get the education because the job that pays their bills will not allow them to gain it - or give them the time or extra gas money to attend classes. Yet, the argument goes - if you don't like the wage, get off your ass and find a better job.  People argue that minimum wage should not be increased, but rather people should start doing their jobs and earning their higher wages.  Yet, wages have been stagnating across the board while profits and productivity increase.  So, if people can't get better wages through earning a raise, why should they care about doing a good a job?

I think the real problem here is that a few people have had a few bad experiences at places where people get paid minimum wage, then rail and rail about why minimum wage should not be raised because those people weren't doing their job.  I propose a question to those people: If you were in the middle of trying to find a better job, had a position at a retail store/restaurant/hotel/fast-food chain, how serious would you take your job if everyone treated you like you were just a lazy person who didn't want to find something better?  How would you treat the people who treated you with disrespect?  How would you respond to the people who decided to get angry because they thought you weren't being patient enough to answer their 36 questions (many of them the same questions) about a single product only to change their minds and decide on something else? What response would you have when someone threw a temper tantrum because they didn't get what they wanted when they wanted it?  What kind of action would you take when someone complained about your customer service skills despite your every attempt to please them, and you got written up?  Would you appreciate the customers more or less?