Private v. Public: WTF?

Don't cry for the 47 million in America who are uninsured. They are not all lying on the ground, balled up and ready to die at any moment, although this is the picture the Democrats try to paint.

First eliminate the illegal immigrants, if you actually have a way to count them all. Now eliminate the young people, who are strong, healthy, and consider themselves bulletproof, and have no insurance by choice. Next, eliminate the chronically ill, who cannot obtain insurance of any type, without paying through the nose for high-risk policies. You are left with about 10 million people. For an estimated $2 trillion cost, we can add these to the ranks of the insured for a mere $200,000 each.

Private insurance is a business and, as all private business, has one purpose: to make a profit. As of 2007, some 2.5 million people are employed in the insurance industry. Most of the people who work for these companies demonstrate human compassion. They are not all the cold-hearted, miserly curmudgeons they are portrayed to be, but the bottom line here is still money. Last I checked, this is what makes the world go around, people. A company that loses money doesn't stay in business very long.

Seems to me there are zero competitors to private insurance, unless you count a secondary policy to Medicare. You either have insurance or you don't.
Private insurance companies compete with each other. The one's that can offer the best plans at the best prices are the one's which succeed. The rates you pay are calculated upon how many people pay into the pool versus how much money is spent for services rendered.

Let's assume for a moment that I run an insurance company. I charge one rate for healthy people, and another rate for sick people. This is a benefit to the healthy people, for the amount paid out in services will be much less, and their policies will be less expensive.

Now, since I know that the money I must pay for services to care for people who are sick will be much greater, I have two choices. I can charge them more for their policy, or I can charge both pools, healthy and sick, more. This is the way Obamacare will work. By forcing everyone to have coverage, and by ensuring that sick people can sign up, we will all have to pay more. Sorry you took good care of yourself, ate health foods, exercised regularly, because you still have to cover the cost of the fast-food, chain-smoking pool.

I certainly enjoy comments from people who believe the government wants to help you, that the government is going to provide your new kidney for free, or remove your gall bladder for nothing. These poor, ignorant fools believe that "rich people" should pay for your poor health. All they understand is that somebody else needs pay for their $500,000 procedure so they can buy insurance at $100 a month.

Candidate Obama was in favor of a single payer system. There is no doubt of this fact. Yet President Obama denies this, and only wishes to establish a "public option", just to keep the private insurance companies honest. Another term for "public option" could be "government subsidized". How on earth can any private company compete with this? The creation of a public option will mean the loss of private insurance as they go out of business one by one. Suddenly, the government option is the only option, which creates the single-payer system that Obama wanted all along.

The Sotomayor Race Race

I would not be surprised to see Ms. Sotomayor confirmed as our next Supreme Court Justice. Even if she is not, it doesn't really matter. Obama will nominate another just like her. There is no shortage of far left liberals, who while not necessarily racist, tend to exploit race to their gain.

Matters of race are truly baffling. For once, I would like to hear people in this country simply call themselves Americans. Being proud of one's heritage is commendable, yet we have this bizarre need to categorize American into various ethnic subgroups.

Is a person claiming to be a special kind of American, superior in some way to "plain" Americans? Or is it their claim to be an inferior sub-class of "normal" Americans? I suppose it all depends on the context, but it seems to lend credibility to the idea that we are not equal in this country as some would think.

Some would agree that we are not. Thank goodness for people such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who were put on this earth to keep racism alive and flourishing by picking at the wound so it may never heal.

Speaking of which, I would define the term "African-American" as a person who possesses dual citizenship. This term should not be used to refer to a black person living in America. This would simply be an American who happens to be black. Unless this person was born in Africa, immigrated to America, then renounced his African citizenship. He could at this point be properly referred to as an American African, if he so desired.

Things become more complicated with the term Hispanic-American, as "Hispania" is not a country I know of. I suppose anyone of Latin American heritage can properly be called Latino or Latina, gender respective, of course.

I assume "Latino" is meant to describe someone from Latin America. This is a huge generalization, for "Latin America" describes the regions of the Americas where the Latin-derived romance languages are spoken.

No one seems to use the term "North American", which in America refers to the United States and Canada. To the rest of the world, North America is comprised of 23 countries and includes Mexico, Central America, Greenland, and the Caribbean countries.

I assume that "Mexican-American" has fallen out of popularity, or is considered demeaning to Central American-Americans (Guatemalan-Americans, Honduran-Americans, Costa Rican-Americans, Nicaraguan-Americans, Panamanian-Americans, El Salvadorian-Americans, and Belizean-Americans).

Remember, these categories only include people born in Central America and have migrated to North America, and are not to be confused with Meso-America, which is the region from central Mexico to Nicaragua and origin of pre-Colombian civilization. I am not aware of any sub-category with regards to legal immigration, but any legitimate use of the suffix "-American" would require citizenship.

Since we all are supposed to be equals, why is it necessary to quantify which type of American you are? As I am a person of "no color", I feel left out of the national categorization frenzy. "American-American" seems a bit redundant, so I am stuck with just being American.

I suppose that I could resort to European-American, which also sounds redundant. More accurate would be Eastern European-American, or Hungarian-American, which is precise and also rhymes a bit.

But this would be silly, since my family immigrated to this country in the late 1700's, and I was born in Houston ten generations later. Personally, I prefer the term "Texan", but "American" is also completely acceptable. And much less confusing than all that other crap.

Traitors to the Lone Star State

It is difficult to believe that anyone elected to represent the state of Texas could vote for this crippling piece of legislation. As the nation's leading producer of energy, Texas will be hardest hit. Besides energy, agricultural endeavors will also be hit by this tax.

Apparently there are some Obama/Pelosi suck-ups who would rather promote their own political careers than do what is right for the people of Texas. If these people bowed to Ms. Pelosi's strong-arm tactics, as Sen. Hutchinson suggested, and allowed this bill to pass the House, then they should be asked to resign from their duties that they have so flagrantly abandoned for personal gain.

The following 9 members of the House voted to pass HR 2454. Please feel free to write them and express your disgust, make disparaging remarks as to their heritage, or whatever you feel appropriate:

Cuellar, Henry, Texas, 28th

Doggett, Lloyd, Texas, 25th

Gonzalez, Charlie A., Texas, 20th

Green, Al, Texas, 9th

Green, Gene, Texas, 29th

Hinojosa, Rubén, Texas, 15th

Jackson Lee, Sheila, Texas, 18th

Johnson, Eddie Bernice, Texas 30th

Reyes, Silvestre, Texas, 16th

Perhaps we can stop this bill from making it through the Senate and onto Obama's desk, but that will not erase the disservice these elected officials have done to their state. Perhaps after they are voted out of office, they could grab one of those highway road crew jobs that (are practically the only jobs so far which) Obama's stimulus bill has created, which would give them plenty of time to reflect on their mistake.