Category: Entitlement

The “public option”…

… aka, “someone else pays.”

I found this article disturbing:

Democratic lawmakers pushing ‘public option’ amid ObamaCare woes

What disturbs me is this specific paragraph:

Dr. Henry Aaron, a senior fellow of economic studies at the Brookings Institution, says the government should focus on regulatory changes, noting the Republican Congress opposes any public option plans. Aaron said he supports state insurance commissioners requiring insurance companies to sell all their individual plans on the ObamaCare exchanges to broaden the insurance pool, and ending special enrollment periods allowing customers to sign up for insurance once they find out they need health care. (Emphasis mine)

What Dr. Aaron is proposing is to allow people to sign up for health care insurance only once they need health care. Apparently, he doesn’t understand the concept of “insurance”. Is it right (or even possible) to buy insurance after you’ve wrecked the car? After the garage burns down? After the flood wipes out your home? Riddle me this, Batman: how in the world would an insurance company stay in business under such conditions?

Oh, that’s right – just bill the responsible, productive people who are foolish enough to maintain their insurance even when they don’t need it. Guess that’s what I get for being a productive member of society…

Pension mismanagement = taxpayer bailout?

Here’s an idea for a piece of legislation (Miner’s Protection Act) backed by the UMWA: The government should guarantee a private union pension fund when bad policy and management of the fund leaves it insolvent.

It’s a sad story of coal minors being deprived of their rightful pensions, the position that the U.S. Government has guaranteed these pensions (they haven’t), and a claim that the required pension support (~$500,000,000 per year) will not cost the taxpayer a dime (Hah!). Unfortunately, it’s not the whole story. Some very enlightening details are provided by a background piece from the Heritage Foundation.

You should read BOTH of these articles before you formulate a position on this legislation. Then you should call your legislators and demand they stop the madness of the Miner’s Protection Act.