Everyone Communicates Few Connect is the title of prolific writer John C. Maxwell’s latest book. Maxwell is an expert on leadership and has trained over 5 million leaders in 126 countries through his organization known as EQUIP. This book deals with relating to the people you want to influence, whether it be one on one, with a small group, or before a large audience. I found the book enjoyable to read, especially since there were many personal anecdotes. Maxwell published part of the book on his blog before it was released so his potential readers could comment on his writing. Many of the reader comments were included in the final book, making it somewhat interactive. I found that interesting.
Maxwell is definitely a people person; he believes in people and wishes to empower them. The message that comes through loud and clear in this book is that communication has to be focused on the other person and not on self. There are many thought-provoking gems throughout the book. I would highly recommend it for teachers, preachers, and anyone who does public speaking. I give this book four out of five stars. The only reason I did not give it five is because it seemed a bit redundant after a while. The book could have been shorter and still had just as much impact.
A copy of this book was supplied to me by Thomas Nelson Publishers for the purpose of review.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Lies and the Internet
In last week’s column, I urged both Democrats and Republicans to tone down the rhetoric, stick to the facts, and have civil debates about the serious challenges we face as a nation. I also mentioned that people should stop the spread of false and malicious emails. Well, it so happened I was on the receiving end of two such emails this week. I seem to get a lot of those in my inbox, and since most, though by no means all of my friends and family are quite conservative, the vast majority of what I receive is aimed at Obama and the Democrats in Congress.
The first email suggested that Barack Obama never actually attended Columbia University where he claims to have graduated in 1983 before attending Harvard Law School. It said that NO ONE has ever come forward who actually remembers being there with him. Mysteriously, Obama has refused to release his transcript from the school or any of the papers he wrote while in attendance. This dearth of information has led to wild speculation on the part of ultraconservatives. Did he lie about his education? It took me less than three minutes to type “Obama Columbia University” into Google, and right away, I was directed to a web site that debunks urban legends and other falsehoods. It turns out it is true that Obama has never released any papers from his time at Columbia, making it appear that he has something to hide. However, it is NOT true that no one remembers him from his time at the school. Columbia claims him as one of their graduates. A former professor remembers that he easily aced the class he taught in foreign affairs. A school publication contained an article written by Obama. A former roommate has also come forward with information about their time there. And finally, there is no way Obama would have been admitted to Harvard Law School without having graduated from somewhere!
The second email claimed that Obama had cancelled the 2009 National Day of Prayer, held each year by Christians throughout the country, and then sanctioned a National Day of Prayer for Muslims on Capitol Hill. This time I went to www.snopes.com and checked it out. The National Day of Prayer was not cancelled. Obama did decide not to have the public White House ceremony which was held annually during the eight years of the Bush administration. Instead, he signed a proclamation announcing the day of prayer and urged Americans everywhere to pray for their country and leaders. There was never a publicly-sanctioned National Day of Prayer for Muslims. There was a privately organized event for Muslims to pray for America that took place in the nation’s capital in September of 2009. A little something called freedom of speech allows them to do that, just as it allows Christians to gather around the flagpoles in communities all over America on the National Day of Prayer. We Christians had better not try to take that right away from others, because if we do, it will soon be taken away from us.
Frankly, what we know about Obama is enough to worry me – I don’t need people going around making stuff up! I don’t buy all these conspiracy theories and outlandish accusations. There are well-respected conservative journalists like George Will and William Kristol who would be all over these stories if there were anything to them. Occasionally, bloggers do uncover stories that turn out to be true and eventually get picked up by the mainstream media (like the ACORN scandal). Until that happens, it seems to me we should ignore rumors and speculation.
Such falsehoods are spread by members of both political parties. Another email that made the rounds a few years ago claimed that President George W. Bush had the lowest IQ of any president from the past fifty years. This information supposedly came from a study by an organization that does not even exist. It listed the twelve presidents that have served in the past 50 years in their order of IQ. Interestingly, all those with top IQ’s were Democrats, with Bill Clinton having the highest one of all!
I used to just delete these emails, but I am now engaged in a campaign to stamp out ignorance. As soon as I get one, I check it out on sites such as Snopes or www.factcheck.org. Then I send the link to the person who forwarded me the email and suggest that they check out future emails for themselves.
The Internet provides a wealth of valuable information. Unfortunately, it is also the source of rumors and outright lies. We all need to make it our personal responsibility to verify information before we pass it on to others.
The first email suggested that Barack Obama never actually attended Columbia University where he claims to have graduated in 1983 before attending Harvard Law School. It said that NO ONE has ever come forward who actually remembers being there with him. Mysteriously, Obama has refused to release his transcript from the school or any of the papers he wrote while in attendance. This dearth of information has led to wild speculation on the part of ultraconservatives. Did he lie about his education? It took me less than three minutes to type “Obama Columbia University” into Google, and right away, I was directed to a web site that debunks urban legends and other falsehoods. It turns out it is true that Obama has never released any papers from his time at Columbia, making it appear that he has something to hide. However, it is NOT true that no one remembers him from his time at the school. Columbia claims him as one of their graduates. A former professor remembers that he easily aced the class he taught in foreign affairs. A school publication contained an article written by Obama. A former roommate has also come forward with information about their time there. And finally, there is no way Obama would have been admitted to Harvard Law School without having graduated from somewhere!
The second email claimed that Obama had cancelled the 2009 National Day of Prayer, held each year by Christians throughout the country, and then sanctioned a National Day of Prayer for Muslims on Capitol Hill. This time I went to www.snopes.com and checked it out. The National Day of Prayer was not cancelled. Obama did decide not to have the public White House ceremony which was held annually during the eight years of the Bush administration. Instead, he signed a proclamation announcing the day of prayer and urged Americans everywhere to pray for their country and leaders. There was never a publicly-sanctioned National Day of Prayer for Muslims. There was a privately organized event for Muslims to pray for America that took place in the nation’s capital in September of 2009. A little something called freedom of speech allows them to do that, just as it allows Christians to gather around the flagpoles in communities all over America on the National Day of Prayer. We Christians had better not try to take that right away from others, because if we do, it will soon be taken away from us.
Frankly, what we know about Obama is enough to worry me – I don’t need people going around making stuff up! I don’t buy all these conspiracy theories and outlandish accusations. There are well-respected conservative journalists like George Will and William Kristol who would be all over these stories if there were anything to them. Occasionally, bloggers do uncover stories that turn out to be true and eventually get picked up by the mainstream media (like the ACORN scandal). Until that happens, it seems to me we should ignore rumors and speculation.
Such falsehoods are spread by members of both political parties. Another email that made the rounds a few years ago claimed that President George W. Bush had the lowest IQ of any president from the past fifty years. This information supposedly came from a study by an organization that does not even exist. It listed the twelve presidents that have served in the past 50 years in their order of IQ. Interestingly, all those with top IQ’s were Democrats, with Bill Clinton having the highest one of all!
I used to just delete these emails, but I am now engaged in a campaign to stamp out ignorance. As soon as I get one, I check it out on sites such as Snopes or www.factcheck.org. Then I send the link to the person who forwarded me the email and suggest that they check out future emails for themselves.
The Internet provides a wealth of valuable information. Unfortunately, it is also the source of rumors and outright lies. We all need to make it our personal responsibility to verify information before we pass it on to others.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Our Debt - How bad is it?
As a teacher, the class I enjoyed most was senior economics. I took it very seriously, since I knew I had one semester to convey as much information as possible about the very important topic of money. Think about that – five months out of twelve years of school devoted to economics. I always felt it was a travesty that we do so little to educate young people about something that will have such a profound effect on their lives. I spent about half the semester talking to my students about managing their own money, but I also introduced them to economics in general. In a democratic-republic, it is important that people understand how our economy works so we can elect people who will make wise decisions concerning jobs, taxes, and spending. After all, we cannot continue to be a strong country unless we maintain a strong economy.
One of the topics I spent a great deal of time on was debt – both personal debt and public. Young people are known for getting themselves in trouble with that first credit card, and I hoped I could prevent that from happening to my students. But I also warned them about our national debt and tried to help them see that THEY were the ones who would have to deal with it. First I informed them of the size of our country’s indebtedness, which is currently over 12,729,000,000 dollars! That’s TRILLIONS. That is a very big number, and most of us really cannot conceive of it.
A trillion is a million million. Now if I had a million dollars, I would feel very rich. Imagine if I had a million million! Not even Bill Gates can conceive of having so much money!
One trillion seconds is 31,688 years. Western civilization has not even existed for a trillion seconds!
A stack of $1000 bills equal to a trillion dollars would be 67.9 miles high! (Yes, there used to be $1000 bills, with President Grover Cleveland’s picture on them. The highest denomination printed today is the $100 bill.) A stack of one dollar bills equal to a trillion would reach a quarter of the way to the moon!
A trillion barrels of oil would be enough to run the entire world for about 33 years if our level of consumption remained constant.
So you get the idea. A trillion dollars is a whole lot of money! And our country owes over 12 trillion. And it’s even worse than that – much worse. Besides the money we’ve already borrowed, we’ve made promises to pay a lot more money in the future, money we don’t have. We’ve promised to pay social security benefits, Medicare, and federal retiree pensions. The US Treasury Department recently reported that our nation has a staggering $62 trillion in these “unfunded obligations.”
Invariably, when I told my students about our nation’s debt, one of them would say, “But don’t we just owe the money to ourselves? What’s the big deal?” I imagine some adults have a similar misconception. I taught my students that our government owes real money to real people just like them! I explained to them that when the government needs money, it sells treasury bills, notes, or bonds to individuals, corporations, local governments, and foreign investors. These securities are basically IOU’s from the federal government. They must be repaid with interest. As with any other debt, the government will, at some point, have to pay back more than it has borrowed.
Now we all know that there is such a thing as too much debt in our personal finances. But as individuals, we have fewer options for paying debt than the government has. It’s also more difficult for us to continue borrowing. Government securities are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. As long as our government is stable, treasury bonds should be a very safe investment, so people will continue buying them, thus loaning the government additional money. You and I are only backed by the total value of our assets. Once you’ve run through your bank accounts and sold everything you own to pay your debt, there is nothing left. Unlike the government, you can’t raise taxes or print more money. You’ve reached the limit of your credit-worthiness, and no one reputable is going to loan you money. Your last resort is to declare bankruptcy.
The government does have the ability to raise taxes and print money, so there seems to be no limit to the amount of debt it can accumulate. Of course, there are real problems with both those options, but I’ll save that for a later column.
In the past, some economists have believed that our national debt really doesn’t matter. It’s not like all those treasury securities are going to come due at once. As long as we can pay the interest due on the debt, some people believe the amount of the debt itself is not that important. It’s kind of like when people go buy a car and only worry about the size of the monthly payment without giving much thought to the length of the loan or the total amount to be paid. That’s lousy money management, but people do it all the time.
These days, you will have a hard time finding any knowledgeable person who doesn’t believe our economy is headed for disaster if our debt continues to grow as it has the past few decades. So what is so bad about debt? How much debt is too much? Most importantly, how will our growing debt affect us in the years to come? In future columns, I will attempt to answer those questions in terms that people of all ages and from all walks of life can understand. Only when we understand our economic difficulties will we hold our congressmen’s feet to the fire and demand they make desperately-needed changes.
One of the topics I spent a great deal of time on was debt – both personal debt and public. Young people are known for getting themselves in trouble with that first credit card, and I hoped I could prevent that from happening to my students. But I also warned them about our national debt and tried to help them see that THEY were the ones who would have to deal with it. First I informed them of the size of our country’s indebtedness, which is currently over 12,729,000,000 dollars! That’s TRILLIONS. That is a very big number, and most of us really cannot conceive of it.
A trillion is a million million. Now if I had a million dollars, I would feel very rich. Imagine if I had a million million! Not even Bill Gates can conceive of having so much money!
One trillion seconds is 31,688 years. Western civilization has not even existed for a trillion seconds!
A stack of $1000 bills equal to a trillion dollars would be 67.9 miles high! (Yes, there used to be $1000 bills, with President Grover Cleveland’s picture on them. The highest denomination printed today is the $100 bill.) A stack of one dollar bills equal to a trillion would reach a quarter of the way to the moon!
A trillion barrels of oil would be enough to run the entire world for about 33 years if our level of consumption remained constant.
So you get the idea. A trillion dollars is a whole lot of money! And our country owes over 12 trillion. And it’s even worse than that – much worse. Besides the money we’ve already borrowed, we’ve made promises to pay a lot more money in the future, money we don’t have. We’ve promised to pay social security benefits, Medicare, and federal retiree pensions. The US Treasury Department recently reported that our nation has a staggering $62 trillion in these “unfunded obligations.”
Invariably, when I told my students about our nation’s debt, one of them would say, “But don’t we just owe the money to ourselves? What’s the big deal?” I imagine some adults have a similar misconception. I taught my students that our government owes real money to real people just like them! I explained to them that when the government needs money, it sells treasury bills, notes, or bonds to individuals, corporations, local governments, and foreign investors. These securities are basically IOU’s from the federal government. They must be repaid with interest. As with any other debt, the government will, at some point, have to pay back more than it has borrowed.
Now we all know that there is such a thing as too much debt in our personal finances. But as individuals, we have fewer options for paying debt than the government has. It’s also more difficult for us to continue borrowing. Government securities are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. As long as our government is stable, treasury bonds should be a very safe investment, so people will continue buying them, thus loaning the government additional money. You and I are only backed by the total value of our assets. Once you’ve run through your bank accounts and sold everything you own to pay your debt, there is nothing left. Unlike the government, you can’t raise taxes or print more money. You’ve reached the limit of your credit-worthiness, and no one reputable is going to loan you money. Your last resort is to declare bankruptcy.
The government does have the ability to raise taxes and print money, so there seems to be no limit to the amount of debt it can accumulate. Of course, there are real problems with both those options, but I’ll save that for a later column.
In the past, some economists have believed that our national debt really doesn’t matter. It’s not like all those treasury securities are going to come due at once. As long as we can pay the interest due on the debt, some people believe the amount of the debt itself is not that important. It’s kind of like when people go buy a car and only worry about the size of the monthly payment without giving much thought to the length of the loan or the total amount to be paid. That’s lousy money management, but people do it all the time.
These days, you will have a hard time finding any knowledgeable person who doesn’t believe our economy is headed for disaster if our debt continues to grow as it has the past few decades. So what is so bad about debt? How much debt is too much? Most importantly, how will our growing debt affect us in the years to come? In future columns, I will attempt to answer those questions in terms that people of all ages and from all walks of life can understand. Only when we understand our economic difficulties will we hold our congressmen’s feet to the fire and demand they make desperately-needed changes.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Let's take the hate out of politics
I don’t know if the editor planned it or not, but I had to chuckle when I turned to the editorial page of last week’s paper. My column was flanked on the right by Jim Davis’ article, “Who are the hateful ones?” and on the left by Jim Fitzgerald’s piece proclaiming, “The Republicans are the hateful ones.” I didn’t laugh long. The truth is, there is plenty of hate on both sides of the aisle. The vitriolic partisanship that divides our nation is no laughing matter. We have serious issues that threaten the economic future of our country and our children, and if we don’t pull together and address those issues in an honest and forthright manner soon, we are in a world of trouble.
As a friend of mine says, politics is not a sporting event, where one team must win while the other loses. We, the people, are not mere spectators sitting in the bleachers, pulling for our favorite team to come out ahead no matter what. News anchors are not sportscasters, just reporting who is ahead in the latest poll. Government is not a game - it is deadly serious, as our leaders must confront a dangerous world and make decisions that will affect every single American for years to come.
I’m tired of politicians. Our economy is on an unsustainable path; we need statesmen who will tell us the truth about what lies ahead and what must be done to get us going in the right direction again. We need leaders who care more about this country than they do the next election.
We need a news media that does its job. Here’s a news flash for the news media – I DON’T CARE whether the Democrats will be helped or hurt by health care legislation in the next election. I DON’T CARE if the Republicans are hurt by this scandal or that. I care about how new policies and legislation are going to affect our lives. I want answers, not controversial sound bites from one politician attacking another. And enough with the spin doctors! When did government become a public relations game?
I’ve had it with the endless back and forth that goes on between Democrats and Republicans. When one party is in power, all the other party does is criticize and obstruct in every way possible. Then there is an election and power shifts from one party to the other. The parties just reverse roles, each doing the exact same things they’ve been criticizing the other for. No wonder so many people hate politics! Others are saying, “A pox on both their houses,” and threatening to “reelect nobody.” The public is losing patience with the constant bickering in Washington. It’s as though the crew of the Titanic is embroiled in a huge argument over which life boats to lower first while the ship is rapidly sinking.
We need to take the hate out of politics and start talking to one another in a civil manner. Only then can we work together to solve problems and maybe even prevent the collapse of our economy.
Republicans should stop making wild accusations about Obama, calling him everything from a communist to the Antichrist. He is a progressive liberal who seems to like the European model of government and is moving us in that direction. Conservatives can certainly attack him on those grounds, but should stop spreading rumors and emails about him being a secret Muslim or a non-citizen. People who do so destroy their own credibility, making themselves look like right-wing nut cases in the eyes of Democrats.
Democrats should stop dismissing the Tea Partiers as an angry mob or a fringe group of ignorant people who don’t think for themselves. Doing so just comes across as arrogant. Liberals need to acknowledge that many Americans have legitimate concerns about our mounting debt and the growth of big government.
It’s time to realize that we are not just Democrats or Republicans, but Americans, and we are all in this together.
As a friend of mine says, politics is not a sporting event, where one team must win while the other loses. We, the people, are not mere spectators sitting in the bleachers, pulling for our favorite team to come out ahead no matter what. News anchors are not sportscasters, just reporting who is ahead in the latest poll. Government is not a game - it is deadly serious, as our leaders must confront a dangerous world and make decisions that will affect every single American for years to come.
I’m tired of politicians. Our economy is on an unsustainable path; we need statesmen who will tell us the truth about what lies ahead and what must be done to get us going in the right direction again. We need leaders who care more about this country than they do the next election.
We need a news media that does its job. Here’s a news flash for the news media – I DON’T CARE whether the Democrats will be helped or hurt by health care legislation in the next election. I DON’T CARE if the Republicans are hurt by this scandal or that. I care about how new policies and legislation are going to affect our lives. I want answers, not controversial sound bites from one politician attacking another. And enough with the spin doctors! When did government become a public relations game?
I’ve had it with the endless back and forth that goes on between Democrats and Republicans. When one party is in power, all the other party does is criticize and obstruct in every way possible. Then there is an election and power shifts from one party to the other. The parties just reverse roles, each doing the exact same things they’ve been criticizing the other for. No wonder so many people hate politics! Others are saying, “A pox on both their houses,” and threatening to “reelect nobody.” The public is losing patience with the constant bickering in Washington. It’s as though the crew of the Titanic is embroiled in a huge argument over which life boats to lower first while the ship is rapidly sinking.
We need to take the hate out of politics and start talking to one another in a civil manner. Only then can we work together to solve problems and maybe even prevent the collapse of our economy.
Republicans should stop making wild accusations about Obama, calling him everything from a communist to the Antichrist. He is a progressive liberal who seems to like the European model of government and is moving us in that direction. Conservatives can certainly attack him on those grounds, but should stop spreading rumors and emails about him being a secret Muslim or a non-citizen. People who do so destroy their own credibility, making themselves look like right-wing nut cases in the eyes of Democrats.
Democrats should stop dismissing the Tea Partiers as an angry mob or a fringe group of ignorant people who don’t think for themselves. Doing so just comes across as arrogant. Liberals need to acknowledge that many Americans have legitimate concerns about our mounting debt and the growth of big government.
It’s time to realize that we are not just Democrats or Republicans, but Americans, and we are all in this together.
Monday, March 29, 2010
So How Will We Save?
After reading my column from last week, my sister asked, “Will someone please explain to me how we are supposed to save money when Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are going broke, and we are going to cover 32 million more people? Why don’t I understand this?” She is certainly not alone in finding it difficult to understand how health care reform can reduce the deficit. In fact, a recent Rasmussen poll reveals that a whopping 81% of Americans believe the reform will cost more than the CBO projections. Since every other large entitlement program has mushroomed in size and cost, it’s no wonder Americans are skeptical about this one.
It’s easy to see how reform is going to cost us – the government will subsidize the premiums of many of those buying insurance and will add many more to the Medicaid rolls. It’s not so easy to understand the saving part. Frankly, I don’t think the Democrats have done a very good job of explaining it in terms that ordinary folks like me can understand. I’ve been doing my own research online and found a recent Newsweek article that attempted to explain it in five easy steps.
First, the formation of health insurance exchanges should create more competition among insurance companies. Now any good capitalist knows that competition results in better quality and lower prices. I get that. But I really didn’t know what the exchanges would be and how they would work, so I’ve been looking that up as well. My understanding is that the exchanges will be created by individual states, and states can decide to join together to create regional exchanges if they choose. The exchange will simply be marketplaces managed and regulated by the government. They will consist of private insurance companies that desire to be a part of the exchange. It stands to reason that companies would want to participate because that is where most customers would go to buy insurance. It will have a web site where various policies and prices can be compared Theoretically, the companies will seek to offer better coverage at lower prices to get your business. Companies within the exchange will have to meet certain standards of coverage.
Obama admits that not everyone will have lower-cost premiums as a result of the exchanges. Some people now have low-cost plans that have high deductibles and not-so-great coverage, because that is all they can afford or want to pay for. They will be required to buy better insurance under the new legislation and can expect to pay more as a result. If they earn less than 400% of the poverty level, that higher cost will be offset by government subsidies to help pay for their premiums. People who make more than that will pay more for their insurance; the CBO projects premiums will increase 10 – 13%.
There is considerable question as to whether the exchanges will actually work as they are intended. Massachusetts already has an exchange like the ones that will be created nationwide beginning in 2014. The state also has some of the highest insurance costs in the country.
A second means of saving money will be the Independent Medicare Advisory Board. One reason Medicare continues to cost so much is that Congress does not have the political will to cut benefits. The advisory board will do it for them. It will be made of 15 members appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. IMAC will write proposals for limiting Medicare’s costs. These measures will go into effect automatically unless Congress votes to reject them, and if they do, they must find another way to cut costs by the same amount. The idea is to make it easier for tough decisions to be made. Obviously, older adults may find this worrisome. Young people, on the other hand, may be tired of paying so much for the elderly and welcome the change.
A third method of controlling costs is called “bundling.” Right now, doctors get paid for each service they provide – every office visit, procedure or test. The more they do for a patient, the more money they stand to earn. It’s easy to see how greed might enter the picture here. With bundling, doctors would get paid one price to treat a condition for a certain period of time. If you have diabetes, you pay a set price for treating it for a year. It would no longer be in the doctor’s interest to prescribe more procedures. Fewer procedures means fewer insurance claims, thereby lowering costs for everyone – theoretically. Of course, it would now be in the doctor’s interest NOT to order procedures, and it remains to be seen if this will result in poorer care.
Fourth, the so-called “Cadillac” plans offered by some employers will be taxed a hefty 40%. The idea is to discourage employers from offering such plans. That would mean fewer people seeking medical services that are no longer covered. That would lower demand, and lower demand leads to lower prices.
Finally, the government will now have a huge stake in keeping costs down, since it will be subsidizing so much of health care. If they fail to do so, they will have to face angry voters who are upset about rising deficits and/or higher premiums. Of course, the fact that they have already been on the hook for Medicaid and Medicare has not resulted in keeping costs under control so far.
These measures should produce savings – we just don’t know how much. What we do know is that the CBO projects the cost of reform to be $940 billion dollars over the next ten years. Whether or not we can really offset those costs and actually cut the deficit remains to be seen.
.
It’s easy to see how reform is going to cost us – the government will subsidize the premiums of many of those buying insurance and will add many more to the Medicaid rolls. It’s not so easy to understand the saving part. Frankly, I don’t think the Democrats have done a very good job of explaining it in terms that ordinary folks like me can understand. I’ve been doing my own research online and found a recent Newsweek article that attempted to explain it in five easy steps.
First, the formation of health insurance exchanges should create more competition among insurance companies. Now any good capitalist knows that competition results in better quality and lower prices. I get that. But I really didn’t know what the exchanges would be and how they would work, so I’ve been looking that up as well. My understanding is that the exchanges will be created by individual states, and states can decide to join together to create regional exchanges if they choose. The exchange will simply be marketplaces managed and regulated by the government. They will consist of private insurance companies that desire to be a part of the exchange. It stands to reason that companies would want to participate because that is where most customers would go to buy insurance. It will have a web site where various policies and prices can be compared Theoretically, the companies will seek to offer better coverage at lower prices to get your business. Companies within the exchange will have to meet certain standards of coverage.
Obama admits that not everyone will have lower-cost premiums as a result of the exchanges. Some people now have low-cost plans that have high deductibles and not-so-great coverage, because that is all they can afford or want to pay for. They will be required to buy better insurance under the new legislation and can expect to pay more as a result. If they earn less than 400% of the poverty level, that higher cost will be offset by government subsidies to help pay for their premiums. People who make more than that will pay more for their insurance; the CBO projects premiums will increase 10 – 13%.
There is considerable question as to whether the exchanges will actually work as they are intended. Massachusetts already has an exchange like the ones that will be created nationwide beginning in 2014. The state also has some of the highest insurance costs in the country.
A second means of saving money will be the Independent Medicare Advisory Board. One reason Medicare continues to cost so much is that Congress does not have the political will to cut benefits. The advisory board will do it for them. It will be made of 15 members appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. IMAC will write proposals for limiting Medicare’s costs. These measures will go into effect automatically unless Congress votes to reject them, and if they do, they must find another way to cut costs by the same amount. The idea is to make it easier for tough decisions to be made. Obviously, older adults may find this worrisome. Young people, on the other hand, may be tired of paying so much for the elderly and welcome the change.
A third method of controlling costs is called “bundling.” Right now, doctors get paid for each service they provide – every office visit, procedure or test. The more they do for a patient, the more money they stand to earn. It’s easy to see how greed might enter the picture here. With bundling, doctors would get paid one price to treat a condition for a certain period of time. If you have diabetes, you pay a set price for treating it for a year. It would no longer be in the doctor’s interest to prescribe more procedures. Fewer procedures means fewer insurance claims, thereby lowering costs for everyone – theoretically. Of course, it would now be in the doctor’s interest NOT to order procedures, and it remains to be seen if this will result in poorer care.
Fourth, the so-called “Cadillac” plans offered by some employers will be taxed a hefty 40%. The idea is to discourage employers from offering such plans. That would mean fewer people seeking medical services that are no longer covered. That would lower demand, and lower demand leads to lower prices.
Finally, the government will now have a huge stake in keeping costs down, since it will be subsidizing so much of health care. If they fail to do so, they will have to face angry voters who are upset about rising deficits and/or higher premiums. Of course, the fact that they have already been on the hook for Medicaid and Medicare has not resulted in keeping costs under control so far.
These measures should produce savings – we just don’t know how much. What we do know is that the CBO projects the cost of reform to be $940 billion dollars over the next ten years. Whether or not we can really offset those costs and actually cut the deficit remains to be seen.
.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Pay or Save - Which will it be?
Well, for better or worse, the deed is done. On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Senate version of health care reform into law. Of course, the fight will continue as Congress debates whether or not to approve the House fixes to the bill. Meanwhile, the attorney generals of several states are filing law suits based on their belief that the bill’s requirement that everyone buy insurance is unconstitutional. Republicans talk of taking back the House and Senate come November, and then repealing the bill – highly unlikely as they would have to have a 3/5 majority to override a presidential veto. We are going to be hearing arguments about this for a very long time.
One of the most heated arguments revolves around whether or not this reform will save us money or send our deficits spiraling out of control. We’ve all heard the analysis from the CBO (Congressional Budget Office). It predicts the bill - with the House fixes – will save the federal government $138 billion from the years 2010 – 2019 and as much as $1.3 trillion over the next twenty years. If this is true, we should all be dancing in the streets! We just managed to insure 31 million more people AND save money. Trouble is, many people, and I’m one of them, find that a little too good to be true.
It’s not that anyone doubts the integrity or reliability of the CBO. The problem lies in the fact that the CBO can only predict the cost of a bill based on the numbers and information given them by Congress. Does anyone doubt the integrity and reliability of Congress? (That was a rhetorical question!)
For example, there is the double-counting in the Congressional figures given to the CBO. Part of the legislation includes collecting tax for a new long-term care policy. That money is counted as revenue to pay for the cost of this bill. HOWEVER, the money will be needed down the road when people stop paying into it and instead draw it out as they go into nursing homes. The same money can’t pay for both that AND insuring 31 million new people!
Congress tells the CBO that it will recover much of the cost for health care by taxing those “Cadillac” insurance plans. That plan is so unpopular, however, that it has already been postponed until 2013. Labor Unions, which typically win these employer-provided plans for their members, will fight implementation of the tax. If the tax does go into effect, employers will almost certainly start providing lower-cost (meaning lower-coverage) plans to their workers to avoid the tax. I wouldn’t count on much revenue there. Likewise, high earners will fight additional taxes on their investment income. Even if enacted, revenue from that will depend on how the economy is doing, something no one can predict.
The CBO also assumes there will be large cuts in Medicare and reimbursements to doctors and hospitals. Politically, this would be very difficult to enact. Already, Congress is promising a $200 billion “doctor fix” to increase payments to doctors. This is not counted as part of future health care costs because it will be in a separate bill, and the CBO can only score the bill placed in front of it.
History teaches us that the costs of entitlement programs are greatly underestimated. When Medicare was signed into law in 1965, it was projected to cost around $9 billion by 1990. It turned out to be $67 billion – over seven times as much! And now it turns out that Social Security will be out of funds even sooner than we had thought.
The CBO estimates the cost of the current health reform legislation at around $950 billion dollars over a ten-year period. Congress has proposed cuts and policies that they say will more than offset that cost. The problem is that we have to count on all those cuts being made and the policies working the way they are supposed to. That is assuming a lot. Future legislation can prevent any or all of it from ever taking place.
To be fair, there are parts of this legislation which do hold promise for cutting healthcare costs and reducing the deficit – if they are implemented wisely. More on that in next week’s column.
One of the most heated arguments revolves around whether or not this reform will save us money or send our deficits spiraling out of control. We’ve all heard the analysis from the CBO (Congressional Budget Office). It predicts the bill - with the House fixes – will save the federal government $138 billion from the years 2010 – 2019 and as much as $1.3 trillion over the next twenty years. If this is true, we should all be dancing in the streets! We just managed to insure 31 million more people AND save money. Trouble is, many people, and I’m one of them, find that a little too good to be true.
It’s not that anyone doubts the integrity or reliability of the CBO. The problem lies in the fact that the CBO can only predict the cost of a bill based on the numbers and information given them by Congress. Does anyone doubt the integrity and reliability of Congress? (That was a rhetorical question!)
For example, there is the double-counting in the Congressional figures given to the CBO. Part of the legislation includes collecting tax for a new long-term care policy. That money is counted as revenue to pay for the cost of this bill. HOWEVER, the money will be needed down the road when people stop paying into it and instead draw it out as they go into nursing homes. The same money can’t pay for both that AND insuring 31 million new people!
Congress tells the CBO that it will recover much of the cost for health care by taxing those “Cadillac” insurance plans. That plan is so unpopular, however, that it has already been postponed until 2013. Labor Unions, which typically win these employer-provided plans for their members, will fight implementation of the tax. If the tax does go into effect, employers will almost certainly start providing lower-cost (meaning lower-coverage) plans to their workers to avoid the tax. I wouldn’t count on much revenue there. Likewise, high earners will fight additional taxes on their investment income. Even if enacted, revenue from that will depend on how the economy is doing, something no one can predict.
The CBO also assumes there will be large cuts in Medicare and reimbursements to doctors and hospitals. Politically, this would be very difficult to enact. Already, Congress is promising a $200 billion “doctor fix” to increase payments to doctors. This is not counted as part of future health care costs because it will be in a separate bill, and the CBO can only score the bill placed in front of it.
History teaches us that the costs of entitlement programs are greatly underestimated. When Medicare was signed into law in 1965, it was projected to cost around $9 billion by 1990. It turned out to be $67 billion – over seven times as much! And now it turns out that Social Security will be out of funds even sooner than we had thought.
The CBO estimates the cost of the current health reform legislation at around $950 billion dollars over a ten-year period. Congress has proposed cuts and policies that they say will more than offset that cost. The problem is that we have to count on all those cuts being made and the policies working the way they are supposed to. That is assuming a lot. Future legislation can prevent any or all of it from ever taking place.
To be fair, there are parts of this legislation which do hold promise for cutting healthcare costs and reducing the deficit – if they are implemented wisely. More on that in next week’s column.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Book Review: A Century Turns by William J. Bennett
This latest offering in a three-volume American history series by Bill Bennett, conservative pundit, author, and politician, covers the years from 1988-2008. Volumes I and II, entitled America: The Last Best Hope, describe the years from the discovery of America to the end of Reagan’s presidency. According to Bennett, teachers have built entire history curricula from these two books, and schools have added them to their supplemental reading lists. I have not read the first two volumes; in fact, I was unaware of their existence until I began reading A Century Turns. Thomas Nelson Publishing provided me with a complimentary copy of the book for the purpose of reviewing it. I began reading with three main questions in mind: 1. Would reading this book make me want to read the earlier volumes? 2. As a former history teacher myself, would I use these books for my curriculum or supplemental material? 3. Would Bennett’s conservative beliefs make the book overly biased?
Now that I have finished the book, I can answer these questions. I do not feel the urge to rush out and buy the first two volumes and doubt if I will read them. It’s not that A Century Turns is bad. It’s easily read and would be interesting to anyone who wants to know more about the political history of the past twenty years. The book naturally focuses on politics, since Bennett was heavily involved in government himself during these years. He does occasionally veer off into popular culture and other events, but it seems like an afterthought when he does – it doesn’t flow smoothly in my opinion. As a history teacher and CNN junkie, I learned very little from reading this book that I didn’t already know. Like many history books covering a long period of time in a short volume, it is somewhat superficial. Anyone who has paid close attention to current events in recent history may enjoy being reminded of what they have seen on TV news, but it will not be new to them.
I don’t know about the first two volumes, but I cannot see building an entire curriculum from A Century Turns. It would, however, be a good reference book, and I would have no qualms about adding it to a reading list for my classes.
As for bias, I feel Bennett does a fairly good job of being objective in his reporting of events. He was part of the government during this time period and occasionally offers personal anecdotes. When he does offer his opinion, he makes it clear that he is doing so. Readers will have no doubt that Bennett is a conservative, but he doesn’t get preachy about it.
In conclusion, if you have not been that tuned into current events and would like to know more about the politics, government, and some popular culture of the past twenty years, you may enjoy this book.
Now that I have finished the book, I can answer these questions. I do not feel the urge to rush out and buy the first two volumes and doubt if I will read them. It’s not that A Century Turns is bad. It’s easily read and would be interesting to anyone who wants to know more about the political history of the past twenty years. The book naturally focuses on politics, since Bennett was heavily involved in government himself during these years. He does occasionally veer off into popular culture and other events, but it seems like an afterthought when he does – it doesn’t flow smoothly in my opinion. As a history teacher and CNN junkie, I learned very little from reading this book that I didn’t already know. Like many history books covering a long period of time in a short volume, it is somewhat superficial. Anyone who has paid close attention to current events in recent history may enjoy being reminded of what they have seen on TV news, but it will not be new to them.
I don’t know about the first two volumes, but I cannot see building an entire curriculum from A Century Turns. It would, however, be a good reference book, and I would have no qualms about adding it to a reading list for my classes.
As for bias, I feel Bennett does a fairly good job of being objective in his reporting of events. He was part of the government during this time period and occasionally offers personal anecdotes. When he does offer his opinion, he makes it clear that he is doing so. Readers will have no doubt that Bennett is a conservative, but he doesn’t get preachy about it.
In conclusion, if you have not been that tuned into current events and would like to know more about the politics, government, and some popular culture of the past twenty years, you may enjoy this book.
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