Health Care and Taxes

I do not think there are too many people in this country that would be opposed to some kind of health care reform. The amount of wasted money is outrageous. Hard working Americans that do not get health care because they cannot afford it, while those who sit and do nothing and get paid by the government to watch T.V. get at least minimal health care. There is a disconnect in this country in terms of health care.

The problem is this, how do we pay for it and how do we start to reform such a major issue? It has been tried before, time and time again to no avail.

It is true we have a President who is willing to do something about the problem. That is nice, except I disagree with what he wants to accomplish.

The topic I want to write about is in regards to my favorite objection: taxes.

The main way to pay for this reform that our President is striving for is to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. He proposes we tax those who make more than $200,000 a year. My issues is that this dollar amount is not that rich. You are middle class in New York City or Los Angeles. if you are a Doctor, you are paying off $160,000 in debt or more. The people who make these dollar amounts are the successful people in our country. The people that make our country the most competitive and the most successful, and the people that provide the most productivity in this country. They are the ones that buy the luxury houses, the cars, go on vacations, and already pay the bulk of the taxes. Something seem out of whack here. Why are we going to tax the doctors or pharmacists who provide this heath care?

We will deter people from becoming doctors and pharmacists who will provide the care we are trying to pay for. If a college student, already in debt by $200,000 is contemplating going to medical school, the almost insurmountable added debt load of another $200,000 is daunting enough. Doctors are already over-worked and slowly becoming underpaid, for what they do. As their pay decreases, hours go up, and debt load from tuition increases, it becomes less and less lucrative to spend an additional 8 or 10 years before making a 'good' salary. Then, once you get their you lose 50% of your pay to the government.

Wait a second? What is going on? I feel this is outrageous as we contemplate increasing taxes on people who contribute more than 80% or more of the population. It is backwards. Why do we not do anything about the tens of millions of lazy Americans who do nothing but take from those who produce. That is what has to stop and those are the people we must get the money to pay for the health care. Take away benefits from those who do not deserve it and you will be surprised how much money there will be left to pay for health care on the hard working men and women whose families suffer because despite their hard work they cannot pay for their health care needs.

Instead of going after the productive, let us look to the useless people who take and never give. It is time for them to give. No more entitlements, no more free everything.

Let's fix these banks. Let's fix this economy.

I am not a professional policy maker and I am not an economist.

But, I am a thinker and have had enough education and experience that
I think I can fix this economy, at least better than our current leaders are doing.
Then again, I do not think at this point anyone can make it worse.

First, it is necessary to understand how this economy works. Yes, there are
things such as employment, national productivity (GDP), company earnings,
personal spending, commodity prices, etc. However, a lot of how this works
is behavioral. I think people need to be studying behavioral economics to fix this
situation.

There was a lot of hope with Obama coming into office. Even I was hopeful. After all,
Hope and Change is why he won, and what we heard for almost 3 years. Suddenly Obama
wins and is quiet until he takes office. Once he is in 'POWER' he comes out, not with Hope and Change, but with Doom and Gloom. Where is the positive President we were hoping for? Where is the Fearless Leader who will take us back to prosperity? He is nowhere to be seen.

The Stock Market is often a measure of confidence. There is a large group of people who invest, and they are considered a gauge of the confidence of the people. Right now it stinks. There is no confidence in our future. Each time policy makers speak, especially the President, the market goes down. Each time there is a bailout the market goes down. There is no end in sight.

Right now the Administration is lacking in credibility. Obama has not done yet what he promised, except threaten to raise taxes and spend gobs of money. Congress has no bi-partisanship. There is continued bickering among all the Congressmen and Senators, worrying more about their own projects then the people who voted them in.

It seems that half the nominees of Obama either have tax issues or withdraw their name before confirmation. I have never seen something like this before. The Treasury in particular cannot even fully staff themselves, amidst one of the greatest financial tragedies of American History. No one wants to work for Geitner or Obama.

So, with all this going on it seems no one has confidence that the people elected will save us from this awful mess we find ourselves in.

Here is what they can do.

1) Be Positive. Yes, things are bad, but look at history. Learn from history. Teach the history. Things are bad, but not that bad. We are not as bad even as we were in 1980 - 1981. Things are not as bad as during Vietnam or World War II. Things have far to go before we reach something like the Great Depression. Things are still okay. We are still watching cable T.V. while talking on our I-Phones. We are going to McDonald's and shopping at Walmart. Could you do that in the Great Depression? I think we over exaggerate our current plight.

2) Fix the banks.

How?

Temporarily hault the need for Mark-To-Market accounting. Right now a lot of the banks assets are marked to $0, even though they still have some value. After all, many of their toxic assets right now are homes that have value.

Because of the accounting system they much mark the asset to $0 because right now there is no market for these toxic financial instruments. If it is temporarily changed to Mark-To-Model it is possible to have the assets valued.

If the government creates a private/public capital fund, creates the model to be used for the accounting, and have the banks sell the assets to this fund at the model value these toxic assets could be taken off the banks books with a value above the current $0.

This will stop all the write-downs and in fact there could be write-ups. A stipulation can even be put in place to ensure that if the value years from now does not reach the model value that at that point the banks can cover the funds loss on that value. This will give a few years for the banks to recover before possibly having to pay for any value discrepancies between the market and model values.

In many cases the fund can make a large amount of money as the value of the assets increases. After all, it is not like 100% of houses will go in default or 100% of home owners will stop making their payments.

It is said that if this is done there could be bank stocks that could more than double in one trading day. That would be a boost of confidence in the market.

3) Stop unnecessary spending.

All this talk about fixing health care is going to kill this economy. The stocks of hospitals, HMO, and pharmaceuticals took a deep dive this past week as the fear of Obama's policy finally hit one of the so-called safety stocks (especially the drug stocks). It will cost $100 Billion a year to do what Obama wants. It will decrease profits for 100s of companies. It will hurt the economy in the short run. Yes, it will help in the long run, and I agree we need to overhaul the health care system in this country. However, not now. Talk about it after we have recovered and can afford it.

The current proposed 2010 budget is appalling. A $3.6 Billion budget is unacceptable especially when it will need an increase in tax of the wealthiest Americans to be successful. That announcement has increased the decrease in confidence of our economy. Last time I checked it is the wealthy and upper middle class that already shoulder the largest burden of the taxes, and many of these individuals are the ones that move the stock market, make the jobs, spend the money, and feed all the people who don't work in this country. Bad idea in a recession President Obama, but then again I guess you did not read what they did after the Stock Market crash of 1929 and during the Great Depression. I think he believes that FDR saved our country by spending money and doing all the projects we learn about in history. However, if you actually read the history things did not get better, but often got worse. It was World War II that saved us and kick started our economy. I hope it is not a war that saves us this time, but good prudent and intelligent policy.