Obamacare Prices

In the spirit of the flexible nature of this blog I'm going to use it to speak to something in the political/economic realm in the spirit of explaining something to my friends and readers, the sticker shock everybody, well almost everybody, is getting now that the Obamacare insurance exchanges are open.  Those prices are so high for reasons just about anybody who ever worked in insurance can explain easily enough.  The last jobs I held before I became disabled were as an agent in two different insurance companies.

In order to get that license to sell insurance every agent has to take a licensure exam and one question will always appear on the entry level exams, what is insurance?  The answer is that insurance is spreading the financial risk of injury, loss or damage of property or cost for medical health problems.  Now insurance companies are in the business of spreading that risk for people at a profit for their owners.  The reason behind the increase we all now have in premiums lies in how insurance companies traditionally did that in a manner to maximize their profits.

For decades now the insurance companies had a field day in that respect.  Since the 1940s congress forbade itself from meddling in the insurance market by law.  So the states regulated the insurance industry with the insurance commissioner, who was generally responsible for regulating the industry being an industry insider who allowed practices which maximized profits and seldom interfered with what the companies did.

To start off with, it is a principle that the more people insured the lower the overall risk.  However, that also means lower insurance rates.  Since profit is generally a percentage of the premiums, rates need to go up while risk is driven down.  To strike a happy medium between risks and premiums a number of practices have been allowed.  The first is that when a person buys insurance they are entered into a “pool” of buyers of the same policy.  The pool is limited in size to maximize the premium allowed and the profit derived from the combined premiums in the pool.

However, without further reduction in risk the premiums would be too high to sustain in a competitive environment.  So Insurance companies developed certain ways to further reduce the risk they had to cover.  Prime among those methods was to refuse to cover people with re-existing conditions.  By only insuring the healthiest groups of people costs through the payment of benefits were reduced and insurance companies were able to offer lower premiums while still gaining some of the highest profit margins in the business community.  They further reduced costs by refusing to pay out for certain products or procedures and developed the practice of denying legitimate claims over the years.  They also developed ways to eventually force people who developed chronic health problems off their rolls by moving healthy people into new insurance “pools” as time went by, thus making the premiums rise over time to the point that those left in the original pool could no longer afford their coverage and were forced to leave the pool with nothing.

That is how the insurance industry worked for decades.  Never forget, insurance companies are NOT charitable institutions, they are in the business of making profits for their shareholders.  So they conduct their business in a way to do just that.  One big exception in how the industry was run is in the Progressive State of New York, where for decades the insurance industry ran under a mandated profit margin lower than the rest of the country along with mandated coverage for certain things.  The folks in New York already paid higher premiums than the rest of the country and will actually see their premiums reduced under Obamacare, that’s why the President is pointing to New York as an example of how people will be doing better and paying less, of course they will!

So, now, along comes Obamacare.  It reduces the allowed percentage of profit by mandate.  It also mandates that those with existing health problems be covered.  It also mandates that certain things, such as birth control and abortion must be provided for free, though nothing is ever really free, the cost of providing it is still recovered through the premiums collected.  A bone is thrown to the industry through mandated commissions which will determine what other procedures, etc. will be paid for by the insurance companies with a mandate to reduce costs.  Those are Sarah Palin’s “death panels.”

Although this will be done through a progressive calculus concerning an individual's value to society, the costs under Obamacare will still be high and the insurance companies will still pass them on to customers through their premiums.  And it appears that the companies are still permitted to further maximize their profits, which are still a percentage of the premiums, through the use of smaller “pools” of policy holders based on carving up states into geographical regions or localities instead of using the entire state's population as a pool.  At least that is what it looked like when my wife and I went online to find out how much insurance would cost her if she purchased it through the exchange for our state.

For years those who had insurance benefited from the aforementioned practices and enjoyed relatively low insurance premiums, mostly through work.  Those practices deliberately excluded millions who needed help meeting their medical needs, and that was something which needed fixing.  Medicaid helped many of those people, but more was needed.  Obamacare purports to fix that problem and in doing so ends the free ride folks had over the years.  That, in part, is why the sticker shock.

A Note on Me and Politics

Because of an exchange that's taking place now between one of my Facebook friends and I over Margaret Thatcher...

I've dropped back from political commentary for several reasons, the most important being the tenants of the faith I pursue.  But when I do enter that fray my position is still the one I posted in my profile when I joined, right-leaning Libertarian.  That makes me pretty much the enemy of both the right and left as far as they are concerned.  However, because of my position I tend to support most of the positions of the right with the caveat that I don't like their relatively big government solutions any more than the left's.  Both grow government, just in different directions.

However, I am realistic about things, unlike many of my fellow libertarians.  Some government is necessary just to keep us from descending into national AND local chaos.  Some regulation is necessary, as history has shown, for our collective safety, both militarily and domestic.  Where I come down in the matter is on those solutions which both work, and invoke the least amount of governmental use of its coercive power, just as our founders envisioned when they wrote the Constitution and ratified it. They learned a hard lesson under the Articles of Confederation that libertarians, just like progressivism, doesn't work when taken too far.  Because of that experience they accepted that a certain amount of strength in the Federal government was necessary, though they did their best to structure that government in a way which constrained and limited that exercise of power.

The result was a country which was a "shining beacon" based on Judea/Christian principles which was a shining beacon to the rest of the world and the only country where God's Truth could arise and shine forth as well.  It was not a perfect country, no creation of man is, but it worked, and better than it does today for the most part.  The U.S. almost single-handedly raised the standard of living for people the world over through the inventiveness and industriousness of its citizenry, something historians are trying to erase knowledge of by incessantly harping on its flaws in books and college courses.  I, for one, am grateful for it.

Right now the great political struggle is between those who believe we, the people, wherever we live, own the government and those who hold to the age-old tyranny that the government owns us.  Because I'm not a statist I tend to favor those who pursue policies of smaller government with lower taxes for all, rich and poor alike, and the maximum of opportunity for all.  So I think well of politicians who honestly pursue both, like the tea-party politicians and the late Margaret Thatcher.  She came to power at a critical time in world history and was one of the trifecta, along with Reagan and Pope John Paul II, who were responsible for the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and The Soviet Union.  At home her policies worked, for all the left both here and there try to deny it.  She restored some modicum of national pride when she repulsed a foreign invasion on national soil in the Falklands.

Was she perfect?  By no means, she was heavy-handed at times at home and some argue too heavy handed and I'm sure those who didn't like her can probably think of many more.  But you know what?  I don't think she was as evil as the left over there and here allege.  And I think it gauche that both are celebrating her death in the uncouth was they are right now.  I would ask the left over there to ponder what it says about them that they not only party in the streets, but wreak havoc with their destruction of property and looting as part of the celebrations?  Those "celebrations" of the death of a leader which belie the supposed noble motives and intentions of the movement they belong to don't speak well of them at all.

People are free to disagree with me on her, just don’t take offense if I choose to refute you.

That being expressed, my firm belief, once again, is that in this imperfect world the least government power invoked for safety and good order the better.  I have no problem with such things as government helping the unfortunate, like myself, even if it is constitutionally suspect, as long as we the People agree on it and it is done in as responsible a manner as possible.  But that might be a topic for another time.  George Washington is credited with the observation that government is the power of fire and a fearful master.  I would rather that power be limited as far as possible.

Since my faith basically calls for little or no involvement in politics; and I write about that here.  I am trying to limit my political posting and commentary to that which shows how the political world is heading to its inevitable conclusion towards destruction as decisions by political leaders only make the situation worse as they seek more and more power for themselves.  God is letting man stew in the juices of his own making to the point where mankind’s greed, and it’s not just capitalist greed, the other side is greedy as well, to the point where he must end it for the sake of the holy ones.

I reserve the right to enter the fray where a few subjects are concerned, such as our natural right to defend ourselves and our loved ones.  But they will be few.  I may also comment based on my own analysis as to the effect certain policies may be.  I’ve seldom been wrong when I have in the past because I try to be thorough with my research before I bang away at my keyboard.  But do note where I deem appropriate my faith will inform opinions expressed and the right-leaning libertarian view really flows out from that fact since I believe that only God, Christ and Christ’s Bride, should have the kind of power men currently seek over their fellows.  That will happen in Christ’s Kingdom and folks now can’t begin to envision the blessings that will bring, even in earthly terms.

 

A Word for Christian Authors

Hello my dear friends and readers!

Today I’m going to take to trying coming back from my hiatus due to my surgeries.  And I’m going to by following a line of thought which caught my eye today when I read an article online about telling stories from the Judeo-Christian point of view.  I’ll link the article at the end and you might well want to go ahead and look at it before continuing.  Now, don’t get me wrong with my werewolf story, I am a Christian and it was very shortly after I wrote that story that I came to realize that I needed to change the way I write, but how?   The author of the opinion piece in BreakPoint kind of nailed it and validated what I really want to do.

He mentions how people think that C.S. Lewis’ Narnia stories were meant to push the Christian message, they weren’t.  The stories simply flowed out of him from the viewpoint he held dear.  Yet, it is amazing, isn’t it, that he would use fantasy and an alternate world with witchcraft and magic involved to impress the wonderful Christian narrative of Christ’s sacrifice upon readers for generations.  And those stories are still well received and beloved by millions of people today.

The same could be said for J.K. Rawlings, whether she likes it or not.  Ms. Rawlings is a student of the classics, which means she was steeped in narratives which in some way or another celebrated the mainstream Christian theme.  So when she wrote what flowed out was a series of books in the fantasy genre which held Christian themes throughout however little she may admit it.  That’s one of the things I often pointed out to Christians and conservatives who liked to bash her books online for years.  The fact is they hold both Christian themes and conservative ones as well.

And therein lays the key for us.  Take C.S. Lewis; look at how he weaves the Judeo-Christian worldview through his story telling.  He doesn’t sermonize like many do.  He isn’t in your face with his Christianity, though his views were well known by the world of the time because of some of his other works, the Christian apologetics where he did sermonize.  He just tells a story which came into his fertile imagination and told said story well.

But how do we do this?  The first step should be obvious.  The best writers of all time all immerse themselves in their core worldviews and tell their stories from those views without the in-your-face sermonizing.  They let their hearts tell their stories and concentrate on telling those stories well.

And don’t worry too much about how you’ll market those stories.  The internet is a wonderful way to get around the usual gatekeepers, some of whom do have an agenda or a slightly warped idea of what people want.  One still has to invest some money and effort into the promotional side of marketing, but we’re already seeing unbelievable success stories from folks who couldn’t get past the traditional gatekeepers in publishing but are successful because once folks saw the quality of their stories they caught on.

Not Sermons But Stories