The access equation
Obamacare is formally called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, H.R. 3590 (ACA). However, the Affordable Care Act is not about affordable care. Rather, it is about accessible care. The key provision of the Act is that everyone must have insurance. If you cannot afford insurance, the Government will pay for your insurance. Thus, the act is about accessibility to insurance, not about the cost of medical care. Reading the Table of Contents of H.R. 3590 is all about coverage.
The ACA does nothing to lower the cost of medical care.
The government is not interested in making the cost of medical care affordable. If that were so, then there would be an attempt at tort reform. All caregivers pay malpractice insurance. That cost is passed on to whoever pays the bills. The result is a giant conspiracy between the lawyers and the insurance companies. Malpractice insurance can be effectively eliminated without affecting the quality of health care. The result would decrease the cost of medical care by at least 50 percent. The impact of malpractice insurance on the cost of drugs is even greater. Tort reform would not only reduce the over-the-counter price of a new drug by two-thirds,, it would also make drugs available that are presently unprofitable to produce.
If the ACA were replaced with the provision that all health care providers must provide 10 percent services pro bono (free to indigent patients), the published necessity of the ACA would be eliminated without involving the insurance companies whatsoever. However, as it presently stands, the Affordable Care Act constitutes a giant scam perpetrated by the insurance industry on the American people.
(Re: "Sharing the blame...," Oct. 2)
Put aside the specific politics of the present situation in Congress and the partial shutdown of the federal government and consider theoretically the general procedural principle that is operative.
Funding the government by a continuing resolution that has to be approved on a regular basis by Congress has created a major "Achilles' heel" of our democracy. Theoretically, a relatively small group of individuals that share a particular ideology and disagree strongly with some legislation passed by some previous Congress can, for whatever reasons whatsoever, shut down a major part of the government.
Maybe, for example, the group disagrees with the Social Security Act, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or Head Start, or the School Lunch Program, or AFTA, or the Voting Rights Act, or the 1964 Civil Rights Act — all of which have become law and been upheld by the Supreme Court (and all of which have been unpopular to some degree with some citizens). However, the members of this group say, "We don't like this law and a lot of people don't like this law, and we're not going to fund the government until you abolish it or change it to suit us."
If this strategy is successful, what it reveals is that a relatively small, cohesive group of individuals can wield significantly disproportionate power and potentially thwart the will of a majority of both houses of Congress, the law of the land, the Supreme Court, and the result of regular, constitutional procedure.
In this situation "negotiation" has no place, and if one supports this action, then one theoretically supports the possibility of having one's own ox gored next time and even the possibility of putting our very democratic form of government itself at risk.
It's back-to-school time, and parents are naturally concerned about their children's education. Often local residents and teachers contribute needed supplies for opening day. While this is admirable, giving a child a box of crayons, pencils, or notebook cannot make up for the disparity between wealthy school districts and those with fewer resources.
But now we can do something to overcome the disparity by supporting Ken Cuccinelli's plan to provide every child with a quality education for the future. His solutions start with new standards of learning formulated with greater parental, community, business, teacher, and higher education involvement.
The attorney general wants to expand the curriculum and availability of Career and Technical Education, preparing students for the global workplace of the future. He would clear some of the roadblocks to wider use of digital education, in particular working to increase engagement. He would offer more funding opportunities for education, especially pre-school. But most important, he would provide parents and students in failing schools more choice and ways to force accountability.
So what's the best way to help Virginia's students this fall? Vote for Ken Cuccinelli November 5 – because when you vote for the man, you vote for the plan.