I admire Ted Cruz

9-25-13 | self

[cuban leaf]

Sounds like income envy to me.

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Yes, it does kinda come across that way, but it’s not. My brother in law is FAR richer than this guy, and I respect how he made it. In fact, I respect how both of them made it. If I had the business connections this guy had I’d like to do the same thing.

I worked on a contract once where the lowest paid guy there made $27 an hour and the highest paid guy made just under $250 an hour. They all did the same work. I respected that the guy that made the higher salary was able to negotiate that and really did not respect the guy at the bottom. I’m only saying my acquaintence intelligently took advantage of a system that really should not exist. But while it does, why not take advantage of it.

Kinda like professional sports careers.

Regarding income, I moved from Seattle to a small farm in central Kentucky and “gave up a high standard of living for a high quality of life.” At my age and level of wisdom, you figure out that money is a very relative thing. It is not what I pursue, directly.

[Eagle of Liberty]

JOIN THE TWITTER FIGHT at any of the following hashtags!

#DefundObamacare
#KeepCruzing
#StandWithCruz
#MakeDCListen

GO CRUZ!!

[bboop]

I am behind Cruz on this. I have long waited for someone with a spine to draw a line and stand firm. The get-along mentality works with a get-along President and a get-along Congress who understand that they work for We the People, but these idealogues in the White House do not.

I am sick to death of the DC Republicans running pasty-faced appeasers each and every election. I want someone who has principles and will fight for what they believe. It is why I voted for GWB, my first ever Republican - not because I agreed with everything he believed in, but because I saw in him a man of principle who was willing to fight.

I am worried sick about my country, about Obamacare, about the Marxist wolves in sheep’s clothing who are seeking to destroy everything I hold dear, and I am thrilled to have someone who is willing to take up the fight on my behalf.

Fight on! Molon labe!

[Eagle of Liberty]

Getting the govt out of the middle of all healthcare would force a new fiscal reality on the industry.

Problem is that the Government has always BEEN involved in health insurance from day one.

[Servant of the Cross]

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

America: The Greatest Country on the Face of the Earth ... Rafael Cruz

Ted Cruz told Glenn Beck that he wasn't worried so much about what Glenn thought, he is most worried about what his father thinks of how Ted lives his life.

[Gaffer]

I understand. However, I’m speaking from my viewpoint of being a medical equipment repairman so many decades ago during the heyday of the onslaught of government intervention and the rise of the lawyer brigand.

When you slap the moniker “medical” on it, you open yourself up to a plethora of potential claims from a massive cabal of daytime TV lawyer group advertisers that are BEGGING for someone to come forth and sign with them because they had this device, that practice, that medical implant - whatever used on them. BILLIONS of dollars of added liability.

It is tort and government regulations that drives up the price, not competition, not cheating, not relative worth. Those willing to go the distance and put up with the regulations, the liability and the other roadblocks reap the rewards.

[JRandomFreeper]

Government has always BEEN involved in health insurance from day one.

That is false. It wasn't until FDR, that the feds became involved in insurance.

/johnny

[cuban leaf]

That’s a foolish idea. My company covers something like 75% of my healthcare costs. Detach it from my compensation and suddenly my monthly bill balloons to upwards of $1500. Nobody would by it because nobody could afford it.

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With the exception of your first sentence, I agree with you. That is how it would seem, at least. But look at it practically in the mid term:

1. Your company no longer supplies health care. People tell their employers that they want the money the company was spending on their behalf.
2. Nobody is buying it because it is too expensive. So what do the companies do? Go out of business? Nope. The business is a cash cow. They cut costs to the point that people DO buy the insurance.
3. And you can bet that just as with car insurance, where your age and driving record can affect your rates, this would happen in health insurance. It means that people with pre-existing conditions or older people would pay more, which is fair.
3. But wait, it gets better. Just as with car insurance, where you can choose what to protect yourself against, you could with this too. Why would a menopausal married couple need to cover pregnancy? Why would a couple where the husband has been snipped cover pregnancy? See where I am going with this.
4. Health care costs - If fewer people have insurance, more people would be walking off the street for coverage. It would become competitive just like other businesses. I had $5,000 deductible on my family back in the early 80’s. One day my daugher (mid 1980’s) broke her arm. Insurance did not cover it. It cost me around $275 from beginning to end. No, I did not leave out any zeros. Even at the time that was less than a single months premium of a full coverage plan, OFFERED BY MY EMPLOYER.

The government created this “employer, health insurance” connection during WWII when they instigated wage freezes. To incentivise potential employees, companies got around this by offering free health care insurance. Just be thankfull they didn’t offer free mortgage payments. Imagine where we’d be.

[TomGuy]

Stuart Varney just reported on FoxNews that sticker shock is coming in the form of ‘deductibles’ under Obamacare.

He says in California, the mid-level premium policy deductibles are in the $2,000 range and cheaper level premium deductibles are in the $5,000 range.

==

More ‘gotchas’ from deep in the bowels of Obamacare — now that politicians and newsies are reading some of it to find out what is in it.

Obamacare: Surprise after surprise after surprise after surprise.

[Eagle of Liberty]

Nobody would by it because nobody could afford it.

The fact that health insurance has been tied to an employee's benefit package for decades has made the real cost of health insurance hidden to that employee. Same thing with automatic tax withholding. People have become too lazy to care about such things and Government is more than willing to remove that burden from you....for a fee.

Bringing these costs out to the forefront may indeed lead to a lowering of all healthcare costs.

[Gaffer]

I remain steadfast in my belief that it is the tort system that has driven the cost of medical care beyond the limit of affordability.

[Rummyfan]

He’s got my backing and my vote!

[Uncle Miltie]

I’m going to donate to Pussy McConnell’s primary opponent Bevins.

Money talks.

[ScottinVA]

I don’t give two sh*ts about “splitting” the GOP... it’s already ideologically split. Cruz is doing the right thing for America, regardless of how liberals and RINOs try to paint him as some sort of nutcase. You either stand on principle... or you don’t.

God Bless you, Senator Cruz... thank you for standing in the gap.

[jagusafr]

He’s also saying EVERYTHING that needs to be said about Obamacare, including the fundamental reasons it’s unamerican. And he read his girls Bible stories and Green Eggs & Ham from the floor of the Senate! I love this guy!

[Obadiah]

What other Republican has even dared stand up against Obama and the bully Marxist Democrats?

Boehner? Cantor? McConnell? Bueller? Anyone?

We all need to firmly stand behind Ted!

[jimbo123]

Senate Republican Whip List

Tell the Republicans to OPPOSE cloture to stop Harry Reid’s plan to fund Obamacare. Tell them a vote for cloture is a vote to fund Obamacare.

http://www.dontfundobamacare.com/printable

[Eagle of Liberty]

I agree with your comment, but mostly because hospitals were just becoming routinely used medical facilities by the FDR days.

Health Insurance in the United States

1930-1940: The Birth of Blue Cross and Blue Shield

Blue Cross: Hospital Insurance

As the demand for hospital care increased in the 1920s, a new payment innovation developed at the end of the decade that would revolutionize the market for health insurance. The precursor to Blue Cross was founded in 1929 by a group of Dallas teachers who contracted with Baylor University Hospital to provide 21 days of hospitalization for a fixed $6.00 payment. The Baylor plan developed as a way to ensure that people paid their bills. One official connected with the plan compared hospital bills to cosmetics, noting that the nation's cosmetic bill was actually more than the nation's hospital bill, but that "We spend a dollar or so at a time for cosmetics and do not notice the high cost. The ribbon counter clerk can pay 50¢, 75¢, or $1 a month, yet.... it would take about twenty years to set aside a large hospital bill" (The American Foundation 1937, p. 1023).

Pre-paid hospital service plans grew over the course of the Great Depression. Pre-paid hospital care was mutually advantageous to both subscribers and hospitals during the early 1930s, when consumers and hospitals suffered from falling incomes. While the pre-paid plans allowed consumers to affordably pay for hospital care, they also benefited hospitals by providing them with a way to earn income during a time of falling hospital revenue. Only 62 percent of beds in private hospitals were occupied on average, compared to 89 percent of beds in public hospitals that accepted charity care (Davis and Rorem 1932, p. 5). As one pediatrician in the Midwest noted, "Things went swimmingly as long as endowed funds allowed the hospitals to carry on. When the funds from endowments disappeared the hospitals got into trouble and thus the various plans to help the hospitals financially developed" (American Foundation 1937, p. 756).

The American Hospital Association (AHA) encouraged hospitals in such endeavors ostensibly as a means of relieving "... from financial embarrassment and even from disaster in the emergency of sickness those who are in receipt of limited incomes" (Reed 1947, p. 14). However, the prepayment plans also clearly benefited hospitals by giving them a constant stream of income. Since single-hospital plans generated greater competition among hospitals, community hospitals began to organize with each other to offer hospital coverage and to reduce inter-hospital competition. These plans eventually combined under the auspices of the AHA under the name Blue Cross.

[cuban leaf]

When you slap the moniker “medical” on it, you open yourself up to a plethora of potential claims from a massive cabal of daytime TV lawyer group advertisers that are BEGGING for someone to come forth and sign with them because they had this device, that practice, that medical implant - whatever used on them. BILLIONS of dollars of added liability.

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Yep. That’s one reasons ladders are more expensive than they should be. In the conversation with my doctor while he was snipping me back in the late 80’s he said that even with no claims against him, his malpractice insurance went from $6k a year to around $60k a year in the space of two years. That’s not inflation. And the patients and their insurance companies pay for that. It’s one reason health care and health insurance are so expensive and something that really DOES need to be address.

The function of government is to protect our borders and protect us from each other. This is where the government could get involved. Protect patients from shady health care poviders and protect legitimate health care providers from frivolous legal action.

[cuban leaf]

It is tort and government regulations that drives up the price, not competition, not cheating, not relative worth. Those willing to go the distance and put up with the regulations, the liability and the other roadblocks reap the rewards.

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I’m 100% on board with that statement. I agree.