Our country is in a binge-purge cycle that is as damaging to its citizens as an eating disorder is to the health of an individual.
Obama's stimulus package is obviously the binge cycle. We're throwing out billions and passively waiting for a miracle. While experience has already shown us that throwing money and then trying to "Purge" and modify the losses from such programs after the fact doesn't work (SEE BAILOUT), we find ourselves in the cycle again.
The biggest disfunction occurring in government today is that governmental employees at every level consider themselves untouchable.
Health Insurance: Keep it Simple:
1) Every closet benefactor of big government should be called on the carpet. No Republican employee should be participating in federal handouts including the federal insurance and retirement packages that drain our system of billions of dollars. No Democrat who is "feeling our pain" should be participating in such programs. This year all government benefits packages should be suspended and employees should be faced with choices that those they represent are faced with regarding benefits elections. Savings: Billions
2) Until there are adequate restrictions and mandates put on all monies, including the "savings" to the health industry from using technology and by raising doctor pay as under the recent Medicare reforms, these provisions should be suspended. Health insurers and physicians argue that their costs are the reason for costs to other citizens, however, legislation that is cost-saving includes NO MANDATES THAT SUCH COSTS BE PASSED ONTO CONSUMERS.
3) The UN scandals of aid that never reached those it was designed to help provide good examples of the uselessness of aid that is siphoned through corrupt governments. African aid in the form of food that went rotten in warehouses or was stolen and sold on the black market while citizens continued to starve is a strikingly similar example to what is going on in our society. Our government "aid" is not trickling down to individuals and therefore, all aid should DIRECTLY go to consumers instead of trying to filter it through a corrupt system.
4) President Obama should resist his binging impulse to "do something" when that "something" promises to make things worse. If he needs to act, he should begin with the purge, not the splurge (or binge) part of the economy. A good place to start would be doing away with programs like HIPAA that have resulted in 0 FINES...apparently nobody's privacy is being violated since HIPAA's enactment in spite of the flood of complaints going through OFFICES OF CIVIL RIGHTS. OFFICES OF CIVIL RIGHTS who have functioned as a rubber stamp for health insurers should also be reduced to skeleton staff.
Keep it simple today: Binge-Purge or Splurge-Purge politics are a poor substitute for addressing the real problems Americans face and leading by example doesn't require throwing more money into the problem but careful suspension of government handouts to themselves and mandates that all monies distributed to manage expenses be delivered directly to consumers.
