Tort Reform

The buzz word heard most often from the right, but is tort reform really going to solve the high cost of treatment?

The short answer is no. Should the Congress pass such legislation, do you really think that the doctors would be willing to pass on the savings on to their patients? Do you believe that tort reform would improve the quality of your medical treatment? Let’s examine both sides of the argument.

The threat of a medical malpractice lawsuit increases the cost of a doctor’s malpractice insurance. That cost is indeed a large burden placed upon doctors. They purchase the malpractice insurance for protection against lawsuits – but why wouldn’t they? A single lawsuit could potentially bankrupt a doctor. The cost of malpractice insurance is then passed to the patient or his insurance provider. And, even with the advent of tort legislation, the end cost to the patient is unlikely to change.

Assume that tort reform is passed and the cost of malpractice insurance decreases. The savings per patient is not very much. If a doctor has just 2500 patients (a conservative number) the savings per year per patient would only be $80.00. That is, provided his malpractice insurance costs him $200,000/year.

Well, what about all of those unnecessary tests that we hear so much about? Frankly, a lot of good comes from those tests. Those so called ‘expensive unnecessary tests’ are like getting a second opinion about a patient’s condition and ultimately benefit the patient. Patients get the benefit of possibly detecting other health problems because of those tests.

A doctor’s habit of relying on those tests for his diagnosis would probably not change a lot, nor would a patient want them to. So adopting tort legislation could potentially harm the quality of the health care we receive and produce little savings, if any to the patient.

Personally, I am highly offended by the greed of lawyers. But everything has to be weighed on the balance of good vs. bad. The threat of lawsuits by harmed individuals actually keeps doctors from making so many mistakes and that is good for all patients. The tests that the doctors order also keeps large numbers of people employed as well as improving a patient’s chance of having fewer complications due to misdiagnosis.

To be honest, I don’t savor the idea of having to keep the threat of lawsuits over the doctors, but try and imagine a world without any control over the quality of your health care. That is precisely what the threat of lawsuits brings to the table.

Just my thoughts on the subject,

Cheers,

-Robert-

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Spreading Misery

With the realization that what I write is getting to be repetitious, there are some things that need repeating. Everything that Liberalism touches systematically disembowels the apparatus for progress, wealth creation, and freedom. Liberals, usually successful Liberals, (thanks to a free market) have this tremendous heartfelt feeling of compassion for those who choose a less rewarding lifestyle. But their compassion is only evident when they can use other people’s wealth to reward non-achievement.

First, I want to point out that nobody should starve to death, no matter how lazy or unmotivated a person may be. But the idea that you can motivate these people by contributing to their low level of motivation is ludicrous.

Liberalism seeks to reward people for their lack of effort to achieve. It is really a sick notion that instead of rewarding effort, that we reward people for doing nothing. It is certain that if you keep paying for nothing, you will just get more of it. Destroying the wealth and ambition of the motivated segment of the population only serves to impoverish everybody.

This is self evident when a look at any Liberal controlled entity whether it is a State, county, or local government. There is not one Liberal controlled government that is not impoverished and in debt.

Conservative government systems are not lucky – such as Texas. It is the motivation of its people that make it a success. Motivation comes from wanting to do better and being rewarded for achievement. Motivation is inspiration received from the rewards of effort. Motivation comes from being taught about the rewards for effort, and receiving the rewards for effort. When people are continually rewarded for achieving nothing, they will continue to achieve nothing – welfare is their reward for not achieving.

Think about training a pet. Pets are trained using a reward system. When the pet does what we want them to do, they are rewarded with a hug, an at-a-boy, or a food treat. The animal soon learns what is expected of him and will behave in the manner that achieves his reward. People follow the same path. When people feel like they have achieved something, they get a feeling of pride and accomplishment. That feel-good-about-yourself feeling is never felt by the recipients of undeserved rewards. They may be grateful for the handout, but generally speaking, there is resentment because these recipients realize that they are somehow inferior. And if taken to the next logical step, when people continually depend on others for their sustenance, they are in fact, failures. They remain on the fringes, depending on the good will of others.

When you raise your children and do everything for them, they will get spoiled rotten. It takes a long time for a spoiled kid to overcome having the ‘benefit’ of not having to achieve for him/her self. Spoiled kids run the risk of never developing that pride that only achievement can bring.

In closing, I would tell President Obama to quit disenfranchising the achievers. The result can only be the impoverishment of all of us. Every society needs a top of the heap. Elevating ourselves to a comfortable level and away from the squalid bottom of the heap should not be easy, but at least possible for the ones who work at it. The top and slopes of the heap stand there as a challenge to those with the ambition to elevate themselves.

It is the Liberals who would take away our opportunities and keep us all down in the squalid bottom. Killing the rewards for a person’s effort only serves to lessen that effort. Less effort from those who would achieve translates into fewer jobs and a lower standard of living for all. Centralizing and trying to equalize what is not equal is a failed ideology. We have a whole generation of failure to atone for and the Pied Piper Obama is corrupting another. His message is sweet, but the morsel is poison.

Cheers,

-Robert-

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Medical Tyranny

I know it sounds silly. But my friends, who are persuaded to embrace the Liberal philosophy, repeatedly ask me, “How can Government run healthcare possibly intrude upon freedoms?” It sounds really neat to not having to worry about medical costs, so why isn’t that a good thing?

Snow White thought that eating the delicious looking apple was a good idea. This time however, the apple won’t put us to sleep, but establish control over our existence. Once the Government controls the healthcare industry, our healthcare will be up for grabs, controlled by every special interest group that gets in power.

Think about it for a moment – in this country we have the vegetarians, the anti-sugar crowd, the anti-pork people, and the fat police. Just to name a few of the groups that have decided that their way is the way to health and long life. Once medical care is centralized, you would lose your ability to choose the lifestyle you prefer because that lifestyle may run afoul of your getting the necessary treatment needed. Admittedly, some lifestyles are unhealthy and require considerable medical treatment. But all things have to be weighed on a balance – take obesity or getting fat if you will.

If it is decided that the fast food industry is the root cause of obesity, could you not cure obesity by just closing down all fast food restaurants? And while we’re pushing a bit of hyperbole, there are a lot of things that cost society tons of money – cars for instance. Cars do not slowly kill us like being fat does, but cars do inflict billions in property damage and medical cost on our society. I will not even mention the forty to fifty thousand people killed outright from car collisions every year. So should we outlaw the automobile? And while we’re at it, let us not leave out – getting old. The single largest medical cost to our society is taking care of our older population.

It is evident that by closing down the fast food system, doing away with cars and allowing the elderly to expire from lack of healthcare would drastically save us a lot of money. But – would we want to live in such a society? We could not afford the job loss from losing those industries.

The fast food industry alone hires most of our unskilled and entry level people. Would losing those jobs make any sense? Everybody doesn’t get fat that uses fast food restaurants! But if the fat police ever got one of their own into the decision making bodies for healthcare, it could become a possibility.

Should we ever decide that we will not extend the help needed by the obese among us, those folks would die prematurely. Obese people need diet education and intervention, lap bands or other type of bariatric surgery to enable them to live as long and healthy a life as possible. Ancillary care to treat their diabetes, high blood pressure and clogged arteries is also expensive. Washington would literally be deciding the fate of those individuals. But, the sword cuts two ways. If we decide that we will support those who are obese with the National health plan, then the cost would be prohibitive and provide no incentive for a person to adapt a healthier lifestyle. With a nationalized health system, decisions would have to be made as to what treatments are paid for. It would not be possible to make those decisions on a case-by-case basis, but would instead be controlled by guidelines. Those guidelines, out of necessity, would have to favor lower cost. It is a little like the argument for guns or butter.

What those guidelines would look like, I can’t even guess. But it is certain that cost will have to be a large factor. Will the elderly bear the brunt of health savings? Would age be a prominent part of the treatment decisions? This article is not written to favor the elderly, but the elderly make up the largest group in need of health care.

Logically, most of the elderly are retired and pay little into the health care system so it is those of a working age who will have to shoulder the load for elderly health care.

In the grand scheme of things, the government can subsidize healthcare as long as it gets the money from somewhere to do it. That means everybody will have to contribute into the system – not just the rich. Such an added expense to the business world and individuals may be the straw that chases what is left of our manufacturing base out of the country. The cost of providing government provided health care is not for free and can only lead to a national debt far in excess of what we can afford.

It is for that reason that so much of the cost savings will have to come from limiting freedoms that we take for granted – such as eating at fast food restaurants, or at the very least mandating the type of food served at those places. Government intervention, will out of necessity, have to be pervasive to control cost and be able to provide treatment to some degree.

When the medical debate started, it was my hope that congress would fix the bad and leave the good. I define the bad as those things that are driving the cost of health care such as doctors having to protect themselves against unnecessary lawsuits by ordering unnecessary test and treatments. And they could force the insurance companies into competing for customers by allowing them to sell their policies across state lines just as they compete for customers of automobile insurance on television. The congress already knows about the corruption, but there is no movement to put the perpetrators in jail. A pertinent question could be asked about why we are not already going after the bums that corrupt the system. Do we really need more legislation to enforce the laws already on the books? This congress seems Hell bent on a complete takeover of the medical system instead of fixing what is wrong with it.

Also not mentioned in the proposed legislation is any incentive to increase the supply of doctors. Even with insurance, a patient has to wait up to three weeks (or longer) to schedule an appointment. There is already a shortage of doctors – can you imagine what it will be like with an additional 30 million people trying to get appointments. Further, the same people who have just had their waiting time increased are going to be forced to pay for the ones who do not see medical insurance as an expense that they want to spend money on. However, you will notice that somehow these same people manage to drive nice cars and own wide screen televisions and other consumer goods like fancy cell phones.

Freedom to live your life as a free person will take a step backwards if the congress has their way. It is ironic, but the congress could make things better for all of us with some simple legislation, but evidently, that is not their goal. They want to reserve the right to dictate how you will live your daily life by controlling which treatments you need. Think of the society as a herd of cattle being marched through a cattle chute with no other direction possible. Say no to this debacle before it becomes law.

Cheers,

-Robert-

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Undocumented Workers

For me to keep this document short is a real challenge. As is repeated often, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Being able to write directly to the point and not get distracted by insignificant footnotes is not one of my talents, but I’ll try.

The problem with an undocumented labor force cuts two ways. One way is good, while the other way is bad.

The Good: The undocumented workforce makes available a source of willing workers to do jobs that either we cannot afford to have done at prevailing rates, or no one else is willing to do them.

Prevailing rates is defined as an arbitrary number that will persuade an American to do the work. An example of a prevailing rate might be the minimum wage as set by Congress and is meant to apply to fulltime work. But if your job will only last for a short duration, the prevailing rate can go substantially higher. This is the niche that undocumented workers traditionally fill. Numerous jobs fall into this category such as highway construction, farm work, yard work, and any job that is particularly disgusting. The disgusting job list is long and includes mucking crews, poultry processing, and waste management. The above list is not complete, but I wanted to give you an idea of some of the low skill, undesirable jobs available.

We as a nation are very lucky to have a willing workforce to tackle these jobs. But sadly, if not for our friends from south of the border, these necessary jobs would be hard to fill. As I said, undocumented workers fill a necessary void in our workforce.

The foods we eat, the highways we drive on and the housing we enjoy come to us at a relatively modest cost since most of the menial, manual labor used in the production of these products are accomplished by the undocumented workforce.

The Problems: First and foremost, these imported laborers are human. They do not like doing crappy jobs either and will eventually migrate to better jobs. Whenever they find a job that is less of a pain and pays better, they move on leaving a void that is usually filled by another undocumented worker. This process keeps our need for more undocumented workers high. It is the human side of the equation that is often left out of any arguments about illegal immigrants.

Everyone is guilty of creating a market for the undocumented workforce. Whether you have a business or you just need a little help around your home, there is nobody better suited to help you than the undocumented day laborers that gather in well known places around town. Some city governments have even built day labor centers where they can gather and be found for hire.

Yes, these people have ensconced themselves into the fabric of our society, whether we like it or not, but there is a downside to this boon to our convenience of having cheap labor available.

• Loss of entry level jobs for our young people.
• Loss of tax revenues.
• Higher cost of education without the accompanying tax revenues to offset the expenses.
• Higher medical cost. (Somebody has to bear the brunt of their medical bills.)
• Degrading of our institutions because such large contingents of people do not have an understanding of our system.
• Formation of subcultures within the enclaves of illegal immigrants because of the language barrier.
• Higher tensions over skilled positions that Americans compete for.

From a position of arrogance, Americans want the “Illegals” to stay in their place. But I will tell you that as a potential employer, hiring someone who will do the same or better job for less money is who I would hire provided I am unwilling to overlook all of the negative impact on our society.

That thought brings us full circle. According to the results of numerous surveys, America does not have enough skilled workers to man their workforce. This takes in the whole spectrum of both professional and non-professionals who make up our society. We even import more foreign doctors than we produce in America.

We snip and flush potential European descended young which limits our available pool of American workers. Out of necessity, we have to import the help we need to maintain our economy. As a nation, we have grown apathetic to maintaining our society and the opportunities that we can create by doing due diligence. Our self-indulgence knows no boundaries. We look to others to do the heavy lifting and refuse to do those necessary things that keep us from being swallowed into bondage.

If we made citizens out of the undocumented workers presently in America today, I will positively guarantee you that those citizens will not remain at those low end jobs. For those entry level and generally crappy jobs, we will need to import more and more – then what do we do?

The answer does not lie with those who see votes or those who just see cheap labor. There has got to be a mechanism put in place that allows foreign workers to do those jobs. Work banks can be set up along our border with Mexico that matches employers and employees. At the completion of the job requested by the employer, the immigrant worker goes back to his country of origin or the work center to be available for another job. A work center would be able to track who is in the country and the duration of the stay involved. The employer would be held responsible for returning the migrant after the completion of the job.

Potential employers would have to be screened to insure that they made good faith efforts to hire domestic help before they can turn to the legal hiring of foreign workers. Foreign workers would have to be paid the prevailing rates for the task involved and pay taxes. Paying the prevailing rate for the task involved would prevent the pollution of cheap labor from destroying the job pool for Americans.

The anchor baby system needs to be abolished. That system is a large magnet to parents who want to put a foot in the door to this country.

This article addresses some of the issues surrounding our undocumented workforce. Changes need to be made. If we do make the present crop of undocumented workers citizens, then we have to change the way we handle our labor shortages. Remember, when any of the common laborers get the opportunity for a better job, they take it. The problem is that as they get better jobs, it leaves a job to be filled – guess where the worker comes from to fill the vacated spot? Yep, another undocumented worker is recruited. This type of demand for the undocumented workers is a revolving door that has a voracious appetite for undocumented laborers. The system needs to be changed. Do not accept a system that does not allow for some type of work program. Do not be lulled into the idea of a permit based on time. The permits should be job based and the employer held accountable for the duration. Allow no full time employment of foreign workers unless they go through the process of becoming an American citizen. Each employer of migrant workers must provide a timetable and description of the job involved before hiring, and then held accountable for returning that worker at the end of the job.

We can solve the immigration problem with a little effort. It is in our interest to do this because we absolutely need the labor. All that is needed is a little political will. My suggestion may not be work, but there are enough smart people who can figure out a manageable way to satisfy our labor needs without the added burden to the American people by way of the back door. Missed taxes, free medical, free school, and the rest of the benefits received without any payment except for cheap labor is charged to the rest of the American workers through taxes and higher but hidden cost.

Cheers,

-Robert-

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Failure Part 3

If you read my first two accounts about failure, you will know that I view failure as a gift as long as we recognize our failure and keep trying to get it right. Getting it right leads me into Part 3 of this series.

An expression about not taking the advantage of failure reads something like this – “Doomed to repeat the same mistake”.

Case in point – General Motors went broke – not because they were a bad company, but because they made bad decisions in a time when foreign competition was very low. It is very hard to unspill the milk, but that is what they needed. Retiree benefit obligations had put them in a non-competitive position. Because they had to overprice their vehicles to meet their obligations, GM was not able to sustain their customer base.

Bankruptcy and complete reorganization would have cured a lot of their problems, but not all of them. The problem that hung in the air was a humane one. GM’s chief obligation was to the thousands of retirees. Pensions and medical care for the retirees put an exceptional burden on GM. The retirees were not at fault - they believed in, and trusted GM to keep their word concerning their retirement benefits.

It was obvious that GM could not afford to keep their agreements, so they went to the American People (The Government) and asked for loans. But what they asked for was loans to continue business as usual until somehow the market would turn around and they (GM) would make a miraculous rebound and be able to repay the loans.

Well, all lenders have to decide the question of whether or not a prospective borrower has the ability to pay back their loan. Since the Government is the lender of last resort, GM must have exhausted all other avenues for loans before approaching the Government. Can you imagine having a failed business and asking for a loan to extend that failure? Sure, a loan would have given GM a little breathing room, but without a cure, the patient would still die.

What GM and the Government settled on was not a good solution either. The company lost its autonomy and is still burdened with the retiree and union problem. GM still might not survive unless they can compete on a cost basis with other manufacturers. Even fixing quality problems may not be enough to attract buyers of the cheaper but equal in quality cars from other manufacturers.

Recognizing failure would have been helpful to GM. What if, when they went to Washington to get help, instead of asking for a loan to just prolong the agony, they confessed to having a bad business model? Instead of borrowing to continue with a failed model, they came with a plan for the borrowed money to retire all obligations to their retirees and the Union. Upon the success of retiring their long term debt to the retirees, they could then go through a normal bankruptcy for reorganization. A GM with a clean slate would have emerged as a tough competitor for anybody. The company would still have maintained its autonomy. A reconstituted GM would have been able to repay the Government and start making a profit. Of course that did not happen, but my-oh-my, what an opportunity.

When something isn’t working, it is time to rethink the situation. Until the core comes out of a boil, it just keeps on festering and hurting. All the band-aids in the world do nothing until that core either comes out on its own or is lanced.

GM isn’t the only company that needs to recognize their shortcomings. We have lost many manufacturing jobs because of stubborn bad management. Those companies that seek to improve their balance sheet by moving to a different country do all Americans a disservice. Real wealth creation is taking something of little value and making something of value out of it. “Made in America” used to be the trademark of quality and dependability. But we have lost the privilege of putting that on most of our products anymore because so much of our manufacturing and brands have been farmed out to China. “Made in China” is on most of the consumer goods we purchase. I lament that outcome because it could been so much different with a little effort.

Yes, as I have stated, failure is a gift. But what we do with that gift can mean success or just more failure. Just because what you are doing or manufacturing is no longer profitable, it is time to make the necessary changes to get it right. Taking your facility to another country is a band-aid that will still find the deficiencies in your business model. There are too many businesses that have sought for and found solutions other than moving their companies to other countries. These successful businesses should be a model for those thinking about jumping ship for cheap labor.

Our institutions like Harvard and other business colleges should instill into their students the importance of finding solutions and good management instead so much focus on profit. Profit is important, but how we make profit is also important. It is more than a shame for any business to need a Governmental agency breathing down their backs because today’s businesses put profit above ethics. Have we as a people lost sight of right and wrong and are no longer trustworthy? If so, then we have lost our value system and need to restore it.

Cheers,

-Robert-

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