The Problem with the Healthcare Bill

I have to laugh at our “fearless leader” on television telling the world how great he is for accomplishing the impossible. President Obama has just set freedom and civil rights back 300 years.

We now have the government telling us what we can and can not do with the money that we have earned.

This is presenting a potential disaster here in the State of Florida.

Here is how getting aid goes. Depart of Family and Services knows you have no healthcare or income other than $800.00 monthly. You can not qualify for Medicaid because you make too much money. You can not qualify for cash assistance because you are not illegal, do not have 8 children with different fathers and all of them are in prison. You don’t qualify for food stamps because you make too much money. Your child gets medicaid…you are out in the cold.

Now comes the clincher. The same government that steps in and forces the state’s hand with illegal immigrants and offering them $11,000 in cash assistance while those who worked in Central Florida for years are homeless, steps in and tell you $400.00 out of that $800.00 now has to be spent on healthcare.

This is what your monthly budget for a family of two now looks like:

Rent $800.00
Electric $180.00 (thanks to Energy Commission Rent Hikes)
Food $400.00
Health Care Premiums $400.00
Luxuries (Land line, television) $140.00
Clothing $300.00

Median salary in Central Florida….$8.00 hourly!

Tell me, out of concern for all of those employees working at the Theme Parks who can only get part time employment because the powers that be do not want to pay benefits, and every company who refuses to hire outright, using the services of a temporary placement agency rather than paying benefits…WILL THESE PEOPLE GET HELP FROM THE GOVERNMENT TO PAY THE PREMIUMS?

The Health Care bill is based on a fictional society. A society that is employed, that is not ridden with foreclosures, that is not looking at faces in grammar school that have spent the night in a tent in the woods because they have no home. There is no middle class anymore, no one that can afford this program.

We have already seen the disaster that is medicaid and medicare, why do we need yet a third program riddled with corruption and problems?

Do you really want to send a message out?

America has, up until now, taken plastic and classified it as progress.  Think about this.  You are adding 22% interest to everything you buy with a credit card.  Each time you buy a $3.45 gallon of milk , you are adding 76 cents to that if you use a credit card after the big banks have jacked your rate to 22%.   If that does not stop you nothing will.

Do you remember the days where you carried a dime in your pocket so that you could call home while you were out with friends?  A time where plastic cards with endless funding did not exist?  I’ve been reminiscing and it is a time we need to bring back so that we send a message out to big business that rewarding those who squandered our money is not acceptable.

Each time you use your debit card as a credit card the bank makes a profit of at least $7.00 a transaction.  Regulations have been placed to “stop abusive practice”.  We’ll fix this right?  WRONG.  The fees to your merchants will be raised by $1.00 per transaction.  To absorb the increase, grocery, gasoline, fast food, and any other establishments will raise prices by $1.10 per transaction.  Who is paying the piper?  You are.

Getting the message out will not be easy.  Action and sacrifice will be necessary.    We will have to return to a time where values and restraint were commonplace and common sense was considered part of an education.  We will save money, we will save our merchants money.  We will stand up and make a statement, united rather than divided.

Can you imagine if, for one week, everyone paid for everything in cash?  If we could spend 7 days living within our means, not using debit or credit cards, the message would be loud and clear.  We will not reward bad behavior.

So…for the week of February 7th through February 14th, 2010 let us stop complaining and take action.  Go the bank, cash a check for the amount you will spend in that week.  Go home and take all your credit and debit cards out of your wallet.  Stick to your budget.  The impact will undoubtedly send the right message.

Private Issues In The Public Eye

Take cover e-mail addicts, here they come.  Your inbox is about to be besieged by horridly tasteless cartoons depicting the disgraceful fall of New York Governor Mark Spitzer. 

Society’s obsession with scandal turns coverage of private events in public families into the most highly valued prize a reporter can secure.  Covering the story of a governor that was elected as a result of his ability to cure social ills who falls in disgrace is like holding a forty six carat diamond.  At times, I am certain that ice water runs through the veins of these sensationalistic vampires.

Currently, any of our neighbors may be involved in an extra-marital affair.  Men and women alike cheat on their spouses through the course of their marriages.  None of these people are subject to scrutiny by the press or general global population.   The offended spouses do not withstand the embarrassment amid cameras, screaming reporters and hot lights as their straying spouses step down from the public eye.  As cameras were trained on the face of Silda Spitzer during yesterday’s news conference they captured the devastation and heartbreak broadcasting it throughout the world. 

The children in an ordinary family will go on with lives, blissfully unaware of the turmoil between their parents.  Peers will pass in the hallway, and there will be no cruel whispers among those who seek popularity. Teachers and friends will not avert their eyes from these children, nor will they remain silent or gossip about how the affected parties are reacting to a very private tragedy.  The Spitzer children will endure all of these embarrassments and more.

I would like to see the members of the press return to a time where decorum and consideration were in style.  Rather than reporters speculating on what caused this tragedy, or on what Silda Spitzer or the children feel, report the story.  New York State Governor Mark Spitzer was caught in a prostitution scandal. New York State Governor Mark Spitzer resigned.  The event is over.  Why must the pain of this family be prolonged?

Undoubtedly, a “journalist” somewhere will remember this event. A where are they now story will be solicited at all costs, and as these people attempt to put their family back together, the pain will be revisited.

One can only hope that this time next year they are as far out of the public eye as they can possibly be.

“Great minds discuss ideas.  Mediocre minds discuss events.  Small minds discuss people”.    Eleanor Roosevelt

Tribute to a Lost Hero

Perhaps the death of William F. Buckley Jr. didn’t strike many twenty or thirty something members of today’s society as important.  In fact many probably called parents or older siblings and asked William F. Who?

In the “Me” generation, people like William F. Buckley are rare.  Those heros that stand their ground whether the opinion they hold is popular or not. 

Ex CIA Agent,  Politician, Writer, Editor and Entertainer Extrodinaire could all be used to describe this hero eloquently.  He was a true right-winger, and as any good republican would, he turned his hate mail into a gold mine by composing a book from it.

Foie de gras and peanut butter were served in the same grand style at each of his dinner parties, he adored criticizing political policy and welcomed a great sparring match over his criticisms.

His name became famous alongside Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford.  He was a workaholic, editing a magazine and still finding time to produce one book a year throughout the majority of his career.

In the midst of shifting views and the changes that occured during the sociological shifts of the sixties and seventies, Bill Buckley never waivered.  He never abandoned his conservative views. 

Gaining a following in “cult” proportions during the years his show Firing Line was popular, a weekly roast of the leftist-come-lately caused his popularity to soar.  There is nothing like heated and honest debate to strike a fire in the souls of Americans.  We tend to take up one side or the other.

As a child in the sixties, my knowledge of this man was limited, but I knew I heard his name on the news nearly every night.  In the 1970′s, the era of  Peace, Love & Rock &Roll, and though the transitions of the late 1970′s and early 80′s, I had little appreciation for the man. 

In the 1990′s when I became a parent, and a student again after a 20 year absence from school, William F. Buckley again struck a chord.  This time, I was not a child listening to a name on the news, but an adult, with children, and political views that had changed drastically.

Here in my forties, my bohemian spirit still exists to some extent, but my admiration for men such as William F. Buckley Jr. is a flame that will forever burn within me. 

I may not have always agreed with his opinions through the years, but I see his points quite clearly now.  I have long been a fan of the saying “Happiness lies not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do.”  William F. Buckley Jr. embraced that every day of his life.

I sincerely hope that as I continue my path, I can remain even half as steadfast in the things I believe in.  In my eyes, the ability to do so is one of the characteristics of a hero.