Concealed Weapons Permit

Today I heard about a legislation in Arizona that caught my ear. This new law, if passed, would make it so citizens no longer need a permit in order to carry a concealed weapon. The legislation has already passed the House 36-19 and is now awaiting the Governor's final decision. There are two other states that already have similar laws. I became interested in this issue when I heard on the radio that my state, Utah, may be considering similar legislation. I haven't verified if this is true, but true or not, it is an issue that begs for debate. As yet, I am still undecided. This would be a major victory for personal rights, but it seems it could also carry possible safety risk. Those in favor of such laws argue that criminals can and will carry weapons regardless of the laws. I am interested in hearing what others think. Especially those who currently have a concealed carry permit, or those that are involved in law enforcement.

Read article here: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=157&sid=10317815

Socialized Healthcare Passes!

You can mark today in your diary as the day the United States offically started down the road to socialism. We have driven parts of this road from time to time, but now we have offically plotted the coarse into our GPS. Today, the House of Representatives voted 219-212 to accept and pass the bill that already passed the Senate back in December. President Obama is expected to sign it into law on Tuesday.

Speaker Pelosi said, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy." So I guess now that it's passed, we'd better find out what's in it, right? But that's not an easy task when the final bill is around 2000 pages and even the President's Chief Actuary tells the Republican leaders that he and his staff "will not be able to prepare our analysis within this very tight time frame, due to the complexity of the legislation."

Here are the few details I was able to glean from an Assiated Press article written today:

• Bans private insurances from denying coverage for preexisting conditions
• Bans private insurances from placing lifetime limits on policies
• Bans private insurances from cancelling policy if policy holder becomes ill
• Requires all americans to purchase health insurance, or be fined (first time in American history that a person has been required to purchase something in order to be a legal citizen)
• Subsidizes premiums for families with incomes up to $88,000 a year (if you make $88,000/yr then you should be able to afford insurance)
• Increases taxes for many health care providers (there goes mine and and my wife's raises)
• Adults without children can now get Medicaid
• Medicaid availble for those whose income is up to %33 percent above the poverty level
• Children can stay on parents plan until age 26 (get a job)
• Cuts over $500 billion from current Medicare coverage (in otherwards, Medicare won't cover as much as they use to)
  

According to Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich:

"The American people know you can't reduce health care costs by spending $1 trillion or raising taxes by more than one-half trillion dollars. The American people know that you cannot cut Medicare by over one-half trillion dollars without hurting seniors," said Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich.

"And, the American people know that you can't create an entirely new government entitlement program without exploding spending and the deficit."

Apparently our country's leadership doesn't "know" what we know.

Socialized healthcare almost here

Quick update for those who haven't kept up on the healthcare debate. HR 3962 passed the House on Nov 7, 2009. The Senate's version of the bill, HR 3590, passed the Senate on Dec 24, 2009. The House and the Senate must now combine the two versions into one. Once that is complete, the bill goes to the Presidents desk. All we can do now is hope he vetos it. Yeah right!

Full text of HR 3590
Summary of HR 3590 Published by the Senate Republican Policy Committee.

Newest Proposal on Healthcare Reform

There has been a lot of debate over healthcare reform over the last few months, inspite of the fact that the last official action in congress on the matter was back in July. That's when H.R. 3200 was recommended by the committee to be voted on by the House. Well, it's finally time for the next step. Yesterday, the House Democrats introduced the newest healthcare reform bill, H.R. 3962. It will replace the previous H.R. 3200 bill, which I discussed in a previous post. H.R. 3962 contains many of the same provisions as H.R. 3200, but also contains many significant changes and additions. The official long title of the new bill is, "To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes." I just love the "and for other purposes" line. I haven't had a chance to read the full text yet. The truth is, I doubt many congress members will even read it, given the fact that it's 1990 pages. I believe this is the largest bill ever proposed in the history of our country. I will do my research and gather what information I can on the bill and post again when I can. In the mean time, let me just leave you with Senator John Boehner's response to the bill. "It will raise the cost of Americans' health insurance premiums; it will kill jobs with tax hikes and new mandates, and it will cut seniors' Medicare benefits,". Sen Boehner also said he believes it represents a government takover of the healthcare system.

I wanted to do a quick update on Healthcare until I have time to address "Problem #3". H.R.3200, the only healthcare bill presented so far, has been recommended by the committee to be voted on by the House. That means it is now officially on the agenda for the House of Representatives to vote on. The order that bills are voted on is decided by the House Majority Leader so we really don't know exactly when it will happen. We will most likely see a number of healthcare propositions that will be considered before a final bill makes it all the way through the House and the Senate.

Now that the Healthcare issue has become much more talked about and controversial, I am going to reset the counter on my Healthcare Poll. Please vote and let your opinion be know. I would also love to see some comments. I know these issues I talk about on this blog are very controversial so speak out!

Problem Number 2: Cost

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the estimated cost of implementing H.R. 3200 would be aproximately 1.042 Trillion dollars over the first 10 years. The report suggests that they would offset $219 billion of the cost through savings in other areas. Another $583 billion would come from increased revenue(i.e. taxes). So what about the remaining $239 billion? There is no plan to pay for that at all. It would simply be tacked on to our nations perpetually growing debt.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention one small detail. The initial estimate of 1.042 trillion only covers the plan itself, but "does not include federal administrative costs or account for all effects on other federal programs," according to the CBO's report.

You can read the full report here:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/104xx/doc10464/hr3200.pdf

Whether you like the idea of government run healthcare or not, I ask one simple question, "Where is a government with a current debt of 11.7 trillion dollars going to get this money?"

Problem Number 1: Unfair Competition

I've been so busy lately I haven't had time to sit down and put together a well written entry on the Health care bill, but I need to at least thow out a few thoughts.

The health care bill, as it currently stands, would create what is being called a "Public Option." Public Option basically means a government owned and operated insurance company would be created and insurance plans would be offered to anyone who can't get, or doesn't want, an insurance plan from a private insurance company. Problem number 1: Unfair competition. President Obama insists that private insurance companies would not be affected and that it is not the intent of this bill to put anyone out of business. Unfortunately, what one says, and what actually happens, are not always the same thing. I would ask any sensible person to consider the following scenario and then explain to me, if you can, why you think this scenario is not possible.

Scenario:
The Government health plan is put in place and is up and running. It is in direct competition with private companies. The government wants more people to switch to their plan so they offer a better plan for a better price; possibly even free. Private insurances lower their prices and alter their plans in order to compete. The government continues to be more competitive even though it is losing money. The government plan stays afloat because it is paid for by tax dollars. If they run out of money they simply raise taxes, print more, or move money from other areas. Eventually, private companies can no longer compete and they go out of business. People have no choice but to switch to the government plan. Now the government has complete control over all health care in our country.