Does the government not get it, or do I not get it?
When the government proposed a 7 billion dollar bailout of the banking industry, I was thinking along these lines:
The banks have all these bad debts out there. The causes for the problems are complex, but can be fixed, but that won't fix the actual problems because even if they stop approving high risk loans, if they stop having loan officers work on commission (incentive to approve loans that shouldn't be approved), the bad loans that got us into this mess would still be out there.
Also, while we don't want to reward the bank executives that got us into this mess, we realize that it's our money in those banks that's becoming worth less and less.
Also, while we don't want to reward the bank executives that got us into this mess, we realize that it's our money in those banks that's becoming worth less and less.
So, I was all in favor of the government spending money to buy up some of these bad loans. And by assuming those loans, I thought maybe the government would eventually get at least some of that money back. Of course, that's not what's happening. Instead, Wells Fargo, PNC and other banks that seem to be not in trouble are buying the banks that are in trouble, which does absolutely nothing to solve the problem. It just removes competition. And that money? It will probably wind up going to those executives who sold off their bad banks and those executives who eliminated their competition. It certainly won't wind up repaying that 7 billion dollars. That's going to be our great-great-grandchildren's jobs.
No wonder when the 7-billion-dollar bailout got passed, the stock market actually went down.
So let's move on to health care. I'm in the process of moving to a state that has mandated health care. Now, I checked their web-site and before I found out I had to be a resident to get that mandated health care (what am I supposed to do in the time up until I can establish residency? Stay healthy?) I saw that there was one insurance plan with a reasonable monthly fee, but its deductible was $2000. Now, if you can only afford that low monthly fee, there's no way in hockey-sticks that you can afford $2000 worth of health care to meet that deductible. (Again, what are we supposed to do, stay healthy?)
The next health plan cost about $250 a month. This is the same amount I was paying in a state that did not have mandated health care, so all the mandate is doing is apparently punishing those people who don't get health care. It's not like I don't want health care. But let's say a person is unemployed. Let's say further that this person is unemployed from a good job, so he/she is getting $500 a week in unemployment compensation. And when that person was employed, let's say he/she bought a house, condo, townhome or other place, which costs $1200 a month, which is reasonable for a good-single-income. That means that of the $2000 this person is getting a month, $800 is left after paying the mortgage. If this person gets health insurance, that will leave about $550 a month to pay for everything else, including a phone (that he/she will need for interviewing), Internet access (again, a pretty severe need when looking for a job), heat and electricity, and credit card debts that he/she incurred when he/she was making a decent living and expecting to be able to pay those debts off ... at some point.
So, for this person who can't afford health care, what is a mandated health care state going to do? They're going to fine him or her, of course, for not having health care. Yeah, that's helpful.
Just so you know that I'm not just here complaining, what government health care policies need to do is actually reform health care so that people can actually afford it -- and afford to be sick if they get it (not that we actually want to get sick).
I'm LJ and I am not running for president. But I did approve this message.
