Thinking Outside the Box on Healthcare

The estimated 2009 defense budget is $1916.8B (that’s roughly two trillion dollars to you and me).

The estimated cost of the president’s healthcare bill is north of $1.2 trillion

In 2003, $25 billion came up missing in a Treasury report.

On September 10, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld went on tv (YouTube link) and announced that $2.3 trillion was missing.

The IRS estimates that $8.5 billion to $9.9 billion of Earned Income Tax Credit dollars are overpaid.

Medicare erroneously paid out $19.9 billion during fiscal 2004, up from $19.6 billion a year earlier, because of mistakes, waste and fraud

According to the Government Accounting Office, federal agencies are estimated to have made nearly $72 billion in improper payments in FY 2008

Council for Citizens Against Government Waste dug up $19.6 billion in pork.

And we have no $*#@ing idea the amount of the Black Budget.  If they tell us, they have to shoot us.  They may shoot us anyway.

25    Treasury missing
2300    Rumsfeld
9.9    EITC
19.9    Medicare
72    Federal Agencies
19.6    pork
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2446.4  WASTE

Yes, folks, the result of a few minutes’ research is almost two and a half trillion dollars of waste, pork, overpayments, unnecessary payments, and plain old missing money.  Imagine what we’d find with a few hours of research.  Or days.  Or cumulative totals.

I know that some of you saw the first line of this post and said, “He’s going to go right to putting the military budget amount against healthcare.”  Notice that I did not include it in the equation.

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I just want to make a few points about how things are continuing to be run.

• The estimated cost of Obama’s healthcare plan is just over half the estimated military budget for this year.
• The amount of waste I dug up is actually larger than the estimated military budget for this year.
• A sampling of the waste could pay for either healthcare or the military budget and we’d have enough change to give back to those from whom it was stolen.
• DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’RE PAYING FOR AND HOW MUCH YOU’RE PAYING?
• What of the fraud and black budget we don’t know about?

And you’re still not mad yet?  Do I have to tell you that both Americans Idle and Dancing with the Stars have been canceled?  Along with the NFL and sales of alcohol?

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Keeping in mind the above facts and figures, you’d be hard-pressed to assume I’m a libertarian.  But I am. I am by no means suggesting that the government get its paws on healthcare: quite the opposite. I put the equations up to give you a sense of the sheer volume of money and where it’s going.  Americans have no idea how much we’re paying as a nation and absolutely no idea where it’s going.

That’s by design.

We are fat and lazy.  Some of us are so stupid that we want the government to `take care of us’.  But the Stupid have no real idea what that is going to look like.  Trust me – it’s not going to be pretty.

We pay an obscene amount in taxes.  We pay taxes on multiple scales.  Think of a 2×4 piece of lumber used to build your house.  How many times has that wood been taxed from the time it was a seed to the time you signed on the dotted line for a mortgage?  How much more will it continue to be taxed?

If Donald Rumsfeld goes on television and will admit that there is $2.3 trillion missing, imagine what he won’t admit…  and imagine the colossal stupidity of the masses in totally allowing this to be glossed over, both by time and the events of the following day.

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LIBERTARIAN PROPOSAL

Paraphrasing, we tend to believe that the government has two functions: maintaining the roads and national defense.  Even keeping in mind that they’ve failed (or overachieved) on both fronts, that leaves tons of things paid for that shouldn’t be.  I know most of you aren’t going to agree with me but we can certainly compromise…

Shut down the large amount of government.  Without it (and the military-industrial complex), we would not have to be gouged this way in taxes.  The `war’ in Iraq alone has bankrupted us.  And now we’re shifting to a new/old venue: Afghanistan.

If the government took fifty percent less, wouldn’t you be better off?  Wouldn’t you be able to save a bit?

If the government took sixty percent less, wouldn’t THAT be economic stimulus?

If the government took seventy-five percent less, couldn’t we have stay-at-home parents, like we used to have before both parents had to work?

Healthcare is an unholy mess, but at least we’d be able to afford it if we demanded LESS government at LOWER cost.

Think about it.