Not Your Money, Not Your Life: Part 2

Obama has stated that he doesn’t want government to take over health care.  Instead, he wants something “uniquely American.”  That is, a public alternative, paid for with tax payers’ money.  If people want to, they can keep their own doctors and keep their former policies.  This public option will compete with private insurers and keep prices down all across the board.

Well, it sounds fantastic.  How could anyone oppose such a great piece of legislation?

This is how:  when the government starts a program, it doesn’t have to worry about turning a profit.  It just has to make the program seem like it’s working.  So when the government creates a “public option” for health care, you can bet it’s going to be cheap.  A lot of people are going to go along with it.  Obama says private companies will compete, but how can they compete with a program that has a seemingly endless flow of tax payers’ money?

Private insurance companies will start to drop employees and go out of business.  Hospitals and organizations will have to start paying their workers less.  Doctors will leave their jobs in search of something that pays better.  Eventually, the “public option” will be one of  the only options. 

We’ve seen that government run health care just doesn’t work.  When people have to pay little, or nothing at all, for medical care, they’re going to take advantage of it.  In Canada you can get lots of treatments for free.  The catch is you may be waiting for your treatment for a few days…or weeks…or months.  People who would have been able to afford treatment may have to wait for an indefinite period of time before they can be seen.

Private companies should be the only option for health care.  Competing companies allow for the best treatments at the lowest costs.  A government option seems like a great plan, but it’s really just wishful thinking.

Men don’t like to wear condoms? Really?

This is so horrible that it’s almost laughable.  The National Institutes of Health are funding a $423,500 project to study why men don’t like to wear condoms during sex. 

I’m curious as to which government officials decided this was a necessary expenditure of taxpayers’ money.  I’m appalled.  Half a million dollars to go to something that Americans can figure out for themselves.  This is yet another example of a poor government decision.  How can they even think that they are representing the American people  with this sort of waste.

It’s not that I’m against studies on condoms.  I think that whatever you want to spend your money on is up to you.  It shouldn’t be decided by the government.  I guess I’m laughing to prevent myself from crying.

If anyone has such a great curiosity to know why men don’t like wearing condoms, just go ask someone!  It’s not that hard to figure out.  You certainly don’t need to spend $423,000 to find out peoples’ opinions.

And this isn’t the only time the NIH has spent taxpayers’ money on something questionable:

They have studied why gay men have risky sex while drunk, why prostitutes on drugs in Thailand have a greater risk for HIV infection, and they spent $2.6 million to teach prostitutes in China to drink less while having sex.

Does this make you laugh, or cry?

Banks with Integrity

Finally some good news related to all these government handouts; three banks(Iberia Bank, Signature Bank, and Old National Bancorp), that received TARP funding have decided to return the money.  The reasons they gave for turning down the money? 

The New York Signature Bank CEO said,

 The revised, expanded legislation included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, passed on February 17, 2009, adversely affected our business model and it became apparent that we should return these funds to the Treasury. The return of these funds allows us to continue to execute our business model, which includes the successful recruitment and retention of highly talented banking professionals throughout the metropolitan New York area.”

Finally, some common sense!  When the government dictates what a business can or cannot do, the business suffers.  Who would you rather have running your bank; someone with the experience and skills to do a proper job and create wealth, or a poorly organized government agency that claims to be serving the public?

For all these banks that got bailout money, the major decision is “Do we take the money with government strings attached, or do we risk spiraling downward?”  Well, obviously, most of them chose the former and sucked up billions of tax-payers’ dollars.  This kind of behavior among our country’s leaders needs to be stopped. It’s horrible that our government would even offer our money to private companies, but it’s even worse that so many companies took it.

Thank you to those who refused tax-payer money and took responsiblity for their own actions.