Tax Reality

My son broke his ankle last January. This was followed by a series of economic hurdles that included having to pay $5000 out of pocket just to get admitted to the hospital. After the surgery-two plates and sixteen screws-my son missed nearly two months of full time work. It was simply impossible for him to do his job as a high end bike sales rep. He couldn't drive. He couldn't stand up all day. But his company held his job and created opportunities for him to contribute. The end bill was around $45K for surgery and two and a half days of hospitalization.

This is where the trouble began. The nurses and doctors didn't wean him from the IV pain meds until he was being wheeled out the door. Because I teach school and had already missed several days to care for him, his older brother picked him up. My son suffered outrageous withdrawals, for which nobody seemed to have answers. He endured the agony for four days. Then we began getting bills. Although the hospital that the surgeon used had the brand name of a hospital on my son's insurance, because it was 51% owned by the doctors working there, we had to haggle to get the amount covered. We had no choice really. He broke the ankle on New Year's Day and the longer we waited, the worse the recovery would be. There were only two doctors from a list of 20 given by his insurance who could see him. Likewise, we had to either choose the facility offered or risk waiting two to three weeks. Now I ask you, does that sound like prudent and immediate care? But I digress.

Fast forward to this week. All my son's papers were in order (sounds menacing doesn't it) for filing taxes. He did get compensation from his company's accident insurance policy to cover his out of pocket expenses. He still ended up missing two months of work and had to make up for lost income. But when he went to file taxes, he was told that the compensation he used to pay off the hospital and doctor would be TAXED. So even though he ended up spending 12% of his annual gross income on medical bills, my son, who work retail, who has only recently made enough to afford to move out and live on his own, will owe money. When he told the person doing the taxes effectively that he would not be filing, she replied "but you make more than lots of people."

This is how conservatives are made.

My Letter to The White House OR Why Obamacare Doesn't Work

This is a copy of the letter I wrote to the White House and President Obama. Of course I doubt he will read it. But I am hoping others do read it as a cautionary tale.

"Let me tell you what ACA has done for us. My son, who is 24 and works full time and has had insurance from his work for nearly a year, broke his ankle. It is a complex break and dislocation. He went to the ER and they demanded $250, which I didn't question. But then the surgeon we called demanded $1400 up front. Last but not least, the hospital said that if my son couldn't come up with $1500 up front, that they would "postpone the surgery until he had the money." He works retail, he has to be able to walk or at least move. It would take him months, maybe years to save that much. This is what is happening. This is your fault. You and the Democrat have lied to us. And kids like my son are suffering and will suffer. The only people who benefit are those who are uninsured who will skip their bills. I am so disappointed."

The last six days have been stressful to say the least. ER visits usually are. My youngest son has worked so hard to get out of debt and to be responsible in paying for child care and such. He was finally looking at moving out. Then this. An accident. But he has insurance so that makes it alright.....right? No. Think again.
I didn't really think much when the ER wanted $250 up front. That's a normal think with ER visits, then you get billed later. But when after visiting with the orthopedist (and after having to hear the absolute agony of my son as they struggled to reduce the fracture which was not done properly at the ER) we got a phone call demanding $1400 up front and then the call from Baylor Hospital demanding the full amount of the deductible up front, this poor kid broke down. How are people ever supposed to get out from under debt when the costs of insurance along with the cost of deductibles rising? The irony is that if he was indigent or irresponsible, he would end up at Parkland or John Peter Smith and get the same services for a billing payment or even free.

Buying insurance is for saps. Why do we do it? It seems to offer few benefits and more liabilities. And the mumbo jumbo gibberish of the insurance jargon is enough to drive Ben Franklin insane. My blood pressure was already high. Luckily I am able to help out-but I know others that are not. What of those poor kids with $10,000 deductibles on their insurance? How will they pay? This isn't even the first week of January and it's already ugly. It's going to get uglier still.

People, I've been saying this since 2009, Obamacare is a trap. It is not about less expensive care or even more accessible care-it is a surreptitious tax on those that work to subsidize those demographic populations the ruling party find to be more deserving of services.

I'm Only A Bill-Obama Version

Helen Thomas Schools Gibbs Old Style

The press and the media crucified President Bush for stumbling in his answers during the press conferences. He was conducting those press conferences just like corporate meetings, where the group asked questions while the executive answered them. He didn't script the answers. All that was scripted was his initial speech. It has been apparent to many of us, just recently the media, that every press conference, every "public forum" and every supposedly casual meeting is actually highly manipulated and scripted. During the last press conference, President Obama was very abrupt when questions not on the list were asked. Isn't that the purpose of a press conference or a public forum. In the clip linked on the headline, Chris Reid of CBS and Helen Thomas ask why all questions were to be emailed in advance. Reid actually poses the question of how this administration can label these meetings "public forums" when questions are selected and answers formulated in advance. At that point, wouldn't it be more efficient to put it in a written format? One of the most telling questions was when Reid asked Gibbs if President Obama would support additional taxes on the middle class....Gibbs didn't like that much. So while we are stewing in a fetid cesspool of self-serving agendas and left wing entitlement, ask yourselves if you weren't much happier with someone who stumbled through answers, but gave you the best of what he knew at press conferences.

It's like some of us have been saying for awhile now, Obama and his handlers are manipulating the press for their agendas. In order to even be moderately involved in a truly free press, reporters should be outraged.

The Real Healthcare Agenda

The Obama Administration likes to trot out urban poor and elderly as an example of who would be best served by Obamacare. But as with cap and trade, the truth is in the details. The Obama Administration is using healthcare as a wedge issue to make illegal aliens more integrated into the American economy. So without paying into any of the programs which leech money from workers' paychecks, illegal aliens will get the same (rationed)healthcare that the rest of us ostensibly will recieve. Make no mistake, by competing with private health insurance companies and levying tax penalties against middle income Americans, many will opt for Obamacare as a catchall and then be forced to find additional private insurance-virtually paying twice for half the care. This Congress will do the same things with Obamacare that they did with Cap and trade, which is to force it through in the early hours of a Friday morning, largely unread, with all earmarks and special programs for special populations intact. Americans are going to have to rise up and realize that this program is not "free" nor is it one that will give care to all uninsured Americans. Instead it is a program to seal the deal with La Raza insuring a firm coalition of Hipanic voters both legal and illegal for the years to come. Hey, when you can get other people to pay for your healthcare, wouldn't you vote for the guy? Pay attention, it's going to get worse.

"America does not need health care reform, but Latino immigrants need health care reform."

And someone from Menendez' office [Ed.: Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ] promised that he would make sure that "the useless barriers of citizenship would not be in this bill" and that he would make sure that they would use keywords like "streamline"...

It was La Raza, the Childrens Defense Fund and Senator Menendez from New Jersey, a representative from his office...

...Yes [they said they would get free health care for illegal aliens], these are my notes, Mark. They actually got up and said "Latino children need health care more than whites". And then they would say things like "you must go out into your communities, use words like 'streamline', use phrases like 'all workers' and 'all families'," because they said -- and I quote -- "If the American people find out that this bill is about giving health care to non-citizens, they will rise up against it."

...One of the quotes they said was, "We want to make sure we take care of barriers like verification, but we can streamline programs to the more affluent" and, quote, "Useless treatments for the elderly can be gone because we don't need to spend money for people who are going to die anyway."

That's a direct quote from that meeting. They also said, "We are very concerned there will be an effort to include" the illegal immigrants in this argument, so "we must make sure that we focus this" to the American people that it's looking like we want "health care for everyone".

And they also said that 75% of the children who will be picked up in this will be non-citizens and that 44% of the uninsured are non-citizens and they can't possibly allow the American people to know this." [Ed: Oops!]

Menendez' office said that he's going to make sure that "a family of four that makes $66,000 a year or less will pay nothing at all for the new health care. And he was the one who said he was going to get rid of specifics like "citizenship status" and focus on, quote, "equity for all workers".

And he said he's going to make sure that the Latino immigrants are the focus of the health care reform..."

Obama Lectures AMA: Open Mouth, Insert Foot

So President Obama is talking (down to) the American Medical Association. He publicly stated that he is against caps on awards in class action suits. That probably suits John Edwards down to the ground. But at the same time he doesn't want doctors practicing "defensive medicine". I ask you, if you were faced with the very real possibility of having someone sue you with or without grounds, and having that case more than likely settled out of court, but at the same time raising your liablitiy insurance 200%, wouldn't you be just a teensy be defensive? I've been on the receiving end of such treatment and while I don't understand the procedures, I do understand that many doctors feel that they are targets for class action lawyers. Much of this could have been avoided with meaningful tort reform which would limit the trawling for cases done by many lawyers. Even less than his understanding of the mechanism in place in the medical community, President Obama reveals a certain cluelessness in his speech. Can you spot it in the following excerpt?

"...It simply doesn't make sense that patients in the 21st century are still filling out forms with pens on papers that have to be stored away somewhere. As Newt Gingrich has rightly pointed out, we do a better job tracking a FedEx package in this country than we do tracking a patient's health records. You shouldn't have to tell every new doctor you see about your medical history, or what prescriptions you're taking. You should not have to repeat costly tests. All of that information should be stored securely in a private medical record so that your information can be tracked from one doctor to another – even if you change jobs, even if you move, and even if you have to see a number of different specialists...."

Full speech HERE

Ummm...did anyone bother to inform His Highness that Federal Express is a PRIVATE COMPANY. That's why customers can track where their packages go. And now he's saying that a government system would do that as well? If that's the case, then why is the US Postal Service going broke? And why should we trust a government that doesn't track mail as well as FedEx to perform medicine as well as the many private physicians and hospitals that exist? And once again, what about that "no tax for under $250,000" promise? How do you reconcile that with the many who get health insurance through their work having to pay taxes in order to fund this juggernaut boondoggle?