The Poor should Subsidize the Rich?

Camel traveling down a road paid for by regressive taxes

 

The poor should subsidize the rich sometimes?  I have met very few people who like to pay taxes but they are necessary for the continuation of our society.  We all need roads, police, firemen and other government services whether we want them or not.  Everyone benefits from these types of government services so it seems fair that everyone should pay their fair share of the cost.  Some people benefit more from these types of services than other people and are getting a good deal. This is true of police and fire services which are really just a type of insurance because you are paying for a service you hope you never have to use .  No one wants their house to burn down or be burglarized but there is always a chance it could happen to you so you pay money just in case your number comes up.  There are simply not enough rich people to pay for all necessary government services by themselves so government usage fees (taxes) of less fortunate people became a necessity.  We have gas taxes, toll booths, wheel taxes, car impound retrieval fees, fines for speeding and other methods of generating revenue which place a disproportionate burden on the finances of less fortunate people.

An oversimplified example:  An ultra rich man named Bill Gates gets a $100 ticket for speeding or a poor working mother named Betty with two children and a dead husband gets a $100 ticket for speeding.  Neither person should have been speeding but is it really fair to charge Betty and Bill Gates the same fine (tax).   I would fine people an appropriate percentage of their income instead of an arbitrary fixed dollar value .  Bill Gates would not care if he had to pay some paltry fine so how will he ever learn a lesson from it?  If he had to pay even 4 percent of his income he might wake up and smell the coffee.  Betty should be charged less because monetary fines are a severe drain on her limited resources and she will learn her lesson easily.  Our current system makes it easier for the rich Bill Gates to speed.  Why not take a greater significant percentage of a rich speeders money and use it to fund police and road construction?  This would improve public safety and revenue collection.

Health insurance/treatment is similar in some ways because it is a necessity unless you want to take a chance on dying prematurely.  Few people choose to be ill.  Some people are blessed by God with good health and will never need a doctor’s service or at least not much service.  Other people may have severe illness such as diabetes, cancer, stroke, crohns disease or some other severe disease that is life altering and expensive to treat.  You pay an insurance company but you hope you don’t have to use their services to pay for some dreadful disease.  The insurance company distributes this horrible risk among many people.  The healthy people pay for the really ill people and most healthy people do not really directly benefit except by having emotional security from being insured in case the worst happens.  Health insurance in essence is a transfer of financial wealth from one large group of people to another small group of people who have done nothing to earn the money. Is that a good thing?

An oversimplified example:  Bill Gates gets Crohn’s disease and is insured by XYZ insurance company.  Bill will need about $200,000 per year in treatments over the remainder of his lifetime to keep his bowels operating normally.  Bill’s premium payments amount to $12,000 per year so XYZ insurance company is losing some big time money because Bill has a bad disease.  How should this money be recovered by XYZ?  Obviously they will either raise their rates on their other members or find someway to get rid of Bill from their plan.  It’s not Bill’s fault that he is ultra rich so I don’t believe it is right to eliminate Bill’s treatment and insurance.  Less fortunate people should subsidize Bill Gates in this condition because he paid his money into the system in case this type of thing would happen to him.  A single mom named Betty should be treated just like she was Bill Gates if she had the same condition.

What’s the point?  Some things require us to work together even when we don’t see the direct benefit to us because it’s for the good of our society as a whole. The United States needs some type of insurance plan that includes coverage for all citizens or it just won’t be fair.

 

 

 

 

 

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Is universal health care a human right?

I personally believe that anyone who is a Christian is morally obligated to help people with medical care if it is within their ability.  Everyone needs healthcare at some point in their life.  It is cruel to deny someone healthcare based on a low income.  Universal healthcare should be the goal of any national healthcare plan. Congress especially should not have extra health benefits paid for by taxes. Congress should have the exact same health benefits as everyone else.

Achieving universal healthcare is difficult because our political leaders and their families are insulated from the results of their inaction.  If they and their families were denied all healthcare until they achieved a good healthcare bill perhaps they would expedite the job. A little incentive can do wonders for productivity.

Have you ever been to a Social Security office in a large city to collect a benefit? It’s as close to hell as I want to get. Government workers are constrained by a system created by politicians and this makes a pure government controlled healthcare system unlikely to be efficient or productive. Insurance companies need regulation by the government and poor people will need to be subsidized on a sliding scale by rich people. Competition between insurance companies should be encouraged. Everyone should be subject to the same basic insurance plan. Rich people can get additional types of coverage and some fraction of these additional payments can be used to provide poor people with basic coverage. What do you think about this type of plan?

Should Trump be removed from office using the 25th amendment?

My Grandfather

Should Trump be removed from office using the 25th amendment?

Quote from a portion of the Constitution of the United States:

“Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President……”

President Trump was fairly elected by the laws and people of the United States.  Unfortunately his manners do not seem to have the same smooth political tact as past presidents.  His opponents are trying to use his rough edges to have him declared mentally unfit to be president and remove him. I don’t like his twitter activity because it is petty and demeans the presidency but I do agree with some of his presidential actions such as cleaning up the VA, appointing Mad Dog Mattis Secretary of Defense,  appointing conservative justices and taking military action against terrorism.

Unless President Trump commits an illegal action or is truly unable to discharge the functions of his office he should not be removed from office in my opinion.  The accusation of mental illness is the modern equivalent of leprosy.  The accused person becomes a leper that no one wants to associate with because no one wants the taint of mental illness to rub off on them.  It is an easy slur to throw around by mental health professionals with their own political agenda.  It is even easier for politicians and left wing reporters without any medical experience to smear someone with innuendo of this nature.  It would set a dangerous precedent for future Presidents to remove Trump without clear medical evidence that he has some diagnosis of mental illness severe enough to prevent him from doing his job.

I think Mike Pence would make a better President than Trump but the people of the United States elected Trump.  The liberals should just get over it and hope they can win the next election instead of trying to destroy our representative democracy.  Christians should pray for Trump that God would guide his actions and that he would stop demeaning the office.  Personally I think most politicians are unacceptable candidates to lead our country and the Trump presidency at least provides a little entertainment for me.  I must confess my fault that I enjoy watching liberals explode with their own righteous anger at Trump’s latest escapade.

 

 

 

Christian Theology Should Control Politics in America?

My Grandparents

I think it should control politics for pragmatic reasons.  North Korea is a perfect example of what happens when Christian theology has no control of a country’s politics.  The leadership of North Korea is afraid of Christianity because it represents a danger to the ruling elites control of that country.  Christians are routinely murdered for their religion in North Korea.  The former Soviet Union had similar deficiencies and this type of cruel repression seems common in countries guided by atheistic human centered philosophy.  Some misguided liberal atheists in the United States that I have talked with want to eliminate any input from Christian  theology in American politics. They believe that Christians should keep their Christianity in the closet and let them decide how to run the country.  The end result of this pattern would be similar to the old Soviet Union in my opinion.

Christian theology played a pivotal role in the early development of United States government and laws because the vast bulk of the people living here were Christians and most of the founding fathers had a strong Christian influence.  There was no state religion established and minority non-Christian religions were given more protection than in most european countries of the time.   Evils contrary to Christian theology such as slavery and persecution of minorities existed and to a lesser extent still exist today which is another practical reason for Christians to influence politics based on their beliefs.

On a personal level, I don’t want to be killed for my faith when there are ways to prevent it from happening.  Christians should make the attempt to interject their faith in our politics whenever possible to avoid groups similar to Nazi’s, Atheistic Communists, Boko Haram and ISIS from undermining our public institutions such as government.  Just because you think it will never happen in the United States of America doesn’t mean it won’t happen.  Some day it may be necessary to die on the spot if you say you are a Christian in the USA.  People said that Trump would never be chosen as the nominee of the Republican party. Guess what?  It happened.

If Christians follow the words of Jesus they can only have a positive effect on our country’s government and its adherence to good morals and ethics.

Gay marriage and Wedding Cakes….

…..I am in favor of allowing secular gay marriage in the United States but I do not recommend gay marriage because it is not condoned by the Bible.  Many secular activities are legal in the United States that the Bible does not condone. I am opposed to forcing people with religious objections to perform any type of services for gay couples at their weddings.  The state should not have the power to force conscientious religious objectors to perform actions contrary to their personal beliefs. Priests and Ministers are not forced to marry anyone that is unwilling to comply with their religion. How can you force a Muslim cake decorator to provide service for a gay wedding and do his best at the job?  Who decides if the service provided is equal to a non gay wedding and how much the legal fine will be if the service isn’t quite up to snuff.

I wouldn’t marry a man because I don’t have any sexual attraction to men so I’ll never have the chance to plan a gay wedding.  Although, a gay man once made a pass at me but he was barking up the wrong tree.  I was surprised at the time because I had no clue my friend was gay but I didn’t have any type of harsh response. After all, you really can’t blame him because I am quite the catch so I had to dash his hopes with some consideration.  I do consider homosexuality to be a sin but so are coveting, adultery, lying, taking God’s name in vain and many other things.  Everyone has sinned so why would I treat him any different than anyone else because I too have sinned.

I think it is unreasonable of any gay couple to pick on a religious cake decorator for the purpose of proving some type of legal point.  If I had to get married again I would be more concerned about picking a cake decorator that could get the job done the way I wanted.  There are plenty of cake decorators that are willing to decorate a gay cake and there are religions that have no objection to gay marriage. If I wanted to marry a man I would simply pick a cake decorator that I liked and was willing to serve a gay wedding.  No one should be forced by the state to do a job that is contrary to their religion just because the state thinks it knows what is best based on a secular philosophy.  Any Judge that fines a person for not doing their job because of a sincere religious objection is in the wrong and should be removed from office.

It is not fair to anyone to force religious people to act against their convictions or to force gays to act like they were heterosexuals.  What does it prove if you can force a person to do something against their will by threats?  Does it make the winner in the conflict feel good that they can inflict their will on the loser?  It doesn’t make the loser into a better person and it will simply cause them to get angry and take actions of a negative nature.

Instead of forcing people to act like we want with threats we should try to persuade them by reason or emotion to our point of view for their own benefit.  It is better to win a friend to your point of view than create an enemy or a martyr against your cause.  The ancient roman empire tried to eradicate Christianity with threats but instead Christianity essentially destroyed the great powerful roman system over a long period of time because it had a message people wanted to hear.  Even though ancient Rome had all kinds of legal homosexuality the Apostle Paul was still a Roman citizen and appealed to Caesar with his legal case.  I have never read that the Apostle Paul tried to prevent legal Roman non-Christian homosexual relationships. The cross used to be a threatening symbol of roman authority but now it is a powerful symbol of Christianity and the empire of Rome is just a distant memory.

The Bible  does not promote homosexual behavior and any Church that does is not Biblical in nature.  It is unacceptable to force a Bible based Church to marry two people of the same sex just as it is unfair to force anyone to attend a particular Church.  There are plenty of religions and secular businesses that will marry two people of the same sex and bake their wedding cake so why can’t gays choose these options instead of trying to destroy the financial lives of people who don’t share their belief system by using the court system?

It is not possible to force Christian business owners to love gays more by ruining their business and in the long run gays are hurting their own agenda by trying to make criminal examples of Christians and others that do not want to bake their cakes.  Personally if I had the skill to bake a cake I would make one for anyone that paid me enough money even if I disagreed with the philosophy behind the cake decorations but that’s just the way God made me.  Although, I would probably charge unreasonably extra for a Nazi or KKK cake.  If cake bakers must bake a cake for a gay couple does that mean they would be legally forced to bake a cake for the Nazi party?  All people should be free to chose who they work for and what they believe without being threatened unfairly by the law.

By the way, the man who thought I was gay and made the pass at me married a woman a few years later. I know the couple has at least one child and they seemed quite happy last time I talked to them eons ago.  I hope they have also put their trust in Christ which I believe is the only answer to any type of sin.  Sin can not be cured by government edicts and governments should not be in the business of telling anyone what type of cakes they need to bake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why do Republicans want Preexisting Conditions to Exclude People from Health Insurance?

My Grandfather and friends

Preexisting conditions cost a lot of money to treat and insurance companies will be more profitable if people with these conditions can be excluded from getting health insurance.  After all why should healthy people pay for the treatment of people with preexisting conditions?  Wouldn’t it be less expensive if we just let them exhaust all their own personal resources and then die because that will finally solve the problem? Didn’t they really cause their own sickness with their unhealthy lifestyle choices so it’s their own fault anyways?

You can always count on some Republicans for their overwhelming compassion and to help their big donors like the insurance companies.  I know medical treatments cost money and that someone needs to pay that cost but anyone can get an illness that will devastate their personal finances.  Guess what, sometimes it is necessary for an insurance company to pay the big bills because that is why everyone pays them a premium.  No insurance system will be perfect but even people who have been blessed by God with good health are not immune to a sudden illness that can wipe out their personal finances unless they have insurance. What is a fair solution to this expensive  problem?

Most modern first world countries have national health insurance run by the government and that is one solution to the problem that seems to work well for smaller countries.  Unfortunately, the government of the United States is large, bloated, unwieldy and it stinks.  Obamacare is a prime example.  I think that private enterprise insurance companies are still the best choice for the United States but they need to have regulations that force them to be fair to everyone.  The national government needs to regulate insurance companies because this issue crosses state lines.

I think that the following insurance ideas should be made into law.

1.  Anyone should be able to purchase critical health insurance at a price they can afford including people with preexisting conditions.  Poor people will require a net subsidy in some cases so rich people will need to subsidize them indirectly through taxes.  The alternative would be to let some poor people die and I find that concept unacceptable to me as a Christian.
2.  Mental health, Vision and Dental care must be included in all basic health plans. People can’t work without these necessities.
3.  Veterans should have their health care paid for life by the people of the United States.  Veterans have made a sufficient contribution to our society to deserve this service.
4. Luxury health care items such as noncritical plastic surgery, fat reduction and acupuncture should not be part of the standard health care insurance program but they could still be purchased on a pay basis.
5. All federal employees including the Congress of the United States and President shall have the same health plan as the people of the United States.
6. Everyone should have the same limits on the total cost of the critical health care they receive but no one should be allowed to suffer and die if it can be prevented. That includes Republicans, Democrats and people like me that think all political parties are full of crap.
7. You don’t have to purchase any health insurance you don’t want and you can choose the basic plan you want from any private company.
8. Anyone who works full time shall be provided with an option for a basic health insurance plan by their employer.  People who can’t work due to disability or can only find part time employment shall be provided a subsidy for basic health insurance on a sliding scale.
9. Insurance companies can’t charge extra for preexisting conditions.
10. Health insurance regulations shall not force providers or consumers to do anything against their religion.

 

These ten conceptual regulations combined with free enterprise competition will work to keep prices in check and improve quality of care for everyone.  Let me know what you think and leave a comment for everyone to contemplate.