Squat and Squabble

Conflicting viewpoints on topical subjects

Archives for March 2017

Dutch Election: Stirred, but not shaken

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PM Mark Rutte – winner

Geert Wilders – Sloppy Second Place

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The Netherlands’ main exit poll suggests Prime Minister Mark Rutte easily defeated his opponent, anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders in today’s Dutch parliamentary election, which was seen by many as a litmus test for populism in Europe. The Ipsos exit poll indicated that Rutte’s party won 31 seats in the 150-place legislature, 12 more than Wilders’ party, which shared second place with two other parties.

But Europeans are generally complacent folks, not looking for big changes, so maybe the Dutch are still a little too reticent to accept the beating of the anti-Islam drum as the new norm.

Many pundits are surprised that following close in time behind the Brexit vote in the UK, and the election of Donald Trump in the US, the pro-nationalist rumblings on the Continent have not yet boiled over into any political paradigm shifts in the heart of Europe.  (So far, anyway.)  Whether or not the rising voices of populism that have been sweeping Europe these past months will yield victories in the upcoming elections in France and Germany is presently unknown.

However, it is clear that the Rip Van Winkles of Europe are slowly stirring toward political action.  It remains to be seen if they will shake themselves awake, or just roll over and go back to sleep.

Go north, young man

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The U.S. State Department is warning college students across the country not to spend spring break in certain parts of Mexico, where rampant crime has made travel dangerous for Americans.

Mexico – Mucho Problemo

The warning comes as students are finishing up midterm exams and heading out in search of warmer climes, salty margaritas and wild parties. But Mexico, once among the most popular spring break destinations, is plagued with endemic levels of violence, according to the government.

San Francisco – No Problemo

  • So, if you want to have a safe and really bitchin’ spring break…. Go someplace that nobody cares if you act totally ridiculous, and openly do drugs, and get drunk, and take a dump in a doorway, and then pass out in the street.   Someplace like the Bay Area, perhaps?

But then again, the spring weather is pretty nice in Baja….

♩   If you ever go, down to Mexico, you may meet a gay senorita guy with an AK-47…  ♫

Obamacare: “beep, beep, beeeeeeeeeeee”

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More Legislation! STAT!

Obamacare is a total catastrophe.
Premiums are skyrocketing, deductibles are climbing higher at every policy renewal, the insurers are running from the exchanges to avoid going broke, and consumers are losing options, coverages, providers, and doctors. Federal expenditures are increasing exponentially. The Obamacare fuse is burning ever shorter, and the only reason it didn’t blow up already is because the Dems postponed the worst part of it until 2017 (not coincidentally, after Obama’s term). The entire healthcare system will continue to meltdown unless somebody does something about this onerous mandate, and Republicans are torn between trying to save the existing system or putting a bullet in its head. It should be called “Fukishimacare,” because that describes this program much more accurately.
President Trump doesn’t have a “plan” (even if he calls it that), but he does have a healthcare “goal.” And it’s up to the legislature to craft the plan that can meet his goal. But in this case, neither the Republicans, Democrats, nor God himself can craft a program that will do what they hope to achieve.
There is just no way that health insurance can cover everybody, all the time, for everything, unless the money coming in equals more than the money going out. That’s called capitalism. Obamacare is not “insurance,” it’s a new federal entitlement that is poorly disguised as a plausible business operation. Just like social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps, earned income credits, and every other grossly underfunded entitlement program – Obamacare is an infant bankruptcy looking for a place to roost. The Obamacare dog won’t hunt, ever.
And this is why: The Office of the Actuary in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services projected that the National Health Expenditure spending in the U.S. in 2016 was about $3.3 trillion. This amount includes healthcare expenses paid for by government ($1.5 trillion) and by private insurance and out-of-pocket by patients ($1.8 trillion). The 2014 U.S. population was 319 million. Do the math. This means that the government spends about $5,000 on healthcare for each person in the U.S., every year. And the people themselves spend another $6,000 per person, every year. That means that the total expenditure for healthcare is about $11,000 per year for each and every man, woman, and child in the U.S.
If the premiums were to cover 100% of those costs, a family of four would be paying $44,000 per year for health insurance. In 2015, the US per capita income was $29,979. So, the only way to make government healthcare “affordable” is to either reduce costs or reduce coverage. Pre-existing condition exclusions, lower reimbursement rates to providers, and lifetime caps are all designed to bring the costs down in relation to the revenues, but admitting those things is politically unacceptable, and raising taxes to increase revenues is unmentionable.

Obamacare is soon to be in a better place.

Total federal revenue from all sources in fiscal year 2015 was about $3.2 trillion. That being the case, nearly half of the entire federal budget is presently expended on less than half of America’s healthcare costs. See the problem?

The reason it won’t work isn’t about the politics, it’s about the economics.

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