Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Health Care

Obamacare is unconstitutional, inadequate, way too expensive, and will not work. There’s a reason the Constitution gives this responsibility to the states.

Oregon can ensure 100% of its citizens are covered by health insurance. Here’s what we need to do:

1. Make health care as inexpensive as possible. Go through the entire health care system from bottom to top with a fine tooth comb and find inefficiencies and waste. Eliminate all federal regulations and replace them with state regulations that we Oregonians feel are needed and not just a waste of time and money.

2. Allow insurance competition across state lines.

3. Enact tort reform.

4. (Stick with me for this crazy idea) Encourage the setup of a non-profit insurance company to insure high risk Oregonians. Oregon would tie the Oregon Lottery system into this non-profit to help subsidize the program. This will keep insurance prices down for healthy Oregonians and will make health insurance possible for Oregonians who cannot currently get insurance because of pre-existing conditions or other reasons.

5. Shore up the Oregon Health Plan. We need to remove the waste in the OHP. We also need to go through the list of recipients and make sure every single person is a legal United States citizen and a legal citizen of Oregon. Right now we have a waiting list of Oregonians who need medical care. This shouldn’t be the case. Under my leadership, the OHP will cover every single Oregonian who cannot afford health insurance in Oregon after steps 1-4 are enacted.

Don’t let Obamacare fool you. We Oregonians deserve much more. As Governor, I’ll keep Oregon OUT of the Obamacare mess, I’ll keep your hard earned money OUT of the federal health care pit and keep it in Oregon where it belongs. Remember, when you send $1.00 of the money you earn to the federal government in the form of taxes, Oregon sees only a fraction of that money back in federal services. Oregon can provide those same services to you at a fraction of the cost, and the services would be of much better quality.

8 comments:

  1. Another IndependentMay 7, 2010 at 9:40 AM

    "2. Allow insurance competition across state lines."

    By definition, any intrastate commerce, which is created by allowing competition across state lines, is constitutionally mandated to be the responsibility of the federal government. How do you reconcile your position of keeping the federal government out of our insurance but then advocate a system that by constitutional law would require the federal government to be responsible for regulation/management?

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  2. Another IndependentMay 7, 2010 at 9:43 AM

    Question about #4... What do you take dollars away from (since all lottery dollars are already funding programs) to fund this non-profit? Is it even financially feasible? Any preliminary data/costs?

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  3. Another IndependentMay 7, 2010 at 9:44 AM

    5. Oregon Health Plan: How many illegal aliens are being covered currently? When they aren't covered and go to emergency rooms, how do we handle the increased expense for illegal aliens that the tax payers end up bearing?

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  4. Another Independent - Don't come to my blog to play games.

    1. Read the Constitution. By your definition, I couldn't sell a baseball card on Craigslist to a guy in Vancouver Washington without the federal government "managing" the transaction. Do you seriously think the Constitution gives the federal government the power to control EVERYTHING??!!

    2. Do I really need to answer your second question? Um...hmmmm...you seem pretty smart...how bout you go look for yourself and report back to us stupid people here what you find that the lottery currently funds. Yep...all of those things wouldn't be funded anymore by the lottery. Not too hard to figure out huh? Financially feasible? Are you kidding me? Are we talking about health care here? Please, give me a break.

    3. If you're worried about illegal aliens over Oregonians then I suggest you vote for a Democrat or start a non-profit of your own to support illegals who don't get enough from your fellow tax payers already. As I've said over and over again, I represent my fellow Oregonians. If the state wasn't on the verge of bankruptcy, I might consider how we could help people who were here illegally, breaking the law (hmmm...maybe, maybe not), and costing us untold millions of dollars, but that's not the case.

    Don't bother posting this kind of old school political banter here anymore.

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  5. Another Independent - did you happen to notice that you're the only person I have a problem with here? It's because you come here to start trouble, not simply ask questions and debate as you stated in your response to me. As you've seen in every single other post by others, they've been made with respect. Yours have not. My responses have been equally respectful. My responses to you were appropriate to your statements. I will not have your kind of nasty, divisive politics here. So your post has been removed.

    I warned you not to bring your garbage to this forum. Take it somewhere else.

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  6. One more thing, if you REALLY have legitimate questions (as you claim) and want answers, change your name and try to ask with respect. Get rid of that crap ass attitude of yours. It will get you much farther.

    For those following this thread, Another Independent has posted throughout this blog. This particular one isn't the worst. I read all of his posts before responding to any of them. He is here to cause trouble and nothing else. He want's to show everyone who looks at this blog how stupid I am by poking holes in my ideas and trying to get me to engage him in an argument.

    I will answer ANY question as long as it's asked with the same respect I put into writing these blogs for all of you. We need to return respect and honor back to politics. I'm not going to play the game the Republicans and Democrats play. That name calling, back and forth, finger pointing nastiness. It gets us nowhere. Please, if I slip, call me on it and I'll correct myself.

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  7. Your lottery idea is intriguing, however I too am worried about the cost of such a program, and also whether or not Education, Job Creation, State Parks and Watershed development will suffer when the money form the lottery is solely put into this program. Even with the lottery funds, will that be enough to solely fund this expensive program?

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  8. The health program like all other state services in Oregon will need to be evaluated against each other by Oregonians. Once we have a list of all services in order of importance and we know how much money we have to spend, we will make cuts from the bottom of the list and work our way up.

    Education is an essential service and will not be on the cut list. Job creation, state parks, watershed development will be on the list and will be funded by something other than the lottery as Oregonians see fit. Just because the lottery now funds health care doesn't mean these other programs lose funding. You see, we need to stop seeing things through these goggles the state has given us. We can do anything we want to do. We have NO constraints. We can fund or not fund. We don't have to rely strictly on lottery or anything else.

    It's impossible to tell if Lottery funds will be enough for the Health Care program. If it's not we can expand the program. I would like to take the Indian gaming business and put up some casinos across the state. Oregonians gamble at casinos anyway, we might as well put the money to good use. If that's not enough, we'll take another look outside the building the box is sitting in and figure something out.

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