Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Affordable Health Care

        One of the first things on President Trump’s agenda is repealing and replacing Obamacare.  Obamacare never had a chance of working.  If left alone, it will eventually implode on its own.  Obamacare must be repealed and replaced.
        Liberals knew Obamacare never could succeed.  They planned on replacing it with single-payer, and later government provided health care.  Everyone would then have sub-standard health care except for the super rich and political elite. 

The solution for affordable health care is simple.  
·       Catastrophic major medical insurance with one lifetime deductible for any illness or accident
·       Eliminate discounting – An insurance provider should never pay less than someone paying cash.
·       Medical savings plans so people can control and pay for their routine and preventive health care. 
·       Eliminate all first dollar billing and communication between the health care provider and the insurance company. 

        The solution is that simple, the problem is implementation.  Since the medical savings accounts do not exist now, it must be phased in over decades. 
        I have an acquaintance whose 26 year old son became a quadriplegic in a diving accident.  He had insurance, but his parents had to come up with $86,000 to get him the rehab he needed.  His insurance company still has not paid his hospital bill.  They claim the hospital was not in their system. 
        The insurance company quit selling insurance in the state and dropped his coverage.  He now has guaranteed insurability, but insurance companies get around this by saying they only want group policies and don’t want to write individual policies.
        Private charity has been great and hopefully this young man and his parents will be okay with no thanks to the medical insurance provider or the government.  We have to understand that medical insurance and health care are two separate things.  Medical insurance in today’s system does not guarantee good health care. 
        With the system I proposed, parents could buy a major medical policy on their infant child to guarantee insurability for a very reasonable price.  When that child starts to work, the medical savings plan is started.  Now the child’s parents and later the adult child have control over his or her health care and protection for any catastrophic accident or disease.
        This approach is the most effective in the long run, but the problem is the transition.  We have gotten ourselves into a medical insurance/healthcare mess over the last sixty years.  It is not easy to fix.

        God bless America.  God bless President Trump and guide him to make America great again. 


Tuesday, January 24, 2017

The Power of Prayer

         I am not very public with my Christian faith.  For me, it is a personal thing.  At this time in my life, I am not a member of a specific church and do not attend on a regular basis.  When I do go to church, I attend several different churches and denominations. 
        I was raised as a Lutheran and have been active in churches in the past, and I have served on several church councils.  I have been honored to be an Elder, Deacon, and church president. 
        I do consider myself to be a Christian and pray on a regular basis.  I think the hardest I ever prayed was a little over 53 years ago, when my oldest son had complications after being born prematurely.  The doctor said he had one chance in a thousand to live more than 24 hours. 
        We picked Jason for his name that day because the name is Greek for healed or healer.  Jason is strong, healthy and a home builder in the Iowa City area.  God gave him a chance to make a difference and contribute in this world.  My prayers were answered.  
        The second hardest I ever prayed was the night before Donald Trump was elected President.  I believed the election was critical for the future of this country.  I was elated to see Trump sworn in as our 45th President last Friday.  My prayers were answered. 

        God bless America.  God bless President Trump and guide him to make America great again. 

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Dear Hollywood Celebrities

        Somebody sent me the following letter.  I don’t know who the author is, but I found it so relevant for today’s political climate that I’m using it for this week’s blog. 

Dear Hollywood celebrities:
          It’s time to wake up now.  Get this!  The only reason you exist is for my entertainment.  Some of you are beautiful.  Some of you can deliver a line with such conviction that you being tears to my eyes.  Some of you are so convincing that you scare the crap out of me.  And, others are so funny you can make me laugh uncontrollably. 
          But, you all have one thing in common.   You only exist and have a place in my world to entertain me.  That’s it. Nothing else!
          You make your living pretending to be someone else.  You dress-up like a 5-year-old.  Your world is a make believe world.  It is not real.  It doesn’t exist.  You live for the camera while the rest of us live in the real world.  Your entire existence depends on my patronage.  I crank the organ grinder and you dance. 
          Therefore, I don’t care where you stand on issues.  Honestly, your opinion means nothing to me.  Just because you had a lead role in a movie about prostitution doesn’t mean you know what it’s like to be a prostitute.  Your view matters far less to me than that of someone living in Timbuktu.
          Believe me or not, the hard truth is that you aren’t real.  I turn off my TV or shut down my computer and you cease to exist.  Once I am done with you, I go back to the real world until I want you to entertain me again. 
          I don’t care that you think BP executives deserve the death penalty.  I don’t care what you think about the environment.  I don’t care if you think fracking is bad.  I don’t care if you call for more gun control.  I don’t care if you believe in catastrophic human-induced global warming.  And, I could care less that you supported Hillary for President.  Get back into your bubble.  I’ll let you know when I’m in the mood for something pretty or scary or funny.
          And one more thing, what was with all this, “I’ll leave the country if Donald Trump wins?”  Don’t you know how stupid that made you sound?  What did you think my reaction was going to be?  I better not vote for Trump or we’ll lose Whoopi Goldberg? AL Sharpton? Amy Schumer? Cher?  Leave.  I don’t care!  And don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.
          Make me laugh.  Make me cry.  Even scare me, but realize this.  The only words of yours that matter are scripted – just like your pathetic little lives.  I may agree with some of you from time to time, but in the final analysis, it doesn’t matter.  In my world, you exist solely for my entertainment. 
          So shut you damn mouth and dance monkey, DANCE!

        I liked this because I am sick of rich liberal idiots trying to tell the rest of us how we should live.  God bless America.  Let’s make America great again. 


Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Cyber Security


        The Democrats are now trying to imply that Russian cyber hacking helped elect Trump.  I am sick of this BS.  Russia may have hacked e-mails, but there is certainly no evidence Russia or any other country electronically changed votes.  Hillary lost because the people of this country were fed up with the political elite and the corrupt politicians.
        Our new high tech communications are great and very convenient, but we should never deceive ourselves that they are totally secure.  I define high-tech as something that is always changing.  Security and hackers are also continually changing. 
        Years ago, my mother was in a nursing home.  I needed some of her information from Social Security.  I was told they could not give it to me.  I explained that I had her full Power of Attorney.  They said that did not make any difference.  I took the Power of Attorney and went to a Social Security office in person.  I was still told I could not get the information.  I went home, got on the computer, and had the information in less than ten minutes.  Anybody could have gotten the information, because I am certainly no computer expert.
        Electronic security is and always will be a problem.  We also have the human problem.  We have had a Secretary of State use a private server with only minimal security, and with the knowledge of the State Department and the White House.  This is ridiculous.
        Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, used the password “password”.  This is just plain ignorant.  Any middle school kid could have hacked his e-mails.  It didn’t require Russian expertise.
        The Democratic National Committee’s e-mails were leaked by WikiLeaks, which claims they didn’t come from Russia or any other State.  I don’t know and personally I don’t care.  Did the American people have a right to see them?  I think we did because I am sick of the lack of transparency of our government and the corrupt tactics of the political elite.  The lame stream media certainly will not do any investigative reporting that does not fit their political agenda.
        Some liberals say Russia is not playing by the rules if they tried to influence our election.  What rules?  We overthrow dictators and finance revolutions all over the world. The United States tries to influence elections all the time.  We spent millions trying to defeat Netanyahu in Israel’s last Prime Minister Election. 
        Does Russia try to hack into our e-mails?  Of course they do, as we try to hack theirs and every other country on the globe.  Let’s get real.  This is part of the intelligence. 
        Our government intelligence community is not perfect and never will be.  Our leaders should not take everything they say at face value.  That has gotten us into trouble and caused wars in the past.  The biggest problem is how political many government agencies including the intelligence community have become.  Intelligence facts must not be intentionally interpreted to support political agendas. 
        Our government intelligence community is huge and includes more than just the FBI and CIA.  It includes sixteen separate agencies.  Is this necessary or realistic?  Leaking intelligence reports to the media and political parties before giving it to the President Elect or the intelligence committee in Congress is much worse than leaking some political e-mails.  At times in our history, this would have been considered treason.  Now the political elite and the media accept it if it fits their agenda. 
        James Clapper is the Director of National Intelligence.  The facts show that he intentionally lied about both Benghazi and National Security Agency data mining.  He even lied to Congress about the NSA surveillance.  Were these lies in the interest of national security or just political?  These facts make uncomfortable accepting his conclusions about Russia cyber attacks without hard facts, and the declassified report does not give any facts.
        The leadership of these sixteen intelligence agencies need to be fired and/or prosecuted if they have a political agenda.  This should be true for all government agencies and bureaucrats.  The actions of the IRS, EPA, Department of Education, and others are just as bad. 
        I hope and pray the next four years return us to law and order, and the Constitution.  God bless America.  Let’s make America great again. 


Tuesday, January 3, 2017

United Nations

        Trump said it is time to drain the swamp, a necessary step to take the federal government back from the political elite.  It is also necessary for the United Nations.
        The League of Nations was formed in January of 1920 as part the Paris Peace Conference at the end of the First World War.  Its main objective was to maintain world peace.  Other objectives were human rights, labor conditions, human and drug trafficking, arms trade, global health, prisoners of war, and protection of minorities.  It had 44 countries when formed, and 58 countries were members at its peak.  The headquarters were located in Geneva, Switzerland.  World War II led to its downfall and it was dissolved in 1948.
        The United Nations replaced The League of Nations after World War II.  It was founded with 51 nations and now has 193 member nations.  Five permanent members of the UN Security Council have veto power.  These five countries are: United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, and France.  The UN is located in New York City and the United States pays over 22% of all expenses.
        The United Nations’ stated objectives are the same as The League Nations were, but has become less and less effective.  Its current objective is to establish a world government, economy, and currency.  The strategy is world-wide wealth redistribution. 
        The UN has done everything in its power to achieve this goal.  They have proposed resolutions to remove all guns from the public.  They have funded studies intended to show man-made carbon emissions were causing global warming.  To date, these studies have all been bogus.  The Climate Gate scandal first exposed the manipulation and outright fraud of data in the UN funded climate studies.  The UN’s proposed solutions to global warming are clearly more about world-wide wealth redistribution than they are about carbon emissions. 
        I can understand why all the second and third world country members favor this.  They want what America has and don’t want to have to work for it, much like our welfare system that enslaves generations to welfare.
        The United Nations ignores mass killings and human rights violations all over the world, but just passed a resolution prohibiting Israel’s settlement of the West Bank.  This resolution seriously hampers any peace talks.  The United States abstained from voting, when we should have vetoed the motion. 
        President Obama has never liked Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Netanyahu has never had any respect for Obama.  Is this Obama’s way of getting even?  Maybe, but I think it is more likely that Obama is doing everything he can to put President-Elect Trump in an impossible situation.  It will be almost impossible for Trump to reverse this resolution. 
        This slap in the face to Israel is just one more example of Obama’s eight years of failed foreign policy.  It is a bad decision and may lead to war in the Middle East, but it is not the worst Obama foreign policy disaster.  The Iran deal and Syria are even worse. 
        We have to regain the respect of the world.  America is not even involved with the Syria peace negotiations, but we have been invited to participate once Trump takes office.  No one wants Obama involved.
        It is definitely time to reform or replace the United Nations.  With its present agenda, it has outlived its usefulness.  Why should we contribute 22% of the cost when it continually tries to hurt America?  Charles Krauthammer mentioned that the United Nations sits on some prime Manhattan real estate and Trump should turn it into some great condos.  That may be a little extreme, but something has to change with the United Nations.
        God bless America.  Let’s make America great again.