Lessons Learned from Obama, or “I can’t take much more change”

Bullet Points:

• Socialism doesn't work.  Never has, never will.  It will bankrupt us and cost us our great lifestyle.
• Pres. Obama's supporters are getting our money.  It's a payoff, I tell you.
• No one is taking the time to debate the new laws Pres. Obama is espousing.  Much like Hitler rose to power.
• We, the People, need help.  Not we, the Fat Cats and Politicians.
• Socialized Medicine won't work.  And hasn't worked.
• Pres. Obama is NOT doing anything to reduce the real costs associated with health care.

Americans attitudes must change

I don’t hear any debate about American’s screaming slide to socialism.  The change that Obama has brought about is taking us from an overall very successful two party system with a capitalistic structure, and changing America into a one party Commucratic system running rampant with no checks or balances, with the forces of government and the Liberal Media firmly supporting all these socialist and communist measures.

It really irritates me.  I see these guys in Wall Street literally getting a trillion dollar bail out because they were speculating with good American’s money and blew it.  There is corruption and scandal all up and down Wall Street.  Now, everybody wants to blame Bush for this, but the truth is there is but one Republican that is under investigation for these corruptions and scandal and the rest of them are Democrats.  Wall Street is always heavily favored Democratic contests and it didn’t really hit me why until now.

If they are stealing and being corrupt and doing all kinds of things that are unethical, illegal and just plain not right, do you think a Republican or a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew is going to forgive them for that?  No.  But a Liberal Democrat will.  Not only will they forgive them, they’ll bail them out.  Now they talk about how 22 thousand people have left the investment sector.  What they don’t tell you about that statistic is, how many of these people are day traders that sit at home, working the stock market or they’re actual traders on Wall Street or working in the financial institute.  The truth of the matter is, you could shut Wall Street down and you‘d have less than a million jobs lost.

Now we need the financial institutions to create a credit market to continue our economy and help people out trying to start a business who don’t have the money to do so.  They serve as a very useful screening process where the bank is essentially your business partner and they will make you take a hard look at how successful your business will be.

The problem is you will have all kinds of different companies that should not be dabbling in Wall Street’s risky ventures doing exactly that.  Health insurance companies are not supposed to be insuring things like Katrina or tornado damage or things like that.  But the insurance companies do.  The banks are not supposed to be out there speculating with your money to try to make them more money.  But they do.  If the banks go invest in a lot of great things and you’ve put, let’s say, $10,000 with your retirement account into their bank, you don’t see a return on that money.  CD rates are awful.  You’ve given them $5,000 - $10,000 and you expect 2 or 3 percent return.  If you’re lucky you’ll get 5.  Yet they take that same money and go speculate.  If they make 50% on your money, you don’t see any of that.  They see it.  THEY KEEP THE MONEY that you funded their investment with.  And if they lose your money, you don’t get your money back.  That’s how these firms get by with multi-million dollar CEO compensation packages.

But GM, Ford and Chrysler, who are burdened tremendously with union demands, are not able to compete fairly.  Everybody points to Toyota.  Oh, Toyota survived this just fine.  Well, if you look at their plants, none of them have union wages; none of them have union benefits.  They don’t have a jobs bank and they don’t have retirement benefits.  Close to 40% of the big three’s expense go to the jobs bank they don’t have employee retirement benefits.  Close to 40% of the Big Three’s expenses go to the jobs bank and employee retirement benefits.  And nobody recalls the horrific strikes of the 70’s and 80’s where GM, Ford and Chrysler were forced to concede to the outrageous demand of the jobs bank, ridiculous demands for inflated healthcare, and stupendous and unsustainable retirement packages.  Otherwise they would have had to go out of business then.

These union workers, of course, supported Hillary and subsequently supported Obama.  The unions have literally given billions of dollars over the years to the Democrats.  And so, at first, I could not figure out what Obama was doing.  Forcing GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy with a car czar who has no experience in the industry, and is under investigation for fraud.  The entire group that he is assigned to “help” the auto industry has no experience with the automaking process.  None at all.

When Chrysler went through bankruptcy, the creditors and lenders and bond holders, even ones that didn’t accept bail out money from the government, were not given any of their money back.  In fact, they were just told you’re out.  The government owns a big share and then the union owns 55%.  That’s a lot like lending your neighbor a 100 bucks.  He comes to you and says, “Gee I can’t really pay it back.  Would you mind, extending out some payments?  Can I pay you back 50 now and 50 later?”  You say no.  The neighborhood bully shows up, pops you in the mouth, takes the $50 your neighbor has and was going to pay you with, gives it to your other neighbor and says, “Well, we’re not going to take your car.  Be grateful that‘s all that happened to you.  And the bondholders of GM and Chrysler are mainly retirees who counted on that money to retire, and now they are SCREWED!!!  That’s some change people can thank Obama for.

It also means that the government is now running Chrysler.  And all I got to say is look at how they run Medicare, Medicaid, the VA system, the highway-transportation system, health and human services and the education department.  That’s what is going to happen to Chrysler.  It’s just going to be a huge, tremendous black hole that where nothing good is going to get produced.

I’m all for green technology.  The problem is this gives the Obamites and the whack job lefties the opportunity to make Chrysler and GM nothing but an electric car company, which I truly believe is their goal.  The problem is, Americans don’t want electric cars.  Not even Europeans want electric cars.  Chinese don’t want electric cars.  You know why?  Because they suck!  They are itty bitty, they’re tiny.  You can’t go anywhere in them.  You can’t go on a trip with them because all your car is filled with batteries.  And the problem with electric cars is the concept sounds nice, but they are no easier on the environment.  It’s just that the pollution happens in a more contained area.  Now, if you anything about global weather systems or anything like that, there is nothing that’s local.  If we shoot a bunch of pollutants up in the air here, it’s going to hit the jet stream and go around the world.  What you exchange is the carbon emissions from the vehicle to carbon emissions from the electricity generator.  You’ll have increase in the demand for electricity.  Prices of electricity will sky rocket and utility bills will go up.

The batteries that they use are not environmentally friendly, either.  We don’t the technology to make green batteries at this point, so the problem with cars is not the cars, but the fuel.  I will refer you back to my stance on ethanol.

So here’s Obama putting literally 4 to 5 million jobs per auto manufacturer at risk for what is a pittance compared to what he’s giving to banks and the Wall Streeters.  And Wall Streeters really do have limos and really do have private jets, not just for the bigwigs, but for everybody.  That’s the kind of crazy money that the Wall Streeters have.  So why not give GM 30 billion and Chrysler 20 billion, keep them private, restructure the union contracts and then go from there?  But that’s not the Commucratic way.  It has been shown repeatedly that nothing good comes out of government.  Nothing good comes from giving power to people who have no interest in anything but continuing their power base and banking money doing it.

Mike Huckabee has a great book out there.  He describes very well what’s going on with politics in Washington.  I don’t agree with a lot of Mike Huckabee’s stance and a lot of his solutions I don’t agree with, but he does understand what is going on out there.  So I recommend you pick up his book, “Mike Huckabee Do the Right Thing”.

And if you’ve been keeping up with the health care debate, we’re going to socialize medicine.  What makes them think they can improve healthcare?  They can’t improve New York’s streets, or even keep their own computers secure!!! If the Commucrats have their way, healthcare for everyone will be healthcare for cash.  It will become a tremendous black hole of government dollars and destroy our health care that we give now.  They can’t balance Medicare now, what makes them think they can balance it by adding 40 million people to it?

I was in Vienna in 1987 and I had an attack of appendicitis, so I had my appendix out.  My dad had to send a check for somewhere around $1800 and I had been able to stay in a hospital for a week, which now we look at that as a luxury.  Back then, in America, you would stay in a hospital 2 or 3 days and then be discharged home.  One of the debates for universal health care at that time was that in a socialized medicine country you could spend more time in the hospital.  And that’s true.  But I will tell you what happened.  I was in the hospital.  I spent a week in a room with 12 other people.  All right.  It was like a warehouse for patients and they had all kinds of different ailments.  Some people were sick.  Some people had heart problems.  Some people like me had an appendix surgery, so  the diseases in there were all very different.

How would you like to spend time after surgery in a room with 12 other people, with people constantly going in and out at all hours of the day, other people coughing, hacking, wheezing, having a doctor go over exam one patient, touch one patient, come to you and do the exact same examination to you.  That’s socialized medicine.

So, after I’d cleared up from there, my dad had told me that had I had the surgery in American, it would have cost ………$1800.  So it really didn’t save us any money being in a part of a socialized health care system over there.

My grandma comes over to me in Vienna, a visit for Thanksgiving.  She gets ill.  We have to fly her home.  On the way home, these physicians tell me directly,  “We had the best health care system in the world.  We could treat everybody.  The physicians were well trained.  We had a lot of people with experience.  We had doctors in the rural areas being able to treat people.  We went to socialized medicine and it has ruined everything.”  That is a direct quote from this doctor who helped us fly over.  He said the problems were when they introduced socialized medicine the bad doctors went to the government and are working there in order to make a living.  The good doctors either retired or they opened their own private clinic and charged cash.  And unless you had a pile of cash, you didn’t get treated.  Now we like to think of Austria as Nazi collaborators and the rest of it.  However, talking to doctors from the United Kingdom as well as the Ukraine they have expressed exactly the same sentiment.  Having talked with doctors from Germany, they have expressed exactly the same sentiment.  So if you look at what is going to happen with socialized medicine and universal health care in America, that’s what you’re going to get.  You don’t hear of many people going to Mexico to get their treatment.  You don’t hear of many people flying to the UK to get their treatment.  You don’t hear of anybody going to Canada to your treatment.  But you hear of everybody coming to the United States to get their treatment.  There’s a reason for that.  Despite what everybody thinks, this is best health care system on the planet.  And not only that, we have the best, most well trained doctors on the planet.

One of the points that is never brought up in these debates is Americans very unrealistic expectations.  They don’t want to pay for health care.  They don’t want to pay for the medications.  They bitch about how expensive they are.  Yet at the same time if you say well here’s a generic alternative, will it work as well?  Well, probably not.  And here’s the problem with generics.  They aren’t the exact same as the branded pills.  The buffers in the pills are different, and usually not as much medicine in the pill.  Generics are allowed, BY GOVERNMENT MANDATE, to be off by 20%.  So if you can sell something and only deliver 80% of what’s promised, wouldn’t you?  If you’re a good person, no.  If you’re a Commucrat, then it’s a different story.

The problem is we demand the best.  We expect the best.  But we don’t want to pay for the best.  And if you think that the government is going to be very altruistic and let you not pay to come see the doctor, or let you pay the copay later, then you’re mistaken.  I see a lot of people for free in my clinic.  That would end under universal health care.  Most other doctors will see patients for free, because that is what we want to do. 

However, with universal health care, you will be required to have insurance.  In other words you will have to pay for it.  Also, will not get any free medications at all when you go in.  And how many of you have asked for samples from a doctor?  And  how would you feel if you had an injured knee that needed to have a CAT scan, yet you had to wait six months for one or six weeks for one?  Would you not be infuriated?  Well the trust is, despite what the Commucrats and the media will tell you, that is exactly what happens.  If you get sick in any other country you’d better have some cash to pay for that procedure right up front.  We don’t have that here.  You come in, you get treated and then we will bill your insurance.  So, your treatment is going to come first and not payment.  And that will reverse itself under universal health care.

I’m all about listening to different ideas.  I’m not all about listening to dumb ideas.  The best way to tell you what universal health care is going to be like in America is to look at Medicare, Medicaid and the VA system.  Ask any of them if they are happy with their care.  They will tell you the same thing, “HELL NO!”  Well, what do you expect for free? Except it’s not free.  We pay for it.  Medicare is again in trouble.  If you haven’t been following the news, Medicare is going to run out of money again in about 10 years.  The truth of the matter is, it’s just too expensive to insure people like that.  Medicare is always in trouble, and so is Medicaid, and the government runs those two programs.  How come they cant’ fix it?
Medicaid is sponsored in part by the State and in part by the Federal government.  There are so many layers of bureaucracy involved in the VA, Medicare, Medicaid that essentially 60% of every dollar that is spent goes to administrative costs.  That’s on average.  There are years when the administrative costs hit 80%.  So you’re not spending a lot of money on actual care.  You’re spending a lot of money on bureaucrats and that’s what the problem with universal health care is.

I will refer you to a story on my website, www.Bertroche&Associates.com , under Medicare and Medicaid and that will explain very well what is going on with universal health care and what it would be like in the United States.

President Obama, in order to reduce the United States health care costs, believes that creating a universal health care system will save us money in the long run and how he’s going to fund these changes is to tax your health care benefits that you get now that are not taxed.  He’s going to tax you because you’re going to receive them and he’s going to tax your employer because he gives them.  On average that’s going to be $75 for you per month and $75 per month for your employer.  Now you might be thinking well $75, that’s not a lot.  Well that’s $150 per person in extra tax.  If your employer has 1000 employees, that’s $75,000 a month.  Think of how many people you can hire for that.  Think of the drain on the economy.
President Obama is also calling for a reduction in payments to hospitals and physicians, requiring more paperwork, requiring us to get more expensive equipment and software that will contain your personal information, and is requiring us to stop practicing defensive medicine.  (Defensive medicine is practicing in such a way that you still provide good care, but you get extra tests and things like that to cover your ass so the lawyers won’t win in court)  He’s also going to tax pop and bread and hot dogs and brats and things he doesn’t think we should eat. 

In exchange for our sacrifices, he’s going to restrict even further procedures that are deemed to expensive, (rationed care) provide healthcare to 40 million more people (socialized medicine) and not put any limits on malpractice awards, (why would he?  Lawyers are one of his greatest contributors).  He’s also not going to help doctors with their student loans.  Again, I will reference you to my site under Medicare/Medicaid.  www.Bertrocheandassociates.com

He’s also not going to limit the pay of CEO’s of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, or pharmacy companies like Caremark-CVS, (who paid their exiting CEO $287 million) or investigate the wild price fluctuations of pharmacies, or limit the markup of pharmacies.  This is akin to telling GM that they are still going to make cars, but the workers will be working longer shifts for less pay, no benefits, they’ll pay more at the cafeteria, and the workers will need to bring their own wrenches and welders and metal and plastic for the cars.  But the CEO will still get his jet and limo and retirement and will make even more money than he did.

The President of Czechoslovakia talked at this symposium put on by the Wall Street journal about the economic crisis and all the big money liberals, including Warren Buffet, were sitting there talking about how we need to become more socialistic.  That was it in a nutshell. And the President of Czechoslovakia got up there and said, I have no idea why you guys are talking socialism.  You are the light of the world.  We have had socialism.  We know what it does to the people.  We know what it does to the economy.”  He pointed out that because of this economic crisis several governments have turned over strictly because they could not afford their socialistic programs.  There comes a point in time when you cannot continue to give to people who aren’t productive.  He talks a lot about the ruination of his country’s culture and their value system under Communism.  Then he points out something remarkable.

The Europeans are able to afford their socialistic programs because we provide for their military security.  He points out that if they had to provide their own military security, they would not be able to afford these social programs we admire so much.
President Obama has taken us down the road to socialism/communism which has been proven time and again to be ineffective, very costly and to create social unrest and degenerating social values.