Bruno's Health Care Reform Proposal - Update #2

Recently we published our analysis of the contents and the process of passage of the so-called Obama Care health care reform legislation and several days ago we published our first follow up to that analysis. That update focused on the work underway to use genetically altered tobacco as a biodiesel fuel source. Such a breakthrough would not only wean us from foreign energy sources but it would also reduce disease from personal tobacco usage since simple economics would continue to drive up the cost of tobacco products if tobacco land usage was diverted to use for biofuels.

Today's update focuses on behavior changes, which as we pointed out in our overall analysis of Obama Care, is sorely lacking. Regardless of what the Obama bill does from a financial and funding perspective, since it does not vigorously address changes in behavior, the underlying root causes of high health care costs will not be eliminated. The question that is the basis of our proposed solution to Obama Care is very basic: can you modify personal behavior to the benefit of people's health? Three instances of just that happening say that you can:

1. Although difficult to find the latest data, I did find a report from 2007 at the NHTSA website (www.NHTSA.gov) that addressed the levels of seat belt usage of car seat belts in the country. According to a study described on the government website, the national seat belt usage in cars continued to grow, reaching 82% of U.S. drivers in the 2007 study. This was up from less than 60% in 1994 when the government started collecting seat belt usage information. Usage was probably a lot less prior to 1994. A report on the CDC website went a step further and looked at seat belt usage in states that have an aggressive ticketing approach to non-seat belt wearers and compared that to states that do not have an aggressive approach. They found a very strong correlation, i.e. high enforcement states had a significantly higher usage rate than states that did not have a high enforcement priority for seat belt usage. They also present a chart that shows that highway crash fatalities are strongly but inversely related to seat belt usage, i.e. as seat belt usage has grown the number of highway fatalities has decreased, probably due in some part to the increased seat belt usage. While the national average 82%, some states have usage over 90%, indicating there is still room for improvement. Thus, a good example of the government changing personal behavior and reducing health care costs via the reduction in highway fatalities.
2. An April 5, 2010 Associated Press report reviewed the results from a European study which showed that "one hour of moderate to vigorous exercise a day can help teens beat the effects of a common obesity-related gene with the nickname 'fatso'." The study showed that even if a teenager had the fatso gene, the one hour of exercise could result in their body measurements being in line with those teens that do not carry the gene. The article quoted Dr. Alan Shuldiner of the University of Maryland: 'The message is clear: genes are not destiny. Those with obesity susceptibility genes should be especially motivated to engage in a physically active lifestyle." The article reported similar findings of Amish adults who exercised vigorously. In other words, the obesity epidemic and the resulting high health care costs int his country can be reduced through behavior changes, i.e. exercise.
3. An article in the April 12, 2010 issue of Business Week magazine by Simon Bennett and Tom Randall reviewed an AIDS drug initiative that was hopefully going to produce a drug that could be used prior to infection infection and protect a person from acquiring the disease. That is good news and is similar to our proposal that a concentrated effort should be undertaken to cure a small number of the most deadly diseases in the country today, diseases that create the biggest costs for the U.S. health care system. Examples proposed by our health care solution included breast cancer and Alzheimer's. Additionally, numbers cited in the article showed yet another example where long term focus on changing behavior has been successful. According to the article, AIDS-related annual deaths peaked at 52,000 in the U.S. in 1994 and have since dropped to 14,600 in 2007. The combination of behavior changes and new drug treatments for a major disease, i.e. a disease that affects the greatest number of people, has reduced the health care costs of treating AIDS patients and would likely have the same effect reducing other health care costs.

As review, our hypothesis was that some of the major reasons for high health care costs in this country were smoking, lack of exercise, and poor eating habits. According to information we reported on from the Cleveland Clinic, significantly reduce underlying root causes and behaviors and you will significantly reduce the health care costs in this country. Do not change these behaviors, and no matter how much Obama taxes us and moves money around in the Federal bureaucracy, you will not solve the problem. These four examples, different uses for tobacco fields, exercise, seat belt usage, and multiple approaches to reducing AIDS prove that we can change behavior and make America healthier, something that Obama, Reid, and Pelosi never understood.


Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

I Told You So - The Only Viable Approach To Fix What Ails America

"Love My Country, Loathe My Government" contained five very important steps that are summarized here:

• Step 23 - establish a panel of smart Americans from various disciplines, excluding politicians, that would do a comprehensive analysis of the current energy situation facing the country today, identifying and quantifying the root causes, leading to the development of several alternatives for alleviating that problem, alternatives that would be voted on by the American public and implemented by the political class.
• Step 26 - establish a panel of smart Americans from various disciplines, excluding politicians, that would do a comprehensive analysis of the drug problem in the country today, identifying and quantifying the root causes, leading to the development of several alternatives for alleviating that problem, alternatives that would be voted on by the American public and implemented by the political class.
• Step 27 - establish a panel of smart Americans from various disciplines, excluding politicians, that would do a comprehensive analysis of the failing public school problems facing the country today, identifying and quantifying the root causes, leading to the development of several alternatives for alleviating that problem, alternatives that would be voted on by the American public and implemented by the political class.
• Step 28 - establish a panel of smart Americans from various disciplines, excluding politicians, that would do a comprehensive analysis of the rising health care cost problem facing the country, identifying and quantifying the root causes, leading to the development of several alternatives for alleviating that problem, alternatives that would be voted on by the American public and implemented by the political class.
• Step 29 - establish a panel of smart Americans from various disciplines, excluding politicians, that would do a comprehensive analysis of the failed immigration policies facing the country, identifying and quantifying the root causes, leading to the development of several alternatives for alleviating that problem, alternatives that would be voted on by the American public and implemented by the political class.

The strategy leading to this approach is fourfold:

1. None of these problems have been addressed by the ruling political class in America in at least the past forty years. Nixon declared war on drugs in the late 1960s and the drug problem has never been worse, especially when you consider the chaos below our southern border with Mexico. We lived through energy shortages with Carter in the 1970s and thirty five years later we still have no overarching and effective national energy strategy. During this time, we have allowed untold trillions of dollars to leave the country and build the prosperity of foreign countries. Although Reagan identified the core problems facing public education in the early 1980s, public education is still a failing proposition for many kids. There are at least ten million illegal immigrants in this country, not all of them just got here. Thus, we have had a failed or no immigration policy for quite some time. Bottom line, the current set of politicians have not solved anything over the decades.
2. If you look back on our history as a nation, many of the large, positive changes were not implemented by politicians but by groups of dedicated, smart Americans, groups that knew how to analyze and solve problems based on their specialized education and background. Examples include the Manhattan Project that helped to end the second world war, the Apollo Moon Mission that allowed us to get to the moon first, the Grace Commission on Government Waste that at least temporarily slowed down wasteful government spending, the Social Security Commission that at least temporarily slowed down the approach of insolvency of the Social Security Administration, the Military Base Closing commission that allowed for wasteful or excess military bases to be shut down, and the 9-11 Commission that provided recommendations on how to improve the nation's security after the 9-11 attacks. In all cases, sitting politicians were removed from the vast majority of the decision process.
3. As reported many times in this blog, the Federal wing of the political class does not know how to solve the big problems or does not want to solve the big problems, and thus, they work on such trivial legislation to regulate the sound volume of TV commercials, they work to eliminate the advertising of ED products on TV, they worry about how some people wear their pants too low, they spend time debating our college football should decide a national champion , and other non-important issues. This approach discussed above, using panels of smart Americans, is more proactive and puts the decision on what alternative to use in the hands of the people that need these problems solved, the voters.
4. From a Constitutional perspective, although we would have Americans vote on what alternative plan they wanted for each crisis, Congress and the political class would probably have to be the final implementers of the plan, given the current structure of government we are working under.

Think about how much better life would be if just these five problems would be solved. Families would be comfortable knowing that their kids were getting a good education. Maybe crime would go down and we would be able to better treat fellow citizens with drug addiction problems. We would have a stable, efficient and low cost approach to health care costs and energy costs. We would have balanced the need for strong borders with a welcoming but selective immigration policy. Life would be pretty good. The best news is that the problems would have been addressed and solved, we would have done it ourselves, and would would not have to wait for the politicians to get around to it which is likely to never happen.

Getting back to the title of this post. "I Told You So...", a few recent publications indicate that maybe people are starting to see merit in this approach of using smart Americans, and not politicians, to solve our problems. In the April 5, 2010 edition of Business Week, writer Bob Nardelli suggested that an expert panel of smart Americans, in his case "business leaders who excel at making decisions that, despite budget constraints, drive growth and job creation", be created in order to alleviate the vexing question of lowering the unemployment rate. Despite spending untold hundreds of billions of dollars, the political class has been unable to reduce the unemployment rate. If you read the details of his suggestions and approach, it is very close to what was proposed in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" in that his panel would question, analyze, quantify and then propose viable and cost efficient solutions. The White House and Congress would only be overseers and check points, not wasters of time, resources, and money.

David Brooks of the New York Times, recommended a similar approach in his April 4, 2010 column as it pertained to the skyrocketing deficits. He would put together a panel of handpicked Senators and Congressmen and women and stick them in a room for six months to come up with a comprehensive and effective deficit reduction program, using whatever resources they needed and whatever ideas looked good. This would remove the whole decision making process from the traditional way of doing business that we all know has resulted in no solutions. Although he would use politicians to sit on "the panel", his explanation in the article, which I will not go into today, on how to make the process has work as tremendous upside.

The status quo is no longer acceptable. The current approach to solving problems in DC is no longer acceptable, simply because it does not solve problems. Nardelli, Brooks, and "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" present a way to get things done now and not several decades later.

Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Don't Look Now But....

In today's post we will take a look at a varied set of topics that you may not be current with or even know about. However, they do take on some importance in a varied set of ways that could or currently affect your life:

1. Don't look now but before long Iran will have a nuclear weapons capability. In the March 28, 2010 edition of the St. Petersburg Times, a reprinted New York Times article reported that international nuclear inspectors suspect that Iran is building more nuclear enrichment sites in defiance of United Nations demands and sanctions. Apparently, a top Iranian energy official stated that work will begin on two new enrichment sites that would probably be built inside mountains in order to deter military attacks. Thus, more than fourteen months into the Obama administration, we may be closer to Iran as a nuclear threat than to Iran as a non-nuclear threat. Maybe the Obama administration should be focusing a little more attention on a nuclear armed Iran and less attention on a relatively small number of housing units in East Jerusalem.
2. Don't look now but the Republicans in Congress continue to waste time and energy on useless projects and programs. The March 22, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, contained an article that described how a group of Congressmen are introducing legislation to use Ronald Reagan's face on the fifty dollar bill, replacing Ulysses S. Grant. Okay, let's try the same old tired drill again: where would this debate and idea fall in the average American's top fifty concerns and issues? Given our failing public schools, skyrocketing deficits, a failed war on drugs, two foreign wars, high unemployment and a myriad of other concerns, does putting Reagan's face on the fifty dollar bill fit anywhere inside these other issues? Probably not but that does not stop these Congressmen, or their peers, from cooking up ideas and wasting resources while the country sinks deeper and deeper into trouble.
3. Don't look now but it appears that Iraqi politicians have learned at least one lesson from their American political counterparts. According to a a short article in the March 19, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, Iraqi politicians elected to the Iraqi parliament are paid $112,000 a year, which is 30 times higher than the average Iraqi government employee. Each elected official also gets $102,000 a year for security and $60,000 to buy an armored vehicle. Since the American political class has always taken good care of themselves with high salaries, automatic raises, gold plated medical care, rich pensions and retirement plans, and numerous other perks, I guess we can be proud that at least this part of our democracy, unfortunately, has taken hold in Iraq.
4. Don't look now but the housing market is still stinks. According to an article in the April 5, 2010 issue of Business Week, there may be upwards of another 2.2 million home foreclosures in 2010, up from the 1.7 million record last year. This should increase the already high number of homes for sale, further depressing home values and curtailing any kind of large increase in new home building. Couple this with the continued high unemployment rate and the expiration of the government's credit to first time buyers and any hope for a substantial rise in the housing industry is probably not well grounded in fact. guess the political class still has not figured out how to save the housing market despite spending billions of dollars.
5. Don't look now but Major League Baseball is about to start its 2010 season. This should present hope and reason to believe but let's face it: unless you are one of the handful of high revenue teams (Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs, Mets) you really should not expect much from baseball either.

Sorry for the gloom and doom but at least the weather is better (unless you live in Rhode Island.)

Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

New York State Government Political Insanity

Just a short post today but a great example of the political class not having their priorities right. This case is AT the state political class level, specifically the New York state legislature. Keep in mind that the New York state unemployment rate has almost doubled in less than two years, going from 4.9% in March, 2008 to 9.3% in February, 2010. Also keep in mind that the state government in New York has faced and continues to face massive budget shortfalls the past two years, requiring hard budget decisions to be made to keep the state budget balanced.

Given that background, consider the cause that state Senator Eric Adams has undertaken. He is upset that some people wear their pants so low that you can see their underwear. He has taken $2,000 from his campaign fund and used it to erect to billboards that trumpet his "Stop The Sag" campaign to get people to pull up their pants. While he does not plan to introduce formal legislation that would make low pants wearing illegal, he does want to educate people so that they will realize that it sets a low self image of themselves and offends other people. He has taken the time, and probably some time and resources of his staff, to produce a YouTube video to get his message out: "You can raise your level of respect if you raise your pants."

As with the Federal wing of the political class, this bit of insanity fully illustrates that politicians today are either:

• unaware of what the truly important problems are
• unable to fix the truly important problems so they fixate on trivial issues
• both of the above

Come on, in this time of fellow citizens groping for jobs and the state groping to survive financially, this cannot be the best use of the Senator's time and resources. None of his efforts in this area will improve the lives of more than a tiny, tiny handful of citizens. In a top fifty list of what voters want to get done, do we really think that low hanging pants would 1) even make the list and 2) if it made the list would it break the top 40. Would not the $2,000 have been better spent providing some new books to stressed out schools, providing food to a food bank for the unemployed, providing job skills training, etc.

Same goes on at the national level. The Federal deficit is exploding, public schools are failing, the war on drugs has been lost, we are fighting two wars overseas, Social Security and Medicare are going bankrupt, etc. and what are our DC politicians working on? One Congresswoman has her staff working on legislation to moderate the sound of TV commercials. The Senate debated the merits of forcing a different football playoff system for Division One football. Another Congressman and his staff are working on legislation that would ban erectile dysfunction commercials on TV. The ship of state is sinking and politicians at all levels are scrambling to rearrange the deck chairs. My only hope is that some politicians in the House of Representatives or Senate does not get wind of the the New York Senator is doing or we could get saddled with a national pull your pants up legislative effort.



Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.