AARP and alternatives, Part I

I just got this e-mail forwarded to me. It's been going around since at least last fall, and Snopes has authenticated the authorship and identified the recipient as A. Barry Rand, CEO of the American Association of Retired Persons.

I'm going to just reproduce that in its entirety here, and follow up with another post on alternative organizations that some folks may want to consider joining. Feel free to add your thoughts.

Dear Mr. Rand,

Recently you sent us a letter encouraging us to renew our lapsed membership in AARP by the requested date. I know it is not what you were looking for, but this is the most honest response I can give you. Our gap in coverage is merely a microscopic symptom of the real problem, a deepening lack of faith.

While we have proudly maintained our membership for several years and have long admired the AARP goals and principles, regrettably, we can no longer endorse it’s abdication of our values. Your letter specifically stated that we can count on AARP to speak up for our rights, yet the voice we hear is not ours. Your offer of being kept up to date on important issues through DIVIDED WE FAIL presents neither an impartial view nor the one we have come to embrace. We do believe that when two parties agree all the time on everything presented to them, one is probably not necessary. But, when the opinions and long term goals are diametrically opposed, the divorce is imminent. This is the philosophy which spawned our 200 years of government.

Once upon a time, we looked forward to being part of the senior demographic. We also looked to AARP to provide certain benefits and give our voice a power we could not possibly hope to achieve on our own. AARP gave us a sense of belonging which we no longer enjoy. The Socialist politics practiced by the Obama administration and empowered by AARP serves only to raise the blood pressure my medical insurance strives to contain. Clearly a conflict of interest there!

We do not understand the AARP posture, feel greatly betrayed by the guiding forces that we expected to map out our senior years and leave your ranks with a great sense of regret. We mitigate that disappointment with the relief of knowing that we are not contributing to the problem anymore by renewing our membership. There are numerous other organizations which offer discounts without threatening our way of life or offending our sensibilities.

This Presidential Administration scares the living daylights out of us.. Not just for ourselves, but for our proud and bloodstained heritage. But even more importantly for our children and grandchildren. Washington has rendered Soylent Green a prophetic cautionary tale rather than a nonfiction scare tactic.. I have never in my life endorsed any militant or radical groups, yet now I find myself listening to them. I don’t have to agree with them to appreciate the fear which birthed their existence. Their borderline insanity presents little more than a balance to the voice of the Socialist mindset in power. Perhaps I became American by a great stroke of luck in some cosmic uterine lottery, but in my adulthood I CHOOSE to embrace it and nurture the freedoms it represents as well as the responsibilities it requires..

Your website generously offers us the opportunity to receive all communication in Spanish. ARE YOU KIDDING??? Someone has broken into our ‘house’, invaded our home without our invitation or consent. The President has insisted we keep the perpetrator in comfort and learn the perp language so we can communicate our reluctant welcome to them.

I DON’T choose to welcome them.

I DON’T choose to support them.

I DON’T choose to educate them.

I DON’T choose to medicate them, pay for their food or clothing.

American home invaders get arrested.

Please explain to me why foreign lawbreakers can enjoy privileges on American soil that Americans do not get?

Why do some immigrants have to play the game to be welcomed and others only have to break & enter to be welcomed?

We travel for a living. Walt hauls horses all over this great country, averaging over 7,000 miles a month when he is out there. He meets more people than a politician on caffeine overdose. Of all the many good folks he enjoyed on this last 7,000 miles, this trip yielded only ONE supporter of the current administration. One of us is out of touch with mainstream America. Since our poll is conducted without funding, I have more faith in it than one which is power driven.

We have decided to forward this to everyone on our mailing list, and will encourage them to do the same. With several hundred in my address book, I have every faith that the eventual exponential factor will make a credible statement to you.

I am disappointed as hell.

I am scared as hell.

I am MAD as hell, and I’m NOT gonna take it anymore!

Walt & Cyndy

Miller Farms Equine Transport

Why Health Care is so complicated - part I

American health care has been widely talked about lately, not least because of proposals by the President and Congress to radically alter the current system. Some thoughts of mine on the subject follow - I expect this will be a multiple posting topic, as I'll continue to discuss it with others.

Terms

First, we need to define terms properly, which is much harder than it seems at first, and too seldom done. As Thomas Sowell says, for example:

The biggest of the big lies in the "health care" hype is that a lack of insurance means a lack of medical care. The second biggest lie is that health care and medical care are the same thing.

"Health care" is simple enough to define - any action, taken by an individual or another party, that affects the individual's health. If the definition sounds broad, it is; try thinking about something you do which never has any effect on your health.

"Medical care" is a bit tougher to define exactly. I think it works to define it as professional services rendered by doctors, nurses, any medical specialists(including but not limited to opthalmologists, oncologists, urologists, orthopedists, Lasik surgeons), paramedics, EMTs, first responders, and any similar person, performed generally with the expectation they will be paid for their services. (Some EMTs and first responders are volunteers, but this is uncommon and even in this case the EMS service/fire department will often bill for medical supplies and transport expenses.)

"Health insurance" is tougher yet because the term usually describes far more than is meant by "insurance" in any other area, namely the payment of a premium in exchange for the guarantee that a third party will pay a specified sum in the event of certain nonroutine losses/expenses. For reasons to be mentioned below, the U.S. tax code has given a strong incentive for routine expenses such as prescription drugs, annual physical checkups, and dental cleanings to be included under the rubric of "insurance", whereas for example car insurance does not commonly cover an oil change or a trip to the detail shop.

I think for my purposes of explanation, health insurance can be defined as any contractual system by which medical care for a given patient is directly paid for, in full or in part, by a third party(i.e. a party other than the medical professional and the patient). This can include systems like Medicare/Medicaid which are paid via tax revenues, employer-based coverage, or personally purchased policies; but the most important and relevant detail is the third-party payment system. The incentives for conduct of patient and doctor are much different when a third party is paying, as opposed to when the patient is paying out of pocket, and this is the fundamental source of administrative complication in modern medical care.

Next to come - a brief history of modern medical care.

$2 trillion in healthcare "savings"

From Philip Klein, of the American Spectator, reporting on a conference call with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. To summarize it, there was a remarkable lack of details on where exactly the alleged savings were going to come from.

Perhaps the most revealing passage:

"Well the discussion today was if we were able to achieve the significant success that the stakeholders today felt was very achievable(emphasis added), we're talking about cutting 1.5 percent out of the rising cost of health care, about $2 trillion over the next decade," Sebelius explained. "So, that would achieve the kind of individualized savings of $2,500 per family."

In other words - we "feel like" we're going to save $2 trillion dollars, and that's all the evidence we need.

Sowell on Health Care

A quickie. Thomas Sowell reiterates the fact that "health care" and "medical care" do NOT mean the same thing, nor are "insurance" and "medical care" interchangeable.

Probably the best quote from the article:

When it comes to things where medical care itself makes the biggest difference — cancer survival rates, for example — Americans do much better than people in most other countries.

No one who compares medical care in this country with medical care in other countries is likely to want to switch. But those who cannot be bothered with the facts may help destroy the best medical care in the world by falling for political rhetoric.