Buffett Should Stick To What He Knows
Jun 27, 2017 Obamacare, Political, Tyranny
I don’t know how many times Warren Buffett will have to be wrong before people stop listening to him. I know he is pretty good at investing and he has billions of dollars but he should probably stick to the things he knows in order to avoid looking like a fool. Buffett once quipped about the fact he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary despite making so much more. His income was from capital gains and hers was ordinary income. Both are taxed at different rates (capital gains are lower). The liberals ran with his statement to make the claim the rich do not pay their “fair share.”
Buffett was recently interviewed on PBS and he stated that America needs to go to a single payer health care system like the one in the UK. He stated America could afford it as a wealthy nation and that this is what will solve the health care issues.
To be fair, Buffett did state he was not an expert on health insurance. He probably should have ended there but he kept going and that made him the fool once again.
WOODRUFF: “Something that affects all businesses is the cost of health care in this country and you’ve been vocal about that. You argue right now, in fact, that the cost of paying for health care can affect a company even more than taxes.”
BUFFETT: “Well it does. I mean in terms of our competitiveness in the world; health care in 1960 was 5 percent of GDP. And there’s only a hundred cents to the dollar. So it’s gone from 5 percent to 17 percent. And it keeps going up. Corporate taxes have gone down from 4 percent to 2 percent. So corporate taxes are way less of a factor in American competitiveness than overall business than medical costs.”
WOODRUFF: “As we sit here today in Omaha, the Republicans in Congress are madly trying to figure out what to do to replace ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act. Do you have a firm idea in your mind what ought to be done about ObamaCare? Everybody acknowledges there’s been some problems.”
BUFFETT: “I think that’s way outside of my circle of competence. But I would say this. You can’t have that five go to 17 and move on to 20 and 22 or 24 percent, because there are only a hundred cents in the dollar. Health care is gobbling up well over $3 trillion a year. It’s just about the same as federal, the federal budget, I mean it’s getting up there.”
WOODRUFF: “Are we now at the point where the country does need to think about some sort of single-payer system in some more or another?
BUFFETT: “With my limited knowledge, I think that probably is the best system. Because it is a system, we are such a rich country, in a sense we can afford to do it. But in almost every field of American business, it pays to bring down costs. There’s an awful lot of people involved in the medical — the whole just the way the ecosystem worked, there was no incentive to bring down costs.”
WOODRUFF: “It sounds like what you’re saying with a single payer system it’s easier to figure out a way to?”
BUFFETT: “More effective, I think.”
We can’t afford 22 or 24% of GDP going to health care but the government can afford to pay the bill? Now I know that Buffett thinks a single payer system will reduce costs but he is wrong. The government never does anything efficiently and it never does anything UNDER budget. One only needs to look at Medicare (>$79 Trillion in unfunded liabilities) to see how inefficient government is. That program costs billions upon billions more than it was ever estimated to cost and shortfalls are addressed by reducing the amount doctors are paid for the care they provide. And what assurance do taxpayers have that once government controls health care it won’t start adding to the program? Look at Social Security (>$15 Trillion in unfunded liabilities). The government established that socialist program many decades ago and has added to it along the way so that now we have untold numbers of people on disability or some other aspect that was added. We can’t afford to sustain that program because government mismanages it and keeps adding treats to the Christmas tree…
Any person, and Buffett should pay close attention here, who thinks single payer government run insurance is good should look closely at the Veteran’s Administration. That program is a single payer government run program that only involves a small portion of the population as a whole but it is rife with waste and abuse. It is a fiasco that costs so much there are talks of decreasing other military programs to move money to the VA. There are long lists and veterans wait for months, or longer, to be treated. Many die before they are ever seen. This is the kind of program the uninformed like Buffett want for all of us.
Buffett tells you we are a wealthy nation and can afford it. This flies in the face of reality because the government is 20 TRILLION dollars in debt and has unfunded liabilities that exceed 100 TRILLION dollars. We are not a wealthy nation. We are dead ass broke because of people like Buffett and their belief that government can provide, do it all and afford it.
Government can’t because the taxpayer can’t and that is the bottom line.
A few more notes. Buffett is old and will be dead before anything like he proposes would ever take place. He won’t have to deal with it and even if he lived his wealth would ensure he never had to deal with it (neither will his heirs). It is also important to note that in the interview Buffett claims that businesses can’t afford health care costs but government can [so basically, the burden should be shifted]. I have already shown government can’t afford it but the bigger picture here is that Buffett, a business man, is talking about how to make his (and all) businesses more profitable. He wants to do that by putting the burden of health insurance on the government thus clearing businesses of that debt and burden. Of course Buffett would claim government (read the taxpayers) can afford it. He wants people to embrace this socialist crap so his businesses will be more profitable.
Buffett admitted this was not his expertise. Perhaps he should have left it at that instead of offering his opinion on something he is woefully unprepared to address.
To recap, Buffett does not know what he is talking about, single payer is a terrible idea, increasing the GDP will lower the percent of GDP health care costs and opening the market for insurers will give people choices that will reduce costs without involving the government. The government cannot do anything on a budget.
Anyone who wants single payer should move to the UK and live there for the rest of their lives. They get what they want and the rest of us are not burdened by their stupidity.
Related:
US Debt Clock
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: burdens, insurance, lies, single payer, taxpayers, UK, warren buffett
More VA Problems Exposed
May 28, 2014 Military, Obamacare
The single payer, government run health care system known as the VA is in a shambles. It has been a boondoggle since its inception but has gotten worse over the years. While Democrats will claim that the problem is the large influx of patients because of the wars they voted for, the reality is the system did not run well when we were not at war.
The problems at the VA predate Obama (and Bush though Democrats think the history of bad starts with him) and as such Obama does not shoulder the blame for the problems there. He shoulders the blame because they are still there and are worse.
Candidate Obama blasted President Bush and the VA system and President elect Obama promised to fix things. He did not fix them. In fact things are much worse now and Obama is responsible for that. He was aware of the problems (despite his claims to the contrary) and he did NOT fix them as he promised.
There is now a news story that the problems at the VA in Phoenix are much worse than originally reported. Forty veterans are reported to have died while on a secret waiting list designed to allow administrators to claim great patient wait times and collect bonuses. Veterans died while waiting for care as administrators received bonuses for the great jobs they were doing. The Phoenix VA, according to an Inspector General’s report, has as many as 1,700 veterans awaiting care but who are not on the official waiting list.
This means that they might never receive care. Additionally, their absence from the list is designed to show the VA in a favorable light.
For more on how the scheme works read this article about the VA in Texas. There are supporting documents to show the top person cancelled and manipulated appointments in order for him and other executives to receive bonuses. Fifty percent of their bonus rating is based upon patient wait times so they manipulated those times to appear as if they were in compliance. They did not care about the veterans, only their own money and careers. These folks should end up in jail.
The Texas run system even received an award despite being investigated for these criminal acts in the past. There is overwhelming evidence that the top person was involved and made the changes but the conflicts were blamed on low level employee error which was than touted as something discovered and fixed (it was not). Looks like these folks follow Obama’s example of leadership; blame others…
There is another report that involves the VA but is about police brutality and not directly related to the scheduling scandal (but part of a corrupt culture nonetheless). An elderly vet was beaten and stomped by VA cops and suffered a stroke that subsequently resulted in his death.
America, is this how we should be treating our veterans?
Ideally, veterans should receive their care in the open market (with the bill paid for by the government) and not be restricted to government run socialized medicine. But if that will not happen then the VA should hire veterans to run its facilities. Veterans who have health care experience should be hired to work in those facilities. And veterans who served as military police should be police officers in the VA. These folks know what their fellow veterans have gone through and what kind of treatment they deserve.
The government should also remove all bonuses. This scheme only encourages people to cook the books.
If I ran any VA hospital I would not accept a bonus and I would not cook the books. I would demand the highest standards of care and fire anyone who did not comply.
If the government can’t run a system that has been in place for decades and only involves a small part of the overall population why does anyone think government run health care for all is a good idea? What makes anyone think that eventually Obamacare will be any different?
Government run care will always end up like this. People become a burden to the system and are abused because of it.
Look out America; you will soon be subject to this.
Let’s pass a law that all members of Congress and the Obama regime MUST receive their health care at a VA facility with no VIP treatment whatsoever.
I bet it would get fixed then… (Big Dog salute to Marcus Luttrell)
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: bonus, Obama, scandal, single payer, socialism, VA, veterans
Barack Obama Is Lazy
May 23, 2014 Political
Notice to the race baiters, I did not say he is shiftless which would indicate that in addition to being lazy he is indolent and lacks ambition. No one gets to be president without ambition particularly those with such a thin resume as Obama. He has a lot of ambition and it is directed toward changing this country into a socialist nation.
Sean Hannity interviewed Sarah Palin (the woman the liberals waged a war on but who was right in all of her predictions about Obama) and he asked her why Obama did not hold people accountable. Palin responded that Obama, by his own admission, was lazy and that it takes a lot of effort to hold people accountable.
Well, a couple of reasons. One is, when you hold someone accountable, it takes some energy and resource and Barack Obama is lazy. In fact, he warned us that he was lazy and attributed that to having been brought up in Hawaii. It’s his words, not mine! And another thing is that Barack Obama still doesn’t see what the main problem is.
The main problem is government. It’s not the solution like Ronald Reagan said. It is the problem. He doesn’t recognize that. So he will continue to do what he’s doing, the status quo is fine with him. He’s not called out as often as he should be, because the media, the referee in this, again ‘game of politics’ isn’t doing its job and holding him accountable. TPNN
I do not disagree with Palin’s assessment that Obama is lazy. He told us he was and she is right, it takes energy to do a tough job.
But, Obama is also a political machine and he knows that if he starts holding people accountable for what they have done the house of cards will begin to fall. The public will see (more clearly) that often the things in question lead back to Obama.
He was directly involved in Fast and Furious, the IRS targeting of conservatives and the decisions that led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi among many other things.
As for the problems at the VA (the topic of the Hannity interview), Obama is not responsible for those problems. They were happening long before he took office but he is responsible for the problems continuing. He made it a point to blame George Bush for the VA issues when he was a candidate and he said he would fix them. He was informed of the problems in detail when he was transitioning into the White House and he claimed that veterans were a priority.
He did nothing to stop the problems and now the pot that was simmering is boiling over and it is his fault. He did not address the issues and he did not fix the things like he promised he would.
Perhaps he did not fix them, in part, because he is lazy but it is also true he (like many progressives) does not care for the military.
Obama is busy pushing for health care to every person in this nation whether they are here legally or not and he wants everyone under the thumb of the government. While he is running around saying how much everyone deserves and has a right to health care (we do have a right to access but not to have it paid for) he is neglecting the very people who have a right to it because they earned it with their blood.
The offshoot of this is that the VA scandal is demonstrating what single payer, government provided health care becomes. It starts out big and expensive and morphs into an unaccountable monster that is concerned with costs and bonuses at the expense of those it is supposed to serve.
Right now veterans are dying because the government run health care system is murdering them.
The general public will be next when Obamacare is in full bloom.
Get rid of Obamacare and privatize the VA system so that we will be free and veterans will get the care they not only deserve but that they earned.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: lazy, lies, Obama, obamacare, progressive, single payer, socialism, VA
Obamacare: Disaster by Design
Dec 9, 2013 Obamacare
Obamacare is designed to raise costs, cause cancellations and to put the health care system into chaos. It is not, despite any other claims, designed to improve things and it is not designed to make sure people without insurance get it. No, it is designed to fail but to do so in a way that makes it look like they really, no really, tried to make it work. It is designed this way so that Obama and his progressive cronies can push us into a single payer system where government completely controls the health care system.
This has been a dream of progressives for decades and now with the anointed one in office they are working overtime to ensure they get it.
Remember, Obama has always been an advocate for a single payer system with all its wealth redistribution schemes and health care rationing. Obama stated many times that he prefers single payer but he knows that he can’t get there all at once. It will take time.
Enter Obamacare. This fiasco was pushed through and it was designed to overload the system so that it will fail. It must fail but it must only fail after as many systems are in place to allow the easy transition to single payer. This is the entire game plan and it is what was intended from the start.
Obama and his progressive allies know that Americans would never give up their freedoms willingly so a direct assault would have ended in failure. The plan with Obamacare is to take things one step at a time until single payer looks like the last best hope for our system.
[note]“The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.” ~ Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf[/note]
In other words, Obama will wreck the system and then give us the only solution to save it and that solution, surprise, will be the single payer system that he has always wanted.
And many American morons will fall for it, will demand it and then will live their lives as chattel. They will be the property of the government an entity that will decide who gets what treatment and when. In a few decades we will be in line with countries that have second rate health care because Obama wanted it that way.
The fix is in. Obama pushed for Obamacare (a term he liked until it polled badly) and he made sure that the right members of Congress were paid off in order to secure votes. He got his Democrats to pass Obamacare and he did it without ONE Republican vote (Democrats own it). He needed it passed so he could push for single payer.
Obamacare is a bust. The issue with the website is just the tip of the iceberg. The system is heavy with regulation. It is extremely costly and it is not working the way they said it would. Obama and his minions lied to us to keep the disaster moving so he can get to the point of no return where single payer will be the only solution.
If you like your plan you can keep it, period. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor, period. This will lower your costs by $2500 a year. This will provide insurance to the millions who are uninsured.
The problem is these are all lies. Obama and his Democrats KNEW these were lies. They had to keep telling them so people would not revolt before the point of no return.
Now we are getting there. About 1.6 million people enrolled in Obamacare but nearly 1.5 million of them actually signed up for Medicaid. This will rapidly increase the costs the federal and state governments pay and it will bankrupt the system. Obamacare is designed so that the healthy young pay high premiums to subsidize the less healthy elderly. If millions of people (those healthy young) are enrolling in Medicaid then there is no money coming in to subsidize the elderly. Boom, the system blows up and Obama rides in with single payer to rescue us from the disaster he caused in the first place.
There is an excellent article in the New York Post by Michael Tanner that describes this. Another article in National Review by Andrew McCarthy explains the scheme to get us to single payer.
Both articles lay bare the myth of Obamacare’s intentions and show the dark truth that it is a very costly scheme to push us to single payer.
Obama might be a lot of things (and most of them are not nice) but one thing he is not is stupid. He knows what he is doing.
The problem is America is bent over holding her ankles while he is doing it.
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: fraud, lies, obamacare, progressive, scheme, single payer, tyranny
Save The Best And Brightest For Last
Oct 21, 2013 Obamacare
Barack Obama and his regime spent over 600 MILLION dollars for the Obamacare exchange websites and the accompanying software that runs (ahem, tries to run) them. A Canadian company that had been fired by the Canadian government for missing deadlines was given 5 or 6 times the original contract estimate (a no bid contract at that) and about two and a half years to get things right. Millions of lines of code later and the thing is a total flop.
So Obama and his peeps have called in the best and the brightest in the tech world in order to rescue the monstrosity. There are reports that the entire thing needs to be rewritten and that people will miss deadlines for signing up.
Not to worry though, the IRS will still tax you for not having insurance.
The big question I have is why didn’t they get the best and the brightest to begin with?
It is always more difficult to step in and clean up a mess made by people who do not know what they are doing than it is to start from scratch. These best and brightest will have to step in to fix something that was written poorly and that did not work.
Once again, why didn’t they get the job to write it in the first place? Perhaps this was a political payoff to an Obama friend? It is well documented that Obama has no problem throwing billions of our hard earned dollars at the failing ventures of his friends (think solar energy companies and electric cars) so why wouldn’t that hold true here? Hell, Obama did not put it out for open bid, the very thing Democrats screamed about with regard to Halliburton.
I guess when the messiah is doing it then it is OK.
Perhaps though, Obama selected a failure of a company because he wanted the thing to fail. Obama has made it clear that he would prefer the Socialist dream of a single payer system where government pays for all health care (and rations it out) while increasing our taxes to pay for it. Obama and his Democrats have not hidden their desire to have a single payer system and Obamacare is their first step.
They passed a monstrosity that will cost a fortune. All they need is to laden it with burdensome regulations and ensure it costs too much for most people to afford and then make sure it does not work and people will be demanding action.
Once everyone starts getting socked with taxes (not penalties, ask John Roberts) for not having health care insurance, all because they could not use the flawed software, then those folks will scream. They will be burdened and demand that government step in and fix the problem (a problem government created in the first place). In steps Obama and his toadies saying the only thing to fix this is single payer.
Boom, insurance companies go out of business, taxes go up for everyone, government completely controls health care (and your lives) and many people smile as they become slaves to the government.
Liberals smile at their successful transformation to Socialism and know they will be the overlords who are exempted from the system.
It is all part of the plan. We had a chance to defund it and the RINOs blew it by caving.
So now it will take even more force to get rid of it.
Which will happen as soon as people take the advice of a member of Congress and follow the example of veterans who took control of the government and showed it who was boss.
We can do that as a people.
The question is do you have the stomach to do it?
You don’t need to be the best and the brightest to see what is going on but you need to have the ability to use your own brain…
Sources:
Politico
CS Monitor
WSJ
National Review
National Review with best advice from Consumer Reports
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Tags: best and brightest, failure, lies, obamacare, single payer