Romney Should Release Tax Returns - And So Should Others

It it beyond me why Mitt Romney refuses to release more of his federal tax information.  So far he has only released part of his 2010 tax return, withholding a separate document with the IRS that provides additional details on overseas bank holdings.  The part of the 2010 that he did show revealed that he had a Swiss bank account, but the Report on Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts that is required when such an account is held would show more details concerning the Swiss bank account.  He hasn't released this yet, and seems to be refusing to do so.  Romney says that he will release his 2011 return, but will go no further. 

It seems to me that to quell any suspicions he should reveal more than two years, and he should also make sure to hand over any documentation concerning the Swiss bank account.

Should there be a law requiring a certain number of years of disclosure?  Probably every president as well as members of the Congress and Senate should have to reveal at least three years of tax information when running for office, and should have to produce such information on an annual basis while in office.  Recently members of Congress were asked to reveal tax information by McClatchy Newspapers.  Only 17 of 536 members released their most recent tax information.  This is a disgrace!

By the way, there's a site where you can see tax information from different candidates - 

http://www.taxhistory.org/www/website.nsf/Web/PresidentialTaxReturns/

Barack Obama's returns are there from 2000 on.  Mitt Romney's 2010 and 2011 returns are there as well. Take a look. 

Why Are Medical Costs So High In The United States?

The United States has the highest costs for medical care of any other developed nation, and yet we do not get better health care for that cost. We are not sicker, we don't go to the doctor more often, and yet our costs are sky high, and rising every year. It is projected that we will pay $13,708 dollars per capita by 2020, or 19.8% of our GDP.

In research I did for on my article  “Why Are Medical Costs So High In The U.S.A.?”,  I found that there are four major reasons of these escalating costs:

1. We pay doctors more in the United States – in 2008, general doctors make an average of $186,582 as compared to Australia at $92,844 and France at $95,585. There is an even wider gap among specialists – the average in the U.S. Is $442,450 next to Britain at $324,138, with all other countries coming in at less than $210,000.
2. Drugs are more expensive in the U.S. - In fact we pay 60% more in this country than our European peer countries. Why? Perhaps the power of lobbyists in Washington has much to do with the lack of regulations regarding these prices and with not allowing importing drugs from other countries.
3. Administrative Costs are more – in fact, for every office based physician there are 2.2 administrative personnel, more than the number of nurses, clinical assistants, and technical staff put together.
4. We overuse diagnostic tests – The overuse of diagnostic tests has been estimated to cost about $250 billion dollars a year. This is 10% of the entire cost of health care. Doctors may overuse diagnostic tests because of fear of litigation.

What can be done about these excessive costs? Solutions I've seen have included

1. Encouraging more care from primary physicians rather than specialists
2. Allowing drugs to be imported
3. Better negotiation of drug prices by medicare
4. Adopting more uniform procedures for payment and billing
5. Have centralized database of electronic records
6. Tort Reform to prevent frivolous law suits
7. Promote wellness and preventative medicine

Some of these cost cutting solutions will be introduced under the Affordable Care Act. It has provisions in it to encourage wellness, such as discounted premiums for participants in wellness programs. It also introduces regulations to streamline administrative costs through the use of electronic record keeping. There will be a 15 member Independent Medicare Payment Advisory Board whose task is to study ways to contain Medicare costs and offer solutions. These solutions are supposed to reduce the growth rate of medicare costs while still maintaining or enhancing beneficiary access to quality care. Many are critical of this panel saying that they will ration out health care to seniors and cut access to services. However, it states in the Affordable Care Act that the board is not allowed to offer solutions that ration health care, restrict benefits, raise beneficiary cost sharing or raise premiums. Hopefully their solutions will help bring down the unbearably high cost of medical care, and serve as a model for the rest of the health care industry.

An Example Of Why Medical Costs Are So High

I am very careful about checking on the Medicare site to see what tests and procedures I'm eligible for.  Last November I noticed I was due for an Annual Wellness Exam, and so I scheduled it.  I specifically told the office to make sure it was scheduled as a Wellness Visit, so that there would be no problem with payment.

The Annual Wellness visit is an attempt at preventative medicine.  The purpose of this visit is to sit down with your physician and evaluate your medical history, your current health status and what medications you are taking.  The physician is supposed to check your blood pressure, vision, weight and height, make sure you're current with all your preventative screenings (shots, colonoscopy...).  Further tests may then be ordered depending on what the physician determines from this evaluation.  (For some reason, Medicare doesn't pay for a complete annual physical.  However, I don't think that many doctors are aware of the difference, and incorrectly carry out a complete physical, then bill Medicare incorrectly.)

When I arrived for the Wellness Visit, one of the nurses weighed me, gave me an eye exam, took my blood pressure and gave me a hearing test.  I of course assumed that this was part of the Wellness Exam, and that nothing being done was extra.  The doctor then carried out a brief physical, talked to me about my health in general, and that was the end of the visit.  The visit took probably about 15-20 minutes.

Imagine my surprise when I got a bill for $70.00 six months later.  The office had billed Medicare $160.00 for the Wellness Exam, $45.00 for the hearing test, and $25.00 for the eye exam.  Medicare would not pay for the hearing test and eye exam that was being billed on top of the Wellness Exam.  I wouldn't expect them to - the eye test should have been covered under the $160.00 that they got from the Wellness Exam itself, and the hearing test probably should never have been done at all.

Now it is up to me to fight this bill, and spend possibly hours trying to get things straight.  I have already made six phone calls to the billing department and the doctor's office, arguing that the $70.00 charge should be dropped.  The doctor's office has told me that they don't know what insurance providers cover, that they just go ahead and do a regular physical, and that they are billing the way that they were taught.  They claim that it is not up to them to know what's covered by each patient's insurance.  I tried to explain to them that the Wellness Exam is not a regular physical, and that they should know what's covered so that their patients don't incur unexpected costs, but I got nowhere with that.  I also argued that they are actually double billing for the eye exam, and that the ear exam was something that I never asked for, and that if it wasn't covered they shouldn't have done it.  Again, I got nowhere.

My point to all of this is that in order to bring down costs, the medical providers should know what is covered by Medicare.   It may be difficult to figure out what procedures are covered by other providers, but in the case of Medicare,  it's pretty straight forward.  I believe that there's software to assist the medical establishment with such issues.  Whenever they are going to do anything that will not be covered, they should specifically ask the patient before they carry out a procedure.  Certainly if I had been asked if they should do the ear exam for $45.00 I would have given them a resounding NO!

Under Rick Santorum We Would Have A Theocracy

According to the dictionary, a Theocracy is a a system of government in which God or a deity is held to be the civil ruler. Well, according to Rick Santorum, that is what he wants for this country. Recently in Idaho he stated once again “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their — ” (pausing for the crowd to shout “Creator!”) “with certain unalienable rights.”

“That is who we are, that’s where our rights come from,” he said, eliciting “Bless the Lord!” from the audience.

Based on this, Santorum is saying that the creator should be the ultimate authority that determines our governmental policies, not the constitution. Hmmm – isn' t that a theocracy? With Rick Santorum you can expect that his interpretation of what the creator wants from us will be the rule of the land. Of all the scarry Republican candidates, Rick Santorum is the worst, because he is so firmly convinced that he is capable of interpreting God's will. Therefore, It is his destiny that he march forth with his trumpet and make us buckle under to that interpretation. Don't get me wrong – I have some strong personal religious beliefs, and am not anti-religious. What I am is for the seperation of Church and State. I am also strongly for religious freedom. That means freedom for those that do not believe as I do as well as for those that do. Under Rick Santorum, that is not what we would be getting.

I think that Mitt Romney, even though he is not all that popular with Republicans, even though he is a known flip-flopper, is the best that the Republicans have to offer. Rick Santorum just has too much of a religious agenda, and would cross the line of division between church and state.  

Let's Hope Newt fades out!

It's hard for me to believe that Newt won South Carolina. ( I actually was hoping that Colbert would win, but no such luck!).

Seems to me that the win in South Carolina was a response to Newt lashing out at the press in response the the question regarding his request for an open marriage.  Seems that South Carolina Republicans love it when someone tells off the "liberal Obama loving" press.  It should be interesting to see if Florida feels the same way. I certainly hope not.  Newt scares me more than any of the other Republican contenders.  He is arrogant, impulsive, and morally weak as demonstrated by his past history with wives, past misuse of funds and other suspicious activity, as I stated in my previous blog.  Worst of all, he thinks he is smarter than he really is.  All in all, a dangerous and frightening combination for President.

Guess if he wins Florida the Pac money will follow him.  After all, his past would indicate that he is a man who can be bought.

Newt's Past Will Take Him Down

Although I'm hearing many Republicans on TV say that their latest darling, Newt Gingrich, doesn't have to worry about his past indiscretions, I disagree.  People know a little about his past wives and the extra-marital affairs that he had, but when they are reminded of the sordid details along with the fact that he is the only speaker to have been disciplined by the House since its existence, I think it will sentence him to the same rapid downfall that Bachmann, Perry and Caine suffered from.  He is a morally and ethically weak individual who should not even be considered as a candidate.

Gingrich met his first wife Jackie Battley while in high school.  She was his high school geometry teacher.  He married her at 19 while he was attending college.  Their marriage blew apart when Jackie accused Newt of having an affair with Marianne Ginther, a personnel clerk for the Secret Service.  Jackie was battling cancer at the time, and there are reports that Newt pressed her about the divorce details while she was recuperating from the removal of a uterine tumor (which proved to be benign).  Newt is reported to have said of Jackie "She isn't young enough or pretty enough to be the President's wife".  Newt and Jackie divorced in February of 1981, and six months later Newt married Marianne.  Marianne and Newt seperated in 1987, and got back together in 1993.  However, he had been having an affair with Calista Bisek, a congressional staffer, since the mid-1990's.  Marianne was diagnosed with MS during this time.  In 1999, while Marianne was visiting her mother, Gincrich called her and shocked her by asking for a divorce.  Soon after, he gave her another jolt by confessing that he had been having an affair with Calista Bisek.  Newt married Calista in August of 2000 - she was 34, he was 57.  An interesting twist on the whole series of extramarital affairs was that he publicly flagellated Bill Clinton while he was secretly having the affair with Bisek, which makes him a hypocrite as well as a philanderer.

In 1995 a House Ethics Committee reprimanded Gingrich for having  improper business dealing with Rupert Murdoch.  He had signed a 4.1 million dollar book deal with Murdoch's Harper/Collins press while there was pending legislation in FCA matters that directly affected Fox Broadcasting Company.  Later in 1997 Newt underwent an investigation by the House Ethics Committee again.  There was questionable activity surrounding the use of funds from two tax exempt 501c (3) organizations, the Abraham Lincoln Foundation and the Progress and Freedom Foundation to pay for a college course that he was teaching.   The committee fined him $300,000  for violating House rules barring use of tax-exempt foundations for political purposes and lying to the committee.

Nancy Pelosi recently brought his ethics violations back up, since she had served on the Ethics Committee.  Gingrich has tried to make it look as if the whole matter was a partisan driven matter, a "Pelosi driven effort".  This is untrue - and in fact, the committee was evenly divided by party, and Polosi was only a junior senator at the time.

Americans do not want a person of low moral and ethical character to be President.  I think that utlimately Republicans will reject Newt because of his moral and ethical shortcomings, just as they rejected Herman Caine.

Now Is The Time To Outlaw PACs and Lobbyists

Lobbyists have always had power, but super lobbyist Grover Norquist is an example of how dangerously crippling to our government that power has become. Backed by the multi-million dollar organization Americans For Tax Reform, Norquist is considered by many to be the most powerful man in Washington. The supercommittee tasked with finding a plan to reduce the national deficit by 1.2 trillion dollars over 10 years was crippled by the pledge that the Republican members had made to Norquist to not raise taxes under any circumstances. This should be an eye-opening example of the insidious influence the lobbyists and campaign contributions have on our political process.

This election year will be more influenced than ever by the Super PACS that have formed after the ridiculous Citizens United decision was made by the Supreme Court that allows corportations and unions to spend unlimited sums of money for political messages. They are allowed to donate unlimited sums of money to nonprofit organizations (such as Norquists Americans For Tax Reform) or trade associations (unions) which can then spend huge sums of money advertising.

If ever there was as time that we need to look into the issue of campaign reform it is now.  Robert Steele. a former spy, has urged Occupy Wall Street to make this their most important central issue that they take to the people. I agree with him that this should be their cause. He is pushing for an Electoral Reform Act of 2012  that would eliminate corporations from contributing in any form (including individual contributions from employees) to any political campaign. All air time and media print space would be free and equal to all candidates.

This would be a start. We need strong laws that get rid of the domineering influence that special interest groups have on our government, corporate and otherwise. I think we need to go to a system where all presidential elections are paid for only out of the Federal Presidential Election Campaign Fund, and contributions are limited to $10.00/person. Lobbyists should be done away with. The idea of lobbying was to make sure that the people could petition the government, but it has become twisted and no longer serves its original intent. If we take these steps, the true voice of the people will finally be restored instead of the influence of overly powerful groups.