Open Letter to the Gem State Tea Party

The Utah Tea Party has faded into nothing. I discovered that there is still an active Tea Party in Idaho called The Gem State Tea Party.

Readers of this blog know that, for the last five years, I've been trying to find a group brave enough to discuss free market health care reform. Here in Utah, the battle for defending freedom was lost before it started. Perhaps the brave folks in Boise are willing to stand for freedom.

So, I am issuing an open letter to the Gem State Tea Party:

Hello. My name is Kevin Delaney. I live down here in the Beehive State where I trying to make the stand against PPACA (ObamaCare).

For the public at large, the most unpopular aspect of PPACA is the insurance mandate.

The mandate is based upon the assumption that insurance is the only way to fund health care.

I believe that the best way to defeat PPACA is to challenge this false assumption.

The best way to challenge this assumption is to create a viable alternative to insurance. (By viable I mean a program that covers the same care for the same cost or less than insurance).

My assertion is that, if a Tea Party group discussed alternatives to insurance, that group would challenge PPACA at its core foundations. This discussion might help turn the tide against PPACA.

I am a computer programmer. I used to work for a state run insurance trust. I wrote programs that tracked claims and calculated insurance premiums.

I had access to a substantial amount of health data.

To my horror, I discovered that the state run insurance trust systematically underserved the middle and working class in favor of the ruling class. Even a state owned and run insurance company had the effect of transferring wealth and power from the people to the ruling elite.

I began running simulations and discovered that if we returned to a system based on self-financed care supplemented with charity, we would not only end the artificial transfer of wealth, we would end up with better health care.

Five years ago, I put together a presentation that I called the "Medical Savings and Loan." In this presentation I create a model for funding care that uses savings accounts, a loan reserve and grants.

I then demonstrate that this program would cover as much care as insurance. Best of all, it would restore the pricing mechanism in health care.

I then compare this model with the insurance model.

I am able to show that insurance transfers vast amounts of wealth from the middle and working class to the ruling elite while creating undesirable systemic faults in health care.

The presentation takes about an hour and a half to be followed by a lively discussion about funding health care.

Health care is the most important issue of our day. I believe that people would appreciate an intense discussion about the mathematics of funding health care.

Personally, I think the arguments I make in this presentation could turn the health care debate around.

Of course, I accept that I could be wrong. I am not like Obama. I do not assume that because I came to a conclusion that the conclusion must be right.

I believe strongly in the scientific method and peer review. Before I publish my ideas, I want to present the ideas to a small group to discuss the idea.

Sadly, I've been unable to find a group in Utah willing to review the idea.

My direct experience in Utah is that I get thrown out of the room the moment people realize that I am challenging the insurance industry.

I understand the challenges faced by organizations. Most conservative groups get funding from the insurance industry. So, holding a meeting that questions insurance might jeopardize funding.

Again, I understand the importance of funding. If a group loses funding because it questioned insurance, then the group is effectively silenced.

Unfortunately, since "conservative" groups systematically hold funding over principles, the policy of putting funding first opens our nation for the encroachment of tyranny.

The insurance industry wants people to think insurance is the only possible way to fund health care.

By accepting this assumption without debate, Conservatives have opened the door for politicos to make arguments for mandated insurance. The arguments for mandated insurance are usually followed by calls for Single Payer care or nationalized health care.

The only way to preserve liberty is for a group to brave the wrath of the insurance industry and to discuss alternatives.

I understand how frightening it is to stand against the powerful health care establishment.

Anyway, for the last five years, I've had the hope of holding a meeting that discussed alternatives to insurance.

Simply discussing alternatives to insurance strikes directly at the insurance mandates in PPACA. These mandates are the weakest links for this proposal.


I believe so strongly in this approach to fighting PPACA, that I've spent five years seeking out free market oriented groups brave enough to discuss the mathematics of funding health care.

I've had no success in the Beehive State. Living on the edge of last great wilderness in the lower 48 states, perhaps there is enough pioneer spirit left in Idaho to brave a discussion of self-financed health care.

The presentation takes an hour to an hour and a half and would be followed by a lively discussion that is likely to take two to three hours. Let's face it. Once people start talking about the actual mathematics of health care, they are likely to go on for weeks.

A discussion about the the mathematics of financing health care might even draw people out onto the streets to march against PPACA and the ruling elite in the state house.

I have not put the presentation online. I believe strongly in the scientific method in which one seeks peer review before publishing bold statements.

My goal is to present a model for self-funded health care, then to compare this model to insurance. I believe that such a discussion would lead people to demand for alternatives to insurance and not mandated insurance.

If the Gem State Tea Party, or any free market oriented group in the Mountain West, is interested in this presentation, they can contact me here.