Friday, December 27, 2013

Advancing Health Freedom

It is pathetic. Our health care system is crashing around us, but Conservatives are spending more time talking about Duck Dynasty than on overturning PPACA.

Health care is the key to saving this nation. Either the forces seeking to advance liberty will come up with a viable alternative to ObamaCare, or we will continue down this path of mediocrity.

The only way to create an alternative to PPACA is to talk about alternatives.

I scheduled a Health Freedom Workshop on January 2nd. This workshop will start with a presentation on free market health care. The presentation shows how a small group of people could realize the ideals of Dr. Ben Carson in a short period.

The presentation will present action items that could be used by the freedom movement to make 2014 and 2016 blowout victories for the Freedom Movement.

I can hold multiple presentations if you like.

The presentation is at 6:30PM. If there's under 10 attendees, the presentation will be at a private residence. I am considering boiling up a batch of chili before hand. The private residence has a view of this Utah landmark in the Salt Lake Valley. I will email attendees the address and map.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Artificial Deadline

Today is the deadline for PPACA. Everyone needs to go to HealthCare.gov.

When I worked in insurance, I discovered my life and the life of everyone in the company revolved around arbitrary deadline set by the insurance company.

Our actual health, however, is continuous.

Neither our incomes nor our health problems fit the artificial deadlines set by insurance companies.

For example, my father had a heart attack on January 31 a few years. The timing of the heart attack meant he had to pay two deductibles. 

If you break your leg on your Christmas ski vacation, the cost of your initial treatment and followup treatment will fall in two calendar years and you will have to pay two deductibles. If you break your leg on January 1st, you have to pay only one.

This is extremely problematic for people with high deductible health care.

The artificial deadlines of insurance is just one of many symptoms indicating that insurance is not the best way to fund health care.

If there is anyone on the planet interested in discovering a better way to fund health care; I will be holding a Health Freedom Work Shop in Salt Lake City on January 2nd. The workshop will look at the challenges of financing health care and will develop a free market alternative to insurance.

BTW: I did go to healthcare.gov. Since my income is well below the poverty rate, the government will give money to an insurance company on my behalf. I don't want the government to take money from you and give it to an insurance company on my behalf.

My income is below poverty line because I've been working to find ways to defend freedom. If we are wanting to preserve freedom in this country. Someone has to stand up and I am willing to put it all on the line to defend the ideals of the US Founders.

The presentation takes a little over an hour followed by an open discussion with action items to help overturn PPACA. BTW, if you are young and don't want to be forced into an insurance pool, this workshop shows a way out.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Open Inquiry

We are five years, going on six, in the Obama Health Care Debate. Other than Ben Carson, who is not really a conservative, I have not seen any quality discussion of free market health care in the media or in the local political scene.

So, I decided to take another stab at hosting a Health Freedom Workshop. I decided to pick the first Thursday of January, which happens to be January 2nd. I have access to a living room not too terribly far from the Olympus Hills Shopping Center. The meeting will start at 6:30PM. The meeting will consist of a presentation on free market health care reform followed by an open discussion about free market health care reform.

If you like Dr. Benjamin Carson, this meeting shows how to achieve a very similar vision within a few short years.

If you are reading my primary blog, you will see that I am extremely distraught with the pathetic job Conservatives have done at defending health care.

I've gone five years with the simple goal of attending a meeting in which Conservatives explored free market health care reform. The fact that Conservatives are unwilling to talk about the most important issue of our generation has me completely perplexed.

So, I've been question: what is "Conservatism."

The rants focus on a ruling by a Utah Federal Court which strikes down Utah's anti-polygamy laws. Polygamy will cause our society to devolve into a clan based culture (like Iran) with a polygamous Warlords controlling vast sections of our country ... like Colorado City.

My posts are very dark as I examine polygamy as the ultimate expression of conservatism.

People who defend the American Tradition of self rule have taken to calling themselves "conservatives." But we have a great problem, "conservatism" is not the answer. Modern Conservatism is as mixed up as mixed up as Modern Liberal.

The answer is open inquiry and the ideals of the US Founders ... not conservatism. Unfortunately, we cannot revive these ideals as long as people confuse the two.

The terms "conservative" and "liberal" are words which have been assigned to contradictory ideals. Trying to solve the health care puzzle by screaming the word "conservative" has not worked.

I love the ideals of the US Founders and their experiment in a limited government too much to waste it on an intellectual game in which conservative means freedom and liberal means socialist.

I want to break free of this failed conversation and engage in a real conversation that seeks solutions. Unfortunately, since I am stuck in the "Most Conservative State in the Nation." I cannot find anyone interested in discussing substantive free market reform.

Friday, December 13, 2013

Obstruction v. Education

A bad budget deal is the best deal that we can get with the current Congress. So, I am supporting the Budget dealt. Rather than fighting for one budget, the freedom movement needs to concentrate on switching the Congress and on ending the reign of Harry Reid.

In the last few years, the Tea Party has had decent success in supporting fiscally conservative candidates in the primary season.

Now, Imagine that there was a government shutdown during the primary season?

What would happen is the Tea Party would be framed as hard-lined obstructionists and the Tea Party candidates would systematically fail during the primary.

This is not a battle I want to fight.

IMHO the Freedom movement needs to transition from a reactionary group that attempts to preserve freedom to an affirmative group that seeks to promote freedom through education.

If we could establish an affirmative debate about which is better for the people: A free and productive society to a socialized and controlled society, the freedom movement would easily win.

Obstructionist politics leads to ruin.

The freedom movement needs to educate people on free market solutions to the problem of the day.

The education effort can start small.

One can impose socialism from the top down, but true free market reform needs to come from the bottom.

The freedom movement can start by small groups of people getting together to discuss issues.

BTW: This is what they left does. This why the win at every turn.

People talk to each other.

I've gone five solid years just trying to find one "conservative" group willing to hold a meeting on free market health care reform.

The is simply no way the freedom movement could win the day if someone who is actively looking to defend freedom can't find anyone in the conservative movement who is willing to give an afternoon to discuss the most important issue of the day.

The dictionary definition is "closed-minded."  It is patently absurd to think that closed-mindedness can win arguments.

I live in the most Conservative State in the nation: Utah.  Utahans are proud to be the most conservatives people West of Tehran.

Open discussion of solutions is forbidden in this state.

But closed-minded obstruction doesn't work. The closed minded surrender the future to the enemies of freedom who, at least for now, are willing to go through the formalities of listening to people in their grub for power.

Obstruction won't win the day. A second government shutdown for questionable gains is not worth the effort.

The way to win the struggle for freedom is through education. Education involves open-minded people discussing issues with one another.

I will try scheduling a workshop on health freedom at the beginning of January. I am hoping to get input for the date or location of the meeting. I have access to a living room, but prefer a formal meeting place.

Monday, December 9, 2013

The Role of Money in Health Care

My presentation on Health Care Reform takes about an hour to deliver.

I would love to make it shorter, but there are just so many annoying details involved in discussing health care that if I fail to address the issues, I feel that people will misunderstand the program.

The goal of the presentation is to create viable alternative to insurance. In the presentation, I present a mathematical model for the Medical Savings and Loan which replaces insurance with a combination of savings accounts, a loan reserve and grants.

The whole presentation is about the mathematics of funding health care & I spend a great deal of time talking about something called "money."

The problem I face is that people have crazy ideas about money. This is especially true in the health care industry.

The insurance industry is built on a strange notion that "pools of money" can provide health care.

In my presentation, I am forced to consume several minutes defining money.

I say that money is simply a tool that people use for measuring the cost of time and resources. The resources represented by money are far more important than the money itself. The most important resources in health care are time and human knowledge. The goal of a health care program is largely a matter of creating a mechanism that allows people to trade their time and resources in ways that improve care. Money is just a tool that we use to facilitate this trade.

The presentation needs to attack the notion that money is magic. Money is just a tool for measuring resources. Ultimately the resources behind the money matter more than the money. We developed a complex financial system that generates money out of thin air with Federal Reserve pushing the poison pill of debt financing. We've created a crazy financial system which is using strange mathematical formulas to undermine the wealth of the people.

I am caught in a trap. The Medical Savings and Loan is a mathematical formula to create an alternative to insurance. I am presenting this formula to challenge the formulas used by the insurance industry (and socialism for that matter).

In presenting my formula, it is fundamental for people to understand my view of money. I see money simply as a tool for measuring resources, while insurance is funded on magical ideas of money. The goal of my formula is to break the illusion that pools of money provide health care. In contrast the opposite happens. When we put our health resources in huge pools, we concentrate wealth and end up creating a society that needs artificial redistribution of resources to provide care.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Health Care Requires Interaction

Good, quality health care requires human interaction. To get the best results, health care reform efforts should start with human interaction.

The idea behind insurance is that intellectuals sitting in a closed office hobnobbing with power brokers can come up with a perfect equation for delivering care.
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The idea that an actuary in a closed office magically create a formula for perfect care is absurd.

The programs that come from the insurance industry tend to create more problems than they solve.

A healthy approach to health care reform would involve people working with each other in open face to face communication.

The problems in health care come from both the Left and Right.

The Heritage Foundation was an early and vocal proponent of Health Exchanges coupled with Insurance Mandates. The Heritage Foundation contended that forcing everyone to buy insurance through state run exchanges would allow the perfect formulas from the insurance industry to work.

This thinking is flawed because it is based on the false notion that insurance executives can create the perfect formula for delivering care. They can't.

The flaw behind the Heritage Foundations thinking is that health care is a human activity and while it is possible to analyze human activity there is not a mathematical formula for controlling human activity.

Both RomneyCare and ObamaCare are based on the Health Exchange/Mandate model.

Mainstream Republicans and Democrats are behind the same basic model.

Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, Mike Leavitt, and Karl Rove are committed to the same basic structure as Harry Reid. (Hmmm, I wonder if they have anything else in common).

Now, the way to defeat this political machine is to create an alternative to insurance that recognizes that health care is a human activity. Such a system would start by analyzing the needs of humans. The health care reform effort would then build a health care solution around the humans.

The process of creating a human based health care system is not that terrible difficult.

The problem I face is that this approach involves something that I apparently am unable to accomplish.

It involves people meeting in a room to discuss free market health care reform.

I am adamantly opposed to coercion. The only way that a meeting could ever happen is if there was a group of people interested in restoring free market health care who would either be willing to attend a meeting that I host or that would invite me to moderate a workshop on health care reform.

I will try to host a meeting in January.

I ran out of money and cannot afford to pay the travel and hotel expenses. I am happy to travel, but I would need to figure out a way to pay for the trip ... such as running a fundraiser during the trip.

I live in Utah. FWIW: I am not LDS.

Bleak Times Ahead

I predict that 2014 will be one of the worst years for the freedom movement on record (unless ... and I will get to "the unless").

I predict that both the Democratic and Republican Parties will hit the remnants of the Tea Party with a degree of ostracism that few of us have seen in their lifetime.

I predict that in 2014 through 2016. People in the freedom movement will find themselves facing social, political and economic isolation like they have never felt before.

Progressives are skilled at isolating and ostracizing those who stand up for liberty. The ability to smear and destroy political opponents is the greatest strength of the progressive movement.

I fear that it will work.

One can only take so much economic and social isolation until one is just willing to just give in to whatever.

This technique worked quite well after the Goldwater campaign. Everyone who supported the free market view was simply shoved aside after Goldwater and it took a whole generation before people were even willing to consider free market ideas again.

The plan to isolate and cut out Libertarians, Independents and free thinkers will work unless people in the Freedom Movement do something that is outside of the conservative character.

In order to save freedom, people in the freedom movement need to support each other and on occasion actually physically talk with one another.

Matt Kibbe released this. If people in the freedom movement never interface with other people in the movement, they just languish. His group created the site "Freedom Works" which produced the FreedomConnector calendar. Here is the calendar for Utah.

Get serious, do any of you really believe the freedom movement could have an impact on elections if there is never any face to face interaction?


I've posted several events on the Utah Freedom Calendar. Well, nobody's attended any event. I've attended many of the events that appeared.


Personally, I am at wit's end. For five solid years, I've had the goal of simply finding people willing to discuss free market health care reform. All I've discovered is that people called "conservative" aren't willing to give others the time of day. I no longer believe conservatives are sincere about defending liberty.

BTW: I created a calendar system for community events in my Salt Lake Calendar. This calendar gladly lists any event.