Lately, all over the media, citizens have been appearing in town halls to say what they think about the health care reform. Among the top comments, several were about the money used to generate the health care reform, and other were about pre-existing conditions. Of course, the latter mentioned are only some of the thousands and thousands of things said during the past month. However, one huge and important thing has been missed, and that is the possible shortage of health care if the reform is passed by congress. Shortages usually happen when prices for products and services that are usually high (in this case in the cost of health care and life insurance), are artificially lowered by the government, causing a severe shortage. In other words, by lowering the cost of health care for Americans who earn less than $250,000, the government sells a cheaper version of this service for relatively unlimited use by the people. The problem is the following: people who usually go to the hospital for severe problems, such as a broken arm or other treatments that require trained professionals, are now going to go to the hospital for a minor headache, etc. This would create and extremely high demand for care, even though the supply would be very limited. Next, people who actually need a rather important treatment will have to wait in line for a long time to get treatment, since other citizens will use hospitals excessively. The results might end in life or death situations! After the first problem the government is going to encounter, life insurance companies are going to experience an even worse situation. Since a lot of people will be using public hospitals for treatments, insurance companies will find it useless to build new hospitals, making it highly unprofitable. On the other hand, with such demand and a tight budget at flat prices, the public hospitals will soon find themselves overwhelmed, and it would be very hard to maintain them, leaving them crumbling and almost not meeting the standards. People will soon realize that it isn’t worth the waiting to get public care, and will go back to the private insurance companies for care. From that point on, health care will be used by not many Americans, but paid by so many more.

During his presidential campaign, President Barack Obama claimed to not raise taxes on middle class families. However, with all of the present reforms and new systems attempted by President Obama, it doesn’t seem logic to put them all on the field with a tightened budget. Now, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and National Economic Council Director, Larry Summers have been indirectly suggesting the idea to raise taxes to deal with budget shortfalls. According to Mr. Geithner, “We can’t make these judgments yet about exactly what it’s going to take and how we are going to get there”. Summers, on CBS’s “Face the Nation” said that, “It is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out”. Moreover, the squeezed federal budget released by the Commerce of Department last week showed everyone that is has been the worst since the Great Depression. At the same time, tax revenues have dropped and have caused outlays for the unemployment compensation program to rise. In conclusion, what we were told was nothing but a mere deformation of the truth to get voters to vote for Mr. Obama. It is most likely that taxes are going to get higher for middle class families. With all of the current spending, the government is soon going to find itself taxing the lower class families for its costly programs, during one of the worst recessions this generation has ever seen. 

We have been hearing of all the changes that are to come from President Obama. First, it was the cap-and-trade bill, now it’s the health-care reform, and coming soon is the public education reform; all during the course of six months! To make such changes to a country as big as the United States, a lot of time is needed, time that used wisely would accomplish all these objectives. Therefore, the time we are talking about is to be measured in years, not months. However, what our current President does not seem to understand, is that time is to be given to these situations, and if rushed through, several and fatal mistakes could be made. He passed the cap-and-trade bill by only seven votes. Now struggling to get the votes in for the health-care reform, President Obama has lost much of his credibility, and is now blaming former President Bush for all the debt our nation has to face. The next question is, what are we to see for the education reform? How are we going to improve the standards by changing the dates breaks are to take place? Shouldn’t President Obama invest in new methods of teaching, new school material to raise the standards instead of just swapping the breaks around? Shouldn’t he just take a little bit more time at the desk and think through this plans to make them work? Shouldn’t he just slow down?

It was simply stunning to hear President Obama speak in New Jersey. His whole speech on healthcare was nothing than a mere deformation of the real facts that would affect the economy. As he put it, the healthcare plan would provide “lower costs, more choices, and coverage you can count on”. Let’s start analyzing the phrase that was mentioned. First of all, come the “lower costs”, one of the most controversial topics in this healthcare reform. It should be changed to “higher costs”, since the taxes will dramatically increase for the wealthy, who have worked so much to accomplish what they have, and pay for the other millions of Americans who hadn’t had the chance to get there. In the conservative point of view, personal responsibility is not promoted in the least, yet submerged significantly. Secondly, let’s analyze the “more choices” it offers. Once more, the government will control where you can get different treatments, since it will be to expensive for them to let people choose where to go. Lastly, the “coverage you can count on” is simply depressing. Not only taxes are going to be high, and you will be able to choose between a small selection of hospitals near you, the heath care quality will be substandard, since the government will be paying doctors a mere portion of what they used to get. We need to understand, that even if the current healthcare is not very good, that the government-run health care system will be both more expensive and much worse than the current one. 

After it very narrowly passed by the legislation, the cap-and-trade policy to invest on green industries was very controversial. It was supposed to help global warming, even if we don’t even know it exists. So, what’s the real meaning of green? In the following, rather short post, we will be discussing the meaning and the possible use of green technology. Is it truly made to fully help the environment? In my opinion, the green technology is meant to, in part, help the environment, yet majorly to make the United States independent from the Middle Eastern nations, from which it buys its oil supply from. This is a very possible answer, considering the major struggle of the United States to get its oil, even in tough times like a recession. The local oil production is not enough to satisfy the needs, as it is shown by all the transactions between the U.S. and OPEC, and other oil exporters. Just imagine, the whole world would change if another source of energy was found to work. The supply and demand scheme would change completely, if a mineral or chemical product found in the U.S. was to work as a source of energy. The U.S. would soon be selling this new energy source all over the world! Then, why is it that the government calls this technology green, making the population think that its main objective is to help the environment, while the real objective is the one discussed in the latter sentences? Why can’t the government be clear on this, and let us know, the citizens, the real things that they are doing with our tax money?

As it was mentioned in his campaign, President Obama is proposing a government-run healthcare plan. For most, this is good news: having a universal healthcare plan paid with taxes. The last phrase represents the common reasoning of most Americans, which believe this is true. However, there are a lot of hidden facts, the ones that the Obama administration doesn’t want to show. First, the healthcare plan will significantly reduce the salary for most doctors, which means the quality of the healthcare will have a significant downturn. Therefore, since the healthcare quality will get worse, and the salary of doctors, nurses, dentists and much more will be reduced, Americans will come back to the private healthcare corporations. This will leave public hospitals desolated and incompetent. In the end, not many people will use public hospitals, even though they will have to pay higher taxes for services they don’t even use.  Luckily, senate Democrats forecasted that President Obama doesn’t have enough votes to pass the healthcare reform. As Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) put it, “I don’t know that [Obama] has the votes right now. I think there’s a lot of concern in the Democrats caucus”. In conclusion, it’s the taxpayers’ money that is in risk of being wasted into something that might make the economy go even worse.