Qualify for government subsidy: become a(n involuntary) unionized government employee

 Next up: doctors, section 8 housing owners, ????? Grocery stores, drug stores???

A year ago in December, Ms. Berry and more than 40,000 other home-based day care providers statewide were suddenly informed they were members of Child Care Providers Together Michigan—a union created in 2006 by the United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The union had won a certification election conducted by mail under the auspices of the Michigan Employment Relations Commission. In that election only 6,000 day-care providers voted. The pro-labor vote turned out.

Many of the state's other 34,000 day-care providers never even realized what was going on. Ms. Berry tells us she was "shocked" to find out she was suddenly in a union. The real dirty work, however, had been done when the state created an "employer" for the union to "organize" against.
Of course, Michigan's independent day-care providers don't work for anybody except the parents who were their customers. Nevertheless, because some of these parents qualified for public subsidies, the Child Care Providers "union" claimed the providers were "public employees."
Michigan's Department of Human Services then teamed with Flint-based Mott Community College to sign an "interlocal agreement" in 2006 establishing a separate government agency called the Michigan Home Based Child Care Council. This council was directed to recommend good child-care practices—and not coincidentally, to serve as a "public employer." Although the council had almost no staff, no control over the state subsidies and no supervision of the providers' daily activities, it became the shell corporation against which the union could organize.
Thus the state created an ersatz employer and an ersatz "bargaining unit" against which what was essentially an ersatz union could organize.
Today the Department of Human Services siphons about $3.7 million in annual dues to the union—from the child-care subsidies. The money should be going to home-based day-care providers—themselves not on the high end of the income scale. Ms. Berry now sees money once paid to her go to a union that does little for her. She says she is "self employed and wants nothing to do with the union."

Ann Coulter on government Health Care finance

On the other hand, there's Ann Coulter's take.

Give Ann a chance, here. She makes some very good points.

Addendum -- Including this one:

Now the Democrats want to force us all into one gigantic national health insurance plan that will cover every real and mythical ailment that has a powerful lobby. But if you have a rare medical condition without a lobbying arm, you'll be out of luck.

Why the medical home sounds good but won't work

A sister Family Physician says in her blog, "Musings of a Dinosaur,"

It is the source of endless angst among family doctors in solo and small group practice, because the structure of the PCMH excludes us by definition. The PCMH is advertised to work best in large group practices like Kaiser and the Mayo Clinic. All I can say is "DUH!"You know what the PCMH really is? Nothing more than this:

IT'S A WAY TO MAKE LARGE GROUP PRACTICES WORK MORE LIKE A SOLO DOC!!!

I am already performing every meaningful function of the PCMH. So is virtually every physician in solo and small group practice. There is absolutely nothing to be gained -- and a significant amount of money to be lost; this thing is expensive! -- by adopting any of this PCMH shit. Somehow that doesn't seem to stop our Academy from tossing us to the wolves by simply ignoring us.

Senate defeats Republican SCHIP pro-life measure

Senator Martinez from Florida introduced an amendment to the Senate Bill concerning the children's health insurance bill that would have prohibited tex money going to non-government organizations in other countries and used to promote abortion, lobbying foreign governments to change their laws to accept abortion, and which would give those organizations more money to perform abortions.

This amendment would have placed into law the "Mexico City Policy" that President Obama overturned on Friday, January 23, 2009.

The vote went pretty much along party lines, with the exceptions of Republican Senators Collins and Snowe of Maine, Senator Spectre of Pennsylvania and Senator Mulkowski of Alaska. One Democrat, Senator Nelson of Nebraska, voted in favor of the prolife amendment. (Thanks to LifeNews for reporting the votes.)

The Senate version will allow families that exceed 400 times the Federal poverty limit t0 $88,000 and, in some cases, with incomes over $100,000, per year.

For more on the SCHIP Bill, see the Associated Press' "GOP fails to limit children's health program."

Democrats want to more than double spending on SCHIP. President Barack Obama has urged Congress to quickly send him a children's health bill that he can sign into law. The House has already passed a bill comparable to the one before the Senate.

Republicans offered an alternative approach through an amendment sponsored by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. McConnell argued that his amendment focused more on helping low-income families and did not rely on tax increases to pay for the additional health spending. His amendment also would not allow federal funding to extend health coverage to children of newly arrived legal immigrants, as the Democratic bill allows.

Healthcare lottery

When you buy a lottery ticket, do you choose the cash option with its immediate payout of half the winnings or do you choose the payment of the full amount, doled out over 20 years?

I've found this question to be a good way to help other people understand the difference between conservativism and those who think that someone else can take care of them or the "totalitarian mamas" who believe that they can take better care of us than we could ourselves and for our own good. (Of course, some Conservatives tell me don't gamble, so they never buy lottery tickets.)

It's amazing how many people tell me that they always buy the "cash option." Some say they worry that their families wouldn't get anything if they die before the 20 years is up. Some tell me that they believe they can manage and invest the money to earn more than they would if they wait out the smaller payments. A few tell me that they would rather not have all the money at one time, preferring the guaranteed income over the years or fearing blowing the money.

The latter group never understands why I suggest that their health insurance should be something that they own and control, rather than something doled out by government and their employers.

A "right" is something that we each have without conditions and which we can call on society and government to enforce or punish if someone infringes that right. The right to life is actually the right not to be killed. We expect our fellow citizens to protect us through providing armies and law enforcement, a militia and by allowing self-defense. If another person infringes our right not to be killed, we expect society to punish him.

Last night, Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama stated that health care is a right. I strongly disagree.

"Health" and "health care" are difficult terms to define. Instead of people and their actions, health is threatened by disease, age and injury. If I'm not well, how will society protect my health - and who or what will be held responsible as I inevitably age? If I have a "right" to health care, then I want everything possible to maximize my health. Rights can't be rationed.

What we're really talking about is health care funding. Funding certainly can be rationed. Take a look at Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veteran's Administration.

These systems work fairly well most of the time. However, they rely on limiting the costs of health care. The limitations fail when demand for cutting edge, expensive treatments or emotional arguments override them. That's why Medicare won't pay for a tetanus shot after a dirty wound, but will pay for annual physicals, screening mammograms and prostate specific antigen tests, although there's no evidence that these prolong life.

Or why Oregon Health sends notes telling patients that they won't pay for cancer treatments, but they will pay for assisted suicide.

For more on this subject, here's another opinion.

Argument against government health care

Should your access to medical care depend on your political or religious viewpoints, or even your criminal record?

The UK healthcare system is used as an example by members of both sides of the government-payor medicine debate in the US. These discussions prove that - like the meaning of the universe and when life begins - the definitions of justice and rationing are in the eye of the beholder(s). Some of us look at the history in the UK and the US and worry about the potential for abuse when medical access is regulated with government funds, prisons, and guns.


Kathryn Jean Lopez of the National Review Online reports (free registration required) that a 74 year-old man was sentenced to a prison term for sending pictures of the results of abortion in the mail to employees at a hospital that performs abortions.

On top of the 28 days prison time, the man in question was informed that he would be denied all but emergency, life-saving care at the (government, tax funded) hospital in question. Despite that under the National Health Service trust this hospital is his only choice, his scheduled eye exam appointment was cancelled and he has been dropped from the (government, tax funded) waiting list for evaluation (the waiting list before the waiting list) for hip replacement surgery.


I can't think of any intimate, personal matters that are managed well by committee, much less by the process of government and law making. Medical care is very intimate and personal, and my experience with the Social Security and Medicaid disability process, TriCare, Workman's Compensation, Medicaid and Medicare do not lead me to believe that the Federal government is qualified to hire me as a family doctor or to manage hospitals or other health care "providers."

(I've covered this subject before here Or, see this newspaper report about "fraud" rallies held by Secretary of Health Shalala, Attorney General Reno and FBI Director Freeh in 2000.)

Because of changes to the Social Security Act and various "Omnibus" budget bills over the last 20 years (including the newspeak-named "Health Insurance Portability and Privacy Act), the Federal government and anyone who can claim to be functioning in the name of the (Federal) Secretary of Health has a right to copy anything in your doctor's office, to open every door and drawer, and even to write their own subpoenas. Any physician or "provider" who refuses or interferes with such an action risks "exclusion" (losing the ability to bill any government medical insurance and possibly all insurances that receive payment from those government insurances.)

What may be worse, the risk of Medicare audit hangs over the head of all those who see patients who qualify for Medicare funding. The person or entity audited pays for the audit, and there have been rumors that "deals" are offered: pay $10,000 or so, and the audit will go away. In light of the fact that compliance with rules is probably impossible, can cost even small practices hundreds of thousands of dollars and carry the risk of charges of Medicare fraud and abuse with its threat of triple fines and prison time, that $10,000 can begin to look like a bargain.

In the US, we have difficulty refusing anyone virtually any medical care - far too often on the tax payers' bill. I do wish that there could be more personal responsibility and an expectation that some payment, in some form will be paid.

However, in Mr. Atkinson's case, he has paid in the form of taxes through the years. His healthcare should not be restricted, however he has offended in the past.

For more information, see the website of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. You can start with this article or this review from the American College of Physicians, which represents Internal Medicine docs)