July 26, 2007
By: Sid Riley
This column presents a non-partisan, conservative viewpoint about items of interest in our community and our lives. Focus is on items that are impacting your pocket book, your personal freedoms, and your rights. I hope that you will read the column regularly and that it occasionally influences your opinions and actions. Now, on to the subject of the week:
"The Real Reason That The Existing Hospital Can’t Finance The New Hospital From It’s Own Operational Revenues Is Because Of Forced Welfare Hidden Within The Medical System!"
Our politicians have enacted laws that require a public hospital to provide medical care to anyone who arrives at their doors, regardless of their ability to pay for the services. This means that no one can be turned away by the hospital. They are forced by law to provide anyone medical services.
At the same time they have set up a public health system for low income families that does not provide around the clock, week end, on call medical services. Thus, these low income people who need public assistance have no place to go for general medical treatment at night and on weekends…….except for public hospital emergency rooms! Their presence when only general medical treatment is needed, clutters the area when real emergency care is essential, overworks the ER personnel, and increases the tenancy to rush and make errors.
Last year our Jackson County Hospital wrote off $10.7 MILLION DOLLARS in non collectable bad debts, most of which was this forced welfare burden the national system imposed on them. The county ambulance system had to write off another $700,000 for the same reason. In order to sustain minimum profitability the hospitals have to resort to a system of overcharging their paying, insured customers. That is why a typical hospital bill contains ridiculous charges such as $10.00 boxes of tissues, $30.00 bed pans, $100 dollar cushions, $5.00 aspirin, and $700 per night room charges.
Then after the insurance companies negotiate their payment for these services, the insurance company turns around and charges you $800.00 per month for health insurance. Thus, in the final analysis, it is YOU, or your employer that is paying the social welfare cost of providing health care for those poor people waiting in the emergency room area for medical treatment that they cannot pay for. It is a rotten system of "hidden welfare".
The billions of dollars spent through this flawed system for this hidden medical welfare is not included when the liberals quote what levels of our national income is being spent on "social entitlements". The Public Health System should be funded so that it can provide all but "real" emergency care to the people needing public assistance. Then it would be an identifiable cost and would not impair the normal health providers.
There are other areas of "hidden welfare" imbedded in our national systems. Another is the inclusion of "disability" payments under the Social Security Administration. These disability payments of billions of dollars each year are coming out of the social security funding. Social security should be solely for retirement benefits for the elderly.
The social liberals in Washington cleverly attached disability payments to the retirement program. This flawed system is sucking money out of the retirement program and threatening its future existence. Disability should be in a separate, more identifiable and more controllable program.
In some instances welfare mothers will have a brood of fatherless children enrolled in the disability system in order to get what is called "crazy checks". She finds some crooked doctor that will certify that the children have hyperactive disorder, and then get them qualified in the social security disability system. She can then receive approximately $9,000 per year per child for the extra care that it supposedly requires.
60 Minutes, the TV program, aired a story about abuse of this system several years ago. They exposed one welfare mom who was making over $60,000 per year in crazy checks on her brood. One of the boys that she was still getting a monthly check for was at the time lodged in state prison.
Folks, this is nothing but hidden welfare, and you and I are paying for it.
A third national system of hidden welfare is imbedded within our IRS system. It is affectionately called by liberal, socialistic, legislators the "Earned Income Credit" program. This program gives welfare or low earners billions of your tax dollars each year. A low earner can work a few weeks, pay a couple of hundred dollars into tax withholding, and then when tax refund time comes they can reap the fruits of this "hidden welfare" program.
Did you know that it is possible for a person to only pay $200 into withholding taxes during a tax year, and then to get over $2000 back as a refund from the IRS? They can call it what they want to call it….but I call it WELFARE! They should be able to get back what THEY paid into withholding taxes, but they should not be able to also get back what SOMEONE ELSE paid in! Again, billions are being taken from the productive part of society and being redistributed to the less productive elements of society. It is socialism.
Thus, If our Jackson County Hospital did not have to carry the burden of this hidden welfare, they would not have to beg the public for help in building a new hospital. The real culprit in this story is our federal government. Now you know "The Rest Of The Story".
RUDAMENTS: ODDS AND ENDS WORTH MENTIONING -
- It is budget time again. At the county commission room, the school board, and municipal buildings, the bureaucrats are all clamoring to justify their annual budget increases. They want to be sure that they get their fair share for their department, regardless if they really need an increase or not. They always play the same "smoke and mirrors" game before the public. The department heads present a budget that gives a 10%-15% increase over the previous year. Then the politicians show how cleverly they protected the taxpayers by cutting the approved increase back to only 3%......and everyone is happy since this is all that the department head wanted in the first place.
And thus government continues to grow at a compounded rate of 3% per year, per year, per year!
- I have been attending the budget workshop most of this week. I did not hear one single department head come before the commissioners and say, "During this year we have operated our department so efficiently that we did not use all of the money you allocated to us. After giving my staff a bonus for their hard work, we are turning back to the county the amount we saved. We request that you budget the same amount for us this year and we will try to repeat the savings." To me, that would be good managerial performance!
-Our county is blessed this year. It will be remembered as our "Year Of Baseball". We have been given the distinction of hosting three major baseball tournaments within a four week period. The Dixie Girls State Tournament held in Sneads last week, the Dixie Boys State Tournament now underway in Grand Ridge, and the Dixie Girls Softball World Series Tournament starting this weekend in Marianna, are all wonderful events that bring honor (and business) to our area.
- It is now time to cast a vote on the hospital issue. I am personally still undecided as to how I will vote. However, I plan to make the decision and mail the ballot by Monday of next week. I hope you are doing the same. Vote wisely and you will be "Getting It Right!"
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