This is affordable healthcare...really?

It's been a long time since I've posted here! I had some big changes in my life these past couple of months that spread me really thin...something had to go. Unfortunately it was my blog for the time being. Am still quite stretched, but wanted to come on and say hello to you all. I hope your summer was great and that you are all doing well!

What inspired me to post today, albeit in a short, quick manner, was a somewhat elderly locksmith I met today. He is a Vietnam vet, a patriot, a hard worker, and an all-around great guy from all I could tell. We started talking about our country and where it's headed. In a nutshell, he told me he was a lifelong Democrat until Bill Clinton came along and gave dishonesty a new face. From there, it's only gotten worse and as he put it, today's Democrats are hardly the Democrats of the "little guy". Fast forward to today, and you can use your imagination as to what he thinks of Hillary.

But what put a heavy feeling in my heart for him is how Obamacare has impacted him. This man makes no more than $6,000 a year. Yet he and his wife pay $1500 a month for their required healthcare insurance. On top of that, their annual deductible is $15,000 a year. Tell me, how is that affordable healthcare? And when will people realize that having health insurance does not mean you have access to affordable healthcare?

My monthly premium is several hundred dollars less than the locksmith's, but my deductible went from $850 a year to $6000 a year. What good is "insurance" when I have to come up with six thousand out of my own pocket before I can have so much as an earache paid for? 

Some say the authors of ObamaCare purposely made it bad so that we would all become so desperate that we would gladly accept the single payer system that Hillary Clinton would want, should she become president. But that would be even worse. There is a reason why people from Canada come to the US regularly for their medical treatment needs. 

All I know is that I cannot fathom how this elderly locksmith and his wife can possibly be told they are better off under the grossly misnamed Affordable Healthcare Act. What a lark. Unfortunately, real people are caught in the crosshairs of this disgraceful law forced upon us all (except for the President and Congress...who are all exempt from it).

More leftist lunacy: Let's put a carbon tax on babies

“Should We Be Having Kids In The Age of Climate Change?” That was the audacious question NPR’s website and All Things Considered radio show asked recently as it promoted a college professor’s “radical” proposal that people need to have fewer children because of the “prospect of climate catastrophe.”

The academic proposed a “carbon tax” on children to decentivize procreation in wealthy nations.

NPR correspondent Jennifer Ludden reported that Professor Travis Rieder presented these “moral” arguments to James Madison University students, claiming the best way to protect future generations from the threat of climate change is “by not having them.”

A philosopher, Rieder told students that having fewer children reduces carbon emissions more effectively than not eating meat, driving hybrid cars, and using eco-friendly appliances.

According to the NPR piece, Rieder and his Georgetown University colleagues, Colin Hickey and Jake Earl, have a plan to save the earth which was described as “carrots for the poor, sticks for the rich.” They are asking richer nations to “do away with tax breaks for having children and actually penalize new parents.”

Rieder described his strategy as a “carbon tax, on kids,” and said it should be “based on income” and raised for “each additional child.” He claimed that punishing people in wealthier nations for having large families is “not like China’s abusive one-child policy” because it targets the rich rather than the poor. Apparently he doesn't know that even China is abandoning its one-child policy because of the negative consequences it is discovering, like Russia and Japan are, that reduced populations pose on a country. But I digress.

Rieder claimed to have the moral high ground, saying, “It's not the childless who must justify their lifestyle. It's the rest of us.” In the radio program, he said his family is “one and done” even though his wife Sadiye formerly wanted a “big” family.

When a student asked, “What happens if that kid you decided not to have would have been the person who grew up and essentially cured this,” Rieder called it a good question. But then he added that “valuing children as a means to an end...” is “ethically problematic.” 

Such anti-life arguments are typical of the left, including the environmental left. What I want to know is, why is it that every time some pseudo-intellectual proposes fewer people are needed, they never volunteer to lead the way? They always want their spot at Earth's table, but want to deny it to others.

These people obviously hate humanity whom they consider pests to be eradicated in the name of phantom climate change. They purposely ignore earth's actual climatic history to promote their suicidal agendas of population control as a means of climate control. 

The bottom line is, there is, in general, no overpopulation problem (there are plenty of corruption-induced government problems that lead to things like poverty, however). In fact, I am willing to concede that the earth is overpopulated by misanthropes who think there is a population and climate change problem. Maybe we should put a carbon tax on these environmental extremists for the ludicrous anti-human ideas that they spew.

Hillary's trickle-down economics bad for everyone (except maybe the wealthy)

When it comes to America’s future, at least in terms of the economy, what do we want? Do we want the stagnant European, cradle-to-grave “security” socialist model, or do we want the American model of vigorous growth, low taxes, and individual liberty to get things moving again? It should be a very clear choice.

Today Hillary Clinton reveals her plans to raise taxes on individuals, the wealthy and corporations, increase and expand social security, and increase spending for tax-funded infrastructure and education. In other words, she revealed her own version of the tax and spend formula of European socialism.

Trump has not mentioned expanding Social Security or Medicaid, but he also doesn’t plan to touch them for cuts either. He does, however, plan to lower taxes for every bracket of individuals and corporations, cut regulations, encourage domestic energy expansion, and, while his plans for infrastructure spending are larger than Hillary’s, he is planning on predominantly private - not taxpayer-funded –investment.

In other words, Trump supports a recipe for vigorous growth in the economy – the very growth essential to fixing our economy. In fact, we simply can’t fix the economy without growth, which creates jobs and prosperity across the board. Obama spent $800 billion in tax dollars on ‘shovel ready’ jobs, yet our infrastructure is far from where it should be. Where did that money go? Now Hillary wants to spend an additional $300 billion of taxpayer money on infrastructure that should have been taken care of under Obama, and that will provide temporary jobs only for the most part.

But Hillary’s plan sure does sound good. In fact, some might ask, what’s wrong with Europe and why wouldn’t we want to model America after it? After all, Europe has lots of “free” stuff, lots of paid holidays, supposed 'fairness' in punishing the wealthy. Why would anyone want to oppose it? Because European socialism doesn’t work, that's why. It is not a sustainable system. Much of it is bankrupt, the population is rapidly declining and aging, and there has been virtually no growth for many, many years. And if America continues on this European-style path, we will be in the same sinking boat.

Hillary mocks Trump’s economic plan, saying it’s a return to old ways of “phantom” trickle-down economics. But what about Hillary’s sure-fire trickle-down economics? Stimulating the private sector does not happen by raising taxes and increasing regulations. Corporations socked with higher taxes never in actuality pay higher taxes; they simply raise the prices on their goods and services that the middle and lower economic consumers have to pay. Higher taxes simply reduce corporate jobs that the middle and working class depend on. Strangling regulations simply make it harder for companies to grow or even to stay in America. 

Hillary’s plan will trickle down alright – directly in the form of higher prices and fewer jobs for the rest of us. That’s hardly a recipe for middle and working class success, and it’s hardly a recipe for overall growth in America. All it would do is make the "ruling class" more powerful, while the division between the "wealthy" and the rest of us gets that much wider.

Nonetheless, Hillary is determined to make us more like Europe, while Trump wants to keep us like the America we were meant to be. Which one sounds better to you?

Focus on what Hillary will do, not on Trump comments

In telling Americans at a press conference this morning with the Prime Minister of Singapore that Donald Trump is "unfit" and "woefully unprepared" to be president, President Barack Obama has made it clear that he intends to carry out the rest of his presidency devoted to one goal: getting Hillary Clinton elected to finish the job he started of dismantling America. (Let's not forget, by the way, that Obama, the community organizer who was truly unfit and unprepared to be president, said the same things about Mitt Romney four years ago).

Yes, Donald Trump says things we all wish he wouldn't say. But the future of our country is so incredibly perilous that we actually need to be less concerned with stupid comments and more concerned with what Hillary Clinton will do to what is left of America.

Obama knows Hillary will carry on with his disastrous economic and foreign policies. He knows she will stack the Supreme Court with anti-American subversives. He knows she will throw open the borders and give aid and comfort to the enemy. He knows she will support disastrous tax, minimum wage and "free" college policies. He knows she will dismiss religious rights and do little to reverse the growing marginalization of US Christians as she herself has announced by saying "religious views need to be changed" to pave the way for things like taxpayer-funded abortion on demand. He knows Hillary is unimaginably corrupt and dishonest, that she collects millions of dollars from foreign companies, that she refuses to name our enemies in the fight against terrorism. No matter. She will carry on Obama's disastrous policies and that is all that matters. 

The thing so many supporters of Hillary don't seem to understand is that America would likely not survive her presidency. Worse, they don't seem to grasp that they will actually not like what comes after America, the once great nation now teetering on the brink of disaster. They don't even seem to know what this disaster would involve. 

As Obama himself noted, “There has to be a point in which you say this is somebody I can’t support for president of United States. There has to be a point in which you say ‘enough.'” 

True. But his warnings should be directed at Hillary. It is time those of us who recognize the value of America and want to preserve her exceptionalism said ‘enough’ to Obama, ‘enough’ to the slanted media,  'enough' to Hillary's lies and corruption, and ‘enough’ to the left’s destruction of America.

Michelle Obama's definition of greatness misses the mark

When First Lady Michelle Obama spoke at the Democratic National Convention the other night, she was adamant about reminding us that we "don't need to make America great again, America is already the greatest nation on earth." Of course we cannot forget that she only first became proud to be an American when her husband was nominated as president in 2008. What did she feel about our great country before then? And if our country is so great, why did her husband feel the need to pledge to "fundamentally transform" it?

Then again, Barack Obama's success in doing just that - transforming America to something barely recognizable from our origin - could have to do with why Michelle feels it is such a great country now. On her husband's watch, America has millions and millions more people out of work, and hence, millions more on food stamps. Dependency creates loyal Democratic voters. 

We have completely open borders with pledges to bring in thousands of un-vetted Syrian refugees and other illegal immigrants who will be given the kind of perks that our own citizens could only dream about. Generous benefits creates loyal Democratic voters. Who cares about the dangers of terrorism as long as certain politicians get to be in power.

We have trashed traditional marriage, ushering in an unprecedented wave of special interest rights for certain groups over the rights of individuals. "You pat our back, we'll pat yours with our Democratic votes." 

We have completely lost our common sense about simple things like minimum wage - which was never meant to be a living wage for families, but rather stepping stone wages for new workers just starting out on their journey upward. But under Obama, it is a sad reality that so many people can only find minimum wage jobs, which are now being used as a point of false rhetoric on the need to raise wages, which only serves to reduce jobs. But it sounds good to promise more money to the masses as a way of encouraging them to vote for Democrats.

Unfortunately Ms. Obama misses the point of what makes a country great. It is not the trashing of morality and traditional institutions to benefit some over the many that makes a country great. It is not welfare dependency, unemployment benefits, recklessly open borders, unsustainable forced wages, or any other empty promise the Democrats propose to thrill the uninformed that makes a country great. 

But if these are the things that Ms. Obama and other Democrats feel define greatness, then we are a great country indeed. It's too bad though that this type of "greatness" can only lead to our downfall.

Thoughts are nice, but what we need is prayer

Another terrorist attack. This time at least 84 dead (as of now) in Nice, France, and dozens more injured. Now the media is instructing us to refrain from telling victims of terrorism that they are in our prayers. They prefer we just tell victims they are in our thoughts. It's more politically correct that way. But does it occur to any of them that years and years of pushing God out of our lives and out of our public square in the name of political correctness likely has a lot to do with why we are seeing such evil in our world? 

As for the evil of terrorism, we are dealing with fanatical factions of Islam who are totally against the legal and moral values of Western civilization, and who are willing to kill innocent children and adults throughout the world. I don't know about you, but my thoughts have no power over something like this. Only God does. Lifting ourselves up in prayer to God, the only One Who can change hearts is the best hope we have of eradicating evil. 

Yes we can bomb and shoot and contain these evildoers - and absolutely do need to take resolute, fierce action against this evil - but until conversion takes place, evil will continue to pop up everywhere. Further shunning God in these times is certainly not the answer. In fact, it would do us all good to remember that God is still in charge and we continue to be His hands and feet through prayer and living as witnesses of His love and peace. 

Telling the victims of terrorism that our thoughts are with them does the victims no good, nor can possibly change a terrorist's heart. In fact, it's part of the problem because it's just one more example of how a large swath of our politically correct society wants to bury its collective head in the sand and think that warm, fuzzy thoughts will fix things. On the contrary, not only do we need decisive, unapologetic action on the part of world leaders, we cannot lose sight of the fact that we must turn back to God, publicly acknowledge that we need Him now more than ever, and pray to Him for the conversion we so badly need.

With truth on our side, a Culture of Life can prevail

With the recent striking down by the US Supreme Court of pro-life laws, the timing of the National Right to Life Convention (NRLC) in Herndon, VA, July 7-9, couldn’t have been better – and, as a member of RTL-LIFESPAN, I couldn’t have been more pleased to attend the event in person.

Does that mean the NRLC was an entirely feel-good event? To be honest, no. After all, we were there to talk about some of the most difficult issues of our time: abortion; the growing trend of euthanasia; and the healthcare rationing inherent in “Obamacare” – to name just a few.

These are hardly happy topics. But they’re topics we need to address -- courageously, unabashedly, truthfully -- if we’re to be worthy witnesses to life. In fact, it is in that commitment to truth that we find hope of turning things around in favor of a culture of life.

So how do we share that hope, especially with those hurting from the aftermath of abortion? First, in this particular area, we need to share the truth about how abortion harms women - physically and emotionally. Denying the consequences doesn't diminish the harm, it only forces women to suppress their own trauma. By acknowledging a woman's suffering we can then offer her compassion and information on how and where she - and men, for that matter who are also affected by abortion - can find healing. 

Unfortunately, one thing we hear very little about in the “mainstream” culture is that abortion does indeed harm women. But if abortion is no big deal, like the abortion industry would have us believe, then why was one of the most common themes at the NRLC centered on the emotional and physical consequences of abortion? Why is there such a disconnection between truth and society’s willingness to admit it? 

HUSH, a documentary shown at the NRLC (www.hushfilm.com) does an incredible job of exposing this. Not only does it reveal the alarming link between abortion and breast cancer, premature birth and other risks, it exposes the astonishing silence of the abortion industry and others regarding these risks.

As HUSH details, it took only seven studies establishing the link between tobacco and cancer to get the federal government to mandate warnings on all tobacco products. Yet despite over 120 studies concluding that abortion greatly increases breast cancer risks, the National Cancer Institute and other prominent organizations refuse to even acknowledge these findings, let alone push for government mandates to warn women of the risks.

In other words, politics, not science, seems to be steering the issue right now. Denial like this makes it increasingly appalling to hear abortion advocates refer to any of this as women’s healthcare, when clearly women’s health and well-being are not the primary concerns of this billion dollar industry. Then again, to what extent can we genuinely expect those who don’t value pre-born life to value any life?

This devaluing of human life is especially evident today toward the elderly and otherwise medically challenged. Addressing this, speakers at the NRLC gave extraordinary testimonies about the need to be stalwart advocates for our and our loved ones’ healthcare. From one mother’s experience with a hospital encouraging her to stop treatment for her son’s Trisomy 18 condition, to a brother dealing with a hospital’s stonewalling to administer food and water to his elderly brother, it was chillingly clear that just because someone is in the healthcare field, it isn’t a guarantee he or she will do everything possible to save a life.

With government policy like Obamacare increasingly demanding cuts in health spending, coupled with our throwaway culture of death, we may find ourselves at the mercy of faceless bureaucrats who will decide which of our lives are worthy of the cost to preserve them. 

Even worse, we may find ourselves at the mercy of health professionals under pressure to keep costs down, the same professionals who may also share in today's rising attitude that healthcare should be less about restoring health and preserving life, and more about eliminating suffering at all costs through things like euthanasia. That’s why, by the way, it’s critical to have pro-life Will to Live documents, and even carry them with us in our wallets (e.g., in the form of a mini-card you can attach to your insurance card). Even then, you or your loved ones better keep an eye on the medical facility treating you to make sure they’re adhering to your wishes.

Despite the hard issues addressed at NRLC, the prevailing attitude was assuredly one of hope. As mentioned before, fundamental to that hope is that we have truth on our side: simply put, the value of every human life is not up for debate. But how do we present the truth of the prolife movement in the most effective way to change hearts? That is the million dollar question indeed.

Of course it starts with being witnesses ourselves to the joy and value of life. But one other thing we must continue doing is acknowledge that while facts are necessary to share, simply bombarding others with nothing but statistics, judgments, and atrocities may just further harden the hearts we want to change. To the best of our ability, we need to share the truth we know, but must share it with calmness, compassion, and love to a society desperately in need of these things. 

The bottom line is, whatever your job, whatever your vocation, whatever your place in life, you have it in you to change hearts because you have the key ingredient already in you: the truth that every life matters, from conception to natural death. It is in sharing that truth that we can ultimately make ours a Culture of Life, one heart at a time!