Obama health care proposals no brainers…. but

When it comes right down to the health care proposals that President obama is making, they are absolutely no brainers that they simply need to be. So why are people opposing them is a question that may baffle scholars.

Not being denied coverage, selecting your own doctor, having your doctor make the medical calls and not some insurance bookkeeper who knows Microsoft Excel better than a tongue depressor, they are all absolutely no brainers. So if they are no brainers, then why are some people so opposed to the changes?

We at Connecting the Dots do not want to give the answer to that, but we do want you to fire up that grey matter between your ears and dig down a layer or two to find the answers. This is the type of research we do before we make a post, and that is why our prediction rate hovers around 80% correct. We eliminate the spin and the deception and look at the foundation. From there we use logic and examine what stimuli will produce a specific reaction. When we know what the stimuli is, then predicting how people will react is fairly easy once you have a few examples to compare to.

So a few places to start looking is simply the basic concept money drives a lot of decisions. So if a person or group may make less money based on a government law, they simply would be opposed to it. Even if they only needed $100 to be happy and functional, the thought of losing any part of that $1000 or if you prefer that $900 overpayment and they will simply fight tooth and nail to keep it. When you look at the CEO pay some companies dish out, that huge overpayment alone makes you angry. So you need to ask yourself how much of this opposition to the no brainer health care President Obama is proposing is tied to keeping those over paid CEO types overpaid. When you can answer that you will have taken the first step.

The next question you must ask is who is Obama’s proposal designed to help, the people or the CEO? Then you can start to see why the misinformation and distortion coming from the companies is a full court press. You can fairly easily conclude that greed has a lot to do with it.

When you look at the argument that the proposal costs too much and tax payers need to foot the bill, you need to go back and look at that $900 overpayment and think about cause and effect. If making that $900 overpayment will raise taxes, the problem is not the taxes, the problem is the $900 overpayment, and that brings us back to Mr. CEO’s paycheck again.

So as you start to dig a little suddenly things look a bit different and the essence of the health care proposal once again starts to shine. Looking at the secondary gain possibility of cutting those ridiculous CEO pays down to size is just another reason people need to dig on this one. Certainly there are enough Americans out of work at the moment that free time is not a huge issue in getting to the facts. One key to getting it right is not to listen to others, but you need to dig yourself at the foundation.

Listening to what others say already has some distortion built in. If you can remember the ‘whisper experiment’ you may have learned in school you will understand why. The whisper experiment is done by each person whispering a phrase in a persons ear one time. Then that person will do the same to the next person in the chain. By the time they phrase has been whispered a few times, misunderstandings are relayed along and the end result is very different from the original phrase.


5 Responses to Obama health care proposals no brainers…. but

  1. I’m going to have to disagree with you 100% on this post, Richard.

    Obama’s program is a big wet kiss to the pharma industry, trial lawyers, the AMA and the AARP. This program will only increase costs to the taxpayer. Insurance companies stand to gain 3 Trillion over 10 years in exchange for an 80 billion savings committment over the same time period.

    Why don’t you connect the dots between health care costs in Thailand and that in the US? Why is it that the average health care cost burden is $8000 per person in the US (250,000 THB) or the average annual salary for a person in Thailand?

    You seem to be singling out CEOs for earning too much. True, there is some rampant excesses in pay but shouldn’t the CEO be the best paid in the company as he or she shoulders all of the company responsibility at the end of the day? I’m a CEO of a small company and when I look at the number of hours I put in day and night plus weekends compared to what I earn (decent salary but nowhere near the big packages of CEO’s in the largest companies) then my hourly rate isn’t actually too much different than what you’d pay for a massage.

    CEO’s of bigger companies have more responsibility they need to own so should be paid more, period. How much more is subject to debate.

    In an earlier comment I asked you to explore both sides of Obama’s proposal. This post calling it a ‘no brainer’ doesn’t look at the other side of the issue.

    If it’s a no-brainer does that mean that only people without brains support this? 🙂

    -Mike

  2. MR MIKE, CEO, IS WRONG: HE LAST SENTENCE IS THAT HE GETS PAID $60 PER HOUR & LIKES IT & WANT TO KEEP IT: WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO GET PAID $60 PER HOUR: I VERY MUCH DOUBT THAT THIS GUY IS A GENIUS: SO, HE OUGHT TO GET PAID REGULAR SALARY: I THINK THIS MR MIKE IS A TROLL !!

    (Admin Note: This poster did not provide a valid email address so don’t take him too serious.)

  3. Sorry INCORRECT & Richard,

    I’m not a troll- and am very much the person who said I was in the first comment. I did provide a bogus email address as I’m not fond of stalkers, internet or otherwise.

    $60 per hour is not all that much for running a 550 person company with $3 million US revenue per month.

    -Mike

  4. I never said you were a troll Mike, I was very hesitant about letting INCORRECT comment go up but he did seem to hit on a point that a persons income may influence a decision. As for your suggestion that I should look at it from another perspective, I think you are reading this a bit too deep for what I was targeting. I was not looking at the guts of the planned change, but more why anyone would want to go up against a no brainer concept. Keep in mind the health care issue is a work in progress and there will be dozens of tweaks before any type of vote. As for email addresses, I and admin are the only ones that see them so there is no need to worry about stalkers.

  5. Richard,

    Thanks for the comment, and I appreciate your response.

    Setting aside the issue of CEO compensation, I do think that it’s good to prevent insurance companies from denying claims based on technicalities and forcing them to provide coverage to everybody. Forcing everybody to take insurance may be ok but I have big problems with the lack of a public (read: non-profit) plan and the fact that people cannot opt in for catastrophic insurance only.

    The plan does nothing to address the issue of costs and transparency of prices charged by health care service providers… that is the real key to driving down cost in healthcare. I used to be in a company that made medical products and believe me the margins are HUGE- like 70% gross margins… and there is this level of fat profit & waste at every level of the supply chain, like the distributors and health care providers as well. Even the AMA forces salaries up by creating artifical scarcity in the number of positions available for doctors each year.

    Before you say it’s a no-brainer you should be looking at the seen and unseen effects of this program.

    For a blog that states to look several steps to connect the dots, calling this a no-brainer, IMHO, is extremely shortsighted!

    -Mike