Can We Afford Obama's Health Plan?

President Obama is pushing for "health care reform" which could cost $1 Trillion, according to preliminary estimates by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Just so that everyone is clear on this, that's 1,000,000,000,000 dollars. Spending a dollar per second, a trillion dollars will last you 31,688 years! $1 Trillion over 10 years works out to just over $3000 per second.

Knowing that there are roughly 300 million people in the United States, this will cost us $333 per person, per year, which may seem like a small amount to pay for health care, except the CBO also estimates that this plan would only reduce the number of uninsured people by about 16 million by 2015. So, in six years we will have spent about $600 billion to insure 16 million people. That works out to $37,500 per person, or $6250 per person, per year.



And remember, this is on top of what we already spend for health care. CBO data for Fiscal Year 2008 shows Medicare and Medicaid as the largest piece of the budget pie already (even more than the evil Defense Department).

And let's not forget the hidden costs associated with any new spending. Part of the funding will come from "cutting tax deductions for families that make over $250,000 a year." It's the same old plan: We need some more money, what should we do? I know! Let's make the rich people pay for it. They have lots of money they don't need. But those "rich people" are the small business owners who already have a hard time providing health care for their employees. Raising taxes on these people is only going to increase the number of uninsured americans.

Great Depression Part II?

Lately, many people have been talking about the current economic downturn in the US as if it were a repeat of the Great Depression, but I'm not sure that's really appropriate at this point.

The Political Machine states, "The important thing is to prepare for your new life during the New Great Depression, which will probably last at least a dozen years and end with the United States being one of the world's poorest, most-backward nations."

For those of us that were born after the Depression, and those that experienced it and somehow forgot, let's review the Depression:

• Crop prices fell by about 60%
  
• 13 million people became unemployed; Unemployment was up to 19% in 1938
  
• Industrial production fell by nearly 45% between the years 1929 and 1932
  
• Home-building dropped by 80% between the years 1929 and 1932
  
• From the years 1929 to 1932, about 5000 banks went out of business
  
• Bread lines were a common sight in most cities
  
• As much as 2.5 million people abandoned their homes in the South and the Great Plains and went on the road to search for jobs and food
  
• Hundreds of people lined up every day outside unemployment offices in major cities
  
• Millions of people got their food at soup kitchens
  

So far, I haven't seen a single "bread line", and as far as I know there aren't long lines every day at the unemployment office. The unemployment rate as of October is 6.5%. New home construction dropped 24.8% from 2006 to 2007, but construction had been near record highs for several years so a drop was inevitable.
There is even some question as to whether we are technically in a recession. The National Bureau of Economic Research studies the economy and formally designates economic expansions and recessions. "Recession" is commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of declines in the gross domestic product. The US GDP did drop .5% in the 3rd quarter, but had increased 2.8% in the 2nd quarter. The group has used other factors to determine this is officially a recession, but it isn't as easily labeled as many would have us think.

Whatever you label it, clearly the economy has taken a downturn from recent years and we must be careful to prevent a repeat of the past, but we must also be careful not to freak out and cause a repeat of the past. As John D. Rockefeller said, "These are days when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come and gone. Prosperity has always returned and will again."

We also must be strong through this time of correction in our economy and not sacrifice what makes America great just to build up our 401Ks. We must remember the words of President Roosevelt from a radio address in 1938:

"Democracy has disappeared in several other great nations, not because the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion and government weakness through lack of leadership....Finally, in desperation, they chose to sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat. We in America know that our democratic institutions can be preserved and made to work. But in order to preserve them we need...to prove that the practical operation of democratic government is equal to the task of protecting the security of the people....The people of America are in agreement in defending their liberties at any cost, and the first line of the defense lies in the protection of economic security."

It's a Small World After All... or is it?

The group "World Overpopulation Awareness" states on their website:

Unfortunately, with exploding population growth, excessive consumption on
the part of the more well-off people in the world, errant technology, and
corrupt governments, the environment is in trouble and the sustainability of the
people of our planet is threatened. The solutions seem simple: empower and
enable women to have fewer children, develop simpler lifestyles, tax pollution
of any kind, and set up government programs to enable the other three
solutions.

Overpopulation is a serious problem getting worse every year: if we continue at the current rate, population will double to over 11 billion by 2035. Overpopulation is the root of most, if not all, environmental and many economic issues, timber overharvesting, loss of arable land, ocean depletion, food shortages, water shortages, air pollution, water pollution, flooding, plant and animal habitat loss, global warming and immigration.

That sounds pretty serious. They also claim on the same website that "1/3 of the population growth in the world is the result of incidental or unwanted pregnancies." A quick perusal of their website would have you believe that increased contraceptive use would solve most of the world's problems. As they said, one of the "simple solutions" is to "empower and enable women to have fewer children." But is that true?

Obviously, many unwanted pregnancies contribute to population growth. The very definition of population growth requires new people to be born. However, according to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, in 1994 "28% [of women aged 15-44] had had one or more unplanned births." Farther down on the same page they note "[a]n earlier study based on the 1982 NSFG [National Surveys of Family Growth] concluded that 46% of women aged 15-44 at the time of the survey had experienced one or more unintended pregnancies." That is a drop of more than a third in the number of women having unintended pregnancies, which would seem to indicate an increase in "contraceptive use" (including abstinence, condoms, birth control, abortions, etc.). NSFG data collected in 2002 shows 14% of women reported having an unwanted birth, again a significant drop. So, we would assume that from 1982 to 1994, and through to 2002, we would see a significant drop in the population growth rate.

Using U.S. census data, the population growth rates for 1980, 1990, and 2000 respectively were 11.5%, 9.8%, and 13.2%. So, while unwanted pregnancies (and lack of contraceptive use) can contribute to growth rate increases, they apparently are not a major cause of current trends.

Perhaps it's our complicated lifestyles that are causing overpopulation, and we need to "develop simpler lifestyles." However, the U.S. census data also shows that population growth significantly decreased from the 19th to the 20th century, when life became less simple.

Okay, so their solutions to overpopulation may not be correct, but overpopulation is still a problem right? The current population of the world is around 6.7 billion according to UN estimates. Using some simple math, 7 billion people living in single family homes could fit inside the state of Alaska. (Assume 4 people per house, .2 acre lots, 1.48 million km² of land) Now, obviously everyone is not going to move into single family homes in Alaska, but the point is that they could and the population density would only be 4070 people/km², a little less than Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For comparison, Manhattan has a population density of 25,850 people/km².

Indisputably, if the population continues to grow, eventually (many, many years from now) the earth will become overcrowded. But, as World Overpopulation Awareness tells us, "the sustainability of the people of our planet is threatened." Doesn't it stand to reason that if the world becomes overcrowded enough to affect the sustainability of humans that the population will decrease? It seems to be a self-correcting problem.

Besides, by the time the population grows that much, we'll be living in outer space.