I am not suggesting that "showdown" isn't a viable or well worn strategy. This just happens to be that this is the first time in our history that the ridiculous threat of everyone in the world getting hammered mercilessly for the next 10 years in order to agree to pay our bills was used.

Our problem was never the government spending. It was the lack of revenues to pay for the programs we all voted for. (Don't give me that trite "I never voted for them" garbage. The bills were passed and the spending authorized. Home ownership, Science, Education, Defense, Medicare, Medicaid and SocSec have been around for 50 years or more. There hasn't been a single federal program that any of us hasn't either directly participated in or one of our family members/close friends have utilized.)

We should be all paying higher taxes for the privilege of living in a country that provides so much.

If any US citizen can make a verified claim that in no way were they the beneficiary of any US government program on the way to their standard of living, I'll give you my salary for a year. (BTW, if you even walk on a sidewalk, you fail the test... for that matter breathing America's Free air, you fail.)

I love this discussion., Thanks for engaging.

Before tackling broader policy issues, we should acknowledge some ground level facts. Policy based on misinformation breeds disaster.

The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies and promotes best-in-class standards and practices of care. While not the only non-partisan and independent NGO, it has the reputation, at least, of having fewer axes to grind as it has one of the broadest sets of country participants, access to the world's best health institutions and the core data necessary to make assessments.

The WHO ranks every western European nation ahead of the US in terms of outcomes, access, and overall health of population. The only aspect of health care delivery that the US ranks 1st in is cost, and we are TWICE the cost per patient than the next highest costing nation. The most notable issues with the US system is its asymmetry. Access is severely limited to 15% of the population and roughly 70% of the rest are covered in what is termed "catastrophic care," where the patient is responsible for everything other than an emergency, life threatening situation. Some key analysts have termed our private health care system as a "denial of care" or "wait until and emergency" protocol system, as profits for the firms entirely depend on NOT providing or paying for health care, especially preventive care. Nations ranked highest in outcomes, access and overall population health are single payer systems that focus on prevention rather than emergency care.

Within the US care system itself, quality is extremely uneven. Paradigms vary by region, and even within regions, health centers have extremely uneven distribution of technologies. With a focus on emergency care as the primary generator of value added (read: profits) services, health providers are not incented to prevent health problems. As patients are required to pay for preventive services and not pay for emergencies, the rational consumer wishing to minimize personal cost usually opts NOT to engage in preventive care in order to foist the risk on the insurance system. Even further, because federal and state law require hospitals to take emergencies even without clear reimbursement (Medicaid as fallback picks up the tab or the costs are transferred to the premium paying customers) low and middle income people have no incentive to even buy insurance. Thus, emergencies become the breeding ground for waste, fraud and profit that have poor outcomes and lowers the overall effectiveness of the US healthcare system.

The first stage of the proposed changes in our US healthcare system is to force those who are skating by not contributing to the system to pay in. The second is to start forcing out the concept of the profit maximizing "denial of care" system and layering in preventive and inclusive care.

Your costs going up have nothing to do with this healthcare package. The majority of provisions are not due to come into effect until 2014, with only the addition of dependents under 26 can be included in parents' packages (not costly to healthcare companies) and forcing out the provisions that would deny care to those suffering from a catastrophe (which is why those with those policies were complaining) in effect immediately. Your costs have gone up because insurance companies are trying to convince you that this program will cost more money to them. In fact, all that's gone up has been these companies' profits. Care costs are relatively predictable, all that's different is the insurers' fear of the single payer system option, which would devastate their profit paradigm.

I personally don't understand why they would raise rates like this, as it only reinforces arguments that having the single payer option would benefit the participant. But what do I know.

Anyway, the point is that none of the changes to the healthcare system entail a free ride to anyone. In fact, these changes are what Newt Gengrich in 1994 and Mitt Romney in 2007 proposed to stop the burden on taxpayers, particularly the wealthy. Few of the measures come close to making us look like the European models which outclass our system. If anything, this healthcare package should be a huge boom to the private sector providers as more people will be buying products from insurance companies and more people will be seeking healthcare under the for profit system. Saying Mr. Obama has never been for business doesn't align with the most significant legislation in the past 50 years. It is decidedly pro-business. It is decidedly pro-personal accountability. Sure the government was meddling, but what recourse was there? This broken and bankrupt system wasn't going to fix itself. From here forward, when there can be ways to refine the model, the precedent is set that change is achievable. Many things can be done to improve the system, but not every change can happen immediately.

Lastly, the "failed policies" in Europe aren't failing because the policies are bad, its' because some of the rules in those policies don't match with the realities. Take their biggest problem, state pensions. Full Benefit retirement age in Greece is 53. Ridiculous. It's not the policy per se, its that it doesn't match with how long people live. Raise that to 67, like it is in the US, and their problems dissipate rapidly. Greeks pay far more into their system than do Americans, and get more out. They are all very satisfied with how their programs work in practice (from a withholding and payout basis), but they have a disconnect as to when retirement should become a benefit. We have that same problem here. 67 isn't the same today as 67 was 40 years ago. We live longer, we live healthier and most of us are capable of working well beyond 67, but none of us want to give up that "benefit." Raise retirement 3 years to 70, and Social Security's financial problems would be dramatically reduced.

In many ways, Social Justice programs like pensions and healthcare rely on the rules of engagement for success. Anarchic "free market" solutions often wind up having asymmetric results. Modern governments concerned with equity and fairness (The American Way) despise asymmetry in core markets where people have no choice in participation as the enemy of the state. It is seen as institutionalizing injustice, like slavery or denial of women the right to vote.

Remember, there is no perfect solution, but there is a "more perfect union." Free Markets can coexist with Controlled markets, each adapting from the other. Neither is a real enemy.

I have no real feel for Mr. Obama as a polarizing force. To my knowledge, none of his policies have caused unemployment, none have caused systemic breakdown of industries (like the Banking/Financial System), none have caused us to enter into needless violent conflict, and non of his policies have singled out any particular group for discrimination. Causing these would polarize me. My hope is that solutions for the above are considered and the best ones enacted.

So far, the "failed" policies have worked. The recession is over and growth is returning (2% last quarter). Nine consecutive months of private sector job growth and price stabilization have been achieved. In not time during US history have 4% of the labor force been absorbed into paying jobs in 18 months (except during the gear up for WWII, and never during "peace time"), and the expectation of the Obama administration to make that happen with "passive policy" is ridiculous. It will not change under this Congress and will not change even with a new President.

The problem with macro-economic policies is that implementation timing is critical and the magnitude the effort must match the magnitude of the problem. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama took office 3 years into the recession. Mr. Bush did not begin addressing the downturn until mid 2008, and only half-heartedly. The current Republican theories on intervention is "Do Nothing - the Free Market will Decide." The current Democrat theories on intervention is "try anything that has historically worked."

I know the frustration with the speed of the recovery is not to anyone's satisfaction. Unfortunately, the globalization of our economy has taken much power away from our government's ability to nudge the economy as effectively as we want. I will refer you to a previous blog entry that discusses policy options.

BTW, Europe's new fiscal policies may wind up causing their currency to appreciate in the next quarter, and that would be devastating to jobs.

When you say "pushes back" what does that mean?

Your company being bout out, Saintfan, is one example of investment, as Google has probably executed a broad based implementation of your technology(ies). This is what the capital gains tax was meant to do, reward you for taking that risk to bring something new and productive to the economy.

What I meant by random is that you could have just as easily picked "red" or "black" or the number of times Sarah Palin says "You Betcha" during a speech. Betting on whether an event occurs or an outcome of an event occurs is not a productive activity.