Election Results may give pause to health care reform.

On Tuesday many Americans went to the polls to vote on local elections. Even though the elections were for local representation, two elections were getting plenty of national attention. The races for Governor in New Jersey and Virginia were both looked upon as a barometer for 2010 Congressional races. In both cases the sitting Democrat lost to their Republican challenger. While the spin was in high gear yesterday, the true impact will be seen on Capitol Hill as health care reform and cap and trade bills move forward. Even though the Democrats hold majority in both houses of Congress, those Democrats, many known as "Blue Dogs", in swing states are now taking pause to assess the ripple effect the elections have in their districts.

Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) warned that "The House leadership needs to pay attention to what happened in Virginia." Rep. Taylor's words are echoed in the Senate by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.). Sen. Conrad responded to the election results by saying, "The American people get it. They know we're on an unsustainable fiscal course." The realization by "Blue Dog" Democrats is reassuring as House Speaker Pelosi is pushing for a vote on the House's health care reform bill which is nearly 3000 pages long. Why, Speaker Pelosi is the bill so long? Health Care reform is not as complex as your bill makes it sound.

Ask yourself why not one single member of Congress in favor of the reform being looked at is not willing to participate in it by giving up their current health insurance coverage and switch to the "reformed" insurance coverage? Health care reform can be obtained without a 3000 page bill that will cost $1.2T over ten years according to the CBO. I have blogged about how to accomplish this without spending a dime but will say it again.

1. Create true competition through the interstate buying and selling of health care insurance.
   
2. Remove the anti-trust exemption.
   
3. Phase out Medicare and Medicaid.
   
4. Establish Medical Saving Accounts.
   
5. Tort reform
   
6. Require all medical record's to be computerized
   
7. Make health insurance portable
   

I know it is not a 12 step plan but it will work and achieve the goals the Obama administration has for health care reform. Doing these seven things to start with will lower premium costs, save taxpayer money, and make insurance available to all. We need fiscal responsible and logical decision making when dealing with an issue that is 1/6^th of our economy. Any other way will only hurt the growth in GDP obtained last quarter. If the election results gives pause to the "Blue Dog" Democrats to delay any rash voting on health care reform then American's will win. If Pelosi and Reed are able to shove through legislation that does nothing but grow government, Americans will continue to see unemployment levels north of 10%. Imagine what the unemployment rate would be if companies had not outsourced many back office duties to India, Ireland, and other locales around the world. Take a moment today to call and write your Congress member to voice your opinion and urge them to vote for sustained growth that does not bankrupt America.

Cap and Trade: Ponzi Scheme

While President Obama is in Italy, one of his goals was to build upon the Cap and Trade notion to curb emissions. Major push back came from India, China, and other developing countries that see high-carbon emission energy sources as a requirement to assist in creating economic development in their countries. Dr. James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, wrote in his article G-8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change on the The Huffington Post:

“For all its "green" aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like "cap-and-trade" scheme. Here are a few of the bill's egregious flaws:

• It guts the Clean Air Act, removing EPA's ability to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants.
• It sets meager targets -- 2020 emissions are to be a paltry 13% less than this year's level -- and sabotages even these by permitting fictitious "offsets," by which other nations are paid to preserve forests - while logging and food production will simply move elsewhere to meet market demand.
• Its cap-and-trade system, reports former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Robert Shapiro, "has no provisions to prevent insider trading by utilities and energy companies or a financial meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their derivatives."
• It fails to set predictable prices for carbon, without which, Shapiro notes, "businesses and households won't be able to calculate whether developing and using less carbon-intensive energy and technologies makes economic sense," thus ensuring that millions of carbon-critical decisions fall short.”

I agree with Dr. Hansen that “Cap and Trade” is a Ponzi scheme being played out in Congress. The day that the House of Representatives discussed the bill it was comical to watch the wheeling and dealing being done on the House floor to gain the votes needed to pass. Also, there were about 300 pages of change that passed the Rules Committee at the wee hours of the morning on the day the bill came to the House floor. Representatives on the House floor all but admitted that they had not seen nor read the 300 pages. An official copy wasn’t even put together until the debate was nearly done.

If Congress and Obama’s administration are serious about reducing “Green House” gasses than scrap the Cap and Trade notion. There will need to be a transition period from fossil fuel to renewable energy. So let’s plan for that. Phase out coal, natural gas, and oil over the next 15 years.

Over the next 15 years as the fossil fuels are phased out, America opens up our country for oil exploration and place tariffs on foreign oil and natural gas. Wind and solar are not the only uses of power that needs to be explored. During the 15 year phase out, America can build nuclear power plants and remove the executive order put in place by President Carter that prohibits the re-using of spent rods in nuclear power plants.

Nuclear power is reliable and safer than 20 years ago. Nuclear power creates jobs and builds communities. As I wrote in Obama short sighted on summer job program posted June 8th, nuclear power plants creates between 1,400 and 1,800 jobs while establishing between 400 to 700 permanent jobs which are “36 percent more than average salaries in the local area (per NEI).” The Cap and Trade bill does not account for nuclear power in the 1500 pages of legislation. President Obama and Congress scrap the bill and replace with a program that includes and pushes nuclear power. As we phase out the coal plant, we can build nuclear power plants across the street.