Meaningful and Affordable Health Care reform

I sent the following letter to Congressman Bob Filner, Senators Feinstein and Boxer, as well as the President.

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The main costs of health care are the premiums. A good place to start lowering health insurance premiums is by encouraging competition:

1) Get rid of the insurance companies' anti-trust exemption. There will be competition if they can't fix the premiums at whatever level they choose.

2) Allow individuals and companies to buy insurance from any insurance company in the country. Individuals and companies will be sole decider as to which company they purchase insurance from, not the federal government. Individuals and companies will have the right to terminate coverage and choose a different policy at any time for any reason. The federal government will have no say in this. A good model for this is California's auto insurance system. I can change auto insurance providers at any time.

3) Individuals will be allowed to keep their insurance no matter where they move to or where they work. The federal government will not have a say in this beyond the enactment of this item.

4) Individuals and companies will be the sole arbiters as to what is affordable coverage, not the federal government.

5) Maximum pre-existing condition premium differential will remain at 130 percent as it is in the now dead bill.

Cost to the taxpayer so far: $0.00

End the current form of health savings plan. Make it a plan I can set up on my own and all the money I put in stays in until I use it. Currently any of my money that I don't use goes to waste. After a year, I lose whatever is in the account and have to start over. That is unacceptable which is why I don't have a health savings plan and won't get one until I have total control over it.

Cost to the taxpayer: What ever the taxpayer decides to put into the new health savings plan.

Unacceptable in new bill:

DO NOT under ANY circumstance include an individual mandate in any new bill. The auto insurance mandate in the state of California gives me an out. If I drive in the state of California, I am required to purchase auto insurance. If I can't afford or don't want to buy auto insurance, I can sell my car and take public transportation. That keeps me out of jail and alive. Under the individual mandate in the now dead health care bill, if I don't want or can't afford insurance my only options are jail or suicide. No one has the right to force me into that choice least of all the federal government.

Permitted contents of new bill:

Under no circumstances will the new bill be a "Christmas tree" bill with a lot of non-health related pork/earmarks. Every item in the bill will deal directly with health care and be voted on individually.

The bill will be fewer than 500 pages and written in plain English and posted on-line for 72 hours so all who want can read it.

If you can't get everything into 500 pages, split it up between two or more bills. Should that be required, the on-line viewing time will be 72 hours per bill with the viewing times running consecutive to each other so that all bills can be read.

While I am sure there were some good ideas in the now dead original health care bill, I can't abide the backroom "deals" that were used to buy votes. The most notorious being the "Louisiana Purchase" of Senator Landrieu and the "Cornhusker Kickback" to Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. What other vote buying deals are in this "behind closed doors" monstrosity? One is too many which is why this bill is dead and will not be resurrected. What ever happened to transparency? What happened to showing the entire process on C-Span?

As I said before, the current health care bill is dead. No attempt will be made by you to resurrect it. Every effort will be made by you to keep it from coming back to life. Keeping your seat in the House depends on this. I am very serious about this. In case you haven't noticed, the entire country has been angered by the way the dead health care bill was created and how votes were bought to pass the bill.

As I have more ideas, I will pass them on.

Sincerely,

Nicholas H. Brown

Best use of the LOL texting abbreviation...

Triggers, Recognition of Triggers, and Defeat of Triggers

Many times we act because of triggers. Actually it's a reaction to something. Something sets us off and we don't always know what it is. We try to excuse it by saying something like, "Oh, that's just how I am", or, "that's just how they are."

Wrong.

Something happened in the past that caused a wall to be erected. For a time, it can withstand the triggers and we feel we've got it under control, we've got it handled, and it's no longer a problem. Once the wall can no longer stand the strain, it starts to crack. More triggers = more cracking. Slowly. Surely. Until it's back again and you don't know what causes it or how to handle it because you hid it behind the wall. You're left trying to figure out what the latest one is all about.

Kind of where I am right now. I have no idea how many walls I've put up but I do know they range all the way back to childhood. I may not get them all dealt with right away but I do know that I want to deal with them. I've learned how to recognize when it's time to deal with one because of how I feel. It's a new feeling that I've never felt in the past. The first time had to do with how my dad died. That took a good two months to deal with. Since then they have lasted shorter but that's no guarantee they will continue to be in the future.

I do have to give thanks to God for His Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit Who has been leading me to the truth as my counselor and guide. He has taken me through things with patience and love and without condemnation. I have dealt with things calmly without feeling a need to beat myself up. Burdens have been lifted.

It seems a slow process at times but it is a process. Walls are falling down. I'm moving forward.