Ok, so its been a while and I don’t normally wade into the political waters. You do have to admit that you can’t turn on the TV, radio or log on to your favorite homepage without seeing someone’s opinion on this whole healthcare reform. I am not likely able to offer anything different from others who are much more emotional about one side of the issue or another. And to be honest, I probably only understand it as much as – well, our Congressional leaders do. I do believe that the estimate of what this will cost is low and that most folks taxes will increase. If I recall, this thing is gonna run about 950 billion bucks. I also believe that I have heard that one of the next items on the ole’ Presidents’ Agenda is Immigration reform. Once again, I will probably not get into this from the political side as it is a very emotional topic as well. But I will make some generalizations that I think most people would not disagree with. There are a ton of undocumented (illegal) immigrants residing in the U.S. (in excess of 15 million, I think). It is a very divisive topic as one side wants the “right” to stay in the U.S. and other side feels that all illegal immigrants should be deported. This must be a challenge for our government, right? What do you do? Many immigrants say that they want to be documented and will be happy to pay taxes (which I seriously doubt because I don’t know ANYONE who will “happily” pay taxes).
I started thinking about these two reforms and its impact. I am a little concerned in the order in which the current administration has chosen to tackle these. I understand that the healthcare reform could be viewed as a higher priority; but from a fiscal responsiblity perspective this makes no sense at all to me. Is there any idea on what the solution for immigration reform will be? Are there any estimates on how many “new” legal immigrants will be added to books in the U.S.? What rights will they have? So heres the deal. If insuring the 35 million Americans without insurance is going to run us an [under]estimated $950 billion, what is this healthcare going to really cost when there is another 15 million uninsured people living in our midst. I just think that you can’t start to reform a system for its population that you may substantially change. If you have a budget, wouldn’t you want to know the number of people who you are inviting to dinner before you pick the menu? This just baffles me. Is Obama going to tell any new immigrants that they don’t get healthcare? I seriously doubt that. That population is a part of his base voters. So, then what will the true cost to the healthcare reform be then? Does that increase the likelihood that our taxes will increase, when we have been told that they will not? So I ask you, does the Administration and those on the Hill hope this is goes under the radar? Is this intentional?
In all of the back and forth about all of these political agendas, I am surprised that I have not heard anyone bring up this point. As usual, feel free to educate me, reply, or even weigh in with your political opinions as well.
… Just sayin
Posted on March 30, 2010
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