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Senator Dorgan's retirement from Congress may have a lot more
to do with what the 2010 election leads to in the future as the health care
legislation that Mr. Dorgan fought for seems to have been his undoing.
The polls have been clear on the fact that Americans don't want what Congress
is trying to do to health care in the U.S. Yet, Congress and the White House
continue along their chosen path. Well, just this week, two well established
Democrat senators, Christopher Dodd and Byron Dorgan "retired," or chose not
to run for re-election. Both gave vague reasons, with Dorgan giving the usual "more
time with the family" speech while Dodd acknowledged that he was likely to
have a rough time in the election. Neither of them admitted that their role
in the health care bill agreed upon by the senate had anything to do with their
decision.
Yet, is most certainly did. According to The Wall Street Journal: "Democratic
Sen. Byron Dorgan, long a popular figure in this state, faced political peril
in his re-election bid because he was closely associated with Washington and
policies being crafted there, in particular the health-care overhaul, according
to polls and interviews with his constituents." The Journal interviewed several
of Dorgan's constituents and they noted that they weren't happy with the fact
that Mr. Dorgan had ignored their feelings toward the bill. According to The
Journal: "Debra Reisenauer, a 53-year-old independent who owns a massage-therapy
clinic in this small town (Dickinson ND), said she was concerned about dwindling
health-care options. Mr. Dorgan's support for President Barack Obama's health-care
overhaul influenced her decision to vote against him in November, she said."
Another independent voter told the Journal ""Maybe Senator Dorgan got sick of
jumping on the same bandwagon as all the other Democrats." He said he gained
more respect for Mr. Dorgan after the senator's Tuesday announcement."
In fact, it seems as if this isn't just soley about Democrats. According to The
Journal: "The political climate in North Dakota, as in other conservative-leaning
places across the country, has grown unfriendly to incumbents, particularly Democrats,
as Mr. Obama and Democratic congressional leaders have pursued an ambitious agenda
including health-care legislation and an economic-stimulus plan."
In North Dakota, the Journal reported: "Nearly two-thirds of the state's likely
voters opposed the plan. Among those who strongly favored it, 84% said they would
back Mr. Dorgan. Among those who strongly opposed it, 86%" were likely to vote
for the opposing candidate.
Here's is where it gets interesting. Pollster Scott Rasmussen told the Journal
that "The health-care issue has become the catch-all for all the frustration." We
agree. On a daily basis, in our other life as a physician we have at least one
or two conversations with patients about the future of health care. A few months
ago this scribe would usually start the conversation, in preparation for what
likely lies ahead, a tougher set of circumstances for patient and doctors. Lately,
though, it's been the patients who bring up the topic, which means that they
are increasingly informed and quite angry about the situation.
So we're now at a point where the public is catching on to what those in Washington
thought would be a slam dunk, the back door nationalization of the U.S. health
care system.
Conclusion
On two occasions this week patients who are on fixed income and whose insurance
for medical care comes from a Medicare advantage plan, Medicare and Medicaid,
for which they pay very little, if at all, have intimated to us that they don't
really care about who pays their bill, that they just want to get what they want
out of the system. Both of them implied their entitlement and their right to
care. Neither of them has had a job in several years. They are both less than
55 years of age, and have no cardiopulmonary health problems, although they both
smoke and take large amounts of painkillers and antianxiety pills.
More specifically, neither of them has a clue as to what lies ahead of them when
the health care bill in front of Congress passes. And if truth be told, neither
do any of the rest of us, since the bill is huge and full of potential loopholes.
Yet, between the two of them in the last several years since we've been involved
in their care, the expenses incurred by the government on their behalf may be
in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (not for what we do for them, but for
the care that they have undergone by other physicians and institutions.) One
of them wanted us to fill out the gobs of paper required for a motorized scooter,
which costs somewhere north of $5000 and would be paid for by Medicare. Her reason
for needing a scooter was that she doesn't like to use a cane, although she has
recently had successful back surgery and can walk quite well with a cane, which
costs about $20. When we told her that it seemed unreasonable to us to spend
$5000 on a scooter since she could still walk, she told us that it didn't matter
to her what it cost, since she wasn't paying for it anyway.
This isn't about picking on the less fortunate or about finger pointing. It's
about highlighting the inner workings of a system that has gone haywire and is
little understood by those who are tinkering with it. The reason the system doesn't
work as well as it should is that all the participants, patients, the government,
insurers, hospitals, many physicians, health care personnel and the manufacturers
of drugs and medical equipment are not seeing the whole picture. The system is
so interconnected that if any aspect of it becomes imbalanced, the whole system
suffers. And the consequences are all magnified throughout the system sending
shockwaves that spread widely and often with unpredictable consequences.
This is the reason why people who work for a living are looking to put the likes
of Mr. Dorgan and Mr. Dodd on the street. And the fact that Mr. Dodd and Mr.
Dorgan and Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid, and Mr. Nelson and Mr. Obama don't want to
look into the complexity of the issues involved in health care, such as the attitudes
and the history of individuals who consume extraordinary amounts of resources
in the system, is the reason that they are going to pass what could be a very
bad plan, which will cost many of them their jobs and those of us who pay for
the health care system a lot more of our hard earned money through taxes and
higher premiums, not to mention the cost associated with what is likely to be
more restrictive care and more difficult access to care.
Is there a solution for health care in the U.S.? Maybe the first step should
be to honestly define and articulate what the problems are and to attempt to
correct those issues that are fixable over time while not overadjusting those
areas of the system that function.
What does this have to do with your daily life? You're paying for scooters for
people that can walk but don't want to use a cane because it makes them feel
badly about their lot in life. You may think us insensitive. But when you see
the health care issue from this side of the aisle, you get a multi-layered perspective,
which shows the breadth and complexity of the problem, and the folly of attemtping
to corral such a huge beast with a shot gun instead of a laser stun gun.
It's that centrally planned big gun approach to so called "reform" which leads
to higher expenses for those of us who would rather use a cane than a walker
because we can still walk.
At the end of the day, all politics are local. And what we're seeing is that
the locals are increasingly unfriendly toward their representatives in Washington.
That sentiment seems to be growing and it will have significant consequences.
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The stability
of the Currency Shares Australian Dollar (NYSE: FXA) and
Currency Shares Canadian Dollar (NYSE: FXC) suggest that
the market is favoring commodity based nations.
Chart Courtesy of StockCharts.com
Currency markets are all about betting on the assets, the
politics, and the potential for interest rates of a particular
nation or region. And if you look at the Japanese Yen and
the Euro, whose charts are heading lower, you can see that
the market has little faith in the triad of factors that
affect the price of those countries' currencies.
Japan changes governments more frequently than some people change shirts. And
Europe's unemployment problems, made worse by the global recession, have been
in place for years. Yet, Canada and Australia are resource rich countries and
by comparison to the rest of the world have reasonably stable politics. Australia
has even raised interest rates in the last few months, as it worries about inflation.
If you extrapolate the same dynamics to the U.S. Dollar, which is starting to
strengthen, you can see some parallels. Politically, it's likely that some sort
of more balanced Congress will emerge after the 2010 election. The U.S. economy
is slowly stabilizing. And if the employment report shows any kind of positive
surprise, that will provide more support to the thesis.
What this means is that the currency markets are starting to make distinctions
and predictions about the future. As with all things in the market, it's relative.
Neither the U.S., Canada, or Australia are anywhere near being perfect. The U.S.,
especially has problems with looming budget deficits in the future. Yet, the
U.S. is still the world's largest economy. And it is once again, although it's
not yet being appreciated by the mainstream, a resource rich country, based on
the shale deposits of natural gas as well as with the potential for offshore
oil deposits.
The U.S. also still has vast tracts of unexplored wilderness that could contribute
other natural resources at some point in the future.
What's the bottom line? If the currency markets are correct, change lies ahead,
and resource rich countries are likely to lead the way in the next leg of whatever
is around the bend.
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