The Thoughts, Updates, and Happenings of Eric, Rachel Leigh, Kyle, and Keira.

Universal Healthcare Perils

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:08:34 -0500

I got the following via an email from a friend today. Interesting:

A recent "Investor's Business Daily" article provided very  interesting statistics from a survey by the United Nations  International Health Organization.  Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years  after diagnosis:   U.S. 65%   England 46%   Canada 42%  Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received  treatment within six months:   U.S. 93%   England 15%   Canada 43%  Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it  within six months:   U.S. 90%   England 15%   Canada 43%  Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within  one month:   U.S. 77%   England 40%   Canada 43%  Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:   U.S. 71   England 14   Canada 18  Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in  "excellent health":   U.S. 12%   England 2%   Canada 6%   I don't know about you, but I don't want "Universal Healthcare"  comparable to England or Canada .  Moreover, it was Sen. Harry Reid who said, "Elderly Americans  must learn to accept the inconveniences of old age."  SHIP HIM TO CANADA OR ENGLAND !  He is "elderly" himself but be sure to remember his health  insurance is different from yours as Congress has their own high-  end coverage! He will never have to learn to accept "inconveniences"!!! 
*****************************************************************
 AND THE WINNER IS VERY INTERESTING!  The percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in  the private business sector prior to their appointment to the  cabinet. You know what the private business sector is... a real  life business, not a government job. Here are the percentages.  T. Roosevelt........ 38%  Taft.....................40%  Wilson ................52%  Harding..................49%  Coolidge.............. 48%  Hoover................. 42%  F. Roosevelt......... 50%  Truman..................50%  Eisenhower........... 57%  Kennedy.............. 30%  Johnson.................47%  Nixon................... 53%  Ford..................... 42%  Carter.................. 32%  Reagan...................56%  GH Bush................. 51%  Clinton ................. 39%  GW Bush................ 55%  And the winner of the Chicken Dinner is:  Obama................ 8% !!!  Yep! That's right! Only Eight Percent!!!..the least by far of  the last 19 presidents!! And these people are trying to tell our  big corporations how to run their business? They know what's  best for GM...Chrysler... Wall Street... and you and me?

ObamaCare - It’s Bad, It’s Worse...It’s UGLY

Tue, 3 Aug 2010 13:00:16 -0500

I’ve been watching the coverage from both sides on ObamaCare and what it means for the average American. You can sum up the arguments on both sides like this:

1. Conservative/Libertarian: ObamaCare unconstitutionally requires individuals to purchase a product to maintain their good standing as a citizen. It’s expensive, we don’t have the money, private industry satisfied the needs of most Americans fine, and those that need help were getting it. Further reform should include incentivizing charity and private participation in meeting needs. Illegal aliens shouldn’t be included outside of lifesaving measures.
2. Liberal/Socialist: Government is the only entity that can take care of people, history doesn’t matter, and no amount of money is too much. We’ll borrow more from our comrades in China to pay for it.

They largely left my high deductible insurance and HSA alone, thank God, and I’m grateful that I have work that helps our family avoid overly-regulated insurance companies or the public dole. What’s really disturbing is that England and Canada, among other places, are looking to return their socialized health care to the private sector. Socialism doesn’t work.

You absolutely MUST view this PDF that outlines ObamaCare graphically. No one is arguing whether it’s accurate. The only argument is whether its absurdity resonates with you or not.

This whole thing reminds me of this article from investors.com. King George and the English oligarchy knew better than to tax inactivity. Obama and today’s uber-liberals don’t. It is time for a revolution in how Washington D.C. does business?

Elections matter.

Our Family Trip To WI and MN

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 08:59:56 -0500

Wisconsin With The Birthday Boy!
We left for Menomonie, WI on Friday the 9th and dropped the dog off with my mother on our way up. We spent two nights with Rachel’s grandparents. It was a good time that included watching the kids fish with their great-grandpa (Keira caught her first fish), a birthday party for Rachel’s cousin’s daughter, and good conversation. Kyle woke up on Sunday clueless it was his birthday. After reminding him he was now eight, gift opening, ice cream cake eating, and goodbyes, it was into the car to head to Hackensack, MN. Happy Birthday to the best eight-year-old on the planet!

Our Biennial Trip To The Fjellman Cabin
We’ve spent a week with the Nadlers, Fjellmans, and all our children (10 of them this year!) three times now. The first trip up to Andy’s brother’s cabin was in 2006 with trips up there in 2008 and this last week. Each time we bring a couple of babysitters along to help keep an eye on the kids and give the adults a few hours per day to escape. This year it was Katherine and Rachel Kelly who were charged with the monster task of putting 10 children to bed two different nights and helping us clean up after and chase down our myriad children. We had a total of 18 individuals staying in a very large 3-bedroom log home on a beautiful lake East of Hackensack, MN.

Our trip included eating together, water-skiing, tubing, knee-boarding, turtle races in Longville, MN, and spending time with just adults shopping, eating, watching a movie, and boating. You can see a video of Keira’s turtle race at the top of this post. Her turtle crossed the yellow line just a second or two behind the first place finisher.

Speaking of movies; “Grown Ups”, although funny, is not a good movie. We went to see it one night after dinner while the kids were back at the cabin with the sitters. I’m glad we went as the laughter was fun but it was a very disappointing and inappropriate movie overall.

I Rode The Beaver!
I purchased a provocative and inappropriate t-shirt this week. It has an image of a seaplane on it with the term “I Rode The Beaver” above it. The last couple of times we have visited the area we’ve noticed a couple different aircraft taking off from the lakes around us. While the kids played at the playground in Hackensack on Tuesday, I met the pilot of one of those planes and we set up a flight time for Thursday. He operates a DHC-2 DeHavilland “Beaver.” I couldn’t resist buying the t-shirt after we landed because the pilot was such a nice guy and he was obviously proud of the shirts.

My kids have been bugging me that our trip to Florida later this Summer is going to be a long road trip. We aren’t flying and they aren’t happy about it. I figured a flight on a seaplane would make for an even better first-time flying experience, a once-in-a-lifetime experience for Rachel and me, and Katherine Kelly joined us for her first flying experience too. There were three very cool things about flying on that plane. First, taking off and landing on water is intensely fun. Second, seeing from the sky just how many lakes, ponds, channels, and streams there are in North Central Minnesota is amazing. Finally, being in a plane where three of the five passengers had never flown before is uber-fun. I hope to post photos of the plane and flight on my Facebook page and possibly another blog post in a couple of days.

The Anatomy Of A Cankle
So the big joke about Minnesota is that the mosquito should be the state bird, right? They are large and furious. However, this trip didn’t see many mosquitos. Until the last 24 hours, we saw hardly any of them. We did, however, lose the war waged by the local deer flies.

We saw hardly any around the cabin. We spent a lot of time, however, in the boat. While the boat was moving, bugs of any kind weren’t a problem. But as soon as the boat stopped or slowed down, the arrow-shaped deer flies would emerge from gripping the carpet or chasing the boat around the lake and would attack the feet, ankles, and legs posthaste. The first day or two, I didn’t think much of them and would simply slap at them when I felt the sting. But this was before the delayed reaction that was coming...painful swelling and itching. When the pain and itching began; the battle to swat, ward off, and dance the deerfly avoidance jig when the boat slowed down commenced.

I evolved over the course of the week an attractive bright red cankle. My left ankle swelled up so much I had stretch marks. I’m looking forward to seeing a gradual decline in cankle size, redness, and itching. I would, however, do it all over again to spend time on a lake like that which is somewhat sheltered from the wind, creating glassy conditions for boating most of the time.

All in all, this was a much-needed vacation with good friends and well-behaved children (all 10 of them!). A big “thank you!” to the MN Fjellmans for allowing us to use their place and the IA Fjellmans for taking us along.

An Interesting Quote

Fri, 4 Jun 2010 10:55:38 -0500

“Religion is of general and public concern, and on its support depend, in great measure, the peace and good order of government, the safety and happiness of the people. By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon the same equal footing, and are equally entitled to protections in their religious liberty.”
- Supreme Court of Maryland, 1799

Hey ACLU! Put that quote in your pipe and smoke it...

A Few Things They Forgot To Mention About Branstad

Tue, 11 May 2010 16:09:42 -0500

I’m not a Branstad apologist, I don’t work for the campaign, and I don’t agree with him on everything. However, I got a mailing today blasting Gov. Branstad and was disgusted with the misrepresentation of facts and the slanderous tone. "Iowans for Responsible Government" should be ashamed of themselves. I respect people who support Vander Plaats (BVP), Roberts, or Culver for reasons of conscience or concerns over policy or qualifications but this mailing went over the top. I echo the Branstad campaign’s call to release their donor list so we can see who bankrolled such a slimy mailing.

The mailing is a single-fold sheet that says, on the front, “What kind of [image of jackass here] raised Iowa taxes 30 times?” As you open it you are met with the words, “it wasn’t a Democrat. It was Terry Branstad.” The mailing then twice quotes Steve Deace bashing the Governor in a national publication.

The problem is that they take a fraction of the story, forget the context, and proceed to write a whole new narrative out of it. BVP’s people have been good at this lately too.

The Governor’s website addresses the facts rather well but they don’t have sufficient room in a single press release to tell the whole story. I don’t have room on this blog either. But I can at least add a little more context:

Governor Branstad came into office in 1983 with the Farm Crisis looming over the state, a legislature and Attorney General’s office that wasn’t looking to make his job easier, and serious budget shortfalls. When Governor Branstad took office (as the youngest Gov. in Iowa history), Iowa was in the midst of a severe agricultural recession. Land values had fallen 60 percent, 38 banks in the state had failed, and families were pouring out of the state in search of jobs in other states (my mother and I were one of them!)

In the midst of the economic crisis he inherited, did he still make sure that the net result of his terms in office was lower taxes on all Iowans? YES! And the lack of context in criticizing him on taxation is where Branstad detractors lose their credibility.

Now this is just my own humble opinion and facts I picked up from a booklet written by Eric Woolson in 1999 when Governor Branstad was leaving office so do your own homework and tell me what you think:

Governor Branstad’s press release in response to today’s attacks addresses a few good points his detractors ignore:
“» No Governor before or since has reduced taxes more than Terry Branstad. The net result of tax changes during his administration is at least a $124 million reduction in state taxes (adjusted for inflation to 2008 dollars).
» Governor Branstad cut income taxes for all Iowans by 10% and eliminated the inheritance tax for children and grandchildren.
» Governor Branstad was the first Iowa Governor to balance the state’s budget based on generally accepted accounting principles.
» When Terry Branstad left office, Iowa had a budget surplus approaching one billion dollars.
» Governor Branstad strictly enforced Iowa’s spending limitation, took state spending off automatic pilot, and fully funded our state priorities.
» At the time Terry Branstad left office Iowa’s unemployment rates was 2.5%, the lowest in the nation at that time and the lowest in Iowa’s history.”

In addition to those points, here are a few more:
• With double-digit inflation in Medicaid spending in the early 80s, Governor Branstad held annual increases to the single digits while increasing some services and coverage groups.
• Governor Branstad presided over welfare reform efforts more than three years before Federal reform was enacted resulting in dramatic reductions in welfare cases between 1993 and 1996 when Federal reform was passed.
• Governor Branstad successfully managed (unlike recent events) the budget during the Farm Crisis, the Floods of 1993, and the flooding in 1998 in SW and Central Iowa.
• Iowa was nationally recognized as “Most livable” and “Best place to raise a child” throughout the 90s.
• The Unemployment Trust Fund was broke in 1983 with a negative balance of $126 million. When Governor Branstad left office, it was revamped with a $419 million surplus in 1987, a average employer tax rate drop from 3.4 percent to 1.0 percent with a surplus of $700 million by 1998.
• Eliminated the sales and property tax on business machinery and equipment. Fay Wells (CEO and Chairman of Wells Blue Bunny in 1998) was quoted as saying, “The removal of the sales and use tax back in the 1980s and on processing equipment was a great help [in developing industry in Iowa], as well as the removal of the property tax in 1996.”
• Governor Branstad set an ambitious goal in his final term that Iowa citizens and businesses should have 24-hour access to many government services by 2000. He implemented IOWAccess, which led to the state rapidly becoming more customer-focused, electronically available, and transparent. This is in addition to his successful government reorganization efforts that saved the state tens of millions of dollars each year.

We haven’t seen business growth like we did in the mid 80s-late 90s before or since. The national economy was strong in the 90s but Iowa led the way in becoming one of the nation’s best managed states (according to the CATO institute, no less!) in the 90s and benefited from Gov. Branstad’s leadership and marketing work on value-added agriculture, the opening of the state up for the insurance and finance industries, etc.

I don’t agree with Branstad on a number of issues (cigarette tax, signing the gambling bill, lack of support for school vouchers, etc.). I do, however, look back, like many Iowans do, to better times while he was Governor. Times were better because Gov. Branstad worked hard to lower the overall tax burden on Iowans and their businesses in spite of a hostile legislature and tough economic times. Although I like BVP personally, and I think Roberts would make a fine Governor, I’m confident that, if Branstad wins, we’ll look back on the next 4-8 years with Branstad as Governor and be impressed that he led the state out of difficult times...again.

Finally, Culver supporters are obviously nervous about a Branstad campaign or they wouldn’t send out mailings that smack of desperation in the primary like this. It’ll probably serve, however, as another reminder that hate-filled political tactics rarely work. Whether in a political mailing or on a local radio show, Iowans are smart enough to see when facts are being replaced with verbal diarrhea, hatred, and hyper-partisanship.

The People’s Republic Of Johnson County

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:47:14 -0500

I have an idea. The citizens of Iowa that live in Johnson County are a special kind of Iowan. They are mostly left of center politically much in the way San Francisco is to California.

So I was thinking about a way they could do their thing and the rest of the state could do theirs and I just realized they already have a capitol building (see above).

Why not let Johnson County secede from the state and form a semi-autonomous state? They already have the capitol and infrastructure to self-govern. They are a political demographic unique across the state. This is a win-win!

There are some details to work out. For example, would they have their own National Guard or hire out ours for crowd control and flood relief? When they become a safe-haven for illegal immigrants will we give them safe passage in and out of Johnson County as long as they use the I-80 corridor between Iowa City and Illinois? Will they still use the state pension program or start their own?

I’m sure we can work out these details. The rest of the state would do well to watch their progressive policies and culture and glean from it what is worth gleaning. They could be an example to us all.

The Path of the Fatherless

Sun, 7 Mar 2010 22:56:15 -0600

I grew up fatherless. I saw my dad a few times growing up. I knew his name and whereabouts. I spent about two weeks with him in 1991 and he was always very kind to me when we saw each other. I got cards most birthdays and christmases. But he wasn’t a part of my life, was never married to my mother, and we lived many states away from each other most of my childhood. It wasn’t until I was 17 that I began to get to know my dad and to develop the friendship with him that I am grateful we still have. We are a testimony to genetics and I’m proud to be his son. My mother was young and I was a surprise. I never wondered if she loved me but I also knew she struggled in many ways raising a son by herself.

The path of fatherlessness was a long and painful road shrouded in insecurity for me. It is a path so far off the one God meant for families that I didn’t know I was even on it until I had my own kids. I knew it was better to have a mom AND a dad but I didn’t understand what I was missing. As I’ve been reflecting on my role in my own kids’ lives, it’s proven to be extremely painful for me as I look back on my childhood. So I figured I’d write a bit about it:

I look at my son and my daughter now and I see little souls that need a type of protection their mom couldn’t provide in spite of her commitment and good maternal instincts. They need a structure and authority I alone can provide. They need a dad they revere to hold them with grace when they expect nothing more than justice. These are things my kids can only get from me. For all the beauty and wisdom that is their mother, she provides a separate set of skills, a special kind of nurturing, and wisdom I can’t offer them. God designed the nuclear family to raise healthy children.

What potential in me was lost not having a father and being exposed to men who were perfect losers? What struggles would have been overcome earlier in life or avoided altogether? What could my father and I have learned from each other? How much less equipped am I to be a father and husband with the lack of many positive male role models in my early childhood? How much relational heartache could I have avoided? How many unhealthy situations as a kid would have been avoided? How did the fear and insecurity that plagued my childhood affect me today?

It was a God-send to have my aunt and uncle take me in my freshman year in high school. To study (and I DID study intently and consciously) not just their relationship but their friends’ relationships as they sought to serve their Creator and their families was vital in helping me overcome my many relational and spiritual shortcomings. Having men in my life like Robert Rangel, Kenny Howell, D.A. Haworth, my grandparents, and a myriad slightly older guys in the “College Group” mentor and take an interest in me was key to me overcoming some paralyzing fears and weaknesses. Thank God they let me tag along and they pursued me even when I didn’t want them to. It was painful to have some of them call me on my B.S. and to expose my immaturity. It was actually physically painful at times to realize an older man loved me unconditionally when I grew up hating and distrusting older men. It was embarrassing to have older women and my peers expose my lack of social graces, my complete ignorance on all things chivalry, etc. But it was a gift.

I look back at my teenage and young adult years and shudder. I was generally articulate and respectful compared to many of my peers but I was completely clueless about relationships, how to treat a woman, and how to be an honorable man. I was scared to death of adulthood. I didn’t know what being a godly male was. I treated some so poorly as a result of my lack of discipline and my fear of abandonment I wish I could track them down, hug them, and say I was sorry. A couple of you know who you are and already know I’m deeply sorry.

My mother did her best but the best mother could not have provided what I needed. I needed a dad. I needed an identity as a young man.

Thankfully, as an adult, I’m in a community of healthy families I can glean from. I have spent most of my teenage and young adult life trying to learn what it is to be a man of God, a good husband, and father. My wife grew up in a healthy home and teaches me daily about patience and grace.

But can you ever truly recover from being fatherless? My kids will, thankfully, never worry about this. They will never wonder if their parents love them or where they come from. They’ll never have a gnawing feeling in their soul that wonders what a family would be like as I did growing up. They’ll never lack for instruction from a well-rounded parental team. My children will always know they are safe with us. Hopefully my kids will be better equipped than I was to deal with the types of pain I’ve written about before and that will probably visit them at some point in their lives. I’m grateful I can be for them what I always wanted for myself!

There is a spiritual and physical poverty that often comes with being fatherless. My mother and I never had much by way of money growing up but the spiritual emptiness and fear I faced was paralyzing in many ways. I believe every kid in this situation - no matter how poor or dysfunctional - only needs one of two things to escape into a healthy adulthood:
1. No Attitude of Poverty. Some people have an innate drive to rise above their circumstances. These kids won’t settle for less than better than their parents could provide physically or otherwise and strive for more.
2. Older men (for boys) or older women (for girls) that relentlessly pursue them and love them unconditionally outside their parent(s)/guardian.

I had both. I’m forever grateful to God that he spoke to me directly as a kid and He provided men and women who rescued me from my circumstances and came alongside my mother to love me unconditionally.

I am impressed with dedicated single parents. I am in awe of foster children who press on with much less than I had. I think many kids grow up very well adjusted in single-parent homes. But there’s nothing like having a mom and a dad. There’s nothing like living in the family unit designed by God to nurture young lives. May God use my family somehow to encourage others who are fatherless...if they are anything like me, they could use all the encouragement they can get. I’m extremely grateful I have a great relationship with both my parents today and know most in my situation don’t get that luxury later in life.

I would rather have grown up with both parents. I feel in my heart that my potential as a human being is somewhat limited by a less-than-ideal upbringing. My task today, however, is to be grateful for my past, for two parents who did and are currently doing the best that they can, and strive to provide better for my children. I can’t wait to see them start their own families far better equipped to do so than I ever was.

Proverbs 1:8-9 - Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.