State employees and the KGB
Our county has one of the highest concentrations of state workers in Missouri. Think about it. The largest prison in Missouri lies within Farmington’s city limits. Right next to the prison is the mental health center, which employs as many or more people than the prison. And we have another correctional facility in the county (the Bonne Terre prison) and yet another one in a neighboring county (i.e. the Potosi prison). Plus St. Francois County has the standard panoply of state employees to staff the local judicial system, welfare system, conservation system, etc.
Ask a state employee what’s currently on his or her mind and you’ll likely hear that their health insurance premiums are going up. Immediately and dramatically.
The federal health care bill was passed in March of this year. Raise your hand if your health insurance premiums have gone down. No one? Now, raise your hand if you think your health insurance premiums are likely to go down. Still no one.
The truth is that the health insurance bill says that health insurance companies must (meaning mandatory) pay for medical care for persons who can’t pay premiums. And health insurance companies must insure people regardless of pre-existing conditions.
Where will health insurance companies get money to pay for all of these non-paying people and pre-existing conditions? Easy: From increased premiums on people, like state workers, who actually pay premiums. Like the federal government, which has begun collecting health care taxes four years before the plan goes into effect, private health insurance companies are preparing for the influx of non-payers. That, in a nutshell, is why our premiums are going up so sharply. The whole health care thing is just another welfare system — a method of redistributing the wealth by taking it from workers and giving it to non-workers.
What can you do if you don’t want to become a customer of health insurance companies which raise rates on paying customers in order to pay for non-paying customers? Exactly nothing. You see, the health care bill says paying customers must (meaning mandatory) participate in health care plans approved by the federal government. If paying customers don’t participate, they are committing crimes. Hence the central role the IRS plays in the health care bill — to force everyone to participate. (The Soviet Union had the KGB to prevent its citizens from escaping the country. The US has the IRS to prevent its citizens from escaping the health care program).
And so it is that if our county’s correctional workers want to remain guards instead of inmates, they will silence themselves and meekly pay the heavy tribute exacted by the federal government — so that those who don’t work can reap all the benefits of those who do.
The Settlement Observer is a resident of Farmington.
