The Current Health Insurance System is not meant to protect you!

Our current insurance policies are not meant to protect the consumer. They are meant to protect the insurance companies. If you have ever lost coverage because of something stupid, you know what I mean.

My family lost coverage one time because an email (of which I get hundreds a day) slipped through the cracks and unlike all years previous, I had to re-sign up that year. There were no phone calls, no letters in the mail, just an email. We lost coverage and could not get it back for a whole year.

Then we got to learn about the glorious world of independent insurers. Man, those guys are rip off artists. We had to over pay for a horrible plan which did not really help us much except for insuring that we would not have to pay millions, just thousands if we got sick.

Basically we were one illness/injury away from permanent debt that entire year. Why? It certainly was not to protect us. It was to protect the insurance company. This year one of my co-workers did not want to send in all of his private information until the security of that information was assured. Because of that, he may lose his coverage.

Amendment 69 would eliminate all of that. No screenings, no paper work hassles, no re-signing up, no calculating co-pays. If you are a Colorado citizen, you have full coverage... AND it is way cheaper for most people!

Our current system is not only abusive to the low income, its horrible for the middle class as well. Amendment 69 would bring back consumer protection and allow us (colorado citizens) to decide how our healthcare works. Not insurance companies that could not care any less about the health of your family.

Vote Yes on Amendment 69!

Amendment 69 will save you thousands a year.

I am going to get straight to the point on this one. I really like the idea that people without the ability to pay medical bills will be able to get healthcare under Amendment 69, but what is great about it is they can get their healthcare while saving me money! It is a double win!

I did the exact figures today. Basically, Amendment 69 would cut my health insurance premium costs in half straight off the bat. And if I calculated no other savings aside from that, Amendment 69 would save me $1,360.86 a year. That alone is worth me wanting to pass this amendment.

Now when I add my deductible in (something we seem to reach every year since we have had children) plus the random copays we have to pay,  my savings go up to $4,400.86. I mean, that is a life changing amount of savings. People could buy cars with the amount of savings this could bring.

The interesting thing about this is, that the lower your income, the bigger your savings.

If you want to calculate your savings, they have a website to do so. It tells you exactly how much taxes you will pay versus how much you already pay in health insurance.

http://www.coloradocare.org/for-you/calculate-your-savings/

This is only one of the many reasons I will definitely be marking "Yes" on Amendment 69 in November. But I plan to write more about the other reasons in days to come plus answer some of the criticism I have heard of the amendment.

Judge Your Own Sins, Not Others

The loudest ignored teaching of Jesus and the New Testament. “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:4-5, Luke 6:42. Some have suggested this is regarding any individual sin, so if I am not a drunkard, I can point out a drunkard's sin. This however is not the case. This was said to the Pharisees. They we depraved in their heart and not outwardly. If that were true, Jesus would have had no problems with the Pharisees putting down all of the sinners who followed him. But because even the Pharisees had depraved hearts, they should not be trying to pick out anyone's speck.

Often times Christians (myself included) get delusions of grandeur and place ourselves on a pedestal as if we are the keepers of what is right and wrong. In reality, we were always meant to focus on our own sins and not others. That was the problem Jesus had with the Pharisees. They felt like they were the judges of who was righteous and who was not. And the Pharisees were a very exclusive club for the “righteous.” Jesus constantly fought with them because of how they treated others.

Paul was once a Pharisee, which makes the chapter I am about to go into even more surprising. I was listening to some commentary today and they used Romans to suggest that homosexuals deserve death. Quoted by itself, it sounds very damning but in reality, it is no more damning than the rest of Romans is to every Christian. Every sinner deserves death and everyone is a sinner (Romans 3).

When we point out someone else's sin, it is very much like a prisoner making fun of another prisoner for what they did to get in prison. It does not really matter how they got there, they are both in the same place.

Now it is time to blow the mind of all those letter of the Law people. Sin is different for every person. If you read the 14^th chapter of Romans, this fact is inescapable. He spends the entire chapter explaining that some people can eat meat sacrificed to idols and it is not a sin. While for other people if they eat the same meat will sin. Some people would sin if they did not celebrate certain days while others would sin if they did celebrate the same days.

James even agrees with Paul here. “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” James 4:17. The spirit of the Law is written on our hearts and God has written His own unique writing on each of our hearts to serve God’s purpose.

To top it off, Paul instructs those who eat and those who do not eat to not try to change the other believer’s practices (Romans 14:22). Both are following God’s conviction and if they did contrary to their conviction they would be sinning.

Why? Because the Holy Spirit convicts us. Not you, not me, not the Law, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin (John 16:8). For us to decide that it is our job to convict someone of sin is to suggest the Holy Spirit is not doing a good enough job and needs our help.

We are to point people to Jesus Christ. When the Holy Spirit comes into their life, He will convict them as He sees fit. It is impossible to receive the Holy Spirit and not be convicted, but what they are convicted of is between them and God.

Does this mean God can convict people of contradictory things? Possibly, but I tend to think there are things God chooses simply not to convict people of. But the important thing is that we understand that these convictions are given to us personally and not to others. We should not be condemning people for their sins. Jesus came to this world to save it, not to judge it (John 3:17). How can we possibly say it our job to judge it when even Jesus who has such authority, chose not to?

"Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification." -Romans 14:19

Word of caution

If anyone read this and thought, "cool, I get to make up my own mind if something is a sin or not" then you did not read this correctly. The Holy Spirit convicts us, not us. If we are only convicted about things we want to be convicted about, then we are not being convicted by the Holy Spirit.

So when do we confront someone?

Both Jesus (Matthew 18:15-17) and Paul (1 Corinthians 5) do point out there are times when we should confront a brother or sister in Christ. First of all, they should be a Christian. If they are not, then we should not say anything. If they are outside of Christ, then it is not our job to tell them anything regarding sin (1 Corinthians 5:12).

Second, it should be something obviously a sin. Paul confronts a member of the Corinthian church about sleeping with his mother-in-law. Something that would have been appalling even for non-Christians. If you feel like you should criticize someone's music selection, you have missed the point. It is only in extreme cases that confrontation is needed.

Why Democratic Socialism is soon to be very important.

Despite what people believe, Democratic Socialism is not opposed to Capitalism. It actually compliments Capitalism. Democratic Socialism is democratically deciding as a society that certain things (like health care) are rights for every citizen (as many of the worlds happiest nations have found out).

It is not full socialism which puts everything under the governments regulation.

But Bernie Sanders is pushing Democratic Socialism because he has fairly amazing abilities of foresight when he predicted ISIS filling the political vacuum and the great recession. He sees what many young people see but older generations have a hard time comprehending. It's a concept that is obvious to the younger generation because we have been born into it. It is a very simple truth that is inevitable at our current pace of technological improvement.

We are all about to be replaced with robots and artificial intelligence.

Think you are in an industry that is safe from such advancement? Think again. What are you? A stock broker? Please, you will be the first to go. Are you into coding, like me? Sorry, we have literally worked ourselves out of a job.

Maybe you are creative and like to write books. Well, A.I. loves to write books more than you do! Songwriters are safe though, right? Wrong, they have already been replaced and you did not even notice. Movies? Yeah, they are out too.

You can always fall back on working at McDonald's though, right? Hmmm, maybe not. Walmart? I would not count on it.

Sure, there may always be some humans doing those jobs, but they will be a niche and novelty, not the norm.

All that to say what the younger generation already knows. We will be replaced. Sure, it will take some time and there will be resistance but ultimately progress will happen. And mainly because Capitalist businessmen cannot ignore the cost savings.

So what happens when we have all been properly put out of a job and we are not billionaires? We will have to rely on the government or the corporations who no longer have a need for us. By then it will probably be something fairly simple. With solar panels getting more efficient and electric cars going farther and 3D printing of housing drastically reducing building costs and 3D printed food becoming super cheap the cost of living is bound to plummet.

When this happens, the top 1% may hold not just the majority of the wealth in America (as they currently do) but almost all of it. At which point we will have two options.

The first option would be the Republican response. Sorry, you cannot earn any money and are a failure. You can go into debt the rest of your life and be a corporate slave. You will own nothing and have no hope of ever paying off your debt.

The second option is to rely on the government. In such a scenario, I can see why the Dutch are testing out a $20,000 a year guaranteed income. The majority of America may need a guaranteed income in the near future.

Because in this future we are creating, Democratic Socialism is the only form of freedom we will enjoy.

I am not pro-life or pro-choice.

The more I study politics the more I see that picking a side is nearly impossible without taking on attributes we do not agree with. Sadly we come up with boxes and we put everyone in them. Either people are pro-life or pro-choice, there is no other categories.

This is not true despite what people would believe. We can have our own ideas and we do not have to agree with the labels people put on us. By the time I finish this article though, I can guarantee that the pro-lifers will say I am pro-choice and the pro-choicers will say I am pro-life. If that is the case then I feel I have done my job well.

I have self identified as pro-life for a very long time, but there are things about the pro-life movement that just does not make sense to me. I do believe life begins at conception. I believe that deliberately ending that life is murder. However, I am not against sex education and I am not against contraceptives. I am also pro-welfare (which is some how oddly related).

The pro-life movement has taken on this banner of abstinence in a very Pharisee style move. Though as Christians we are instructed not to judge those outside the church (1 Corinthians 5:12-13). It is not our job to try and make all sins illegal. And trying to make the outside world stop having sex is about as useful as holding out your hand to stop a freight train.

What is your goal?

At this point in my life, I have a very specific political goal. To reduce the number of abortions to as small as possible. This, strangely enough, does not seem to be the goal of either pro-life or pro-choice.

I know because I have asked pro-lifers if they could reduce the number of abortions by 42%, would they vote for a pro-choice candidate. The answer, every single time, is "no." And is followed by some answer about not liking the idea of teenagers having sex or not liking contraceptives at all.

So there it is. Reducing the number of abortions is clearly not a pro-life goal, or if it is, it is not at the top of the list of priorities.

It is certainly not a pro-choicer's goal as asking the same question with roles reversed is obviously "no" as a pro-choicer's goal is to have choice where a pro-life candidate would take that choice away.

Pro-Life political agenda will not reduce the abortion rate.

The abortion rate, whether illegal or legal remains about the same.The New York Times discusses a rather global study that was done and the legal status of abortion has very little impact on abortion rates. And in some cases, making it legal actually reduces the abortion rate.

Why is this? Because illegal abortion is usually coupled with low access to birth control.

So what are you going to do about it?

I am going to vote for Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is very pro-choice and while I do not agree with the ideology that a fetus is not life or a person, Senator Sander's idea of Universal Health Care has the potential to reduce the number abortions about 40%.

With Universal Health Care, women could have unrestricted access to birth control that could last years. And how do we know that will reduce the abortion rate so dramatically? Well, they have performed this experiment right here in my own back yard.

In Colorado they began and very long experiment where they offered poor women and teenagers free long term birth control. And yeah, they found they were able to reduce the number of abortions by 42%! That is phenomenal!

If you are reading this article and your goal is to reduce the number of abortions drastically, the only candidate who has the potential to even make a dent in the rate is Bernie Sanders.

Concessions

Is this solution without its moral implications? No. I will concede that premarital sex will abound with such policies. But we live in a fallen world and if it means abortion rates are reduced by 40% then those outside the church can do as they please. God will judge them, not me. If almost half of abortions are avoided, that many babies are not killed. That is more important to me than attempting to impose Christian morals on non-Christians.

I will continue to preach nothing but abstinence prior to marriage to the youth who attend the church I am at. God clearly designed sex for marriage and the abortion rate existing at all is evidence of that. But I am not going to make the world perfect. We can only do our best until Jesus returns and reduces the abortion rate to zero.

What are you?

Ask yourself why you identify with whatever label you have placed on yourself. Really ask yourself what your goal is with that label and then make sure that label is really trying to accomplish the same goal you have. In my case, I do not fit into either label.

Why Democratic Socialism is a Champion of Capitalism

Bernie Sanders is running for President. While he could use a different label and no one else would bat an eye, he chooses to accept the label Democratic Socialist. This scares a lot of people just because it has the word Socialist in it. The ironic part is that his ideology of socialism would open more avenues for capitalism in America.

In an interview with NPR, Bernie says himself why he does not simply stop calling himself that. It is because it is what it is. He does not change the meanings of words or change his beliefs simply because they are misunderstood or inconvenient. Bernie is, if nothing else, a man of conviction.

Let's take his idea for the US Post Office for an example. He wants to privatize the post office and turn it into a banking system. This would cut government spending, create jobs, and turn a profit. What does that sound like?

The bad parts of socialism is what we are already doing. When the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was signed by President Bush to essentially bail out the banks that had failed, that is Socialism at its worst. It is the opposite of Capitalism. It is the government holding up a system that cannot hold itself up.

Another example of bad socialism is the Berlin Wall. In reality, Trump is more of a socialist than Bernie is.

Socialism has good and bad, but Bernie is using Socialism as a champion for Capitalism. He does not want the government to control the banks, he wants to break them up into small credit unions. He is not going to take over any industry with the government. At most, he will regulate them with taxes.

I think a big one that people are disagreeing with is free college tuition at state and community colleges. This is not bad socialism. We are already doing this... It is called high school. Up until 60ish years ago people had to pay to go to high school. Now we have a government backed school system that has changed the literacy in America and increased the national wage average. Back then it was hard to get a job without a high school degree and few people had them. Sixty years later, most people have a high school degree but it is hard to support a family unless you have a college degree.

If the scenario for why we made public high schools free now exists for a college degree, why should we not have a free public and state tuition? That may be socialism, but it is socialism that promotes capitalism and entrepreneurship and creates an even playing field for the lower and middle class.

Bernie is the only one passionate about these issues. He wants radical change and we need it. Growing the middle class is good for the Nation. Six banks own 60% of America's wealth. That is not a good thing.

Why a prolife Christian is a Democrat.

I think I weird people out because I am a democrat but outspokenly against abortion. I am not the only one. When people hear Democrat or Republican, they immediately put them in boxes of every stereo typical view point of that party. I, personally, have an issue with anyone that agrees 100% of the time with any political party. I tend to believe that means they have their views because of their political party, not having their own views that prompts them to vote for a certain party.

This is how it works with me. It is similar to why I like Google. I stand behind and support Google because Google shares technological visions I have. Google does not dictate what I want from technology, they just happen to align with what I want from technology.

For me the Democratic party is similar. I have my ideas of politics and the democratic party aligns better with them than the Republican party.

On the issue of abortion, I believe the Republican party has struggled to yield results. Abortion numbers go up during Republican terms and I believe it is because of their "trickle down" economics which end up being hard on the lower and middle class (because people are greedy). On top of that, they tend to vote for tougher welfare restrictions which adds even more burden onto the poor. During George W. Bush's administration, the Republican party dominated the senate, the supreme court, and the presidency and yet did nothing to over turn the Roe vs Wade decision. They can say all they want about abortion but actions speak louder than words.

The biggest decrease in abortion in the past 50 years came during the years 2008-2011 (according to the Guttmatcher Institutes research) as the economy recovered from the train wreck that was the end of the Bush administration. Which is something I do not believe the Republican party understands. The economy makes the biggest difference in abortion rates. When we help the poor, we decrease people's desire to have abortion.

Making abortion illegal will not stop abortions. They will continue, they will just be done in secret or else where. Women will commit suicide and a host of other alternatives. Making abortion illegal is fighting the symptom, not the disease.

The disease is poverty. That is why I am strongly for a welfare system. That is why I am strongly for a government health care system. That is why I am strongly for a higher minimum wages. Let the CEOs take a pay cut every now and then. "Trickle down" economics has left us with CEOs continuing to be paid higher percentages and average employees getting less. It DOES NOT trickle down. We NEED to help the poor and let it trickle up.

In the end, it seems to me like the Republican party is focused on the letter of the Law while missing the spirit of the Law. To me, the Democrats are following the spirit of the Law and seeking the end result of a better standard of living for the poor and middle class which reaps the rewards of lower abortions rates and lower crime rates.

Enforcing a law will not reap what we want. Punishing offenders will not reap what we want. When Jesus came, he went straight for the poor and needy, eating with sinners, thieves and prostitutes. Because the well do not need a doctor, the sick do. For me, the Democratic party aligns with this view better than the Republican party.

I do not agree with everything the Democratic party does, but I believe they can make a bigger difference in the things I care about than the Republican party.

Planned Parenthood for example. I believe the Republican plan for defunding Planned Parenthood and giving those funds to the community health centers which do way more for women's health than Planned Parenthood should be passed. Planned Parenthood does not do mamograms and many other basic women's health treatments yet takes 46% of the budget. Why is it such a bad plan to give that funding to the community health centers that do way more women's health care than Planned Parenthood?

We need to stop thinking of issues as a Democratic or Republican agenda and think for ourselves. Think through your issues and consider the result you want and pick the party that will get the results you want and not the one that says nice words you agree with. Words mean little, results matter.

I am prolife and every life in the womb matters, but I do not want abortion to be punished, I want people to stop wanting abortions. That is why I am voting Democrat.