<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4">For reason this did not go through yesterday AM. Please forgive duplicates</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4"><br></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4">Hi Roger:</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4"><br></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4">I’ve done a little research on Dave Ramsey. He
has founded what he calls Financial Peace University, and this has as much
credibility as the University that Glenn Beck had every Friday before he was
kicked off Fox News. Ramsey’s
University, much like Wilson’s counseling services, is based on strict biblical
principles. He is not an economist nor is he an actuary, and a quick internet
search shows that he is a very controversial financial adviser, especially with
regard to investing in gold.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4"><br></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4">Ramsey doesn’t strike me as credible either, when
he equates liberalism and socialism, and then says that Obamacare is
Communism. Does Ramsey know that the
individual mandate was first proposed by the Heritage Foundation and then the
GOP? (Perhaps you’ve forgotten as well.) Ramsey does not realize that the
lowest premiums in the state exchanges are found in those states with the most
policies being offered. It’s call
“competition” and that’s what the free market is all about.</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4"><br></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4">I am sure that Ramsey can do basic math, just as
you and I can, but I at least try to start with the right numbers. He repeats the old GOP canard that 46 percent
of Americans don’t pay taxes, and that Social Security takes 15 percent of our
pay. The first claim of course is
totally misleading because he forgets about all the other taxes—property and
sales (regressive for the poor)—that Americans pay. As a far as
Social Security goes, employers and employees pay 6.2 percent each and the
self-employed pay 12.5 percent. Not a
good start for your man, Roger.</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4"><br></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4">Ramsey also fails to understand how Obamacare
will work and how insurance works in general.
If Ramsey is right about Obamacare, then most health insurance companies
would not participate in it; nor would they have met with Obama to promise that
they would contain costs. Currently their overhead costs are on average 30
percent, while Medicare runs between 10-15 percent. Obama got the big companies to come down to
15 percent and small companies to 20 percent. Wonders of all wonders: the free market becomes more efficient, fair, and justice with reasonable government regulation.</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%">
<span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4"><br></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><font size="4"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black">According to Forbes: “Of</span><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> the </span><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolynmcclanahan/2011/11/28/how-much-should-we-spend-on-health-care-the-big-picture/"><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif">$2.6
trillion we spend on health care</span></a><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> [including Medicare and
Medicaid] in this country, at least $650 billion goes toward overhead.” All the other industrialized countries have
far, far less overhead, primarily because most of them do not let private
insurance companies make huge profits. Nor do their health care bureaucrats fly
around in private jets.</span><span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"> </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"></span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%">
<span style="line-height:150%;font-family:Georgia,serif"><font size="4"><br></font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4">Ramsey’s “math” is based on the claim
that Obamacare will have to take all sick people and they won’t pay larger
premiums like professional sky divers do for life insurance. So he concludes that the rest of us will have
to pay more to cover the sick (read: “dead beats” and Romney’s 47
percent). In this calculation, Ramsey
neglects many points. </font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4">First, all of us do pay for the sick
and uninsured. As one GOP official once
said: “They can go to the ER,” and yes they do, for care that is more expensive
because in most cases the sick have waited too long. Second, Ramsey forgets to
factor in something that the insurance companies are salivating about: millions
of new customers, many of them young and healthy, whose premiums will cover the
risks that are now less in a larger pool of those insured.</font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4">Health insurance premiums have risen
200 percent since 1999, and since Obama’s agreement with companies, the annual
increased has slowed. Significantly enough,
the highest percentage of decrease has occurred in Massachusetts, which now has
almost 100 percent coverage under RomneyCare, the success story that you chose to ignore.</font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4">Roger, I have a video I want you to
watch. It’s on YouTube and the title is
“Dave Ramsey Can’t Do the Math.”</font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4">Yours for better sources than these,</font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4">Nick</font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4"> </font></span></p>
<p style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;color:black"><font size="4"> </font></span></p></div>