Why are We Paying Bonuses to These Clowns?

We taxpayers now own a big chunk of AIG. As the major shareholder, we should now be able to dictate to their board of directors how we want AIG to operate. Bonuses will be as defined in my Rand House College Dictionary (revised edition), “Something paid over and above what is due… something extra or additional given free… a gift to reward performance.”

Since we are in driver’s seat, we taxpayer/shareholders should combine national health care with worker’s compensation. When a worker is hurt on the job, after emergency treatment, he or she goes to their regular healthcare professionals or their assigns and paid for out of the national healthcare fund. By significantly reducing this expense on worker’s compensation insurance, this would significantly lower the cost of worker’s compensation insurance.

This being a quasi-governmental agency, we could prohibit external malpractice lawsuits. This would basically end the need for malpractice insurance for physicians. By having private industry join with the government in providing Health, Education & Welfare services to the taxpayer/shareholders, we at least would have more of a stake in the priorities of the administration.

Governmental market participation is nothing new. Alaska, through governmental market participation, pays dividends to residents. We need to expect more for our tax dollars. Currently, we are paying more than twice what we should for health care. Part of the problem is that too many uninsured people have to go to the emergency room for everything from basic medical care to emergencies. Physicians have to pay outrageous malpractice insurance premiums.

The bottom line is that if Joe the Plumber wants to hire a few guys so that he can land larger, more lucrative jobs, he won’t have to provide health care to get good workers and his worker’s compensation insurance premiums would be minimal. If Joe and his guys work and make money, they pay taxes.