Prices on everything continue to go up. Is this a new trend? No. Do we need to put up with it? Absolutely not.

In America we have choices. Whether it’s the array of similar products available to us or the capacity to earn money based on our time and talents, Americans have continuously improved on their standards of living. This standard is available to everyone if you understand what your potential is for your own circumstances. It is this potential that drives market forces and to a large extent pricing. The “keeping up with the Jones’s” mentality only exists if you are spiritually depleted because having what the Jones’s have becomes a false idol.

What is your standard of living like? If you’re like most people you at least have a warm safe place to live, nutritious food in your cupboard, clean clothes on your back, and reliable communication and transportation. And you also love your extra comforts, whether it’s a daily trip to Starbucks or a well deserved annual vacation, these things matter to you. After all, everything you do supports someone else’s standard of living. Ultimately, happiness is living a life that you enjoy with the people you love in a community that you cherish while having the freedom to live up to your own standards.

Unfortunately our standards are actually dropping. I believe this has been an intentional government strategy in order to prevent the growth of wealth in general. Think about it…For example , why would our government want to manage your healthcare coverage? Is it to make the costs of care go down? Of course not! It is to keep you dependent on a system that offers a standard of care that keeps you in a position of submission. Today, if you make enough money to afford THE BEST CARE and actually have more and better choices, then you are probably not in the government system. In fact, you’re probably in a PPO not an HMO.

A PPO (Preferred Provider Organization) is a flexible health insurance plan that allows you to visit any doctor or specialist without a referral or a primary care physician (PCP). While you get the lowest out-of-pocket costs when using in-network doctors, you still have coverage if you choose to go out-of-network. An HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) is a budget-friendly health insurance plan that requires you to use a specific local network of doctors and hospitals to get coverage. It relies on a Primary Care Physician (PCP) to manage all of your care and provide referrals for specialists. According to Reddit, Insurance companies are less likely to offer PPOs on the ACA Marketplace because they have less control over patient care costs. That word control is everything you need to know about government initiated systems. Once costs are controlled, standards are lowered, and availability decreases.

Government systems such as the ACA are administered by our fourth and unelected branch of government, bureaucrats. In fact, the once private health insurance industry is now part of the bureaucracy. Of course these companies can opt out, but that leaves fewer options for people who rely on the ACA. AND as people rely on programs such as this the government must either raise taxes or pass a bill to print money. Haven’t we all learned that printing money causes inflation? Yes!!! And what about the abuses that can occur with all this money being handed out to favored companies and NGOs? The money stream never seems to end or go in reverse. Audits? Yeah right.

Affordability will never actually begin to happen until we get government out of our way. Bureaucracy tends to lower wages and cause inflation both of which happen whether the stock market is up or down. The best way to afford something is to work hard for it or save for it…This has been true FOREVER. Public schools never taught us about how to actually live according to our means. Why is that? Would we have listened anyway? Probably not because they were always teaching to the test, and once we passed the information was rarely thought about again.

Life is a bunch of hard knocks for most people. We live and learn and regroup if we are smart enough to understand our ways. The choices are there. We simply can’t afford not to recognize them. Make sure your government representatives know you’re watching them and their choices too.