Come for the Politics, Stay for the Pathologies



Monday, August 31, 2009

Obamacare 2.0: Let the Rationing Begin

Once again Charles Krauthammer presents us with much unpleasantness to think about. This time in the form of a grim alternative to Obamacare: Obamacare 2.0.

First the good news. The public option? Out, it scared people to death. End of life counseling? Ditto. Comparative effectiveness studies for use in determining treatment? Also scary, no longer a focus. Cost cutting? Sounds too painful, drop that claim, we can’t do it anyway. After all those concessions you might think Health Care Reform was over for now. Wrong, according to Krauthammer. As is often the case with politics, it comes in through the bathroom window:

Promise nothing but pleasure -- for now. Make health insurance universal and permanently protected. Tear up the existing bills and write a clean one -- Obamacare 2.0 -- promulgating draconian health-insurance regulation that prohibits (a) denying coverage for preexisting conditions, (b) dropping coverage if the client gets sick and (c) capping insurance company reimbursement.

What's not to like? If you have insurance, you'll never lose it. Nor will your children ever be denied coverage for preexisting conditions.

The regulated insurance companies will get two things in return. Government will impose an individual mandate that will force the purchase of health insurance on the millions of healthy young people who today forgo it. And government will subsidize all the others who are too poor to buy health insurance. The result? Two enormous new revenue streams created by government for the insurance companies.

And here's what makes it so politically seductive: The end result is the liberal dream of universal and guaranteed coverage -- but without overt nationalization. It is all done through private insurance companies. Ostensibly private. They will, in reality, have been turned into government utilities. No longer able to control whom they can enroll, whom they can drop and how much they can limit their own liability, they will live off government largess -- subsidized premiums from the poor; forced premiums from the young and healthy.

It's the perfect finesse -- government health care by proxy. And because it's proxy, and because it will guarantee access to (supposedly) private health insurance -- something that enjoys considerable Republican support -- it will pass with wide bipartisan backing and give Obama a resounding political victory.

Sounds pretty good. Is there a catch? Of course. It’s the ultimate bait and switch plan offered by a cynical group of Washington insiders who believe we are stupid enough to swallow it:

Government-subsidized universal and virtually unlimited coverage will vastly compound already out-of-control government spending on health care. The financial and budgetary consequences will be catastrophic.

However, they will not appear immediately. And when they do, the only solution will be rationing. That's when the liberals will give the FCCCER regulatory power and give you end-of-life counseling.

But by then, resistance will be feeble. Why? Because at that point the only remaining option will be to give up the benefits we will have become accustomed to. Once granted, guaranteed universal health care is not relinquished. Look at Canada. Look at Britain. They got hooked; now they ration. So will we.

Predictable reaction from the far left decries Krauthammer’s objection to OC 2.0, claiming we’re already rationing. Thus demonstrating yet again the danger of deconstruction: it renders words that used to mean something meaningless.

Just like censorship, which originally meant the government determined what was fit to print, see or say. But it has devolved now to the point that people talk about private schools “censoring” books, AT&T “censoring” the internet, and ABC, NBC and FOX “censoring” their ads. These are all private enterprises. They are entitled, according to our Constitution and Bill of Rights to “censor”, by which I mean “choose to decide what to promote”.

It’s the government, stupid, that has ultimate power, and therefore is restricted by the Constitution. And that’s why they can’t, and we can “censor” as we see fit. But in the deconstructionist construct, ABC deciding not to run an ad is the same as Hugo Chavez closing down an opposition newspaper.

Rationing presents the same issue. Before deconstruction became the favorite parlor game of the elite left, rationing, in the sense it’s used today, referred only to how governments allocated scarce economic resources. In a free market economy goods and services are distributed by price, as dictated by supply and demand. Because the left wants to say that medical services are already being rationed by health insurance companies doesn’t make it true. It may make the medical procedure more, and possibly prohibitively, expensive to the individual, but it’s not “rationed”.

But now, like censorship, people claim that companies can ration( e.g. evil insurance companies), families can ration (generally known as budgeting), and individuals can ration (for fiscal, dietary and social reasons). The extension renders the term meaningless. Just because an insurance company doesn’t reimburse for a procedure doesn’t mean you can’t have it. It only means it will cost you out of pocket to have it done. I grant you, not everyone can afford it, or will chose to pay for it, but it is available for a price. But with universal healthcare, when the government says you can’t have the procedure, you can’t have the procedure. Ask a Canadian. (Don’t tell me they can come to the US because a) they won’t be able to if we follow their lead into nationalized healthcare hell, and b) that’s like saying China doesn’t prohibit the reading of The Tiananmen Papers, it’s just that you have to go to France to do so.)

Tune in tomorrow for Part II, why Krauthammer’s vision of Obamacare 2.0 will result in everything you fear most about Obamacare 1.0.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Kiddies for KennedyKare: Krazy!

The latest installment in the “let no crisis go to waste” passion play, brought to you by the Leftist “We Know Better Than You”  Repertory Theatre:  Teddy’s grandchildren pray for universal KennedyKare.

 

“That we be spared  from the channeling of Ted Kennedy via his offspring for the next 30 years, we pray to the Lord”

“Lord, hear our prayer.”

 

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Give California to the Fidel Worshippers

Meet Dianne Watson, another shining example of public education’s efficacy. She’s a Democratic Representative from California, and that’s probably all you need to know, but for additional grist there’s this:

 

Just for the record, she can’t really be stupid because she has a PhD  in Education.

But she is a race baiter. One of the enlightened left that contends if you object to  the Obama Care nationalized healthcare solution you’re a racist. (What was our excuse when we opposed Hillary Care? We were sexists? Never mind, they don’t need any more ideas.)

By her own admission she hasn’t read the Health care bill yet, in any of its forms (can’t fault her there, no one else has either.) But she thinks it’s great.

And she thinks Fidel Castro was a hero who saved Cuba…from god-only-knows what. Here’s a little peek at the Cuba fashioned by “one of the brightest leaders I’ve ever met.”  She probably thinks Ahmadinejad is in Einstein’s league– well, except for the Jewish part.We’ve really got to raise public school standards.

Here’s a partial transcript from her Town Hall:

WATSON: You might have heard their philosophical leader. I think his name is Rush Limbaugh. And he said early on, “I hope that he fails.”
Do you know what that means? If the president, your commander-in-chief, fails, America fails.
Now, when a senator says that this will be his Waterloo, and we all know what happened at Waterloo, then we have him and he fails. Do we want a failed state called the United States?
And remember: They are spreading fear and they are trying to see that the first president that looks likes me fails.
Now just understand what’s at the bottom line.
And you know we just got, 48 hours ago, we just go back, we were in Beijing, China, Hong Kong, China, we were in Taiwan, we were in Guam, we were all over the Far East.
I just want you to know: People look at the United States as a country that has changed its way and has elected someone from Kenya and Kansas, I’ll put it like that.

And they’re saying, “We thought you would never do that.”
So we don’t want to have this young man, and he just turned 48 — we want him to succeed, because when he succeeds, we regain our status. We regain our status.
It was just mentioned to me by our esteemed speaker, “Did anyone say anything about the Cuban health system?”
And lemme tell ya, before you say “Oh, it’s a commu–”, you need to go down there and see what Fidel Castro put in place. And I want you to know, now, you can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met. [APPLAUSE]
And you know, the Cuban revolution that kicked out the wealthy, Che Guevara did that, and then, after they took over, they went out among the population to find someone who could lead this new nation, and they found … well, just leave it there (laughs), an attorney by the name of Fidel Castro ...

 

It concerns me that both she and Henry Waxman have that Nostril-Damus thing going on. Maybe she and Hank can just takeover their home state and make it the idyllic country of their dreams. They can call it Fidelafornia.

 

Friday, August 28, 2009

Et Tu, John, Robert, Martin?

I swore there would be no more mention of Ted Kennedy’s demise on this blog. But then this Huffpo post started making the rounds, with such a ludicrous premise,  for such a ludicrous punch line that a response is called for.

Here’s the money quote:

We don't know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she'd have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history. What we don't know, as always, could fill a Metrodome.

Still, ignorance doesn't preclude a right to wonder. So it doesn't automatically make someone (aka, me) a Limbaugh-loving, aerial-wolf-hunting NRA troll for asking what Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted's death, and what she'd have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded.

Who knows -- maybe she'd feel it was worth it.

 

The premise of the article being that Kopechne’s tragic accident was the progenitor of Ted Kennedy’s career. That it drove him to become one of the biggest champions of civil rights, disability rights and gender equality in the history of the world;  and drove him to work so hard he single-handedly passed legislation making them law. So maybe, just maybe, even Mary Jo would have felt it was all worth while.

By the same logic, perhaps we could argue that the death of Martin Luther King drove Teddy to become the staunch supporter of civil rights he became in the Senate. Was his death perhaps “worth it” too, then?

And how about  his brothers John and Robert? We could argue that party boy Ted might never have felt the compunction to become a Senator in the first place if,  indeed,  his brothers had lived to establish the Kennedy noblesse oblige tradition.

Perhaps then their murders were “worth it”  too?

I’d like to be the first to volunteer Ms. Lafsky for Obama’s “Death Panel”, which of course isn’t really in the Bill that no one’s read yet. Although the requirements and standards for filling the positions have not been established yet, I’m certain she will qualify.

 

A Shining City Full of Swill

shining city full of swill

Just to prove that I haven’t cornered the market on depressing stories about Detroit ( here, here, here and here for starters). Check out the blogprof!

He makes me look like a piker.

The destruction of wealth, well-being and spirit sustained by Detroit could only be accomplished from within: 40 + years of misguided social engineering and corruption. How many years do our other great cities have left?

 

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Change We Can Aggrieve In

In a Joe Biden-esqe moment of “Committing Truth in Public,” Howie Dean explains to a Townhall why tort reform wasn’t included in any of the five Health Care Reform bills floating around on the Hill:

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, a medical doctor who served as governor of Vermont, said at a town hall meeting on Tuesday night that Democrats in Congress did not include tort reform in the health care bill because they were fearful of “taking on” the trial lawyers.

“This is the answer from a doctor and a politician,” said Dean. “Here is why tort reform is not in the bill. When you go to pass a really enormous bill like that the more stuff you put in, the more enemies you make, right? And the reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on, and that is the plain and simple truth. Now, that’s the truth.”

He forgot to mention that, in addition to being really big and mean, tort lawyers bankroll the DNC.

Hey, how about we socialize legal services next!? Change we can aggrieve in?

Where Has All the Science Gone?

If there’s still anyone out there who doesn’t believe public education is reckless child endangerment, please read Kay Hymowitz’s review of NurtureShock in today’s WSJ.

Written by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, NurtureShock takes you on a post-Dr. Spock tour of the educational theories du jour,  debunking most of them. When Nathaniel Brandon published  “The Psychology of Self-Esteem in 1969, the education world launched a campaign that continues to this day to boost children’s self esteem at every turn. And while the “we’re all winners” hype was a boon to trophy makers, it was a dismal failure in preparing kids to go into the real world.

Indeed, this is exactly what the authors discovered:

…high self-esteem doesn't improve grades, reduce ­anti-social behavior, deter alcohol drinking or do much of anything good for kids. In fact, telling kids how smart they are can be ­counterproductive. Many children who are convinced that they are little geniuses tend not to put much effort into their work. Others are troubled by the latent anxiety of adults who feel it necessary to praise them constantly.

 

And the bad news just keeps on coming:

The benefits of teaching tolerance and promoting ­diversity look equally unimpressive in the current ­research. … a lot of well-meaning adult nostrums—"we're all friends," "we're all equal"—pass right over the heads of young children. Attempts to increase racial sensitivity in older students can even lead to unintended consequences. One ­researcher found that "more diversity translates into more divisions between students." Another warns that too much discussion of past discrimination can make minority children over-reactive to perceived future slights. As for trying to increase emotional intelligence, the education fad of the 1990s, it doesn't seem to ­promote "pro-social values" either. It turns out that bullies use their considerable EQ, as it is called, to ­control their peers.

 

Other tidbits of enlightenment: programs to stop drop outs don’t work. Anti-drug programs don’t work. “Giftedness” testing fails to predict, well, giftedness.

Ms. Hymowitz takes issue with the authors who, after debunking yesterday’s myths, seem all to willing to accept today’s newest orthodoxies; as if they are somehow better vetted than previous  miscalculations. Specifically cited are new scientific studies that explain why teenagers lie: not to avoid punishment, but to avoid upsetting their parents.  Hmmm?

We teach so little hard science and logic that people are easily cowed into accepting as truth anything that someone has done a “scientific” study to support.  Non-skeptical acceptance of such “scientific” facts has resulted in 40 years of bad public policies.  Education, while critical, is merely the tip of the iceberg. The same type of blind acceptance of  pseudo-scientific  data is about to inform our health care system.

By applying algorithms, statistics and actuary tables, “bio-ethicists” like Ezekiel Emanuel have come up with a handy reference scale of “useful life years.” If this sounds eerily reminiscent of eugenics, you’re on the right tract. Ezekiel and his ilk aren’t proposing that we euthanize  people just because they’re old. No. He proposes that in the interest of cost effectiveness that we simply withhold treatment at a point where they’ve achieved their “useful years” allotment.

Scientific studies may claim that teenagers lie to their parents so as not to upset them - not to avoid the consequences of their actions.  But common sense tells you that’s nonsense. And bio-ethics may claim that withholding medical treatment isn’t passive euthanasia. But common sense tells you that’s a lie.

Is it any wonder that home schooling is on the rise?

 

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

R.I.P. Senator Kennedy

Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Half Tiger, Half Paper. We Got the Wrong Half

Rumor has it that the first Halfrican- American president is going to play golf with the first Chigro-American Masters winner on the Vineyards this week. Not exactly a match up, on more than one level. In a normal world, I would argue that Barack Obama’s achievement has greatly eclipsed that of a mere golf champ. But it’s not that simple. Arriving is sometimes not as important as the method of transport.

Tiger Woods was obviously born with an aptitude. Not necessarily for golf, but for focus. He achieved greatness by the same path many before him followed: the hard work of study, practice, discipline and sacrifice in pursuit of a goal. His mother and father provided encouragement, direction and support for their son. But the motivation and drive came from within.

Barack? Not so much, by what few accounts we have. Suffice it to say he didn’t share Tiger’s supportive family environment.

Was he a hard working college student? I doubt it, or we would have seen the high grades, brilliant papers, theses and perhaps at least one of the insightful articles that he wrote while editor of the Harvard Law Review. But with records and lips sealed, we’ve got nothing, and are left to assume there is nothing to write home about.

Disciplined? Probably not that much. Otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have had to cop to having “messed around with drugs” when he was younger (What drugs? How young? We’ll never know because the MSM was never curious). He would have quit smoking well in advance of his historic presidential run. And we would not have to be watching his increasingly obvious displays of irritation and inane off-the-cuff comments to the media and regular people at town halls. Any one who’s ever been in the hot seat knows this sort of behavior is the opposite of discipline.

Sacrificed, hard working young professional? Let’s see, he left a big time law firm where he was an associate to join a grass roots community organizing operation. First, if your goal is a high ranking public office, you’re black, you want to meet the right people, and you live in Chicago, which route would you bet on? If you’re pursing your self-interest, it’s hard to classify it as “sacrifice.” Secondly, do you have any idea the hours a young associate in a large law firm is required to put in? It’s grueling and not all are willing to pay the toll.

Yes, he did ostensibly write two autobiographies (an unusual avocation for an unassuming community organizer), but having read the only publically available article written by young Barrack , well let’s just say he must have had the hardest working editor in America. I promise you he did not write them unassisted.

And yet, he did win the Presidency of the United States. It does give one pause.

Let’s see, how did that happen again? Who assisted the “Won?”

ACORN and the infamous get out the “vote” grass roots movement that made the original Daley Machine look like amateurs in their ability to raise the dead.

Nearly every union of any size, from teachers to the UAW, contributed mega-bucks to the Barry Bandwagon of Hope and Change.

A Main Stream Media that exhibited all of the probing journalistic torque of a house organ - and who is still wee-weeing all over themselves in the presence of the “Anointed Won.”

A left wing coalition of the Democratic machine – able to raise more money than Donald Trump - who picked the dark horse candidate they found most malleable.

Hollywood narcissists who swooned over a man they recognized as one of their own, and propped him up with the glamorous veneer that provides the artifice of a superstar. Not to mention the money available from the enormously wealthy, reliably left wing entertainment-plex.

And last but not least, corporations that continued their escalation of a tit for tat existence involving big campaign donations in exchange for access to the halls of Congress via their lobbyists; hence buying legal access to influence in everything from legislation to the awarding of lucrative contracts.

And there are plenty of others as well, such as the money aggregators used to end-run campaign financing laws.

So Obama has won the most powerful elected position in the world by standing on the shoulders of giants. Tiger Woods had his mother and, especially, his father.

To whom would you prefer to be beholden?

Sunday, August 23, 2009

So Let It Be Written; So Let It Be Done

Sometimes words, just words,  aren’t enough to persuade the masses.

Sometimes even happy talk about the good intentions and likely outcomes aren’t convincing.

That’s when edicts and Chicago style thuggery are your best options.

 

 

 

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Who Let the Dogs Out?

President Obama has again promised to ram Obamacare through, telling a radio show caller: "I guarantee you, Joe, we are going to get health care reform done."

So, call in the mad dogs when you need them.  MSM, of course, is already on board, ensuring that any opponents are painted as angry white racists, Nazis, ditto heads, idiots or all of the above.

The first dog pack: religious leaders to persuade their flocks. So Obama addresses a  multidenominational group of pastors, rabbis and other religious leaders who support his goal to remake the nation’s health care system. He told them:

“I know there’s been a lot of misinformation in this debate, and there are some folks out there who are frankly bearing false witness,”

According to a NYT article on the session:

President Obama sought Wednesday to reframe the health care debate as “a core ethical and moral obligation,” imploring a coalition of religious leaders to help promote the plan to lower costs and expand insurance coverage for all Americans.

“I need you to knock on doors, talk to your neighbors. I need you to spread the facts and speak the truth,” he said.

So now,  if you disagree, you’re breaking the 9th commandment? You’re a sinner? And immoral? Not bad for a guy that hasn’t had time to find a new church to attend.

On another front, as reported by the WSJ,  he clarifies who the real enemy is:

"Early on a decision was made by the Republican leadership that said, 'Look, let's not give them a victory and maybe we can have a replay of 1993-94 when Clinton came in. He failed on health care, and then we won in the midterm elections, and we got the majority.'"

What happened to “It’s not about me”, Mr. President?

And meanwhile, in hopes of tying up another opposition front,  House dogs Waxman and Stupak issue “letters” that look more like subpoenas to the CEO’s of Insurance Companies who aren’t on board with Obamacare. In the letter they’re asked to provide salary and perk data for the highest paid employees and board members, as well as information on conferences and events they sponsored and details on various lines of business.

Most of this info can be obtained in the SEC filings of these  publically held companies (available on-line). But  they’re just too complicated for a Congressman. They can’t even  read or understand the  bills they vote on, how can we expect them to go through a 10k? Besides, this isn’t about actually obtaining information. It’s a government backed, politically motivated fishing trip intended to intimidate insurance companies into backing socialized medicine. Isn’t that illegal? It used to be.

(As an aside, Neil Cuvuto has an amusing response to the honorable Representatives.)

What do all of these anecdotes  have in common? They demonstrate the depths to which Obama is willing to plumb in order to get his way. And he and his progressive cronies are pulling out all the stops. The Alinsky Rules For Radicals handbook is getting dog-eared. Especially the chapters on “Of Means and Ends”, and “Tactics.”

On whether the ends justify the means,  Alinsky counsels:

“The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms…He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work.”

and later:

“The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position.” pp 24-25, Vintage Books 1989 edition

I take that to mean, by any means possible. Which explains the appearance of the dogs of August, and the tactics they are unleashing:

An obviously non-religious man cynically tells the religious leaders of the country that his health care is a moral imperative?  Rule number 4, page 128

Accusing Republicans of personally going after him, of wanting him to fail? (Wait a minute, wasn’t that Rush Limbaugh? ) Does the President forget that he has both houses of Congress? He doesn’t need even one Republican to ram this down our throats. But better to demonize the opposition. Why? Because it works. Rule number 13, Page 130. 

Intimidating non-cooperative Insurance Companies? Rule number 8 and 9, page 129.

Establish a snitch White House site for people to report “fishy”  facts about Obamacare? Rule 1,3,9 and 13.

You might want to read the whole book. Every community organizer of any stature has memorized it.

In the mean time, try to stay in the shade and away from mad dogs.

 

Friday, August 21, 2009

And This Little Piggy…

…went wee, wee, wee all the way home?

I see I’m not the only one wondering about the President’s odd turn of phrase at a DNC on-line Health Care forum on August 19th:

 

 

Michelle Malkin suggests several possible source codes for the phrase “all wee weed up”:

Is this some Chicago phrase I don’t know about?

Is it just a nonsensical scatalogical reference?

Is this the teleprompter’s fault?

Maybe it’s some sort of SEIU code phrase?

Or is it a Hawaiian thing?

Can someone clue the unwashed masses in, please?

I’m certainly glad he’s the most intelligent, articulate President we’ve ever had. Imagine what George W. Bush might have said!

I guess those Ivy League educations aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

UPDATE:  Finally, something useful from the White House’s Baghdad Bobbie:  A Wee-Weed translation.

 

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Have a Cigar, and Shut Up

With apologies to Freud, sometimes a jokester is just a joke. So the genesis for the evil, racist poster of Obama as the Joker socialist wasn’t a rabid right winger. He’s actually Firas Alkhateeb,  a bored college student who found a tutorial on how to “Jokerize” photos on the internet and played around to create the Photoshop  version of a Time magazine cover.  He also posted on his website a picture of Napoleon riding a motorcycle.

Now, he’ll be the first to tell you that he’s not the one that took his original joke art and slapped the word “Socialist” across it. That was some still anonymous person in Los Angeles, but I think his comments might tell you where he comes down on the whole controversy: "It really doesn’t make any sense to me at all," Alkhateeb told the LA Times… First of all, who said being a socialist is evil?"

And see how easy and fun it is to make joker art?

joker-obama copy

So, to the genius who told us “If you don’t think the Obama Joker poster is racist, you’re probably a racist” I would like to float the equally valid inverse proposition:  “If you think the Obama Joker poster is racist, perhaps you are a racist.”

 

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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

Hot Air has found another duly elected official who  is too ignorant to be allowed to write legislation.  As Joe Scarborough interviewed him on MSNBC yesterday Rep Anthony Weiner (D-NY) explained  exactly what he meant by “Public Option.” And yep, it’s just exactly what we thought: socialized medicine for all – with the exception of Congress and  other high ranking elected officials and bureaucrats.

At one point in the interview Rep Weiner repeatedly contends that health care is not a commodity, to which Ed Morrissey responds:

Of course health care is a commodity. Weiner wants to use this populist pet phrase, which goes along with the notion of a “right” to health care, but it’s absurd. Food is a commodity, water is a commodity, clothing and shelter are commodities. Until cap-and-trade came up in the House, air was not a commodity, but carbon dioxide will shortly become one, even though life itself cannot exist without it. People have to produce the goods and services that comprise the health-care industry, which means that the supplies are finite and they expect to get compensated for their work. That makes it a commodity, regardless of Weiner’s socialist rhetoric. Anything with a cost is a commodity, by definition.

Anyone who doesn’t understand that much about economics has no business creating policy.

 

Apparently Rep Anthony Weiner  is also too stupid to keep his yap shut about the real desires of the progressive left. But he certainly provides a handy response for complaints  from the  left questioning why right wing nut balls refer to Obama as a socialist.  I’m personally more inclined to call them Collectivists or Marxists now.

Jonah Goldberg has an interesting take on calling a spade a spade in his  article at NRO:

What drives me crazy about liberal complaints about conservative tactics these days is how selective they are. Obama, Barney Frank, Jacob Hacker, and others have said that they want these reforms — specifically the public option — to lead to single payer. But when conservatives take them at their word, suddenly it's outrageous misinformation and "fishy" stuff. When the wind is at their backs, liberals look way off to the horizon, like Obama at a podium, dreaming of a future of European-style statism. But when conservatives use this to their advantage, suddenly it is outrageous to even consider the possibility of a road to hell being paved with good intentions. Suddenly liberals bleat that it is scare-mongering to look beyond what they are proposing in this exact moment, outrageous to ask "Where will this lead?"

 

And if you are strong of heart and curious about how such a benign thing as “health care for all” could lead rabid conservatives to proclaim the existence of “death panels,” you  must read Dr. Sanity’s “Not N.I.C.E.” post. The mere mention of  Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel) should be enough to make your blood run cold. His scholarly article, "Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions"  might just stop it from circulating all together.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

 

Monday, August 17, 2009

The Royal “We” is Me, Not Thee

At the Montana town hall, a man presented this concern to President Obama:  “You can't tell us how you're going to pay for this. The only way you're going to get that money is raise our taxes.” He was referring to Obama’s previous commitment of deficit neutrality on the healthcare bill. The President’s response?  "I can't cover another 47 million people for free. I can't do that.”

I,” Mr. President? “I can’t do that.” Firstly, we didn’t really ask you to do that. And secondly, what happened to “This isn’t about me?” But in fact, in your mind, it is all about you – candor rolls off your tongue accidentally when you go off prompter. You don’t like being crossed. That imperial pose that you struck so often on the campaign trail was not just a Hollywood affectation.

So what? Haven’t other presidents been imperial and egomaniacal? Probably, but the only one that comes to mind immediately is Richard Nixon. So take a note Mr. President: the American electorate doesn’t really like being treated as flotsam and jetsam. We kind of thought that your Royal “we” might include us from time to time, not just your inner circle of community organizers, Organizing for America.

Because many of us just don’t share your world view of government benevolence. We’re still capable of thinking rationally. And we tend to look at Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Amtrak and the US Postal Service and see how deeply dysfunctional and non-economically viable they are and are therefore unwilling to place health care in government’s maw as well.

We’ve read your lips and we don’t believe you. We don’t believe that we can keep our own doctor, that a “government option” won’t put private insurers out of business and that the government won’t be involved in rationing care. And we sure as hell don’t believe that government mandated end-of-life counseling is purely altruistic.

We actually know that expanding a Medicare-like health care system  will not solve the continual escalation of health care costs. We actually know that it’s a large part of the problem. First there’s the established fraud and waste in the system – which are legion and the government can’t seem to correct. Then there’s the Medicare reimbursement rates which are set significantly below the actual cost of delivering the service,  both the doctor’s and the hospital’s.  And yes, cost includes the  “P” word - profit. After years of training and a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt, trained specialists think they should be able to make a good living, which requires them to do better than just covering their costs.

We actually know that if  private insurance companies weren’t subsidizing the government’s Medicare system (not the other way around, Mr. President) it would have been bankrupt years, if not decades ago. So while we don’t especially like haggling with our own insurance companies over covered services or reimbursements, we surely prefer it to haggling with a government civil “servant” who  has a job for life whether they feel like helping us or not.

If you don’t understand basic economics at a micro level, let alone the macro level, you have no business writing legislation that will be imposed on the American people and the American economy.

The only  piece of legislation I’d like to see passed during this session: one that requires all new Senators and Representatives to pass an Econ 101 exam, and prohibits the election of any one in possession of a law degree.

 

Thursday, August 13, 2009

See? See How Important I Am?

While this will not win her high marks in Interpersonal Training class, this latest act by Sheila Jackson Lee is but one of her many moronic, narcissistic acts.

 

Among her other infamous moves:

In 2003, Lee complained that the names of hurricanes were too "lily white", and demanded that more 'black' names be used.

On a visit to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Lee, a member of the House Science Committee's space subcommittee, asked if the Mars Pathfinder had taken an image of the flag Neil Armstrong planted there in 1969. To which Michigan Rep Vern Ehlers quipped “we really don’t teach enough science in school these days”.

If this isn’t enough, go to YouTube; she has pages and pages of priceless material. And she’s just one of the many egomaniacal fools duly elected by equally brain dead constituents year after year. Let’s put a little more thought into who we send back to Washington in 2010.

 

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Minimally Invasive Procedure

Aside from all of the obvious issues with the health care reform bill(s) floating through Congress that have been discussed before both here, here, here, and here as well as all over the web, there are a couple of additional issues that I would like to address.

First - and I would be amused if I weren’t so incensed - the vigor with which Democratic congressman are defending a bill that they have not even read. Their constituents have read more than they have. It becomes more and more obvious how completely dependent our elected officials are on centrally prepared and disseminated talking points.

Secondly, I’m disturbed by the ease with which the Obama administration co-opted all of the peripheral “stakeholders” in the game: the AMA, the big pharmaceuticals, the hospital administrators, nurses unions and the AARP (who officially say they do not endorse the Obama-care legislation – too many members tearing up their cards) and of course every other union that line the pockets of the Democratic infrastructure. One can only wonder what deals were cut, what promises made to secure such lockstep support. The sheer disdain for the only stakeholders who count, the citizens, is appalling. I’m sure they figured that if they got all the big guys, the little people would just follow meekly; thrilled at the grand glorious plan developed for them by their betters.

I’m also disturbed by the fact that Obama says he’s going to pay for a lot of his plan through 2 mechanisms: eliminating waste and fraud in the Medicare system and saving $80 billion in drugs through reduced pricing from big Pharma. Here’s my problem: why don’t they just go ahead and cut out the waste and fraud from Medicare NOW? Since they know how much it’s going to save, they surely must know what and where all this waste and fraud are. And Pharma, if you can save the country $80 billion, how about you just go ahead and do it now? You’ve obviously already negotiated your price: longer patent time periods and stabilized pricing. Let’s just pass that legislation. Together with the reduced Medicare waste and fraud, that ought to be enough to pay for the actual citizens who are not insured.

I don’t know, I’m just asking.

Update 8-13: Even the left of leftie, Robert Reich, thinks the deal cutting with Big Pharma stinks. Makes you wonder even more what the rest of the deals consist of in this greatest of great White House take over.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Evil Power Rangers

When the left starts hurling accusations at their opponents, the one thing you know for sure is that they are complaining about tactics they have, or would, use themselves. As noted in the Flopping Aces:

In the Soviet Union, they used to have ‘show trials’. The victim was already doomed to death or gulag. The purpose was propaganda. In virtually all cases there was no truth whatsoever to the allegations, but Marxism is never about truth, it is about power. What was truly ironic about all this was that the secret state, the Comintern and the KGB actually did all the crimes of which the victims were accused and yet were innocent! The Soviets were the ones conspiring behind the scenes, intimidating, etc.

 

The Left has been organized and orchestrated in their campaign of complaints and outrage against their opponents in the health care reform debate (and note, their opponents are not exclusively right wingers, republicans, or even conservatives). The White House has been firing on all pistons;

  1. Town hall protestors are un-American (per Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer). That’s a newsflash: protesting, exercising your first Amendment right is now un-American. Hillary Clinton didn’t think so, in her famous 2003 shrill speech in which she told us “we are Americans and we have a right to disagree and debate with this administration…” Maybe you only really have a right to disagree if you are on the “correct” side of the issue, like Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink. Then you will be funded  and courted by the Democratic party, and feted by the MSM. I guess they’ve temporarily forgotten that this republic was founded on protest.
  2. Town hall protestors are “organized, angry mobs”. Again, dear old Nancy Pelosi began this round of accusations, claiming people were showing up at town halls with swastikas. Not only could that claim not be proven, but the only swastika anyone came up with was one with a red line through it, as in “don’t try to shove this Nazi crap down our throats.” But, with the able assistance of the MSM, the mantra turned protestors into demons and organized mobsters. I would only point out that it is the left who is well known for organized mobs: ACORN in Iowa and every other city where citizens, dead or alive, could be rounded up, registered and bussed to voting polls, Black Panthers in para-military garb with clubs at voting precincts, and the SEIU purple shirts shouting at senior citizens and assaulting a black conservative trying to sell pins and flags -  the so-called “angry mobs” at the health care forums.
  3. Barbara Boxer accuses town hall attendees of being too well dressed to be anything other than paid shills for the insurance companies.  Hey Babs, it’s your side that runs the rent-a-protest game. Is it our fault that most of our side works for a living?

The disdain that this President and his administration have for those of us who have the audacity to disagree with his supreme leadership is appalling. To date, and just off the top of my head, here are some of the ways that he or his designated mignons have trashed us :

  1. Calling us “bitter clingers”
  2. Apologizing all across the world for “transgressions” that many of us are not only not ashamed of, but consider admirable
  3. Calling a cop protecting a black professor’s home stupid
  4. Accusing pediatricians of performing unnecessary  tonsillectomies in order to line their pockets
  5. Accusing us of being well dressed Nazis who form angry mobs
  6. Instructing the goons at town halls, if met with opposition to “strike back twice as hard”
  7. Setting up a White House snitch website to report fellow citizens that anyone, anywhere feels might be spreading “disinformation”
  8. Telling us that a certain age, that Congress will determine, maybe all we need is a pain pill, not treatment
  9. And perhaps the ultimate disdain for the electorate: throwing 100% support behind a bill they won’t even bother to read (which is why they act surprised when they hear about number 8 above)

Harry Reid accuses protesters of "sabotaging the Democratic process. Mr. Reid, protesting is intrinsic to the democratic process. Silencing protest is fundamental to tyranny and inherent in autocracy. The Left’s overreaching reaction reads like classic Saul Alinsky instructions from his Rules for Radicals booklet: attack, diminish and marginalize all who stand in your way.

This is no longer about health care reform, health insurance reform or a “public option” for health care. This has escalated quickly to what it’s always been about, but the public wasn’t supposed to notice: Power. The sheer, unbridled power of government taking over more and more of our economy. And no matter how much lipstick you slap on that pig, in every quarter of the world ,with the exception of our left wing Congress, that’s known as Socialism.

And Obama has readily embraced the leadership roll of this power grab set up by the Chicago thug-style mob. With his imperious, condescending arrogance he is acting more like an all powerful dictator than the leader of the free world. Not since the Nixon administration – and frankly, not even then – have we seen such gleeful, out-of-control disrespect for the public and the law. Spare me the George Bush rhetoric. Not even close my friends, and he had 8 years to pull it off.

 

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Detroit: A Ghost Story

They come form all over the world to photograph the decline of Detroit. And why not? It’s stunning in both it’s breadth and depth.

michigan central stationmcd-5 

But none have captured the transitory soul of Detroit as well as French-Canadian Jean-Pierre Lavoie. His 360 degree panoramas of the the Michigan Central train station, built in 1913 and permanently abandoned in 1988, are accompanied by ghostly sounds from its past. He has presented this iconic symbol of Detroit’s decline as a shameful purgatory of abandonment that engulfs much of the rust belt. It feels like a nerve unsheathed, it looks like a malignant menace. It is the face of a city waiting for salvation, it’s worthiness unclear.

Societies  require care and selfless leadership to survive, let alone thrive. Detroit has had neither for nearly 40 years. I mention this simply as a cautionary tale.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Stuff Detroiters Like: Vernor’s Update

We had to update our original Vernor’s post with the following

BREAKING NEWS: “Vernor’s Lovers Toast To Bubbly Favorite”

That’s the headline for Santiago Esparza’s story, in today’s Detroit News’, about the annual Vernor’s Ginger Ale Collector’s Club Summer Event held Saturday August 8th.

summer event

The FREE event, was held at Gino’s Surf, overlooking beautiful Lake St. Clair, and featured the Miss Vernors hydroplane and a Vernor’s float (sometimes called a “Boston cooler”) eating/drinking contest. It may be the most fun you can have in Detroit without a semi-automatic weapon.

Vernor's%20sign%20art%20print A limited edition fine art giclee  print of the Vernor’s sign is available from Joanne Domka here

The Vernor’s club has only been around since 2007, but now claims members in “…Michigan (DUH), Ohio, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, California, Colorado, Tennessee, Virginia, Canada and more.”  Vernor’s Collector’s Club membership is only 20 bucks for the whole year, unless you fly from LA to Detroit for the annual Summer Event.

So join the club (20 bucks', they even take Paypal), come to next years summer event (we’ll announce it here when dates are set) and enjoy some Vernor’s Ginger Ale: It’s what we drink around here.

Disclaimer: Dewey From Detroit is in no way, shape or form affiliated with the Vernor’s Collectors Club nor any of their vendors. Although it does look like fun, and we would join, if we were joiners, or, if we had 20 bucks.

 

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Friday, August 7, 2009

I’ve Still Got Questions, Sonya

NOTE: this was originally posted 5-30-09 and reposted 7-14-09, but I’m still waiting for the answers.

Judge Sotomayor was confirmed by the Senate on August 6, 2009; she will be sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court on August 8, 2009. She will be the first Hispanic to serve in this position, if you don’t count Judge Benjamin Cardozo who was of Portuguese ancestry and therefore would only have been considered Hispanic if his family had emigrated to South America instead of North America. Got that?

I don’t have time to come up with anything original, as I’m assembling my enemies list to hand in to the White House. I’m not sure exactly what they’re going to do with it, but since I understand they are asking the narcs to include full names and addresses of the people “agitating” against Obamacare,  I’m betting a White House Christmas card is in the offing. Or, more likely, a Holiday card.

So, for the last time…

 Questions I Would Ask at Sotomayor’s Congressional Confirmation Hearings

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Sotomayor, whose parents came from Puerto Rico.

Based on the much reported statement that Sonia Sotomayor made in a speech in 2001, here are a couple of questions I would ask if I were on the Judicial Committee:

“Judge Sotomayor, would you say that a wise black woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman? How about a wise black man? Where might he fall in your spectrum of ‘good conclusions’? What about a wise Latino man? And I guess I’m also curious as to how you think an Asian woman might stack up.

“Also, among wise Latina women, is there a distinction between the wisdom of a Latina from Puerto Rico and one from Mexico? Or Cuba? And what about Guatemala?

“We assume, Judge Sotomayor, that white males would come in dead last, but I’m just wondering if perhaps, for future appointments to the bench, you could share with us some of your Latina wisdom and help us rank the full spectrum of color and gender combinations. That way we could ensure that all subsequent appointments will go only to those that are capable of reaching the wisest conclusions.”

Thursday, August 6, 2009

I Don’t Know Much About Art, But…

David Ng at the LA Times gave us a post-modern deconstructionist critique of the anonymously photo-shopped image of Obama the Joker-Socialist poster. His assessment: it could be anything. Or nothing at all. The guy must have gone to Berkeley.

Before reaching his non-conclusion we have to slog our way through this claptrap:

The New Yorker magazine's infamous cover illustration of Barack and Michelle Obama in radical drag, bumping fists in the Oval Office as an American flag burns in the fireplace, is understood to be a parody of conservative paranoia, not an attack on the first couple. But put that same image on the cover of the Weekly Standard and the illustration takes on a vastly different meaning.

In this respect, the image of President Obama in Heath Ledger Joker-face is especially disturbing because it is completely devoid of context -- literary, political or otherwise. The image seems to have emerged from nowhere and was created by no one. Deracinated from authorial intent, Obama-as-Joker becomes a free-floating cipher that can be appropriated and re-appropriated by everyone.

 

Methinks Mr. Ng has spent altogether too much time on an analyst’s couch. There’s  nothing deep, dark or mysterious about this poster. And it is fixed quite firmly in political context: Mr. Obama is a liar in socialist drag. The joke is on us. Come on, that’s funny.  Or it would’ve been had the artist been portraying George W. Bush, as Drew Friedman did last summer in Vanity Fair. (see image below)

And as for alluding to the possibility of the whiteface being racist; please. How can we ever take you people serious if you keep this up?

 obama-joker     bush-is-joker41

Anyway, there’s something to be said for turnabout being fair play. Vanity Fair’s readers seemed amused beyond containment at the art poster of GWB as Joker. So spare me your outrage over the joke-alist Obama. And  grow up.

 

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Bankrupt, But Living Large

What a relief. Congress will definitely not have to fly with the unwashed masses. We know that Harry Reid would spend any amount of money to avoid that. So, they’ve ordered up three Gulfstreams to shuttle their members to and fro. Specifically, 3 C-37 aircraft: the military variant of the commercial Gulfstream 550 executive jet.

Wasn’t it Congress that got all huffy with the Auto execs who flew into Washington - at Congress’s insistence - that they appear before them to explain why they were going broke and needed more money from the American Treasury? Why didn’t they fly coach? Why didn’t they drive? After all, their companies were going bankrupt, the guys calling the shots should be tightening their belts too. Right?

Right. So , esteemed members of Congress, take a memo: America is going broke. We hold you accountable. The least you can do is fly coach.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Bill Clinton flies off to North Korea to seal the deal on the release of the two American “journalists” who wandered into North Korea, and BHO brings birthday cupcakes to the 89 year old cupcake Helen Thomas.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Could it be that Bill Clinton actually looked presidential as he walked off the plane, all somber and steady of foot? As opposed to the way Barry usually disembarks from a plane, playing the snare drums and looking for all the world like he’s on his way to a pep rally (which, to be fair, he often is.)

And here’s our current Prez, feting Ms. Thomas with Little Debbies, still looking like he’s at a pep rally (Again, he is. Check out the bouncing MSM bobble heads twitter when he comes through the door. Ohhhh! Mr. President!)

It was nice of him to remember the little old lady who shares his birthday (at least we think it’s his birthday). Because shoot, she is 89 and could get sick any day now. And being the good little trooper that she is, we know she would just volunteer to cash it in rather than burden our broken health care system.

Who could’ve imagined the day when Bill Clinton, arranging an international threesome, would be a more wholesome story than the sitting president’s morning briefing?

Monday, August 3, 2009

Git-Motown

Our wacky governor – she’s always looking for a way to balance our state’s out of control budget. This one is brilliant: Michigan has offered to house the Gitmo detainees in an abandoned prison in  Standish, Michigan.

A twofer! We get to use the jail that Governor Granholm closed to save the state money (The prisoners? Well, we released most of them. It was part of a two step program, first we “rightsized” the prisons, second, we “rightsized” the prison population to fit the “rightsized” prisons. See how that works?) and we get the federal government to pay us for “detaining” a pack of trained terrorists that hate our way of life and want us all dead. What’s the downside?

And since the site selected is in Michigan’s Thumb area, well know for nurturing home-grown domestic terrorist Terry Nichols, maybe we can bring him back home too.

It appears that he’s not happy with his current Federally provided quarters, due to the quality of the food.

Nichols complained that he "is compelled to consume daily those unhealthy dead and refined foods that are abhorrent to plaintiff’s sincerely held religious beliefs causing him physical, mental and spiritual torment, and to sin against God.”

He wrote that he sincerely believes that God created mankind to consume unrefined whole foods. He wrote that he is forced to sin against God by eating refined foods that destroy "His holy temple ... my body

 

Perhaps the special Halal meals prepared for our Muslim guests will suit Mr. Nichols dietary needs. If not, I’m sure we can find a chef to cater to his religion as well: the religion of “my body is a holy temple, but yours is cannon fodder.” Come to think of it, he does have a lot in common with the Gitmo terrorists.

 

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Health-o-rama

If you start with an incorrect premise, I will guarantee that you arrive at an incorrect solution.

For example, health care. Obama started with the premise that our health care system is broken. And no one bothered to question that hypothesis. When in fact, if they had, they would have discovered the obvious: we have the best health care on the planet. Period. Nonpareil.  And it’s not a “system.” There’s no one administrative body that dictates how health care works in this country. That’s what Obama wants to give us. What we have are thousands of individual providers, doctors, nurses, hospitals and insurance companies that charge a fee for their services.

But following the rule that if you say something often enough it will make it true, team Obama (which includes his MSM PR Department) has continued to repeat the lie that our health care system is broken.

It is a lie. From the number of people they claim are without insurance to the implication that they are not insured simply because they can’t afford it, to the contention that millions are denied health care, it’s simply a lie. The truth is that of 307 million Americans, nearly 10 million (conservative estimate) are illegal, another 19 million make over $50k per year and choose not to buy insurance (9 million of them make over $75k), and 14 million are on Medicaid or Medicare. That leaves about 5 million legal, uncovered citizens, or about 2% of the population. That’s a much smaller group than 47 million. And even they are not denied health care. They get in in the local ER, unless they're the victim of a patient dumping scheme.

So why does the President want to blow up our entire health care “system” for 2% of the population? Are you telling me that the geniuses in the Administration can’t figure out a better, more cost effective way to deal with 2% of the population than to undermine everything about our health care that works, and works quite well?

There’s no one who believes that their health care will remain unchanged no matter how many times the anointed one tells us otherwise. Nor does anyone believe that private health insurance and Medicare – that 91% of Americans have, 84% are happy with and 76% want no changes in – will continue unchanged once a “public option” is available and Medicare is gutted for “cost savings.” Apparently ordinary Americans understand economics far better than the White House geniuses. They know that eventually a not-for-profit system will make it impossible for a free market, for-profit health insurance system to maintain itself.

Nor does anyone believe that Medicare benefits aren’t going to be cut. When you start talking about doing seniors a favor by giving them free counseling for “end of life” decisions, only leftist ideologues miss the message that the government doesn’t want to keep spending money on someone who’s old, and going to die anyway.

And positively no one believes that the cost of this huge government takeover of  18% of our economy is going to be “cost neutral.” Please. I know we’re not all Harvard lawyers, thank God, but we know a thing or two about government programs. Beginning with “they’re never cost neutral.”

Yes, there are problems with the delivery of health care. How about we address them specifically, instead of just telling us we have an insurmountable problem that only the government can solve. For one thing, unless it’s an enemy attack that requires our military force, there is no “insurmountable" problem where a government solution would be either my first, second or third choice. Vilify free markets, competition and profit motive all you want, you’re unlikely to find government listed as ‘innovator of the year’ in anyone’s survey.

Yet Obama wants government to give us an omnibus solution to what he considers an intractable problem. All I can say is, how’s that War on Poverty working out for you? Forty five years and counting, and it’s worse than ever. (You doubt me? Please come visit Detroit.)

We don’t need an omnibus plan. We need to identify the individual problems with the health care delivery and insurance and address them one by one. Here’s my list, although I’d be hesitant to turn Congress loose on anything that requires them to read more than a 2 page Cliff note summary before casting their uninformed vote.

  1. Fraud. The Medicare system, run by our esteemed government bureaucracy, is riddled with fraud and has been every year since its inception. This is not as tough as the war on drugs. A few forensic accountants on staff at each medical center might be good start. Good for the economy too. Or possibly just a claims system that would be able to identify doctors who’ve performed 4 colonoscopies on the same patient in the same month. Or that red flags HIV transfusion centers run out of a local pizza parlor. I bet you could find someone in private  industry that could design an anti-fraud system that might work, oh, I don’t know, 150% better than the one in place now.
  2. Tort Reform.  I know the Democrats are going to channel a conniption fit over this. Not based on any legal principles, but because the tort lawyer association is among the largest lobby groups in the country, and they know which side their bread is buttered on. But until you take the Wheel of Fortune and the Lottery Jackpot out of medical malpractice the cost of medical care will continue to escalate with each judgment. As a bonus, if we can figure out how to deal with medical malpractice we can apply it to the rest of the frivolous lawsuits that clog up the courts and line tort lawyers pockets.
  3. Prescription Drugs. Why are they cheaper in Canada and Europe? Because they have omnibus government healthcare there, and the government establishes what they will pay for a medication. Therefore, in order to recoup the costs of development – which are astronomical due to any number of reasons with litigation being one of them – drug companies, both domestic and international, charge much more for drugs in the US where there aren’t price controls. This is not free market, this is not level playing field. Outside the US it’s price collusion, inside the US it’s gouging. It ought to be illegal and Congress should have addressed this years ago.
  4. Insurance. State insurance regulations need to be revised. Groups and individuals should be able to form inter-state risk pools and shop across state lines for insurance coverage which they can’t do now. Pre-existing conditions should not exclude you from buying insurance, albeit at a higher rate in recognition of a realized risk. Or if the government really wants to help, they could subsidize the additional premium. With the exception of Medicare and Medicaid, private medical providers should not be allowed to charge one rate for patients covered by insurance and another, higher rate for patients that have no coverage. And health care insurance portability needs to be made available at a rate comparable to what the employer was paying.
  5. Electronic Records. Team Obama is right about this one. Archaic record systems are not only cumbersome and more costly to maintain, but they are can also be impediments to obtaining proper care. But please, don’t let the public sector handle this.
  6. Tax deductions. Review the structure and carryover of medical reimbursement accounts as well as additional tax deductibility of all medical expenses.
  7. Illegals. Illegals don’t go without health care. They get it in emergency rooms and local hospitals. We don’t deny  critical care to anyone. As long as we allow illegals to use the health care services of our country for free, everyone else’s costs will go up. We need to solve the illegal immigration problem for any number of reasons, but 10 million additional people in the healthcare system is one of them.

In other words, keep the socialized medicine out of my back yard. You can bet Great Britain wishes they had.