Note: You might want to start at the Barack
Obama Index Page, especially
if you arrived here by using a search engine.
The United States already has a multi-billion-dollar system of socialized medicine, called
Medicare and Medicaid. Federal, state and local governments spent a total of $783.8 billion on
health care in 2006.*
Any deadbeat who doesn't have private insurance (which one ordinarily acquires by purchasing it with
part of his or her income) can take advantage of Medicaid.
Obamacare is a system of unmitigated socialism which promises to improve service and low costs for
everyone. Only those who attended (and dropped out of) public schools are prepared to believe
that the government can make anything more efficient and more convenient while lowering costs. The
government is parasitic. Everything the government undertakes is paid for by taxes and debt.
When this idea was proposed in 1993, it was derisively called "HillaryCare" because president Clinton
put his wife in charge of its development. The idea was even more unpopular that she was, so it
was tabled until the return of the Democratic Party in 2008.
Subsections on this page:
Obamacare will be mandatory
Taxpayer-funded abortions
End of life issues including discussions of health care rationing and so-called
"death panels".
Related topics on other pages:
Look at the British experience
Other countries' experiences
Tea parties, town hall meetings and other organized rejecion of Obama's plans.
The Privacy of Medical Records
Social Security
Medicare, Medicaid, and Prescription Drug Benefits
SCHIP: (State Children's Health Insurance Program)
HillaryCare
The Invasion of the Food Police
Obamacare will be mandatory
There's nothing optional about it. Whether you need it or not, you will have to purchase
Obamacare or go to jail.
Mandatory
Insurance Is Unconstitutional. Federal legislation requiring that every American have health
insurance is part of all the major health-care reform plans now being considered in Washington. Such a
mandate, however, would expand the federal government's authority over individual Americans to an unprecedented
degree. It is also profoundly unconstitutional.
Reform Unraveling. What kind of
country would imprison citizens who felt it was in their best interest not to purchase health care insurance? We
may soon find out.
The
U.S. House of Presumptuous Meddlers. As an American, I am embarrassed that the U.S. House of
Representatives has 220 members who actually believe the government can successfully centrally plan the
medical and insurance industries. I'm embarrassed that my representatives think that government can
subsidize the consumption of medical care without increasing the budget deficit or interfering with free
choice.
The
Myth of the Moderate Democrat. Don't assume that the 38 Democrats who voted against Nancy
Pelosi's extremist version of health care reform wouldn't have supported it if their votes had been needed.
The days before the final passage on Saturday were not filled with stirring appeals to get Democrats to back
the bill so much as an auction to decide whom to let off the hook.
Can
Obama and Congress Order You to Buy Broccoli? Can President Barack Obama and Congress enact
legislation that orders Americans to buy broccoli? If so, where did they get that authority? What
provision in the Constitution empowers the federal government to order an individual to buy a product he does
not want? This is not a question about nutrition. It is not a question about whether broccoli is
good for you or about the relative merits of broccoli versus other foods. It is a question about the
constitutional limits on the power of the federal government. It is a question about freedom.
Where does the Constitution Authorize Congress to Order Americans to
Buy Health Insurance? [Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick] Leahy, whose committee is responsible for vetting
Supreme Court nominees, was asked by CNSNews.com where in the Constitution Congress is specifically granted the authority
to require that every American purchase health insurance. Leahy answered by saying that "nobody questions" Congress'
authority for such an action.
Pelosi: 'Are You Serious?' When Asked About Constitutional
Authority. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did not explain where Congress gets the authority to force
Americans to buy health insurance, when asked by CNSNews.com, and dismissed the query with the response, "Are you serious?
Are you serious?"
Rhetorical Tax Evasion.
Chairman Max Baucus's bill includes the so-called individual mandate, along with what he calls a $1,900 "excise tax" if you
don't buy health insurance. ... And, lo, it turns out that if you don't pay that tax, the IRS could punish you with
a $25,000 fine or up to a year in jail, or both.
The Editor says...
What this means is that the IRS will be selling health insurance at gunpoint. If you are about to
spend a year in jail on IRS charges, at some point you're going to be surrounded by men with guns.
The Education of Congressman
Hoyer. Congress is moving closer to enacting a law requiring all Americans to purchase health
insurance. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says that this is "like paying taxes." He's right
about that. But Hoyer made this statement as part of an effort to justify the health-care mandate on
constitutional grounds. Here he indicates that he doesn't understand the Constitution that he
took an oath to support. When asked what power the Constitution gives to Congress to enact this
legislation, Hoyer claimed that it came from the Constitution's "general welfare" clause.
Constitutionality
of health overhaul questioned. On top of all the other obstacles facing President Obama in his
quest to pass health reform is this one: Does the U.S. Constitution allow the government to require
uninsured Americans to buy medical insurance or impose a tax penalty if they refuse?
Beware the
health insurance police. A constitutional debate among legal scholars is being waged over a
key provision in the Democrats' health care legislation that poses this question about the freedom to be
an American: Can the federal government force people to purchase medical insurance or pay a tax
if they refuse?
Sen. Hatch Questions Constitutionality of Obamacare.
Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who has served in the Senate for 33 years and is a longtime member of the
Judiciary Committee, told CNSNews.com that he does not believe the Democrats' health-care reform plan is constitutionally
justifiable, noting that if the federal government can force Americans to buy health insurance "then there is
literally nothing the federal government can't force us to do."
Pelosi: Buy
a $15,000 Policy or Go to Jail. Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee
Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that
the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care
bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. In response to the JCT letter, Camp said:
"This is the ultimate example of the Democrats' command-and-control style of governing — buy what
we tell you or go to jail. It is outrageous and it should be stopped immediately."
Sen. Reed: Forcing People to Buy Health
Insurance is Constitutionally Justified. When asked where specifically the Constitution
authorized Congress to mandate that individuals buy health insurance, Sen. Jack Reed (D.-R.I.) said
that he "would have to check the specific sections" but said that it was like making people "sign up
for the draft."
Sen. Ben Nelson: 'I'm Not Going to Be Able to
Answer That Question'. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) told CNSNews.com that because he is not a
constitutional scholar he was "not going to be able to answer that question" of where specifically the
Constitution authorizes Congress to mandate that individuals purchase health insurance.
Mandatory Health Insurance is Like States Requiring
Driver's Licenses, Warner Says. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) told CNSNews.com that the constitutional
authority for Congress to require individuals to purchase health insurance is the same that allowed for Medicaid
and Medicare, and for states to require driver's licenses. He also said critics who suggest the health
care bill is unconstitutional are making a "spurious argument."
Full text of the Obamacare bill: HR 3200.
Dr.
No threatening to have bill read on Senate floor. Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who
developed a close friendship with President Obama when they served together in the Senate, is threatening to
have the entire health care bill read on the Senate floor. Senior Senate Democratic aides had heard
Coburn was considering having potentially thousands of pages read aloud in effort to stall passage.
Liberal Concedes Health
Care Bill Will Create New Entitlement "Impossible to Rescind". Like most liberals, the John
Cassidy supports the passage of health care legislation. But, unlike most liberals, he's honest about
the costs and consequences of passing it. ... "The future cost savings that the Administration and its
congressional allies are promising to deliver are based on wishful thinking and sleight of hand."
Conyers to Introduce Constitutional Amendment Making
Health Care a 'Right'. During his speech at a recent National Press Club luncheon, House
Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) said he is introducing a constitutional amendment that would
establish health care as "a right" for all Americans. "We need a real serious bill and, by the way,
the fundamental question, 'Is health care a constitutional right?'" he said. "I mean, do you have a
right to health care in the American system of government or not?"
Obama Admin. Actuary Finds
Unsustainable Status Quo Cheaper than Obamacare. One of President Obama's primary justifications
for pushing health care legislation has been that the status quo is "unsustainable" because of the skyrocketing
cost of medical care in the United States. The way to rein in costs, he argues, is to do adopt the
policies that he and his fellow Democrats are proposing. But a new report by the government actuary at
the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a branch of the Obama administration's Department of Health
and Human Services, has found that the exact opposite is true.
The $1.9 Trillion
Gimmick. Any day now, the House is expected to vote on a $210 billion fiscal swindle that
will prevent automatic cuts in Medicare payments to doctors. ... The "doc fix" was originally part of
ObamaCare, until Mrs. Pelosi realized that adding a quarter-trillion dollars to the total tab made it
difficult to pretend the bill would reduce the deficit.
Marxists on way to Controlling all of us.
With Saturday night's [11/7/2009] passage of the US House of Representatives' ObamaCare package (220-215), America was moved
closer to the US Marxist (formerly Democrat) Party's totalitarian control over the American people and 1/6 of
their economy. It has also been suggested that if this behemoth and Orwellian bill is passed, by both
houses of Congress, government may soon be in control of 4 out of every 5 dollars Americans
are still allowed to "earn."
By hook or crook...
More on the
post-election ballot question in NY 23. It appears, though it was not widely reported, that
in an effort to prevent Hoffman from being seated should he win, Owens preemptively contested the results,
and the ballots were impounded so the New York Board of elections could not — and did
not — certify the NY 23 election results. This the House knew when Pelosi ordered
Owens sworn in to vote for the atrocious health care reform bill.
Bending the Health-Care Cost Curve — Upward.
Remember when President Obama said that the goal of health-care reform was to save money? The bill that
passed the House a week and a half ago, according to the Senate Budget Committee, would cost a whopping
$3 trillion after being fully implemented — more than three times the $900 billion that
the president had promised.
Rationing's First Step.
A government task force has decided that women need fewer mammograms and later in life. Shouldn't that
be between patient and physician? We have seen the future of health care, and it doesn't work. We
have warned repeatedly that the net results of health care bills before Congress will be higher demand, fewer
doctors, more cost control, all leading to rationing.
Can States Protect Themselves
Against Massive Health Care Intrusion? Alabama State Rep. Mac Gipson, R-Prattville, will
introduce in the 2010 session of the Legislature the Alabama Care Freedom Act constitutional amendment
that will protect the rights of patients to make their own health care choices. Further, his measure
prohibits penalties levied on patients for declining participation in any big government passed Pelosi/Obama
health care plan. To date, 22 states have introduced similar initiatives.
The Bill to
Nowhere. "This is our moment," President Obama proclaimed this weekend, shortly after the
House passed H.R. 3962, a sprawling, 1,990-page version of the health care reform that has become the
president's chief policy goal. The moment, though, proved fleeting. The House bill, which imposes
punishing new taxes even as it dramatically expands the federal government's reach into health care, is now
set to limp into the Senate with little realistic chance of passage.
Pelosi
Breaks Pledge to Put Final Health Care Bill Online for 72 Hours Before Vote. Speaker Nancy
Pelosi's office tells The Weekly Standard that the speaker will not allow the final language of the
health care to be posted online for 72 hours before bringing the bill to a vote on the House floor,
despite her September 24 statement that she was "absolutely" committed to doing so.
Congressmen Who Want to Force Americans to Buy Health
Insurance Are Defying the Constitution. Both the House and Senate versions of the health-care
reform bill would force all individuals who are citizens or legal residents of the United States to buy
health insurance or else pay a fine, even though the Congressional Budget Office has reported that the
federal government has never before required Americans to buy any good or service.
Three Strikes
against Obamacare. Barack Obama promises that if the Democrats' health-care plan is passed,
Americans will enjoy wider and better insurance coverage without: [1] being forced out of their
current insurance; [2] being subject to government rationing, including the outright denial of
life-saving care; [3] spending themselves and future generations into deeper debt. The
Democrats' program deserves to be rejected because conditions 1, 2, and 3 are not going to be
met — and because the Democrats know it and are doing their best to hide that fundamental and
important fact from the American people.
Vulnerable
Democratic freshman abandon the health care bill. Some of the most vulnerable Democrats in the
House are starting to flake off the health care bill. There are a dozen first-term Democrats representing
districts that Republican presidential nominee John McCain won last year. So far, six have announced
that they will vote against their party's health care bill.
Pelosi's
Reform Bill Establishes Waiting List. H.R. 3962, the Democrats' health insurance reform
bill, to be voted on this week by Congress, contains a provision to establish waiting lists as a mechanism to
control costs. Such waiting lists have long been a characteristic — and a
bane — of socialized medicine.
Pelosi Health Care: Drill,
Baby, Drill. The way I see it, the Democrat health care plan is like a dentist hustling to pick up some
extra bucks. Dr. Pelosi tells you to open wide and she, with her fingers and sharp instruments in your mouth,
tells you about your "old filling" problem and says that you must have a lot of work done. In fact, Dr. Pelosi's
plan does not aim at just your old fillings, but at drilling every tooth in your mouth.
The public's best option: Less
government, more choice. A government-run health insurer would radically tilt the health-insurance
playing field. It would amount to a new entitlement program, able to undercut the price of private
insurance by squeezing hospitals and doctors, reimbursing them at below-market rates.
The Costs of Defensive Medicine.
Many doctors feel the need to practice "defensive medicine" — the ordering extra tests, scans,
consultations and even hospitalization — to protect against malpractice lawsuits. Doctors say
the hidden costs of the tests along with malpractice insurance and lawsuit awards are major drivers behind the
soaring cost of care and account for up to 10 percent of health care spending.
Did
someone mention malpractice lawsuits?
The True Cost of the House Health
Bill: $1.5 Trillion. The Congressional Budget Office released its preliminary score of
the bill and while some in the media have been reporting its net cost of $894 billion, the total cost of
health reform legislation is more like $1.5 trillion. So, Speaker Pelosi is essentially right back
where she started — with a huge 2,000 page plan that carries a hefty price tag...
Prescriptions for disaster.
Don't buy the claim that the Senate health-care bill is substantially more moderate than the House measure.
While Speaker Nancy Pelosi's legislation is even more onerous than the package created by Sen. Max Baucus and
now championed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the larger story is how similar the two Democratic bills are.
Reading the Bill...
The White House has pointedly refused to say whether President Obama will read the 1,000+ page health care
bill — HR 3200 — now pending before the House of Representatives. ... The language
may seem innocuous, but Sec 1866D actually describes the plan for American health care that was
first proposed as HR 3600 in 1993 and known as HillaryCare.
Stealth Socialism. Congress'
planned health care revolution will be bad enough without a government-run option. With it, Euro-style socialism
becomes inevitable. ... It's time for new ideas, like the expanded private coverage options of the Patients' Choice
Act, backed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Richard Burr, R-N.C. As Ryan warns,
the federal government would run health care "with the compassion of the IRS, the efficiency of the Post Office and
the incompetence of Katrina."
Lies, Earmarks And Corruption All
In One Bill. We are nominating Sen. Baucus' health care reform bill for the Pulitzer Prize —
for fiction. ... The bill has huge, new mandated costs on the states for Medicaid, and there are many other costs
omitted from the bill that will need to be paid for by taxpayers. The bill claims savings it says will be
achieved by reducing reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals. This has never happened in the past
and won't now. It is pure fiction.
ObamaCare Vs. The
Hippocratic Oath. It is obvious. The "New" Obama-Pelosi-Reid Health Care Bill's heart and
soul is based on (1) rationing and denying care to cut costs, and (2) taxing every American in its
path. The end result strips Freedom from every citizen. Then again, what would you expect from a
document that uses the words "require" 118 times, "tax" 87 times, and "penalty" 113 times.
The Oath my classmates and I took 29 years ago was based on the premise "Do No Harm." I cannot
condone this legislation, which promises to HARM every person, family and business in our country. We
need to reject rationing, and fight the loss of control of our health care lives.
Obama's Health Care Rot, Calls For A Massive
Boycott. Both nationalized health care and cap and trade are red herrings of the highest
magnitude and represent one of the greatest cons and Ponzi schemes ever devised by man. Neither is
supported by science, a national need, nor is either constitutional. Either one will break the bank.
Both of them together will sink the good ship America in a sea of red ink where it will rot forever on the
rocky bottom, never to surface again.
Did
someone mention Cap and Trade?
GOP
seeks to brand Democratic legislation as 'Pelosi healthcare'. House Republican leaders want
their members to call the 1,990-page Democratic health measure "the Pelosi healthcare bill." GOP
lawmakers spoke of the tactic following a closed-door meeting with their leadership.
The Editor says...
The real news here is that the bill is 1,990 pages long.
Pelosi's Kamikazes? Pelosi is
ordering her fearful members to vote for the Obama-cum-Pelosi healthcare "reform" bill that has voters up in
arms all over the country. House Blue Dog "moderates" are already caught in a crossfire between their
constituents and their leadership. The Tea Partyers have been heard, and they are watching carefully.
ObamaCare's Scary
October Surprise. Stung by a rising tide of resistance and a closing window of opportunity,
House Democrats have unleashed a new version of ObamaCare, weighing in at 1,990 pages and with a
$1 trillion price tag. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promises to ram it through quickly,
exhibiting a disdain for her countrymen that makes Marie Antoinette look like a populist.
CBO: House Bill Costs
$1.055 Trillion. The Congressional Budget Office is out with its analysis of the House Democrats'
health care bill. The headline number — likely to be widely cited in media accounts —
is that the bill costs $894 billion over 10 years. But in reality, the CBO says that the gross
cost of the bill will be $1.055 trillion. The $894 billion number reflects the taxes being
paid by individuals who don't have insurance and employers who don't provide insurance.
The Worst Bill
Ever. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly told fellow Democrats that she's prepared to lose
seats in 2010 if that's what it takes to pass ObamaCare, and little wonder. The health bill she
unwrapped last Thursday [10/29/2009], which President Obama hailed as a "critical milestone," may well be the worst
piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced. In a rational political world, this 1,990-page
runaway train would have been derailed months ago.
House health bill clocks in at 1,990
pages. It runs more pages than War and Peace, has nearly five times as many words as the
Torah, and its tables of contents alone run far longer than this story. The House health care bill
unveiled Thursday [10/29/2009] clocks in at 1,990 pages and about 400,000 words. With an estimated
10-year cost of $894 billion, that comes out to about $2.24 million per word.
A 1,990-Page Medical
Monstrosity. Speaker Nancy Pelosi's cry in unveiling the House's massive reform bill
might as well have been "Viva la health care revolution!" America never voted for change like this.
Just as most congressional Democrats refused to listen to the angry public at town halls in the summer,
Speaker Pelosi was not interested in ordinary Americans attending the outdoor rally on the West Front
of the Capitol, where she and her fellow House Democrats rolled out their 1,990-page monster health
reform bill on Thursday [10/29/2009].
Pelosi's Health Care Bill Would Regulate Snack
Machines. The House health-care reform plan unveiled last week by House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi (D-Calif.) would do more than regulate insurance companies — it would even regulate
vending machines. ... The regulation could wind up costing vendors millions of dollars to make the
changes, according to industry estimates.
The Editor says...
This is only one of the surprises buried in the 1,990 pages of Pelosi's bill. Obamacare not about
insuring the uninsured or reducing the cost of medical treatment. It's about politicians making
decisions for you because they assume that you're too dumb to make your own choices. It's about
taxations and control of every aspect of American life.
Democrats' Healthcare
Scheme Is Pure Insanity. Purely mad social engineers — Obama, Pelosi, & Reid —
are on a determined march toward nationalizing one sixth of the entire American economy. Their scheme
will have far-reaching effects on one hundred percent of the men, women and children in this country. The
whole idea is patently ridiculous, especially in light of the host of other impending disasters.
Masterfleece
Theater. The King James version of the Bible runs more than 600 pages and is crammed with
celestial regulations. Isaac Newton's "Principia Mathematica" distills many of the rules of physics in
a mere 974 pages. Neither of them has anything on Nancy Pelosi's new fiendishly entertaining
health care opus, which tops 1,900 pages.
A
Society that Venerates Lawyers More than Doctors. Those of us who are not true believers in
expanded government are certain of the following: If the 1,990-page House Health Care Bill becomes law,
the average American will receive worse health care, American physicians will decline in status and income,
American medical innovation will dramatically slow down and pharmaceutical discoveries will decline in number
and quality. And, of course, the economy of the United States will deteriorate, perhaps permanently.
House
Republicans Find 111 New 'Bureaucracies' in Health Care Bill. House Republicans claimed Monday
[11/02/2009] that the health care reform bill pushed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi would create a whopping 111 new
"federal bureaucracies." In its latest attempt to portray the Democrats' reform package as an unwieldy
expansion of federal government in the health care sector, the House Republican Conference circulated what it
called a list of "new boards, bureaucracies, commissions and programs" created in the House health care bill.
Welcome to the
P.T. Barnum Administration. Now the latest is health care. [Obama] and the Hill Democrats are
pushing through health care reform bills based on numbers that are virtually meaningless. ... The cost estimates
for health care reform aren't worth the paper they are printed on.
Gardasil Shows Why
Government Health Care is Dangerous. Gardasil has to be the perfect drug for the brave new
world of ObamaCare, in a 1984 kind of way. Made by Merck & Co., it was approved in 2006 for
use against venereal disease in young girls. Here's why it's so culturally suited for hope and
change — and such a perfect example of why you don't want the government in your medicine chest.
Did
someone mention Gardasil?
Death, Taxes and
Two Trillion Lies. If annual health care expenditures are going to be two trillion dollars,
then this amounts to $6,546.02 for every man, woman, and child. ... And what will we be paying for? Doctor
visits for those who couldn't otherwise afford it? What happened to Medicaid? I thought
that's what that social program was for. But wait... Medicaid doesn't cover abortions. ... What
happened to Medicare? That social program was made to help seniors with their coverage.
Competition. In
place of the variety of products that competition would generate, we would be forced to "choose" among virtually
identical insurance plans. Government would define these plans down to the last detail. Every one
would have at least the same "basic" coverage, including physical exams, maternity benefits, well-baby care,
alcoholism treatment, and mentalhealth services. Consumers could not buy a cheap, high-deductible
catastrophic policy. Every insurance company would have to use an identical government-designed pricing
structure. Prices would be the same for the sick and the healthy.
Why Are We Moving Toward Socialized Medicine?
Government intervention in medicine is wrecking American health care. Nearly half of all spending on health
care in America is already government spending. Yet President Obama's "reforms" will only expand that
intervention.
The Inevitability
Myth. Yes, the chances of some sort of health bill passing, at some point, are by no means
negligible — unfortunately. But there are many reasons to be skeptical of the future of
Obamacare. Here are three.
Health
care: Cheap at any price (hint... $900 billion). Last week, we had the cheery news from
Madame Speaker Pelosi that the cost of the House's health-care reform bill was going to come in under
$900 billion. Phew, I'm glad to know we can afford it after all.
40
GOP Senators Sign Letter to Reid Demanding Internet Posting of Healthcare Bill. Candidate
Barack Obama made a big deal about government transparency and giving citizens ample opportunity to read
pieces of legislation before they're voted on. With this in mind, all 40 Republican Senators signed a
letter sent to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Thursday [10/29/2009] demanding the new healthcare reform
proposal be published on the Internet so that ALL Americans can "learn how the federal government is spending
their money."
Obama's Healthcare Failures.
Republican senators and members of the media highlight President Obama's failure to live up to his pledge to
conduct health care negotiations in full view of the public. Senators and media members also highlight
the White Houses alarming tendency to seek to punish those who dont share its views.
Harry Reid's Train
Wreck. Democrats were heartened Oct. 7 when the Congressional Budget Office said the version of
Obamacare drafted by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, would cost "only"
$829 billion over 10 years. ... There was a problem with this gimmick, though. Mr. Baucus
proposed to save money in Medicare by gutting the Medicare Advantage program, in which 23 percent of seniors
are enrolled, and by slashing the payments doctors and hospitals receive for treating Medicare patients.
Senate
Plan Would Explode Number of Uninsured Americans. Under current proposals, large
employers would face a fine of up to $750 per employee if they didn't offer health insurance.
Since that is much less than employers currently spend on employee health insurance premiums, most
businesses would choose to pay the fine and drop their group health insurance.
Understanding
all the facts about the uninsured. To support his sweeping makeover, Obama and
other liberal Democrats repeatedly point to the 46.3 million uninsured Americans. ... A
careful examination of the data, however, reveals that Obama and his allies are misrepresenting
the problem of the uninsured. Democratic plans would not come close to driving the number
of uninsured to zero. At best, about only 29 million would be covered.
Obamacare —
faster inflation, worse care. President Obama's promise that a government health care takeover
is the key to almost every ill echoes 19th century charlatans selling elixirs that would cure everything
from constipation to baldness. From controlling the growth of government to reining in private business
expenditures, Mr. Obama's health reform potion is promised as a cure-all. It's hardly that.
You Will Get Health Insurance at DMV — Literally
(It's in the Bill). The most revelatory passage in the so-called "plain English" version of the
health care bill that the Senate Finance Committee approved on Tuesday (without ever drafting the actual
legislative language) says that in the future Americans will be offered the convenience of getting their
health insurance at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
What's
In and What's Out of Health Care Legislation. The Democrats' health care "reform" would carry a
trillion-dollar price tag, vastly increase the national debt hanging over our children and grandchildren, impose
socialist control over one-sixth of our economy, and force us to obey totalitarian dictates. The mandate on
employers to provide health insurance would result in lower wages and fewer jobs.
Liberals never learn.
Liberals have no shame. They argue endlessly that what American medicine needs is more competition
in health insurance. There are thousands of insurance companies competing and the only barrier to
even more spirited competition is government restrictions that prohibit them from competing across state
lines.
Baucus Health Bill Could Prevent Medical Expense Deductions.
The health care reform legislation outlined by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the Senate Finance Committee includes
a provision that would raise the threshold for deducting costly medical expenses from income tax returns.
People who do not meet that higher threshold could see their taxes rise.
The Obama
Fiasco. The whole Obama era to date has been wasted in a historic, amateurish botch of the
health-care issue. This began as a crusade for social justice -- to cover the uninsured, whose
numbers were suitably exaggerated, as most of them are people changing jobs from one health-insuring
employer to another, or foreigners resident in this country, legally or otherwise, or the indigent,
who are eligible for Medicaid.
ObamaCare:
First, Do Some Harm — Then, Exploit the Crisis. The cost of testing and developing HR 3200,
the current and ever-changing plan for ObamaCare, is zero dollars — because no testing and development has ever
been done on more than 1,000 complicated pages. The bill has been thrown together in back-room deals between
lobbyists and staffers in Congress. It's like a hugely complex computer program that's never been tested to
see if it will run. How likely is it to work? It won't, which is why there will be tens of thousands
of pages of regulations. And if it runs, how likely is it to make one-sixth of the U.S. economy cheaper and
better, as Obama claims? This is the ultimate snake oil.
Show Me the Bill! Do
you think Congress should vote on bills without reading them? How about voting on bills that don't even exist yet,
except in fragments? The Senate Finance Committee [voted] on a massive health care reform bill on Tuesday [10/13/2009]
allegedly authored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). A glaring, outrageous, unreported fact is that the bill's actual
text has been kept secret. No one actually knows what's in it — not even the senators who [were] told
to vote for it.
Is there a 'right' to medical care? Do
you have a "right" to medical care? Is medical care free? Does it grow on trees? If you don't pay
for your own medical care, do you have a "right" to get medical care at other peoples' expense? Do you have a
"right" to have other people forced to pay for your medical care?
Here's
what is stopping tort reform. In his Sept. 9, nationally televised speech before a joint session of
Congress, President Barack Obama made news by saying that medical-malpractice litigation "may be contributing to
unnecessary costs" in the U.S. health care system. Since then, trial-lawyer advocates — including
their lobbying arm, the American Association for Justice (AAJ), and various allied "consumer" groups such as
the Center for Justice and Democracy — have been engaged in a fierce counterattack.
More
about lawyers.
The Hidden
Costs of ObamaCare. How much is this going to cost? This is a simple and reasonable question to ask
before signing a document stating that you are responsible and will pay any amount not covered by your medical insurance
when having a procedure done. ... Just imagine having any other service or purchasing a product and being told you couldn't
know the cost beforehand, although you are required to blindly sign a legally binding contract saying you will pay whatever
they later decide to charge you. That's unethical and ridiculous you'd say. Well, welcome to the American
health care system.
Obama's Theorems.
If ridding Medicare of waste and fraud will help pay for nationalized health care, why have we waited this long to realize
such economies? And if Medicare is admittedly rife with abuse, why would an even larger government-run program be
singularly exempt from the same inherent dangers?
ScoffCare. Where there's a
trillion dollars or more in new spending, there are going to be new taxes paid for by millions of middle-class
Americans — even if the taxes are called something else.
Destruction Of
Healthcare Delivery System Underway. Mr. Obama has proposed cutting the heart out of Medicare in general
and Medicare Advantage plans in particular by trying to save about a half a trillion dollars to finance his government
takeover of our health delivery system. This Obama proposal and its reasons are, of course, as phony as a
three-and-a-half dollar bill, as everyone knows those savings have been talked about for decades, but never
achieved. They are virtually inherent in a government system of health delivery and the fraud, waste,
inefficiency and abuse it produces. If those savings from eliminating fraud, etc. are there, why haven't
they already realized them?
Harry Reid's disingenuousness
on health care reform. The Senate Majority Leader is pulling out all the stops to get health care reform
passed. And the way he is trying to do it is just plain dishonesty.
Bread and Circuses and Obamacare. We've come
full circle from the automakers' bailout. As I wrote last November, these bailouts were not to benefit the companies
but to preserve from the effects of bankruptcy the gold-plated retirement and health care programs that had driven the
automakers to fail. Now two key labor leaders — Gerald McEntee of AFSCME and Richard Trumka of
the AFL-CIO — have said that they will oppose the Baucus bill because it taxes the "Cadillac" healthcare
plans.
The Big 'Doc Fix' Flop. Restoring Medicare
cuts to doctors while maintaining them as "savings" in reform bills proved too much for the Senate to stomach.
Compulsory Health Insurance Is a
Government Takeover. The most hazardous health reform measure before Congress is not the
so-called "public option," but proposals to make health insurance compulsory via an individual or employer
mandate. Compulsory health insurance could require nearly 100 million Americans to switch to a
more expensive health plan and would therefore violate President Barack Obama's pledge to let people keep
their current health insurance. In particular, the legislation before Congress could eliminate many
or all health savings account plans. Making health insurance compulsory would also spark an unnecessary
fight over abortion and would enable government to ration care to those with private health insurance.
The Price of the
Public Option. When pricey products like electronics first appear on the market, consumers
resist. Who needs a TV, radios are good enough? Who needs a computer if you have a calculator?
But then more companies enter the fray, embarking on a relentless campaign to refine their products.
Pretty soon the consumer has a dazzling array of ever better options. But even after everyone is
"hooked" and would be lost without their electronics, prices continue to fall. Why? Competition.
What the Failure of the "Massachusetts Model"
Tells Us about Health Care Reform: When Massachusetts passed its pioneering health care reforms
in 2006, critics warned that they would result in a slow but steady spiral downward toward a government-run
health care system. Three years later, those predictions appear to be coming true.
Obama a tough guy, at
least with Fox News. For the greatest orator of our time, ... Barack Obama seems to have pretty
much given up on the explaining side. He tried it with health care with speech after speech after
exclusive interview for months on end, and the more he explained the more unpopular the whole racket got. So
he declared that the time for explaining is over, and it's time to sign on or else.
'Fierce
urgency' for jobs, not health care. Obama and his fellow Democrats are trying to convince the
nation of the fiercely urgent need to enact national health care reform this very instant. ... But the
American people simply do not share Obama's sense of urgency about health care reform.
Congress and Obama Show Contempt for Americans.
Congress is showing contempt for the American people by excluding them from the crafting of Obamacare. The president
promised in his campaign he'd deliver transparency, saying, "I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table" with
everybody involved. Those that can't make it would be able to see "the negotiations televised on C-SPAN." Too
bad this isn't happening: yet another broken Obama promise.
$1T reform for
5%. The Census is the source for the much-cited figure of 46 million uninsured. Yet the very same table
plainly indicates that 9 million of those are not US citizens. That leaves 37 million uninsured who are
Americans. But there's more. In the same document, the Census also plainly states that "health-insurance
coverage is underreported" in its survey. When it cross-checked its survey results with the official Medicaid rolls,
it found that 16.9 percent of those on Medicaid had claimed on their Census forms that they were uninsured.
That 16.9 percent amounts to 9 million people.
More Liberal Lies About National Healthcare.
[Lie #17] America's low ranking on international comparisons of infant mortality proves other countries'
socialist health care systems are better than ours. America has had a comparatively high infant mortality
rate since we've been measuring these things, going back to at least the '20s. This was the case long
before European countries adopted their cradle-to-grave welfare schemes and all while the U.S. was the wealthiest
country on Earth. One factor contributing to the U.S.'s infant mortality rate is that blacks have
intractably high infant mortality rates — irrespective of age, education, socioeconomic status
and so on. No one knows why.
Nothing for Everyone.
[There are only] two small groups who might have something they like in ObamaCare: Congress, who would
get the same great coverage they get today, at taxpayer expense; and people who are so in love with single-payer,
government run health care that they are willing to let the whole system falter and ultimately collapse so
that their dream might come true in perhaps 20 years or more. The Communist Party falls under the
latter category. So I guess ObamaCare does offer something beneficial for two small groups of people:
Congress and communists.
Baucus'
cooked books. Under Baucus' scheme, money from tax hikes starts coming in three years before
cash for benefits starts going out. Which makes it pretty easy for revenue to top spending if you're
looking at the balance sheets through just 2019, which is what the CBO does. Plus, a "deficit
reduction" doesn't mean "free." The only way to save on a new government program is to cut other
spending — or raise taxes.
Support For
ObamaCare Reaches New Low. A new poll by Rasmussen Reports finds that President Barack Obama's
plan to take America's health-care system in an even more statist direction has less support now than ever
before.
Opposing Obama is Satan's work? A "right" to health
care means the state must compel more than just payment. It must compel medical care providers to
render their services regardless of compensation or any other consideration. If someone has a "right" to
medical care, then a physician may not deny any care for any reason. Doing so would be an infringement
of the patient's "rights."
No,
you can't see the health care bill. When then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama promised not
to sign major legislation until it had been posted on the Internet for public reading at least five days, trusting voters
took him at his word. Now they know better. Not only is the actual language of what is likely to become the
main legislative vehicle for Obama's signature health care reform not available on the Internet, it hasn't been given
to members of the key Senate committees or the Congressional Budget Office.
Can't We Read The Health Care Bill?
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been asked repeatedly to put the proposed health
care bill on the Web. They've refused. Do they have something to hide? Even Democrats have asked
their leadership to put the bill online at least 72 hours before a vote, so that any American can read the
1,000-plus-page monstrosity.
Atlas Is Shrugging. The headline
in Investor's Business Daily, September 16, 2009: "45% of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes
Health Care Overhaul." ... The problem with four of nine U.S. doctors saying they "would consider leaving their practice
or taking an early retirement" is that "the number of doctors is already lagging population growth," reports Investor's
Business Daily.
Fed-up
doc: I've had it. Dr. Jacquelline Perlman, who's helped deliver hundreds of Brooklyn babies
in her 12-year OB-GYN career, is calling it quits — and citing sky-high malpractice insurance and
plunging income. "I've decided to retire from obstetrics," said Perlman, 42. "It breaks my heart.
Malpractice costs are a big part of it. It's a very sad story.
The Doctors Are Out.
A recent IBD/TIPP Poll showed two-thirds of physicians opposing Congress' proposed reforms, and warning of
dire consequences. Now, a forum of prominent doctors has amplified those concerns. Of 1,376
doctors responding in late August, 65% opposed Congress' reform plans; 45% said enactment would make them
consider leaving their practice or take early retirement; and 67% expected fewer students to apply to
medical schools.
Frankenstein's
Monster: ObamaCare's 'Individual Mandate'. [Scroll down] As I've mentioned, this freeloader
argument has been severely criticized on various grounds, including that it is factually challenged. Shikha
Dalmia ... notes that "uncompensated care costs only about $40 billion annually — or about 2% of the
country's $2.2 trillion health care spending. That's less than what department stores lose to shoplifting
every year." ... There are many other factual criticisms, such as that people without health insurance impose no costs
on others if they pay for their own medical care.
Congress'
Secret Plan to Pass Obamacare. Leaders in the House and Senate have a plan to pass President Barack
Obama's sweeping health care plan by Thanksgiving without any significant participation by the American public. ... The
procedure being used, in addition to the exclusion of the American people from the process, should be of grave concern
to all who want to participate in democracy and have a say in Congress' health care reforms that will touch 1/6th of
the American economy.
Could Obamacare Be
Repealed?. Guaranteed issue and community rating have failed wherever they have been tried (and not
for lack of an individual mandate...). However, the example of Kentucky demonstrates that it is possible to
repeal these regulations when they fail and repair some of the damage done.
Or We Could Make It Simple and Cheap.
The monstrously complicated Democratic health-care bills costing upward of a trillion dollars are churning through
Congress. They are too complicated for the average voter to fully comprehend and too voluminous for the average
lawmaker to read. They spend money we don't have and create enormous new bureaucracies to regulate, limit,
control, and, yes, ration care.
Eight Thoughts
on CBO. [#3] The bill spends a great deal of money — $829 billion — but is scored as
reducing the deficit over ten years because of the offsets, which include $311 billion in taxes. In addition,
the penalty on those still not purchasing insurance would be expected to bring in $1 billion a year once it's in
effect. ... [#5] We don't really know what will happen beyond 2019.
One of several T-shirts and bumper stickers
at Cafe Press.
80 percent agreement on health care? No way
that's true. President Barack Obama has said this repeatedly: Members of Congress agree on
"about 80 percent of what needs to be done" to overhaul America's health care system. ... No one,
however, can offer specifics about what that 80 percent entails, other than to say that everyone
agrees on key principles.
Health 'Reform' Is Income
Redistribution. While many Americans are upset by ObamaCare's $1 trillion price tag, Congress is
contemplating other changes with little analysis or debate. These changes would create a massively unfair
form of income redistribution and create incentives for many not to buy health insurance at all.
Government-Run Health Care: A Prescription For
Failure. A 69-part series, so far.
Senate Cloaks Obamacare. You can't read the bill
because they refuse to put it in writing. And you'd better not oppose it because the government will try to muzzle
you. President Obama has consistently refused to put his details into legislative language, and now the U.S. Senate
is doing the same thing. Rather than respecting public demands for transparency, they're figuratively spitting in
the public's face.
Obama Health Plan:
Rationing, Higher Taxes, and Lower Quality Care. President Barack Obama and Congressional
Democrats are rushing to enact legislation that would overhaul the way health care is financed and delivered
in the United States. It would dramatically increase the role of government in virtually all aspects of
health care. Such an initiative should be carefully studied to determine whether it actually solves
problems in the health care arena or makes them worse.
The
Elephant in the Room: Promises have been broken. While most Americans are open to fixing
health care, they're also happy with their private insurance. One would think Obama would oppose any
provision that appears to force Americans into a government plan. Think again.
10 More "You
Lie" Moments On Health Care. [Scroll down] There's only one question you need to ask yourself to
decide whether you should support health care reform: Do you trust Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barack Obama and
the army of bureaucrats in DC enough to allow them to make life altering medical decisions for you and your children?
If not, then it's time to stand up, speak out, and take action before this bill is passed and irrevocably changes our
country.
Comparing Obamacare to Medicare: Here are the handful of questions
every sponsor of any version of Obamacae ought to be obliged to answer — in detail: [#1] Can
you specify, at least to the level of tens of millions, exactly where the $300 billion in cuts to Medicare
proposed by president will come from? [#2] The president and his allies agree that the cost of
Medicare Advantage programs will have to increase for seniors. By how much? Will those increases
arrive annually? [#3] The president and his allies agree that some Medicare services will have to
be cut. Which services?
Obama At Odds With Majority but Undeterred.
While I couldn't bring myself to watch President Barack Obama's 1,000th-1,004th health care propaganda spiels on the
Sunday shows, I did read some transcripts and watch a few video highlights. What is it about this guy's personality
that compels him to keep beating his head against the wall? Why does he keep doing the same thing over and
over expecting a different result?
Maybe it's because
he's incompetent.
Obama: Legalize
illegals to get them health care. President Obama said this week that his health care plan won't cover illegal
immigrants, but argued that's all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage. He
also staked out a position that anyone in the country legally should be covered — a major break with the 1996
welfare reform bill, which limited most federal public assistance programs only to citizens and longtime immigrants.
'Killing Granny'. Newsweek seeks to
make us more comfortable with the idea of killing our parents and grandparents. The ObamaCare deal they want us buy
is that only if more old people die, will there be better medical treatment for everyone else. That is, you and
me. It's a sucker's deal. Because not only will more "old" people die with ObamaCare, but more of everyone
else will die too.
There's No Free Health
Care. Obama may be unaware, but there are three programs — in Maine, Massachusetts, and
Tennessee — currently testing his idea of get-more-pay-less. The evidence is already in: Expanded
health care coverage costs more, an awful lot more. There are no known exceptions.
Obama still at odds with facts about health care. The
first hints of real trouble can be found in President Barack Obama's initial address to a congressional joint session on
Feb. 24. That's when the jarring incoherence of his lavish plans came into full view. He said the "state
of the economy is a concern that rises above all others." He said it was imperative that the nation bring its budget
under control so that we don't bequeath to our children a debt "they cannot pay." But by then he had signed a
$787 billion stimulus bill that would dramatically worsen the deficit. In that same speech — in
which he called the economy the top priority — he pressed Congress to approve major legislative initiatives
that had nothing whatever to do with the immediate problem of economic growth: a job-killing cap-and-trade plan
and a deficit-bloating health care reform plan.
President
Changes Number from 46-47 Million to 'Over 30 Million'. "Up until tonight, it was always
47 million," [Fox News commentator Frank] Luntz said. "But what they realized was that they
were defending health care coverage — government money, your taxpayer dollars — going
to illegal immigrants that they realized they had to take them out of the pool." The total number of
uninsured, 45.7 million according to the U.S. Census, also includes roughly 10 million people
who are not citizens. The Census Bureau is scheduled to update that number this month.
President
Changes Number from 46-47 Million to 'Over 30 Million'. "Up until tonight, it was always
47 million," [Fox News commentator Frank] Luntz said. "But what they realized was that they
were defending health care coverage — government money, your taxpayer dollars — going
to illegal immigrants that they realized they had to take them out of the pool." The total number of
uninsured, 45.7 million according to the U.S. Census, also includes roughly 10 million people
who are not citizens. The Census Bureau is scheduled to update that number this month.
More
about Obama's speech on September 9, 2009.
Full
Text of Rep. Charles Boustany's Republican Response. [Scroll down] I read the bill
Democrats passed through committee in July. It creates 53 new government bureaucracies, adds hundreds
of billions to our national debt, and raises taxes on job-creators by $600 billion. And, it cuts
Medicare by $500 billion, while doing virtually nothing to make the program better for our seniors.
Obamacare Only Healthy for Lawyers.
Tucked away in the thousands of pages of the Democrats' health care overhaul bill are a number of gifts to the
trial lawyers. Which, by the way, are the Party's largest financial backers.
Charlie Rangel says Obamacare Doesn't Spend Enough Money.
[President] Obama has announced his determination not to sign a bill that adds "one dime" to the deficit and he's also
said that "his" bill will feature a low, low $900 billion price tag. Both of these Obama points seem to be
vexing Rep. Rangel because, well, it's just not enough.
Thank You, Barack Obama. No
one who has ever been to the Department of Motor Vehicles, no one who has ever been audited, no one who has ever tried
to get a Social Security problem corrected believes your fibs that your health care plan will not come between patients
and doctors. When your bullying partners in Congress get your bill passed and Americans start to see what havoc you
have wrought in the doctors' offices and the hospitals, the party of Ronald Reagan is going to look awfully good.
Likely Voters Overwhelmingly Disapprove
of ObamaCare. A Zogby International/O'Leary Report poll of 4,200 likely voters has some startling results
concerning attitudes toward health-care reform. ... The numbers are dramatically worse for ObamaCare in this poll than
in other polls. Part of the explanation lies in the sample — likely voters seem to hate ObamaCare a
lot more than do Americans generally (who may not even be registered to vote).
54 Percent Say the More They Learn About ObamaCare, the Less They Like It.
Washington Post Ignores its Own Poll Finding. A
Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted in the three days following President Barack Obama's speech to Congress about
his health care plan discovered that 54% say the more the hear about the plan the less they like it. This
particular poll result was not mentioned anywhere in the story about the poll that was posted by the Washington
Post on its Web site on Monday [9/14/2009]. The result did appear in the data sheet from the poll that was
linked to the story.
Americans
Aren't Buying What Obama Has To Sell. The president claims he has "no interest in putting insurance
companies out of business," but that is exactly what will happen if the government forces them to expand the services
they cover while simultaneously preventing them from charging higher fees, especially if the expanded pool of
beneficiaries includes many of the least healthy individuals.
For O, It's 'My
Way or the Highway'. [Scroll down] As to his claimed number of uninsured, at least we're making
progress. He's temporarily removed the illegal aliens to lower the number from 47 million to
30 million. But he's still lying to say 30 million "cannot get coverage." Again, 18 million
of these make more than $50,000 a year and can afford health care but choose not to purchase it.
Obama's Speech Prompts Ten Questions from Republicans.
President Barack Obama: "We spend one and a half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we
aren't any healthier for it." Common Sense Question: Then why do people travel from around the world to receive
health care in the United States?
Obama Won't Give Federal Insurance Benefits to Illegal Aliens,
He'll Make Them Legal First. It is true that both the House and Senate health care bills as they are now
drafted would make illegal aliens ineligible for federally funded health care. But President Obama has stated as
recently as last month at a press conference in Mexico that he will seek "comprehensive immigration reform" legislation
that will put illegal aliens on a "pathway to citizenship."
Distortions — or Truths? Does the House bill
fund abortions? No. However, while the House Energy and Commerce Committee at first voted to exclude abortions
from "essential" services, to the howls of NOW, Chairman Henry Waxman conducted a second vote, to drop the anti-abortion
amendment. That vote carried. In short, funding for abortions remains an open question. ... Obama is a
pro-abortion absolutist. And if abortion-funding is not in the final health care bill, does anyone doubt that
Democrats will move swiftly to incorporate it in future legislation?
Who is the 'we' who 'spend too much'
on elder care? The Left is terribly concerned that "we" are spending too much money on keeping people alive
as they get older. But Ted Kennedy didn't seem to mind that "we" provided state-of-the-art cancer care for him,
presumably through his wonderful insurance as a US Senator; I have yet to hear of a single "Man or Woman of the
Left" — as they like to dub themselves — who would object to healthy (and wealthy) aging for
themselves.
Congressional
Research Service says Obamacare will cover illegal immigrants. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) says
this about H.R. 3200, the Obamacare bill approved just before the recess by the House Energy and Commerce Committee
chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA: "Under H.R. 3200, a 'Health Insurance Exchange' would begin operation in 2013
and would offer private plans alongside a public option ... H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitzens —
whether legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently — participating in the
Exchange."
My Mother The Car.
Most criticisms of ObamaCare have focused on its cost in terms of money and lives, but it's worth noting that in exchange
for spending trillions of dollars in taxpayer money to set up a system that will inevitably ration care, President Obama
proposes a fundamental curtailment of your individual freedom.
And You
Thought This Was All About Health Care... The all-consuming debate over health care has
effectively sucked all of the oxygen out of the policy world leaving little room for discussion, let alone
action on other major elements of the progressive agenda — or so it would seem. The mammoth
bills winding their way through Congress will certainly upend our health care sector, if they are enacted.
Little known, however, are several provisions that will provide an enormous pay-off to one of the Democrat
parties most loyal constituency — Big Labor.
Land Of The Fee. To keep
ObamaCare alive, Montana Democrat Max Baucus has proposed a Rube Goldberg scheme of fees and fines on insurers and the
uninsured designed to forcibly bring everyone into the loving and protective arms of the nanny state. To help
finance his Plan B, Baucus would impose annual fees of $6 billion on health insurers, $4 billion on
medical-device makers, $2.3 billion on drug manufacturers and $750 million on clinical laboratories, among
other taxes.
Baucus Healthcare Revenue
Options: This report is from May 20, 2009. Nevertheless, it is still revealing what means the
Senate Finance Committee and Mr. Baucus are considering to pay for their healthcare reform plans.
Obama vs. Honduran
Democracy. If the Obama administration were a flotilla of ships, it might be sending out an SOS
right about now. ObamaCare has hit the political equivalent of an iceberg.
The Devil Is Not in the
Details. The president's plan to change our health care system has led to ugly confrontations
between ardent supporters and those who want no part of it. Repeatedly, arguments have broken out where
opponents object to some provision and the president's zealots retort that they're lying or have been duped.
I would like to suggest that such arguments are beside the point. The specifics of the legislation are
shifting and liable to change. What's really important is the overall concept.
Kennedy's legacy:
Chappaquiddick end-of-life care. Edward Kennedy's death can teach us one thing about ObamaCare.
It's not the spin the Big Media wing of the Democrat Party is trying to sell: that Congress should force
government-run health care on us, no matter how much we oppose it, as a tribute to Kennedy. You can bet
your grandma's iron lung, though, that under ObamaCare neither she nor you nor I will receive the end-of-life
care provided to Kennedy.
Obama
Admits He's "Not Familiar" With House Bill. President Obama may not care to study how many people
will lose their current health insurance if his plan becomes law, but like most Americans, we do. That is
why we partnered with the Lewin Group to study how many Americans would be forced into the government "option"
under the House health plan. Here is what we found...
Obama:
'Time for Talking is Over' But I Have No Idea What's in This Bill. This is the man for whom
health care reform is the most urgent need of our country. He has a greater personal stake in the
legislation than any other person in the country, and he has no idea what's in it. Whether private,
individual health insurance would be outlawed under the legislation is a rather important point —
one with which you might wish the bill's chief proponent to be familiar, and one the American public might
want to know about.
Three Reasons Why Government Can't Run
Health Care: There's been a lot of overheated rhetoric about health care reform, but this
saying is one that all Americans should return to when considering plans for a government-dominated health
system. In other words, we should judge government, not by its words, but by its deeds.
Health-Care
Secrets. President Obama has promised a "new era of transparency" in Washington, so perhaps
he should talk to the Senate about getting with his program. On July 15, six weeks ago, the Senate Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions Committee passed an amended $1 trillion health-care bill, with acting
Chairman Chris Dodd calling it a "historic achievement." Too bad the committee won't reveal this
history even to other Senators, much less to the public.
ObamaCare Gets Religion. The
Democrats are seeking to replicate the socialized medicine systems of other industrialized nations such as
Britain, Canada and Japan, but they are using the tactics of misinformation and stealth to achieve their
goal. "The mainstream news media and liberal politicians are always praising the health care systems
in other countries, but they never discuss the nightmare stories emanating from these countries' medical
professionals," said political strategist Mike Baker.
The Opportunity of a Century.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said one correct thing: health care legislation is our "opportunity, not of a lifetime,
but of the century." Passage of the bill she supports would put us forever on the road to trillions of
dollars in debt, bankruptcy, and European mistakes; defeat of the bill will safeguard the unique American
recipe for liberty and prosperity. Pelosi and her friends would give more control to patients over their
medical care IF the liberals really wanted to improve quality and reduce cost. Instead, they are trying
to push our nation in the opposite direction, taking away control from patients over access and choices for
medical care.
Mother Knows Best.
The president is "not familiar" with the bill. No one can explain how it will work yet, as Sen. Ben
Cardin, D-Md., told a contentious town meeting. There are various plans, and negotiations are still
in the early stages. But whatever it is, we should be for it.
Tort Reform Is Key To Health
Reform. Though common-sense Americans have repeatedly raised the issue of tort reform while
discussing health care legislation with members of Congress during town hall meetings this month, too many
lawmakers and analysts still stubbornly insist that medical liability lawsuits do not contribute significantly
to rising health care costs. These lawmakers and analysts are wrong.
Death And Dignity.
If Democrats think it's been a long, hot summer so far, what with all the "town hells," wait till they see
what happens if they try to use Sen. Kennedy's death to bring ObamaCare back to life. Not only will a
lot of better-left-buried facts about the senator's life be dug up; his prominent role a quarter century ago
helping the Nixon administration make those little-loved health maintenance organizations such a facet of our
medical system will be newly scrutinized.
Health Care Bill Mandates Nutrition Information on
Restaurant Menus. Restaurant chains with 20 or more stores would be required to display
nutrition information, including calorie counts and "suggested daily caloric intake" on their menus,
under a mandate contained in the health-care reform bill drafted by the Senate Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions Committee.
Who's Afraid of a Health Care Debate?
The union packed town halls, the boycotts organized against Glenn Beck and Whole Foods, and the entire smear
campaign against critics of ObamaCare demonstrates all too clearly that it is the Obama administration and its
allies that are afraid of a real debate on health care. After all people who aren't afraid of a real
debate don't need to try and force critics off the air or boycott an entire chain because its CEO ran an
op-ed pointing out what's wrong with ObamaCare.
Health care run by
trial lawyers. Political power, rather than substance, is at the heart of the Democrats'
proposed health care legislation. Admission of that power-politics reality was the most significant
occurrence in a very odd town-hall meeting Tuesday night [8/25/2009] held by Virginia Democratic Rep. James P.
Moran. It is now clearer than ever that plaintiffs' lawyers collectively are the political powerhouse
running the health care show.
The Immoral
Agenda Of A Liberal Congress. President Obama is losing the debate on universal health care
because voters are actually reading the bill that he's trying to impose on them. That's why he's
switched to stirring up emotion by pointing out our "moral obligation." Michael Moore did the same
thing with the sob stories in his flat-out lying health-care documentary, "Sicko."
Questions for Obamacare Supporters: Medicare costs
skyrocket because it is a poorly mismanaged bureacracy. It's cheaper to pay for private insurance
coverage than to cover the medical costs. Anybody have the answer to that? We need tort reform
because that's what drives medical costs up. What about that?
Health Care Reform Is About
Control, Not Health. Liberals have always been fixated on controlling people. In America, they accomplish
this through taxation, regulation, and unrelenting appeals to our leftist-dominated court system. And when these
avenues prove unsuccessful, liberals don't give up, they simply look for a covert means to reach their original goal.
ObamaCare is just such a covert means.
Clunker
Health Care? The Obama folks plan to end their Cash for Clunkers program Monday — and
good thing, since it was rap idly falling into chaos. By contrast, if Congress passes President
Obama's plan for health-care reform, Americans may be stuck with it forever. No matter
how much of a "clunker" it turns out to be. And, indeed, judging by the car-subsidy
program, ObamaCare may well be just that — if not worse.
Obamacare: Unemployment You Can
Believe In. If Obamacare were a prescription drug, ads for it would say: "Use with
extreme caution. Side effects include regulatory headaches, irritated taxpayers, and swollen unemployment."
That's right. Serious studies indicate that Obamacare would kill millions of jobs. With 9.4 percent
unemployment, this is hardly the time to foul the labor market even further. The culprit is Obamacare's
proposed tax burden on employers with payrolls exceeding $250,000.
Obama's Tone-Deaf
Health Campaign. It didn't take chaotic town-hall meetings, raging demonstrators and consequent
brooding in various sectors of the media to bring home the truth that the campaign for a health-care bill is,
to put it mildly, not going awfully well. It's not hard now to envision the state of this crusade with
just a month or two more of diligent management by the Obama team — think train wreck.
Obama and the
Practice of Medicine: On the defensive because of an increasingly skeptical public, President
Barack Obama has recently spoken extemporaneously about his health plan. In doing so, he has revealed
his lack of understanding about aspects of medical practice and the reasons for rising health-care costs.
Who Owns Your
Body? Under Obamacare, not you. Does the government, in the last analysis, own your body,
or do you? If your answer is the former, be aware that you have opted for veterinary medicine, for you
are now accepting the moral status of a domestic animal. If your answer is the latter, you must accept
responsibility to make mortal decisions for yourself, and pay for the care that you want with money that you
have reason to see as your own.
Health Care and
the Ailing Constitution. Here's the question I didn't get a chance to ask President Obama when
he stopped by Montana recently. So far as I know, no one else has asked it of him either: "If the
federal role in health care is not enumerated in the Constitution, and it isn't, then shouldn't it be reserved
to the states or the people as guaranteed by the 10th Amendment?"
Will America's bucking
bronco finally be broken? You don't break a young bronco just by beating it. You break it
by making it feel helpless — confining it in a small corral, isolating it from the herd, running it
around and around on a short rope... That's the real motivation behind "Universal Healthcare" Obama is trying
to sell us Euro-socialism, which means bribing and intimidating people with their own tax money and corralling
everyone with an endless sea of laws and regulations, until they know they can never fight City Hall.
Government thuggishness:
Government coercion is becoming standard operating procedure in the nation's capital. The White House
threatened financial institutions with ruin by selectively enforcing regulations unless they agreed to take
government bailout money. Similar threats were used to force financial institutions to let the
government own part of their stock. Those same institutions were forced to take losses on the bonds they
held in General Motors and Chrysler. It was only a matter of time until similar intimidating behavior
was employed in the health care debate.
Meet Rahm Emanuel's
Brother: Dr. Zeke the Bleak. Despite his recent attempted reputation rehab, Zeke always
ends up at the same place: not treating the somehow unworthy or letting them die.
Demonizing
America's 86th most proftable industry. When Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and a sidekick decided
to intimidate CEOs in the health insurance industry, it wasn't just another instance of shabby politics, but an
imperious, anti-democratic abuse of power, an attempt to put the fear of the almighty federal government in
the hearts and minds of American citizens.
Obama and
'Redistributive Change'. [Scroll down] Why would intelligent politicians try to ram
through, in mere weeks, a thousand pages of health-care gibberish — its details outsourced to
far-left elements in the Congress (and their staffers) — that few in the cabinet had ever read
or even knew much about? Once again, I don't think health care per se was ever really the
issue. ... Instead, the notion that the state will assume control, in Canada-like fashion, and
level the health-care playing field was the real concern.
Why Obama's Health Plan Gets It
Wrong. President Barack Obama says insurance companies make you pay too much for health
care. He wants the government to "limit how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses."
Sounds great — just make the insurance companies pay more, and then health care will become
affordable. After all, that's what insurance is for, right? No. When insurance companies
pay the tab for everything — down to flu shots and sprained ankles — it makes health
care more expensive for everyone.
The Slippery
Slope of Health-Care Reform. Those seemingly modest changes urged by the White House ... would
necessitate a series of additional changes, each building upon the others so as ultimately to produce reform
every bit as "robust" — and every bit as lethal — as the $2-trillion government takeover
now being so loudly denounced in town halls throughout the nation.
Obama's Health
Rationer-in-Chief. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, is under
scrutiny. As a bioethicist, he has written extensively about who should get medical care, who should
decide, and whose life is worth saving. Dr. Emanuel is part of a school of thought that redefines a
physician's duty, insisting that it includes working for the greater good of society instead of focusing
only on a patient's needs. Many physicians find that view dangerous, and most Americans are likely
to agree.
Hospitals See $16 Billion
Windfall Under Health-Care Reform. Hospitals may gain as much as $16 billion over a decade
from the Obama administration's proposals to overhaul the health-care system, according to a previously
undisclosed analysis by the American Hospital Association.
The
"Myth" that Health Care Reform Won't Cover Illegal Aliens, Is Itself a Myth. Nowhere does
H.R. 3200 say that illegal aliens are ineligible to enroll in the proposed "public option." To the
contrary, Section 202 provides that "all individuals" are eligible for benefits offered through the
government exchange unless they are enrolled in another health insurance plan.
O's
Insurance Scam. President Obama and con gressional Democrats are now fixing their gun sights on
health insurers, but their broader, underlying goals remain unchanged: socializing costs and extending
Washington's control of the health-care sector. This takes what Obama told Joe the Plumber about "spreading
the wealth" a step further. Because not only do the reforms redistribute wealth by shifting costs; they
also put government in charge of spending even more of the nation's money.
Obama Staffers Profit from
Obama Health Care Plan. It turns out that President Barack "Change" Obama isn't changing things
that much after all. At least not for David Axelfod, who appears to be playing the classic Washington
insider's game for fun and profit.
Health
Care Struggle is About Freedom. President Obama took his case for what he now calls "health
insurance reform" to the faith community. He made his pitch in a phone call, also broadcast over the
Internet, to clergy who called in and logged on from around the nation. In his remarks, the President
ticked off points of contention that dissenters have with his proposals — "government takeover
of healthcare … government funding of abortion … death panels" — and dismissed these
concerns as "fabrications." In one swipe, Mr. Obama reduced his opposition to liars.
Death Panels and Decision Makers:
When the town halls adjourn and the cameras stop rolling, the health care debate is about one thing:
decisions. Issues like end-of-life counseling, comparative effectiveness boards, uninsured Americans,
and rising health care costs all, when examined, reduce to a question of who will make medical decisions.
Stop
Reid's ObamaCare 'by any legislative means necessary'. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.,
has delivered his ultimatum to Republicans in the Senate. And it is nothing short of a coup of representative
government. Either Republicans bow to the demands of the Senate's Democratic leaders and pass a "bipartisan"
bill, or Reid will invoke reconciliation, a process that requires only 51 votes to pass the bill.
Co-ops:
The public option by another name. Howard Dean, former Democratic National Committee chairman
and an avowed proponent of the public option, admitted on Sunday's [8/23/2009] "Face the Nation" that Conrad's co-op
proposal is merely "a political compromise, not a policy compromise" designed to lure moderates from both
parties into supporting what is for all intents and purposes a public option in disguise.
Holy
O Turns 'Faith' Healer. Repeatedly invoking the Bible, President Obama yesterday told religious
leaders that health-care critics are "bearing false witness" against his plan. The fire-and-brimstone
president declared holy war in a telephone call with thousands of religious leaders around the country as
he sought to breathe life into his plan for a system overhaul.
The Editor says...
Mr. Obama is in the habit of making vague
references to religion without a religious track record of his own.
Obama Says
Abortion Coverage in Health Bill is a "Fabrication". "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," President Obama said
during a conference call with religious folks this evening [8/19/2009], "but I want everyone to know what health
insurance reform is all about." He then repeated all of the misleading statements weaved into his stump
speech, such as his statement that "If you like your health care plan you can keep your health care
plan." But he also added a new lie to the list.
President
Obama to Health Care Reform Opponents: Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness. In a conference call
with liberal and progressive religious leaders Wednesday afternoon [8/19/2009], President Obama railed against
those who were "bearing false witness" in the debate over health care reform. "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,
but I want everyone to know what health insurance reform is all about," the president said.
Health 'Co-ops' Are
Government Care. Responding to a building wave of opposition to the "public option," the Obama
administration is now signaling that it may dress up government health care in yet another set of clothes. ... The
Democrats are getting worried that the Trojan Horse they have offered in the form of a "public option" has been
spotted for what it is. So now they are looking for a new way to get government-run health care
through the gates.
Greedy Sawbones.
The president claims doctors would rather cut off a diabetic's foot than treat the patient, since they get
higher fees for amputations. Such a grossly irresponsible statement should not go unchallenged.
Health Care Reform Is About
Control, Not Health. Liberals have always been fixated on controlling people. In America, they accomplish
this through taxation, regulation, and unrelenting appeals to our leftist-dominated court system. And when these
avenues prove unsuccessful, liberals don't give up, they simply look for a covert means to reach their original goal.
ObamaCare is just such a covert means.
Health
care debate confirms this is not the Barack Obama we elected. Americans, more of them every day, are growing
disenchanted with the expansion of government and the massive pile of debt. Yet the President, certain he can change
their minds if only he talks to them again, keeps trying to sell bigger as better. The public's not buying it. ... He's
the rock star-turned-salesman, and everything in his administration depends on his stage act.
Never Seen The Left So Out-Of-Control
Desperate. Try looking at this health care debate from the Democrat perspective. It has been
a Democrat dream for decades to control the nation's health care delivery system. They thought they had it
made in 1993 after Clinton's defeat of George H.W. Bush. Hillary got to work and created a monstrosity
of a plan for government control of our health care, and it died a well-deserved and rather painful death.
Within a year the Republicans had control of the House and the Senate.
Top 10 Reasons Obamacare Is Wrong for America:
[#1] Millions Will Lose Their Current Insurance: President Obama wants Americans to believe they can
keep their insurance if they like. Proposed economic incentives, plus a government-run health plan would
cause 88.1 million people to see their current employer-sponsored health plan disappear. [#2] Your
Health Care Coverage Will Probably Change Anyway: Even if you keep your private insurance, eventually most
remaining plans will have to conform to new federal benefit standards.
Watching A Bad Idea Implode.
As the White House apparently retreats on its "public option," the unconvincing reality at the heart of its
plans becomes clear: Spend and regulate.
Dirty Secret
No. 2 in Obamacare: If you want to know the future of America's universal health care, then
you must understand the health care principles and plans of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. I find it far more than
a coincidence how much Emanuel's book parallels Obamacare's philosophy, strategy and proposed legislation.
First, Emanuel rejects any attempts at incremental change or reform to our health care system (Page 185).
What's needed, he concludes in his book (Page 171), is an immediate and totally comprehensive reconstruction
of health care as we know it. That, of course, describes the vision of Obamacare to a T.
Connect the Dots on
ObamaCare. Critics of those who have exposed ObamCare's contradictions and incoherencies are
either unwilling to connect the dots or too stubborn (dare I say stupid) to acknowledge what the dots really
mean. Connecting the dots in this case doesn't require unusual skills, much less a background in symbolic
logic, merely perseverance in reading the text of HR 3200. Let's start with Sec 123, the formation
of the Health Benefits Advisory Committee, and Sec 124, the creation of the Health Choices Administration
and Health Choices Commissioner.
Finding no buyers
for snake oil. The early Democratic strategy of trying to shout down the opposition, painting
critics as Nazis waving swastikas (Nancy Pelosi), as "evil-mongers" (Senate Leader Harry Reid), as "un-American"
(Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas), as over-dressed snobs and bounders (Sen. Barbara Boxer of California),
clearly failed. So has the attempt to portray critics as ignorant yahoos too thick to understand how
well government health schemes have worked in places like Canada and Great Britain. The more we learn
about the Canadian and British schemes the less they look like models for anyone.
Terrorists Get
Appeals, Obamacare Patients Don't. [Scroll down] For example, let's say you're hospitalized
for some condition or procedure and are discharged, but you relapse and need to go back to the hospital.
Not so fast. Under Democratic health-care reform, the government will be rationing hospital treatment.
IRS to be ObamaCare
enforcer. How is the government going to check up on us? How many government employees are
going to be added to a new agency to audit 350 million Americans to see if we have adequate health
insurance? How is the government going to verify that we have acceptable coverage? Are all health
insurance companies going to be required to issue some form of notarized birth certificate type document,
renewable annually, that we will have to present to a government agent twice a year? Are insurance
companies going to be required to contact the government if we cancel our policies?
HR3200, Obama and Pelosi's Communist
Manifesto. HR3200 is a beautifully woven web of governmental Orwellian doubletalk. ... I can
see why the Democrat leadership is hell bent on its passage. HR3200 would allow them access into the
public, business and private lives of everyone living within the confines of the United States. Don't
bother mentioning the gross violation of the 10th Amendment, they don't care.
The Fannie Mae Health
System: President Obama is a determined man. And he is determined to have single-payer, nationalized
health care by hook or by crook. The "public option" was by hook. The "co-op" plan is by crook. There's
only one question left: Will Americans recognize this new swindle for what it is?
Health
care debate confirms this is not the Barack Obama we elected. Writing in The New York Times, [President
Obama] guaranteed everything for everyone: "If you don't have health insurance, you will finally have quality,
affordable options once we pass reform. If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or
government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need. "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.
If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan." Those claims would be credible if they were a
multiple-choice question, where only one is true. To say they can all happen at once is a crock, and the country
knows it.
Crackpot Co-Ops. The White House
has suggested it would settle for health care cooperatives instead of the public option. Don't drink the Kool-Aid.
This arrangement will be nothing more than the public option in disguise. It seems to have dawned on the administration
that the public isn't happy with the Democrats' plans to revise health care. This summer's historic resistance from
voters has forced the White House into a position from which it must compromise. Or at least appear to.
Obama's Twisted Faith:
Eventually you will end up with one insurance company — its name is Uncle Sam. And when your
good Uncle Sam wants to save some money, he will start making bureaucratic decisions, rather than medical
decisions, about your health. Mom won't get that treatment to save her life because it is expensive
and she has already lived 90 good years. ... How am I so sure? Because there has never been a
government-run health plan, anywhere in the world, that did not ration care.
The Strange Case of the
Obama Meltdown. Who made the following decisions? [1] to propose a 1,000 page bill that no one had read,
much less could explain?; [2] to ram down the greatest change in the US economy in fifty years by the August
recess?; [3] to talk loosely of the "uninsured" without knowing why they were not insured, how much it would
cost to insure them, or whether they currently in fact find some sort of care?; [4] to reference Rahm Emanuel's
doctor brother as a source of wisdom? [5] to demonize the health-care industry as greedy?
On being ruled by fanatics:
The looming ObamaCare fiasco is a classic example of a public policy plan that has never been weighed against the
alternatives. Even liberal economists are saying it. Any consistent reader of the Wall Street
Journal knows more about healthcare options than the Obama administration's "experts" do.
Matey, I Know a Dead Parrot. As
in the Monty Python sketch, in which a pet-shop owner repeatedly denies that a certain dead parrot is dead, the purveyors
of Obama's health-care turkey claim it is merely stunned. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the public
has "misconceptions" and that our President soon will set them straight. Misconceptions? Clearly, people are
revolted by the plan, a fact that hasn't been lost on many lawmakers up for re-election next year.
Illegal Health
Reform. President Obama has called for a serious and reasoned debate about his plans to overhaul the
health-care system. Any such debate must include the question of whether it is constitutional for the federal
government to adopt and implement the president's proposals. Consider one element known as the "individual
mandate," which would require every American to have health insurance, if not through an employer then by
individual purchase.
Health bill proposal for 'home visitation' sparks Big Brother
fears. A proposal for a government program that would send nurses into the homes of low-income
women to counsel them about their pregnancies and parenting skills failed to gain support in Congress this
year, but has been revived in the health care legislation. The language, buried deep in the
1,000-plus-page House health care reform bill, has bipartisan support, though it never had enough
backing to pass the House or Senate on its own.
Which 'Community-Based Organizations' Will Monitor Your
Diet? The health care reform bill approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Committee (HELP) would provide federal grants to state and local governments and a "national network of
community-based organizations" to "promote healthy living and reduce disparities" and to monitor people's
weight, eating, exercise habits and other individual behaviors that affect health at the community level.
The language instituting the program, entitled "Community Transformation Grants," is on pages 382-387 of
the bill as posted on the committee's Web site.
Junk it All.
Either President Obama is about to scrap a key feature of his health-care scheme — a government-run
insurance plan — or the signals he's been sending amount to smoke and mirrors. "The public
option ... is not the entirety of health-care reform," Obama said Saturday [8/15/2009], but "just one sliver
of it."
Did
someone mention smoke and mirrors?
Thousands Quit AARP Over
Health Reform. CBS News has learned that up to 60,000 people have cancelled their AARP memberships
since July 1, angered over the group's position on health care. Elaine Guardiani has been with AARP
for 14 years, and said, "I'm extremely disappointed in AARP." Retired nurse Dale Anderson has
12 years with AARP and said, "I don't wanna be connected with AARP."
AARP loses members
over health care stance. About 60,000 senior citizens have quit AARP since July 1 due to the
group's support for a health care overhaul, a spokesman for the organization said Monday [8/18/2009].
GOP Report Charges AARP Getting
"Kickbacks" In Dem Health Care Bills. One of the subplots to the health care debate I've been
following is the cozy relationship between AARP and the Obama administration, as the group has thrown its
full-throated support behind the Democrats' health care push even though their membership comes from the
age group most opposed to Democratic health care proposals. Today, House Republicans have issued a
report providing evidence that AARP is in a position to recieve tens of millions of dollars in "kickbacks"
if Democratic health care legislation becomes law.
Quittin' time. My only
regret about not being a "joiner" is that I don't have many opportunities to quit organizations. I am a
member of AARP, though, and this is looking like the perfect time to quit.
Insurer Gagged, AARP Rewarded.
[Scroll down] To further keep the American people in the dark, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS),
which administer benefits under Medicare, issued what can only be called a gag order after Humana warned its Medicare
Advantage customers in a letter that the president's plan might cause them to lose some benefits.
Greedy Sawbones.
The president claims doctors would rather cut off a diabetic's foot than treat the patient, since they get
higher fees for amputations. Such a grossly irresponsible statement should not go unchallenged.
President
Obama to Health Care Reform Opponents: Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness. In a conference call
with liberal and progressive religious leaders Wednesday afternoon [8/19/2009], President Obama railed against
those who were "bearing false witness" in the debate over health care reform. "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,
but I want everyone to know what health insurance reform is all about," the president said.
Health 'Co-ops' Are
Government Care. Responding to a building wave of opposition to the "public option," the Obama
administration is now signaling that it may dress up government health care in yet another set of clothes. ... The
Democrats are getting worried that the Trojan Horse they have offered in the form of a "public option" has been
spotted for what it is. So now they are looking for a new way to get government-run health care
through the gates.
Obama's Post Office health care disaster. With a few
hours' reflection, it's become clear that Barack Obama's reference to the U.S. Postal Service at
yesterday's [8/11/2009] health care town hall was the most revealing, and damaging, thing the
president has said in the entire health care debate. ... In one brief phrase, Obama planted
the image in the minds of millions of people: Government health care = Post Office.
Obamacare: The
"Post Office" of Health Care Plans. At his orchestrated townhall event today, President Obama defended
the notion that his government-run public health care plan wouldn't crowd out private insurers by referencing the
symbiotic relationship between UPS, Fedex and the Post Office. Bad timing Mr. President. On Friday, the
New York Times Business Section actually called for the privatization of the post office amid staggering losses, and
even said it was in "General Motors territory."
Obama's Health
Care Mess. Health care is stalled and insidiously undermining the presidency of Obama precisely
because the public senses he has not leveled with the American people. Of the uninsured, how many millions
are young people who feel no need right now to buy insurance, how many million are illegal aliens, how many
millions chose to use their optional income for things other than a low-cost catastrophic health plan, how
many millions still find care outside the insurance system? Nor do most Americans feel their system
is broken.
Obamacare Or Logan's
Run? (Part 2): According to Betsy McCaughey — the former lieutenant governor of New York
State and the prime debunker of Hillarycare — the president is lying when he says that those who like
their present health care plan can keep it. Ms. McCaughey says that you only have to get to Page 15 of
the 1,018 page bill to understand that you will be forced to give up that plan that allows you to go to
whatever doctor you select, whenever you like, or to see a specialist or get a diagnostic test.
Testing Obamacare's
Meddle. Under the plan discussed at President Obama's infomercial-esqe town halls, America would cut costs and
expand coverage while avoiding rationing. Apparently, it's paranoid to think that's too good to be true.
Axelrod's unsolicited email
on health care reform. That community organizing thing with soaring rhetoric, so effective during the
presidential campaign, isn't working so well now that the presidency has actually been won. Vague promises won't
do [when] solid accomplishments are necessary.
David Axelrod's Very
Big Problem. The allegations in this Bloomberg story — if true — pose
a huge problem for a senior advisor to the president, David Axelrod.
Obama Campaign Ad Firms Signed
On to Push Health-Care Overhaul. Two firms that received $343.3 million to handle advertising
for Barack Obama's White House run last year have profited from his top priority as president by taking on his
push for health-care overhaul.
Corporate
Shills for Hope and Change. Two weeks ago, the White House embraced $150 million in drug
industry ads supporting Obamacare. This week, Bloomberg News reported that White House senior adviser
and chief campaign strategist David Axelrod's former public relations firm, AKPD Message and Media, has raked
in some $24 million in ad contracts supporting Obamacare — along with another PR firm,
GMMB, run by other Obama strategists. The ads are funded by Big Pharma, the AARP, AMA and the powerhouse
Service Employees International Union (whose Purple Shirts dumped $80 million in independent expenditures
to get Obama and the Democratic majority elected).
Questions
For Mr. Axelrod, et al. The deal itself may well be completely legal if a little starting to outsiders.
What matters is whether Mr. Axelrod knowingly or unknowingly broke the law in striking the deal with his former firm and
then participating in negotiations with people or entities that directly or indirectly sent cash to his former firm to
produce and air ads pushing the president's health care agenda. ... The only question that really matters is whether or
not David Axelrod violated any of the federal laws.
The
'Stupid' Strategy. The Obama team is saddled with a foundering health-care strategy. But
it has a fallback plan — relying on the sheer dimwitted gullibility of the American public. How
stupid do they think we are? Stupid enough to think that a new $1 trillion health-care entitlement
is just the thing to restore the country to fiscal health.
Turning Uncle
Sam into Peeping Tom. Buried in the 1,017 pages of the House Democrats' health-care bill is
a little-noticed provision that for the first time could give the government access to the checking or
credit-card information of every American. Under section 163, which is entitled "Administrative
Simplification," the bill sets new "standards" for electronic transactions between individuals and their
health-care providers.
Finally,
Change We Can Believe In. On Sunday [8/16/2009], administration officials started backing away
from their demand for a public insurance requirement. That's nice. But it is very possible that
something much bigger is afoot. As the woman said at the town hall, "I don't believe this is just health
care." Bailouts to banks, huge stimulus payoffs to special interests, nationalization of auto companies,
trillions in new debt, the ideological taxing of our great carbon energy supplies, unconscionable deficits
stealing from our grandchildren, Washington talk of health rationing, forced abortions, compulsory sterilization,
eugenics. Are you all Eurosocialists now?
What Lies Beneath: The
debate — OK, the shouting match — we are having over "health-care reform" is
about many things, including cost, who gets help and who does not and who, or what, gets to make that determination.
Underlying it all is a larger question: Is human life something special? Is it to be valued more highly than,
say, plants and pets? When someone is in a "persistent vegetative state" do we mean to say that person is equal in
value to a carrot?
Manufactured Healthcare Crisis.
The increasing costs of medical care resulting from Medicare, Medicaid and the dramatic growth of malpractice lawsuits
have provided activists with the rationale they need to agitate for socialized medicine. This has been their
strategy all along. Medicare and Medicaid were designed to undermine private healthcare, making it ever more
expensive and unmanageable, until enough interest could be generated for systemic change. Similarly, changes in
tort law aimed at turning our courts into vehicles for income redistribution have overburdened our legal system with
massive caseloads and the highest liability costs in the world. While doubtless many thought they were doing
good, the ultimate goal, as elucidated by the Left, has everywhere and always been Socialism.
President of Some of the People.
Americans who normally minded their own business, lived their lives, went to work, raised their kids, and planned for
retirement are dismayed at the details that are coming out of the enormously complex health care bills that are working
their way through Congress. They're learning that HR 3200 stipulates that, after the first year that the new
health care laws are enacted, their private health insurance companies won't be allowed to enroll any new customers, yet
they won't be able to change any terms of its conditions for their current customers. The obvious effect of such a
law is that it would put insurance companies out of business very quickly.
'Or' is a trillion-dollar word.
Yes, words matter. Even adding one wrong word could cost taxpayers trillions. That is exactly what is being
proposed. Currently, publicly funded programs such as Medicare and Medicaid only pay for medically necessary
health care. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland Democrat, publicly said President Obama's proposed health
care plan will pay for "any service deemed medically necessary or medically appropriate." What a difference the
word "or" makes. In other words, no longer would a provider have to show that health care services are medically
necessary; they'll get paid if it is medically appropriate. Dropping "medically necessary" as a minimum requirement
would be disastrous and bankrupt our health care system.
Tort Reform Can
Lower Costs Without Harming Health Care. It seems that the president should be desperate to find some savings
in his health care plan, as the Congressional Budget Office has said almost every Democratic Party idea increases rather
than decreases spending. Tort reform may very well be the ticket to heath care savings that President Obama is
looking for.
Quid Pro Quo. We noted here that the
drug companies intend to spend $150 million -- more than the McCain campaign's entire television
advertising budget -- on ads supporting Obamacare. Today on CNN, Wolf Blitzer asked Linda
Douglass whether the ad campaign was part of the deal that the drug companies struck with the Obama
administration.
Medicine and the New Slavery. President
Obama, by declaring medical care a right, may force doctors like me to work in his nationalized health service.
After all, if medical care is a right, the government may use force to insure that all people have that right.
But as every slave knows, "They can pretend to pay us, and we can pretend to work." Besides being immoral,
slavery was not economically sound in 1840, and it is not any better in 2009.
On
Health Care, 51% Fear Government More Than Insurance Companies. When it comes to health care
decisions, 51% of the nation's voters fear the federal government more than private insurance companies. The
latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 41% hold the opposite view and fear the insurance
companies more. Seven percent (7%) are not sure who they fear the most.
Impossible Promises. Obama says his health care
plan will cut costs and increase patient choice. It won't.
Obama Administration:
Home of the Whopper. A recent Washington Post op-ed by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen
Sebelius suggests a new motto for the Obama Administration: "Home of the Whopper." The Sebelius piece contains
no fewer than 10 health care whoppers, [for example] Whopper Number 5: Americans shouldn't waste their time
trying to understand the details of Obama's proposal. ... FACT: An insurance agent who advised his clients to ignore
the fine print in a proposed policy could wind up in jail. Anyone who says "don't worry about the details, this is
too complex for you to understand anyway," probably has something to hide.
Obama as the Wizard of Oz.
Even as Science magazine is hastily backing off on the media fraud of "global warming," Obama's Medi-Scare Campaign
is using precisely the same fear tactics perfected by climate fraud peddlers to take over American medical care. ... But
neither climate fraud nor Medi-Scare do anything to fix the dire "emergency" they are trying to scare us about.
There is no emergency: There is no global warming doom coming up, and there no crisis in American medicine.
Obama's
Health Care Will Make It Worse. One of the bewildering ironies of the health care debate is that
President Obama claims to be attacking the status quo when he's actually embracing it. Ever since
Congress created Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, health politics has followed a simple logic: Expand
benefits and talk about controlling costs. That's the status quo, and Obama faithfully adheres
to it. While denouncing skyrocketing health spending, he would increase it by extending government
health insurance to millions more Americans.
Illusions and Delusions
About the Uninsured: The "public option" insurance, if enacted, would have lower fees because
it would be subsidized by taxes. The result would be, in time, to drive private carriers out of
business. In addition, Obamacare includes a requirement that all employers cover all employees
and, if they don't, they'll be required to pay a special tax (about 8 percent) into a coverage
pool. More than a few businesses will decide the tax is cheaper than health insurance, thus
driving more workers into the "public option."
Obama's Authoritarian Style. One
question about ObamaCare that has caused enormous anxiety has to do with the category of "end-of-life care."
Would people feel pressured, or be forced, to pull the plug on those who, on economic grounds, are deemed not worth
saving? Would ObamaCare allow or encourage assisted suicide, even euthanasia? These are serious
questions. Last July we noted that Oregon's socialized health plan had denied a $4,000-a-month cancer drug
to 64-year-old Barbara Wagner. But the bureaucracy cheerfully informed her "that it would cover palliative, or
comfort, care, including, if she chose, doctor-assisted suicide."
Video
proof: Obama wants a single-payer system. One video is worth a thousand words (or, as in this column,
about 730). The video in question, put together by a group called Verum Serum, shows public statements by three
advocates of single-payer (government monopoly) health insurance explaining that a health care bill with a "government
option" would move America toward a single-payer government health care system.
The Nationalization of Your Body. Health care
is a game-changer. The permanent game-changer. The pendulum will swing, and one day, despite their best efforts,
the Republicans will return to power, and, in the right circumstances, the bailouts and cap-and-trade and Government Motors
and much of the rest can be reversed. But the government annexation of health care will prove impossible to roll back.
The left can't
understand why people don't like Obamacare. America's liberals have gone from swooning over
Barack Obama's ascension to the White House and gloating over their Bush-induced domination of Congress to
near-hysteria because ordinary middle-class Americans are rising in anger against the Democrats' planned
hijacking of the nation's health care system. MSNBC's Chris Matthews worked himself into his
characteristic spittle-laced frenzy while sputtering about the legions of protestors showing up to make
meetings designed to sell Obamacare into "Town Hell" occasions.
Are We In America Or Amerika?
Their increasing anxiety and fear of failure are typified in the words of the leader of their party, who wants Republicans
to keep their mouths shut while he "fixes" health care. "I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of
talking," the president said Thursday [8/6/2009] at a political rally in Virginia. "I want them to get out of the way
so we can clean up the mess." So much for the promises of bipartisan lawmaking. So much for open discussion.
So much for understanding who really caused the "mess" in the first place.
Obama 'Impervious to Empirical
Evidence'. For months we were told that Obama's health care reform would save money. Facts?
None. Experience (on everything from Medicare to farm subsidies to the Post Office) and common sense tell us that
if the government sets up a program and then chases the private sector out of business, it will cost more (e.g. for
medical care, food or mail service) than it did before — and much more over time than was promised.
President Obama, Hawaii, and
Dodgy Certificates. On the island of Maui, there is only one acute-care hospital, the state-run Maui Memorial
Medical Center. For years, residents of Maui have complained that the hospital does not meet their needs — too
few beds, not enough specialists, and long waits in the emergency room. State bureaucrats finally cleared the way
earlier this year for a small private hospital to be built, but only after scuttling plans to build a larger, more
accommodating private hospital. A larger hospital, they said, would have an adverse impact on "the existing
health-care system." In other words, it would compete too effectively with what is now a state-run monopoly.
The Great Socialist Takeover.
Despite the talking points we are now hearing to the contrary, the bottom line is that the Obama/Democrat health overhaul
legislation would result in thorough and detailed government control over health care, government rationing that will deny
you health care, severe loss of freedom of choice and control over health care, disabling, record high taxes that will
leave America uncompetitive in the world economy, higher, not lower, overall health costs, and higher not lower federal
spending and deficits.
Obamacare Or Logan's
Run. Even though H.R. 3200 is cloaked in language disguised to hide the fact that many provisions
address end-of-life options and hospice accommodations, it is quite clear that the authors of the bill think these
options outweigh medical care. ... Power-driven wheelchairs will be regulated by the government (P. 268);
physician services for seniors will be reduced (P. 239); the government provides a list of end-of-life
resources, guiding you to death (P. 425); government mandates programs that will order end-of-life
treatment (P. 427). Don't take my word for it. The bill is available
[here].
Sebelius: Don't
Sweat the Details. The more the public learns what is in the House bill, the less they like it. That's
why the administration wants to rush this through Congress. The public mostly understands the need to reform the
increasingly expensive current system. It just doesn't like the administration's plan.
ObamaCare as a Moral Clunker. Though
a relevant consideration, cost is among the least of ObamaCare's problems. Leading the argument against ObamaCare
with cost considerations sells the American people short and betrays a moral insecurity that, if not addressed, will cause
some future form of ObamaCare to sneak in — if not now, in the not very distant future.
10 Questions
for Supporters of 'ObamaCare'. The whole point of insurance is that the healthy buy it and thereby provide
the funds to pay for the sick. Demanding that insurance companies provide insurance to everyone at any time spells
the end of the concept of insurance. And if the answer is that the government will now make it illegal not to buy
insurance, how will that be enforced? How will the government check on 300 million people?
Freedoms You Will Lose With Obamacare: Two
recent articles do a wonderful job addressing some of the freedoms that each of us will lose if President Obama's
nationalized healthcare takeover occurs. One by John Fund of the all Street Journal and a second in Fortune by
editor at large Shawn Tully really drive home how healthcare "reform" is a barely disguised grab for power by Democrats
in Congress and the White House.
We
Aren't Doctors, But We Know What's Best For You. Democratic leaders say they are planning an August
"offensive" but the reality is their government takeover of health care will increase the cost of Americans' health
care, kill jobs, force millions of Americans to lose their current coverage, add hundreds of billions to the deficit,
and let government bureaucrats make decisions that should be made by doctors and patients. That is why more and
more Americans are rejecting the Democrats' approach.
Obama
in 2007 Said He Wanted to Eliminate Private Health Insurance. As President Obama repeatedly tells America
that his plan for healthcare reform will not lead to the elimination of private health insurance, statements he made in
2007 and 2003 tell a different story altogether. In shocking video uncovered by our good friends at Naked Emperor
News, Obama, speaking at SEIU's New Leadership Health Care Forum on March 24, 2007, said, "My commitment is to make
sure that we have universal healthcare for all Americans by the end of my first term as President."
ObamaCare's Prescription for Death. In a
free market health care system, the main barrier is financial, and that can be overcome far more easily than in the
socialized system where lack of resources and centralized planning combines to close off all legal options. That
is why ObamaCare would not serve to expand American's access to health care, but rather close it down.
Take Two Aspirin And Call Me When Your Cancer is
Stage 4. All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention,
so naturally the Democrats' idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to
sober up by having another drink. The reason seeing a doctor is already more like going to the DMV, and
less like going to the Apple "Genius Bar," is that the government decided health care was too important to be
left to the free market.
What Would the Founders Think of
ObamaCare? Is health care a "right?" The liberal wing of the Democratic Party has long sought to
make it so, and they may be on the verge of achieving their goal. Legislation currently winding its way through
Congress would effectively make health care (or more properly, health insurance) open to every American citizen via
government subsidized dispensation. Of course, no such "right" is enumerated in our founding documents — or
is it?
Why public health care is
philosophically wrong. Forget all the scare stories about waiting lines and denied services. ... If
you focus on scare stories of public health care systems gone wrong (and they all go wrong), you will fall into
the leftists' trap of arguing over the most effective way to publicly manage health. No. You should
manage your health. You should have the power to choose whichever option serves you best.
The power over your health — your very self — should be in your hands.
A Liberty Issue.
The president needs to get something passed. Anything. The details don't matter. Once it's in place, health-care
"reform" can be re-reformed endlessly. Indeed, you'll be surprised how little else we talk about. So, for
example, public funding for abortions can be discarded now, and written in — as it surely will be by
some judge — down the road. What matters is to ram it through, get it done, pass it now — in
whatever form. ... Government health care would be wrong even if it "controlled costs." It's a
liberty issue. I'd rather be free to choose, even if I make the wrong choices.
Healthcare Mess Deepens. The markup resumed
yesterday [7/30/2009] on the healthcare bill, H.R. 3200, in the House Energy & Commerce Committee. ... The
markup was the usual scene: Democrats running roughshod over anything sensible, like requiring proof of citizenship to
sign up for government run healthcare on the taxpayer dime.
Organizational
Chart of the House Democrats' Health Plan.
Steele Calls Obama Health
Plan "Socialism". The chairman of the Republican Party on Monday called President Barack Obama's
plan to overhaul health care "socialism," accusing the president of conducting a risky experiment that will
hurt the economy and force millions to drop their current coverage. Michael Steele, in remarks at the
National Press Club, also said the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and key congressional committee
chairmen are part of a "cabal" that wants to implement government-run health care.
Obama Falsely Claims There Are 47 Million
Uninsured Americans. President Obama's inflated claim of the number of uninsured Americans was not
an off-the-cuff remark. It came in the prepared text at the beginning of the president's press conference
[7/22/2009] that should have been checked and vetted by White House staff. The president cited no source
for his claim that there are 47 million uninsured Americans. Since the White House first falsely claimed
in June that there were 46 million uninsured Americans, CNSNews.com has reported on the correct Census Bureau
figure [35.92 million uninsured Americans] on multiple occasions.
Obama's Health Care Fibs.
President Barack Obama has been busy attempting to sell his government takeover of the health care citizen.
In doing so, he contines to be, shall we say, a bit lax with the facts.
Deadly
Doctors. The health bills coming out of Congress would put the decisions about your care in the
hands of presidential appointees. They'd decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and
what seniors get under Medicare. Yet at least two of President Obama's top health advisers should never be
trusted with that power.
The Folly of Obamacare:
Obama understands that he cannot sell his health-care reform in the language of the left. So, it's a bait and
switch. If anything, the overriding idea behind Obama's approach seems to be to rush his "public plan" into law
and expand its generosity over time. This is tribute a center-left president must pay to a center-right country.
He's in such a hurry because he senses Americans understand a bait and switch when they see one. On Monday
[7/20/2009] he even proclaimed, "The time for talking is through."
Obama's Health Expert Gets Political.
President Barack Obama's health-care plan is in jeopardy because of serious concerns that costs will spin out of
control. As much as anyone, it's White House budget director Peter Orszag's job to save it. Mr. Orszag
is the administration's point man for controlling health-care spending. So when the director of the Congressional
Budget Office, which Mr. Orszag used to run, testified eight days ago that none of the health plans pending on Capitol
Hill would control long-term spending, Mr. Orszag knew that meant trouble.
DeMint escalates attacks on Obama plan.
In unusually pointed terms, DeMint turned the tables on Obama, accusing him of blocking health care reforms while
Obama was a U.S. senator. "I've probably introduced more legislation to reform health care since I've been
in the Senate than probably any other senator. "The fact is, Barack didn't introduce any major reform
legislation, and he voted against every reform measure," DeMint said.
The Federal Health Care Muggers.
The Democrats' agenda of "universal health care" is in deep trouble, as more Americans (including many "Blue Dog"
congressional Democrats) are growing increasingly uneasy about the costs. The Congressional Budget Office projects
that the proposed House of Representatives plan could cost over $1 trillion dollars, rather than saving money.
A similar plan in place in Massachusetts since 2006 has led to skyrocketing costs, long waits for care, and higher taxes,
without actually providing "universal" coverage.
Obamacare: It's Even
Worse Than You Think. President Obama's strategy to pass sweeping health care legislation rested on stealth
and speed. The idea was to fill the conversation for months on end with vague talk about expanding coverage, "bending
the cost-curve," improving quality, and rooting out waste, without showing the public how the plan would actually work or
what it would cost. ... But things have not gone as the Democrats intended. As details have emerged, an extraordinary
wave of public concern has washed over the debate and left the plan's champions reeling.
Politicans, Heal Thyselves!
If Democrats in Washington think their health care reform with a public option is a good thing, why have they exempted
themselves from it? Why isn't what's good for their constituents good for them?
Why Obamacare Is
Sinking. What happened to Obamacare? Rhetoric met reality. As both candidate and president,
the master rhetorician could conjure a world in which he bestows upon you health-care nirvana: more coverage,
less cost. But you can't fake it in legislation. Once you commit your fantasies to words and numbers, the
Congressional Budget Office comes along and declares that the emperor has no clothes.
Washington Games. Obama's national
health care plan is based on two whoppers: that 47 million American households are without health
insurance, and that it won't create yet another huge addition to the federal budget deficit. The
47 million number comes from a 2007 Census Bureau report. But that same report says that more
than 27 million of those households earn over $50,000 a year, and one-third of them earn more than $75,000
a year. Which means that those 27 million families choose not to pay for health insurance.
The mother of
unfunded mandates. The Congressional Budget Office delivered a couple of blows to President
Obama's health care proposals last week. Fear of the trillion dollar costs and at least $240 billion
in increased deficits are chasing away even Democrats. And that's not the worst of it. The price
tag is actually much higher than reported because many of the real costs are paid for by others. The
$219 billion of "savings" touted by House Democrats refers to hospital and doctors getting less for
their services.
More Health Care
Lies. It's no wonder the White House is delaying release of the latest dismal budget figures.
It's not just that they are grossly more dismal than the projections. It's that they will undercut
already-waning public support for Obama's socialized medicine scheme. The White House was supposed to
release the budget numbers this month but has delayed their release until mid-August, which even has
The Associated Press raising questions about its motives.
Obama's
Health Care Reform Plan Stinks in Every Nostril. Like a well-dressed used car salesman trying to
move a lemon from his lot and into the hands of an unsuspecting dupe, President Barack Obama presses on with
his efforts to strong-arm legislators into voting for his socialist health-care reform plan, the passage of
which will result in nothing more than the collective duping of the American people and the bankrupting of the
finest health care system in the world.
Don't Trust the
AMA. "I was surprised, shocked, and saddened." That's how Donald J. Palmisano, former
president of the American Medical Association, described his reaction upon learning that the organization had
endorsed the House Democrats' health-care-reform plan. "I am a loyal member of the AMA, a lifetime
member, but I believe the AMA made a serious mistake in endorsing this bill." He's not the only one.
What's Up, Docs? The AMA is
essentially saying that if doctors get paid more, all else is negotiable. Other industry lobbies such as
the insurers and drug makers have made the same calculation, putting their short-term self-interest —
usually ensuring that government programs remain generous (enough) — ahead of the long-run threats.
It can't last.
Arrogance.
It's crazy for a group of mere mortals to try to design 15 percent of the U.S. economy. It's even
crazier to do it by August. Yet that is what some members of Congress presume to do. They intend,
as the New York Times puts it, "to reinvent the nation's health care system".
Obama White House
breaks another promise to reject Bush secrecy. Well, at least it's bipartisan. The still
sort-of-new Barack Obama Democratic administration has again adopted another policy straight out of the
administration of his much-criticized Republican predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama administration
officials have rejected a watchdog group's request for a list of healthcare industry executives who've been
meeting secretly in the White House with Obama staffers to discuss healthcare changes being drafted there and
in Congress.
ObamaCare is a sick
joke. By 52 percent to 40 percent, voters are opposed to the healthcare bill
introduced on July 14 to the House of Representatives. Independents now oppose ObamaCare by a ratio
of almost 2:1. The World Health Organization ranked the United States No. 1 out of 191 countries
for being responsive to patients' needs, including providing timely treatments and a choice of doctors.
Among those currently insured, 84% are satisfied with their healthcare.
Obamacare
for Illegal Aliens. Big Nanny Democrats want to ration health care for everyone in
America — except those who break our immigration laws. Last week, the House Ways and Means
Committee defeated an amendment that would have prevented illegal aliens from using the so-called "public
health insurance option." Every Democrat on the panel voted against the measure.
Illegal immigrants already
put a strain on America's health care system..
Is Obamacare
dead in the water? Even the president has acknowledged that his deadline of getting it done
before the August recess may be impossible. I might add that there is precious little from the White
House except speechmaking. This president doesn't know how to govern. He has handed responsibility
for getting this bill passed to Pelosi and Reid while he stands on the sidelines kibbitzing. Bottom
line: No one is in charge.
A Reckless Congress. Say this about
the 1,018-page health-care bill that House Democrats unveiled this week and that President Obama heartily endorsed:
It finally reveals at least some of the price of the reckless ambitions of our current government. With huge
majorities and a President in a rush to outrun the declining popularity of his agenda, Democrats are bidding to
impose an unrepealable European-style welfare state in a matter of weeks.
Obama's
Health Care Plan Can Be Defeated. The Democrats' most recent answer to the question of how they will pay
for their trillion-dollar health-care reform was just announced by Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel. He
wants to impose a surtax on incomes over $280,000, which would be a staggering blow to small businesses that
create most jobs.
Obama's
Ill-Thought-Out Healthcare Plan. President Obama repeatedly states two things about his national healthcare
initiative that are not true: First, that we cannot have truly long-term economic growth until we replace the present
healthcare system with an entirely new government-imposed one. Second, that the plan will end the explosion in
healthcare costs. In fact, there have been periods in our county's economic history when we've experienced
relatively long-term growth with the healthcare system we have now.
Inside the Monstrous Obamacare Bureaucracy:
If you think government is too big and too costly, wait until Obamacare kicks in. The Congressional Budget Office
put the price tag of the House Democrats' health care takeover plans at $1.5 trillion over 10 years. But
the CBO's fine print included a telltale caveat: "We have not yet estimated the administrative costs to the federal
government of implementing the specified policies, nor have we accounted for all of the proposal's likely effects on
spending for other federal programs." You don't need an accounting degree or clairvoyant powers. The
administrative costs and spillover spending effects will be astronomical.
Universal Health Care Isn't Worth Our Freedom.
[Scroll down] The concept of reimbursable health-care service rests on the premise that the medical problem in need
of servicing is the result of involuntary, unwanted happenings, not the result of voluntary, goal-directed behavior.
Leukemia, lupus, prostate cancer, and many infectious diseases are unwanted happenings. Are we going to count obesity,
smoking, depression and schizophrenia as the same kinds of diseases?
Level The Playing Field For All Americans.
Americans are reeling from high costs and limited choices in our health care market, and Congress wants to throw more
government at the problem. At the president's direction, lawmakers are designing a public health insurance program
with a mandate that everyone purchase some form of coverage — public or private.
A Right That's Wrong. Of the
many objectionable provisions in the House's latest medical insurance bill, none is as destructive or morally offensive
as the one that declares health care to be a "right."
It's Not An Option. It
didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right
there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.
Health Care Bill Will Fund State Vaccine
Teams to Conduct 'Interventions' in Private Homes. There is a knock at the front door. Peeking
through the window, a mother sees a man and a woman, both in uniform. They are agents of health-care reform.
"Excuse me, ma'am," says the man. "Our records show that your eleven-year-old daughter has not been immunized for
genital warts." "And your four-year-old still needs the chicken-pox vaccine," says the woman.
Health Care Stampede Continues.
The House Committee on Ways and Means in the wee hours of the morning this morning [7/17/2009] passed
H.R. 3200, the Democrat's Orwellian named America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, by a vote
of 23-18. The committee markup of the Democrat healthcare bill began yesterday, a bill that will cost
American taxpayers a minimum of $1.5 trillion dollars. Likely more. A lot more.
50%
Oppose Government Health Insurance Company. Just 35% of U.S. voters now support the creation of
a government health insurance company to compete with private health insurers. A new Rasmussen Reports
national telephone survey shows that 50% of voters oppose setting up a government health insurance company as
President Obama and congressional Democrats are now proposing in their health care reform plan. Fifteen
percent (15%) are undecided.
Democrats
are relying on deception again. Support for any Democratic policy initiative requires dishonesty, and
the health plan being pushed by President Barack Obama is no exception. Let's examine what the proponents of
government health care are saying. First, there are 46 million uninsured people in the United States.
Even though this may be literally true, it is deliberately misleading. And, it is often stated as "46 million
without health care," which is not just misleading, it's an outright lie.
Get
ready to lose your private insurance. Susan [Ferrechio] makes note below of Sen. Dodd's presentation of the new and
improved Senate Obama-care plan. It includes a so-called "public option" for government-run insurance, and it
also requires that employers either provide coverage or pay a $750-per-year fee to the government for each non-covered
employee. To put things into perspective, the average American employer pays $5,800 per year from his own pocket
for each employee covered by a company health plan, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Insurance Is No Answer.
Health care "reformers" keep talking about getting us more health insurance. Then they talk about cutting
costs. This is contradictory nonsense. Insurance, whether private or a government Ponzi scheme like
Medicare, means third parties pay the bills. When someone else pays, costs always go up.
Health
care reform must include leashing trial lawyers. President Barack Obama has often stated his belief
that "health care reform should be guided by a simple principle. Fix what is broken and build on what works."
Those are fine-sounding words, but the president muffed a recent opportunity to back them up with concrete action.
No HAPI Ending. The respect the
federal government has for the American electorate, at least the amount it shows, has reached a new low. The
Healthy Americans Private Insurance plan, which incidentally goes by the acronym "HAPI," is the new plan the federal
government has devised to force us to pay more in taxes and take a handout whether we want it or not. ... To put it
bluntly, the federal government is saying we must enroll our family members and ourselves in a health insurance
plan... or else.
HELP For Whom? A
Senate health care bill will force Americans to buy health insurance whether they want it or not. Where
the extra doctors to treat them will come from is anybody's guess.
Obama's Strategic
Mistake. Why so much focus on health care and so little focus on the economy? Perhaps it's because
Obama — like many Democratic Presidents before him — wants to be the next Franklin Roosevelt. For
whatever reason, they seem to dream of getting themselves into the pantheon of leaders who expand the federal
government's role in the provision of social welfare. And health care is the white whale of the Democratic
Party's social welfare agenda.
Saving Liberty. With Obamacare,
government will decide when and if you can get that knee replacement. From the clear utterances of the president's
healthcare advisers, namely, Drs. Ezekiel Emanuel and David Blumenthal, that knee replacement will depend on such factors
as your age and your overall health. If you are too old or decrepit, government will have a more economical place to
spend its money. In other words, your health will not be decided by what you want to pay for it but by government
policy. That test you wanted for colon cancer might be denied. You might just be too old. Such
decisions are made by the nationalized British system all the time.
Congress set to create Frankenstein
monster, not health care reform. Most Americans say they're happy with the health care they have. But
that doesn't stop the Democratic leadership in Congress from trying "fix" the system to their own liking, starting this
week. What they like, and what most Americans like are nothing alike.
Welcome to Obamacare Theater.
The White House sure likes to put on a show. Fresh off its joint stage production with ABC News, the Obama
administration broadcast another health care propaganda play this week under the guise of a citizen "town hall."
Chicago consigliere and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett managed the floor and human props for Obama. In a telling
moment as the event kicked off, she protested a wee bit much: "I want to emphasize that the President has not
seen the questions ahead of time." The audience responded with polite laughter. But the denials of
pre-planning and stacked decks deserve nothing but derisive mockery.
Government-run plans don't save money; they add costs.
Those who claim otherwise ignore history.
Government's Comedy of Errors. Does
anyone believe the federal government is a model of efficiency? Oddly enough, superior government efficiency
is a core argument offered by President Barack Obama and others pushing creation of a government-run health plan.
Obama claims, "If the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest
and it will help keep their prices down." And who would keep government honest? Surely not the designated
watchdogs, like the Inspectors-General personally fired by the President for catching a FOO (Friend of Obama)
with his hand in the till.
Did
someone mention Gerald Walpin?
Obama's
Fast Track to Socialized Medicine: With too little notice in the liberal press and too little
public debate, President Obama last week put America on the fast track to socialized medicine with the goal of
having legislation passed by Congress before the end of summer. At issue is whether America will continue
to have a largely free-market-oriented health-care system or a government-run system where politicians and
bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., make the most fundamental decisions about how we enter life, how we leave
it and how we are cared for when we are ill.
Qualms
and Questions About Obama's Health Plan. Barack Obama has said he wants to pass a national health
care bill this year, with a government insurance policy option. Democratic congressional leaders have
called for passage of such a bill before the beginning of the August congressional recess. What they
want more than anything else is a government insurance program that will tend over the next few years to
crowd out private insurance.
No, you won't be able to keep your insurance if you like it.
Dissecting the Kennedy Health Bill:
Last September Sen. Barack Obama promised that under his health-care proposal "you'll be able to get the same
kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves." On Monday [6/15/2009], President Obama repeated
that promise in a speech to the American Medical Association. It's not true. The president is barnstorming
the nation, urging swift approval of legislation that is taking shape in Congress. This legislation — the
Affordable Health Choices Act that's being drafted by Sen. Edward Kennedy's staff and the Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions Committee — will push Americans into stingy insurance plans with tight, HMO-style controls. It
specifically exempts members of Congress (along with federal employees; the exemptions are in section 3116).
Senate Bill
Would Fine People More Than $1,000 for Refusing Health Care Coverage. Americans who refuse to
buy affordable medical coverage could be hit with fines of more than $1,000 under a health care overhaul bill
unveiled Thursday by key Senate Democrats looking to fulfill President Obama's top domestic priority.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the fines will raise around $36 billion over 10 years.
Reading Obama Care Bills Endangers Human Health.
Before America steps an inch closer to nationalized medicine, lawmakers and citizens alike should follow Betsy
McCaughey's lead and read this bill. Meanwhile, about the best one can say for Ted Kennedy's $1 trillion
incarnation of ObamaCare is that House speaker Nancy Pelosi's $3.47 trillion version is even worse.
The 'Public Plan' Would Be the Only Plan.
The Obama administration and the Democratic congressional leadership appear poised to create a "competing" government
health insurer as part of its health-care reform. ... In reality, equal competition between a public plan and
private plans would be impossible. The public plan would inexorably crowd out private plans, leading
to a single-payer system.
Obama's Cloudy Crystal Ball:
If his economic team was 2.5 million jobs off — and counting — in projecting unemployment
just a few months into the future, how on earth can we trust their claims about all the money preventive care,
information technology, and other such measures will save us on health care 10 or 20 years from now?
The president is asking everyone to
sacrifice — except the malpractice litligators.
Free-Riding Lawyers on
the Obamacare Bus. No one really knows how much time is wasted by doctors (and money by
patients) on tests and procedures that do not actually help diagnose or treat any condition but do help
protect doctors from the appearance of sub-standard care in malpractice lawsuits. This practice is
sometimes called "treating the chart rather than the patient" — making sure all hypothetical diagnostic
bases are covered.
Government
Health Care Competition: The Audacity of Hope Against Experience. One key item on President
Obama's health care agenda is to "establish a National Health Insurance Exchange with a range of private
insurance options as well as a new public plan based on benefits available to members of Congress that will
allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health coverage." The chairmen of five
congressional committees have all agreed that there should be a government-run plan that competes against
private health insurers and is available to all Americans. Senators Kennedy and Baucus; and Representatives
George Miller, Henry Waxman, and Charles Rangel, have been engaged in secret negotiations to hammer
out a deal.
The Editor says...
What happened to Obama's promises about "open government"?
Medical Arrogance.
During his ABC infomercial last week, President Obama continued to insist that the type of reform he has in mind would
reduce the cost of health care, improve its quality, and enable people to keep their current insurance
policies and doctors. He is wrong on all counts.
The Dangers of Fannie Mae Health Care.
There is no reason to expect a Medicare-like public plan to match the administrative efficiency of Aetna, Blue
Cross-Blue Shield, Cigna, UnitedHealth Group, and WellPoint. Medicare doesn't even try. It outsources
most administrative services to the private sector. Turning to public plans like Medicare and Medicaid
for more efficient administration is a fool's errand.
Barack Obama is
a Big Fat Liar. Flip-flops are nothing new in politics ... [but] it takes a certain moral
venality to casually adopt, as president, a position that was a dominant theme of your argument for why
your opponent should not be president. ... [D]uring Wednesday's p.r. push for his health-care
plan, Obama refused to rule out the proposal that he once said made John McCain unfit for office.
Obama's Health Future: If
or when the Administration's speculative cost-cutting measures under universal health care fail to produce
savings, government will start explicitly limiting patient access to treatments and services regarded as too
expensive. Democrats deny this eventuality, but health planners will have no choice, given that the
current entitlement system is already barreling toward insolvency without adding millions of new people to the
federal balance sheet.
Obama Wants to Let Those
Pesky Geezers Die. In a rare moment of candor, President Obama explained to an audience how
government-run healthcare would work in America. ... Medical decisions should be made by patients, their
families, and their doctors, not by government bureaucrats, but that's ObamaCare for you.
Unions
To Get Dues from ObamaCare. Thousands of union members rallied for Obamacare on Capitol Hill
today [6/26/2009] in a massive display of union outreach that threatened to deliver more votes for a
controversial "public plan" option. The rally came on the heels of Obama raising the possibility that
unions would be exempt from taxing health care benefits. Obama said he was open to imposing new taxes
on Americans who are not union members, which is a principle he adamantly opposed during his presidential
campaign.
ObamaCare Isn't Inevitable.
[Scroll down] By a 58%-to-37% margin, American prefer reforming health care "without raising taxes or
increasing the deficit" to government investing "new resources to make sure it is done right." This is
why Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus blanched when committee staffers priced his —
which is also the Obama administration's — draft legislation at a cool $1.6 trillion over the
next decade.
A Cancer In The Capitol Is Killing Us.
Hillary Clinton fractured her elbow on Wednesday and was scheduled for surgery in less than 48 hours.
As a primary sponsor and advocate of nationalized, government run healthcare, shouldn't Clinton have had to
wait a year before surgery — just as she wants the rest of us to do? Apparently, the
conditions of nationalized healthcare shouldn't apply to the royal members of Congress, government employees,
or their gay partners. Those programs apply only to the commoners who pay their salaries.
The
uninsured: A bogus excuse for trillions in new welfare spending. Health insurance, so far,
is not mandatory by law, and we've got 16 percent of the population -- 47 million or
so -- without it. Auto insurance is mandatory by law, and according to the Insurance Research Council,
14 percent of drivers nationwide still don't buy it. Government can't make people do what they
don't want to do. And it can't change human nature. Political freedom and capitalism work so
well because they reflect the truth that human beings have free choice. But this means individuals
take personal responsibility.
Stop and think about the cost per capita.
Private insurance is far cheaper.
Simple Healthcare Math:
The Washington Post reported that the CBO cost estimate for another draft version of the bill is $1.6 trillion.
In the same story, Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) was quoted as saying the price tag easily could reach $2 trillion.
For sake of argument, let's assume the middle estimate of $1.6 trillion is valid and it would cover
16 million Americans.
Is Government Health Care Constitutional?
The Supreme Court created the right to privacy in the 1960s and used it to strike down a series of state and
federal regulations of personal (mostly sexual) conduct. ... If the government cannot proscribe -- or
even "unduly burden," to use another of the Supreme Court's analytical frameworks -- access to abortion,
how can it proscribe access to other medical procedures, including transplants, corrective or restorative
surgeries, chemotherapy treatments, or a myriad of other health services that individuals may need
or desire?
ObamaCare:
Kiss Your Access Goodbye. President Obama and the Democratic Congress repeat a mantra so often
that it has become a truism: America's health care system is a scandalous failure, and it is absolutely
urgent that we fix it now. The mainstream media nod their agreement, and yet, the polls tell us something
else: Eighty percent of Americans say they are satisfied with the quality of their health care.
Healthcare
Reform: A Looming Policy Disaster. Market-based solutions that reward personal responsibility
and emphasize transparency in healthcare pricing, along with meaningful, nationwide tort reform are the
only options that are ultimately sustainable and compatible with a free society.
Who's
Funding the Obamacare Campaign? If you believe the White House, there are 30 million
Americans who support a government health care takeover. But if you look at the funding behind the
Obamacare campaign, it's the same few leftist billionaires, union bosses and partisan community organizers
pushing the socialized medicine agenda. Let's connect the dots.
We
Don't Need Big Bang Health Care Reform. Why do we need President Obama's big-bang health-care
reform at all? What's the real agenda here? If it's really to cover the truly uninsured, a much
cheaper, targeted, small-ball approach would do the trick. But on the other hand, maybe the real goal
is a larger, ultra-liberal plan aimed at a government takeover of the U.S. health system.
Myths,
Lies and Stupidity About Health Care: President Barack Obama's health care plan, we are told,
will spend $1 trillion over the next 10 years. But since trillion is the new billion, Americans
aren't supposed to worry about that. Obama's health care plan will cause employers to stop providing
private health insurance for millions of employees and instead shift employees to public care. But Obama
says that government is the best arbiter of your health, so Americans aren't supposed to worry about that.
Obama's Decepticons:
Mr. Obama's pleasant words about keeping your doctors and your health plans simply are literally true, but
misleading. Technically the government is not going to legislate millions of Americans into public health
care. But that's where they will end up, once the federal government offers a plausible alternative to
private plans. Employers will soon decide it is cheaper to dump their employees into the clutches of the
public system than to pay skyrocketing private health-care costs. Any other decision is simply bad
business, they will say. It will not be a matter of choice for most people, unless they happen to
own the firm that employs them.
Mrs. O And The Patient Dump. It
wasn't until white America accepted her husband that she was finally proud of America. The same America
that allowed the hospital she worked for to screw over the same underprivileged her better half was organizing
to raise his own political stature. The fact she's become the First Lady won't erase the past, and we
should all be wary of the kind of health care her husband has in store for us.
The
Obamacare Horror Story You Won't Hear. The White House, Democrats and MoveOn liberals are spreading
health care sob stories to sell a government takeover. But there's one health care policy nightmare you
won't hear the Obamas hyping. It's a tale of poor minority patient-dumping in Chicago — with
first lady Michelle Obama's fingerprints all over it.
Obama:
"There Are Countries Where a Single-Payer System Works Pretty Well". President Obama told the
American Medical Association on Monday [6/15/2009] that he thinks single-payer health care systems —
socialized medicine — work "pretty well" in other countries, but that he does not want to create
such a system here because he wants to "build on our traditions." In fact, the predictable endgame of
the health care plan Obama is trying to rush through Congress this summer is socialized medicine. We
now know Obama does not oppose socialized medicine in principle or on practical grounds. So on what
grounds does he oppose it? Just one: rhetorical.
White House Not Sure Which Countries Obama
Meant. Two days after President Barack Obama told the American Medical Association that in some countries a
single-payer health care system "works pretty well," the White House reaffirmed that people in those countries liked their
health care, but also said it did not know to which countries the president was referring. "I don't know exactly the
countries. I think if you talk to the people in the countries that have that system, they think their health care is
pretty good," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told CNSNews.com Wednesday [6/17/2009] during the daily press
briefing.
Barney Frank Says He Agrees with
Obama. House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told CNSNews.com that he agrees
with President Barack Obama that there are countries where government-run, single-payer health care systems
work well. Frank specifically cited "Scandinavia" as an example.
Back to ACORN General
Hospital. Guess who's going to be much better off thanks President Obama's health care
scheme? ... If the UAW gets to have controlling interest in the American auto industry, why shouldn't
AFSCME, SEIU, and ACORN be allowed to run the 14% of GDP currently known as the American healthcare
system? Millions and millions and millions of new dues-paying members from countless communities
ripe for organizing. All without the hassle of passing card check.
Government Health
Care Won't Fly. Let's look at the airline industry hypothetically as it would operate if the
government had as much control over it as it does over health care. To see how complex Medicare is we
can turn to over 130,000 pages of regulations and penalties and contrast that with the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) regulations numbering about 1,000 pages.
AP sources: Senate health overhaul costs
top $1.6 trillion. Senate sources say the latest cost estimates for health care legislation are
around $1.6 trillion over 10 years.
Obama's Senior Moment.
At the heart of President Obama's plan is his stated goal to cut medical costs. That might sound good to
you, but it means cutting services, nurses, technicians, medical tests, and most prominently the use of
expensive technology. The President's top medical advisers are quite frank about this. Dr. Ezekiel
Emanuel, brother of Rahm Emanuel and a health policy adviser in the Office of Management and Budget, has
chided Americans for the expense of their "being enamored with technology."
Health Care In The Good Old Days:
We were actually making some progress towards that when the Republicans controlled Congress. Congressman
Nathan Deal (R-Ga) chairman of the subcommittee on Health until the Democrats took control, pushed through measures
reforming Medicare and Medicaid and actually began the process of saving money and being more efficient.
One of the first things Democrats did was strip these provisions out.
The GOP Can Stop ObamaCare.
It's extremely unlikely that Republicans will be able to pass their own health-care plan in this Congress.
But in politics you can't beat something with nothing, so it is critical that the GOP offers an alternative to
President Barack Obama's government-run monstrosity. Americans will listen more closely to Republicans
if they make empirical and specific arguments against Mr. Obama's attempted government takeover of the nation's
health system. But they must also offer proposals that families, small-businesspeople and health-care
providers will applaud.
The cost of government
health care. Free health care is a very expensive proposition. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts
Democrat, and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, are sponsoring a massive health care bill to extend coverage
to 50 million Americans who supposedly do not have it. On Tuesday [6/16/2009], the Congressional Budget Office
estimated that the cost of the Kennedy-Dodd health care bill would run to at least $1.6 trillion over 10 years
and that it would cover just one-third of the so-called "uninsured."
Government Won't Allow
Fair Competition. Proponents of socialized medicine learned an important lesson from the 1993
failure of Clinton Care, and recognize that they must hide their agenda in the rhetoric of market competition.
Government is not going to take over insurance, they say; it merely wants to compete.
'Shock the Monkey' Healthcare.
[Scroll down slowly] To carry this analogy further, observe the neolib obsession with government-run healthcare.
On the surface, it makes no sense that people would consciously desire poorer service at a higher price, but
that will be precisely the outcome. With the exception of national defense (which is powered by patriotism
rather than the economic bottom line), government cannot do anything better or cheaper than private enterprise
in a capitalist system. Neolibs, however, will continue to pull that lever in the hopes that this time,
despite all evidence to the contrary, government will be the solution to our problems.
The Editor says...
Wait a minute. National defense isn't just "powered by patriotism." National defense is
authorized and mandated by the Constitution — medical insurance and medical care are not.
Obama
facing some doubts among Americans. He remains personally popular, but President Barack Obama is starting to
see signs that some of his economic policies are causing doubts among many Americans. Two polls published on
Thursday [6/18/2009] illustrate the political risk Obama faces as he turns his attention toward an overhaul of the
U.S. healthcare system, an issue so contentious that previous attempts have failed to address high cost and availability
issues.
Obamaceuticals. A reimbursement
system that gives broader access to mediocre care as opposed to excellent care is not healthcare reform.
Busting Healthcare Myths.
One of the first myths [Sally] Pipes demolishes is the oft-cited statistic that some 46 million Americans
lack health insurance. Of those, 10 million make more than $75,000 a year and almost 18 million
make more than $50,000 a year. That means 38 percent of the uninsured likely make enough to afford
health insurance but choose not to buy it.
Democrats' Plan to Cost 23 Million
Americans Their Private Insurance, CBO Says. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that
a government overhaul of America's health care system would cost at least $1 trillion and would mean the
loss of private coverage for an estimated 23 million Americans, according to a preliminary analysis issued
Tuesday [6/16/2009].
How Obamacare Will Change Your Life:
Much of what you have long taken for granted about health care and the way it should be delivered is about to change in
ways that you definitely will not like. ... Public opinion surveys have consistently shown that most Americans consider
access and cost to be the most important problems facing the system. Perversely, the primary changes Obamacare will
bring to you and your family will be reduced access to care and significant increases in its cost.
Congress' Unhealthy Care Plan.
The CBO says a government-run health care system would cause 23 million Americans to lose private coverage, cost
$1 trillion dollars and still leave 30 million uninsured.
'45
Million Americans' — Who Are Those Guys? About 45 million Americans lack health
care insurance. Or do they? A pro-"universal health care" television host recently cited this
widely accepted "fact." The number is bogus. ... 255 million Americans already have it.
Many millions more could get it if they wanted to. And 89 percent of Americans are satisfied with
the care they now receive.
Doctors Fight Back.
The largest group of doctors in the country has made it clear that it is not comfortable with legislation that
would twist the country's health care system into a Euro-style scheme that "threatens to restrict patient
choice." With 250,000 members, the American Medical Association has some heavy political clout and
deep resources. It will need to use everything it has if it is to help shield the nation from a
health care disaster being engineered by Democrats and their constituents.
Dare to Defeat
ObamaCare. Outlines and drafts of the key House and Senate bills began to emerge last week,
and the grim reality of what the Democrats in fact have in mind has started to exercise an undeniable effect
upon the politics of health care. The fact is, the Democrats' proposals are a liberal wish list of
expansions of the role of government in health care, combining an array of taxes, regulations, incentives,
and mandates aimed over time to create a massive and unfunded new entitlement that would limit patient
choices, ration care, and bankrupt the Treasury.
Obama's Government
Health Plan Will Look Like Public Schools. In a seductive overture to private health plan
stalwarts, Obama says the government health care system will not be a mandatory substitute for private health
care preferences, only an option. Of course those who remain in a private system will face double
jeopardy — covering their own private medical costs while suffering higher federal taxes to pay for
somebody else's — in the same manner that private school parents, opting out of horrible local
public schools for far better independent alternatives, must pay private school tuition while still
shouldering ever escalating property and state income taxes to educate those poor wretches who cannot
escape the government's incompetence.
No golden eggs to pay
for Obamacare. Obama also wants to ration health care, although he employs euphemistic language
in discussing restrictive treatment guidelines of a kind that Americans utterly rejected when they were
employed by health maintenance organizations during the Clinton administration. He tried out some of
these idea at a meeting of doctors the other day while repeating the canard about 46 million Americans
being uninsured. He did not explain that millions of these are illegal aliens, that others are qualified
for Medicare or Medicaid and that still others can obtain affordable insurance if they choose. That
leaves about 10 million American citizens who at least temporarily cannot get insurance.
Is
Health Care A "Right"? Not According to Governments Who Run Health Care. When I'm speaking publicly
on health reform, people sometimes ask: "Do you think that health care is a human right?" My answer
is: "Yes, I believe that you have a right to spend your own money on health care of your choice, free of
government interference." This prompts a moment of reflection in those who understand the difference between
a culture in which people take care of each others' needs as members of a civil society, versus one in which we
surrender our liberty to unlimited control of our health-care resources by government agents.
President Obama: Health system a 'ticking
time bomb. President Barack Obama described the American health care system Monday as a "ticking
time bomb" in need of a drastic overhaul -- and said that part of that fix must include the controversial
public insurance option. ... "Make no mistake: the cost of our health care is a threat to our economy,"
Obama said.
The Editor says...
Make no mistake: Obama himself is the greatest threat to our economy.
GOP
lash out at Obama's health bill, unveil their own. Congressional Republicans pushed back
immediately against the Obama administration's healthcare promotion on Monday [6/15/2009], warning of
solid opposition to any plan that includes a government role.
The smothering
embrace of nanny government. [Scroll down] Let's say you carelessly drop Ted Kennedy's
health care plan on your foot, and it breaks your toe. In the old days, you'd go to your doctor (or,
indeed, believe it or not, have him come to you), he'd patch you up, and you'd write him a check. That's
the way it was in most of the developed world within living memory. Now, under the guise of "insurance,"
various third parties intercede between the doctor and your checkbook, and to this the government proposes
adding a massive federal bureaucracy, in the interests of "controlling costs."
A Trillion Dollars in
Incompetence. Bonaparte famously said to "never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be
explained by incompetence." Thus stands the Kennedy health care bill, placeholder for the hard left dream
of a government takeover of the American health system. The bill is a taxpayer-supported monument to the
lethal stupidity of this statist objective that will leave Americans with fewer choices, more government control
over medical decisions, higher taxes, and a smaller private health insurance market (mostly union health plans paid
for by taxes on the health benefits of non-union workers) that punishes efforts to reward healthy behavior.
Obama's wrong numbers.
Appearing with executives of six industry groups on May 11, Mr. Obama announced what he called a "historic" and
"unprecedented commitment" by the medical care industry to "cut the rate of growth of national health care spending by
1.5 percentage points each year" that would yield $2 trillion in savings over 10 years. The story
got front-page play and nightly news coverage across the country. However, after American Hospital Association
President Richard J. Umbdenstock returned to his office, he was besieged by calls from AHA members opposing such
large cuts in spending. Days later, during a conference call with 230 members, he told them the
1.5-percent-a-year savings touted by Mr. Obama was a gross exaggeration.
Paying for
Obamacare. Much of the discussion to date about health care reform has understandably
focused on the contents of the reform plan itself. But with the plan expected to cost $1-1.5 trillion
over the first ten years, an equally important question is how the president and congressional Democrats plan
to pay for it. While we won't know for certain until we see the final bill, it looks like the answer is
going to be higher — much higher — taxes. And many if not most of those taxes will
fall squarely on the middle class.
The
Party Of Yes: 6 Ways Democrats Are Hurting America. [#3] Socializing medicine: The
most hilarious thing about the Democrats' attempt to engulf the health care industry in the inky blackness of
the federal government is their primary selling point: that a government takeover will actually lead to
reduced costs. How's that plan working out with Medicare so far? Oh yeah, it's on track to bankrupt
the entire country. So let's expand that — what could go wrong? Well, besides all the
features that usually come along with socialized medicine: reduced quality of care, long wait times for
operations, and allowing old people to die in order to cut costs.
Health
Care Battle Brewing. While headlines talk about a "fight" over the confirmation of Judge Sonia
Sotomayor for the Supreme Court that may never develop, a much bigger battle is about to break out over
President Obama's No. 1 domestic priority, health care. Sotomayor is a cinch to win approval for
the bench, but no one can tell you with any certainty what form the promised overhaul of the health care
system will take — or whether it will pass. We're soon going to find out.
"Efficiency" Means Death. Apparently
the agreed-upon approach is to give health care to 47 million new beneficiaries without massive new costs by being
"more efficient" in allocating the currently available health care assets. ... Here is what this "efficiency" would mean
in stark terms: severely restricting health care services to our elderly, and the severely and terminally ill.
"Efficiency" here means providing services to millions of young and healthy, who do not need much of it, and cutting health
care to seniors and the severely ill who "statistically do not have as much to lose by not getting good health care."
How to Stop Socialized Health
Care: It was a sobering breakfast with one of the smartest Republicans on Capitol Hill. We can fix a
lot of bad stuff President Barack Obama might do, he told me. But if Mr. Obama signs into law a "public option,"
government-run insurance program as part of health-care reform we won't be able to undo the damage. I'd go the
Republican member of Congress one further: If Democrats enact a public-option health-insurance program, America
is on the way to becoming a European-style welfare state. To prevent this from happening, there are five
arguments Republicans must make.
Health Care Huckster. President
Obama advocates a system in which individuals are offered government subsidies to purchase insurance on a government-run
insurance exchange, allowing them to choose between a government-run plan and "private" plans that are designed by the
government. And yet we're supposed to believe that this won't lead to a government takeover of medicine.
The Myth of Low Cost
Obama Care. Our new President has set aside more than $600 billion dollars as a "down payment" toward
remaking the US health care system. As liberals search for a model upon which to base our new socialized system they
look toward other countries whose populations and demographic realities are very different from ours. It is very
feasible to build upon the excellent, though admittedly flawed system we currently have by adopting changes that would
reduce government mandated oppressive regulations passed on from Medicare to private insurance providers.
Government care is
an oxymoron. The surgery that Drs. Kennedy, Waxman, Miller, Rangel and Chief of Government-Run Medicine Barack
Obama propose has been done in socialist countries all over the world. Here, though, it's considered experimental. ... If
the desired results are freedom of choice, timely access to care, high quality of care, flexibility, innovation —
the things the vast majority of Americans enjoy today — plus any chance at reducing cost and bureaucracy, the
proposals the Democratic surgical team is pushing are exactly the wrong things to do.
Stopping Obama's
Health Care Takeover Must be Our Top Priority. "President Obama says that the nation is in a
very deep recession and it will take considerable time to recover." Ladies and gentlemen, we are in a
bad recession precisely because of President Obama's policies. His policies have deepened the recession,
and they are responsible for lengthening it, and his announced "solutions" today to speed up more government
spending with more hiring of "shovel-ready jobs" and so forth is only going to compound the problem and make
it even worse ... The question remains: At what point will people who voted for Obama begin to
see it this way?
Senate
braces for battle on health care plan without specifics. As President Barack Obama promotes health
care reform with campaign-style events this week, he is making the case for a plan that does not exist.
In the Senate, lawmakers have just begun jousting over health policy. And with the president's August
deadline for a workable plan fast approaching, Obama will soon have to take a position on an actual plan and
not extoll a hypothetical one.
Con games and stimulus cash. Remember
how all those billions in "stimulus" money allocated in Washington last year were reserved for "shovel-ready"
projects, creating new construction jobs and additionally re-building our infrastructure — roads,
piers, bridges, stuff like that? ... As it turns out, most of that money is going where government always puts
most of its money — into fat paychecks for social service bureaucrats. ... Two-thirds of recovery
money that flows directly to states will go toward health care. Not hiring new doctors or nurses, mind
you. Just paying medical bills for poor people — and the salaries of those who handle this
redistribution of your hard-earned cash.
Obama's Voodoo Health Economics. On
Monday [6/1/2009] President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers released a report called "The Economic Case for Health Care
Reform." The report argues that Americans must curb their consumption of medical care in order to avoid soaring
federal deficits, unsustainable burdens on family budgets, and damage to the economy. All of these claims are untrue.
Obama's
Health Care Reform "Paints the Roses Red". President Obama has correctly identified that Americans spend a
great deal more on health care than any other developed nation. According to the Administration's website, the U.S.
spent over "$2.2 trillion on health care in 2007, or $7,421 per person — nearly twice the average of other
developed nations." But, if Americans are spending too much for health care as the Administration contends,
why does the President's health care reform set aside an additional $634 billion over 10 years, over half
of which will come from tax increases? Apparently, as the Cheshire Cat might say, the new Wonderland logic
means that you lower costs by spending more.
Following God, and Ted Kennedy,
on Socialized Medicine. Throughout the Bush administration, the media warned of government collusion
with the Religious Right. Now that the so-called Religious Left is unleashing a major push to repeat the
Democrats' talking points on socialized medicine, we learn its representatives take their marching orders from
Ted Kennedy.
Hello GovernmentCare, Goodbye Personal
Privacy. In the newly released Obamacare plan, section 3102 titled "Financial Integrity" makes
provision for state and federal governments to be able to investigate any medical care provider at any time.
This provision gives government the right to look at any record that a doctor has in his files and that
means your private medical information. Worse, they may do so without court approval, without a
warrant, with no cause stated.
Senators Respond to Obama on Health
Care. Mr. Obama says his plan would allow Americans to keep private coverage. But
Republicans say once a government insurance program is created, it will eventually dominate the market,
driving private insurers out of business.
Misdirecting Health
Care. For Obama, passing socialized medicine would be the crowning achievement of his liberal
presidency, marking him a success in the collective mind of the left no matter what else happens under his
watch. For Americans, it will mean government control over another one-sixth of the economy, and the
cold hand of government directing our most critical and private medical decisions.
Dear
Mr. President, What Does 'Health Reform' Mean? President Obama needs our urgent support, he
says, because he wants to pass healthcare reform this year. Apparently it's so urgent that he's reversing
the positions that got him elected. Candidate Obama, who ruthlessly attacked Candidate McCain for
proposing to tax health benefits "for the first time in history" — when McCain was actually
offering a tax credit — is now President Obama, who is suddenly "open to" taxing our health
benefits.
Doctors
can write their own prescription. There are more than 800,000 doctors in the United States, up
from a half million only 20 years ago. Each and every one of these professionals face a tidal wave
of change whether or not Obamacare passes out of the Congress in the next 90 days.
62 Million Voiceless
Americans. Under the guise of universal health care, our government is preparing to take over
approximately 17% of our economy by nationalizing health care. Not to worry, they are consulting with
the policymakers in Canada responsible for the sterling healthcare in that country. The very same
government health care that forces Canadians to come to the US to get their medical needs taken care of.
Shelby:
Obama will destroy 'best health care system the world has ever known'. "When the government is
involved more and more in the details," Shelby said, "and you start the one-pay deal and you got the government
competing with private enterprise with all the incentives the government has and the power, they can destroy
the marketplace for health care and it will be a mistake and the American people better be careful in what
they want."
Obama's Health Cost Illusion.
The main White House argument for health-care reform goes something like this: If we spend now on a hugely
expensive new insurance program for the middle class, we can save later by reducing overall U.S. health
spending. ... What if this particular theory turns out to be a political illusion? What if the speculative
cost savings never report for duty, while the federal balance sheet is still swamped with new social obligations
that will be impossible to repeal? The only possible outcome will be the nationalization of U.S. health
markets, which will mean that almost all care will be rationed by politics.
Signing On to an Obama 'Dream'.
At a news conference yesterday [5/12/2009], President Obama said, "I will not rest until the dream of health-care
reform is achieved in the United States of America." Normally dreams cost you nothing, but Mr. Obama's
determination not to rest until his becomes reality is likely to cost plenty.
How ObamaCare Will Affect Your Doctor:
At the heart of President Barack Obama's health-care plan is an insurance program funded by taxpayers, administered
by Washington, and open to everyone. Modeled on Medicare, this "public option" will soon become the
single dominant health plan, which is its political purpose. It will restructure the practice of
medicine in the process.
DNC Organizing to Destroy U.S.
Healthcare. Organizing for America, a propaganda arm of the Democratic National Committee, is
lying to Americans about leftists' proposed so-called reforms of the healthcare system.
The Obamacare to
Come. Drip by painful drip, the details of the Democratic health-care-reform plan have been leaking
out. And from what we can see so far, it looks like bad news for American taxpayers, health-care providers,
and, most important, patients.
A stealth budget bill.
President Obama is insisting on arcane procedural language tucked away in the budget resolution conference
report that will dramatically expand the federal government's control over your personal health care decisions
and our nation's health care system, all without a single hearing or a public debate.
Court
Says Bureaucrats, Not Doctors, Decide What Is 'Medically Necessary'. Earlier this month, a panel of the
11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of three states that filed suit to have final medical decision-making
authority transferred from doctors to state bureaucrats.
An
Alternative to Obamacare. While President Obama may believe the stars are aligned for major
health reform this year it is far from certain whether Congress will pass a bill that works. The
groups that are most likely to unravel this effort are not the president's opponents, but his allies.
Obamacare's epic contradiction:
The Obama administration reported last week that Social Security will begin paying out more than it receives in 2016, a
year sooner than previously predicted. Medicare's plight is even worse: It started paying more than it collects
last year. And it will deplete its trust fund in 2017, two years earlier than expected.
Obama's
'Public' Health Plan Will Bankrupt the Nation. Does anybody really believe that adding
50 million people to the public health-care rolls will not cost the government more money?
About $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion more? At least. So let's be serious when evaluating
President Obama's goal of universal health care, and the idea that it's a cost-cutter. Can't happen.
Won't happen. Costs are going to explode. Think of it: Can anyone name a federal
program that ever cut costs for anything? Let's not forget that the existing Medicare system is
roughly $80 trillion in the hole.
Healthcare
Crusaders Out To Plunder System. Since Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, proponents of
socialized medicine have bombarded us with nonstop demagoguery about the 40 million-plus uninsured to
create a crisis mentality sufficient to catalyze sweeping "reforms." Their efforts didn't stand much of
a chance until the advent of the pseudo-crisis-exploiting administration of President Barack Obama, which
never met a "crisis" it couldn't leverage.
The Cost of Free
Government Health Care: Proponents of government-run health care like to point out that
countries with such a system spend a smaller percentage of their gross domestic product on health care
than the United States. What they don't like to mention is how those savings are achieved. For
example: Patients lose the right to decide what treatment they'll receive. Instead, patients
receive whatever care politicians and bureaucratic number crunchers decide is "cost effective."
Does
the right of conscience not count to Obama? President Barack Obama promised during the 2008 campaign
to end the "politics of division," but his decision to eliminate the "conscience clause" in federal regulation for
medical professionals and his nomination of a woman who calls mothers "fetal containers" to head the White House
Office of Legal Counsel are as explosively divisive as it gets.
Defeat Obamacare.
Obama's liberal [health care] reforms would probably be irreversible. Most ominous is creation of a government health
insurance program open to everyone. The respected Lewin Group estimates such a program would soon cover 130 million
Americans, most of them refugees from private insurance. It would only be a short step to a Canadian-style, single
payer system run by bureaucrats in Washington.
Stop
ObamaCare. The Obama plan, whatever its tactical cleverness, will suffer from the
key drawbacks of all government-financed and managed health insurance. It would make the government the
gatekeeper — the controller of prices and the provider of coverage. Health care decisions
would increasingly be made in Washington and subject to political pressures that take into account neither
patient needs nor economic realities.
Obama, Heal Thyself. The medical
liability system as we know it is highly flawed. It poorly compensates those injured, drives up the cost
of health care by forcing physicians to practice defensive medicine for fear of being sued, and is driving
good doctors out of practice.
GE a corporate sponsor.
For all of the carping liberals did for eight years about corporate cronyism in George W. Bush's White
House, they seem to turn a blind eye to the same behavior in President Obama's. With plans in place for
a major overhaul in the health-care industry, General Electric is positioning itself to become a major
beneficiary of these health care reforms.
The Coming Of Zerocare.
It would be naïve to think that we are not going to see Obama and his Democratic majorities impose a form
of National Health Care (NHC) as early in this term as he can. We will most likely see this just prior to
the 2010 Congressional elections in an effort to keep his majorities by "buying" the votes of non-tax-paying
citizens but before the system collapses under the price tag of whichever format he chooses.
Alternative to Obamacare.
Without much fanfare, Sens. Richard Burr (R., N.C.) and Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) have become leading advocates of market-based
health reform. This week they will introduce their alternative to Obamacare. It has no chance of passing in the
current Congress. But it does signify progress for GOP health-care reformers, who recognize that if Republicans are
to improve their credibility on this issue, they must offer their own proposals for reducing costs and expanding coverage.
Democrats' Stealth
Approach to Universal Health Care. What ever happened to Preisdent Obama's promise of an open
government? ... Because health care is one of the big drivers of government spending in Obama's budget —
nationalized health care for Democrats has been a dream since FDR — Democrats have decided to use a
process called "reconciliation" to pass the budget bill in the Senate (Reconciliation waives the need for a
super majority vote of 60; a majority vote will do), so there is no chance that Republicans will be able to
derail the bill.
National Health Care With 51 Votes.
Late last week President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders agreed to use "budget reconciliation"
if necessary to jam a massive health-care bill through Congress. Most Americans probably greeted this
news with the glazed eyes and yawns that should rightfully accompany any discussion of "the federal budget
process" longer than 30 seconds. But this decision is a deeply troublesome attempt to circumvent
the normal and customary workings of American democracy.
Fearing Our
Government. The government is a heartbeat away from nationalizing health care based on
deliberate misinformation about the nation's uninsured and despite the 100 percent failure rate of such
fantastic reforms elsewhere on the globe.
Upfront
costs complicate Obama's health care plan. Costs are emerging as the biggest obstacle to President
Barack Obama's ambitious plan to provide health insurance for everybody. The upfront tab could reach
$1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion over 10 years, while expected savings from wringing waste and
inefficiency from the health care system may take longer to show.
The Editor asks...
Does anyone really expect government intervention to be the cure for "waste and inefficiency"?
Irreconcilable Differences.
This week, there was a major development that could give one political party carte blanche to remake the country's health
care system. ... A procedural vote ... increased the likelihood of a federal government takeover of health care. Both
houses of Congress passed a $3.5 trillion budget resolution. Included in the conference report was reconciliation
language that would allow health care legislation to be rammed through the expedited budgetary process with no amendments,
no filibusters, and minimal debate.
Are We Ready for Soros Care? Most of Barack
Obama's stated plans for America are indistinguishable from those of George Soros. As the left forces nationalized
health care on us, we may want to consider the George Soros funded Project on Death in America.
Obama's Budget Chief Doesn't Know the
Total Cost of Obama's Health-Care Plan. Even President Obama's budget chief doesn't know how much it
will eventually cost to enact the president's vision of health-care reform. The proposed $3.5 trillion
budget for the 2010 fiscal year, which would raise the federal deficit to $1.75 trillion, contains $634 billion
for health-care reform to come from tax increases and "savings" in the medical system — money to expand health
coverage for Americans currently without health insurance.
Ryan: Dems Will
Rush Through Health Care. In the next week or so, Democrats will make sweeping changes to American health
care using "budget reconciliation," an arcane process that allows Congress to minimize debate, prevent amendments, and
circumvent filibusters in the Senate, a top Republican budgeteer predicts. "You would do the same thing, too," said
Rep. Paul Ryan (R, Wisc.), the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee and the author of the Republicans'
alternative budget. "It's basically an insurance policy to get their agenda passed. Why would they take
this tool off the table when they don't need to?"
DeMint Moves To
Block Socialized Medicine. A South Carolina lawmaker introduced a motion Thursday [4/23/2009] that would
allow Americans to keep their current health-care plans even if the Obama administration successfully passes universal
health care.
Bam's
Bad Medicine. President Obama's new budget dedicates $634 billion over the next 10 years
to what he calls health reform. He promises — or perhaps threatens — that this vast
sum will be a down payment for universal coverage, which could require more than $1 trillion.
What
Does the President's 'Meaningful Coverage' Mean for Health Care? Upon taking office, President
Obama hit the ground running on comprehensive healthcare reform that he originally referred to as "universal
health care" but now calls "meaningful coverage." What is "meaningful coverage," and what do the few
specifics we've been given concerning it portend for our future physical health and the viability of our
nation as a whole?
The end of physician
conscience protection in America? No one wants the government telling physicians they must violate
their conscience in the practice of medicine. This is especially important regarding life and death decisions.
This basic principle securing the integrity of physician-patient relationships has been threatened of late.
Obama Administration Wants to Be Your Conscience.
The "conscience clause" was put in place by President Bush in his final days in office. According to LifeNews.com
under this rule "workers in health-care settings — from doctors to janitors — can refuse to provide
services, information or advice to patients on subjects such as contraception, family planning, blood transfusions and even
vaccine counseling if they are morally against it."
Obama's prescription:
Of all President Obama's transformative domestic policy proposals, none is more far-reaching and less transparent
than health care.
A Budget Plan Good Enough To
Read. The president seems determined to establish a government health program that's sure to
elbow out private plans, rob patients of their power of choice, and Frenchify American medicine. Our
inevitable entitlement crisis, festering beneath the rug under which politicians have kept it for so many
years, is entirely unaddressed in the Democrats' massive tax-and-spend plans. Congressional Republicans
have countered all this irresponsibility and deceptiveness with their own detailed budget.
Healthcare
Reform — Too Big to Fail? What happens next with respect to Obama's agenda? He has
certainly bitten off more than he can chew, even if his Cabinet and aides feel they're primed for bolder agenda
items. One issue that will suck all of the political oxygen out of the room in the coming weeks and months
is the president's health care plan.
Two Forms of ID and
Your Colonoscopy Report, Please. I am not ideologically opposed to EMRs [electronic medical
records]. When done well, they are much more efficient and easier to read and use. However, it
can take months to train an office in EMRs. And if the computers are down, everything stops. ... I
recently heard an expert on television claim that gathering everyone's EMRs on one big government server
will solve that sterotypical problem — the doctor with indecipherable handwriting. I have
to agree that some of these doctors must be writing with their feet. However, I employed a much
simpler remedy than taking steps toward socialized medicine. I called the doctor and asked him what
he wrote. True, there are practitioners out there who should not be allowed anywhere near a pen.
But if my records are going to be sent to Barack Obama, I'd prefer they remain illegible!
The Myth of the 46 Million:
Whether it's in political speeches, commentary, newspaper features, or hard news stories, the statistic of 46 million
uninsured is one of the most-widely cited numbers in the health care debate. It promotes the idea that nearly one out
of every six Americans does not have access to health care and it plays into the arguments of those calling for massive
expansion of government to fix the problem. Yet the ubiquitous figure is highly misleading.
Extinguishing Physician
Conscience. The largest generational cohort in American history, the Baby Boomers, will be the
first Americans to be denied available effective life-saving treatments for reasons of cost. The seeds
for this mass liquidation have already been planted.
Take Two Aspirin and
Call Your Congressman in the Morning. As a nurse, I am always concerned when the government
announces it has plans for our health care, so I decided to investigate Mr. Daschle's ideas. I read his
book Critical: What We Can Do about the Health-Care Crisis. ... In the introduction, the Senator
recounts for us the many attempts by the federal government, beginning with Harry Truman, to guarantee
health care to all Americans. Since none of these attempts have succeeded, Daschle diagnoses
American health care as "broken."
Ruin
Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan. Republican Senators are questioning whether President
Barack Obama's stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the
economy. Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without
discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head
the Health and Human Services Department. Senators should read these provisions and vote against them
because they are dangerous to your health.
Obama budget has $634 billion health
fund. President Barack Obama's budget outline for the 2010 fiscal year includes a 10-year, $634-billion
reserve fund to help pay for his proposed healthcare reforms, a White House official said on Wednesday [2/25/2009].
Fedzilla Goes Quack. Legendary
comedian George Carlin once joked that someone in the world has an appointment tomorrow with the world's
worst doctor. With President Obama ready to unleash Fedzilla to prey upon the nation's health care
system, the American people may soon find Mr. Carlin's joke not so funny. The first rule of medicine is
to do no harm to the patient. With Fedzilla as the nation's doctor, that rule will be tossed aside as
Fedzilla brings irreparable harm, unnecessary pain, skyrocketing costs, and untold discontent to everything
its bloated, unaccountable bureaucratic hands come into contact with.
Obama's LBJ Syndrome:
As Americans listen to the smooth assurances from President Obama that his health care plan would cost
$634 billion over 10 years, a look back at how liberal assurances like these actually work
out in practice is in order. Specifically, let's take a look at the smooth assurances in 1965 from
LBJ as to the costs he saw for Medicare. Medicare, of course, was the liberal health care panacea
for seniors enacted into law by LBJ and a Democrat Congress in July of 1965 and is a fixture of today's
America. So how much was Medicare supposed to cost the American people? Promised a
solemn LBJ: $500 million a year.
Repeal Health Care Fascism.
Buried in Barack Obama's so-called stimulus bill is funding for a bureaucratic structure for the government to begin
rationing the health care of the American people. A centralized government bureaucracy would be established that
would ultimately have the power to decide what health care you can have, and when, especially when it involves highly
expensive, advanced medical care for the seriously ill. Unless this is stopped, many of you reading this article
right now will one day suffer death-by-liberalism, when the government bureaucracy decides that the health care you
need is not worth the cost, or puts you in a waiting line where death will arrive before treatment.
Obama's $80 Billion Exaggeration.
The basis for the president's proposal is a theoretical study published in 2005 by the RAND Corporation, funded
by companies including Hewlett-Packard and Xerox that stand to financially benefit from such an electronic
system. And, as the RAND policy analysts readily admit in their report, there was no compelling evidence
at the time to support their theoretical claims. Moreover, in the four years since the report,
considerable data have been obtained that undermine their claims. The RAND study and the Obama
proposal it spawned appear to be an elegant exercise in wishful thinking.
Stopping
the Destruction of American Health Care. President Obama served notice on Tuesday night that he intends a
massive rewrite of the laws governing health care in the United States. Unlike the stimulus bill, such legislation
will do far more damage than just the waste of hundreds of billions of dollars. Obamacare will of course be
extraordinarily expensive, but far worse, it will radically alter the health care delivery system in the U.S.
If the Congress and the Administration get it wrong, the best health care system in history will quickly tailspin
into mediocrity or worse.
'Obama Robin Hood' announces $3.5 trillion budget. US
president Barack Obama has unveiled a $US3.5 trillion budget that outlines aggressive plans to boost
the recession-stricken US economy, overhaul its health care system and hike taxes on the rich.
Universal
coverage? First, look at the disaster in Massachusetts. To much fanfare from both right and
left in 2006, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to require all residents to buy health
insurance. ... Then Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, promised that "every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts
will soon have affordable health insurance." Yet just two years later, Romney's much-heralded
"solution" — touted by many as the model for a national program — has become an
embarrassing flop.
The
Nanny State takes our choices away. One of the key functions of modern government is to reduce,
by law, the options people have, especially when they are facing challenges to survival. A classic
example of this is socialized medicine. Like all socialist systems, government health care creates big
shortages and surpluses, beyond the reach of market correction: in this case, serious shortages of
doctors, nurses and essential equipment, balanced by huge surpluses of administration and unspecialized
support staff.
'Too Old' for Hip Surgery.
President Obama and Congressional Democrats are inching the U.S. toward government-run health insurance.
Last week's expansion of Schip —the State Children's Health Insurance Program —is a
first step. Before proceeding further, here's a suggestion: Look at Canada's experience.
How the Stimulus Bill
Could Kill You. When you read through the nearly seven hundred pages of the House stimulus bill
it is easy to begin dozing off after a few hundred billion dollars worth of run-of-the-mill wasteful
government spending. One has to keep a keen eye out for the components of the bill that don't just
steal your money, but that may actually do you great physical harm, if not kill you outright.
Obama Needs Socialism
Lesson. Sweden provides universal government-backed health care — it isn't even an option; it's
compulsory. That sounds comforting — until the day you might need access to that "free" care. The
current waiting time for hip replacement surgery in Stockholm, the Swedish capital, is 16 months. It's
"only" 13 months to see an urologist. How about 18 months for transplant surgery? A little
less is the norm for heart-bypasses.
The
Doctor Will See All of You Now. Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama are planning that the new Democratic
Congress' first order of business will be to extend the Massachusetts health-care mistake to all
50 states. ... If Kennedy succeeds in his goal of using the Massachusetts plan as a model for national
health care, average Americans will no longer get immediate access to medical care. They will have the
long waits and massive new taxpayer costs that the Massachusetts plan has produced.
Change to Think
Twice About: Around the world, single-payer systems keep costs down by rationing care. A
Cato Institute study found that in Norway, health care is funded through general tax revenues (taxes consume
45 percent of GDP). But Norwegians commonly travel abroad to avoid long waits. "Approximately
280,000 Norwegians are estimated to be waiting for care on any given day (out of a population of just
4.6 million)." In Britain, "delays in receiving treatment are often so long that nearly
20 percent of colon cancer patients considered treatable when first diagnosed are incurable by the
time treatment is finally offered."
Survey: Many Doctors Plan to Quit or Cut Back.
Primary care doctors in the United States feel overworked and nearly half plan to either cut back on how many
patients they see or quit medicine entirely, according to a survey released on Tuesday [11/18/2008]. And
60 percent of 12,000 general practice physicians found they would not recommend medicine as a career.
Kennedy's 'Right'
Is Wrong. When Sen. Ted Kennedy, valiantly fighting brain cancer, took the stage at the Democratic
convention on Monday night, he made it clear that he is now on a mission that cannot be completed unless he
returns to the Senate next year — with Barack Obama in the White House. Kennedy's quest is to
socialize medicine in America.
National Health Care Can Kill. John
Edwards and his rival for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, may disagree on some
things but they both support a universal health care system, their way of describing what is really socialized
medicine.
How
'Liberal' Care Would Kill Ted Kennedy: Of course, with his wealth and power, Kennedy would get
good treatment anywhere. But the same care is available to every American. Not so — if
we make the health "reforms" called for by Kennedy and other liberals.
The
Truth About Nationalized Healthcare. It doesn't make sense to buy insurance when you are young
and healthy if you are guaranteed access anyway when you are older and sicker. And that's the problem.
The exchange between the two Democrats highlights the dirty little secret that not even Hillary will tell you
about a universal government health insurance program. The problem with our current system that mandatory
national health insurance will solve is not that people don't get health care — it's that they
don't pay for it.
Government Medical Care Always Becomes Political Medical Care.
Americans did not invent democracy. What America rightly did, for the first time in history, was institutionalize the
concept of limited government — based not on majority rule, but on individual rights. Sadly, this
foundation is not properly recognized and is rapidly giving way to an ever-expanding government. … Those who say that
government should seize control of all of our medical care are ultimately advocating the elimination of all restraint on
government.
Just How Stupid Are American Voters? If
the Socialist Obama is elected, we can expect businesses to flee this country to more friendly locations overseas. They
will take jobs and cash out of our economy and tax revenues out of our national coffers. Socialized medicine will
bring the destruction of our healthcare system.
ObamaCare — Or Else!
Is there something disquieting about a president who only wants to spread love and compassion to all
Americans — or else? Or else he'll hate us forever? Or else he'll put us in
jail? Or else he'll stamp his feet and cry? That's the feeling I'm getting. He is
so intent on doing us all a big favor. ObamaCare is Just and Right and Compassionate —
and it has nothing to do with empowering the Left for the next generation and turning everybody else into
Russian serfs. Nothing at all. There's no self-interest in this man and his benevolent friends
from Chicago.
Medical Care is a
Successful and Growing Industry, not a Liability. Shall we permit a successful, growing and
productive industry to be destroyed, to be replaced with dozens of new bureaucratic agencies?
Bureaucrats and committees will then choose the care to be made available to you, and there will be
no appeal. Regulators will create a maze of new rules, thousands of pages of regulations, complicated
forms, and red tape, for doctors and patients alike. Long lines, impersonal cattle-car service,
rationing, waiting lists, and increased costs are the inevitable result (think DMV, Post Office,
$500 toilet seats).
President
Obama fiddles while health care burns. After six months of trying to keep the concept viable,
the White House is admitting what the old bulls of the Senate knew on day one. It's too expensive and
too socialist for the USA. You can have universal coverage for 9 million healthy, wealthy,
civic-minded Swedes. Doing so in a country of 310 million doughnut-munching, upward-striving,
liberty-loving Americans of every race and creed spread from Miami to Juneau is a non-starter.
Read the Union
Health-Care Label. In the heated debates on health-care reform, not enough attention is being
paid to the huge financial windfalls ObamaCare will dole out to unions — or to the provisions in
the various bills in Congress that will help bring about the forced unionization of the health-care industry.
Tucked away in thousands of pages of complex new rules, regulations and mandates are special privileges and
giveaways that could have devastating consequences for the health-care sector and the American economy at large.
Time to Get Out the Iron.
In a much-hyped speech aimed at rejuvenating his health care push, Obama delivered a message that was strikingly
similar to the one that has failed to resonate with the American people thus far. ... As he has done before,
Obama pledged to veto any bill that added to the deficit. But despite that commitment, the Congressional
Budget Office has ruled that the House Democrats' health care legislation would create $230 billion in
deficits over ten years.
Senate Finance Committee
Rejects Both Public Option Amendments. The Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday rejected two Democratic
amendments that would have created a government-run "public option" as part an overhaul of the nation's health-insurance
system, with the panel's chairman bowing to staunch Republican opposition that he said would prevent final passage of a
bill containing such a provision.
20 Questions About
Obamacare. The mainstream media has stopped asking any tough questions and has simply taken on the
role of a love struck cheerleader waving pom poms for her dashing boyfriend, the quarterback of the health care
plan. So, let's talk about the basic questions YOU should have answered to your satisfaction before you
consider supporting any health care bill that comes out of Congress.
President
Obama — We've Got Questions. Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have rejected a GOP amendment
that would have required that the final health overhaul bill and a plain-English cost estimate be available online for
72 hours before any vote. Mr. President, a short summary isn't enough! Since a biased media isn't
asking, we've got questions. Do you have answers?
Taxpayer-funded abortions
A 'Dear Congresswoman' Letter
Protesting ObamaCare. [Scroll down] Of particular concern to those of us who are opponents of using
public funds to pay for abortions and for many family-planning programs is the continued insistence that the legislation
permit such expenditures. In spite of protestations to the contrary, the efforts that have been made to offer
amendments that would forthrightly limit such expenditures have been rejected by the relevant House committees.
The existing language will, undoubtedly, be interpreted as to require these services when the plan is active. When
our legislature is faced with an issue that so many citizens view as abhorrent and, for many, immoral, it is not asking
too much that public funds not be used for them.
Obama's Conscience Claws: Will You be Forced to Perform
Abortions? Modern liberals have a habit of denying the inevitable consequences of their policies. They
refuse to concede that a healthcare bureaucracy created and run by persons who embrace utilitarian views of human life might
unsettle Americans concerned that government would, as Senator Chuck Grassley put it this week, "pull the plug on Grandma."
And they seem baffled by those who find President Obama's professed desire to "reduce the number of abortions" difficult to
reconcile with his efforts to subsidize and expand access to them.
Ten Questions
Politicians Won't Answer. [#2] What programs will you cut and whose taxes will you raise to pay
for health-care reform? ... [#3] What earmarks or pet projects that you have sponsored will you sacrifice to
help finance the cost of health-care reform? ... [#4] Will you vote for a public option that requires
taxpayer-funded abortion?
ObamaCare Likely to Mandate Free "Sex-Change"
Surgeries. When asked by Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT) whether President Obama's proposed socialized
healthcare plan will mandate taxpayer funded abortion, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) admitted that it will
require "any service deemed medically necessary or medically appropriate." It now appears that the plan's
"medically appropriate" umbrella is far more expansive than most Americans could have imagined.
Dirty Secret
No. 2 in Obamacare: I find it striking that Obama's ethics similarly have allowed him already
to pass more laws increasing the terminations of life in the womb than any administration since Roe v. Wade.
To add insult to injury, Congress repeatedly has rejected amendments to this universal health care bill that
would prevent federal funds from being used for abortions.
Truth
and Advocates for Life Triumph! An independent polling company is out with a new survey with
stunning news: Family Research Council's ad warning of President Obama's government takeover of health care
is being highly effective. HCD Research used its MediaCurves.com website to poll Americans' ideas about
ObamaCare. FRC's ads criticize the President's plan for two fatal flaws: it will force Americans to
pay for abortion-on-demand and it will lead to rationed health care for all Americans. ... What this poll shows
is that federally-funded abortion is not a wedge issue, as Leftists contend, not a "distraction," as President
Obama maintains. It is vitally important.
Serfs Up! The more Americans
learn about ObamaCare, the more concerns they have. Opposition to mandatory abortion funding is
strong — up in the high 70-percent figures according to some reliable polls. This is not just
pro-life sentiment speaking. Yes, the majority of Americans have told the Gallup organization they are
pro-life. But this strong reaction goes even further. Millions of Americans who count themselves
pro-choice are opposed to being forced themselves to pay for abortion-on-demand and are conscientiously
opposed to forcing their pro-life neighbors to pay for it.
Abortion Haunting Obama. A
coalition of Catholic Bishops, concerned about that possibility, sent a letter to Congress and the White House in mid-July
demanding that health care reform "excludes abortion coverage or any other provisions that threaten the sanctity of life."
Religious conservatives aren't the only political demographic uneasy with the abortion implications of Obama's health care
revamp, either. In late June, about two dozen House Democrats sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi pledging opposition to any
reform bill that includes abortion coverage.
Pelosi Again Dodges Question of Tax-Funded
Abortions in Health Care Bill. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for a second time dodged a
question from CNSNews.com Friday [7/31/2009] about whether she supported prohibiting abortion funding in the health-care
reform bill. At a press conference on Friday, CNSNews.com asked: "Could you please give me a yes-or-no answer
on whether or not you personally, Speaker Pelosi, support expressly prohibiting the funding of abortion through the
federally subsidized health plan created by the health-care reform bill." Pelosi did not give a yes-or-no answer.
Hidden Within ObamaCare, an Abortion
Mandate. Government-owned health care will place bureaucrats in Washington in charge of your health care
options. This is wrong. Health care decisions must be made by you and your doctor. However, there is
another very serious concern with health care reform plans in Congress, especially the plan being offered in the House.
It will lead to mandated coverage of abortion, forcing employers and insurance providers to cover abortion as a health
care procedure and subsidizing abortions with the tax dollars of pro-life Americans who have grave moral objections.
Here's a clue: Are his lips moving?
Is
Obama lying about government funding of abortion? In a Wednesday [8/19/2009] conference call
with health care reform supporters, President Barack Obama called "untrue" and "a fabrication" charges that
the White House-backed legislation would result in "government funding of abortions." But Douglas
Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, says it was Obama who "brazenly
misrepresented the abortion-related component of the health care legislation that his congressional
allies and staff have crafted."
Obama
caught in Pinocchio moment. Last week, I wondered whether President Obama was telling a whopper
during a conference call on August 19 when he dismissed as "fabrications" charges by the National Right
to Life Committee and others that a White House-backed health reform bill contained government subsidies for
abortion. According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org, it was President Obama who
was not telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Sen. Mark Warner: 'No Place In Constitution That Says Health
Care'. During a town hall meeting at the Fredericksburg Expo Center, Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) said there
is "no place in the Constitution" that mentions health care or education, or even gives individuals the right to own a
telephone.
Obama May Need Sense of
Crisis to Revive Health-Care Overhaul. President Barack Obama returns to Washington next week
in search of one thing that can revive his health-care overhaul: a sense of crisis.
ObamaCare's
brave new world. Sarah Palin ignited a political firestorm when she worried that "death panels"
would deny end-of-life treatment to her son with Down syndrome. In fact, ObamaCare would more likely see
to it that people like Trig never even make it out of the womb. The outlook for children found to have
disabilities in utero is bleak now — because the medical-ethics establishment has spent decades
pushing for their abortion.
The
convenient fantasies of President Obama. There is an element of convenient fantasy as well in
Obama's health care statements to date. We are going to save money by spending money. We are
going to solve our fiscal problems with a program that will increase the national debt by $1,000,000,000,000
over a decade. We are going to guarantee you can keep your current insurance with a bill that encourages
your employer to stop offering it. The list goes on. We are going to improve health care for
seniors by cutting $500,000,000,000 from Medicare. We aren't going to insure illegal aliens, except that
we won't have any verification provisions to see that they can't apply and get benefits.
Americans
Firmly Against Government Abortion Plans. A new poll shows that 58% of Americans don't want abortions
to be paid for as part of any new public insurance plan. Yet four of the five health care plans floating around
Congress include language that would allow abortions to be paid for with public money. The only one that
doesn't — the Republican plan in the Senate — probably won't go anywhere.
'Abortion President' Makes False, Misleading Statements on Health
Bill, Congressman Says. President Barack Obama's assertion that the Democrat-backed health care overhaul
would not publicly fund abortions is "demonstrably false and extraordinarily misleading," Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.)
told the conservative Values Voters summit on Friday [9/28/2009]. Smith predicted that abortions would
increase by as much a one third if the Democrats' health care legislation is enacted.
48%
Want Abortion Coverage Banned in Health Care Plan. The health care reform legislation working its way
through Congress faces many obstacles primarily because it touches so many aspects of life. The abortion issue
is one more with the potential to create a lose-lose situation for advocates of the plan.
Senate
panel blocks GOP's abortion, illegals measures. Senate Republicans on Wednesday [9/30/2009]
failed in their bids to strengthen provisions to prevent both taxpayer funding of abortions and illegal
immigrants from obtaining access to government tax credits in the health care reform bill.
Fostering Abortion With
Soviet Gusto. Europe, of course, is a decadent place where spoiled, cheese-eating hedonists tolerate
socialist taxation and sexual perversion of almost any kind. European national health systems even pay for
abortions. President Obama has tried to be very clear that any American system won't — "Under our
plan," he told Congress on Sept. 9, "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions" — but that
hasn't kept the issue from flaring up.
Congressman Says He Now Has 'About 40 Likeminded
Democrats'. Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) told CNSNews.com yesterday [10/22/2009] that he has
organized a group of "about 40 likeminded Democrats" who will vote to kill the health-care bill if House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) does not allow a floor vote on his amendment to prohibit federal funds
from going to insurance plans that cover abortion.
Absolutism in
Disguise: Yes, Obamacare does mean federally funded abortion. During his presidential
campaign, Barack Obama adopted the two-step strategy on abortion that has become standard among liberal
politicians: oppose abortion as a matter of personal conviction but deny that that conviction
is relevant to public policy. This rhetorical sleight of hand is meant to accomplish two things...
Obama
Uses Semantics To Avoid Abortion Issue. A pro-life Congressman is claiming that President
Barack Obama told him in a phone conversation that when he addressed Congress on Sept. 9 and said "under
our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions" he was not talking about any of the bills
currently pending on the Hill, but his own plan — which only exists theoretically.
Abortion Care. Anyone who
believes that abortion won't eventually become a part of government run health care needs to start
paying attention; you're kidding yourself.
The Ellsworth Abortion Amendment Is a Fraud.
President Barack Obama is about to move one step closer to delivering on a big campaign promise: abortion
coverage in his health plan. ... Under the Ellsworth amendment, Americans will still be forced to pay for other
people's elective abortions. It's like a shell game — all it does is require the public
option to contract with private businesses to shuffle the money. The government will still take your
money through a mandatory premium and, under the Ellsworth plan, will give it to a private contractor to pay
the abortionist's bill.
Reid Introduces Senate Health Bill That Mandates
Federally Subsidized Abortion. Senate Majority Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) late Wednesday [11/18/2009]
published the final text of a Senate health care bill that would mandate federally subsidized abortion.
The mandate appears on page 120 of the 2,074-page bill under the seemingly innocuous heading:
'Assured Availability of Varied Coverage Through Exchanges."
End of Life issues
Will Obamacare result in the creation of "death panels" to decide who's too old and sick to
keep alive? Rationed health care will inevitably mean that corners must be cut. Look
out, grandma!
"Your Life, Your Choices".
Here are the links to several materials we discussed in this morning's [8/23/2009] segment about Veterans' health
care and end-of-life counseling with Former Director of the White House Faith Based Initiatives Jim Towey and
Assistant Secretary of Veterans? Affairs Tammy Duckworth.
Your Life Choices:
Recently, the VA re-implemented a pamphlet known as "Your Life — Your Choice" dealing with end of life
decisions for Veterans. I have briefly looked it over and here are a few pages to really pay
attention to: Page 24 — this is the page mentions things like you "cant shake the blues"
as a possible reason to not continue your life. You will also notice that it even mentions "I rely
on a kidney dialysis machine to keep me alive." My wife's Stepfather is on dialysis through
the VA and that just floored us when we saw it.
Throwing
Tammy Duckworth under the Bus. I just watched Tammy Duckworth try her best to defend the
V.A. "death book" on Fox News Sunday. ... While she admirably held her own, her talking points were often
very, very lame ... The upshot was she defended this irretrievably gross book on the merits and attacked
the messenger to boot.
The Death Book for
Veterans: Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated
a 52-page end-of-life planning document, "Your Life, Your Choices." It was first published in 1997 and
later promoted as the VA's preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes.
After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the
VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated "Your Life, Your
Choices."
Editor's note:
The booklet, Your life, your choices is
available with
and without the
cover page / disclaimer about the document being under review.
Give Me
Liberty or Give Me Death Panels. Right now, if I want a hip replacement, it's between me and my
doctor; the government does not have a seat at the table. The minute it does, my hip's needs are
subordinate to national hip policy, which in turn is subordinate to macro budgetary considerations.
Palin v. ObamaCare:
Once again we're presented with evidence that the health-care debate is occurring without adequate attention
being paid to the record of established nationalized health-care systems overseas. This has arisen as a
result of Sarah Palin's superb maneuver in forcing the administration to drop Section 1233 of the ObamaCare
act, entitled "Advance Care Planning Consultation." ... Palin accused the administration of opening the door to
euthanasia, with Section 1233 amounting to a first step toward "death panels" making life-and-death
decisions amounting to such action.
Death Care and the
Commodification of Life. Federal "healthcare" must inevitably turn into "Death Care," because
the bureaucracy will have the sole power to determine the rules under which you and I will live and die.
The bureaucrats will have a fixed pot of money, and money spent to save your life comes from the same kitty
that is used to give prenatal care to some poor woman from Mexico or Bangladesh. That is what they think
is moral — and this is an argument about morality above all. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm's brother
and big advisor to Obama, considers fee-for-service medicine immoral, because it allows richer people
to pay more.
'Death panels' exist already.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who says President Obama's heath care reform would result in "death panels," needs to look
no further than Texas to see a slippery slope like the one she envisions. In Texas, a legislative provision that many
thought was an innocuous proposal to help people has been twisted to snatch end-of-life decisions out of the hands of
families.
The Catholic Church and
Health Care Reform. Rationing health care could result in the death of a patient. It would
clearly be an example of an omission that may cause death. Although it may not be direct euthanasia, it is
definitely passive euthanasia.
Hello ObamaCare, Goodbye
Grandma. Oh, look! See Ezekiel. See Ezekiel Emanuel. Zeke is in charge of health care
policy for the Obama administration. ... See Zeke think. Zeke has not run a hospital. He has not run an
insurance company. He has not run a medical practice. He has not worked in the pharmaceutical industry.
Zeke has spent more than twenty years in education and government... thinking.
Unplugging Grandma isn't the
problem. Obamacare means treatment rationing, so getting Grandma plugged in in the first place is the
greater peril.
'Death panel' is not in the
bill... it already exists. H.R. 1 (more commonly known as ... the Stimulus Bill and aptly dubbed
the Porkulus Bill) contains a whopping $1.1 billion to fund the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative
Effectiveness Research. ... [The] stated purpose (and therefore President Obama's purpose) for creating the Council
is to empower an unelected bureaucracy to make the hard decisions about health care rationing that elected politicians
are politically unable to make.
That's Where the
Money Is. When famed bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he said:
"Because that's where the money is." For the same reason, it is as predictable as the sunrise that
medical care for the elderly will be cut back under a government-controlled medical system. Because
that's where the money is.
ObamaCare Is All About
Rationing. Although administration officials are eager to deny it, rationing health care is central to
President Barack Obama's health plan. The Obama strategy is to reduce health costs by rationing the services that we
and future generations of patients will receive.
Included in the Health Care Bill:
— Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer,
there will be no appeals process).
— Page 42: The "Health Choices Commissioner" will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.
— Page 149:Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll.
— Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option,
pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll.
— Page 167: Any individual who doesn't have acceptable healthcare (according to the
government) will be taxed 2.5% of income.
— Page 272: Cancer patients: welcome to the wonderful world of rationing!
— Page 425: Government provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in death.
And these are just a few examples.
'End-of-Life'
Counseling Intensifies Health Care Debate. A provision in President Obama's health care reform bill encourages
"end-of- life" counseling for seniors — sparking euthanasia fears among some of the legislation's critics and
leading others to believe that the White House is looking to save money by pressuring insurers to provide less
coverage to seniors. The provision, tucked deep within the House bill, would provide Medicare coverage for
an end-of-life consultation every five years, and more frequent sessions if a person is suffering a life-threatening
disease.
Gingrich:
Palin concerns about euthanasia warranted. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich lent credence Sunday
to Sarah Palin's claim that the healthcare reform legislation will create "death panels" to judge end-of-life issues.
"Communal standards, historically, is a very dangerous concept," Gingrich said on ABC's "This Week." On Saturday
morning [8/8/2009], Palin called President Obama's healthcare proposal "downright evil."
How House Bill Runs Over Grandma.
At a town hall meeting at AARP headquarters in Washington, D.C., President Obama was asked by a woman from North Carolina
if it was true "that everyone that's Medicare age will be visited and told they have to decide how they wish to die."
At first, the president joked that not enough government workers existed to ask the elderly how they wanted to die.
The idea, he said, was to encourage the use of living wills and that critics were misrepresenting the intent of the "end
of life" counseling provided for in the House bill. He did not say, "No, they wouldn't be contacted."
Did Obama Say We Should Kill the Old Folks to
Save Money Last Night? I am wondering when the euthanasia folks are going to start touting this
one? I mean, it sure seemed to me as if the most caring, most civil, most intelligent president evah
just said that healthcare could be cheaper if we don't give old folks and the infirm the full measure of care
they now get. It appeared that Obama said we should just let them die or suffer because they aren't
worth the effort. Imagine if Bush had said something like this? The left wouldn't have hesitated
to call him any manner of names.
Death as a cost-cutter.
Hurry up and die! That, in a nutshell, is how President Obama hopes to save large sums of money through
health care "reform." But that isn't how the president advertises it.
Rationing
health care. It doesn't matter what your doctor says; the Obama administration plans to decide if you will
have cancer treatment or heart surgery. ... The hypocrisy is enough to make a heart stop. A White House that doesn't
think government should intervene between a doctor and a woman deciding whether to have an abortion has no problem telling
doctors whether they can perform tonsillectomies or hysterectomies.
Nationalizing Life and
Death. Hidden deep in the stimulus bill is a Trojan horse like no other. I am not speaking
of pork. A scheme more dastardly would have been hard to concoct. With the passage of this bill,
the US government is now empowered to "ration" healthcare. That means, to treat or not to treat is now a
government question. Within the bill is a line that would sentence millions of people to death.
Will Old Folks Get in the Way of our
Brave New World? Washington bureaucrats hoped something wouldn't see the light of day until it was too late.
Buried in the stimulus bill is the framework for rationing medical care to the elderly. The part Obama and his cohorts
are talking about publicly — electronic medical records — sounds great: no more having to fill
out annoying paperwork at the doctor's office or hospital when you are ailing. But according to the provision's
author, former Health and Human Services director nominee (and tax cheat) Tom Daschle, there's much more, including the
newly-created bureaucracy of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology. What will the NCHIT be
doing? Making sure your doctor gives you the treatment it deems to be efficient and cost-effective. And
if your doctor doesn't comply? Well, that part is still a bit fuzzy.
Why Obamacare may
beget euthanasia. The idea comes straight from former Health and Human Services nominee Tom
Daschle's 2008 book "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis" in which he says that doctors
are going to have to give up their autonomy and "learn to operate less like solo practitioners." Inevitably,
this means the government will decide who gets lifesaving treatment and who doesn't. It is survival of
the fittest in practice.
Obamacare Could Kill You.
This "Federal Health Board," as Daschle refers to his proposed behemoth, would be modeled on Great Britain's
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). In the UK's socialized medical system,
NICE is the bureaucracy responsible for determining the value and effectiveness of medical treatments and
procedures. And it regularly hands down death sentences to gravely ill patients.
Obama Gives What Doctor Did Not
Order. Barack Obama forced a bitter pill down the throats of Americans that the doctor did not
order and patients do not want. Obama snuck into the stimulus bill a new system for rationing medical
care, and he got Congress to ram it through the House and Senate without reading it.
Stimulus Bill Raises Concerns Over Government
Rationing of Health Care. Two provisions in President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan could give the
federal government the authority to oversee the medical decisions made between doctors and patients, critics warn, which
could result in the rationing of health care.
Death Panels by Proxy.
[Scroll down slowly] Then a president who won't save infants born alive but who does want
the government to be involved (a "democratic conversation") in deciding end-of-life treatment — and
whose medical policy adviser would "prioritise" young people — hires as his chief science adviser a
man, John P. Holdren, who first gained notoriety pushing eugenics ideas such as coerced abortions, forced
sterilizations through the water supply, and other notions so outrageous that the man should never be accepted
in polite company again, much less have the ear of the President of the United States.
The Nightmare of Rationing in
Oregon. Two cases of "public option" administrators rejecting patient requests for lifesaving
or life-extending drugs (and instead offering to fund those patients' assisted suicides) reached the
mainstream media in the last two weeks. This has caused critics of President Barack Obama's health care
overhaul proposal to look to Oregon for clues about what a national health system would bring. The
picture is not pretty.
The fault,
dear Barack, is not in our stars, But in ourselves. The opposition to Obamacare would have gone
nowhere had the president offered a concise plan, had his team kept repeating four or five logical and easily
understandable talking points, and had he prepared a few pat answers to the more controversial elements of the
plan, from the public option to so-called "end of life" panels to treatment of illegal aliens and the real
cost.
Will You Still Need
Me, When I'm Sixty-four? We know that Social Security is unsustainable because fewer and fewer
workers are paying into the system to support more and more retirees. It is, as it was from Day One, a
pure, a classic Ponzi scheme masquerading as a pension plan. For decades, government commissions have
repeatedly recommended increasing the retirement age. Everyone agrees that the system will soon run out
of money. ... [Obama's] brilliant solution: encouraging Americans to continue to pay into Social
Security while discouraging Americans from asking for Social Security checks.
Obama to veterans: Drop dead!
When I wrote my Power Line post "Obama to Elderly: Drop Dead," I had no idea that the Obama administration had
already in one sphere implemented the macabre policy embedded within the various drafts of the health care
bill, but now I know better. In an important column published in the Wall Street Journal last week,
St. Vincent College President and former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives
Jim Towey spills the beans. The Department of Veterans Affairs is circulating among those in VA
hospitals a 52-page end-of-life planning document entitled Your Life, Your Choices.
Remember the Golden Oldies, Dr.
Emanuel. Someone like Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health advisor to Obama, and Zeke's brother Rahm, who loves
to hurl thunderbolts from Mount Olympus and bully freshman congressmen. They and their ilk will give us "guidance"
about who is worthwhile, who is ready to die, who shall live a week or two longer. Zeke is a Harvard academic
who is arrogant enough to believe that he can change human nature and decide the most intimate and complex of human
issues — those of life and death.
Obama's Friends 'Out' the Death
Panels. The president and his media enablers are outraged, just outraged, that anyone would suggest
the prospect of, let alone come up with a name for, government panels designed to ration care for the
elderly — and as the president said, "pull the plug on grandma." Nothing lower, the left punditocracy
fumed, than coming up with the "death panel" slur. Except that is precisely what Obama and his ilk want.
Talking Seniors to Death.
This benevolent plan is in Section 1233 (p. 424) of the health care reform bill known as "America's Affordable Health
Choices Act of 2009" (HR 3200). It didn't just show up on the doorstep of health care reform, but was packaged and
delivered by Compassion & Choices, the assisted-suicide advocacy group previously known as the Hemlock Society.
In Revolt Against
Euthanasia. Earlier this summer, former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah
Palin was criticized for deploying hyperbole in her opposition of health-care-reform proposals on the table in
Washington, D.C. She warned of end-of-life "death panels." By doing so, she got some pols to back
down from proposed "end-of-life counseling" boards that would parcel out advice in a government-controlled
health-care system.
The Convenient
Death. Wait for patients to die before taking their organs, and the organs won't be as fresh.
Let doctors take the organs from living patients — even if it means causing them to die a little faster
than they otherwise would — and the supply of usable organs will go up. Some other patient will
get a second chance at life, and the dead guy won't miss anything: What could possibly go wrong with this idea?
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