Tag Archives: Medical Mania

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Judge: Obamascare Lawsuit Continues

Judge disses Dems’ ‘Alice in Wonderland’ health defense

A federal judge in Florida on Thursday said he will allow some of the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the health care law to proceed — and criticized Democrats for making an “Alice in Wonderland” argument to defend the law.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson allowed two major counts to proceed: the states’ challenge to the controversial requirement that nearly all Americans buy insurance and a required expansion of the Medicaid program.

In his ruling, Vinson criticized Democrats for seeking to have it both ways when it comes to defending the mandate to buy insurance. During the legislative debate, Republicans chastised the proposal as a new tax on the middle class. Obama defended the payment as a penalty and not a tax, but the Justice Department has argued that legally, it’s a tax.

“Congress should not be permitted to secure and cast politically difficult votes on controversial legislation by deliberately calling something one thing, after which the defenders of that legislation take an “Alice-in-Wonderland” tack and argue in court that Congress really meant something else entirely, thereby circumventing the safeguard that exists to keep their broad power in check,” he wrote.

Vinson ruled that it’s a penalty, not a tax, and must be defended under the Commerce Clause and not Congress’s taxing authority.

A Dec. 16 trial date is planned in the lawsuit, brought by 20 state attorneys general and governors. Many legal experts expect it to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

This could be B.O.’s Schechter case [A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935) that poked a stick in the spokes of the NRA (NOT the National Rifle Association!) and effectively gutted the early phase of the so-called New Deal of FDR.]

One can hope for an outcome that would clamp down of B.O.’s latest iteration of the progressive worship of bureaucracy and centralization of power as expressed by Obamascare.

Obamunism

Obamacare Blues

Health Care Law
63% Favor Repeal of National Health Care Plan

Support for Obamacare continues to slip:

Support for repeal of the new national health care plan has jumped to its highest level ever. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 63% of U.S. voters now favor repeal of the plan passed by congressional Democrats and signed into law by President Obama in March.

Prior to today, weekly polling had shown support for repeal ranging from 54% to 58%. Currently, just 32% oppose repeal.

The new findings include 46% who Strongly Favor repeal of the health care bill and 25% who Strongly Oppose it.

While opposition to the bill has remained as consistent since its passage as it was beforehand, this marks the first time that support for repeal has climbed into the 60s. It will be interesting to see whether this marks a brief bounce or indicates a trend of growing opposition.

What happened to all those assertions from ObamaPelosiReid that once the bill passed and people knew what was in it that it would magically become popular? Oooops!

China Watch

ChiCom’s Recycled Body Parts “e-Bay”

“Paging Dr. Mengele, Dr. Mengele, stat!”
And we’re supposed to keep negotiating and doing business with the ChiComs?

Chinese accused of vast trade in organs
Harvests come from religious dissidents

China’s hidden policy of executing prisoners of the forbidden quasi-Buddhist group Falun Gong and harvesting their organs for worldwide sale has been expanded to include Tibetans, “house church” Christians and Muslim Uighurs, human rights activists said Monday.

In a news conference on Capitol Hill, several speakers, including attorney David Matas of B’nai Brith Canada and Ethan Gutmann of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said their investigations have unearthed a grisly trade in which an estimated 9,000 members of Falun Gong have been executed for their corneas, lungs, livers, kidneys and skins.

They likened the practice to the Nazi treatment of Jewish prisoners in World War II concentration camps, which included using them for sadistic medical experiments and taking the gold fillings from the teeth of corpses.

The newest wrinkle, they said, is that organs from other religious prisoners — specifically dissidents from China’s Christian, Muslim and Tibetan Buddhist communities — are also being harvested to satisfy an insatiable global demand.

“These groups are useless to the state,” Mr. Gutmann said. “They are toxic, so you can’t release them. But they’re worth a great deal of money in terms of their organs.”

Organs from just one person can fetch a total of $100,000 on the worldwide market, he added.

Remember the investigations on corporations who were in bed with the Nazis?

So what about the same or worse with the ChiComs…or is a business one that’s deemed “too big to fail”?

Obamunism

Obamacare: Costly Error

Report: Health overhaul will increase USA’s tab

President Obama’s health care overhaul law will increase the nation’s health care tab instead of bringing costs down, government economic forecasters concluded Thursday in a sobering assessment of the sweeping legislation.

A report by economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department said the health care remake will achieve Obama’s aim of expanding health insurance — adding 34 million Americans to the coverage rolls.

But the analysis also found that the law falls short of the president’s twin goal of controlling runaway costs. It also warned that Medicare cuts may be unrealistic and unsustainable, driving about 15% of hospitals into the red and “possibly jeopardizing access” to care for seniors.

The mixed verdict for Obama’s signature issue is the first comprehensive look by neutral experts.

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

Not.

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From the Gipper: Nat’l Healthcare = Socialist Meds

Once upon a time, when Harry Truman was President and was seeking universal healthcare…(from the L.A. Times)

Same healthcare arguments, just decades earlier

…to serve as the public face of its campaign against a government-sponsored health plan, the AMA chose none other than Ronald Reagan, the star of “General Electric Theater” and former president of the Screen Actors Guild whose views on politics matched its own.

Warning that enacting Medicare would lead to socialism in America, Reagan said that if Americans did not stop Medicare reform, “one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in America when men were free.”

In an 11-minute recording for the AMA, Reagan invoked the name of Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party presidential candidate, saying:

“Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program. . . . One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. . . .

“Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We have an example of this. Under the Truman administration, it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this.”

Reagan’s prescription? “Write to our congressmen and senators,” he said. “The key issue is this: We do not want socialized medicine . . . demand the continuation of our traditional free-enterprise system.”

Sound familiar?

Note to critical readers: it’s not the Chief that is labeling universal health care as socialist…it’s the proudly socialist Norman Thomas making the point. If you want to argue, take it to him yourself!

Obamunism

Obamascare Clears House

1 Comment

Sickening!

Congress clears historic health care bill

Summoned to success by President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled Congress approved historic legislation Sunday night extending health care to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and cracking down on insurance company abuses, a climactic chapter in the century-long quest for near universal coverage.

Widely viewed as dead two months ago, the Senate-passed bill cleared the House on a 219-212 vote. Republicans were unanimous in opposition, joined by 34 dissident Democrats.

SO…what will we REALLY get? (Besides inevitable national bankruptcy!)

Obamacare Means 159 New Gov’t Agencies

Oh, joy…just what we need. (NOT!)

The new government agencies that will be created as the result of Obamacare will worsen the quality of American medical care by restricting physicians and hospitals to use their best judgment, according to Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., a physician and chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

In fact, he says, the bill would create 159 new governemnt agencies to regulate insurance and medical care for Americans.

In Churchillian terms this will not be the end of the debate…it’s not the beginning of the end…it’s the end of the beginning.

Hatch Says It’s ’Nuts’ to Think House Vote Ends Health Issue

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch said Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are “nuts” to think tomorrow’s vote on health-care legislation will resolve the issue.

If the measure passes, Senate Republicans have enough votes on at least two points of order to alter the measure and send it back to the House for a second round of votes, Hatch said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend.

“If those people think they’re only going to vote on this once, they’re nuts,” Hatch said as House Democratic leaders rounded up support before the scheduled vote on President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

“Any stick will do when you want to beat a snake.”

Obamunism

Obamascare Digest

There’s a LOT of stuff right now on this…because there is a lot happening. Follow the links for additional coverage on these…

Sen. Thune, to his credit, is leading out in the Senate opposition to Obamascare:

Thune: GOP preparing to slow or block health bill in Senate debate

Republicans are preparing to raise points of order and other roadblocks to the healthcare bill, a member of the Senate GOP leadership said Tuesday evening.

Like the African proverb says: “Any stick will do when you have to beat a snake.”

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the fourth-ranking Senate Republican who serves as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, said the GOP is prepared for a number of scenarios in which they would seek to slow down or halt passage of healthcare legislation once it comes back before the Senate.

“I still think it creates a lot of problems when it comes back to the Senate because there will be lots of points of order that will lie against the bill in the Senate, and obviously, we will, hopefully, have the opportunity to raise some of those,” Thune said of the health bill during an appearance on Fox News.

Obama Now Selling Judgeships for Health Care Votes

Tonight, Barack Obama will host ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; he’s obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson’s brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

After the “Louisiana Purchase”, the Cornhusker Kickback”, and the Union exemption one had to wonder if there was any way for the abuse of Presidential power in the interest of partisan politics could be even more flagrent. Now we know. The Answer is yes. What’s next? More of the “Chicago Way” of business:

Barack Obama: I’ll steamroll health reforms through Congress

President Obama declared for the first time yesterday that he was prepared to steamroller his troubled health reform legislation through Congress with only Democratic support; a move Republicans denounced as the “nuclear option”.

Signalling that his patience had snapped after a year-long fight, Mr Obama laid the ground for Democrats in Congress to muscle the Bill through using a high-risk legislative manoeuvre known as reconciliation, which overrides a Republican filibuster. Although he did not use the word “reconciliation”, Mr Obama made it clear that that was the route he intended to take.

Democrats will, as a result, be able to get the health reform package through the Senate with a simple majority. Mr Obama’s party ceded their 60-stong majority in the upper chamber after losing the late Teddy Kennedy’s Massachusetts seat in January.

That shock defeat was due, in large part, to growing public hostility to Mr Obama’s health reforms, which many see as too expensive at a time of soaring deficits. Ramming the Bill through Congress is, therefore, a high-risk strategy that Republicans vowed to exploit.

In short, straight out of the progressive playbook: “Screw you people…you’re obviously too stupid to know what’s good for you, so I, as the leader, will drag you into the future whether you like it or not!”

Obamunism

What a concept!?

Prez’s newest idea: Simply outlaw reality

Included in President Oba ma’s latest stab at health-care reform released yesterday is one of the more astonishing admissions of political deception in recent memory.

After months of swearing that his health legislation would lower the skyrocketing costs of insurance premiums, Obama finally acknowledged that actually it would not.

So, instead, he has included a new provision that can simply outlaw premium increases his administration deems “unreasonable and unjustified.”

This, in lieu of literally years of promises and proclamations about transforming the American hospital-industrial complex in a way that would drastically lower the cost of medicine in this country and leave insurance companies scrambling to lower the premiums they charge customers.

During his campaign, Obama flatly promised to lower families’ health-insurance premiums by $2,500 every year.

Then, after he ascended to the throne, Obama repeatedly insisted without any reservations that all the health-care alchemy inspired by him would magically lower those premiums.

Even in the face of congressional accountants who repeatedly raised doubts about those promises, Obama insisted.

Now the comes the truth.

There are more gory details in the original article…

Hmmmm. Isn’t there an account of an ancient Brit king named Knut (later Anglicized to Canute) who tried to change reality by proclamation?   I seem to recall it didn’t work very well .

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Canuck Pol Votes with Feet Against National Health Care

N.L. Premier Williams set to have heart surgery in U.S.

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States.

Deputy premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed the treatment at a news conference Tuesday, but would not reveal the location of the operation or how it would be paid for.

“He has gone to a renowned expert in the procedure that he needs to have done,” said Ms. Dunderdale, who will become acting premier while Mr. Williams is away for three to 12 weeks. “In consultation with his own doctors, he’s decided to go that route.”

Mr. Williams’ decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada’s health-care system.

APPARENT shunning…? It looks pretty definite to me!

“It was never an option offered to him to have this procedure done in this province,” said Ms. Dunderdale, refusing to answer whether the procedure could be done elsewhere in Canada.

Now THAT’S a statement to parse. Was it an option available but not offered, or one not offered due to beign not available in the province, or in the country for that matter?

In either case, there’s not exactly an impressive showcase for nationalized health care.

Obamunism

Obamacare: Rationing from the Get-go

Medicare Rationing Begins in 2011

House and Senate Democrat leaders, and President Obama, argue that they can “pay for” health insurance “reform” by cutting $500 billion from Medicare spending over the next decade—largely through arbitrary reimbursement cuts,— without reducing the quality of care delivered to beneficiaries.

Yet, in January, 2011, Medicare will implement a new payment system for patients receiving dialysis for end stage kidney disease that will severely ration care to this vulnerable (and largely minority) population based on equally arbitrary payment reductions. These patients will be the unfortunate canary in the Medicare coal mine: “reform” legislation will expose millions of Medicare patients to rationing and reduced quality of care.

Several points to consider that are detailed:
– With the Medicare payment for dialysis below the cost of the treatment, and the pharmaceuticals required for said treatment, who will be left to provide the service when the providers (operating at a loss) go bankrupt?
– If the treatment is what is maintaining one’s life, the lowering of rates constitutes a de-facto rationing, and the resultant mortality of the patient as the result.
– The result is to impose administrative rulings (that enforce “price” limitation) to effectively speed patients on their way to their exit from life….hey….a backdoor way to have what amounts to a “death panel”.

The figures, and the gory details are spelled out in the rest of the piece.  Don’t take the Chief’s word for it, check it out yourself.

Any wonder why most polling indicated that Obamacare is NOT wanted by most Americans…not that the Congs (so far) care about THAT little thing!

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Donk Transparency: Through a Glass Darkly

Dems iron out Obamacare in secret

Writing in The Federalist Papers during the debates on adoption of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, Alexander Hamilton confidently proclaimed that “two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third.”
The Senate majority leader and House speaker, respectively, are attempting, in a display of political arrogance unmatched in this nation’s history, to do almost exactly what Hamilton said Americans would never tolerate. They are inventing “artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties” of legislative procedure in order to force passage of a proposal favored by a minority and opposed by a large majority of the people.

How is teh Donkey Party they doing this?

Reid and Pelosi are meeting privately with each other and with President Obama to work out differences between their respective chambers’ versions of Obamacare. They are thus ignoring the long-standing requirement that a bipartisan conference committee with representatives from the Senate and House meet in public to iron out such differences, and that on-the-record votes be taken in both chambers on final passage of the committee’s report. Once Reid and Pelosi agree on a final bill, they presumably will conduct a pro forma conference vote to rubber-stamp their agreement.

Transparency: what transparency?

Obama, Reid and Pelosi fear the traditional conference committee process will encourage yet more Americans to decide they don’t want either proposal. All three have forgotten Obama’s promise of more than a year ago that “we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents.” C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb said just last week that his network “will commit the necessary resources” to cover “the critical stage of reconciliation between the chambers.” Unfortunately, it appears that the more critical the stage, the more likely Obama, Reid and Pelosi are to go behind closed doors.

When the process is challanged even by C_SPAN, not exactly noted as being a stronghold of the VRWC (Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy), you know the process isn’t coming close to meeting any sort of smell test. Considering the source as the Reid / Pelosi axis of Constitutional evil, there should be no surprise.

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Reid’s History: Ignorant or Deceitful

Reid Compares Opponents of Health Care Reform to Supporters of Slavery

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago….

Senate Republicans on Monday called Reid’s comments “offensive” and “unbelievable.”

But Reid argued that Republicans are using the same stalling tactics employed in the pre-Civil War era.

“Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ‘slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before, you’re right,” Reid said Monday. “When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ‘slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough.'”

There were some who said these things – Abraham Lincoln was one. He plainly and repeatedly spoke against the institution of slavery before the Civil War, and unashamedly based his view on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, that under the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” slavery was demonstrably evil. Lincoln’s goals were (1) preserving the right of free elections, (2) preserving the Union, and (3) pacing slavery in the course of ultimate extinction. In spite of this, in his first inaugural he stated “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” He based this statement on the lack of any Constitutional provision that gave the federal government the right to intervene, without a Consititutional amendment, in the internal order of the states. Was President Lincoln then, one of those condemned by Mr. Reid? One would logically conclude that this is the case, especially as Lincoln’s stance was based on the trivial (to modern as well as to antebellum Democrats) matter of Constitutional limits to federal power. The REAL opponents of limiting slavery in the day were…the Democrats.

He continued: “When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn’t quite right.

Of course many of those who said that themselves were women, even some of the founding activists of the women’s suffrage movement. Their stand wasn’t due to opposition, but due to their recognition that from where they were, it would take a long process of education and involvement to change political and social conditions. What finally tipped the scale was the recognition of the siginificant contributions of women workers in the efforts of war production during WW-I. Political opposition prior to this time was pretty much across the board…members of both parties were largely opposed to suffrage on a national level until after the war. Curiously, Utah, and Wyoming Territories were both early adopters…but were forced by Congress to cancel women’s suffrage as conditions to gain admission to the Union!

“When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today.”

Yep!  Sure did happen.   Southern Democrats (again).  The Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964 could only be passed by the Democratic congresses of the day due to Republican support to overcome the Democrat “Solid South”.

To turn Reid’s rhetorical strategy back on him, one COULD note that Mussolini’s Italy, The Third Reich, and the USSR used “single payer” type government health care as a wedge to inject the state into all aspects of the people’s lives.

Of course Reid, Pelosi, and the libs today have no such motives…do they?

Obamunism

Obamacare Live, It’s Saturday Night

Dusty Harry Reid has adopted the classic philosophy of high pressure salemen: “Money talks, and no body walks.”

Sweeteners for the South

Staffers on Capitol Hill were calling it the Louisiana Purchase.

On the eve of Saturday’s showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn’t secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.

And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote — and to trumpet the financial “fix” she had arranged for Louisiana. “I am not going to be defensive,” she declared. “And it’s not a $100 million fix. It’s a $300 million fix.”

Her Freudian slip was showing…”$300 million fix”…indeed!
Other critical Donkey Party votes in the Senate used the occasion to extract whatever political payoff was most dear to their hearts from Reid.

Meanwhile, all concerned with the deals political bribes were hastening to deny that their maneuvers had anything to do with re-elections:

….the usually quiet [Blanche] Lincoln, [Donk-AR] who emerged from the cloakroom two hours later to announce her decision. Her attire was school-principal prim — blue suit with knee-length skirt, orange silk scarf tied tightly at the neck — and she was clearly uncomfortable in the spotlight. She spoke with the diction of somebody giving a dramatic reading, and she stumbled more than once as she read, botching the crucial line: “I will vote to support, of, the, the, will vote in support of cloture on the motion to proceed to this bill.”

She argued, a bit too strenuously, that “I’m not thinking about my reelection” in 2010.

If you believe THAT, pleased see me about a GREAT deal on tropical beachfront in NW Moody County, SD!

Here’s hoping that the conclusion of this WaPo piece doesn’t come true:

By the time this thing is done, the millions for Louisiana will look like a bargain.

China Watch

CHINA Worried About Obamacare Costs!

This is sourced from Reuters…not exactly noted as a nerve center of the VRWC!

China questions costs of U.S. healthcare reform

Guess what? It turns out the Chinese are kind of curious about how President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plans would impact America’s huge fiscal deficit. Government officials are using his Asian trip as an opportunity to ask the White House questions. Detailed questions.

Boilerplate assurances that America won’t default on its debt or inflate the shortfall away are apparently not cutting it. Nor should they, when one owns nearly $2 trillion in assets denominated in the currency of a country about to double its national debt over the next decade.

Nothing happening in Washington today should give Beijing any comfort or confidence about what may happen tomorrow. Healthcare reform was originally promoted as a way to “bend the curve” on escalating entitlement costs, the major part of which is financing Medicare and Medicaid. That is looking more and more like an overpromised deliverable.

Looks like even the ChiComs get the picture…now, if we can only get SanFranNan Pelosi and Dusty Harry Reid to exercise some fiscal rationality….

Obamunism

Pelosi Obamascare Budget Holes

Say it isn’t so!  A major new governmental program proposal (this one from the Donkey Party) that will exceed it’s initial estimated cost?

AHHEEEEEEE!  What’s the world coming to!

‘Fuzzy math’ could drive health bill cost higher

The official $1.1 trillion price tag for the House Democrats’ health care bill excludes dozens of unfunded programs that could drive up costs when future congresses look to fund them.

Republicans said the health care bill includes two dozen programs whose funding is listed as “such sums as may be necessary.” That amounts to legislative jargon, they said, for “We’ll bill you later.”

The list of projects ranges from the “No child left unimmunized against influenza” project to 10 programs in the Indian health care system. There are also programs to encourage people to go into nursing and to spur states to restrain medical-malpractice lawsuits.

Shocking! Simply Shocking! Who would have EVER expected this?…oh, yeah, anyone who pays attention to government. Right.

Uncategorized

Pelosiscare Hellth Bill Passed

Landmark health bill passes House on close vote

SanFranNan was able to beat the bushes enough to get her abortion of a hellth-care bill passed by a close margin.

The Democratic-controlled House has narrowly passed landmark health care reform legislation, handing President Barack Obama a hard won victory on his signature domestic priority.

Republicans were nearly unanimous in opposing the plan that would expand coverage to tens of millions of Americans who lack it and place tough new restrictions on the insurance industry.

The 220-215 vote late Saturday cleared the way for the Senate to begin a long-delayed debate on the issue that has come to overshadow all others in Congress.

On to the Senate, where the prospects for approval are less favorable.

House health care overhaul faces Senate stone wall

The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Barack Obama on Sunday as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the Senate.

Speaking from the Rose Garden about 14 hours after the late Saturday vote, Obama urged senators to be like runners on a relay team and “take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people.”

The problem is that the Senate won’t run with it. The government health insurance plan included in the House bill is unacceptable to a few Democratic moderates who hold the balance of power in the Senate.

If a government plan is part of the deal, “as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent whose vote Democrats need to overcome GOP filibusters.

“The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said dismissively.

Democrats did not line up to challenge him. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has yet to schedule floor debate and hinted last week that senators may not be able to finish health care this year.

Hopefully this thing dies a much-deserved death in the Senate.

Uncategorized

Pelosiscare Update

House Dems struggle for final votes on health care

Amid intense lobbying by the Obama administration, House Democratic leaders struggled Friday for the final votes needed to pass sweeping health care legislation, working to ease concerns among Hispanic holdouts and abortion foes.

“We’re very close” to having enough votes to prevail, said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, although he added a scheduled Saturday vote could slip by a day or two and sought to pin the blame on possible Republican delaying tactics.

“Nice try, Rep. Hoyer, but you can’t blame Republicans when the fact is you just don’t have the votes,” shot back Antonia Ferrier, spokeswoman for the GOP leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio.

You just KNOW the press-gangs will be out to try to Shanghai the votes.

Meanwhile, South Dakotas own self-proclaimed blue dog isn’t making SanFranNan’s life any easier:

Herseth Sandlin says she will vote against health care reform

SOUNDS good…but she HAS left herself some room to waffle with.

Her answer is “no.”

For now, at least.

U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin on Friday ended speculation on how she would vote on the much-amended, much-debated House version of health care reform, giving it a thumbs down.

In a hastily called conference call Friday morning, the South Dakota Democrat told reporters she would oppose a House reform plan expected to face a floor vote this weekend. Despite improvements, it still costs too much, burdens states with increased Medicaid costs and reduces long-term coverage for senior citizens, among other problems, Herseth Sandlin said.

Here’s the “but-monkey” part of teh statement:

But she also said further work by the House, Senate and President Barack Obama might produce a better version of reform that she could eventually support.

How this ultimately ends up is anybody’s guess.

Uncategorized

Legislative History

The Worst Bill Ever
Epic new spending and taxes, pricier insurance, rationed care, dishonest accounting: The Pelosi health bill has it all.

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, 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. With spending and debt already at record peacetime levels, the bill creates a new and probably unrepealable middle-class entitlement that is designed to expand over time. Taxes will need to rise precipitously, even as ObamaCare so dramatically expands government control of health care that eventually all medicine will be rationed via politics.

Yet at this point, Democrats have dumped any pretense of genuine bipartisan “reform” and moved into the realm of pure power politics as they race against the unpopularity of their own agenda. The goal is to ram through whatever income-redistribution scheme they can claim to be “universal coverage.” The result will be destructive on every level—for the health-care system, for the country’s fiscal condition, and ultimately for American freedom and prosperity.
Features of this legislative Obamination:
•The spending surge.
The Congressional Budget Office figures the House program will cost $1.055 trillion over a decade, which while far above the $829 billion net cost that Mrs. Pelosi fed to credulous reporters is still a low-ball estimate. Most of the money goes into government-run “exchanges” where people earning between 150% and 400% of the poverty level—that is, up to about $96,000 for a family of four in 2016—could buy coverage at heavily subsidized rates, tied to income. The government would pay for 93% of insurance costs for a family making $42,000, 72% for another making $78,000, and so forth.
• Expanding Medicaid, gutting private Medicare.
All this is particularly reckless given the unfunded liabilities of Medicare—now north of $37 trillion over 75 years. Mrs. Pelosi wants to steal $426 billion from future Medicare spending to “pay for” universal coverage. While Medicare’s price controls on doctors and hospitals are certain to be tightened, the only cut that is a sure thing in practice is gutting Medicare Advantage to the tune of $170 billion. Democrats loathe this program because it gives one of out five seniors private insurance options.

As for Medicaid, the House will expand eligibility to everyone below 150% of the poverty level, meaning that some 15 million new people will be added to the rolls as private insurance gets crowded out at a cost of $425 billion. A decade from now more than a quarter of the population will be on a program originally intended for poor women, children and the disabled.
• European levels of taxation.
All told, the House favors $572 billion in new taxes, mostly by imposing a 5.4-percentage-point “surcharge” on joint filers earning over $1 million, $500,000 for singles. This tax will raise the top marginal rate to 45% in 2011 from 39.6% when the Bush tax cuts expire—not counting state income taxes and the phase-out of certain deductions and exemptions. The burden will mostly fall on the small businesses that have organized as Subchapter S or limited liability corporations, since the truly wealthy won’t have any difficulty sheltering their incomes.

This surtax could hit ever more earners because, like the alternative minimum tax, it isn’t indexed for inflation. Yet it still won’t be nearly enough
• The insurance takeover.
A new “health choices commissioner” will decide what counts as “essential benefits,” which all insurers will have to offer as first-dollar coverage. Private insurers will also be told how much they are allowed to charge even as they will have to offer coverage at virtually the same price to anyone who applies, regardless of health status or medical history.

The cost of insurance, naturally, will skyrocket.

There are more gory details listing the specifics in the piece…read it and weep!

All of this is intentional, even if it isn’t explicitly acknowledged….

As Congress’s balance sheet drowns in trillions of dollars in new obligations, the political system will have no choice but to start making cost-minded decisions about which treatments patients are allowed to receive. Democrats can’t regulate their way out of the reality that we live in a world of finite resources and infinite wants. Once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, medical rationing is inevitable—especially for the innovative high-cost technologies and drugs that are the future of medicine.

Mr. Obama rode into office on a wave of “change,” but we doubt most voters realized that the change Democrats had in mind was making health care even more expensive and rigid than the status quo. Critics will say we are exaggerating, but we believe it is no stretch to say that Mrs. Pelosi’s handiwork ranks with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act as among the worst bills Congress has ever seriously contemplated. [emphasis added]

Kill it before it grows!

Constitution Watch

We Will FORCE You…We know better than you do!

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?

Congress has never before required citizens to purchase any good or service, but that is what both House and Senate health bills would mandate.

DUH – d’ya think really? What’s the first clue.

The question of the mandate’s constitutionality “hasn’t been part of the public debate, but the legal community has been debating it. It’s been on all the legal blogs,” said Michael Cannon, director of health-policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. He said “the Constitution does not grant Congress the power to force Americans to purchase health insurance.”

In 1994, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office noted that a “mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action.”

“The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States,” the CBO said.

THINK about this: American citizens compelled at gunpoint (remember the B.O. Presidium Czar reminding us a la Lenin and Mao that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”) to purchase something in order to reside in the country without being penalized?

Hello? What is spelled by the letters: T-O-T-A-L-I-T-A-R-I-A-N?

Uncategorized

Obamacare SITREP

[note: SITREP – handy Naval Jargon for “Situation Report”]

Several things happening relating to this.

First, contrary to B.O.’s (and others) assurances to the contrary, a bunch of the Donkey Party are pushing for THIS:
Liberals seek health-care access for illegals

Fearful that they’re losing ground on immigration and health care…

Fortunately they ARE!

…a group of House Democrats is pushing back and arguing that any health care bill should extend to all legal immigrants and allow illegal immigrants some access.

The Democrats, trying to stiffen their party’s spines on the contentious issue, say it’s unfair to bar illegal immigrants from paying their own way in a government-sponsored exchange. Legal immigrants, they say, regardless of how long they’ve been in the United States, should be able to get government-subsidized health care if they meet the other eligibility requirements.

Yep! Sure enough…you just KNEW that this was going to be on the agenda!

Meanwhile, down south in Georgia, a donk popped his cord when a constituent Doctor had the temerity to question him in a forum meeting:

Georgia Democrat yells at local doctor over health care

Tensions are running so high at town hall meetings that Rep. David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, yelled at a local doctor concerned about health care after mistaking him for an “astroturf” political operative looking for a fight.

Mr. Scott became visibly agitated when one of his constituents, a practicing doctor, asked a few questions about health care reform during a town hall meeting. The meeting was held to discuss a road project, but was opened up for questions near the end.

Oh my! Touchy touchy!

And finally…things are so riled up the Donks are unable to manage things they way the leadership would like to, even when they have the numbers to totally rule the legislative roost:

Senate panel rejects public option twice
Democrats defect in large numbers, complicating reform

In a long-awaited fight that pitted Democrats against one another, liberal lawmakers failed twice Tuesday to insert a government-run health insurance program into the emerging Senate health care reform bill but vowed that the battle for a public option is far from over.

Republicans immediately hailed the Senate Finance Committee showdown votes as proof that the public option was dead. But the White House said the panel’s slow slog to produce a bill was building momentum for reform on Capitol Hill, with four other House and Senate committees already having approved versions of the bill.

Obamunism

Baucus Caucus B.O. B.S.

Montana Donk Sen. Max Baucus has been actively trying to muster votes for the Obamacare Obamination…with a lack of success thus far.

Sections of his proposals show a strong presence of a major bi-product of Montana’s cattle ranching, as he beats the bushes (and trees, plains, grasslands, and anywhere else) to find ever more creative ways to mulct the American taxpayer to support ever-expanding government.

One item the Baucus Caucus (otherwise known as the “Gang of Six”) is discussing is forcing us to protect ourselves from ourselves”

Baucus health plan would fine uninsured

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus’ bid to get a bipartisan agreement on a health care overhaul before President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress Wednesday night calls for imposing a $6 billion tax on insurance companies and fining families $3,800 for not obtaining insurance coverage.

Sound good?  Wait – there’s more (and more, and more…etc.)

What’s Hidden in the Baucus Bill?

“Section I: Health systems savings.” There are four chapters. “Ensuring appropriate payment. Capturing productivity gains. Reducing geographic variation in spending, and modifying beneficiary contributions.” “Section II: Options for Modifying the Exclusion for Employer-Provided Health Insurance.” (Repeats for emphasis.) “Options for Modifying the Exclusion for Employer-Provided Health Insurance.” “Section III: Other Health Care Relate Revenue Raisers, Modify Or Repeal The Itemized Deduction For Medical Expenses. Repeal Or Modify The Special Deduction And Special Unearned Premium Rule For Blue Cross And Blue Shield Or Other Quantifying Organizations. Modify Health Savings Accounts. Modify Or Repeal The Exclusion For Employer Provided Reimbursement Of Medical Expenses Under Flexible Spending Arrangements And Health Reimbursement Arrangements.” Wow, they’re really simplifying this, aren’t they?

Now, every time you hear me say “modify or repeal,” think “eliminate or cut.” Or another word, yeah. (laughing) It begins with an F. Another word we can’t use. “Limit The Qualified Medical Expense Definition. Modify The FICA Tax Exemption.” That’s Social Security. “Extend The Medicare Payroll Tax To All State And Local Government Employees. Modify The Requirements For Tax Exempt Hospitals.” Now, whenever you hear “modify or limit,” or “repeal,” or “limit;” think “cut,” or “get rid of,” or the F-bomb. “Section IV: Lifestyle Related Revenue Raisers. Impose A Uniform Alcohol Excise Tax. Enact A Sugar Sweetened Beverage Excise Tax. Section V: Administration’s Revenue Raising Proposals,” and I have them all here. I printed it out. I’m sorry it’s very long. It’s five pages.

Unfortunately, this listing goes on and on. The old warning BOHICA comes to mind: Bend Over, Here It Comes Again. Check it out…there’s NO WAY we’re all not going to get stuck with paying Uncle a lot more.

The result of all this to date: not much obvious agreement:

Baucus: No deal yet on health care bill

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said Wednesday that his committee will debate a health care overhaul bill the week of Sept 22, whether or not he has the panel’s Republicans on board.

The Montana Democrat was hoping the committee’s “Gang of Six” of three Republican and three Democratic members would reach a compromise Wednesday ahead of President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress, but the group wasn’t able to reach an agreement.

May he continue to meet with such success!

Obamunism

B.O’s Umpteenth Pronouncement on Health Care

Obama: Time for ‘bickering’ is over on health care

Shaking off a summer of setbacks, President Barack Obama summoned Congress to enact sweeping health care legislation Wednesday night, declaring the “time for bickering is over” and the moment has arrived to protect millions who have unreliable insurance or no coverage at all.

ACHTUNG!  Remember you all…I am your Leader! Shut up and get in line!

As far as the necessity for a government insurance plan, B.O. continued in waffle mode:

…Obama spoke in favor of a provision for the federal government to sell insurance in competition with private industry. But in a remark certain to displease liberals, he did not insist on it, and said he was open to other alternatives that create choices for consumers.

Obama said he remains ready to listen to all ideas but added in a clear reference to Republicans, “I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than to improve it.”

This really means those who prefer to kill “this plan” rather than improve the current system.

All did not receive this word gladly:

In an unusual outburst from the Republican side of the House chamber, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouted out “You lie” when the president said illegal immigrants would not benefit from his proposals. The president paused briefly and smiled, but from her seat in the visitor’s gallery, first lady Michelle Obama shook her head from side to side in disapproval of the interruption. Wilson later apologized for his “lack of civility.”

Bad form given the setting and circumstances…but…Wilson called it the way the proposals are currently written. Truth can be a bitch!

In general, the president shied away from providing lawmakers with a list of particulars he wants to see included in the legislation, and there was nothing in the speech to invite comparisons with Bill Clinton’s pen-waving veto threat more than a decade ago on health care.

The devil remains in the details…which are being hashed out by the Donk Congs under the hegemony of SanFranNan Pelosi and Dusty Harry Reid.

B.O. also declared:

“Well, the time for bickering is over,” he said. “The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action….I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last,” he added.

Huh? “…determined to be the last”? If Obamacare is approved, it’ll be chiseled into stone like the Laws of the Medes and Persians and never be addressed again?

Well, the Chief’s overall reaction to this is…yadda, yadda, yadda. Same song, different day.

Constitution Watch

Obamacare Waffle Kitchen at Work

A couple of alternative versions of what’s going on with this…all seems in a state of “definite maybe” with B.O. et al.

Bottom line on public insurance plan gets blurry

The Obama administration’s bottom line on a government health insurance option blurred Sunday as White House officials stressed support but stopped short of calling it a must-have part of an overhaul.

As President Barack Obama prepares for a Wednesday night speech to Congress in a risky bid to salvage his top domestic priority, no other issue is so highly charged. Obama’s liberal supporters consider the proposal for a public plan to compete with private insurers do-or-die. Republicans say it’s unacceptable. It’s doubtful the public plan can pass the Senate.

Puh-leese – let it be so!

Finally, Axelrod showed mastery of the sort of bureaucratic governmental dialog illustrated in Atlas Shrugged:

White House political adviser David Axelrod said Obama is “not walking away” from a public plan. But asked if the president would veto a bill that came to him without the option, Axelrod declined to answer.

The president “believes it should be in the plan, and he expects to be in the plan, and that’s our position,” Axelrod told The Associated Press.

Asked if that means a public plan has to be in the bill for Obama to sign it, Axelrod responded: “I’m not going to deal in hypotheticals. … He believes it’s important.”

Meanwhile…both sides in Congress are not pleased…a hopeful sign of possible failure of the whole collectivist mess.

Government Insurance ‘Trigger’ Draws Bipartisan Criticism in Health Care Debate

Conservatives and liberals alike are puncturing the latest trial balloon in the health care reform debate, finding flaws with a proposal that would keep a government-run health insurance plan on reserve in case private insurance companies don’t meet certain benchmarks.

The so-called “trigger” has been floated by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a member of the “gang of six” Senate negotiators who are trying to broker a bipartisan compromise. Under such an option, if agreed-upon goals are not met by the insurance industry, then that would pull the trigger on government-run insurance.

It’s unclear whether President Obama will address the idea when he delivers a high-stakes health care address to Congress Wednesday night. But even as the White House signals it’s open to considering alternatives to a hard-and-fast “public option,” administration officials and congressional negotiators are hard-pressed to find an alternative that could win more votes than it loses.

Keep watching. It ain’t over ’till it’s over.

Uncategorized

UK: How “Death Board” Rules Really Function in Gov’t Health

Sentenced to death on the NHS
Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors warn today.

This is the real deal: her’s how it actually works in a government health rationing plan…and don’t be deceived…the plans proposed by the Donks of the administration and the Congresscritters of that ilk all force various forms of rationing of care.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.

Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.

NOTE: This is not the Chief’s warning…this is from the Doctors working where the rubber meets the road…go to the article & check out the sad details.

The picture presented “ain’t that pretty at all” (to quote a Warren Zevon lyric), but nonetheless it’s what B.O. & the gang have in mind for you and I.

Uncategorized

Bachman Sounds the Tocsin

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Bachmann calls for ‘covenant’ to defeat health care overhaul

If the GOP leadership of the last few election cycles had THIS sort of attitude, B.O. would still be a ward-heeling left-wing Chicago community political hack.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) stepped up the rhetoric against her liberal colleagues in Congress on Monday, calling on Americans to “make a covenant, slit our wrists, be blood brothers” in a mission to stop the Democratic health care proposal.

Commenting on present-day Washington conditions, she shows a clear and correct state of situational awareness:

“You’ve got your usual slothfulness, boozing, skirt-chasing members of Congress — we could only wish that those were our problems,” Bachmann said, according to a video of the event released by the institute. “Right now we are looking at reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom [in] this country. And we may never be able to restore it if we don’t man up and take this one on. This has to be defeated — this Obama Care. Cap and trade has to be defeated. Those two alone have the strength to destroy this country forever.”

Responding to a question about what changes to health care delivery and payment would be necessary if the Democratic reform proposal were to pass, Bachmann emphasized that “we can’t even have that discussion.” She added: “This cannot pass. It cannot.”

Going beyond opposition there is the suggestion for some much-needed (REAL!) health-care reforms:

Bachmann suggested that better methods of overhauling health care would be to “erase” state boundaries for purchasing health insurance and address tort reform.

You go girl!

Uncategorized

Obamacare Privacy? What Privacy?

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Reported by CBS – not exactly a bastion of the VRWC…

Democratic Health Care Bill Divulges IRS Tax Data

Firstly, as written, the current (House) bill REQUIRES full access to individual tax records:

Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and “other information as is prescribed by” regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for “affordability credits.”

Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details — there’s no specified limit on what’s available or unavailable — to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify “affordability credits.”

Section 1801(a) says that the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a “low-income prescription drug subsidy” but has not applied for it.

In case you went to Harvard please note the citation numbers. These identify actual sections of the proposed legislation, which seem to be written in English. It’s not the Chief inventing this…just passing along information.

Meanwhile, there’s still the electronicization of health records mandated in the stimulus porculus bill…and not much worry about privacy:

A better candidate for a future privacy crisis is the so-called stimulus bill enacted with limited debate early this year. It mandated the “utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014,” but included only limited privacy protections.

It’s true that if the legislative branch chooses to create “affordability credits,” it probably makes sense to ensure they’re not abused. The goal of curbing fraud runs up against the goal of preserving individual privacy.

If we’re going to have such significant additional government intrusion into our health care system, we will have to draw the privacy line somewhere. Maybe the House Democrats’ current bill gets it right. Maybe it doesn’t. But this vignette should be reason to be skeptical of claims that a massive and complex bill must be enacted as rapidly as its backers would have you believe.

Based on past performance…the Chief is HIGHLY skeptical that the Congs will do what is necessary to install adequate privacy protections.

Uncategorized

Obamacare Update Notes

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Several items concerning Obamacare – at least in it’s “single-payer” government-run manifestation.

Firstly, US lefties are NOT happy campers about the chance that B.O. – The One hisself, may be backing away from this concept:

No Government-Run Health Insurance, No Bill, Say Liberal Supporters of Reform

The Obama administration appears to be stepping back from its insistence on a government-run health insurance plan, earning new wrath from the left as the president tries to appease vocal opponents of a “public option.”

A health care reform plan without government-run insurance is “D.O.A.,” says one left-wing grassroots organizer up in arms about the possibility the Obama administration could abandon its efforts to build a “public option.”

Jim Dean, chairman of progressive group Democracy for America, wrote supporters on Monday to tell them to fight any effort to remove a government-run health insurance plan in place of non-profit “cooperatives.”

Awwww! They’re upset!

Suggesting insider Democrats and the insurance industry are behind the effort to kill a government-run plan, in his e-mail Dean assumed all Republicans in the House will oppose the health care reform with cooperatives, and with a loss of Democratic support, it would be dead on arrival.

“Let’s be clear: A health care bill without a public option is D.O.A. in the House. Period.

PUH-leeeese, let it be so!

Meanwhile, all is not well as far as using the Brits and Canucks as examples of the benefits of universal government health care:

Britain’s No Model for U.S. Health Care

Many opponents of the House plan (President Obama and the senate do not yet have one) cite the way the British deal with their sick and elderly and warn that America could become like Britain. Those critics are right to worry.

Just last week, the Times of London reported that “hospitals creak under the strain as vacancies spread through NHS (National Health Service).” The socialized medicine practices here has brought a shortage of doctors, nurses and other clinical staff.As of March 31, a survey found a 5.2 percent vacancy rate in these critical fields. This compares to a 3.6 percent vacancy rate just one year earlier.

Qualified nurses and midwifes are retiring at a faster rate than newly trained staff can enter these professions. And a poll conducted by the Royal College of Nurses found that among 8,600 young people, aged 7 to 17, only one in 20 would actively consider nursing an attractive career.

YIKES! But things are better in Canada…or not?

Canadian Health Officials: Our Universal Health Care Is ‘Sick,’ Private Insurance Should Be Welcomed

Dr. Anne Doig, the incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association, said her country’s health care system is “sick” and “imploding,” the Canadian Press reported.

“We know there must be change,” Doig said in a recent interview. “We’re all running flat out, we’re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.”

Canada’s universal health care system is not giving patients optimal care, Doig added. When her colleagues from across the country gather at the CMA conference in Saskatoon Sunday, they will discuss changes that need to be made, she said.

“We all agree the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,” she said.

OK. They’re trying to undo what the Obamacare lib-Donks are trying to do to us? Sure looks that way.

Hmmm. Returning to Einstein’s definition of insanity as repeating the same thing and expecting to get a different result, once again American libs are proving that by that standard, liberalism IS a mental disorder!

Uncategorized

Obamacare Update: No public plan?

White House appears ready to drop ‘public option’

Bowing to Republican pressure and an uneasy public, President Barack Obama’s administration signaled Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system.

This is highly disingenuous. If it was only Republican opposition, there would be no issue. With the dominance of the Donkey Party in both houses of Congress, they could effectively do anything they wanted.  The problem is that enough Donks don’t want to adopt a “public” (government) system (that according to the House bill would inevitably result in the destruction of private insurance), so the B.O. administration is apparently poised to run up the white flag on this at least, and blame the “wascally Wepublicans” in a ploy to attempt to appease the Donk’s hard left.

Facing mounting opposition to the overhaul, administration officials left open the chance for a compromise with Republicans that would include health insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run plan. Such a concession probably would enrage Obama’s liberal supporters but could deliver a much-needed victory on a top domestic priority opposed by GOP lawmakers.

Obviously, the situation is developing, or is it decaying?

Uncategorized

Where ‘Death Board” Concept Comes From

No, we’re not really crazy…there is really language in the House healthcare reform bill that sets up a de-facto “death board”…although of course it’s not labeled as such.

This gives a pretty good clue where some of this sort of thing is originating:

DEADLY DOCTORS: O  ADVISERS WANT TO RATION CARE

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.

Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.

Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, “as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others” (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

Yes, that’s what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else. Many doctors are horrified by this notion; they’ll tell you that a doctor’s job is to achieve social justice one patient at a time.

Emanuel, however, believes that “communitarianism” should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia” (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. ’96).

Nice turn of phrase that: ” irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens”. Those folks setting policy in the 3rd Reich Marching and Singing Society didn’t do nearly as smooth a job when they set about eliminating “useless eaters” (although tsomething may be lost in translation there).

Translation: Don’t give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson’s or a child with cerebral palsy.

He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: “Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years” (Lancet, Jan. 31).

Now, SOMEBODY WITH GOVERNMENTAL AUTHORITY OVER LIFE AND DEATH WILL (of necessity) be making these sort of imposed decisions, and of course, Emmanuel isn’t alone in pushing things towards this Brave New World:

Dr. David Blumenthal, another key Obama adviser, agrees. He recommends slowing medical innovation to control health spending.

Blumenthal has long advocated government health-spending controls, though he concedes they’re “associated with longer waits” and “reduced availability of new and expensive treatments and devices” (New England Journal of Medicine, March 8, 2001). But he calls it “debatable” whether the timely care Americans get is worth the cost. (Ask a cancer patient, and you’ll get a different answer. Delay lowers your chances of survival.)

Obama appointed Blumenthal as national coordinator of health-information technology, a job that involves making sure doctors obey electronically deivered guidelines about what care the government deems appropriate and cost effective.

In the April 9 New England Journal of Medicine, Blumenthal predicted that many doctors would resist “embedded clinical decision support” — a euphemism for computers telling doctors what to do.

One would certainly HOPE this was the case…at least for your own doctor. But wait…there’s more (or rather, less) in store for us under these proposed neo-Soviet reforms:

Americans need to know what the president’s health advisers have in mind for them. Emanuel sees even basic amenities as luxuries and says Americans expect too much: “Hospital rooms in the United States offer more privacy . . . physicians’ offices are typically more conveniently located and have parking nearby and more attractive waiting rooms” (JAMA, June 18, 2008).

No one has leveled with the public about these dangerous views. Nor have most people heard about the arm-twisting, Chicago-style tactics being used to force support. In a Nov. 16, 2008, Health Care Watch column, Emanuel explained how business should be done: “Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda. If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration’s health-reform effort.”

Do we want a “reform” that empowers people like this to decide for us?

obamacare_flag_poster_hush.jpg

B.O. has stated that the direction of his policies can be seen by the quality and character of those advisors he surrounds himself with. Based on this, Obamacare looks more and more like something to avoid like a plague.