Canadian Nightmare
A few days ago, I got an e-mail from Vern Hodgins, a longtime subscriber from Canada, who recounted an opposite experience with Canada's health care system. Read this carefully, because if Obama gets his way, the happy story I recounted above is not the future:
"My wife and I relocated to a new community. For my wife, that meant finding a new doctor, which became a six-year wait. During that time, she had to do with a local outpatient clinic, which rotates its medical staff.
"It is rare to see the same doctor twice, which renders continuity feeble at best. As well, the rules do not allow rotation doctors to provide full physical examinations; only a family physician may do that.
"While waiting in line for a family doctor, my wife became ill. Typically, a patient gets about 10 minutes with a community clinic doctor, which for my wife meant cursory examinations and referrals to physiotherapists and chiropractors.
"My wife's condition worsened, and we could not do anything about it. Finally, the government granted her a family doctor. That doctor also gave her a cursory exam, diagnosed her ailment as a sports injury and referred her to more physio and chiropractic treatment. Her condition worsened still, and still her doctor insisted it was a sports injury.
"Fed up with my dear wife whimpering her nights away in pain, I visited her doctor. The doctor's receptionist rudely rebuffed me, saying my wife had to wait in line just like everyone else because despite what I thought, she was no more or less special than anyone else.
"The next morning I described my wife's condition to a work colleague who is a doctor. Having never met my wife, and with only my description, that doctor told me to get my wife into a hospital immediately because she was certain it was a metastasized cancer.
"Sure enough, as soon as the hospital emergency staff saw my wife, they knew; it was advanced non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which had dissolved some of her collarbone. My wife had to be told her prognosis was not good, that she had to prepare for the worst.
"Fortunately for me, my doctor colleague, a high-profile media individual, used her influence to get my wife the best specialists in the country — which, yes, meant that my wife is somewhat more special after all. She survived. She endured the most aggressive treatment regimen there is, and though she's left with considerable damage from the radiation, she's alive.
Friday, July 31, 2009
IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure
How House Bill Runs Over Grandma
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, July 31, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Rationing: In the recesses of the House health care "reform" bill is a provision for end-of-life counseling for seniors. Don't worry, granny, they're from the government and they're here to help.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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."
This administration, pledging to cut medical costs and for which "cost-effectiveness" is a new mantra, knows that a quarter of Medicare spending is made in a patient's final year of life. Certainly the British were aware when they nationalized their medical system.
The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof are legendary. The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror movie script.
The U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) basically figures out who deserves treatment by using a cost-utility analysis based on the "quality adjusted life year."One year in perfect health gets you one point. Deductions are taken for blindness, for being in a wheelchair and so on.
The more points you have, the more your life is considered worth saving, and the likelier you are to get care.
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
The British are praised for spending half as much per capita on medical care. How they do it is another matter. The NICE people say that Britain cannot afford to spend $20,000 to extend a life by six months. So if care will cost $1 more, you get to curl up in a corner and die.
In March, NICE ruled against the use of two drugs, Lapatinib and Sutent, that prolong the life of those with certain forms of breast and stomach cancer.
The British have succeeded in putting a price tag on human life, as we are about to.
Can't happen here, you say? "One troubling provision of the House bill," writes Betsy McCaughey in the New York Post, "compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, Pages 425-430)."
One of the Obama administration's top medical care advisers is Oxford- and Harvard-educated bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel. Yes, he's the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and has the ear of his brother and the president.
"Calls for changing physician training and culture are perennial and usually ignored," he wrote last June in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "However, the progression in end-of-life care mentality from 'do everything' to more palliative care shows that change in physician norms and practices is possible."
Emanuel sees a problem in the Hippocratic Oath doctors take to first do no harm, compelling them "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of cost or effect on others," thereby avoiding the inevitable move toward "socially sustainable, cost-effective care."
During the June 24 ABC infomercial on health care broadcast from the White House, Obama confessed that if "it's my family member, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care."
Not, apparently, if it's your grandmother.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, July 31, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Rationing: In the recesses of the House health care "reform" bill is a provision for end-of-life counseling for seniors. Don't worry, granny, they're from the government and they're here to help.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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."
This administration, pledging to cut medical costs and for which "cost-effectiveness" is a new mantra, knows that a quarter of Medicare spending is made in a patient's final year of life. Certainly the British were aware when they nationalized their medical system.
The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof are legendary. The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror movie script.
The U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) basically figures out who deserves treatment by using a cost-utility analysis based on the "quality adjusted life year."One year in perfect health gets you one point. Deductions are taken for blindness, for being in a wheelchair and so on.
The more points you have, the more your life is considered worth saving, and the likelier you are to get care.
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
The British are praised for spending half as much per capita on medical care. How they do it is another matter. The NICE people say that Britain cannot afford to spend $20,000 to extend a life by six months. So if care will cost $1 more, you get to curl up in a corner and die.
In March, NICE ruled against the use of two drugs, Lapatinib and Sutent, that prolong the life of those with certain forms of breast and stomach cancer.
The British have succeeded in putting a price tag on human life, as we are about to.
Can't happen here, you say? "One troubling provision of the House bill," writes Betsy McCaughey in the New York Post, "compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, Pages 425-430)."
One of the Obama administration's top medical care advisers is Oxford- and Harvard-educated bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel. Yes, he's the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and has the ear of his brother and the president.
"Calls for changing physician training and culture are perennial and usually ignored," he wrote last June in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "However, the progression in end-of-life care mentality from 'do everything' to more palliative care shows that change in physician norms and practices is possible."
Emanuel sees a problem in the Hippocratic Oath doctors take to first do no harm, compelling them "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of cost or effect on others," thereby avoiding the inevitable move toward "socially sustainable, cost-effective care."
During the June 24 ABC infomercial on health care broadcast from the White House, Obama confessed that if "it's my family member, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care."
Not, apparently, if it's your grandmother.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Alarming page in the healthcare "reform" bill. Scarey stuff folks if it is allowed to stand.
On page 425 it says in black and white that EVERYONE on Social Security, (will include all Senior Citizens and SSI people) will go to MANDATORY counseling every 5 years to learn and to choose from ways to end your suffering (and your life). Health care will be denied based on age.
Government run healthcare dead? One can only pray.
Tactical Retreat, Not Waterloo, On ObamaCare
By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER | Posted Thursday, July 30, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Yesterday, Barack Obama was God. Today, he's fallen from grace, the magic gone, his health care reform dead.
If you believed the first idiocy — and half the mainstream media did — you'll believe the second. Don't believe either.
Conventional wisdom always makes straight-line projections. They are always wrong.
Yes, Obama's aura has diminished, in part because of overweening overexposure. But by year's end he will emerge with something he can call health care reform.
The Democrats in Congress will pass it because they must. Otherwise, they'll have slain their own savior in his first year in office.
But that bill will look nothing like the massive reform Obama originally intended. The beginning of the retreat was signaled by Obama's curious reference — made five times — to "health-insurance reform" in his July 22 news conference.
Reforming the health care system is dead. Cause of death? Blunt trauma administered not by Republicans, not even by Blue Dog Democrats, but by the green eyeshades at the Congressional Budget Office.
Three blows:
(1) On June 16, the CBO determined that the Senate Finance Committee bill would cost $1.6 trillion over 10 years, delivering a sticker shock that was near fatal.
(2) Five weeks later, the CBO gave its verdict on the Independent Medicare Advisory Council, Dr. Obama's latest miracle cure, conjured up at the last minute to save ObamaCare from fiscal ruin, and consisting of a committee of medical experts highly empowered to make Medicare cuts. The CBO said that IMAC would do nothing, trimming costs by perhaps 0.2%. A 0.2% cut is not a solution; it's a punch line.
(3) The final blow came last Sunday when the CBO euthanized the Obama "out years" myth. The administration's argument had been: Sure, ObamaCare will initially increase costs and deficits. But it pays for itself in the long run because it bends the curve downward in coming decades.
The CBO put in writing the obvious: In its second decade, Obama-Care significantly bends the curve upward — increasing deficits even more than in the first decade.
This is obvious because Obama's own first-decade numbers were built on arithmetic trickery. New taxes to support the health care plan begin in 2011, but the benefits part of the program doesn't fully kick in until 2015.
That excess revenue is, of course, one time only. It makes the first decade numbers look artificially low, but once you pass 2015, the yearly deficits become larger and eternal.
Three CBO strikes and you're out cold.
Though it must be admitted that the White House itself added to the farcical nature of its frantic and futile cost-cutting when budget director Peter Orszag held a three-hour brainstorming session with Senate Finance Committee aides trying to find ways to save.
"At one point," reports the Wall Street Journal, "they flipped through the tax code, looking for ideas." Looking for ideas? Months into the president's health care drive and just days before his deadline for Congress to pass real legislation? You gonna give this gang the power to remake one-sixth of the U.S. economy?
Not likely. Whatever structural reforms dribble out of Congress before the August recess will likely not survive the year. In the end, Obama will have to settle for something very modest. And indeed it will be health insurance reform.
To win back the vast constituency that has insurance, is happy with it and is mightily resisting the fatal lures of ObamaCare, the president will in the end simply impose heavy regulations on the insurance companies that will make what you already have secure, portable and imperishable: no policy cancellations, no pre-existing condition requirements, perhaps even a cap on out-of-pocket expenses.
Nirvana. But wouldn't this bankrupt the insurance companies? Of course it would. There will be only one way to make this work: Impose an individual mandate. Force the 18 million Americans between 18 and 34 who (often quite rationally) forgo health insurance to buy it.
This will create a huge new pool of customers who rarely get sick but will be paying premiums every month. And those premiums will subsidize nirvana health insurance for older folks.
Net result? Another huge transfer of wealth from the young to the old, the now-routine specialty of the baby boomers; an end to the dream of imposing European-style health care on the U.S.; and a president who before Christmas will wave his pen, proclaim victory and watch as the newest conventional wisdom reaffirms his divinity.
By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER | Posted Thursday, July 30, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Yesterday, Barack Obama was God. Today, he's fallen from grace, the magic gone, his health care reform dead.
If you believed the first idiocy — and half the mainstream media did — you'll believe the second. Don't believe either.
Conventional wisdom always makes straight-line projections. They are always wrong.
Yes, Obama's aura has diminished, in part because of overweening overexposure. But by year's end he will emerge with something he can call health care reform.
The Democrats in Congress will pass it because they must. Otherwise, they'll have slain their own savior in his first year in office.
But that bill will look nothing like the massive reform Obama originally intended. The beginning of the retreat was signaled by Obama's curious reference — made five times — to "health-insurance reform" in his July 22 news conference.
Reforming the health care system is dead. Cause of death? Blunt trauma administered not by Republicans, not even by Blue Dog Democrats, but by the green eyeshades at the Congressional Budget Office.
Three blows:
(1) On June 16, the CBO determined that the Senate Finance Committee bill would cost $1.6 trillion over 10 years, delivering a sticker shock that was near fatal.
(2) Five weeks later, the CBO gave its verdict on the Independent Medicare Advisory Council, Dr. Obama's latest miracle cure, conjured up at the last minute to save ObamaCare from fiscal ruin, and consisting of a committee of medical experts highly empowered to make Medicare cuts. The CBO said that IMAC would do nothing, trimming costs by perhaps 0.2%. A 0.2% cut is not a solution; it's a punch line.
(3) The final blow came last Sunday when the CBO euthanized the Obama "out years" myth. The administration's argument had been: Sure, ObamaCare will initially increase costs and deficits. But it pays for itself in the long run because it bends the curve downward in coming decades.
The CBO put in writing the obvious: In its second decade, Obama-Care significantly bends the curve upward — increasing deficits even more than in the first decade.
This is obvious because Obama's own first-decade numbers were built on arithmetic trickery. New taxes to support the health care plan begin in 2011, but the benefits part of the program doesn't fully kick in until 2015.
That excess revenue is, of course, one time only. It makes the first decade numbers look artificially low, but once you pass 2015, the yearly deficits become larger and eternal.
Three CBO strikes and you're out cold.
Though it must be admitted that the White House itself added to the farcical nature of its frantic and futile cost-cutting when budget director Peter Orszag held a three-hour brainstorming session with Senate Finance Committee aides trying to find ways to save.
"At one point," reports the Wall Street Journal, "they flipped through the tax code, looking for ideas." Looking for ideas? Months into the president's health care drive and just days before his deadline for Congress to pass real legislation? You gonna give this gang the power to remake one-sixth of the U.S. economy?
Not likely. Whatever structural reforms dribble out of Congress before the August recess will likely not survive the year. In the end, Obama will have to settle for something very modest. And indeed it will be health insurance reform.
To win back the vast constituency that has insurance, is happy with it and is mightily resisting the fatal lures of ObamaCare, the president will in the end simply impose heavy regulations on the insurance companies that will make what you already have secure, portable and imperishable: no policy cancellations, no pre-existing condition requirements, perhaps even a cap on out-of-pocket expenses.
Nirvana. But wouldn't this bankrupt the insurance companies? Of course it would. There will be only one way to make this work: Impose an individual mandate. Force the 18 million Americans between 18 and 34 who (often quite rationally) forgo health insurance to buy it.
This will create a huge new pool of customers who rarely get sick but will be paying premiums every month. And those premiums will subsidize nirvana health insurance for older folks.
Net result? Another huge transfer of wealth from the young to the old, the now-routine specialty of the baby boomers; an end to the dream of imposing European-style health care on the U.S.; and a president who before Christmas will wave his pen, proclaim victory and watch as the newest conventional wisdom reaffirms his divinity.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Gotta love those Chicago Style politics
A Brief History Of White House Thuggery
By MICHELLE MALKIN | Posted Wednesday, July 29, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Six months into the Obama administration, it should now be clear to all Americans: Hope and Change came to the White House wrapped in brass knuckles.
Ask the Congressional Budget Office. Last week, President Obama spilled the beans on the "Today Show" that he had met with CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf — just as the number crunchers were casting ruinous doubt on White House cost-saving claims. Yes, question the timing.
The CBO is supposed to be a neutral scorekeeper — not a water boy for the White House. But when the meeting failed to stop the CBO from issuing more analysis undercutting the health care savings claims, Obama's budget director Peter Orszag played the heavy.
Orszag warned the CBO in a public letter that it risked feeding the perception that it was "exaggerating costs and underestimating savings." Message: Leave the number fudging to the boss. Capiche?
Obama issued an even more explicit order to unleash the hounds on Blue Dog Democrats during his health care press conference. "Keep up the heat" translated into Organizing for America/Democratic National Committee attack ads on moderate Democrats who have revolted against Obamacare's high costs and expansive government powers over medical decisions.
Looks like there won't be a health care beer summit anytime soon.
The CBO and the Blue Dogs got off easy compared to inspectors general targeted by Team Obama goons. Former AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin was slimed as mentally incompetent ("confused" and "disoriented") after blowing the whistle on several cases of community service tax fraud, including the case of Obama crony Kevin Johnson.
Johnson is the NBA star turned Sacramento mayor who ran a federally funded nonprofit group employing AmeriCorps volunteers, who were exploited to perform campaign work for Johnson and to provide personal services (car washes, errands) to Johnson and his staff.
Walpin filed suit last week to get his job back — and to defend the integrity and independence of inspectors general systemwide. But he faces hardball tactics from both the West Wing and the East Wing, where first lady Michelle Obama has been intimately involved in personnel decisions at AmeriCorps, according to youth service program insiders.
At the Environmental Protection Agency, top Obama officials muzzled veteran researcher Alan Carlin, who dared to question the conventional wisdom on global warming. The economist with a physics degree was trashed as a nonscientist know-nothing.
Obama Treasury officials forced banks to take TARP bailout money they didn't want and obstructed banks that wanted to pay back TARP money from doing so.
The administration strong-armed Chrysler creditors and Chrysler dealers using politicized tactics that united both House Democrats and Republicans, who passed an amendment last week reversing Obama on the closure of nearly 800 Chrysler dealerships and more than 2,000 GM dealerships.
At the Justice Department, Obama lawyers are now blocking a House inquiry into the suspicious decision to dismiss default judgments against radical New Black Panther Party activists who intimidated voters and poll workers on Election Day in Philadelphia.
The DOJ is preventing Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., from meeting with the trial team in the case. Wolf has been pressing for answers on what communications Attorney General Eric Holder and his deputies conducted with third-party interest groups and other political appointees about the case. So far: Radio silence.
In the mafia culture, bully boys depend on a code of silence and allegiance — omerta — not only among their brethren, but also from the victims. The victims of Obama thugocracy are no longer cooperating. Perhaps it won't be long until some of the enforcers start to sing, too
By MICHELLE MALKIN | Posted Wednesday, July 29, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Six months into the Obama administration, it should now be clear to all Americans: Hope and Change came to the White House wrapped in brass knuckles.
Ask the Congressional Budget Office. Last week, President Obama spilled the beans on the "Today Show" that he had met with CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf — just as the number crunchers were casting ruinous doubt on White House cost-saving claims. Yes, question the timing.
The CBO is supposed to be a neutral scorekeeper — not a water boy for the White House. But when the meeting failed to stop the CBO from issuing more analysis undercutting the health care savings claims, Obama's budget director Peter Orszag played the heavy.
Orszag warned the CBO in a public letter that it risked feeding the perception that it was "exaggerating costs and underestimating savings." Message: Leave the number fudging to the boss. Capiche?
Obama issued an even more explicit order to unleash the hounds on Blue Dog Democrats during his health care press conference. "Keep up the heat" translated into Organizing for America/Democratic National Committee attack ads on moderate Democrats who have revolted against Obamacare's high costs and expansive government powers over medical decisions.
Looks like there won't be a health care beer summit anytime soon.
The CBO and the Blue Dogs got off easy compared to inspectors general targeted by Team Obama goons. Former AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin was slimed as mentally incompetent ("confused" and "disoriented") after blowing the whistle on several cases of community service tax fraud, including the case of Obama crony Kevin Johnson.
Johnson is the NBA star turned Sacramento mayor who ran a federally funded nonprofit group employing AmeriCorps volunteers, who were exploited to perform campaign work for Johnson and to provide personal services (car washes, errands) to Johnson and his staff.
Walpin filed suit last week to get his job back — and to defend the integrity and independence of inspectors general systemwide. But he faces hardball tactics from both the West Wing and the East Wing, where first lady Michelle Obama has been intimately involved in personnel decisions at AmeriCorps, according to youth service program insiders.
At the Environmental Protection Agency, top Obama officials muzzled veteran researcher Alan Carlin, who dared to question the conventional wisdom on global warming. The economist with a physics degree was trashed as a nonscientist know-nothing.
Obama Treasury officials forced banks to take TARP bailout money they didn't want and obstructed banks that wanted to pay back TARP money from doing so.
The administration strong-armed Chrysler creditors and Chrysler dealers using politicized tactics that united both House Democrats and Republicans, who passed an amendment last week reversing Obama on the closure of nearly 800 Chrysler dealerships and more than 2,000 GM dealerships.
At the Justice Department, Obama lawyers are now blocking a House inquiry into the suspicious decision to dismiss default judgments against radical New Black Panther Party activists who intimidated voters and poll workers on Election Day in Philadelphia.
The DOJ is preventing Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., from meeting with the trial team in the case. Wolf has been pressing for answers on what communications Attorney General Eric Holder and his deputies conducted with third-party interest groups and other political appointees about the case. So far: Radio silence.
In the mafia culture, bully boys depend on a code of silence and allegiance — omerta — not only among their brethren, but also from the victims. The victims of Obama thugocracy are no longer cooperating. Perhaps it won't be long until some of the enforcers start to sing, too
Monday, July 27, 2009
Written by a soldier named Issac regarding MJ's Death. I think its right on the money.
A Soldier Morn's MJ's Death
This is written by a young man
serving his third tour of duty in Iraq.
Thought you might find his take on the
Michael Jackson news interesting.
Okay, I need to rant.
I was just watching the news, and I caught part of a report
on MichaelJackson.
As we all know, Jackson died the other day.
He was an entertainer who performed for decades.
He made millions, he spent millions, and he did a lot of things
that make him a villian to many people.
I understand that his death would affect a lot of people,
and I respect those people who mourn his death,
but that isn't the point of my rant.
Why is it that when ONE man dies, the whole of America
loses their minds with grief.
When a man dies whose only contribution to the country
was to ENTERTAIN people, the Amercian people find the
need to flock to a memorial in Hollywood, and even Congress
sees the need to hold a "moment of silence" for his passing?
Am I missing something here?
ONE man dies, and all of a sudden he's a freaking martyr
because he entertained us for a few decades?
What about all those SOLDIERS who have died to give us freedom?
All those Soldiers who, knowing that they would be asked
to fight in a war, still raised their hands and swore to defend the Constitution and the United States of America.
Where is their moment of silence?
Where are the people flocking to their graves or memorials
and mourning over them because they made the ultimate sacrifice? Why is it when a Soldier dies, there are more people saying
"good riddence," and "thank God for IEDs?"
When did this country become so calloused to the sacrifice
of GOOD MEN and WOMEN, that they can arbitrarily blow off
their deaths, and instead,
throw themselves into mourning for a "Pop Icon?"
I think that if they are going to hold a moment
of silence IN CONGRESS for Michael Jackson, they
need to hold a moment of silence for every
service member killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They need to PUBLICLY recognize every life that has
been lost so that the American people can live their callous
little lives in the luxury and freedom that WE, those that are
living and those that have gone on, have provided for them.
But, wait, that would take too much time, because there
have been so many willing to make that sacrifice.
After all, we will never make millions of dollars.
We will never star in movies, or write hit songs that the
world will listen too.
We only shed our blood, sweat and tears so that people
can enjoy what they have..
Sorry if I have offended, but I needed to say it.
Remember these five words the next time
you think of someone who is serving in the military;
"So that others may live..."
This is written by a young man
serving his third tour of duty in Iraq.
Thought you might find his take on the
Michael Jackson news interesting.
Okay, I need to rant.
I was just watching the news, and I caught part of a report
on MichaelJackson.
As we all know, Jackson died the other day.
He was an entertainer who performed for decades.
He made millions, he spent millions, and he did a lot of things
that make him a villian to many people.
I understand that his death would affect a lot of people,
and I respect those people who mourn his death,
but that isn't the point of my rant.
Why is it that when ONE man dies, the whole of America
loses their minds with grief.
When a man dies whose only contribution to the country
was to ENTERTAIN people, the Amercian people find the
need to flock to a memorial in Hollywood, and even Congress
sees the need to hold a "moment of silence" for his passing?
Am I missing something here?
ONE man dies, and all of a sudden he's a freaking martyr
because he entertained us for a few decades?
What about all those SOLDIERS who have died to give us freedom?
All those Soldiers who, knowing that they would be asked
to fight in a war, still raised their hands and swore to defend the Constitution and the United States of America.
Where is their moment of silence?
Where are the people flocking to their graves or memorials
and mourning over them because they made the ultimate sacrifice? Why is it when a Soldier dies, there are more people saying
"good riddence," and "thank God for IEDs?"
When did this country become so calloused to the sacrifice
of GOOD MEN and WOMEN, that they can arbitrarily blow off
their deaths, and instead,
throw themselves into mourning for a "Pop Icon?"
I think that if they are going to hold a moment
of silence IN CONGRESS for Michael Jackson, they
need to hold a moment of silence for every
service member killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They need to PUBLICLY recognize every life that has
been lost so that the American people can live their callous
little lives in the luxury and freedom that WE, those that are
living and those that have gone on, have provided for them.
But, wait, that would take too much time, because there
have been so many willing to make that sacrifice.
After all, we will never make millions of dollars.
We will never star in movies, or write hit songs that the
world will listen too.
We only shed our blood, sweat and tears so that people
can enjoy what they have..
Sorry if I have offended, but I needed to say it.
Remember these five words the next time
you think of someone who is serving in the military;
"So that others may live..."
Reform's Last Gasp-By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 27, 2009 - Do I even dare hope? It is hard not to.
Health Care: The clock is ticking down on Democrats' effort to get health care reform passed by the time Congress goes home for its August recess. This is a big opportunity to kill the bill once and for all.
Only a month ago congressional Democrats were crowing that they had a veto-proof majority and didn't need any help getting health reform passed. They had the votes and would jam the mostly unread 1,018-page health "reform" down our collective throats.
What a difference a month makes. Today, even the staunchest supporters of a government-run health care admit they may not have the votes to pass it. Word's out that, contrary to their claims, the $1.6 trillion reform plan would not cut costs. Instead, it would add at least $239 billion to the deficit and impose new taxes on all Americans, including the middle class and small businesses.
That's why new polls show most Americans have serious doubts about what looked like a slam dunk. They don't want bureaucrats making their most intimate, life-and-death decisions for them. Our own IBD/TIPP Poll, taken in June, found Americans by more than 2-to-1 believe health care reform will mean lower-quality care.
Most shocking has been the revelation that reform's most ardent backers in Congress have no idea what's in the bill. "What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?" asked John Conyers, D-Mich.
Voters are queasy about nationalized health care with rationed access to medicine, higher taxes and lower quality. They're also concerned with a loss of freedom. As columnist Mark Steyn recently put it, "A society in which you're free to choose your cable package, your iTunes downloads and who ululates the best on American Idol but in which the government takes care of peripheral stuff like your body is a society no longer truly free."
As opposition grows, reform proponents have become frantic. In the Senate, according to MSNBC's First Read blog, Democrats are desperately re-branding their government-run plan, changing the so-called "public option" to a "co-op." It won't work.
Meanwhile, White House powerbroker Rahm Emanuel — a former congressman himself — is pushing the House hard to vote this week on a plan. Even that now looks unlikely.
Thanks to a coalition of Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats — the moderate wing of the party — it's no longer clear Democrats have enough votes to pass any reform.
"Look, there are not the votes for Democrats to do this just on our side of the aisle," said Sen. Kent Conrad, the North Dakota Blue Dog who heads the budget committee.
This isn't a bad thing. In fact, the failing prospects of health care reform may be a big reason why major stock market indexes have rallied furiously in recent weeks.
The final nail in the health care nationalizers' coffin may be Congressional Budget Office chief Doug Elmendorf's letter to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Saturday. Contrary to proponents' claims, he said, "the probability is high that no savings would be realized."
Reform advocates had hoped to pass a major bill that would, in effect, nationalize health care by stealth. Working with the White House, they wanted to get it done before the August recess, when they had to return to their districts and states.
Too late. When they go home, they'll find out why polls now show more than 60% of Americans now call themselves conservative and more than half say they don't want anything to do with health care reform as proposed so far.
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All I can say to this WONDERFUL! I am almost afraid to get my hopes up. Yes the system does needs some tweaking, that is a given. To say however, that you are going to complely scrap it and slide us down the slippery slope to nationalized healthcare is certainly not the answer. It is refreshing to know I am not the only one that feels this way.
Only a month ago congressional Democrats were crowing that they had a veto-proof majority and didn't need any help getting health reform passed. They had the votes and would jam the mostly unread 1,018-page health "reform" down our collective throats.
What a difference a month makes. Today, even the staunchest supporters of a government-run health care admit they may not have the votes to pass it. Word's out that, contrary to their claims, the $1.6 trillion reform plan would not cut costs. Instead, it would add at least $239 billion to the deficit and impose new taxes on all Americans, including the middle class and small businesses.
That's why new polls show most Americans have serious doubts about what looked like a slam dunk. They don't want bureaucrats making their most intimate, life-and-death decisions for them. Our own IBD/TIPP Poll, taken in June, found Americans by more than 2-to-1 believe health care reform will mean lower-quality care.
Most shocking has been the revelation that reform's most ardent backers in Congress have no idea what's in the bill. "What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?" asked John Conyers, D-Mich.
Voters are queasy about nationalized health care with rationed access to medicine, higher taxes and lower quality. They're also concerned with a loss of freedom. As columnist Mark Steyn recently put it, "A society in which you're free to choose your cable package, your iTunes downloads and who ululates the best on American Idol but in which the government takes care of peripheral stuff like your body is a society no longer truly free."
As opposition grows, reform proponents have become frantic. In the Senate, according to MSNBC's First Read blog, Democrats are desperately re-branding their government-run plan, changing the so-called "public option" to a "co-op." It won't work.
Meanwhile, White House powerbroker Rahm Emanuel — a former congressman himself — is pushing the House hard to vote this week on a plan. Even that now looks unlikely.
Thanks to a coalition of Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats — the moderate wing of the party — it's no longer clear Democrats have enough votes to pass any reform.
"Look, there are not the votes for Democrats to do this just on our side of the aisle," said Sen. Kent Conrad, the North Dakota Blue Dog who heads the budget committee.
This isn't a bad thing. In fact, the failing prospects of health care reform may be a big reason why major stock market indexes have rallied furiously in recent weeks.
The final nail in the health care nationalizers' coffin may be Congressional Budget Office chief Doug Elmendorf's letter to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Saturday. Contrary to proponents' claims, he said, "the probability is high that no savings would be realized."
Reform advocates had hoped to pass a major bill that would, in effect, nationalize health care by stealth. Working with the White House, they wanted to get it done before the August recess, when they had to return to their districts and states.
Too late. When they go home, they'll find out why polls now show more than 60% of Americans now call themselves conservative and more than half say they don't want anything to do with health care reform as proposed so far.
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All I can say to this WONDERFUL! I am almost afraid to get my hopes up. Yes the system does needs some tweaking, that is a given. To say however, that you are going to complely scrap it and slide us down the slippery slope to nationalized healthcare is certainly not the answer. It is refreshing to know I am not the only one that feels this way.
comments on a AP news story about the socialized healthcare bill
"Among tax increases likely to be adopted is an excise tax of as much as 35 percent on insurance with very high annual premiums, perhaps over $25,000."
This makes me sooooooo angry because what it would in effect do is to force my family to most likely give up our private insurance. There is no way we could manage that kind of increase. But then again that's their plan. To force people onto the government dole one way or the other. So while they technically would be letting people keep their private insurance, they would effectively cause most people to have to ditch it because of the prohibitive taxes on it. Its sneaky and its wrong. Its nothing more than backdoor socialism, which is something this administration has become a master at.
"Negotiators also are considering fees on the manufacturers of medical devices and on the makers of both brand name and generic drugs coming onto the market."
This would in effect stifle any future drug development or advancement in the medical community. No one would have the money to do anything with ,in particular the much needed research, esp not the government after it gets done trying to paying for everything and everyone.
I am sick of this cradle to the grave we will take care of you mentality by the liberals. I wish they would stop trying to "take care of me" and just stay out of my life because the more they try to help the worse they make things.
This makes me sooooooo angry because what it would in effect do is to force my family to most likely give up our private insurance. There is no way we could manage that kind of increase. But then again that's their plan. To force people onto the government dole one way or the other. So while they technically would be letting people keep their private insurance, they would effectively cause most people to have to ditch it because of the prohibitive taxes on it. Its sneaky and its wrong. Its nothing more than backdoor socialism, which is something this administration has become a master at.
"Negotiators also are considering fees on the manufacturers of medical devices and on the makers of both brand name and generic drugs coming onto the market."
This would in effect stifle any future drug development or advancement in the medical community. No one would have the money to do anything with ,in particular the much needed research, esp not the government after it gets done trying to paying for everything and everyone.
I am sick of this cradle to the grave we will take care of you mentality by the liberals. I wish they would stop trying to "take care of me" and just stay out of my life because the more they try to help the worse they make things.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Article from IMB called Specifics Please. Worth Reading.
Specifics, Please
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 23, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Health Care: From the president we now know that cops are stupid, doctors are greedy, Republicans don't play nice, people are dying and we're all going broke if we don't embrace socialized medicine in a week or so.
Everything, in other words, but what Wednesday's press conference was supposed to be about: the health care reforms the president and his party want voted on by the time Congress breaks for another vacation.
Sure, we heard a lot of wonkish rhetoric — this president seems to think all he has to do is talk, and everyone will bend to his will — but there were few specifics.
And a few specifics would be nice before we place our health care system — 17% of the economy — under government control.
We didn't even hear the president explain how he could demand immediate action on bills that he himself hasn't read. (But then, to be fair, the somnambulant journalists in attendance didn't bother to ask.)
This became obvious Monday, when he was asked about a point we brought up in an editorial last week on whether the House bill in effect outlaws new private individual health care insurance the year it becomes law.
"You know," Obama told a group of hand-selected, sympathetic bloggers, "I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about."
Obama isn't the only one who isn't familiar with the "reform" he wants so badly. Tens of millions of other Americans are also trying to make heads or tails out of it — because it's something that will affect each and every one of them.
Fortunately, some people are sorting through the particulars. For example, the Lewin Group, a consulting firm respected for its nonpartisan analysis of health care issues, put out another report this week that found, among other things, that:
• More than 88 million Americans could lose their employer-based health coverage as businesses switch to the new taxpayer-subsidized public option that will compete with private insurers for enrollment. Doesn't this refute the claim that we can keep our current coverage?
• Yearly premiums for Americans with private coverage could rise as much as $460 per person as a result of the cost-shifting that would result from the public option. How does this jibe with the claim that costs will be lower?
• Physicians' net income would fall by 6.3%, or an average of $18,900 per doctor, as a result of lower reimbursements under the public option and higher practice expenses associated with providing services to the newly insured.
If this results in fewer doctors, what does it mean for the promise of better care, especially when 47 million more people are gaining access to the system?
These questions and many others demand answers from the president — in or out of press conferences — as well as Congress before this legislation gets any further. Because all we're being told now is that if we cede control to Washington, we'll get better care for more people at lower costs, and these claims just don't add up.
One, care will be poorer as fewer doctors become overworked by the rush of newly insured patients. Two, more than 103 million Americans, the Lewin Group says, will be herded against their wishes into the government-run public option. Third, costs will keep rising because incentives to self-ration will be further weakened by a system that encourages patients to overuse it.
Until we hear some specifics that refute our reading of the legislation, we remain unconvinced that government-run health care will live up to its promise.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Article from RealClearPolitics- Reform Puts Hospitals at Risk
An intense debate on how to reform our health care system is unfolding in the nation's Capitol. It is important that all American patients be aware of the devastating impact the proposed reforms could have on hospital systems throughout our state for both rural and big city hospitals.
Imagine a patient goes to the hospital for surgery to have a stent placed in his heart. Once there, he is told that the surgery will not occur unless he first donates a kidney. As shocking as this scenario is, it is not unlike the position many American hospitals will be placed in if the Obama Administration has its way.
Last week, the Administration announced that it struck a bargain to pay for health care reform, in part, by slashing federal reimbursements to hospitals. Without question, Americans want to see health care reform legislation enacted to improve access to health insurance and restrain runaway health care costs, but many of our hospitals are already on life support. Siphoning their funding would be disastrous for the millions of patients who rely on these facilities for care each year, and it could sink the hospitals to new and dangerous fiscal lows.
Our hospitals currently bear the financial burden of having to keep pace with increasingly expensive technological advancements; meanwhile, their federal reimbursements are shrinking at an alarming pace. Further, many hospitals are required to provide billions of dollars in uncompensated care to our 47 million uninsured residents. Despite this untenable financial dilemma facing our hospitals, the Obama Administration expects them to take further cuts in reimbursements on the hopes that the proposed government-run insurance provider would eventually lessen the number of Americans without insurance coverage.
In short, the Administration asked for an upfront investment by the hospitals and offered an IOU in return. But what the Administration is calling a "bargain" is actually a gamble with very high stakes - the health of entire communities. They are essentially gambling away health care access to achieve health care coverage.
Their so-called "bargain" ignores the unique challenges facing rural hospitals, which serve communities that are, per capita, older, sicker, and poorer. And due to the low number of patients, rural hospitals operate with little to no profit margin. Lowering these hospitals' badly needed federal reimbursements could result in reduced services, or even worse, the closure of entire facilities.
Another costly problem that has been entirely ignored by the Obama Administration is the uncompensated care hospitals provide to illegal immigrants each year. This is a huge challenge in my home state of Texas. Last year, 6,540 visits from undocumented immigrants cost Parkland Hospital System in Dallas $7 million, and Memorial Hermann in Houston incurred over $4 million in cost for their care. Border states are not alone in this dilemma. Hospitals in Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, and other states have drawn 100 percent of the available federal aid to help defray the costs associated with providing care for illegal immigrants.
I have consistently championed federal efforts to offset these costs to hospitals and to prevent local and state taxpayers from having to shoulder the burden. However, the program has expired and the Administration and the Majority Leaders in Congress refuse to address this problem in health care reform. It will be impossible for some hospitals in Texas to remain operational if they are asked to carry an even heavier financial burden.
Patients should also be concerned that the cost of these proposed reimbursement cuts may actually be transferred to them. Hospitals may be forced to pass on these cuts to patients with private insurance, ultimately resulting in even higher premiums. A shrinking hospital budget must be filled in some way if the hospital is going to survive.
If our hospitals are placed in such peril that they can no longer afford to keep their doors open, who do you think will have to rescue them? Ultimately, this proposal leads us one step closer to a government takeover of the health care system. Over the last several months, we have seen the federal government seize control of Wall Street, the banking industry, the housing market, and the auto manufacturers. Can we really trust the health of Americans to a big government that is willing to take high stakes risks on the American health care system?
Imagine a patient goes to the hospital for surgery to have a stent placed in his heart. Once there, he is told that the surgery will not occur unless he first donates a kidney. As shocking as this scenario is, it is not unlike the position many American hospitals will be placed in if the Obama Administration has its way.
Last week, the Administration announced that it struck a bargain to pay for health care reform, in part, by slashing federal reimbursements to hospitals. Without question, Americans want to see health care reform legislation enacted to improve access to health insurance and restrain runaway health care costs, but many of our hospitals are already on life support. Siphoning their funding would be disastrous for the millions of patients who rely on these facilities for care each year, and it could sink the hospitals to new and dangerous fiscal lows.
Our hospitals currently bear the financial burden of having to keep pace with increasingly expensive technological advancements; meanwhile, their federal reimbursements are shrinking at an alarming pace. Further, many hospitals are required to provide billions of dollars in uncompensated care to our 47 million uninsured residents. Despite this untenable financial dilemma facing our hospitals, the Obama Administration expects them to take further cuts in reimbursements on the hopes that the proposed government-run insurance provider would eventually lessen the number of Americans without insurance coverage.
In short, the Administration asked for an upfront investment by the hospitals and offered an IOU in return. But what the Administration is calling a "bargain" is actually a gamble with very high stakes - the health of entire communities. They are essentially gambling away health care access to achieve health care coverage.
Their so-called "bargain" ignores the unique challenges facing rural hospitals, which serve communities that are, per capita, older, sicker, and poorer. And due to the low number of patients, rural hospitals operate with little to no profit margin. Lowering these hospitals' badly needed federal reimbursements could result in reduced services, or even worse, the closure of entire facilities.
Another costly problem that has been entirely ignored by the Obama Administration is the uncompensated care hospitals provide to illegal immigrants each year. This is a huge challenge in my home state of Texas. Last year, 6,540 visits from undocumented immigrants cost Parkland Hospital System in Dallas $7 million, and Memorial Hermann in Houston incurred over $4 million in cost for their care. Border states are not alone in this dilemma. Hospitals in Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, and other states have drawn 100 percent of the available federal aid to help defray the costs associated with providing care for illegal immigrants.
I have consistently championed federal efforts to offset these costs to hospitals and to prevent local and state taxpayers from having to shoulder the burden. However, the program has expired and the Administration and the Majority Leaders in Congress refuse to address this problem in health care reform. It will be impossible for some hospitals in Texas to remain operational if they are asked to carry an even heavier financial burden.
Patients should also be concerned that the cost of these proposed reimbursement cuts may actually be transferred to them. Hospitals may be forced to pass on these cuts to patients with private insurance, ultimately resulting in even higher premiums. A shrinking hospital budget must be filled in some way if the hospital is going to survive.
If our hospitals are placed in such peril that they can no longer afford to keep their doors open, who do you think will have to rescue them? Ultimately, this proposal leads us one step closer to a government takeover of the health care system. Over the last several months, we have seen the federal government seize control of Wall Street, the banking industry, the housing market, and the auto manufacturers. Can we really trust the health of Americans to a big government that is willing to take high stakes risks on the American health care system?
Monday, July 20, 2009
Fiscal responsiblity? Wishful thinking with this admin. They print it like its monoply money, which is about how much it will end up being worth
Deficit Deceit
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 20, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Fiscal Policy: What do you do when you have bad news that could affect what you're doing? Why, delay it, of course. Which is exactly what the White House is doing right now with the midsession budget estimate.
Each year, a revised budget estimate is put out in July. The idea is to catch up with fiscal changes that have been made since the last budget forecast six months earlier.
This year, of course, there have been massive — not too strong a word — changes in the spending outlook. That's not just our opinion. It's based on preliminary data from the Congressional Budget Office, budget analysts and think tanks of all ideological stripes.
But instead of issuing the July outlook as planned, the White House has postponed it until mid-August. Why? President Obama has made clear he wants major health care reform and, if possible, a global warming bill from Congress before it recesses in August.
But as the costly details of these bills become known, average Americans are coming to realize they'll be on the hook for trillions of dollars of new spending that will do little to improve either health care or the amount of CO2 in the air.
With the popularity of the White House and Democrats in Congress plummeting, generic congressional preference polls now show Republicans leading Democrats. So for the latter, it's now or never. They're afraid voters will reject these expensive programs. And they're right.
What's shocking isn't that the White House would put off the July budget estimate until August — so no one can see how bad our deficits really are — but that it's being done so openly. Recall that President Obama vowed when he took office that "transparency will be the touchstone of my administration."
Unfortunately, the decision to put off the mid-summer budget update until August negates that. It is, frankly, deceptive and deeply dishonest. It's hiding bad news about worsening deficits and growing unemployment to get a big spending agenda through Congress.
Recall that earlier deficit estimates put the red ink through 2019 at $9.3 trillion — or nearly $1 trillion a year. But this year alone the deficit will be $1.8 trillion, and if brisk growth doesn't resume soon, future deficits will be far greater than estimated.
As it is, even with the administration's highly bullish GDP growth estimates of more than 4% for 2011, 2012 and 2013, the deficit never drops below $600 billion in the next decade.
So, how bad could it get? Take just one program as an example.
According to congressional testimony scheduled for Tuesday from Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), we have a monster on our hands.
TARP, begun as a "modest" $700 billion program to buy up bad mortgages, has morphed into a Hydra-headed 12 programs wrapped up in one, with $3 trillion in government commitments.
But here's the bombshell: According to Barofsky's prepared comments, which IBD obtained Monday, total efforts to "stabilize and support the financial system" since 2007 could eventually "reach up to $23.7 trillion." Such numbers are, in a word, stunning.
Add to this the $1 trillion-plus planned for health care reform over the next 10 years and the $1 trillion to $3 trillion cost for cap-and-trade, and you can see the deficits will be enormous, pervasive and permanent — requiring unparalleled tax hikes.
Eventually, the total take by government at all levels will be well over 50% of GDP — enough to sink the U.S. economy into a state of semi-permanent stagnation, a socialist stupor.Good governance begins with honesty. Unfortunately, the Democrats' plans to expand the scope and reach of government to nearly every part of Americans' lives have been marked by fiscal deception and budget chicanery. The American people deserve better.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 20, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Fiscal Policy: What do you do when you have bad news that could affect what you're doing? Why, delay it, of course. Which is exactly what the White House is doing right now with the midsession budget estimate.
Each year, a revised budget estimate is put out in July. The idea is to catch up with fiscal changes that have been made since the last budget forecast six months earlier.
This year, of course, there have been massive — not too strong a word — changes in the spending outlook. That's not just our opinion. It's based on preliminary data from the Congressional Budget Office, budget analysts and think tanks of all ideological stripes.
But instead of issuing the July outlook as planned, the White House has postponed it until mid-August. Why? President Obama has made clear he wants major health care reform and, if possible, a global warming bill from Congress before it recesses in August.
But as the costly details of these bills become known, average Americans are coming to realize they'll be on the hook for trillions of dollars of new spending that will do little to improve either health care or the amount of CO2 in the air.
With the popularity of the White House and Democrats in Congress plummeting, generic congressional preference polls now show Republicans leading Democrats. So for the latter, it's now or never. They're afraid voters will reject these expensive programs. And they're right.
What's shocking isn't that the White House would put off the July budget estimate until August — so no one can see how bad our deficits really are — but that it's being done so openly. Recall that President Obama vowed when he took office that "transparency will be the touchstone of my administration."
Unfortunately, the decision to put off the mid-summer budget update until August negates that. It is, frankly, deceptive and deeply dishonest. It's hiding bad news about worsening deficits and growing unemployment to get a big spending agenda through Congress.
Recall that earlier deficit estimates put the red ink through 2019 at $9.3 trillion — or nearly $1 trillion a year. But this year alone the deficit will be $1.8 trillion, and if brisk growth doesn't resume soon, future deficits will be far greater than estimated.
As it is, even with the administration's highly bullish GDP growth estimates of more than 4% for 2011, 2012 and 2013, the deficit never drops below $600 billion in the next decade.
So, how bad could it get? Take just one program as an example.
According to congressional testimony scheduled for Tuesday from Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), we have a monster on our hands.
TARP, begun as a "modest" $700 billion program to buy up bad mortgages, has morphed into a Hydra-headed 12 programs wrapped up in one, with $3 trillion in government commitments.
But here's the bombshell: According to Barofsky's prepared comments, which IBD obtained Monday, total efforts to "stabilize and support the financial system" since 2007 could eventually "reach up to $23.7 trillion." Such numbers are, in a word, stunning.
Add to this the $1 trillion-plus planned for health care reform over the next 10 years and the $1 trillion to $3 trillion cost for cap-and-trade, and you can see the deficits will be enormous, pervasive and permanent — requiring unparalleled tax hikes.
Eventually, the total take by government at all levels will be well over 50% of GDP — enough to sink the U.S. economy into a state of semi-permanent stagnation, a socialist stupor.Good governance begins with honesty. Unfortunately, the Democrats' plans to expand the scope and reach of government to nearly every part of Americans' lives have been marked by fiscal deception and budget chicanery. The American people deserve better.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
This scares the Heck out of me frankly.
Tax Hike Comin'
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 16, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Paying For Reform: New data from a nonpartisan think tank confirm our worst fears about health care reform: The plans proposed by the White House and Congress will lead to economically ruinous tax hikes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure
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Thursday marked the kickoff for the White House's push to get medical insurance reform passed in Congress. Top White House aides David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel and spokesman Robert Gibbs will make a hard sell on reform's big benefits.
Likely missing from their pitch will be the tragic cost it will mean for the economy once the huge new tax hikes to pay for it are in place. The House bill, for instance, is estimated to cost $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion over 10 years. To pay for it, the White House has proposed raising taxes by $544 billion, almost all on the "rich" — those in the top 5% of incomes.
That leaves a $1 trillion gap. Where will the rest of the money come from? The government claims it will be able to "save" that amount. But please name any government program that saves money over a private one. The only way government will save money is to ration care — that is, give you less medical care at lower quality. Is that your idea of reform?
When the savings fail to appear, higher taxes will have to be imposed — especially on a middle class that's been led to believe it'll get something for nothing on health care.
And why the middle class? "Because," as bank robber Willie Sutton said when asked why he robbed banks, "that's where the money is."
Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, sees no savings from the health reform plans offered. He reckons that current legislation would raise costs.
Faced, then, with exploding annual deficits over the next decade of $1 trillion or more, the federal government will be looking high and low — mostly high — for more revenues.
The government's pitch will go like this: Don't worry, we'll make the rich pay. And, indeed, the House's reform plan will hit millionaires with a 5.4% tax surcharge, and gradually raise taxes on those with incomes starting at $280,000.
"I promised that Americans making $250,000 a year or less would not pay more in taxes," President Obama said Monday. "These are promises that we're keeping as reform moves forward."
But read the bill's fine print. Those earning less than $250,000 will be hit with new taxes, too. Those who don't sign up for health care, for instance, will be taxed up to 2.5% of their income. Small businesses that don't have health plans will have to pay up to 8% of their payroll as a "fee."
These new taxes will have a devastating effect on the economy. According to the National Tax Foundation, the top total tax rate on Americans — that is, state, local and federal taxes — will top 50% in 39 states.
Will entrepreneurs and small businesses expand and create new jobs if they know more than half what they earn will be taken by government? Not likely.
Two million jobs have been lost this year. If you think that, and 9.5% unemployment, is bad, wait till health reform passes.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 16, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Paying For Reform: New data from a nonpartisan think tank confirm our worst fears about health care reform: The plans proposed by the White House and Congress will lead to economically ruinous tax hikes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday marked the kickoff for the White House's push to get medical insurance reform passed in Congress. Top White House aides David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel and spokesman Robert Gibbs will make a hard sell on reform's big benefits.
Likely missing from their pitch will be the tragic cost it will mean for the economy once the huge new tax hikes to pay for it are in place. The House bill, for instance, is estimated to cost $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion over 10 years. To pay for it, the White House has proposed raising taxes by $544 billion, almost all on the "rich" — those in the top 5% of incomes.
That leaves a $1 trillion gap. Where will the rest of the money come from? The government claims it will be able to "save" that amount. But please name any government program that saves money over a private one. The only way government will save money is to ration care — that is, give you less medical care at lower quality. Is that your idea of reform?
When the savings fail to appear, higher taxes will have to be imposed — especially on a middle class that's been led to believe it'll get something for nothing on health care.
And why the middle class? "Because," as bank robber Willie Sutton said when asked why he robbed banks, "that's where the money is."
Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, sees no savings from the health reform plans offered. He reckons that current legislation would raise costs.
Faced, then, with exploding annual deficits over the next decade of $1 trillion or more, the federal government will be looking high and low — mostly high — for more revenues.
The government's pitch will go like this: Don't worry, we'll make the rich pay. And, indeed, the House's reform plan will hit millionaires with a 5.4% tax surcharge, and gradually raise taxes on those with incomes starting at $280,000.
"I promised that Americans making $250,000 a year or less would not pay more in taxes," President Obama said Monday. "These are promises that we're keeping as reform moves forward."
But read the bill's fine print. Those earning less than $250,000 will be hit with new taxes, too. Those who don't sign up for health care, for instance, will be taxed up to 2.5% of their income. Small businesses that don't have health plans will have to pay up to 8% of their payroll as a "fee."
These new taxes will have a devastating effect on the economy. According to the National Tax Foundation, the top total tax rate on Americans — that is, state, local and federal taxes — will top 50% in 39 states.
Will entrepreneurs and small businesses expand and create new jobs if they know more than half what they earn will be taken by government? Not likely.
Two million jobs have been lost this year. If you think that, and 9.5% unemployment, is bad, wait till health reform passes.
Exerpts from an IBD article on healthcare
• America has a health care crisis.
No, we don't. Forty-seven million people lack insurance. Of the remaining 85% of the population, or 258 million people, polls show high satisfaction with the current coverage. Indeed, a 2006 poll by ABC News, the Kaiser Family Foundation and USA Today found 89% of Americans were happy with their own health care.
As for the estimated 47 million not covered by health insurance, 20 million can afford to buy it, according to a study by former CBO Director June O'Neill. Most of the other 27 million are single and under 35, with as many as a third illegal aliens.
When it's all whittled down, as few as 12 million are unable to buy insurance — less than 4% of a population of 305 million. For this we need to nationalize 17% of our nation's $14 trillion economy and change the current care that 89% like?
• Health care reform will save money.
Few of the plans now coming out of Congress will save anything, says the CBO's current chief, Douglas Elmendorf. In fact, he says, they'll lead to substantially higher costs in the future — costs that will be "unsustainable."
As it is, estimates for reforming health care range from $1 trillion to $3.6 trillion. Much will be spent on subsidies to make a so-called public option more attractive to consumers than private plans.
To pay for it, the president has suggested about $600 billion in new taxes, meaning that $500 billion to $2.1 trillion in new health care spending over the next decade will be unfunded. This could push up the nation's already soaring deficit, expected to reach $10 trillion through 2019 without health care reform. Massive new tax hikes will probably be needed to close the gap.
• Only the rich will pay for reform.
The 5.4% surtax on millionaires the president is pushing gets all the attention, but everyone down to $280,000 in income will pay more. Doesn't that still leave out the middle class and poor? Sorry. Workers who decline to take part will pay a tax of up to 2% of earnings. And small-businesses must pony up 8% of their payrolls.
The poor and middle class must pay in other ways, without knowing it. The biggest hit will be on small businesses, which, due to new payroll taxes, will be less likely to hire workers. Today's 9.5% jobless rate may become a permanent feature of our economy — just as it is in Europe, where nationalized health care is common.
• Government-run health care produces better results.
The biggest potential lie of all. America has the best health care in the world, and most Americans know it. Yet we hear that many "go without care" while in nationalized systems it is "guaranteed."
U.S. life expectancy in 2006 was 78.1 years, ranking behind 30 other countries. So if our health care is so good, why don't we live as long as everyone else?
Three reasons. One, our homicide rate is two to three times higher than other countries. Two, because we drive so much, we have a higher fatality rate on our roads — 14.24 fatalities per 100,000 people vs. 6.19 in Germany, 7.4 in France and 9.25 in Canada. Three, Americans eat far more than those in other nations, contributing to higher levels of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.In countries with nationalized care, medical outcomes are often catastrophically worse. Take breast cancer. According to the Heritage Foundation, breast cancer mortality in Germany is 52% higher than in the U.S.; the U.K.'s rate is 88% higher. For prostate cancer, mortality is 604% higher in the U.K. and 457% higher in Norway. Colorectal cancer? Forty percent higher in the U.K.
Universal health care, wrote Sally Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute in her excellent book, "Top Ten Myths Of American Health Care," will inevitably result in "higher taxes, forced premium payments, one-size-fits-all policies, long waiting lists, rationed care and limited access to cutting-edge medicine."
No, we don't. Forty-seven million people lack insurance. Of the remaining 85% of the population, or 258 million people, polls show high satisfaction with the current coverage. Indeed, a 2006 poll by ABC News, the Kaiser Family Foundation and USA Today found 89% of Americans were happy with their own health care.
As for the estimated 47 million not covered by health insurance, 20 million can afford to buy it, according to a study by former CBO Director June O'Neill. Most of the other 27 million are single and under 35, with as many as a third illegal aliens.
When it's all whittled down, as few as 12 million are unable to buy insurance — less than 4% of a population of 305 million. For this we need to nationalize 17% of our nation's $14 trillion economy and change the current care that 89% like?
• Health care reform will save money.
Few of the plans now coming out of Congress will save anything, says the CBO's current chief, Douglas Elmendorf. In fact, he says, they'll lead to substantially higher costs in the future — costs that will be "unsustainable."
As it is, estimates for reforming health care range from $1 trillion to $3.6 trillion. Much will be spent on subsidies to make a so-called public option more attractive to consumers than private plans.
To pay for it, the president has suggested about $600 billion in new taxes, meaning that $500 billion to $2.1 trillion in new health care spending over the next decade will be unfunded. This could push up the nation's already soaring deficit, expected to reach $10 trillion through 2019 without health care reform. Massive new tax hikes will probably be needed to close the gap.
• Only the rich will pay for reform.
The 5.4% surtax on millionaires the president is pushing gets all the attention, but everyone down to $280,000 in income will pay more. Doesn't that still leave out the middle class and poor? Sorry. Workers who decline to take part will pay a tax of up to 2% of earnings. And small-businesses must pony up 8% of their payrolls.
The poor and middle class must pay in other ways, without knowing it. The biggest hit will be on small businesses, which, due to new payroll taxes, will be less likely to hire workers. Today's 9.5% jobless rate may become a permanent feature of our economy — just as it is in Europe, where nationalized health care is common.
• Government-run health care produces better results.
The biggest potential lie of all. America has the best health care in the world, and most Americans know it. Yet we hear that many "go without care" while in nationalized systems it is "guaranteed."
U.S. life expectancy in 2006 was 78.1 years, ranking behind 30 other countries. So if our health care is so good, why don't we live as long as everyone else?
Three reasons. One, our homicide rate is two to three times higher than other countries. Two, because we drive so much, we have a higher fatality rate on our roads — 14.24 fatalities per 100,000 people vs. 6.19 in Germany, 7.4 in France and 9.25 in Canada. Three, Americans eat far more than those in other nations, contributing to higher levels of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.In countries with nationalized care, medical outcomes are often catastrophically worse. Take breast cancer. According to the Heritage Foundation, breast cancer mortality in Germany is 52% higher than in the U.S.; the U.K.'s rate is 88% higher. For prostate cancer, mortality is 604% higher in the U.K. and 457% higher in Norway. Colorectal cancer? Forty percent higher in the U.K.
Universal health care, wrote Sally Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute in her excellent book, "Top Ten Myths Of American Health Care," will inevitably result in "higher taxes, forced premium payments, one-size-fits-all policies, long waiting lists, rationed care and limited access to cutting-edge medicine."
Thursday, July 16, 2009
A blog post I saw on yahoo. WELL SAID whoever you are.
Libturds won both the house and senate in 11-2006 what do we have to show for it?
Recession starts 12-2007
Housing collapse 2008
Market collapse 2008
California bankrupt 2008
Commercial realestate collapse (pending) 2009
9.5% unemployment and growing 2009
16.5 million without a job and growing 2009
Largest budget deficit in US history 2009
Largest national debt in US history 2009
Dollar on verge of devaluation 2009
Dow hits lowest level in 12yrs 3-2009
Chrysler files bankruptcy 2009
GM files bankruptcy 6-1-2009
Scaring NYC with low level fly overs 2009
Failed talks with NKorea 5-26-09
787billion stimulus FAILED 2009
2 TRILLION dollar deficit 2009
Introduction of a 1.5trillion health insurance bill that fines americans
who choose not to take it. 2009
Recession starts 12-2007
Housing collapse 2008
Market collapse 2008
California bankrupt 2008
Commercial realestate collapse (pending) 2009
9.5% unemployment and growing 2009
16.5 million without a job and growing 2009
Largest budget deficit in US history 2009
Largest national debt in US history 2009
Dollar on verge of devaluation 2009
Dow hits lowest level in 12yrs 3-2009
Chrysler files bankruptcy 2009
GM files bankruptcy 6-1-2009
Scaring NYC with low level fly overs 2009
Failed talks with NKorea 5-26-09
787billion stimulus FAILED 2009
2 TRILLION dollar deficit 2009
Introduction of a 1.5trillion health insurance bill that fines americans
who choose not to take it. 2009
They just want t Keep the private insurars honest huh? BALONEY !
It's Not An Option
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Congress: 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.
It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:
"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.
So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither. Drawn by a public option that will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington's coverage.
The nonpartisan Lewin Group estimated in April that 120 million or more Americans could lose their group coverage at work and end up in such a program. That would leave private carriers with 50 million or fewer customers. This could cause the market to, as Lewin Vice President John Sheils put it, "fizzle out altogether."
What wasn't known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.
The legislation is also likely to finish off health savings accounts, a goal that Democrats have had for years. They want to crush that alternative because nothing gives individuals more control over their medical care, and the government less, than HSAs.
With HSAs out of the way, a key obstacle to the left's expansion of the welfare state will be removed.
The public option won't be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny.
Washington does not have the constitutional or moral authority to outlaw private markets in which parties voluntarily participate. It shouldn't be killing business opportunities, or limiting choices, or legislating major changes in Americans' lives.
It took just 16 pages of reading to find this naked attempt by the political powers to increase their reach. It's scary to think how many more breaches of liberty we'll come across in the final 1,002.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Congress: 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.
It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:
"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.
So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.
From the beginning, opponents of the public option plan have warned that if the government gets into the business of offering subsidized health insurance coverage, the private insurance market will wither. Drawn by a public option that will be 30% to 40% cheaper than their current premiums because taxpayers will be funding it, employers will gladly scrap their private plans and go with Washington's coverage.
The nonpartisan Lewin Group estimated in April that 120 million or more Americans could lose their group coverage at work and end up in such a program. That would leave private carriers with 50 million or fewer customers. This could cause the market to, as Lewin Vice President John Sheils put it, "fizzle out altogether."
What wasn't known until now is that the bill itself will kill the market for private individual coverage by not letting any new policies be written after the public option becomes law.
The legislation is also likely to finish off health savings accounts, a goal that Democrats have had for years. They want to crush that alternative because nothing gives individuals more control over their medical care, and the government less, than HSAs.
With HSAs out of the way, a key obstacle to the left's expansion of the welfare state will be removed.
The public option won't be an option for many, but rather a mandate for buying government care. A free people should be outraged at this advance of soft tyranny.
Washington does not have the constitutional or moral authority to outlaw private markets in which parties voluntarily participate. It shouldn't be killing business opportunities, or limiting choices, or legislating major changes in Americans' lives.
It took just 16 pages of reading to find this naked attempt by the political powers to increase their reach. It's scary to think how many more breaches of liberty we'll come across in the final 1,002.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
New Rant for today.
I tried going to sleep but I just couldn't get some things out of my head that I had been thinking about, so here it goes for good or for bad you be the judge.
There is a lot of foolishness going on in the world today, but in particlar my own country. And frankly I HAVE HAD ENOUGH! Too many people trying to do to many nutty, crazy things.
I will give you an example the "healthcare overhaul". What our president (for good or for bad) wants to do here is beyond insane. It will lead to socialized medicene and for MOST people thats a bad thing plus if try making health insurance manditory alot of smaller business will end up going under trying to pay for it.Just make people pay for what they use and not what the state mandates they have to use to have insurance and address TORT reform please Mr.President. That will help lower your medical costs a lot right there and stop giving the illegials medical benefits and other things a lot of regular citizens cant even get- think about it. Second is Cap and Trade or Cap and Tax as I like to call it. IS MR.HUSSEIN SERIOUS HERE?? Does he not realize all the thousands of jobs that will be lost not only the unsustainable energy bills people can barely afford as it is. What if you can't afford to go "green" or whatever bs you want to call it? What if you landlord cant afford to? And don't give this crap about subsiddies from the "rich" making it up. Who do you think hires the average joe? It ain't some poor person and arent we just punishing people for their success anyhow?
Those are just a few examples of what I like to call the foolishness that is going on in this country. There are so many more its like the grains of sand in the
dessert.
How about Sotomayor? Wow what a winner we have there, NOT ! You know that it doesn't really matter what I think in the long run of things, either on this or how much I despise our president, because too many people are just yacking and flapping their gums and screaming and hollering and not really saying anything real.
I am sick of it. SICK OF IT ALL. I am sick of liberals calling me names because I oppose Obama and his policies and because I have the guts to stand up for conservative judeo christian values. I am not a racist for not liking Obama in the least bit, nor am I some crazy right-winger nutjob for standing up for the values and beliefs this country was founded on (which by the way does include some christianity).
I am just an american who sick to death of the foolishness and massive selfishness that goes by everyone on both sides of the aisle. I want them to keep it real and stop being the selfish lying bastards that they are most of the time. I will always consider myself a conservative (not a republican) because of the ideals that they represent. They represent a love for country, love for free market. Love for free enterprise, and minimal government interference. Can I get an AMEN to that one because that last one pisses me off the most.
I like Glenn Beck more the death of common sense and our ability to actually see reason and talk like the true thinking adults we are supposed to be. People just so worked up for certain things (rightly or wrongly depends on your perspective I guess)that no one can really say anything without some hot head jumping down there throats and screaming at them your wrong. Maybe they are, but can't you at least discuss it civily with them still?
I got one last beef. The freaking "state run" media as some of us are want to call them. Seriouly when was the last time they ever treated a republican president with the same respect and true sense of awe that they do Mr. Huessin? NEVER, that when. The time we might have ever come close to being able to reason like adults together , was when Reagan was president.
The mainstream media with the exception of FOX is so far left that even I have to say something about it. Its just pathetic and sad. Journelisn, true impartial journelism is just about dead as I knew it growing up. Maybe we should have a funeral for it along with the Common Sense that seems to have died as well. What do you think?
Well, I am going back to bed now. I think I gotten it off my chest for now. I think I make some really good points here people so think about it. Just you and not you and the media.
Peace folks.
I hope Gods light finds you.
There is a lot of foolishness going on in the world today, but in particlar my own country. And frankly I HAVE HAD ENOUGH! Too many people trying to do to many nutty, crazy things.
I will give you an example the "healthcare overhaul". What our president (for good or for bad) wants to do here is beyond insane. It will lead to socialized medicene and for MOST people thats a bad thing plus if try making health insurance manditory alot of smaller business will end up going under trying to pay for it.Just make people pay for what they use and not what the state mandates they have to use to have insurance and address TORT reform please Mr.President. That will help lower your medical costs a lot right there and stop giving the illegials medical benefits and other things a lot of regular citizens cant even get- think about it. Second is Cap and Trade or Cap and Tax as I like to call it. IS MR.HUSSEIN SERIOUS HERE?? Does he not realize all the thousands of jobs that will be lost not only the unsustainable energy bills people can barely afford as it is. What if you can't afford to go "green" or whatever bs you want to call it? What if you landlord cant afford to? And don't give this crap about subsiddies from the "rich" making it up. Who do you think hires the average joe? It ain't some poor person and arent we just punishing people for their success anyhow?
Those are just a few examples of what I like to call the foolishness that is going on in this country. There are so many more its like the grains of sand in the
dessert.
How about Sotomayor? Wow what a winner we have there, NOT ! You know that it doesn't really matter what I think in the long run of things, either on this or how much I despise our president, because too many people are just yacking and flapping their gums and screaming and hollering and not really saying anything real.
I am sick of it. SICK OF IT ALL. I am sick of liberals calling me names because I oppose Obama and his policies and because I have the guts to stand up for conservative judeo christian values. I am not a racist for not liking Obama in the least bit, nor am I some crazy right-winger nutjob for standing up for the values and beliefs this country was founded on (which by the way does include some christianity).
I am just an american who sick to death of the foolishness and massive selfishness that goes by everyone on both sides of the aisle. I want them to keep it real and stop being the selfish lying bastards that they are most of the time. I will always consider myself a conservative (not a republican) because of the ideals that they represent. They represent a love for country, love for free market. Love for free enterprise, and minimal government interference. Can I get an AMEN to that one because that last one pisses me off the most.
I like Glenn Beck more the death of common sense and our ability to actually see reason and talk like the true thinking adults we are supposed to be. People just so worked up for certain things (rightly or wrongly depends on your perspective I guess)that no one can really say anything without some hot head jumping down there throats and screaming at them your wrong. Maybe they are, but can't you at least discuss it civily with them still?
I got one last beef. The freaking "state run" media as some of us are want to call them. Seriouly when was the last time they ever treated a republican president with the same respect and true sense of awe that they do Mr. Huessin? NEVER, that when. The time we might have ever come close to being able to reason like adults together , was when Reagan was president.
The mainstream media with the exception of FOX is so far left that even I have to say something about it. Its just pathetic and sad. Journelisn, true impartial journelism is just about dead as I knew it growing up. Maybe we should have a funeral for it along with the Common Sense that seems to have died as well. What do you think?
Well, I am going back to bed now. I think I gotten it off my chest for now. I think I make some really good points here people so think about it. Just you and not you and the media.
Peace folks.
I hope Gods light finds you.
This is pretty much what I think of Sotomayor
Sonia's Senators
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Supreme Court: Some Republican senators made acceptable noises against Judge Sonia Sotomayor on her first day of confirmation hearings. But stopping her will take a lot more. They must expose her extremism.
After the Senate Judiciary Committee members' opening statements were completed on Monday, laughter ran through the hearing room after panel chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., seemed to announce that Judge Sotomayor would in a few minutes be administered the "oath of office."
But no — he meant the oath preceding her testimony.
In introducing Sotomayor, New York Sen. Charles Schumer said that, due to Sotomayor's extensive judicial experience, he hoped her hearings would matter less than those of previous nominees.
Finally, Republican committee member Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina assured the woman who may well end up being the most liberal Supreme Court justice in history that "unless you have a complete meltdown, you're going to be confirmed."
The bipartisan message seems to be: Why have hearings at all?
Asked about Graham's defeatist remark, a self-satisfied Chairman Leahy said that "for the sake of the Senate" he wanted Sotomayor's nomination "not to be a party-line vote."
Translation: While all Democrats vote their party line, he hopes a bunch of Republicans will vote the Democratic party line too.
Leahy may not have to worry. Liberal Supreme Court nominees always seem to win plenty of Republican votes. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg won confirmation by 96 to 3 in 1993, in spite of having been a chief litigator for one of the most extremist organizations in the country, the powerful ACLU.
Justice Stephen Breyer slid through almost as easily in 1994, by 87 to 9, the only bump in the road being liberal Ohio Democratic Sen. Howard Metzenbaum grumbling that he was too pro-business.
Sen. Graham may want to continue that ignoble GOP tradition of playing dead, but some GOP senators understand what is at stake.
The panel's ranking Republican, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, warned that President Obama's "empathy standard" would lead to a world in which "unelected judges set policy, Americans are seen as members of separate groups rather than simply Americans, and where the constitutional limits on government power are ignored when politicians want to buy out private companies."
Sessions called Sotomayor's statements on bias influencing her rulings and appellate courts working as policymaking bodies "shocking and offensive."
And he noted that when she chaired the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund's litigation committee, it "aggressively pursued racial quotas in city hiring and, in numerous cases, fought to overturn the results of promotion exams." That helps explain why she was overturned in the New Haven Fire Department case.
Sonia Sotomayor has publicly called everything from the death penalty to the SATs racist. Her wacky rulings include ordering prisons to let Hispanic inmates wear Santeria voodoo beads, even though the jewelry doubles as gang symbols.
This is an ideologically driven judge with an agenda. Sessions and his colleagues have a duty to all of us to expose her record fully.
Monday, July 13, 2009
This is proof there is a God and angels watching over us.
Thank you for praying for Daniel my son. He came home and is fine. The doctors thought he was going to die from his injuries. They thought his neck and back might have been broken. Liquid was coming out of his ear so they thought he had brain damage and because the way his legs looks they also thought he was going to be paralyzed. His face was crushed because when the tree fell on him his face hit into a large solid rock. When he was between the tree and the rock and was in pain laying there he heard a man's voice say to him "get up, get up or you will die here" thank God for all your prayers he came home with no injuries. The doctors that night had already notified the forest dept to call his parents that he would not make it through the night. Every time the doctors took a new x-ray he seemed to improve by the third x-ray they could not anything wrong with him. They told him he was lucky. We know it was God. Thank you and your church for your prayers. They saved my sons life. Myra
Friday, July 10, 2009
G-8 Article from Investors Business Daily
The G-8 Economic Suicide Pact
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 09, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Climate Change: Channeling King Canute, G-8 leaders agree to wreck the world's economy, and ours, by pledging to prevent temperatures from rising more than 4 degrees by 2050. What if the Earth has other plans?
Canute was the legendary king whose sycophantic followers praised his power and wisdom. He was The One of his time. He once stood on the shore and commanded the waves to halt. As the story goes, he was exercising his ego when in fact he was giving his followers a dose of reality — the power of man over nature is finite and inconsequential.
We were reminded of this as members of the G-8 met in Italy on Wednesday to agree in principle to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050. The aim is to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012. In December, the U.N. is convening a meeting in Copenhagen to forge a binding consensus on reduction targets.
The announced goal, which President Obama has signed on to, is to keep the earth's average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). That should not be a problem. While the warm-mongers tout 1998 as a record warm year, no year since has been as warm as the earth has, in fact, cooled during an unusually quiet solar cycle.
Last August was the first month in nearly a century in which the sun was completely devoid of sunspots, an indicator of solar activity. While the earth's temperature charts nicely with the solar cycles over time, it correlates not at all with rising CO2 levels. In fact, the earth has been cooling even as these levels rise, and the earth is no warmer than it was in 1979.
Since Al Gore released his feature-length cartoon "An Inconvenient Truth" in October 2006, the Earth has cooled about 0.74 F, almost the same amount that the U.N.'s climate panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claims was gained in the entire 20th century.
Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute has actually sat down and crunched the numbers to find out what an 80% reduction actually means. An 80% reduction from 1990 levels means that in 2050 we cannot emit more than 1 billion tons of CO2. The last time U.S. emissions were that low, Hayward estimates from historical energy data, was in 1910.
We have pointed out that Kyoto-like accords are recipes for global poverty and that capping emissions is capping economic growth. An analysis of the more modest Waxman-Markey bill by the Heritage Foundation projects that by 2035 it would reduce aggregate gross domestic product by $7.4 trillion. In an average year, 844,000 jobs would be destroyed with peak years seeing unemployment rise by almost 2 million.
According to an analysis by Chip Knappenberger, administrator of the World Climate Report, the reduction of U.S. CO2 emissions to 80% below 2005 levels by 2050 — the goal of Waxman-Markey — would reduce global temperature in 2050 by an insignificant 0.05 C.
EPA climate analyst Alan Carlin, who will not be invited to Copenhagen, recently had his study exposing warming as an over-hyped fraud ignoring actual data suppressed. He was told his conclusions would have "a very negative impact on our office." The truth hurts.
China and India quite sensibly are refusing to participate in this nonsense. "Without participation from China and India, anything we do here at home would impose burdensome costs on consumers in the form of higher electricity, gas and food prices, all for no climate gain," says Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe.
It is wise for these guys to meet in Copenhagen in December. That way they won't be embarrassed as was the British House of Commons when it debated a climate change bill last fall that pledged the U.K. to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050 amidst the first October snow since 1922 hit London.
King Canute, call your office.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Wise words I think.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 09, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Climate Change: Channeling King Canute, G-8 leaders agree to wreck the world's economy, and ours, by pledging to prevent temperatures from rising more than 4 degrees by 2050. What if the Earth has other plans?
Canute was the legendary king whose sycophantic followers praised his power and wisdom. He was The One of his time. He once stood on the shore and commanded the waves to halt. As the story goes, he was exercising his ego when in fact he was giving his followers a dose of reality — the power of man over nature is finite and inconsequential.
We were reminded of this as members of the G-8 met in Italy on Wednesday to agree in principle to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050. The aim is to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012. In December, the U.N. is convening a meeting in Copenhagen to forge a binding consensus on reduction targets.
The announced goal, which President Obama has signed on to, is to keep the earth's average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). That should not be a problem. While the warm-mongers tout 1998 as a record warm year, no year since has been as warm as the earth has, in fact, cooled during an unusually quiet solar cycle.
Last August was the first month in nearly a century in which the sun was completely devoid of sunspots, an indicator of solar activity. While the earth's temperature charts nicely with the solar cycles over time, it correlates not at all with rising CO2 levels. In fact, the earth has been cooling even as these levels rise, and the earth is no warmer than it was in 1979.
Since Al Gore released his feature-length cartoon "An Inconvenient Truth" in October 2006, the Earth has cooled about 0.74 F, almost the same amount that the U.N.'s climate panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claims was gained in the entire 20th century.
Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute has actually sat down and crunched the numbers to find out what an 80% reduction actually means. An 80% reduction from 1990 levels means that in 2050 we cannot emit more than 1 billion tons of CO2. The last time U.S. emissions were that low, Hayward estimates from historical energy data, was in 1910.
We have pointed out that Kyoto-like accords are recipes for global poverty and that capping emissions is capping economic growth. An analysis of the more modest Waxman-Markey bill by the Heritage Foundation projects that by 2035 it would reduce aggregate gross domestic product by $7.4 trillion. In an average year, 844,000 jobs would be destroyed with peak years seeing unemployment rise by almost 2 million.
According to an analysis by Chip Knappenberger, administrator of the World Climate Report, the reduction of U.S. CO2 emissions to 80% below 2005 levels by 2050 — the goal of Waxman-Markey — would reduce global temperature in 2050 by an insignificant 0.05 C.
EPA climate analyst Alan Carlin, who will not be invited to Copenhagen, recently had his study exposing warming as an over-hyped fraud ignoring actual data suppressed. He was told his conclusions would have "a very negative impact on our office." The truth hurts.
China and India quite sensibly are refusing to participate in this nonsense. "Without participation from China and India, anything we do here at home would impose burdensome costs on consumers in the form of higher electricity, gas and food prices, all for no climate gain," says Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe.
It is wise for these guys to meet in Copenhagen in December. That way they won't be embarrassed as was the British House of Commons when it debated a climate change bill last fall that pledged the U.K. to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050 amidst the first October snow since 1922 hit London.
King Canute, call your office.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Wise words I think.
Monday, July 6, 2009
The Title of the Article is called HELP For Whom? food for thought I think.
HELP For Whom?
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 06, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Health Reform: 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.
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IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure
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When even the venerable Helen Thomas gets upset at an Obama show and tell, you know the sales job for health care reform and other goodies is not going well. "I'm amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency," said Thomas, a view we share.
Thomas accused the White House of "controlling the press" and said just about all Obama events are "prepackaged." White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was dismissive. "We've had this discussion before," he said. "Of course you would (say that)," Thomas shot back, "because you don't have any answers."
Perhaps what Thomas had in mind is that Debby Smith, the uninsured cancer patient hugged by President Obama, is also a Democratic operative. She is a member of Organizing For America, a group that is a project of the Democratic National Committee, and Smith was invited to the event by the White House itself.
Like Thomas, we get the impression the White House and the Democrats in Congress are making it up as they go along. Acknowledging that many are uninsured because they choose to be, a Senate version of medical reform imposes fines of $1,000 for uninsured people who decline coverage. Families who do so will pay more.
They are, in Orwellian fashion, called "shared responsibility payments" instead of fines. They are to be at least half the cost of basic medical care, which is sure to go up whatever the Obama administration promises. We need only look at Medicare to see government promises of care on the cheap are bogus.
The Senate legislation is sponsored by the usual suspects, Democrats Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Chris Dodd of Connecticut. It's modeled on Massachusetts' plan, which also imposes a $1,000 fine. The godfathers of health care are making us an offer we can't refuse.
The CBO estimates the "shared responsibility payments will bring in about $36 billion over 10 years. This Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) bill also calls for a $750-per-worker "annual fee," $375 for part-time workers on companies with more than 25 employees that do not offer coverage to employees.
So if you're a small business seeking to expand beyond 25 workers, you have quite a bit to think about. That's sure going to help job growth. In a statement released by the White House, Obama welcomed the revised legislation, saying it "reflects many of the principles I've laid out."
The Kennedy-Dodd bill also provides for a government-run insurance option to compete with private plans. A competing Senate Finance Committee version does not.
According to the CBO, under its plan "the number of people who had coverage through an employer would decline by about 15 million, and coverage from other sources would fall by about 8 million." The number of uninsured would decline by only a third.
This seems to fly in the face of the Obama promise that if you like your current coverage, nothing will change. Around 80% of Americans — 243 million of us — have indicated we like our current coverage and doctors. Too bad, for that will change.
Suppose health care reform passes and all are insured, by force or otherwise. The U.S. will be short 124,400 front-line physicians by 2025, according to the Association of Medical Colleges.
That does not include the 15,585 new primary-care providers the administration plan is estimated to require.
Put together fewer doctors, more patients and government insurance, and that spells less access to care, even rationing. HillaryCare died in 1994 when Americans realized it would force them to give up the coverage and health care providers they liked.
ObamaCare is no different.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 06, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Health Reform: 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When even the venerable Helen Thomas gets upset at an Obama show and tell, you know the sales job for health care reform and other goodies is not going well. "I'm amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency," said Thomas, a view we share.
Thomas accused the White House of "controlling the press" and said just about all Obama events are "prepackaged." White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was dismissive. "We've had this discussion before," he said. "Of course you would (say that)," Thomas shot back, "because you don't have any answers."
Perhaps what Thomas had in mind is that Debby Smith, the uninsured cancer patient hugged by President Obama, is also a Democratic operative. She is a member of Organizing For America, a group that is a project of the Democratic National Committee, and Smith was invited to the event by the White House itself.
Like Thomas, we get the impression the White House and the Democrats in Congress are making it up as they go along. Acknowledging that many are uninsured because they choose to be, a Senate version of medical reform imposes fines of $1,000 for uninsured people who decline coverage. Families who do so will pay more.
They are, in Orwellian fashion, called "shared responsibility payments" instead of fines. They are to be at least half the cost of basic medical care, which is sure to go up whatever the Obama administration promises. We need only look at Medicare to see government promises of care on the cheap are bogus.
The Senate legislation is sponsored by the usual suspects, Democrats Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Chris Dodd of Connecticut. It's modeled on Massachusetts' plan, which also imposes a $1,000 fine. The godfathers of health care are making us an offer we can't refuse.
The CBO estimates the "shared responsibility payments will bring in about $36 billion over 10 years. This Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) bill also calls for a $750-per-worker "annual fee," $375 for part-time workers on companies with more than 25 employees that do not offer coverage to employees.
So if you're a small business seeking to expand beyond 25 workers, you have quite a bit to think about. That's sure going to help job growth. In a statement released by the White House, Obama welcomed the revised legislation, saying it "reflects many of the principles I've laid out."
The Kennedy-Dodd bill also provides for a government-run insurance option to compete with private plans. A competing Senate Finance Committee version does not.
According to the CBO, under its plan "the number of people who had coverage through an employer would decline by about 15 million, and coverage from other sources would fall by about 8 million." The number of uninsured would decline by only a third.
This seems to fly in the face of the Obama promise that if you like your current coverage, nothing will change. Around 80% of Americans — 243 million of us — have indicated we like our current coverage and doctors. Too bad, for that will change.
Suppose health care reform passes and all are insured, by force or otherwise. The U.S. will be short 124,400 front-line physicians by 2025, according to the Association of Medical Colleges.
That does not include the 15,585 new primary-care providers the administration plan is estimated to require.
Put together fewer doctors, more patients and government insurance, and that spells less access to care, even rationing. HillaryCare died in 1994 when Americans realized it would force them to give up the coverage and health care providers they liked.
ObamaCare is no different.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
This more than makes the case against single- payer healthcare, otherwise known as socialized medicene.
Canada's Single-Prayer Health Care
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, June 30, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Health Reform: A critically ill premature baby is moved to a U.S hospital to get the treatment she couldn't get in the system we're told we should emulate. Cost-effective care? In Canada, as elsewhere, you get what you pay for.
Ava Isabella Stinson was born last Thursday at St. Joseph's hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. Weighing only two pounds, she was born 13 weeks premature and needed some very special care. Unfortunately, there were no open neonatal intensive care beds for her at St. Joseph's — or anywhere else in the entire province of Ontario, it seems.
Canada's perfectly planned and cost-effective system had no room at the inn for Ava, who of necessity had to be sent across the border to a Buffalo, N.Y., hospital to suffer under our chaotic and costly system. She had no time to be put on a Canadian waiting list. She got the care she needed at an American hospital under a system President Obama has labeled "unsustainable."
Jim Hoft over at Gateway Pundit reports Ava's case is not unusual. He reports that Hamilton's neonatal intensive care unit is closed to new admissions half the time. Special-needs infants are sent elsewhere and usually to the U.S.
In 2007, a Canadian woman gave birth to extremely rare identical quadruplets — Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia Jepps. They were born in the United States to Canadian parents because there was again no space available at any Canadian neonatal care unit. All they had was a wing and a prayer.
The Jepps, a nurse and a respiratory technician flew from Calgary, a city of a million people, 325 miles to Benefit Hospital in Great Falls, Mont., a city of 56,000. The girls are doing fine, thanks to our system where care still trumps cost and where being without insurance does not mean being without care.
Infant mortality rates are often cited as a reason socialized medicine and a single-payer system is supposed to be better than what we have here. But according to Dr. Linda Halderman, a policy adviser in the California State Senate, these comparisons are bogus.
As she points out, in the U.S., low birth-weight babies are still babies. In Canada, Germany and Austria, a premature baby weighing less than 500 grams is not considered a living child and is not counted in such statistics. They're considered "unsalvageable" and therefore never alive.
Norway boasts one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world — until you factor in weight at birth, and then its rate is no better than in the U.S.
In other countries babies that survive less than 24 hours are also excluded and are classified as "stillborn." In the U.S. any infant that shows any sign of life for any length of time is considered a live birth.
A child born in Hong Kong or Japan that lives less than a day is reported as a "miscarriage" and not counted. In Switzerland and other parts of Europe, a baby is not counted as a baby if it is less than 30 centimeters in length.
In 2007, there were at least 40 mothers and their babies who were airlifted from British Columbia alone to the U.S. because Canadian hospitals didn't have room. It's worth noting that since 2000, 42 of the world's 52 surviving babies weighing less than 400g (0.9 pounds) were born in the U.S.
It must be embarrassing to Canada that a G-7 economy and a country of 30 million people can't offer the same level of health care as a town of just over 50,000 in rural Montana. Where will Canada send its preemies and other critical patients when we adopt their health care system?
As we have noted, in Canada roughly 900,000 patients of all ages are waiting for beds, according to the Fraser Institute. There are more than four times as many magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) units per capita in the U.S. as in Canada. We have twice as many CT scanners per capita.
Expensive? Wasteful. Just ask the Jepps or the parents of Ava Isabella Stinson.
---------------------------
and we want to copy this? REALLY PEOPLE?
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, June 30, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Health Reform: A critically ill premature baby is moved to a U.S hospital to get the treatment she couldn't get in the system we're told we should emulate. Cost-effective care? In Canada, as elsewhere, you get what you pay for.
Ava Isabella Stinson was born last Thursday at St. Joseph's hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. Weighing only two pounds, she was born 13 weeks premature and needed some very special care. Unfortunately, there were no open neonatal intensive care beds for her at St. Joseph's — or anywhere else in the entire province of Ontario, it seems.
Canada's perfectly planned and cost-effective system had no room at the inn for Ava, who of necessity had to be sent across the border to a Buffalo, N.Y., hospital to suffer under our chaotic and costly system. She had no time to be put on a Canadian waiting list. She got the care she needed at an American hospital under a system President Obama has labeled "unsustainable."
Jim Hoft over at Gateway Pundit reports Ava's case is not unusual. He reports that Hamilton's neonatal intensive care unit is closed to new admissions half the time. Special-needs infants are sent elsewhere and usually to the U.S.
In 2007, a Canadian woman gave birth to extremely rare identical quadruplets — Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia Jepps. They were born in the United States to Canadian parents because there was again no space available at any Canadian neonatal care unit. All they had was a wing and a prayer.
The Jepps, a nurse and a respiratory technician flew from Calgary, a city of a million people, 325 miles to Benefit Hospital in Great Falls, Mont., a city of 56,000. The girls are doing fine, thanks to our system where care still trumps cost and where being without insurance does not mean being without care.
Infant mortality rates are often cited as a reason socialized medicine and a single-payer system is supposed to be better than what we have here. But according to Dr. Linda Halderman, a policy adviser in the California State Senate, these comparisons are bogus.
As she points out, in the U.S., low birth-weight babies are still babies. In Canada, Germany and Austria, a premature baby weighing less than 500 grams is not considered a living child and is not counted in such statistics. They're considered "unsalvageable" and therefore never alive.
Norway boasts one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world — until you factor in weight at birth, and then its rate is no better than in the U.S.
In other countries babies that survive less than 24 hours are also excluded and are classified as "stillborn." In the U.S. any infant that shows any sign of life for any length of time is considered a live birth.
A child born in Hong Kong or Japan that lives less than a day is reported as a "miscarriage" and not counted. In Switzerland and other parts of Europe, a baby is not counted as a baby if it is less than 30 centimeters in length.
In 2007, there were at least 40 mothers and their babies who were airlifted from British Columbia alone to the U.S. because Canadian hospitals didn't have room. It's worth noting that since 2000, 42 of the world's 52 surviving babies weighing less than 400g (0.9 pounds) were born in the U.S.
It must be embarrassing to Canada that a G-7 economy and a country of 30 million people can't offer the same level of health care as a town of just over 50,000 in rural Montana. Where will Canada send its preemies and other critical patients when we adopt their health care system?
As we have noted, in Canada roughly 900,000 patients of all ages are waiting for beds, according to the Fraser Institute. There are more than four times as many magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) units per capita in the U.S. as in Canada. We have twice as many CT scanners per capita.
Expensive? Wasteful. Just ask the Jepps or the parents of Ava Isabella Stinson.
---------------------------
and we want to copy this? REALLY PEOPLE?
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