Truth Is A Casualty Of The Final Pus

Posted 03/19/2010 07:07 PM ET


Health Reform: Not since the heyday of Bill Clinton have we had a leader play so fast and loose with the facts as President Obama. And as the health care debate reaches a crescendo, he's been especially reckless.

Tired of waiting for the major media to take note, here's a small sampling of whoppers we took from the president's speeches last week in Ohio and Virginia, plus his interview with Fox News' Bret Baier:

• "We have incorporated the best ideas from Democrats and from Republicans." Far from it. Some of the biggest omissions include tort reform, health savings accounts, portable insurance, expanding consumer access to plans across state lines and posting provider prices for services so patients can shop around.Republicans were almost completely shut out from the process and at the early stages last summer, were not even permitted to read the bill. In an atmosphere like this, it's little wonder the bill isn't drawing a single vote of support from Republicans of either house. It's fully a creature of the Democratic Party.

• ("This is not a) government takeover of health care." How is it that government can dictate to private insurance companies what they can offer, to whom, under what circumstances and at what prices, and yet still not own it? Every basic business decision a private company can make has effectively been expropriated.
Even as Obama denied his health care plan was a government takeover, his vice president, Joe Biden, laid out the real deal: "You know we're going to control the insurance companies." We'll take him at his word.
• "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." That's if your doctor chooses to remain in the profession. Unfortunately, our own IBD/TIPP Poll found that up to 45% would consider quitting if they're going to be dictated to by unaccountable bureaucrats who couldn't get into medical school.
Price controls will slash doctor salaries and raise workloads, mandating that doctors make up for losses with volume. Bureaucrats will crack the whip on costs by lowering payments and penalizing doctors who refer patients to specialists. All this, and zero tort reform relief, will drive many doctors out of the profession just as 32 million new patients enter the market.• "Our proposal is paid for ... our cost-cutting measures would reduce most people's premiums and bring down our deficit by more than $1 trillion over the next two decades." Government programs always cost more than projected. Medicare, which has $86 trillion in unfunded liabilities, was supposed to cost $10 billion within 25 years of its implementation. It actually cost $107 billion.
The real cost of the Democrats' reform plan, according to the Cato Institute, which isn't handcuffed in its estimates like the Congressional Budget Office, is $2.5 trillion over the first decade.

• "If this vote fails, then insurance companies will continue to run amok." They're not exactly wildcatting as it is. Health plan providers boast a profit margin of 3.4% — placing them 88th of 215 industries in Morningstar rankings. More than 2,000 state mandates dictate what coverages they provide.

• "By the time the vote has taken place ... you'll know what's in it because it's going to be posted and everybody's going to be able to evaluate it on the merits." The final bill wouldn't available to the public until Saturday morning, the day before the vote, congressional sources told us Friday. So in fact, nobody would have time to digest the 2,500-page leviathan.
• "We're not transforming one-sixth of the economy in one fell swoop." Yes, Obama wants to take over the health care sector, but in pieces. In 2007, he said that "economically it is better for us to start getting a system in place, a universal health care system, signed into law by the end of my first term as president." Canada, he noted, "did not start off immediately with a single-payer system, they had a similar transition step." He's been on record since at least 2003 as a "proponent of single-payer, universal health care."

• "(This will be) the largest middle-class tax cut in the history of the country." Tax cut? New taxes on prescription drug sales, medical devices, tanning services and an annual tax on health insurers for being health insurers will all end up on middle-class shoulders.
Then for families earning $250,000 there are taxes of 0.9% for hospital insurance, 2.9% on "unearned income," plus a tax on high-premium policies. The "middle-class tax cut," in the president's misleading words, amounts to "tax credits to help you afford" the more expensive insurance of the new (also misleadingly named) "competitive marketplace."

• "$3,000 your employer doesn't have to pay ... maybe she can afford to give you a raise." Premiums will not go down, but way, way up. The Associated Press last week found that $3,000 to misrepresent a Business Roundtable analysis last year that "didn't consider specific legislation."
Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation told the AP "it would be miraculous" if premiums went down under the legislation set to be passed. Using the HIS/Global Insight U.S. Macroeconomic model, a Heritage Foundation analysis found that with the new government-regulated exchanges "crowding out the employer-sponsored market," there will be "an overall increase in the absolute amount of health spending on premiums."

• "Small business owners ... can purchase more affordable coverage in a competitive marketplace." In fact, small businesses will be slapped with new taxes — including a penalty if they don't provide the level of health coverage Washington dictates. As owners of modest-sized firms cope with the new burdens, their employees may find themselves with substantially reduced coverage — or with pink slips.
As to the promised financial assistance for new employer mandates, it remains unknown what "small business" will mean under ObamaCare. Will the definition apply only to micro-businesses of a couple dozen workers?

• (The reform legislation is) "about the character of our country." Let's hope not. Never in American history have politicians sunk to lower depths than in the push to thrust this massive expansion of government down an unwilling America's throat.

From the unconstitutional "Slaughter solution" that would pass it without a vote of the people's representatives, to the taxpayer-funded bribery of the "Cornhusker kickback" and "Louisiana Purchase," to the pretense of passing it as a budget item bypassing Senate filibusters, Democratic leaders have shown they will stop at nothing to set us on the road to European socialized medicine.

Why Health Bill Makes No Sense

This article lays it better than I ever could.
Posted 03/12/2010 07:12 PM ET
Health Reform: So it's come down to this — desperate Democratic leaders strong-arming members on the worst bill ever before they go home to explain to constituents why they decided to commit political suicide.

We've said just about all we've had to say on this issue — actually dating back to 1993-94, when we wrote nearly 100 editorials in opposition to HillaryCare. Since January of last year, we've weighed in 150 more times against the latest version of socialized medicine.

But to review, here are just 15 reasons why a government takeover of the finest medical system in the world makes no sense at all:

1. The people don't want it! This, we would think, should have some bearing on decision-making. Yet the Democrats forge ahead without consent of the governed. In the latest Rasmussen poll, 53% opposed the Democrats' reform while 42% were in favor. More than four in 10 "strongly" opposed; just two in 10 "strongly" favored. This jibes with other surveys, including our own IBD/TIPP Poll, taken since last year.

2. Doctors don't want it! A survey we took last summer of 1,376 practicing physicians found that 45% would consider leaving their practices or taking early retirements if the Democrats' reform became law. In December, the results were validated by a Medicus poll in which 25% of doctors said they'd retire early if a public option is implemented and another 21% would stop practicing even though they were far from their retirement years. Even if the bill doesn't have a "public option," nearly 30% said they'd quit the profession under the plans being considered.

3. Half the Congress doesn't want it! Not a single Republican backed the health care bill that cleared the Senate on Christmas Eve 60-39. House passage was by a slim 220 to 215, and the lone Republican "aye" has since switched to "no." Columnist Michael Barone says other changes would put the House vote today at 216-215 in favor, and he has doubts Democrats can even muster 216.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her job of securing yes votes even more difficult last week when she told a meeting of county officials that "we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it." (ARE YOU KIDDING ME? REALLY) Members of Congress aren't waiting: They've already exempted themselves from whatever they inflict on us.

4. People are happy with the health care they've got! Polls show that 84% of Americans have health insurance and that few are displeased with what they've got. Last month, the St. Petersburg Times looked at eight polls and reported that satisfaction rates averaged 87%
5. It doesn't even cover the people they set out to cover! Supporters of government-run health care say there are as many as 47 million Americans — 9 million to 10 million of them illegal aliens — without medical insurance. The Democrats' plans, however, will put only 31 million of the uninsured under coverage.

6. Costs will go up, not down! Democrats say their plans will cost less than $1 trillion over the first decade. But analyst Michael Cannon at the Cato Institute puts the cost at $2.5 trillion over the first 10 years. Even if we go with the government's lower estimates, the cost is already on the rise. A new estimate by the Congressional Budget Office puts the cost of the Senate bill at $875 billion over 10 years, $4 billion more than its original projection. Imagine how fast costs would soar if one of the bills became public policy.

7. Real cost controls are nowhere to be found! The Democrats are offering no meaningful tort reform that will help push down the high malpractice insurance premiums that are a burden to doctors and their patients. Nor are they considering any other cost-saving provisions, such as allowing the sale of individual health plans across state lines or easing health insurance mandates.

8. Insurance premiums will rise, not fall! One goal of nationalizing health care is to lower costs, to bend the spending curve downward. Yet, as Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin acknowledged Wednesday, that won't be the case.

"Anyone who would stand before you and say, 'Well, if you pass health care reform, next year's health care premiums are going down,' I don't think is telling the truth," he said from the Senate floor. "I think it is likely they would go up."

An analysis completed by the CBO at the request of Sen. Evan Bayh confirms Durbin's suspicions. Insurance coverage in the individual market will "be about 10% to 13% higher in 2016 than the average premium for nongroup coverage in that same year under current law," it concluded.

9. Medicare is already bankrupting us! The Medicare trust fund, which has unfunded obligations of $37.8 trillion, will be insolvent in 2017. How can lawmakers justify another entitlement that will cost trillions when they can't pay for existing liabilities?
10. There aren't enough doctors now! Last month, 26% of physicians responding to a Web poll on Sermo.com, which calls itself "the largest online physician community," said they had been forced to close, or were considering closing, their solo practices. Providing coverage for an additional 31 million Americans when the number of doctors is shrinking won't improve our health care.

11. The doctor-patient relationship will be wrecked! The latest IBD/TIPP Poll, taken just last week, found that Americans, by a wide 48%-26% margin, believe the doctor-patient relationship will decline if the Democrats' plan is passed.

12. Medical care will also deteriorate! IBD/TIPP has also found that 51% of Americans believe care would get worse under government control. Only 10.5% said they felt it would improve. In our doctor poll, 72% disagreed with administration claims that the government could cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.

13. Rationing of care is inevitable! Health care is not an unlimited resource and must be rationed, either by the individual, providers or government. In Britain and Canada, where the government does the rationing, medical treatment waiting lists are sometimes deadly and quite often excessively long.

For instance, late cancer diagnoses in an overcrowded public health care system cause up to 10,000 needless deaths a year in Britain. The reasons cited for the late diagnoses include doctor delay, delay in primary care, system delay and delay in secondary care.
14. Private health insurers will be destroyed! Added mandates and price controls will force many insurers to simply get out of the health plan business because it will no longer be profitable.

15. It's probably unconstitutional! One way to help bring down the number of uninsured is to demand that those without coverage buy health plans. But the government has never passed a law requiring Americans to buy any good or service. Constitutional scholars say any such mandate would likely draw a legal challenge. (I can hope so)

Health Care A Right? More Like A Wish

By WALTER WILLIAMS
Posted 03/08/2010 05:53 PM ET


Most politicians, and probably most Americans, see health care as a right. Thus, whether a person has the means to pay for medical services or not, he is nonetheless entitled to them. Let's ask ourselves a few questions about this vision.

Say a person, let's call him Harry, suffers from diabetes and he has no means to pay a laboratory for blood work, a doctor for treatment and a pharmacy for medication. Does Harry have a right to XYZ lab's and Dr. Jones' services and a prescription from a pharmacist? And, if those services are not provided without charge, should Harry be able to call for criminal sanctions against those persons for violating his rights to health care?

You say, "Williams, that would come very close to slavery if one person had the right to force someone to serve him without pay." You're right.

Suppose instead of Harry being able to force a lab, doctor and pharmacy to provide services without pay, Congress uses its taxing power to take a couple of hundred dollars out of the paycheck of some American to give to Harry so that he could pay the lab, doctor and pharmacist. Would there be any difference in principle, namely forcibly using one person to serve the purposes of another?

There would be one important strategic difference, that of concealment. Most Americans, I would hope, would be offended by the notion of directly and visibly forcing one person to serve the purposes of another. Congress' use of the tax system to invisibly accomplish the same end is more palatable to the average American.

True rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another. In other words, my rights to speech or travel impose no obligations on another except those of noninterference.

If we apply ideas behind rights to health care to my rights to speech or travel, my free speech rights would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with an auditorium, television studio or radio station. My right to travel freely would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with airfare and hotel accommodations.

For Congress to guarantee a right to health care, or any other good or service, whether a person can afford it or not, it must diminish someone else's rights, namely their rights to their earnings. The reason is that Congress has no resources of its very own.But Texas seems to be delivering superior services. Its teachers are paid less than California's. But its test scores — and with a demographically similar school population — are higher. California's once fabled freeways are crumbling and crowded. Texas has built gleaming new highways in metro Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.

In the meantime, Texas' economy has been booming. Unemployment rates have been below the national average for more than a decade, as companies small and large generate new jobs.

And Americans have been voting for Texas with their feet. From 2000 to 2009, some 848,000 people moved from other parts of the United States to Texas, about the same number as moved in from abroad. That inflow has continued in 2008-09, in which 143,000 Americans moved into Texas, more than double the number in any other state, at the same time as 98,000 were moving out of California.

Texas is on the way to gaining four additional House seats and electoral votes in the 2010 reapportionment.

This was not always so. In the two decades after World War II, California, with its pleasant weather, was the Golden State, a promised land for most Americans, while Texas seemed a provincial rural backwater. Many saw postwar California's expansion of universities, freeways and water systems as a model for the nation. Few experts praised Texas' low-tax, low-services government.

Now it is California's ruinously expensive and increasingly incompetent government that seems dysfunctional, while Texas' approach has generated more creativity and opportunity. So it's not surprising that Texas voters preferred Perry over an opponent who has spent 16 years in Washington.

What's surprising is that Democrats in Washington are still trying to impose policies like those that have ravaged California rather than those which have proved so successful in Texas.

The Raw Hypocrisy Of Reconciliation

The Raw Hypocrisy Of Reconciliation
Posted 02/24/2010 07:06 PM ET




Democracy: Republicans are being warned they must help pass the Democrats' health reform or face the "nuclear option" preventing filibusters. But when in the minority, Democrats called such threats undemocratic.
As a powerful senior Democratic senator in 2005, Vice President Joseph Biden condemned bending Senate rules to prevent the minority from filibustering President Bush's judicial nominations.

"I say to my friends on the Republican side: You may own the field right now," Biden said on the Senate floor in the gravest of tones. "But you won't own it forever, and I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don't make the kind of naked power grab you are doing."
(power grab really? You're a fine one to be talking about power grabs)
The vice president's prayers have apparently gone unheard. The White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are mulling their chances of ramming through a big-government health reform through abuse of the budget reconciliation process.

Thanks to the election last month of Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., Democrats lost their 60-seat filibuster-proof majority in the upper house. But using reconciliation would require only a simple majority in the Senate.

The Biden comment is just one of a series of samples of televised statements of leading Democrats, mostly from Senate floor speeches, gathered together by Naked Emperor News and featured on the Breitbart.tv Web site.

Nothing so far in the yearlong debate on health reform has exposed the Democrats' rank hypocrisy as much as the viewing of these past statements condemning as an unconstitutional power grab what they now propose to do.
Reid this week jeered that Republicans should "stop crying about reconciliation." But during the Bush administration, today's most prominent Democrats were singing an entirely different tune:

• "This is the way democracy ends," now-Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., warned his colleagues on May 19, 2005, "not with a bomb, but with a gavel."

In sharp variance to that, the Associated Press reported last year that if a bipartisan deal on health reform "falls apart, Democrats will have to turn to the 'nuclear option' — forcing through an inferior bill through a process that only requires 51 votes instead of 60, Baucus said."

• Then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois on April 25, 2005, said that bypassing the filibuster through the nuclear option "really I think would change the character of the Senate forever." Back then, Obama claimed "you would essentially have still two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply majoritarian, absolute power on either side, and that's just not what the Founders intended."
• Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York on May 23, 2005, from the Senate floor blasted that "this president has come to the majority here in the Senate and basically said, 'Change the rules! Do it the way I want it done!'

"And I guess there just weren't very many voices on the other side of the aisle that acted the way previous generations of senators have acted and said, 'Mr. President, we're with you, we support you, but that's a bridge too far. We can't go there. You have to restrain yourself, Mr. President.'"

The Senate, Clinton argued, "is being asked to turn itself inside out, to ignore the precedent, to ignore the way our system has worked, the delicate balance that we have obtained, that has kept this constitutional system going — for immediate gratification of the present president."

• On March 18, 2005, from the floor, New York Sen. Charles Schumer declared that the nation was "on the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis."

He asserted that "the checks and balances which have been at the core of this republic are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option. The checks and balances which say that if you get 51% of the vote, you don't get your way 100% of the time. It is amazing. It's almost a temper tantrum," Schumer said of what he and other Democrats are trying to do now.

"They want their way every single time, and they will change the rules, break the rules, misread the Constitution so that they will get their way," he added.
(sounds like whats been going on for the last year)
• Reid on May 18, 2005, from the Senate floor said the "right to extended debate is never more important than when one party controls Congress and the White House" — exactly the situation now in 2010. He added that "in these cases a filibuster serves as a check on power and preserves our limited government."

• According to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, taking to the floor on May 18, 2005, "the nuclear option, if successful, will turn the Senate into a body that could have its rules broken at any time by a majority of senators unhappy with any position taken by the minority."

She went on to warn that "it begins with judicial nominations. Next will be executive appointments. And then legislation." It would mean "the Senate becomes ipso facto the House of Representatives, where the majority rules supreme, and the party in power can dominate and control the agenda with absolute power."
Today, it is indeed legislation, in the form of their health care bill, to which Feinstein and other Democrats want to apply the nuclear option.

• Then-Sen Biden's floor speech was May 23, 2005, and he called the nuclear option "ultimately an example of the arrogance of power" and "a fundamental power grab."

• "I don't know of a single piece of legislation that's ever been adopted here," an angry Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut said on the floor on May 18, 2005, "that didn't have a Republican and a Democrat in the lead. That's because we need to sit down and work with each other.

"The rules of this institution have required that. That's why we exist. Why have a bicameral legislative body? Why have two chambers? What were the Framers thinking about 218 years ago?" According to Dodd, the Constitution's authors "understood that there is a tyranny of the majority."

Strange how now that they are the majority, Democrats no longer see it as tyranny.