The Growing Shift To Government Run Health Care
This year’s census numbers expose a troubling shift: government programs continue to gain ground while private insurance is on the decline. There are a variety of reasons for this change — including expansions of public programs, like Medicaid and SCHIP, and the early effects of the economic downturn (which cause people to lose their jobs based coverage).
No American Should Have to Choose Between Health Insurance and Getting Drunk
President Obama's prime-time health insurance speech underscored an important point: No American should have to choose between health insurance and paying rent, between health insurance and getting groceries--or getting drunk, getting designer jeans, or protein powder.
We hear so much about hardworking Americans who need health insurance, but what about the rest of us? Millions of uninsured Americans could afford health insurance, but it would mean giving up some really cool stuff.
The DNC’s Pure Uninformed Demagoguery
I think what I said was that DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse was engaging in pure ignorant demagoguery. But whatever.
The DNC is even running an ad claiming that Republicans are trying to “cut” and “kill” Medicare, presumably with vouchers. Never mind that President Obama proposes to “cut” (i.e., slow the growth of) Medicare spending too.
If Republicans were smart — hey, where are you going? — they would be running ads that say:
President Obama wants government bureaucrats to decide whether seniors get health care. Republicans are fighting to control health care costs and preserve seniors’ ability to make their own health care decisions and choose the benefits that they value most. Support Medicare vouchers!
I think you mean ... if the Republicans really didn't want some kind of government-run health care.
“You can’t help but like the president, he’s a very articulate and decent man,” says Hatch. “He says that we agree on 80 percent of [health-care reform]. I think there is some truth to that, but the problem is the 20 percent that is left.
No, the problem with both you and the GOP is that you probably do agree with about 80% of the socialist Barack Obama’s health care plans and, worse, you vote that way.
Hatch carries a lot of weight in the conservative community.
The next question, of course, would have to be “Why?”
Correcting Obama’s Health Care Speech (1)
This promise is, at best, deceptive. You won’t have a federal bureaucrat knock on your door to force you to change. But that doesn’t mean the legislation won’t force your insurance company to stop selling the policy you now have.
Standard procedure is for government to force citizens to comply with the will of the elite by imposing higher costs or penalties or restrictions on companies that produce and/or sell products or services. For example, you will soon be forced to use new, politically correct light bulbs in your home, not by an enforcement officer who comes to your door, but by the store where you buy bulbs. It will be illegal for them to sell the bulbs you have used all your life.
Obama “eloquence” vs James Madison’s wisdom
If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out.–BHO
I’m not going to stand in front of Rep Joe Wilson, the Republican Congressman from S.C. who yelled “you lie!” at President Obama during last night’s speech.
The Pretender and the Real Deal
So, like most every other Conservative Blogger on Earth, I watched the ObamaCare is OMG SUPER MEGA KOOL SPEECH tonight. Let’s review some highlights…
- He lies about saving the economy. On one hand, the left claims that Porkulus hasn’t had time to take effect yet, now, even though the bleeding hasn’t stopped, they are now saying that the Porkulus has saved the economy? Which is it folks?
- “The time for games is over…” Does that mean that you’ll stop playing them?
- Lies about “scare tactics.” For the left, “scare tactics” consists of quoting the POTUS and members of congress, reading and quoting HR 3200, quoting Ezekiel Emanuel, and so on.
Wait a minute ... are you trying to tell me printing money out of thin air for pork projects, won't revive the economy?
The greatest strength of the Democrats is not their unquestioning adherence to a long-dead ideology, but rather their unmatched ability to warp all of time and space to suit their ideological preferences. Especially the time part - Democrats have no concept of history that does not validate their gibberish.
ObamaCare: First, Do Some Harm — Then, Exploit the Crisis
We live in an amazingly arrogant age, at least in politics and the more self-indulgent fields of academia.
Obama is a product of the non-scientific academic world, where Marxist pseudo-philosophy is popular, as long as the colleges themselves can live off the fat of the (capitalist) land. Our academics are revolutionaries who never take a personal risk, just like our Democrats. That’s why the philosophy behind Obama’s Marxoid takeover of our health care seems to be:
Who cares if we do harm? We’ll fix it later! If it’s politically convenient! Whatever we do cannot hurt the apparatchiks, the ruling elite, who will have their own medical system.
Congress and federal bureaucrats will keep their current insurance plans. Academics will keep their tenure and their soft lifestyle at the expense of taxpayers. It’ll be a two-layered system straight out of Soviet Moscow: the nomenklatura versus the workers.
It wasn’t long ago that the Department of Homeland Security was just a fascist glimmer in George W. Bush’s eye that subsequently went on to become a symbol of one rogue and illegitimate administration’s gross abuse of civil liberties.
But now a new sheriff is in town, and a new enemy is in the cross-hairs that needs to be aggressively confronted, so it’s worth an even heavier investment of taxpayer dollars.
The Obamacare horror story you won’t hear
The White House, Democrats, and MoveOn liberals are spreading health care sob stories to sell a government takeover. But there’s one health care policy nightmare you won’t hear the Obamas hyping. It’s a tale of poor, minority patient-dumping in Chicago — with First Lady Michelle Obama’s fingerprints all over it.
Who is the 'we' who 'spend too much' on elder care?
The Left is terribly concerned that "we" are spending too much money on keeping people alive as they get older. But Ted Kennedy didn't seem to mind that "we" provided state-of-the-art cancer care for him, presumably through his wonderful insurance as a US Senator; I have yet to hear of a single "Man or Woman of the Left" -- as they like to dub themselves -- who would object to healthy (and wealthy) aging for themselves. I don't see George Soros checking out the suicide clinics in Holland. I don't hear any eagerness to cut short Jimmy Carter's lifelong support for bloody-minded Islamofascists; but Mr. Carter is 85 already. Are "we" the taxpayers now paying too much for his presidential medical care? Should Obama's own medical care be discontinued at some specified age? And should Nelson Mandela be encouraged to call it quits? After all, Mr. Mandela is 91 now.
A rather surprising inconsistency, you might think.
Barack Obama’s Newspeak on Health Care
In other words, there will be no actual health insurance in the US. There will be subsidy plans called insurance with no mechanisms to control how much they pay out. American “insurance companies” will become no-limit ATMs for doctors and patients. This is supposed to lower costs?
Joe Wilson’s true statement last night, shouted at Obama and treated by the usual suspects as a vulgar epithet, might in fact become one of the most memorable mnemonic devices in recent political history.
Of course Obama wants the successful (taxpayers) to finance health care for illegal aliens and the rest of his constituency. He has even conned the Catholic Church bureaucracy into joining the usual left-wing race-based organizations to mobilize this potentially powerful population as a permanent political pillar in his plans to “spread the money around.”
Wilson has laid down a red flag that will come in handy as that twelve million becomes fifty million, through “family reunion” policies that are “moral imperatives,” to borrow a powerful figure of speech from the late Edward Kennedy. [Note: Health Care is already "free" in Mexico. Why, you might ask, would any sane Mexican leave that Garden of Eden for our "terrible" system?].
Let's "call out" Obama before he calls us out!
What President of the United States uses "call you out" in a sentence? Is he speaking to Congress or hanging around on a basketball court?
No death panels? Ted Kennedy chaired Mary Jo Kopechne's death panel! (@Mark Ste. Marie)
Does anybody believe a Chicago politican can eliminate "waste, fraud, and abuse" from any government program?
A short note on the Wilson outburst
Would this have happened if dueling were still an accepted means for gaining satisfaction in matters of honor? The louts in Congress would get civil in a hurry if we brought back dueling. And no letting the ladies out of it this time.
After all, doesn't Obugger sound like a dad scolding a bunch of kids who just did as he does and not as he said to do? And did you catch Nancy Pelosi's look? It's almost as if she just heard a recording of herself calling the American people Nazis.
Bugger off, Obugger. You do lie....
Leftists Love One-Party Authoritarianism
For those in the know, the Westminster model is often referred as an "elective dictatorship." The prime minister is drawn from the majority in the Commons, and the party in power can fall on a vote of no confidence. There's really no incentive for MPs to pull down the government, however, since that means that they'll have to go before the voters in a new election. Sure, it's a long way from Westminster to an authoritarian one-party regime. But what's interesting in Jamelle's case is the outright hostility to American constitutionalism. A solid reading of James Madison or the Federalist Papers indicates that the structure of American political insitutions works to prevent tyranny. To do away with the presidential model is revolutionary AND authoritarian.
Reassurance from the planners of governmental intervention may seem soothing and acceptable to many political leaders and followers. But it is a frightening thing to the economist who recognizes in it the denial of economics and the lessons of economic history.
Thank you for linking sir. This is a great post. I can find a wider variety of reactions here!