Don't Ya Just Love It When Politicians Screw Themselves?

I wrote in a previous blog about the Democrat's war against doctors, starting with Pelosi's inane statement that the healthcare bill had to be passed to see what's in it.

It's with great glee and laughter that we note the congress critters that passed the bill without reading it, or even having any idea what's in it, have legislated themselves out of their own luxury health insurance. The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program could be tossed out, and the politicians and their staffers, that thought they had exempted themselves from having the same Obamacare they rammed down the throats of the citizens, will be theirs to cherish. We're laughing. Of course they'll write an amendment to make sure they don't have to obey the same laws the rest of us do, but hey, they've shown they are about making people do what they want, not providing what the people want. Speaking of amendments, this bill is 2,400 pages with 153 amendments.

Remember how Barry said that taxes would not go up on people making less that $250,000 a year? The Joint Committee on Taxation ran the numbers and people making less than $200,000 a year will be paying $15.2 billion in additional taxes over the next 10 years. Can we say "Barry lied?"

Remember too that Barry said health care premiums won't go up. LA Times, no friend of capitalism and liberty, reports that premiums will go up. The reason is that there's no provision in the bill that gives the federal government the power to regulate increases. LA Times: "Although Democrats promised greater consumer protection, the overhaul does not give the federal government broad regulatory power to prevent increases." Can you say, "Barry lied?" The costs of premiums have to go up, because the spending by Barry and the Dems is increasing the cost of everything.

Taking control of 17% of the economy against the will of the citizens, raising taxes on people they said they wouldn't, passing a bill they have no idea what's in it, borrowing money from yet to be born generations to pay for this; yep, just a great way to transform the healthcare industry.

Some Vaguely Heretical Thoughts on Health Care by John Cassidy

The New Yorker’s John Cassidy wrote this. He's a Statist in support of the government taking over health care and health insurance. The difference is that he tells the truth regarding what this is about. It's not about health, it's about making more people dependent on the government. Below are some quotes, full article here.

"The future cost savings that the Administration and its congressional allies are promising to deliver are based on wishful thinking and sleight of hand. Over time, the reform, as proposed, would almost certainly add substantially to the budget deficit, thereby worsening the long-term fiscal crisis that the country faces. (emphasis mine)
…
The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment to help provide health coverage for the vast majority of its citizens. I support this commitment, and I think the federal government’s spending priorities should be altered to make it happen. But let’s not pretend that it isn’t a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won’t. (emphasis mine)
Many Democratic insiders know all this, or most of it. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration before it (and many other Administrations before that) is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind. At some point in the future, the fiscal consequences of the reform will have to be dealt with in a more meaningful way, but by then the principle of (near) universal coverage will be well established. Even a twenty-first-century Ronald Reagan will have great difficult overturning it." (emphasis mine)

In the Begining Were the Words

Let's start with the premise that words mean something. In the context of Statists' firming up the foundation for their new oppressive vision of Amerika, on November 7 we were presented with the 2000 page, 450,000 word Rules for Obedience to the State.

The word regulation appears 181 times.
The word tax appears 214 times.
The word fee 103 times.
The word shall over 3,000 times.

The Dems, the Statists, are going to take more of our money in the form of taxes and fees, and we shall submit to their vision of how we take care of our bodies, and ultimately how we live every aspect of our lives.

Robert Reich: What An Honest President Would Say About Health Reform (vid)

Reich, remember, is an Statist and Clintonista. I'm astonished that he actually said what Statists and Dems true intent is trying to pass any of their health care scams.

Heritage Foundation Fiscal Analysis of ObamaCare

Throughout his campaign, and even in to the first few months in office, President Barack Obama repeatedly promised the American people that his health care plan would reduce their health insurance premiums by $2,500 a year. It has been a while since President Obama made that promise, and any honest look at the health legislation being considered in Congress explains why.

The Senate Finance Committee bill written by Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) (the Baucus bill) first drives up the cost of health insurance for all Americans and then forces everyone to buy it or face tax penalties or jail time. While the Baucus bill does cap out-of-pocket costs based on a person’s income, the effect on American families is still staggering. According to the Center for Data Analysis, the Baucus bill would:

For individuals making $34,140 (three times the Federal Poverty Level) the Baucus health care proposal could mandate up to $4,097 in annual premiums, a sum which could have been spent on over nine months of food, almost four months of housing or well over a year of utilities.

For a family of four making $69,480 (300% above poverty) the Baucus bill mandates annual health insurance premiums of $8,338, which would be worth the equivalent of over ten months of food, four months of housing or almost two years of utilities.

For individuals earning $45,520(400% above poverty) Baucus mandates $5,462 for health insurance, or over a year of food, four months of rent or a year and a half of utilities.

For families earning $92,640 (400% above poverty) Baucus mandates $11,117 in health premiums, the equivalent of over a year of food, five months of housing or two years of utilities.

And those numbers include the subsidies for health insurance in the Baucus bill. To pay for all this new health care spending, plus the massive expansion of Medicaid, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Baucus bill will collect $4 billion in fines from those who do not purchase insurance, $200 billion taxing health insurance companies with generous health plans, and $25 billion in taxes on employers. Not to mention the billions in cuts to Medicare payments to hospitals which will result in significant cost shifting to consumers.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has done a study on what all these new taxes and regulations will do to Americans health insurance premiums and the results are not pretty. Instead of reducing the average family’s health insurance premiums by $2,500 per year, as President Obama promised, the Baucus bill would actually raise them by $4,000 more than they would have been without reform.

The Baucus bill spends at least $1 trillion, fails to cover all Americans, taxes employers for creating jobs, and inflicts higher out-of-pocket health care costs on all Americans. We can do better.

Stupid Nation By Rich Lowry

Stupid Nation
Just how stupid do they think we are?

By Rich Lowry

Some great questions for Statists, ObamaCare supporters should answer. They won't because they will deny they think this way. Fun and informative piece.

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare By John Mackey

This is the most cogent, well thought out, wise approach to thinking about health care ever.

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare
Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.

Debates, Racism, Nazism, Dems, Republicans

Here's a shotgun blast of observations. The first is racism and the Statists in power. Whenever Dems and other Statists are losing an argument, the charges of racism appear. Of course if you're white, Conservative, Christian, Republican, any or all the above, you are, by definition, a racist; along with being a bigot, sexist, homophobe.
The charges of racism against opponents of the stimulus package and Obamacare are in full swing. Those who oppose this takeover of the private sector by the government do so because Obama is black. Statist economist Paul Krugman: "But they're probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they've heard about what he's doing, than to who he is." Monica Novotny, MSNBC: "The town hall confrontations are turning violent...." (Note that violence didn't occur until the Democrat Party sent SEIU, AFL-CIO and ACORN thugs in.) "New fears for the safety of America’s first African-American president." Chris Matthews: "I think some of the people are upset because we have a black president." Carlos Watson also of MSNBC: ...you start to wonder whether in fact the word socialist is becoming a code word, whether or not socialist is becoming the new N-word for frankly for some angry upset birthers and others." So if you're against the imposition of Marxism and the tossing out of the Constitution, you're a racist.

Since the cowardly, spineless Republican leadership is nowhere to be found during this Great Debate, something must be addressed here. There are always extreme nuts on both sides. Rep. David Scott's (D, GA) district office had a swastika painted on his sign.
This must be denounced immediately by all Conservatives, loudly and repeatly. Both because it's vile, and because the MSM and Dems will use the broad brush to once again paint us as Nazis. Of course the MSM will not say much, if anything, about Scott's racist comments. He's black, in a primarily white district. He claims he's received mail 'using the N word', and calling Obama a Marxist. Scott: "We have got to make sure that the symbol of the swastika does not win, that the racial hatred that's bubbling up does not win this debate." "There's so much hatred out there for President Obama." Statists are losing the argument, so, racist, Nazi, Brooks Brother wearing! and worst of all organized!! labels are applied. Full disclosure: Not I, nor anyone I know, have ever worn a Brooks Brothers suit.

Gene Green, (D, TX), from his website: "Town hall meetings are one of my favorite ways to communicate with constituents. I have held hundreds during my years of service in Congress and always welcomed everyone to attend. Unfortunately, due to a coordinated effort to disrupt our town hall meetings, we will be restricting further attendance to residents of the 29th Congressional District and verifying residency by requiring photo identification. Whether individuals agree or disagree, we must maintain order to have a civil discussion of the issues. While I regret this restriction, it is necessary for the safety and consideration of our constituents. Those who do not reside in the 29th Congressional should contact their Member of Congress to voice any concerns that they may have on issues before Congress." This is from a guy that has voted twice against having voters showing an ID to vote. ummmmmm, anything wrong with this picture?

Of course other Dems and RINO's are starting to have teleconferences by invitation only instead of townhall meetings. Cowards. Cowards and liars. Cowards, liars, Statists. I'm disgusted with the whole lot of them.

Changing the Name Doesn't Change the Realilty

Global Warming changed to Climate Change (I'm preparing for the coming ice age) and now the Bamster and his minions are changing Healthcare Reform to Health-insurance Reform. Another pathetic application of 'newspeak'. In their Statist minds this provides two things. The first is the hope (there's some more 'hope' for you) that the debate gets diffused a bit, and the other is what every leftist leader must do to maintain power...find a demon. Chavez and Castro, and Islamofacists have the U S as the great Satan. These guys (Statists) need to have someone other than themselves to blame; can't let the people know who's truly to blame. They all have the Press to suppress any knowledge of what's going on. In those regimes they have nationalized the Press. Here the MSM willingly goes along. Is anyone aware of the NY Times, CBS, NBC, etc., in print or discussion, cover what's in the House healthcare bill? No, they have only attacked, in news stories, not editorials, the people that oppose this latest imposition of government on a free people.

The only place you can find a break down and analysis of the contents of the bill is in the Conservative and Libertarian blogosphere, magazines and talk shows. The attack on insurance companies, lies about the structure, and lies about who's insured and not, has already commenced. The MSM will, with great joy and incompetence, repeat everything our Dear Leader will tell them to.

Getting a jump on them. What you won't see in the coming days are that nine of ten people are covered through work; Obama is only talking about the one in ten that are privately insured, about 15 million people. My own co-pay in the past ten years has gone up five bucks. I can handle that, and I suspect anyone with coverage like this has no problem with it.

Obama wants insurers to cover anyone at any time and at uniform rates. To do that insurance companies will have to charge everyone more. Anytime? So a less moral person (a growing number of people in the country, but that's another blog) gets sick, buys insurance, gets well after thousands of dollars of procedures, then opts out. This has been tried in Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Vermont and is failing. The program has been ended in New Hampshire and Kentucky; it was a costly massive failure. Costs? In 2007, the average annual premium in New Jersey was $5,326 for singles and in New York $12,254 for a family (of four). The national average is $2,613 for singles and $5,799 for families.

There's a lot more wrong with this of course, but I think you get the idea. The big idea of the Statists now in power, is not about your health (which is none of their business anyway). It's about nationalizing another sector of the economy. Taking over AIG was just the first bite of the insurance industry. Obama and his Statists, by changing the name to insurance reform are hoping (there's that word again) to get that whole apple and at the same time getting legislation passed that takes away your choice of how you control your body.

Health Care Debate/A Unique Perspective

What Lies Beneath
Cal Thomas
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Townhall.com

The debate -- OK, the shouting match -- we are having over "health-care reform" is about many things, including cost, who gets help and who does not and who, or what, gets to make that determination. Underlying it all is a larger question: Is human life something special? Is it to be valued more highly than, say, plants and pets? When someone is in a "persistent vegetative state" do we mean to say that person is equal in value to a carrot?

Are we now assigning worth to human life, or does it arrive with its own pre-determined value, irrespective of race, class, IQ, or disability?

The bottom line is not the bottom line. It is something far more profound. Our decisions regarding who will get help and who won't are about more than bean-counting bureaucrats deciding if your drugs or operation will cost more than you are contributing to the U.S. Treasury.


The secular left claims we are evolutionary accidents who managed to crawl out of the slime and by "natural selection" stand erect and over millions of years outsmart our ancestors, the apes. If that is your belief, then you probably think health care should be rationed. Why spend lots of money to improve -- or save -- the life of someone who evolved from slime and has no special significance other than the "accident" of becoming human? Policies flow from such a philosophy, though the average secularist probably wouldn't put it in such stark terms. Stark, or not, isn't this the inevitable progression of seeing humanity as maybe complex, but nothing special?

The opposing view sees human beings as unique creations. Even Thomas Jefferson, identified by historians as a Deist who doubted the existence of a personal God, understood that if certain rights (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) do not come from a source beyond the reach of the state, then the state could take those rights away. Those who believe that God made us and also makes the rules about our existence and our behavior will have a completely different understanding of life's value and our approach to affirming it until natural death.

It is between these two distinctly different worldview goalposts that the battle is taking place. Few from the "endowed rights" side are saying that a 100-year-old with an inoperable brain tumor should be given extraordinary and expensive care to keep the heart pumping, even after brain waves have gone flat. But there is a big difference between "letting go" and "snuffing out." The unnatural progression for many on the secular left is to see such a person as a "burden." In an age when we think we should be free of burdens -- a notion that contributes to our superficiality and makes us morally obtuse -- getting rid of granny might seem perfectly rational, even defensible. But by doing so, we assume an even greater burden: the role of God in deciding who gets to live and who must die. Anyone who has seen the film "Bruce Almighty" senses how difficult it is to play God.

We are now witnessing some of the consequences of attempting to ban people with a God perspective from the public square. If there are no rules and no one to whom one might appeal when those rules are violated, we are on our own to set whatever rules we wish and to change them in a moment in response to opinion polls. Any appeals to a higher authority stop at the Supreme Court.

The explosive town hall meetings are indications that Americans are trusting government less and less. So where should we go? The answer is in your wallet or purse. It's on the money. Right now it is little more than a slogan, but what if it became true: in God We Trust.