"Sorting Fact From Fiction on Health Care"

Current Congressional proposals would significantly change your relationship with your doctor.

Excerpts:

"There are domains of medicine where a patient has no control and depends on the physician and the hospital to provide best practices. Strict protocols have been developed to prevent infections during procedures and to reduce the risk of surgical mishaps. There are also emergency situations like a patient arriving in the midst of a heart attack where standardized advanced treatments save many lives.

But once we leave safety measures and emergency therapies where patients have scant say, what is 'the right thing'? Data from clinical studies provide averages from populations and may not apply to individual patients. Clinical studies routinely exclude patients with more than one medical condition and often the elderly or people on multiple medications. Conclusions about what works and what doesn't work change much too quickly for policy makers to dictate clinical practice."

....and:

"The devil is in the regulations. Federal legislation is written with general principles and imperatives. The current House bill H.R. 3200 in title IV, part D has very broad language about identifying and implementing best practices in the delivery of health care. It rightly sets initial priorities around measures to protect patient safety. But the bill does not set limits on what 'best practices' federal officials can implement. If it becomes law, bureaucrats could well write regulations mandating treatment measures that violate patient autonomy."

WaPo: Obamacare in its current form is dead

Key point:

".....it is time for Dr. Obama to take charge of this difficult case. He must come up with a plan or embrace one -- perhaps the long-awaited Senate Finance Committee proposal. And he must sell it as perhaps not perfect but the best that can be achieved and far preferable to the status quo. Because right now, his patient needs some intensive care."

What are the chances of the Loony Toon/Kook Kos Klan contingent actually buying into that sort of thing?

Slim to none.

They would rather see their cherished agenda item fail than actually achieving some real reform that would be a benefit to the entire nation..

That way, they would have plenty of political fodder to use in their babble, dribble, drool, and spew against conservatives.

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Obama will be responsible for further violence against Town Hall protesters.

Not only will we hold Obama and his thugs responsible, we will also hold accountable all the toads who attempt to rationalize it, or deflect criticism away from where it rightly belongs.

An excellent example of such enabling behavior can be found here

You are invited to join me in holding the low-life in question accountable.

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2010

Of course, this is subject to making sure the Goon Squads are kept out of the picture.

As we know, the meme being pushed is that conservatives are responsible for violence, disruption, and all sorts of other nonsense.

An example of this is seen here.

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"Signs of an Already Failed Presidency"

Just like his boss, Eric Holder is a posturing agenda-driven political operative, and a pompous arrogant ass.

Dr. Sanity has a great overview of this most recent outrage the Teleprompter-in-Chief and his Grand Inquisitor have concocted.

Quoting the Belmont Club's Wretched, regarding the jihadists:

" 'The brilliance of the new barbarism is that you cannot fight it without destroying your own value system into the bargain.

Traditionally the solution has been to consider wartime a discontinuity, when civilization's rules are suspended. It becomes possible, for example, to lay waste to the Monte Cassino Abbey. Berlin was bombed without regard for its buildings, churches or people.

The alternative is to create methods of fighting so discriminating that we can literally shoot between the raindrops. But that creates a different problem, for we will need an intelligence system so comprehensive that it will become intrusive.

Either way, the war cannot be won without cost. And the fundamental fraud foisted on the public is to claim we can have war without horror, conduct an intelligence war without dishonesty and cunning and obtain victory without sacrifice.'

His two points are particularly relevant in the discussion of torture. To the extent that we can, we have tried to maintain "civilization's rules" as much as possible, while at the same time suspending them when the situation demands--i.e., adherence to a life-affirming value system that requires you to protect innocents who might be harmed by evil. Indeed, when it comes to the issue of torture, one might even say from an historical perspective that the administration went overboard to try and find techniques that were sufficiently uncomfortable and even unbearable; and which would elicit the necessary information without inflicting lasting harm on the recipient.

In this, they were obviously successful.

In fact, I would say that the Bush Administration used an ethical system that appropriately put the value of innocent life higher than that of the dubious, or so-called 'rights' of a terrorist, who happens not to value life at all. Not only that, but the previous administration also managed to identify and use techniques that effectively 'shoot between the raindrops' of the multiple definitions and conceptualizations of torture. True, they identified techniques that were harsh; but they were also techniques which did not truly endanger the life of the terrorist (who himself does not value life in the least and would consider such scruples about it 'weak').

To say that the use of such techniques is unethical seems to me to entirely miss the purpose of ethics.

If you consider the purpose of ethics--to codify and act on one's values--then the Bush Administration behaved in an exquisitely ethical manner. They codified the most important of American values and acted on them; and in doing so managed to keep America safe from a terrorist attack for more than eight years."

"Obama is turning out to be a massive disappointment to even his most slavishly devoted and myopic followers; but this latest cynical and immoral manipulation of our national security to provide political cover for his incompetent leadership shows him to be seriously irresponsible and irresponsibly unserious as POTUS, both in national and foreign policy. He is a postmodern pied piper, leading the gullible of this country down a path of economic ruin and international impotence. As for his and his Administration's moral compass, it is spinning wildly trying to find a direction that pulls him up in the polls.

Obama was never ready for prime time; and is turning out to be a bad joke perpetrated on all Americans."

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THIS is music worth sharing!

Hat tip: Dean's World.

The Witch Hunt is officially ON!

Jennifer Rubin talks about the Obamnation's attempt to prosecute for purely partisan political gain.

Key point:

"Aside from the chilling effect on the CIA and the impropriety of dragging individuals through investigations with virtually no chance for convictions, reversing a prosecutorial decision of a prior administration is a dangerous precedent for the Justice Department. One former Justice lawyer warns: "It would mean no one would ever get any peace, because if you were the target of an investigation at the end of which DOJ said it was not prosecuting, there would be no finality to that decision. It would turn DOJ into a purely partisan agency."

And that is what the Holder Justice Department has become."

Dick Cheney is fired up over this, as rightly he should be:

Obama's Politburo

It's his Carrousel of Incompetence.

Excerpt:

"My belief, based on reports in the news and from my private network of seasoned agents and provocateurs, is that this White House is a carrousel of incompetence. How else do we explain the ravening push on all fronts, healthcare, the environment, fiscal reform, intelligence reform, and a foreign policy of humility and apology? Unsurprisingly, on every front the President is in trouble. Remember chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's, callous enjoiner, 'Never let a serious crisis go to waste'? This White House is a serious crisis.

According to sources with whom I confer, the Obama White House is the most tightly controlled White House in years, with the President, Emanuel, and David Axelrod micromanaging practically everything. They compose what is called 'the Politburo,' and the news story waiting to be written is that their control is as stultifying as was Jimmy Carter's control of his White House. Stupendous failure is in the cards."

But we already knew that, didn't we? What else were we to expect from a "community organizer" who has no executive experience, let alone the expertise, a "leader" who is constantly in campaign mode.

The only question is how long it will take the Dem/Lefty/"Regressive" element to begin their understanding of the pending disasters that await the nation. I suspect a near majority of them never will approach any level of that particular understanding.

Fortunately, the rest of the public (in particular the numbers of those fooled into voting Democrat last November) have already started to figure it out.

There's hope yet we might still be able to reverse the damage already done, particularly if we keep defeating these signature "regressive reforms" they intend to throw at us.

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Yet another official Obamanation "revision" is on the way

"We're going to raise your taxes, middle class."

"But effective health reforms would take decades to produce savings. In the meantime, White House budget director Peter R. Orszag acknowledged, 'there are additional steps that will be necessary.'

'The administration is very concerned about these [future] deficits, and getting those deficits under control is a top priority of the administration,' Orszag told reporters this week as he rolled out a new economic forecast that added $2 trillion to deficit projections from 2010 to 2019.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers have both delicately sidestepped the tax question on Sunday talk shows. Orszag has also refused to discuss what steps Obama might take to reduce the deficit in the budget blueprint he will present to Congress in February. But budget analysts say he has few real options.

'If you rule out inflating our way out of the problem and defaulting on the debt, there are two ways: Cut spending or raise taxes,' said William G. Gale, an expert on fiscal policy at the Brookings Institution."

Notice what Gale says next:

"With more than 80 percent of federal spending devoted to politically untouchable programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, he said, 'it's going to be really hard to make significant headway on the spending side. So that means you've got to think about taxes.' "

Do you see the disconnect between what he says here, and what this administration and Congress propose to do, and indeed has already done?

More importantly, what's the right course of action (or lack thereof) for our federal government to take NOW?

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Let's review Obama's financial management results

Noteworthy:

"The White House brags that it will cut the deficit in half by 2013. The President does not mention that the deficit has nearly quadrupled this year. Merely cutting it in half from that bloated level would still leave budget deficits twice as high as under President Bush."

The bleating "regressive" sheep will surely call for higher taxes to offset the deficit, but as this study show, cutting the spending will ensure that current revenues will be more than sufficient, particularly if tax reform is implemented.

Excerpt:

"The recently updated budget figures make clear that a lack of revenue is not causing record deficits, so no tax hikes are necessary to close future budget gaps. Instead, Congress and President Obama can do so by limiting spending to the historical average of 20 percent of GDP by:

• Reforming current entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to make them more efficient and affordable;
• Dropping plans for an expensive takeover of the health care system; and
• Eliminating wasteful and lower-priority programs.

To get further control over future deficits that result from tax revenue volatility, Congress and President Obama should also reduce the progressivity of the income tax by moving to a flatter income tax code."

And remember, we haven't even begun to talk about the massive taxes the "regressives" want to impose under the bogus Cap 'n Trade nonsense.

We can't say we were not warned before the election that Obama had absolutely NO executive experience. Now we are seeing the consequences of electing such a person, and the lack of judgement he's shown in selecting his highest ranking associates.

He's well on his way to being the most disastrous President in the history of our republic. He may soon add the notorious distinction of being the most dangerous president to that first description.

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Today's "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" Obama moment

Politico:

"It's likely that this dust-up will quickly pass, but for a moment, it seemed as if the photo of a helmetless Obama could be this vacation's version of the most buzzed-about photo-op.

During the presidential campaign, Obama was photographed riding his bike with a helmet and his signature dorky jeans. He later told a fundraiser crowd:

'I had an internal debate,' said Obama. 'I knew that the AP was going to take a picture, and they were trying to portray it like Dukakis wearing that tank helmet. But I wanted to make sure that the children who saw that picture knew that even the Democratic nominee for president wears a helmet when he goes biking.' "

He probably just needs a helmet-wearing break because of the effect of the invisible helmet he wears when he speaks in public, as revealed here by the Top Secret de-cloaking device I possess.

Will they be dumb enough to "Wellstone" Ted Kennedy's memorial?

I'd say the odds are close to even that the "regressives" haven't learned their lesson from the backlash from the over-the-top pep rally the Paul Wellstone memorial turned out to be in 2002.

Captain Ed weighs in.

"At least thus far, nothing proposed by the Kennedy family or by Democrats comes close to matching the crass spectacle of the Wellstone memorial. The 'do it for Teddy' meme is practically expected by voters, which is why it won’t have much effect; it’s too obvious a manipulation to work on anyone but the true believers, where it won’t count anyway. The next election is not a few days away but fourteen months. Even if speakers get out of hand at the service, which Democrats will probably work hard to prevent, the impact will have dissipated in a fortnight.

A 'Wellstone effect' is probably nothing more than wishful thinking, but it’s equaled by the hope of a 'Kennedy effect' on ObamaCare. Unless Democrats get very, very stupid about it, the memorial will have little impact on anyone except the mourners — which is exactly how it should be."

Let's hope the Kennedy family makes it clear (to the Teleprompter-in-Chief and fellow Usual Suspects alike) that there will be no circus atmosphere permitted at the funeral, nor will it be sanctioned at any other organized memorial any where else.

That sort of thing should be left to the shameless hacks of the Tank Media and their looney toon allies in the blahgosphere.

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ExploiTED

(Hat tip: Net Right Nation)

Tennessee Ernie Ford's ghostly encore

Wasn't this a Norman Rockwell piece for a Saturday Evening Post cover?

(Hat tip: Mrs. Bubba)

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Is "Abject Stupidity" a requirement to be a Palestinian leader?

From this article, it would appear so:

"The Palestinian cleric denied the validity of dozens of digs verified by experts worldwide revealing Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temples throughout Jerusalem, including on the Temple Mount itself; excavations revealing Jewish homes and a synagogue in a site in Jerusalem called the City of David; or even the recent discovery of a Second Temple Jewish city in the vicinity of Jerusalem.

Tamimi said descriptions of the Jewish Temples in the Hebrew Tanach, in the Talmud and in Byzantine and Roman writings from the Temple periods were forged, and that the Torah was falsified to claim biblical patriarchs and matriarchs were Jewish when they were prophets for Islam."

This guy reminds me of Cone and his cohorts in their knowledge and discussion of the economic/financial crisis.

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Fidel says we're ALL racists

.....for opposing The Obama Follies.

John Stossel comments at his blog.

More here: "Why Obama's Health Plan Gets It Wrong":

"But there is one area of health care where costs are going down. Laser vision correction surgery, or LASIK, is almost never covered by insurance, and keeps getting cheaper.

'In every other field of medicine, the price is going up faster than consumer prices in general,' says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis. 'But the price of LASIK surgery, on average, has gone down by 30 percent.'

Prices dropped because without insurance payments, patients shop around to get the best deal. New York City LASIK provider Dr. Brian Bonanni sees patients comparison shopping every day. He says, 'I can't get away with not telling the patient how much exactly it's going to cost. No one would put up with it. And the difference of a hundred dollars sometimes makes their decision for them.'

Of course, it is important to have insurance cover the big things, like cancer, heart disease and accidents. But that's not the way most Americans think about insurance."

The Medicare Advantage Seniors

Obama marginalizes them with his Obamacare provisions at great political peril.

Excerpt:

"Medicare Advantage also has built-in incentives to encourage insurers to offer lower costs and better benefits. It's a program that puts patients in charge, not the government, which is why seniors like it and probably why the administration hates it.

Already, an estimated 10.2 million seniors—one out of five in America—have enrolled in Medicare Advantage. Mr. Obama is proposing to cut the program by nearly 20% and thus reduce the amount of money each will have to buy insurance. This will likely force most of them to lose the insurance they have now. Yet Mr. Obama promised in late July in New Hampshire that, 'if you like your health-care plan, you can keep your health-care plan.'

There are roughly 23,400 seniors on average in a congressional district who have Medicare Advantage, but who face losing it if Mr. Obama has his way. That's enough votes to tip most competitive House and Senate races.

Back in 2006, Mr. Obama and other Democrats railed against GOP efforts—modest though they were—to slow future Medicare spending growth. Now he and his party may reap what they have sown. As the president pushes to enact an overall cut to Medicare he will imperil Democrats in tough re-election races. Mr. Obama has a dangerous old tiger by the tail. Seniors are much more likely to vote than the population at large."

As I've noted before, the Democrat -controlled Federal goverment is doing everything within its power to destroy Medicare Advantage. Already, several large providers have exited the market because it's not worth their time and investment any longer. Many other providers have been forced to raise premiums (often from zero), or have scaled back their efforts. By the 2012 Medicare enrollment season, the program may well be dead regardless of whether Obamacare has its way, or not.

Who does this hurt? The low and lower/middle income Medicare Advantage seniors who are not on Medicaid, who will be forced back into original Medicare coverage, but will not be able to afford the excellent but pricey coverage a Medicare Supplement policy gives. These folks will face HUGE co-pays for their coverage, particularly in Part A.

The "regressive" Obamacare drumbeaters are either too stupid to figure this out, or they just don't give a rat's ass about it

More:

"The Art of Obama Worship"

"Worship" is certainly the right word to use when discussing a political figure whose accomplishments are (and continues to be) non-existent in any matter of substance, but rich in rhetoric, imagery, marketing, and illusion.

Noteworthy:

"Obama is hardly the first president whose physical likeness has been the subject of devotional art. Yet the others who achieved this status did so only after they had accomplished something great, like Washington, or had been martyred, like Kennedy, or in the case of Lincoln, both. Obama’s iconic status is of a different nature, an artifact not of his presidency but his identity—a youthful man of mixed race and remarkable attractiveness upon whom the greatest of expectations have come to rest. This means that the role played by art, and by artists, has been different in Obama’s campaign and presidency from any other in American history."

Coming Soon, from Obamacare Film Productions

(Hat tip: Fred Gregory)

Health care reform: "We must, and can, do better"

....than the ugly reality Obamacare holds for us.

Under Obamacare, expect the Hippocratic Oath to end up being "no longer operative"

White House's health czar Dr. Frankenstein Emanuel will be sure to make it so.

"In numerous writings, Dr. Emanuel chastises physicians for thinking only about their own patient's needs. He describes it as an intractable problem: 'Patients were to receive whatever services they needed, regardless of its cost. Reasoning based on cost has been strenuously resisted; it violated the Hippocratic Oath, was associated with rationing, and derided as putting a price on life. . . . Indeed, many physicians were willing to lie to get patients what they needed from insurance companies that were trying to hold down costs.' (JAMA, May 16, 2007).

Of course, patients hope their doctors will have that single-minded devotion. But Dr. Emanuel believes doctors should serve two masters, the patient and society, and that medical students should be trained 'to provide socially sustainable, cost-effective care.' One sign of progress he sees: '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.'(JAMA, June 18, 2008).

'In the next decade every country will face very hard choices about how to allocate scarce medical resources. There is no consensus about what substantive principles should be used to establish priorities for allocations,' he wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine, Sept. 19, 2002. Yet Dr. Emanuel writes at length about who should set the rules, who should get care, and who should be at the back of the line.

'You can't avoid these questions,' Dr. Emanuel said in an Aug. 16 Washington Post interview. 'We had a big controversy in the United States when there was a limited number of dialysis machines. In Seattle, they appointed what they called a "God committee" to choose who should get it, and that committee was eventually abandoned. Society ended up paying the whole bill for dialysis instead of having people make those decisions.' "

He probably thinks he could re-structure something like that and make it work this time.

No, that's not anything like a "Death Panel", is it?

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Obama and his Tank Media Tag Team pals neither listen to you nor care what you think

Watch the way the Obamanation Perpetual Campaign kicks into high gear to propagandize for the passage of their overwhelmingly unpopular vision of "health care reform", and the shameess way his Tank Media Tag Team partners will pimp for The Agenda.

Noteworthy:

"What I am concerned about, and warning everyone about, is the media machine that uses these organized events to broadcast the agenda. Framed differently, these activities aren't meant to convince attendees that healthcare is good; these activities are meant to manufacture the news, spread propaganda tropes, and over-inflate the image of the pro-socialized healthcare forces. PR stunts. The Obama modus operandi is to make his goons look bigger than they are. These are the people who will make a group of twenty conservatives appear diminutive with a far-away camera angle, and then give individual interviews to all three liberal attendees. It's just like a real estate agent photographing a small house from the best angle. Organizing for America is an illusion. It is the Wizard of Oz.

The operating methods are predictable enough. Health Care for America Now is the other group involved, and they've enlisted union leaders to send their grunts along. You'll recognize Obama-style unionists when you see them; they are good at getting media attention; they're frequently loud, make for good angry mobs, and get bulk rates from Kinko's on the signs their illiterate members carry. I'm just grateful many unionists aren't this way, and oppose this bill, too.

And you will see them. The operation will be simple; bus in supporters, give speeches, tell lies, and do not give any opposition an opportunity to speak. It's Obama's election campaign all over again, brought to you by Obama's own campaign committee. America, we have seen this tired strategy over and over, and here it comes again. I wouldn't be surprised if Green Day put on a free concert to get a crowd so they could record all those people listening to the local senator for the 30 second pause. Again."

More:

"Let's be charitable and assume that Barack Obama is telling the truth for the first time in his political life when he says that his health care plan won't impose rationing. Granted, it may seem that given the fact that he wants to cut $500 billion from Medicare just as millions of baby boomers are about to enter the program, you'd have to adopt the view that Obama is able to perform something along the lines of the miracle of the loaves and fishes to make that an honest statement, but that's not true. Enter the IMAC. They will be the ones telling Grandma that she is in for the Michael Jackson "you're better off with the painkiller than the surgery" protocol, not the Dear Leader. So, he won't be imposing rationing. If only Stalin knew....

The Supreme Court can invent new rights out of thin air by seeing imaginary penumbras emitting magical emanations, and, in the short term, there's not a thing the American public can do about it. At best, once imposed, there might be some hope that these cases can be overruled, either by legislation or by a subsequent Supreme Court decision. Not so with decisions about Medicare funding. If President Obama gets his way, and an unaccountable bunch of presidential appointees decides that your life isn't worth living, the only reversal you may see is the change in your status from living to dead."

Your inconvenient Obamacare truth

Excuse me, I meant to say the "Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Reform Act"........

Here's the deal: If you're a Senior on Medicare, Obamacare is BAD FOR YOU.

WASHINGTON POST: “From the raw numbers, it appears seniors are the net losers under bills approved by three House committees ...” (Ceci Connolly, “Seniors Remain Wary Of Health-Care Reform,” The Washington Post, 8/9/09)

HERE’S WHAT YOU LOSE UNDER OBAMA’S GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE EXPERIMENT

TRYING TO FIND A DOCTOR? Dems Admit Government-Run Health Care Could Force Doctors To Decline You.

“Rep. Eric Massa said tightening provider payments could lead to access problems for patients. ‘We will force doctors to decline Medicare patients,’ he said after a raucous town-hall meeting in Upstate New York. ‘If we believe these savings are there, let’s test the concept. But we can’t hinge the entire funding of this bill on these not-yet-seen savings.’” (Ceci Connolly, “Seniors Remain Wary of Health-Care Reform,” The Washington Post, 8/9/09)

SEARCHING FOR A BETTER HOSPITAL? Medicare Cuts Could Make Hospitals Refuse You.

“[L]awmakers are on track to approve across-the-board federal payment reductions of $155 billion over 10 years for hospitals ... Mayo and similar health systems object to the sweeping cuts. ‘Across-the-board cuts will be harmful to everyone and we think it is particularly bad to penalize the high-value organizations,’ said Jeff Korsmo, executive director of the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center. ‘We will have to violate our values in order to stay in business and reduce our access to government patients.’“ (Phil Galewitz, “‘Model’ Health Systems Press Case For Medicare Fix In Reform,” Kaiser Health News, 7/20/09)

LIKE THE CARE YOU RECEIVE FROM YOUR DOCTOR? Government Board Controlling Medicare Could Overrule Your Doctor’s Decisions.

“The president has decided … that he wants to create a new and very powerful executive branch agency, the Independent Medicare Advisory Council (IMAC) ... Not only would the council make recommendations on payment updates, it would also have the authority to propose other ‘Medicare reforms’ which would go into effect unless Congress could muster veto override majorities in opposition. What are ‘Medicare reforms’? From the write-up, it seems they could be just about anything … New rules for establishing qualified hospitals and doctors. Penalties for physicians who don’t follow government guidelines.” (James C. Capretta, “On-The-Fly Audacity,” The New Atlantis’s “Diagnosis” Blog,” 7/20/09)

LIKE THE HEALTH COVERAGE YOU RECEIVE FROM MEDICARE? Government Board Controlling Medicare Could Have Ability To Ration Your Treatments.

“Enter the Obama administration, which submitted to Congress legislative language that would create IMAC and give it broad authority to recommend ‘reforms to the Medicare program.’ In effect, IMAC would enable Medicare to overcome the political resistance to government rationing … The stimulus bill and the House reform plan deny federal agencies conducting comparative-effectiveness research the power to ‘mandate coverage, reimbursement, or other policies for any public or private payer.’ Obama places no such restrictions on IMAC.” (Michael F. Cannon, Op-Ed, “Sorry Folks, Sarah Palin Is (Partly) Right,” Detroit Free-Press, 8/19/09)

HAVE HEART PROBLEMS? Payment Cuts To Cardiologists Could “Threaten Access” To Heart Treatments You Need.

“Medicare officials recently proposed changes that could increase payments for some primary care services but reduce payments to many specialists. Cardiologists would be especially hard hit, with cuts of more than 20 percent in payments for electrocardiograms and 12 percent for heart stent procedures. ‘Cuts of this magnitude could cripple cardiology practices and threaten access to services for millions of patients,’ said Dr. John C. Lewin, chief executive of the American College of Cardiology.” (Robert Pear, “A Basis Is Seen For Some Health Plan Fears Among The Elderly,” The New York Times, 8/20/09)

HOPING FOR A CURE? Medicare Cuts Could Stifle Innovation That Could Produce New Treatments For You.

“Even small reductions to the future growth of Medicare spending – called ‘cuts’ in Washington parlance – unfairly burden the elderly, along with the doctors and hospitals that serve them and the manufacturers of health products, lest the pace of technical innovation be impaired.” (Uwe Reinhardt, “A ‘Common Sense’ American Health Reform Plan,” The New York Times’ “Economix” Blog, 7/31/09)

Ah, but we're just "trying to scare you", right?

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Your Tank Media at work

Hat tip: Net Right Nation.

Remembering Teddy Kennedy

From the man himself, on the Senate floor, 1987, during the Senate confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork:

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit in segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of million of citizens."

Hat tip: James Taranto, who has more:

"This was a slanderous attack on a good man. But it was effective, both tactically and strategically. The Senate voted down Bork's nomination, and the justice confirmed in his stead, Anthony Kennedy (no relation), has tipped the balance in more than a few cases toward the side Sen. Kennedy favored.

By his own lights, Ted Kennedy was right to oppose Bork's confirmation. Whatever the legal merits, there is little doubt that Bork's jurisprudential approach would have yielded fewer decisions consistent with Kennedy's idea of justice. But even those who accept that concept of justice ought to regret Kennedy's demagoguery. Common decency ought to count for something too."

Discussion here.

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"Obama vs the CIA"

"The agency's interrogation practices were lawful—and effective."

Key point:

"The bottom line: The CIA's interrogation practices were lawful, they were necessary, and they were effective. Reading this report, the real crime that comes to light is the Obama administration's decision to eliminate this capability and prosecute those who stopped the next attack."

It's just another "regressive" agenda item fulfillment, the result of which makes our nation and people less safe. Coming from the Obamanation, that's no big surprise.

The fact of that has been clear for quite some time to those of us who have been paying attention.

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There are better alternatives for reform than Obamacare

One particularly appealing one is adopting interstate health insurance sales.

Noteworthy:

"Currently, we aren’t able to purchase a health insurance policy from another state. The main reason for this is because states mandate various things on insurance policies and these vary from state to state. The National Center for Policy Analysis describes it in the following way:

The cost of individual health insurance varies widely from state to state. In a January 2006 report, The Commonwealth Fund compared the prices of individual health insurance policies in seven states with varying degrees of regulation. The price of policies varied tremendously, due mainly to state regulations rather than variation in health care costs.

research illustrates how regulations can impact the insurance market. But it is no accident — rather it is by design. In states where health insurance costs are the highest, a portion of the premiums paid is being used to cross-subsidize the premiums of high-risk individuals.

Another WSJ article entitled “Cheaper Health Insurance” provides a few examples of these mandates from 2005 (may have changed since then):

New York requires every insurance policy sold there to cover podiatry. Acupuncture coverage is mandated in 11 states, massage therapy in four, osteopathy in 24, and chiropractors in 47. There are an estimated 1,800 or so such insurance 'mandates' across the country, and the costs add up.

To illustrate, a 25-year old male in good health could purchase a policy for under $1,000 in Kentucky, yet in New Jersey it might cost upwards of $6,000. Simply put, the state’s regulations on health insurance cause health insurance costs to be higher and because you can’t buy insurance outside of your state, you are stuck with higher costs if you live in a state with a high number of mandates; this leads to a lack of affordability for many people."

Sounds like a viable plan, right? One problem--the Teleprompter -in-Chief doesn't like it.

"I believe that Obama leans towards the view that more of an individual’s life should be under the watch of the Federal government. This is especially true when it comes to your health care. Government health insurance, health care rationing according to government’s view of the 'greater good' are just a few examples of this. By using words that we all identify with such as 'affordability' and 'increased competition', many people believe Obama’s intentions are in our best interest. But are they?

As I mentioned above, Obama often explains that his goal is to offer people more options for health insurance and provide more competition in the market place. Is this true? Put your political views aside and tell me why he would not be for you being able to buy health insurance from another state.

In a WSJ article from back in the Presidential campaign during 2008, the author explains why Obama is against an interstate market:

First, he doesn’t believe a market can work in health insurance. He believes it is necessary for the government to look over everybody’s shoulder to make sure patients are getting the care and coverage the government thinks is appropriate at a price the government considers affordable.

When McCain was promoting this concept while running for President, Obama ridiculed him by saying 'he wants to run health care like they’ve been running Wall Street.' By Wall Street, I assume Obama merely means a marketplace environment. Is that really that bad? Isn’t that how we run just about everything? Is the auto insurance market a disaster because it’s run 'like Wall Street?"

If Obama, Pelosi, and Reid try to cram Obamacare down our throats through "Reconciliation"......

THIS little scene will seem like a birthday party in comparison to how nasty it WILL get.

An American hero's story

A preview of Obamacare's "public option"

Will we learn the lessons that the Maine "Miracle Cure" Care teaches us?

Noteworthy:

"Instead of 128,000 uninsured in the program today, the actual number is just 3,400. Despite the giant expansions in Maine's Medicaid program and the new, subsidized public choice option, the number of uninsured in the state today is only slightly lower that in 2004 when the program began

Why did this happen? Among the biggest reasons is a severe adverse selection problem: The sickest, most expensive patients crowded into DirigoChoice, unbalancing its insurance pool and raising costs. That made it unattractive for healthier and lower-risk enrollees. And as a result, few low-income Mainers have been able to afford the premiums, even at subsidized rates.

This problem was exacerbated because since the early 1990s Maine has required insurers to adhere to community rating and guaranteed issue, which requires that insurers cover anyone who applies, regardless of their health condition and at a uniform premium. These rules—which are in the Obama plan—have relentlessly driven up insurance costs in Maine, especially for healthy people.

The Maine Heritage Policy Center, which has tracked the plan closely, points out that largely because of these insurance rules, a healthy male in Maine who is 30 and single pays a monthly premium of $762 in the individual market; next door in New Hampshire he pays $222 a month. The Granite State doesn't have community rating and guaranteed issue."

Imagine that!

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I can't wait to hear the rationalization for what this tells us

Seniors need a health care Bill of Rights

As well we know, seniors' health care and well being are seriously threatened by many the obnoxious provisions proposed in each of the versions of Obamacare now being considered.

Here's a list of items proposed by the Republicans which must be part of any health care "reform" package" before it is made into law:

PROTECT MEDICARE AND NOT CUT IT IN THE NAME OF HEALTH CARE REFORM:

President Obama and Congressional Democrats are promoting a government-run health care experiment that will cut over $500 billion from Medicare to be used to pay for their plan. Medicare should not be raided to pay for another entitlement.

PROHIBIT GOVERNMENT FROM GETTING BETWEEN SENIORS AND THEIR DOCTORS:

The Democrats' government-run health care experiment will give patients less power to control their own medical decisions, and create government boards that would decide what treatments would or wouldn't be funded. Republicans believe in patient-centered reforms that put the priorities of seniors before government.

PROHIBIT EFFORTS TO RATION HEALTH CARE BASED ON AGE:

The Democrats' government-run health care experiment would set up a "comparative effectiveness research commission" where health care treatment decisions could be limited based on a patient's age. Republicans believe that health care decisions are best left up to seniors and their doctors.

PREVENT GOVERNMENT FROM INTERFERING WITH END-OF-LIFE CARE DISCUSSIONS:

The Democrats' government-run health care experiment would have seniors meet with a doctor to discuss end-of-life care that could mean limiting treatment. Republicans believe that government should not interfere with end-of-life care discussions between a patient and a doctor.

ENSURE SENIORS CAN KEEP THEIR CURRENT COVERAGE:

As Democrats continue to propose steep cuts to Medicare in order to pay for their government-run health care experiment, these cuts threaten millions of seniors with being forced from their current Medicare Advantage plans. Republicans believe that seniors should not be targeted by a government-run health care bill and forced out of their current Medicare coverage.

PROTECT VETERANS BY PRESERVING TRICARE AND OTHER BENEFIT PROGRAMS FOR MILITARY FAMILIES:

Democrats recently proposed raising veterans' costs for the Tricare For Life program that many veterans rely on for treatment. Republicans oppose increasing the burden on our veterans and believe America should honor our promises to them.

Obama's smoke and mirrors routine continues on the abortion provision in Obamacare

Cardinal Justin Rigali says those Obamacare apologists' are pushing an illusion in their denials.

Cardinal Rigali:

“Because some federal funds are authorized and appropriated by this legislation without passing through the Labor/HHS appropriations bill, they are not covered by the Hyde amendment and other federal provisions that have long prevented federal funding of abortion and of health benefits packages that include abortion.

The committee rejected an amendment to extend this longstanding policy to the use of federal subsidies for health care premiums under this Act. Instead the committee created a legal fiction, a paper separation between federal funding and abortion: Federal funds will subsidize the public plan, as well as private health plans that include abortion on demand; but anyone who purchases these plans is required to pay a premium out of his or her own pocket (specified in the Act to be at least $1.00 a month) to cover all abortions beyond those eligible for federal funds under the current Hyde amendment. Thus some will claim that federal taxpayer funds do not support abortion under the Act.

But this is an illusion. Funds paid into these plans are fungible, and federal taxpayer funds will subsidize the operating budget and provider networks that expand access to abortions.”

The Teleprompter-in-Chief had no cogent reply to make.

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"Now I'm free, I'm free falling "

More:

"Two observations: first, while poll results bounce around from day to day, Obama's trend is obvious. He does not appear to have reached bottom yet. Second, for some time now a plurality of respondents--the largest group by a considerable margin--has strongly disapproved of his performance. In recent weeks, that plurality has been around 40 percent. It continues to grow.

It seems doubtful that many of those who now strongly disapprove of Obama's performance will ever become 'approvers,' even if Obama changes course a bit. So the radical measures that Obama tried to ram through Congress in the early weeks of his administration have likely mobilized a solid core of opposition against which the President will have to contend for the rest of his term."

Will: "Will Obama's statism EVER Retreat?"

There's a good possibility that if we don't stop it here and now on Obamacare the statism may become permanent.

Noteworthy:

"If the Corker-Warner legislation is defeated, as Alexander's bill was, on an essentially party-line vote, this will be redundant proof that Obama's professed reluctance is fictitious. If it is, then what is real is what the Democratic left desires, an Obama Doctrine that says the trumpet of state capitalism -- capital increasingly controlled from Capitol Hill and the Treasury Department -- will never sound retreat."

The 800 pound gorilla that the Obamacare goofballs don't want to talk about

Medicare and Social Security have a $107 TRILLION unfunded future liability, before we even begin to talk about the increase that Obamacare would add.

Excerpt:

"The 2009 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports show the combined unfunded liability of these two programs has reached nearly $107 trillion in today's dollars! That is about seven times the size of the U.S. economy and 10 times the size of the outstanding national debt."

Here's an illustration that shows the lack of sustainability WITHOUT the additional burdens imposed by Obamacare.


Key points:

• When today's college students reach retirement (about 2054), Social Security alone will require a 16.6 percent payroll tax, one-third greater than today's rate.
• When Medicare Part A is included, the payroll tax burden will rise to 25.7 percent - more than one of every four dollars workers will earn that year.
• If Medicare Part B (physician services) and Part D are included, the total Social Security/Medicare burden will climb to 37 percent of payroll by 2054 - one in three dollars of taxable payroll, and twice the size of today's payroll tax burden!
• By 2020, in addition to payroll taxes and premiums, Social Security and Medicare will require more than one in four federal income tax dollars.
• By 2030, about the midpoint of the baby boomer retirement years, the programs will require nearly half of all income tax dollars.
• By 2060, they will require nearly three out of four income tax dollars.
• By 2050, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (health care for the poor) will consume nearly the entire federal budget.
• By 2082, Medicare spending alone will consume nearly the entire federal budget.
• The lowest marginal income tax rate of 10 percent would have to rise to 26 percent.
• The 25 percent marginal tax rate would increase to 66 percent.
• The current highest marginal tax rate (35 percent) would rise to 92 percent!

And yet the bleat goes on in support of the further economic disaster of Obamacare!

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For those of you who have moved beyond Denial and are now in Recovery

Deatails <here.

Hat tip: Fred Gregory.

Would this guy lie to you?

Government health care, cost cutting, and quality of care

James Capretta:

"The Obama plan to cut Medicare’s reimbursement rates should be exhibit A in the case against ObamaCare. This is what governments do when they run health-insurance plans. They promise targeted 'reforms' to root out waste and inefficiency, but what they actually deliver is indiscriminate, across-the-board price controls that do nothing to change the underlying cost structure of health-care. These cuts won’t 'bend the cost-curve'; they will simply further widen the gap between public and private payment rates, thus shifting more of the costs to private premium payers.

President Obama and his aides have talked incessantly about how they want to even out regional disparities in spending that don’t produce better health outcomes. The emphasis should be on quality, not quantity. But their actual proposals make no such distinctions. The highest quality, lowest cost hospitals will get cut just as much as the highest cost, lowest quality hospitals. There’s no purchasing of 'value.' It’s reimbursement cuts for everyone, no matter how well or badly they treat patients.

None of this should be surprising, though. The idea that the government could hire a bunch of analysts to run the U.S. health-care system from Washington with precise and painless efficiency was always a fiction. The only reliable and lasting way to drive greater efficiency in health-care is with cost-conscious consumers in a reformed marketplace. Absent that, the government will always resort to arbitrary cost-cutting to meet budget targets, with no distinction made between high-value and low-value care. And with price cuts come waiting lists and queues. Call it ObamaCare."

The true costs of "global warming" hysteria

Just a reminder, in preparation for the necessity to defeat the Cap n' Trade scam that's going to be brought up again in Congress this Fall.



Hat tip: Fred Gregory.

Today's "Oh, but that was different" flashback

Let's go back to the events of 1-20-2005, shall we?


Excerpts:

-- “Us Democrats are going to get up in arms...we’ll have to come out and do what we have to do in the spirit of revolution. We’ll have to come out and kill somebody, I guess.”

-- One sign had a double-digit number of swastikas: large swastikas with President Bush’s face superimposed and smaller ones replacing the letter “s” in the president’s surname

-- A number of “Buck Fush” signs and stickers, which shouldn’t need explaining to the dyslexic

-- “Bush=Death”

-- “Karl Rove is a Nazi, and so is Bush”

Finally, from the blogger himself:

"Next time you see a media report that unfairly paints town hall protesters as extremists, send this page to the editor, the ombudsman, or whatever contact you can find. Show them this documentation and ask them where all their outrage was when the target was a Republican president, not a Democrat."

(Hat tip: Instapundit)

But to hear the "regressives" tell it, all this sort of thing only started on 1-20-2009.

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So you think that all the talk about "death panels" is just scare tactics?

Think again. They actually exist already in the United States of America.



The precedent is set, and could become law if the current versions of Obamacare are not amended in specific terms to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

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How Obama plays both sides on Obamacare

It's almost like he figures that no one actually pays attention to what he says.

Noteworthy:

"So no bureaucrats, no bean-counters. Mr. Obama merely wants to create 'a panel of experts, health experts, doctors, who can provide guidelines to doctors and patients about what procedures work best in what situations, and find ways to reduce, for example, the number of tests that people take' (New Hampshire, again). Oh, and your health-care plan? You can keep it, as long your insurance company or employer can meet all the new regulations Mr. Obama favors. His choice of verbs, in Montana, provides a clue about what that will mean: 'will be prohibited,' 'will no longer be able,' 'we'll require' . . .

Maybe you're starting to fret about all those bureaucrats and bean-counters again. You shouldn't, according to Mr. Obama. 'The only thing I would point is, is that Medicare is a government program that works really well for our seniors,' he noted in Colorado. After all, as he said in New Hampshire, 'If we're able to get something right like Medicare, then there should be a little more confidence that maybe the government can have a role—not the dominant role, but a role—in making sure the people are treated fairly when it comes to insurance.'

The government didn't get Medicare right, though: Just ask the President. The entitlement is 'going broke' (Colorado) and 'unsustainable' and 'running out of money' (New Hampshire). And it's 'in deep trouble if we don't do something, because as you said, money doesn't grow on trees' (Montana).

So the health-care status quo needs top-to-bottom reform, except for the parts that 'you' happen to like. Government won't interfere with patients and their physicians, considering that the new panel of experts who will make decisions intended to reduce tests and treatments doesn't count as government. But Medicare shows that government involvement isn't so bad, aside from the fact that spending is out of control—and that program needs top-to-bottom reform too.

Voters aren't stupid. The true reason ObamaCare is in trouble isn't because 'folks aren't listening,' but because they are"

Obamacare Question of the Day

Q: What's the difference between the Associated Press and the Obama campaign?

A: The AP admits the public is against it.

From James Taranto who has more about the issues and the outcomes involved.

To sum it up:

"There's one more difference between Obama and the AP: He is a politician trying to get a piece of legislation passed. One expects him to shade the truth, to downplay inconvenient facts. Politicians have even been forgiven for outright lies. By contrast, of what use is a news service that is not rigorously impartial and factual?"

Absolutely none, but it's what we've come to expect for the Tank Media/Obama Chief Cheerleader team.

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"Teach your children well...."

From the creator of Volunteers for America.

Remember the "Rightwing Extremism" nonsense frm DHS?

It's been exposed as just another outrageous example of Thug Politics by the Obamanation to suppress dissent, in the same manner of the campaign to de-legitimize the widespread objections to Obamacare.

Noteworthy:

"In defining 'rightwing extremism,' the Department of Homeland Security memo targeted 'groups, movements, and adherents… that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority' and 'groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,' beliefs that represent tens of millions of Americans who are neither extremists nor terrorists.

In its assessment, DHS reported that returning veterans would be recruited by terrorist groups, that gun control legislation and the election of Barack Obama would attract new members to 'rightwing extremist' groups, and that the economic downturn too was ripening “extremist” sentiments. It stated that 'lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.' It said this threat was 'because of their low profile and autonomy—separate from any formalized group—which hampers warning efforts.'

As a result, what DHS claimed to be looking for was less than a needle in a haystack, making law enforcement efforts to develop a profile of potential suspects futile. And since the report was not based on actual intelligence gathered by DHS or another agency by individuals who had penetrated actual terrorist cells, and rather were based upon the ravings of the hard left and conspiracists, its conclusions were and are highly dubious. Instead they would have led to the monitoring of potentially millions of law-abiding Americans."

Of course, according to our Useful Idiot/"Regressive", element, it's all just so much blowback to the dopey, hopey, 'n changey party they're enjoying, not genuine worry from people who are concerned about the real dangers that this renegade administration represents.

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Beware of the "co-ops" that may be offered in place of Obamacare's "public option"

Via Amy Ridenour, here's how Cato's Michael Tanner described them last June:

"A closer look suggests that the only thing intriguing about the co-op alternative is whether it is a completely meaningless construct or simply camouflage for the 'Public Plan' option...

...The new co-ops would presumably have to advertise like other insurance companies, build physician networks, pay competitive reimbursement rates, and in general act like, well, every other insurance company. It is suggested that the new federal co-ops would be nonprofits, and therefore would offer better service and lower costs. But many insurance companies, including 'mutual' insurers and many 'Blues,' are already nonprofit companies. If the new co-ops operate under the same rules as other nonprofit insurers, why bother?

And there's the rub. Supporters of government-run health care have no intention of letting the co-ops be independent enterprises that operate by the same rules as other insurers. This is not really about creating more choices and competition. In fact, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) makes it clear, for example, that the co-op's officers and directors would be appointed by the president and Congress. He insists that there be a single national co-op. And Congress would set the rules under which it operates. As Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) says, 'It's got to be written in a way that accomplishes the objectives of a public option.'

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks likes a duck, it's probably a duck.

Moreover, several previous attempts by governments to set up co-ops have, in fact, failed. Perhaps the largest such failure was the Florida Community Health Purchasing Alliance, which was set up by the State of Florida in 1993, and at one time covered 98,000 people. It was unable to attract small business customers and ultimately went out of business in 2000. Does anyone really believe that a Congress that is busy bailing out banks and automobile companies because they are 'too big to fail' is going to sit idly by while one of these new co-ops suffers a similar fate?

If a 'co-op' is run by the federal government under rules imposed by the federal government with funding provided by the federal government, it's simply government-run health insurance by another name. Opponents of a government takeover of the health care system should not be fooled. "

As I have said before elsewhere, what Chuckie Schumer wants, Chuckie Schumer gets.

Quack, quack......

UPDATE:

From Tanner's colleague Michael Cannon:

"Having Congress charter a health insurance 'cooperative' is just another way of creating a new government-run program that would drive private insurers out of business.

The definition of a cooperative is a health plan governed by its enrollees. Since a government chartered co-op won’t have any enrollees at first, it will be governed like any other government program. So when the Obama administration and congressional Democrats say, 'We’re going to create a co-op,' what they mean is, 'We’re going to create a new government health program but we will turn it over to the members in five years. We promise.'

.......Who was it that said that thing about putting lipstick on a pig?"

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Is John Edwards getting scared about the paternity issue?

Mickey Kaus examines some reasons why the Breck Girl has yet to come forward on the issue.

Key point:

"If past Edwards performance is a guide, the one option that won't be considered is telling the truth unembalmed in a thick layer of narcissistic dissembling. ..."

Of that, we can be sure.

I take Edwards' reticence to be connected with the ongoing Grand Jury proceedings.

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Obamanation ready to admit defeat on the "public option"

It's apparent to them that their continued arrogance and thug politics on this issue will result in a huge political calamity for them, and they're now looking to save face.

Noteworthy:

".....Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), one of six senators involved in bipartisan Finance Committee negotiations, all but declared the public option dead in the Senate.

'Look, the fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option,' said Conrad, who has pushed an alternative proposal to create a network of consumer cooperatives, on Fox News Sunday. 'There never have been. So to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort.' "

If the "consumer cooperatives" are run by a national board appointed by Obama, there's still no deal. The same applies if the other most obnoxious provisions and/or bad ideas of the proposed "reform" are not dumped, either.

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What a Trojan Horse Looks Like

"Oh, but THAT was different......"

Likely rationale from Usual Suspects/"Regressives" near and far?

"That was then. This is now."

Hat tip: GM's Place.

Kook Kos Klan: "War? What war?"

How things change among the simple minded "regressive" gang!

Noteworthy:

"I attended the first YearlyKos convention, in 2006, and have kept up with later ones, and it's safe to say that while people who attended those gatherings couldn't stand George W. Bush in general, their feelings were particularly intense when it came to opposing the war in Iraq. It animated their activism; they hated the war, and they hated Bush for starting it. They weren't that fond of the fighting in Afghanistan, either.

Now, with Obama in the White House, all that has changed. Greenberg presented respondents with a list of policy priorities and asked, 'Please indicate which two you think progressive activists should be focusing their attention and efforts on the most.' The winner was passing comprehensive health care reform, with 60 percent, and number two was passing 'green energy policies that address environmental concerns,' with 22 percent. Tied for eighth place, named by just eight percent of respondents, was 'working to end our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.' "

Don't worry, Byron. In ten years they'll have history sufficiently rewritten to the point that Iraq and Afghanistan will be regarded as great victories for Obama, a true measure of his fearless leadership.

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Volunteers for America

The summer of 2009 has seen a coming together of a movement all across the nation, with an impact that far outranks the events of 40 years ago in importance and definition of the spirit of America.

The message sent to government is clear:

HANDS OFF!

(Hat tip: Doug Ross)