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Health+Care
Freedoms YOU Will Lose With Obamacare
-By Warner Todd Huston
Two recent articles do a wonderful job addressing some of the freedoms that each of us will lose if President Obama’s nationalized healthcare takeover occurs. One by John Fund of the all Street Journal and a second in Fortune by editor at large Shawn Tully really drive home how healthcare “reform” is a barely disguised grab for power by Democrats in Congress and the White House.
Tully outlines for us five freedoms we will lose once the government takes over healthcare and the biggest one makes the lie to Obama’s constant claim that we can keep the healthcare plans we currently have “if we like it.”
In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage — including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money — but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can’t have. It’s a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.
Among the things that Tully reveals is that we’d lose the freedom to chose what sort of plan we’d like to pay for and what care options we’d like to have, we’d lose the ability to chose our own doctors, and nearly all of us would lose our existing healthcare plans, whether we have them through our employer or not, within a year of Obamacare’s passing.
Freedoms YOU Will Lose With Obamacare”
First Evidence of Gov’t Telling us How to Live in Obamacare
-By Warner Todd Huston
One of the things that those of us against government run healthcare systems are wary of most is the probability that government will begin to mandate how we are to live our lives. This assumption of power by government would mean a loss of our individual liberty and a corresponding theft of that liberty by government. Naturally, advocates of a single payer, socialistic healthcare system laugh off such worries and say “it’ll never happen here” — famous last words, of course.
Sparking such worries anew, Senator Chris Dodd (D, Conn.) recently said that it was entirely possible that the criminally troubled community group ACORN could likely qualify for funds from the Senate’s healthcare bill. But what ACORN might use those government funds for should alarm everyone.
Apparently the “Creating Healthier Communities” provision of the bill (found on page 382), would see grants awarded to state governments, local governments and groups that are members of a “national network of community-based organizations.”
And what does “Creating Healthier Communities” mean?
First Evidence of Gov’t Telling us How to Live in Obamacare”
The Racial Setasides in the House Health Bill
-By Warner Todd Huston
Attorney Allan J. Favish reported a few days ago on the shocking racial set asides contained in the House Healthcare bill that shows that, once again, Congress is more interested in serving politically correct interests than in actually “doing something” serious about healthcare.
Just as Congress routinely adds riders and earmarks to bills that have nothing to do with those earmarks and riders (such as sticking abortion funding in an armed services supplemental bill, and the like) House Democrats slipped into the healthcare legislation racial preferences concerning minority students seeking entrance to medical schools.
It appears that the healthcare bill will give preferential federal funding to medical schools that “have demonstrated a record” of training students from “underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds.”
The Racial Setasides in the House Health Bill”
Obamacare Means an End to Liberty and Freedom
-By Warner Todd Huston
It may seem silly, but the singular fact about freedom is that having it means you have the God given right to ruin your own health without government saying you can’t, or standing in your way to get the medical care you need to fix your own mess. Obamacare, however, will both tell you how to live (taking away your freedom) as well as withhold from you the medical care you need to fix yourself. In fact, by its very nature, government healthcare has to end up that way.
Do you doubt that statement? Do you think that the benevolent father in Washington would never withhold medical care from those in need just because they are fat, old, or because they smoke or drink too much? Is this just fearmongering on my part as far as you are concerned? Au contraire. It is already happening in countries that have national socialistic healthcare systems and the sad tale of Gary Reinbach (RIP) of Dagenham, Essex, U.K. is exhibit number one.
Obamacare Means an End to Liberty and Freedom”
The Old Age Penalty For Healthcare Services
-By Warner Todd Huston
Last week England’s Yorkshire Post featured a few stories on the failure that is British nationalized healthcare. Among others, it featured one 54-year-old woman that had to wait 18 months to get an abscess taken from her mouth and a 74-year-old man that found he could not get the care for his heart condition that he needed because he was deemed too old to be worth the effort.
Once again, we have a perfect example of the sort of nationalized healthcare administered by government bean counters and bureaucrats (and NOT doctors) that will result here if we institute Obamacare.
The Old Age Penalty For Healthcare Services”
Now, I’m Not So Sure About Healthcare Reform…
What more can be said? This video is excellent.
Even Healthcare Liberal Wants Process Slowed
-By Warner Todd Huston
Obama is just about to ride his “skycycle” over the edge of Snake River Canyon, right to certain disaster.
Barack Obama is rushing headlong off the healthcare cliff despite rising calls to slow the debate so that lawmakers can wrap their heads around the whole thing. Even liberal Douglas Elmendorf, Harvard trained and member of the leftist Brookings Institute, is practically begging Congress to slow down and deliberate with the attention the whole enterprise deserves.
Elmendorf is a true believer in healthcare “reform,” too. He believes in a massive, socialist take over of healthcare by the government. But even he is saying that the bills currently under consideration are a mess that will cause more trouble in healthcare than they will fix. His primary concern is that the legislation being considered would cause wild increases in healthcare costs despite the claim by Obama that such costs will come down.
Even Healthcare Liberal Wants Process Slowed”
Time Warns President He Could Lose Healthcare Battle
-By Warner Todd Huston
It looks like Time Magazine’s Karen Tumulty is getting scared that we could be losing the healthcare battle so she is urging Obama to “step in” and fix it all for us. Why, only the dulcet tones of The One could save us all from… wait, isn’t this whole thing his deal in the first place?
What is curious with this piece is the fact that Tumulty seems oblivious to the possibility that if healthcare is failing to win the day, that failure could be squarely laid at the president’s feet. After all, it is his campaign promise and his “highest priority” that we tackle healthcare. Yet Tumulty, while mildly scolding Obama for not being hands on enough, is all too willing to blame everyone but Obama for the floundering of the debate.
Time Warns President He Could Lose Healthcare Battle”
Is Dem. Arrogance Causing Pelosi Trouble on Healthcare?
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Hill newspaper is reporting that Speaker Pelosi is finding that the tough slog that the healthcare debate is having in the House of Representatives is the “price” she is paying for the arrogant rushing of the Cap and Trade bill that the Democratic leadership earlier forced through the House. The way that bill was rammed down the throats of Democrat moderates rankled them and they are getting payback by slowing progress, even opposing parts, of the healthcare bill.
Pelosi rushed the climate bill through without giving her own members time to read the bill and come to understand it. The result was a vote that has gotten moderates beaten up pretty well by constituents that were never given an opportunity to voice their opinions before their representatives voted.
Is Dem. Arrogance Causing Pelosi Trouble on Healthcare?”
Senate Calls Its Healthcare Plan Ca Ca. No Really!
-By Warner Todd Huston
OK, is it just me or did the Democrats on the Senate’s health committee make their healthcare plan out to be …well, poo poo? It can’t be just me. Look at the name they’ve chosen for their healthcare plan. They have called it the Quality, Affordable Health Coverage for All Americans plan. The acronym for that would be QAHCAA. How else can one pronounce that but cahca? And what is that closest to but ca ca? That’s a little Spanish lingo for… well, poo poo.
Yes, the Senate is raining QAHCAA down upon us with its healthcare bill. Soon we’ll be knee deep in QAHCAA. QAHCAA will be coming out our ears. The whole thing is a pile of QAHCAA. The Senate has jammed 10 pounds of QAHCAA into a 5 pound bag. We are all in deep QAHCAA.
Nice going Democrats. That is one fine acronym for your bill. Very fitting. Right on. Props to what ever half-witted staffer you let come up with that one!
(H/T P.J. Gladnick of Newsbusters.org)
Snowe Dampens Dems Healthcare Ardor and Polls Begin to Turn
-By Warner Todd Huston
Senator Olympia Snowe is the Democrat’s one great hope for “bi-partisan” healthcare. Of course, by that Democrats mean that Snowe is the only one that will give them any cover at all that what they are considering could possibly appeal across party lines. But, even Snowe is saying that the healthcare train needs to be slowed down despite Obama’s cries for full speed ahead.
Snowe has recently begun to say that a vote on the bill before the August recess, as Obama keeps pushing for, is way too soon and that the Senate needs to slow down considerably.
Snowe Dampens Dems Healthcare Ardor and Polls Begin to Turn”
Arlington Cemetery Records a Mess
-By Warner Todd Huston
Salon.com has a disheartening story about the troubles at the national cemetery at Arlington, Virginia, those sacred grounds were thousands upon thousands of our nation’s heroes and notables have been buried. Infuriatingly, it seems that cemetery records are a mess, some of them not corresponding to headstones, many garbled or lost.
This is the nation’s most revered cemetery yet some soldier’s names are lost to the permanent record, some burials are unknown because of failed record keeping, it is even thought that some headstones are on the wrong graves.
Continue reading “
Arlington Cemetery Records a Mess”
Bad Economy to Get Worse With Obamacare
-By Warner Todd Huston
This week and last we’ve seen some firmer ideas from House Democrats on how they expect to pay for Obamacare and from those ideas it is becoming increasingly, painfully obvious that small businesses will be hit hard with tax increases and this during one of the worst economic downturns in decades. Right when we need economic growth from small business, the backbone of the country, Democrats are making to punish them thereby pushing any economic recovery far off into the future… if at all.
Not all Democrats want to tread this suicidal path, granted. We’ve discussed the efforts of the 40 self-professed Blue Dogs several times before (Here and here) as last week they sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Stenny Hoyer of the Democratic leadership in the House warning them that they weren’t necessarily on board with the current direction that Democrats in the House were going on healthcare.
Bad Economy to Get Worse With Obamacare”
Obamacare Bill FILLED With Gov’t Pork Projects
-By Warner Todd Huston
It’s an emergency, they tell us. We NEED it NOW, the Democrats insist. No time to mess around, it’s time to get serious Obama told us. If we don’t get Obamacare quick the world will topple around us we are assured. So what is the Senate doing instead of taking the time to consider these important issues? Instead of worrying about healthcare, the Senate is spending its time larding the bill billions of dollars in pork projects.
As the Boston Globe reports, added to the bill is “billions of dollars for walking paths, streetlights, jungle gyms, and even farmers’ markets.” This spending is supposedly to improve the country’s “health infrastructure” – a laughable rhetorical device if there ever was one.
This is, we all know, nothing but par for the course in pork spending by the Congress that Obama claimed would be above such nonsense once he came to rule. Either he lied again, or Congress isn’t paying any attention to the president’s claims.
Obamacare Bill FILLED With Gov’t Pork Projects”
Romneycare Failing, Obamacare Will Follow
-By Warner Todd Huston
It is surprising that the national debate on Obamacre has thus far excluded any real examination of the state wide healthcare program signed into law in 2006 by Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. But maybe the fact that Romneycare, a system closely resembling Obama’s policies, is failing on several levels serves as a reason that Democrats want to pretend that system doesn’t exist when debating their own programs.
The Wall Street Journal had a July 11 editorial that looked a little closer at Romneycare and found the whole thing wanting, suggesting that Obamacare might be “dead on arrival” if Romneycare is reviewed.
Romneycare Failing, Obamacare Will Follow”
Obama Wants to Fine YOU for Not Bowing to HIS Wishes
-By Warner Todd Huston
So, one of the aspects of Obamacare that is not being talked about too much is the fines Obama will inflict on average, middle class Americans that don’t want to join his nationalized healthcare service.
At this point, Obama favors a $1,000 fine to those of you that don’t want any part of a nationalized system under his control. That’s $1,000 of your hard earned money swiped away from you for not knuckling under to his dictats.
For an interesting exercise, I thought I’d check around the web to see what fines around the country would be for other things, things that are far more egregious of a violation of the law. Things like illegal drug possession, assault, or drunken driving.
Obama Wants to Fine YOU for Not Bowing to HIS Wishes”
ACORN Shenanigans in South Carolina
-By Warner Todd Huston
Recently, the Smosska Corporation swooped into Florence, South Carolina promising to instantly create some 400 new jobs with an assurance of 3,000 before next year is out. For an area that needs jobs this seemed like welcome news.
Last week a job fair was held in Florence by the new company at which free health care was offered those that would be hired. At that time an aptitude test was taken by applicants if, that is, they had the $40 fee to pay to take the thing. The company claimed this “fee” would be used to pay for drug tests if they were hired. This fee, however, made some people curious.
The fee and several other curious characteristics of this company caused suspicions to be raised about its legitimacy. It turns out, there is not yet an actual building in which this Smosska Corporation is housed, there don’t seem to be too many current employees, and there doesn’t seem to have been any actual products created by Smosska in the past — though the corporation is supposed to have been formed in 2001. Even the original email address given out was a Yahoo account, not an official corporate web host address.
ACORN Shenanigans in South Carolina”
Dems Address Paying For It
-By Warner Todd Huston
Soak the “rich.” That’s the plan. In fact, that is always the plan with tax and spend Democrats. This time it is a new “surtax” on Americans making over $250,000 a year (or $350,000 per couple) to pay for Obamacare.
Ominously, the plan has a hike mechanism right at the outset as Charlie Rangel (D, NY), head of the House Ways and Means Committee, has inserted language that will raise the tax higher if they don’t get as much money as they want with this first dip into the rich folk’s wallets. If anyone thinks Democrats will imagine they’ve gotten enough the first time and that the hike trigger doesn’t need to be pulled… well, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
So, who will this hit? Can anyone doubt that it will be doctors themselves? After such a raid into American’s paychecks, it will be doctors that will find that they are being taxed in order to pay themselves further reduced rates by government reimbursements through this new healthcare system.
Dems Address Paying For It”
Democrats proving Again That Compromise is Not an Option on Healthcare
-By Warner Todd Huston
In this report we get a nice one-two punch. Not only are we seeing Democrats once again refusing even a tiny compromise with Republicans on Obama’s takeover of nearly 20% of our economy with his healthcare plans, but we also get to see another example of why Huffington Post is not journalism. I like a nice one-two punch for a Wednesday.
For one thing, the HuffPo article hilariously calls Democrat pitbull Rahm Emanuel a “conservative Democrat.” But let’s start with the more important political point and deal with the HuffPo chicanery second.
In a HuffPo “report” by Sam Stein, we see leftists, and extreme activists getting their shorts in a wad over the proposition from Republicans that the so-called public option only be set off by a “trigger,” one that would usher in that public option if insurance companies “fail to deliver” the affordable coverage that Obama is demanding. This trigger idea would exclude the public option at the outset only to have it come in later if needed.
Democrats proving Again That Compromise is Not an Option on Healthcare”
What Kind Of Care, Anyway?
-By Warner Todd Huston
For those that want universal healthcare, the panacea of “coverage” is expected to “give” all those currently without healthcare coverage the access they need to the medical care they now lack. This sounds wonderful all things being equal. It sounds caring and big hearted of them to want everyone to get medical care. But what is the practical outcome of this desire with a system in government hands?
Obama has claimed that he wants to create a sort of standard minimum of coverage provided by government for those entirely without. Again, it sounds like a great idea but how long does that minimum standard stay minimum? Unfortunately, what might be considered minimum now would quickly become all inclusive with just every kind of service imaginable added to the plan as inevitable government “mission creep” continues to raise the bar for political reasons.
What Kind Of Care, Anyway?”
One Reason Our Healthcare System is in a Mess: Trial Lawyers
-By Warner Todd Huston
OK, my headline is admittedly too simplistic. In fact, the whole medical malpractice milieu is sorely in need of a fix. We have unnecessarily large awards to aggrieved patients, crushing insurance costs to doctors to cover malpractice, a situation where defensive medicine drives up costs, and an entire industry of lawyers whose job it is, apparently, to rape the system and cause it to be burdensome for all of us. On top of that, we have a national party in the Democrats assisting these very destructive lawyers to do just that. This is a part of our medical system that truly needs reform.
We can start by getting Democrats to stop doing everything they can to bend over backwards for the John Edwards’ of this world — ambulance chasers extraordinaire. Democrats are the reason this has gotten so bad. And imagine, we are trusting to Democrats to “fix” what they, themselves broke with the greedy assistance of the trial lawyers.
One Reason Our Healthcare System is in a Mess: Trial Lawyers”
State Workers Worried About Losing ‘Cadillac’ Medical Benefits
-By Warner Todd Huston
If you want to see the logical disconnect of unions and their lap dog lawmakers where it concerns costs to government, one need look no further than the over indulgent healthcare plan that New Hampshire’s state workers have been lavished with.
On July 4, the Boston Globe published a story that details the incredibly rich healthcare plan that state workers have succeeded in getting due to union negotiations with pliant Democrat lawmakers. It seems that they get just about any kind of care they want and all for “free.” It’s called a “Cadillac” healthcare plan and it is amazing for its coverage.
According to the Globe, surgery is free for New Hampshire state workers. So are MRIs, CT scans and X-Rays. It gets even more indulgent.
State Workers Worried About Losing ‘Cadillac’ Medical Benefits”
Democrats Will Reveal How They Want to ‘Pay’ For Healthcare
-By Warner Todd Huston
We may know by the end of the week how the Democrats are claiming they will pay for their healthcare plans. News out of the House of Representatives is that they will introduce their bill on either Thursday or Friday of this week.
In the mean time, on Tuesday a caucus meeting with Energy and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) will be held on Tuesday to discuss the funding plans. This will be followed by a brief by House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) while Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) will speak on Friday. Rangel is last because his committee is in charge of finding the tax increases that will pay for the plan.
Democrats also say that the “public option” will be a prominent feature of their bill and will be similar to the current Medicare system.
Democrats Will Reveal How They Want to ‘Pay’ For Healthcare”
Reid, Pelosi Don’t Want Healthcare Bill Read by Congress, Public Before Vote
-By Warner Todd Huston
Amazingly, neither Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev) nor Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif) want to give Congress or the public much time to read the upcoming Healthcare bills they are rushing through their respective chambers before forcing a “yes” or “no” vote on them.
In a recent interview, Senator Reid was asked if he’d commit to giving the Senate and the public a week to digest any healthcare “reform” bill before he brought the bill up for a vote. Reid however, refused to make such a commitment.
Reid, Pelosi Don’t Want Healthcare Bill Read by Congress, Public Before Vote”
Businesses Hit Hard With Obamacare, Say Goodbye to Mom and Pop Stores
-By Warner Todd Huston
The most insidious part of Obamacare is the backdoor taxes, and defacto control of our healthcare by the nanny state that President Obama’s plan is loaded with. And here is another one that is not getting much play. Employers would be socked with requirements to pay for 72.5 percent of the cost of insurance premiums for their full-time employees under the plan being considered in the House.
They would also be required to pick up an as yet undetermined percentage of the insurance plans for part-time employees, as well. This alone will insure that part-time jobs across the nation are terminated for the destructive cost involved in having them.
Or, conversely, many full-time jobs will be eliminated if the costs of insurance is so steep and that of part-timers less so. Either way, jobs will be lost because of these new, never before seen expenses.
Businesses Hit Hard With Obamacare, Say Goodbye to Mom and Pop Stores”
If Canada’s System is So Great, Then Why…
-By Warner Todd Huston
The left continually holds up the Canadian socialized healthcare system as the best example, one we should strive to emulate. But as each week passes we find more and more reason to doubt the panacea in the Great White North.
Last week news came out that Canada forced an infant to flee its country and into our own to get life saving treatment. A baby was born 13 weeks premature in Ontario, Canada but there were no neonatal intensive care beds open for the child there.
If Canada’s System is So Great, Then Why…”
Talk Back: A Reply to the CNA Talking Points
-By Warner Todd Huston
Unions are spearheading the attack on our healthcare system and none more so than the Service Employee’s International Union and its sister organization the CNA. The ten talking points that the California Nurses Association has put out in order to rev up its membership to support a universal, single payer healthcare system is interesting, to say the least. In this posting, I’d like to reply to each of them with a little rebuke of my own.
But first I’d like to remark on the ham-handed style in which these talking points were written. The class warfare rhetoric here is more reminiscent of a protest placard than any serious discussion of public policy. But, be that as it may, here we go…
Talk Back: A Reply to the CNA Talking Points”
Massachusetts Universal Healthcare System Breaking Down Already
-By Warner Todd Huston
When Governor Mitt Romney instituted a universal healthcare plan for Massachusetts in 2006 he proclaimed it a conservative idea. “It’s a conservative idea insisting that individuals have responsibility for their own health care,” he said. “I think it appeals to people on both sides of the aisle: insurance for everyone without a tax increase.” The plan passed and was put into practice. But has it worked? Has it been successful?
For a time, many thought it might but cracks in the system are already being seen. These cracks are instructive as a lesson on how Obamacare will crash and burn just like Romneycare is now in the process of doing.
One of the early claims that helped push Romneycare through to law was the insistence by its supporters that Emergency Room visits would fall as more and more citizens became covered under healthcare insurance. Since ER care is far more expensive than a doctor’s care, it was thought that more people with insurance would ease the overcrowding of ERs as well as lower the overall costs of healthcare.
However, a flaw in this logic has been seen throughout the state. As more people became insured, more people demanded the care of doctors. These doctors became overloaded with patients and waiting lists for doctors got longer and longer. As a result, ERs in Massachusetts have not seen a downturn in visits. On the contrary, it seems that ER visits are actually on the upswing in the Bay State. In fact, in 2007 they were higher than the national average by 20 percent.
Massachusetts Universal Healthcare System Breaking Down Already”