On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made these comments about the health insurance industry:
"It's almost immoral what they are doing," Pelosi said to reporters, referring to insurance companies. "Of course they've been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure," she said, adding, "They are the villains. They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening."
A couple of quick thoughts…
1. So, if someone disagrees with the public option in the healthcare reform discussion, they are an immoral villain?
2. Here is yet another enemy for the Left to destroy. First, it was the evil oil speculators that merely do their jobs and forecast the cost of crude. Then it was the awful AIG employees that received bonuses that the government approved. Don’t forget the CIA officials that helped keep us safe from bloodthirsty Islamo-fascists that want to kill us. Oh yes, then there is the city of Las Vegas where so many companies “waste money” at pointless conventions, Sarah Palin, the “stupid” cops from Cambridge, smokers, Rush Limbaugh, soda companies, conservative talk radio as a whole, oil companies, Wal-Mart…
I’m sure I’m missing some, if not many, more. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sick and tired of the Left targeting other Americans and labeling them “evil” or “villains” simply for the fact that they don’t comply with their radical agenda.
Say what you want about the U.S. healthcare system, but no one can fairly question the high level of care available to American citizens.
For decades, the U.S. has been home to the finest hospitals in the world, served as the birthplace of limitless, medical innovation and provided its citizens with healthcare most people around the world could only dream of receiving.
If Obama and the Democrats get their way with healthcare reform, all of this will be a thing of the past.
When you hear liberals describe the virtues of socialized healthcare, you will hear them wax poetic about how wonderful it is to receive “free” healthcare (even though we all know that this is not the case) and how “everyone” has access to a myriad of medical procedures.
One thing they conveniently leave out is the quality of this “free” healthcare. They leave it out for good reason, as any discussion of the quality of socialized medicine should scare the hell out of any rational individual.
“Ration” and “Scarcity” are a couple of words you all should become rather familiar with as the nation’s healthcare discussion continues because medical options are going to be rationed due to the scarcity of healthcare resources.
The Obama administration has already been quite upfront that it is going to try to ration the use of new technology to control costs. Under the guise of "cost effectiveness" policies, the government will issue rules on when new health care treatments can be used. If your situation does not meet bureaucratic guidelines, then the newest test or treatment will not be available to you or your loved ones.
Would you like a sneak preview of this rationing? Take the “virtual colonoscopy”. The virtual colonoscopy is a newer, better version that works faster, is far cheaper and is more comfortable than its predecessor. With colon cancer being the second leading cause of U.S. cancer deaths (and one of the most preventable and treatable), you would think that this procedure would be a godsend for Medicare. Well, it was until budgetary issues arose. Back in May, Medicare (a program that will no doubt mirror the public option Obama is pushing) trustees reported a dramatic shortfall in budgetary resources. As a result, the program’s managers decided to deny payment for the virtual colonoscopy to those on Medicare.
From a budgetary standpoint, this may be the correct move, but from a care standpoint it clearly is not. I realize that those considerations need to be made at times, but it should be the decision of you, your family and your doctor, not the federal government.
Still don’t believe me? Think these are all a bunch of crazy conservative scare tactics?
Fine.
Let’s take a look at some stats from Great Britain and Canada, two nations that have socialized healthcare.
In Great Britain, at any one time, over 500,000 people are waiting to get into a British hospital. 38% of Brits have to wait four months or more for surgery (compared to 5% in the U.S.). British patients also wait months longer than their American counterparts for knee and hip replacement surgery, cataract surgery and radiation treatment. Additionally, cancer patients are regularly denied life saving drugs due to budget shortfalls in Merry Old England.
Even British officials hate their healthcare! The Chairman of the British Medical Association described the British government-controlled healthcare system as “the stifling of innovation by excessive, intrusive audits, the shackling of doctors by prescribing guidelines, referral guidelines and protocols, the suffocation of professional responsibility by target-setting and production line values that leave little room for the professional judgment of individual doctors or the needs of individual patients.”
How about Canada? Want to see a neurologist for a headache? Better sign up now as the wait is six months. Alright, how about an MRI? That’ll be another three and a half months, with a one-month wait for an ultrasound. Gotta go to the emergency room? Better bring your pajamas, as the average wait to get in is 23 hours.
More than 1.5 million Canadians say they cannot find a family doctor (this from a country with five million people less than California). Some towns even have sunk to lotteries to determine who gets to see a doctor. In Canada, 27% of people that have surgery wait four months or more.
Not only will this rationing restrict your access to care, it will also slow the development of new technologies, which need potentially broad new markets to be economically viable. The new technology that gets shelved could be the one that would save your life.
With the government setting prices and dictating what should be developed and for what price, this country will experience a sharp drop in medical breakthroughs. After all, the private sector fuels innovation and experimentation, not the public sector.
Why? It’s simple, profits.
Therefore, we will not only be getting less care, we will be getting outdated care. Would you want 2010 level care in the year 2050? I would wager no more than you would want 1969 level care today.
Columnist Scott Atlas and Nils Wilking from Stockholm's Karolinska Institute explain this point very well. Wilking, an author of a widely reported publication that compares international cancer survivals, recently explained that nearly half the improvement in cancer survival rates in the United States in the 1990s was due to "the introduction of new oncology drugs." He writes: "No country on the globe does as good a job overall as the United States. Thus, the U.S. government should focus on ensuring that all cancer patients receive timely care, rather than radically overhauling the current system."
With all of these innovations and medical miracles, President Obama still sees fit to radically transform our healthcare system, level of care be damned.
Well…I guess that is change, isn’t it? But not too much hope, if you ask me.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
As the healthcare debate in Washington grows in intensity with each passing day, we citizens are left to simply stand by and wait until Congress and the Obama Administration determine the fate of our healthcare. And not just ours either. This reform will dramatically affect the cost and quality of healthcare for every single American citizen that will live in this country from now until the end of time.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the plan, I just want to point out a couple of things for you to note when you hear President Obama or members of Congress talk about healthcare in this country. You will hear this phrase, or a close facsimile of it, uttered repeatedly…
“45 million people in America are without healthcare.”
In those eight little words there is one blatant lie and three other, clever misdirections.
First, the misdirections.
“45 million people in America”. Notice anything about statement? Note that it doesn’t say “45 million Americans”; it says “45 million people in America”. That’s because illegal immigrants are included in that estimate! A sneaky and terribly underhanded approach to presenting healthcare figures.
The statement also implies that there are currently 45 million people in this country without healthcare coverage. Another fabrication. People that have been without insurance at any time over the past year are included in that estimate. So if you switched jobs and had a two-week lapse in medical coverage, you’re in that 45 million estimate.
Thirdly, this statement implies that the people that do not have health insurance want health insurance. That is clearly not always the case. A large number of wealthy people forgo health insurance because they can afford to pay for procedures or doctor visits as they come up. Another group of people that opt not to have insurance is young workers, especially those in the 18-24 age group. They see the amount of money that goes towards healthcare coming out of their checks on a weekly basis and, due to economic reasons; they decide that that money is needed for other parts of their budget.
And what if you are in the group of people that for whatever reason choose not to have health insurance? Well if you file a tax return, you have to have it under Senator Kennedy’s plan. If you don’t, the IRS and a newly expanded federal office on electronic medical records will find you and fine you.
How much? No one knows for sure as it will be determined by the secretary of health and human services. It will be enough, however, to persuade you to join the program.
Now for the big lie. Can you find it in the statement?
It’s claiming 45 million people in this country do not have healthcare.
Everyone has healthcare. For example, if you are uninsured and get into a car accident, by law, you will be cared for. Yet this comment makes it seem that 45 million people do not have access to any medical care. This is just another subtle way of making our current healthcare system seem in worse shape than it really is and therefore making the public option more attractive.
So what about this public option that we keep hearing so much about? Democrats claim that it will not only allow you to keep your current coverage if you like it, but it will also bring honesty to the insurance industry.
Both are false.
Sure, you can keep your current insurance plan…for now. What do you think is going to happen when the governmental behemoth that is the public option enters the market? It’s going to crowd out a vast number of smaller carriers as they will not be able to compete with the public option.
And really, how could they?
With the government acting as healthcare regulators, they are certainly not going to play fair as they can stack the deck anyway they see fit to get more and more Americans on their plan. In fact, one independent study has already concluded that 119 million Americans will end up leaving their private plans for the public plan.
Above that, the public option will be able to raid the coffers of the federal budget for more and more money whenever they want. Running low on money? Simple, just raise taxes! How can a private insurer compete with that?
Obviously, they cannot.
Additionally, when Obama says that the public option will “keep the industry honest”; I cannot help but chuckle to myself. When has Washington had the moral high ground to lecture anyone about honesty? But even beyond that, honesty is already in the industry in the form of competition. With over 1500 carriers, companies have no choice but to be honest or else they run the serious risk of losing customers to the myriad of other insurance options available to them.
By the way, should we really trust these people with running the healthcare industry? Don’t forget that these are the same people that, according to Vice President Biden, so badly misjudged the economy that they think we need a second stimulus plan.
So if massive healthcare reform does pass, get ready for a drastic change in, not only your insurance coverage, but also the quality of care that you receive.
How much change in the quality of care? Come back tomorrow to find out.
Let me warn you though, it will be very, very depressing.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
For those of you that regularly read my blog, I suggest you take some time to read some of the comments that some of my visitors leave from time to time.
Many of them are either statements that politely agree with my viewpoints or principally disagree with them. For the people that have left those, I thank you. You are helping me achieve one of my main objectives for starting this blog, fostering good old political discussions about timely issues. While I would like to address each one of these comments, I simply do not have the time to do so. I would probably have to quit my job, break up with my girlfriend and never go out in order to keep up with all of them and since I need my job, love my girlfriend and enjoy meeting up with friends; I largely remain silent.
Others, on the other hand, are not so polite. They would rather ridicule my beliefs and me, rather than make a logical argument…all the while remaining anonymous.
I'm glad to see that the retarded right wingers have yet to have an original idea. You and your stupidity are doing the world a favor by continuously advertising how much you DON'T know. It is only through dedication combined with the lack of intellectual thought that such ignorance can be achieved as this level.
Oh and I believe you meant to use from instead of form in your third paragraph. I know you and your mom and the three or for dullards that frequent this site are very impressed with your freshman level English. However, if you want to be taken seriously, you'll learn to use complex sentences, proof read your work and maybe even maybe conjure up an original thought.
Now go back to mom and that mongoloid pack you belong to and feel proud of yourself. You've managed to reiterate the frequently used political tactic of the retarded right wingers, "Let's Attack them."
If Dumb was was money, you wouldn't need a job.
This guy goes on and on about my supposed lack of “original ideas”, yet he fails to mention what is wrong with my opinions, nor does he even provide a single idea of his own regarding North Korea and the growing hostilities that exist in our relationship.
All he can do is call me names and jump all over me for a simple typo. Well, if you want to go there, fine let’s go there. The typo came in the second paragraph, not the third as you claim. I may have a typo but at least I can count.
Also, use “four” when discussing numbers, not “for”. Additionally, one “was” is plenty. There is not need for placing them back to back.
He also claims that I possess the English capacity of a freshman and that I don’t use complete sentences. It is called style, friend. This is not a term paper that warrants the use of the APA style, this an open blog where I write in a style that is entertaining and a format that is easy to read.
I will say, however, that his closing line of “If Dumb was was money, you wouldn't need a job.” will definitely make me lose sleep tonight.
Ah, here are two examples of my favorite kind of criticism…the kind that comes from failing to read anything that I write.
I find it amazing that one person commented that the left media has filled our brains with whatever! How in the hell do you think we feel about that divisive racist ass Sean Hannity. Lou Dobbs can also be added to this list, and I can go on and on. I actually use to have a great respect for conservatives, afterall most of my Dad's side of the family were small business owners, African American, and extremely conservative; however for some reason your party has taken a real turn and you are truly turning people off.
Now in know way am I saying Democrats, or leftist as you refer to them are any better, but it is truly amazing how racist your party has become.
Interesting fact, African Americans are truly very conservative (believe it or not) but when we hear you spew such rhetoric being spewed by many conservatives it turns most of us away.
Until some of you start denouncing what I think most of you know is wrong and hurtful. You will never win back African Americans nor Americans as a whole. People are switching everyday (trust me on that)!! Hope this isn't taken the wrong way.
Nowhere in the post do I mention race…not once. Also, I have never claimed to be a member of the Republican Party on this blog.
Here’s another example of that from my favorite commentator “Lurching Right=Crap”. This is from my post about several liberal columnists and commentators being less than thrilled about a number of President Obama’s early cabinet selections.
Hey whiner! Prove Obama had anything to do with the scandal. The FBI says he did not, and surveillance records show that Blagovjevich was pissed that Obama would give him nothing buy appreciation. In fact they had a long history of antagonism.
But of course, some f-ing con retard with his own free blogspot page knows better. Keep whining loser. Its all you'll have the next 8 years. Suck it!
He is referring to the Blagojevich scandal, which I mention; yep you guessed it, zero times in the article! In fact, I have never accused Obama of being part of that scandal and you want to know why…it’s because I don’t think he had anything to do with it.
This one though is probably my favorite comment. It really shows the incredible lack of decency, class and civility of some people. From my Waterboarding post…
You're a fucking moron. I hope you are taken captive against your will someday and waterboarded 265 times until you admit you did something you may or may not have done.
And I hope your father's cock is taken from your asshole before hand so the CIA can fit anything they want up there you hypocritical, anti-American sheepfucker.
I don’t think I need to say anything else.
In closing, let me just say I don’t claim to know everything. In fact, I freely admit that I don’t. I am not a professional commentator nor do I have access to all of the information about any issue. I am just a guy that follows the news, has strong opinions and likes to share them.
I appreciate all of you letting me vent a little. I just hope the respectful conversations on this board continue and the barbaric and ill-informed ones cease.
That’s all for now. Until next time, take care and be well.
I’m not sure if any of you were surprised by Sarah Palin’s decision to step down as Governor of Alaska this past weekend, but I was absolutely stunned.
Stunned because she strikes me as the type of person that truly enjoys sticking it to her detractors (an admirable trait in my mind) and nothing would accomplish that better than unabashedly staying in office and conducting business as usual.
But that really wasn’t possible for Palin. The business of Alaska was being needlessly interrupted by numerous, frivolous ethics investigations concocted by her political enemies to smear her good name (In fact, in the 15 cases she has had to defend herself, she has been exonerated in all 15). Her personal life was becoming too much of a distraction as she (truthfully) and numerous members of the media were seemingly obsessed with the Palin story. She also seemed to be torn between her duties in Alaska and her aspirations of becoming a larger, national leader.
So she quit, leaving her political future as muddled as a Joe Biden policy explanation.
I cannot say that I blame her, but unlike many commentators, I think this buries her chances at her becoming president and I don’t really know if that is a bad thing or not.
I like Sarah Palin, I like her rags to riches story, I like her feistiness and I like her stances on some issues, but am I ready to jump on board the Palin bandwagon for president?
Absolutely not.
This is mainly due to the fact that I don’t really know where she stands on a lot of issues.
Does she have a firm grasp of the critical budgetary and economic issues facing our nation and the world? I don’t know.
Does she have enough foreign policy savvy to strengthen our relationships with our allies or repair the ones with our enemies? Beats me.
Can she rally moderate republicans in Congress to adhere to a true conservative agenda? Perhaps, but probably not.
Now in all fairness to her, I’m not sure that any prospective 2012 republican nominees are capable of achieving the above goals, but I’m not exactly high on any of them either…not yet at least.
The bottom line for me with Palin is her level of experience and I, frankly, don’t think she has enough to be president. I know some of you are probably shouting, “Obama had less experience than she did!”
True… but where has that gotten us?
I know that, if she chooses, she now has roughly three years to tour the country, make alliances with republicans from coast-to-coast, become more familiar with issues without being hamstrung by her responsibilities in Alaska and emerge as a national, conservative leader. This could position her nicely for 2012, but I don’t think it will play out that way.
She will be hounded by the press (fairly) for leaving office early and (unfairly) for her supposed family scandals. I think this will ultimately be the thing that prevents her from making a serious run at the presidency and I think that is incredibly sad. Sad in the sense that she has been so unfairly demonized in the press and by operatives within the McCain campaign that depicted her as aloof, stupid, crazy and, frankly, a bitch.
You know, I am used to the media mistreating conservatives, but her treatment from the McCain camp really doesn’t sit well with me. I can tell you that the, literal, only time I was ever excited about the McCain campaign was when he named her as his VEEP candidate. She was not the reason they lost, rather it was the fact he was a poor candidate with a meandering message and a rudderless campaign.
As I said, I am not sure that I would have supported her, but I think she should be given the opportunity, the fair opportunity, to run if she chose. However, due to the personal attacks by the media and the coordinated efforts by democrat and republican operatives alike to destroy her reputation, I don’t think she’ll get the chance.
And I think that that is how the Sarah Palin story will end, as a footnote or cautionary tale for some and a punch line and object of scorn for others.
I think she deserved better than that.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
Here are two stories regarding Israel’s right to unilaterally take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, published on the same day.
Story #1
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday strongly denied that the United States had given Israel an approval to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.
Asked by CNN whether Washington had given Israel a green light for such an attack, Obama answered: "Absolutely not."
Story #2
Israel has a sovereign right to decide what is in its best interest in dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions whether the United States agrees or not, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview on Sunday.
In an interview on ABC's "This Week" program, Biden said Israel can determine for itself how best to deal with the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.
"We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination, that they're existentially threatened," Biden said.
What a shock, Biden is once again off script…although I actually agree with him on this one.
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