RANT: Health Care Vote bribe

Saturday, November 21, 2009

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/11/the-100-million-health-care-vote.html

The $100 Million Health Care Vote?

November 19, 2009 3:03 PM

*** begin quote ***

Karl 2 ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reports:

What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform?

Here’s a case study.

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.

How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

*** end quote ***

Argh!

Disgusting. Is anyone going to stop this?

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NEWJERSEY: Holt is proud of his vote.

Monday, November 9, 2009

*** begin quote ***

Dear Ferdinand,

I just now voted for the Affordable Health Care for America Act. I want you to know about this development and what the bill means for you. This bill would provide secure and stable health coverage regardless of whether you change jobs or are between jobs, ensure Americans will never be denied care if they get sick, and extend coverage to those not well served by the current system.

This is a historic vote and the furthest we have come toward providing affordable and quality health coverage to all Americans.

Once this bill becomes law, it immediately would eliminate cases where insurance benefits run out because of an expensive illness, would allow young adults to remain on their parents’ insurance through age 26, and would shrink the Medicare prescription doughnut hole.

The bill would strengthen and extend existing programs. For example, those who have health insurance through their employers would benefit from caps on yearly out of pocket costs. Under the legislation, Medicare would be intact, only better – recipients would benefit from free preventive care and better primary care. Click here to read more about what the bill would do for you.

Reform would preserve the relationship between families and their doctors and shift to a focus on healthy outcomes and rewarding physicians for treating the whole patient.

It would do all these things without adding to the deficit, while it would hold down costs for families in the future.

This bill is the culmination of one of the most open and deliberative processes in recent memory. During the past few years, Congressional committees held more than 53 committee hearings, debated and voted on almost 240 amendments, and considered health reform for 167 hours. We have held thousands of town meetings, read hundreds of thousands of letters, and met with health care experts and patients. Many of the amendments addressed concerns raised by constituents, such as an amendment I championed to help small businesses pool together to purchase insurance at group rates, an idea brought to me by a Monmouth County small businessman.

When I considered health reform, I talked with patients, seniors, doctors, nurses, small business owners, and others to learn their perspectives. I received and responded to thousands of letters from Central New Jersey residents. The stories I have heard highlight the fact that health care reform is about real people who are disserved by the broken insurance system.

For more information and resources about the Affordable Health Care for America Act, including the text of the full bill and a bill summary, please visit my website. There you can also see my remarks during the debate on the House floor.

After carefully analyzing and reviewing this bill, I believe it will improve the quality of life and the economy of nearly all families and of the nation as a whole. I would not support it if I did not think so. I look forward to working toward completion of meaningful health care reform legislation and sending it to the President for his signature.

Sincerely,

RUSH HOLT

Member of Congress

P.S. Just a reminder: I always want to hear from you, but please don’t reply to this e-mail. Instead, please email me through my website at http://www.holt.house.gov, or call me at 1-87-RUSH-HOLT (1-877-874-4658) to let me know what’s on your mind. Please also note that you may unsubscribe from this list by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of this email.

*** end quote ***

Welll, when it comes time for reelection, I plan to campaign to replace you! Cutting Medicare with 30% more people coming on to it. And, inserting the Federal Gooferment into my wife’s medical care is unacceptable.

You, sir, may have done what you think gets you reelected, but I think you might have miscalculated.

And, please don’t blow smoke where the sun doesn’t shine.

This law if signed will be a national disaster!

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POLITICAL: Fixing healthcare? Not gonna happen with the gooferment involved

Friday, October 23, 2009

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/scott-m1.1.1.html

Your Doctor Serves The State, Not You
by Michael Scott, MD

*** begin quote ***

While I agree that physicians commonly order tests and perform procedures that are medically unnecessary, this fact is due to two main reasons the author completely fails to mention: first, the tort system, which terrorizes doctors in their practices on a daily basis, and second, that patients have minimal if any financial stake in their care. As a consequence, they demand everything in excess, and are often angry when we suggest a desired test or treatment is not indicated, no matter how much time we spend trying to educate them. When people don’t pay for something with their own money, they hardly care about costs. They just milk others for all they’re worth, because after all, that’s what they perceive everybody else is doing to them, too.

*** end quote ***

Clearly, the current insurance system is broken. And, isn’t going to get fixed anytime soon.

We clearly have to get the lawyers out of suing the doctors for everything that goes wrong. They are docs ; not gods.

We clearly have to return to the days of yesteryear, when insurance was insurance. Car insurance doesn’t insure oil changes. And, patients have to pay a percentage of the true cost; not a “co-pay”!

We have to make health care insurance like auto or life; disconnected from employment.

Finally, we have to get the gooferment OUT of health, health care, and health care insurance completely. They can’t do anything right. It’s in their nature. (I still haven’t heard of then doing ANYTHING effectively. Never mind efficiently!)

Argh!

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RANT: Why wait for a flawed concept?

Thursday, October 22, 2009

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=113483

Where’s the health-care bill?
Posted: October 21, 2009
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND

*** begin quote ***

After all, who can object to a bill that hasn’t yet been written? When someone objects to provisions of the legislation, you can always say, “That’s not in the bill.” And, of course, you would be right. Nothing’s in the bill. The bill doesn’t exist. It will be written after approval.

*** end quote ***

It’s all well and good to say “wait till we see something”, but by then it will be too late. And, I think this may be the watershed event, like during the Vietnam war, that brings the Fat Old White People, (as opposed to the Dead Old White Guys), out to the streets in revolt. The gooferment has steadily eroded our rights, like the DOWG’s feared, and may have actually stepped over the Rubicon. Add to their criminal actions with subprime, GM / Chrysler, takeover the banks, and one and on. Maybe The People will rise up and smite them. Maybe I’m a “tin foil hat”, but I think it’s going to get messy. Perhaps, even worse. That’s why I don’t think we can wait to see the bill. The bill really doesn’t matter. It’s the whole concept that is flawed.

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RANT: Can’t be a player and umpire at the same time

Friday, October 16, 2009

http://jasonalba.com/2009/10/13/health-insurance-tracks-cost-of-medical-care-bs/comment-page-1/#comment-46036

Affordable Outplacement
Health Insurance Tracks Cost Of Medical Care. BS.
Jason Alba

*** begin quote ***

That was what I thought the lie was. Based on my summer, with a birth and a surgery, I could not believe the overhead and price inflation caused by insurance companies. You can read about it on my JibberJobber blog, but understand that the hospital bills for the birth of my kid were about 60% discounted because we were self-pay, and we paid up front.

In other words, because we bypassed the health insurance system we were able to avoid 60% of the cost. Unbelievable.

*** end quote ***

My observation on the upcoming “Obama-care” where the gooferment will become — in quick order — my “insurance company”. (Yeah, I know what they say. But, I think it’s going to be “Medicare for everyone”. To paraphrase Judge Judy, “I wouldn’t believe you …” (i.e. a congress critter; any politician) “… if your tongue came notarized!”

If my insurance company screws me, I can go to the gooferment for relief. If the gooferment aka my insurance company screws me, to whom do I go to for relief? To the gooferment’s courts?

Just take my screwing and shut up!

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: VA care is disgraceful

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_645645.html#

Veterans Affairs won’t release any more care home reports

By Walter F. Roche Jr., TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

*** begin quote ***

Facing congressional scrutiny over details revealed in a review of care given to veterans at one of its Pennsylvania facilities, the Department of Veterans Affairs slammed the door on the release of similar reports nationwide.

In a directive dated Friday, VA officials in Washington informed local agency officials that inspection reports like the one on the VA nursing home in Philadelphia are not to be released to the public.

The directive came less than a week after the Tribune-Review disclosed details of a 2008 report on the VA’s Philadelphia nursing home that concluded the VA “failed to provide a safe and sanitary environment for their residents.”

Such reports from the Long Term Care Institute — which the VA hired to inspect its facilities — are considered “protected” documents under the provisions of a federal law designed to promote improved quality, the directive states.

*** and ***

The report cited by the Trib was released by VA officials in Philadelphia under a public records request. It described how one veteran had to have his leg amputated after a serious infection had gone untreated for so long that it attracted maggots. It described blood-stained floors, a fly infestation and life-threatening treatment of veterans dependent on tube feeding.

Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. Joseph Sestak — two Democrats vying for Senate in next year’s primary — visited the nursing home last week and questioned why it took a public records request to get the report made public.

Sestak called on VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki to “release any other inspection reports of this nature.”

Withholding such documentation “only adds to the perception that the VA does not take the principles of accountability seriously,” Sestak wrote in an e-mail response Tuesday to the VA action.

“If the VA is unable to provide this necessary reform at the administrative level, legislation must be introduced,” Sestak wrote in a letter to Shinseki.

Specter also disagreed with the report-release ban. “This runs contrary to the VA’s desire to be an open and accountable agency,” his statement said. “I believe these documents should be made public.”

*** end quote ***

And, you want these same bozos to run our health care, health insurance, and anything else health related like drugs?

I wouldn’t let them run a dog kennel!

Sheeple, wake up!

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INTERESTING:Too many shots to the head!

Saturday, October 3, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/sports/football/30dementia.html?_r=1

N.F.L. Study Finds Link to Dementia
By ALAN SCHWARZ
  Published: September 29, 2009

*** begin quote ***

A study commissioned by the National Football League reports that Alzheimer’s disease or similar memory-related diseases appear to have been diagnosed in the league’s former players vastly more often than in the national population — including a rate of 19 times the normal rate for men ages 30 through 49.

*** end quote ***

It would seem that a whole bunch of sports have to reevaluate what is “safe”.

We can’t turn men into women or boys into girls. But, we can take “precautions”.

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LIBERTY: A real single payer

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=109854

How ’bout a real single-payer system?

Posted: September 15, 2009

*** begin quote ***

What did we do, back during the years when most Americans had no medical insurance? I did what most people did. I depended on a “single payer” – myself. When I didn’t have the money, I paid off my medical bills in installments.

The birth of my first child was not covered by medical insurance. I paid off the bill, month by month, until the time finally came when I could tell my wife that the baby was now ours, free and clear.

In a country where everything imaginable is bought and paid for on credit, why is it suddenly a national crisis if some people cannot pay cash up front for medical treatment?

*** end quote ***

We have 310M people with 15M “uninsured”.

So we are going to mess up 295 to possibly “insure” 15?

Sorry, but everyone should just pay their own. And insurance and charity care for the big bad wolf!

Start by making insurance tax deductible for everyone.

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RANT: Sorry it’s a duck!

Monday, September 21, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574425294029138738.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

* REVIEW & OUTLOOK
* SEPTEMBER 21, 2009
Obama’s Nontax Tax
On a Sunday show, the President offers a revealing definition.

*** begin quote ***

“Mr. Obama: “My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I’m taking over every sector of the economy. You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we’re going to have an individual mandate or not, but . . .””

*** end quote ***

If I can’t avoid it, then it’s a tax. Call it a “mandate”. Call it a “penalty”. Call it the “tooth fairy”. The IRS will ensure you pay it. If that’s not a “tax”, I don’t know what is!

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RANT: Congress is disingenuous

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125303051628912339.html?mod=djemalertNEWS

The House voted 240-179 along party lines to admonish Rep. Joe Wilson over his “you lie” outburst to President Barack Obama during the president’s health-care speech to Congress last week.

# – # – #

Sorry, but where was the “admonishment” when they booed President Bush.

Like Sara’s “death panel” facebook post, with out Joe’s outburst, “illegal” aliens (an assinine concept) would be getting free health care. (In addition to everything else)

Argh!

Who’s going to call them out about “not one dime added to the debt”, cutting Medicare (real cuts; not controlling growth), and all the other “barbara streisand”?

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FUN: What should Insurance Companies do in response to Obamacare? (WWICD)

Saturday, September 12, 2009

http://knappster.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-insurance-companies-should-do.html

*** begin quote ***

In my last post on ObamaCare, I put myself in the shoes of the President of the United States. Now I’m going to put myself in the shoes of the president of an insurance company. If I found myself in that position, I’d be getting my ducks in a row right now — calling emergency board meetings, working out details with the company’s officers, etc. I’d be ready to move the instant it became obvious that this bill was going to pass, and this is what my move would look like:

– I’d inform the company’s policyholders that the company is going out of business at the end of the next billing cycle, that their policies will be canceled effective that date, and that they’ll need to find coverage elsewhere;

– I’d inform the company’s workers that their employment is drawing to an end; and

– I’d inform stockholders that the company’s assets are to be liquidated through arranged profitable sale where possible and auction where necessary, and that after the company’s debts are settled and liabilities zeroed out, each stockholder will receive a final dividend per share from any remaining monies.

I might or might not send a note to President Obama, Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi. If I did, it would be short and to the point:

Find some other business to run, asshole — this one’s no longer available.

*** end quote ***

ROFL, but absolutely correct.

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RANT: Big insurers may gain from Obamacare

Thursday, September 10, 2009

http://tinyurl.com/cato090309

Cato Daily Podcast, 09/03/09
Cato Institute

“Big insurers may gain from Obamacare,” featuring Michael D. Tanner. [MP3] (09/03/09)

# – # – #

I am shocked — “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” Captain Renault in Casablanca — to hear that.

But I knew it when they started advertising for its passage.

Argh!

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RANT: How O could pass health care

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

http://knappster.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-president-obama-should-do.html

Tuesday, September 08, 2009
What President Obama should do

*** begin quote ***

I don’t support any variant of Obamacare that I’ve heard about (a number of different proposals are apparently floating in and out of different congressional committees). I don’t support any “reform” that includes more, rather than less, government involvement in health care. And in point of fact, in broad outline, I just don’t support the Obama administration’s agenda, period. 90% of it is just plain bad, and the other, decent 10% (closing Gitmo, ending torture and unlawful detention, etc.) went by the wayside in record time once his hand came off the Bible he was sworn in with.

*** end quote ***

I COMMENTED:

I too am a little L libertarian that has no use for EITHER party. Unlike you, if I was O, (being an unprincipled Chicago machine politician), I would give “stuff” galore to get ANY bill passed with a public option. Then I’d rest secure in the knowledge that this was the camel’s nose. And, in a decade or two, like FDR’s ponzi, there would be no way to prevent communism. They have the skools turning out functional illiterates. They’ve “won”. Too bad what they have won won’t sustain the parasite. imho

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RANT: The answer is always MORE gooferment

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

http://www.anncoulter.com/

*** begin quote ***

It doesn’t matter if liberals start calling national health care a “chocolate chip puppy” or “ice cream sunset” — if the government is subsidizing it, then the government calls the shots. And the moment the government gets its hands on the controls, it will be establishing death panels, forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions and illegal aliens, rationing care and then demanding yet more government control when partial government control creates a mess.

Which happens to be exactly what liberals are doing right now.

*** end quote ***

The gooferment creates the problem AND, of course, the answer is more gooferment!

Argh!

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RANT: “Health care” is not a “human right”!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2009/08/yes-virginia-insurance-companies-do.html

Friday, August 28, 2009

‘Yes, Virginia, the insurance companies do ration’

# – # – #

MY RESPONSE

Two “minor” points.

FIRST!!!

“Health care” is not a “human right”!

Place a human alone in a forest. Where is their “human right” to health care?

If you assert that is a “right” then their is an obligation for some one to provide it. If I have a RIGHT to health care, then my neighbor is FORCED to provide it. If he’s a butcher, baker, or a candlestick maker, then my health care will not be so good!

OH, you’re just going to FORCE him to PAY for my healthcare. Just as I am going to be forced to PAY for his.

Don’t you see the moral hazard in that? Don’t you see the stupidity in that? Don’t you see the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of that?

Argh!

Please go back and revisit the whole history of John Locke and concept of negative rights.

SECOND!!!

No one want to see people treated like in a third world country. Sick and dying, covered in flies, in human misery.

BUT, (there is always a big butt), you have no right to compel “charity”. America is an unbelievably charitable country. You can not “force” it. When you make it a gooferment program, then you have “free loaders”. Part of our current problem is that people want something for nothing. In my childhood, there was charity care in hospitals. My relatives would pass the hat around the family rather than have a relative use “charity”. They were embarrassed to have their neighbors think that they didn’t love their family member enough to care for them. Freeloaders weren’t tolerated; down on your luck, you were given a hand up. That’s the essence of true charity.

Remember the great hospitals in America were created by the Churches and Fraternal Organizations. Only when the gooferment took over, did we create the mess we have now.

SUMMARY

(1) Health care is not a right.

(2) There will be true charity without the gooferment intrusion.

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LIBERTY: Let’s try peace and liberty

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2009/08/whole-foods-hit-by-protests.html

MY RESPONSE TO: “Whole Foods hit by protests”

>People like Mackey, soulless wealthy sociopaths

Now I’m not going to assert that capitalists are the Mother Teresa’s of the world. BUT, (there is always a big butt), they are not the Devil Incarnate either.

Mackey feeds the hungry. OK, you’re not going to see it that way. And, he’s well compensated for his modest efforts.

I read his WSJ op ed and I thought the fellow has courage. He could have just as easily said nothing. Like the “Silent Majority”, who don’t have the stones to speak up and give us the benefit of their wisdom or whizdumb!

I think you misread his text and his intention. Creating more gooferment isn’t the solution to ANY problem. Fixing the gooferment’s perverse incentives is almost always the best answer.

>just don’t give a damn that there are tens of millions of Americans without health care in this

For the moment, let’s ASSUME that there are 45 million uninsured. They do GET health care via emergency rooms and hospitals, but there is some modest agreement that: (1) it’s not cost effective to do that; (2) it delays small problems into big ones; and (3) it’s not efficient.

Wouldn’t it be better to give everyone a tax credit to buy insurance? (Certainly better than ‘cash for klunkers!) I’m sure the “greedy” insurance companies would happily “suborn” the premium (i.e., like the tax prep firms, your social security number gets you a ‘refund anticipation loan’. So to your social gets you an ‘insurance anticipation loan for health insurance’.)

So why isn’t this idea debated?

Because the special interests don’t get control! Politicians don’t get to tell people what’s good for them.

And, obtw, those rich youngsters who don’t want to buy insurance don’t have anyone else to blame.

And, the supposedly “illegal” aliens wouldn’t be a problem if we didn’t have welfare programs. (That is, if there was no “free” education, welfare, and healthcare, then the only folks who came wanting to work would be coming here. Like the old days. Get on the boat and come, we always have room for more workers. Most of us have ancestors who hit the dock with just a smile! Heck, I’d be issuing green cards with tins at the dock and thanking them for coming. That’s the America personified by the Status of Liberty. Come one and come all. We have enough freedom for everyone. That’s Libertarian.)

And, criminals — “illegal” or not — lock them up!

And, obtw, in a Libertarian America, the drug dealers would have to find other work. We’d eliminate all the drug laws. (What would the Columbian Drug Lords do? Go back to farming or cheating widows?) So, we turn Big Pharma loose making the best cleanest drugs possible. (It’s estimated that currently “illegal” street drugs would cost little more than aspirin. And, do you think that WalMart or Walgreens would sell heroin to children? WalMart won’t sell X rated videos because their customers would punish them.) We could empty the prisons of non-violent drug offenders.

America would be supercharged!!!

>He’s filthy rich, he’s covered, his loved ones are covered and beyond that he does not care.

And, how about all those ‘caring’ politicians who say ‘good for thee, but not for me’.

>FDR called them economic royalists.

FDR was the biggest souless empoverisher, next to old “Honest Abe”, in American history. His economic ignorance created Social Security to empower the Democratic Party and set us on the Road to Hell. By eliminating gold currency, he permitted the welfare warfare state to explode.

>

I really hope that some day we can try peace!

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POLITICAL: It’s the gooferment!

Monday, August 31, 2009

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski236.html

Health Care Through Central Planning: A Helpful Analogy
by Karen Kwiatkowski

*** begin quote ***

We have examples – ophthalmology and veterinarian services come to mind first. You can get an eye exam for $50, and then order glasses online for another $20. Overall, that’s less than a pair of running shoes, or a meal out with the family at Applebee’s. The wide variety of eye surgeries available and the competitive and safe nature of these surgeries speak to the working of a freer market than what we see for the rest of our health care. The argument by the statist left and statist right is falsely premised by the idea that the current health care “system” is a free market system, and based on the ideas that free market systems can’t work for health care because people are not all equal in either health, desires for health or finances.

*** end quote ***

We have to keep hitting the gooferment on all fronts. It’s ineffective, inefficient, and screws up everything it touches!

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RANT: No privacy in Obamacare

Sunday, August 30, 2009

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/08/26/taking_liberties/entry5268079.shtml

August 26, 2009 8:26 PM

Democratic Health Care Bill Divulges IRS Tax Data

Posted by Declan McCullagh

*** begin quote ***

One of the problems with any proposed law that’s over 1,000 pages long and constantly changing is that much deviltry can lie in the details. Take the Democrats’ proposal to rewrite health care policy, better known as H.R. 3200 or by opponents as “Obamacare.” (Here’s our CBS News television coverage.)

Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and “other information as is prescribed by” regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for “affordability credits.”

*** and ***

Over at the Institute for Policy Innovation (a free-market think tank and presumably no fan of Obamacare), Tom Giovanetti argues that: “How many thousands of federal employees will have access to your records? The privacy of your health records will be only as good as the most nosy, most dishonest and most malcontented federal employee…. So say good-bye to privacy from the federal government. It was fun while it lasted for 233 years.”

*** end quote ***

And, CBS couldn’t possibly have a prejudice!

Please, the article is disingenuous. With a slap at a “free market think tank” as if that disqualifies them from having brought forward an “interesting fact”. THey point out to anyone who can read that the bill ENSURES that your privacy is gone!

Argh!

How’s “change” working out for you? Me, not so good!

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POLITICAL: Bring on the filibuster!

Monday, August 24, 2009

http://tinyurl.com/koyfng

*** begin quote ***

Senate Democratic leadership will pass health care reform “by any legislative means necessary”

ABC News

“Amidst questions of whether or not any Senate Republicans will support a health care reform bill, Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., today said that the ‘White House and the Senate Democratic leadership still prefer a bipartisan bill.’ The Reid spokesman said that ‘neither the White House nor the leadership have made a decision to pursue reconciliation,’ the somewhat controversial legislative process by which a bill is introduced in such a manner so that it requires merely 50 votes instead of 60 to proceed to a vote, thus removing the threat of filibuster.” (08/19/09)

*** end quote ***

No, if I was the R’s, then I’d force them to bring Teddie and KKK-er Byrd in a force the end of a filibuster. Make it clear that “over dead bodies” does anything pass.

Time to stand up and be counted.

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Kick the gooferment OUT of health care, health insurance, and whatever

Friday, August 21, 2009

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=107221

Is ‘death panels’ charge over the top?
Posted: August 18, 2009
Thomas Sowell

*** begin quote ***

As for a “death panel,” no politician would ever use that phrase when trying to get a piece of legislation passed. “End of life” care under the “guidance” of “some independent group” sounds so much nicer – and these are the terms President Obama used in an interview with the New York Times back on April 14.

He said, “The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out there.” He added: “It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. That is why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance.”

But when you select people like Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel to give “independent” guidance, you have already chosen a policy through your choice of advisers, who simply provide political cover. The net result can be exactly the same as if those providing that guidance were openly called “death panels.”

*** end quote ***

The gooferment has no business in health care, health insurance (other than to prevent fraud), or anything like it.

The FDA should be shut down. People, in consultation with their doctors, should decide the efficacy and safety of drugs.

We got into this mess because of Medicare. Unfortunately, time for that to go. We should be spending our energies on how to unwind that mess.

It all comes down to the definition of insurance. What is the purpose of wealth at end of life.

Insurance is not for routine maintenance (i.e., you don’t insure your car’s oil changes) and for predictable stuff (i.e., the car reaches the end of its useful life). Insurance is for the unpredictable catastrophes. People, all subject to the same random risk, band together to minimize the impact. That’s why insurers talk about “pools”. If I have a pool of ten people who all share the same risk (e.g., a meteor will strike ONE car this year), then the premium is 10% of the car’s cost plus administration. Very smart actuaries figure it all out. And, it seemed to work fine for decades. Think Lloyds of London. But, now the gooferment says “insurance has to pay for hair replacement”. What if I don’t want to insure that risk. Too bad; you’re screwed. Live in NJ; can’t buy NY insurance. Can’t buy multi-year insurance. No 20 year level premium term insurance in health care. Argh!

And, when I come to the end of my life, and I begin to spend my wealth in my declining years, who’s business is it anyway. What did I save it for? If not to extend or make my life comfortable?

Let’s send the gooferment back to the drawing board. They should stick to figuring out how to honor the camel. Wasn’t it a horse designed by a congress critter committee?

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RANT: Slandering the insurance companies!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Did Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius just accuse the insurance companies of being dishonest?

Isn’t Obama the chief law enforcement officer?

So which is it?

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RANT: The USA is broke!

Monday, August 17, 2009

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul566.html

Healthcare Plan Based on Economic Fantasy
by Ron Paul

*** begin quote ***

As the healthcare debate rages on, there is one reality that even the proponents of this hostile takeover of healthcare by government cannot ignore – and that is money. The government simply does not have the money for a new, expansive, public healthcare plan. The country is in a deep recession that will deepen even further with the coming collapse of the commercial real estate market. The last thing we need is for government to increase and expand taxes to pay for another damaging, wasteful program. Foreigners are becoming less enthusiastic about buying our debt, and creating another open-ended welfare program when we cannot pay for what is already in place, will not help. Champions of socialized medicine want to tax the rich, tax businesses that already cannot afford to provide health plans to employees, and tax people who don’t want to participate in the government’s scheme by buying an approved healthcare plan. Presumably, all these taxes are to induce compliance. This is not freedom, nor will it improve healthcare.

*** end quote ***

“Where’s the beef?” Clara of Wendy’s fame asked that question every few minutes on the commercials of yesteryear.

One would hope youngsters of all ages would begin to ask the same question!

And, it’s the money, honey. Where is it going to come from?

Economics is called the “dismal science” because it recognizes that resources are limited.

A six pack of … doughnuts … can only go so far.

Can’t print more! The FED can fool us by printing more “money”, but it doesn’t increase the supply of doughnuts. Some one has to bake them.

Somewhere in the world someone has to forego a doughnut for it to magically appear here.

Cut to the bottom line, No one will buy the American IOU. Would you?

Sorry but there is no “beef”. The congress critters “ate” it all.

Get Rid of Incumbent Politicians. Both the D’s and the R’s. No difference.

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INTERESTING: WWJD with health care

Monday, August 17, 2009

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/08/13/health-care-reform-wwjd/

Health Care Reform: WWJD?
Posted by Michael F. Cannon

*** begin quote ***

Sympathy and sentiment are wonderful but do not always work well as criteria for good policy.

*** end quote ***

A very funny quick read. I think EVERYONE should read it.

ROFL, about J being a policy wonk.

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INTERESTING: Exercise won’t impact weight

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857-2,00.html

Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin
By John Cloud Thursday, Aug. 06, 2009

*** begin quote ***

The findings are important because the government and various medical organizations routinely prescribe more and more exercise for those who want to lose weight. In 2007 the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association issued new guidelines stating that “to lose weight … 60 to 90 minutes of physical activity may be necessary.” That’s 60 to 90 minutes on most days of the week, a level that not only is unrealistic for those of us trying to keep or find a job but also could easily produce, on the basis of Church’s data, ravenous compensatory eating.

*** end quote ***

My family roots are heavy people. I’ve struggled with my weight for decades. I’ve gotten the exercise bug. I’ve eaten “healthy”.

Other than my thirty day “survival training” with the USAF, I’ve never varied much in my weight. After starving for a month, I looked like a POW! Even walked past Frau, before she was Frau, in the airport.

Other than my year in “language skrool” again with the USAF where I gained 200#+ out of frustration, which I lost when I went back to working a real job.

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’ll never be thin.

(I blame genetic programming. I read somewhere that fat people survived the Black Death in the middle ages better than thin. SO natural selection has made me fat?)

This demonstrates to me that we, least of all the gooferment, know anything about what they are purporting to be wisdom!

Argh!

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RANT: Throw the gooferment out of “health”

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=106149

Obama: Unwitting catalyst for free-market health care?
Posted: August 07, 2009
David Limbaugh

*** begin quote ***

a sampling of excessive state-mandated treatments that are covered, including: acupuncture, alcoholism treatment, athletic trainers, breast reduction, contraceptives, dieticians, drug abuse treatment, hair prosthesis, home health care, hormone replacement therapy, in vitro fertilization, marriage therapy, massage therapy, nature treatments, pastoral counseling, Port-stain elimination, professional counseling, smoking cessation, speech therapy and varicose vein removal.

*** end quote ***

Time to push the gooferment out of all the things that it is into.

At the root, the only proper function of government is to protect us from force or fraud.

So, the federal gooferment has no role in “health care” other than to resolve conflicts between the states. The FDA is an agency that has failed. “Health and Human Services” needs to be nuked.

Slash the Federal budget. Repeal the income tax. And, make the bureaucrats literally barefoot beggars.

Congress critters and their minons have better pensions than almost any taxpayer. That’s just not right.

Argh!

Wake up sheeple!

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POLITICAL: Australia wastes billions in national health

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Australia: Billions wasted in national health care system

The Australian [Australia]

“Australia is wasting much of the $94 billion it spends each year on health services and will not be able to afford even the current, flawed system without major reforms. The Prime Minister’s National Health and Hospital Reform Commission will publicly release more than 120 recommendations in Canberra today, handing the government a blueprint for change, but allowing for ‘long-term’ implementation that pushes the most politically sensitive reforms beyond the next election. Among its recommendations will be taking responsibility for some health services away from the states and giving it to the commonwealth.” (07/27/09)

http://tinyurl.com/krv3za

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Argh! And we are going to volunteer for this nonsense.

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