Health Care Reform – A Little History Is Always Useful

Daniel Henninger gives us a little walk down memory lane to remind us of the effect of our first attempt at “health care” reform. Back before recorded history, in 1965, Congress erected the nation’s first two monuments to health-care “reform,”…

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Health Care Reform – A Little History Is Always Useful

10 Random 140 Character Thoughts

* There’s a world of difference between a good cause and a good cause you’re willing to pay for out of your own pocket. * I understand Republicans in Congress don’t like criticizing a POTUS w/ a high approval rating,…

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10 Random 140 Character Thoughts

Republican Leadership Fails Yet Another Test

- Scott Miller

It’s like clockwork… everytime the so-called Republican leadership has a chance to differentiate themselves from the statists they blow it… this from the AP:

House Republicans offer $23B list of spending cuts

WASHINGTON – Responding to a challenge from President Barack Obama, House GOP leaders are offering up a roster of more than $23 billion in specific spending cuts over the next five years.

The proposed cuts, which were sent to the White House on Thursday, bear little resemblance to the dramatic proposals Republicans unfurled when they took over Congress 14 years ago.

Rather than proposing, for example, the elimination of the Education Department, as they have in the past, Republicans are suggesting killing a program that pays for building sidewalks, bike paths and crossing guards as part of the Safe Routes to Schools program. That would save $183 million a year.

$23 billion!!??? Out of a freakin’ $3.6 TRILLION budget, they come up with $23 billion… how freakin’ pathetic is that? This is just more proof that the Republican leadership, such as it is, is scared of it’s own shadow. They are so gun-shy they can’t mount even the tiniest of defense in the media today. I don’t even know what purpose this party serves anymore if they can’t contrast themselves against such a massive target that is the Obama administration.

I’ve got to tell ya’ folks, I though Eric Cantor had something going for him, but this just proves he doesn’t have the mettle to lead the party… we’re still waiting for someone to step forward to fill such an obvious vacuum…

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Republican Leadership Fails Yet Another Test

Change? Not So Much… Obama Ready to Raise Taxes on Poor & Middle Class

- Scott Miller

Remember this pledge, it was the key pledge of his presidential  campaign:

You heard the man. Remember? This guy wasn’t just another politician, right? No, he promised to be something quite different. “Change” was his mantra, remember? The American people were tired the politics as usual, as the story went from Pravda… they were ready to elect Obama because he would bring a fresh new approach to politics. He was down to earth. Smart. You could bank on his word… how they knew this, I don’t know, but they were sure of it… then we get this today from the AP:

Obama said to be open to taxing health benefits

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is leaving the door open to taxing health care benefits, something he campaigned hard against while running for president, according to senators who met with him Tuesday.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., raised the issue with Obama during a private meeting with the president and other Democratic senators and later reported the president’s position: “It’s on the table. It’s an option.”

The president adamantly opposed health benefit taxes during the campaign, arguing they would undermine job-based coverage. But he’s now indicating openness to that suggestion from Congress, even if he criticized Republican presidential rival John McCain for proposing a sweeping version of the same basic idea.

Sounds one hell of a lot like a tax increase on millions of Americans who make one hell of a lot less than $250K per year… was that the change all you Obama voters were hoping for?

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Change? Not So Much… Obama Ready to Raise Taxes on Poor & Middle Class

You Know It’s Bad When Pravda Calls Obama a Marxist

- Scott Miller

If you are a regular reader of this site, you know I call our so-called “main stream media”, Pravda. I do so because they are so in the tank for the Democrat party, that they are just another appendage of the party… a state run media if you will, or Pravda.

So when Drudge had an op-ed headline on his site from the real Pravda (Russian state-run paper), it caught my eye, and is an excellent 3rd party look at America’s quick move toward Marxism under president Obama.

I am reprinting the piece in it’s entirety, as it provides a perspective that all Americans should read… this from the real Pravda

American capitalism gone with a whimper

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama’s command that GM’s (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of “pure” free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a “bold” move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK’s Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our “wise” Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper…but a “freeman” whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set “fair” maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.  

In their own quirky way, Pravda has hit on many salient points, and Americans would do well to heed the warnings of those who know what it is like to live under the tyranny of a Marxist regime.

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You Know It’s Bad When Pravda Calls Obama a Marxist

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has promised to provide equal benefits to partners of homosexual U.S. diplomats stationed overseas, a congressman said Wednesday.

Hillary waves her wand and poof – additional rights for homosexuals.  Hope and Change baby!!  – READ MORE…

Democrats introduce their answer to sky-rocketing unemployment numbers – Mandated paid vacation!!!

Rep. Alan Grayson was standing in the middle of Disney World when it hit him: What Americans really need is a week of paid vacation.

So on Thursday, the Florida Democrat will introduce the Paid Vacation Act — legislation that would be the first to make paid vacation time a requirement under federal law.

The bill would require companies with more than 100 employees to offer a week of paid vacation for both full-time and part-time employees after they’ve put in a year on the job. Three years after the effective date of the law, those same companies would be required to provide two weeks of paid vacation, and companies with 50 or more employees would have to provide one week.   READ MORE…

Obama’s Schitzo-Economics

- Scott Miller

This from Bloomberg.com

Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt Load ‘Unsustainable’

May 14 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

Earlier this week, the Obama administration revised its own budget estimates and raised the projected deficit for this year to a record $1.84 trillion, up 5 percent from the February estimate. The revision for the 2010 fiscal year estimated the deficit at $1.26 trillion, up 7.4 percent from the February figure. The White House Office of Management and Budget also projected next year’s budget will end up at $3.59 trillion, compared with the $3.55 trillion it estimated previously.

Two weeks ago, the president proposed $17 billion in budget cuts, with plans to eliminate or reduce 121 federal programs. Republicans ridiculed the amount, saying that it represented one-half of 1 percent of the entire budget. They noted that Obama is seeking an $81 billion increase in other spending.

Entitlement Programs

In his New Mexico appearance, the president pledged to work with Congress to shore up entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. He also said he was confident that the House and Senate would pass health-care overhaul bills by August.

“Most of what is driving us into debt is health care, so we have to drive down costs,” he said.

So Obama supported the $700 billion Bank bailout that Bush signed. Then comes into office and immediately pushes a bill to spend another $1.3 trillion as a payoff to all his constituencies under the guise of a “stimulus” plan. Then he sends to Congress a $3.6 trillion one year budget… and now suddenly he begins to get the hangover from his massive spending binge, and he is calling for spending restraint? Talk about schitzo-economics!

But the last line is extremely telling… “Most of what is driving us into debt is health care, so we have to drive down costs.” So medicare and medicaid are driving us into debt, but these are entirely government run healthcare programs. According to Obama’s twisted liberal logic, having government take over everyone’s healthcare will somehow miracuolously bring down costs with no impact on quality. If gov’t run healthcare costs are out of control now, just wait until they get their hands on the whole system.

The fact that our existing gov’t entitlement programs are driving us into debt doesn’t deter the statist, no he wants to create the mother of all entitlements with a national healthcare entitlement. Somehow the statist believes that he’s got a better plan. A plan that will defy the history of every other nation that has gone down the road of national healthcare. It won’t.

The fact is that national healthcare system are systems of inferior care, they are systems of long waits for basic treatment,  denial of life saving treatments, and rationed care for all. This is inevitable because the only way that the government can effectively control costs on such as massive entitlement is to limit care. It is what they are doing today with medicare, and it is what they will do with a national healthcare system.

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Obama’s Schitzo-Economics

Demint at his Best on Nationalized Healthcare

- Scott Miller

From one of my favorite Senators…

Health care in the `public interest` or your interest?

It is now clear that Congress and the president’s top priority for 2009 is health care reform. Since the collapse of Hillary-Care in 1994, Democrats have been working to re-plan and re-package a government takeover of your health insurance.

This year, they’re hoping to get their chance. Last month, Senator Ted Kennedy offered a glimpse of what they have in mind when called for the creation an optional, “public health insurance plan, where coverage is provided in the public interest.”

That may sound nice, but in one sentence, it describes everything that is wrong with a government take-over of American health care.

Health care, by definition, can’t be provided in the public interest because no doctor has ever seen “the public.” Doctors see patients: one at a time, providing personal care in the patient’s interest only.

Now, if you listen to the ongoing debate about health care reform, you hear a common theme, especially from those who favor a government take-over.

They talk a lot more about costs than they do about care. Only here’s the thing: the government is the reason that costs are spiraling out of control now. Government now covers 100 million Americans, and costs are exploding. Under the proposed takeover, 130 million more will be added to government health programs. How can they expect to get costs under control by doubling the government’s role in health care?

The answer is by rationing care. If government wants to cover 230 million Americans and bring down costs, the only way it can possibly do it is denying care to people whose health care is deemed – you guessed it – not in the public interest.

Under similar schemes in Canada and Great Britain, people wait weeks to see their doctors, months to see specialists, and years to get routine procedures and treatments. High-tech tests and breakthrough medicines are off-limits because the government decides – in the public interest – that they are too expensive.

When the late actress Natasha Richardson suffered her skiing accident in Canada this spring, the hospital didn’t have an MRI machine. The doctors never knew her injuries were life-threatening… until it was too late.

That’s how a government take-over of your health care will try to get costs under control: cheap, outdated treatments, long waiting lists, and low-tech hospitals. It won’t take long before families realize the true costs of such a plan aren’t counted in dollars and sense.

Instead of the government-controlled “public option,” we should move toward a “personal option,” where we help individuals and families buy and own their own health insurance plan that no government can ever take-over or take away.

Health care is personal and private. It should be administered by doctors and nurses in their patient’s interest, not the interests of politicians and bureaucrats in Washington.

Because never forget: any law that empowers government to provide health care in the public interest implicitly empowers government to deny it for the same reason.

I plan to play a big part in the health care debate this summer, and my website will be a clearinghouse for information about the issue as it develops. Feel free to check in often, as new content will be added every week. And to help you stay informed, I’ll be in touch frequently as the health care and other debates move forward.

Thanks very much, and God bless.

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Demint at his Best on Nationalized Healthcare