Showing posts with label Healthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Healthcare. Show all posts

Monday, November 09, 2009

Is a New Strain of Flu Scorching the Ukraine?


Project Mayhem at ZeroHedge offers a somewhat disturbing look at Ukrainian flu trends.

Last week TWIM reported that a possible new strain of influenza had broken out (or was released) in Ukraine. This turns out to be accurate, surprising even our most vocal detractors.

The Ukrainian government now claims that over 960,000 people are now infected, over 48,000 hospitalized, and over 150 dead (likely a vast understatement). Our best estimate using our sources in epidemiology, infectious diseases, and weapons research is this:

A) There are one or more new flu strains circulating in Ukraine, of unknown origin.

B) These new strains are very infectious, and approximately one order of magnitude more virulent (dangerous) than the existing swine flu.

C) There are likely changes (single nucleotide polymorphisms) to one or more genes, including but not limited to HA, NA, NS1, PA, and PB2. This is probably a full-constellation of changes, whether spontaneous or man-made. Aka. The virus has been upgraded.

D) The Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of the new strains are estimated to be between 0.2% to 0.5%. Higher is possible but unlikely. In other words, The new strain may be >10x as lethal as swine flu and 2x-5x as lethal as seasonal flu. Aka. You do not want to catch this.

GENE SEQUENCES ARE NECESSARY TO EVALUATE THE NATURE OF THIS OUTBREAK.

However, the idiots at the World Health Organization (WHO) are keeping the RNA sequences a secret. They have said there are not "major changes" to the H1N1 virus in Ukraine -- but we all know it doesn't take much when it comes to viral genetics. Are these people lunkheads or are they criminals? I really have to wonder... Regardless, we clearly have a new flu strain which may be several times as lethal as seasonal flu, and has a high attack rate. The new strain also has a penchant for inducing viral pneumonia, where one's lungs fill with fluid. This is analogous to what happened in 1918, but obviously not yet on a large scale. Why is the WHO not releasing the gene sequences? Where is the lapdog corporate media? What in the hell is the CDC doing about this? And where is that backrub that Lauren promised me??

Indeed there are many questions here that require answers, and these answers are not forthcoming. Here is a news sample from Dr. Henry Niman, a very smart man who holds multiple patents on viral genetics but can't seem to comprehend the world, including governments, are corrupt.

Anyway, Here are some of Henry's latest articles:

Fail. This news looks bad -- but it's a little academic, Henry! Let's spice this up with some exclusive TWIM Ukrainian translations of what you are not hearing in the press about this new flu in Eastern Europe:

According to Kommersant-Ukraine chief physician aid city Myron Borisevich, in five fatalities have been recorded. "In all the patients came to hospital, observed the same symptoms of disease: very high fever, a cough that does not breathe normally. This disease progresses very quickly. Now all tests sent for examination in Kyiv" - explained Borisevich

Another difficult situation prevailing in the area Drohobych region, where five people also died. As the head of the Department of Health Drohobych municipality Andrew Shekenych, unlike the city, the residents of the area flowed disease differently: "The child entered the hospital and died eight hours. One adult - a day [until death], second - for two days [until death], and two patients died on the fourth day.

As the chief doctor of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Infectious Hospital Roman Ostyak in patients with fatal observed similar symptoms: it started with a small increase in temperature - up to 37,2-37,3 0 C - and a small pokashlyuvannya [cough?]. In the second and third days appeared little cold, and the third-fifth day - cutting short of breath, after which patients became difficult to breathe. "When you transfer to respirator them virtually impossible to proventylyuvaty light" - the Ostyak, noting that the death of advancing as a result of pulmonary edema.

While the doctors do not have a single thought that is causing the disease. Chief Medical Officer of the Ternopil region Dnistryan Stephen believes that the cause of deaths is unknown viruses. Explained deputy chief health officer of the region Ninel Tsyapa all dead treated by the doctors at the fifth-sixth day after the beginning of the disease when it was already to late. "This strain of influenza is characterized by lesions of the lungs."

[translated from: http://www.daily.lviv.ua/?module=write_about_lviv&view=50]

Oh, and this one, here's your latest update as of 4:54AM EST Monday Nov 9th 2009

On the last day the doctors asked 2028 people, and last night was 3200 patients. We are not talking about the decline and Stabilization", - said Zoya Tsihon. Deputy Head of Regional Department of Health added that now in the intensive care unit is 76 people, including 67 adults, 5 pregnant women and 11 children.

[translated from: http://zik.com.ua/]

Obviously this is serious business. Where is the coverage? I was on this story LAST WEEK. But what is even more serious is that the corporate media is so vile and rotten, I had to break this story on an anti-corruption financial blog! Wtf! Maybe these latest developments will crash the stock markets, and I can finally experience some long awaited Schadenfreude...



Sunday, November 08, 2009

PelosiCare: Reaction Roundup featuring Sarah Palin, Thomas Sowell, The Anchoress, Dr. Helen, Tom Jacobson, John Locke and Doctor Zero


The anger of the American public is only just beginning

Dr. Helen's message is inspiring:

You are never doomed until you are dead. There is always something that can be done. The anger of the American public is only just beginning. It is an energy that will be needed in the coming days, weeks and months to protest, stand up, debate, argue and get in the face of every government official, public figure and others who support a bill that leads us down The Road to Serfdom.

The people who gave us Fannie Mae now want to run health care

Sarah Palin is on fire:

We’ve got to hold on to hope, and we’ve got to fight hard because Congressional action tonight just put America on a path toward an unrecognizable country.

The same government leaders that got us into the mortgage business and the car business are now getting us into the health care business...

...Speaker Pelosi has broken her own promises of transparency to ram a health “care” bill through the House of Representatives just before midnight. Why did she push the 2,000 page bill this weekend? Was she perhaps afraid to give her peers and the constituents for whom she works the chance to actually read this monstrous bill carefully, if at all? Was she concerned that Americans might really digest the details of a bill that the Wall Street Journal has called “the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced”?

This out-of-control bureaucratic mess will be disastrous for our economy, our small businesses, and our personal liberty. It will slam businesses at a time when we are at double-digit unemployment rates – the highest we’ve seen in a quarter of a century. This massive new bureaucracy will cost us and our children money we don’t have. It will rob Americans of more of our freedom and further hamper the free market.

Make no mistake: we’re on course to have government commandeer one-sixth of our economy. The people who gave us Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now want to run our health care.

The Day the Blue Dogs Died

The John Locke Foundation calls it "The Day the Blue Dogs Died":

...more than half (28 out of 52) of the supposedly fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats voted FOR HR 3962 — the nearly 2,000-page bureaucratic monstrosity that, if implemented, will stifle the economic prospects of this generation, and many generations to come. I cringe when I think about what is to come for my stepdaughter’s small children, who will enter the work force in the next 15 to 20 years...

...To illustrate the clean break between what the Blue Dogs profess, and what the majority of them voted for last night, be sure to visit the coalition’s home page, which carries a national debt tally.

The shadow of the jackboot...

The Anchoress is realistic:

We’d best prepare ourselves for an America we could not have imagined even 9 years ago, and a world besieged by an ideology that seems to be heading to a victorious ascendancy.

Will government-run health care be better or worse?

Thomas Sowell's questions are piercing:

What is so wrong with the current medical system in the United States that we are being urged to rush headlong into a new government system that we are not even supposed to understand, because this legislation is to be rushed through Congress before even the Senators and Representatives have a chance to read it?

...Will a government-run medical system make these things better or worse? This very basic question seldom seems to get asked, much less answered.

Maybe this time...

Doctor Zero hits another grand-slam.

The Heritage Foundation’s estimate of $2.4 to $2.6 trillion over 10 years, beginning when the House bill transitions from front-loaded tax hikes to full Daffy Duck freak-out spending in 2014, is the most logical projection of its true costs I’ve seen.

Even this will likely prove to be an underestimation of the true long-term costs. No other Big Government program has ever stayed within an order of magnitude of the promises made when it was signed into law. Medicare originally cost about $3 billion, when it began in 1965, and was projected to cost about $12 billion by 1990, adjusted for inflation. The actual cost in 1990 was nearly ten times that figure, $107 billion. It was up to $440 billion by 2007. The architects of the program would have been run out of town on a rail, if these future costs had been known to the voters of 1965.

The difference between promised benefits and expected revenues for Social Security and Medicare amounts to about $107 trillion dollars, which Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute points out is double the annual Gross Domestic Product of the entire world. The most strident opponent of the New Deal would never have dreamed of predicting this level of cost overrun. Name any government program that has been around for more than five years, and the odds are good it costs at least triple what its opponents originally said it would cost.

In The End: No Public Option, No Abortions, No Pelosi, No Reid

William A. Jacobson has a hopeful analysis of a possible endgame.

Keep in mind, Nancy Pelosi cut a deal to get her health care bill through the House (by a mere 5 votes) by allowing a floor vote on the Stupak Amendment, which reiterates existing federal law banning federal funding for abortions, and takes that law several steps further by requiring any health plan which participates in the newly established exchanges to offer competing plans, one which covers abortion and one which does not. The Stupak Amendment makes clear that any plan offering abortion coverage must be self-funding, with no federal funds used directly or indirectly. As many left-wing bloggers are screaming, the Stupak Amendment guts Roe v. Wade in reality (but not in law) by creating a subclass of health insurance coverage which will cost more and be less available than alternatives without abortion coverage.

So Harry Reid needs to drop the public option to get a bill through the Senate. Nancy Pelosi needs to drop abortion coverage even for most private plans, to get a bill through the House.

The end result: If a bill is to pass both houses of Congress, it will have no public option and no abortion coverage.

The left-wing will take care of dropping Pelosi and Reid from their leadership positions. And if Obama were to sign such a bill, who knows whether he would be dropped in 2012.

From his lips to God's ears.


The Health Care Bill in Ninety Seconds

The key 'features' of of H.R. 3962:

Cost

The CBO now estimates health bill spending at $3 trillion over 10 years. Since the CBO historically underestimates expenses, assume massive new deficits for a country that can ill afford them.

Personal Requirements

You'll be required to buy a 'qualified' health plan. A family earning $102K a year will pay $1,700 a month in premium and out-of-pocket expenses. 'Willful' failure to buy a plan will result in a fine of up to $250,000 and 'imprisonment of up to five years'. Illegal immigrants are exempt from fines and imprisonment.

Business Requirements

Every business in America must provide a 'qualified plan' for employees and pay 72.5% of the cost. Failure to do so results in an 8% payroll tax.

Impact to Seniors

Medicare reimbursements will be slashed by $500 billion. Medicare Advantage plans will be slashed by 20%. In many cases, seniors will be forced to see nurse practitioners rather than doctors.

Payments for Community Organizers, Translators and Racial/Ethnic 'Balance'

The bill provides grants to community "entities" with no required qualifications. The bill also provides translators for patients who do not speak English and offers grants to schools serving students with "disadvantaged backgrounds including racial and ethnic minorities."

Illegal Immigrants Covered, Abortion Funding Still Possible

Proof of citizenship requirements were gutted, so illegal aliens will be subsidized. The legislation also "doesn't close the door to using taxpayer funds" for abortions.

This bill truly is, as Michele Bachmann describes it, the "crown jewel of socialism". Its implementation will result in an economic catastrophe of the first order as certainly as the sun rises in the morning.


Hat tip: Frogg at ChronWatch. Linked by: Linkiest, Memeorandum, Curmudgeonly & Skeptical, Protein Wisdom and Family Security Matters. Thanks!

PelosiCare's price controls will bankrupt health insurers in one year


Buried deep inside the 2,200 pages of H.R. 3962 ("The Affordable Health Care for America Act", A.K.A. "PelosiCare") is a section that mandates the profit margins of health insurers.

‘SEC. 2714. ENSURING VALUE AND LOWER PREMIUMS.

‘(a) In General- Each health insurance issuer that offers health insurance coverage in the small or large group market shall provide that for any plan year in which the coverage has a medical loss ratio below a level specified by the Secretary (but not less than 85 percent), the issuer shall provide in a manner specified by the Secretary for rebates to enrollees of the amount by which the issuer’s medical loss ratio is less than the level so specified.

No company has ever survived with a loss ratio approaching 85%.

What exactly is a 'loss ratio'?


Put simply, it is the ratio of the claims paid by an insurance company to the premiums collected. Usually the ratio is calculated on a yearly basis. And, in the context of legislation, loss ratios are price controls.

A 2008 document by the Council for Affordable Health Insurance describes state experiences with mandated loss ratios.

While many states have implemented loss-ratio requirements, few have ever tried loss ratios at or above 70 percent... states hope[d] that by squeezing down the [insurers'] administrative costs... insurance [would] become more affordable and more accessible. However, the experience of other states... provides little hope for success.

An 85% loss ratio, as mandated by PelosiCare, would bankrupt insurers within a year. No mandated loss ratio has ever come close to 85%.

Why would a loss ratio that permits only a 15% administrative margin for insurers cause companies to fail? Consider that the administrative expenses include collecting premiums; processing and paying claims; monitoring patient care; staffing customer service functions; paying costs to state and federal regulators; paying sales agents; and general overhead (rent, power, heat, light); etc.

I repeat: No company has ever survived with a loss ratio approaching 85%.

A loss ratio of 85% will bankrupt health insurers in less than a year


If you work for a health insurer, if your business is a supplier to a health insurer, or if you are customer or simply a shareholder, say goodbye to the private health insurance industry.

So, no, you won't get to keep your private insurance plan. That's guaranteed under H.R. 3962.


Update: An employee of a health insurer clarifies, "Congress voted to fire me last night." (hat tip: Larwyn).

Update II: Liberty died last night... to thunderous applause.

Saturday, November 07, 2009

A picture is worth 2,000 pages


Tom Blumer provides this devastating view of PelosiCare's new bureaucracies: 111 agencies, regulators, committees, boards and offices:


The area in the yellow box in the top center was the chart as it existed several months and hundreds of pages ago.

I can’t wait for the “How to Keep Your Doctor” update.

Tom seems a little down in the dumps regarding PelosiCare. I, however, have complete faith in the Democrats to deliver a plan that increases the quality of care, covers 30 million new patients, won't change your existing health plans a bit, ensures coverage of pre-existing conditions and cuts costs!

I also have faith in the Democrats to provide singing unicorn petting zoos in every waiting room in the country.


ObamaCare: If It's Private, Kill It!


Dan from New York:

Excerpt of an email received from a big "community organizer":

Health insurer Humana posted a 65% jump in third-quarter profit on Monday, due largely to a bulging membership and to premiums from Medicare Advantage...

Humana has faced the wrath of seniors across the country after falsely warning them that their benefits are at risk due to health reform...

Many senior advocates see the gigantic rise in profits as further proof of Medicare Advantage subsidies being an unnecessary corporate giveaway from the government to private insurers at the expense of seniors.

In other words, seniors' benefits - namely their Medicare Advantage plans - are at risk due to Obama's health reform because Obama's health reform reduces or eliminates the government subsidies that make those privately-issued plans possible.

And once regular Medicare's competition is put out of business, seniors will have no choice but take the sharply reduced benefits ObamaCare gives them.

That's the way Obama and his Leftocrats plan to drive you into their arms, and then squeeze the life out of you.

And what happens to the employees, vendors, partners, suppliers and shareholders (direct and indirect through mutual funds) of private health insurers?

The SEIU is licking its chops at the opportunity to unionize millions of new public sector employees.


National Health Care's Test Bed: Puerto Rico


Vic sent in his observations from a recent visit to "The Beautiful Island".

I recently returned from a long anticipated sojourn to the land of my ancestors: Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a beautiful tropical getaway for travelers in the know and was a melting pot for Spanish, French, Irish Geese and so many more during the Colonial Period when Spain ruled the seas and wars were fought over honor and commodities such as gold and cotton. From 1508 until the Spanish ceded Puerto Rico to the United Sates in 1898, gold was mined and depleted, the island was depopulated of Taino indians, repopulated with Europeans, and natural disasters shaped the culture and ethos of its inhabitants.

My visit re-acquainted me with long lost relatives and introduced me to a raft of previously unknown loved ones. One such newcomer (to me anyway) has been employed by the Commonwealth for decades and ran for office against the corruption as he saw it and is solidly for statehood; a perennial issue that comes to a head with a vote periodically. Puerto Rico is a true colony of the United States: it owes its economic survival to the sustenance provided by the Federal Government and would sink into Third World poverty if not for the billions of dollars pumped into the economy. It really is a welfare state and the Puerto Ricans are well aware of their status as a 'stepchild territory'. It is an outpost for the United Sates that hems in Cuba and its strategic importance can not be understated. That having been said, the Island economy is depressed and has been for many years.

The number one industry in Puerto Rico is administering the distribution of the money provided by the United States in the form of so many programs and a welfare system rivaling any Cold War satellite of the USSR. There was an amazing burst of economic activity until the early nineties, when the Clinton Administration eliminated an enhanced tax status for corporations operating on the Island. Then the companies pulled up stakes for Asia and the economy collapsed. A drive through the southern shore treats you to an ugly display of abandoned and rusting oil refineries among the tropical lushness. A stunning sea bordered by a coastline of deteriorating factories: disgusting in all of its irony.

This long-winded description of island life is meant to inform you of the mindset of the Puerto Rican people. One of resignation to economic slumber and permanent dependency on the United States. Are they proud to be Americans? You betcha! But many long for statehood and the responsibilities that go along with it. But they are also proud perversely, as I see it, of their health care system.

The Puerto Ricans see government-run health care as a right and not a privilege of gainful employment. Understand that redistribution of money is the prime industry there so it follows that a sense of entitlement is ingrained. Only a minority, however large it may be, want the sometimes crushing responsibilities of statehood and the status the goes with it. Case in point: California is effectively bankrupt because of its social programs and unceasing support for illegal aliens who neither pay taxes nor re-invest in local communities.

The Islanders are intensely proud that the Obama Administration had studied their model and has decided to take it nationwide. They see the benefits of a centrally run program but have cautions for the White House regarding implementation. Firstly, it is expensive, depleting funds that would otherwise be used to spur economic activity. The Puerto Ricans are sensitive to the financial costs in the long run but trust the Government will make up the lost growth later.

The second caution is more of a warning to our aging population: Rationing. Certain procedures and modalities are simply not available for a small 'nation' who never had the budget for the more exotic equipment and treatments anyway. If you get a fatal illness that will consume lots of resources and buy a few months; you go home to settle your affairs. On an island that has commercial vehicles belching smoke and abandoned buildings on every street can it surprise anyone that top level health care simply does not exist?

In a commonwealth that appears to a visitor to be stuck in the 1970s there is no expectation of emerging from near poverty and the achievement of the wild prosperity that the mainland boasts. There is the feeling of just getting along and the hope for more funding from 'Mother Congress'.

And as the United States emerges from its recession more money will come: As a territory it is their right. Don't get me wrong, Puerto Ricans are very proud to be Americans. They are simply the victims of 'Mother Congress' socializing and completely controlling their economy. There is no other option for them as the Government has taxed most industry right off the island and has a stranglehold on its income.

When a government can dictate how much money you earn and where you may work it has infinite control over the decisions you make. And that is not the America I want for my children. Don't let 'Mother Congress' and headmistress Pelosi nationalize health care. It will be the undoing of the best medical system in the world and have the unanticipated result of suppressing our economy. It will unquestionably lead to a lower standard of living. I fear for the Democracy if this dog of a bill passes.



Friday, November 06, 2009

Collectible Postcards from 11/5 Capitol Hill Protest!


Isn't entrepreneurship wonderful? No sooner had concerned citizens descended on Washington than the gift shops started selling these collectible postcards.


Click to bigg-ify

Best question posed by protesters: "Will the public option pay for Pelosi's botox?"

Collect 'em all!


Saturday, October 31, 2009

Democrats Admit: Our Health Care Bill Is a Cluster****

Just read between the lines of the 2,000-page ObamaCare bill and you'll find two stark admissions. Democrats are convinced that the bill will lead to an unmitigated catastrophe.

Admission 1: After months of proclaiming the "urgent" need for health care reform, PelosiCare doesn't actually kick in for at least three (3) years.

There are two reasons for the delay.

First, it's a tacit acknowledgment that prompt implementation would destroy Obama's reelection chances in 2012.

Second, it's an outright financial scam authored by the Statist Democrats: " The CBO has scored the bill at $1.055 trillion [which] does not take into consideration that fact that the ten-year window contains ten years of revenue and only three to eight years of major payouts –- meaning that the bill will bleed red ink [in subsequent years."

Admission 2: The only Americans not required to join the national health care program are -- wait for it -- members of Congress. Democrats are so certain that their own health would be endangered that they want no part of the disastrous Rube Goldberg contraption they've created.

* * *

"ClusterCare" is a $700 billion tax hike that will bankrupt the country as certainly as night follows day. It is 2,000 pages of pure horror: a perfect read for Halloween, but completely inappropriate for children, who must ultimately pay for this disaster.



Update: Trial lawyers rejoice: ObamaCare punishes states that implement tort reform.

Linked by: Ed Driscoll and Say Anything. Thanks!

Friday, October 30, 2009

Nude Breast Exam Aired on DC TV News: Must Be Ratings Week


From all appearances, Tim has waaay too much time on his hands; he instantly alerted us to this breaking news story:

DC station airs demo of bare breast self-exams


WASHINGTON – The ABC affiliate here is airing a two-part [Tim: two-part -- get it??] series that takes a close — and unobscured — look at breast self-exams. The series is airing during the fall "sweeps" period critical for a TV station's ad revenue, prompting concern by a parental watchdog group. But WJLA insists it's not just a naked attempt to boost the ratings.

The two segments include clinical demonstrations of self-exams, and the breasts of the two volunteers are not blurred. They were to air during the 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts Thursday and Friday.

WJLA officials said the segments are providing an important service because many women don't know how to properly check their breasts...

In the interest of decorum, I won't relay Tim's advice for females in his neighborhood.


Sunday, October 25, 2009

Ignoring Milton Friedman


In 2001, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics Milton Friedman penned "How to Cure Health Care". Given the United States' budget deficits, its current economic malaise and an impending entitlement catastrophe, one would hope that Congress would strongly consider Friedman's insights for its health care agenda.

Of course, with the current crop of Democrat Statists in power, you'd be wrong.

Friedman's prescription was elegant in its simplicity. It leveraged free markets and the power of individual decision-making. And it provided a road map for addressing the Medicare train-wreck.

The high cost and inequitable character of our medical care system are the direct result of our steady movement toward reliance on third-party payment. A cure requires reversing course, reprivatizing medical care by eliminating most third-party payment, and restoring the role of insurance to providing protection against major medical catastrophes.

[Repair the broken entitlement programs] ...end both Medicare and Medicaid, at least for new entrants, and replace them by [offering] every family in the United States ...catastrophic insurance (i.e., a major medical policy with a high deductible).

[Repeal the tax exemption for employer provided medical care] ...end tax exemption of employer-provided medical care.

[Deregulate insurance so that consumers can shop for a la carte coverage across State lines] ...remove the restrictive regulations that are now imposed on medical insurance—hard to justify with universal catastrophic insurance.

[Increase the use of Health Savings Accounts] ...Medical savings accounts offer one way to resolve the growing financial and administrative problems of Medicare and Medicaid. It seems clear from private experience that a program along these lines would be less expensive and bureaucratic than the current system and more satisfactory to the participants. In effect, it would be a way to voucherize Medicare and Medicaid. It would enable participants to spend their own money on themselves for routine medical care and medical problems, rather than having to go through HMOs and insurance companies, while at the same time providing protection against medical catastrophes.

The current bills working their way through Congress are diametrically opposed to Friedman's counsel.

The Democrats' intent is obvious to any student of history: they concern themselves with increasing the power of a centralized, authoritarian government. And they repay their constituencies including the union shock troops of Socialism and the trial lawyers.

A federal authority that will control all of your private health care data. A federal authority can reward and punish individuals by offering or withholding health services. A federal authority that will garner ever more control of your private property, asserting that with just one more tax, or one more regulation, it will be able to provide a final solution.

A federal authority will control not just your financial future, but your physical well-being. In doing so, it will have the ultimate power over the people.

We do need catastrophic insurance... if only to protect us from the impending disaster that will be the Democrats' authoritarian health care.


Friday, October 23, 2009

Another ecstatic voter


The Happy Hospitalist alerts us to this disgruntled individual.

I really don't understand this complaint. President Obama promised that he would give everyone health insurance, require insurers to treat any preexisting conditions, improve the quality of health care, keep private insurance in force, without increasing costs "by a single dime."

What's not to like?


Pelosi stunned senseless by health care Constitutionality question


I love the folks at CNSNews, instigators of some of the spiciest Beltway interviews in recent memory. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was the latest, eh, victim. Asked whether the act of requiring every American to purchase a product or service -- in this case, health insurance -- Pelosi stammered a nonsensical response.

When CNSNews.com asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance--a mandate included in both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill--Pelosi dismissed the question by saying: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

Pelosi's press secretary later responded to written follow-up questions from CNSNews.com by emailing CNSNews.com a press release on the “Constitutionality of Health Insurance Reform,” that argues that Congress derives the authority to mandate that people purchase health insurance from its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.

The exchange with Speaker Pelosi on Thursday occurred as follows:

CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”

Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

CNSNews.com: “Yes, yes I am.”

Pelosi then shook her head before taking a question from another reporter. Her press spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, then told CNSNews.com that asking the speaker of the House where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandated that individual Americans buy health insurance as not a "serious question."

“You can put this on the record,” said Elshami. “That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.”

Oh, Elshami, I beg to differ. It is a serious question. Just don't ask the whackjob Marxists at Think Regress:

Pelosi is right to be dismissive of the fringe right-wing theory behind this question, which has no basis in the Constitution itself. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power “[t]o regulate commerce... among the several states” as well as the authority to “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution” its power to regulate commerce.-Een [sic] ultra-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia acknowledges that these constitutional provisions give Congress sweeping authority to enact laws that regulate “economic activity.”

By that standard, Congress could tax you at 100% and require you to wear stiletto high heels when playing basketball.

The colonies authored the Declaration of Independence because they rejected authoritarianism.

The Framers wrote the Constitution to protect the individual from the state. And the Constitution is the highest law in the land.

Pelosi's inability to articulate a semblance of a response speaks volumes.

Requiring every American to purchase a good or service is unconstitutional. It's never been done. It can't be done. And anyone who isn't a crackhead knows that.


Thursday, October 22, 2009

$787B in Federal Stimulus Creates/Saves 5.93 Jobs in Rhode Island


Like the previous post, I truly wish this news item was chock-full of delicious snark. Instead, what Tyler Durden reports is all too real:

Recovery.org has some useful data to track the efficacy of the administration's stimulus program. Not only can the 5.93 people (not in millions, thousands, hundreds or even tens) in Rhode Island whose jobs the Federal Government managed to "save" send personal thank you letters to American taxpayers...

...this chart from recovery.org, proudly pasted on the front page, supposed to make Americans happy about the amazing misuse of taxpayer funds to only "create" 30,000 jobs in America (never mind that actual unemployment by state continues to skyrocket, putting all claims about saved jobs very much in the highlight reel on the Comedy Channel)? And just how does the government provide 0.93 jobs? Can Rhode Islanders round up that particular employee or does the 0.07 account for the weighted average time spent by "saved employees" playing Solitaire?

Either way, another phenomenal demonstration of efficiency by the administration.

And a perfect preview for the impending catastrophe represented by National Socialized Medicine.


Update: "Average Unemployment Period Hits All Time Record High Of 6 Months"

Update II: In California, "Obama [claims] an effect of .01222% on the employment rate... Each job created and or saved cost you $69,000."

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

ObamaCare™ Trading Cards: Collect 'em all!

Wondering who gets what out of the Democrat Party's push for single-payer, socialized medicine? Keep tabs on all of the payoffs, bribes, swag and favors changing hands with this exclusive collection of ObamaCare™ Trading Cards! Collect 'em all!

The AARP gets some serious coin: millions in taxpayer funds to help build their various businesses, which have little to do with looking out for seniors: "What Obama didn’t say is that AARP receives millions in federal funds, and hopes to get even more by becoming a vendor under his plan. In January 2007, NLPC published Special Report documenting taxpayer support for AARP. The study found that federal funding accounted for $83 million, or about 10 percent, of AARP’s then-annual revenue of $878 million."

Trial Lawyer Tycoons look to get about a $1.6 billion payoff and an unlimited amount of rope to pursue malpractice lawsuits. That is to say, ObamaCare takes tort reform completely off the table.

ACORN and other community agitators (whom, in part, are responsible for the entire mortgage meltdown) are slated to receive billions in Stimulus funds and billions from Obamacare. Consider it a quid pro quo for their, eh, energetic support of the Obama campaign.

Union Bosses aim to get a direct $10 billion payoff from Obamacare, millions injected into their pension funds and, best of all, millions of new, dues-paying members as public-sector unions replace the evil insurance companies. And try getting one of those bureaucrats fired, I dare you!

Unaccountable politicians -- who have come out and said they don't give a crap what their constituents think -- will amass more power, further breakdown the firewalls in the Constitution and then walk away. And where will Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid be in ten years, when the rest of us are struggling with a massive, out-of-control, federalized medical system that doesn't give a damn about individuals and is busy rationing care and denying care to the elderly? They will be retired as very wealthy individuals -- with their very own private health care -- having imposed their Marxist ideology upon this society and then walked away from it.

Leaving the massive deficits for our children and grandchildren to worry about.

You? You get bupkis, which is to say: nuttin'. Oh, you will get called Nazis, thugs, racists, mobsters, and terrorists for having opposed socialized medicine.

But, as a bonus, you'll also lose your liberty -- you'll lose control of your very physical well-being -- to a useless, faceless board of unaccountable, numbskull bureaucrats who couldn't even run a cash-for-clunkers program.

But look on the bright side: you won't have that pesky Constitution and Declaration of Independence to worry about any more!


Hat tips: Evergreen Freedom Foundation and Ann Coulter.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Health insurers "deceptive and dishonest": Obama


Dan from New York:

Health insurers "deceptive and dishonest": Obama


WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama lashed out on Saturday against the "deceptive and dishonest" efforts of health insurance companies, who he said are trying to kill healthcare reform, no matter the cost to the country.

Sharpening his attack on insurers, Obama also signaled support for a congressional review of the insurance industry's long-standing exemption from federal anti-trust laws. [emphasis mine and hopefully unnecessary] Some Democrats want the privilege repealed.

###

Our president's message couldn't be louder or clearer: "Dare to defy me and I'll turn the power of my government against you and destroy you." This guy is turning out to be some piece of work, isn't he? And we're just beginning to get to know him.



The New Democrat Health Care Posters Are Here!



Hat tip: Soylent Green.

Monday, October 12, 2009

A Call To Action From 1950: We Must Fight Socialized Medicine!


Realistico writes:

Attached is an ad taken out by the American Medical Association in the Ladies' Home Journal of November 1, 1950. Its subject? Compulsory, socialized medicine...


Our beloved Congress appears to have forgotten, once again, who actually runs this country.