Showing posts with label Reid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reid. Show all posts

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Top Nine Health Care Charts You've Never Seen Before

Trial lawyers are the second biggest donor to the Democrats' Political Action Committee, trailing only the union bosses of the IBEW.

The "lawsuit industry" gives more money (roughly $127 million in 2008) to Congress than every sector of the health care industry, combined.

Medical malpractice costs continue to skyrocket to new historical highs, growing far faster than any other component of health insurance premiums.

Which makes the percentage of your health premium going to pay for the trial lawyers' mansions roughly 75%.

And trial lawyers bring in more money than either Microsoft or Pfizer.





Tort reform is an easy way to reduce health care costs without destroying the entire system.

But Harry Reid -- in his current mentally-incapacitated state -- won't have any of it. He requires money and power. And the trial lawyers continue to provide him with both.


Update: ReidCare Throws a Bone to Tort Lawyers Too.

Charts: Source.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

The Delusions (and Barbarism) of the 'Reality-Based' Community

Over at 538.com, Nate Silver devotes significant attention to the faux liberal outrage erupting over the nationalization of health care. Silver analyzes the responses to 20 of his questions posed to Markos Moulitsas (Daily Kos) and Jon Walker (FireDogLake).

I'll save you the effort of reading their neural diarrhea. Suffice it to say that the "Reality-based" Community devotes thousands of words to government-run health care without mentioning:

• The "dangerous" amount of national debt that we are assuming ($50,000 for each and every American by 2019 without a health care takeover);

• The exploding and extremely risky deficit;

• The impending bankruptcy of Medicare and Medicaid (the time-bomb is set to explode in less than a decade);

• Slashing $500 billion from Medicare while claiming to "improve quality";

• And the utter accounting fraud associated with booking six years of benefits against ten years of tax revenues.

Bernie Madoff is serving time for running a Ponzi scheme like this, only a 100 times smaller. Best of all, Silver is the supposed "numbers guy" for the socialist left. So he turns out to be just as intellectually honest as the rest of the Soros-funded troupe.

The numbers are real. And they are dangerous to the future of this country, according not to me, but the Congressional Budget Office.

So the "Reality-based" Community is either delusional or intent on the utter destruction of the American experiment. Choosing which is an exercise best left to the reader.


Note: Yes, this is the same Nate Silver of the Dealergate beclownment. No one tell Natey that a variety of lawsuits by dealers alleging partisan activities by the Obama administration are still wending their way through courts.


Tuesday, December 15, 2009

My War of Words With the Canadian Health Care System

A representative of Canada's state-run health care system has rushed to the battle front to defend her system from evil conservative bloggers like moi. She writes:

Actually, the health care system in Canada does work. And it works pretty well. My family and I have enjoyed unrestricted access to specialists, general practitioners, surgeons, hospitals, outpatient departments, emergency rooms, and labs, just to name a few services, over the past few years for a variety of concerns – football injuries to hysterectomies to skin conditions to flu shots. I’ve never had to argue with a insurance company over what they would pay, nor have a copay to pay. There is no paperwork or bills to review or submit – we just show our health care card at the hospital or doctor’s office or walk-in clinic.

Of course there are idiots, horror stories, and cracks that people fall through in Canada. Just like the horror stories in the States – and this is confirmed by my family in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Texas and Missouri tell me – (all born and raised in US, so they are not used to, nor probably even aware of, what we have up in Canada and therefore cannot be accused of bias). And there are people that complain bitterly about anything and everything.

- Remember that Canadian woman who had to go to the States for her brain tumour to be removed? It was not cancer, it was not growing appreciably, and the Canadian health care services would have operated on it, close to her own home, in 6 months time, without any change in her overall health. And cost her no money. Instead she had it operated on “instantly” in the US, because she didn’t want to wait, and now is complaining (tearfully on CNN via YouTube) that she is devastated by the bill of over $100,000. That is a reality of the States health care system.

On average, we live longer than the population in the States. Fewer of our babies die in infancy. We have better outcomes in almost every measure of health care – including surgery! We pay through taxes less than half you do in the States for more care. Our health care is not “socialized medicine” – we pay taxes (like you do) and in return, the government allocates $ to each province (like states) for a list of basic health care (prenatal care to surgeries to emergency rooms) to be provided to every Canadian citizen. Period. You do not call it Socialized Agriculture when your government subsidizes farmers? You don’t call it Socialized Free Enterprise when your government reduces tax to business. Socialized Highways, Socialized Parks? Socialized Defence?

Please don’t write off health care systems that are maybe just different from yours.

Her email server really is owned by the interiorhealth.ca domain, so it appears legit. I replied:

Please read the following from the NIH, Stanford University and other professional opinions.  Follow the links for attribution.  I'll wait patiently for your corrections.  Best Regards, Doug

• The work of Barbara Starfield and others has repeatedly shown that having a family doctor is the single best way to ensure access to sound health care.  Yet a 2006 study revealed that 17% of Canadians do not have family physicians—about 5 million Canadians have no family doctor. Of these 5 million, around 2 million have sought unsuccessfully for one.  The NIH reports that "...with an aging family physician population and a projected increase in the population of seniors as baby boomers reach retirement, there is a looming crisis in primary care in Canada."

• The Chief of Neuroradiology at Stanford reports the following, which utterly refutes your claims: "1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.

Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher. ...
2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher. ... 3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them."

• In 2009 about 2,500 Canadians per month sought medical treatment in the U.S. because of accessibility, long waits and life-threatening conditions.

• There is a projected $36 trillion shortfall in funding for Medicare and Medicaid.

• California's Medi-Cal program is an unmitigated disaster, burning a $14 billion hole in a state with a nearly $50 billion overall budget shortfall.

• Single-payer has failed cancer patients and children in the UK. It has condemned patients to long and sometimes fatal waits for routine tests in Canada (e.g., "Excessive wait times for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies are a major problem in the Canadian healthcare system." Healthcare Policy, Canada, 2009).

• The UK's NHS is broke and fading fast.

• "British cancer patients are substantially more likely to die of the disease than those in other western European countries because of poor access to the latest drugs, according to an authoritative report to be published today." (Cancer survival rates worst in western Europe: Telegraph, UK, 2007)

• As for anecdotes?  Here's one that describes what U.S. diplomatic officials see every day.

I am an American living and working in [Canadian City]. Please do not use my name, but I am a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Consulate here... working in the... visas section. I could get in big trouble professionally for telling you this.

...I had numerous opportunities to work on cases in which Canadians were attempting to emigrate to the U.S. primarily for medical procedures. In one case, a U.S. citizen father was petitioning for his [Canadian adult] son to join him in [state]...

...His son had a non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and was unable to obtain the necessary treatments in Canada. In the U.S., two physicians had examined him and basically concluded that, because the disease had not spread above his neck, that he could be saved. In Canada, this young man was under a death sentence. Once I was satisfied that his medical costs would not be borne by U.S. taxpayers, I got him his visa and (hopefully) another chance at life.

* * * * * * * * *

[There was another] case of a young Canadian mother, in tears, who had recently given birth to a child with cerebral palsy. Her husband, a U.S. citizen working in Canada, was able to transmit U.S. citizenship to his infant son and he was petitioning for his wife so that the family could move to Chicago. Why? So the boy could get the treatment that he needed in the U.S., which was superior to that in Canada.

* * * * * * * * *

[We all] had several cases of nurses, doctors, and [X-ray] technicians who emigrated to the U.S. for professional reasons. Sometimes it was for the opportunity to earn more money (one doctor, earning about $85K annually Canadian, had a job offer at a clinic in Buffalo for $300K U.S.). For others, it was a chance to to do what they were trained to do - in the U.S., [an X-ray] technician has the equipment and facilities to ply his trade, whereas in Canada the opportunities to do so are quite limited.

* * * * * * * * *

I realize that this is all anecdotal and not statistically based, but in my experience the only Canadians who are satisfied with the system here are people who are healthy. I do not mean that in a snide attempt to be funny, I am serious - it is a good program for young healthy couples with one or two children who need vaccinations and routine appointments.

However, if you get sick, this is not the place to be.

Lastly, a comment - U.S. health care is a good value for the money. Would you rather have 2009 health care at 2009 prices, in the U.S., or 1970 health care at 1970 prices? The answer is obvious, and even our own Congress knows it. I am pretty sure that Ted Kennedy would not choose to have his brain cancer treated anywhere but the U.S., and the same is true for John Kerry's prostate cancer.

* * *

"Access to a waiting list is not access to health care" --Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin, Supreme Court of Canada (Chaoulli v. Quebec)

In 2007 the Canadian government issued a series of reports to address the outcry over long wait times for critical tests, procedures and surgeries. Over a two year period:

  • Wait times for knee replacements dropped from 440 to 307 days.
  • Wait times for hip replacements dropped from 351 to 257 days.
  • Wait times for cataract surgeries dropped from 311 to 183 days.
  • Wait times for MRIs dropped from 120 to 105 days.
  • Wait times for CT scans dropped from 81 to 62 days.
  • Wait times for bypass surgeries dropped from 49 to 48 days.

These "improvements" are unheard of in the United States. Waiting 48 days for a bypass or 105 days for an MRI could very well be a death sentence.

The public has fought for 50-plus years to build a publicly funded Medicare system that they’re now telling us isn’t quite working for them. -- Health Care in Canada Round Table 2005

A Commonwealth Fund 2005 International Health Policy Survey (slide 16) showed that 41% of patients in the UK and 33% of patients in Canada waited more than 4 months for non-emergency surgery. Only 8% American patients waited more than 4 months for surgery.

Meanwhile, in Hamilton, Ontario, hospitals have received an infusion of cash to cut wait times for diagnostic procedures and certain surgeries, which have become intolerable.

And these are precisely the type of government-controlled health-care systems proposed by the Democratic candidates. Not only are they destined for failure, they will cost thousands of lives. And with the UK and Canada as examples, everyone can see the train-wreck coming.

Story after story after story describes the Canadian health care system in crisis. CBS News and The New York Times are among the sources.
* * *

For many Canadians, the choice is crystal clear: you can receive "free" health care and die -- or you can receive treatment in the U.S., pay for it, and live. Worst-case, the choice is death -- or bankruptcy. Which would you choose for a loved one?

Monday, December 14, 2009

What Do House Democrats Know That The Rest of Us Don't?

In a tersely worded email, Richard Baehr observes:

In four weeks, four incumbent, long-serving Democratic Congressmen -- John Tanner, Brad Gordon, Dennis Moore, and Brian Baird -- have all announced their retirements.

All of the seats will be tough for the Democrats to defend in 2010. It certainly appears that the Pelosi-Schakowsky-Waxman wing of the Democrat Party has pushed the entire party and its legislative agenda so far to the left that moderate Democrats are giving up the fight.

In the Rasmussen poll today, the approval-disapproval score for President Obama has hit an all-time low: 44% approve, 55% disapprove with 24% strongly approving, and 42% strongly disapproving. Despite the most favorable press coverage ever for any new president, Obama's approval scores are lower than those for any other new president since these polls began. The last three national surveys on support for Obamacare: 40-56 in Rasmussen, 34-61 by CNN/Opinion Dynamics, and 34-57 by Fox.

The Democrats may try to blame their failure to pass health care reform, if it occurs, on Joe Lieberman. But the failure will be their own: they could not convince the American people that their monstrously complex and expensive proposal ($2.5 trillion in the first ten years after benefits kick in) was necessary.

What do these 'moderate' Democrats know? That they each have a giant serving fork sticking in their back.

More of Richard's analysis is available at Pajamas Media.


The Children That Harry Reid Condemned to Death

Mr. Peabody, set the Wayback Machine to October 2006.

This moving photograph shows Chief Master Sgt. John Gebhardt, superintendent of the 22nd Wing Medical Group at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas, holding an injured Iraqi girl. The picture was taken in October 2006, while Chief Gebhardt was deployed to Balad Air Base in Iraq. According to the Air Force Print News, the infant girl Chief Gebhardt held in his arms "received extensive gunshot injuries to her head when insurgents attacked her family killing both of her parents and many of her siblings."


Chief Gebhardt is now back home in Wichita, Kansas, with his wife and two children. An Air Force Link article about the sudden fame he gained as the subject of this photograph reported that:

The chief had a knack for comforting [the injured Iraqi girl] and they often would catch a cat nap together in a chair.

"I got as much enjoyment out of it as the baby did," he said. "I reflected on my own family and life and thought about how lucky I have been."

While deployed to Iraq, the chief tried to help out any way he could. He figured holding a baby that needed comforting that would free up one more set of arms that could be providing care to more critical patients.

"I pray for the best for the Iraqi children," he said. "I can't tell the difference between their kids and our kids. The Iraqi parents have the same care and compassion for their children as any American."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seems to have a knack for sentencing innocents to death and enslavement. Aside from his abysmal form of socialized medicine -- that will enslave generations unborn to untold trillions in debt -- he is infamous among America's military families for a quote that well nigh bordered on treason.

Just months after the accompanying photograph was taken, Reid abandoned all moral support for America's troops in the field.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday said the war in Iraq is lost militarily and "can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically" after more than four years of fighting...

"Now I believe, myself, that the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows: that this war is lost, that the surge is not accomplishing anything," Reid, D-Nev., told reporters...

While lawmakers were outspoken in press briefings, several officials described Wednesday's White House meeting as polite for the most part, but pointed during Reid's comments that he spoke with generals who likened Iraq to Vietnam and described it as a war in which the president refused to change course despite knowing victory was impossible... Bush bristled at the comparison, according to the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. One quoted him as saying, "I reject" the comparison.

Reid is a disgraceful little weasel who has yet to apologize to our armed forces and their families. And, should his government-run health care bill pass, he will be long gone when the entire system implodes under unsustainable waste, inefficiencies, fraud and debt.

"This war is lost."

This is Reid's legacy. This is Reid's mantra. This is Reid's political epitaph.


Hat tip: Papa B.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

AP's Andrew Taylor Invents Brand-New Phrase!

While laying down covering fire for the Democrats' Cloward-Piven-esque efforts to destroy the full faith and credit of the U.S. currency, Andrew Taylor of the Associated Press invents a brand new term.

The $1.1 trillion measure combines much of the year's unfinished budget work... into a 1,000-plus-page spending bill that would give the Education Department, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and others increases far exceeding inflation.

The 60-34 vote met the minimum threshold to end the GOP filibuster. A final vote was set for Sunday afternoon to send the measure to President Barack Obama.

The measure combines $447 billion in operating budgets with about $650 billion in mandatory payments for federal benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. It wraps together six individual spending bills and also contains more than 5,000 back-home projects...

"Back-home projects"?

"Back-home projects"?

Would those be the billions in wasteful spending that used to be called "earmarks"?

The very same projects that candidate Barack Obama promised to scrutinize, stating "...we need earmark reform... when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely."?

But there isn't enough money to defend the homeland against illegal aliens who are arrested for criminal activity, so Congress is slashing spending on that program.

California and other financially strapped states will lose tens of millions of federal dollars that they spend to jail illegal immigrants charged with crimes, under Congress' latest spending bill...

...Overall, spending for the program would fall from $400 million to $330 million for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, or SCAAP, which President Barack Obama had targeted for elimination. It's a formula grant program that provides aid to states and localities for correctional officer salary costs incurred for jailing criminal undocumented immigrants.

To be clear: Congress is able to devote billions of taxpayer funds for 5,000 of their pork-filled earmark projects but can't locate $70 million for a program that has bipartisan support in the states most affected by gang and other criminal activities conducted by illegal aliens. It may be trite to say that innocent people will assuredly die because of this ill-considered decision; but it's also spot-on.

These irresponsible Democrats are useless, sixties-retread radicals; and they need to be thrown out of office in 2010. They have clearly violated their oaths of office -- and the first duty of all elected officials -- to defend and uphold the Constitution.


Thursday, December 10, 2009

Democrat Utopia: Free Unicorns for Everyone


"Those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government." -- President Barack Obama, 1/20/09


The federal government -- controlled completely by Democrats -- is in the process of bequeathing our children crushing debts. Imagine being born into the world owing $200,000 for a house you'll never get to occupy. That's what each member of America's next generation will get to experience.

And it's not just the federal government. California. New York. Michigan. Illinois. All of the Blue States, dominated for decades by leftist Democrats, are disintegrating as we speak. Consider:

S&P Downgrades Illinois Illinois From AA- to A+ with a negative outlook.

The downgrade reflects what we view as the state's deteriorating liquidity and financial position... Illinois failed to address its fiscal 2009 deficit, which was carried into fiscal 2010. Similar to many other states, revenues are performing below originally forecast levels... The absence of recurring solutions in the next year to deal with the current budget challenges and begin to stabilize liquidity will likely result in a further downgrade of llinois.

Year in and year out, California spends $10 billion more than it takes in: And the state now faces a $21 billion dollar shortfall and officials have explored some *cough* creative secessionary proposals to paper over the disaster.

California's finances have been so bad that the governor's finance director, Mike Genest, told a budget forum in Washington last week that back in February he had combed through the U.S. Constitution to research whether California could legally declare bankruptcy -- or revert to some kind of territorial status.

With 16% unemployment, Michigan is staring at its own multi-billion dollar deficit: In addition tospending billions more than it takes in, Michigan's $2.3 billion community health budget, 90 percent of which is Medicaid, will get slammed with an additional $500 million or so by socialized medicine. And that's just part of the problem.

The Senate Fiscal Agency says the state collected $120 million less in tax revenues in the last two months than projected in May... That means the budget deficit is getting bigger than economists thought... Gov. Jennifer Granholm and lawmakers have cut spending and filled much of this year's hole with federal stimulus money. They are facing a bigger shortfall in the next budget.

Gee, that sounds sustainable. Filling in budget shortfalls with money from the federal taxpayer.

And, at the federal level, the hits just keep on comin'.

Emergency Jobless Claims Hit All-Time High: And I thought President Obama said the economy was recovering.

The number you won't hear mentioned anywhere in the Mainstream Media: 327,729. That is how many people shifted to Emergency Unemployment Compensation programs in the last week alone, hitting an all time record high of 4.2 million!

Oh, and did you hear?

America is broke -- and the Democrats keep spending: Politico's headline reads 'Dems to lift debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion, fear 2010 backlash'. In a nutshell, the Statists are in a central-planning frenzy and won't let up until they control health care and every energy-consuming business in the country:

In a bold but risky year-end strategy, Democrats are preparing to raise the federal debt ceiling by as much as $1.8 trillion before New Year’s rather than have to face the issue again prior to the 2010 elections.

* * *

Welcome to the Obamaconomy! Welcome to the CCCP! And let's have 'em run health care, too!


Tuesday, December 08, 2009

'Life Unworthy of Life': Rationed Care Through Democrat Eugenics


Nazi Germany enacted social policies to target certain human beings as "life unworthy of life" (German Lebensunwertes Leben). Among the targeted groups were the disabled and mentally ill. These programs were called Nazi Eugenics.

This poster promotes the policies of the era. It reads:

60000 Reichsmarks ... this is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the Community of Germans during his lifetime ... Fellow Citizen, that is your money, too ... Read '[A] New People' ... The monthly magazines of the Office for Race Politics of the NSDAP

It's hard to imagine government having the power to gauge the value of a human life, isn't it?

Yet the health care bill being contemplated in the United States Senate slashes $500 billion from Medicare. It is clear that these huge cuts will be accompanied by rationing. How will the new "Health Benefits Advisory Committee" decide who gets treatment? How do you assign a dollar value to a human life? What happens when a 'public option' becomes the only option for care?

This white paper by presidential adviser Ezekiel Emanuel places arbitrary values on human lives in order to ration care. It describes -- quite precisely -- how the public option rationing will work.

Emanuel's algorithm -- called "the complete lives system" -- discriminates against the disabled, the mentally ill, the elderly and even very young children.

Emanuel says of his system: "When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated... The death of a 20-year-old woman is intuitively worse than that of a two-month-old girl."

I doubt the parents of the two-month-old agree.

And, if you are a child with disabilities, the government has already completely given up on you. Emanuel believes "services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed."

...What’s worse, since he does not believe in “guaranteeing neuropsychological services to ensure children with learning disabilities can read and learn to reason," once the public option puts the private sector out of business, these types of life-changing services for children will no longer exist.

Years of research in treating children with autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and dyslexia are in jeopardy of being rendered null and void. Years of progress in passing anti-discrimination laws may be undone in one single bill.

It's hard to imagine such a system in the United States, where Americans could once choose their own treatment, pay for the health insurance they felt they needed and the procedures they required.

Where they could make decisions for their parents, their children and themselves.

But such a system is coming, whether you like it or not.

The Democrats' plans are pure evil, which explains the resemblance to Nazi Eugenics. They are willing to destroy every last vestige of our health care system -- the finest such system in the world -- in order to control you and your family.

Ask not for whom the distant bell tolls. It tolls for thee.


Monday, December 07, 2009

Whenever Democrats are foundering, expect them to deal...


Shhh... don't confuse Harry Reid when he's playing the race card...

"When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough.'" Yes, we called those people Democrats.

"When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn't quite right." We called those people Democrats, too.

"When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today." Oops. Those were the Democrats as well.

This guy is a walking disaster.

As an aside, the Democrat socialized health care plan appears to have been "penned from the pen."


Are Pro-Choice Democrats Ready to Turn Over Control of Their Bodies to a Political 'Health Choices Commissioner'?


Democrats want control over you. That used to mean control over your material wealth -- the manifestation of your labor -- through oppressive taxation and regulation.


Now it means they will decide your fate. The fate of your body.

All of you pro-choicers out there: where are you?

I assume you're going to stand up against national health care?

The issue of abortion notwithstanding, what about giving up control of your body to an all-powerful "Health Choices Commissioner"?


A maze of bureaucracies -- including 111 new boards, commissions, regulators and programs will govern your treatment.


Whether the term 'death panel' is overblown or not, this maze of red tape and regulation will absolutely decide what kind of medical treatment you will receive.


Of that, there is no debate.

How can an unelected few, officious boards of central planners, know what kind of medical benefits your children need when they're rationing who gets what?

They can't. You're about to turn these decisions over to a handful of politicians and bureaucrats, who will be called "experts."


These political hacks -- not you -- will decide the medical fate of your children and your parents. You won't. They will.

Let me ask you: will they make a better decision than you?


As for affordability, they'll take care of that too. There will be less new technology, fewer breakthrough drugs, less hospitals, less doctors and less nurses. It will become much more affordable, because you will be waiting in line. And who will pay the price? You will... through lower-quality health care and treatments approved by central planners.

How do we know this? Because we have examples in the UK and Canada, where waits for MRI scans can be six months long and many children never see a dentist.


Welcome to Socialism! Welcome to Barack Obama's America!

Call Harry Reid's offices (DC: 202-224-3542, Reno: 775-686-5750 and Carson City: 775-882-7343) -- and your own Senator's office as well -- and tell them how pleased you are that the government will be making all of your health care decisions.


Based upon: Mark Levin, 1/12/2009.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

He's So Historic: Black Unemployment Hits Great Depression Levels


The proverbial 'grim milestone' that you won't see reported in your local paper is instead offered up by the Black Voice News.

In what is being portrayed as a direct rebuke of the White House's lack of response to the deepening unemployment meltdown, Rep. Maxine Waters D-California, chair of the powerful Financial Services sub committee killed a scheduled November 19 vote on President Barack Obama’s financial regulation reform bill.

...Waters led a bloc of African American House Democrats angry and frustrated that the Obama administration is mired in heated partisan battles over healthcare reform, war troop levels and fixing Wall Street and is not doing enough to address the plight of Blacks and Browns on Main Street. The groups have been hit much harder than any other by unemployment.

The Black unemployment rate is officially 15.7 percent nationwide compared to 9.5 percent for whites. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are troubled by what they believe is the lack of response to the economic situation that is confronting them on the part of the administration... Joblessness for 16-to-24-year old Black men has reached Great Depression proportions -- 34.5 percent in October, more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population according to the Center for Labor Market Studies.

Maybe the CBC can join with the rest of the Democrats who plan a march on Washington to protest their own failed policies.

Or, better yet, they could join the National Black Republican Association and start fixing the problems rather than perpetuating them.


Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?


No.

Senate votes to keep Medicare cuts in health bill


Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Casting its first votes on revamping the nation's health care system, the Senate rejected a Republican bid Thursday to stave off Medicare cuts and approved safeguards for coverage of mammograms and other preventive tests for women. The first round of votes ended with a fragile Democratic coalition hanging together.

Senators voted 58-42 to reject an amendment by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would have stripped more than $400 billion in Medicare cuts from the nearly $1 trillion measure. It would have sent the entire 2,074-page bill back to the Senate Finance Committee for a redo.

Republicans said the proposed cuts to health insurance plans and medical providers mean seniors in the popular Medicare Advantage program will lose benefits. And they predicted lawmakers will ultimately back away from the cuts, once seniors start feeling the brunt.

"Medicare is already in trouble. The program needs to be fixed, not raided to create another new government program," said Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Remember the good old days when the media went stark raving bonkers because George Bush had proposed cutting $36 billion from Medicare to begin the process of reining in unfunded entitlement spending?

The DNC press release of that era shrieked in horror and its cries were gleefully picked up by the legacy media.

Cuts to Medicare Threaten Indiana Seniors. In addition, the Bush budget cuts Medicare by $36 billion over the next five years, resulting in $530,913,830 in cuts to hospitals, nursing homes, and home health providers serving seniors and people with disabilities in Indiana.

Note how Democrats are b***hing about $530 million.

These crackpots have blown $1.7 trillion in one year! That's:

$      530,913,830.00
versus
$1,700,000,000,000.00
Don't worry, seniors. Just get in line behind the illegal immigrants, the homeless and the prison inmates -- who will all be served by the same super-efficient, DMV-style, government-run health care system. And it'll be less expensive! And there won't be rationing! Or death panels! And there will be singing, pink unicorns in all of the waiting rooms to entertain the grandkids!

Anyone -- anyone -- who believes that this Democrat clusterf*** will work as planned should be immediately committed. After all, that's why the Democrats in Congress have specifically excluded themselves from the program. Even they know it will be a complete disaster designed to bankrupt the country while killing off their political enemies.

Oh, but all of your personal medical data will be totally safe. What could possibly happen to it, Mr. and Mrs. Salahi? How 'bout you, Mr. and Mrs. Joe the Plumber?


Update: Cat's out of the bag as Dems admit: "No. You can't keep your health insurance!"


Hat tip: Dan from New York.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Barack O'Flanagan's Top Ten Stimulus Fables


"Hey, I've got an idea! Let's borrow $787 billion from the Chinese... and spend it on a Stimulus package! We'll claim it will 'save or create' millions of new jobs! Wait, what's that you say? We did that? Seriously? Oh. Well, let's organize a 'jobs summit' and figure out how to do it all over again without any retrospective examination of how the first one failed! It'll be awesome!"

Dear America, brace yourselves. Prepare for a new litany of lies to rival the ten biggest fabrications of the first Stimulus disaster.

1. UNEMPLOYMENT "AT EIGHT PERCENT OR BELOW"

CLAIM: “Obama's top economic advisers claimed unemployment would remain at eight percent or below through this year with passage of an economic stimulus package (Associated Press, 6/14/09).
FAIL: The nation’s unemployment rate now stands at over 10% with 17% underemployment.

2. IMPACT FELT "IMMEDIATELY"

CLAIM: “Q: If the president gets his way and gets this package approved, he signs it into law, how soon before -- the American public starts to feel results, the creation of jobs?  NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL DIRECTOR LAWRENCE SUMMERS: You’ll see the effects begin almost immediately.” (CNN, 2/9/09)
FAIL: Oh, we felt it immediately, alright. Right in the kiester, so to speak. The U.S. economy has lost more than three million jobs since the trillion-dollar 'stimulus' was signed.

3. "90 PERCENT ... PRIVATE SECTOR"

CLAIM: "More than 90 percent of the jobs created by this plan will be in the private sector." – President Obama (News conference, 2/9/09)
FAIL: "...well over half of the jobs claimed so far have been in the public sector" (The New York Times, 11/4/09). But, after all, isn't that what Democrats do best? Grow government and diminish the individual?

4. "NO EARMARKS OR PET PROJECTS"

CLAIM: “There will be no earmarks or pet projects in this bill.” – Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Floor statement, 2/13/09)
FAIL: The trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ has produced countless examples of wasteful government spending, including repairs to a bridge that reportedly carries about 260 cars per day, many to a place called Rusty’s Backwater Saloon in Wisconsin, and in North Carolina, where ‘stimulus’ funds were reportedly used by one town to hire a new worker whose job is to apply for more ‘stimulus’ funds from Washington. Sounds efficient!

5. "A VERY FISCALLY SOUND PACKAGE"

CLAIM: “We must make sure the public understands this is a very fiscally sound package.” – Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Talk Radio News Service, 3/10/09)
FAIL: With the help of the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus,’ the Obama Administration spent more in its first 100 days than all previous presidents have combined.  The national debt has topped $12 trillion for the first time in U.S. history.  The federal government is now operating on a budget that doubles the national debt in five years and triples it in ten. Care to guess what happens to the economy when all of those debts come due -- and Social Security and Medicare collapse? Ah, but that's the genius of the Democrats: it's all intentional!

6. "A LOT MORE JOBS CREATED"

CLAIM: “The second hundred days you’re going to see a lot more jobs created.” – Vice President Joe Biden (ABC’s This Week, 7/5/09)
FAIL: The U.S. economy lost roughly 930,000 jobs in June, July, and August.  The good news: it was during this period that the President proclaimed he could “see a light at the end of the tunnel." The bad news: the light at the end of the tunnel is the express to Newark.

7. "A LOT MORE AMMUNITION LEFT"

CLAIM: “There is a lot more ammunition left in the stimulus package.” – Jared Bernstein, the Vice President's chief economist(CNNMoney.com, 10/30/09)
FAIL: “The government’s economic stimulus spending has already had its biggest impact and probably won’t contribute to significant growth next year, a top White House adviser said Thursday.” (Associated Press, 10/22/09). Not to worry, though, Joe Biden says "a lot" of jobs are on the way.

8. MORE WORK, NOT MORE JOBS

CLAIM: “I think we got the Recovery Act right. … It may be desirable to have a given amount of work shared among more people. But that’s not as desirable as expanding the total amount of work.” – National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers (The Washington Post, 11/8/09)
FAIL: The Obama Administration’s attempt to suddenly make job creation seem like a lesser goal of the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ flies in the face of numerous public statements made in the days before the bill was passed, including the President’s statement that creating jobs was his "bottom-line number one."

9. RAISES SAVE JOBS

CLAIM: “If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job.” – Department of Health and Human Services spokesman (Associated Press, 11/4/09)
FAIL: This is one of the problems of having economic illiterates run the country. None has ever held a significant private-sector job, ever. And this is one of several attempts by the Obama Administration to define a job “saved or created” by the ‘stimulus.’ In this particular case, the AP found “more than 9,300 existing employees... who received pay raises and benefits and whose jobs weren’t saved.”  In a newly released report, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office states that “it is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package." I know! Let's stick with 'Slow' Joe Biden's estimate of 'lots'.

10. "YOU HAVEN'T SEEN WASTEFUL SPENDING"

CLAIM: “You haven’t seen wasteful spending. No one has said we spent $2 million on things that didn’t exist.” – Vice President Joe Biden (The Daily Show, 11/17/09)
FAIL: Good thing he said that on The Daily Show, so everyone knew he was cracking wise. “Stimulus jobs reported in non-existent congressional districts. … Of all the problems found in the latest round of stimulus reporting, add another one: congressional districts that don’t exist.  ABC News reported yesterday that White House officials have found 700 mistakenly credited congressional districts out of more than 130,000 stimulus grants.” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11/18/09)  “The reports on jobs created or saved by the $787 billion economic stimulus package are ‘riddled with inaccuracies and contradictions,’ the federal watchdog overseeing the spending acknowledged Thursday.” (USA TODAY, 11/19/09)

Everyone knows what works. You start by slashing the size of government and decreasing taxes across the board -- on companies, capital gains and private sector workers. You spur the real economy.

Now, everyone knows what works, except for the blinkered, hard Left Democrats who now control the levers of power. They are driven by a Marxist ideology and the vision of a Utopian world government.

But perhaps Socialism will work this time! After all, Obama's Presidency is historic!

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Does Tort Reform Really Work?


Judge for yourself. The following chart highlights the states with highest and lowest malpractice insurance premiums.


Highest premiums20082009Change
Internists
Florida (Miami-Dade)$53,723$57,8598%
Illinois (Cook, Madison, St. Clair)$41,066$41,0660%
Michigan (Oakland, Wayne)$36,988$36,9880%
Ohio (Cuyahoga, Lorain)$40,020$34,017-15%
New York (Nassau, Suffolk)$33,360$33,3600%
General surgeons
Florida (Miami-Dade)$214,893$191,422-11%
Michigan (Wayne)$143,445$143,4450%
Illinois (Cook, Madison, St. Clair)$127,083$127,0830%
Ohio (Cuyahoga, Lorain)$141,336$120,135-15%
New York (Nassau, Suffolk)$106,583$106,5830%
Ob-gyns
Florida (Miami-Dade)$238,728$201,808-15%
New York (Nassau, Suffolk)$194,935$194,9350%
Illinois (Cook, Madison, St. Clair)$178,291$178,2910%
Nevada (Clark)$168,750$168,7500%
New Jersey$171,199$159,214-7%
Lowest premiums20082009Change
Internists
Minnesota$3,375$3,3750%
South Dakota$3,697$3,6970%
Wisconsin$3,946$3,9460%
Idaho$5,552$5,276-5%
Oregon$5,479$5,4790%
General surgeons
Minnesota$11,306$11,3060%
South Dakota$12,569$12,5690%
Wisconsin$13,813$13,8130%
Iowa$17,860$17,8600%
North Dakota$18,063$18,0630%
Ob-gyns
Wisconsin$18,154$18,1540%
South Dakota$20,042$20,0420%
Minnesota$20,626$20,6260%
Iowa$27,285$27,2850%
North Dakota$27,596$27,5960%

So, does tort reform really help reduce health care costs? Compare the list of states with the lowest premiums to the master list of states that have enacted tort reform. Gee, what a coincidence.

No, it's not very complicated. But that doesn't mean the Statists in the pay of the trial lawyers will ever change their minds. Come hell or high water, they want to control your physical well-being using government-run health care, NHS-style.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

The Real 'Hockey Stick' Graph


The most notable 'hockey stick' graph doesn't come from the world of faux climate science.


It's yesterday's chart for spot gold price.

Sprott Asset Management's John Embry describes several troubling anecdotes related to the trembling currency market and their ramifications for the near-term economic future.

The physical gold market is in the process of "overwhelming the chicanery in the paper-gold market," which Embry believes is highly suspect. Despite buying huge quantities of its own bonds, he surmises that the feds are terrified of a failed Treasury auction. The government's ability to finance operations -- by marketing its immense debt -- hangs in the balance.

India and China are competing for a limited amount of physical gold. There are rumors that Germany has requested that its gold held in the U.S. "be repatriated".

Furthermore, Hong Kong recently announced its intent to house Asian gold, thereby removing it from "the increasingly suspect London market". An analysis by a UK-based consultancy has raised suspicions that the London Market -- the world's largest for gold -- has far more paper claims than physical gold on hand.

This analysis aligns with word that, starting in late September, large London investors began demanding physical bullion as opposed to paper. Embry asserts we are nearing an inflection point that "will reflect the growing realization by investors that hold substantial amounts of paper-gold vehicles that they may not actually have the protection they think they have."

Ultimately, he believes that Alan Greenspan's "wildly expansionary monetary policy"; the feds' failure to regulate derivatives; and falsified economic statistics -- by the current "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse", Lawrence Summers, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner and the U.K.'s banking head Mervyn King -- will lead to continued economic hardship.

But, after all, that would appear to be the Obama administration's goal: some call it Cloward-Piven government.


Hat tip: BlogProf.