The future of Obamacare?

Sentenced to death on the NHS - Telegraph: "In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.

Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn."

Enhanced Interrogations

The Corner on National Review Online: "As they say, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts. The MSM has tried to have both for the last five years, arguing against experience and common sense that tactics like sleep-deprivation and waterboarding were not effective. Clearly, they worked, and to great effect. As Steve [Hayes] says, that case should now be closed."

I'm one of them

57% Would Like to Replace Entire Congress - Rasmussen Reports™: "A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% would vote to replace the entire Congress and start all over again. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure how they would vote."

The Strange Case of the Obama Meltdown

The Strange Case of the Obama Meltdown

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Double standards? As always

Michelle Malkin: "White House flack Gibbs called any suggestion that Axelrod benefits from the relationship “ridiculous.” Retorted Gibbs: “David has left his firm to join public service.” So when Republicans trade power and access, Team Obama calls that being “in cahoots” with business. But when noble servants like Axelrod do it, it’s called “public service.”"

Death Spiral

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll - Rasmussen Reports™: "The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 27% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -14. These figures mark the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President. The previous low of -12 was reached on July 30 (see trends)."

Nat Hentoff is scared of Obama

I Am Finally Scared of a White House Administration Nat Hentoff Cato Institute: Commentary: "I was not intimidated during J. Edgar Hoover's FBI hunt for reporters like me who criticized him. I railed against the Bush-Cheney war on the Bill of Rights without blinking. But now I am finally scared of a White House administration."

And health care hasn't been added yet

TheHill.com - 10-year budget deficit grows by $2 trillion: "The White House next week will revise the 10-year budget deficit from $7.1 trillion to $9 trillion."

What will happen with a huge health care entitlement program?

The Corner on National Review Online: "The Washington Times reports this morning that this simple, basic Big Gummint program has spun totally out of control: it was clearly not thought through (even a little), it was under-budgeted by 2 or 3 hundred percent (and counting), and it was woefully under-resourced — such that staff have to be hired from the outside or pulled away from other government functions (like running air-traffic control) in order to clear the back-log. Clearing the back-log, by the way, is a 24/7 operation that's also requiring additonal budgeting for overtime pay and a training program."

Infinite needs, limited resources

Critical Condition on National Review Online: "...needs, whether medical or other, are infinite, while resources remain limited, always and everywhere. Even in principle, therefore, 'universal coverage' must evolve, quickly, into something far less compassionate; and in any event, tax increases, even on the middle class, cannot be sufficient to avoid rationing, precisely because the new/expanded programs funded by them will increase demands on the system. And at some point higher taxes will not yield higher revenues, although that seems to be a virtue in the Fairness World of President Obama."

Bad news for the greatest generation

Townhall.com::Blog: "Even the New York Times has to admit that Obamacare would push granny and gramps to an early grave. Sure, Robert Pear tries to deliver the news gently, but if the Times is telling the seniors to be worried, that's an unmistakable signal to seniors that Obamacare is very bad news for them."

Higher taxes for everyone?

The Corner on National Review Online: "Out today: “A new Gallup Poll finds that 68% of Americans believe their federal income taxes will be higher by the time Barack Obama's first term as president ends. This includes 35% who say their taxes will be ‘a lot higher.’ ” The survey does report 9% of Americans think they will get a tax cut (yes, the from the forthcoming pet-unicorn deduction!)."

ME: People are not stupid. The ever-increasing size of government and the proposals to increase the size of government, not the least of which is the takeover of the health care industry, have to be paid for somehow. It will be upon the backs of the middle class. The government could confiscate 100% of the income of the top 1%, and I bet it would not run the government for nine days (that was a statistic from the 80s; I cannot imagine it has change much, other than it is likely now less than a week).

Abuse of power

Health Insurers Fear Probe By House Dems Is Reprisal for Opposing Part of Obama's Plan - Political News - FOXNews.com: "In a move some fear is a reprisal for opposing President Obama's health care plan, Democrats sent 52 letters to health insurers requesting financial records for a House committee's investigation"

Loss of sovereignty

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death Panels - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online: "After my weekend column recounted the experience of a recent British visitor of mine, I received an e-mail from a gentleman in Glasgow who cannot get an x-ray for his back — because he has no sovereignty over his back. His back is merely part of the overall mass of Scottish backs, to which a government budget has been allocated, but alas one which does not run to x-rays."

McCarthyites on the Left

Townhall.com::Blog: "Senior Democratic Congressmen Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak have sent an outrageous letter to Bruce Bodaken, Chairman and CEO of Blue Shield of California, which I will read at the start of today's show, and link when it is available online. It demands a mountain of information on executive compensation as well as premium rates etc, all by September 4. This letter is a straightforward bit of bullying --an attempt by Waxman and Stupak to silence any segment of the private sector that might be inclined to fight back against the takeover of American medicine by the federal government. It is intended to make the health insurance industry fear opposing any part of the Obama-Pelosi scheme to remake American health care." [emphasis mine]

Are you surprised?

Firms with Obama ties profit from health push - Yahoo! News: "President Barack Obama's push for a national health care overhaul is providing a financial windfall in the election offseason to Democratic consulting firms that are closely connected to the president and two top advisers."

"Not essential"

Sebelius Says Government Insurance Plan Not Essential (Update2) - Bloomberg.com: "Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said providing citizens with the option of government-run insurance isn’t essential to the Obama administration’s proposed overhaul of U.S. health care.
“What’s important is choice and competition,” Sebelius said today on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The public option itself “is not the essential element.”
Asked if a cooperative plan is a possible replacement, Sebelius said she didn’t know what alternatives Congress would settle on among competing versions of the health legislation now under consideration. The Senate Finance Committee is discussing cooperatives, or networks of health-insurance plans owned by their customers, that would get started with government funds."

ME: Do you suppose Sebelius' joint Townhall Meeting with Specter was a come-to-Jesus moment?

The death of competition in health care

OBAMACARE KILLS HEALTH COMPETITION - New York Post: "There's nothing inherently wrong with one company earning a large market share, but the lack of significant competition helps contribute to higher insurance costs and poorer service. Moreover, this market concentration hasn't necessarily flowed from consumer preference in a free market, but results in good part from barriers to entry erected by state insurance regulation.

Obama's answer to this problem is to set up a new government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers. But such a plan will ultimately result in less competition, not more.

A government-run plan would have an inherent advantage in the marketplace, because it ultimately would be subsidized by taxpayers. The government plan could keep its premiums artificially low or offer extra benefits, because it could turn to taxpayers to cover any shortfalls.

Plus, the government plan also could use its market power to impose much lower reimbursement rates on doctors and hospitals -- Medicare and Medicaid do that now, to the point where they often pay less than cost. Providers would be forced to recoup the income lost thanks to the 'public option' by raising what they charge to private insurance -- driving up premiums and making private insurance even less competitive.

In the end, the private-insurance market would be eviscerated, leaving millions of Americans with no choice but the government-run program. No choice. No competition."

Sarah Palin addresses rationing

Sarah Palin Notes Facebook: "The rationing system proposed by one of President Obama’s key health care advisors is particularly disturbing. I’m speaking of the “Complete Lives System” advocated by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the president’s chief of staff. President Obama has not yet stated any opposition to the “Complete Lives System,” a system which, if enacted, would refuse to allocate medical resources to the elderly, the infirm, and the disabled who have less economic potential. [1] Why the silence from the president on this aspect of his nationalization of health care? Does he agree with the “Complete Lives System”? If not, then why is Dr. Emanuel his policy advisor? What is he advising the president on? I just learned that Dr. Emanuel is now distancing himself from his own work and claiming that his “thinking has evolved” on the question of rationing care to benefit the strong and deny the weak. [2] How convenient that he disavowed his own work only after the nature of his scholarship was revealed to the public at large."

More on that post office remark

Obamacare: The “Post Office” of Health Care Plans » The Foundry: "At his orchestrated townhall event today, President Obama defended the notion that his government-run public health care plan wouldn’t crowd out private insurers by referencing the symbiotic relationship between UPS, Fedex and the Post Office. Bad timing Mr. President. On Friday, the New York Times Business Section actually called for the privatization of the post office amid staggering losses, and even said it was in “General Motors territory.” So while the President sells you on his “post office” of health care plans, here are some questions to consider:"

Read the whole thing.

Healthcare going postal?

Obama's Post Office health care disaster Washington Examiner: "Explaining why he believes a public option would not crowd out and ultimately eliminate private insurance, Obama said, 'My answer is that if the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining…then I think private insurers should be able to compete. They do it all the time. I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It's the Post Office that's always having problems.'"

ME: You know, it's only 20 minutes. That's the minimum how long I have to wait in my small town post office everytime I go. But, 20 minutes to me, a small business owner for whom every minute counts, is too long. It doesn't matter what time of day I go. There are 4 or 5 people in line. If they have a lot of packages (I often have at 10-12), you can figure almost 10 minutes per person. That's how slow the service is; that's how slow their antiquated equipment is. God help us with healthcare.

So much for exercising our rights

The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room » Reid: Protesters are ‘evil-mongers’: "Town hall protesters are 'evil-mongers,' says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)"

Who does the public trust?

Trust on Issues - Rasmussen Reports™: "For the first time in over two years of polling, voters trust Republicans slightly more than Democrats on the handling of the issue of health care. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that voters favor the GOP on the issue 44% to 41%."

NHS has a death panel?

Hawking and the NHS - Iain Murray - The Corner on National Review Online: "A relative of mine , an award-winning doctor[in Britain], resigned from her job as head of a certain department at her hospital because she couldn't take having to make decisions every day over who lived and who died as a result of granting or denying treatment. The NHS is predicated on this model."

ME: Eleven years ago my father at the age of 59 had a terrible stroke, the result of calcified arteries in the brain stem. To rectify the problem, though there would be persistent quality of life issues with which he would have to live subsequent to an operation, the doctor recommended an arterial by-pass in the brain stem, an extremely difficult and dangerous operation. The doctor explained that chances of survival were not the greatest, with or without the operation; and, if he survived the operation, the long-term prognosis was not good, with life-expectancy at not much more than five years. The doctor did not paint a rosy scenario for my father, but the doctor let my father and his family decide what course of action to take. That decision-making process is about to be handed over to a panel, who, in all likelihood, if they had existed 11 years ago, would have deemed it too costly to operate on my father and to maintain an invalid for 5 years. My father would have been left to die, and he would not have seen the birth of his second grandchild almost 5 years ago. He has quality of life issues, but his cognitive abilities are fine, enough so that he is sickened, for himself and for his child and grandchildren, by the monstrosity that is being shoved down the American people’s throats. We are hopeful he will see his oldest granddaughter graduate from high school in two years. However, our hope diminishes, when we think this absurd healthcare bill will be enacted, and my father’s case will be reviewed by a panel who will decide that it is too expensive to continue providing him the level of care he has been receiving all these years. We have the best health care system in the world bar none. Leave it alone!

Camille Paglia of Salon

...quoted in The Corner on National Review Online: "As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church of my youth, I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism. This is in fact what Sarah Palin hit on in her shocking image of a 'death panel' under Obamacare that would make irrevocable decisions about the disabled and elderly. When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palin's shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorate's unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives. A death panel not only has the power of life and death but is itself a symptom of a Kafkaesque brave new world where authority has become remote, arbitrary and spectral. And as in the Spanish Inquisition, dissidence is heresy, persecuted and punished." [emphasis mine]

Kinsley on Health Care [Ramesh Ponnuru]

The Corner on National Review Online:

He asks a good question: 'If the government requires insurers to accept all customers and charge all the same price, regulates all aspects of their marketing to make sure they aren't discriminating, and then redistributes the profits to make sure that no company gets penalized unfairly, in what sense is the industry still 'private'?' Here's another: Since Kinsley's right, why is it unfair for conservatives to call a health-care bill that does a lot more than that a government takeover?"

Palin Paranoid?

The Corner on National Review Online: "Palin is not being paranoid. [Maybe sophomoric but not paranoid]. Some of President Obama’s most influential health-care advisers have promoted rationing and quality-of-life judgmentalism. For example, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s brother, has suggested that we can no longer afford Hippocratic medicine, laid the intellectual groundwork for rationing based on age, and even stated that medical services “provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed.” (My analysis of Emanuel’s proposals can be found at my First Things blog.) No wonder Palin is worried about the level of treatment her son Trig would receive under Obamacare."

Real or Contrived? Lawmakers Argue Over Nature of Health Care Protests - Political News - FOXNews.com:

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said, 'I think attacking citizens in our country for expressing their opinions about an issue of this magnitude may indicate some weakness in their position on the merits,' McConnell said. 'And I also think it's particularly absurd for the Democrats, who have over an $8 million e-mail list over at the DNC called Organize America, to be criticizing citizens for being organized.'

ME: Over half the Americans polled oppose the health care reform as touted by the socialist Democratic Party.

Citing safety concerns, U. City cancels McCaskills event | Political Fix | STLtoday

Citing safety concerns, U. City cancels McCaskills event Political Fix STLtoday: "A day after a Russ Carnahan event led to the arrests of five participants and a reporter, University City High School — where U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill was set to hold a similar event on Tuesday– announced that the forum has been canceled."

ME: There were no safety concerns until Obama, the President of the United States, began rallying his troops, including ACORN and the SEIU thugs, against the majority of Americans who oppose socialized health care. You want to talk Astroturf, let's talk ACORN and SEIU.

Georgia Democrat yells at local doctor over health care - The Back Story - Washington Times: "Tensions are running so high at town hall meetings that Rep. David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, yelled at a local doctor concerned about health care after mistaking him for an 'astroturf' political operative looking for a fight."

The empty words of a journalist turned flack | Washington Examiner

The empty words of a journalist turned flack Washington Examiner: "“There are people out there with a computer and a lot of free time, and they take a phrase here and there — they simply cherry-pick and put it together,” Douglass said, “and make it sound like he’s saying something that he didn’t really say.”

A few years ago, Linda Douglass the journalist might have asked just how Obama’s 2003 declaration of support for single-payer health care was taken out of context. Now, Douglass the White House spokeswoman didn’t even address the question.

Instead, she played a clip of Obama as president, at an AARP forum in July, pledging that people who like their current insurance will be allowed to keep it."

ME: Linda Douglass' must not watch Fox News or listen to Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. The president claiming that people can keep their current issurance, which he has stated in speech after speech, has been played countless times on the forementioned programs. In juxtaposition to what he said in 2003, his statements are lies.

Max Schulz: A Town Hall Protest in Maryland - WSJ.com: "As he entered the auditorium of the Mardela Middle and High School on Tuesday, a surprised Frank Kratovil waded through a sea of constituents. The first-term Democratic congressman had been told by aides that maybe two or three dozen residents would attend the “Congress in Your Corner” town-hall event in this Eastern Shore town of about 360 people. Instead, more than 250 people showed up.

The crowd repeatedly burst into wild cheering, but not for Mr. Kratovil. The cheers were for residents who gave the congressman a piece of their mind over what’s happening in Washington."

The Corner on National Review Online: "In the last few years, I have had the opportunity to compare the human and veterinary health services of Great Britain, and on the whole it is better to be a dog."

Of Mice and Men

GOP hits Pelosi for mouse funds - Washington Times: "The Obama administration revealed last week that as much as $16.1 million from the stimulus program is going to save the San Francisco Bay Area habitat of, among other things, the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse."

Remember what Obama said about earmarks:

Kudlow's Money Politic$ on National Review Online:

"Here’s the key: If Team Obama would deregulate energy, drill, drill, drill, and make it easier for our Canadian cousins to send us oil from the oil sands in Alberta, oil prices would be a whole lot lower with greater inventory supplies. And our enemies in the Middle East would be a whole lot poorer."

Thomas Sowell on Health Care:

The Corner on National Review Online: "What urgent reason is there to believe that the government of all institutions can make healthcare less expensive? If you want something cheaper, you can always get something cheaper. It is just that you are not going to get the same quality. In order for them to bring down the cost of healthcare, the government would have to operate the system more efficiently than the market does. I cannot think of anything that the government operates more efficiently than the market does."

Oil below $60 as traders eye company results - Yahoo! Finance

Does it break your heart?

Oil below $60 as traders eye company results - Yahoo! Finance: "VIENNA (AP) -- Oil prices slid well below $60 a barrel Friday as investors braced for company earnings reports next week that will provide clues on the strength of crude demand."

Unfortunately, low prices=bad economy. To wish for a good economy is to wish for high prices. Hmmm.