The New Clarion

Justin Ruben of MoveOn.org says this:

August was a real wake-up call for progressives when health care reform was endangered by an angry mob organized by an alliance of insurance companies, oil companies and right-wing fear-mongers.

He’s continuing the leftist strategy of characterizing citizens concerned about big government taking over health care as an angry mob controlled by dark forces with ignoble motives. Those people who showed up at town halls represent over half of America.

Does he believe it? Probably. It follows from their premise that Americans are corrupted by capitalist greed. That same idea is behind Obama’s statements about doctors being corrupted by greed so that they would perform unnecessary amputations or tonsilectomies to make money (and therefore we need the impartial philosopher-kings of the state to control medicine for the doctors’ own good).

Whether leftists believe it or not, they will repeat statements such as the above quote until it becomes conventional wisdom. Their beliefs and their premises will continue to be at odds with reality. And leftists never, ever think twice about their “narrative”; when they do, they become neocons.

I see Obama is still insisting on his original Obama care legislation instead of some watered down compromise. I think this is a last ditch effort to put a socialized medicine over on the American people. My response to that is a few more lyrics added to a recent post which I repost in part below. (more…)

Let’s imagine that Barack Obama were given a truth serum before tonight’s speech on health care. I know, a politician saying only the truth is a fantasy that stretches “the willful suspension of disbelief” more than unicorns or hobbits ever could. Imagine some alternate universe in which it could happen.

This is my vision of what an honest Obama would say. Click on Read more to enjoy this fantasy.

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I’ve only watched a few minutes here and there of Glenn Beck’s show on Fox News, but I have heard that he was the target of a boycott by the left. It turns out on Friday his ratings beat Bill O’Reilly. It seems this is the first time the 5pm EST slot has bested the 8pm EST slot. Nice work giving him publicity, boycotters! He couldn’t have done it without you.

I’m surprised to hear that the boycott was led by the White House. And who specifically leaned on advertisers to drop Beck like he was hot? Van Jones — the communist who recently joined the millions of unemployed workers in America.

So the Czar of “Green Jobs” spent his time on an Alinskyite campaign attacking Obama’s media enemies. That figures, since “Green Jobs” is a fantasy.

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With two children in public-school Kindergarten, I was very concerned about Tuesday’s speech by President Obama to all public school students from pre-Kindergarten to sixth grade. It wasn’t so much that I thought my two girls would become Obamatons—my concern was more along the lines of the precedent being established.

Any speech suitable for delivery to such a wide range of ages is likely to be little more than rah-rah cheerleading about staying in school. [UPDATE: That is exactly what it turned out to be.] But this sort of thing always starts out innocuously; next thing you know kids are writing out pledges to Obama that they’ll stay in school and there’s a weekly address to them. The whole thing reeks of the “cult of personality” that has encircled Obama since he announced his candidacy. I guarantee that he would not exercise subsequent restraint, it’s just not in his nature.

But the left rightly points out that Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush made such a speech once each and there wasn’t a groundswell of opposition. Leaving aside the fact that most parents of school-age children now were school-age children themselves back then (a salient point that they conveniently ignore), they see only one possible explanation for the current backlash: the president’s race.

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Once more, a comment of mine takes on a life of its own and demands its own post.  This one is in response to a comment left by Greg Paulhus, one of the remaining Canadians who have yet to be disillusioned by the ongoing collapse of their socialized medical system.

In it, Paulhus attempts to claim that the stories of misery in Canada are emanating primarily from Alberta and Ontario, where there are smidgeons of private health care being permitted for the moment — so therefore, those little smidgeons of private health care must be the root of the problems there!

While Mr. Paulhus catches up on his basic logic skills, the rest of us can dig into the facts he’s evading.

But first, let us give him some credit: by trying to tell us that Ontario and Alberta don’t count anymore, he nonethless admits thereby that things really aren’t all candy-stripers and balloons in the Great White North.  Instead of telling us how nice the system is in Canada, now it’s all about how great things are in Saskatchewan!

As I am familiar with this playing field, this moving of the goalposts by Paulhus will avail him no good.  The facts on the ground must be pretty bad in Alberta and Ontario for the Canadian socialists to be chewing their own legs off in the trap like that.  Of course, what Paulhus fails to note for our non-Canadian audience is that Ontario and Alberta together contain half or so of the population.  Those are big legs.

The stories like this that I know of through personal connections and direct experience all predate the advent of that smidgeon of private medicine that is currently permitted in Ontario.  This privatization was undoubtedly prompted by the Chaoulli case in Quebec that I noted earlier; that case is only binding in Quebec at present, and yet Ontario and Alberta have since found it necessary to permit that smidgeon to order to alleviate the ongoing slow collapse (and likely Chaoulli-inspired legal consequences) of the system. This failure has been long in coming, and was thoroughly manifest long before the privatization; the latter is obviously  a *response* to the crisis, not its cause.

(I’d be interested in knowing more about what is going on in Quebec, where Chaoulli has legal force. That Paulhus fails to mention it makes it a good bet that Quebec also breaks his narrative to some extent.)

But wait, there’s more! (with apologies to Billy Mays, RIP): the “transfer payment” subsidy.

These payments are part of an interprovincial welfare program, which the federal government uses to redistribute tax wealth from the “have” provinces to the “have-not” ones. You can bet that Alberta (oil) and Ontario (manufacturing base) are “have” provinces… while Saskatchewan, the birthplace of Canadian socialism, has long been a “have-not”.

The extent to which things are medically “better” in Saskatchewan is the extent to which their system is subsidized — by Alberta and Ontario. Paulhus and his ilk are no better than those Easterners in the early ’80′s who crowed about the National Energy Program and the low gas prices it brought about… while carefully failing to look too deeply into what that cheap gas was costing Albertans.

UPDATE: well, I’d almost have lost that bet; Saskatchewan has been a relatively small net recipient of transfer payments of late, and won’t even qualify for any in 2009-2010.  Ontario and Alberta, however, remain the net losers in this deal.

Below is a lighthearted parody that cracked me up:

Edward Kennedy’s life was not entirely bad. I was surprised to read this:

During the 1970s, Kennedy was instrumental in deregulating the interstate trucking industry and airline ticket prices, two innovations that have vastly improved the quality of life in America even as—or more precisely, because—they pushed power out of D.C. and into the pocketbooks of everyday Americans. We are incalculably richer and better off because something like actual prices replaced regulatory fiat in trucking and flying.

Kennedy even said at the time,

The problems of our economy have occurred not as an outgrowth of laissez-faire, unbridled competition.  They have occurred under the guidance of federal agencies, and under the umbrella of federal regulations.

If anything, the fact that even Senator Kennedy was for deregulation is evidence of how America was swinging to the right in the late 1970′s. In the Bush-Obama era, we’ve been headed in the opposite direction.

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“The babies born in hospital corridors: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets”:

Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley, who obtained the figures, said Labour had cut maternity beds by 2,340, or 22 per cent, since 1997. At the same time birth rates have been rising sharply – up 20 per cent in some areas.

“Man collapses with ruptured appendix… three weeks after NHS doctors ‘took it out’”:

“However, we would like to apologise if Mr Wattson felt dissatisfied with the care he received at Great Western Hospital.”

Paul Krugman, hack and Nobel Prize (debased) winner, recently said:

In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false. (emphasis mine)

The thing that I fear most about our turn to fascist medicine is not that these horror stories will come hear (though I do fear that plenty), but that the individual mandate will leave me and my family nowhere to turn to avoid this living hell.

The “public option” is bad and will tend to crowd out private insurance, especially if Wal-Mart puts millions on the rolls in one fell swoop. It’s terrible and a wanton violation of individual rights both in the service side and the expropriation end. But our health care system has “survived” Medicare, Medicaid, and the countless regulations that they have imposed.

I have great insurance presently. If I am forced to participate in the government health care system, my family’s quality of life will demonstrably suffer. And should bad things happen, my safety net of trusted doctors, advanced hospitals, and reasonable out-of-pocket expenses will evaporate. This is a life-or-death issue for me.

We Arizonans had a chance last election to create a state’s rights trial balloon that could have potentially nullified the whole endeavor. It was narrowly defeated and thankfully the state legislature has put it up for another statewide referendum in 2010.

A far better challenge to these infringements on our freedoms would be the Ninth Amendment but I’ll take what I can get. I just hope that 2010 is not too late.

Yes, he is in the twilight of life, but he is my father.  More importantly, for 61 years he has been my mother’s lifelong love.  They went through WW2, they immigrated to a Canadian farm from S. England.  Dad pursued several means of employment to provide a comfortable living while raising three boys.

On Monday, Aug 17th, he stumbled, fell, and broke his elbow.  An ambulance took him to the local hospital.  There the emergency doctor told Dad they could NOT set his arm.  He would have to be taken to a larger hospital (a half-hour’s drive), when there was an opening in the Orthopaedic Surgeon’s schedule.

Dad was to wait, in the local hospital’s bed, numb with morphine.  Imagine —uncertain days of pain, medicated fog and dysfunction, imposed upon you because Universal Health Care could not ‘fit you in’?  My mother lay awake, alone, for two nights, sharing his discomfort, and fearing his death, until that opening appeared on Wed Aug 19th.

An ambulance van drove Dad to the scheduled appointment with the Orthopod.   “We’re sorry, an emergency came up”.  The window of opportunity had closed.  At least Dad was now at the hospital where the Orthopod worked.

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Obama has unwisely outraged old people by trying to fund socialized medicine on their backs. The Republicans sense an opportunity for political gain, as well they should. But what do they conclude?

WASHINGTON — Republicans are targeting older Americans worried about President Barack Obama’s health overhaul plans with a “seniors’ health care bill of rights.”

The six principles outlined Monday by the Republican National Committee include protecting Medicare, prohibiting rationing of health care based on age and making sure government doesn’t get between seniors and their doctors.

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The Democrat Party is the Looter Party. The Looters want to take over 15% of the economy in their quest for total control. Yes, as altruists, they believe dictating the lives of the collective is moral. Looters who loot for good of the collective are still Looters.

Frederic Bastiat called it “legalized plunder.” Plunder is plunder, legal or not.

50% of medical spending in America is done by the government. And guess what? The system is FUBAR. So the Looter Party’s solution is to make medical spending 100% government funded — and government controlled. This is like a man going to the doctor because he has cancer, and the doctor pulls out a gun and shoots the man. Hey, might as well go 100% and just finish him off.

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I just finished listening to The Fountainhead on audiobook and a lot of the opinions expressed by the execrable characters rang hollow to my ears. Maybe it’s the people I deal with or the blogs I read, but I just don’t hear people saying things so explicitly—the altruism and collectivism I encounter is subtle.

Then I read this article about the reaction to the Whole Foods CEO’s recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal about establishing a free(r) market in health care. The following quotes could have come from straight from the Council of American Grocers:

Christine Taylor, a 34-year-old New Jersey shopper, vowed never to step foot in another Whole Foods again.

“I will no longer be shopping at Whole Foods,” Taylor told ABCNews.com. “I think a CEO should take care that if he speaks about politics, that his beliefs reflect at least the majority of his clients.”

And:

A commenter on the Whole Foods forum, identified only by his handle, “PracticePreach,” wrote, “It is an absolute slap in the face to the millions of progressive-minded consumers that have made [Whole Foods] what it is today.”

“You should know who butters your hearth-baked bread, John,” wrote the commenter. “Last time I checked it wasn’t the insurance industry conservatives who made you a millionaire a hundred times over.”

In these parasites’ view, Whole Foods was running a sale: buy organic produce and get John Mackey’s soul free. While sympathetic to his position and plight, I am not entirely sure what Mackey was expecting the reaction to be since his business caters primarily to leftist, environmentalist types with a predilection for government action and a general hostility to business. His customers gave him the means to a prominent pulpit but only inasmuch as he will spout their beliefs. They simply will not tolerate heterodoxy and he will lose business over this.

(If we start seeing buttons reading “We Don’t Buy Whole Foods” or discover that his CFO has stealthily been hiring socialists for key positions within the company, I’ll know that Mackey’s capitulation is near.)

The Democrats have decided to continue demonizing the opposition to their health care bill, even though a majority of voters are against them. Harry Reid called town hall protesters evil-mongers, whatever that means. (They are stirring up evil? Calling forth demons?) James Clyburn, the third most powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives, recalls the civil rights era:

“I have seen this kind of hate before. I have seen this discussion before,” he said. “I have seen snarling dogs going after people who were trying to peacefully assemble. I have seen the eyes of people who were being spat upon.”

“This is all about activity trying to deny the establishment of a civil right. And I do believe that health care for all is — a civil right,” the House Majority Whip argued. “And I think that is why you see this kind of activity. This is an attempt on the part of some to deny the establishment of a civil right.”

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In his weekly radio address today, President Obama assailed the critics of the current efforts at health care reform:

And let me start by dispelling the outlandish rumors that reform will promote euthanasia, cut Medicaid or bring about a government takeover of health care. That’s simply not true.

Ok, the reader of the transcript or listener to the speech thinks to himself.  He’s going to show how the proposed legislation will not lead to all the evil things that the critics are claiming it will.  Unfortunately, they will read on or listen in vain.  No evidence is given.  President Obama evidently believes it is enough to have said: “That simply isn’t true.”  Because he said so. 

The next five minutes of the six minute address are mostly given over to demonizing the insurance companies, and explaining all the unfunded mandates he hopes to foist upon them, and all the things he will force them to do, or not do:

We’ll require insurance companies to cover routine checkups and preventive care . . .

We’ll stop insurance companies from denying coverage because of a person’s medical history . . .

With reform, insurance companies will also have to limit how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses.  And we will stop insurance companies from placing arbitrary caps on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year, or a lifetime . . .

But government isn’t taking over health care.  The President ended with statements about those who are trying to politicize the health care debate:

There are those who are focused on the so-called politics of health care; who are trying to exploit differences or concerns for political gain.  And that’s to be expected.  That’s Washington.  But let’s never forget that this isn’t about politics.  This is about people’s lives.  This is about people’s businesses.  This is about America’s future.  That’s what’s at stake.

Indeed!  America’s future is at stake.  And the President wants that future to be socialist, with individual rights tossed overboard.  This isn’t about politics, Mr. President?  Think again.  As long as health care is left to individuals in a free market, it is not about politics.  But it is you, Mr. President, who are politicizing health care, by forcing the health care industry to become an arm of the government, in all but name.  Who do you think you’re kidding?

Mark Steyn identifies as a problem the unmanageable size of proposed bills, such as the current health care reform bill:

Thousand-page bills, unread and indeed unwritten at the time of passage, are the death of representative government. They also provide a clue as to why, in a country this large, national government should be minimal and constrained. Even if you doubled or trebled the size of the legislature, the Conyers conundrum would still hold: No individual can read these bills and understand what he’s voting on.

Then he jumps to the wrong solution to the problem:  

That’s why the bulk of these responsibilities should be left to states and subsidiary jurisdictions, which can legislate on such matters at readable length and in comprehensible language.

One thousand page bills are certainly a problem.  The answer, however, is not the Balkanization of the US.    Is socialized medicine at the state level any better than socialized medicine at the Federal level?  One is just as wrong as the other, regardless of the relative length of the corresponding bills. It is inherent in any centrally planned economy, wherein the government attempts to plan the details of the lives of hundreds of millions of people, down to the type of food they can eat, that there will be enormous, and enormously detailed, legislation. 

The solution to this problem is individual rights and capitalism.  The sole purpose of a proper government is the protection of individual rights. In such a capitalist society there wouldn’t even be a health care bill.  That’s all one thousand pages of collectivist central planning that would never have been written, let alone read.  Or not read.  If a capitalist society felt the need for a health care bill, it  would consist of one sentence:

“Resolved: there shall be a free market in health care, as in all other fields.”

Then even the likes of John Conyers would have time enough at last to read a bill before he voted on it.

Betsy Speicher’s Facebook page links to a couple of must-read articles. First, Obama is appointing Cass Sunstein to the “Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.” The name of that position alone is frightening. But it gets a lot scarier when you learn that his latest book, “On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done,” argues that the state should take down what it determines to be lies on the internet.

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I was watching CNBC tonight and they were discussing the case of a Citi trader who was due to receive a $100 million bonus.  Then they showed a Wall Street Journal headline that read: “US Pay Czar to Renegotiate Contracts He Deems Too Lucrative.”  This Citi trader’s bonus contract is presumably Exhibit One for the Pay Czar.  So the panelists, moderated by Dennis Kneale, were arguing back and forth about the merits of the case.  Finally one of the panelists asked another panelist if he understood they were speaking about a contract.  Then another panelist, Leslie Marshall, interjected this comment: “A contract is only worth the paper it’s written on.”  Now who does that sound like?  Who else viewed solemn agreements as mere “scraps of paper”?  

Here is a link to the video clip on the CNBC website. The clip is labelled Demystifying Goldman Sachs. The Citi trader discussion begins at about the 5:50 mark , and Leslie Marshall’s infamous comments come at about the 8:00 mark.

Gene Schwimmer, in a blog post about Obama’s latest move of appeasement, this time of Syria, reminds us:

In 2002, George W. Bush went to New Jersey, stood before an audience of his fellow Americans and declared that “we will not allow the world’s worst leaders to threaten us with the world’s worst weapons. 

In 2009, Obama went to Cairo, stood before an audience of foreigners and assured those very same leaders that “[n]o single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons.”

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How weird is Obama’s view of man?

Right now, doctors a lot of times are forced to make decisions based on the fee payment schedule that’s out there. So if they’re looking and you come in and you’ve got a bad sore throat or your child has a bad sore throat or has repeated sore throats, the doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, “You know what? I make a lot more money if I take this kid’s tonsils out.”

Now, that may be the right thing to do, but I’d rather have that doctor making those decisions just based on whether you really need your kid’s tonsils out or whether it might make more sense just to change — maybe they have allergies. Maybe they have something else that would make a difference.

So — so part of what we want do is to free doctors, patients, hospitals to make decisions based on what’s best for patient care. And that’s the whole idea behind Mayo. That’s the whole idea behind the Cleveland Clinic.

He really believes this.

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