The health care debate is already over

I present my two cents on the issue. And it's not likely to win me much popularity. But as far as I'm concerned I don't understand why we're debating anyway. The issue reflects the larger shift society is making toward obsessive and insufferable "health" and "safety", unreasonable regulations, and micro-management of all facets of daily life. In my completely pessimistic view, the debate is pointless. Even if the current health care "reform" push is defeated, it will just come back again and again until it is fully realized. On that sunny note, let me begin.

There are many factors but mostly we have ourselves to blame for the mess that our health care system is in.

For starters, the real cost of medical treatment is hidden to the average person because insurance companies or the government pays those costs. You have an out of pocket co-payment or deductible, which is generally small, compared to the hundreds and thousands doled out by that third party. But the actual cost of the doctor's expertise and the drugs and technology is nebulous because it is not market-determined but determined through bureaucratic and administrative and middle-man costs. The patient's ability to pay does not factor into the pricing of medical care in any way.

Also, in recent years doctors have had to increase prices to help pay for the unreasonable rise in malpractice protection costs. Doctors have no choice but to pass that cost on to the customer. And no, that customer is not you, but the insurance company who pays on your behalf. Since the insurance company must pay more, it stands to reason they are going to charge you more to carry that policy. The insurance company is in the business to provide a service and to make money — that should not shock anyone — so when you file frequent claims and over-use your insurance, as many do, it should not be hard to understand why they are raising your premiums when the policy renews. You are costing them more, and you are still paying a very small fraction of what they pay on your behalf. And that's just for private individual policies. Imagine the complexities insurance companies deal with trying to price group coverage for employers and large companies? This is not to defend insurance companies or single out the unfortunate souls with insurance horror stories. I am simply pointing out a fact about how insurance works.

Also, I don't think it's strictly anecdotal because I know and work with plenty of folks who do this, but a lot of people run to the doctor for just about every little problem these days. Yes, it's a cliché, but is it not true? Think of the people you know. How many of them are like that? A headache, sniffles, a mild fever, a stubbed toe, the blues, et al. Can it be denied that many doctor visits occur for non-chronic, minor conditions that could probably be treated at home? Or ridden out? And, of course, everyone wants the best doctors, the best diagnostic tests and equipment, the fanciest MRI machines and newest technologies. None of these are cheap. Yet we all expect and even demand them and have no real sense of the cost because, in reality, someone else is paying. If people paid directly out-of-pocket for most of the medical care they received, and only used insurance for the most catastrophic situations, it stands to reason they would be more discerning and "consume" less health care generally. Prices would automatically come down because all of those for-profit doctors and wellness centers and hospitals and drug companies would have to compete better for your money.

Competition is the key. And an honest person admits there isn't anything in the current legislation being discussed that truly addresses that. Adding a "public option" — essentially a government insurance company — does nothing to increase competition or address the core issue: the direct cost of health care. It simply creates another insurance company to choose from when deciding on who will pay the ridiculous medical costs for you. And since government consistently underpays doctors and providers this really will have no impact on reducing costs. It just means a larger share of health care expenditures will be underpaid.

On top of all of that, and perhaps most importantly, we refuse to change our lifestyles in any significant way. We continue to eat fast food and processed junk, smoke, drink and lead sedentary lifestyles with little or no exercise. We know all of that is bad, but we are too lazy to do anything about it. In other words, we want to have our cake and eat it too. And by the way, personally, I am completely in favor of letting people do whatever they want, no matter how bad, dumb or harmful. More on that in a moment. But we want to do whatever we want, then have the consequences of those behaviors taken care of by the best health system in the world, and we want to pay very little for that quality and excellence. And if things go wrong, we want to make sure we can file a mega-lawsuit as well.

Many people would be just fine with the government taking over all aspects of the health care system. Do away with private insurance and just have a huge universal Medicare system for every citizen. "Health Care for All" as they say. We're already paying a lot through insurance, what's the difference if we just replace those insurance premiums with taxes to Uncle Sam? The irony is, private insurance has no say-so in your lifestyle, but all of those people who love the idea of a "universal" health care system can be sure that when government is invested in your health, they certainly can and will have an interest in monitoring and managing your lifestyle.

Universalizing health care forces me to be an investor in your lifestyle. Currently, I don't care what you do. But when taxpayers are footing the bill, you can be sure we will all take an interest in what you do, even if on a philosophical level we couldn't care less. And that is the problem. In a free society, I don't want to take an interest in your lifestyle. I don't want to be forced to care about what you do. Because I might have some crazy ideas about what your lifestyle should be, and you might have some crazy ideas about what my lifestyle should be. So why would we want to do that to each other? Why would we want to take that power out of the disinterested private sector and hand it to the very interested public sector?

To take this back where I began, frankly speaking, I think this whole debate is a moot point anyway. I believe we will not only have health care "reform", I believe eventually we will indeed have a fully socialized universal system where the government funds all health care expense and it is paid for through taxes. It may be 10 years or 30 years, but it will happen. Why? Because there are just too many people in this country who feel entitled to it. Who believe it is a "human right". And those people reproduce, and their offspring will have the same mental condition. Combine that with the fact that it's just an emotionally appealing idea that's very difficult to oppose. After all, who can be against "health care for all"? What person wishes to be labeled cold and heartless for saying no to something that feels so good and right? It's an unfortunate but unstoppable tide.

I'm sure the intentions are pure. It's not a "bolshevik plot". But if the end result looks the same, what's the difference? I am not worried about death panels and abortion funding and "cornhusker kickbacks". It's not the delivery of health care that's going to be rationed, it's those cheeseburgers and beers and sugary treats and countless other little liberties that will be. Smoking bans and trans-fat bans are only the beginning. The red-tape killjoys of the world are ready and willing to hang the figurative hazard sign on just about everything you do. And when all health care is governmentalized, they will. So be sure and turn out the lights on your way out, America, the party's over. We'll have only our very safe selves to blame.

Joe Biden exemplifies the soulless politician who talks a lot while saying nothing

This is possibly the most egregious example of a politician completely flapping his gums without really saying anything.

We all know the Vice President is a total windbag. But even for him, this is particularly horrid.

From CNSNews.com:

Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.

“And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.

“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that's what I’m telling you.”

Some politicians are liars. Some are cheaters.

And some are just empty suits. Devoid of blood, brain, and soul.

I really believe Joe Biden doesn't actually think about or listen to what he says. I honestly think he just hopes people pick up on some keywords like "must pass health care" and "bankrupt" and that they don't really pay any attention.

And that requires either an appalling level of stupidity or just an extreme amount of condescension toward the average person.

Read the entire story here.

Crock

Fear-mongering moonbats at their worst:

WASHINGTON — If the Senate doesn't pass a bill to cut global warming, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer says, there will be dire results: droughts, floods, fires, loss of species, damage to agriculture, worsening air pollution and more.

She says there's a huge upside, however, if the Senate does act: millions of clean-energy jobs, reduced reliance on foreign oil and less pollution for the nation's children

I grow beyond weary of this nonsense. The whole story from McClatchy is here.

The Doom and Gloom President

Hope and Change. Doom and Gloom. What's the difference?

The Washington Times says all the doom and gloom talk is not very Presidential:

From crisis to catastrophe. Off a cliff. Dark, darker, darkest. Mortal danger of absolute collapse. Armageddon.

President Obama and top Democrats on Capitol Hill are deploying these and other stark predictions of doom and gloom to push through their economic-stimulus package. In terms not heard in Washington since the late 1970s under President Jimmy Carter's watch, the new president has sought to terrify Americans into supporting the $800 billion-plus bailout bill.

While President Bush was accused shortly after taking office in 2001 of "talking down the economy" - and for saying the economy was "slowing down" - Mr. Obama is using ever-heightening hyperbole to hammer home his message. But the strategy brings great risk for the "Yes, We Can" man, who just three weeks ago told America in his inaugural address that despite "a sapping of confidence across our land," his election meant Americans had "chosen hope over fear."

Taking a left turn at the crossroads

I feel it, can't you feel it? We're at one of those points in history, one of those turning points. A point where we can reconnect with our history of limited government, self-reliance, and personal responsibility — or we can continue the hellish leftward lurch toward the soft ways of socialist Europe. Where centralized governments make up the majority of jobs and economic activity of a nation, and where the desire to please all people all the time leads to financial and cultural suicide.

Dick Morris wrote a swell piece about our direction at TheHill.com:

2009-2010 will rank with 1913-14, 1933-36, 1964-65 and 1981-82 as years that will permanently change our government, politics and lives. Just as the stars were aligned for Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson and Reagan, they are aligned for Obama. Simply put, we enter his administration as free-enterprise, market-dominated, laissez-faire America. We will shortly become like Germany, France, the United Kingdom, or Sweden — a socialist democracy in which the government dominates the economy, determines private-sector priorities and offers a vastly expanded range of services to many more people at much higher taxes.

Obama will accomplish his agenda of “reform” under the rubric of “recovery.” Using the electoral mandate bestowed on a Democratic Congress by restless voters and the economic power given his administration by terrified Americans, he will change our country fundamentally in the name of lifting the depression. His stimulus packages won’t do much to shorten the downturn — although they will make it less painful — but they will do a great deal to change our nation.

In implementing his agenda, Barack Obama will emulate the example of Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Not the liberal mythology of the New Deal, but the actuality of what it accomplished.) When FDR took office, he was enormously successful in averting a total collapse of the banking system and the economy. But his New Deal measures only succeeded in lowering the unemployment rate from 23 percent in 1933, when he took office, to 13 percent in the summer of 1937. It never went lower. And his policies of over-regulation generated such business uncertainty that they triggered a second-term recession. Unemployment in 1938 rose to 17 percent and, in 1940, on the verge of the war-driven recovery, stood at 15 percent. (These data and the real story of Hoover’s and Roosevelt’s missteps, uncolored by ideology, are available in The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, copyright 2007.)

But in the name of a largely unsuccessful effort to end the Depression, Roosevelt passed crucial and permanent reforms that have dominated our lives ever since, including Social Security, the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, unionization under the Wagner Act, the federal minimum wage and a host of other fundamental changes.

You should read all of it. Or not.

Obama will take care of all your needs

Just ask this informed voter:



In case you missed that, she just said:

"I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car, I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage."

I don't think this even deserves a snarky comment. Do you?

Swing low, sweet chariot

Okay, I know it's a little odd to be cracking on Hillary at this point, especially considering people like me were wishing she was actually The Hero's opponent in this Election from Hell.

But this is still one of my favorite pandering moments of all-time. I give you Hillary Clinton adopting the 'local accent'.