Buried deep within the 1000+ page healthcare bill is a confusing and vague provision that mandates “advanced care planning consultations” for Medicare recipients. What exactly is intended by these consultations is open to interpretation.

The provision originated from an earlier bill that was designed to encourage patients to consider hospice and pallative care as they near the end of their lives. But make no mistake, this is also about money. According to one estimate, Medicare spends $100 billion a year for care of patients in their last year of life.

Many critics are rightly concerned that the government will be dictating to patients what care they can and can’t receive. The Bioethics Defense Fund is going so far to suggest that this provision is government endorsement of euthanasia.

As a matter of fact, such arguments about the cost of caring for the eldery and infirm as an endorsement for euthanasia has been tried before:

This poster appeared in Nazi Germany during the 1930’s. The message reads: “60,000 Reich Marks. This is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the Community of Germans during his lifetime. Fellow Citizen, that is your money, too.”

The arguments being made for mandatory “advanced care planning consultations” seemed to be eerily similar to the poster above. Critics of the President’s health care plan have very legitimate reasons to be worried about what this provision means. Voters should be concerned also.

Two different headlines from the same day illustrate the fundamental issues of the healthcare reform debate:

Blue Dog Democrats Announce Deal on Healthcare Reform

Key Senate Aide: Healthcare Reform Deal Not Imminent

The real reason that there is no quick solution coming is threefold: no one can agree on what exactly needs to be reformed, no one can agree on a solution, and the government is trying to provide the solution.

First, what needs to be reformed? It all depends on who you ask. Talk to a liberal Democrat and they will tell you that we need to have universal health insurance. Or that we need to do something about the uninsured. Or that we need to reduce the influence that insurance companies have over medical decisions.

Talk to a conservative Republican and they’ll tell you we need to get the government out of the business of providing health insurance (or at least streamline the current programs). They’ll tell you that we need to eliminate waste in Medicare. They’ll also talk about reducing overall costs.

Who’s right? There’s an element of truth in both sides of the argument. But there is no consensus on exactly what issue(s) need to be reformed thus the wide disagreement on how to solve the problems.

This brings us to the second point which is that without agreement on the problems you can’t find consensus on solutions.

To make matters worse, President Obama is running around pitching a plan without specifics. No one really knows what his proposed solution might be or what he thinks the extent of the problem really is because he doesn’t come right out and tell anyone. He’s been acting as if people will just do what he wishes because he asks them to. Perhaps he would be better served to slow down, listen to all sides in this debate, and figure out what the right steps are to take rather than trying to cram his agenda down the throats of voters. If polls are any indication, voters do not like what they are hearing from the President.

Finally, there is the issue of government involvement in the delivery of health care. Despite the fact that it has been proven repeatedly that government cannot fix every problem, Democrats still want to have government take over health care. Voters do not like that idea and understand what a disaster such a system would be. Most of the proposals so far make the government bureau overseeing health care look like the Office of Circumlocution from Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit:

The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told) the most important Department under Government. No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office. If another Gunpowder Plot had been discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified in saving the parliament until there had been half a score of boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda, and a family-vault full of ungrammatical correspondence, on the part of the Circumlocution Office.

This glorious establishment had been early in the field, when the one sublime principle involving the difficult art of governing a country, was first distinctly revealed to statesmen. It had been foremost to study that bright revelation and to carry its shining influence through the whole of the official proceedings. Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving–HOW NOT TO DO IT.

While the news channels may drone on about how healthcare reform is about to be passed it doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon. The longer the debate drags on the better as it is far better to stick with the current system we have no matter how flawed it may be rather than to rush through a package that will only make the situation far, far worse.

Gee, you think so?

The possibility that the President’s overexposure is hurting his message is not the big news story. The big story is that it took the media so long to catch on.

Hat tip: Hot Air

From Dawn Eden, regarding Sonia Sotomayor’s thinking on stare decisis which, apparently, varies depending on whether or not the ruling has to do with abortion. Eden states,

As I wrote when liveblogging this exchange, apparently, when the subject is antitrust law, Sotomayor is perfectly comfortable with admitting that new information must be taken into account. But when the subject is abortion law, she doesn’t want to even discuss whether a change in “factual findings” is relevant.

Funny how Sonia Sotomayor, the “wise Latina”, doesn’t know if one has a right to self defense, doesn’t seem to think that owning a gun is an individual right, yet believes the Constitution magically guarantees women the right to kill their unborn child…

I was driving through West Virginia and Kentucky last weekend and saw a number of signs advertising that some particular road improvement project was being funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act otherwise known as the “stimulus plan” or by its more derisive name Porkulus.

About half the projects I saw on the road appeared to have already been completed. The other half were in various states of progress.

But I couldn’t help wonder about the money spent on the signs. Turns out I’m not the only one. Frankly, I can’t see why the money was spent on the signs. But then again, this is the federal government and, as usual, nothing they do makes sense.

Perhaps the better thing to have done was to forgo buying the signs and spend more money fixing the roads.

I’m just saying…..

No, not that Jackson 5. The first 5 American servicemen and women named "Jackson" who died in Iraq. They won’t get media coverage or the attention of those following celebrities, but theirs was a sacrifice we should honor.

PowerLine has the details.

At least according to this article in The American Spectator, the answer is yes:

Stated or unstated, a driving force behind modern liberalism takes root in the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, in which abortion was legalized. The Court found a “right to privacy” guaranteed by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, saying that a woman had a constitutional right to abort her child up until the “point at which the fetus becomes viable.” The Court quite specifically defined viability as the point at which a fetus is “potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.”

Quite aside from the political acrimony the Roe decision has generated from the day it was issued, the hot debate over President Obama’s health care proposal alters the abortion debate in a fashion quite unintended. If passed, ObamaCare could instantly set up a legal confrontation between the principle behind President’s health care system — and the principle undergirding Roe v. Wade. Which in turn would launch a political battle royal between proponents of government health care and abortion rights.

Why?

A reading of the Roe decision leaves no doubt whatsoever of what abortion advocates have claimed ever since the opinion was handed down. To quote the Supreme Court decision directly:

We repeat, however, that the State does have an important and legitimate interest in preserving and protecting the health of the pregnant woman, whether she be a resident of the State or a nonresident who seeks medical consultation and treatment there, and that it has still another important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life.

If, as Roe clearly states, “the State does have an important and legitimate interest in preserving and protecting the health [emphasis mine] of the pregnant woman” — why doesn’t it have “an important and legitimate interest” in protecting the health of the rest us?

The article goes on to point out that the fundamental premise behind universal health care is that the government could be deciding who gets what medical care thus taking the decision-making process out of the hands of the patient and putting into the hands of bureaucrats. If that’s so, you can be sure that abortion advocates will be at odds with those who want a single-payor health system.

If anti-abortion protesters threw stink bombs into abortion clinics, and threatened to demolish the building, what would happen to those protesters?  Well, they’d probably get thrown in jail and decried in the media.  (Perhaps get called a "Christianist" by Andrew Sullivan.)

But, change the cause, and those tactics become, as the LA Times says, "compelling" television.  Yes, terrorize for the right cause, and you get your own TV show.

Jill Stanek has the details on "Whale Wars", a Discovery channel show documenting the life and times of an crew of anti-whalers.  I saw an episode where they made it appear that they were going to ram the offending ship.  If people trying to save babies tried this, they’d be pilloried (by, no doubt, the LA Times). 

But do this in the name of animals, and the Left and the media put you on a pedestal.  Priorities, folks.

Imagine this statement by a some guy in DC bucking for a job in government:

I am a member of a private organization of male professionals from the profit, nonprofit and social sectors.  The organization does not invidiously discriminate on the basis of sex. Women are involved in its activities — they participate in trips, host events and speak at functions — but to the best of my knowledge, a woman has never asked to be considered for membership.

Would this disqualify the fellow, especially in the eyes of Democrats?  "Oh yeah, right.  No woman has ever asked to become a member?  Do you expect us to believe that?"

Well, here’s the actual quote, in the context of the news article.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor on Monday defended her membership in an all-female networking club, telling senators preparing for her Supreme Court confirmation hearing that the group did not discriminate in an inappropriate way.

Judge Sotomayor made the remarks in a cover letter for 10 documents the White House submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The papers supplement a trove of documents and videos, along with a response to a questionnaire, that she turned over earlier this month.

Her remarks indicate that some senators have taken an interest in her membership in the group, Belizean Grove, which she mentioned in the questionnaire response.

“I am a member of the Belizean Grove, a private organization of female professionals from the profit, nonprofit and social sectors,” Judge Sotomayor wrote. “The organization does not invidiously discriminate on the basis of sex. Men are involved in its activities — they participate in trips, host events and speak at functions — but to the best of my knowledge, a man has never asked to be considered for membership.”

Maybe this is why.

According to the Belizean Grove’s Web site, the group is a “constellation of influential women” who are building “long-term, mutually beneficial relationships.” It was founded as a counterpart to the all-male Bohemian Grove, a legendary club of elite politicians, businessmen and other leaders.

The group’s roughly 115 “grovers,” as members call themselves, include ambassadors and top executives of Goldman Sachs, Victoria’s Secret and Harley-Davidson. They meet each year for an annual retreat in Belize or another Central American destination, as well as occasionally in New York and other cities for outings described as “a balance of fun, substantive programs and bonding.” The group’s Web site does not appear to mention any roles for men.

Something tells me Democrats are about to suddenly get very tolerant of gender-based private organizations.

America has had a difficult history when it comes to racial issues and often the government has done more harm than good according to an excellent new book by Judge Andrew Napolitano entitled Dred Scott’s Revenge. Click here to read my review of the book.

Dred Scott’s Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America By Andrew Napolitano / Thomas Nelson

Politics often disgusts me. President Obama gave a pretty speech at Ohama beach recently. In it we find these remarks:

We live in a world of competing beliefs and claims about what is true. It’s a world of varied religions and cultures and forms of government. In such a world, it’s all too rare for a struggle to emerge that speaks to something universal about humanity.

The Second World War did that. No man who shed blood or lost a brother would say that war is good. But all know that this war was essential. For what we faced in Nazi totalitarianism was not just a battle of competing interests. It was a competing vision of humanity. Nazi ideology sought to subjugate and humiliate and exterminate. It perpetrated murder on a massive scale, fueled by a hatred of those who were deemed different and therefore inferior. It was evil.

We don’t celebrate VE day, and rightfully so. We didn’t win the war in Europe. If the Soviet regime had not been a totalitarian state, but instead another liberal democracy … D-Day may never have come about. D-Day is an achievement. It is a moment to remember for the American and the West, the struggle and the sacrifice. We fought hard on D-Day and at Guadalcanal and in the Pacific. But, for myself, I wonder if we would have the will to persevere at a Stalingrad (where nearly 2 million died in a six month long battle). Our country (at least the left) balked today at 3,000 military deaths over more than a four year period.

And yes Nazi Germany was one of the glaring unlearned lessons from the 20th century, Soviet Russia which bore most of the burden of defeating that Nazi threat was the other. And alas, the misconceptions underpinning the reasons which brought those things he notes as “It was evil” into the light of day are shared and still maintained in the hopes and dreams of the left. Hope. Change. The utopian dream than man and society can be perfected coupled with a rejection of the dignity of man was lie at the core of all three visions. That same is the dream on which Nazi Germany was founded as well. It was evil in outcome then … it will likely be so again. Mr Obama’s administration began with the motto “never let a good crises go to waste.” And if you don’t have the means to effect that change … just find a new crises. And if no crises can be found? Hmmm. Three choices. Give up, make a crises, or manufacture an enemy.

(This in part is the thesis that I’ve been exploring in Chantal Delsol’s essay … which oddly enough has passed unremarked.)

You’ve certainly seen the advertisement before; that which features a certain item, priced ridiculously low. In fact, it’s priced so low that you ask, “How can they sell it at that price and turn a profit?” Well, they can’t. It’s a loss leader, designed solely to entice people into the sales establishment upon which, it is hoped, they will purchase additional items, thereby resulting in an overall profit to the store.

The point to be taken here is that the loss leader tactic is simply a part of an overall marketing strategy – a philosophy, if you will, which fits squarely within the economic system of capitalism, to which growth and profit are generally accepted as the primary goals.

I wonder, how wedded to capitalism is the evangelical church in America?

Recently, there was a concert staged, at our church, specifically designed as an outreach to the youth in the community surrounding the church. Whereas there is typically 25 youth at a Wednesday night meeting, there were 120 youth in attendance at this concert.

Was this a loss leader? A means of enticing people in the doors, and then banking on the “numbers”, the probability that a certain percentage of them would desire to come back?

Such a tactic is hardly limited to a youth concert in 2009. I’ve grown up in the church and can look back and see the tactic deftly applied throughout my life. It is, in fact, our modus operandi.

Yet, despite the church adopting capitalistic strategies, and despite the false success of mega-churches, we now see an America which is turning its back on Christianity. Our society is becoming decidedly secular and, in particular, anti-Christian, in its base form.

While we may have succeeded in entertaining the masses, how much of the Gospel has truly been delivered? In a recent Bible Study, my pastor made note of the fact that many scholars think that the church in Corinth, that which Paul was writing to, was made up of about 40 people.

40 people.

If an evangelical capitalist had written the letters to the Corinthians, I daresay he would have given them a detailed explanation of marketing tactics designed specifically to result in church growth. Yet Paul makes no mention of church growth methodologies. He simply tells the Corinthians how to live as Christians.

What a concept.

Eric Scheie posting at "Classical Values" asks how do we have a legitimate conversation about socialism — do we have it, do we want it — without sounding like some conspiracy theorist.

Unfortunately (as I have pointed out in several posts), the "s" word is so fraught with problems that it might be too contaminated to use. I worry that "socialist" within five words of "Barack Obama" has become code language for belief in various popular far-right conspiracy theories. The "Obama is a secret Muslim sleeper agent born in Kenya" stuff. After all, who but a secret Muslim sleeper agent born in Kenya would want to impose socialism on the United States?

In theory, "socialism" is still a perfectly legitimate word, but I worry that it is becoming delegitimized. As it is, the responsible critics of Barack Obama’s economic programs are very, very careful not to use the word "socialist," and if they do, it is only to distance themselves from those who call Barack Obama a socialist.

An old adage is "you’re not paranoid if they’re really out to get you."  Use of a particular word ought to be acceptable if it describes things accurately.  I’ve been using the word "socialism" here for a couple months, but only after describing a recent event that, in my mind, continues to push our country in that direction.  Eric has this feeling, however, that anytime someone uses the S-word, they get labeled a kook and ignored. 

Marginalizing a word is an easy way to avoid debate.  I hope this isn’t happening.

Fertility rate demographics deftly explained…