Over at "Stop the ACLU", a bullet list of times that Sarah Palin won the debate on the end-of-life care issue she brought up. Biggest win; the provision was removed from a Senate bill. (A provision that her critics insisted was pure fantasy.)
Y’all just go on underestimating her.
And here we have Obama attempting to salvage a concern about the track record the government has with regards to mis-managing just about anything it lays its hands on. In his own words, “It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems” (emphasis added).
One thing is becoming increasingly evident, as more of Obama’s impromptu exchanges surface – he has a most difficult time presenting himself in a coherent manner. Perhaps the Left was correct in their concerns about Sarah Palin’s lack of experience, because we’re certainly seeing Obama demonstrate his.
In a short exchange discussing my incomprehension of a leftist blogger’s claim that management was unnecessary. I have come up with a possible answer as to why a person might consider this reasonable and it ties in with notions of why the left might find government healthcare more palatable than the right. The offending quote, as a reminder was as follows:
It quickly became clear that I was the only person even remotely on the left. And it wasn’t simply that the others disagreed with me; they couldn’t even understand me. I remember us discussing a scene in Invisible Man where a factory worker brags he’s so indispensable that when he was out sick the boss drove to his house and begged him to come back, agreeing to put him in charge. When I suggested Ellison might be implying that labor, not management, ought to run workplaces, the other students (and the teacher) didn’t just disagree—they found the idea incomprehensible. How could you run a factory without managers?
As I pointed out in my original essay a realistic business that employs more than two to five people requires management. Many firms, HR service companies and general contracting firms for example, in fact are nothing but management. One way out is the model implemented by the Leninist implementation of Marxism, i.e., the state solution. Government, somehow, is seen as the organ supplying the management functions. A kinder, more modern, way of phrasing that term is that the left prefers statist solutions. Mr Swartz, I suggest, doesn’t suggest that management not occur. But instead prefers that all of management, namely HR, sales, procurement, and capital management be done by the state. This, I suggest, was why he discovered, he was the only one “remotely” on the left. Most on the left I presume in the US would balk at having the state take up all of these roles for all private industry. The eastern bloc experiment showed that giving that much power to a state, ignoring the asymmetries of the locus of information, and removing personal incentives to personally garner the fruits of one’s labour was a recipe for disaster.
Public healthcare moves us further in this direction, increasing the power of the state, ignoring asymmetric of information pools, and lessens the already too weak personal incentives in the medical industry complex replacing it with even weaker political incentives (which it might be added in actuarial situations never reliably calculate risk always preferring diminish risk to lessen costs today pushing the burden of the payment to the future). Public healthcare is not, by definition, socialism nor communism. It is an explicitly a big government, statist, solution, and shares that feature with the assumption of management by government noted above.
The “public option” version being touted by the Democrats right now isn’t even single payer. However, it is disingenuous to argue that is ultimately what many of them, including the President desire and in fact likely feel that this step will move them closer to their goal. The “keeping the private insurance companies honest” rhetoric is merely cover for what, I suspect, is their aim and the likely result. That is that the public healthcare option, which will receive much of its funding from a levy on private contributions to healthcare, will be in a position to provide unfair competition that will ultimately force the private healthcare industry out of the market and to eliminate them and thus arrive at single payer via acquisition of a monopoly.
Ultimately, if there is to be a solution to the healthcare cost situation it is my belief that it will in fact require large scale changes in how healthcare is provided. Increased bureaucratic and state involvement is not the route which will lead to more flexible and innovative approaches to how medicine is practised. Instead it will more likely entrench those practises which are now in place. Right now, medical insurance and practise is heavily regulated as it is, which in turn stifles innovation itself. It is unclear how cementing and fixing the processes more tightly to bureaucratic reigns will spur innovation, which should be a primary goal.
The White House released a statement this evening to try to squash the controversy that erupted Thursday over unsolicted e-mails they had been sending:
The White House for the first time Sunday seemed to acknowledge that people across the country received unsolicited e-mails from the administration last week about health care reform, suggesting the problem is with third-party groups that placed the recipients’ names on the distribution list.
In a written statement released exclusively to FOX News, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said the White House hopes those who received the e-mails without signing up for them were not “inconvenienced” by the messages.
“The White House e-mail list is made up of e-mail addresses obtained solely through the White House Web site. The White House doesn’t purchase, upload or merge from any other list, again, all e-mails come from the White House Web site as we have no interest in e-mailing anyone who does not want to receive an e-mail,” the statement said. “If an individual received the e-mail because someone else or a group signed them up or forwarded the e-mail, we hope they were not too inconvenienced.”
This is a classic non-apology apology and doesn’t answer the main question which is how they managed to obtain e-mail addresses of people who did not access the White House website nor they signed up for any e-mail updates.
Since my e-mail address suddenly ended up on the White House distribution list and I hadn’t signed up for anything I would still like to know how they got my e-mail address. Could they reveal which groups had submitted lists from which they got the addresses?
For an administration that promised to be transparent, it seems to be acting a lot like Big Brother to me.
Things got a little testy at today’s White House press briefing when Fox News’ correspondent Major Garrett asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about unsolicited e-mails being sent to people who about healthcare reform:
The e-mail itself is not problematic. The White House is using this means of communication to get its message out to concerned voters. But the problem is somehow the White House is getting a hold of people’s e-mail addresses. I don’t have any idea how David Axelrod got my e-mail address. I don’t publish the address anywhere on purpose. I don’t want just anybody to have access to my e-mail address. I’ve never e-mailed the White House or sent anything to their flag@whitehouse.gov address because I don’t want to give that information to them. But it appears they managed to get it somehow anyway.
The irony here is that if David Axelrod paid any attention to anything I’ve read so far about healthcare reform he would quickly figure out that I am opposed to the President’s proposals.
So the question remains: how is the White House getting folks e-mail addresses and is the privacy of individuals being violated? Just how much information does the White House have and, more importantly, what are they going to do with it?
I agree with Glenn Beck that we haven’t reached the point where eugenics is being implemented as a matter of policy. However, when you look back at history, you understand the dangers that lie ahead in the health care debate. Click on the video below to see the whole story:
Making promises that pander to a particular voting bloc is one thing. Sitting in the Oval Office is, apparently, quite another.
After early pledges by President Obama that he would moderate the Bush administration’s tough policy on immigration enforcement, his administration is pursuing an aggressive strategy for an illegal-immigration crackdown that relies significantly on programs started by his predecessor.
A recent blitz of measures has antagonized immigrant groups and many of Mr. Obama’s Hispanic supporters, who have opened a national campaign against them, including small street protests in New York and Los Angeles last week.
The administration recently undertook audits of employee paperwork at hundreds of businesses, expanded a program to verify worker immigration status that has been widely criticized as flawed, bolstered a program of cooperation between federal and local law enforcement agencies, and rejected proposals for legally binding rules governing conditions in immigration detention centers.
“We are expanding enforcement, but I think in the right way,” Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, said in an interview.
Translation: It’s the same policy but we’ve tweaked it just enough to give enough cover to still talk about the eeeevil Bush regime. But even this has an ulterior motive.
Ms. Napolitano and other administration officials argue that no-nonsense immigration enforcement is necessary to persuade American voters to accept legislation that would give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, a measure they say Mr. Obama still hopes to advance late this year or early next.
That approach brings Mr. Obama around to the position that his Republican rival, Senator John McCain of Arizona, espoused during last year’s presidential campaign, a stance Mr. Obama rejected then as too hard on Latino and immigrant communities. (Mr. McCain did not respond to requests for comment.) Now the enforcement strategy has opened a political rift with some immigrant advocacy and Hispanic groups whose voters were crucial to the Obama victory.
"Trust me, I’m on your side" is a mantra many have heard from Obama, only to be disappointed. Ask anyone hoping for fiscal responsibility.
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.
I don’t normally post about it here, but I contribute to the Shire Network News podcast, and wanted to post the text of my segment this week. SNN is a satirical look at the news, but a fierce defender of Western civilization, culture and religion. I’m what you might call the "token" Christian on the team. The rest of the regulars are Jews, most of whom started their adult life as liberals. Then came reality. We all get along extremely well, even when we disagree.
SNN (virtually) always has a feature interview. This episode’s is with Charles Winecoff, a contributor to the Big Hollywood blog for conservatives working in the creative arts. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.
Below is the text of my commentary.
Hi, this is Doug Payton for Shire Network News asking you to "Consider This!".
Candidate Barack Obama said that we needed health care reform in the US, but blasted fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton for proposing a mandatory insurance requirement. President Obama now thinks this is a feature, not a bug; a benefit that we just need to get on board with. But there’s more, much more! If you act now… (Oh, sorry, I was channeling Billy Mays for a second there.)
Anyway, while there are many positives to the proposal, here are the Top 9 Benefits of ObamaCare(tm):
9 – No more pesky Canadians crossing the border to avoid their long waiting lines. Ours will be just as long.
8 – We’ll be the envy of the third world.
7 – Health insurance will be just like car insurance; you have to have it, it’ll cover less as you get older, and your children can trade you in during our Cash for Clunkers program.
6 – Getting rid of of Grandma & Grandpa sooner means cost savings to you, not including the Christmas & birthday presents you don’t have to buy anymore.
5 – Electronic records means that your medical history will soon have its own Facebook page.
4- Medicine will no longer be prescribed subject to, as Scott Ott has called it, "diagnosis discrimination"; simply based on a doctor’s opinion. Government bureaucrats will now be on a level playing field.
3 – It’ll make David Letterman forget all about Sarah Palin.
2 – Cost-cutting measure: close rural hospitals. It’s OK that farmers will be travelling farther for health care, because we’ll mandate they buy an electric car.
And the #1 benefit of ObamaCare(tm):
If we had already had it, Michael Jackson would still be alive.
Yes, and Christopher Reeve, too, I imagine. Consider this.
If good intentions were dollars, TennCare would be turning a profit instead of failing in its financial and moral responsibilities to the people of Tennessee.
And so begins an article dealing with the financial problems of a universal health care insurance program that has failed, and of a government that hid the fact that it was failing.
Now I’m sure that there are plenty of folks who would come forth and say that this time, with ObamaCare, it would be done right.
The article lists a number of people and groups to blame for the failure, but I find this to be the foundation of it all, and why a little government intervention inevitably leads to a lot.
Then blame the entitlement industry that has grown up around TennCare like weeds choking a garden. These strident advocates believe they have the right to reach into our pockets and take as much money as they need to turn TennCare into what they want it to be — universal insurance — instead of what it is supposed to be — a safety net.
That is precisely what happens when a new entitlement comes into play, and why Ronald Reagan said that the closest thing to eternal life this side of heaven was a government program. Promoting this entitlement to the federal government will, make no mistake about it, get larger than even its proponents dare to believe. And ultimately it won’t be as good as what we have now.
Just ask all the Canadians that come over the border.
Those campaign promises are reaching their expiration dates quite quickly. Back during the campaign, Obama ran hard against Hillary Clinton’s mandatory health insurance. PoliFact.com has the quotes.
"Hillary Clinton’s attacking, but what’s she not telling you about her health care plan? It forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can’t afford it, and you pay a penalty if you don’t," said one of his television ads .
His mailings made similar claims, which we rated Half True . At one campaign stop, Clinton waived the mailers and declared, "Shame on you, Barack Obama!"
"Meet me in Ohio," she added. "Let’s have a debate about your tactics and your behavior in this campaign."
Obama was vigorous in his attacks on Clinton for including an indvidual [sic] mandate in her plan. Now that the Democrats in the House have included a mandate in health reform legislation, he’s fine with it. He admitted he changed position in the interview with CBS. Full Flop!
All that talk of Hope and Change is really just subject to political expediency. If you believed what he said, what you need to hope for is that he doesn’t change. (If you didn’t, well then, this is not a real surprise.)
Y’know, that whole "signing statement" thing wasn’t apparently so bad after all. So says one man who used to decry the use of it.
Congressional Democrats warned President Barack Obama on Tuesday that he sounded too much like George W. Bush when he declared this summer that the White House can ignore legislation he thinks oversteps the Constitution.
In a letter to the president, four senior House members said they were "surprised" and "chagrined" by Obama’s statement in June accompanying a war spending bill that he would ignore restrictions placed on aid provided to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
Obama said he wouldn’t allow the provisions to interfere with his authority as president to conduct foreign policy and negotiate with other governments.
The rebuff was reminiscent of Bush, who issued a record number of "signing statements" while in office. The statements put Congress on notice that the administration didn’t feel compelled to comply with provisions of legislation that it felt challenged the president’s authority as commander in chief.
See, it’s not that it’s a bad thing in and of itself. It’s just that it sounds so much like…well, you know.
"During the previous administration, all of us were critical of the president’s assertion that he could pick and choose which aspects of congressional statutes he was required to enforce," the lawmakers wrote. "We were therefore chagrined to see you appear to express a similar attitude."
Let’s see if this matters to him.
One thousand words, meet picture:
And according to the article, we may dip even below all other estimates.
The federal deficit has topped $1 trillion for the first time ever and could grow to nearly $2 trillion by this fall, intensifying fears about higher interest rates, inflation and the strength of the dollar.
Neither the Congressional Budget Office nor the White House estimated those kind of numbers. As I’ve said before, complain all you want about how Republicans overspent (and I did), Obama and the Democrats make Bush and the Republicans look like amateurs. Nobody who complained during the Bush administration should be shouting for joy at all this new government spending on new government programs. But most Democrats are.
Oh, by the way, this is not counting the Obamacare bill.
That has many Republicans and deficit hawks worried that the U.S. could be setting itself up for more financial pain down the road if interest rates and inflation surge. They also are raising alarms about additional spending the administration is proposing, including its plan to reform health care.
Look your children and grandchildren in the eye and tell them this is for their own good.
There is an aspect to public healthcare that doesn’t get much discussion. The likelihood of it being yet another way in which we willingly give up yet more and more of our freedom to make personal choices is a clear and present danger. Here is how the process would likely work:
And this avenue, not really pushed today by those who oppose government healthcare actually gives a big opportunity for a conservative opposition leader to get a big start. The Democrats have come a long way from their populist roots. In their eagerness to push back and distance themselves from the evil “big corporate interests” (in favour of big government interests it might be noted), they’ve also made a mistake. They’ve also distanced themselves from all business, including the small ones. Populism and independence from government was in part the card that Ron Paul played. And he got some mileage with it, which says something because he’s well, something of a flake.
