Maggie's Farm

It's not a real commercial, but still...

The Congressional Budget Office’s initial analysis of the Republican alternative to Obama/PelosiCare is striking.  Lowered federal deficit, lowered premiums, more freedom of choice, less government intrusion into medicine and peoples’ personal lives, support for health care and savings innovations (including cutting the huge costs of “defensive medicine” by having tort reform – which the tort lawyer funded Democrats conveniently left out), and increased and easier coverage for those with pre-existing conditions.

This op-ed and the CBO Director’s transmittal letter briefly sums it up; the full CBO analysis is here. According to the CBO, less of those called uninsured, although in actuality only about a quarter are citizens truly needy, would be covered than under  ObamaCare.  Many of those actually needy would be covered, and others already insured would better afford keeping their coverage. This is at a savings of $1+ trillion, and our freedoms, and the ability of our world-leading health care innovations to not be stifled.

Sounds like a real choice, right? Throw out the baby with the dirty water, a la ObamaCare, or provide a proper cleansing.  Not with this heavily Democrat Congress.  But, wait and work for 2010 to correct that.

The Associated Press screwed the pooch*, in multiple ways, in its reporting of the release by the JFK Presidential Library of previously classified recordings of President Kennedy's meetings in 1963 with advisors about Vietnam. The discussions involve the unauthorized cable from the State Department lending support to a coup against South Vietnam’s President Diem.

1. The JFK Presidential Library, administered by the National Archives, expressly admonishes in its press release: “Members of the media are cautioned against making historical conclusions based on the sound clips and transcript alone.”

The AP’s report, instead, leads with, “Newly released White House tapes from the Vietnam War era portray President John F. Kennedy wrestling over the fate of South Vietnam's strongman in a situation that appears to mirror President Barack Obama's quandary today in dealing with Afghanistan's shaky government.” The AP’s headline: “Tapes show Kennedy was conflicted over Saigon coup” My local newspaper one-upped the AP by changing the headline to “Like Obama with Afghanistan, Kennedy had issues with an ally.” (Sorry, the website for the San Diego Union-Tribune is still down, but once up you can find the link there.)

2. The AP report concludes with a sheer ignorance by its reporter, Barry Schweid: “The battlefield situation gradually worsened for South Vietnam and the United States, and the conflict drew to a close under President Richard M. Nixon. All U.S. ground troops were gone by March 1973, and the United States evacuated Saigon in April 1975.”

In fact, the battlefield situation, after the governing and combat chaos spawned by the US backed 1963 coup against Diem, stabilized and, indeed, markedly improved after the almost total decimation of the Viet Cong during and after Tet ’68, then under President Nixon’s turning command over to General Abrams (see here) whose direction reduced the North Vietnamese forces to barely subsisting across the borders in sanctuaries, then with US logistics and airpower backing it up the South Vietnamese Army roundly defeating the North Vietnamese invasion of 1972. It was the post-Watergate abandonment of US pledges to supply airpower and arms to South Vietnam, perpetrated by the liberal majority that got control of the US Congress, that led to the downfall of South Vietnam to the massive invasion from North Vietnam in 1975.

3. In between, the AP doesn’t bother to mention that JFK’s Ambassador to Vietnam, Frederick Nolting, in the recordings released says, “my view is that there is no one that I know of who can – who has a reasonably good prospect of holding this fragmented, divided country together except Diem.” Many careful scholars of Vietnam have documented that Diem was falsely portrayed by some influentials in the media and within the US government’s advisors. The coup unleashed years of governmental instability and weakness within Vietnam, requiring heavier US commitment of troops to hold and reverse the unleashed downslide in South Vietnam’s defenses. (See, for example, here.)

4. President Kennedy, in the period in these tapes, is not in favor of the coup unleashed by his State Department. In effect, though, he at least ultimately acquiesced.

In no substantive way does the situation in Vietnam during the 1960’s parallel that in Afghanistan today, except in the muddled thinking within our White House and Congress, poor MSM reporting, and the American people’s declining confidence in and tolerance for unsuccessful half-way measures.

* http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/screw_the_pooch [edit] Verb

1. to screw up; to fail in dramatic and ignominious fashion

After my morning prayers, and thanks for Republican victories in yesterday’s elections that may help stop the ObamaCare obomination in its tracks, I picked up my morning newspaper and on page 3 read the article, “Move to put spiritual care in health bill.” (Sorry, my local newspaper’s website is down for overhaul, but here’s the complete wire service dispatch.)

This is exactly one of the absurdities that argues against ObamaCare or most further government takeover of healthcare. Special interests intrude their mandates, and costs, on us all, even with little justification outside their mustered political power.

One of the battles in Congress is over a provision of the House ObamaCare bill that would require insurers to pay for prayer treatments as for other medical treatments. It was proposed by a Republican congressman, whose district includes Principia College, a Christian Scientist school.

There’s some evidence that a patient’s morale affects their recovery. There’s some evidence that prayer can improve a patient’s morale. There’s, also, much more evidence that prayer will not cure most ailments and, indeed, there are sufficient studies that substituting prayer for proven scientific medicine can prolong or worsen serious ailments that otherwise could be alleviated or cured.

I, personally, like the saner holistic approach to medicine, to add proper diet, exercise, some vitamins, and yoga to one’s health regimen. And, I pray. But, to require that medical insurance cover these is insane, and costly, crowding out the core scientific medicine that is essential. Many who are uninsured are, thus, priced out of coverage due to the costs of mandates for usually lesser effective treatments, like chiropractry or acupuncture or massage, being added into insurance. Further, adding in very expensive in vitro fertilization, as desirable as it may be for those infertile to enjoy having children, is similarly counterproductive to our main concerns about improving health care. If they want children, pay for it, or accept your fate. There is not a legal nor moral obligation for taxpayers or others who buy insurance to buy children for them.

This argument in Congress over whether to include insurance coverage for prayer is an absurd but indicative example of what we can expect when special interest government runs health care.

Addendum: The above are just a few more examples of some of the points that The B made in his Insurance Freedom post this week. It is, indeed, insane. Furthermore, I never heard of paying for prayer. Prayer is one of the few things that remains free and untaxed.

Addendum: Christian Science practioners do charge.  Other "clergy" may and will, as well, if they can get paid by insurance.

BTW, see my comment below about which "mandate" I'd like to have in my insurance!