Maggie's Farm

No, that pick-up line never did work too well for me in picking up girls.

It probably wouldn’t have worked too well either for the San Diego sheriff pilloried by ultra-liberal Keith Olberman as Worst Person In The World for doing his duty at a fund raiser party hosted by a renowned lesbian in my Congressional district for (not a lesbian) 3-time loser Democrat candidate for Congress Francine Busby.

Local Democrat Congressional candidate Francine Busby and friends' “I’m above the law” attitude won’t work too well either.

The other night, in a residential neighborhood, a neighbor complained about the noise (including use of a loudspeaker by Busby).  The sheriff arrived, and as per procedure in logging in the visit, asked the host, Shari Barman, for her name and age.  She refused and walked away, several times.  The sheriff then held her arm.  According to the police report, Barman physically attacked him, another party-goer grabbed the sheriff’s leg, and others surrounded the sheriff and broke Barman away.  The sheriff called for help, which arrived en masse.  Some of the partiers were pepper sprayed.  Barman was arrested.  The sheriff’s department is conducting an investigation, especially due to the uproar coming from Barman and Busby.  News reports are available under “Busby” at Google.

In effect, disregarding the sheriff, walking away, and attacking him are similar to such behavior at a traffic stop, subjecting the person to arrest.  But, Francine Busby, in her fund raiser linked below, says the sheriffs violated the partiers’ civil rights. Oh yeah, we need another member of Congress with that attitude!  Should fit right in with Pelosi’s band.  (Wonder why in Rasmussen’s generic poll, Republicans are now favored over Democrats?  Or, why in Gallup’s Democrats are viewed as too liberal?)

There’s some more “velly interesting” sidelights:

- Barman had previously been arrested for assaulting a cop.  As the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board member in this link comments about this 32-years before arrest:

…I'm not sure this is just a hostile attitude.

 

I also was surprised and disappointed at some of the coverage of the matter and the comments I've been hearing. Barman's defenders seem to concede that they interfered with the deputy's attempt to question Barman. If that is a given, well, I just don't see how they can claim to be in the right or to not have dramatically escalated the incident.

 

I hope there is video of the incident. I wonder if the reason it hasn't surfaced so far is because it is not favorable to Barman and the partygoers.

Note: A news report indicates that some partiers did use their cellphone to take pictures.  Will they surface, or were they erased?

- Barman is a fitness person, actively involved in professional tennis promotion, hardly the feeble-sounding aged woman purported by some. Almost every news article about the incident gives away her age as 60, but Barman wouldn’t give her age to the sheriff.

-  Francine Busby is using this incident to raise campaign funds by claiming to be a “Right-Wing Target.”  Oh, that’s why she failed to unseat the incumbent in 2004, and again twice failed against his elected replacement in 2006 even among the uproar when that prior incumbent, Randy Cunningham, had been exposed as terribly corrupt, even though in 2006 Democrats gained seats elsewhere. In 2008’s Democrat landslide, in this marginally moderate Republican district, Obama received 51% of the vote. The Rep incumbent congressman got 55%.  I don’t think her playing the victim card will do Busby’s chances any better in 2010.  As a commenter to the Busby-as-victim fundraising letter says, "Busby grasps for way to save career."

- I had previously covered the previous Busby campaigns in my district, and the day before her second 2006 effort, even more amused, here:

I saw Busby yesterday in the parking lot across the street from a client of mine in Cardiff, directing her get-out-the-vote troops like a general, and she is bulldog determined. The conversation among her lieutenants in the parking lot was how she needs to change her appearance, loosen her hair and get out of her multi-colored same-suit JC Penney wardrobe, as she has hidden her far-Left positions.

I don’t think even her JC Penney wardrobe will hide her leftist posture this time, either. (In 2006, for example, Busby was embarrassed by her appeal to illegal aliens to help her election.)

Busby and her hosts might better next time heed the words of San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Michael Stetz, who himself has faced police called to his house for noise complaints,

So I'm offering my own tried and true advice in hopes of avoiding a repeat of the great Cardiff controversy:

 

If you see a cop on your porch who says to ease it on the volume, you say: “Yes sir.” If he wants your date of birth, I say give him your date of birth. It's not the end of the world.

 

No exploitive fundraising appeals or verbally or physically attacking law enforcement, either, Ms. Busby.

My friend Barry Rubin (bio below) dissects the naivety of CNN’s Middle East Affairs editor.  Excerpts:

Nasr’s basic argument is that the Iranian regime’s repression of anti-government demonstrators is contrary to Islam….

The author, who is from a strongly Christian background in Lebanon, must be most familiar with the operations of Hizballah and the civil war there. Is Nasr, the Middle East editor at CNN, telling us that she's shocked to see radical Islamists preaching an intolerant version of Islam and implementing it? And is she equally telling us that very few Muslims believe this kind of thing?...

What we should be talking about is not the purity of Islam but the battle within Islam and the aggressive efforts of radical Islamists against others. Islam is being used—you can say abused if you want--in Iran and by other groups whose activities affect millions of people, from stoning in Afghanistan or Somalia, to decapitations in Thailand, to suicide bombings even in Spain, Britain, and on the New York skyline.

The article is entitled, "'Punished mercilessly'–Is this Islam?" In your or my preferred interpretation, perhaps not. But of course this is nothing new and also something extraordinarily important. One might better use the title: “`Punished mercilessly’—This is Islamism” or an interpretation of Islam which we don't like but one that is quite well-grounded on accepted and traditional Muslim history and sources.

If Nasr were a mere academic, it would not be so surprising she would say such things. But it is frightening to see a top journalist show such a naïve view of the world and its modern history, as well as apparent incomprehension of the workings of ideology, power, and politics.

President Obama has received much, well deserved, criticism in the US and Europe for meekly abandoning the anti-regime protestors in Iran. We’re still not sure how well the new Iraqi army will do, although performance is promising, as was ARVN's before we cut off its armament supplies.  Much of our confusion or doubts about what’s the correct and best things to do are rooted in our Vietnam experience or, rather, how it is now viewed, by President Obama and many Americans.  (I last wrote in December here about the current situation in Vietnam. The repression has gotten even worse, since.)

Robert Kennedy told us: “Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.”  That’s more hopeful and better lesson for President Obama than the course seemingly he’s on as told by Karl Marx: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

A core issue in our recollections of Vietnam is the performance of the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), our South Vietnamese allies.  My good friend, R.J. DelVecchio, fellow former Marine in Vietnam, able student of Vietnam, and humanitarian, just sent me an email about the “Evolution of the ARVN” that is a particularly good overview and corrective to many’s view.  Let me share it with you:

R.J. DelVecchio email 6-29-09

I have had comments from other vets, especially the ones who served in
'65-'67, about the very poor quality of the ARVN troops they encountered.
No doubt those recollections are valid, as were some of the news
programs and other reports that were severely critical of ARVN units.
This has led to a general belief that the South Vietnamese soldiers were
always overall a poorly trained and badly led bunch, who tried to avoid
fighting whenever they could, and didn't fight well even when they had
to.
But this is actually an unfair and false legend, for reasons many of us
just don't know about.
In the '60-'68 time frame, there were many units that were poorly trained
and poorly led, officer commissions were obtained through politics and
bribes, intra-military politics ran rampant, and only a minority of the
units, such as their Rangers, Marines, and some others, were really good,
tough soldiers.  (A unit of their Rangers held part of the line at Khe
Sanh, and performed very well there.)
However, during Tet '68 they seemed to pull together and fought well
against the attacks.  (ARVN units actually retook more of the territory
of Hue than Marines did, in fighting just as nasty as the Marines went
through.)
After Tet, a lot more South Vietnamese came off the fence and decided
that they really didn't want the North to come down and take them over,
enlistments in the Army went way up, training got a lot better, and the
general quality of the South's military began to improve noticeably in
'69-'71.  Of course, that was when the number of Americans serving up
front was declining all the time, so there weren't that many
opportunities for us to see the ARVN doing better.
By '72, when we were gone, the number of subpar units in the ARVN had
become a minority, and many units were excellent, their 1st Division for
one.  And when the Easter Invasion hit from the North, 200,000 NVA
regulars in several divisions, with 400 tanks, much better artillery than
we'd left for the ARVN, and AA missiles and guns to shoot down the
South's planes, they wound up in a series of large pitched battles that
were as intense but a lot longer lasting than any we ever fought.  The
siege of An Loc was a kind of ARVN Alamo, went on for weeks and weeks,
destroyed the city completely, but the cut off ARVN fought like tigers
and refused to surrender.  They stopped NVA tanks by jumping on them
under fire to stuff grenades in the view slits.  US Advisors were there
to witness it all, and there are some good books about it.
But of course by then the media (both US and international) didn't have
that much interest in what went on, there were very few reporters on the
ground any more, so the coverage of all this was minimal at best.
But by the final invasion of '75, with NVA forces twice as big as in '72,
superbly equipped and supplied from massive bases in Cambodia, the ARVN
were on limited fuel and ammo, half their tanks were down for repairs
that depended on spare parts they couldn't get any more, and they started
to fold under the blitzkrieg.  Their President made a poor decision to
start an unplanned retreat, and things when to hell in just a few days,
leading to the panic scenes of soldiers running after planes and hanging
onto chopper rails in Da Nang.  (What you didn't hear about were the
radio calls from VN Marine units in the hills, who never surrendered and
fought to the death.)
So it all went to pieces, but there were still some heavy duty battles,
such as the 18th Division under General Le Minh Dao at Xuan Loc holding
off three times their number of NVA and inflicting massive casualties on
them as they tried to get past them to Saigon.  Finally the NVA bypassed
them, and when ammo ran out, the General surrendered them and himself
(even though the US would have gotten him out), and he became one of the
longest prisoners of the war, 18 years in "re-education".
These are the things not many of us heard about, but in all fairness have
to take into account now.  I know personally more than a few South
Vietnamese veterans, who fought hard and have the wounds to prove it,
many of whom also spent a lot of time in the terrible camps after the
war, where the death rate was 30% from starvation, overwork, and disease.
They deserve our respect, and after all, they were our comrades in some
sense, who got left in the lurch when Congress cut off their critical
supplies and we broke the promise made at the Paris Accords to come to
their aid if there was an invasion again.
For anyone who doesn't know it, I go back to Viet Nam to help the
crippled ARVN vets who lead really tough lives there, still under laws
that discriminate against them, their kids, and grandkids.  Go to
www.thevhf.org if you have any interest in this.
Del

 For those who may want to look further about the ARVN, here’s some useful sources:

 - A bibliography, slightly dated 

 - Another overview of the evolution of the ARVN 

 - A fine book on the ARVN’s “Patton”

 - A critical look at the ARVN’s social difficulties, not battle worthiness, review by a professor at the US Air Command and Staff College 

 - Much valuable writings, photos, and links

- A promising new book on ARVN and US Marines prowess during the Easter Offensive of 1972 

 - The Battle of An Loc at Wikipedia

 - The fate of the ARVN soldiers post-1975

 - Jules Crittendon adds to this bibliography.   Thanks Jules.

Also, I just added in the Comments some emails I received from witnesses to performance of the ARVN.

Do “Democrats Present Hurdles for Obama,” or do basic truths?

Those who say they’re confused or that some issue is complex usually are avoiding seeing basic truths.  This is the case with health care “reform” and with the broader matter of government spending and regulation of the market economy.  In a big and fast-paced world, it’s difficult to cut through to root causes but basic truths still emerge and overcome the chatter clutter. 

For examples of basic truths:

-          Government spending is tilted toward social goals and shifting political power and its rewards moreso than productivity outcomes.

-          Taxes tend to reallocate resources from the private sectors’ productivity and personal choice goals toward the goals of the less productive.

-          Government debt costs and can tend to become excessive and crowd out other government and private social goals as well as basic responsibilities.

For example of how basic truths emerge:

It is now admitted by all but its fiercest partisans and flacks that the sort of health care reforms touted by Democrats in Washington will not trim overall costs.  It will increase national debts, and reallocate control of personal choices and of provider renumeration as to cause rationing and shortages of providers and access.  Polls demonstrate that most of the public is opposed to the details that have leaked from the closed doors in D.C. trying to come up with schemes.

Yet, the current Rasmussen poll still finds “50% of U.S. voters at least somewhat favor the Democrats’ health care reform plan, while 45% are at least somewhat opposed,” although the poll “question did not in any way describe the plan as it stands to date. It was simply presented as the health care reform proposed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats.”  The poll points at partisanship, and we may add hope, at cause of this survey result.

So, what is the result when hope meets reality, or basic truth?  The widely touted Massachusetts health plan offers insight.  Prior to its effective date, 67% of Massachussetians supported it.  Now, only 26% consider it a success.  What happened?  This heavily footnoted analysis sums up what happened:

When Massachusetts passed its pioneering health care reforms in 2006, critics warned that they would result in a slow but steady spiral downward toward a government-run health care system. Three years later, those predictions appear to be coming true:

 

• Although the state has reduced the number of residents without health insurance, 200,000 people remain uninsured. Moreover, the increase in the number of insured is primarily due to the state's generous subsidies, not the celebrated individual mandate.
  

   



• Health care costs continue to rise much faster than the national average. Since 2006, total state health care spending has increased by 28 percent. Insurance premiums have increased by 8–10 percent per year, nearly double the national average.
  

   



• New regulations and bureaucracy are limiting consumer choice and adding to health care costs.
  

   



• Program costs have skyrocketed. Despite tax increases, the program faces huge deficits. The state is considering caps on insurance premiums, cuts in reimbursements to providers, and even the possibility of a "global budget" on health care spending—with its attendant rationing.
  

   



• A shortage of providers, combined with increased demand, is increasing waiting times to see a physician.
  

   

With the "Massachusetts model" frequently cited as a blueprint for health care reform, it is important to recognize that giving the government greater control over our health care system will have grave consequences for taxpayers, providers, and health care consumers. That is the lesson of the Massachusetts model.

 

Massachussets is in a budget crisis, as most states, not helped by the far-above estimated costs of its health care law (see this July 2009 comprehensive services and costs analysis), requiring steep cuts in services and increases in taxes.   And, as Massachusetts’ Democrat Treasurer points out:

Cahill asserted that those whose legacies are tied to the healthcare initiative failed to take a hard look at the costs when the legislation passed several years ago and now are reluctant to cut costs. “If you’re going to bankrupt one group to help pay for another, at the end of the day we’re all poorer,’’ Cahill said.

For more basic truths, see: Top Ten Reasons For ObamaCare Are Based On False Information

 

After Disney and other highly profitable travel industry powerhouses being disrobed by exposure during the prior Congress, the travel industry is getting further at pulling the wool over our eyes and the coins from our pockets in the current Congress, to add to their bottom lines.

If you’re not already a regular reader of the Washington Examiner’s opinion pages, you should be.  That’s not just because I have a column there today, “Big Tourism Depends On K-Street PR Whiz”, but because under the editorial direction of Mark Tapscott it has blossomed into a rank of must read along with the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page.  Indeed, recently it was announced that the owner of the Washington Examiner is purchasing  the Weekly Standard.

Some background on my column:

Here is my February 2008 sum up and links to my prior 2007 posts, my prior Washington Examiner column on this, and investigative reporter Tim Carney’s important add on. This led to a major Washington Post expose, “Mickey Goes To Washington” that sank during the prior Congress the travel industry’s attempt to freeload on the taxpayer and travelers’ dime.

Making statistically valid generalizations about 1/6^th of the US economy, health care, is difficult, at best, beyond saying we spend a lot.  Even that generalization is suspect when viewed against what we get and what we can afford.  When one disaggregates, focusing on specific elements, it’s even more difficult.  There’s usually inadequate data, and erroneous or politically misleading conclusions drawn.  But, as witness the House yesterday narrowly passing a 1300-page cap-and-trade energy bill, without even reading it, to regulate and tax almost the entire US economy, facts are easily left behind in favor of political power seeking and arm-twisting payoffs to individual legislators and their contributors.

So, let’s get real.

Tom Bevan, founder-editor of daily must-read RealClearPolitics, today writes “Busting the Administrative Cost Benefit Myth,” that a government-run plan would save spending by cutting administrative costs, based on a Heritage Foundation paper that “Medicare Administrative Costs Are Higher, Not Lower, Than for Private Insurance.”  In short, because each Medicare claim is for a much higher amount than each private insurance claim, the percent of the dollar amount of total claims for mostly fixed administrative costs is lower in Medicare.  If considered, instead, on administrative cost per number of claims processed, Medicare’s admin costs are higher than in private insurance.

The former head of Medicare and Medicaid and former US assistant secretary of health recently, similarly, took on this administrative cost myth in the Wall Street Journal, asking and answering “Is Government Health Insurance Cheap?”

But the comparison between public and private plans is a false comparison. Private insurance and public benefits are not the same business. For all its warts, private insurance tries to manage care. Medicare is mostly about paying the bills presented to it….

First, private insurers must build provider networks. These networks can include high-value providers and exclude low-quality providers. Except for certain circumstances, including criminal acts, Medicare is forbidden from excluding poor quality providers. It lets in everyone who signs up. So one question to ask is, will the public plan have Medicare's indifference to quality -- or invest in the cost of a network?

Second, private insurers must negotiate rates. Medicare just fixes prices using a statutory and regulatory scheme. And anyone who imagines a public plan would be less costly than private plans must keep the following issue front and center: In the many procedure categories where Medicare's statutory price does not cover full provider costs, shortfalls are shifted to private payers who end up subsidizing the public program. So, will a public plan negotiate rates or simply use fiat as a means of gaining subsidies from private insurance?

Third, private insurers must combat fraud -- or go out of business. Indeed, these payers have every incentive to invest in antifraud personnel and strategies down to the point where return and investment are equal. But anyone who thinks that a public plan could serve as a "yardstick" for the private sector needs to consider Medicare's dismal record with regard to fraud, waste and other abuse….

Fourth, private insurers must incur the administrative cost of marketing. Medicare, of course, does not need to market. A public plan competing with other alternatives would have to market itself to the public, and this means tax dollars used to advertise against private plans. Or the public plan could "compete" by using heavily subsidized marketing channels not available to private insurers, such as Social Security mailings, welfare offices, unemployment check stuffers, and the constellation of government-funded "advocacy organizations."  

No, not really.  But, maybe figuratively.

President Obama refused to meet with the representative of the imprisoned in Cuba winners of the National Endowment for Democracy's annual Democracy Award as Presidents Clinton and Bush had others during their terms in office, or even issue a statement until the editors of the Washington Post chided him. 

Message to Cuba's democratic opposition: We don't have time for you….They, like the beleaguered pro-democracy movements of Venezuela and Nicaragua, are hoping that the American president will focus his policy on supporting them. Yet for now, Mr. Obama's diplomacy is clearly centered on their oppressors.

 

We should have been warned during the campaign by Obama’s passivity toward the Russian invasion of Georgia that he’d continue it toward Latin America’s and now Iran’s oppressors.

Another clue comes from that the image of Che Guevara, icon to ignorant T-shirt wearers as a symbol of change rather than as a psychopathic murderer, served as the model for the Obama campaign’s “Change” poster.  This T-shirt contest melded the two.

The reviewer of Theodore Draper’s seminal 1965 tome on Castro’s Revolution, in the left-leaning New York Review Of Books no less, pointed out how this psychology works, prescient to President Obama formatively molded by the moral myopia behind the Che iconography:  

There is in the United States a school of thought which refuses to recognize that the anti-American policies of a foreign ruler might be motivated by anything so crude as a desire to increase his own power at the expense of the United States. They fail to understand that even in the unlikely event of Washington never making a foreign policy mistake, the sheer wealth and power of the United States would still inevitably arouse the antagonism and cupidity of some. Their invariable explanation for the hostility of a foreign ruler is that the U.S. must have made a mistake—and in their view, it is always the same mistake: lack of trust in that ruler's good intentions, misinterpretation of his legitimate measures of self-defense, and unwillingness to assist him in the promotion of his social reforms. In each individual case, the argument appears convincing to many people. One has to hear it repeated over and over again on different occasions to realize the utter innocence of the underlying assumption—namely that the Stalins, Maos, Khrushchevs, Castros of this world are benevolent, peaceloving social reformers who would be happy to concentrate on raising the living standard of their peoples if only wicked Uncle Sam and his gang of reactionary allies would permit them to do so.

As Wikipedia describes the Eagles’ “Hotel California”:

"The song's lyrics describe the title establishment as a luxury resort where 'you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.'  On the surface, the song tells the tale of a weary traveler who becomes trapped in a nightmarish luxury hotel that at first appeared inviting and tempting."

When I was a boy, the populations of New York and California were about equal.  The taxpayer and sane-unfriendly policies of New York led to its decline, as people flocked to the Golden State, California’s population now more than double New York’s.  Now, the gold is severely tarnished. The supposedly “something for nothing” policies that pander to the poorer, illegal immigrants, the S.F and L.A. liberal elites, envirocrazies, and unions, all at the expense of taxpayers and business, has led to an exodus of born Americans and industry to other states.  Like New York, California is near bankrupt and its dominant power-brokers refuse to wake up.

California voters just roundly rejected the Democrat-Schwarzenegger phony fixes.  So, now, as reported from Sacramento, there’s a standoff in which the Democrats continue to peddle phony fixes.  Schwarzenegger seems to be refinding some sobriety, but as Sacramento’s top columnist narrates, the gimmicks are a joke.

"And the key thing," Schwarzenegger said, "is now to just really make sure they don't come up with one-time solutions, because even if you go and withhold your taxes, it's a one-time solution. Or if you go and move the date of paying your paychecks from June 30th to July 1st, to kick it over to the next fiscal year, that's a one-time solution. It doesn't help you in the out years."

 A smart-aleck journalist – this one, in fact – quickly reminded the governor that his budget also contains "one-time solutions," such as forcing taxpayers to speed up payments to the state.

"Absolutely correct," the governor conceded. "And what we don't want to do is add to those."

"So it's all right if you do it but not all right if they do it?" yours truly persisted.

 

Democrats rant against California Prop 13, that limits property taxes, and the 2/3rds rule in the legislature, that limits Democrat majorities.  San Diego Union-Tribune  newspaper editorial board member Chris Reed, sets them straight: California property taxes since 1980 have “gone up 84 percent faster than combined inflation and population growth;”  without the 2/3rds rule California would “see an enormous range of tax hikes -- not budget restraint or cuts -- whenever deficits emerged,” as in New York. The New York Times describes the many instances of unions, aside from using their power over the California and New York legislatures to protect their profligate benefits, using their political power to self-servingly increase the costs of “green” power.

Former NYC Mayor Rudolph Guiliani op-eds in today's New York Times that New York needs a 2/3rds rule, like California’s.

SUPERMAJORITY FOR TAX INCREASES Too often increasing taxes is the first impulse for Albany legislators. Requiring a supermajority for tax increases would provide a powerful check on those who still think we can tax and spend our way out of economic problems. A supermajority would protect already over-burdened citizens and attract businesses, improving our long-term competitiveness.

Hmmm!  A 2/3rds rule for Congress, House and Senate, wouldn’t eliminate budget battles but might slow down the fast-Barack haste to tax and spend the rest of America into California and New York’s bankruptcy.

Whoops!  The Wall Street Journal reminds me, I missed New Jersey.

The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll appears more honest in demographics and political leanings of respondents than the one with slanted political-affiliation respondents that the New York Times-CBS tried to slip past us over the weekend.  Simply, there’s justified concern over the costs of healthcare but more concern over losing the healthcare we now have or the government dictating it.  President Obama remains popular, but his policy is bad medicine.   

As this poll sums up:

A majority of Americans see government action as critical to controlling runaway health-care costs, but there is broad public anxiety about the potential impact of reform legislation and conflicting views about the types of fixes being proposed on Capitol Hill… Most respondents are "very concerned" that health-care reform would lead to higher costs, lower quality, fewer choices, a bigger deficit, diminished insurance coverage and more government bureaucracy. About six in 10 are at least somewhat worried about all of these factors, underscoring the challenges for lawmakers as they attempt to restructure the nation's $2.3 trillion health-care system.

 

Part of the reason so many are nervous about future changes is a fear they may lose what they currently have. More than eight in 10 said they are satisfied with the quality of care they now receive and relatively content with their own current expenses, and worry about future rising costs cuts across party lines and is amplified in the weak economy….

 

Beyond general backing for governmental action, a few specific provisions under consideration on Capitol Hill receive significant levels of public support, including higher taxes on households with incomes above $250,000, a limit on medical malpractice amounts and, under certain conditions, a law requiring all Americans to carry health insurance. A large majority, 70 percent, opposes a new federal tax on employer-paid health insurance benefits that exceed $17,000 a year.

 

Majority support for certain new government action, however, does not come with high hopes: Half of all Americans said they think the quality of their health care will stay about the same if the system changes, and 31 percent expect it to deteriorate.

The poll data is available here.  Here’s part of the data below:

When I was a boy, my father would pile me in the Hudson and drive around the country.  He'd been a tool and die maker since WWII, machining the precision equipment that produced America's plenty.  We'd stop at factories and ask for a tour, which the men who labored there were all too pleased to provide.  Ah, memories.

Last Sunday, the boys and I spent a wonderful day at the Antique Gas & Steam Engine Museum in Vista, CA, north San Diego County.  (Website www.agsem.com) On 50-acres are gathered the restored and waiting to be restored machines that powered America becoming the breadbasket that fed its other workers and the world.

The boys' fun began before we left the driveway.  Captured, bagged and moved to our more rural destination.

Here's a field of oldies.

A highlight was the hour-long parade of machines.  A steamroller leads the way.

That's a tractor pulling a bailer.

The Clampetts were there, too.

Jason stands by as a seasoned former farmer and mechanic instructs Gavin in how to run this old wood burning steamer.

For reference to size of this fuel-burning baby, Jason is almost 5' tall.

Jason instructs Gavin in the finer points of this replacement for pulling a plow.

The boys got to ride all over the 50-acres on a 1940's Farmall like this one.

There was stuff for the ladies to do, like these early clothes washing machines.

This one brought back memories, tractor mobile USMC artillery.

And the visit ended with the most scrumptious home-made peach pie, a la mode of course, served up by farm ladies, who gave seconds to the boys.

A wonderful Fathers Day, and memorable to the boys.

The New York Times, otherwise known as the Grey Lady, might more appropriately be known as Obama’s Shady Lady.  Believe its poll and get a Times Square disease.

The lead headline is about a NYT/CBS News Poll, trumpeting “Wide Support for Government-Run Health.” The lead paragraph:

Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the health care system and are strongly behind [72%] one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

BUT, according to the actual poll data, of the 73% of respondents who said they voted in 2008 only 34% voted for McCain and 66% for Obama.  The actual vote was 46% (corrected) McCain.  So, 29% of McCain voters ignored by the poll must not be Americans, according to the NYTs methodology, and there are about as much an overpolling of  Obama voters.  NYT's Shady Lady polling.

In the wake of trying to squelch three federal Inspector Generals, there’s this story about how those who try to expose Obama, Obama administration, and Obama ally activities are dealt with.

[UPDATE: ACORN tries to hide behind a change in name, and more about it trying to squelch former members.  Same smell remains.]

ACORN/ProjectVote has filed a suit against Anita Moncrief, asking damages of well over $5 million.  Anita Moncrief is a former employee who has distributed internal emails to exhibit illegal ties between the Obama presidential campaign and ACORN/ProjectVote, and she has testified and written widely about what she knows.  ACORN/ProjectVote has received tens of millions of federal funds and is slated to receive many, many more millions.

The 30-page civil action filed by ProjectVote is downloadable here. Legal papers are not my usual Saturday morning reading, but this one caught my eye as an illustration of legal thuggery.

The charges are basically three:

Moncrief misappropriated about $1700 while an employee, of which she’paid back about $500 before Moncrief’s employment was terminated. She helped expose how a former executive stole $1million.  In a blogpost by Moncrief last November, she admits her own misuse of funds and takes responsibility, pleading extreme need due to poor health insurance benefit and pay.  Yet the suit presents nothing about trying legally to recover the remaining funds from her.  The charge appears in order to lay groundwork for reducing Moncrief’s credibility and as reason for her seeking vengeance.

The next charge is that Moncrief misappropriated ProjectVote’s trademark by her use of the email address projectvotenews@mail.org to distribute internal emails exhibiting embarrassing doings to donors.  This appears a weak charge as in this grey area of law it does not appear she infringed on the trademark.  See, for example, “Fair Use of Trademarks” at the The Publishing Law Center. 

The next charge is that Moncrief damaged relationships with donors.  No impact on donations is presented.  Another weak charge.

The complaint includes, in addition to Moncrief, a “John Doe”, another employee who may have supplied Moncrief with additional internal material.  This appears an effort to unearth the remaining whistleblowing mole.

A competent legal team for Moncrief should be able to deal with the charges, and in the process of discovery and media coverage bring further to light ACORN/ProjectVote’s nature.  Hopefully, Moncrief will obtain it, or be squelched by her own lack of funds to defend herself and our right to know where and how our tax dollars are used.

Of note, the New York Times shut down its investigation of ACORN/ProjectVote.  Newsbusters describes some of the details.

But apparently Moncrief's information was suddenly no good when it might have embarrassed the Obama campaign.

Heidelbaugh testified before a congressional committee in March that the nonprofit group violated a host of tax, campaign finance, and other laws. She said the Obama campaign sent ACORN its "maxed out donor list" and asked two of the avowedly nonpartisan group's employees "to reach out to the maxed out donors and solicit donations from them for Get Out the Vote efforts to be run by ACORN." 

 

My grandmother, advocate of the turn of the century (that’s early 1900’s) democratic socialism based in defense of the little guy from rampant big business, taught me that the biggest myth in America is the efficiency of big business.  So, government grew in regulations and programs, and so did unions, to counter big business and favor the little guy.  ‘Till now it’s a truism that big government is inefficient and too little the friend of the little guy, and big unions are money founts for their leaders at the expense of labor having jobs.  Meanwhile, big business has more and more become an ally of big government and unions to divide the spoils, and stifle competition and innovation.  All that leaves to maneuver for the little guy against the increasing encroachments of the biggies is small business and individuals.

It’s time for more small businesspeople and individuals to defy the biggies with a chant of I am Spartacus, or I am an American. 

(No, I didn’t purposely ignore big academia.  It has made itself largely irrelevant via meaningless coursework enriching self-serving pedants.)

Consider a few datapoints:

Investigative journalist Tim Carney reminds us that in 1993 the biggest insurers supported Hillarycare, to shift liability risk onto taxpayers and profit from claims-processing contracts.  Small insurers, brokers who work with small companies, and individuals revolted.  Today, the big insurers are again cooperating with the government-dictated health care advocates, as long as the big insurers can profit from more premium payers steered their way.

The Canadian medical societies remind us not to go north for a model of government-dictated health care, as the waits are excessive by even long-wait standards approved by the government.

The former Chief Economist of the US Chamber of Commerce reminds us (sorry, a subscription only column) that when government as umpire controls a team, bad and self-serving calls are to be expected.

Michelle Malkin reminds us that Mrs. Obama and President Obama’s chief political operative worked to reduce care for the poor, to enrich her employer (and her compensation).

Mickey Kaus reminds us that unions are to be exempted from Obamacare, and further benefit from attracting members through higher benefits than the rest of us.

The CEO of the consumer highest-rated insurer in the US reminds us that he doesn’t so much fear government-plan competition but, “more about the federal government’s ability to do this at all, much less do it well.  Merely coordinating basic demographic information between Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - three big federal programs that millions of Americans belong to - can be a chore for beneficiaries, their children, and their health plans.”

Be Spartacus.  Say "I am American.  I refuse to be pushed around by the biggies, or under their thumb."

Write or call your congressional representatives to represent your views.  

Ask your employer and your doctors to do so too.

From Iowahawk: 

In the final tally, the only thing that matters in the diplomatic arena is sportsmanship. As we say here, "it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." I am certain that the best team will prevail, because as we also say, "winners never cheat and cheaters never win." And in the words of Raiders legend Al Davis, "just win, baby." The most important thing is that you get this distracting sudden death shootout over with, because it's really screwing with my legislative agenda. Not to mention my sleep schedule. 

Until then, I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to the eventual winners, and best wishes in your upcoming playoff series with the Tel Aviv Fightin' Zionists. I've already programmed it on my TiVo!

HT: Gateway Pundit 

It’s not yet time to beat a dead horse, but it’s increasingly obvious that the Left’s horse is faltering badly before the finish line of grasping control of healthcare.

The Pew Research Center reports that public support for healthcare reforms is lower now than in 1993 for HillaryCare.

More centrist congressional Democrats are staking out a more moderate position than the Democrat Party’s more radical leadership.

Jennifer Rubin, at Commentary’s Contentions blog, chuckles at Leftist naïf Ezra Klein’s revealing the Senate Democrats are being forced to significantly scale back their grand scheme: “One has to laugh: no Santa and no universal healthcare plan that ‘holds down costs.’ ”

How much longer before President Obama has to throw this dead horse under the bus, or falls off his high-horse?

As the Wall Street Journal points out:

Big headline in this morning’s San Diego newspaper: “Californians largely favor health care fixes.”

The [Field Poll] survey of registered voters in California found that a huge majority favors President Barack Obama's proposal to allow people to choose between a government-sponsored health plan and private insurance.

 

The poll also showed considerable bipartisan agreement among voters about various health care proposals, but sharp disagreement between Democrats and Republicans about how to pay for them.

 

 

 

Basically, looking at the actual poll tabulations, about 90% of those polled having health insurance, there’s generally broad agreement among Democrats and Independents on nice sounding goals (“Given the serious economic problems facing the country, which of the following two statements comes closest to your own views regarding what should be done about health care reform?” It is more important than ever: Democrats 85%, Independents 69%, Republicans 39%) but an lesser willingness to personally pay more for them, preferring that someone else does (“Having a new value added tax which is like a national sales tax” Favor strongly or somewhat: Democrats 53%, Independents 39%, Republicans 25%; Compare to “Limit the tax deductions available to families making more than $250,000 a year” Favor strongly or somewhat: Democrats 69%, Independents 60%, Republicans 42%).

When it has come, however, to actual votes, even the liberal California state legislature has shied away from imposing government-dictated health care schemes.  As the “progressive” New America Foundation said of the lesson from the rejected 2007 scheme for California, “the issues of affordability for families and sustainability for taxpayers must be satisfactorily addressed.”  An understatement.  As a Kaiser Foundation 2009 poll sums up: “A slim majority of Democrats (53%) are willing to pay more for providing coverage, while 38% of independents and 29% of Republicans say the same.” Other polls indicate that even among those willing to pay more, the amount is nominal. For example, among the uninsured, those of small income (under $20,000/year) are willing to pay $100 per month and those earning much more ($80,000) $200, versus actual comprehensive insurance costs of about $400 for individuals and over $1,000 for families.

The overall California results and the split between Democrats, Independents and Republicans is more marked than elsewhere, but indicative of splits elsewhere.  California is a heavily Democrat state, with the proportion of registered Democrats and Democrat leaning Independents increasing significantly between 2004 and 2008.  The Field Poll is of those registered to vote, not of those who do vote.  Even though registered voters are whiter, earn more and are older than the population, those moved to vote are even more so.

Take note Congress.

Pro-government-dictated health care pup Ezra Klein points out that, according to a cited study, only about 10% of early deaths from disease are due to “shortfalls in medical care,” versus from “behavioral patterns, 40 percent” or “genetic predispositions, about 30 percent.”   Klein asks, then, “If medical care has such a minor impact on a person's longevity, why are we spending so much time and energy reforming the industry?”  Klein says it’s because the focus is on the profits, jobs and government-largesse at stake for the interests involved.  I would add, it’s because of the power that can be garnered by Washington over our lives and pockets, and the contributions that can be garnered by politicians.

Take note taxpayers.  Take note citizens.  Take note those in real health care need.  It’s not about you.

BTW: According to the latest New York Times poll, only 7% see health care problems as the nation’s top priority, versus 38% the economy and 19% jobs.  That’s why the Times reports, “fewer than half [44%] of Americans saying they approve of how he has handled health care and the effort to save General Motors and Chrysler [41%].”  56% say the government is doing too much that is better left to individuals and business.  60% say Obama hasn’t a clear plan to deal with the budget deficit.  They’re wrong.  Obama clearly aims to deepen the deficit.

A delegation from Human Rights Watch was recently in Saudi Arabia. To investigate the mistreatment of women under Saudi Law? To campaign for the rights of homosexuals, subject to the death penalty in Saudi Arabia? To protest the lack of religious freedom in the Saudi Kingdom? To issue a report on Saudi political prisoners?

No, no, no, and no. The delegation arrived to raise money from wealthy Saudis by highlighting HRW's demonization of Israel. An HRW spokesperson, Sarah Leah Whitson, highlighted HRW's battles with "pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations." (Was Ms. Whitson required to wear a burkha, or are exceptions made for visiting anti-Israel "human rights" activists"? Driving a car, no doubt, was out of the question.)

Apparently, Ms. Whitson found no time to criticize Saudi Arabia's abysmal human rights record. But never fear, HRW "recently called on the Kingdom to do more to protect the human rights of domestic workers."

H/T: NGO Monitor

“…I found on most of these questions that the desire for change and support for reform was slightly stronger 16 years ago…”

 

So says Stanley Greenberg, CEO and co-chair with Dem pitbull James Carville of polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.  Greenberg served as a polling advisor to President Bill Clinton, was deeply involved in Clinton’s failed 1993 effort to rewrite Americans’ health care, and is today a prominent Democrat pollster.

Greenberg points out that, “the country has maintained the same anxieties about government's ability to improve the system.”  Greenberg continues:

…Our inability to talk credibly about how we would reduce health care spending or costs for individuals and the country built a contradiction into all our efforts--the more we talked about the comprehensiveness of our plans, the more voters worried this would yield higher premiums or higher taxes. Very quickly, voters came to conclude that their families would face higher costs.

 

And those dynamics are still in play. In my recent polling, I found that voters are skeptical about claims that reform will reduce costs and personal health outlays. Claims about simplicity, information-technology modernization, and best practices don't seem to be enough to persuade them otherwise.

 

For example: “It may surprise you that Obama has already lost seniors, according to our current survey--only one-third approve of his plan. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see there isn't much in it for them.”  Similarly for union members: “Yet the members will ultimately judge whether the plan is good for their families--and I'm certain that all the talk about taxing insurance contributions has not gone unnoticed.”  Similarly for blue collar Americans: “Ross Perot is a distant memory, but his more libertarian, blue-collar male voters are very much alive. They are pretty certain government will mess this up--and only about 30 percent support Obama's health care plan right now. With Republicans reciting their mantra about no ‘government takeover’ of health care, the plan's opponents have found a common text.”

Greenberg ends with:

He [Obama] must respect the thoughts, feelings and calculations of ordinary citizens who are not easily spun on important issues. People will take out their calculators when he lays out his plan, and he can't avoid speaking candidly about its costs and consequences. And he can't forget that he has a big story to tell about a changed America, one in which health care is but a pile of bricks in the new foundation he is laying.

 

“Health care is but a pile of bricks in the new foundation” by Obama for America?  Pile of bricks or pile of statist BS?  Most Americans can tell the difference.

In my dotage I have two young sons.  Both are smart.  And, I help and drive them.  I worry about whether I’ll instill enough in them so that after I’m a goner they’ll be able to handle life’s decisions well.  I also worry how well the major financial investment in college will work out.

So I got drawn into a series of blog posts from the American Enterprise Institute about a study listing colleges’ graduation rates, based on US Department of Education gathered data.  The discussion has centered on why many rankings don’t make sense.  The latest post reveals that colleges are not under any compunction to accurately report data.

For example, “Arkansas Baptist College, which boasts a 100 percent graduation rate in the database, admitted that the school’s data were reported erroneously.”  An author of the AEI study comments: “It is worth noting again that these data are congressionally mandated and collected by a major federal agency. Would we tolerate such inaccuracies from the companies who report workplace injury rates to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or the state agencies that administer the food stamp program?”

I don’t think my sons will end up at Arkansas Baptist College.  But, before Washington funnels hundreds of millions or many billions of taxpayer dollars into higher education, it does seem reasonable to require greater accountability, of Washington and of colleges.  

Hugh Hewitt has been calling on the nation’s doctors to take their customary leading role of trust by Americans to oppose Obamacare, especially the so-called “public” (read, government) health insurance that would displace private insurance at astronomical costs, bureaucracy, and interference in medical advancements and treatment decisions.  Hewitt has been pessimistic they would, feeling the American Medical Association is “cowed…by the Obama/Pelosi/Reid hard-left edge of the Democratic Party.”

Hewitt should have had more faith in the AMA’s 250,000 doctors.  The New York Times reports:

But in comments submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, the American Medical Association said: “The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.”

 

If private insurers are pushed out of the market, the group said, “the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers.”

 

 

 

The New York Times tries to cushion the blow to Obamacare advocates by saying:

The A.M.A., an umbrella group for 180 medical societies, does not speak for all doctors. One group, Physicians for a National Health Program, supports a single-payer system of insurance, in which a single public agency would pay for health services, but most care would still be delivered by private doctors and hospitals.

 

 

However, the New York Times fails to mention that the Physicians for a National Health Program claims just “more than 16,000 members,” and that one does not have to be a physician to join, its joining page requiring just “$40 / Year -- Health reform advocates (Non Physicians)” to be a member.

I suppose that the NYTs’ coverage of Obama’s speech to the AMA’s convention next Monday will laud Obama for his great courage in telling the overwhelming majority of the nation’s doctors they don’t know medicine.

92% of labor unions’ political contributions have gone to Democrats since 1990.  The unions are slated to get another payoff from Congressional Democrats’ proposed health care legislation.

Senator Max Baucus, lead on the legislation in Congress, the Washington Post reports, “told reporters that taxing employer-provided benefits is ‘perhaps the best way to raise money for an overhaul of the health-care system’ and offered details about the form that tax is likely to take.”

Among the details: “And it would be likely to ‘grandfather’ in health benefits set as part of a collective-bargaining agreement, he said, allowing union plans to remain tax-free until new contracts can be negotiated.”

This is in contrast to the contractual rights of bondholders in the heavily unionized auto industry being overridden (not “negotiated”), and unions given a disproportionate share of the reorganized companies to support their comparatively lavish health care benefits.  The priority of unions and their bought Democrat legislators will be to preserve their overly large piece of the pie in such “negotiations.”

The latest count from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics has 7.6% of private industry workers as members of unions, and 36.8% of public sector workers.  Their often gilt-edged health care coverage is to be given higher protection than that of non-unionized workers.  The US Bureau of Labor Statistics also reports, as USA Today relates: 

Public employees earned benefits worth an average of $13.38 an hour in December 2008, the latest available data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says. Private-sector workers got $7.98 an hour.

 

Overall, total compensation for state and local workers was $39.25 an hour — $11.90 more than in private business. In 2007, the gap in wages and benefits was $11.31.

 

The gap has been expanding because of the increasing value of public employee benefits. Last year, government benefits rose three times more than those in the private sector: up 69 cents an hour for civil servants, 23 cents for private workers.

 

Labor costs account for about half of state and local spending, according to BLS and Census data. Benefits consume a growing share of that, now 34%.

 

The rest of the two-thirds of the population under age 65 with employer-provided health insurance be darned, sayeth the Democrats with the union label.

While your reading, don't miss Ed Morrissey on Big Labor's Fiscal Insolvency, just desserts for where they're taking the rest of us.

There are more than two defense attorneys for each Guantanamo detainee, many from the US’ most prestigious law firms providing free services.  Have they accomplished an extended rule of law, or have they degraded it?  They’ve tied the US in legalistic knots, delaying justice, defamed the US before the world, and reduced respect or fear of penalty for those who terrorize and seek our destruction.

Arthur Herman writes in Commentary about “The Gitmo Myth and the Torture Canard”:

The enemies of Bush and Gitmo have succeeded brilliantly. But in so doing, they have done grave violence to the truth about the Guantánamo Bay facility, have aided in the release of prisoners who have since committed acts of terrorism outside the United States, and may yet succeed in having Barack Obama’s government release young men with terrifying ambitions for murder and mass destruction onto the soil of the United States.  

I just started reading my friend Gordon Cucullu’s intensive first-hand study of Inside Gitmo. (Cucullu also has a website about the matter.)

As Cucullu says, read the truth and decide for yourself whether Gitmo has been and is the right way to deal with enemies sworn to murder and to abet our downfall.

The Gitmo detainees have able counsel from our lawyers, and liberal allies in our and the world’s media, to trumpet manufactured or exaggerated grievances, claims and rights.  But, you are really the jury.   Herman sums up for you: “the entire Gitmo myth…was constructed to ruin the Bush administration and blacken the reputation of the United States.”  They got what they wanted, and now “However, human-rights groups and lawyers are just getting warmed up. They are now laying the ground for a similar legal assault on the American detention center at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, which they call Gitmo with a different zip code.” 

Who is defending your zip code?

A fellow former Marine who knows the family forwarded this to me.  For those, few, who don't know what Semper Fi means, it's the shortened version of Semper Fidelis - always faithful.  (I've removed the name of the recruiter; any Marine would do this for another.)

My dad Angelo was in the hospital in Tacoma, Washington. A former Marine and veteran of the Korean War, he was having his third knee replacement surgery. A long and very painful operation was going to be made even worse because dad was going through it alone. There was no one to hold his hand, no familiar soft voices to reassure him. His wife was ill and unable to accompany him or even visit during his weeklong stay. My sisters and brother lived in California, and I lived even farther away, in Indiana. There wasn't even anyone to drive him to the hospital, so he had arrived that morning by cab.

The thought of my dad lying there alone was more than I could stand. But what could I do from here?

I picked up the phone and called information for the Puyallup,Washington, Marine Corps recruiting station, where I joined the Marines ten years before. I thought that, if I could talk to a Marine and explain the situation, maybe one of them would visit my dad.

I called the number. A man answered the phone and in a very confident voice said, "United States Marines, Sergeant XXXX. May I help you?"

Feeling just as certain, I replied, "Sergeant XXXX, you may find this request a little strange, but this is why I am calling." I proceeded to tell him who I was and that my father was also a former Marine and 100 percent disabled from the Korean War. I explained that he was in the hospital, alone, without anyone to visit and asked if Sergeant XXXX would please go and see him.

Without hesitation, he answered, "Absolutely."

Then I asked, "If I send flowers to the recruiting station, would you deliver them to my dad when you go to the hospital?"

"Ma'am, I will be happy to take the flowers to your dad. I'll give you my address. You send them, and I will make sure that he receives them," he replied.

The next morning, I sent the flowers to Sergeant XXXX's office just as we had planned. I went to work and, that evening, I returned home and phoned my dad to inquire about his surprise visitor.

If you have ever talked with a small child after that child has just seen Santa Claus, you will understand the glee I heard in my dad's voice. "I was just waking up when I thought I saw two Marines in their dress blue uniforms standing at the foot of my bed," he told me excitedly. "I thought I had died and gone to Heaven. But they were really there!"

I began to laugh, partly at his excitement, but also because he didn't even mention his operation. He felt so honored; two Marines he had never met took time out to visit an old Marine like him. He told me again and again how sharp they looked and how all the nurses thought he was so important.

"But how did you ever get them to do that"? he asked me.

"It was easy. We're all Marines, Dad, past and present. It's the bond."

After hanging up with my dad, I called Sergeant XXXX to thank him for visiting my dad. And to thank him for the extra things he did to make it special: wearing his dress blue uniform, bringing another Marine along. He even took a digital camera with him. He had pictures taken of the two Marines with my dad right beside his bed. That evening, he emailed them to me so I could see for myself that my dad was not alone and that he was going to be okay.

As for the flowers, they hardly mattered, but I was glad for the opportunity to express my feelings. The card read: "Daddy, I didn't want just anyone bringing you flowers, so I sent the World's Finest.

Semper Fi.

President Obama says that if his health care program doesn’t pass Congress by this summer, it’s dead.  It’s dead already among Americans, but that hasn’t yet penetrated the heavily Democrat Congress or the liberal majority of boosters among the major media, seemingly determined to proctologically ram it in.

Rasmussen sums up the polling: (here and here) 

·                     50% more Americans say reducing the federal deficit is more important than a new health care scheme;

·                     Just 25% are willing to change their current coverage;

·                     29% say a government-run health system would be better than now;

·                     77% are opposed to taxing employer-provided health insurance;

·                     19% believe a new health care scheme will lead to lower costs.

In poll after poll, basically, those favoring the Obamacare schemes are those at the leftmost wing of the Democrat Party.  Probably progeny of former snake oil purchasers.