Tuesday, August 25. 2009
Our corner of Maine, where we try to spend much of August boating, blueberrying, catching up on reading, playing tennis and golf and socializing over cocktails has broadband now, astonishingly. Re cars: Right now, I drive an oldish Lexus sedan, hubbie drives a fairly new F-250. Spare car? A 2002 Suburban for when needed, which we are considering replacing with a Toyota minivan. I'll begin with this minor rant -
 I hear that Cash for Clunkers - a wonderful subsidy for the Japanese auto makers - has had to extend their time frame for reimbursement from the government. Today is the latest deadline, but who knows?
The car dealers need the money to pay their bills.
It's the amount of paperwork, plus government computers crashing and making terrible errors. And most car dealers do not have, and cannot afford, the staff to get the government forms entered properly. Why would they? They are in the private sector...
That's why I refuse to get involved in government medicine. I don't have the time, and I cannot afford the staff to do their paperwork. And these bozos think they can run American medical care? They do not have a clue.
Errors on government paperwork are potential felonies. Who needs the hassle? Not me. I just want to be a simple doctor, and I would rather be paid with a bushel of potatoes from your garden than with a puny and way-overdue government check.
 The 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope (photo from the article). Related: The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D
Training drone pilots (with attack video) h/t, Neptunus
Photographers' Rights. h/t, Insty
Rick Moran: Why You couldn't pay me to be a doctor
Unbelieveable. IQ too high for the police department. Must be stupid bosses. You cannot be too smart to be a good cop.
The GOP's Hispanic problem
Big surprise:
Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing, had shown “no sensitivity” to the families of those who died, Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s Justice Secretary, told the Scottish Parliament....
Hmmm. I see no Christian repentence there.
Sowell: A new push to play God from Washington
Saints are no more common in the insurance industry than in politics or even among paragons of virtue like economists. So there will always be horror stories, even if these are less numerous or less horrible than what is likely to happen if Obamacare gets passed into law.
Obama even gets away with saying things like having a system to "keep insurance companies honest"-- and many people may not see the painful irony in politicians trying to keep other people honest. Certainly most of the media are unlikely to point out this irony.
More Sowell: Utopia vs. Freedom
The nightmare of rationing in Oregon. Pajamas
Via NRO:
American democracy has never been democracy by plebiscite, a process by which a leader is anointed, then the populace steps out of the way, and the anointed one puts his political program in place. In the American tradition, the "mandate of heaven" is gained and lost every day and people talk back to their leaders. They are not held in thrall by them. The leaders are not infallible or a breed apart. That way is the Third World way, the way it plays out in Arab and Latin American politics.
The only President America treated with anything like a cult of personality was George Washington (and maybe FDR, sad to say). Washington rejected it, and rightly, graciously, and honorably refused to run for re-election. Americans do not "anoint" - we hire and fire. We should probably fire more often, and more pols should make themselves temporary public servants rather than careerists. Government is not a religion - and politics should not be a road to an easy life and a generous pension for lazy or incompetent narcissists, schmoozers, and con artists.
Monday, August 24. 2009
 The "health care" war - and it is a war - attests to the extent to which Americans are divided on the proper role of government in their lives, not to mention in the most personal and sensitive areas of their lives.
For example, Coyote in a piece titled US Medicine - The best in the world, he said this:
I had a professor that used to poll his class — he would ask them if they would prefer a society where the gap between rich and poor was narrower but where the poor were, on an absolute basis, worse off than in the less equal society. He reported the vote almost always split about 50/50. (of course the is a purely utilitarian formulation of the question. Adding in individual liberties issues makes the question far more stark, as to achieve an egalitarian society one must give up both wealth and liberty.)
As a more-or-less Conservative person who was raised in the heart of the American Revolution, my instincts are to distrust centralized power (power is a zero-sum game, unlike money and wealth) and the wisdom and trustworthiness of politicians - and to trust the people to figure out their own lives as best they can (while providing the abundant safety nets we have now for those who stumble and fall).
I know that Lyndon Johnson's Medicaid and Medicare (for the poor, the chronically disabled and the old - imagine considering 65 to be old!), were viewed as first steps towards universal government medical care. Those measure took care of those people that everybody felt badly about.
The Left, which pretends to see "market failures" everywhere as an excuse to place as much as possible under the control of the State (see Dr. Clouthier: Simply put, the government needs to relearn its place, who notes the Left's tendency to promise the sun, moon and stars for free, for all.)
Does Government Know Best? I doubt it very much. There are few people in government, I believe, who are as educated, honest, informed, or thoughtful as I am (and that's not saying much). Regan at American Thinker asks Does Government Know Best?. One quote:
Frighteningly, team Obama and the Democratically-controlled Congress -- who have taken on the role of the prudent parents of juvenile Americans -- have proven to be more than occasionally wrong for the country. In their desire to completely control American lives, they have progressed from losing their tempers to losing their way. Americans are now living in a nanny state in which the Democrats in power are implementing policy after policy designed to reduce freedom of choice and increase government control. Big government, socialized institutions, and sharing the wealth are policies supported by the Democrats - the party whose membership includes academics, Hollywood pseudo-intellectuals, and community organizers. The members of the Democratic Party are those who believe that they are smarter and wiser than the average American and that government intervention in all aspects of our lives is necessary in order to prevent social and economic catastrophe.
William Anderson at Weekly Standard says what I wish to say much better than I can in his Who Owns Your Body? One quote (my bold):
We are berated, ad nauseam, with imprecations that America is the only advanced nation that fails to have universal health care. This statement is often followed by the rueful remark that the debate over government controlled health care has been going on without progress for 60 years and, ipso facto, it is time to settle it.
All right, let's do that. Let's look a little deeper. Why is there no settlement of the issue, and why is America unique in its obstinate reluctance to follow the example of our older cultural brothers in Europe?
When a debate continues for decades without resolution, it is prudent to consider the deeper underlying assumptions. Principles which underpin the arguments are likely being ignored and marginalized rather than addressed in a forthright manner.
America is the only advanced country whose founding assumption is popular sovereignty. This is a proposition that stands with hardly a seconding voice throughout the contemporary international community. Yet it is the taproot of American exceptionalism.
Even here, however, the principle of government subordination to the people is by no means universally accepted. It has never been firmly ratified by our political class, those spiritual descendants of Europe's nobility. Our soi-disant elite appear to view with dismay their countrymen's continuing preference for self-rule.
Thus arises the question of corporal ownership. For Americans, the answer has been settled. Since the terrible bloodletting of the Civil War, and now excepting military service, ownership of one's body is a matter between the individual and God, with no intermediation by government.
Yet assertions are now being made that government should have responsibility for, and thus authority over, the maintenance of our bodies. It necessarily follows that government must have the power to approve or withhold care. This concept collides destructively with the founding principles of individual responsibility and autonomy upon which popular sovereignty depends.
This is the reason that the debate never ends. It is also the reason that any resolution of the question will necessarily either confirm or deny the original intent of the Founders.
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I have occasionally posted here about the sad, if not pathetic, willingness of some to sell their American birthright of individual sovereignty and freedom for a bowl of lentils. This is especially sad for a shrink because part of our job is to help people emotionally mature. It is no help to a shrink's job for government to be an enabler of perpetual childhood and dependency. Read Anderson's whole good essay (link above).
 Rules for Radicals turns to the right. Tiger. We have discussed Alinsky and Gramsci many times here. Along with 1984, Brave New World, Das Kapital, and Animal Farm, they seem to be the handbooks of the Left.
Oh, brother is right. The racist national parks. Related, from the hideously white Mr. Free Market
The Death Book for Veterans. Nice. Didn't we already ask them to die for their country once? Related: Obama to elderly: Drop Dead
A CT Rep who doesn't want to face the voters. Phone it in.
From Rev. Sirico:
Faith communities should recognize the Religious Left’s ‘40 Days’ campaign for what it is: a politically driven effort to expand a bloated state and make Americans evermore dependent on politicians and bureaucrats for healthcare.
Cash for clunkers was great for the Japanese car companies. I thought it was supposed to help American car companies.
Sen. Joe Lieberman must be listening to people. Slow it down.
Is a Federal insurance mandate Constitutional? No. Not under the Commerce clause, anyway. The Constitution gives no such power to the government. h/t, Viking
Important essay via Betsy: Do we expect too much from medical insurance? I believe so. At some point, some people seemed to expect "insurance" to pay all of their bills for them instead of simply insuring them against especially high or costly expenses. If a $60 pediatrician visit is too much for somebody, then they cannot afford to have kids yet.
Related: It's the big government, stupid. A quote from the NY Post piece:
While the commentariat's condescension is almost comical, the whole evil-or-stupid explanation misses the elephant in Obama's room: Americans of all stripes, it turns out, aren't very keen about the government barging into their lives.
Related by Lewis at Am Thinker:
Obama is trying to sell us Euro-socialism, which means bribing and intimidating people with their own tax money and corralling everyone with an endless sea of laws and regulations, until they know they can never fight City Hall. The crux of ObamaCare is centralizing power; everybody is made helpless except the politically connected.
Noubini: A double-dip vs a U-shaped recession?
Steyn via Dino:
Mark Steyn has further comments on Obamacare:
Why be scared of a government health program? After all, says the president, “Medicare is a government program that works really well,” and if “we’re able to get something right like Medicare,” we should have more “confidence” about being able to do it for everyone.
On the other hand, says the president, Medicare is “unsustainable” and “running out of money.” By the way, unlike your run-of-the-mill politician’s contradictory statements, these weren’t made a year or even a week apart, but during the same presidential speech in Portsmouth, N.H.
Whatever. This would be amusing in a not-so-dangerous world. This incoherence does seem to track with Obama’s 41% strong disapproval rating. Heaven help us all!
Steyn neglects to mention that, last I heard, the Dem plan is to fold Medicare and Medicaid into the government-controlled single-payer program. Let's face it: their ultimate goal is to put us all in government-run and controlled post-office-style clinics like the Indian Health Service. Clinics in schools too, because modern parents cannot be entrusted to take care of their own kids, can they?
The "Oh sh-t" photo from Theo. A timely metaphor.
Sunday, August 23. 2009
This came in over the transom:
Let me get this straight...
We're going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn't read it (and who smokes) with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's nearly broke.
What possibly could go wrong?
 I am home for a moment to do some wash, re-pack my gear, and to get some fresh cash. Then up to Maine by boat with excellent new girlfriend.
While our news linking team is on vacation until after Labor Day, I recommend these large volume news link sites (which have always tended to have plenty of overlap with our posts anyway):
Doug Ross Journal
Conservative Grapevine
Newsmax
and, of course, RCP.
Dig ya later...
From a Town Hall meeting in Washington state. h/t, Classical Values. I know what the Congressman is thinking inside: "Why do I have to put up with these damn annoying citizens when we have such good plans for them?"
In my view, no real American wants anybody to make plans for their lives.
We had speculated this this could be happening, but doubted that the Admin would really go this far: Breaking: White House Confirms It Used US Taxpayer Dollars to Sell Obamacare! Not legal, I believe, if true.
It's a scandal, possibly criminal (I am not a lawyer) - and it smells like Chicago.
Saturday, August 22. 2009
I appreciate the kind words about my attempting to cover our (almost) daily links post while the News Junkie is away. It takes too much time and care, but I am doing my best. However, I will be away part of this week through Labor Day for my undeserved trip. And I need to pack. While I usually travel light, this trip requires suits, sports jackets, ties, etc., along with the usual hideous but comfortable American tourist uniform - including my straw Stetson which was a fashion hit in Turkey a few years ago. When I travel with Mrs. BD, I think I look like an American dork who has had the luck or money to pick up a lovely Italian lady.
 Wind farms kill bats by the thousands. Oil does not.
First we had MADD (I agree that drunk driving is a bad thing, but that a couple of beers does not qualify.) Now we have Moms Aginst Ice Cream. What next bunch of controlling cranks will we have to deal with? Summer without ice cream is un-American. Also, Moms, there is always the little word "No."
Imagine if Bush had said it: We are God's partners. Government is God's partner? Give me a break.
Shelby Steele on why minorites are alienated from Conservatives.
It goes unpreported, but the Repubs have some medical care reforms that people might be interested in - and to be able to understand, too.
Theory: Obama thinks you're stupid. Zogby: the O hits new low in polling. Byrd at Wiz: When will Libs figure it out?
Noonan on Pull the Plug:
Right now Mr. Obama's gift is his curse, a Congress dominated by his party. While the country worries about the economy and two wars, the Democrats of Congress are preoccupied with the idea that this is their moment, now is their time, health care now, "Never let a good crisis go to waste," the only blazingly memorable phrase to be uttered in the new era.
It's not especially pleasurable to see history held hostage to ideological vanity, but it's not the first time. And if they keep it up, they'll help solve the president's problem. He'll have a Republican congress soon enough.
Priests, ministers and rabbis: beware -
Priests, beware. OFA’s health-care efforts are only the first of many community organizing projects to come. “Next is energy and then education, all before the new year,” says Kelley.
Related: Why do the Dems seem willing to drop insurance coverage of illegals? Cuz they plan to make them legal. The Dems are full of plans, and this is their only chance. Knowing this, immigrants bring mariachi bands and Mexican flags to hopey-changey free medical care rally.
Related: Democrats are right that uncompensated emergency care for the uninsured is driving up costs. What they don't say is it's illegal immigrants who are bankrupting ERs, and the federal government is encouraging them. Should I be paying for their kids' ear aches?
Having gotten the deficit to 9 trillion, the Prez takes a vacation. The plan is obviously to increase debt to the point that dramatic tax increases on everybody become required by the coming "federal debt crisis." Inflation won't solve it.
A fawning MSM asks Gibbs: What more can we do to help? I do not recall such solicitude towards Bush's people. At Insty:
JAMES TARANTO: Q: What’s the difference between the Associated Press and the Obama campaign? A: The AP admits the public is against it. “There’s one more difference between Obama and the AP: He is a politician trying to get a piece of legislation passed. One expects him to shade the truth, to downplay inconvenient facts. Politicians have even been forgiven for outright lies. By contrast, of what use is a news service that is not rigorously impartial and factual?” Oh, the Administration has found ‘em fairly useful.
Leavitt says:
Leavitt says that the Democrats are worried that their Trojan Horse has been spotted, so they are just looking for a new disguise to get the contraption through the gates.
Like that hasn’t been tried before.
Dressing it up in a bunny suit doesn’t make it into something else. Man the catapults.
The inept Gov. Paterson calls Media Racist. Must be that famously racist New York media.
From Politico:
By doing so much, so fast, Obama never sufficiently educated the public on the logic behind his policies. He spent little time explaining the biggest bailouts in U.S. history, which he inherited but supported and expanded. And then he lost crucial support on the left by not following up quickly with new and stricter rules for Wall Street. On Friday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman echoed a concern widely shared among leading liberals. “I don’t know if administration officials realize just how much damage they’ve done themselves with their kid-gloves treatment of the financial industry, just how badly the spectacle of government supported institutions paying giant bonuses is playing.”
By doing so much so fast, Obama jammed the circuits on Capitol Hill. Congress has a hard time doing even one big thing well at a time. Congress is good at passing giveaways and tax cuts, but has not enacted a transformative piece of social legislation since President Bill Clinton’s welfare reform of 1996. “There’s a reason things up here were built to go slowly,” said another Democratic aide.
By doing so doing so much, so fast, he has left voters — especially independents — worried that he got an overblown sense of his mandates and is doing, well, too much too fast. A Washington Post-ABC News poll published Friday found that independents’ confidence in Obama’s ability to make the right decisions had dropped 20 points since the Inauguration, from 61 percent to 41 percent.
Image via Opie, who says that she hasn't had much to say lately, but that the image captures most of it.
Friday, August 21. 2009
Excellent analysis by VDH: The strange case of the Obama meltdown. One quote:
Income is deemed arbitrary and compensation not rational; thus government is called upon to even things out given its greater wisdom and superior moral sensibility. The rapid growth in the state leads to permanent loyal constituencies of those who grant and receive entitlements—and could not be undone for generations, if ever. A religiosity surrounds these proposals, and critics (“fishy”) are targeted on email and websites, considered un-American and now un-Christian, in one of the most glaring examples of the utopian ends justifying devious means that we have seen in our lifetimes.
Related: Here comes the Blame Game
Photo is down the road from the Farm, in the Massachusetts Berkshires
Not satire: US Program Will Offer Rebates For Household Appliances. I guess I am being required to buy you a new fridge. Great.
'Reflections on the Revolution in Europe' by Christopher Caldwell:
In Europe, the author argues, the clash between Western civilization and the Muslim world has already been lost -- in the latter's favor.
Brit Dept of Energy and Climate Change refuses to turn off their A/C. Related: Greenpeace admits gross exaggeration to produce alarm
At Driscoll: “Obama Would Like You To See Government As Religion”. Not just the O. I think it is a fundamental assumption - or pose - of the Left that government can be a god and alter reality. The illusion appeals to those guided by wishful thinking, because history shows that governments tend to screw up whatever they touch.
Related: Obama: Medicaid and Medicare are broke, so let us take over everyone’s health care. That is what seems to crazy about all of this.
Charlie Cook: Dem situation has 'slipped completely out of control'. Related at RCP: Amateur Hour at the White House. Look at the map.
From Byron York:
Remember the anti-war movement? Not too long ago, the Democratic party's most loyal voters passionately opposed the war in Iraq. Democratic presidential candidates argued over who would withdraw American troops the quickest. Netroots activists regularly denounced President George W. Bush, and sometimes the U.S. military ("General Betray Us"). Cindy Sheehan, the woman whose soldier son was killed in Iraq, became a heroine when she led protests at Bush's Texas ranch.
That was then.
Riehl on the Leftist Dems:
They know the battle is significant enough to be won over time. And they know this is an important enough gain to matter in their drive to eliminate private health insurance and make it a government run program from beginning to the end.
Cradle to the grave, that's how they view power over the citizen, all for the government's good, while they try to dress it up as the common good. The only thing common about the Democrats is the greater benefit and power that accrues to government, not the people, when it comes to any of their not so grand plans.
From Sowell:
Since it is their own money that they have earned, these people feel free to spend it to give their 80-year-old grandmother another year or two of life, or to pay for a hip replacement operation for their mom or dad, even If some medical “ethicist” might say that the resources of “society” would be better used to allow some 20-year-old to talk over his angst with a shrink.
Barack Obama has talked about the high costs of taking care of elderly or chronically ill patients in terms of “society making those decisions.” But a world in which individuals make their own trade-offs with their own money is fundamentally different from a world where third parties take those decisions out of their hands and impose their own notions of what is best for “society.”
This is good-natured fun: WH announces that Obama has Bipolar Disorder:
White House Reveals Obama Is Bipolar, Has Entered Depressive Phase
Thursday, August 20. 2009
 Just one humble thought about the government's apparent desire to control the purse-strings of medical care, and then to hire "experts" - our betters, no doubt - to ration it "rationally" (ie on an amoral, communitarian utilitarian basis) to cut costs:
It's our money. All of the government's money is our money. If we didn't make it, they wouldn't have it.
What went wrong in American history such that a government could even imagine making such personal decisions for us, with our own earned dollars?
Yes, I know that I am politically naive. I intend to remain that way.
Photo: Wellfleet, MA last summer
Remarkable story. The lost photos of Hiroshima. h/t, Am Digest
Want to sign the Free Our Health Care Now petition?
Here comes bad news: Media Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd. Unbelievable.
Unbelievable re that "guy with an assault rifle." 1. It was a Pro- Dem Reform rally and 2. The guy was black. h/t, Hot Air
Unbelievable. Can I compare thee to... the Grand Canyon?
Unbelievable. Busing in union guys from 146 miles away for phony Town Hall. Related: The danger in trying to fool ther people
A more nuanced view of Rahm Emanuel
Viking:
Get in line, Grandma - Here's Harvard economist Martin Feldstein with "Obamacare is all about rationing": "The Obama strategy is to reduce health costs by rationing the services that we and future generations of patients will receive." Wow, limited services and an extra trillion dollars in debt? What's not to love?
Bernie Sanders update:
The Senator in true Washington fashion declared that it was a human right that everyone be given what they want, and that the “rich” should pay for it all. As one aspiring to someday have a small degree of wealth, it was less than reassuring to know that my hard work, risk taking, and determination will be met with an even greater involuntary redistribution of what I earn. The health care debate aside, I had the opportunity to ask the Senator why he doesn’t preach more about individual responsibility, and why cautious, fiscally prudent Vermonters are being penalized for the largess of others.
Update on Senate races, incl NH and CT
Powerline: Dems in disarray. And at Commentary:
The supposedly smooth-running Obama Machine is sputtering. Unaccustomed to governing, seemingly in over their heads, and watching their signature domestic initiative turn radioactive, Obama and company are trying to find excuses to latch on to enemies to blame. But this dog won’t hunt. What we’re seeing is a transparent and slightly pathetic effort at damage control. The Obama administration is in a slide; and they don’t know how to stop it. The promise of “hope and change” seems from so long ago and so far away.
Well, "questions of honesty and of competence begin to dog the O." But it cannot be his fault, can it?
This makes at least the second phony doctor at an O health care rally.
Representative democracy or rule of the elites:
MASSA: I will vote adamantly against the interests of my district if I actually think what I am doing is going to be helpful.
(inaudible participants’ comments regarding the “interests” of the district statement from Mr. Massa)
Massa: I will vote against their opinion if I actually believe it will help them.
I guess the "elites" like to imagine that we need help tying our shoes (and if we do, we can thank government education for that). Thus things like this: ACORN May Impose Lifestyle Regulations Under ObamaCare
Big Lizards:
Several pundits ... have quipped that if the Democrats are so anxious for a public (government) option in health-insurance reform, arguing that allowing the government to "compete" with private industry reduces cost without damaging quality, then why do they reject a "private option" for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and schooling?
Insty:
REASON TV: Richard Vedder, author of Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much, talks about — you guessed it — why college costs too much. Say, if college costs are rising faster than medical costs, isn’t that a crisis?
Surber on government involvement in our medical care:
In the 1960s, the excuse was the poor and the elderly had no health insurance and taxpayers should provide it. That brought in Medicare and Medicaid, which increased demand for health treatment, which was the idea and that is good. But the increase in demand drove up prices, which is fine too because higher prices attracted good doctors from around the globe.
The downside was the government’s refusal to pay in full for services rendered.
But we now have the best medical care in the world. Expensive? Yes, but darned well worth it.
Taking care of the poor, the disabled and the old pretty much ended the public’s desire for universal health care. Hillary tried it 16 years ago. A dozen years ago a Republican Congress approved S-CHIP, which covered lower middle-class children.
Now the excuse is the uninsured, who fall into 5 categories: illegal aliens, people with pre-existing conditions, the self-employed, people who qualify for a program but won’t take it, and people who could afford it but don’t want it. Of the five groups, the pre-existing conditions people draw the most sympathy and we can help them without going to uuniversal health care.
It is not the socialism.
It is the dishonesty.
Barack Obama won’t admit the truth about his plans to impose universal health care upon the nation. This does not help him gain support for his policies, and it undermines the public’s perception of him.
Related, from Reason in 1993:
When Medicare finally passed in 1965, Rep. Phil Burton (D-Calif.) expressed the sentiments of many among its Great Society enthusiasts when he said, "I am equally certain that before many years Congress will choose to extend comprehensive medical care as a matter of right to every man, woman, and child in this country."
So the history of Medicare and the outlook for the program over the next generation provide a sobering lesson for today’s would-be designers of national health insurance. Unfortunately, no one seems to be paying attention to what the Medicare experience has to teach.
Wednesday, August 19. 2009
If you like it, feel free to borrow or steal parts or all this email which I am sending (all Senate and House addresses here). It's just my first draft -
To my President, my Senators and my Congressman:
I strongly urge you not to support anything that would, could, or is covertly designed (which has been obvious) to lead to a government-controlled medical system. The idea of a government bureaucracy and government "experts" making decisions about my body is horrifying to me. But if government pays for it, they will have the ultimate control.
Everybody knows that the Dem goal is government rationing and control. Why Dems want that in a country that stands for individual freedom is beyond my comprehension. Furthermore, everybody knows that Pres. Obama is lying in his salesmanship. (If it's such a good thing, why lie?) As Rick Moran puts it:
...establishing a system that is deliberately designed to eventually replace private insurance with a single payer government program would never fly in a million years in this country and the left knows it. Hence, the lies about the public option.
The reality that Veterinary care in England and Canada is better, prompter, and more caring than human care is a cautionary tale about government control.
There must be a problem when I see a far-Left Liberal like Nat Hentoff getting worried:
Nat Hentoff: "I am finally scared of a White House administration" [Andy McCarthy]
After all the battles over all these decades, it took Obamacare to scare the daylights out of the renowned libertarian lefty (whom I read in the Village Voice as a kid, debated on Iraq and the Patriot Act, and have always admired for his honesty). His column in the Jewish World Review is here.
The problem is the nationalization of a person's body, ultimately. I want the government's hands off my body and out of my personal life as much as possible. People like Dr. Zeke Emanuel (who does not practice medicine) are the sort of arrogant "We know what's best for you" types that disturb me the most.
Only I know what is best for me and my family. I want to be able to make the choices, to buy whatever insurance I want, to pay medical bills out of pocket if I want the services. And I do not want to see a politicized medical system where the loudest whiners get the money.
Let's step back from the ideological issues (I know the powerful Dems always want more government control of everything and rarely include personal freedom in their political calculus, while Conservatives want government to have less power), and look at the real problems.
The real problems, I think, are these:
1. People equate insurance with medical care. Wrong. That has been an unfortunate accident of history, and it was the fatal error of Medicare. We need much more Major Medical available for people. It is affordable, and it is true insurance.
2. Medical insurance businesses ought to be able to compete across state borders.
3. Portability. People ought to be able to keep a coverage they have.
4. Pre-existing conditions. Insurance regulations ought to require companies to pool those with pre-existing conditions, same as is done with multiple-claim drivers with auto insurance.
5. The costs of the Medicare program. It's almost free to the beneficiaries, regardless of their wealth or poverty. Government created that mess, so fix it, if you can, over time. (I think it should have been means-tested, but too late for that now. How about inching up the age? People in their 60s still work, nowadays. In their 70s too, and plenty of them longer than that.)
6. The uninsured. Let's think a bit about who they are, and what, if anything, ought to be done about them. Medicaid already covers the poor. I know that when I pay a hospital bill it includes a charge for the uninsured, the illegals, etc., just the same as my kids' tuition bill includes an additional charge for the scholarship kids, and just as the price of something at the store includes an additional charge for theft and pilferage. I quote from this essay:
As Steve Chapman argues in the Chicago Tribune, Obama and his allies are proposing way too big a hammer to address the nail representing what is wrong with American health care. The great majority of Americans are happy with their health care. Despite the propaganda, there are not 46 million uninsured Americans who cannot obtain health care or insurance. If you are here illegally, that might explain why you don't have health insurance (nearly 10 million of the 46 million). If you earn over $75,000 a year, and have no insurance (10 million of the 46 million), it isn't, except in very rare cases, because you cannot afford to buy a policy. You have made a choice on how to spend your money, and in essence, have chosen to self-insure . If you qualify for Medicaid or some other government program and don't sign up (another roughly 4.5 million, if not more), whose fault is that? Another 6.5 million of the so-called uninsured are actually insured by Medicaid or S-Chip, but the census taker does not know it. Sally Pipes argues that the number of "uninsured" who would qualify for existing programs is much higher -- as many as 14 million people.
7. Malpractice tort reform. All physicians admit to unnecessary expenses for CYA purposes. Legal concerns rather than medical judgement plays a far larger role in American medicine than people realize.
8. The money spent on medical care in America. I happen to think it's great. We spend more money on medical things because that is what people in wealthy nations do. Dental implants, new knees and hips, physical therapy, psychotherapy, arterial stents, antidepressants, Alzheimer treatments, lazer vision treatment, cornea transplants, etc. That's why Americans at age 70 are so active and in such good shape compared to anywhere else in the world. It's a good thing for medical care to be such a big driver of the economy: what better use of money is there? It only becomes a "problem" when government has to pick up the tab.
In conclusion, I ask that you folks in government please stop doing things "for us." We Americans can figure it out ourselves. We always have, through good times and bad.
Best regards,
Bird Dog
PS: If you wish to respond, please do not respond with the standard talking points. I do not buy them.
Via Synthstuff, the wonderful Daniel Hannan, MP, delivers a warning to America this week. Why isn't this guy the Tory leader?
 16,000 year-old clay figure. In the Sabuniye tumulus. h/t, Jungleman. They always call them "mother goddesses" but I think it was just old-time T&A.
The Cahaba River. I knew nothing about this.
Forget Woodstock's anniversary. Tim Blair notes that this was the 45th anniversary of this very good stuff.
But it's groovy, man, that Arlo is a conservative. Like, far out.
Dick Armey: We'll march on Washington
Ban Ki-Moonbat Vies With Al Gore in Hysterical Self-Parody
Barone: Dear Young Obama Voter
Liberalism: Because we know what's best for you
Why the heck would they bring Howard Dean into this? Even more wacky, they bring in the E Word. Also, was that public option removal thing a head fake? What would Alinsky do? He would lie, wouldn't he? The ends justify the means.
Hey. What happened to the Anti-War Movement? Ah, my naive young friend. Now you see how the game is played.
From Yalie Never Yet Melted on Yale:
We have serious problems with expertise in the elite circles of the contemporary intelligentsia. Its members’ utter and complete lack of both testosterone and common sense tends to preclude the possibility of the combination of mastery of any particular specialized topic with demonstrated skill in the manipulation of words and symbols being associated with sound judgement or manly behavior.
Why Obama's Ratings Are Sinking: Americans will put up with a lot. But not with someone who imperils their future.
Dr. Sanity (I thought she retired from blogging):
All thuggish leftists and collectivists, including many of those we have elected to represent us in Congress; as well as the Taliban and other Islamofascist movements, intuitively understand that by controlling the education of the young, they can have an endless supply of fodder for their revolutionary utopia.
Controlling health care, as was pointed out in the previous post, helps them control everyone's life in the present. But, when they completely control education, then the political left will control the future and will have achieved their final victory.
BTW, "Hasta la victoria siempre" was the signoff used by Ernesto "Ché" Guevara in the last letter he wrote to Fidel Castro.
Dr. Melissa:
Who likes being treated like an idiot? No one. And yet, the Left and Liberals in general, speak to the American people like they’re morons. The absolute worst is Al Gore. The most insulting thing is the guy ain’t that smart and he comes across as a doltish buffoon and still has the nerve to lecture stupid Americans. It’s annoying...
And so, rather than engage Sarah Palin on the merits, even the editors at the National Review get lost in what they consider hyperbole. Elites hate hyperbole (except when they’re employing it to chastise the masses into using fluorescent lighting). The form-police ignore the substance because the messenger doesn’t have an air of hauteur and the Ivy league parchment required to engage in the “conversation”.
WSJ:
Right now the entire Beltway—including the West Wing—seems obsessed with finding out what went wrong with the administration's sales pitch. No one appears to think the problem might be substance. Or that the vague answers and vitriolic rhetoric we get from Democrats such as Mr. Reid convey a sense that the plans they favor will not hold up under public scrutiny.
Take this AARP and shove it
Goon Squads: Obama, ACORN, and the SEIU? They Go Way Back
Tuesday, August 18. 2009
Our contributor Roger de Hauteville, former King of Sicily and a Ted Kennedy fan, emailed me this artistic effort:
From The Panel, in the WSJ:
In fact, the logic of this moment was inevitable. Once government got its fingers on the health-care system, it was only a matter of time before it took it over completely. Now there's one limited pool of dollars while the costs are endless.
"You have the luxury of thinking only of yourself, but we have to think about everyone," says the professor of ethics. He's a celebrity and waxes eloquent every Tuesday and Thursday on Bill Maher Tonight. "This isn't the free market, after all. We can't just leave fairness to chance. We have to use reason. Is it better for society as a whole that we allocate limited resources for your operation when we might use the same dollars to bring many more high quality years to someone, say, younger?"
"I'm only 62."
He smiles politely.
"Look, it's not just about me," you argue desperately. "My daughter's engaged to get married next year. She'll be heartbroken if I'm not there for it."
"Maybe you should have thought of that before you put on so much weight," says the medical officer. "I mean, you people have been told time and again . . ."
But the chairwoman is uncomfortable with his censorious tone and cuts him off, saying more gently, "Perhaps your daughter could move the wedding up a little."
Read the whole thing. I like the way Mark Steyn put it on the radio today: "They want to nationalize your body." Yes, while pretending to do you a favor.
All doctors know this: The "Preventive Care" Myth from Krauthammer.
Preventive care is expensive, and has a very low yield. Things like mammograms do not exist because they are cost-effective: they exist because people want them.
A flower carpet at Biltmore, Asheville, NC
Are we having a "conversation" yet? Althouse
Bikinis, banned in Britain
Health care reform is about control, not health
Some lady figured out how to make money from the housing price crash. Ain't free markets amazing?
In which Mike Lupica reveals himself to be a non-serious person. Related from Riehl: It's all because he's black
Tim Pawlenty steps up to the plate
A doc responds to Obama: Am Thinker
Data about the last election, including this one:
The researchers found that 11 percent saw Obama’s race as a reason to vote against him, but roughly three times as many saw his race as a reason to vote for him.
I knew we were ordinary. Gallup: Conservatives now outnumber Libs in all 50 states. People just need the occasional reminder of what the Left tried to do to them.
Senators want Cap and Tax set aside
Tiger wonders Why, precisely, Ivy League Democrats think that identifying with African kleptocratic dictators will help either the people of Africa or the United States is beyond me.
At Doug Ross:
• jimfromthefoothills firmly states, "Remember, we are going to rebuild every school, bridge and road in the country. We will fix healthcare. We will restore the constitution, end illegal wars [and] reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses." ......... And then luscious chocolate-chip cookies will drop from the sky, multi-colored unicorns will everyone give free rides to work and school, and Karl Rove will get frogmarched out of Fox News in primetime. As an aside, Jim is still living in the foothills and apparently ate some bad possum before posting.
There is only one jurisdiction in which self-identified liberals outnumber conservatives: Washington, D.C. That figures. They feed off of us.
I'd like to see Barbara Boxer defeated. She irritates me.
If congressional Dems stay on this track, they will have problems. As neoneo discusses, it's the shocking radicalization of the center right. A quote:
People tend to be more driven to protest things that affect them personally rather than abstractions or faraway problems in distant lands. And it’s hard to imagine a government program that promises (or threatens) to affect people more personally than the health care reform bill, or one that has been more suspect in its claims and more murky in its lack of transparency. Therefore it should not be the least bit surprising that there’s a lot of energy in the fight against it.
What is surprising—to the Left—is that now they’re the objects rather than the perpetrators of the outrage. Their charge that opponents are astroturfers is partly a cynical ploy. But I suspect it’s also partly sincere, because they are experiencing shock and resultant denial that a populist movement has arisen against the Left itself.
Need a job? Here's one.
My college friends from Sha-Na-Na did OK in life. Glad to hear it. No slouches.
No, you could not keep your medical insurance if you like it. It's a lie.
A reprise of Dr. Zeke Emanuel: Docs take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously. Would you send a friend to him?
Is ObamaCare constitutional? Not at all, but who cares these days? That old Constitution was made for strong men and women. Speaking of pussies, here's one. And here's a brave pol who should also lose his job.
An ex-insurance guy has become an emotional crusader against private insurance companies. Trouble is, if we end up with a government monopoly he will have many more complaints. And there will be no exit. The No Exit and no choice is what folks fear most, I believe.
Real Health Reform: Republicans have a chance to advance some market-oriented reform ideas. Yuval Levin
Viking:
Color me green unsurprised - The Truth About Cars: "The Cash for Clunkers program is a car industry bailout dressed up as a green initiative."
Dick Morris on the seniors:
The legislation still plans to achieve 40% of its savings from cuts in Medicare, slicing reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals encouraging them shortchange their elderly patients as a matter of economic necessity and shrinking further the population of doctors. The standards and protocols of the newly established Federal Health Board are just as likely to direct the denial of care to seniors for such surgeries as hip and knee replacements and even coronary artery bypass as before the Obama retreat.
A prediction of civil war in Germany. Gates. In a way, it looks as if it has already begun.
Coyote:
I am confused as to why a preference for overpriced organic foods and a preference for government monopoly control of health care are necessarily correlated at the 1.0 level. But apparently they are. Maybe its a common desire to overpay for basic necessities?
I hear too much of this sort of ignorant nonsense from Greenies. How is shutting off your tap in England supposed to help people in deserts get water? As the Englishman asks "Where does it go?"
Legal, but unbelievably stupid. The ignorant or excitement-seeking reporter refers to that A-15 as an assault rifle. Maybe it once was one, but that rifle will not do full auto. Here's full auto (via Am Digest):
Monday, August 17. 2009
Jay Cost at RCP: Obama misread his mandate. This essay is on the money. The Dems are acting as if the whole country were like San Francisco. One quote:
...the Obama administration has acted as if those hagiographical comparisons to FDR were apt. It let its liberal allies from the coasts drive the agenda and write the key bills, and it's played straw man semantic games to marginalize the opposition. For all the President's moaning in The Audacity of Hope about how the Bush administration was railroading the minority into accepting far right proposals - he was prepared to let his Northeastern and Pacific Western liberal allies do exactly the same thing: write bills that excite the left, infuriate the right, and scare the center; insist on speedy passage through the Congress; and use budget reconciliation to ram it through in case the expected super majority did not emerge.
Why you won't see medical tort reform (h/t, reader):
Despite the top sellers, the NYT still refuses to review conservative books. Very foolish of them. Thoughtful reviews and critiques would be a good thing.
The last swine flu vaccine in the 80s killed more people than the flu did. Now Guillain-Barre returns with the new flu vaccine. I think I'll pass.
Are the days of the classic car over? I kinda think so.
"Dutch embrace Islamic names." That's one way to put it, but I can think of other explanations.
Why Martha's Vineyard?
The tactic of manufactured crises. Am Thinker
Cry havoc, and leaf through some books on war with Jules, overlooking scenic Cape Cod Bay.
Putting the heat on ACORN. I don't mind political advocacy groups. I just mind when they are paid with my tax dollars, like ACORN. It's a huge scandal, but the MSM will not touch it.
Via Front Page:
It’s a new age of irony that we live in. The president is a self-described community organizer who used his skills at grassroots activism to launch a populist movement that swept him into office. Now his administration, along with its Congressional allies, is worried about a determined civic movement that is turning against it.
The folks turning up for the town-halls may be maligned by their elected officials. They may be painted as rage-filled lunatics by the media. But unfortunately for the Obama administration and its transformational vision for health care, they aren’t going away.
The O hires campaign ad firms to promote government medicine. That had better not be on my nickel.
Sissy remembers The women now went willingly into the field. Women like to do for their families. So do real men.
What's the deal? Dr. Emanuel isn't my doctor. He has no right to make my medical decisions.
The evil, evil anti-O racism of Tinky Winky. Yes, I think the O is a joke. I think all politicians are jokes.
From The American:
Hollywood seems to think that the government is either screwing up the country because it doesn't know what it is doing or it is destroying the country because it is trampling on the rights of its citizens. However, the people who hold these convictions are the exact same people who want to turn over the operation of all the key components of the country to the government to manage. Health care, energy, education, the economy itself -- these and dozens of other critical features of American society should be directed, according to the Left, from the hallowed halls in which the bumblers and betrayers work.
Who are the uninsured and should we pay to cover them?
Stunning Freudian slip by the MSM
How Canada is saving money on government medical care
Quoted at Carpe Diem:
Comprehensive health insurance is such an ingrained element of our thinking, we forget that its rise to dominance is relatively recent. Modern group health insurance was introduced in 1929, and employer-based insurance began to blossom during World War II, when wage freezes prompted employers to expand other benefits as a way of attracting workers. Still, as late as 1954, only a minority of Americans had health insurance. That’s when Congress passed a law making employer contributions to employee health plans tax-deductible without making the resulting benefits taxable to employees. This seemingly minor tax benefit not only encouraged the spread of catastrophic insurance, but had the accidental effect of making employer-funded health insurance the most affordable option (after taxes) for financing pretty much any type of health care. There was nothing natural or inevitable about the way our system developed: employer-based, comprehensive insurance crowded out alternative methods of paying for health-care expenses only because of a poorly considered tax benefit passed half a century ago.
Emails to House members overwhelm website. Keep 'em coming.
Enjoyed our Barrister identifying government and politicians as a powerful special interest: the most powerful one. Wish I had had that insight.
ACLU: Prior restraint for religious speech. This is insane, sick, evil, despicable. Related: More on Yale's voluntary restraint of speech
Who is really doing the astroturfing? As noted at Insty: "Have you ever seen a clearer case of projection in your life?”
Orthopedists slam the O for "blurring reality". Nice euphemism, docs.
Wizbang:
For the last year and a half, President Obama's arguments in favor of his health care reforms have consisted of little more than recycling every popular myth dreamed up by socialized medicine advocates to illustrate how wretched our private health care system has become/
Sunday, August 16. 2009
Even if you are not a fan of Rush, I think he nails it here. Worth a couple of minutes -
He makes some points which are similar to what Riehl has posted re the O:
What appears to be a lack of attention paid to political reality is actually a single-minded determination to ignore what Americans want and to use the tools of community organizing, intimidation, coercion and, most importantly, deception to achieve his goals.
And
Obama is not a man born to, nor interested in serving. He is someone convinced he exists to lead you to where he believes things, or America should be. Unfortunately, his unusual upbringing, life experience and classroom experience left him thinking unlike the majority of Americans. He is an elitist, through and through, not the man of the people he pretends to be.
Carter had similar traits, though of a different sort. He was self-righteous, while Obama is simply pretentious. In some ways that makes Carter the better man. What a frightening thought. At least Carter's ideas and goals had a noble quality, even if they were naive. That isn't the case with Obama.
Ultimately, his goals are selfish, or self-centered. Other than his own thinking, or the thinking of other liberal elites, he has no truly great tradition of thought to back him up. This is the self-centered and ultimately disastrous mindset of the post-sixties generation, bought into the mindset that went before and turned into an intellectualism it doesn't deserve to be.
“Grunts” are the front-line fighting Marines and soldiers. My friend R.J. DelVecchio is moved by the following article by a leading commentator on, and supporter of, the tasks faced by Grunts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their comments are not intended as, nor should they be read as, despondent about either our mission or prospects. They, however, should be read as a necessary corrective to the thinking of those who feel that wars can be fought in comforts or oblivious to their primary necessities, especially that of crippling and killing the enemy. This is a long post, and for those who care to read it may help clarify our dilemmas in Afghanistan.
Here’s DelVecchio’s email:
Here is the question- if we are going to make our guys always carry 70+ (often up to 100) lbs of stuff all the time (as if there is no chance of chopper resupply of anything), and they have to use a Rule of Engagement sheet that runs over a page single-space last time I heard, and they have to worry about what some lawyer back at battalion will do to them if he even thinks they may have violated the ROE, and best of all, now the bad guys can fire at will from villages or buildings where there just may be civilians and we cannot fire back, and we can't really just use our masters of the night aircraft to kill anyone they see coming across the border into Afghanistan so that the people in the Pakistan bases of the Taliban finally figure out that to even start that journey is to die.... then have we put ourselves again in a situation where as long as the
other guys are determined enough to stretch this out long enough, eventually enough people at home and in Congress will decide they don't want to play this game anymore and we bring our guys home and everything they have fought, suffered, and died for goes to hell anyhow?
I always tell the high school classes I lecture at that the lessons of Viet Nam are three simple rules-
1- do not send Americans to fight somewhere unless you have a clear and
reasonably simple goal of what it is you want to get done
2- do not send Americans to go into that fight unless you have a pretty
good idea of what it will take to win not just the battles, but the whole war
3- do not sent Americans to go and fight and die in that war unless you are fully prepared to do whatever it really takes to win it
If that means using napalm sometimes, laying down minefields sometimes, using herbicides to kill foliage or crops sometimes, (none of which are now allowed to us) and accepting the sad fact that when the enemy deliberately hides among and uses the local population as a major tactic, collateral damage is utterly unavoidable if you are to really fight them, then those are the things you should be doing.
The most moral thing you do in any war is fight hard, as hard as you can, to smash the enemy and get it over with. A short nasty and intense war with mistakes and some tragic collateral damage is infinitely better than the long drawn out "let's be nice and careful and not upset anyone in the international community" attempt at war that ends in failure anyhow. That seems to be a lesson that has been utterly lost in America today.
That is what I think.... what about you?
S/F
Del
Here’s the column by Bing West from Small Wars Journal website (a link to his bio is at the end):
Tactics or Strategy?
I came back from my latest month in the field in Afghanistan disquieted about our basic military mission. Is the military mission to engage, push back and dismantle the Taliban networks, with population protection being a tactic to gain tips and local militia, or is the military mission to build a nation by US soldiers protecting the widespread population, with engagements against the Taliban as a byproduct?
It appears our strategy is nation-building, with fighting and dismantling of the Taliban a secondary consideration. Thus, the number of enemy killed will not be counted, let alone used as a metric. This non-kinetic theory of counterinsurgency has persuaded the liberal community in America to support or at least not to vociferously oppose the war. But we have to maintain a balance between messages that gain domestic support and messages that direct battlefield operations.
We must understand what our riflemen do in Afghanistan every day. The answer is they conduct combat patrols. That underlies all their other activities. They go out with rifles to engage and kill the enemy. That is how they protect the population. For our generals to stress that the war is 80% non-kinetic discounts the basic activity of our soldiers. Although crime isn’t eradicated by locking up criminals, we expect our police to make arrests to keep the streets safe. Similarly, our riflemen are trained to engage the enemy. That’s how they protect the population. If we’re not out in the countryside night and day – and we’re not – then the Taliban can move around as they please and intimidate or persuade the population.
I’m not arguing that we Americans can ever dominate the Taliban gangs. There’s a level of understanding and accommodation among Afghans in the countryside that culturally surpasses our understanding. During the May poppy harvest, the shooting stops on both sides and men from far and wide head to the fields to participate in the harvest. That’s an Afghan thing. Only the Afghans can figure out what sort of society and leaders they want.
That said, we should strive to do a better job of what we are doing for as long as we are there. I condensed several hours of firefights I filmed during various patrols into the 30-second clip I posted here on 10 August (Not a Tactical Hurdle). The purpose is to illustrate a tactical problem that is strategic in its dimensions. Simply put, our ground forces are not inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. However, the annual bill for the US military in Afghanistan exceeds $70 billion, with another four to six billion for development. We’ve already spent $38 billion on Afghan reconstruction. Congress may eventually balk at spending such sums year after year. The problem is we’re liable to be gradually pulled out while the Taliban is intact. Nation-building alone is not sufficient; the Taliban must be disrupted.
Our soldiers only get a small number of chances to engage the enemy. Our battalions average one arrest every two months, and one platoon-sized patrol per day per company that infrequently makes solid contact. On average, a US rifleman will glimpse a Taliban once a month. The Taliban initiate the fights because they know they can escape. Our patrols have firepower but lack mobility. Our soldiers are carrying 70 pounds; a Taliban is carrying ten pounds. The Taliban have the distinct edge in mobility. Because the Taliban are well-concealed and scoot away, our superior firepower does not yield precision aim points to do severe damage.
More senior-level attention must be paid to inflicting severe enemy losses in firefights and to arresting the Taliban, so that their morale and networks are broken. A recent directive forbids applying indirect fires against compounds where civilians might be hiding. That directive upholds human decency and may reduce enemy propaganda. But indirect fires – helicopter gunships and jets – used to be called “precision fires” and gave the US its enormous advantage in combat. Now that such fires are restricted, what provides our advantage when the enemy sensibly fights from compounds? Don’t expect Afghan soldiers to do it for us. We have equipped and trained the Afghans in our image. They are as heavy and slow-moving on the ground as we are, and rely upon our advisors to call in the firepower.
This is my third war. It has the highest level of military scholars. Those scholars who emphasized the concepts of non-kinetic counterinsurgency need also to design concepts that bring more lethality to the ground battlefield. We’re pumping billions into UAVs. Surely we can find technologies and techniques for the grunt.
Bing West’s bio
This may, also, be of interest: Why We Need More Troops in Afghanistan
The question still remains, whether President Obama will pursue half-measures or go full in to accomplish something more possibly lasting.
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