I was going to refrain from politics on the blog, until Pat emboldened me, saying he liked the political posts. He even liked the link to the trailer of Mega Shark v Giant Octopus. Thanks Pat and Julie for letting me stay at your place for almost a month.
Health care. If, according to the Prez, 47 million Americans don't have insurance, that means we have 85% coverage. If you take out those who qualify for programs but haven't signed up for them, and those who can afford insurance but choose not to buy it, we have well over 90% coverage, and the shortest wait times in the world. Of course there are problems with all health care systems, but if the main concern was coverage, there are better ways than a national system, or a "public option" (which = a national system eventually). The Swiss system isn't that bad and has the world's second shortest wait times (I care because wait times matter in cancer).
ABC ran a huge Obama infomercial where they not only did not allow a rebuttal, they would not even let opposing groups PAY for commercial time to respond. Now it comes out that at the last "town hall" meeting today, the president and his allies chose the questions before hand, making the whole thing basically staged government propaganda.
CATO's website did a 5 minute rebuttal of the initial ABC infomercial.
It is eventually about more than health care. It is about statism vs freedom.
Since our current Republicans have been so inept recently, here is a speech from 1961. I think Reagan was still a private citizen back then.
Some petitions/groups against government healthcare.http://www.freeourhealthcarenow.com/
http://www.conservativesforpatientsrights.com/
In other news:
Unemployment shot past the 8% level that we were told the "stimulus" package was supposed to prevent.
The dollar has started to fall again.
Cap and Trade passed the house, representing a huge tax increase on everyone. (Mostly on the poor and middle class.)
The Honduran President, a friend of Castro and Chavez, tried to extend his time in office in violation of that country's constitution. His Supreme court ordered him thrown out, his military threw him out, and his congress approved it and appointed an interim leader. Maybe it will be a mess all around, but our State department came out strongly in support of the would-be socialist dictator.
I like your political posts. So, I read (i.e. scanned quickly) an article today saying the President of the AMA supported Obama's latest Health Care plan. Thoughts?
ReplyDeleteSeveral weeks ago the AMA officially came out against any plan with a public option. Then a new AMA president came in and said that it might be ok to expand the government employees insurance (which I imagine pays Doc's ok) to those who did not have insurance. He did not say it should be allowed to compete with private insurance for those who have insurance (the public option idea), but that was left unclear. He still opposed expanding medicare (which pays dirt). Expanding the employees insurance would lead to a huge explosion of costs (as the AMA originally predicted) and maybe in the short term more money for doctors, but it would be expensive, would expand government control, and if done wrong would kill off the private insurance market.
ReplyDeleteThe shift allows the AMA to not be directly opposed to Obama. The AMA website is a pretty vague about what they want. It makes me wonder if there was some kind of deal and/or how much pressure was placed on the AMA. The wsj a couple of months ago reported business executives threatened with personal ruin by administration officials if they did not play along with plans, which sounds a bit like what Cheney was accused of doing to the CIA analysts before Iraq. In any event, constitutionally, health care should be handled either privately or by the states. If the federal government feels the need to subsidize health care for the poor, they could do it through the states or through a sliding scale subsidy or something other than a plan the government directly controls. That would leave some semblance of freedom.
The more I read, the more Libertarian I become!
ReplyDeleteGood man Pat! (at least I assume that was pat and not Julie).
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