E!!

This Independence Institute YouTube video on just one set of drawbacks in the Oregon Health care system is pure gold.

Watch; laugh; cry; share.

They must be getting desperate.

Why else would the White House post the following blurb at whitehouse.gov:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care.  These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.  Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Let’s re-cap.

Emails.  And casual conversations.  And stuff on the web.  That are “fishy.”  Should be flagged.  And emailed to the White House.  So they can keep track of them.  And combat “disinformation.”

Oooo-KAY.

Since when, and based on what precedent, does a sitting President ask American citizens to report on their fellow citizens in regards to political speech? Has the White House staff lost their senses?  Is the Teleprompter drunk?

The audacity of the request is eclipsed only by its foolishness. Trying to control information – or disinformation – on the web is like trying to herd a million cats. You can’t do it.

And if you’re the White House, you shouldn’t be trying.

I guess this “flag the fishy” idea was dreamt up by the same geniuses who thought it was wise to call concerned Townhall attendees an “angry mob” spouting “manufactured information” when they dared to show up and ask tough questions about health care reform.

People like the woman who asked her congressman, “How can you manage health care when you can’t manage Cash for Clunkers?”

Or the elderly woman who asked her congressman if HE was going to be on the new health care plan.

Yeah, these people are just totally unhinged.

Our elected officials must find it SO annoying to have to deal with these pesky citizens and their annoying questions.

(Iowahawk embellishes with his usual brilliance.)

Breitbart found some video of Obama speaking on health care from a 2003 speech to the AFL-CIO.

Here is the money quote:

“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”

“Wow.”

The White House response to this?

A three-minute (mis)information video featuring Linda Douglass, a former ABC news correspondent and now the WH Office of Health Reform communications director, sitting in front of a computer screen showing Drudge’s front page and saying the video and site headline is “taking sentences and phrases out of context, and they’re cobbling them together to leave a very false impression.”

Why not try to explain why Obama has changed his mind, rather than denying what we just saw him say ON VIDEO in a speech just a few years ago…?

Great Investor’s Business Daily cartoon.

This NY Post health care op-ed includes some truly appalling commentary by Dr. Ezekiel (Rahm’s brother) Emanuel and Dr. David Blumenthal.

As I was reading the piece I had a wrenching, visceral reaction.  Orwellian in nature.

These people actually believe they are adequately equipped to make not only “minor” but also life-and-death health care decisions for the elderly, the infirm, and the terminal.  That they have the right to say when a person does, or does not, need or deserve health care – and to what degree.  That they can and should decide which technologies are “appropriate” and which are too costly depending on the age and condition of the patient.

They knowingly and deliberately wish to suppress and subvert the will of family, and of the individual.  And they do it in the name of money:  cost savings, greater efficiencies.

It is horrifying.  Because the only thing more agonizing and torturous than having to make a life-or-death and/or quality-of-life choice about the care of a loved one, or yourself, is to be taken out of the process and have some computer algorithm or committee make the decision for you.

If these monsters are allowed to proceed — what else do you call men so misguided and monomaniacal that they sit in their mahogany-trimmed offices and play at being gods with clear conscience? — we will find ourselves living that horrifying vision that was once but a fiction.

(As an aside, Orwell’s heirs should sue Emanuel, Blumenthal, President Obama, and two-thirds of Congress for copyright infringement over health care language.)

And we should all come out of our slumber before we find ourselves in a nightmare from which we cannot wake.

Update: Fred Thompson interviews the writer of the above-named NY Post piece, Betsy McCaughey (8 minutes).

She said that on page 425 of the House bill is language making it mandatory that every five years, people in Medicare will have a required counseling session that will educate them about how to end their life sooner (how to refuse nutrition and medication, and how to approach hospice care).  And that some parts of the bill dictate that the elderly will be faced with denials of care based on their age.  It’s called “comparative effectiveness.”

Much has been said about Obama’s hurried, we-must-do-it-now approach to health care reform.  I don’t want the rush, and further, I think rushing through this is a really good way to ensure we end up with some really bad policy.

Now CNN’s Dana Bash is reporting that Harry Reid said there will be no Senate vote until after August on health care.

But, from Ohio, Ed Henry reports that a “senior administration official” said Reid’s comment does not change the president’s plans:  He still wants votes in both houses before August recess.

H/T:  K-Lo @ The Corner

Update:  Mr. Crum just called me and said he thinks Harry Reid’s statement was made with one eye on the polls and one on Reid’s 2010 senatorial campaign.  If a bill is rushed through and things don’t end well, Reid can say he tried to slow things down.  If things do turn out well, he can still point to how cautious he was.

Dina Titus (D-NV) casts a vote that earns my respect. 

From an article in the WSJ:

A group of Democrats elected in recent years from some of the country’s richest congressional districts have emerged as a stumbling block to raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for President Barack Obama’s ambitious health-care overhaul just as the plan has begun to meet increasing resistance over its cost.

Friday, two freshmen representatives — Dina Titus, from suburban Las Vegas, and Colorado’s Jared Polis, representing Boulder, Vail and some of the tonier suburbs of Denver — joined Republicans to vote against Mr. Obama’s top-priority health-care overhaul when it faced a vote in their House Education and Labor Committee. One reason was a one-percentage point-surtax on couples earning between $350,000 and $500,000 — gradually increasing to 5.4 percentage points on earnings more than $1 million — to pay for it.

Nearly every argument in favor of universal (socialized) health care includes the premis that it is a “right.”  But according to the U.S. Constiution, this is not so.  Geoff Lawrence over at NPRI explains why by giving us a brief lesson (via the writings of John Locke) about how the Constitution does not in fact support “positive rights.”  If you wish to effectively debate someone on health care reform (or any other entitlement program), you must understand this fundamental concept.  I recommend that you read Geoff’s whole post, but here’s the opener to give you a taste:

In the ongoing debate over health care reform, I continue to hear pundits on the left claim that health care is a right. Yet, this notion that government exists to guarantee “positive rights” such as free health care completely misunderstands the development of constitutional government.

The entire notion of constitutional government can be traced to John Locke’s Second Treatise. Here it is explained that all men are endowed with a set of natural rights which include: life, liberty and property. In order to protect those rights, civilized individuals agree to a “social contract” in order to form a government whose primary purpose is to protect the rights of individuals. This is done by empowering government to restrain the actions of others (such as theft, physical violence, etc.) that might directly infringe on your own natural rights. Hence the expression “Your rights end where someone else’s begin.”

The primary problem with the concept of “positive rights” is that the purpose of government changes from protecting the natural rights of individuals to actively infringing upon those rights. Any requirement for government to provide individuals with a certain amount of goods means that those goods must first be confiscated from society – which is a limit on the natural right to control property.

Just so.

For a wonderful treatise on why the government should not be in the business of deciding whether or how much to take from us in order to give to select others, read this story that was told on the House floor by Davy Crockett when he was serving as a U.S. Representative from Tennessee.  It concerned two votes on spending bills and the temptation of Congress to distribute money that was not their own for “charitable” purposes.

Our federal and state legislatures, as well as the Oval Office, have too long been staffed by too many people who do not understand nor support our rights and protections as they ought to exist according to our Constitution.   Through the increasing willingness of we, the citizenry, to allow government to do what we, as individuals, ought to be doing – helping and giving to the poor and needy as we are able and as we feel called to do – we have permitted our great Republic to become a tax-laden “social democracy” that reduces rather than protects our prosperity and freedom.

On May 23, 1857, in a letter to an American friend, Lord Thomas MacCauley wrote: “A democracy cannot survive as a permanent form of government. It can last only until its citizens discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority (who vote) will vote for those candidates promising the greatest benefits from the public purse, with the result that a democracy will always collapse from loose fiscal policies, always followed by a dictatorship.”

Are we there yet?  Not quite, but I fear we are getting dangerously close.  Educate yourselves, good people, and let us find ways to speak out and persuade others before this great Republic devolves into a pitiful excuse for the nation it once was.

Michael Cannon at CATO says he caught a hint of things to come while talking with a WalMart lobbyist in a cab a few years back.  WalMart is backing an employer mandate for health care, i.e. a legal requirement that employers provide a government-defined package of health benefits.  And by defined, we mean something along the lines of “you will pay no more and no less than “x” for your workers’ health care plan.”  Cannon explains and theorizes why WalMart – one of America’s greatest entrepreneurial, free-market success stories – is going along with an anti-free market, government dictated approach to employee benefits.  In short, it’s to gain an advantage over their biggest competitor (Target). He also slams them pretty hard for it.

Update:  On the subject of Big Government and Big Business getting in bed together, Jonah @ NRO has an excellent post.  Read it.

Re:  the header reference, for those scratching their heads:

In 44 BC, Julius Caesar was murdered by a group of senators. They were led by Marcus Brutus, who had been a close friend of Caesar. In Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, Caesar begins to resist the attack but then resigns himself to his fate when he sees his dear friend with knife in hand:

Caesar: Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?
Casca: Speak, hands, for me! [They stab Caesar.]
Caesar: Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar! [Dies.]
Cinna: Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!

Et tu = And you

I’m a sucker for Monty Python references.  And this one recalls one of my favorite scenes from The Holy Grail while cleverly poking fun at socialized health care.

My very favorite scene from Grail is this one (dialogue with Graham Chapman as KING ARTHUR, Michael Palin as DENNIS THE PEASANT, and Terry Jones as the WOMAN).

Available on YouTube here.

Remember my post on the unsustainability of the Canadian health care system?  Well here’s a link to an article including a true story from a Canadian woman suffering with cancer.  Read it and weep – for her.

Like many Americans last week, I tuned in for the 30-minute Barack-o-mercial. 

In between the anecdotal close-ups of struggling American families – a widow working two jobs and raising two kids; a husband and father worried about his job at the Ford plant – I noted that Obama’s megacommercial failed to present hard data on the cost of his proposed programs and said nothing about our huge federal deficit and the corresponding budget pressures he will face once in office. 

Obam’s description of his health care plan – which “includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions, and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year” – sounds very nice, but there has been no independent economic analysis confirming that costs will really be reduced by that (or any) amount.

Obama simply Hopes that spending $50 billion on his proposed Changes over the next five years will save the system money.  But even if his optimistic estimates prove out, Obama’s plan does not stipulate that the net savings by insurance and health care providers will result in lower premiums for consumers.

And then we have Obama’s promises to “cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year…  Give businesses a tax credit for every new employee they hire…  Eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas…  Help homeowners by freezing foreclosures for 90 days… Provide low-cost loans to help small businesses pay their workers and keep their doors open…”

Independent analysts have estimated that combined with our current budget shortfalls, these and other of Obama’s proposals will likely result in a $1 trillion deficit next year.  That being unthinkable, some purging will be necessary.  But which of his programs will Obama cut, and why has he been promising all of them if he knows at least some must go?

Though much of his infomercial focused on the “hard realities” of life for select American families, Obama seems unwilling or unable to face reality himself.  It seems he could stand to learn something from that widowed mother of two who has to settle for half instead of whole gallons of milk when the money runs short – and doesn’t promise her family otherwise on the way to the store.

This article on the problems with the Canadian public health care system is worth reading. The opener:

TORONTO, ON – Provincial spending on health care is growing faster than revenues with six of 10 provinces projected to be spending more than 50 per cent of all available revenue on health care by 2036, says a new report released today by independent research organization the Fraser Institute.

The Fraser Institute’s piece quotes Director Brett Skinner:

“Over the past ten years, health care spending in nine out of 10 provinces has grown at an unsustainable rate. Unless governments find a better way to finance health care, then provincial governments will likely be looking at tax hikes, further rationing of medical goods and services, or ugly trade-offs with other important spending areas.”

Apparently Alberta is the only Canadian province that’s managed to keep its revenues apace with health care expenditures. How? Energy-driven revenue increases.

But in provinces without large energy resources, revenue has been increased through – what else? – increased taxes. Skinner points to Ontario’s “health premium” income surtax as an example of a provincial government trying to create new taxes to cover health care costs. Says Skinner:

“The tax burden cannot continue to rise over the long-term unless people are willing to accept declining rates of economic growth and lower standards of living. Trying to drive long-term revenue growth through tax increases is futile.”

The report concludes that Canada’s public health insurance system is not financially sustainable through public means and recommends several changes. You can read about them at the end of the piece.

All suggested changes have one thing in common: they are private sector solutions. I say we learn from our neighbors to the north and seek private sector solutions now.