"Under our [health care reform] plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions." – President Obama, addressing a joint session of Congress on September 9, 2009. (link)

Obama spent most of this year repeating the above words, and he characterized anybody who said otherwise, namely Republicans, as divisive peddlers of "outrageous myths."

But, in what has become an all too familiar game of misdirection, the peddler of myths was Obama himself. The Stupak Amendment proved the dishonesty of Obama's previous words. Prior to that amendment to the House health care bill, health care subsidies (federal funds) would have been used to fund private health care plans that cover abortions. With the adoption of the Stupak Amendment, no federal funds would be used to fund abortions in any health care plan. The Stupak Amendment was adopted because that was the only way the Democrats could pass the health care bill in the House of Representatives. Without it, they were 10 votes short.

Once abortions were REALLY not covered under ObamaCare (as opposed to Obama and other Democrats only pretending they weren't covered), the debate moved to the Senate, and a firestorm erupted in the Democratic party between the pro-choice liberal wing and the pro-life moderate/conservative wing. The pro-choicers argue that the Stupak Amendment is a sea change on abortion rights, restricting federal funds that were available under the previous Hyde Amendment. And the pro-choicers seem to be right. It is a sea change. The Hyde Amendment forbids use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund Medicaid abortions except in cases of rape, incest or threat to the mother’s life, but it also allows states to use their own Medicaid money (90% of which comes from federal funds) to fund other abortions, which about 17 states currently do. The Stupak Amendment negates that federal funding, as I understand it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The Dems find themselves between a rock and a hard place. If the pro-life wing prevails, about 40 Democrats say they won't support the health care plan. If the pro-choice wing prevails, they lose support from the pro-lifers. In either case, the Democratic filibuster-proof majority evaporates, and with almost all Republicans against ObamaCare, the current health care reform bills could die over the abortion issue split.

In light of this dilemma, Obama seems to support the pro-choice position, even though he's making split-the-baby (no unfortunate pun intended) comments on the issue. Here's Obama saying, um, something, to ABC's Jake Tapper today:

You know, I laid out a very simple principle, which is this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill. And we're not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions.

And I want to make sure that the provision that emerges meets that test — that we are not in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but, on the other hand, that we're not restricting women's insurance choices, because one of the pledges I made in that same speech was to say that if you're happy and satisfied with the insurance that you have, that it's not going to change.

There. Hope that clears things up. According to Obama, we're not going to have federal funding for abortions. Except when we do. I think. Or not.

Once upon a time, when I was nineteen years old, I read J.R. Tolkien's 1100-page Lord Of The Rings trilogy in about a week. I only accomplished that because I was in the hospital in traction at the time, and didn't have anything else to do. It was either hobbits or soap operas. I was thankful for the hobbits.

But what if, instead of Lord Of The Rings, I had undertaken to read the 1990-page House health care reform bill, filled with the wonders of it's arcane legalese ? Would I have been able to read and comprehend all the ramifications of that in one short week ? Very doubtful, but that's what Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi expects her congressional representatives to do. Pelosi wants a vote on the health care reform bill on saturday, eight days after it was written. Could it be that Pelosi and company want a quick vote because they desire to pass the bill before people really figure out what's in it ? That has been the modus operandi of the liberal Democrat wing all year regarding health care reform. Remember that President Obama wanted a bill passed by july, but the bluedog Democrats and Republicans stopped that mistake from happening. Ironically, the longer congressional Democrats work on health care reform bills, the bigger and more convoluted they get (it ain't easy to cater to so many special interests at once). The House health care bill is now over a trillion dollars, above Obama's low, low bargain cost ceiling of $900 billion, not that it matters. We shouldn't believe anything Obama says about health care anyway. You know he'll sign anything called health care reform that gets to his desk, no matter how bad it is, just so he can claim victory.

Hey, here's an idea. Let's have Nancy Pelosi give a couple hour long press conference about the House health care reform bill on saturday, so Americans can find out exactly what the Democrats are trying to pass (assuming Nancy even knows) ? 'We The People' and all that. That would be quite helpful, and very transparent of the Dems, seeing as how they never quite got around to having the health care negotiations on CSPAN, as candidate Obama falsely promised. Obama also falsely claimed he wouldn't force people to buy health care insurance, but that's pretty much the centerpiece of ObamaCare now. Our dishonest prez has even taken to telling such outrageous and obvious lies about health care reform that it takes an entire liberal media not to notice them. Here's one from yesterday, per the Washington Times:

The president said that AARP, the nation's largest seniors organization, has signed on to the House bill because it knows that the legislation will "strengthen Medicare, not jeopardize it. They know it will protect the benefits our seniors receive, not cut them," Mr. Obama said.

Um, the House health care bill cuts $472.8 billion from Medicare, Mr. President. That's a real whopper you just told. What's next ? Will you tell us that round thing in the sky at night isn't the moon, it's actually the Obama logo ? I'm sure only the "naysayers" who are responsible for "the failed policies of the past" would disagree with you, like those Fox "non" News people with their "viewpoints." (Side question – have you ever met a person who didn't have a viewpoint, outside of the comatose ?)

In the President's defense, he probably hasn't read the House health care bill either, so maybe he doesn't know about the cuts, or maybe he puts his hands over his ears and yells "na, na, na, na" when his staff members try to inform him. Obama leaves the petty details to others. He's just there for the big picture stuff. He's busy fundamentally transforming America (into a shell of it's former self). Obama makes the grand proclamations, like "reform health care," or "close Guantanamo Bay," or "limit carbon emissions." He can't be bothered to figure out how to do any of those things. After all, Obama has never run a country, state, county, city, or township before. He's never run a business, never managed employees. He doesn't have any expertise in health care, military, economic, or environmental matters. He never even accomplished much of anything in hist short Senate career, or even during his years in the Illinois state legislature. He was one of those guys who votes "present," so as not to be pinned down to a position. Obama is the entry-level president who charmed the media in 2008 with the sound of his voice, his sappy inspirational rhetoric, and his historic nature. That, and the fact he is a liberal Democrat. The media LOVES that, even though America really doesn't. That's why Obama hid behind all that tripe about post-partisanship. Obama is as far from post-partisan as can be. He's hyper-partisan. He can barely speak without denigrating his opposition and blaming everything on them. He's also utterly without shame, and, as I've outlined quite a bit on this blog, will tell any lie at any time, with absolute conviction. On the rare occasions when a journalist actually gets to ask him about one of his falsehoods (like Stephanopolous did when asking if the health care mandate was a tax), Obama flashes that winning smile and then acts like the journalist just crapped in his own pants by asking such a silly question, one that only the "tired opposition" or "entrenched special interests" would ask. Obama is dishonest and then acts like we're idiots for pointing out that he's being dishonest. Sorry, Mr. O, but you ain't that slick, even if you and your adoring media have fooled many into believing you are.

Uh, what was I talking about ? Oh yeah, health care reform. Sorry I roamed a bit off topic there. It's just that I'm getting tired of all the deceptions coming from the White House, as the Democrats try to pass bigger and better boondoggles off on the rest of us.

There's an old political truism that says you don't raise taxes during a recession. The reason is, raising taxes during a recession tends to make the recession worse. They used to call that – economics.

But that was before the Age Of Obama and Pelosi, where economic rules no longer apply. Obama and Pelosi just love to raise them some taxes, recession or not. It's full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes with those two. The enormous 1990-page House health care bill is no exception. Following are the taxes contained in that bill, courtesy of Americans For Tax Reform:

Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).

Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.

Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.

Cap on FSAs (Page 325): FSAs [Flexible Spending Accounts] would face an annual cap of $2500 (currently uncapped).

Increased Additional Tax on Non-Qualified HSA [Health Savings Accounts] Distributions (Page 326): Non-qualified distributions from HSAs would face an additional tax of 20 percent (current law is 10 percent). This disadvantages HSAs relative to other tax-free accounts (e.g. IRAs, 401(k)s, 529 plans, etc.)

Denial of Tax Deduction for Employer Health Plans Coordinating with Medicare Part D (Page 327): This would further erode private sector participation in delivery of Medicare services.

Surtax on Individuals and Small Businesses (Page 336): Imposes an income surtax of 5.4 percent on MAGI over $500,000 ($1 million married filing jointly). MAGI adds back in the itemized deduction for margin loan interest. This would raise the top marginal tax rate in 2011 from 39.6 percent under current law to 45 percent—a new effective top rate.

Excise Tax on Medical Devices (Page 339): Imposes a new excise tax on medical device manufacturers equal to 2.5 percent of the wholesale price. It excludes retail sales and unspecified medical devices sold to the general public.

Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 344): Requires that 1099-MISC forms be issued to corporations as well as persons for trade or business payments. Current law limits to just persons for small business compliance complexity reasons. Also expands reporting to exchanges of property.

Delay in Worldwide Allocation of Interest (Page 345): Delays for nine years the worldwide allocation of interest, a corporate tax relief provision from the American Jobs Creation Act

Limitation on Tax Treaty Benefits for Certain Payments (Page 346): Increases taxes on U.S. employers with overseas operations looking to avoid double taxation of earnings.

Codification of the “Economic Substance Doctrine” (Page 349): Empowers the IRS to disallow a perfectly legal tax deduction or other tax relief merely because the IRS deems that the motive of the taxpayer was not primarily business-related.

Application of “More Likely Than Not” Rule (Page 357): Publicly-traded partnerships and corporations with annual gross receipts in excess of $100 million have raised standards on penalties. If there is a tax underpayment by these taxpayers, they must be able to prove that the estimated tax paid would have more likely than not been sufficient to cover final tax liability.

That's thirteen new taxes in all, which are supposed to generate $540 billion in new revenue over 10 years to pay for health care reform (though it seems little is actually being reformed with this health care "reform." Mostly, we're just creating a big new welfare program combined with a government mandate for all to purchase health insurance). There is a public option in the House bill, but it is not one which ties reimbursement rates to Medicare rates. It allows for providers to negotiate reimbursement rates. The other interesting thing about ObamaCare is that the health care taxes begin immediately, but the benefits don't kick in for four years or so. That's how ObamaCare "doesn't add one dime to the federal deficit." Ten years of taxes pay for six years of benefits. You aren't supposed to notice that, just as you aren't supposed to notice that ObamaCare cuts over $400 billion from Medicare to pay for itself, something that has never been accomplished before in the history of Medicare. Historically, it's been the Democrats who said Republicans were trying to kill grandma by proposing much smaller Medicare cuts than ObamaCare proposes. Now it's the Democrats proposing the cuts, and the Republicans are the ones saying the Democrats are trying to kill grandma. Things have come full circle. Go figure.

Many of these new taxes will be either implemented against the middle class or passed down to them (non-insurance penalty, tax on medical devices, employer taxes, limits on FSA's and HSA's). This reminds me of something President Obama said on the campaign trail last year:

I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.

Sure Barry, whatever you say. The One broke that pledge a couple weeks after being inaugurated by raising the tax on cigarettes, and now he wants to break it again with health care reform. Then he wants to break his pledge again with cap and trade, which would be a huge tax increase that filters down to every American household. Various other Democrats want to tax sodas, gasoline, fast foods, heating oil, cigarettes some more, expensive health care plans (Senate health care plan), and anything else they can dream up. Democrats are engaged in the game of 1,001 ways to raise your taxes without you knowing they've raised your taxes.

And all this during what Democrats themselves term as the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Gee, what could possibly go wrong ?

Hey, I know. We can just keep passing $800 billion stimulus packages every single year, basically forever. That will "create or save" lots of jobs. Then everything will be just fine.

Just kidding. That would be a recipe for destruction, as any fifth grader could figure out. The problem is, that seems to BE the actual economic plan of the Democrats, at least until those millions of green jobs kick in sometime in the next couple decades.

That Obama sure is a good public speaker though. There's that.

Here's Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Barack Obama, speaking to CNN about Fox News:

I don't know how a clip could illustrated the dishonesty of politics any more than this clip does. When Jarrett is asked if Fox News is biased, she immediately answers "Of course they are biased. Of course they are." When CNN interviewer Campbell Brown follows up immediately by asking if MSNBC is also biased, Jarrett starts backtracking and deflecting, never answering the question (correct answer – Of course MSNBC is biased. Of course they are). Jarrett said, "Actually, I don't want to generalize all of Fox is biased or that another station is biased. I think what we want to do is look at it on a case-by-case basis. When we see a pattern of distortion, we're going to be honest about that pattern of distortion….We're actually calling everybody out. So this isn't anything that's simply directed at Fox. We just want the American people to have a really clear understanding."

Well, that's funny. I haven't heard the Obama administration call out any other network than Fox News. In fact, MSNBC's opinion show anchors were invited to the White House for a cozy little chat with Obama. Liar, liar, pants of fire, Ms. Jarrett.

And did you get a load of Jarrett saying on the video that the White House is "going to speak truth to power" ????? Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the White House IS THE POWER.

Valerie Jarrett admitted what this was really about. It's about health care reform, and the fact that Obama is having a difficult go of it. The majority of the American people are against it, and the majority of the American people are turning against Obama on the issues in general. It has become a disturbing trend of this administration to demonize anyone and everyone who gets in it's way. The insurance companies, the drug companies, the Chamber of Commerce, doctors, whomever. Obama even sank so low as to say doctors were cutting people's feet off for profit, for chrissakes. If you have to resort to demonizing people whose job is literally to save other people's lives, then you have a problem.

Politicians are professional liars by trade. You can choose to believe in the current bunch of liars if you wish, but I sure don't. You may think it's fine for the government to force all Americans to buy health insurance as a condition of residency, but I don't. I guess we better change that old saying about death and taxes to death, taxes, and health insurance. The current bunch of professional liars is also bankrupting the country faster than any other. This administration also seems more partisan than any other in memory. I don't hear Obama talk about a problem that he doesn't blame on someone else first. To hear Obama talk, it seems there was no America prior to George W. Bush, because all the problems seem to have originated from that one man.

And do any of you really believe that ObamaCare won't add one dime to the deficit ??? Really ??? Do you really believe Congress will cut $400-500 billion from Medicare to make that happen ? Really ???

If you are naive enough to believe that, check out this article on the "doctor fix" for Medicare, which would have added $247 billion to the deficit if the Republicans and thirteen Democrats hadn't voted it down. The Democrats tried to separate that $247 billion in debt out of ObamaCare and pass it as a standalone measure, so that ObamaCare "wouldn't add a dime to the deficit." (except for the $247 billion, of course).

Like I said, politicians are professional liars. The current group of liars isn't even particularly good at lying. It's just that the media has, to date, let them get away with it. It's time for that to stop. It's time for the press to be the ones speaking truth to power, as is their job. The White House is only speaking THEIR truth. That's not necessarily THE truth.

People always act in their own financial self-interest. Ditto for organizations. For instance, let's say you have a choice between two competing health care plans with the same coverage. Company A offers the plan for $200 per month, and Company B offers the plan for $400 per month. It's pretty obvious you'd choose Company A, and Company B wouldn't make any sales. Organizations act in exactly the same way. When the Senate Finance Committee passed a health care reform bill that taxes medical devices at a rate of $39 billion over 10 years (raising the cost of health care), lobbyists for the medical industry descend on Washington D.C. to fight for their self-interest, against those taxes. When the Senate health care bill imposes a $6.1 billion fee on health insurers (raising the cost of health care), lobbyists for the insurance companies descend on Washington D.C. to fight for their self-interest, against those taxes. When the Senate health care bill imposes 40% taxes on so-called "Cadillac" health care insurance plans, the lobbyists for the unions descend on Washington D.C. to fight for their self-interest, against those taxes. When the Senate Health Care bill cuts $100 billion from Medicare Advantage programs (lowering the cost and quality of health care), lobbyists for the insurers who provide those plans descend on Washington D.C. When the Senate Finance health care bill has a provision to create a commission to oversee cuts in Medicare (lowering the cost and quality of health care), lobbyists for doctors descend on Washington D.C. to complain that their Medicare reimbursement rates are being cut.

This is one of the difficulties in passing something as large as health care reform. We have an array of varied business concerns all bargaining in their own self-interest. They all agree somebody must be taxed, they just don't want it to be them. You can't blame any of them, really. They are just looking out for their own financial well-being.

There is another organization that I believe is looking out for it's self-interest in the health care debate as well, but nobody talks about it. It's a very large organization known as the federal government. In my last post, I wrote about how the government is so deeply in debt that it will ultimately destroy the American economy. The government is fully aware of this, though they seldom mention it, and seldom seem to prioritize it unless it's around election time, after which they forget all about it, and continue merrily spending us into oblivion. The government, like every other self-interested concern, doesn't want to cut the size of government. They don't want to rein themselves in by cutting government spending. They want to increase government spending, and boy, do they. That's what a big portion of Obama's stimulus package was for, to keep the government from having to make the painful cuts that every other business concern in the country had to make during this recession. Government is the one organization that has actually grown during the recession. When the government says things would have been even worse without the stimulus package, this is mostly what they mean. The stimulus package was largely a bailout of government, unpaid for and added to the national debt. The taxpayers will have to make up that money at some unspecified future point.

This leads me to the health care reform bill(s), and the incentives included therein. Health care reform started out as a moral mandate to achieve universal health care coverage, but that goal has been abandoned. Instead, we have a mandate from the government that employers and individuals must purchase health care insurance or pay a penalty (tax) to the government. President Obama continues to say that nobody will be "required" to change their health insurance if they like it. The word "required" is key. The President is correct, nobody will be required to change their health insurance, but what will they be incentivized to do ? In other words, what will be the response of employers and individuals according to their own self-interest ? To understand that, all we have to do is look at the size of the penalty tax versus the cost of health insurance. It's also vitally important to keep in mind the reason everybody doesn't have health insurance now. It's because THEY CAN'T AFFORD IT, or they just choose not to buy it. Here's how Business Week describes the individual penalties:

In the bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee on Oct. 13, there are no fines at all the first year it goes into effect, in 2013. In 2014 individuals would have to shell out $200 in annual penalties if they choose to forgo insurance, and by 2017, the number jumps to $750. That's starting to sound like a meaningful sum. But consider that the average yearly insurance premium for an individual policy is around $5,000. For just a few hundred dollars during the first years the law is in place, a healthy person might decide to forgo the costly security of insurance

Paying a fine of $200-$750 to the government, as opposed to shelling out $5,000 in health care insurance premiums seems to incentivize many people to just pay the far smaller amount to the government. Good for the government, because it raises their revenues, but not so good if universal health care is really the goal. I'm against the whole idea of government forcing people in the first place, but if they are forcing people, shouldn't they at least force them in the right direction, instead of setting up a system that incentivizes people to just pay more in taxes ?

The incentives for employers are even worse. The Senate Finance health reform bill would require employers with 50 or more employees to cover their employees or pay a fine of up to $400 per employee. That's far less than the actual cost of health care insurance, so employers would be incentivized to drop health insurance coverage for their employees altogether and just pay the penalty tax instead. That would be in the employers self-interest, and again, the government cashes in with more tax revenue. Then all those uncovered employees are required to buy their own insurance or pay the individual penalty, and the government cashes in one more time.

In conclusion, I ask, who is the government really looking out for – you, or itself ?

I've been waiting a long time for some hard numbers to come out on health care reform. We finally have at least some ballpark estimates on what individual health insurance policies will cost under the various reform packages floating around Congress, courtesy of Kaiser. Find some numbers at the following link.

Health Reform Subsidy Calculator

Health care reform comes down to two things –

1) You will be forced to purchase health insurance.
2) The government will subsidize health insurance for many, on a sliding scale, according to your income.

The subsidies are basically welfare, entitlements. Welfare comes from taxes. Congress is still discussing where the taxes are going to come from, while President Obama pretends there won't be any tax increases. Obama wants to cut Medicare to offset some of the costs, and pretends that health care efficiences will pay for reform, but c'mon now, we're adults, we all know that's not true. You will also see at the above link that health care reform will dramatically increase Medicaid, which are costs to the states.

Note – Deductibles and copays are not included in the health insurance costs at the above link.

I'll refrain from further comment, for now. I'd rather hear your comments.

When seeking solutions to health care, who better to look to than our own Hollywood celebrities ? These celebrities have become very wealthy in our capitalist system, and they live in big mansions. Who better to speak out against the evils of insurance company profits (average 3.4% profit margin) than super-profitable celebs ? I only wish film director/child rapist Roman Polanski could have been added to the following Hollywood public service announcement. Many celebrities support him too. You know the old saying in Hollywood, "each Oscar received entitles you to one child rape." What can I say ? Hollywood celebrities are just better than the rest of us.

Alas, I have bad news for our celebs. The Democratic-led Senate Finance Committee just voted down the health care reform public option. How did that happen ? It must be Bush's fault.

But the celebrities aren't the only ones who can make public service announcements these days. The folks over at PJTV have their own PSA, that looks very much like the one above from Hollywood and moveon.org. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect……..satire of the Hollywood satire.

Obviously, there's something wrong with those PJTV people, who must be listening to Glenn Beck. We better kick Beck off the air before a Rwanda-type civil war breaks out in America, as Hollywood celeb Bette Midler said. Yes sirree. Genocide and civil dissent are EXACTLY THE SAME THING. PJTV is probably paid by the insurance industry. What a bunch of right-wing extremists, expecting people to actually PAY for health care services. What can they possibly be thinking ? We don't pay for things in America anymore. That's a failed idea from the past. Ask a celebrity, they'll tell you. Or just shell out some dough and go see a Hollywood movie to forget all your woes for a couple hours. Maybe then you won't even notice the economy shed another 263,000 jobs in september. Not to worry, though. Will Ferrell is doing fine.

First, we had months of fretting about "death panels" after Sarah Palin used those two words in a Tweet on Twitter (who come up with these silly internet names anyway ? "Google," "Yahoo," "Twitter." "I taut I taw a puddy tat." Do we have any grownups on the web ?). Then we had the dustup about covering illegal immigrants, resulting in the infamous "You Lie!" comment from Joe Wilson (R-SC).

Now it's come to this. Here's Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), allegedly summing up the Republican Health Care plan. This is about as dumbed down as it gets.

There you have it. For everyone out there who didn't know the GOP plan before, you know it now. It's 1) Don't get sick, 2) And if you do get sick, 3) Die quickly.

This sets the new low bar in dumbed down political rhetoric. Rep. Grayson's Florida constituents must be mighty proud of electing him to office right about now. Predictably, GOP'ers in Congress were outrageously outraged over Grayson's inane remarks. GOP'ers thought they were the only ones allowed to make stupid "they want to kill your grandma" type statements.

When GOP members demanded an apology for the remarks, Grayson said the following on the House floor, "“I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.”

It's a "holocaust" now ? Suddenly, Moammar Qadhafi's speech in front of the U.N. is starting to sound coherent by comparison. Forget about finding grownups on the web. We need a few more grownups in Congress.

I searched the internet looking for the Republican "Die Quickly" plan, but I'm sad to report I couldn't locate it. All I could find was this plan, this plan, and this plan, in addition to some current state plans like Massachusetts' RomneyCare, or Cover Florida from Governor Charlie Crist.

Of course, we can always listen to twits like Alan Grayson instead, as he attempts (successfully) to get his 15 minutes of fame.

"For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months." - President Barack Hussein Obama, narcissist, addressing the United Nations, September, 2009.

I'm sure glad Barry came along and fixed the character and cause of this nation after 232 years of American villainy, aren't you ? On the bright side, at least he didn't call pre-Obama America "The Great Satan." And our President spoke these words in front of an audience that included the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, Moammar Gadhafi, and a slew of other human rights violators (many of whom are on the Orwellian UN Human Rights Council).
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"Since Americans can only be prodded into doing something with money, we need to tax crappy foods that make us sick like we do with cigarettes, and alcohol." - pot-smoking comedian Bill Maher, September, 2009.

Unbelievably, Maher calls himself a Libertarian. In reality, he's just another authoritarian left-winger. Someone should familiarize Maher with the words "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It's none of Bill Maher's business who smokes, drinks, or eats what, which Maher would quickly realize if someone took his weed away. Maher's "libertarianism" extends only to his desire to get high. What a hypocrite.
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"Is capitalism a sin ?" - Leni Riefenstahl Award-winning, Castro-loving filmmaker Michael Moore, in a trailer from his forthcoming movie, Capitalism, A Love Story.

The answer from Moore's questionee is "yes," by the way, capitalism IS a sin. Hugo Chavez couldn't have said it better.
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"President Obama didn't make much news on his round of five Sunday talk shows … with one notable exception. The President revealed a great deal about his philosophy of government and how he defines a tax increase. It turns out the President thinks a health-care tax is not a tax if he thinks the tax is for your own good. … Mr. Obama was asked by [ABC] host George Stephanopoulos about the 'individual mandate.' Under Max Baucus's Senate bill that Mr. Obama supports, everyone would be required to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty as high as $3,800 a year. Mr. Stephanopoulos posed the obvious question about this kind of coercion when 'the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don't [buy insurance]. … How is that not a tax?' 'Well, hold on a second, George,' Mr. Obama replied. 'Here's what's happening. You and I are both paying $900, on average — our families — in higher premiums because of uncompensated care. Now what I've said is that if you can't afford health insurance, you certainly shouldn't be punished for that. That's just piling on. If, on the other hand, we're giving tax credits, we've set up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we've driven down the costs, we've done everything we can and you actually can afford health insurance, but you've just decided, you know what, I want to take my chances. And then you get hit by a bus and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care, that's…' 'That may be,' Mr. Stephanopoulos responded, 'but it's still a tax increase.' (In fact, uncompensated care accounts for about only 2.2% of national health spending today, but that's another subject.) Mr. Obama: 'No. That's not true, George. The — for us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore…' In other words, like parents talking to their children, this levy — don't call it a tax — is for your own good. … Mr. Obama complains that 'My critics say everything is a tax increase,' as if that is his political problem. His real problem is that the individual mandate really is a tax, but the President doesn't want voters to think of it that way, because taxes are unpopular." –The Wall Street Journal, September, 2009.

Yes, of course, Obama's penalty for not having health insurance is a tax, no matter what he wants to call it. Obama probably wouldn't consider his cap-and-trade proposal a tax either, but that's exactly what it is. The creative subterfuge being engaged in by Democrats these days is to pass tax increases without calling them tax increases. Instead, they are called penalties, mandates, fees, carbon allowances, etc. Does this stuff actually fool anyone ? (except for liberals, that is). I hope not. Obama isn't "helping the little guy" one bit, in case anyone hasn't noticed (and the media sure hasn't). He's only raising the little guy's expenses, through both direct and indirect means. This brings to mind Ronald Reagan's quote about the most terrifying words in the english language – "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
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"We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act. And we will meet our responsibility to future generations." - Barack Obama, speaking at the UN climate change conference, September, 2009.

"Responsibility to future generations," eh ? More than a tad ironic, coming from the President who is running up the debt faster than every other administration in history combined, thereby irresponsibly ruining the prospects of future generations.
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"It doesn't smell of sulfur here anymore. It smells of something else. It smells of hope." - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, addressing the UN, September, 2009.

The "sulfur" smell was Bush, whom Chavez called "the devil" at last year's UN meeting. The "hope" smell is Obama. It's sure nice that we've won over Chavez, don't you think ? Yes, he may be a tyrannical nut who nationalizes industries, shuts down opposition media, and puts opposition political figures in jail, but that's the socialist way. Because Chavez's version of "hope" would be hope of a worldwide socialist revolution, I wonder what it is he likes so much about Obama ??? I can agree with Chavez on this much – something smells alright.

President Bush tried to cut Medicare spending several times to trim the deficits and offset rising health care costs. Each time, he was vilified by the Democrats, and Democrats voted as a bloc against those cuts, defeating them every time. In 2008, they even overrode a Bush veto to stop Bush from implementing Medicare cuts. The various sizes of the proposed Bush Medicare cuts were between $35 billion over five years, $105 billion over ten years, and $278 billion over ten years.

Now, it's all somehow different. President Obama is calling for $622 billion in Medicare/Medicaid cuts over ten years, far more than Bush ever proposed, and the Democrats have suddenly come to the realization that the Medicare entitlements are unsustainable, threatening to bankrupt the nation, and will drive the deficits through the roof. I assume the Democrats came to this realization the same day Barack Obama became President Of The United States. The same Democrats who opposed Bush's Medicare cuts are perfectly fine with Obama's much larger Medicare cuts. While I'm glad the Democrats have finally awakened somewhat to the reality of the entitlement crisis, their hypocrisy is deafening.

Watch this video, and then tell me if PARTISAN POLITICS isn't the reason behind everything in Washington, D.C. Check out the blather coming from Kennedy and Kerry in particular:

Hard to believe, isn't it ?

Not only are the Democrats proposing huge Medicare/Medicaid cuts in their health care reform bills, but they are trying to pretend their Medicare cuts aren't really cuts at all (the 'pay no attention to the man behind the curtain' defense), and they are trying to silence and threaten those who point out the obvious, that yes, Medicare cuts really are cuts, and will impact patients.

Humana, a large private Medicare Advantage insurer, sent out letters to it's customers, pointing out that Medicare Advantage services will have to be curtailed under the Democratic health reform bills. The noble Obama administration, staunch defenders of the Constitution, leapt into action against Humana, ordering it to cease and desist engaging in all that, um, free speech. Then the government launched an investigation of Humana. Democrats denounced Humana as liars, and when some Republicans pointed out an inconvenient truth, that Humana was right, Democrats went into Pavlovian mode and started demonizing Republicans as handmaidens of the insurance industry. What a creepy and shameless bunch these Dems have become.

Even more inconveniently for the Democrats, the Congressional Budget Office backs up Humana and the Republicans. The CBO says Medicare benefits will be cut. Combined with the previous CBO statements – that Medicare premiums will rise under ObamaCare, that overall health care costs will rise under ObamaCare, that Medicare prescription drug prices will increase by 20% under ObamaCare, and that ObamaCare isn't paid for and will add to the deficit, it appears the Democrats are merely trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.

The silver lining to all this is, there really isn't a health care reform bill yet. There are a series of bills (all deeply flawed), so there's still time to change the wrongheadedness in the bills. We all want to do something to reform health care, but we don't want to do the WRONG thing. We don't want to make the health care system even worse. The Democrats are looking to finish up and vote on ObamaCare in a couple weeks. Time is running out.

During President Obama's latest health care reform campaign speech before a joint session of Congress, he pretended to throw a bone to Republicans with a weak call for "demonstration projects" on medical tort reform. Rather odd, when you consider such demonstration projects have already been done, and have been done for years.

"Whole states are demonstration projects," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas. "Texas passed tort reform in 2003 and … insurance premiums went down 30 percent. California passed tort reform and premiums went down 40 percent. Let's enact tort reform. Let's not just try that with demonstration projects. We already know it works. Let's put it into law." (link)

Tort reform with settlement caps has already been proven to be effective, both in decreasing the amounts of malpractice liability insurance paid by doctors (these are the premium decreases Rep. Smith is talking about), and in increasing the number of doctors in states with effective tort reform, particularly in areas of medical specialization. President Obama surely knows this, so holding out a carrot to Republicans by calling for demonstration projects is disingenuous. While the President is correct that tort reform is not a "silver bullet," we should be making all efforts to reduce the costs of health care, and this is one. Even if it only saves 5%, that's 5% less than we're paying now. It makes no sense not to pursue it if cost containment is the overarching goal, as the President says.
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After Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) improperly shouted out "you lie" at the President during the aforementioned Obama health care reform campaign speech, several Democrats and mainstream media members (but I repeat myself) saw it as Wilson genuinely disagreeing with the President about whether illegals would be covered under ObamaCare. Ah, I'm just kidding. They don't ever give Republicans credit for legitimate thoughts. What they really saw was what they always see when a right winger disagrees with the President – RACISM. That's the left's silver bullet.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), said that people will put on "white hoods and ride through the countryside" if emerging racist attitudes, which he alleges are subtly supported by Rep. Wilson, are not rebuked. Wilson's racist attitudes were indeed subtle, because Wilson didn't say anything at all racist. In fact, rather than call Wilson's alleged racist attitudes subtle, why don't we call them what they really are – imaginary ? And how about we rebuke Hank Johnson for making the false accusation ? I won't hold my breath.

Deranged liberal N.Y. Times columnist Maureen Dowd said she heard "You lie, BOY" when Wilson made his remark. I suggest Ms. Dowd start immediately on a strong course of anti-psychotic medication, because she's having auditory hallucinations. I only hope Ms. Dowd's dog doesn't start telling her to kill people. The Son Of Sam had a big problem with that.

Liberal Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, who suspects racism is behind nearly everything, said of the Wilson comment, "I suspect that Obama's race leads some of his critics to feel they have permission to deny him the legitimacy, stature and common courtesy that are any president's due. I can't prove this, however."

Yes, it IS hard to prove something when there's no evidence for it, Mr. Robinson, but I notice that doesn't stop you from making the accusation. Of course, no Democrats EVER questioned the legitimacy of the Bush presidency, except for every day for 8 straight years, and no Democrat EVER treated President Bush with disrespect (lol). Robinson went on to bemoan the fact that "there's no way to compel people to search their souls for traces of conscious or unconscious racial bias." See, Republicans are so racist that THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW IT. It's unconscious on their part, like so many of Eugene Robinson's columns.

Liberals see Rep. Joe Wilson, a white male, a Republican, and a southerner, and they just can't help themselves, they jump to the conclusion that he's a racist without the slightest evidence. There's a bias at work there alright, but it isn't coming from the Republicans. It's coming from the liberals.

While I'm on this subject, why do you think media outlets like MSNBC and CNN continually point out that most of the Tea Party protesters in D.C. last weekend were white ? Why does that even matter ? It only matters to them because they are dishonestly pushing a racist element to the protests. You'd never hear MSNBC imply racism over the fact that 96% of blacks voted for Obama, yet almost nightly you hear smirking MSNBC fools like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow talking about how so very white the Tea Party and townhall protesters are. I have news for them. There's nothing wrong with being white, just as there's nothing wrong with being of any ethnic background. This is nothing but bottom feeding demagoguery from MSNBC, and it's shameful.

Btw, when is MSNBC going to get some black hosts ? Maybe we should give Olbermoron and Madcow a dose of their own medicine and kick them off the air for a little diversity. We can replace them with people who can actually think.

If all you've got is to call people racist, based upon nothing, you ain't got a thing. You're just an idiot. I'm sick of it. If you want to know who is holding this country back from getting beyond race, I just told you who. It's the very people who are obsessed with dividing us up along racial lines for political gain. This is 2009, not 1955. We've moved on, even if so many liberals have not.

One thing I've never been able to understand in the health care reform debate is why the Republican idea to allow health insurance companies to compete on a nationwide basis isn't incorporated into the health care reform bill(s). President Obama stresses competition as the primary reason for the public option, but every thinking person knows the private sector can't compete with the federal government. If we want competition in a free market, competition must be between those IN THE FREE MARKET. The government isn't part of that.

The reason we don't have a functioning free market in health care is due to the government itself. Ann Coulter's recent column explains it pretty well:

The only reason you can't keep — or often obtain — health insurance if you move or lose your job now is because of … government intrusion into the free market.

You will notice that if you move or lose your job, you can obtain car and home insurance, hairdressers, baby sitters, dog walkers, computer technicians, cars, houses, food and every other product and service not heavily regulated by the government. (Although it does become a bit harder to obtain free office supplies.)

Federal tax incentives have created a world in which the vast majority of people get health insurance through their employers. Then to really screw ordinary Americans, the tax code actually punishes people who don't get their health insurance through an employer by denying individuals the tax deduction for health insurance that their employers get.

Meanwhile, state governments must approve the insurers allowed to operate in their states, while mandating a list of services — i.e. every "medical" service with a powerful lobby — which is why Joe and Ruth Zelinsky, both 88, of Paterson, N.J., are both covered in case either one of them ever needs a boob job.

If Democrats really wanted people to be able to purchase health insurance when they move or lose a job as easily as they purchase car insurance and home insurance (or haircuts, dog walkers, cars, food, computers), they could do it in a one-page bill lifting the government controls and allowing interstate commerce in health insurance. This is known as "allowing the free market to operate."

(Note to liberals – Just because it's Coulter saying it doesn't mean it's not true. What I quoted here is ALL true.)

The government has intruded into health care time and again, forcing costs up every step of the way. We have a tightly controlled and mandated health care market, and then the same government agents who created this environment complain about a lack of competition and high prices, when they WON'T ALLOW TRUE FREE MARKET COMPETITION.

The Republicans don't have many good ideas about health care reform, but they have a few. National free market health insurance competition is a good one. So is allowing individuals to make their health care insurance 100% tax deductible. So is tort reform. If President Obama wants the bipartisan bill that he says he does, why aren't any of these things included ?

What we are heading for now is one of two worlds, either 1) a health care reform bill with a public option that will destroy the private insurance industry, resulting in a government insurance monopoly, or 2) a health care reform bill without a public option, and with no cost controls in place for private insurers. This would be a huge giveaway to the insurance companies.

Neither of these options is acceptable, and in both cases, the government will be FORCING people to buy health insurance. Some choice.

The government should go back to the drawing board. There's no reason a real bipartisan bill cannot be produced that bends down the health care cost curve and gives us a free market as well. What the government should do is oversee the free market, not trample all over it. We should have a bill that doesn't allow insurers to eliminate pre-existing conditions, that doesn't allow insurers to drop or deny coverage, and that doesn't allow insurers to profit excessively, but as free citizens in a free country, we should have the right to get the health insurance coverage that WE want, not what the government dictates for us.

Republicans are lying about health care reform. Democrats are lying about health care reform. The media isn't helping much to inform us. The media prefers to focus on contention at townhall meetings rather than the facts about health care reform. I guess that makes for better ratings. Infotainment.

So, what's a citizen to believe ? I think I've found something that will help a bit.

I received an e-mail from an obviously right-wing source a few days ago. The e-mail purported to expose 48 "facts" about the H.R. 3200 health care reform bill. I thought this e-mail sounded mighty suspect, so I did a little checking. As it turned out, Annenberg Factcheck had already done a point-by-point debunking of the e-mail, which Factcheck said originated from a single conservative blogger. Of the 48 claims from the blogger, Factcheck found 26 to be false, 18 to be misleading or partly true, and only 4 to be completely true.

What was most interesting about Factcheck's debunking was not the fact that the conservative blogger did a lot more misreading of H.R. 3200 than accurate reporting on it. I already know both opponents and advocates of the health care bill are engaged in deception. What was interesting about Factcheck's reporting was how much information it imparted about H.R. 3200, more than I have discovered elsewhere. You can learn more about health care reform there than from watching network news for months. That's why I'm bringing it up here. It's long, but definitely worth reading.

If you have lots of free time on your hands, you can also read H.R. 3200 in it's entirety, all 1,017 pages of it. Good luck. I haven't read it, but if you do read H.R. 3200, that will put you more in-the-know than the majority of Congress. They're too busy to read bills. They just vote on them (not that anything could go wrong there).

Because I'm a lot more interested in what IS in the health care bill than what isn't, I'd like to present some of those facts. These will consist of the blogger's claims and Factcheck's findings:

Claim: Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll Claim: Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll.

Both Partly True. The bill requires employers either to offer private health insurance coverage or pay a percentage of their payroll expenses to help finance a public plan. The 8 percent payment would indeed apply to employers with payrolls over $400,000 in the previous year, and lesser amounts would apply to smaller firms. Those with payrolls of $250,000 or less would pay nothing. But the penalty isn’t incurred if an employer "does not offer the public option," as the e-mail claims. Rather, it’s a penalty for not offering health insurance to employees.

Claim: Page 167: Any individual who doesn’t have acceptable health care (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of income.

True. This is the mechanism in the bill to enforce the individual mandate requiring everyone to have insurance. A person who doesn’t have insurance that meets minimum benefit standards (or other acceptable coverage, such as a plan that was grandfathered in) would pay a penalty of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income for the year. The total penalty can’t exceed a national average premium for individual coverage, or family coverage if applicable

These are the essential provisions in H.R. 3200 to achieve universal health insurance. The government will FORCE many businesses to provide health insurance, and will FORCE individuals to buy it, or sizable penalties will be imposed. See how easy that was ? Government force works every time. How many jobs will be lost with the added cost mandates on business, I can't tell you, so I'll just say LOTS. Lucky we're not in a recession or anything, where this type of new government burden on business would REALLY hurt. To refresh your memories, remember that Barack Obama said on the campaign trail last year that he would NOT force people to buy health insurance. Oh well. I guess that was just more silly campaign rhetoric. We don't expect our politicians to tell us the truth when they're campaigning, and the majority of the mainstream media doesn't seem to care if Obama tells the truth ever.

Claim: Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No “judicial review” is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed.

Half true. It’s true that page 124 forbids any review by the courts of rates the government would pay to doctors and hospitals under the new “public option” insurance plan. But there’s no mention of “price fixing” in the bill; that’s the e-mail author’s phrase. It also remains to be seen if the “public option” plan would grow to become a “government monopoly,” as the author predicts.

Claim: Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages.

Misleading. Nothing in the bill would “set wages” for doctors in general. Page 127 says the government would ask doctors to accept below-market rates set by the government for their patients who are covered by a new “public health insurance option,” just as they now are asked to do so for patients covered by Medicare. Physicians would still be free to charge what they wish for other patients, and free not to accept patients covered by the new program just as they are now free to refuse Medicare patients. That’s not a choice many doctors make, however, so as a practical matter the government would be setting rates (not “wages”) for many patients. On the other hand, the new “public” plan is aimed mainly at covering people who have no insurance now and can afford to pay doctors little if anything.

This is very informative. It tells you the government will set prices below market rates for the public option, as it does currently with Medicare, and no court can review the government's actions (so much for checks and balances). The private insurers cannot do this. This is how the public option will undercut private insurers. Factcheck says it remains to be seen if this will lead to a government health care monopoly, but c'mon now. That's disingenuous. The whole idea of the public option is to undercut private insurers and produce a single-payer system over time. It isn't about competition, as the Democrats keep telling us, because there is no way for private insurers to compete in such an environment. This tells you how they will achieve single-payer, and price-fixing is exactly what it is. For example, do you know any seniors who AREN'T on Medicare ? Of course you don't. Will any uninsured individual choose more expensive private insurance over a cheaper public option ? Of course they won't. And just as Medicare drives up the health care costs for all non-Medicare patients (because doctors don't profit from the low Medicare reimbursement rates), the public option will drive up the health care costs for all non-public option patients, putting private insurers at an even bigger disadvantage. It's beyond obvious what the public option is all about. I just wish the Dems would admit it instead of insulting our collective intelligence. The public option will lead to a government takeover of the health insurance market, and to far greater government control of the entire health care industry. That's not right-wing spin, it's economic reality.

Claim: Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives.

False. It’s true that employers would be required to sign up their workers for coverage automatically, but it doesn’t have to be the “public plan.” It would be the employer-offered plan “with the lowest applicable employee premium” (pages 147- 148). This would only be the "public option" if the employer was eligible to buy coverage through the Health Insurance Exchange (not likely, at least during the first two years when only small businesses would have access), and the "public option" was the cheapest plan (which would be likely). Furthermore, while the employer isn’t given an alternative, the workers are. They may reject auto-enrollment under an opt-out provision (page 148).

Initially, the public option will be chosen by uninsured individuals and small businesses, because it will be cheaper. Notice that it's only during the first two years that bigger businesses will not have access to the public option. Any questions about what will happen after those first two years ???? Do you think the business sector will stick with higher insurance costs, or abandon them in favor of the lower cost public option as soon as they can ????? Anyone who has ever run a business knows the answer to that. Business always chooses to reduce it's overhead whenever it can, in order to remain competitive. There really won't be any other choice for businesses to make but to enroll in the public option.

Now, I'd like to look into my economic crystal ball and predict what would happen next.

Let's assume that the whole country is on the public option (single payer) some years down the road, and the government has fixed the prices below the market, as it does now with Medicare. What do you suppose the effect on the availability of medical care will be when ALL medical care is forced below market price, and the doctors have no way to make up the difference ??? Economics 101 tells us what will happen, via the laws of supply and demand. They are in effect with health care as much as in every other economic area. We will be increasing the numbers of the insured dramatically (increasing demand). While the government will not specifically control doctor's wages, by all doctors being paid less for medical services, the government WILL control those doctor's wages through indirect means, and lower doctor's wages, combined with less reimbursement for all medical services will result in……….anyone, anyone ???………FEWER DOCTORS AND OTHER MEDICAL RESOURCES (less supply), which will result in……..anyone, anyone ???………..LESS AVAILABILITY OF MEDICAL CARE, which will result in………anyone, anyone ???……….RATIONING. Just like England. Just like Canada. So, while there is no specific health care rationing contained in H.R. 3200, the economic reality associated with altering the laws of supply and demand would inexorably lead to it.

At that point, I imagine some government drone would start calling for tax increases to subsidize doctors, in order to fix the medical care shortage problem that the government created. That same government drone would no doubt decry the failure of the free market (the free market that the government obliterated). We just saw what happened when the government manipulated the housing market for political ends. Do we want a repeat with medical care, where our very lives are on the line ? Or can the true answer to health care reform be found in precisely the opposite direction the Democrats are going ? Instead of regulating the free market out of existence, perhaps we should open it up and let it work (we don't have a free market in health care now), with only some market bearable cost controls in place. I'll leave it for you to decide. I know what I'd choose. I'd like to be able to select my own type of health care coverage, rather than have the government decide what's best for me. I can do that. I'm all grown up now.

At a townhall meeting, former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Howard Dean was asked why tort reform is not included in ObamaCare. Then an amazing thing happened. Dean came very close to telling the truth. I was stunned. The truth ? Did Dean get DNC clearance for that ? I hope he doesn't get flagged as an Obama enemy. Here's Dean's answer:

“Here is why tort reform is not in the bill. When you go to pass a really enormous bill like that the more stuff you put in, the more enemies you make, right? And the reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on, and that is the plain and simple truth. Now, that’s the truth.”

Bingo. Tort reform is not included in ObamaCare because the Democrats don't want to take on the trial lawyers. The only thing Dean didn't reveal was WHY the Dems don't want to take on the trial lawyers. The reason is because the trial lawyers pay the Democrats not to take on the trial lawyers. The lawyers are big-time Democratic campaign donors, so the Dems are content to only demonize the insurance companies and the doctors in order to pass ObamaCare. Trial lawyers get a pass, even if it makes YOUR health care insurance more expensive.

Health care is a right, you know, and it's evil to profit from it. That's what the Dems keep telling us, anyway.
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Speaking of health care and flagging enemies, there is another right-wing nutjob spreading malicious myths about ObamaCare. No, not Palin. This time it's Representative Betty Markey, a Democrat from Colorado. Here's what Markey told a gathering of her constituents, from Coloradoan.com:

Some people, including Medicare recipients, will have to give up some current benefits to truly reform the nation's health-care system, Rep. Betsy Markey told a gathering of constituents in Fort Collins on Wednesday.

Markey has repeatedly said during the August congressional recess that Medicare spending needs to be reined in to help pay for reforming the broader health-care system.

"There's going to be some people who are going to have to give up some things, honestly, for all of this to work," Markey said at a Congress on Your Corner event at CSU. "But we have to do this because we're Americans."

Reduce Medicare benefits ? Uh, oh. That runs contrary to the official Dem health care narrative, which states that 47 million more people will be insured for less money than it costs now, and with absolutely no reductions in health care services or availability ever, ever, ever. Markey should be called down to Principal Obama's office real soon. Between Markey and Dean, a little too much inconvenient truth is leaking out. How's a President supposed to fundamentally transform America with such loose lips ? Did the weekly Democratic talking points memo get lost in the mail, or what ? Darn that government-run post office. The Dems should have used Federal Express instead.
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On the crazy right-wing extremist violence front, the windows were smashed out of the Denver Democratic Party headquarters, prompting Democratic officials to immediately cast blame on Obama health care opponents (the astroturf mob, aka, regular older American citizens). From the Colorado AP News:

Democratic leaders initially said that the window shattering was an act of political vandalism, possibly by opponents of health care reform…State Democratic Chairwoman Pat Waak continued to say that it was an act of vandalism prompted by the heated debate over President Barack Obama's health care reform…"I stand by my statement that I think there are people opposed to health care reform and there has been a lot of rhetoric that has prompted an atmosphere that I don't think is constructive," Waak said Wednesday. "It's such a polarizing issue. It shouldn't be."

It turns out that the vandalism was done by one Maurice Schwenkler. The problem is, Schwenkler isn't a right-winger. Schwenkler is a former Democratic campaigner and a gay rights transgender activist who opposed Obama's anti-gay rights positions. Schwenkler is a left-winger. Darn. The facts keep getting in the way of that liberal narrative about right-wing violence over health care townhall meetings. The official score is now……Left-wing acts of violence – 2, Right-wing acts of violence – 0.
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The lack of right-wing townhall violence doesn't stop liberals from whining about it, though. On wednesday night's Countdown With Keith Ubermoron on MSLSD, Olby named Congressman Wally Herger from California the Worst Person In The World when Herger called a man at a townhall meeting "a great American" after the man shouted out from the crowd that he was "a proud right-wing terrorist." The man is not a terrorist, of course. He's a veteran, and was openly mocking those on the left (like Olbermann) who describe townhall protesters using pejorative terms like "terrorists," a "mob," "racists," etc. Olbermann is either too stupid or too dishonest to acknowledge the difference. Btw, on the previous linked video, Olby also goes after Glenn Beck for tearing into Van Jones (an acknowledged communist and Obama's Green Jobs Czar). Olby said "Glenn Beck is crap," because Beck didn't divulge that Van Jones group, Color Of Change, is the group that is pressuring advertisers to drop Beck's show. In reality, it's Olbermann who is crap, because Beck has divulged that information, not to mention the fact that Beck went after Jones BEFORE Jones' group starting going after Beck, so Olby has his cause and effect reversed. Keith Olbermann IS the worst person in the world. Why anyone would watch Olbermann's dishonest crap show is the only thing that mystifies me (but I'd never try to pull his advertisers. That's crap too). In Olby's defense, of the three stories he brought up during his moronic Worst Person trilogy, he did get ONE factually correct, even though his snarky histrionics on that story were way overblown too. Seriously, liberal readers, do you watch that show ? If so, why ? All you are getting there is propaganda, half truths, and outright lies.

(Note to liberals – I'm not sticking up for Glenn Beck here. I'm sticking up for the facts. Note the difference. I thought Beck was wrong to call Obama a racist too, but he doesn't deserve to lose his show over it).

Do you believe our federal government is competent ? Do you think it's doing a good job of solving our problems ? Are we getting our money's worth ? Let's run through a checklist.

The government declared a war on poverty about 45 years ago. How'd that work out ? We may not have an exit strategy from Afghanistan yet, but you'd think we'd have one for the war on poverty after all these years. Nope.

What about the war on drugs ? We've put a lot of American citizens in prison on drug charges, giving us the highest incarceration rate in the world here in the land of the free, but drugs are still everywhere. If you want to find illegal drugs in America, you don't have to look very hard.

How about the problem of illegal immigration ? I bet you didn't know that the government fixed that problem back in 1986 with the Immigration Reform And Control Act. Listen to this excerpt from the signing statement from that Act, and tell me if it sounds at all familiar to any discussions of the issue we are having today:

In 1981 this administration asked the Congress to pass a comprehensive legislative package, including employer sanctions, other measures to increase enforcement of the immigration laws, and legalization. The act provides these three essential components. The employer sanctions program is the keystone and major element. It will remove the incentive for illegal immigration by eliminating the job opportunities which draw illegal aliens here. We have consistently supported a legalization program which is both generous to the alien and fair to the countless thousands of people throughout the world who seek legally to come to America. The legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight and, ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans.

In 1986, we had approximately 2.7 million illegal immigrants. Now the estimate is around 13 million, and we're having the exact same discussions about illegal immigration that we had 23 years ago. Good job, government.

Maybe I'm being too harsh. Some of you might be thinking of all the super neato government programs that have been put in place to help us, like the Social Security ponzi scam, or Medicare, which is going broke. Plus, Social Security and Medicare comprise the lion's share of our unfunded liabilities, which, when added to our stated national debt of $11.7 trillion, make the real national debt around $56.4 trillion (note – the national debt figures are outdated as soon as they are printed because the debt is rising so fast. The real national debt might be over $58 trillion by now).

FYI – If you want to see the startling truth behind the U.S. economy, check out the U.S. Debt Clock. We are becoming a hollowed out shell of an economic power. It can't last. America, as it stands, is not sustainable (and our idiotic mainstream media wonders what all the protesting is about. "It must be racism," they say. Why do they call those media types "the elite" anyway ? They sound like a bunch of imbeciles to me).

Our government has done a bang up job of not eliminating poverty, drugs, and illegal immigration. It has also done a fine job of living beyond it's means and selling us down the river with massive debt that will destroy the hopes of future generations. It was also instrumental in creating the housing bubble that led to the current recession.

So, obviously, the correct path to follow now is to hand another 17% of our economy over to that same government to "fix" health care, right ? I mean, the government has such an excellent track record of solving economic problems (NOT). Much better than that miserable failure known as the free market (that made us the wealthiest country in the history of the world). After all, the free market has failed to rein in health care costs, right ? Wrong. The government has inserted itself into health care to such an extent that the free market isn't really functioning in health care. The government got into health care in a big way in 1965, and it's influence has grown ever since. This is also the same time period that health care costs have spiraled out of control.

I was listening to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) yesterday on television talking about how there isn't enough competition among private health care insurers, how some states are dominated by only a few insurance companies. What Schumer didn't bother to mention was that insurers are limited by law from competing on a national level, across state lines. So, we have the government restricting private health insurance choice on the one hand, and then complaining that there isn't enough choice on the other hand. I don't know how some of these politicians peddle this nonsense with a straight face. Schumer, of course, wasn't advocating to open up competition on a national level among diverse insurance companies. No, because that would make sense. We can't have that. Instead, Schumer was advocating for a public health insurance option, where the government competes directly against the private sector, as if that's even possible. It isn't. Schumer kept saying that government competing with private industry is fine, as long as there's "a level playing field." Schumer said that with a straight face too, somehow. The idea that there could ever be a level playing field between the federal government and the private sector is absurd on it's face, as is Chuck Schumer. A private industry trying to compete with the federal government in health care insurance would be like trying to play a football game against a government team, where the government got to pick the players on both teams, got to pick the referees, got to change the rules of the game after every play, and made your team pay the expenses of it's team. There's little doubt who would win the game with such a "level playing field."

I'd have much more respect for the politicians peddling the public health care option if they'd just tell the truth about it. It's not about "keeping the insurance companies honest" any more than Medicare was about "giving Seniors a choice" in 1965. It's about government control. Don't lie to me and tell me anything different.

- One nice thing about Bill Clinton's presidency was that you could oppose his policies without being called a racist (mostly).

- People who think Bush went into Iraq to enrich Halliburton have no right to complain about the Birthers.

- When you go looking for "code words" for racism, aren't you just making stuff up ?

- When I talk about Obama's huge first year deficit ($1.8 trillion) on this blog, why do liberals always bring up Bush's deficits to excuse Obama's ? (Note to libs – By doing that, you aren't countering my argument. You are only making the argument that Obama is worse than Bush).

- Obama can offer health insurance to 30-45 million more people with health care reform, or he can reduce health care costs, but he can't do both at the same time.

- Obama's health care reform offers less choice, not more choice.

- Only Democrats think Rush Limbaugh is the head of the Republican party.

- Why is it that when liberals call conservatives racists nearly non-stop, nothing ever happens to those liberals, but when Glenn Beck calls Obama a racist one time, 20 advertisers are pressured into dropping their ads from Beck's show ?

- The only point being made by those people who are carrying guns outside events at which the President is speaking is that the gun carriers are oblivious morons.

- Is there any doubt at all that House Democrats are seeking the financial records of health insurance companies in order to demonize those companies ?

- Why is it okay for Congress to buy private jets with taxpayer dollars, but it's not okay for CEO's to fly private jets to Washington D.C. after being bailed out with taxpayer dollars ?

- Why would we want the federal government, an organization that is nearly $12 trillion in debt (and counting), to run our health care system, which represents 17% of our economy ?

- The "Obama is Hitler" signs must stop, because Obama is not like Hitler – he's much more like a combination of Saul Alinsky and P.T. Barnum. (Note to liberal media – that Obama-Hitler "I've Changed" sign you idiots at MSNBC, NBC, and CNN keep attributing to right wingers came from a Lyndon Larouche group, a communist group. Is even a tiny bit of journalistic integrity too much to ask ?)

- Speaking of Saul Alinsky, doesn't Obama's playbook seem awfully close to Alinsky's Rules For Radicals (pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it) ?

- MSNBC is such a biased organization that they actually edited out the fact that it was a black man who was carrying the AR-15 outside an Obama event, so MSNBC could peddle it's racist angle to the story.

- In the interesting political poll of the week, Gallup polling showed that conservatives outnumber liberals almost two to one when it comes to political ideology, yet Democrats have a sizeable lead over Republicans in party affiliation. (In other words, conservative doesn't always equate to Republican. I can identify with that).

- If you want to know why the health care public option was in, then it was out, then it was back in again….it's because up to 100 House Democrats said it better be back in again.

In the last nine months, our federal government has bailed out big business left and right. Wall Street, banks, insurance companies, car companies. The federal government serves as a backstop for big business. Big business also happens to be the ones with the deep pockets, lobbyists, and campaign cash to help get the politicians re-elected. It's a cozy little quid pro quo of the nation's power brokers. The elite taking care of their own. The government has also bailed itself out by sending huge chunks of cash to state governments via Obama's stimulus bill. Those government jobs were "saved," even as us schlubs in the private sector lost our jobs. It seems ALL the big boys in our country are "too big to fail," and the enormous bailout price tag is put on the national credit card for some future taxpayer schlubs to worry about. That's a sweet deal for the big boys in and out of government. Their risk is alleviated. Their past sins, which led to these dire financial straits in the first place, are absolved. The taxpayers serve as the sin-eaters and the pain-eaters. Btw, the federal employees health care plan is top-notch. Thank you very much, schlubs.

But with all this bailing out of the big boys, something critical has been forgotten.

70% of the jobs created in this country come from small business. How are we treating our small businesses, the ones who create the lion's share of employment opportunities ???? Let's take a look.

The liberal solution to every conceivable financial woe comes down to basically three words – "tax the rich." Then the liberals spew out inanities about how the top income tax rates used to be MUCH higher, like 70% or 90% (as if that's a good thing). What they don't tell you is that small businesses are scooped up along with the wealthy as liberals cast their tax nets, trolling for rich people. The reason for this is because 75% of small businesses are sub-chapter S corporations, who file their business taxes under the individual income tax code. When the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire, causing the top tax rate to increase by 4.6% to 39.6%, small businesses (the job creators) have to pay those increased taxes too. That leaves less money available to successful small businesses for investment, growth, wage increases for it's employees, and/or new job creation.

Reversing the Bush tax cuts is far from the only anti-small business measure being proposed. As part of the ObamaCare reform, the House Committee has propsed a surcharge tax for anyone making over $1 million per year, raising the top income tax rate to 45%. Last month, freshman Democrats in the House (who apparently have a lot more economic sense than many veteran Democrats in the House), sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) objecting to the measures, which they say will hurt small businesses. Here is a portion of that letter:

While the Ways and Means Committee states that the proposed surcharge in H.R. 3200 will only impact 4.1 percent of small businesses, we are concerned that this does not paint a complete picture. According to the Internal Revenue Service's 2002 Statistics of Income, 64 percent of households filing income tax forms with AGI above $250,000 filed as an S corporation or a partnership or filed a Schedule C sole proprietorship tax form. Further, of all small businesses, 75% are S-Corporations where the business income is passed through to the business owners' individual tax return, increasing the chances that it will be impacted by the proposed surcharge.

So, the Ways and Means Committees' 4.1% number of small businesses being affected is an outright lie. No surprise there. I'm only surprised when they don't lie. The letter goes on:

The proposed surcharge will also have a direct negative impact on manufacturers, another industry essential for our recovery. As manufacturers are capital intensive businesses, their taxable income is often higher (nearly 70 percent of the manufacturers that pay at the individual rate have an average taxable income of $570,000). Manufacturing machinery can cost of $1 million and many owners have to save for years to expand and buy new equipment. Yet those profits saved each year would be hit by the new surcharge, which could lead to reduced investment.

Especially in a recession, we need to make sure not to kill the goose that will lay the golden eggs of our recovery…Combined with state taxes, many successful small businesses — the very kind of business that should lead in creating new jobs and help us emerge from this recession — will be taxed at over 50 percent.

A 50% tax rate on job creators……Dumb-da-da-dumb-dumb. Small business can't thrive in such an environment.

The freshmen House Democrats go on to explain how, at a 50% tax rate, small businesses would also be at a huge disadvantage to the big corporations and multinationals, who would still be paying the lower 35% business tax rate. What an unbelievable coincidence. The big boys, after being bailed out and immunized from failure at the taxpayer's expense, and after all their lobbying and campaign contributions, get FAVORABLE TREATMENT FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT over the biggest job creators in the country, small business.

Btw, the letter also mentioned that $21 billion of the stimulus package funds are going to small businesses, the biggest job creators in the country. That comes out to about TWO PERCENT of the $787 billion Obama stimulus total. Do any of you STILL think that was a stimulus package ???? It wasn't. It was mostly just an extraordinarily large appropriations spending package, aka, pork. That's why it hasn't and won't work.

Let's also not forget that cap-and-trade is looming on the horizon, so Obama can "skyrocket" those energy costs for small businesses too. Then, if Card Check passes, the Big O can just drive a lot of small businesses out of business via unionization and it's unaffordable wages and mandates on business. Peachy.

Back to health care reform. The President is trying to sell the health care plan as being pro-small business, but a proposal in the House calls for employers with a total payroll above $250,000 to offer health insurance to their workers or face a surtax of as much as 8 percent. A Senate committee version would require all businesses, except those with fewer than 25 employees, to provide health coverage or pay a $750 fine per year for each worker. I've heard there will be a tax credit for businesses to provide health care (that doesn't help struggling businesses, which are many these days), but if these plans are pro-small business, I'd sure hate to see what anti-small business would look like.

That's why the business community, with the exception of those big and favored few who will prosper under Obama's plans (like Big Pharma or GE) is scared to death of Barack Obama, and is fighting back. I can't blame them. Anti-business craziness abounds.

I guess my only remaining question would be – is Obama trying to destroy this country on purpose, or is he just too stupid to know any better ?

Why isn't anyone in the media the least bit interested in Barack "Transparency" Obama's personal records ? This guy's life is a more well-hidden secret than Batman's. If you want to know where the Birther movement came from, consider all the records Obama has kept away from the public. Here's a partial list:

Long form birth certificate (original birth certificate)
Passport files
Harvard Law School records
University of Chicago records of scholarly articles
Columbia University records and senior thesis
Occidental College records
Punahou School records, fifth grade thru high school
Noelani Elementary School records
Files and schedules for years as Illinois state senator
Client list while practicing law with Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Gallard law firm

In light of all this, is it unreasonable to ask "what's the big secret ?"

Don't take this to mean I believe in the Birther theory. I don't. There's not a shred of evidence that Obama was born anywhere other than Hawaii, and Hawaiin government officials have affirmed his birth. I do, however, wonder what all the secrecy is about. Obama could end all this Birther nonsense in a New York minute by releasing his original birth certificate, yet he doesn't do that. Instead, he spends large sums of money to hire lawyers to fight the Birthers in and out of court, time after time. Somebody please explain to me how that makes any sense at all if the man has nothing to hide.
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Speaking of transparency, or rather the lack thereof, what happened to Obama's pledge to hold the health care reform meetings in public on C-SPAN ? One more broken campaign promise, along with his broken pledge to keep the lobbyists and special interests out of his administration.
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Speaking of special interests, it seems the Obama administration has made a deal with the pharmaceutical companies to block any health care legislation that would allow the government to negotiate prices on prescription drugs. Democrats have been calling for this reform for years, and their President just shot them down. In return, Big Pharma is spending $150 million for ads in favor of Obama's health care reform. A special interest quid pro quo. The next time you hear the President or one of his minions at a townhall meeting rail against those evil special interests who are running health care, just laugh at them.
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Speaking of townhall meetings, I have to concede a point to my Democratic friends. I finally have witnessed a "manufactured" townhall meeting on health care reform.

It was the one Obama held in New Hampshire. That meeting was so different from all the rest that it was obviously staged, with planted questions and all.
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Speaking of New Hampshire, did you get a load of the protesting dipstick who was carrying a loaded gun in a holster outside Obama's townhall meeting ? To make matters worse, the guy was seen holding a sign that said "It's Time To Water The Tree Of Liberty." This is a reference to a quote from Thomas Jefferson, which states "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Let's add it up. Loaded gun + sign referring to bloodshed AT A PRESIDENTIAL EVENT !!! Any red flags being raised there ??? And to my knowledge, the Secret Service DIDN'T DO ANYTHING AT ALL about it.

It turns out the guy wasn't threatening the President, but hello, how fricking stupid can you be to carry a gun to where the President is going to be speaking ? Presidents get threats made against them every single day, and Obama is getting lots of threats, four times more than Bush got, according to the Secret Service. The Secret Service should have disarmed that moron and asked questions later.

I also have to come clean and admit that, after watching the gun-carrying tool being interviewed by Chris Matthews, it's apparent that the guy is a….a…..[cringe]…..LIBERTARIAN. Shoot. Er, I mean, darn. That's all for today. I'm going to take my Ron Paul book and go home.

In responding to what he termed "absurd attacks" against ObamaCare, the President said the following:

“So, let me explain what reform will mean for you. And let me start by dispelling the outlandish rumors that reform will promote euthanasia, cut Medicaid, or bring about a government takeover of health care. That’s simply not true. This isn’t about putting government in charge of your health insurance; it’s about putting you in charge of your health insurance. Under the reforms we seek, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”

This statement outlines one reason why those townhall protesters are complaining so loudly – they think the President is not being honest with them.

Let's do a little fact-checking on the above Obama statement.

I agree that ObamaCare will not "promote euthanasia," which is another word for mercy killing. The government isn't going to start putting down old people with suicide pills or lethal injections. It's against federal law to do that. If any Republicans are actually using the word "euthanasia" to describe ObamaCare, that is a distortion of the actual issue at hand, which is, to what extent will ObamaCare ration (deny) care to the elderly ? That is still an open question, and is making many folks fearful. Obama saying he will not "promote euthanasia" may knock down a GOP straw man, but it doesn't deal with the real issue of rationing. Withholding care from elderly sick people isn't euthanasia per se, but the end result is the same, death. We need clarification, Mr. President. I realize this is a difficult issue to deal with, but people want to know that cost-savings isn't going to trump people's lives. They don't know that now.

How about Obama's claim that he will not "cut Medicaid ?" Well, back in june, the President outlined $313 billion in spending cuts to Medicare and Medicaid to pay for part of ObamaCare. The cuts include reductions in payments to Medicare/Medicaid providers, cuts in federal subsidies to hospitals for uninsured patients, and cuts in how much the federal government pays pharmaceutical companies for drugs. The Democratic health care plan in the House of Representatives goes further, calling for $500 billion in Medicare cuts. If you want to know where anyone came up with the "absurd attack" idea that ObamaCare was going to "cut Medicaid," now you know. The idea comes from the Medicare/Medicaid cuts that the Democrats have already proposed.

How about the notion that ObamaCare "will bring about a government takeover of health care ?" Where did this "absurd attack" come from ? Here's Obama in 2003, speaking to the AFL-CIO:

“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.”

Here's Obama in 2007 at a townhall meeting when asked about single-payer. Obama states again that single-payer is his preference, but political reality dictates that he can't get there immediately:

"'If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense. That's the kind of system that you have in most industrialized countries around the world. The only problem is that we aren't starting from scratch. We have historically a system of employer-based health care…we don't want a huge disruption…now, obviously, as President, I've got to work with Congress to get this done…we may not get everything I want in there, and may not have everything you want in there..I'm confident that we are gonna get health care reform this year, and start putting us on a path that is sustainable over the long term '"

Here's Barney Frank (D-VT) in July, 2009:

"The best way we're going to get single-payer; the only way; is to have the public option and to demonstrte its strength and power."

Is there ANY doubt that Obama and the liberal Democrats want to use the public option as a Trojan Horse to bring about a transition to the single-payer system they really want ? Obama denies it now, of course, but the above quote tells you why he is denying it now. It's because he knows such a change wouldn't pass. He needs a transition period to get Americans conditioned to the idea. Thus the disinformation.

On to Obama's next statement – "This isn’t about putting government in charge of your health insurance; it’s about putting you in charge of your health insurance."

This line doesn't even pass the laugh test. ObamaCare is ALL ABOUT putting the government in charge of your health care, with or without the public option. The government will force you to buy health insurance, create a myriad of new health care regulations that the insurance companies must follow, fine any employer who doesn't provide health insurance, create a health insurance exchange of government approved insurance companies, and eliminate the citizen's choice to control the type of health insurance coverage they want. Not to mention that the House Democrats health care plan would create a slew of new federal programs, agencies and commissions to oversee the government-run health insurance regime (link). The last thing ObamaCare is about is "putting you in charge of your health insurance." It's about putting the government in charge.

One part of Obama's statement that appears to be true is when he says "if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." I have no reason to doubt that. Then again, what alternative is there to having doctors perform health care ? It's not like some government bureaucrat can do it. Just as farmers grow crops and plumbers fix sinks, doctors provide health care. It's a fait accompli. The very notion that we need the President of the United States to tell us we can go to a doctor of our choice indicates how out of kilter our health care system has become. On a side note, guess who invented HMO's, that reviled health care construct where you can only go to doctors inside the HMO network (to "manage" care and costs) ???? If you answered that the GOVERNMENT created HMO's, led by Senator Ted Kennedy, the "liberal lion" from Massachusetts, you win a kewpie doll. This is the same Ted Kennedy whose health care plan is the outline for the Senate version of ObamaCare. If you think of ObamaCare as an HMO on a universal scale, it suddenly doesn't sound so appealing, does it ?

It's no mystery why people are concerned with Obama's health care reform, and I haven't even mentioned the fact that it is going to cost the taxpayers a LOT more money, at a time when our government is already spending money faster than any drunken sailor could ever imagine. We toss around the term 'trillion' like it's nothing these days. 'Trillion' is far from nothing. It's MASSIVE. It's frightening, and people are frightened.

And all we're getting is partisan politics (from both sides) and disinformation from the top. When the President of the United States is engaged in spin and deception, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence. It inspires fear and doubt, and we're seeing that play out at townhall meetings all across the country. Then the Democrats criticize the people at townhall meetings asking the hard questions. Hard to fathom.

Sorry I've been away from the blog this week, but AT&T inadvertently knocked out my phone lines. I couldn't get online until yesterday.

When the AT&T repairman was restoring my connection to the outside world, he noticed a copy of Ron Paul's book, Revolution, sitting on my coffee table, and we struck up a political conversation. He asked if I was a Republican. I said no, I was a fiscal conservative and a Libertarian, with a few exceptions (such as national security). The repairman asked me what the difference was between a Republican and a fiscal conservative. I replied that most Republicans were just kidding about fiscal conservatism, and I wasn't. Then the repairman asked me if I had heard Barbara Boxer (D-CA) insulting the American people who attended the townhall meetings on health care. That led to a 15 minute conversation that ended only because the repairman had another service call to make. It turns out the repairman was a 13-year military veteran. He was also one of the most intelligent people I've talked to lately. This "regular guy," much like myself, was very concerned with the health care reform that is winding it's way through the halls of Congress. Much like myself (and lots of townhall attendees), he thought the Democrats were being quite dishonest about their health care reform plans. He was also quite unhappy that many Democrats are treating Americans like we are a bunch of thuggish nitwits.

But it's even worse than being treated like a thuggish nitwit. Those Democrats aren't even giving us credit for being able to form our own opinions. They act like we are a bunch of mindless autobots being sent out to do the bidding of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the Republican National Committee. That's why the Dems and their pet media speak of the contentious health care townhalls being an "astroturf" movement (fake grassroots). They pretend we are puppets, speaking words put into our simple minds by others. They pretend we do not exist at all as individuals capable of individual reasoned thought. It's based upon the old military tactic of dehumanizing the enemy. It's easy to kill or ignore what's not viewed as human. Ohio Democratic Representatives Tim Ryan and John Boccieri have both stated that they ignored the flood of e-mails and phone calls from Americans concerned over health care because they thought it was just manufactured outrage, ginned up by Fox News and others. These two are both literally saying they could care less what their own constituents think. This raises the question – who are they representing, if not Ohioans ?

Here is a sampling of Democratic responses to the health care townhall meetings:

"I think they're astroturf. You be the judge. They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to town meeting on healthcare" – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

Swastikas ? Has anyone seen this yet ? I haven't.

“I just want to show you what Astroturf really is.They’re taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor mongers, and insurance rackets." – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

Yes. I can't tell you how many calls I get from insurance companies telling me to stop health care reform. Oh, wait, yes I can. NONE. Of course, my phones were out for a few days. Maybe the insurance guys were trying to call me then.

"These guys don’t care about you. They care about YouTube. We can spot a ringer.” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin.

Is there a lot of money in getting on YouTube ? I think America's Funniest Home Videos pays better, and that's where Durbin belongs.

“Organized mobs across the country are intimidating lawmakers, disrupting events, and silencing discussions about the change our country needs.” – an Obama campaign aide in an e-mail to Michigan supporters.

"Organized mobs ?" What, now Obama's health care reform opponents are like Al Capone ? The "mob" narrative is being played over and over by the Democratic honchos. Watch this commercial being aired by the Democratic National Committee, appropriately named 'Enough Of The Mob':

Mob. Mob. Mob. Mob. Mob. Got it ? And one Birther thrown in for good measure.

Dehumanize. Illegitimize. Radicalize. That's the Dem strategy. Do anything but respond to the actual issues being raised at these townhall meetings.

Now for Barbara Boxer's comments:

"I saw some of the clips of people storming these townhall meetings. The last time I saw well-dressed people doing this was when Al Gore asked me to go down to Florida to recount the ballots…this is all organized…you in the media have to take a look at this. It's all planned to hurt our President and change the Congress"

Who are these "well-dressed people" ? If you look at any of the townhall meeting clips, you'll see a bunch of people wearing t-shirts, shorts, halter tops, ball caps, etc. I didn't see any Brooks Brothers suits there, except for those worn by some of the Democratic speakers.

The massive irony here is, look at who our President is – Barack Obama, the community ORGANIZER. Organizing people toward political ends is his stock in trade. Even if the townhall meetings WERE organized by some GOP operatives and/or the insurance industry, which, of course, they AREN'T, how can Democrats have the nerve to complain about it ? Obama has encouraged the exact same behavior throughout his career. He was the chief trainer for ACORN, for god's sake. ACORN comes out enmasse to protest anything they don't like. And they shout people down, chant slogans, even break into foreclosed homes to take them over. Have you ever heard a peep from the White House or the Democrats condemning ACORN'S behavior ? Nope. Not a one.

And if you really want to see how liberals act when they are hearing something THEY don't like, just observe how conservative speakers on college campuses are shouted down, how the liberal audiences throw things at the speakers, etc. Here's one of many such examples. I picked this one because it happened at Obama's alma mater, Columbia University, where the protesters stopped the Minutemen from speaking. This makes the health care townhalls look like sunday church services by comparison:

Btw, this is the same Columbia University that sat and listened respectfully to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak. Liberals know who the real enemy is.

The latest Quinnipiac poll shows that 52% of Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of health care reform. Only 39% approve. That's an awful lot of astroturf manufactured phony outrage, I'd say. The "mob" (aka, America) appears not to agree with the Democrats.

So, pipe down, Dems. Your kabuki theater on health care townhall meetings is fooling no one, and it's angering a lot of us. Not to mention that you used the exact same tactics regarding the Tea Party protests. We're onto you. The only thing fake here is the Dems fake outrage.

Barney Frank (D-VT) wants the federal government to decide how much Wall Street executives (and all other executives of private companies) are paid. Barney also wants the government to decide how they are paid. Legislation to ban incentive-based pay for private corporations has been approved by the House Financial Services Committee.

I don't know where in the U.S. Constitution the federal government thinks it obtains the authority to do this, but, hey, we don't use that musty old Constitution thingy anymore anyway. The notion of limiting centralized governmental power (federalism) envisioned by the founding fathers is as outdated as bell bottomed jeans. These days, we seem to be climbing all over ourselves to give the federal government all the power it wants (totalitarianism). The statists are on the march, making all the same false promises the statists always make, the false promises that never quite seem to materialize (FYI – health care reform = forcing all Americans to buy health care insurance and then having the government determine what medical procedures you are allowed to have, in case you haven't figured that out yet).

Here is Barney's rationale for limiting executive pay:

"The problem with executive compensation is essentially, from the systemic standpoint, that it gives perverse incentives," said Frank, a Democrat. Without penalties for bad bets, the system means "heads you win, tails you break even," he said.

Perverse incentives. That means people shouldn't be rewarded for driving their companies into the ground. They should be held accountable instead. I think we can all agree with that, if not with the idea that the federal government should dictate people's salaries. That is so……Soviet.

Let's continue with these ideas of accountability and perverse incentives. As of July 31st, 2009, the federal debt stood at $11,617,400,889,464.57. That's over $11.6 trillion. As soon as I write these words, they are outdated, because the national debt is now higher. The debt has increased by $3.89 billion PER DAY since September 2007. In addition, the federal government is projected to run nearly a $2 trillion deficit in 2009. We paid $451 billion in interest on the federal debt in 2008. This year it will be much higher. The interest on the debt is money flushed down the toilet (or sent to a foreign government, like China) that could easily pay for any imaginable health care reform we could dream up. Instead, our federal government has burdened every American citizen with roughly $38,000 in debt. The federal government is the poster child for incompetence.

This means the federal government, if viewed as a corporation (FedCorp), would be the worst run corporation in the entire history of the world (with the possible exception of those defunct Soviets we're trying to emulate). So, how are we holding FedCorp accountable ? Why, we're about to hand the entire health care system over to them !!! We're going to reward the worst company ever, FedCorp, by handing it control over 16% more of our economy. Talk about perverse incentives. This is equivalent to handing the entire energy sector over to Enron. FedCorp has shown NO ability to be responsible managers of taxpayer dollars, so, naturally, let's keep giving them ever more and more. That's the ticket. And never mind that the part of health care FedCorp already controls, Medicare/Medicaid, has such massive unfunded liabilities that it is threatening to destroy our economy down the road. If not addressed, the unfunded entitlement liabilities will hit our economy with such an economic tidal wave that the current recession will look like a ripple in a pond by comparison.

While we're on the subject of salaries, FedCorp is holding itself accountable for it's putrid mismanagement by…..giving all FedCorp's civilian employees a 2.9% pay raise in 2010. This is after Congress voted itself a 2.8% pay raise in January 2009, with the country in the depths of the recession. Apparently, accountability and perverse incentives don't apply to FedCorp, only to that horribly greedy entity known as the private sector (the sector that produces all our goods and services). FedCorp is spitting directly in your faces, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer. YOU tighten your belts. THEY get raises.

There are so many examples of the federal government throwing away taxpayer dollars that I could never list them all. This post would be a thousand pages long if I tried. Go to the website YouDontKnowJack to see some examples of how just one Congressman, Jack Murtha (D-PA), aka, the King Of Pork, throws YOUR money around to his cronies and special interests. It's disgusting.

And it wasn't that much better when the Republicans were in charge. During the Bush years, with Republicans controlling Congress, government spending STILL skyrocketed. Federal spending went from $2 trillion to $3 trillion per year during Bush's tenure (and those guys were supposed to be conservatives ??? I don't think so). The only way the Bushies were conservative is if you compare them to Obama and the Democrats, who are trying to match Bush's 8-year federal spending increase total ($1 trillion) in their FIRST YEAR. If Bush was the frying pan, Obama is the fire. I find myself longing for the return of Bill Clinton and his Republican Congress. At least those guys realized the economy was EVERYTHING. Those guys look like geniuses compared to Bush and Barry, and even Clinton ran net deficits and added $1.5 trillion to the debt. Things have been so bad since then that Clinton and his GOP'ers seem like the good old days.

Our federal government is so far out of control that I barely know where to start. This post is only a drop in the bucket in trying to describe it. FedCorp is like a bunch of crack addicts with our money. They can never get enough. With an addict, there's only one cure. You have to MAKE them stop. WE have to make them stop. WE have to get rid of the whole bunch of them. WE have to vote them all out of office and start over. That's the only way WE can make a difference, the only way WE can make the federal crackheads stop. Barring that, WE are screwed. Barring that, America, the land of the free, will very soon be OVER. There is only so much money that FedCorp can spend. There are only so much taxes that FedCorp can take from us. We're on the express train to poverty as long as this continues. Wake up, America. Your country is disappearing before your very eyes.

Following is President Obama's entire speech about health care reform wednesday night, along with my explanatory comments enclosed in brackets. Consider this is a public service. Note – I mostly comment on things I disagree with, or on things that set off my bs detector. Not always, but mostly.

Without further ado, here's our President (clap, clap, clap).
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Good evening. Before I take your questions, I want to talk for a few minutes about the progress we’re making on health insurance reform and where it fits into our broader economic strategy. [Great, because I'm pretty confused about it]

This debate is not a game for these Americans, and they cannot afford to wait for reform any longer. [If Obama's health care reform is passed, the public option won't go into effect UNTIL 2013] They are counting on us to get this done. They are looking to us for leadership. And we must not let them down. We will pass reform that lowers cost [the CBO estimates it will cost $1.5 trillion MORE], promotes choice [choose the GOVERNMENT OPTION !!!!], and provides coverage that every American can count on. And we will do it this year. And with that, I’ll take your questions.
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I'm sure glad the President cleared all that stuff up for me, because now I really, um, well, it cost what again?….I don't quite underst…if the, uh,……rats, I'm still confused. Did he say anything new at all ? As always, the details remain elusive. I have an idea. How about the Prez and Congress get together, work out a plan, and THEN tell us what it is in clear terms we can understand. Spare me the campaigning, Mr. Obama. You're ALREADY the President.

To think, I could have watched my DVR'ed episode of HBO's True Blood instead.

Certain things defy explanation. For example, Bill Ayers went from being a domestic terrorist bomber for the Weathermen to being a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Chicago-Illinois. There is no rational explanation for how that happens, for how a radical like Ayers gets in a position to shape impressionable young minds when his proper place in society should be behind bars. It boggles the mind. There is a sense of unreality about it.

I had the same sense of unreality when I saw Al "Stuart Smalley" Franken (D-MN) sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee for the Sotomayor hearings. Stuart Smalley is the Distinguished Gentleman from Minnesota now. How did that happen ? How did Minnesotans decide Stuart was good enough, smart enough, and that, doggone-it, they liked him ? Some Republicans will tell you that Franken didn't really win the Minnesota election, and that IS a source of controversy (Minnesota counties didn't all use the same standard for accepting or rejecting ballots. We don't really know who won), but that's not the real reason Franken is in Congress today. The real reason Franken won with just under 42% of the popular vote is that three other candidates from three other parties (Independence, Libertarian, Constitutional) split off about 459,000 votes from the Democrats and Republicans. If not for the third parties, the vast majority of those votes would have been cast for Franken's opponent, Norm Coleman, giving him an easy victory. A substantial majority of Minnesotans (over 58%) did NOT vote for Stuart Smalley, which gives me a degree of comfort regarding the collective sanity of that state. I mean, you can convince 42% of Americans of almost anything. You can even convince them that Barack Obama is doing a good job of handling the economy, though the reality is, he's doing his level best to destroy it (tax increases, massive government expansion, anti-business policies, anti-free market policies, and anti-growth policies in the midst of the worst recession in nearly 70 years). There's a sense of unreality about that too. I feel like I'm watching the socialist endgame unfold right before my eyes.

But it is what it is, and now we have Stuart Smalley in the Senate. During the Sotomayor hearings, I found myself wondering how Franken got appointed to the Judiciary Committee. He has no background in the law. None whatsoever. He was a poli-sci major at Harvard. After that, he was a comedian and a radio talk show host (and a failed one at that). How did he get the appointment ? Granted, the Sotomayor hearings were a joke, but I still don't think that's any reason to put a comedian on the Judiciary Committee.

Luckily for us, Senator Franken himself revealed why he was on the Judiciary Committee. He has no background in the law, but, doggone-it, he watched Perry Mason on television when he was a kid. Every episode, apparently, because Franken knew that Perry Mason only lost one case during his distinguished imaginary legal career (though he couldn't remember which one). Watch the following video to see how Stuart Saves The Senate:

I look forward to lots of yuks for the next four years. Too bad the joke's on us. Maybe we should elect Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to the Senate next, being the serious country that we are.

Back to Obama's war on the economy – It seems the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office isn't buying Obama's inane claim that ObamaCare will result in a net cost savings. The CBO knows that is exactly the opposite of the truth. The CBO also knows ObamaCare will not address the long-term unfunded entitlement liabilities, as the President has suggested:

Sen. Kent Conrad: Dr. Elmendorf, I am going to really put you on the spot because we are in the middle of this health care debate, but it is critically important that we get this right. Everyone has said, virtually everyone, that bending the cost curve over time is critically important and one of the key goals of this entire effort. From what you have seen from the products of the committees that have reported, do you see a successful effort being mounted to bend the long-term cost curve?

Doug Elmendorf, Director of the CBO: No, Mr. Chairman. In the legislation that has been reported we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.

Conrad: So the cost curve in your judgement is being bent, but it is being bent the wrong way. Is that correct?

Elmendorf: The way I would put it is that the curve is being raised, so there is a justifiable focus on growth rates because of course it is the compounding of growth rates faster than the economy that leads to these unsustainable paths. But it is very hard to look out over a very long term and say very accurate things about growth rates. So most health experts that we talk with focus particularly on what is happening over the next 10 or 20 years, still a pretty long time period for projections, but focus on the next 10 or 20 years and look at whether efforts are being made that are bringing costs down or pushing costs up over that period.

As we wrote in our letter to you and Senator Gregg, the creation of a new subsidy for health insurance, which is a critical part of expanding health insurance coverage in our judgement, would by itself increase the federal responsibility for health care that raises federal spending on health care. It raises the amount of activity that is growing at this unsustainable rate and to offset that there has to be very substantial reductions in other parts of the federal commitment to health care, either on the tax revenue side through changes in the tax exclusion or on the spending side through reforms in Medicare and Medicaid. Certainly reforms of that sort are included in some of the packages, and we are still analyzing the reforms in the House package. Legislation was only released as you know two days ago. But changes we have looked at so far do not represent the fundamental change on the order of magnitude that would be necessary to offset the direct increase in federal health costs from the insurance coverage proposals.

On the bright side, ObamaCare will result in more health care bureaucracy and less choice. Maybe Senator Franken can help with this issue as well. I hear he used to watch Dr. Kildare on television when he was a kid.

As with the stimulus, Obama is pushing Congress to ram the health care bill through quickly (before people find out what's in it) Here's Obama:

“This progress should make us hopeful, but it can't make us complacent. It should instead provide the urgency for both the House and the Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August recess."

As a general principle, isn't it better to get something done RIGHT, as opposed to getting it done QUICK, especially with something as big and consequential as health care ? If the stimulus bill misfire (only 10% of the funds spent in 5 months) taught us anything, it should have taught us that. Obama continually pretends that the sky is going to fall if his policies aren't implemented immediately or sooner. It won't. The only reasons to rush a health care bill through Congress without thinking the issues through are political ones, so Obama can claim "victory." We don't need his victory. We need good health care solutions.

One of the talking points used by those favoring a single-payer health care system is that Medicare's administrative costs are FAR lower than those of private insurance companies. Here's liberal columnist and writer Joe Conason (whose latest book was titled 'The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth') parroting that point at Truthdig.com:

Private insurers consistently spend more on overhead and administration than Medicare. To anyone who shares the broad prejudice against government, the difference will be startling, although these numbers are very well known to health experts. The average overhead cost of Medicare is roughly 2 or 3 percent, far below the administrative costs of private insurers, which range between 27 and 40 percent.

Wow. According to Conason, there would be a 25-37% savings in overhead if we go to a universal Medicare-type government single-payer insurance plan. That's GREAT ! Sign me up !

Well, there is one teeny weeny little problem with Conason's statement…

It's a big ole pile of stinking cow flop. Not even remotely factual. For a guy who wrote a book about right-wingers distorting the truth, Conason is distorting the bejesus out of the truth. Here's why:

First of all, the 2% figure for Medicare's administrative costs comes from a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate. That much is true. However, the CBO expresses administrative costs as a percentage of Medicare's total patient costs. Because Medicare patients are elderly and suffer from more health issues than the general population, Medicare patients incur a lot more per patient expense than the general population demographic that is covered by private insurers. That distorts the real administrative costs of Medicare. Here's the Council For Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI) to explain:

Medicare calculates administrative costs as a ratio of identified administrative costs divided by claims. In 2003, the average medical cost for Medicare was estimated to be about $6,600 per person per year (because of the nature of Medicare’s beneficiary pool of older and disabled people), while the average medical cost for private health insurance, excluding out-of-pocket cost, was $2,700 per person per year. Because of the higher cost per beneficiary, Medicare’s method of calculation makes administrative costs, albeit unintentionally, appear to be lower than they really are. Indeed, if the numbers were adequately “handicapped,” they [Medicare] would be in the 6 to 8 percent range.

To illustrate this, let's assume that both Medicare and private insurers have a fixed per patient administrative overhead of $132 per patient, exactly the same. If we express this as a percentage of patient costs, that makes it appear to be a 2% administrative overhead for Medicare (based on $6600 spent per patient), and a 4.9% overhead for private insurers (based on $2700 spent per patient), 2 1/2 times as much. This would make Medicare appear to be more efficient from an administrative standpoint even if their administrative costs were identical to those of private insurers. That's the first way administrative costs are skewed.

Second, Medicare doesn't include everything as administrative cost in the same way that private insurers are required to do. These are Medicare's hidden costs that don't appear in the CBO estimate. Here's more information from CAHI:

Company Policies — Executives and boards of directors consider, debate and decide company policy; in Medicare that function is often handled by Congress and its legislative staff. Setting program policy requires time and money not reflected in Medicare’s official administrative cost estimates. Just imagine all of the congressional and administrative staff time and effort devoted to creating, debating, promoting, opposing and ultimately passing the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. One might compare it to a huge new corporate venture or restructuring. Yet not a dime of the money and time spent on that months-long public debate appear in Medicare’s administrative costs.

Management — Businesses must include management costs in their administrative costs: Medicare doesn’t. The salaries of those professionals at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), from Dr. Mark McClellan down, are excluded from Medicare’s administrative cost estimates, as are the building costs to house that part of the leadership team. Private insurers don’t have that luxury.

Raising Capital — Private industry has to raise capital, usually by selling stock or borrowing funds. And if an insurance company borrows money to pay for a building, it must pay interest on the loan. In other words, in the private sector there is a cost of capital. Of course, the federal government also raises capital and borrows money to pay Medicare claims, and it even pays itself interest on some of that borrowed money. But it includes none of these costs in its administrative estimates; it simply takes (or will take) the money from taxpayers. And while Medicare’s “cost of capital” is big now, it will grow exponentially in the future as Medicare outlays grow faster than the Part A payroll tax [the Medicare/SocSec unfunded liability has reached $107 trillion].

Premiums and Commissions — One of the most common complaints is that the private sector has to pay agents to market and sell its products, which, critics contend, the government doesn’t have to do. Well, not exactly. You may have noticed that CMS has been heavily involved lately in promoting the new Medicare drug benefit. Nothing wrong with that, but those are marketing costs, which are ignored in Medicare’s administrative numbers. Premiums are the primary way private insurers obtain the funds they use to pay claims. But the government also has to bring in funds in order to pay Medicare claims. How does it do that? Through taxes. Employers, the IRS and the Social Security Administration are, in effect, the sales force and collection arm for the Medicare program. Workers and employers currently split the 2.9 percent payroll tax that funds Medicare Part A. Employers, of course, have to handle the administrative functions of getting that money to the government. Thus, that part of Medicare’s “premium collection” actually shows up in employers’ administrative costs — including, ironically, those of insurers collecting that 2.9 percent for the government — rather than Medicare’s. Revenue to pay the government’s share of Part B — 75 percent of the program’s costs — comes from general revenues collected by the IRS. And the Social Security Administration collects the 25 percent of the Part B program that comes from seniors’ Social Security checks. Yet again, those “collection costs” are ignored in Medicare administrative cost estimates.

Claims Processing and Fraud — Medicare pays claims, millions and millions of them. The claims volume is so heavy that there is little time to do anything else — like scrutinize and review the providers’ bills, check with providers if something looks amiss and withhold payment until discrepancies have been resolved. Rather, Medicare is set up to catch problems primarily in cases of massive fraud and abuse, and it does that through the Inspector General in the Department of Health and Human Services, not CMS. In other words, while insurers see claims oversight as responsible stewardship and a collaborative effort to ensure proper payment, HHS operates more as a policing effort [Medicare fraud is estimated at $60 billion per year].

Premium Taxes — Every state imposes a tax on premiums collected, usually running in the 1 to 3 percent range. Those taxes are factored in as part of a company’s administrative costs. Obviously Medicare has no equivalent. But it highlights the point that part of the insurance industry’s administrative costs are not because the private sector is inefficient, but because government is taxing it and imposing regulations and unfunded mandates (that is, it tells the private sector to do something, but doesn’t reimburse its costs). There is something a little disingenuous about imposing unwanted taxes and regulations on an industry and then criticizing it because its administrative costs are higher than the untaxed government program.

Now you know a little more of the truth about administrative costs, and how the numbers are so heavily skewed in the government's favor. But the question remains, does Medicare have lower administrative costs than the private sector ? With all it's unfair advantages, you'd think so. CAHI admits it's very difficult to estimate the true costs of administering Medicare. In a 1994 study, CAHI found Medicare's administrative costs to be significantly higher than those of the private sector, but CAHI came up with a the following results in it's 2003 study:

we calculate Medicare’s administrative costs to be 5.2 percent in 2003, while the private sector runs 8.9 percent when commissions, profit and premium taxes are excluded, and 16.7 percent when those factors are included.

Medicare is still less by 3.4% according to CAHI's 2003 study, until profit and taxes are added in. Because profit and taxes are fluid, obviously those number can change, but they are still a factor. Yahoo Finance shows the average net profit margim in the health insurance industry to be 3% right now, for what it's worth.

A recent article by the Heritage Foundation actually showed that the per patient administrative overhead for Medicare was higher than the equivalent private insurance overhead from the years 2000-2005. Heritage based it's numbers on CMS (Medicare) data and Census Bureau extrapolations. There's a graph at the link explaining the numbers. After Heritage published it's results, the worst economist in the world and former Enron adviser, Paul Krugman of the NY Times, attempted to refute the Heritage Foundation with some statistics of his own (while ignoring Heritage's actual data and simultaneously launching ad hominem attacks against Heritage). Then Heritage attempted to refute Krugman's refutation. And so it goes.

Are Medicare's administrative costs cheaper ? I don't know. Maybe a little, or maybe not at all. Beats me, but I know one thing for sure. Guys like Joe Conason are lying through their teeth. Where did he pull those figures about private insurer overhead being 27-37% from anyway ? I never could find any corroborating info on that. Maybe he pulled it from his "anal"ytic file.

Here's President Obama during yesterday's press conference, talking about the public health insurance option he wants as part of health care reform:

OBAMA: As one of those options, for us to be able to say, here’s a public option that’s not profit-driven, that can keep down administrative costs, and that provides you good, quality care for a reasonable price as one of the options for you to choose, I think that makes sense.

QUESTION: Wouldn’t that drive private insurance out of business?

OBAMA: Why would it drive private insurance out of business? If — if private — if private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can’t run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That’s not logical.

Now, the — I think that there’s going to be some healthy debates in Congress about the shape that this takes. I think there can be some legitimate concerns on the part of private insurers that if any public plan is simply being subsidized by taxpayers endlessly that over time they can’t compete with the government just printing money, so there are going to be some I think legitimate debates to be had about how this private plan takes shape.

But just conceptually, the notion that all these insurance companies who say they’re giving consumers the best possible deal, if they can’t compete against a public plan as one option, with consumers making the decision what’s the best deal, that defies logic, which is why I think you’ve seen in the polling data overwhelming support for a public plan.

The President is being disingenuous, to say the least. He's a smart guy. He KNOWS there is no way private companies can compete directly with the federal government, on health insurance or anything else. The reasons are obvious, and ironically, the President even named some of those reasons in his press conference. I see Obama engaging in his 'up is down' version of reality again.

First of all, the government has a guaranteed source of income, the taxpayers. The government can just force the taxpayers to pay for anything of the government's choosing. Private industry cannot do that. The private sector depends upon consumer choice. It's voluntary. Advantage – government.

Second, the government doesn't have to turn a profit to survive. Private industry does. The government can run the most inefficient, bloated, and even corrupt program imaginable, and the taxpayers must still subsidize it. On health care, the government can charge, say, $200 per month for public health insurance, and it doesn't matter, because the taxpayers can be forced to subsidize the rest in any variety of ways. Private health insurers can only charge a monthly fee that will allow them to survive. Currently, that amount is around $400 per month. Advantage – government.

Third, the government sets the rules of the game. It can legislate one set of rules for itself, and another set of rules for the private sector. That tilts the playing field so heavily in the government's favor that it's laughable to say any private company could compete with that. If Walmart could set the rules of retailing, how long do you think K-Mart would be able to compete ? Not very long, because Walmart would set all the rules to favor Walmart. Advantage – government.

Fourth, once the government undercuts the private health insurance market, the floodgates will open. Citizens and employers would flock to the public option, not only because it's cheaper, but also because the public is ALREADY PAYING FOR THE PUBLIC OPTION (so it would be illogical not to use it), and because all employers would be REQUIRED to provide health insurance for their employees or be fined. If the public option is cheaper, they will go to the public option. It's obvious. Advantage – government.

The President is using the public option as a Trojan Horse to implement government run health care even as he denies doing it. That's obvious too. I don't mind having the debate between public and private health insurance, because our current health care system is not sustainable over the long term. I'm open to any and all ideas, but I don't care for all the deception. I don't like the President treating the American public like they're a bunch of dummies.

I also don't like the idea of using government force to mandate health care coverage. Obama used to rail against forced insurance too, but that was BEFORE he bacame President. That was back when he was only making those disposable campaign promises that got him elected.

Be sure to stay tuned tonight for Obama's hour long health care infomercial on ABC, where no Republicans will be allowed. I'm sure the prez will appeal for bipartisan support, even as the GOP is barred. Do we still call that CHANGE ?