Archive for the 'Health' Category

Wondering about the Blue Dogs’ pride *UPDATED*

Pride can make us do very stupid things.  Once we’ve committed to something (a job, a marriage, a principle, whatever), and once we’ve touted that commitment to the world as the most wonderful thing evah, it is extremely difficult to stand up to that same world and admit “I made a mistake.”
I’ve been thinking about [...]

What you can do about Obama Care

Nancy is boasting that she’s got the votes.  We thought last fall that this was an empty boast, but it wasn’t.  We should, therefore, be very concerned that she makes this boast.  The Tea Party Patriots have put together an action email, telling you what you can do to help.  Here is the email in [...]

Dems may not have votes, but they’ve got constitutional disregard down to an art

Perhaps it really is true that Pelosi doesn’t have the votes for Obama Care.  After all, if she did, why would the Democrats be considering the “Slaughter Option” something that involves bypassing votes altogether:
The Slaughter Solution is a plan by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Democratic chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and [...]

Health care may well pass, and what will happen if it does

The American Thinker spells it out:
Richard Baehr, ace political watcher, thinks the odds are that Nancy Pelosi, through brute force, will get Obama Care through.  Once that happens, of course, it’s the law, and “reconciliation,” which is ostensibly meant to smooth away any lingering roughness, will die a’bornin’
Christopher Chantrill explains what government will look like [...]

Risks and strategies re health care *UPDATED*

Here’s what I see going on and, please, correct me if I’m wrong:
Reconciliation is a red herring.  Right now, the House is being promised that, if it votes on the Senate bill, the Senate will fix differences between the two bills through reconciliation.  So everyone is focusing on whether the Senate will indeed have the [...]

My prediction, if the House Democrats swallow the reconciliation bait

I believe more and more strongly that reconciliation is a red herring, meant to induce the House to pass the Senate bill.  Once that’s done, this so called “reconciliation,” an alleged second bill that will smooth away the differences between the two chambers (especially the House’s demand that abortion, which is [...]

Scorching logic and hard facts from Paul Ryan

Obama is so insulated behind his compliant media and his worshipful staff, I wonder if he’s ever heard before the facts Ryan spells out so clearly here:
My favorite line:  “Hiding spending does not reduce spending.”  Brilliant core statement about the myriad flaws in the bill.  Also, he drills in on the core difference between the [...]

No one at Bookworm Room is surprised that Obama doubled-down on health care

Many pundits opined that Obama, being a bright guy, would learn from his myriad failures in 2009.  Over here at Bookworm Room, however, I repeatedly said that Obama is the type of malignant narcissist who will never learn from experience.  Unlike a social narcissist — that would be Clinton — who desperately craves approval and [...]

Will no one rid me of this turbulent Democratic Congress? *UPDATED*

James Taranto makes an interesting suggestion:  In the coming months, Obama is going to try to make Republicans look good so that, in November, one-party rule ends and he can tack to the center, more or less guaranteeing himself a second term.
What do you think?  Does Taranto make a good case for this strategy or [...]

American health care is better than socialized medicine

One of the bludgeons used to beat opponents of socialized medicine is the claim that everybody in Canada/England/Northern Europe/Etc., is soooo much happier with health care than we are.  A doctor friend of mine has been scouring the literature, and she’s discovered that this isn’t true.  Polls show that people in countries with socialized medicine [...]

Lynn Woolsey turns on the Senate health care bill

Rep. Lynn Woolsey is a liberal among liberals, a Leftist who calls affluent Marin County her home (and Marin voters have sent her back to D.C. over and over again, with about 70% of the vote).  She’s not a very bright woman, but I give her credit for focusing unerringly on what’s wrong with the [...]

Charles Krauthammer on the fundamental corruption of the health care bill (and Obama, too) *UPDATED*

From Fox New’s Sunday Roundtable, this is Charles Krauthammer’s take on the profoundly corrupt process behind the health care bill, and the way this process reflects on Obama:
It is a bribe, and that’s why it is so unpopular. Look, it’s not just a question of it depriving the Treasury of revenue. It’s question of equity.
You’ve [...]

Liberals laugh at business — even when they concede that it functions better than government

Last night, I went to hear Atul Gawande give a talk promoting his new book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.  The book’s premise is a simple one:  In an increasingly complex world, even experts benefit from a routine checklist that requires them to focus on the essentials necessary to their task.  The [...]

Another no-fly list failure

This no-fly failure didn’t make the headlines because it wasn’t a terrorist, but it is just as revealing of the failures in our system.  Instead, of bomber, this no-fly failure involved someone engaged in germ warfare.  A person with drug resistant TB decided that his desire to fly trumped the safety of several hundred people [...]

Mark Steyn summarizes the end result of the Democrats’ health care “reforms”

You can’t summarize the whole fiasco better than Mark Steyn did:
We were told we had to do it because of the however many millions of uninsured, yet this bill will leave some 25 million Americans uninsured. On the other hand, millions of young fit healthy Americans in their first jobs who currently take the entirely [...]

The line of the night

Christmas dinner (which was lovely), included in a brief foray into discussing the Senate’s health care bill.  A liberal friend let loose with this terrific line after I said that the Senate had raided Medicare and Medicare Advantage to make the bill ostensibly revenue neutral:  “I don’t know anything about the bill, but I know [...]

Open thread centered around a very important question

The holidays continue to make demands on me that take me away from my beloved computer and my blog.  I’ve managed to track enough news, though, to know that Reid managed to get his vote.  My question for you, and one I can’t answer myself, is this:
Will the health care bill, even if it destroys [...]

Mark Steyn explains Democrats’ long term thinking *UPDATE*

It’s scary, but Mark Steyn is right:
I’ve been saying for a year now, in NR and NRO, that the object for savvy Dems is to get this thing passed in whatever form because, once you do, there’s no going back. Kim Strassel in yesterday’s Journal gets it:
So why the stubborn insistence on passing health reform? [...]

The Left and the Right come together to oppose the Senate’s health care bill

The Heritage Foundation has an excellent summary of the way in which the Left has finally caught on to something the Right figured out long ago; namely, that it’s unconscionable (and probably unconstitutional) for the government to force citizens to buy a product from a private purveyor:
Explaining why he would vote against the Senate version [...]

The fairness problem with cost shifting in health care

One of the things that ObamaCare proponents keep saying (and please add a whining note in your mind as you read the following) is that “the current system isn’t fair.”  It’s not right, they say, that, in a rich country, some people have premium health care, while others are forced to go to a free [...]

All the stuff I can pack into a single post — and weekend *UPDATED*

Every year, there’s that one December weekend when every event converges.  This past weekend, which really ended only yesterday, was that weekend.  Friday we went to the Cirque du Soliel.  I’ve seen every show since the Cirque burst onto the national scene in the mid-1980s.  This show was exquisitely beautiful, with some of the most [...]

Some liberals admit the $1.8 trillion health care takeover will not provide universal insurance

Liberals are very gung-ho for a health care bill that will see the government take over 1/6 of the American economy, that will dramatically raise taxes, that will (if all goes according to plan) destroy private sector insurance, that will force Americans to “buy” insurance or pay a penalty, that will force all Americans to [...]

Use Thanksgiving week to let your Senators know what you think about health care

A message from William Kristol, one that I’ve already put into effect as to my own Senators (much good it will do, of course, as they’re Feinstein and Boxer):
I gather Rasmussen will report today that its latest survey shows support for the Congressional health reform legislation falling to a new low — 38 percent favor, [...]

Let not your heart be troubled by today’s Senate vote

Bryon York puts it in perspective:
The extraordinary thing about the dramatic events surrounding the health care bill in the Senate is that there is any drama in it at all. Lawmakers are simply voting to begin debate on their version of health care reform. Just begin debate — not end it, and not move [...]

Illegal aliens destroy hospital for American poor

No matter how the NYT tries to spin it, the message is clear here:  the burden that illegal aliens created on the dialysis clinic [thanks, Quisp, for clarifying that for me] in a 117 year old charitable hospital serving Georgia’s poor, forced the hospital clinic to close.
With ObamaCare almost a done deal (gee, thanks Lincoln [...]