Obama Not To Be Believed On Health Care

It seems nothing coming out of the White House can be trusted when it pertains to health care:

"I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies - they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process." - President Barack Obama in August 2008

More accurately, as Charlie Crist put it last week:

"It seems that a bill that was crafted in a closed door, backroom meeting in the White House will end the same way. President [Barack] Obama has broken his pledge to the American people to be transparent throughout this process, and [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid and [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi have only aided in the secrecy with sweetheart deals and dead of the night votes." - Charlie Crist, former Florida governor who is running for U.S. Senate, in a statement released Jan. 5.

According to PolitiFact.com:

Obama Will Say Anything To Get Health Care Reform

President Obama pauses for applause as he delivers a speech on healthcare to a joint session of Congress, Wednesday, Sept., 9, 2009, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)

President Barack Obama will say anything to get his health care plan passed, even if it means lying about the death of an Illinois man.

"More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won't pay the full cost of care," the president told a joint session of Congress on Sept. 9. "It happens every day. One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn't reported gallstones that he didn't even know about. They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it."

Lie.

Obama was talking about Otto S. Raddatz. Mr. Raddatz's treatment was indeed delayed by his insurance company. However, he eventually had the surgery and it extended his life by 3.5 years. Mr. Raddatz died earlier this year waiting for a second surgery that did not take place because the donor became sick at the last moment and his surgery was delayed.

Clearly, the insurance company had nothing to do with Mr. Raddatz's death. But that didn't stop Obama from telling the Congress and the world that it did.

Good thing for Obama that he didn't take an oath before his speech or he would have perjured himself.

Obama lies and the Congress punishes U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson for pointing it out. Something just does not seem right.

More Nonsense From Liberals on Health Care

On Wednesday, Rocker Paul Hipp released this video advocating for health care reform.

There are two points that should be made.

First, the following lyrics show what is wrong with the left, and many on the right for that matter:

We're No. 37
We're the U.S.A.
We're No. 37
And we're so proud to say
We got old people crying at the pharmacy
Pay your deductible
This ain't the land of the f-f-f-free Grandma
We're No. 37
We're the U.S.A.

What he is saying is that because Americans have to pay for their health care instead of having it given to them, then we can't be the land of the free.

Really?

When did government entitlement become the defining factor of whether the nation is free? In reality, the opposite is true. We are free because the government, at least not yet, is not forcing us to buy a specific product, i.e., health insurance, or face some government-imposed sanction for refusing.

Under the so-called health care reform, Americans will, for the first time ever, be forced to buy a consumer product at the point of a government gun.

How is that freedom?

Too bad Mr. Hipp and his fellow liberals don't understand that basic fact.

The second point is minor, but one that bothers me.

Obama Can’t Believe Others Oppose Him

Appearing on CBS' "60 Minutes" Sunday night, President Barack Obama accused Republicans of wanting a "replay" of 1994, when a "young president" entered office and was defeated on health care, resulting in a shift in the control of Congress.

Is it really that hard for Democrats to believe that some people in this country, especially Republicans, might actually be opposed to the largest growth in government in U.S. history?

The president doth protest too much, methinks.

Perhaps, and this is a stretch, I know, some of us who oppose Obama do so because we think it is the right thing to do and not because we want some sort of political gain.

And it is certainly not personal against Obama, just his socialist views.

A load of lies

President Barack Obama delivers a speech on healthcare to a joint session of Congress, Wednesday, Sept., 9, 2009, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) 

Obama's Health Care Speech to Congress:

Following is the prepared text of President Obama's speech to Congress on the need to overhaul health care in the United States, as released by the White House.

Madame Speaker, Vice President Biden, Members of Congress, and the American people:

When I spoke here last winter, this nation was facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month. Credit was frozen. And our financial system was on the verge of collapse.

As any American who is still looking for work or a way to pay their bills will tell you, we are by no means out of the woods. A full and vibrant recovery is many months away. And I will not let up until those Americans who seek jobs can find them; until those businesses that seek capital and credit can thrive; until all responsible homeowners can stay in their homes. That is our ultimate goal. But thanks to the bold and decisive action we have taken since January, I can stand here with confidence and say that we have pulled this economy back from the brink.

Fake doctors? Is that the best the Dems can do?

This has to be the most outrageous thing I have read in a long time.

In a Townhall.com blog, Meredith Jessup reported that at a town hall meeting with U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, perhaps the dimmest bulb in the Congress, a woman claiming to be a doctor expressed her support for Obama's health care plan.

Turns out, the name "Dr. Roxana Mayer" doesn't appear in the database maintained by the Texas Medical Board, a registry of all licensed doctors in the state.  But the name "Roxana Mayer" does show up on Barack Obama's website as a Texas Delegate for Obama--a small bit of information the Chronicle was aware of, but didn't report in its story.

Are the Democrats so desperate they have to hire fake doctors to sell their socialized medicine plan?

Read the full blog post here.

Reality bites ... Democrats

If ignorance is bliss, I really wish I were a Democrat.

Congressional Democrats, in their effort to put forth President Barack Obama's pie-in-the-sky socialist agenda, continue to run into that brick wall called reality.

The latest collision comes from Douglas W. Elmendorf, director the Congressional Budget Office. In a letter sent Friday to Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Health in the Committee on Energy and Commerce, Elmendorf deflated the Democratic pipe dream of saving money on health care in the long-term by pushing preventative medicine.

The Democrats' claim is that spending money now on preventative care will result in a long-term cost savings. After all, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. However, as Elmendorf points out, that is simply not true.

"Although different types of preventive care have different effects on spending, the evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall," Elmendorf wrote. "That result may seem counterintuitive.

"For example, many observers point to cases in which a simple medical test, if given early enough, can reveal a condition that is treatable at a fraction of the cost of treating that same illness after it has progressed. In such cases, an ounce of prevention improves health and reduces spending - for that individual," Elmendorf wrote. "But when analyzing the effects of preventive care on total spending for health care, it is important to recognize that doctors do not know beforehand which patients are going to develop costly illnesses. To avert one case of acute illness, it is usually necessary to provide preventive care to many patients, most of whom would not have suffered that illness anyway. ... Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness."

I suspect, however, based on experience, reality will not alter the Democratic plans to expand the nanny state and make Americans even more dependent on their largesse.

What's the rush on health care reform?

What's the rush?

Even though the U.S. Senate has told President Barack Obama that there is no way health care reform will be passed before the August recess, he continues to harangue the Congress and complain that it is taking too long.

This alone should make Americans fear his objective.

We should ask why he wants the Congress to push through a massive reform bill that will dramatically affect every American without giving lawmakers and Americans the opportunity to read, analyze and debate the merits of his plan.

The only answer has to be that he realizes if Americans actually have the opportunity to study the plan and debate its merits, it will never pass because it is, essentially, a government takeover of the health insurance industry. Without actually using the term, it is a single-payer health care system, something the vast majority of Americans have rejected for years.

If you don't fear the Obama administration, you are either not paying attention or you do not love liberty.

P.S. How much longer can Obama continue to blame his problems on the previous administration? On Wednesday, he blamed the previous administration for his record-breaking deficit. Will this continue over the next four years or will there come a time when he stops passing the buck?

The dangers of Obama Care

This video speaks for itself. If you care about health care, then heed this warning concerning Obama Care.

What's wrong with being self-insured?

One of the arguments often put forth by advocates of socialized medicine or some other government solution to "fix" the U.S. health care system is that 45.6 million Americans were reported to have no insurance in 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

However, Dr. Mark J. Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan, quickly deflates that argument with the above chart.

Perry points out, as the chart above shows, that 17.6 million of those Americans make more than $50,000 per year with 9.1 million making more than $75,000 per year. It could be safely assumed that the vast majority of those 17.6 million Americans could afford health insurance if they wanted it. As Dr. Perry asks, "What's wrong with being self-insured?"

Indeed.

Read Dr. Perry's insightful comments on his Carpe Diem blog here.