Obama’s health care flip-flop and contradictions

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, August 25, 2009

The Wall Street Journal shows that president Obama makes contradictory claims in support of his health care “reform” proposals. (They just entrench bad parts of status quo.)  For example:
On health insurance:
“What is truly scary—what is truly risky—is if we do nothing,” he said in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We can’t “keep the system the way it [...]

Friday Funnies: Colorado “Fee” Mania Unleashed – on Colorado Canines n’ Kitties?

by CTBC Director | 11:45 pm, August 24, 2009

Welcome to another belated edition of the Friday Funnies (hey, our graphics guy is on vacation – and artistic talent is NOT tied to the Y chromosome in my family) for the latest in our continuing cavalcade of canine & kitty clips…
The last week has brought even more additions to the litany of backdoor taxes [...]

Ritter needs legislation to play budget shell game

by Amy Oliver | 8:21 pm, August 24, 2009

The Governor’s latest shell game to balance the budget is yet another reason why Coloradans desperately need full transparency. 
The state of Colorado isn’t really spending less money.  According to Legislative Council staff the total FY 2009-2010 Colorado state budget will be just under $18.7 billion — and that’s after the ”cuts.”  The total FY 08-09 budget was roughly $18.7 billion.  No doubt [...]

More Media Anti-Gun Bias – ABC “News” story conceals the facts on “concealed-carry” in restaurants

by Captain Arapahoe | 5:56 pm, August 24, 2009

Coincidentally (?) airing on the same date as the infamous MSNBC “Racists with Guns” story – a broadcast which intentionally used video showing a man with a (legally carried) gun at a rally against government takeover of healthcare to bolster false accusations of racism and “hate” speech among protesters (unfortunately for MSNBC, an unedited version of [...]

Breaking news: Bob Beauprez NOT running for Senate

by Rossputin | 5:54 pm, August 24, 2009

Subbing for Dan Caplis on the Caplis and Silverman radio show, former Congressman Bob Beauprez just announced that he will not be a candidate for the US Senate in 2010.

With the apparent entry of former Lt. Governor Jane Norton into the race, the field is already crowded enough, with several announced candidates including Ryan Frazier and Ken Buck.  It will be interesting to see if any of the candidates choose not to involve themselves in a potentially destructive multi-way primary, especially with Mrs. Norton probably being an instant, if slight, front-runner.  That said, Mrs. Norton supported Bill Owens’ push for Referendum C which many conservative Republicans (i.e. likely primary voters) felt to be a sell-out of fundamental conservative principles.

We’ll have many months to dissect this very interesting race.

——————————

Here’s the e-mail Bob is sending out:

 

 

McCain, Udall Support Nuclear Energy Solution

by elpresidente | 3:40 pm, August 24, 2009

For climate change. From the Denver Post: Bipartisan political leaders strolled through Rocky Mountain National Park this morning studying beetle-kill trees and changing vegetation patterns — and agreed that nuclear power must be part of any comprehensive climate-change legislation. . . . McCain said he would not support legislation without a nuclear component. “I agree [...]

Source: Bob Beauprez NOT Running

by Ben DeGrow | 1:03 pm, August 24, 2009

Update II, 6:10 PM: Within the past hour Bob Beauprez has sent out and posted an official announcement:

Not every opportunity is the right one though, and having been presented with the potential to serve in the United States Senate, Claudia and I considered it very carefully. However after significant reflection, I will not be a [...]

Time of Year to Remember Colorado Teachers Have Membership Options

by Ben DeGrow | 11:28 am, August 24, 2009

Are you a teacher or other employee in a Colorado public school? Is your friend or loved one? Then this post is especially for you….
Most Colorado public schools are back in session now. And with the school year underway, it’s time for teachers to be reminded of their professional membership options — in many cases, [...]

New Kids on the Block

by elpresidente | 9:44 am, August 24, 2009

Please Join R Block Party for New Kids on the Block from the city, to the county, to the state… ”All Politics Is Local “ Join us for an opportunity to meet and mingle with the New Kids on the Block ********************************** Cleve Tidwell, Cathy Noon, Ron Phelps, Luke Korkowski, Meghann Silverthorn, Walker Stapleton, Todd [...]

IHS (Indian Health Services) – let me introduce you

by Mr. Bob | 8:42 am, August 24, 2009

#tcot #IHS #healthcare #townhall

The Fed promised through treaty to provide health care to American Indians…another promise broken. I could make an argument here that they should not have promised that to begin with but, that would be another post. Yes they provide hospitals and clinics but as far as the “caring” goes, that is up for debate. These broken promises transcend political party…it doesn’t have anything to do with that…it has to do with the government being involved in something they have NO BUSINESS RUNNING.

If you want to see why I and so many others DON’T believe the promises made by the fed to FIX health care here is just another of a thousand examples that can be provided…

For another example; ask any Veteran of Korea or Viet Nam if they know any stories of bad care in the VA system. After they stop laughing they’ll start in on the horror tales.

Proponents of the “government option” to make healthcare supposedly “more competitive” ignore the fact that the Fed has never done ANYTHING right in this arena…and of course ignore the fact that according to the constitution, they have no jurisdiction there anyway.

The ONE health care example being pointed to that the fed does right is Medicare… AND they are going broke…if it works so well, why is that?…and Doctors differ on whether they like it, many won’t even take it. The bureaucracy of Medicare costs billions…for better care?…nope. Reforming health care has to do with insurance regulation and allowing better competition in the market.

The Government (especially the FED) should not be involved with anything other than providing a safe free market in which to operate for the health care business…and yes it is a business. The more freedom there is in the market (competition) the more the prices will stabilize. Freedom is scary to some people but those of us who are not afraid need to keep fighting for it.

Freedom has the most moral outcome, but to people who want the government to fix everything it is scary because of the unknown factors. Capitalism is the most moral form of government because of the opportunity it provides for all. Allow competition to purge the market of scammers and bad practices, put laws in place to curb fraud waste and abuse, but even keep those to a minimum. The free market only does not work when monopolies are allowed to take over sectors of the market, then there is NO competition…thus no real freedom anymore.

Denver Post Editorial Sunday: The Good, The Good, and The Far-Fetched

by Ben DeGrow | 8:15 am, August 24, 2009

I can only imagine very few readers of Sunday’s Denver Post opinion page shrugged their shoulders with a ho-hum. All stacked together on good old page 3D of the Perspective section, the collection of pieces had to evoke some wholehearted assent, some serious disagreement, or both.
Let’s go with the bad news first, the lead fantasy-ridden [...]

The Continuing Scott McInnis Interview Chronicles: Statesman Edition

by Ben DeGrow | 7:23 am, August 24, 2009

First there was Caplis & Silverman. Then there was Colorado’s Morning News. Now we have a couple of strange Scott McInnis gems in writing (no transcripts, no audio) from his recent “InnerView” with the Colorado Statesman.
First, in regards to closing the budget gap:

You need to say, “Okay, here’s what we have.” The state Senator up [...]

Book Review: “Liberal Fascism” by Jonah Goldberg

by Rossputin | 6:31 am, August 24, 2009

I owe Jonah Goldberg an apology.

When his book “Liberal Fascism” came out last year, I didn’t buy it because for some reason – maybe the smiley face with the Hitler moustache as the cover art, mbaybe the very provocative title – I assumed, despite knowing that Goldberg is a talented and intellectual writer, that the book was a conservative preaching – semi-hysterically ala Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity – to the converted. (That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy Coulter’s writing on occasion, especially her columns, but when Goldberg’s book came out I just wasn’t in the mood for reading more of that kind of thing.)

I could hardly have been more wrong.

“Liberal Fascism” is a remarkable book. Far from rambling hyperbole, it is a highly researched work, suitable for anyone studying political science or 20^th century political history. It makes you think. It makes you realize that your gut suspicion is correct: Much of the policy, philosophy, and political tactics and strategy which emanate from America’s “Progressive” movement have striking parallels in of some of the worst dictatorships of modern times.

Goldberg points out that “fascist” is a term “hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale.” And while the term fascist has, among many or most Americans, been irredeemably and understandably overwhelmed by images of racism and genocide – images which we must never forget or allow to be repeated – fascism itself began well before the Holocaust and had a much broader economic and political agenda. And that agenda was unfailingly leftist, not “conservative”, having much in common with the left wing of today’s Democratic Party.

Goldberg asks and answers the question “But who are the real fascists in our midst?” And the answer cannot be pleasing to the people Goldberg shows as the real modern fascists, nor to people whose political heroes, including Woodrow Wilson and FDR are shown to have much – too much – in common with Mussolini and Hitler.

“Liberal Fascism” traces the history of European fascism, including Il Duce (Mussolini’s nickname), Hitler, and their associates. It explains why the New Deal was a quintessentially fascist enterprise, how so much of the 1960’s, which many people take as the heyday and high-point of care-free liberalism, was typically fascist, not least the New Left’s tendency toward violence in both rhetoric and action.

While Jonah Goldberg stops short of including John F. Kennedy in his fascist pantheon, he does shred the myth of JFK as a “true Democrat”, showing him to have been more valuable to the progressive movement as a martyr than while alive and explaining how the legend of JFK was used by the left to further essentially fascist aims.

Again, it must be pointed out that Goldberg’s point in showing the fascist actions of many American governments over most of the past century is not that we had  conservative governments but rather that fascism was essentially a left wing philosophy and system, a nationalistic socialism different from from what most people recognize as the leftist philosophy of socialism by the fact that it focused on socialism within a nation’s borders rather than Marx’s more international view.

Goldberg moves on to a general discussion of “liberal fascist economics”, pointing out that “the notion that fascism was a tool of big business is one of the most persistent and enduring myths of the past century….But as Chesterton said, fallacies do not cease to be fallacies simply because they become fashions.”

The economics of the Third Reich had too much in common with the economics of the Democratic Party, along the lines of “the Nazi refrain ‘The common good before the private good.’” Goldberg explains the “fascist bargain” which America lives under, such as “the collusion of the government and tobacco companies”, the negative unintended consequences of “do-gooding legislation” like the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the way large corporations use government to avoid competition.

Regarding current politicians, one of the major targets of Goldberg’s analysis is Hillary Clinton, not least “the fascistic nature of It Takes a Village” in which Clinton airily tosses aside the notion of “civil society” and replaces it with a Mussolini-like view of “everything in the village, nothing outside the village.” These are Goldberg’s words, not Clinton’s, but they fit Clinton’s thesis perfectly and are a clear mirror of Il Duce if you simply replace the word “village” with the word “State.”

Just as Goldberg does not give a free pass to corporations, he does not let the Republican Party or “conservatives” off the hook. In a section called “Compassionate Fascism”, Goldberg shows Pat Buchanan to be a “neo-progressive” rather than his self-described “paleoconservative”, and he takes apart George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism”, noting that “conservatives who complain about Bush’s ‘big-government conservatism’ as if it were some great betrayal ignore the fact that they were warned.”

Other tidbits in the book are as fascinating as the history, such as how the movie industry intentionally supports liberal fascism, how Hitler and Himmler were, like many on the American left, obsessed with alternative energy, animal rights, and vegetarianism, and how the initial push by Margaret Sanger, “the founding mother of the birth control movement” to increase the use of birth control and abortion was primarily a racist, eugenic enterprise aimed at reducing the population of American blacks.

This brief note can not and is not intended to be an exhaustive review of a book which contains information about dozens of characters from history, both modern and near-modern. Nor could I capture the extremely detailed and convincing arguments Jonah Goldberg makes in showing the parallels between fascism and progressivism.

So, Jonah, I offer you my apology for not having given “Liberal Fascism” the chance it deserved when it first came out. And now that I’ve read it, I offer you my thanks for writing something so well-researched, so enjoyable to read, and so highly relevant to today’s political situation.  Indeed, the book is probably even more relevant now than you could have expected during your several years of sitting in your basement doing your research and writing this very valuable resource.  Now we just have to get it into use in college political science departments…

 

Jared Polis: what’s your real reason for pushing the “public option”?

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, August 24, 2009

Representative Jared Polis says the proposed government-run “public insurance option” is about trust. Some “trust an insurance company over the government and others who trust the government over insurance companies.”  If so, then why doesn’t Polis support a similar choice when it comes to Medicaid and Medicare?
For example, how about vouchers that Medicare and Medicaid [...]

Colorado Town Hall Reports for Saturday Aug 22, 2009

by Mr. Bob | 3:11 pm, August 23, 2009

#redco #tcot #townhall #healthcare #teaparty
Here us now has a good first hand report..with pictures. CLICK HERE

Betsy Markey town hall meeting Monday evening

by Brian Schwartz | 11:00 am, August 23, 2009

From The Coloradoan:
Rep. Betsy Markey will host a telephone town-hall discussion on health-care reform fro 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. Monday.
Fourth Congressional District residents who want to participate can call (888) 356-3090. The passcode is 12365.
Markey also has several more “Congress on Your Corner Events” to discuss health care this week, including 10:30 a.m. to noon [...]

Sources: Jane Norton Is In

by Ben DeGrow | 7:55 pm, August 22, 2009

Yes, it appears that Colorado’s former lieutenant governor won’t need the full 30 days to make up her mind. I have received word from a reliable source or two that Jane Norton is definitely going to announce her candidacy for U.S. Senate. My guess is this will mean Bob Beauprez opts to stay out of [...]

Two interesting stories from Friday

by Rossputin | 2:41 am, August 22, 2009

Two articles I wanted to make sure you saw:

First, in the Wall Street Journal, an opinion piece by former Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt explaining why co-ops are a terrible idea, why they’ll fail, and why’re they’re just the “public option” in sheep’s clothing:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204884404574362450890157932.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

And second, following up on a thought process that’s been going on for a couple of weeks, the cash for clunkers program is just the latest reason to be extremely afraid of government actually running something as large as a national health insurance program.  A Washington Times article explains that the government will stop the Cash for Clunkers program on Monday night at 8 PM because they don’t know how much money they owe car dealers and don’t want to overshoot their approved budget.

According to the article, “Dealers are still waiting for government reimbursement for the rebates they advanced to customers more than a month ago. Some Washington-area dealers say they are on the hook for $3 million. Under program rules, they were supposed to be paid within 10 days.”

Earlier this week, hundreds of car dealers in the New York area stopped participating in the program because they’re not getting paid…and have some fear they never will.  And who can blame them, with the  possibility existing that more deals may be done than the government has budgeted for – with dealers having no way to know when the line is crossed –  “potentially leaving dealers holding the bag or trying to claw back rebates from customers.”

How about the government trying to claw back the price of your prostate exam once ObamaCare passes?

Success of Health Savings Accounts & high-deductible insurance

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, August 22, 2009

Alex Tabborok summarizes the results of a study by the The American Academy of Actuaries: Emerging Data on Consumer-Driven Health Plans.

Cost-savings: 12% to 21% in the first year.
Cost containment: Compared to traditional insurance with higher deductible, costs appear to increase more slowly.
Proper and preventive care. Quoting the report: “Generally, all of the studies indicated that [...]

Health Rationing is Real, so are the Death Panels

by Jon Caldara | 2:38 pm, August 21, 2009

Like we showed in our health reform video, when you politicize medicine, politicians decide who gets treated and when. Here is a rather frightening video that demonstrates our point even further – also using the Oregon health care system as the example:

Colorado Town Hall Event Saturday Morning 8-22

by Mr. Bob | 12:09 pm, August 21, 2009

#redco #teaparty #healthcare #tcot

Hat tip to HEAR US NOW.

Margaret Carpenter Recreation Center 11151 Colorado Blvd. Thornton, CO 80233

According to those manning the phones at the Polis and Perlmutter offices this is a ‘Fair Housing Event’.

Read the following Organizing for America email and decide for yourself.

I wanted to send you an urgent invitation to an important public event with Rep. Ed Perlmutter and Rep. Jared Polis this Saturday, August 22nd.
They’ll be talking to constituents and gathering feedback. Whether you ask a question or show your support with a sign, attending this meeting is a powerful way to show where you stand and thank those in Congress who are fighting for reform.

I hope you can join us. Here are the details:

What: Public Event with
Rep. Ed Perlmutter and Rep. Jared Polis
Where: Margaret Carpenter Rec Center
11151 Colorado Blvd
Thornton, CO 80233
When: Saturday, August 22nd
Arrival Time: 7:00 a.m.
Start Time: 8:00 a.m.

Please arrive as early as possible to the event, and make sure that the most powerful voices in this debate are those calling for real reform, not angrily clamoring for the status quo.
RSVP here:
http://co.barackobama.com/ThorntonTH
Thanks,
Gabe
Gabe Lifton-Zoline
Colorado State Director
Organizing for America

Apparently they are trying to keep it a secret that this is a HEALTH CARE reform town hall event.

Rationing I: Price Distribution Is Not Rationing

by Ari Armstrong | 10:33 am, August 21, 2009

This is the first of a four-part series on rationing.
Rationing I: Price Distribution Is Not Rationing
Rationing II: The Definition and Application of Rationing
Rationing III: The Harm of Conflating Price Distribution with Rationing
Rationing IV: Politically-Controlled Insurance and Rationing

That the political health “reform” endorsed by Barack Obama and his supporters would entail rationing is indisputable. It is simply impossible to expand subsidized care and contain costs without rationing. For more on this point, see my article in the Colorado Springs Gazette, John Stossel’s article, or Martin Feldstein’s piece in the Wall Street Journal. No serious supporter of politicized “universal” health care denies this, and various supporters openly brag about the fact as a virtue of their proposals.

In response to the criticism about rationing, advocates of politicized medicine routinely reply that the market also “rations” health care, so the debate is merely about which form of rationing is best. Many critics of Obamacare agree to the terms of that debate and proceed to argue that political rationing is worse than market “rationing.”

But obtaining goods and services on an open market via the price system of supply and demand is not rationing at all. Claims that it is distort the language and obscure crucial distinctions between political rationing and market distribution.

Peter Singer is among those explicitly calling for health rationing. As Don Watkins reviews, Singer writes for the July 15 New York Times:

Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. In the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so most rationing is by price: you get what you, or your employer, can afford to insure you for. But our current system of employer-financed health insurance exists only because the federal government encouraged it by making the premiums tax deductible. That is, in effect, a more than $200 billion government subsidy for health care. In the public sector, primarily Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits, high patient copayment requirements, low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients and limits on payments to hospitals.

On this point the Cato Institute’s Jim Harper quite agrees:

Health care is a scarce good, so it will always be rationed. The core question is whether government should take the dominant role in health care rationing over from insurance companies, or whether reform should restore rationing decisions to patients advised by doctors.

(See my July 12 article for an additional example and my preliminary reply.)

Price Distribution Versus Political Rationing

Let us begin by distinguishing clear cases of price distribution and political rationing. Suppose you walk into a department store and pay $20 for a pair of jeans. If the jeans had cost only $10 per pair, you would have purchased two or three pair, but instead you limit your purchase to one pair. If the jeans had cost $40, you wouldn’t have purchased the jeans. Is that “rationing?” No. It is simply a consumer deciding which goods to buy, and in what quantities, according to price and ability and willingness to pay.

It is obviously true that the more money you make (meaning the more wealth you produce), the more goods and services you can afford to purchase. The wealthy may shop at high-end stores; I do a lot of my shopping at Target and thrift stores. So a free market definitely entails a method of distributing goods and services, and this involves a person’s market wage rate as well as a person’s shopping preferences. Put another way, market distribution of goods and services depends on the supply and demand of labor as well as of goods and services.

In no way does price distribution constitute “rationing.” In contrast with the authoritarian distribution of political rationing, price distribution rests fundamentally on the rights of individuals to control their own resources and trade voluntarily with others.

Contrast the market system for distributing jeans with political rationing. What would rationing of jeans look like? One possible impetus for the rationing of jeans would be price controls. Let’s say politicians declared that jeans could not be sold for more than $10 per pair. The obvious result would be a shortage of jeans; amount demanded would jump and supply would fall. So politicians might issue ration cards for jeans; say, one pair per family or person.

Let us turn to the example of gasoline. True, the supply of gasoline is artificially suppressed by anti-productivity “environmentalist” controls. But gasoline is not rationed; consumers choose how much of it to buy depending on its price and their preferences and willingness and ability to pay. If you find gas to be too expensive, you cut back on your driving.

Contrast the price distribution of gasoline with rationing. Last year I found my great-grandmother’s gasoline ration card from World War II.

Here is part of the text:

Each coupon is good for ONE “A” UNIT of gasoline. The number of gallons which each coupon gives you the right to buy will depend upon the demands of the war program; therefore, the value of the unit may be changed. Any change in value will be publicly announced by the OPA [Office of Price Administration].

Do not loosen or tear coupons from the book. Detached coupons must not be honored by the dealer. When buying gasoline, hand the book to the dealer to remove coupons. He must remove enough coupons to cover the number of gallons of gasoline purchased… The dealer is permitted to deliver gasoline only into the tank of the vehicle described on the front over of this book, unless bulk transfer has been authorized by the War Price and Rationing Board.

WARNING

1. Persons who do not observe the rationing rules and regulations of the Office of Price Administration may be punished by as much as 10 YEARS IMPRISONMENT OR $10,000 FINE, OR BOTH, and are subject to such other penalties as may be prescribed by law.

2. Gasoline obtained by use of this book must not be taken out of the fuel tank of the vehicle described on the front cover.

Those who would conflate political rationing with market pricing simply are not paying attention to the real and vast differences between the two.

Read Rationing II: The Definition and Application of Rationing

Questions for Tea Party Protesters and the 10th Amendment

by Mr. Bob | 10:03 am, August 21, 2009

#teaparty #tcot #healthcare
Rather than shouting slogans, let’s try asking our congressmen the question of the decade.

Funny Friday Part Deaux

by Mr. Bob | 9:54 am, August 21, 2009

#tcot #redco #teaparty
Rather than steal ideas HolyCoast.com, like I have done int he past, today I’ll just link to his posted cartoon of the day. Really good…

MSNBC’s Phony Racial Controversy; Gun-Toting Not Most Sensible Tactic

by Ben DeGrow | 7:10 am, August 21, 2009

Everything is out of whack with the story about the nameless black man toting a semi-automatic weapon around at an Arizona townhall meeting. Just everything.
One of the driving Lefty narratives about the nature of the townhall protests and the general popular opposition to Obama Care’s proposed government health care takeover is exemplified in this [...]

ObamaCare is all about rationing

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, August 21, 2009

From Martin Feldstein in the Wall Street Journal:
Although administration officials are eager to deny it, rationing health care is central to President Barack Obama’s health plan. The Obama strategy is to reduce health costs by rationing the services that we and future generations of patients will receive.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a [...]

Dems health care spinning driving them into the ground

by Rossputin | 12:57 am, August 21, 2009

On Saturday and Sunday, the Obama Adminstration was backing away from a “public option”.  By Tuesday, they were in full-scale retreat.

Fortunately, the Administration is probably in a no-win situation.  With a public option, they likely cannot get a bill out of the Senate.  Without one, it’s appearing less likely they’ll get one through the House.  Bloomberg news reported on Wednesday that the 83-member Congressional Progressive Caucus (functionally the American Socialist Party) has said they will not vote for a bill that does not include a government-run health care plan. One caveat: If the Democrats are bold (and stupid) enough to try to pass health care “reform” through a budget reconciliation process that requires on 51 votes and can not be filibustered, there’s a chance they could get it done, though even that is not assured as quite a few Democrats would probably object not only to the “public option” but also to changing the Senate’s rules (or at least its traditions) to pass a bill that otherwise would not be passed.  If they go down this road, 2010 could make 1994 look like a good outcome for the Democratic Party.

The unions are demanding payback for their investment in Democrats. That payback is not just in the form of trying to get card check passed.  Socialized medicine would be the biggest-ever windfall for unions as it will relieve them of much of their retiree health care costs – costs for which unions have either saved big war chests or for which corporations still owe unions money.  In the GM bailout, the UAW got $20 billion, most of which is for retiree health care costs.  If those costs go away or even are substantially diminished by using taxpayer subsidies, the unions will have new multi-million or multi-billion dollar slush funds with which to buy supportive politicians who will then, in a vicious circle representing the destruction of our Republic, pass more pro-union legislation.

If you think that’s unlikely, don’t forget the already-proposed provision of a health care tax bill which would exempt union members from paying taxes on health care benefits that non-members would have to pay on exactly the same health benefit.

But the unions stand to gain even more than that from the “public plan” because any system in which the government has substantial control over doctors and hospitals will be one which the government then tries to force to unionize. Doctors, nurses, technicians all will be pushed, some harder than others, to join unions with their dues payments going, whether they like it or not, to support the very same politicians who will have destroyed their ability to run their businesses as free citizens rather than as serfs.

This health care debate is only partly about socialist ideology, which clearly dominates the Democratic leadership and much of their Congressional delegation. It’s even more about political power, trying to get the Democrats to the “permanent majority” that only a few years ago was arrogantly being spoken of by Karl Rove and other Republicans.

In addition to trying to benefit unions at the expense of taxpayers, the Democrats’ strategery is to get as many Americans as possible dependent on government.  Already, something on the order of 40% of Americans are “negative taxpayers”, meaning they collect more from the government than they pay in taxes.  If the Democrats can get many millions more into a government health-care plan, they will have a majority of Americans living, at least in part, off the work of others.  And people who live off the work of others support politicians who offer to give them even more.  And those politicians are Democrats.

While a beggar-they-neighbor mentality is unAmerican, it’s not easy to get people to vote to give up a handout. And that’s the Democrats’ goal with “single payer.”  When the government has forced most private insurers out of business, they will have tens of millions of voters whom they believe will now lean toward voting Democrat out of fear that the GOP might raise their health care costs by supporting capitalism.  The Democrats trust, probably rightly, that once someone is getting health insurance for $100/month less than before, that someone won’t vote to increase his own costs even if the lower costs come from the government taking money from someone else to subsidize him or even if those policies decrease citizens’ chances of getting a job or a raise.

This is why it’s absolutely critical that the public option not be passed.  It will be much more difficult than the average government program to repeal.  And the average government program is essentially impossible to repeal.

The good news is that the public is rapidly turning against Democrats’ government takeover of health care – apparently even if there is no “public option” in it. (And don’t be fooled, the “co-op” plan is simply “public option lite.”

According to the latest Rasmussen Poll, “Just 34% of voters nationwide support the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats if the so-called ‘public option’ is removed.” More details in the poll show the Administration’s conundrum: “Without the public option, just 50% of Democrats support the legislation. That’s down from 69% support measured a week ago. But here the enthusiasm gap is especially strong. A week ago, polling found that 44% of Democrats Strongly favored the reform plan. Without the public option, just 12% of Democrats Strongly support it.”

Polls by more liberal organizations are also trending against ObamaCare: An NBC poll released Tuesday shows 47% opposing a public plan, 4% more than those who support it, representing a 6% shift away from the plan in the last month. Gallup continues to show more people disapproving of Obama’s job performance on the health care issue than approving. At InTrade.com, Political bettors are giving a “public option” about a 1/3 chance of passing, after trading as high as 45% earlier this month and as low as 14% on Monday after the Administration’s brief weekend backpedaling. And in a particularly ominous sign for ObamaCare and for Democratic electoral prospects in general, it is being reported that “About 60,000 seniors have quit AARP since July 1 due to the group’s support for health care reform, a spokesman for the organization said this week.”

Obama will anger his left-wing base and House leadership if health care reform does not have a government plan.  And it will anger everyone else if it does.

The longer the debate continues, the lower the chances of any significant bill passing during this Congress.  And although the system is badly in need of pro-free market, pro-competition reforms, doing nothing is certainly better than implementing almost any of the Democrats’ pro-big-government plans.  If we get past Thanksgiving with no bill passed, there probably will be no bill passed, especially if Republicans win decisive victories in the off-year governors races in New Jersey and Virginia – both of which currently show the Republican with a double-digit lead.

One thing which conservatives and libertarians – and anyone who wants a high-quality health care system in this nation – need to be aware of and fight against is Republican politicians attempting to be “bipartisan”, to work out a “compromise” with the Democrat in the spirit of “getting something done.” Just as it was not possible to compromise with Napoleon or Hitler, it is not possible to compromise with Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi.  Any compromise will be taken by them as a victorious first step toward their ultimate goal of government control of…just about everything.

Republicans need to tell Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Mike Enzi (R-WY) and even (unfortunately) the Heritage Foundation that it’s OK to be the “Party of ‘No’” when saying “yes” to even a subset of the opposition’s legislation is selling the American people down the river. As a wise Colorado State Senator said to me recently, “I don’t waste time trying to make bad bills better. At the end of the day, they’re still bad.”

Balancing the Budget with new “Fees?” Ritter Gun Tax joins Colorado Car Tax in Mullarkey-sanctioned TABOR runaround

by CTBC Director | 8:00 pm, August 20, 2009

Well, that didn’t take long.
In Monday’s article predicting that new “fees“, not new taxes, would be the preferred approach of the Governor and the Colorado Legislature to address our state’s “fiscal crisis” (in reality more of a spending issue, not a revenue shortfall), I’d thought (paraphrasing Will Rogers) that my wallet was safe until the [...]

Funny Friday

by Mr. Bob | 4:18 pm, August 20, 2009

#tcot #healthcare #obamacare
Steven Crowder does the happy dance as healthcare protesters make headway in killing the bill as we know it.

Reprehensible even by MSNBC standards

by Rossputin | 12:26 pm, August 20, 2009

An MSNBC anchor used a cropped picture of a man (legally) carrying a weapon near an Arizona health care rally to raise the issue of “racial tensions” and “white people showing up with guns.” What was cropped out of the picture was the man’s head and lower arms…which would have shown viewers that the man was black.

NewsBusters has the story here:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2009/08/18/msnbc-no-mention-black-gun-owner-among-racist-protesters

Although it will lead to nothing, Americans for Limited Government is calling for the firing of those involved with the broadcast.

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