Since I Just Brought Up Health Care...

...I keep forgetting to point out that the Republican "alternative" spells certain doom for private health care too.

They propose allowing people to buy their health insurance across state lines, in order to get the best price. That won't work. If your doctor is in Manhattan, he's paying a lot more for everything - taxes, space, staff, supplies, etc., etc., etc. The doc has to pass those costs along (if he wants to eat!) to the patient, and that's why insurance in New York costs more than insurance in Arkansas or Wyoming!

Then there's the issue of state mandates, which vary from state to state. If your state is heavy on unfunded mandates, you'll pay more. (A feel good legislature is an expensive legislature.) States with large populations tend to be high cost in both areas - operating expenses AND mandates.

Then there's the specter of indigent care. That ain't free either - the cost is just shifted to the insured and the taxpayer. We don't need to Californicate the entire industry here, folks!

Furthermore, the insurance industry is the last major industry NOT regulated by the feds. Your state insurance commissioner is the highest authority, and it should stay that way.

If the feds dictate that anyone can buy a health plan from anywhere, all rates will rise to the highest level found anywhere. That'll screw all the people smart enough to not live in Manhattan or San Fransicko in the first place.

Same goes for the proposal to eliminate exclusions of pre-existing conditions. Here's an analogy: If you buy full coverage for your car, they want to know what damage already exists. If the car isn't brand new off the lot, they want pictures. Any such damage is a pre-existing condition. If you want to be able to go without insurance, wreck your car and buy coverage the next morning, that would be known as a social program. It sure as hell isn't insurance! If you eliminate those exclusions, that means insurers won't be able to underwrite for risk. Premiums will skyrocket, and they (the Demo/Publicans) know it. They can't wait for the day the feds can come in and take over.

First they wreck it, then they take it over. That's the formula, and it works over and over and over. These power grabs have been going on for more than a century. If you want to know what's really happening here, read the history of the regulation and taxation of railroads. Then read about the federal bailout of Penn Central. You may not have heard of that line, but it's still running today, with a huge and growing taxpayer subsidy. These days it's called Amtrak.

At the end of the day, the Republican fix is not a fix at all, unless you change the meaning of the word. As in, the "fix" is in. They ALL want to destroy the industry, in order to lay claim to it's reserves. Just like your social security money. Just like your 401k.

Things are so far gone that the government is reduced to one-time acts of economic cannibalism just to buy a few more months in control.

To the feds/banksters, this is just another harvest. Don't be the crop.

Massachusetts Special Election

Count along with me: 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3... Yep, turns out there several "third rails" in politics, the fatally underfunded and endlessly pilfered Social Security program is just one of many. Gun control is another, and how 'bout that socialized medicine thingy???

Since the Boy King ascended to the throne, I've watched in amazement as the Congressional Red Army enthusiastically reprised Hillary's "behind closed doors/top secret/sweetheart deals" health care debacle without even a token rewrite of her original script. As with most remakes, this new cast was in many ways even less appealing than the original.

Letterman? Leno? O'Brien? Musical sitcoms? Don't need any of 'em - this midterm election cycle will surpass any contrived entertainment. There'll likely be a lot more Republicans in office by this time next year, but more importantly this may mark the last time the American public ricochets from one wing of the left-right contrivance to the other.

Here's why: The .gov's appetite for money and power during this downturn has genuinely alarmed the gentle left as well as the center and much of the right. The left-right paradigm is wearing thin and an increasing number of everyday folks are starting to see through it. (Heat will do that to fog...)

I talk politics with a lot of people, and most everyone across the spectrum now agrees that the most humane thing government can do for most people is leave them the hell alone. A new atmosphere of critical thinking is forming. Should the Republicans again fail to bring a sincere liberty-oriented limited government mindset to the table the left/right shell game may be over. They could easily fail at this, as Peak Sincerity actually occurred a while back in American politics. (It'll be such a fascinating year!)

Brown ran as a centrist... (although I always thought that in Massachusetts John Kerry was a centrist!) Brown has a likable persona, but in actuality he's a RINO, and we shouldn't get our hopes up just yet.

On the bright side, this is another (and largest to date) rejection of Obama, and it's a also a repudiation of socialized medicine and of heavy-handed leftist governance in general. What the media lackeys (who still yearn for socialist utopia) won't tell you is that this rejection took place in a state that just tried socialized medicine, and that said experiment failed spectacularly. Moreover, it was Republican Mitt Romney who both proposed and signed the legislation, which illustrates why the Republicans had better pay just as much attention to the mood of the public as the Dems! Sure, the Repubs are getting a real present from the voters (with Obama starring as Santa Claus) but there are strings attached this time.

Bottom line: When a McCain machine campaigns for socialized medicine and a Romney machine authors and then signs such a scheme into law, the Republicans have as much if not more to learn from this election as the Dems. I say more, because unlike the Dems they pretend to know better.

For all my criticism and caution, I can state with confidence that there's at least a rather widespread recognition that we're on the wrong path. For Ted Kennedy's seat to go to ANY Republican speaks volumes! Overall a fine day, and hey, Mary Jo - this one's for you!

Just Another Day at the Office...

Three trillion dollars of deficit spending in one day.

That's:

- $800 billion for the new stimulus bill.

- A $1 trillion commitment by the Fed to "make loans more widely available to consumers" which actually means the taxpayer will be taking over the liability for many past bankster screwups.

- $350 billion from the first pork bill goes from uncommitted to committed, thanks to Geithner, who refreshingly promised that thing they call transparency (which events suggest is actually spelled "opacity"). Right. Anyway, he also said they'd soon be back for more, which was one of very few promises I found believable.

Add in a few et ceteras and that's three trillion. (Here a billion, there a billion, everywhere a billion billion. Old MacDonald's house of cards - EIEIO.)

Update: After a pitched battle in which the Senate dropped some tax breaks for the peasants but clung bitterly to their spending and power grabs, the price of the stimulus bill dropped precipitously to $789,000,000,000. Nanny Pelosi said "We have come to an agreement with the Senate as to how we will go forward and I think the people are happy about that." No kidding. She really said that. They came to an agreement - with themselves - on plundering the nation. How congenial. She thinks we'll be happy about this if she merely suggests the idea? Delusional twit...

So - what does the stimulus bill really stimulate? In the guise of job creation, there are some huge payouts to the left's power base - as in bankers, unions and entitlement recipients. Taken as the immediate economic stimulus it claims to be, this legislation is a joke. Much of this spending isn't even scheduled for this year! Scratch the surface, and you'll find that what's really stimulated is federal power.

This is no accident. A new federal health care gestapo is birthed in this bill, with $20 billion worth of gleeful plans to hold every last detail of your medical history in government hands, and with further plans for those same hands to grab decision making from our doctors. Rahm Emanuel said "You never want a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before." Like fascism, for example. Federal bureaucrats will soon have the power to nag your doctor - real time as he treats you - dictating which treatments are acceptable and which are not. Heavy on the "are not."

This is a coup, folks! They just imposed socialized medicine, without the inconvenience of representation or debate.

Back in the Clinton years (come to think of it, he was the original stimulus Bill...) it became apparent that the push for socialized medicine had but one true goal - the rationing of costly medical care - particularly for the elderly. That's rationing with the kind of "capital R" that's written in blood by Federal teeth. If you think they're not serious, consider that nothing short of rationing will mitigate the looming burden of the baby boom generation on Social Security and Medicare.

Great. Social Security. Paternity tests on this program reveal a grinning Ponzi. Any junior actuary could have told you - in 1960 - that this whole SS/Medicare thing would inevitably collapse. These programs have been cash cows since their inception, though, and they still are. Thus, now is not a particularly convenient time to admit that the whole mess is mathematically guaranteed to fail as the baby boom generation attempts to retire. (Attempted retirement - now there's a crime for this new millennium!) No, the bad news on retirement will have to wait, for as long as they can distract us from thinking about it.

Meantime, in my crystal ball, a not-too-distant future appears - the phone rings and when it's answered a disinterested bureaucrat says: "So, Granny Smith - our computer model has reviewed your case and you're just not paying enough taxes to justify your continued existence. And then there's the matter of your carbon footprint. So, we're sorry, but no more dialysis for you..." (I could be way off base about such a phone call, as they may just send the message to her implanted chip. Saves on bureaucrats that way!)

Today's vocabulary word is "geriatricide"

No wonder they want us disarmed...