Sunday, July 26, 2009

CANADIANS UNITE AGAINST U.S. HEALTH CARE REFORM

Winnipeg Telegraph
Winnipeg, Manitoba - Canadians from the Yukon and British Columbia to Newfoundland and the Labrador Coast are ready to charge en masse to form a Million Canuck March on Washington District of Columbia, U.S. They are feeling the need to preserve their way of life, namely, the ability to come to the United States to obtain urgent, life saving health care when needed.


In our informal Rasberry Poll 82% of Canadians responded favorably when asked if they liked their current health care system. Many respondents were found to say, "I like not having to pay for it here in Canada when I am not really using it anyway." The remaining 18% were broken up pretty evenly between those who would be more satisfied if they could get access to their "free" care, those who live too far from hospitals and tend to treat most ailments with whiskey and a sharp object of some sort and the rest who have given up hope ever seeing a doctor again in their natural lives. All respondents currently living their final days in hospice were not counted in this poll, not because their opinion does not count, only because it was unlikely they would live long enough to read this article.

Asked what they would do aboot health care if they had an urgent need for a life saving procedure or medication, an almost universal 98% including many Canadian doctors and nurses responded, "I will come to the U.S. eh?" Half of those indicating they'd come to avoid the long wait to get access to care in Canada and the other half stating they'd come to the U.S. because they were fairly certain they'd be denied much needed care after the long wait anyway.



This reporter caught up with Saskatoon native, Roy LeBlanc under the camper shell of his pickup truck stuffing in supplies for what appeared to be a long stay in his deer blind. Roy corrected us, saying the packing list was for his march on Washington, D.C. "I have a history of cancer in my family, eh? So I am relying on health care from our neighbors to da south when I need it." Asked how long he would stay to protest the Obama Health Care reform bill, "as long as it takes . . . logging season is over and hey, while I am der I might catch a hockey game or two. All our best hockey players moved der years ago because da health care was better, don't ya know?"


In a related story conjouned / siamese twins from around the world are running to the United States as fast as their unique birth defects will allow them to run in hopes that they can get the life changing surgeries unavailable in their own countries before it is too late.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

We're All On Notice Now . . . or Perhaps Death Watch over our own Freedom

“I just want to put everybody on notice, because there was a lot of chatter during the week that I was gone: We are going to get this done,” the president said. “Inaction is not an option. And for those naysayers and cynics who think that this is not going to happen, don't bet against us.”


I think the last time a President took this tone with the American public it was Billy Bob Clinton “not-pologizing” for his affair with Monica Lewinski. He was going to scold us, the American public, to get himself out of a tight spot.


I see many of the same connotations in the tone of his voice and Obama’s word choice.


Back from Europe, Obama establishes this tone with “during the week that I was gone” – as if to say the parents were out of town on a business trip and the American people and Congress, like a bunch of teenagers, were having an unsanctioned house party replete with underage drinking and Kid and Play mixing the music selection until the police showed up in response to a noise complaint. To that I say, Mr. Obama, I am not your child. In fact, until you provide an actual birth certificate for review I might even suggest that I am older than you - prove otherwise. More importantly, when it comes to maturity, I am not the one spending money as if the credit card bill is delivered in mom & dad’s name; as if I don’t have to figure out how to pay for all those purchases when the bill comes due.


More disturbing are his first words though, “I just want to put everybody on notice” as if he proceeds from some moral high ground, again like a parent talking to a child.


As I heard one person in the conservative ranks say, “we put our enemies on notice, not the American people”

By calling the open debate “chatter” he is being derisive of the wholesome and healthy, free speech nature of our still Democratic and Free nation.


The founders designed our system to be one of compromise. And if the end result of said compromise on any specific piece of legislature was not agreed to be a generally good compromise the Congressman and Senators could vote it down. Of course then it would never come across the President’s desk for approval.

And this is Obama's primary concern. He wants a piece of legislation on his desk before the fall recess as long as it provides the provisions he’s seeking, namely: resting control of Health Care from private enterprise and making it the domain of the government – a.k.a. his control. Like Banking and the Auto Industry, etc.


It’s very telling that he:

  • a) Speaks to the legislature and the public with words normally reserved for enemies
  • b) He derides the debate component of our legislative process simply because it doesn’t jive with his agenda.

There are many famous cases in history that bear a striking comparison to this same attitude - ones of tyranny and despotism. There is an unspoken part of Obama’s phrase “on notice” an underlying threat of "you better or else" which means that if you don’t give him what he wants he will overrule you, circumvent you or eliminate you from the forum if not disbanding that forum all together.


And Obama has been practicing this next annoying verbal tic for some time, even before teleprompters dictated his verbiage. He’s a petty name caller. If you don’t agree with his version of Health Care Reform (a.k.a. health care abolitionism) then you are a “naysayer” and a “cynic” and you are gambler who is taking a risk a.k.a. “bet(ting) against us.”


We live in a country where we're not supposed to call “terrorists” by name but our own citizens are “naysayers” and “cynics” for disagreeing with the President ?!? Today's naysayers and cynics are tomorrow's dissidents and heretics. From that point it's not so far before our disagreement with the Obama is branded as an act of treason.


But while the rest of this may just appear to be semantics there is one part of his fallacious statement requiring a closer examination and that is when he says "Inaction is not an option."


BZZZZZTTT!!!!

Wrong!!!

INACTION IS ALWAYS AN OPTION

when it comes to our legislative process.


In fact there are very specific Constitutional provisions which bring about "inaction" like those requiring a two thirds or three fifths majority. There are a number of scenarios that occur in which legislation SHALL NOT PASS if it is unable to gain widespread support. Failure to obtain a majority, failure to be passed in identical form in both the House and Senate . . . these are specifically outlined in our Constitution. This is all by design. Our Founding Fathers structured the government not only with the possibility that massive sweeping legislation would fail but with the high probability that it would not pass because after all, the country is a ship full of three hundred million people now and not a speed boat zipping a few of us from one point of the coastline to the next on a whim.


So this brings me to my next point, well, roughly 12 of them.


A Baker's Dozen Reasons Why A Health Care Bill Is Not Needed This Year


  1. The exact number of legal U.S. citizens that do not have access to health care in our country is ZERO (0). That’s right. People who don’t have insurance and can’t afford to pay for health care procedures directly on their own are covered under an existing government plan called Medicaid (not to be confused with Medicare).
  2. Even illegal aliens are not kicked out of Emergency Rooms when in need of critical care.
  3. I haven’t stopped hearing new stories from the Socialized Medicine Horror Show like those found in Canada and the U.K. of women being denied a pap smear only to find out too late that they have cervical cancer, men contracting incurable cases of colon cancer after being denied a colonoscopy, women dieing of breast cancer because they were denied treatment having had cancer once before, people who had to wait until they were blind in both eyes before receiving cataracts surgery and people coming to the United States and paying out of pocket to receive needed medical care they weren’t going to receive in time in these same countries.
  4. Legislation does not have to be 1000 pages and all encompassing to fix specific issues with health care or any other issue. In fact it will be easier to draft, pass, administer and monitor the results of very specific, finite, targeted legislation in 50-100 page increments. It might even get read by everyone signing it then.
  5. And the last two times a single bill comprised of a thousand pages of legislation was passed it was
    1. Not read in its entirety before the vote
    2. The National deficit went up by Trillions of Dollars
    3. It had no positive impact on the items the bills addressed ($timulus and the omnibus appropriations bills have not created any new jobs or fixed any facet of the economy or failing aspects of a bloated government)
    4. deemed unsustainable by the non-partisan government accountants a.k.a. the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) after crunching Obama's numbers. In layman's terms that means the U.S. is taking out an ARM loan on Obama's McMansion when we are only pulling down a janitor's salary. The U.S. will be in foreclosure by the time we miss our third payment on these ridiculous spending bills. Our predatory lending slum lord in this case is China.
  6. So while looking at #5 I suggest we all should be suspicious when being told by the President, members of his cabinet and certain members of Congress that everyone’s in agreement and that something has to be done and it has to be done by some immediate and arbitrary deadline or things will get worse. $pendulus passed and the economy and unemployment got worse anyway. What would waiting a week or month have done? First and foremost it would have given us a chance to read the bill.
  7. I have read a half dozen articles on the topic of our strained Health Care system. No two argue the same reasons for what is wrong with our system and what changes need to take place to fix that system. If experts can’t agree how can hundreds of Congressman and Senators, most with no expertise in Health Care, come to a consensus in less than two months? What's more when a cause and effect question is posed to the public, like "Do you support health care for everyone - even if to pay for such a benefit would mean many employers, like your own would have to lay off workers?" most answer "wha? Wait a minute? NO. I don't think SO."
  8. If you have health care through an employer and you don’t expect to lose your job in the next six months then nothing should change in your current health care situation until your employer’s next annual open enrollment period. For me that happens at the end of the year. I would rather “spend” the next six to seven months seriously examining and debating the reform options.
  9. And if you are not covered under any kind of health insurance – bzzzt – see #1
  10. Because anything done by the federal government is inefficient and fraught with incompetence and compromise. This is not really a recipe for success when it comes to my family’s health and well being. Try filling in the blanks of this sentence next time you sit down with a loved one using those words. "Honey, I know this new system may be inefficient but just think there's a good chance the doctor that is chosen for us will only be mildly incompetent and when it comes to your health we should be willing to compromise."
  11. Because more than 50% of people are opposed to an idea and that trumps any notion of a moral imperative Obama might think he has on this topic, at least as long as we are still a representative Democracy and not a totalitarian dictatorship.
  12. Because they still haven't fixed Social Security and that's been in crisis since my first paycheck at age 16 yet Social Security is still trucking along for decades. It must be. It keeps coming out of my paycheck. Perhaps Obama and Congress should fix that government entitlement program first before inventing new ways of bankrupting the country.
  13. Because I haven’t heard Obama or the Democrats provide one serious reason why this single, do-everything-with-no-regard-for-how-and-who-will-pay-the-cost - piece of legislation can’t wait until the end of the year or next year or the year after that. Like any big ticket item that my wife and I buy, like any decision we are going to have to live with for a long time, perhaps the rest of our lives, like any time I have a salesman trying this hard to close the deal, I reserve and often exercise the right to sleep on it, to wait and not make a decision until I gather more information and to even walk away from the bargaining table. That’s real negotiating leverage. That’s real power. I’m not buying what Obama is selling. Are you? Can you afford it?


Watch the videos linked here and consider the possibilities.


Where we're headed, straight from the mouths of English speaking folks living in technologically developed countries . . . with socialized medicine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbHh86HkBhk


For a scary little laugh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPC6CqAFA4E


And for some historical perspective. That's right, this has been part of a liberal agenda for decades . . . and we are still here as a nation even though it was a moral imperative for Ted Kennedy half a century ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOZsD9X4R6A


So take action as I have and proceed to this link and contact your Senators and Congressman and if you have a few extra minutes on your cell phone plans call the offices of the Senators and Congressmen in some other states too.


Find U.S. Senators

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?


Find a Congressman with a Zip Code + 4

http://www.house.gov/


AND CPR for American Freedom

http://www.conservativesforpatientsrights.com/


Thursday, July 9, 2009

Absolutely

"About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If govern­ments derive their just powers from the con­sent of the governed, that is final.
No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propo­sitions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress."
- Calvin "Born on the 4th of July" Coolidge

Absolute. Resolute. Arguing to the contrary will make you look like a lunatic.

Saturday, July 4, 2009