A Voice in the Wilderness In Defense of "Mere Conservatism"

Obama Democrats: Cashing checks and burning bridges

Mark Steyn is the most interesting political commentator alive.  As I knew he would, in his newest column Steyn lays out the reasons the House and Senate health care "reforms" will lead to ruin for this country.

Government can’t just annex “one-sixth of the US economy” (ie, the equivalent of annexing the entire British or French economy, or annexing the entire Indian economy twice over) and then just say: “Okay, what’s next? On to cap-and-trade…” Nations that governmentalize health care soon find themselves talking about little else.

Being a native Canadian himself, Steyn explains what things are like back in his homeland:

In Canada, once the wait times for MRIs and hip surgery start creeping up over two years, the government distracts the citizenry with a Royal Commission appointed to study possible “reforms” which reports back a couple of years later usually with recommendations to “strengthen” the government’s “commitment” to every Canadian’s “right” to health care by renaming the Department of Health the Department of Health Services and abolishing the Agency of Health Administration and replacing it with a new Agency of Administrative Health Operations which would report to a reformed Council of Health Policy Administrative Coordination to be supervised by a streamlined Public Health Operations & Administration Assessment Bureau.

This package of “reforms” would cost a mere 12.3 gazillion dollars and usually keeps the lid on the pot until the wait times for MRIs start creeping up over three years.

He then points out one of the most disturbing facets of the secretively conceived legislation:

Whatever happens, it’s a dagger at the heart of American federalism, just as the bill’s magisterial proclamation that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board can only be abolished by a two-thirds vote of the Senate strikes at one of the most basic principles of a free society – that no parliament can bind its successors.

Do you understand what is happening here?  The Democrats have put into their bill, the 2,000 page one that almost none of the senators have even read, a caveat that stipulates that only a 2/3's majority can undo what they've done.

Think about this.  They don't have the votes to pass a constitutional amendment that would allow the government to run health insurance (which will almost instantly lead to government-run health care), yet they write into the bill a rule that makes it nearly impossible to change things later if their system ends up failing or further wrecking the economy.

The Democrat operators – the Nancy Pelosis and Barney Franks – know that what matters is to get something, anything across the river, and then burn the bridge behind you. My Republican friends often seem to miss the point in this debate: The so-called “public option” is not Page 3,079, Section (f), Clause VII. The entire bill is a public option – because that’s where it leads, remorselessly.

The so-called “death panel” is not Page 2,721, Paragraph 19, Sub-section (d), but again the entire bill – because it inserts the power of the state between you and your doctor, and in effect assumes jurisdiction over your body. As the savvier Dems have always known, once you’ve crossed the Rubicon, you can endlessly re-reform your health reform until the end of time, and all the stuff you didn’t get this go-round will fall into place, and very quickly...Government-run “health care” is the fast-track to a permanent left-of-center political culture.

The Left has been pushing for this (socialized medicine) for almost a century now.  PLEASE hear these words from Ronald Reagan warning in the 1960's against what is happening now.

Anyone who supports this current legislation and isn't a committed socialist is a sap.

We Can’t Take Our Eyes Off Health Care

There is so much going on right now that can tempt our focus away from defeating the Democrats' health care reform.  Everyone agrees that reform is needed, but please do not be fooled about the president, Senator Reid, and Speaker Pelosi's intentions: they want a government take-over of the health care industry.

And, according to the Financial Times,  they're getting closer to their collectvist dream:

Barack Obama’s healthcare reform, the signature policy of his presidency, looks likely to clear its most formidable obstacle by Christmas.

Within the next few days, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office will give its fiscal “scoring” of the compromise reached on Tuesday between five moderate and five liberal Democratic senators.

If the CBO were to pronounce the package at least deficit-neutral – a big if, given the body’s ­Jesuitical approach to bud­get accounting – the way would probably be cleared for a rapid vote in the Senate. Since the House of Representatives has already passed its own 1,990-page bill, only a seismic intervention could stop it from reaching Mr Obama’s desk within the ensuing weeks.

Did you know that this bill would not take effect until 2013, after the next presidential election?  Would you like to take a guess why it is that this president is pushing so hard now for something that won't be implemented until after he gets a shot at another four years in office?

Of course the current leadership in congress and the White House insist that they don't want to run the health care system...but, then go out of their way to point out how "successful" Medicare (a government run and funded program) has been...but they don't want to take health care over...but look how good Medicare has been, so it might not be that bad if we did...but we're not, we promise.

From the National Review:

The model for how the new “public option” would be run was supposed to be Medicare. But while liberals admire Medicare’s elaborate price-control system, they are basically alone in that view. Others recognize that the program, while popular with its enrollees, is far from a model of efficiency or cost control. For four decades, Congress and program administrators have tried to slow spending growth with price cuts and bureaucratic payment regulations. It hasn’t worked.

The result has been cost-shifting to private payers, even as Medicare’s overall costs have continued to escalate rapidly. Moreover, Medicare’s fee-for-service payment model encourages fragmented and uncoordinated care, driving up costs for everyone buying services, not just the government. Cuts in fees do nothing to control the volume of services provided, which is the real source of rising costs.

We don't have to take this lying down.  If you care about the fate of this country's economic and health care systems, PLEASE contact your House and senate representatives.  Tell them you will not vote for anyone who supports this monstrosity.  I know it might not seem like much, but an email and a phone call to your rep's office WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE!  They work for you.