Healthcare Hypocricy?

[Maggie]

For those of you who don’t know the author of this column entitled I am finally scared of a White House administration, Nat Hentoff, used to write commentary, for several decades, for The Village Voice. It is nice to see some people on the Left, including those I note above, take an honest look at this heath-care issue:

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/hentoff081909.php3

[ISASO]

More and more people are taking an honest look at it, which is why King Obama's approval ratings are perilously close to falling below 50%.

[Maggie]

I had intended to post this yesterday but this is a good editorial in the WSJ which highlights the logical fallacies, specifically non sequiturs, committed by supporters of the health-care reform options currently being discussed:

So the health-care status quo needs top-to-bottom reform, except for the parts that "you" happen to like. Government won't interfere with patients and their physicians, considering that the new panel of experts who will make decisions intended to reduce tests and treatments doesn't count as government. But Medicare shows that government involvement isn't so bad, aside from the fact that spending is out of control—and that program needs top-to-bottom reform too.

Voters aren't stupid. The true reason ObamaCare is in trouble isn't because "folks aren't listening," but because they are.

Read the whole thing. :good:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574360541357223298.html

[Maggie]

I find a lot of irony swirling around this national health-care discussion.

For example, not so long ago the Left, sometimes justifiably, was highly critical of President Bush (as I have been too) and his administration for failing to adequately plan for a postwar Iraq and for not clearly setting forth the endgame of the war. Similarly, for whatever reason (hubris?), the current administration seems to have concluded that it had no reason to present a comprehensive health-care reform package (perhaps, thinking they finally understood why President Clinton’s effort had failed) nor do they seem to believe they should have to sum it up succinctly and clearly. This miscalculation has produced a climate in which most American’s have no idea what the administration’s plan is (indeed, the administration has admitted from time to time – they don’t have one), and one in which it is easy to reasonably conclude that the President has no idea either.

The fact is the public does not believe that President Obama has “leveled” with the American people. It has come down to trust. Most people don’t think the entire system is “broken” despite the reality that defensive medicine is practiced, resulting in redundant care, frivolous procedures and lawsuits. They believe that the system can, and should be, improved but not tossed out with yesterday’s garbage. They know American “care” is superior to other countries and that American’s with certain serious diseases survive longer but they also know that longevity is heavily influenced by factors other than medical care.

Bottom line: Too many Americans, whether rightly or wrongly, believe that President Obama has other agendas that transcend simply ensuring American live longer, healthier, and better — such as growing government, enforcing an equality of result, and creating permanent constituencies that administer and receive expanding federal entitlements.

And what is the elephant in the room which looms over the entire debate? Debt, debt, debt — both the recognition that one cannot expand those covered and save money at the same time without rationing or higher taxes; and the notion that all President Obama’s new entitlements essentially involve borrowing money, much of it from Asia, as our indebtedness soars.

If I were advising the President, I would tell him to toss this effort in the garbage - tell the American people that he made a mistake, that he will learn from it and that he will start fresh with new proposals. Unfortunately, nothing I have seen convinces me he is capable of admitting error.

Hypocrisy, hubris, arrogance invites nemesis — every time.

[Maggie]

I posted an essay by Camille Paglia a while back and while I don’t see eye to eye with her on every issue she has been making some good points (a lonely voice on the Left - she is), to wit:

But affluent middle-class Democrats now seem to be complacently servile toward authority and automatically believe everything party leaders tell them. Why? Is it because the new professional class is a glossy product of generically institutionalized learning? Independent thought and logical analysis of argument are no longer taught. Elite education in the U.S. has become a frenetic assembly line of competitive college application to schools where ideological brainwashing is so pandemic that it's invisible. The top schools, from the Ivy League on down, promote "critical thinking," which sounds good but is in fact just a style of rote regurgitation of hackneyed approved terms ("racism, sexism, homophobia") when confronted with any social issue. The Democratic brain has been marinating so long in those clichés that it's positively pickled. (emphasis added) ( :yes: )

Throughout this fractious summer, I was dismayed not just at the self-defeating silence of Democrats at the gaping holes or evasions in the healthcare bills but also at the fogginess or insipidity of articles and Op-Eds about the controversy emanating from liberal mainstream media and Web sources. By a proportion of something like 10-to-1, negative articles by conservatives were vastly more detailed, specific and practical about the proposals than were supportive articles by Democrats, which often made gestures rather than arguments and brimmed with emotion and sneers. (emphasis added) ( :yes: ) There was a glaring inability in most Democratic commentary to think ahead and forecast what would or could be the actual snarled consequences -- in terms of delays, denial of services, errors, miscommunications and gross invasions of privacy -- of a massive single-payer overhaul of the healthcare system in a nation as large and populous as ours. It was as if Democrats live in a utopian dream world, divorced from the daily demands and realities of organization and management. (emphasis added)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/09/09/healthcare/

And before the usual suspects chime in – this topic should be moved to the Politics Forum.

[Maggie]

I thought this was “interesting” according to Politico:

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold."

Ensign receives handwritten confirmation

A levy? A tax? A crime? :whistle:

[SubGod22]

The good news is that it appears that there are a number of Democrats that aren't on board with where this bill is headed. At least last I heard. If the bill moves back towards what the moderate/conservative Dems want it'll still lose a lot of support from the whacky left that seems to be running the show right now.

Congress is making this much more complicated than it should be. The system doesn't have to be overhauled.

[RoyalShock]

I thought this was “interesting” according to Politico:

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold."

Ensign receives handwritten confirmation

A levy? A tax? A crime? :whistle:

So this is how Dems intend on taking care of people too poor to purchase insurance? Fine them and when they can't afford to pay it, toss them in jail? Or are they supposed to not feed themselves or their family to pay the fine?

I guess the means justify the ends. At least they will have free healthcare in the slammer.

It's for their own good.

:banghead:

[1979Shocker]

They'll get good insurance in jail. :roll:

[Maggie]

From the WSJ:

Rhetorical Tax Evasion - The IRS says it will fine or jail you for not paying Obama's mandate levy.

President Obama's effort to deny that his mandate to buy insurance is a tax has taken another thumping, this time from fellow Democrats in the Senate Finance Committee.

Chairman Max Baucus's bill includes the so-called individual mandate, along with what he calls a $1,900 "excise tax" if you don't buy health insurance. (It had been as much as $3,800 but Democrats reduced the amount last week to minimize the political sticker shock.) And, lo, it turns out that if you don't pay that tax, the IRS could punish you with a $25,000 fine or up to a year in jail, or both.

***

In the 1994 health-care debate, the Congressional Budget Office called the individual mandate "an unprecedented form of federal action." This is because "The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States."

This coercion will be even more onerous today because everyone will be forced to buy insurance that the new taxes and regulations of ObamaCare will make far more expensive. Too bad Mr. Obama's rhetorical tax evasion can't be punished by the IRS.

[shocklight]

Obama, on many occassions has said he will fundementally change America. I believe he is well on his way, on keeping his promise!

[kcshocker11]

Shepard Smith stands up for the average American!

http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/fox-newss-shep-smith.php

'

Every Vote Against The Public Option Is A Vote For The Insurance Companies' Shepard Smith

8)

[SB Shock]

Shepard Smith stands up for the average American!

http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/fox-newss-shep-smith.php

'

Every Vote Against The Public Option Is A Vote For The Insurance Companies' Shepard Smith

8)

To certain extent he is right. If there is no public option there still has to be some kind of health care reform that puts power back into the consumers hands and not allow the insurance companies to take advantage of families.

[WuDrWu]

Keep pushing the left agenda. Republicans have no plans, remember?

No no no no no no.

The left is the only party trying.

Blow them all up and start over.

[ISASO]

Yes, blow them both up and start over.

Will someone be brave enough to force insurance companies to compete across state lines?