Starving For Truth About ObamaCare?

The Wall Street Journal simplifies the health care issue: there will be rationing under ObamaCare:

"...once health care is nationalized, or mostly nationalized, rationing care is inevitable, and those who have lived the longest will find their care the most restricted."

"Far from being a scare tactic, this is a logical conclusion based on experience and common-sense. Once health care is a "free good" that government pays for, demand will soar and government costs will soar too. When the public finally reaches its taxing limit, something will have to give on the care and spending side. In a word, care will be rationed by politics."

"Mr. Obama's reply is that private insurance companies already ration, by deciding which treatments are covered and which aren't. However, there's an ocean of difference between coverage decisions made under millions of voluntary private contracts and rationing via government. An Atlantic Ocean, in fact. Virtually every European government with "universal" health care restricts access in one way or another to control costs, and it isn't pretty."

"The British system is most restrictive, using a black-box actuarial formula known as "quality-adjusted life years," or QALYs, that determines who can receive what care. If a treatment isn't deemed to be cost-effective for specific populations, particularly the elderly, the National Health Service simply doesn't pay for it. Even France—which has a mix of public and private medicine—has fixed reimbursement rates since the 1970s and strictly controls the use of specialists and the introduction of new medical technologies such as CT scans and MRIs."

And,

"In Britain, the NHS decides, and under its QALYs [1] metric it generally won't pay more than $22,000 for treatments to extend a life six months."

If you plan on becoming a senior citizen some day, you might want to think about the current form of government insurance: Medicare. Medicare will be pillaged of hundreds of billions of dollars to help pay for the new, government care plan. This is the Obama vision of fixing the health care "problem" that he tries to terrorize the country about: eviscerate the existing plan for your later years.

But the real focus of the statist Left is to seize control of the 17% of the national economy that is available to them through the nationalization of health care. It's the proverbial camel's nose under the tent: the camel cannot be kept out if it gets that far. If he gets nationalized health care, what will Obama's second act be?

Obama has handed over huge corporations to the unions that were choking them to death; now he wants to hand over health care to the Chicago-cronies-now-called-federal-"czars" with which he has infested the U. S. Federal Administration. What part of the economy would he attack next in his war to redistribute wealth and destroy corporations?

It is possible that Obama chose the wrong battle as his first and most visibly desperate. The legions of blue haired retirees just might lead to his defeat, in more ways than one. If he loses out on health care grab, his humiliation might be a serious enough blow to re-open the doors of the congress to more rational heads in '10 and '12.

Go grannies, Go!

[1] For a discussion of QALY's, their calculation and use, go here. QALY's are only one way to calculate the "benefit" part of the cost/benefit decision on rationing and allocating health care. The point is that not only is cost an issue, so is the relative benefit to be obtained. The human value curve published by Obama's advisor Ezekial Emmanuel is another method. When you are evaluated for your potential benefit to society vs. the cost of your treatment, Ezekial has control of your fate. This is, pure and simple, eugenics; anyone who denies that is deceived or deceiving.

Obama as Viewed By Voters....

I suspect that the more he shows his duplicity, the lower his ratings will fall.

He is now attacking insurance companies for fighting his socialism; these would be the same ones that have pledged to make and air commercials FOR ObamaCare this Fall, the same ones that pledged $80 billion to the cause, for indeterminate returns to the industry.

"Demonize the enemy"... Saul Alinsky.

Update, 8-17-09
Obama's rating dropped to 47% as of last Thursday according to Rasmussen's report:

The second week of August turned into one of the toughest yet for the still new Obama Administration. On Thursday, the President's Job Approval ratings fell to a new low at 47% and support for the President's health care reform also fell to its lowest level yet. Just 42% now support the plan working its way through Congress.

Culture of Corruption

If you have been aware enough to shut off the TV and the newspaper subscription, and look for the actual factual news over the past half year, then you are at least aware of the high level of Chicago style corruption that infests the U.S. federal government. But it is hard to assemble a picture of the breadth and depth of the corruption tapestry as a function of the individual players, who are now interwoven into Leftist power.

But Michelle Malkin did assemble that picture. And it is to be found in her #1 selling new release book, Culture of Corruption. This is the Obamacrat story that is a secret only if one depends solely for information on the "mainstream media", that dying fount of leftist propaganda and suppressed news.

The book is comprehensive, almost a reference book, documented to a fair-thee-well. Not sure how the union SEIU fits into national politics, or why its purple shirted goons harass, beat, and follow dissenters home? Not sure what ACORN really is? Not sure what Michelle Obama's past is, or her role today? Not sure how many lobbyists Joe Biden is related to? Not sure why "czars" are needed in Obama's world? (and on, and on...)

Get it. Read it. Pass it on (if you can part with it). You can't have mine, I need it.

Absurdity Bred From Desperation

The Obamacrats are showing signs of stress now that Obama's poll ratings are well below 50% and the populace is in an uproar over the schemes to socialize and spend away the nations wealth and credibility. Such stress produces some truly absurd outputs, some of which are here:

Obama uses the Postal Service as an example to demonstrate why government bureaucracies are not a threat to private enterprise. The Post Office is always the one that has problems, he explained; the private companies are doing just fine. WAIT! Isn’t that just exactly why we don’t want a government run, bureaucratic health care system?


Obama says that seniors won’t lose out in the new government health care plan. Even though some 70% of health care usage is by seniors, and cost cuts have to be made somewhere, they say; and even though the Obamacrats plan for Medicare to be cut by hundreds of billions of dollars. Nothing to worry about there, granny.


Congressperson (D Mich) Debbie Stabenow says she can feel the global warming when she flies. "Climate change is very real," she confessed as she embraced cap and trade's massive tax increase on Michigan industry - at the same time claiming, against all the evidence, that it would not lead to an increase in manufacturing costs or energy prices. "Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I'm flying. The storms are more volatile. We are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes." Stabenow is now on the Senate Energy Committee. Someone should count hurricanes and tornados for her.


Harry Reid confirms that dissenters are “evil mongers”.


And from hotair.com:
“Patterico and Lone Star Times capture yet another banner moment from a town-hall forum hosted by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) . … Roxana Mayer introduces herself as a doctor (a general practitioner for four years) in order to support ObamaCare and Jackson-Lee in a fairly hostile crowd. For her efforts, she gets a big hug from the Congresswoman, an image which the Houston Chronicle featured prominently on their website coverage of the event."

But it turns out that Mayer not only is not a doctor, she was a delegate for Obama, and a lead organizer for Organizing For America in ’08. And it turns out also that the Houston Chronicle knew it, got caught, removed the reference but never issued a correction. According to Saul Alinsky, it’s OK to lie unless you get caught; it’s not OK not to lie if you get the chance. So Mayer and the Chronicle messed up by getting caught lying.

The ACLU is now on My side?

The political spectrum has shifted so far to the uberLeft that the ACLU is now defending people who deserve it.

In Pennsylvania, police arrested a man for using his cell phone to record a video of police having an "interaction" with the man's friend. The police charged the man with "wire tapping". Wire tapping?? The absurdity is palpable. The police claim he was filming the police "without their permission".

The ACLU is stepping into this. According to the Post Gazette,

"The First Amendment guarantees people a right to record police officers' behavior in public places, and this right is vital to documenting and discouraging police misconduct," said Witold Walczak, the state legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

The ACLU is also stepping into the issue of the Fed's use of internet tracking devices to gather information about web users. According to the ACLU website,

"Though this is a major shift in policy, the announcement of this program consists of only a single page from the federal register that contains almost no detail."

“This is a sea change in government privacy policy,” said Michael Macleod-Ball, Acting Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Without explaining this reversal of policy, the OMB is seeking to allow the mass collection of personal information of every user of a federal government website. Until the OMB answers the multitude of questions surrounding this policy shift, we will continue to raise our strenuous objections.”

Homeschooling Results, Again.

Last year I found and published the results of homeschooling as were determined by a large study at Arizona State University. I was responding to a school teacher’s assertion that parents cannot teach satisfactorily unless they are state accredited. He, being a high school science teacher in California, was incensed at the attempts of homeschoolers to get into state universities. Parents can’t teach science was his position.

The Arizona State University study showed that home schooled children outperform government schooled children by a significant margin, in every discipline, including science.

Now another study has been released on the performance of homeschooled students vs. government schooled students. A homeschool organization, HSLDA, released this information:

“Drawing from 15 independent testing services, the Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics included 11,739 homeschooled students from all 50 states who took three well-known tests—California Achievement Test, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, and Stanford Achievement Test for the 2007–08 academic year. The Progress Report is the most comprehensive homeschool academic study ever completed. “


The Results

Overall the study showed significant advances in homeschool academic achievement as well as revealing that issues such as student gender, parents’ education level, and family income had little bearing on the results of homeschooled students.

National Average Percentile Scores
Subtest	Homeschool	Public School
Reading	89	50
Language	84	50
Math	84	50
Science	86	50
Social Studies	84	50
Core(a)	88	50
Composite(b)	86	50

(a) Core is a combination of Reading, Language, and Math.
(b) Composite is a combination of all subtests that the student took on the test.

There was little difference between the results of homeschooled boys and girls on core scores.

Boys—87th percentile
Girls—88th percentile

Household income had little impact on the results of homeschooled students.

$34,999 or less—85th percentile
$35,000–$49,999—86th percentile
$50,000–$69,999—86th percentile
$70,000 or more—89th percentile

The education level of the parents made a noticeable difference, but the homeschooled children of non-college educated parents still scored in the 83rd percentile, which is well above the national average.

Neither parent has a college degree—83rd percentile
One parent has a college degree—86th percentile
Both parents have a college degree—90th percentile

Whether either parent was a certified teacher did not matter.

Certified (i.e., either parent ever certified)—87th percentile
Not certified (i.e., neither parent ever certified)—88th percentile

Parental spending on home education made little difference.

Spent $600 or more on the student—89th percentile
Spent under $600 on the student—86th percentile

The extent of government regulation on homeschoolers did not affect the results.

Low state regulation—87th percentile
Medium state regulation—88th percentile
High state regulation—87th percentile

How The USA Works Right Now.

"You have nothing to fear", Barack Obama with huge grin.

The Obama administration wants your email address if you are a dissenter. And it wants your photo and I.D. if you show up at a tea-party. It has called out the union thugs to put fear into demonstrators. But that’s not all that’s going on.

In Congress, the “Franking Commission” has the ability to censor any congressional outgoing mail of which they don’t approve. Needless to say, the Franking Commission is not staffed by Republicans. The commission is now censoring and preventing the mailing of Republican outgoing mail from congressmen to their constituents, if the mail contains comments not approved by the Democrats. Earlier the release of the health care diagram showing the huge bureaucracy was stopped for a period of time; it was finally released at the end of the pre-vacation period since it was obvious that no bill would be produced during that time.

The Associated Press will start delivering not just news but also works that are provided by certain Leftist propaganda organizations funded by Billionaire activists George Soros, and Herbert and Marion Sandler. According to WND, “The AP announced last month it will allow its subscribers to publish free of charge work by four nonprofit groups, the Center for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, the Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica.” The objectivity of the Associated Press will forever be tainted by this outright bias.

Congress proposes to tax things that make you fat.

The Fund For Public Interest is using craigslist to hire “lobbyists” for Obama’s “progressive plans”. You can make $330 to $550 a week, “…because we know that the challenges we face, from ending our dependence on oil to winning the battle for equal rights, are huge – and the politicians and powerful interests who stupidly and stubbornly resist change aren't calling it quits anytime soon.” It turns out that this is all funded by George Soros.

Obama changes the name of the game. In need of a visible enemy to focus the battle against, Obama has changed the name from “health care reform” to “health insurance reform”. He found out that with “health care reform”, the enemy is the government; but with “health insurance reform” he can redirect the focus to insurance companies, which he assumes that people hate. He repeats health care denial stories as if every insurance company denies every request. He hopes the scare will stick. But the legislation hasn’t changed, just the name.

The little girl that lobbed a marshmallow question to Obama about “people outside saying mean things” was no random child. She is Julia Hall, daughter of Kathleen Manning Hall, a major Obama activist and donor. Julia is one of Obama’s “human props”, which are plants in the audience to set Obama up with soft pitches that he can hit back with predetermined speechlets.

The drug industry has pledged $80 billion to the Obama Health Care Plan to be contributed over the next ten years. In return for Congress capping the “contribution” to $80 billion and no more, the industry will allot $150 million for commercials this Fall in support of the Obama plan. But now many Democrats want to extort even more cash from the drug industry; this is making the industry nervous about its prior agreement to only be blackmailed for the original $80 billion, after having spent the money on the commercials. It is speculated that the industry might also receive its coveted patent reforms, allowing longer possession of ownership of a product, a position previously rejected by the Left. There is more than meets the eye in the new transparency.

I Too Am Kenneth Gladney

(Title cheerfully stolen from Andrew Brietbart)

Obama has called on his followers to double the force, to "punch back twice as hard" which is needed to counter the dissidents that flock to town hall meetings and other congressional public airings. This immediately resulted in the SEIU goons beating at least one dissident, a black man named Kenneth Gladney, who was also called a “nigger” by the goons, an act which usually would be a hate crime. Except now, of course, because Gladney is not one of the anointed, regardless of his protected skin color.

The exploding hatred of the terrorized Left has gone well beyond ratcheting up, it is rising explosively. As Brietbart documents, the Left is now screaming racist rednecks who hate blacks, fascists, swastika carrying, un-American, un-patriotic, insane, and so on. And when a hated female pol chimes in, she is personally attacked with every ounce of vitriol available; no (honest) critique of what she said, just violent vitriolic ad Hominems and distortions. In other words, the viciousness of the Left is rising beyond the surface and taking over their brains.

These are the folks that want you to let them run your health plan, taking your money to do it, along with money they plan to steal from Medicare. These are the folks that want to decide whether you fit the rationing profile or not. These are the folks that didn’t see the housing bubble, the finance bubble, and can’t see anything wrong with giving hundreds of billions to failures, with no oversight or transparency. These are the folks that created and passed class designation legislation making some classes and races privileged by extra protections from being disconcerted.

These are the folks who have paper trails describing their one-world, totalitarian, equal-outcome, elitism. These are the folks who are better than anyone else, the elite ones who make up their own ethical rules for themselves, and another set for the rest of us.

What we are seeing is the barely suppressed vicious side of these folks, because they are fearful of losing what they (nearly) have: total control.

What we will see shortly, I don’t know for certain, but Obama has approved the beating of Kenneth Gladney by his call for force and his lack of condemnation of the force he actually received from his SEIU goons. Obama meant what he said (this time) and what Gladney got was meant for all of us who want freedom over egalitarianism.

In that sense, I too am Kenneth Gladney. And some day I will proudly claim my place on the Obama enemies list.