Pajamas Media

42 Comments

1. Vaughn:

Peaceful disobedience! I’m waiting for someone in a leadership position to step forth, and call for citizens to openly abstain from Pelosi’s demands in this bill. If the ‘left’ can flood the system in hopes of a breakdown, so can we conservatives. Flood the courts, with tens of thousands of defiant Americans, who refuse to bend to what appears to be an unconstitutional requirement to purchase goods we do not want.

Nov 7, 2009 - 5:50 am 2. Kazooskibum:

Remember:
The issue isn’t the issue.
The issue is control.

Nov 7, 2009 - 6:18 am 3. Mike Murray:

Blumer isn’t alone in having asserted — vigorously and for some time — that Obama’s attempt to “reform” health care in America is a red herring.

It is instead, as legions of us have noted, about control. Redistribution of health-care services and wealth are only components of a much larger agenda: absolute dominion over Americans’ lives.

Is it socialistic? Kind of. To be sure, it involves “social engineering.” But it goes way beyond that.

See: Socialism (of a sort) http://emmeffemm.com/id172.html

Nov 7, 2009 - 7:01 am 4. tanstaafl:

Zeke the Bleak Emanuel, who believes that “services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”

What a bunch of smug dorks these people are. Do you think that when Zeke The Bleak’s current dementia becomes full blown that he’ll be on board for not getting “health services” ?

Of course not. None of the restrictions this crowd of social engineers/eugenicists wants to impose onto you will ever be imposed onto their own smarmy backsides.

When did any of this even become the business of government ? Oh wait, every regime attempting to impose National Socialism has gone after the domain of “healthcare”, utter control of your personal life, a major aspect of Hitler’s dreams of social engineering.

Was this among your links ? Betsy McCaughey in today’s WSJ.

What the Pelosi Health-Care Bill Really Says

Nov 7, 2009 - 9:03 am 5. DavidN:

I think you’re missing one point. If you imagine that the trust fund babies that run the Democratic party are going to wind up with the same health care as the rest of us, you’re on drugs. It’ll turn out, somehow, that they *need* better care, that waits in Doctor’s offices can’t be as long for them as the rest of us, etc. I suspect that a private health care plan, tailored to their needs and perhaps prohibitively expensive, will survive and flourish. Even if nobody else knows the name Belinda Stronach, trust me, Democratic strategists either know her name or the situation that ended her parliamentary career in Canada (she was diagnosed with breast cancer, was told she’d have to wait for surgery, and flew to California to have the surgery immediately, paying for it herself, and had to resign her seat in Parliament in the aftermath). There’s no way they’re going to subject themselves to something like this, so trust me, they’ll have something up their sleeves. Essentially, this new health care plan will cover *everyone else*. Maybe some ideologue like Dennis Kucinich will actually have insurance with the rest of us. Reid and Pelosi, Obama, Rockefeller, Feinstein, Dodd, etc.,? Don’t be silly…we can do without you, but those people are *important*.

Nov 7, 2009 - 9:14 am 6. Tom Blumer:

#4, my column was written before McCaughey’s WSJ column appeared. Thanks for the link.

Her column confirms what I said about the de facto end of the individual private insurance market — at least the one where companies compete on price, quality and a coverage mix that’s tailored to a person’s and family’s needs and circumstances. What remains won’t be a “market” as normal people understand it. As McCaughey says, there will be one “here it is” plan design with no options beyond size of deductibles and co-pays.

Which, it just occurs to me, will make it really easy for Zeke the Bleak, Kathy Sebelius, and their panels to manipulate coverage to achieve their desired ends. If the government is too broke, which it already is, it will just decide, based on “communitarian” criteria, which procedures will no longer be covered. Such decisions will by fiat apply to everyone’s one-size-fits-all plan.

That’s why the term “death panels” is painfully accurate.

Tom

Nov 7, 2009 - 10:23 am 7. Berlet98:

On a closely related subject: Senator Burris’ Conflict with the Constitution

Democratic Party hack Roland Burris, (D-Il) who got his job as a United States senator as a result of disgraced governor Blago’s greed and because of the color of his skin, made a profound observation on Obamacare’s mandated health insurance.

Sen. Burris, a constitutional ignoramus, “pointed to the part of the Constitution that he says authorizes the federal government ‘to provide for the health, welfare and the defense of the country.’ “

Advised in an October 21st interview with CNS that the word “health” appears nowhere in the Constitution, Bumbling Burris, an over-achiever if there ever was one, blustered, “That’s under the Constitution. We’re not even dealing with any constitutionality here.”

Excuse me?

Burris then rambled on about private options, yada, yada, yada, and resorted to the Democrat default position by dredging up a number constantly in flux: ”We’ve got the 48 million people who are without it. [health insurance]”

Disregarding the fact that his number is baloney . . .

(Read the rest at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1309)

Nov 7, 2009 - 1:31 pm 8. jharp:

So it’s back to rationing, huh?

Newsflash! We already ration. And the rationing talking point died along with the teabagger shout downs in August.

Squirm, losers, squirm. The House is about to pass a serious health reform bill. For the first time since 1965.

Nov 7, 2009 - 3:21 pm 9. myth buster:

jharp, you mistake discontent for squirming. We have a rebellion growing; the Democrats would be wise to defuse it before people start shooting.

Nov 7, 2009 - 6:48 pm 10. Paul M Hupf:

The goal that the President and those around him has been, from the beginning, to make the people of this country dependent on public assistance in one form or another. Such being the case, those holding public office think that they can then hold their seats by simply agreeing when the demands for more are made. The President and his claque do not realize that they will have created an insatiable monster whose appetite for more will grow far beyond their ability to satisfy it. And then chaos will reign.

Nov 7, 2009 - 7:09 pm 11. karlinsync:

This is truly a sad and alful day for Americans if the Pelosi Health plan passes. They call it a historic day and yet all Congress and the President is exempt from the plan. You can be fines or jailed if you do not join a plan laid out by the federal govt. 1900+ pages of…who knows what. They are insane!

Socialism is on the march and the USA is in a destructive mode lead by Democrats!

Nov 7, 2009 - 7:58 pm 12. NCBob:

DEMOCRATS=TRAITORS=COMMUNISTS

Nov 7, 2009 - 8:49 pm 13. Steve:

The House passed the bill. Let’s throw the bums out.

Nov 7, 2009 - 8:51 pm 14. Carol:

We have just entered a period in US history unlike anything we’ve seen before. A sobering night.

Nov 7, 2009 - 9:38 pm 15. Stephen Brady:

Obammunism is here … for a while.

I certainly hope that America doesn’t have to “refresh the tree of liberty”. But as the kids would say, “Whatever.” Whatever needs to be done to end this traitorous regime.

Nov 7, 2009 - 9:43 pm 16. Tim:

How are you people able to conveniently forget the fact that many MILLIONS of American CITIZENS don’t get adequate health insurance.

Forget the illegals.

There are MILLIONS of CITIZENS of this country. OUR FELLOW CITIZENS can’t afford to have health insurance.

You people are so pathetic! And that’s why you are losing!

Nov 7, 2009 - 9:46 pm 17. Delia:

The sneaky-snake DemoSkanks have some bad karma points headed their way.

Nov 7, 2009 - 9:52 pm 18. Jim Baker:

The Democrat party has coddled the communist movement since it first began over 100 years ago. About 40 years ago the communists took control of the Democrat party. Since then, with control of the party apparatus and labor unions, the communists have taken over the education system, the judicial system and all the colleges of journalism. Guilt ridden hollywood has capitulated to the point where they reject the very economic system that they have all used to attain the wealth they have. The richer, the more guilt ridden. Now, with the consent of a public educated population and a lazy media, the communists are wrapping it up. The lemmings who get on these threads and chirp the party line are the enemies of an open society! They do not deserve our attention. They are clueless and complicit in the destruction of our country and they are not even aware of it. They think the world has too much misery and they were taught that only government is big enough to cope with our problems. So, the communists howl and make every problem out to be a crisis that only the government can resolve. They have been taught that even the private ownership of property is too evil to allow. And the communists chirp that government needs to manage all property and save us from the environmental disasters ahead.
And even now, at the eleventh hour of this process, all we seen to be worried about is whether the damned health care bill includes taxpayer funded abortions. Sheesh. You know what they said when they cut the tail off of the monkey. They said, “Well, it won’t be long now”.
Obama and his handlers are all communists, and we have already given up on giving a damn! Citizen government was a failure a long time ago.

Nov 7, 2009 - 9:57 pm 19. ione:

So are all the one issue anti-abortion people happy. You got what you wanted: no abortion coverage in the bill and you gave blue dog democrats cover to pass socialized medicine. Or maybe that is what you wanted. Make fun of the country club Republicans all you want; at least they cared about economics and could care about two or three issues at once.

Sorry, but this was the line for me. I care as much for the already born as the pre-born and watching my country implode is not going to help anyone, born or yet to be born.

Nov 7, 2009 - 9:58 pm 20. Jim Baker:

addendum – Please see the example of #16 above.

Nov 7, 2009 - 10:00 pm 21. ione:

Tim: simple answer to your question, Medicaid or get a job. Grow up!

Nov 7, 2009 - 10:01 pm 22. Lonely:

Having lived for many years in a Third World country, it is quite sad to see the US becoming a Third World banana republic as well, and worse, with the cheer of idiots who believe in the insane utopia of “free health care for everyone”. Yes, and money grows on trees. Twenty or thirty years from now, the USA will not be very different from Mexico.

Nov 7, 2009 - 10:04 pm 23. Rudy:

Tim, Those “Millions who cannot afford adequate health insurance” already get free health care that is better that anywhere else in the world.

If this get passed through we will have permanent 20% unemployment and 90% tax rates.

Nov 7, 2009 - 10:09 pm 24. Albert:

For so many of the people here who are very close to being diagnosed as being a danger to themselves or others, i.e. insane, you will be grateful, I’m sure, when you are able to afford the cost of your lengthly treatment for paranoid psychosis, because of health care reform. As it is now, the loonies here would likely be refused treatment because their paranoia would be considered a precondition, a condition that has posed a serious threat to all who encountered them.

Nov 7, 2009 - 10:45 pm 25. Kipling:

Response to ione @19: Check your facts before you begin spouting off with such idiocy. The last time I checked no social conservative voted for the bill regardless of the abortion issue. Nor did any social conservative state that the inclusion of abortion was the deal breaker. The prohibition against abortion gave political cover to liberal Catholics like Soloman Ortiz, not to social conservatives. Focus on the real enemy before you turn on your allies.

Nov 7, 2009 - 10:48 pm 26. JamesF:

“If this get passed through we will have permanent 20% unemployment and 90% tax rates.”

You have to understand the mentality at work here. People who don’t want to work, take responsibility for themselves and make tough free choices want the government to keep paying unemployment, cheap housing and free healthcare. The fact they have no real choice in what kind of care they get or what housing they live in is secondary to their ability to get it free.

Permanent dependency is easier than freedom. Just don’t let the government take away the x-box too soon though, teachers can keep them stupid but something else has to keep them entertained between elections.

Nov 7, 2009 - 10:58 pm 27. whyamInotsurprised?:

#16 Tim – Pathetic huh? You are a fricking IDIOT!

As Rudy, #23 says correctly, so what if they can’t buy “insurance.” They get healthcare by just walking into an ER. You want to complain about hospitals
shipping the “uninsured” to county hospitals, go ask Michele what gives with
that?

Simply stupid. Awesomely stupid. You know nothing about how things get bought
and paid for in our society. It’s tax payers who foot the bill you fool and they work for a living.

Nov 7, 2009 - 10:59 pm 28. Dred Scott:

Put on your sneakers and start walking precincts!

Nov 7, 2009 - 11:19 pm 29. ione:

Mr. Kipling, with all due respect (and I do mean that) Ms Polose did not have enough votes from democrats until the abortion amendment was added. When it was added she had enough votes. It was the one issue that they knew would cover their behinds with their one issue constuencies. I am sorry but she didn’t have the votes and then she did; and the issue was abortion. Next will be imigration, then what…..tweek, tweek pick off one, by one, an opt out for your district, maybe. And no one cares that we are still talking about socialized medicine that we will never get rid of and cannot pay for. Democrats are looking at big picture Power, period. They will pick off single issues one by one till they have just enough votes in the Senate. doctors, drug companies, insurance companies, unions, … I am sorry but, IMO, this is what I see happening, right before my eyes.

Nov 7, 2009 - 11:43 pm 30. JDS:

Ah, Republican tears.
The greatest renewable resource of energy in the world.

Nov 7, 2009 - 11:53 pm 31. Praetorian:

Tom Blumer think what you want about John Stewart Youl’ll probably say he’s one of those commie pinko freedom hating types) but he takes Betsy and her argument against health care reform apart limb by limb then grinds up what’s left into sausage. The woman is a fraud. But it’s expected for conservatives to drag out the same stinking corpses they used the last time around. Only this time the result will be different.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/08/video_jon_stewart_challenges_b.html

Nov 8, 2009 - 12:05 am 32. Marc Malone:

The abortion issue didn’t allow it to pass. Without that resistance, it would have passed, anyway. Those social conservative Dems would have voted for it, if abortion hadn’t been made an issue. It’s the only thing that held it up.

Also, didn’t Owens from NY-23 say he wouldn’t support it, then as soon as he got to Congress, oh look, he supported it? Another lying Dem. People no longer have any honor. Their word is just no good. We get the kind of government we deserve.

Nov 8, 2009 - 1:20 am 33. kmbr:

**If this get passed through we will have permanent 20% unemployment and 90% tax rates.**

That’s not even a over exaggerating. I live in Sweden. Highest tax rate is nearly 60 percent. The VAT on most good and services is 25 percent. So, thinking about it. Unless you are a low income earner, you very well can be paying 90 percent in taxes on quite a bit of your income.

Another note about Sweden’s FREE healthcare. Consumer prices are out of this world. Everything costs, at least double, many times four or five times as much. Dinner for a family of four out at a casual restaurant is easily $100.

Also–the healthcare doesn’t cover anywhere near everything. No dental over the age of 19. None. No, chiropractic. No physical therapy. Long waits for tests and procedure IF you can get them to order it for you. (big if)..No mental health type stuff. I don’t know about you all, but all of that is currently covered with my insurance plan.

Americans, you have zero idea what you are headed for. The ONLY people who might benefit from this are the chronically unemployed. But, they don’t really allow themselves to benefit from much anyway so it’s a zero sum game. Oh, and maybe the illegal aliens.

Nov 8, 2009 - 2:28 am 34. mishu:

Praetorian, I apparently watched a different clip in that link than what you watched. Stewart did no such thing to what you claim. He made smug comments and funny faces. While it’s very magnanimous of him to say he’s happy to pay more in taxes (a choice he always had), he doesn’t acknowledge the financial strain on those people who aren’t as well off as him that will pay more in taxes. You know, the people who Obama promised won’t pay more in taxes.

Nov 8, 2009 - 3:59 am 35. mishu:

One more thing P. Stewart’s interview doesn’t address *any* of the points in Betsy McCaughey’s points in her WSJ column. Your comment fails.

Nov 8, 2009 - 4:05 am 36. mac:

If this isn’t proof positive that all the Democrats and some of the Republicans are completely insane, I can’t imagine anything more definitive. Passing the largest entitlement in history when the country is almost certainly at its lowest economic ebb since the Revolutionary War is just sheer lunacy.

The only explanation I can find for it is that the Dem pols know THEY and THEIRS won’t have to live with this bill, while the people who really want it don’t pay taxes anyway. Of course, after watching Rangel, Dellums, Tim Geithner, Obama, Pelosi, Reid and most of the other Dems, they actually don’t pay taxes either even though they owe them.

The people who passed this bill don’t have a clue about how real businesses work. Tax receipts have already fallen off a cliff. Be prepared to see them collapse into a black hole and NO jobs, outside of government, be created in the U.S. for twenty years. Wonder why Asia is taking over economic primacy from the West? Look no further than damned stupidity like this bill.

Nov 8, 2009 - 4:15 am 37. Kipling:

Reply to ione @ 29: Let me begin by apologizing for being so abrupt in my previous response to you. Perhaps I misunderstood your post @19. In the original post you seemed to blame social conservatives (comparison to country club Republicans) for the loss because of their objection to the abortion issue. You even referred to them as “one issue” people.

Here is where I think your analysis is flawed.

1. Social conservatives are rarely one issue people. The principles they stand for are much deeper than a simple antagonism to abortion. Without abortion, true social conservative would still not vote for the bill because it violates these larger principles. The Bill opens the door to intrusive government, euthanasia, rationing, etc. All of these violate social conservative principle so just the removal of abortion should give no one the political cover they need to beef up their social conservative credentials at home.

2. Over 51% of the American people now identify themselves as pro-life. Recent polls show around 40% (working from memory here) identify themselves as conservative. That leaves 11 % who are pro-life but do not identify with conservatism. Such a precentage could prove critical in the Democrats narrow margin of victory. Soloman Ortiz, in Texas, represents such a group. He could in no way be called a social conservative or a blue dog. His constituents are liberal but, because of their Catholicism, they are conservative on the abortion issue. His Washington office told me that his vote depended on the abortion issue.

3. The Dems knew they would have to compromise on the issue to gain some votes and had several such proposals waiting in the wings. See National Review Online.

I guess my main point is: Why attack the social conservatives who have supported the Republican Party for years without much in return? We are still with you and have not abandoned the ship so please do not turn your guns on us.

Nov 8, 2009 - 1:15 pm 38. SprocketTheRocket:

It seems that many have bought into an idea that for me, at least, is fundamentally fallacious: government radically reforming healthcare does not lead to more control over my life – it is the government FINALLY becoming more responsive to my life. To claim that people become meeker when they have the government as the insurer instead of a for-profit corporation as the insurer – i.e. more controlled – is to ignore the extremely engaged citizenry of most european countries. French citizens PROTEST their government, fighting for additional healthcare benefits, and the government listens and responds according to their will. Britain, hardly known for sheepish folk, press their claims for benefit reform, and the government responds. There is more evidence for saying that the government becomes MORE responsive to its citizenry when they are responsible for important social benefits. Case in point: although the Hammer, Tom Delay, still clamors for the removal of Social Security and Medicare, most conservatives now act as if they are the great protectors of these essential (socialist) programs. Personally I’m disappointed that the current reform may come out weak as water, leaving the for profit crowd still getting rich off of illness while the “government run option” may be too lethargic to really matter. Let’s go all out and do government run health care just like the VA and retirees have. We’d have a better, leaner, tougher country because of it.

Nov 9, 2009 - 4:11 pm 39. Jim Baker:

addendum #2 – please see the example of #38 above.

Nov 9, 2009 - 8:52 pm 40. Tom Blumer:

#38, the problem is that the citizenry is merely agitating for richer “free” benefits and not for more freedom. Big whoop.

Even AP acknowledged a couple of weeks ago that the profit margins in health insurance are very thin, and the idea that eliminating them would accomplish anything in and of itself is ludicrous.

Nov 9, 2009 - 10:15 pm 41. JOHN:

My company does not offer an health insurance and the insurance cost is $900/month for a family coverage. So I thought of not taking any insurance and for all sickness I will visit emergency. My emergency bill is about $40k already this year and I am not going to pay for it. I know this kind of method makes insuarance cost go up but I don’t care because I cannot afford any insurance. Only if government comes up with a affordable health insurance I will take it otherwise I will keep visiting emergency even for a flu.

Nov 10, 2009 - 7:37 am 42. SprocketTheRocket:

#40. Of course the population isn’t agitating for “more freedom.” They have all the civil and personal protections and liberties we have, plus a few. They are demanding that the government work for them, including the poorest among them, and are holding the government’s feet to the fire. They vote parties in, and if a government doesn’t give close attention to the needs of the citizenry, they vote them out. Calling them agitators when they press the government to focus on the needs of the population seems odd, to say the least.

Nov 10, 2009 - 2:28 pm

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