While opinion polls indicate a growing concern among Americans that their new president has no coherent plan to reverse the nation’s economic woes, and lacks the principled conviction to boldly address crises in Iran, North Korea and the Middle East, still a majority say they love “the idea of an Obama presidency.”
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that 56 percent still of approve of President Barack Obama “as a theoretical concept,” even as support for his handling of the economy and foreign policy has slipped in recent days.
…In an unrelated poll, 79 percent of women said they would “continue to date a hot guy with a great car even if he made me pay his way into the movies and I lived in constant fear that his reckless driving was going to get me killed.”
My God, Scott has talent. If you feel that the people who voted for Obama made a mistake, and you want to make fun of them, this is your article. You will laugh, and then you will cry.
Okay, liberals, I have a radical idea I want to run by you: the Iranian government is bad and worthy of some of your outrage.
Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy. Iran is not a beauty queen speaking out against gay marriage, or Sarah Palin. Why in the world would you want to direct any scorn towards a brutal theocracy seeking nuclear weapons? It’s not obvious, but let me explain.
The second page is even funnier than the first! I wish Frank was still writing “filthy lies” about Glenn Reynolds and his puppy-blending habit. That was really funny! Maybe I should try that. I could write a filthy lie about Richard Dawkins, claiming he’s really a secret Southern Baptist, who just loves to sing praise hymns. I could photoshop some fake evidence of Dawkins with his hands raised and eyes closed in church. I think that would work!
In the face of ABC’s pending Obamanation on health care reform, that’s especially troubling given the tremendous imbalance in ABC’s record of recent political contributions.
None of the four McCain contributors, which includes Elizabeth Hasselbeck, are from journalists at ABC. Meanwhile, approximately 130 ABC employees gave money to Obama. That’s close to a 33 – 1 ratio. Yet, ABC officially announced that they and they alone would manage what questions were asked of Obama about his program, including from the audience.
It strikes me as simply unwise to entrust such a significant portion of the debate around a policy that will impact American lives, potentially forever, to just one organization with such an imbalance in their political views.
An analysis of contributions to the Obama and McCain campaign shows that ABC employees contributed more than $160,000 to the Obama campaign versus less than $5,000 to the McCain campaign.
Apparently, the left-wing New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are re-writing headlines to make Obama look better, despite polls showing that the public is growing increasingly disenchanted with his amateurish bumbling.
Ace writes:
The NYT poll I hadn’t heard of, so I clicked on it. The headline… Obama Poll Sees Doubt on Budget and Health Care
…But the article originally ran with a more interesting headline, as the Rhetorican notes. In Poll, Obama Is Seen as Ineffective on the Economy
…Similarly, the WSJ article on their own poll went from… Rising Doubts Threaten to Overshadow Obama’s Agenda
These video clips feature one of the conservatives I like, Senator Tom Coburn! (H/T Club for Growth)
Tom Coburn is a medical doctor, and ran a medical business. He gives you the inside view of why American health care needs changing, and why big government socialism is not the answer. This is not just a lesson in health care. Listen closely – this is a lesson in economics, and it shows the vision of free-market capitalism, liberty and personal responsibility that drives the policies of the right-wing.
Part 1:
Part 2:
And here is Ronald Reagan talking about the loss of liberty that follows when a country adopts socialized medicine. (H/T Club for Growth)
This is the easiest way to learn about health care policy.
Note: If you prefer to learn about socialized vs consumer-driven health care with podcasts, click here.
More details from a think tank
Here is a comprehensive treatment of the problems of health care today, and the right way to reform it. This article by the founder of the Heritage Foundation, Edwin Feulner, Ph.D., is so long that it is exactly the kind of thing that lefties like commenter Jerry won’t have the patience to read! This is the best thing to read in this post if you can only read one thing.
Here is are some of the myths he corrects:
If you like your health care package you can keep it
“…a public plan will lead many employers to drop private health coverage for their workers and dump them into the public plan… According to independent analyses, as many as 119 million Americans could end up in a public plan….”
The end goal is not a single payer system
“…The “single payer” here is Uncle Sam, using taxpayers’ money, and not just paying the bills but calling the shots and deciding what care every American will get—or not get….”
The end goal is not a single payer system
“…Congress’s own watchdog–have issued preliminary estimates that the cost could be high as $2 trillion over 10 years, with most of that borrowed money…”
The quality of your health care will get better
“…Medicare has huge gaps in coverage. Medicaid’s quality is notoriously bad. They both offer substandard care compared to most private insurance plans…”
And of course his letter also gives conservative solutions to the problem of rising health care costs. The Heritage Foundation is my favorite think tank. Conservative across the board – not just on fiscal issues.
James Demint
And conservatives like James Demint are getting this message out to the public, too.
Sen. James Demint
Here is Senator Demint’s article in Forbes magazine. He answers the question: “What is the cause of our current health care problems? Is it the free market? Or is it government intervention into the free market?”
Excerpt:
…Washington politicians make it hard for individuals to own their own health insurance policies. Government gives tax benefits to businesses to provide group health plans to employees, but offers no such tax benefit to individuals who try to buy their own plan for themselves or their family. Government prevents consumers from shopping for better plans across state lines, which limits competition and drives up prices. Government health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid pay doctors and hospitals less than the full value of their services, and the difference gets priced into the higher premiums paid by people who do have insurance.
In other words, politicians deliberately restrict consumer choice, drive up prices, underpay doctors and hinder both access and portability. Then they turn around, blame the free market for the health care crisis and say the only way to save the system is a government takeover of health insurance in the form of a so-called “public option.”
And he’s goes on to explain conservative solutions to the problem of rising health care costs. A great article from one of my favorite conservatives.
The real costs of Obama’s plan
Keith Hennessey has an analysis of the costs of Obama’s new government-controlled, rationed health care plan. You may have heard that the CBO has issued an estimate about the costs of Obama’s plan: 1 Trilliion over 10 years. Keith says that the number is actually closer to 1.3 trillion.
Health care subsidies over 6 years
Keith took at closer look at the CBO’s 1 Trillion estimate, which includes only ONE area where money will need to be spent (subsidies for the poor). He found that many items in the Democrats’ health care bill were not included in the CBO estimate!
Excerpt:
The budgetary effects of neither the individual mandate nor the employer mandate are included in this score. I think CBO will find these provisions would raise revenues for the government and reduce the deficit. While the leaked draft of Kennedy-Dodd was specific about the employer mandate, the official version has just the placeholder language, “Policy under discussion.” Both mandates leave wide discretion for the Secretaries of Treasury and HHS to create a level and structure of taxation “to accomplish the goal of enhancing participation in qualifying coverage.” It is extremely difficult for CBO and their tax counterparts, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) staff, to estimate something like this.
The estimate does not include the budgetary cost of expanding Medicaid to childless adults with income below 150% of the poverty line. I expect that this will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the cost over the next decade.
It does not include the requirement that health plans define “children” as dependents up to age 27. I expect this will raise costs.
It does not include the effects of the Medical Advisory Council’s ability to define benefits, or the requirements that plans rebate premiums to the insured. I think this too will raise costs.
It does not include the budget effect of having a “public plan option.”
There are a bunch of other programs in the bill, including a new disability program and lots of new public health programs.
Keith will be posting more articles on his blog as he calculates the real costs of Obama’s plan.
Obama thinks that you are more satisfied with the service at your local DMV than you are with Amazon.com. And he plans to make sure that you are dealing with government bureaucrats, not with private businesses, when you need health care. Who gives you better service? The government, that isn’t trying to compete with anyone to meet your needs? Or private businesses, which do need to compete to earn your business?
Further study
You can watch some videos containing horror stories from countries that have adopted single-payer health care, too.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
