Tag Archives: Canada

Paul Ryan explains why Republicans are doing what they promised to do

Rep. Paul Ryan - GOP Ideas Man
Rep. Paul Ryan - GOP Ideas Man

Here’s the video from The Blog Prof.

Paul Ryan is going to do it because he said he would do it.

If you would like to understand what consumer-driven health care is, read this post from the Heritage Foundation.

Excerpt:

If policymakers are serious about real patient-centered, consumer-driven health care reform, they should ensure that their legislative proposals embody six key principles:

  • Individuals are the key decision makers in the health care system. This would be a major departure from conventional third-party pay­ment arrangements that dominate today’s health care financing in both the public and the private sectors. In a normal market based on personal choice and free-market competition, consumers drive the system.
  • Individuals buy and own their own health insurance coverage. In a normal market, when individuals exchange money for a good or service, they acquire a property right in that good or ser­vice, but in today’s system, individuals and families rarely have property rights in their health insur­ance coverage. The policy is owned and controlled by a third party, either their employers or govern­ment officials. In a reformed system, individuals would own their health insurance, just as they own virtually every other type of insurance in virtually every other sector of the economy.
  • Individuals choose their own health insur­ance coverage. Individuals, not employers or government officials, would choose the health care coverage and level of coverage that they think best. In a normal market, the primacy of consumer choice is the rule, not the exception.
  • Individuals have a wide range of coverage choices. Suppliers of medical goods and ser­vices, including health plans, could freely enter and exit the health care market.
  • Prices are transparent. As in a normal market, individuals as consumers would actually know the prices of the health insurance plan or the medical goods and services that they are buying. This would help them to compare the value that they receive for their money.
  • Individuals have the periodic opportunity to change health coverage. In a consumer-driven health insurance market, individuals would have the ability to pick a new health plan on predict­able terms. They would not be locked into past decisions and deprived of the opportunity to make future choices.

And if you’re looking for a nice short podcast on consumer-driven health care, go right here.

If you want a book on this, you can get Regina Hertzlinger’s book (interview here), although I read it, and I found it filled with too many case studies and stories and not enough policy analysis.

UPDATE:

More Paul Ryan: (H/T Hyscience)

And some Michele Bachmann: (H/T Gateway Pundit)

And the House votes to repeal Obamacare, with 3 Democrats joining the Republicans, and no Republicans joining the Democrats.

Related posts

Somalian woman lied to get asylum and $417,000 of welfare benefits

Story from the UK Daily Mail.

Excerpt:

Abdulle, who also used the fake name Amina Muse and is from Somalia, was living in Gothenburg when the authorities insisted immigrants learn Swedish if they wanted to continue to claim handouts.

She told a friend she couldn’t be bothered and moved to England where she knew it would be far easier to collect benefits.

She made up a story to gain asylum and gave herself and five of her six children false names and dates of birth, fraudulently claiming benefits on both the real and invented identities.

And she somehow managed to continue claiming benefits in Sweden for three years after leaving.

Abdulle was born in Mogadishu in 1969 but moved to Sweden in 1994.

Her friend Hodan Abdullahi Egal, who lives in Gothenburg, said yesterday: ‘Ayan liked life here. She never worked, just took things easy and spent her time meeting up with old friends from Mogadishu.

‘But she couldn’t be bothered to learn another language. Instead she decided to move to England.

‘She said it was the land of easy money. She was convinced she would have no problems there because the system there made it far easier to collect money without proper checks.’

Abdulle arrived in London in 2004 with her first five children, now aged eight to 17, and her husband Raghe Adan, and claimed asylum under the name Amina Ali Muse.

In her application, she said militiamen had targeted her home in Somalia on December 1, 1998, shooting her brothers dead.

She claimed she had been gang raped while three months pregnant, leading to a miscarriage, and that her niece had been raped, tortured and beaten.

In fact, on that date Abdulle had been in Sweden giving birth to a daughter.

Between June 2004 and May 2010, Abdulle, who was living in Neasden, North-West London, claimed £261,358.14 in handouts.

The cash came from almost every welfare benefit possible, including income support, disability living allowance, carers’ allowance, jobseekers’ allowance, housing benefit, council tax benefit, tax credits and child benefit.

[…]Abdulle… cannot be deported after finishing her sentence because she was granted British citizenship in 2009.

I wonder how welfare laws like this get passed? Oh I know – people vote for left-wingers who are “compassionate” so they can redistribute the money they collect from high-earning productive taxpayers and business owners. That way, the do-gooders in government feel superior, the people who vote for higher tax rates feel superior, and the people who receive working people’s money feel superior. Everybody wins! Everybody!

Giving money to the government is good! We should do more of that so that we can all feel like we are nice people! When I tell people that I vote for “compassion”, they like me! And that’s what voting is for! Feelings! Social acceptance! It’s not like my company needed the money – they would just wasted it on giving people jobs to make stuff. And it’s not like I needed the money – I would just waste it getting married. Much better for deserving poor people who are down on their luck through no fault of their own to get it.

In compassionate Canada, you can marry several people over the phone and collect welfare for each of them. Now that’s compassion that we can all feel good about!

Off-duty policeman murders five Christians in Egypt

Yahoo News has the story.

Excerpt:

An off-duty policeman boarded a train and opened fire on Tuesday, killing a 71-year-old Christian man and wounding his wife and four others, the Interior Ministry said. The attack, less than two weeks after the suicide bombing of a church killed 21, sparked new demonstrations by enraged Christians who pelted police with stones in southern Egypt.

The church attack on worshippers leaving a New Year’s Mass in the Mediterranean port of Alexandria touched off three days of riots and demonstrations by furious Christians who criticized the government for failing to protect them and vented over what they see as persistent discrimination.

All of the casualties in the latest attack were Christians — four of them women — raising concerns it will ignite a new wave of protests by a community still traumatized by the suicide bombing.

[…]The ministry statement identified the policeman as Amer Ashour Abdel-Zaher, a 23-year-old Muslim, and said he boarded the Cairo-bound train at the town of Samalout in Minya province and opened fire on the passengers with a handgun.

This is actually happening a lot recently. The article continues:

In January 2010, gunmen opened fire on worshippers leaving a Coptic Christmas Eve church service in southern Egypt, killing six Christians and a Muslim guard.

Many Christians charge that the authorities are not doing enough to protect them and in fact allege some members of the security services turn a blind eye to anti-Christian incidents.

Do you know who isn’t afraid to side with Egyptian Christians against terrorists? Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada.

Excerpt:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper participated in a round table discussion on security with Coptic Christian leaders.

A deadly suicide bombing in Egypt on New Year’s Day claimed the lives of some 21 worshippers.

And nearly 100 people were wounded in the attack as they left a midnight mass at an Alexandria church.

Harper condemned the attacks, saying the international community must stay vigilant against such violence against Coptic Christians.

Harper met with several priests at the Church Of the Virgin Mary and St. Athanasius in Mississauga Thursday.

He says he wants Coptic Christians in Canada to know the country stands behind their right to safely practice their faith.

Harper is a member of the Conservative Party of Canada. The conservatives in Canada are actually pretty outspoken about the plight of Coptic Christians.