Tag Archives: Socialism

John Stossel annihilates Michael Moore in ABCNews health care debate

UPDATE: Welcome, readers from Pundit and Pundette! Thanks for the link!

Note: If you prefer to learn about socialized vs consumer-driven health care with podcasts, click here.

ABCNews features libertarian John Stossel explaining what’s wrong with socialized medicine!

Here’s part 4, which contains the showdown with Michael Moore.

Here is the entire show in 6 parts:

Voters laugh when Democrat claims that socialized medicine will save money. (H/T Michelle Malkin, Hot Air)

Meanwhile, Pundit and Pundette wonder why the elderly voted for Obama, especially in view of Obama’s latest slip.

UPDATE: ECM e-mails more John Stossel.

How environmentalist extremism hurts the poorest developing countries

I wrote before about how environmentalists banned DDT in Africa, causing 25-50 million innocent deaths. And I also profiled the murderous views of leading environmentalists, including the radical views of Obama’s pick for Science Czar. The real goal of the secular-left is to equalize life outcomes by controlling the economy, and they don’t care how many poor people have to die in order to get control.

Consider this video from the Competitive Enterprise Institute about Ecuador.

It isn’t businesses that hurt the poorest of the poor in these developing countries, it’s eco-socialists who want to restrict development.

And now let’s take a look at an article that provides more detail.

Understanding Eco-Imperialism

Consider this article by policy analysts Willie Soon and Paul Driessen, in which they argue that environmental extremism hurts developing nations by forcing them to remain in poverty.

Excerpt:

Eco-colonialism keeps Africans “traditional” and “indigenous,” by insisting that modern technologies are harmful and not “sustainable” in Africa.

Abundant, reliable, affordable electricity could power homes, offices, factories, schools and hospitals, create jobs, bring clean running water, and generate health and prosperity. But Rainforest Action Network and other pressure groups oppose coal and natural gas electricity generation on the grounds of climate change, and hydroelectric and nuclear power for other ideological reasons. They promote wind turbines and solar panels that provide electricity unreliably and in amounts too small to meet any but the most rudimentary needs.

Biotechnology could produce bumper crops that overcome droughts, floods, insects, viruses, and even global warming and cooling. But Greenpeace and Sierra Club oppose this precision hybrid-making technology, and instead promote land and labor-intensive subsistence farming.

DDT and insecticides could slash malaria rates that Al Gore and other climate alarmists falsely claim are rising because of global warming. But Pesticide Action Network and other activists stridently oppose their use, and the European Parliament recently imposed new pesticide restrictions that will further restrict African access to life-saving chemicals.

This is important, because a lot of well-meaning, uninformed Christians are taken in by environmentalist rhetoric about saving the planet. We need to do good not just feel good while actually doing harm.

New Lewin study: 83 Million would lose private health coverage under Obamacare

Story from the American Spectator. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Democrats and President Obama have denied that the creation of a new government-run health care plan would be a Trojan Horse for single-payer health care, but a new report by the Lewin Group (comissioned by the Heritage Foundation) finds that the House Democrats’ health care bill would shift more 83.4 million Americans from private health care coverage to the government plan. To put that in perspective, that would mean that nearly half (48.4 percent) would lose their private health coverage. In all, the government plan would have 103.4 million members once implemented, according to the Lewin analysis. President Obama has repeated the mantra that anybody who likes their health insurance plan can keep it, but in reality about 63 percent of covered Americans get their health care through their employers, and if employers decide to drop their current health plans in favor of the government plan, workers won’t have any choice but to sign up.

The reason for the dramatic shift is that the Lewin Group has anticipated that with government setting lower reimbursement rates for doctors, hospitals and other health care providers, the government plan will offer lower premiums than private plans. However, the flip side is that the Congressional Budget Office estimates providers will lose $361.9 billion in revenue over the next decade if the House bill is passed. That will mean lower quality of care, shortages in doctors and hospitals, and/or increased shifting of costs on to those with private health care. Should further cost-shifting occur, it will then in turn erode private health care coverage even more dramatically.

He’s a socialist. He wanted single-payer health care. He wants to control whether you can buy medical services. He wants to confiscate your earned income that you want to use to pay for your prostate cancer treatment, and he wants to spend it on someone else’s elective abortion. Understand?