by Dacia Nichol We've all had enough of the debate already, wouldn't you say so? "Trudge along" is still the order of the day unfortunately. While yours truly would love to just pick a side, one cannot merely dismiss the chaos and inherent lack of logic found in both arguments. If polls mean anything to you, it seems the country is not in the mood for a few things: 1) more debt; 2) more government; 3) the partisan attitude of Congress; or 4) socialized medicine. Unfortunately for Democrats this health care bill, lovingly coined "Obamacare", appears to contain all four elements. After the administration threw us some bread crumbs suggesting socialized medicine could be removed, they had to come quickly back around with a dust buster to clean up after the backlash. A couple of backlashes actually - one from the hard left demanding that socialized medicine was not an option open for discussion (this one even had Jon Stewart questioning Barry's testicular fortitude), and the other one claiming that the public option was such a huge part of Obama's campaign platform, that turning back on the promise to push for one was a sign of shortage in political capital. Thus far, the administration has been bombarded with unsolicited advice from every nook and cranny in the literary world. Every study presented has had zillions of anecdotal evidence and stories brought to counter against it. Lists upon lists have been drafted to offer solutions....some even of the familiar "12-step" variety. From the looks of it, one might conclude that this phenomenon could be useful for the White House, meaning they can rest well knowing that yes, the American people DO want health care reform. Er...health "insurance" reform rather? Or whatever...we'll see what the winds bring tomorrow. That being said, we'll move onto the topic of who is most evil in this debate. First, let's start by acknowledging the bipartisan conclusion that health care needs fixing. Second, let's define what exactly we agree on: 1. Health care costs are outrageous; 2. Insurance companies are profit ventures and conduct business as such - even at the expense of human life. 3. Medicare is an implosion waiting to happen; 4. The poor and middle class are the most vulnerable and under-served in the health industry; 5. Things like transparency, a good doctor-patient relationship, coverage for pre-existing conditions, and portable care are highly desirable features; and 6. Tort law is out of control. In sum, we all want health care to cost less, be more accessible to individuals, and have lots of choices like our doctors, our hospitals, and our coverage options. So what's getting lost in translation? The role of government. This entire debate is winding down to the fundamental differences between the parties - big government vs. small government. Here's the other kicker - instead of reaching for compromise, both parties have fallen back to semi-yellow-journalism tactics (sensationalist journalism dating back to the pre-Revolution days). Democrats - "We can't do nothing - nothing isn't an option! If we don't do this now, people will die! It's all the evil insurance companies' fault!" Republicans - "If this plan goes through, government will take over your lives! They'll ration your care! They'll decide who lives and who dies!" Democrats point to long lines at medical clinics in poor neighborhoods with countless video testimonials to justify their points. Republicans point to the histories of any and all countries with similar systems to what is proposed as examples of the failure of the social medicine side of the bill. Their claims also come with complimentary video footage. Question - with all the advice and proposals and ideas circulating around America, with public support for reform high, but support for this reform in its current state low, why aren't the necessary nips, tucks, and alterations being made? The Republicans have decided to take the approach of being stalwarts. Apparently, Obama is not doing so hot in the "bringing people together" promise, and that means he's built himself a loyal opposition. Not good news when you're trying to overhaul a major system in the country that will affect every single American...oh and most Americans don't identify with your party either. In fact, a new Gallup poll says that Vermont, Hawaii, and Massachusetts would be your only solid supports in the end. The Democrats aren't taking a very "group-hug" approach either. Some want to drop the public option for the sake the country for the time being, but others - far louder than the compromise crowd - demand that no concessions shall be had, and want the bill pushed through regardless of its popularity. The "we won" mentality still runs strong, but now it also appears to be tainted with the acknowledgment that political winds do change and a rush job is needed to preserve the social justice they live, breathe, and would die for. Well...at least they act like they would. Then there's the president himself. Strangely, he continues to stay in campaign mode, generating more questions than answers with each appearance in the public forum. It's not the questions - some of them have been phenomenal. It's the overall candy coated shell slick smooth talk that still doesn't give the hint as to whether we're talking peanut, plain, or crunchy. In another stroke of irony - one of the only things we all agree on in this country about health care also happens to be the one thing Obama is not interested in addressing: tort reform. Further, Democrats are trying to marginalize anything and everything Republicans object to with the argument "Republicans have no alternative". Except they do. And demanding that the minority party devise an entire plan of their own that they know has no chance of passing is just an avoidance strategy - avoiding the debate that is. See, the idea behind a president who campaigned on being "bipartisan" and "reaching across the aisle" kind of centered on the notion that you know...you'd include the opposition party in whatever it is you're doing. Sure, politics-as-usual wouldn't find any of this current fiasco surprising, but that's the downside of having promised to get past all that in exchange for a new beginning if elected. We all must have forgot about the reasons why we don't get along to begin with, for they are certainly on display now. So - who's most evil? It wouldn't be accurate to paint Republicans in any kind of saintly light, but they are there, with ideas, now using stalling measures in response to being shut out (or so it seems). If the health situation really is as dire as Democrats claim it to be, they'll agree to gamble pulling the public option, reducing costs by working with Republican ideas, have sweeping reform, then hope that the cost of health insurance will have lowered so significantly, there is no longer a need for a federal health insurance option. Or perhaps the public would be open to a much smaller price tag on a public option after said reform takes place? No…apparently the public option is a sticking point not worth sacrificing for all the poor that are being used as pawns in their quest for socialization of our country. Verdict: Democrats. 1 Comment Denial of Service (Obamakare in the UK?) 08/14/2009
by Harrison Price I found this to be a rather disturbing article from England about their National Health Service and the rationing of care. Let me share just a few points from this article: Tens of thousands with chronic back pain will be forced to live in agony after a decision to slash the number of painkilling injections issued on the NHS, doctors have warned. The Government’s drug rationing watchdog says “therapeutic” injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known. Instead the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy. So when the state decides what is “acceptable” care for its citizens, those taxpayers, who shell out their income to “participate” in socialized medicine are denied the care they need they have to spend what little money they have left over to buy their own care: Specialists fear tens of thousands of people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as £500 each for private treatment. The NHS currently issues more than 60,000 treatments of steroid injections every year. NICE said in its guidance it wants to cut this to just 3,000 treatments a year, a move which would save the NHS £33 million. The article continues with more “great” news for victims of socialized medicine: The NICE guidelines admit that evidence was limited for many back pain treatments, including those it recommended. Where scientific proof was lacking, advice was instead taken from its expert group. But specialists are furious that while the group included practitioners of alternative therapies, there was no one with expertise in conventional pain relief medicine to argue against a decision to significantly restrict its use. He said: “The consequences of the NICE decision will be devastating for thousands of patients. It will mean more people on opiates, which are addictive, and kill 2,000 a year. It will mean more people having spinal surgery, which is incredibly risky, and has a 50 per cent failure rate.” What President Obama wants to do is to give us a similar system. For those who say this is a lie spread to instill “fear” into people here is Obama saying it in his own words: What we are now seeing in England we could very well see in the U.S. The article finishes: “It was horrendous, I was spending hours lying on the sofa, or in bed, I couldn’t spend a whole evening out. I was referred to a specialist, who decided to give me a set of injections. The difference was tremendous”, Within days, she was able to return to her old life, gardening, caring for her husband Herbert, and enjoying social occasions. “I just felt fabulous – almost immediately, there was not a twinge. I only had an injection every two years, but it really has transformed my life; if I couldn’t have them I would be in despair”. I know what some of you might be saying… “Isn’t our healthcare rationed now under private insurance policies?” The answer is “yes” certain procedures and treatments are not covered however take a look at these facts: • Survival rates in the U.S. for common cancers are higher, and in some cases much higher, than in Europe and Canada. • Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed nations and spend less time waiting for care than Canadians and Britons. • Americans have more access to new medical technologies than Canadians and United Kingdom residents, and are responsible for most health care innovations. • Americans are more satisfied with their care than their counterparts in nations with socialized medicine.  by Dacia Nichol This debate has whittled down to a point that Administration 44 needs to just acknowledge already: Americans do want health reform, but they don't want a government option. Even Barry's state media forces (formally known as the mainstream media) are coming out with polls and research articles acknowledging this. Further, they're even dissecting the healthcare industry as a whole, coming up with savings options, major problems which need to be addressed such as tort law atrocities, and their results essentially give Congress a nice road map to a successful reform bill. The Democrat response? Push harder. Make demands. Throw around radical vocabulary to describe the opposition. The will of the people is being misled by "fishy" media outlets, not common sense or rational thought. Senator Jim DeMint said what we're all thinking - "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." Barry obviously called DeMint out on it because he knows it's true. Now, from the spirit of boredom and aggravation with this round and round again debate (GOP presents facts, issues, concerns - Obama repeats himself minus whatever language was causing controversy...still no "how", just vague ideas about "what"), this author would like to approach this health care thing from another angle - getting to the bottom of the "entitlement" mentality. So...this nation has lived a life of certain excess in recent years. Advances in our sciences tell us that mixing a high-cholesterol diet with a desk job is not a good idea. One donut is okay, but a box is ridiculous. A "Quarter Pounder" is fine on occasion, but a "Third Pounder" has more calories than the average person needs in an entire day (I know - they're required to post the calories on the menus here in NYC to "protect" the consumer...still fast food is pulling in record profits...). On the flip side, induced vomiting strains your heart, starving will kill you, and single-food diets deprive you of necessary nutrition, spiraling all sorts of deficiency problems. Whatever. Eat what you want. It's your choice, your freedom, your personal peril. Whoa now...what do you mean you want me to pay for your cholesterol meds? AND your Viagra?? Hold it right there Kimosabe - I smell bull$hit. People want to screw up their lives and have someone else pay to fix it? I'm confused...where else in our lives does this logic apply? - When you're in an at-fault car accident, who pays for the damage? (Don't look my way) - When you drop out of college because you're failing, who's responsible for your student loans? (Not me) - When you lose your driver's license, who pays for the replacement? (Nope) - When you break your glasses, who pays to fix them? (No way) - When your cat starts spraying the house, who pays to neuter him? (Oh hell no) In an additional stroke of irony, when you get sick from things that aren't lifestyle driven such as a cold or flu virus, who pays for the over-the-counter meds to help you make it through? That's right - unless you end up hospitalized, you can just take your happy self to the drugstore on your own tab. Given the above, where is this entitlement mentality coming from? Perhaps it's been slowly seeping in disguised with "consumer and worker protection" labels. Consider the following (BIG Bill Nye the Science Guy fan as a kid): - Why do we have unions? - Why do we have the FDA? - Why do we have tort law? The whole idea behind all three of these concepts is that there is an existing evil which people need to be protected from. FDR's "New Deal" was essentially based on this idea - all of his programs were crafted with the idea of reducing the "harshness" of American life which had increased exponentially during the first part of his reign. So what did that lead to? An expectation that the government would protect the people not just from enemies abroad, but also from enemies within the framework of the force behind our prosperity - capitalism. While some regulation is good, and part of the "necessary evil" behind limited government, the overall mood of the New Deal opened the doors to a very dangerous idea: I am not responsible for my own choices. And thus began the manifestation of the entitlement disease. It took a couple of generations, but the notion that the government is responsible for saving you when you've made a bad choice took hold and spread. Once this mentality was fully implanted in the American mind, it began to swell and infest all aspects of our lives...leading to program after program that started with the the best of intentions and ended with slop and greed. Interesting enough, the times where the citizen is held responsible tends to be the times when they really weren't at fault. You've all heard about the lady spilling hot coffee on her lap and suing McD's. Maybe you've also heard about a burglar injuring himself upon breaking and entering and subsequently suing the family for his injuries. There's a reason we call ourselves a "lawsuit happy nation". How about the woman who spills her drink in a retail store, slips on it, and sues? Do you think these lawsuits would be possible without a government fostering the idea behind is - that you're not responsible for your actions, someone else is? When a judge can try to sue a dry cleaning company for millions after losing his pants, are we shocked that tort law has driven medical insurance through the roof? Does that roll into the outrageous cost of health care? You better believe it. More babble on this another time... Medical Opinions On "Obamacare" 07/28/2009
Medical Opinions by Dacia Nichol This Health Care Thing Cannot Work Under Barry's Agenda. Just Ask The Original Liberals In Mass! 07/16/2009
by Dacia Nichols  Click to enlarge So yeah...what does this say on the national scale? Well, you'll have to have a look at where this budget deficit came from - the economy. Tax revenues in Massachusetts are down $2.7 billion...they received stimulus money to help and still have this deficit. They've already cut the $1 billion dollars marked for lottery and the $342 million for "additional assistance"...whatever that is (their definition is a little abstract to say the least), so maybe we can acknowledge that they're at least trying to appear more fiscally responsible. You go boys! Er...and girls! Instead of sitting here however and giving Dacia Nichol's analysis of the Massachusetts budget, we'll just summarize quickly how this carries over as a lesson in what our national government is attempting. [Apologies in advance for the redundancy...] The economy stinks. The CBO has attached a very high price tag on health care. The Dems have proposed to tax the rich more (again, shocker), and stick the rest to your employer and health care provider. Oh, and it's going to be an entitlement as well, and we all know how well entitlement programs work out... The Dems have also come up with a nifty energy tax in the name of environmental such and such...except it will do nothing but line the pockets of our friends in the oil industry along with their creative masterminds with their additional profiteering ventures. Anything else we can do to kill the economy and cost more jobs? Give 'em time...Stimulus 3.0 and Amnesty are right around the corner folks. Again...back to the point. See, Massachusetts is having a problem because the economy has done two things to tank their plans: 1) Decreased tax revenue through less investment and spending; and 2) Brought unemployment numbers that have added hundreds of thousands to the state health insurance rosters. So what happens when we make less money but spend more? We come out with liberal economic solutions. When Congressional Democrats crunch their numbers, we come out smiling and give them a thumbs up. When we look again, and more importantly, give them to a non-partisan reviewer, the Democrats come out with their math deficiency, or rather, optimistic view of the atomic economic bomb surrounding them that they seem to be blind to. Add in a time crunch by Mr. Prez and a threat to delay summer vacation by Her Highness's sidekick Harry, well...taxpayers, it's time to bend over and close your eyes. Seriously. Massachusetts is the one state that we (and the term "we" is used very lightly) had as validation of any universal coverage argument, and look at what they've done to their own baby. If health care is so important that we the people must pay for everyone regardless of our feelings on the matter, how is it that the Massachusetts liberals cannot even sacrifice enough to make it happen? Does anyone see foul play? In the land of Harvard, MIT, and Boston University...and the money that stinks up the place...is there not a big enough donation bin to help out those immigrants to which they want to grant full amnesty and have single party rule? Time for the liberty lifeguard to save America from bad ideas - starting with public health care. 06/15/2009
by Dacia Nichol |   Recent Posts
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