Friday, August 7, 2009

Ugly news from the Land of the Free

What with the White House demanding that people should snitch on those who are spreading "disinformation" about the President's health care insurance reform (perhaps they can call the list of enemies that Rick Moran is writing about the Pavlik Morozov list after the young pioneer who is supposed to have sent his father and uncle to death during collectivization), serious slander about those who oppose those reforms and reports of violent attacks on peaceful protesters by union thugs, hope and change seems to be acquiring a very ugly face.

More here and here.

11 comments:

  1. Sarah Palin weighs in on the health care debate. To the point, snappy and with a certain political nous: Governor Palin's Statement on the Current Health Care Debate

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  2. I think Obama is going to regret all this. Americans do not like blatant anti-democratic statements, not even from the Thug-in-Chief. http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/2009/08/07/barack-obamas-immaculate-deception/

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  3. As a member of a Ersatzkrankenkasse in Germany for all my life I can say that a healthcare system with two columns Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung (statutory health insurance) and private insurance plans does not neccessarily bring you in front of a death panel. ;-)

    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/34398_Palin-_My_Baby_Will_Have_to_Stand_in_Front_of_Obamas_Death_Panel

    This discussion is soo over the top.

    A 'free market solution' for healthcare , meaning no obligation to contract and no state organized elements at all, obviously implies that people who can't afford it will be depending on charity or will be left to die. A pure free market solution contracts the core principle of the medical profession: To help sick people no matter what.

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  4. Well Harris, I was going to answer you and explain how mistaken you are, but I don't have to. Governor Palin herself has sent you your reading list for the next couple of days, and no sir, little Charles Johnson is not on that list, and nor should he be for any sane persons.

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  5. Well Harris, I was going to answer you and explain how mistaken you are, but I don't have to. Governor Palin herself has sent you your reading list for the next couple of days, and no sir, little Charles Johnson is not on that list, and nor should he be for any sane persons.

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  6. Helen, my guess is that Obama will be able to squeeze the bill through the Congress in a slightly altered form, but that will mean that from November on he will have a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, and no more than a slim majority in the Senate. Remember that the way the Democrats won back the Congress in 2006 was by fielding conservative ("blue dog") Democrats in a lot of the hotly contested constituencies. That won't work in 2010, and in 2012 Obama himself will be forced out on the arena to defend the HCR, the Stimulus package and a lot more. Unless the economy is doing swimmingly by then, I think he will find it very difficult to hang on to a second term.

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  7. He may get something through that is stripped down, but even that may not be possible. I was surprised at how quickly he has collapsed. Voting for this will be political suicide for those from districts carried by McCain. BO is callow and it has become obvious.This man believes his own bullshit.

    The good news? Cap and trade is not likely going anywhere,this year.

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  8. The number of arguments or articles you are referring to does not really matter. Please specify which of my assertions you deem to be wrong.

    But the following link shows in a nutshell how insane and intellectually disingenuous some of the opponents behave:

    http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=16033

    It's about the famous Ezekiel Emanuel’s Lancet Article which is regarded as the smoking gun. In this article Bill Levinson therefore calls the health care bill(!) the Aktion T4 (after a Nazi euthansasia operation). The article ends with "An argument can be made for rationing health care in a disaster situation, when medical resources are simply not available". Levinson concides that under the condition of scarce medical resources decisions have to be made who is treated and who is not. But that's what the Lancet article is all about - as one can see from the headline "Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions" or - hilariously - from the quoted 'smoking gun' paragraph itself: "Allocation of VERY SCARCE medical interventions SUCH AS ORGANS AND VACCINES is a persistent ethical challenge".
    Organs ARE scarce. And vaccines are as well - at least in case of a sudden pandemia. There is little one can do about it. That's the precondition for the discussion in the Lancet article. At least the author of the linked article operates on the intellectual level of a child- or simulates it, what would not be much better.

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  9. The intention of the Obamacare bill is eventually to supplant all private insurance and to have a single payer. That has been stated by numerous Democrats and, occasionally, by Obama himself. So it will not be a parallel system, which, according to you as I don't know the details, works well enough in Germany. Quoting Charles Johnson is silly. However, there are some very good ideas for genuine reform floating around on the Republican side. They would have to include tort reform, which the Obamacare bill does not. One of the biggest problems with healthcare in America is the role of the lawyers and legal actions.

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