Does healthcare here in the US suck? Only if you are on the left...

All of the time you hear from liberals, "Americans overpay for inferior care" etc, etc, but is this true? One of my favorite talk show hosts, Dennis Prager, explores the issue.

If you believe that Americans have lousy health care, it is probably not because you have experienced inferior heath care. It is probably because you were told America has lousy health care.

Last week, major news media featured these headlines:

Reuters: "U.S. scores dead last again in healthcare study"

Los Angeles Times: "U.S. is No. 1 in a key area of healthcare. Guess which one ..."

NPR: "US Spends The Most On Health Care, Yet Gets Least"

The Week: "US health care system: Worst in the world?"

Now let's delve into this widely reported headline as written by Reuters.

For those readers who rely on a headline to get news -- and we all do that sometimes -- the issue is clear: America is rated as having the worst health care "again."

For those who read the first sentence or two, an even more common practice, the Reuters report begins this way: "Americans spend twice as much as residents of other developed countries on healthcare, but get lower quality, less efficiency and have the least equitable system, according to a report released on Wednesday. The United States ranked last when compared to six other countries -- Britain, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, the Commonwealth Fund report found."

For those reading further, the claim of the headline and of the first two sentences is reinforced. The third sentence offers commentary on the study by the head of the group that conducted it: "'As an American it just bothers me that with all of our know-how, all of our wealth, that we are not assuring that people who need healthcare can get it,' Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis told reporters ..."

Only later in the report does the discerning reader have a clue as to how agenda-driven this report and this study are. The otherwise unidentified Karen Davis, president of the never-identified Commonwealth Fund, is quoted as saying how important it was that America pass President Obama's health care bill.

Could it be that Ms. Davis and the Commonwealth are leftwing?

They sure are, though Reuters, which is also on the Left, never lets you know.

Here's how the Commonwealth Fund's 2009 Report from the president begins: "The Commonwealth Fund marshaled its resources this year to produce timely and rigorous work that helped lay the groundwork for the historic Affordable Care Act, signed by President Obama in March 2010."

As for Davis, she served as deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Department of Health and Human Services in the Jimmy Carter administration all four years of the Carter presidency. And in 1993, in speaking to new members of Congress, she advocated a single-payer approach to health care.

I could not find any mainstream news report about this story that identified the politics of Karen Davis or the Commonwealth Fund. If they had, the headlines would have looked something like this:

"Liberal think tank, headed by single-payer advocate, ObamaCare activist, and former Carter official, says America has worst health care"

Conversely, imagine if a conservative think tank had released a study showing that, in general, Americans had the best health care in the world. Two questions: Would the media have reported it? And if they did, would they have neglected to report that the think tank was conservative? The answer is no to both.

In microcosm, we have here four major developments of the last 50 years:

1. The Left dominates the news media in America; and around the world, leftwing media are almost the only news media.

2. The media report most news in the light of their Leftwing values (whether consciously or not).

3. Most people understandably believe what they read, watch or listen to.

4. This is a major reason most people on the Left are on the Left. They have been given a lifetime of leftist perceptions of the world (especially when one includes higher education) and therefore regard what they believe about the world as reality rather than as a leftwing perception of reality.

The same thing happened on a far larger scale in 2000 when the world press reported that the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) ranked America 37th in health care behind such countries as Morocco, Costa Rica, Colombia and Greece.

This WHO assessment was reported throughout the world and regularly cited by leftwing critics of American health care. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, no one other than a few conservatives noted that Cuba was ranked 39th, essentially tied with the United States.

Which means that the WHO report is essentially a fraud. Who in his right mind thinks Americans and Cubans have equivalent levels of health care? For that matter, how many world leaders travel to Greece or Morocco instead of to the United States for health care?

The answer is that WHO doesn't assess health care quality; it assesses health care equality, exactly the way any organization on the Left assesses it. And since the world's and America's news media are on the Left, they report a Leftist bogus assessment of American health care as true.

Imagine this headline around the world: "World Health Organization declares America and Cuba tied in health care."

Of course, only Leftists would believe that. But since non-Leftists would realize how absurd the claim was, that is not what anyone was told. Instead, the world and American media all announced "America rated 37th in health care by World Health Organization."

These two reports illustrate why so many people in America and around the world think America's health care is inferior and why they support movement toward nationalized health care.

But these two reports are only one example of the larger problem -- the world thinking is morally confused because it is informed by the morally confused. How else explain, for example, why America, the greatest force for good among nations, is hated, while China, never a force for good, isn't?

The answer is, unfortunately, simple: Garbage in, garbage out.

Even I'm not this optimistic...

Before I get into yesterday's article in The American Spectator (sorry about no post yesterday, school, twins game, etc) I want to say that for anyone actually reading this in the morning that Karl Rove is coming here to the U to speak about his new book and take questions and such. Be warned, SDS is planning on crashing the party so if you come please bring cameras and video equipment if possible, SDS has a history of turning violent. Anyway here's the article about Obamacare and the Republicans 2010...

The defining moment for the Presidency of Barack Obama came early, in June, 2009. It was one of many health reform extravaganzas to come, this one televised by ABC from the East Room of the White House, a town hall among health care experts and consumers.

Citizen Jane Sturm took the mike to ask how the brave, new world of Obamacare would treat people like her 105-year-old mother. At age 99 her mother's heart specialist confided that without a pacemaker he couldn't keep her alive, but at her advanced age he couldn't justify the operation. Jane sought out another specialist, and when he saw her mother was still very much alive and enjoying life, he agreed to do the operation.

Over five years later, her mother was still living happily with her family as a result of the highly advanced medical technology she received. So Jane, still displaying her own spirited fight for her mother's life, very articulately asked the President if under his vision for health care there would be any consideration given for a certain spirit, or joy of living, or quality of life, in providing medical care for those of advanced age. Or would there just be a cut-off at a certain age.

The President replied that we as a culture and a society have to learn to make better decisions about end of life care. And when the wise, central planning Washington bureaucrats discover the evidence shows the care is not going to improve health, they can let your doctor know, and let your mom know, maybe this is not going to help, maybe you're better off not having the surgery and taking the painkiller and going home.

Jane just told him that without the surgery her mother would be dead, and he responds with a hypothetical that maybe she would be better off taking the painkiller and going home. And President Obama's mind is so hypothetical and so theoretical that he is certain that far off Washington bureaucrats would know from the evidence when she should take the painkiller and go home, and could let her yahoo doctor know.

Moreover, from Jane's perspective, this was not an issue of end of life care. She just told him that after the surgery more than 5 years ago her mother was still very much alive and spirited. But those of us who have been paying attention have learned that President Obama is so certain that he has all the answers that he never really hears what anyone else is saying.

The message from the President to America's sickest and most vulnerable should be the theme for Election 2010, and the message the American people will now send to Washington's ruling Democrats: Take the Painkiller and Go Home.

"I'm a Democrat, but I'm not a Communist"

To see the magnitude of the political tsunami that is coming, you have to think dynamically. The key is not where things stand now, but where they are going, and where they are going to be. Knowing where we have been, and where we are, can certainly help in knowing where we are going. But the key is to think dynamically.

Start with the brutal fact that this is not your father's Democrat party. Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and others have thoroughly documented Obama's radical left roots, from his openly communist father, to his Marxist mother, to the Communist Party's Franklin Marshall Davis who mentored Obama through adolescence, while his parents were off pursuing the cause around the world. Obama's own books disclose that he was drawn to radical left Marxist professors in college and law school. And all of this was before Obama the adult hooked up with 1960s Weatherman bomb thrower Bill Ayres, the anti-American preacher Jeremiah Wright, and the far left radical front group ACORN. This is all well-established public information, as hard as that should be to believe.

As Beck has so rightly asked, if Obama has grown up and changed from this radical foundation, when exactly did that happen? There is nothing in the public record to support such a change.

But Obama is not the only one. Ultraleft San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi, a nice lady whose feet are not firmly planted in the real world, serves as House Speaker. Far Left Henry Waxman, the Congressman from Hollywood, serves as Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Uberliberal Barney Frank, the Congressman from Boston, serves as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Leftover '60s liberal David Obey, a self-described Robert La Follette Progressive from Wisconsin, serves as Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Charley Rangel, the Congressman from Harlem, serves as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. John Conyers, the Congressman from Detroit, with his own past Communist Party ties, serves as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Until recently, ultraliberal Howard Dean from Vermont served as Democrat party national Chairman. Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont, as liberal/left as they come, serves as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Even these folks are not left enough for Vermont, with the other Senator being openly socialist Bernie Sanders.

In the Democrat party of the past, Southern conservatives were the longest serving members of Congress, heading all the Committees as a result, where they sharply restrained the Left in the '60s and '70s. But today the former Southern conservative Democrats have mostly been replaced by Republicans, and it is the northern urban ultraliberals who are the longest serving, and now head all the committees.

This ugly and dangerous reality is what moved one recent talk radio caller to proclaim, "I'm a Democrat, but I'm not a Communist." The left-wing extremism of the currently ruling Democrat party is one huge dark cloud on the horizon indicating the coming political tsunami. Treating grassroots voters who question that left-wing extremism with disdain and name-calling is only further gathering the storm.

Calculated Deception

The American people never voted for such a radical left takeover of America. Barack Obama ran on a net spending cut at the federal level, a tax cut for 95% of Americans, a promise of a new era of post-partisan political peace, and a pledge to sweet talk Iran out of "unacceptable" nuclear weapons. Obama was greatly aided by the history of Bill Clinton, who after 1994 mostly just went along with the Gingrich Congressional majority Republicans, resulting in solidly conservative economic, defense and foreign policies. Many voters were consequently deluded into thinking Obama and the Democrats would just be a reprise of Bill Clinton and the 1990s. But what should be brutally obvious by now is that Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton, and those analysts who think he may be on the same political trajectory as Clinton are badly deluded as well.

The Democrats took over the Congress using the "Blue Dog" Democrat trick. In district after district, Democrats ran claiming to be pro-life, Second Amendment, tax and deficit cutting, fiscal conservatives, more Reagan than the Republicans. But all they have done is empowered the above radical left takeover of the Congressional leadership. And when their votes were necessary to pass the radical left agenda, such as with the socialized medicine bill, or the unjustifiable cap and tax House bill, just enough of them voted for it to pass, with the rest still trying to maintain their cover. Even enough of those supposedly "pro-life" Democrats in the end sold out on abortion in the health care bill to the ruling left-wing party leadership.

The Blue Dog Democrat scam was aided by the above-noted history of Democrat Congresses run by Southern conservative committee chairmen. Too many voters thought as a result that the Democrats could be trusted with majority congressional control again.

Winning power through such consistent, thorough deception, the Democrats have no mandate for their left-wing extremism, and are just further angering and rousing voters as a result. That is another huge dark cloud indicating the coming political tsunami.

Choosing Decline for America

Another defining, revealing moment for President Obama also came early in his presidency, in April, 2009. Responding to a question about American exceptionalism, President Obama said, "I believe in American exceptionalism just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." Translation: America is just another country, there is nothing special about it. Again just the opposite of Reagan's vision of America as a shining city on a hill, which is, in fact, our history going back to the first colonists.

President Obama's economic, domestic, defense and foreign policies all bear out this fundamental attitude, choosing decline for America to just another country among many, nothing special. The annual deficits under the Republicans have now become the monthly deficits under the current ruling left-wing Democrats. The deficit under the last budget adopted by Republican Congressional majorities was $161 billion. The deficit for this year is now projected at $1.6 trillion. CBO projects that under President Obama's budget the national debt will quadruple from 2008 to 2020, to $20.3 trillion, threatening the status of the dollar as the world's reserve currency, and America's AAA bond rating.

Putting the government in charge of our health care with 100 new bureaucracies, boards, commissions and programs will trash a fundamental component of America's high standard of living, the best, most advanced, cutting edge health care in the world. Democrat energy and cap and tax policies will further decimate the economy and jobs with unreliable supplies of high cost energy, while further reducing America's standard of living with high electricity and gas prices. Americans will be forced out of their big, beautiful, powerful cars into the rolling sardine cans of their European inferiors.

President Obama builds his secular socialist machine, as Newt Gingrich calls it in his new book, To Save America, increasing dependency throughout American society with new entitlement giveaways and a one-third increase in welfare spending in his first two years alone. Total government welfare spending is now projected to be $10.3 trillion over the next 10 years.

President Obama is combating the threat of Iranian nukes with American nuclear disarmament, under a shocking policy that our nukes are just as unacceptable. He lets our nukes age without the essential modernization that the Russians and Chinese are already pursuing. Meanwhile, he is slashing America's missile defense, canceling the F-22 fighter jet that guarantees American air superiority, reducing the B-2 bomber fleet, retiring the Tomahawk cruise missile, and cutting the U.S. Navy to half Reagan's level.

An Equal and Opposite Reaction

The American people are not going to sit idly by watching left-wing extremists turn America into just another country, like socialist, broke Greece. That is why yesterday's Rasmussen generic Congressional poll already shows Republicans with a 10 point lead over Democrats. In 1994, the Republicans did not pull definitively ahead of the Democrats in that poll until the fall, and their lead was never half that large. Moreover, the intensity factor among voters trending Republican is already far more fierce than it was in 1994.

Democrat favorability in the latest Gallup poll has fallen to 41%, the lowest in the 18 year history of that measure. The Pew poll has it at 38%. Even the CBS/New York Times poll shows disapproval of Congress, with its huge Democrat majorities, at 73%, with only 17% approving. President Obama's favorability has fallen below 50%.

The emerging issues in this election cycle will cut even further for the Republicans. Under the guise of his deficit commission, President Obama threatens to blow away his promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year with a new, European, Value Added Tax (VAT) raising taxes on precisely those workers to their highest level ever. On health care, Republicans will be offering popular Patient Power reforms increasing the power and control of working people over their own health care, the polar opposite of President Obama's Government Power forced through Congress by hook and crook.

With 57% already saying gas prices are hurting them, as those prices climb over $3 per gallon this summer the public will favor even more the pro-production policies of Republicans over the pie-in-the-sky Democrat wind and solar fantasies on government funded life support.

The emerging careful politics of the Tea Party movement will further help Republicans. Tea Party activists have wisely decided not to divide the vote with a third party. Instead, they are supporting the particular candidates that best reflect their views. This is drawing Democrats as well as independents into supporting mostly Republican candidates, while decimating RINOs.

The one factor saving Democrats is that the economy will enjoy a cyclical recovery this year, a slingshot effect naturally resulting after the severity of the downturn. But this recovery is now long overdue, well over 2 years after the recession started, when the average recession since World War II has been 10 months, and the longest has been 16. Moreover, given how severe the recession was, real growth should rebound at 6% to 8% this year, but it will be only half that, about where it was in 1994, leaving unemployment over 9% this fall.

The coming political tsunami is so strong that this recovery will only save Democrats from the punishing, 1932-style, 100-seat loss they would otherwise suffer. But I predict that the Republicans will still gain control of the House and at least come close in the Senate. It could be worse, though, if any of the disaster vulnerabilities discussed below come to pass before November.

What is overlooked is the broader effects this will have. If the 2010 defeat is punishing enough, the Democrat monolith will be broken. Some Congressional Democrats will change parties, others will start to vote with Republicans on key issues, particularly taxes, spending, energy, and defense. The resulting effective majorities could be veto proof.

A Free Market New Deal

Even worse are the vulnerabilities for Democrats after 2010 when the effects of their extremist policies really take hold. The Iranians will then get their nukes, perhaps with a disconcerting, surprise nuclear test. If they attack Israel, either with the conventional Scud missiles they are smuggling to Hezbollah, or worse, Democrat political fortunes will further nosedive. I predict military adventurism by the Russians, if not the Chinese as well, greatly embarrassing Obama foreign policies.

Interest rates will likely rise next year, sharply raising interest costs for our overgrown national debt. The weakness of other paper currencies is propping up the dollar, but I predict the emergence of worldwide inflation after 2010 as a result, which could lead to the replacement of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. That means further declines in the American standard of living.

The Obama/Democrat tax increases will greatly slow economic growth, likely with another recession. If cap and tax passes, or the EPA is not stopped, this will be far worse. In this environment, unemployment will turn back up rather than down. The Democrat party cannot survive this.

The only hope for President Obama is the quite possible Republican takeover of Congress this year. That will give him the opportunity to confuse the issues somewhat, blaming the results of his policies on them. Political wrangling with Congressional Republicans could also help him.

But because President Obama in truth is a hardened left-wing ideologue, as shown by his background, I predict he will not be able to successfully triangulate the Republican Congressional majorities as Clinton did. Rather, given all the vulnerabilities, and projecting where the trends are going and where they will be, I predict that he will not even be on the ballot in 2012. Either he himself will recognize he can't win, like Lyndon Johnson in 1968, or the Democrat party will.

But the Democrat party will break down in the process of replacing him, leading to a smashing Republican victory. With Democrats defending 24 of 32 Senate seats up in 2012, the Republicans will have their own filibuster-proof majority by 2013. The result will be an opportunity for a Republican New Deal, a remaking of the welfare state into the empowerment society, resulting in a much smaller government, and much greater long-term prosperity.

I don't agree with all these assumptions but as a conservative it is truly a dream scenario

Wow, way to go Doc!

This picture below is real and I hope it starts a trend here in America frankly... (this is in Orlando and I think it might even be in Alan Grayson's district)

Here is the article from the Orlando Sentinel, this is sure to hit the national media by later today (Drudge and DK have already picked it up)

MOUNT DORA — A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care "elsewhere."

"I'm not turning anybody away — that would be unethical," Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it."

The sign reads: "If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years."

Estella Chatman, 67, of Eustis, whose daughter snapped a photo of the typewritten sign, sent the picture to U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, the Orlando Democrat who riled Republicans last year when he characterized the GOP's idea of health care as, "If you get sick, America … Die quickly."

Chatman said she heard about the sign from a friend referred to Cassell after his physician recently died. She said her friend did not want to speak to a reporter but was dismayed by Cassell's sign.

"He's going to find another doctor," she said.

Cassell may be walking a thin line between his right to free speech and his professional obligation, said William Allen, professor of bioethics, law and medical professionalism at the University of Florida's College of Medicine.

Allen said doctors cannot refuse patients on the basis of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or disability, but political preference is not one of the legally protected categories specified in civil-rights law. By insisting he does not quiz his patients about their politics and has not turned away patients based on their vote, the doctor is "trying to hold onto the nub of his ethical obligation," Allen said.

"But this is pushing the limit," he said.

Cassell, who has practiced medicine in GOP-dominated Lake County since 1988, said he doesn't quiz his patients about their politics, but he also won't hide his disdain for the bill Obama signed and the lawmakers who passed it.

In his waiting room, Cassell also has provided his patients with photocopies of a health-care timeline produced by Republican leaders that outlines "major provisions" in the health-care package. The doctor put a sign above the stack of copies that reads: "This is what the morons in Washington have done to your health care. Take one, read it and vote out anyone who voted for it."

Cassell, whose lawyer wife, Leslie Campione, has declared herself a Republican candidate for Lake County commissioner, said three patients have complained, but most have been "overwhelmingly supportive" of his position.

"They know it's not good for them," he said.

Cassell, who previously served as chief of surgery at Florida Hospital Waterman in Tavares, said a patient's politics would not affect his care for them, although he said he would prefer not to treat people who support the president.

"I can at least make a point," he said.

The notice on Cassell's office door could cause some patients to question his judgment or fret about the care they might receive if they don't share his political views, Allen said. He said doctors are wise to avoid public expressions that can affect the physician-patient relationship.

Erin VanSickle, spokeswoman for the Florida Medical Association, would not comment specifically.

But she noted in an e-mail to the Sentinel that "physicians are extended the same rights to free speech as every other citizen in the United States."

The outspoken Grayson described Cassell's sign as "ridiculous."

"I'm disgusted," he said. "Maybe he thinks the Hippocratic Oath says, ‘Do no good.' If this is the face of the right wing in America, it's the face of cruelty. … Why don't they change the name of the Republican Party to the Sore Loser Party?"

Now as I have mentioned before you can tell a lot from the readers of said article by the comments left, here are some left on the Orland Sentinel website

Anybody who thinks doctors get rich off of medicare patients is an idiot. The Mayo Clinic REFUSES to see medicare patients after losing $840 million in ONE YEAR. Just good doctors refuse medicare patients and you will be enlightened.

All of my doctors feel the same way. 500,000 doctors told Obama that his policies would hurt the patients and doctors............actually the whole industry. I wouldn't want a doctor who thought that anything in this Bill had anything to do with health care much less reform. Any doctor who thinks it's good (a) didn't read the bill (b) is a blind sheepie following their Messiah (c) is a crappy doctor who can't make it without someone else's help. That to me is very scary. Thank goodness I don't have any doctors who voted for or support this bill.

When 46 percent of the doctors say they will quit accepting medicade/medicare and/or quit, there is a problem. This bill is based on lies. AMA only has a membership of 17% of the doctors. 45,000 do not die b/c they have no insurance. Everyone gets treatment unless they chose not to. The list goes on and on.

I SUPPORT THIS DOCTOR AND HIS RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH AND HIS OWN PRACTICE.

Why can't the liberals accept the fact that this health care legislation is not welcomed by the physicians? I find the arguments they make self serving and hypocritical. If the shoe were on the other foot they'd scream bloody murder!

The politicians who voted for this bill haven't got a clue what the long term consequences are going to be. However, while they have voted to approve this bill and impose it on Americans they have not included themselves under this health care plan. What does that tell you?

I applaud this doctor for exericising his freedom of speech. After all he has rights too.

Now some DailyKos comments, see if you notice a difference...

did you read the comments on the orlando sentinel site? more than half of the 500-odd posters support him. what a bunch of fucktards.

He'll probably get a whole new group of wingnut customers.
But, what the fuck? He can't be that good a doctor anyway.
Let him practice his quack medicine on fat teabaggers (I'm sure he'll still cash their medicare checks).

I'm convinced that these rethugs and doctors etc that don't want to serve or care for Obama supporters are fundamentally racists. Now before you say that everything cannot be about race, I assure you that if Obama was white, like Clinton, who was hated by the rethugs, this wouldn't be an issue. They cannot get past the "black guy in the White House" and this is a core value of their inner belief system. As an American, (and white) this sickens me. As a healthcare professional, I'd say this should be a violation of his oath and license to practice medicine.

HOW can this be allowed? Can't he be reported? If he put up a sign that said minorities or Jews go elsewhere, I am sure he would be in deep doo doo.
He is putting up a sign that says Democrats should go elsewhere...this can't be legal and it is CERTAINLY not ethical.

Doesn' the medical board have rules against this crap?

I know for a fact that if he said NO REPUBLICANS allowed, McCollum would sue his ass.

Liberal tolerance at its best, ha.

Obama trouble...

I haven't read newsweek consistantly since about probably 2003 when my parents stopped their subscription to it. At first I was mad but as I read more and more of their online articles I realized how left they had become, almost to the point where they are shameless about it (last year they proclaimed "Were all socialists now" about a month before the tea parties, so um good call on that one guys) which makes this column by Howard Fineman (Obama shill) that much more amazing. I will also be posting some bright, and not so bright, comments that are at the bottom of the article. I have found that you can learn a lot about a writer online by the kind of comments he/she elicits from online readers.

The Numbers Don't Lie
Howard Fineman
A Democratic senator I can't name, who reluctantly voted for the health-care bill out of loyalty to his party and his admiration for Barack Obama, privately complained to me that the measure was political folly, in part because of the way it goes into effect: some taxes first, most benefits later, and rate hikes by insurance companies in between.
Besides that, this Democrat said, people who already have coverage will feel threatened and resentful about helping to cover the uninsured—an emotion they will sanitize for the polltakers into a concern about federal spending and debt.
On the day the president signed into law the "fix-it" addendum to the massive health-care measure, two new polls show just how fearful and skeptical Americans are about the entire enterprise. If the numbers stay where they are—and it's not clear why they will change much between now and November—then the Democrats really are in danger of colossal losses at the polls.
I say this even though I was one of those who always said that Obama would get a bill passed—and that, politically, he personally had no choice but to get it done if he wanted to have a successful presidency. But his reputation as a can-do guy was purchased at a very high political cost.
The first week of salesmanship by the Democrats and the president hasn't done any good. According to the new Rasmussen poll, only 41 percent of Americans think the law is "good for the country," compared with 50 percent who see it as "bad for the country." Last week the ratio was 41–49 percent. Sixty percent think the measure is "likely to increase the deficit"—also a figure unchanged from last week.
Some polling experts suggest Rasmussen's "house effect" tilts slightly conservative. But if you don't want to take Scott Rasmussen's word for it, you're not going to get much solace from Gallup, still the biggest brand in the business.
In Gallup's new poll, Americans by narrow margins agree that the new health-care law will improve coverage (44–40 percent) and the "overall health of Americans" (40–35 percent). In a way, it's astonishing that sizable minorities could disagree with those two statements, since everyone agrees the law will provide medical coverage to 32 million more Americans.
But that's where support, however ambivalent, ends. Americans think the law will harm the U.S. economy (44–34 percent), the overall quality of health care in the U.S. (55–29 percent), and the federal balance sheet (61–23 percent).
It's almost as bad when you ask voters how the law will affect them personally. There is lots of doubt and some considerable belief (or hope) that the new law won't affect them at all. But respondents who said the measure would affect them generally fear what that change would be. They think the measure would adversely affect "the health-care coverage you and your family receive" (34–24 percent); "the quality of health care you and your family receive" (35–21 percent); and the "costs you and your family pay for health care: (50–21 percent).
I know that the president and his advisers want to "pivot" to other topics—economic development, jobs, energy, and foreign policy. They're content, for now, to focus on solidifying their Democratic base. I'm sure that Obama, who plays a deep and patient game, figures that the country—including independents, who won it for him in 2008—will eventually come back, at least by 2012.
But he's dug himself a partisan hole with this big bill, and it'll be interesting to see him try to dig his way out.

Now for the fun, interesting and funny (and sometimes dumb) comments I have highlighted

intelligent one:
Reading between the lines here,it would be my guess that when Mr.Fineman expected his "can do" guy to get the Bill passed, he hadn't considered that he would torpedo his own presidency and turn his party into roadkill to do it. Actually Obama's signature achievement has not been this toxic mess that the anonymous Democrat voted for out of "admiration", but rather that he has reminded the American public why it required Ross Perot to put a Democrat into the Oval office after Jimmy Carter embarrassed himself in the place so badly.Not even its Copperhead tendencies during the Civil War managed to kill this party, but Obama probably has. An outstanding legacy indeed and one that can only inure to the benefit of our Country

To be fair this is unusual for any column, this is probably in the top 1% to 5% of posts put up. This person clearly knows what they are talking about

This next one I swear to GOD I did not make up, because I couldn't. This is almost too perfect and very laughable and sad and infuriating all at the same time

The numbers may not lie, but quite frankly I blame those pole results on the ignorance of the general public who, when asked, don't really have a clue about health care issues in general and know even less about what's in the bill. Hell, half of those I talk to don't even understand how their own insurance works!! But, they continue to form uneducated opinions without knowledge or facts. They run on hype supplied by conservatives, all republicans since they have banded together to form a do nothing party and way too many in the media!
Feed the country the facts only and if any of the doom and gloom does turn into a fact - then and only then, should you feel free to hype it up! You know this bill is only the beginning. It had to get done!

Ok, first off pole results?!? BHAHAHAHAHA really?!!!!! Leaving that fact aside this comment sums up the left and its view of the American people perfectly. The plan isn't wrong its the people who don't understand it, you people are too dumb to think for yourselves and we know whats best for you. If one Democrat ran on this platform I would be happy because at least that would be truthful.

Everyone get a grip...

For basically the last 24 hours I have went through a range of emotions, including a not so well advised lashing out at anti-israeli protesters on campus (let's just say they caught me on the wrong day) but if anything my life experience has taught me that since I had a mental meltdown about 5 years ago, is that I have the unusual ability to step back and collect my thoughts and rationalize what is happening after a "disaster". This was key for me when Obama got elected in 2008 and last night with the health care vote, of course part of this was due to the fact I had prepared myself for it happening since it did look likely. But I see facebook status' of my friends that really fucking annoy me. This is not "the end of our republic" or the "end of democracy" or the constitution if it was that dire believe me I would be out there in the streets doing whatever I needed to save this constitution and republic. But folks it isn't over. There are elections coming in 7 1/2 months and more importantly there are chances for you to still give your "representative" of Congress or the Senate an earful if they voted for it and words of encouragement if they were brave enough to stand up against it. There is time to protest on April 15th, July 4th, Sept. 12th, and hell any day you want to take a sign out saying that this is not what you want or how you want this country run. It is NOT OVER PEOPLE. If you really believe this is it for our country and there is no hope left get the fuck out of here and don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. Leave or stand for and fight for the ideals that made this country great. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the ability to succeed or fail, the ability to say almost anything you want to no matter how stupid or offensive it may be, the ability to be generally free which, despite what those out there may say, is still true. Buck up people, we have some ass-kicking to do and now is not the time for defeatists or crybabys. Stand up and BE HEARD! This is a once in a generation chance to crush the progressives and make their party that they have taken over as relevant as the whigs are in today's politics. Get out there folks and reclaim our American Exceptionalism!

The most popular Republican in the country (right now)

Dan Benishek's rise from no one to legitimate House candidate has begun thanks to Bart Stupak's cave in earlier today to Obama. I wonder what kid of deal his district or state got in this bill. To give you an idea on how fast moving things are in this blog crazy world Benishek doesn't even have a FUCKING CAMPAIGN SITE UP YET. He has a facebook page with an exponential amount of growing fans (it grew over 200 from beginning this article). I will update you on his, and others progress as we aim to take back the house this fall.

Here is a letter he sent to supporters telling a little bit about himself.

Hi, I am Dan Benishek. I am running for U.S. Congress in Michigan’s 1st District and would like your support.

I was born in Iron River, Michigan. My mother was of Polish descent and my father of Bohemian descent. My father worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps and then in the iron mines of Iron County. He died in a mining accident in 1957 and my brother and I were raised by my mother, with the help of family. I graduated from West Iron County High School in 1970. I earned a B.S. in Biology from the University of Michigan in 1974 and graduated from Wayne State Medical School in 1978. I have served as a general surgeon in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula since 1983. My wife Judy and I live in Crystal Falls. We share five children and two grandchildren. I am an avid hunter and fisherman and an NRA member.

I have never held political office but I feel compelled to seek a position at this time because of disturbing developments in our nation’s capitol. I have watched with horror and disbelief as congress has voted to spend trillions of dollars on legislation that no one even read. I very much want to serve my country and the citizens of the 1st District and to provide better representation and leadership on important issues such as:

· Job Creation. Our best hope lies within the private, not public, sector. In particular, we need to support small business, which creates the bulk of new jobs. Government should step aside and let the free market work by reducing burdensome regulation and taxation.

· Fiscal Responsibility. Government is out of control and is squandering our children’s future! I say no to more government bail-outs, business takeovers, and growing entitlements. It is time to make drastic cuts in spending, balance our budget, stop printing money and start paying down our ballooning national debt.

· Lower Taxes. I believe that a government which governs least is a government which governs best. We need a government of the people, by the people and for the people. We need to reduce oppressive taxation and allow individual citizens to keep and invest more of their hard-earned money. We need to shrink the size and scope of our government to be in line with that envisioned by our founding fathers.

· Secure Borders. Immigration must be legal and regulated and our borders must be secure. Uncontrolled access to our country increases entitlement expenses, decreases available jobs and renders us vulnerable to terrorists who want to destroy us.

· Health Care. America has the best health care system in the world – a system which needs fine-tuning but definitely not a government take-over! We need to focus on free market reforms which will increase competition and decrease costs. A good place to start would be to allow health care insurance to be tax deductible, portable and sold across state lines. Additionally, we must pass tort reform to rein in skyrocketing costs associated with frivolous medical law suits.

· Energy Independence. Radical environmentalism has rendered energy development next to impossible. While we must be good stewards of the earth, God gave us this earth and all its resources for our needs. America has huge coal, natural gas and oil reserves. We need to responsibly tap into these reserves and stop relying on other nations to supply our energy. In addition, we need to vigorously expand our use of nuclear power as a safe, clean and efficient source of energy.

· National Defense. It is a primary responsibility of our federal government to provide a strong national defense to protect our nation, our liberty and our ideals. We should honor and respect our armed services and veterans, not undermine their strength and dignity. Additionally, we must aggressively pursue the war on terror and we must try prisoners of war in military tribunals, not as citizens in our civilian courts.

· Second Amendment. I believe in the individual’s right to self defense. The right to bear arms secures other rights such as freedom of speech, freedom to assemble and freedom to practice religion. If we allow disarmament of our citizens, we render our nation vulnerable to tyranny.

· Right to Life. I believe in the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Paramount is life. From conception to death, all human life must be considered sacred and must be protected.

If you believe in personal responsibility and limited government, please support me in my effort to change the status quo in Washington and return responsible representation to the 1st District of Michigan. If you feel powerless as you watch our government take your hard earned money and spend it foolishly, choose me. If you want an honest, hard working congressman who will answer your letters and phone calls, choose me.

As a surgeon, I have 30 years experience dealing with and solving serious problems. I don't have all the answers to our nation’s problems but I will enthusiastically apply my skills and work with you to find them! Let us start here and work together to return our government to the people. Join my campaign and stand as a citizen of our great republic with your vote for me.

Sincerely,
Dan Benishek


***Sorry there's no online contributions site availiable yet. Please send any contributions to
Benishek for Congress
802 Pentoga Trail
Crystal Falls, MI 49920

Send him to Congress MI-01!!!!

Do they have the votes to pass Obamacare?

well if you are to believe the New York Times, no. The vote right now is 211-208-12 with 216 being the magic number. 11 out of the 12 left undecided according to the NYT were yes votes before but 11 out of the 12 also only voted yes because of the Stupak amendment not allowing for federal funds for abortions which is not in the current bill that is going to be voted on tonight (maybe). The thing is Stupak has said all along that he has 10-12 democrats with him that are pro-lifers who will vote no. The democrats are calling their bluff because Pelosi doesn't think that there are that many. Bad news, the dems only need to peel off 5 of the remaining 12 while Boehner needs to hold on to 8, at least. Tonight is going to be very interesting indeed.

Obama: Possibly destroying the democratic party?

I like reading the Daily Beast because it offers intelligent perspectives from both the left and the right.Peter Bienart's column today basically argues that the health care reform Obama is pushing today will forever change the democratic party. Throughout the 2008 election I was yelling on the rooftops that Obama was totally misrepresenting himself as a reasonable centrist. Because if he had campaigned on what he actually believed in and voted for McCain would have clobbered him. I give him credit though because he hoodwinked the american people hook line and sinker. Of course it helped that the media didn't do any real investigation about how radical he was and his beliefs were. There is an old chinese (I beleive) proverb that states "You can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps" and Obama kept some very radical company; Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers to name a couple, but back to the article. Bienart states that with signing on to this legislation he has eliminated blue dog dems and centrist dems who still believe this is a center-right country (which it is). They do this at their own peril because I personally believe that this could lead to a third party fracture. The fiscally conservative/socially liberal dems have no place in this party and they may do what the Tea party people might do to the Republicans. In 15-20 years there could be 4-5 parties that have a legitmate shot at the White House which will make things much more interesting. And frankly I think it would be great for this government. Only time will tell though. But Obama has made it clear, there is no room for moderates in his party anymore.

Finally someone willing to say it...

I have been yelling at the TV for the past 8 months usually whenever Obama comes on and says something obviously false. Either that or I start laughing. I've learned to laugh more and I continue to be amazed that 54% of the voting public in 2008 voted for this loser. From Reason.com

Here’s how predictable the president’s slippery relationship with the truth has become: Hours before the State of the Union address, Washington Examiner reporter Timothy P. Carney posted a “pre-emptive fact check” that, among other things, prebutted any presidential claim to have “stopped the revolving door between government and corporate lobbying.” As it happened, that night Barack Obama made an even bolder (read: less truthful) claim: that “we’ve excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs.”

In fact, more than 40 former lobbyists work in the administration, including such policy makers as Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn (who was lobbying for Raytheon as recently as 2008), Office of the First Lady Director of Policy and Projects Jocelyn Frye (National Partnership for Women and Families), White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Muñoz (National Council of La Raza), and Treasury Secretary Chief of Staff Mark Patterson (Goldman Sachs).

When Carney confronted a White House spokeswoman with the falsehood, she conceded nothing. “As the President said,” she wrote, “we have turned away lobbyists for many, many positions.” Just not all of them.

As such defiance suggests, this was no isolated slip of the tongue. The president, who promised in both word and style to usher in a “new era” of Washington “responsibility,” routinely says things that aren’t true and supports initiatives that break campaign promises. When called on it, he mostly keeps digging. And when obliged to explain why American voters are turning so sharply away from his party and his policies, Obama pins the blame not on his own deviations from verity but on his failure to “explain” things “more clearly to the American people.”

Take the issue he has explained more than any other: health care. In the State of the Union address, Obama claimed that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had estimated that “our approach” to health care reform “would bring down the deficit by as much as $1 trillion over the next two decades.” This is, strictly speaking, not true. The Democrats’ “approach” to health care reform includes a permanent change to the Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors, colloquially known as the “doc fix.” The CBO estimated that the doc fix, when combined with the health care reform legislative package, actually “would increase the budget deficit in 2019 by $23 billion relative to current law, an increment that would grow in subsequent years.” This is why House Democrats stripped out the doc fix from the health care bill, and passed it separately; it made the CBO scores look bad, making it harder for the president to present bogus claims about deficit neutrality.

That bit of mendacity only scratches the surface of how Congress and the administration gamed the system to produce nice-looking numbers. The CBO, by its own rules, has to take Congress at its word when a piece of legislation promises unspecified future “cuts” in spending, even though an overwhelming majority of promised future cuts never come to pass (a fact that the CBO itself has repeatedly warned in supplementary comments). The Senate promised more than $300 billion in such cuts. Furthermore, the CBO scores bills in 10-year windows. So the Senate delayed more than 99 percent of the reform package’s spending until 2014, thus allowing the decade of 2010–2019 to clock in under the magic $1 trillion number. Add to all that chicanery the fact that every major health care entitlement expansion in U.S. history has vastly exceeded initial cost projections, and you have ample reasons for why Americans believed, by a margin of more than 3 to 1, that health care reform would exacerbate rather than improve the deficit.

Even when addressing black-and-white examples of broken promises —such as his vow to televise each and every bit of health care legislative negotiations on C-SPAN—Obama can’t quite resist the temptation to plead gray. When confronted directly on the broken C-SPAN pledge during a January meeting with GOP lawmakers, the president said: “Look, the truth of the matter is that if you look at the health care process—just over the course of the year—overwhelmingly the majority of it actually was on C-SPAN, because it was taking place in congressional hearings in which you guys were participating.”

Presidential defiance, dissembling, and disinformation are nothing new, even if such political perennials are more disappointing coming from someone who still boasts (as he did in the State of the Union address) of “telling hard truths” to the American people and “doing what’s best for the next generation.” Voters pretty much knew that Bill Clinton was a slime ball when they sent him to the White House; Barack Obama held out the promise of being more dignified.

The difference between these two most recent Democratic presidents, substantial to begin with (especially in the crucial area of economic policy), may come into sharper relief in 2010. Clinton’s reptilian relationship with the truth, suffused as it always has been with a catch-me-if-you-can sense of personal preservation, actually turned out to have some uses for the nation when he changed course after the 1994 Republican revolution and began co-opting some of the limited-government policies proposed by his opponents. It’s easier for a chameleon to change his spots.

Obama’s dishonesty, by contrast, seems to spring from a different place. As a man who has spent most of his career wowing people with his words and very little of it converting those words into deeds, he has an activist’s gap between rhetoric and reality and a radio broadcaster’s promiscuous carelessness with cutting rhetorical corners. Sure, it’s not technically true that the administration’s day-one lobbying reforms served “to get rid of the influence of…special interests,” as he claimed in a January radio address (to the contrary: federal lobbying in 2009 set an all-time record), but it’s easy to imagine that the president feels his combination of tighter employment restrictions for ex-lobbyists and stricter disclosure requirements for current ones is, in the context of the Manichean fight between “the people” and “special interests,” good enough for government work. The perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good, and the critics who complain are just opportunistic literalists grasping for any club to beat back the march of progress. No need to give them an inch.

But there’s a less charitable explanation too. During the president’s nonstop gabfests before, during, and after the State of the Union speech, he kept repeating the fiction that the medical industry’s “special interests” were significantly to blame for scotching his health care legislation. In fact, the administration and Congress negotiated with those interests every step of the way, receiving crucial buy-in and millions in campaign contributions. Pro-reform lobbyists outspent anti-reform lobbyists on advertising by a factor of 5 to 1. There’s a three-letter word for blaming the defeat of his bill on health care lobbyists, and it rhymes with pie.

And yet it smacks of something worse still. When a politician cannot fathom opposition to his policies except as the manifestation of wicked manipulation by bad guys, remediable only by more thorough “explanations” from the good guys, it indicates an unseemly paternalism. And if he cannot take the hint that Bush-Obama bailout-and-spend economics are deeply and increasingly unpopular, that indicates something immovable about his core economic ideology. With those two factors as backdrop, it’s hard to say which would be worse: if the president didn’t really believe what he said, or if he did.

Ouchies