Why I generally don't read or listen to political viewpoints opposing mine :
I formerly held the same views arrived at by the same manner of thinking so I'm already familiar with the faulty logic.
Everyone with whom I'm on speaking terms, is liberal. Therefore in any political discussion I get involved, which is admittedly rare since I do try to avoid them, all I hear are leftist arguments.
There are only so many hours in a day and there's much intelligent commentary to digest, so there's little time left for extraneous inanities.
I'm irritated seeing deeply flawed liberal viewpoints appearing in mass media - a forum they don't deserve.
Conservative observers keep current with liberal commentary and often refer to it in theirs. They read it so I don't have to.
The MSM is so ubiquitous, there's no escaping leftist viewpoints anyway. CNN in airports is one example. Another is Weather Channel blather about "climate change". Yet another is Yahoo News which appears on my home page.
A digression - Since Obamacare passed, Yahoo, initiating its electoral campaign for Democratic members of Congress who voted for the bill, has been headlining its benefits. Conspicuously absent have been any headlines trumpeting the recent revelation of one of the bill's hidden unpleasantries - the rescission of the tax break for corporate retiree prescription plans. (Remember Ms. Pelosi saying we have to pass the bill to find out what's in it? We're finding out.) The potential results of this provision? Lower corporate earnings, writeoffs, lost jobs, increased premiums and retirees' loss of their prescription benefits (or if over 65, being shoved into Medicare. Not exactly a cost effective development). It took exactly one day for bad stuff to start happening. The MSM hasn't noticed.
(For a lucid and entertaining explanation of that one noxious Obamacare provision, as well as a typically scathing assessment of the bill's total noxiousness, see the Mark Steyn (NRO) column linked below).
Anyway back to the topic - why I avoid leftist commentary.
A final reason - Reading (or listening) to these compels me to respond, which I do occasionally in this blog. And the time and labor involved can be quite substantial. (I obssessed over a lengthy response to an op-ed written by George McGovern appearing in the WSJ last year. The effort was necessary in order to thoroughly counter all of his distortions, misconceptions and bad advice).
I should have heeded my self-imposed censorship. In the letters section of the WSJ Friday (3/26), mixed in with sensible critiques of the Obamacare bill were three voicing support. And, I read them. Now I'm driven to respond. First, I'll reproduce two of the letters which are similarly themed.
In response to your March 22 editorial "The Doctors of the House":
Americans will soon realize the important benefits of the health-care reform package. Insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. They won't be able to cancel anyone's health insurance when the policy holder gets sick. They won't be able to impose lifetime and annual caps on benefits.
Democrats made these things happen, without a single Republican vote, and they are bringing health insurance to tens of millions more Americans. Republicans fought these basic, common-sense goals every step of the way and now vow to repeal the whole thing if they regain power. Go on, Republicans, explain to the voters this fall why you want to take away their health care. I dare you to do it without lying.
Todd Belknap
The passage of health-care reform is a great day for America. We are blessed to have a leader like President Obama, who can turn on the charisma when he needs to, but whose greatest strength is intelligence, patience and self-confidence.
Democrats are able to claim full credit for passing a bill that has many popular provisions. Soon it will become illegal to deny children coverage for pre-existing conditions. Adults will have to wait until 2014 for that protection but will at least get access to new high-risk insurance pools until then. Children will be able to stay on their parent's insurance plans through age 26. Lifetime limits will disappear, and so will an insurer's ability to cancel your policy when you get sick. Starting Jan. 1, Medicare patients will qualify for free annual wellness visits. And insurers will be required to pay out at least 80% to 85% of premiums in actual health-care reimbursements. Customers of insurers who pay out less will get rebates.
Glen Gillette
William Buckley once said that conservatism is the politics of reality. A corollary is that liberalism is the politics of fantasy. To liberals all government giveaway programs are beneficial. There are no tradeoffs involved. We are "getting" "popular provisions" - gifts from caring Democrats - and evil, heartless Republicans are trying to deny them. "Republicans want to take away our health care", as Belknap puts it.
First, and it's ridiculous to have to make this point, but U.S. "health care" is already in abundant supply and it is readily available. Surprising as it may be to the two letter writers, the vast majority of Americans already have health insurance and polls consistently show that well over 80% are happy with the quality of their health care. (A June 2008 ABC News/USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation survey put the number at 89%).
Those policy features mentioned in the two letters - children's coverage to age 26, no lifetime limits, no annual caps on benefits, free annual wellness visits - are all common in employer provided policies and are all available to those purchasers of insurance policies who want them. That these policies may be prohibitively expensive to some is in large part caused by, again, government created restrictions and distortions in the health care market. (The mention of a cancellation due to illness provision is laughable. That's like a life insurance policy that expires a moment before a policyholder's death. No insurance company would long survive engaging in such scandalously illegal practices. If a policy contained such a provision, then its terms would have to be clearly stated. And anyone who would buy such a policy or was given one by an employer and wasn't aware of those terms, has only himself to blame).
The goal of health care reform should be to make quality health care affordable and accessible to as many people as possible. The goal is not to mandate universal health insurance coverage. Or - as will be the eventual result of Obamacare - universal coverage by a single payer, the government. (Monopolies are bad. Those operated by the ruling entity are especially so). These mandates do not "give people health care". They do not increase the supply of health care. They do increase the demand for it. Increased demand + static supply = increased cost.
Belknap and Gillette recite a fantasy. A childish one at that. Profligacy without repercussions; indulgence without consequences. And Belknap expresses indignation that, to this, there is resistance. The reality is that resources "given" to some must be taken from others. And, contrary to liberal mythology, Washington is not nearly smart enough to manage such a transaction in something as complex and immense as U.S. health care. Conservatives understand this and can anticipate the collateral damage such an undertaking would produce. I expanded below Mark Steyn's original list* of potential Obamacare ramifications, most of which are quite likely. (The final two, especially the last one, being more speculative, may take some time).
Longer wait times*, fewer doctors*, bankrupt hospitals, stifled innovation, fewer medical breakthroughs, more bureaucracy*, loss of privacy, higher taxation, massive IRS expansion*, bankrupt states burdened by Medicaid, explosive debt*, persistent unemployment, the end of the Pax Americana*, and global Armageddon*.
Republicans don't want to "take away our health care", Mr. Belknap. They want to make health care as affordable to as many as possible. Democrats want to compel citizens to adhere to arbitrary mandates put in place by politicians and unelected bureaucrats. Republicans favor allowing citizens free rein to exploit an open market unencumbered by government restrictions. Instead of shifting resources around, Republicans seek to grow resources. They want to take advantage of the great wealth creation machine that is capitalism. Republicans are not averse to income based government subsidies. But fostering economic growth is essential. Obamacare's failure is ensured more than anything by its hinderance of economic growth.
In today's NRO, Jay Nordlinger makes a salient point about the very term, "health care system".
I think this is one difference between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans: They want a “system”; we don’t want any system at all. We just want . . . life. Healthy, democratic, free-market life.
To my knowledge, we don’t have a housing system, or a food system, or a clothing system, or a car system (although we have some government ownership of auto manufacturing). We just have — what? An economy. An open, American economy, in which people meet other people’s needs as they arise.
Nordlinger goes on to say that "system" is a word that central planners use. Like the ones who ran the former Soviet Union.
One other point. Gillette's letter credits Obama's persuasive powers for turning the tide. For allegedly convincing the American people to support the bill which in turn convinced reluctant legislators to vote for passage. In reality it was a only series of blatantly corrupt deals that bought just enough votes to allow passage by a slim margin. This was necessary, and the process took over a year, despite huge Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and a compliant press. Obama's "charisma" was not a factor. Since the health care debate began, he's given roughly 60 speeches on health care and support for the plan consistently declined.
Now to the third letter which works a different angle - the miserable state of American health care.
Your editorial concludes that "we fought this bill so vigorously because we have studied governmental health care in other countries, and the results include much higher taxes, slower economic growth and worse medical care." I, too, have studied health care in other countries. The dominant feature in which the U.S. is clearly superior is the cost of care, which runs about twice the cost of care in countries such as France, Germany, Canada and the U.K., which have varying systems of universal medical coverage. For this extra care the U.S. ranks 38th in the world in life expectancy, behind Cuba as well as the above four countries; we rank 29th in infant mortality, and well behind most European countries in survival of dialysis patients. It is challenging to find a desirable health-care statistic besides cost in which our care significantly exceeds that of our peers.
Curtis J. Krock, M.D.
Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine
University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign
Before I get into the particulars of Dr. Krock's letter, and there aren't many, I want to reiterate a couple of points I keep making. First, Krock is enamored of countries that provide universal health care. Every American ally that does this, does it without the concurrent burden of providing for the bulk of its defense. We provide that service free of charge. There is no present model to predict the effect on those nations' economies, not to mention on their survivability, should the U.S. adopt an extravagant nationalized health care system, significantly decrease our military spending, and withdraw our defense umbrella. Those nations would then be forced to spend from their own budgets for protection from bad players like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, for keeping sea lanes open for commerce, to support the international community's rare combat ventures to prevent mass slaughter, for transport and logistical capabilities for humanitarian relief efforts, etc, etc, etc. National Review had good reason to suggest that the U.S. military should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize every year by default.
Second, I agree that our health care isn't as good as it can be. Its shortcomings are caused by government restrictions on the free market. Strengthening those restrictions will make it worse. The WSJ likened the progressive approach to the old Marx Brothers' joke - "The soup is terrible - And such small portions".
Krock correctly identifies the problem in the U.S. being the overall cost of health care. A problem that Obamacare will only intensify. What he doesn't mention is the cost to patients. This is from an article by Fred Barnes that I referenced last year.
A little-known fact: Out-of-pocket expenses by American patients amounted to 12.6 percent of total national health spending ($2.24 trillion) in 2007.
That's one of the lowest percentages of private out-of-pocket spending among the world's advanced countries--lower than Germany, Japan, Canada, and most countries in Europe, including those with government-run health care systems. Why do Americans get more and pay less? Because their insurance policies provide broader coverage than most government plans, says Tom Miller of the American Enterprise Institute. (My emphasis).
This advantage to American consumers is the primary driver of high health care cost since people are unaware of just how much they're spending and don't take steps to control it. But it is an advantage. Our health care costs more because we get more.
Krock is very discriminating in his choice of supporting data, selecting only those that he thinks help his case. (And he doesn't provide much). He introduces a redundancy right at the start, by including both life expectancy and infant mortality, the latter being a major factor in the former. Krock, (as do all those trying to make the case for socialized medicine) overemphasizes the importance of life expectancy statistics. Those numbers are influenced by several variables other than health care including lifestyle, diet, culture, climate, genetic makeup, diversity of population and size of population. (Of the countries ranked above the U.S. in LE, none is even remotely as large. Japan with 127 million is second to the U.S with 309 million. Japan has a nearly homogeneous population and a better diet which helps explain its number 1 ranking with an LE of 82.6). And ranking the countries doesn't say much about their absolute values. For instance, the U.S. ranks 38th with an LE of 78.2. France with an LE of 80.7 ranks 10th. 2.5 years is worth 28 places. The fact is, most countries that are not desperately poor have closely bunched life expectancies. To get below a 70 year LE you need to go down to 116th place. (Trinidad and Tobago - A strange name for a country I've always thought. How about a country named "East Anglia and Vanatu with a little Morocco thrown in").
The culture factor includes the subfactor of teenage birth rates. With a rate of 41.9 per 1000 births, the U.S. is by far the leader in this category. For comparison, the U.K is at 26.1, Canada at 13.7, France at 11.7, and Germany at 10.0. The high U.S. teenage birthrate undoubtedly contributes to its infant mortality figures. As does its method of counting births. The following is from the Wikipedia entry on infant mortality.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a live birth as any born human being who demonstrates independent signs of life, including breathing, voluntary muscle movement, or heartbeat. Many countries, however, including certain European states and Japan, only count as live births cases where an infant breathes at birth, which makes their reported IMR (Infant Mortality Rate) numbers somewhat lower and raises their rates of perinatal mortality.
...in 2009, the US CDC issued a report which stated that the American rates of infant mortality were affected by the United States' high rates of premature babies compared to European countries and which outlines the differences in reporting requirements between the United States and Europe, noting that France, the Czech Republic, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Poland do not report all live births of babies under 500 g and/or 22 weeks of gestation.
So if life expectancy isn't a good indicator of the quality of a country's health care, what is?
Survival rates for serious illness.
Dr. Krock cites just one example of this - survival of dialysis patients. Well, actually he cites no examples. Dialysis is a treatment, not a disease. Its success rate says nothing without information about who is getting treatment and why they're getting it.
The following is from a report on the HealthandAge.com website.
The U.S. has the highest rate of new (hemodialysis) treatment for ESRD (End Stage Renal Disease) among reporting registries worldwide. The U.S. accepts double the number (per million population) than does Europe, 40% more than Canada and 20 % more than does Japan.
Giving a specific treatment to substantially more high risk patients will necessarily increase its failure rate.
Anecdotal evidence is unscientific, but I'll include the following because it helps to illustrate the point. A few years ago, my father-in-law was hospitalized with (among other things) ESRD. He waited too long to be treated, for reasons other than economics or lack of due diligence on the part of his doctors. Though doctors believed it would be futile, he was put on dialysis anyway. He died shortly after and became another contribution to the low dialysis patient survival rate in the U.S. Chances are, in Europe or Canada or Japan, the treatment would not have been initiated. Tort lawyers have less influence on those countries' doctors' medical decisions.
Dr. Krock attempts to indict the entire U.S. health care establishment by citing only one disease criterion and it's a fallacious one at that. This is misleading and dishonest.
Then he adds, "It is challenging to find a desirable health-care statistic besides cost in which our care significantly exceeds that of our peers".
I'll ignore the hedging terms, "challenging" and "significantly exceeds", and just remark, Oh, really? (This is a family friendly site, otherwise I might have responded with something along the lines of, hogwash).
Here's some more of Barnes' article where he makes the case that the U.S. is unequalled, much less unsurpassed in the treatment of our most deadly afflictions, cancer and heart disease.
Private insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid cover most of the high cost of treating critical illnesses such as cancer and heart disease. And those are the ones in which the survival rates in the United States are significantly higher than in Europe or other countries. There are clinical data substantiating this. Two major studies (EUROCARE-4 and a study by the National Center for Epidemiology, Health Surveillance, and Promotion, in Rome, both published in the September 2007 issue of Lancet Oncology) were used to compare five-year survival rates for Americans and Europeans diagnosed with cancer.
For all cancers, 66.3 percent of American men and 63.9 percent of women survived. In Europe, 47.3 percent of men and 55.8 percent of women survived five years. Those are statistically important gaps.
And the survival rates were higher in the United States for the most common cancers as well. More than 99 percent of men with prostate cancer had survived in the United States after five years, 77.5 percent in Europe. Those with colon or rectal cancer survived at a 65.5 percent rate here and 56.2 percent in Europe. The rates for breast cancer showed a similar difference, 90.1 percent for Americans, 79 percent for Europeans.
Dr. Atlas cites a different set of results that underscore the same point: Your chances of living longer are better with treatment here. "Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom," he reports (see "Here's a Second Opinion," Hoover Digest online). "Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the U.K. and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher."
Canada, whose single-payer health system is admired by many liberals, fared better but still trailed the United States. "Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher," according to Dr. Atlas.
In treating heart disease, Americans have far more access to statin drugs that reduce cholesterol. "Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs . . . are taking them," Dr. Atlas wrote. "By comparison . . . only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them."
"Wildly successful" is the way David Brown of the Washington Post has characterized the transformation of heart treatment. "Today, someone having a heart attack who gets to a hospital in time is likely to get cardiac catheterization, angioplasty, the placement of a medicated stent, therapy with four anticoagulant drugs and, on discharge, a handful of lifetime prescriptions," he wrote. These are innovations over the past half-century.
The results are in. "In the 1960s, the chance of dying in the days immediately after a heart attack was 30 to 40 percent," Brown wrote. "In 1975, it was 27 percent. In 1984, it was 19 percent. In 1994, it was about 10 percent. Today, it's about 6 percent."
These results are matched by the success in dealing with all heart disease. "In 1970, the death rate from coronary heart disease was 448 per 100,000 people," according to Brown. "In 1980, it was 345. In 1990, it was 250. In 2000, it was 187. In 2006, it was 135."
Cold numbers don't capture the breathtaking drama of what's happened. The transformation of heart care "has saved the lives of millions of Americans," Brown wrote. ". . . It is safe to say that almost everybody who has a heart attack wants the best treatment available. Nobody wants to turn back the clock." Nor should they, despite higher costs.
(My emphasis).
Dr. Krock claims to "have studied health care in other countries". Study it some more doc. You'll see that it falls short of ours.
All this just to respond to three measly letters. And measly is "le mot juste" as Mark Steyn would say.
And, bear with me. Just one more thing, speaking of Mark Steyn. I had to include this gem from his column linked below. (There are others included therein).
Incidentally, has the CBO ever run the numbers for projected savings if the entire CBO were laid off and replaced by a children’s magician with an assistant in spangled tights from whose cleavage he plucked entirely random numbers? Just a thought.
Barnes article
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/943pfdxe.asp?pg=1
Steyn
http://article.nationalreview.com/429537/obamacare-dystopia/mark-steyn?page=1
Monday, March 29, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Canada, Coulter, Cuba; Patriots, Privacy, Pelosicare
Sorry for renaming that monstrosity. I needed it for the alliteration.
Cuban emigre (actually escapee) Humberto Fontova has written an article touching on a couple of themes that I've been preoccupied with over the past few days - nationalized health care and Ann Coulter's Canadian adventure. Noting Coulter's mistreatment by the University of Ottawa this week, Fontova contrasts it with the school's embrace of Fidel Castro. It turns out that the U of O (an apt title) is co-owner with the Cuban government of a patent for a purported vaccine against Meningitis B. The university also co-sponsored research efforts to promote the treatment. This same vaccine was hailed as a medical breakthrough in Michael Moore's quack of a film, "Sicko". Back in 1999, news agencies criticized the U.S. for not making available this life-saving treatment. They weren't being honest, as Fontova writes.
"Cuba has developed the world's first Meningitis B vaccine which is available in Third World countries but not in Europe or in the United States due to U.S. sanctions," dutifully reported Anthony Boadle from Reuters' Havana bureau right after Sicko’s first screening (oddly good timing for such a “scoop” by a Castro-sanctioned “news” agency, I’d certainly say!)
Of this 27 word sentence, by a news agency regarded as authoritative worldwide, exactly 14 words are true. Yes, this Castroite/Ottawa Univ. vaccine is not available in the U.S. and Europe -- but hardly because of ”sanctions.” In fact, in 1999, Bill Clinton's Treasury Department granted the pharmaceutical giant SmithKline Beecham a license to market the vaccine in a joint venture with Castro’s medical ministry -- pending FDA approval.
That approval never came, as the "vaccine" was shown to be totally ineffective.
Fontova also writes about Castro's vaunted "Doctor Diplomacy" program wherein Cuban doctors were sent to Caribbean and Latin American countries to provide treatment to the poor free of charge. In 2005, 96 of these "doctors" were kicked out of Brazil. Fontova quotes the judge who issued the order.
Based on the results they’d achieved with Tocantins' residents, the judge referred to the Cuban doctors as “Witch Doctors and Shamans...We cannot accept doctors who have not proven that they are doctors.”
The University of Ottawa, it appears, has no such qualms.
http://townhall.com/columnists/HumbertoFontova/2010/03/26/university_of_ottawa_scolds_ann_coulter,_embraces_fidel_castro?page=1
Also related to the health care issue is Jonah Goldberg's latest article on NRO. He recall's the left's hysterical reaction to the Patriot Act as a government (read Republican) effort to invade the privacy of all Americans. This despite the law's rather mild provisions.
The Patriot Act, considerably weaker than similar laws in Europe, allowed the FBI to ask a judge for a warrant to seek third-party business records and search suspected terrorists’ homes without notifying them right away. (The alternative is to tip off the next Mohamed Atta prematurely.)
For some reason, librarians were particularly incensed.
My favorite response came from Jan O’Rourke, a Pennsylvania librarian who destroyed the records of all library visitors so she could prevent the G-men from finding out who borrowed Catcher in the Rye or surfed the Web for adoptable kittens.
President Obama and the Democratic Congress have quietly renewed the Act's provisions for another year, confirming its necessity and effectiveness. Note the absence of public outcry.
Patriot Act hysteria consumed American politics for years, even though the bill was reasonable and the number of those affected by it comparatively miniscule. No libraries were searched. Terrorists were caught. Inconveniences and mistakes surely transpired, but not on some grand scale. American privacy endured.
Goldberg's main point is that the new health care bill provides far more reason to fear its ramifications than those of the Patriot Act, including an invasion of privacy on an infinitely larger scale. Yet liberals are wondering what all the fuss is about.
Now consider what the left-wing magazine Salon calls the conservative “freakout” over the health-care legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama. Unlike the Patriot Act, which passed with overwhelming, almost unanimous, bipartisan support, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 was passed narrowly, against the public’s wishes and in the face of bipartisan opposition. It will cost trillions of dollars we do not have. It gives the government greater say in the most intimate areas of your life, far more private than your library record. It is based on dubious constitutional assumptions.
Lots of liberals opposed the Patriot Act on slippery-slope grounds, but it’s worth noting that very few conservatives said the Patriot Act was just a “first step” or a “down payment” toward an even more aggressive police state, while many hoped it would be a temporary measure. Lots of liberals insist health-care reform merely begins the process of pushing for full governmentalization of health care.
http://article.nationalreview.com/429317/the-definition-of-freakout/jonah-goldberg
Cuban emigre (actually escapee) Humberto Fontova has written an article touching on a couple of themes that I've been preoccupied with over the past few days - nationalized health care and Ann Coulter's Canadian adventure. Noting Coulter's mistreatment by the University of Ottawa this week, Fontova contrasts it with the school's embrace of Fidel Castro. It turns out that the U of O (an apt title) is co-owner with the Cuban government of a patent for a purported vaccine against Meningitis B. The university also co-sponsored research efforts to promote the treatment. This same vaccine was hailed as a medical breakthrough in Michael Moore's quack of a film, "Sicko". Back in 1999, news agencies criticized the U.S. for not making available this life-saving treatment. They weren't being honest, as Fontova writes.
"Cuba has developed the world's first Meningitis B vaccine which is available in Third World countries but not in Europe or in the United States due to U.S. sanctions," dutifully reported Anthony Boadle from Reuters' Havana bureau right after Sicko’s first screening (oddly good timing for such a “scoop” by a Castro-sanctioned “news” agency, I’d certainly say!)
Of this 27 word sentence, by a news agency regarded as authoritative worldwide, exactly 14 words are true. Yes, this Castroite/Ottawa Univ. vaccine is not available in the U.S. and Europe -- but hardly because of ”sanctions.” In fact, in 1999, Bill Clinton's Treasury Department granted the pharmaceutical giant SmithKline Beecham a license to market the vaccine in a joint venture with Castro’s medical ministry -- pending FDA approval.
That approval never came, as the "vaccine" was shown to be totally ineffective.
Fontova also writes about Castro's vaunted "Doctor Diplomacy" program wherein Cuban doctors were sent to Caribbean and Latin American countries to provide treatment to the poor free of charge. In 2005, 96 of these "doctors" were kicked out of Brazil. Fontova quotes the judge who issued the order.
Based on the results they’d achieved with Tocantins' residents, the judge referred to the Cuban doctors as “Witch Doctors and Shamans...We cannot accept doctors who have not proven that they are doctors.”
The University of Ottawa, it appears, has no such qualms.
http://townhall.com/columnists/HumbertoFontova/2010/03/26/university_of_ottawa_scolds_ann_coulter,_embraces_fidel_castro?page=1
Also related to the health care issue is Jonah Goldberg's latest article on NRO. He recall's the left's hysterical reaction to the Patriot Act as a government (read Republican) effort to invade the privacy of all Americans. This despite the law's rather mild provisions.
The Patriot Act, considerably weaker than similar laws in Europe, allowed the FBI to ask a judge for a warrant to seek third-party business records and search suspected terrorists’ homes without notifying them right away. (The alternative is to tip off the next Mohamed Atta prematurely.)
For some reason, librarians were particularly incensed.
My favorite response came from Jan O’Rourke, a Pennsylvania librarian who destroyed the records of all library visitors so she could prevent the G-men from finding out who borrowed Catcher in the Rye or surfed the Web for adoptable kittens.
President Obama and the Democratic Congress have quietly renewed the Act's provisions for another year, confirming its necessity and effectiveness. Note the absence of public outcry.
Patriot Act hysteria consumed American politics for years, even though the bill was reasonable and the number of those affected by it comparatively miniscule. No libraries were searched. Terrorists were caught. Inconveniences and mistakes surely transpired, but not on some grand scale. American privacy endured.
Goldberg's main point is that the new health care bill provides far more reason to fear its ramifications than those of the Patriot Act, including an invasion of privacy on an infinitely larger scale. Yet liberals are wondering what all the fuss is about.
Now consider what the left-wing magazine Salon calls the conservative “freakout” over the health-care legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama. Unlike the Patriot Act, which passed with overwhelming, almost unanimous, bipartisan support, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 was passed narrowly, against the public’s wishes and in the face of bipartisan opposition. It will cost trillions of dollars we do not have. It gives the government greater say in the most intimate areas of your life, far more private than your library record. It is based on dubious constitutional assumptions.
Lots of liberals opposed the Patriot Act on slippery-slope grounds, but it’s worth noting that very few conservatives said the Patriot Act was just a “first step” or a “down payment” toward an even more aggressive police state, while many hoped it would be a temporary measure. Lots of liberals insist health-care reform merely begins the process of pushing for full governmentalization of health care.
http://article.nationalreview.com/429317/the-definition-of-freakout/jonah-goldberg
Thursday, March 25, 2010
"...a wretched embarrassment to a once free society"
As would be expected, Mark Steyn had a sharp reaction to Ann Coulter's treatment in his native country (see my post yesterday). Here is his commentary on NRO in its entirety.
A couple of days ago, I mentioned François Houle, the leftist apparatchik and provost of the University of Ottawa who threatened Ann Coulter with criminal prosecution before she'd even set foot on Canadian soil.
M. Houle warned Miss Coulter not to “promote hatred.” As this young lady points out in her report from the university, the only hate-promoter here is the buffoon Houle, whose barely veiled threats led to a gang of menacing Houligans (le mot juste) getting the event closed down. Alliances between the state’s ideological commissars and street mobs are a familiar feature of certain kinds of societies, and I suppose Canada will soon get used to its membership of this unlovely club. Ann Coulter says of her experience in the Great White North:
This has never, ever, ever happened before — even at the stupidest American university. . . . Since I’ve arrived in Canada, I’ve been denounced on the floor of Parliament — which, by the way, is on my bucket list — my posters have been banned, I’ve been accused of committing a crime in a speech that I have not yet given, I was banned by the student council. So welcome to Canada!
In one of the oldest settled democracies on the planet, freedom of speech flickers very dimly. To recap:
François Houle in his letter to Ann Coulter:
I would, however, like to inform you, or perhaps remind you, that our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or “free speech”) in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada.
Dean Steacy, lead investigator of the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission:
Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.
Susan Cole, Canadian “feminist,” defending the mob on Fox News:
We don’t have that same political culture here in (Canada). . . . We don’t have a 1st Amendment, we don’t have a religion of free speech. . . . Students sign off on all kinds of agreements as to how they’ll behave on campus, in order to respect diversity, equity, all of the values that Canadians really care about. Those are the things that drive our political culture. Not freedoms, not rugged individualism, not free speech. It’s different, and for us, it works.
Translated from the original Canadian, “diversity” means “state-mandated mob-enforced conformity.” As for whether “it works” for Canadians, ask Guy Earle. On Monday Mr. Earle, a stand-up comedian of conventionally Trudeaupian views, goes on trial at the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal for putting down two hecklers at his nightclub act. They were, alas for him, of the lesbian persuasion, and so he is now charged with “homophobia.” What a wretched embarrassment to a once free society.
A couple of comments -
Imagine being proud of restrictions on free speech. As always, I feel fortunate to be living in the U.S. and not some regressive Euro-Canadian society.
Houligans - gotta love it.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGFlZjc2MmUyZDZhMmQ1NjZmOTMxYTMxNTM0MDFkMzQ=
A couple of days ago, I mentioned François Houle, the leftist apparatchik and provost of the University of Ottawa who threatened Ann Coulter with criminal prosecution before she'd even set foot on Canadian soil.
M. Houle warned Miss Coulter not to “promote hatred.” As this young lady points out in her report from the university, the only hate-promoter here is the buffoon Houle, whose barely veiled threats led to a gang of menacing Houligans (le mot juste) getting the event closed down. Alliances between the state’s ideological commissars and street mobs are a familiar feature of certain kinds of societies, and I suppose Canada will soon get used to its membership of this unlovely club. Ann Coulter says of her experience in the Great White North:
This has never, ever, ever happened before — even at the stupidest American university. . . . Since I’ve arrived in Canada, I’ve been denounced on the floor of Parliament — which, by the way, is on my bucket list — my posters have been banned, I’ve been accused of committing a crime in a speech that I have not yet given, I was banned by the student council. So welcome to Canada!
In one of the oldest settled democracies on the planet, freedom of speech flickers very dimly. To recap:
François Houle in his letter to Ann Coulter:
I would, however, like to inform you, or perhaps remind you, that our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or “free speech”) in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada.
Dean Steacy, lead investigator of the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission:
Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.
Susan Cole, Canadian “feminist,” defending the mob on Fox News:
We don’t have that same political culture here in (Canada). . . . We don’t have a 1st Amendment, we don’t have a religion of free speech. . . . Students sign off on all kinds of agreements as to how they’ll behave on campus, in order to respect diversity, equity, all of the values that Canadians really care about. Those are the things that drive our political culture. Not freedoms, not rugged individualism, not free speech. It’s different, and for us, it works.
Translated from the original Canadian, “diversity” means “state-mandated mob-enforced conformity.” As for whether “it works” for Canadians, ask Guy Earle. On Monday Mr. Earle, a stand-up comedian of conventionally Trudeaupian views, goes on trial at the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal for putting down two hecklers at his nightclub act. They were, alas for him, of the lesbian persuasion, and so he is now charged with “homophobia.” What a wretched embarrassment to a once free society.
A couple of comments -
Imagine being proud of restrictions on free speech. As always, I feel fortunate to be living in the U.S. and not some regressive Euro-Canadian society.
Houligans - gotta love it.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGFlZjc2MmUyZDZhMmQ1NjZmOTMxYTMxNTM0MDFkMzQ=
Resisting Coercion
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that the health care bill signed into law Tuesday by President Obama contains the seeds of its own destruction.
First there's the delay for the payout of "benefits" to begin. This was made a feature of the bill to allow the Democrats to perpetrate their Enronesque accounting scam - collecting ten years of revenue for six years of payouts and claiming no increase to the deficit. The delay gives opponents time to mount their campaign for repeal.
Then there are the actuarial assumptions. As I understand it, the bill mandates that all citizens be covered by a federally approved medical insurance policy or pay a fine. Additionally, a person cannot be denied coverage even if he/she waits to be sick before signing up. Since the fines will be much less costly than the insurance premiums, it makes perfect sense not to buy the insurance until treatment is needed. (And then drop the insurance once the treatment is completed). If enough people do this, and I don't see why they wouldn't, the entire system would collapse.
In a Forbes.com commentary (3/24), Shikha Dalmia raises that prospect. Though she comes at it from a different standpoint - that of civil disobedience rather than that of practical choice - the effect would be the same.
The Wall Street Journal ran this excerpt of Dalmia's article today.
Resisting ObamaCare, Gandhi Style
By foisting ObamaCare on a deeply unwilling country he might have set the stage for the largest civil disobedience movement since the civil rights era, which, if it plays its cards right, could undo his legislation and his legacy. . . .
By some estimates, Uncle Sam will need to hire an additional 17,000 IRS agents or so just to enforce the coverage mandate. But even if a few million Americans simultaneously refuse to abide by it [or pay the fine], they could easily overwhelm the system. Self-rule or swaraj, Gandhi said, requires a collective understanding of the immense capacity of citizens to “regulate and control” the coercive apparatus of the state through mass nonviolent resistance.
President Obama and his fellow Democrats are counting on this resistance petering out. That could happen. But it will be a lot easier for opponents to maintain this zeal in the age of social networking. . . . After all, this issue is not just about the fate of an industry. It is about maintaining control over basic decisions about one’s own life and health.
In the original Forbes article, Dalmia also stresses the other avenues available to fight Obamacare - electoral; procedural; juridictional; and legal.
...the perpetrators of ObamaCare must be defeated in November and 2012. But right now it is entirely appropriate for Senate Republicans to stall the reconciliation process as much as possible. They are right in calling every point of order that they can--if only to call attention to the bill's manifest corruption. Likewise, the 30-plus states that are issuing sovereignty resolutions and exploring ballot initiatives that would protect their residents from Uncle Sam's coverage diktat are on the right track. Even if these efforts are ultimately thrown out in court because federal law trumps state law, they will make a powerful statement against the coercive nature of ObamaCare.
But the lawsuits that have a shot at sticking in court are the ones that various attorney generals around the country are preparing under the Constitution's commerce clause. This clause gives the federal government expansive powers to regulate interstate commercial activity. But it has never before been invoked to force Americans to purchase a product as a condition of lawful residence in this country. This crosses a line that might well make five Supreme Court justices balk.
If these tools fail then Dalmia urges playing the civil disobedience card beginning December 31, 2013 - the date the individual mandate goes into effect. She quotes Gandhi,
"civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless and corrupt."
WSJ excerpt
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703312504575141751235056646.html#mod=todays_us_opinion
Original Forbes.com article
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/23/obamacare-politics-united-states-reform-opinions-columnists-shikha-dalmia.html
First there's the delay for the payout of "benefits" to begin. This was made a feature of the bill to allow the Democrats to perpetrate their Enronesque accounting scam - collecting ten years of revenue for six years of payouts and claiming no increase to the deficit. The delay gives opponents time to mount their campaign for repeal.
Then there are the actuarial assumptions. As I understand it, the bill mandates that all citizens be covered by a federally approved medical insurance policy or pay a fine. Additionally, a person cannot be denied coverage even if he/she waits to be sick before signing up. Since the fines will be much less costly than the insurance premiums, it makes perfect sense not to buy the insurance until treatment is needed. (And then drop the insurance once the treatment is completed). If enough people do this, and I don't see why they wouldn't, the entire system would collapse.
In a Forbes.com commentary (3/24), Shikha Dalmia raises that prospect. Though she comes at it from a different standpoint - that of civil disobedience rather than that of practical choice - the effect would be the same.
The Wall Street Journal ran this excerpt of Dalmia's article today.
Resisting ObamaCare, Gandhi Style
By foisting ObamaCare on a deeply unwilling country he might have set the stage for the largest civil disobedience movement since the civil rights era, which, if it plays its cards right, could undo his legislation and his legacy. . . .
By some estimates, Uncle Sam will need to hire an additional 17,000 IRS agents or so just to enforce the coverage mandate. But even if a few million Americans simultaneously refuse to abide by it [or pay the fine], they could easily overwhelm the system. Self-rule or swaraj, Gandhi said, requires a collective understanding of the immense capacity of citizens to “regulate and control” the coercive apparatus of the state through mass nonviolent resistance.
President Obama and his fellow Democrats are counting on this resistance petering out. That could happen. But it will be a lot easier for opponents to maintain this zeal in the age of social networking. . . . After all, this issue is not just about the fate of an industry. It is about maintaining control over basic decisions about one’s own life and health.
In the original Forbes article, Dalmia also stresses the other avenues available to fight Obamacare - electoral; procedural; juridictional; and legal.
...the perpetrators of ObamaCare must be defeated in November and 2012. But right now it is entirely appropriate for Senate Republicans to stall the reconciliation process as much as possible. They are right in calling every point of order that they can--if only to call attention to the bill's manifest corruption. Likewise, the 30-plus states that are issuing sovereignty resolutions and exploring ballot initiatives that would protect their residents from Uncle Sam's coverage diktat are on the right track. Even if these efforts are ultimately thrown out in court because federal law trumps state law, they will make a powerful statement against the coercive nature of ObamaCare.
But the lawsuits that have a shot at sticking in court are the ones that various attorney generals around the country are preparing under the Constitution's commerce clause. This clause gives the federal government expansive powers to regulate interstate commercial activity. But it has never before been invoked to force Americans to purchase a product as a condition of lawful residence in this country. This crosses a line that might well make five Supreme Court justices balk.
If these tools fail then Dalmia urges playing the civil disobedience card beginning December 31, 2013 - the date the individual mandate goes into effect. She quotes Gandhi,
"civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state has become lawless and corrupt."
WSJ excerpt
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703312504575141751235056646.html#mod=todays_us_opinion
Original Forbes.com article
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/23/obamacare-politics-united-states-reform-opinions-columnists-shikha-dalmia.html
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Fun, Fun, Fun
Ann Coulter in Canada. Need I say more?
Well, just one thing. It was probably a mistake for someone with a name like Francois A. Houle to get on her bad side.
http://townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2010/03/24/oh,_canada!
(For some reason this link is leading to the Townhall.com columnists page but you can get to Coulter's column from there).
Well, just one thing. It was probably a mistake for someone with a name like Francois A. Houle to get on her bad side.
http://townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2010/03/24/oh,_canada!
(For some reason this link is leading to the Townhall.com columnists page but you can get to Coulter's column from there).
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Breaking What Works
For those who are now celebrating the onset of the nationalization of our health care system, I'd like to present an academic exercise with practical applications. Read on.
Located in Massachusetts, Zoll Medical Corporation develops and manufactures medical devices. It's one of the many obscure, unsung American businesses that provide the world with cutting edge medical technologies. Zoll's website describes its mission as follows :
(Zoll) helps responders manage, treat, and save lives in emergency rescues and in hospitals; outside the hospital while at work or home; in doctors' and dentists' offices and schools; in public places and on the battlefield. ZOLL's products contribute to managing patient care and saving lives, as well as increasing the efficiency of emergency medical, fire and hospital operations around the globe.
To help pay for its onerous costs, Obamacare imposes burdensome taxes on firms such as Zoll. This reality is presenting a formidable predicament for the company's managers. The Washington Examiner explains.
The bill passed by the House Sunday night contains a particularly damaging version of the $20 billion hit for the medical device industry, meaning Zoll and other medical device makers could well be headed for hard times.
"We believe that the tax will cost us somewhere between $5 million and $10 million a year," says Richard Packer, Zoll's chairman and chief executive officer. "Our profit in 2009 was $9.5 million."
That would be a devastating blow. Zoll employs about 1,800 people. Roughly 1,600 of them are in the United States, and about 650 of those are in Massachusetts. Once the new tax kicks in, that could all change. "We can't run this company at a break-even or a negative rate," says Packer, "so we will be forced to look at alternatives."
The company's first option is to pass the increase on to customers like hospitals and ambulance companies. That might or might not work, given that they are coming under increasing pressure to cut their own costs.
The next option is to cut research and development -- a short-term, money-saving move that will surely cost Zoll down the road. And a third option, says Packer, is to "look at trying to shift jobs to lower-cost places around the world." That would be bad news for Massachusetts and the USA.
No matter what happens, the makers of the devices that save our lives are going to take a major hit.
"It's a real concern for some of these companies, in that they probably are operating on pretty thin margins," says Brian Johnson, publisher of MassDevice, an independent business journal devoted to the medical device industry. Johnson adds that even those companies that can pay the tax face perhaps even more serious problems because of recent government actions, apart from health care reform, making it harder and more costly to win Food and Drug Administration approval for new products. "As a whole, in terms of stricter regulation and the added tax, that's a pretty big bag they're carrying right now," says Johnson.
And then, of course, there is the continuing economic downturn. All in all, it's not a good time to levy a new and burdensome tax on a highly innovative American industry. And yet that is exactly what Obamacare does.
When I called Richard Packer at Zoll on the morning after the House passed the bill, I asked how he was doing. "A total state of depression," he answered, with the kind of short, dry laugh that says it's not really funny. A lot of Americans are feeling that way now.
OK, Obamacare fans. The challenge - Devise a solution to Zoll's problem - Our problem too, since the company (and others like it) occupies an essential role in the health care system that you profess a desire to improve. The ideal solution would allow Zoll to continue to produce its high quality products and services, maintain its current staffing levels, especially in the U.S. and retain its innovative energy all while allowing it to earn a healthy profit. And then when you think you've found a solution, I have countless more of the Democrats' health care plan's toxic side effects for you to fix.
Incidentally, your answer will receive zero credit if you suggest that a government run, non-profit operation take over the services provided by Zoll. Anyone submitting such an answer will be assigned to study the satellite photograph below until he/she understands the consequences of governments that encourage free enterprise and of those that don't.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/How-Obamacare-hits-industry-and-threatens-jobs-88860652.html
Located in Massachusetts, Zoll Medical Corporation develops and manufactures medical devices. It's one of the many obscure, unsung American businesses that provide the world with cutting edge medical technologies. Zoll's website describes its mission as follows :
(Zoll) helps responders manage, treat, and save lives in emergency rescues and in hospitals; outside the hospital while at work or home; in doctors' and dentists' offices and schools; in public places and on the battlefield. ZOLL's products contribute to managing patient care and saving lives, as well as increasing the efficiency of emergency medical, fire and hospital operations around the globe.
To help pay for its onerous costs, Obamacare imposes burdensome taxes on firms such as Zoll. This reality is presenting a formidable predicament for the company's managers. The Washington Examiner explains.
The bill passed by the House Sunday night contains a particularly damaging version of the $20 billion hit for the medical device industry, meaning Zoll and other medical device makers could well be headed for hard times.
"We believe that the tax will cost us somewhere between $5 million and $10 million a year," says Richard Packer, Zoll's chairman and chief executive officer. "Our profit in 2009 was $9.5 million."
That would be a devastating blow. Zoll employs about 1,800 people. Roughly 1,600 of them are in the United States, and about 650 of those are in Massachusetts. Once the new tax kicks in, that could all change. "We can't run this company at a break-even or a negative rate," says Packer, "so we will be forced to look at alternatives."
The company's first option is to pass the increase on to customers like hospitals and ambulance companies. That might or might not work, given that they are coming under increasing pressure to cut their own costs.
The next option is to cut research and development -- a short-term, money-saving move that will surely cost Zoll down the road. And a third option, says Packer, is to "look at trying to shift jobs to lower-cost places around the world." That would be bad news for Massachusetts and the USA.
No matter what happens, the makers of the devices that save our lives are going to take a major hit.
"It's a real concern for some of these companies, in that they probably are operating on pretty thin margins," says Brian Johnson, publisher of MassDevice, an independent business journal devoted to the medical device industry. Johnson adds that even those companies that can pay the tax face perhaps even more serious problems because of recent government actions, apart from health care reform, making it harder and more costly to win Food and Drug Administration approval for new products. "As a whole, in terms of stricter regulation and the added tax, that's a pretty big bag they're carrying right now," says Johnson.
And then, of course, there is the continuing economic downturn. All in all, it's not a good time to levy a new and burdensome tax on a highly innovative American industry. And yet that is exactly what Obamacare does.
When I called Richard Packer at Zoll on the morning after the House passed the bill, I asked how he was doing. "A total state of depression," he answered, with the kind of short, dry laugh that says it's not really funny. A lot of Americans are feeling that way now.
OK, Obamacare fans. The challenge - Devise a solution to Zoll's problem - Our problem too, since the company (and others like it) occupies an essential role in the health care system that you profess a desire to improve. The ideal solution would allow Zoll to continue to produce its high quality products and services, maintain its current staffing levels, especially in the U.S. and retain its innovative energy all while allowing it to earn a healthy profit. And then when you think you've found a solution, I have countless more of the Democrats' health care plan's toxic side effects for you to fix.
Incidentally, your answer will receive zero credit if you suggest that a government run, non-profit operation take over the services provided by Zoll. Anyone submitting such an answer will be assigned to study the satellite photograph below until he/she understands the consequences of governments that encourage free enterprise and of those that don't.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/How-Obamacare-hits-industry-and-threatens-jobs-88860652.html
"A Word Fitly Spoken...
...is like apples of gold in pictures of silver".
This is a saying that I somehow remember from a style manual that somehow found its way into my possession when I was quite young, maybe 9 or 10. I didn't understand its meaning at the time, but I do now.
From a quality of writing standpoint, George Will is probably the best political commentator we have. He's consistently able to transmit thoughts to words (often long strings of words), clearly, intelligently and with a good deal of wit.
Writing on the subject of baseball, Will often emphasizes the professionalism and the "craft" of the players. It's clear he takes his own craft very seriously.
Some elegant phrasings from his latest column on Obamacare.
As America's teetering tower of unkeepable promises grows, so does the weight of government, in taxes and mandates that limit investments and discourage job creation. America's dynamism, and hence upward social mobility, will slow, as the economy becomes what the party of government wants it to be -- increasingly dependent on government-created demand.
I particularly like the following sentence.
Because logrolling is how legislative coalitions are cobbled together in a continental nation, the auction by which reluctant House Democrats were purchased has been disillusioning only to sentimentalists with illusions about society's stock of disinterestedness.
I'm one of those disillusioned sentimentalists, by the way.
Besides, some of the transactions were almost gorgeous: Government policy having helped make water scarce in California's Central Valley, the party of expanding government secured two votes by increasing rations of the scarcity. Thus did one dependency lubricate legislation that establishes others.
During the Democrats' health care monomania, the nation benefited from the benign neglect of the rest of their agenda. Now the nation may benefit from the exhaustion of their appetite for more political risk.
http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2010/03/22/searching_for_obamacares_silver_lining?page=1
This is a saying that I somehow remember from a style manual that somehow found its way into my possession when I was quite young, maybe 9 or 10. I didn't understand its meaning at the time, but I do now.
From a quality of writing standpoint, George Will is probably the best political commentator we have. He's consistently able to transmit thoughts to words (often long strings of words), clearly, intelligently and with a good deal of wit.
Writing on the subject of baseball, Will often emphasizes the professionalism and the "craft" of the players. It's clear he takes his own craft very seriously.
Some elegant phrasings from his latest column on Obamacare.
As America's teetering tower of unkeepable promises grows, so does the weight of government, in taxes and mandates that limit investments and discourage job creation. America's dynamism, and hence upward social mobility, will slow, as the economy becomes what the party of government wants it to be -- increasingly dependent on government-created demand.
I particularly like the following sentence.
Because logrolling is how legislative coalitions are cobbled together in a continental nation, the auction by which reluctant House Democrats were purchased has been disillusioning only to sentimentalists with illusions about society's stock of disinterestedness.
I'm one of those disillusioned sentimentalists, by the way.
Besides, some of the transactions were almost gorgeous: Government policy having helped make water scarce in California's Central Valley, the party of expanding government secured two votes by increasing rations of the scarcity. Thus did one dependency lubricate legislation that establishes others.
During the Democrats' health care monomania, the nation benefited from the benign neglect of the rest of their agenda. Now the nation may benefit from the exhaustion of their appetite for more political risk.
http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2010/03/22/searching_for_obamacares_silver_lining?page=1
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