Illinois Congressman Tim Johnson has taken heat from some constituents here for his statement that there is no current health care legislation before Congress that he could support. Given the costs of even the most basic health care services, it is understandable that people without insurance are desperate for a solution. But that desperation is being shamelessly exploited by a series of lies peddled to the public as part of a scheme to ram yet another 1000-page bill through Congress before anyone has had the opportunity to read and analyze it. Here are just a few of them:

“You get to keep your insurance.”

This is a lie. As many writers have pointed out, unless you self-insure, you have little say in whether or not to keep your health insurance; your employer makes that decision. If Obamacare passes, and your employer decides to drop insurance coverage, you are thrown into the government plan, whether you like it or not.  And the bill creates numerous incentives for private employers to do precisely that.  Obama knows this.

“Government-provided health care will encourage competition.”

This is a lie. If you get dropped from your insurance coverage, you will not be able to purchase private insurance for yourself. The bill prohibits private insurance companies from writing a new policy for anyone who has lost coverage; they are forced into the government plan. This is not “choice” and it is not “competition.”

President Obama was asked point blank about this provision of the bill during a conference call he hosted last week. His answer? “You know, I have to say I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about.” If Obama is telling the truth, the best that could be said about him is that he is irresponsible in the extreme, travelling all over the country promising the nearly 90% of Americans who are happy with their health care coverage that they can keep it. But I do not believe for a second that no one has briefed the President of the United States about what is in the bill he himself is pushing. This goes beyond dereliction of duty; it is deliberate deceit.

“Care will be as good or better under the government plan.”

Again, history proves this to be a false promise. We have all heard the stories about months of delays and treatment denials under Britain’s and Canada’s health care plans. But we do not need to look to other countries to see the failure of government-provided health care. The dismal conditions and substandard care for American veterans at VA hospitals like Walter Reed, Fort Knox, Fort Dix and Fort Lewis have been the subject of shocking exposés. And in June of this year, the Associated Press published a devastating story about Native Americans, who have always had government-provided “care” under Indian Health Services, which describes itself as a “rationed health care system.” Indians routinely go without treatment for conditions like cataracts, frostbite, hypertension, diabetes and gall bladder removal, congestive heart failure and cancer. The sad tagline among Native Americans is, "Don't get sick after June," when the federal monies run out.  If the government cannot dispense adequate care to just under 3 million Native Americans, how on earth can it manage health care for the 300 million people in the entire country?

“Government health care will not be about rationing”

This is another lie, one driven by the inevitably skyrocketing costs under Obamacare. But don’t take my word for it. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and one of the President’s advisors on health care has said, “Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely ‘lipstick’ cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change.” So how will savings be effected? By refusing treatment to the elderly and the disabled, for starters. Emanuel advocates denial of treatment for people “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . [a]n obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.” Since when did being a “participating citizen” become a requirement for receiving health care? And who defines “participating”? Given that medical experts across the globe are predicting an “epidemic” of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia as baby boomers age, this would be a significant percentage of the population who would be denied life-enhancing medical care when they need it most.

“Government-provided health care will reduce costs”

Perhaps the biggest lie of all. It’s astonishing that anyone could believe this whopper. Just look at the government’s legacy. In an article last week Jacob Sullum, senior editor of Reason magazine cited figures produced by the Cato Institute: in 1965 when Medicare was launched, the government promised it would cost no more than $9 billion by 1990. But by 1990, the actual cost was $67 billion; the government’s projections were off by a factor of 7. By 2007, total Medicare spending was $374 billion – 12% of the total federal budget.

The Medicaid projections were even more inaccurate. In 1987 when Medicaid’s special hospital subsidy was added, the government assured us that those expenditures would be no more than $100 million per year. Only five years later, those costs were actually $11 billion. The government projections were off this time by a factor of 100.  By 2007, total Medicaid spending was $319 billion.

Government-administered health care is also a prescription for widespread fraud: In New York alone, Medicaid fraud has cost taxpayers nearly $50 billion. Add the other 49 states to this, and imagine the possibilities.

The Congressional Budget Office has already projected that the Obamacare plan would increase costs, not decrease them, and puts the price tag on the Obamacare plan at around $1.5 trillion dollars. This announcement sent shock waves through Congress, the media, and the American public. But given the precedent, it is safe to assume that this cost estimate is grossly understated. If the CBO is off by a factor of 7, as was the case for Medicare, the cost would be a backbreaking $10 trillion. And if it is as inaccurate as the projected Medicaid expenditures were?  We would be looking at complete and total government collapse.

There is no question but that we need to devise ways to reduce the costs of health care generally, and to provide better access to care for those without insurance. But nationalized health care will kill the patient, not treat the disease. President Obama’s insidious attempt to take over the health care system for over 300 million people is not just an effort that is doomed to disappoint; it is a power grab founded on deliberate deception.

Because they are.

Rush is often flip.  But here he is deadly serious, and correct:




As long as 15 years ago, during the 1994 elections, I watched from London as the American press reported one thing ("nothing is happening! The Democrats will keep control of the House and Senate!"), while the European press actually told the truth.  And it has only gotten worse.  The press has slanted their news coverage for a long time.  But with Obama they have simply abandoned their jobs as journalists - with very few notable exceptions - and become paid shills for the Obama administration.

It's hard to overstate how perilous this is for any nation. It isn't necessary to personally attack a political leader, his family, his children (as they have done with Sarah Palin, for example). It isn't about a politican's personality; it is about his or her policies, and it is the press' job to rigorously investigate those and give the public the truth - which our Pravda press refuses to do, because doing so would further erode support for their Dear Leader, their Anointed One, their Messiah.

“All I have is a story and an experience”

Tomorrow Shona Holmes will testify before Congress about Obama’s proposed health care plan, but unlike most of the people debating health care on the Hill, Holmes is not a lobbyist, a doctor, a policy wonk or even an American. Shona Holmes is a Canadian who almost went blind waiting for vital brain surgery in her country’s nationalized health care system, and who owes her sight to the quick care of American doctors. When Holmes went to a doctor complaining of headaches and fuzzy vision, an MRI revealed a brain tumor. Unfortunately, she was told she would have to wait four to six months to see a specialist. “I never truly understood that little inner voice--that gut feeling--until that time,” Holmes told me during an interview at THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s offices today. “And I thought, ‘I better figure out what’s going on.’” So Holmes flew to the Mayo Clinic, where, within in a week, she was seen and diagnosed as having a Rathke’s cleft cyst. The cyst was growing and putting pressure on her optical nerves, slowly blinding her. However, when she returned to Canada for surgery, Holmes had trouble finding a doctor. And when she did, she only ran into more trouble, thanks to laws and regulations against purchasing private health care. “The one doctor I did see wouldn’t even open my American medical files and look at them,” she said. When specialists from the Mayo Clinic tried to talk to the doctor, he wouldn’t even answer the phone. “I was always told that if you were sick enough, you would be treated,” Holmes said. “And there I was, standing in the doctor’s office, and he wouldn’t take the call.” So Holmes flew back to the Mayo Clinic, where neurosurgeons removed the cyst. Her vision has been 100 percent restored. Her tribulations have spurred Holmes to action. In Canada, she has been fighting an ongoing legal battle with the province of Ontario to repeal the ban on purchasing private health care. Holmes decided to come talk in the U.S. after hearing Canadian politician Jack Layton offer support for Obama’s health care plan (all the while touting the wonders of the Canadian system). She calls Obama’s plan a “slippery slope,” but she doesn’t like to think of herself as an activist or advocate. “All I have is a story and an experience from both sides of the border,” she said. Posted by C.J. Ciaramella at 03:27 PM | | E-mail the author | E-mail article

Delays cause injury, and even death.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

whose statement opposing Obamacare is a breath of fresh air compared to the sellout AMA.

whose statement opposing Obamacare is a breath of fresh air compared to the sellout AMA.

that their system sucks.  This video is a must-watch.



No surprise to me, since I lived in Detroit for 9 years, and saw firsthand how Canadians would pour across the border to get care at Henry Ford Medican Center or Beaumont Hospital. No one in their right mind would want this kind of system. Those who suffer MOST under it are those who can afford nothing else. In the U.S., if you're poor, you get care, and you can't pay for it. Under socialized medicine, you pay for it, and you don't get care

This one is real comic genius.

You're a little slow on the uptake, aren't ya, hon?  *yawn*  Here we go again - I don't understand the writer or I hate the fact that she's right, so I'll throw dull, unimaginative and false accusations at her to deflect from that.  (She's 47 and she singlehandedly brought down GM!  She hates unions despite the fact that she worked in downtown Detroit and proudly drove an American car!  Let's ignore her family's immigrant history and working class background!)

But since you were nevertheless kind enough to make my point for me (albeit unwittingly - unsurprisingly, given the lack of raw material on that score), I'll spell it out for you.

YOU ARE RIGHT.  At least about the part where paying for everyone's health care killed GM.  (Though I would argue that that was one of a number of wounds - poorly designed cars, top-heavy bureaucracy - any one of which probably would have been fatal, the sum total of which certainly was.

Paying for everyone's "health care" will - to use your term - be the "coup de grace" for the U.S. government as well.  Governments fail, too, Jack honey.  Read a little history sometime.  And this one's teetering.  And then who you gonna elevate your failed business model to?  The European Union?  The United Federation of Planets?

Your collectivist wet dream has failed everywhere it has been tried.  People hate it, and DON'T want it - once they know what it is, which is why foreigners who can come HERE for care (I lived in Detroit, remember?  I know all about the Canadians coming over to the Henry Ford and Beaumont Hospitals for care) why your Anointed One has to lie about it, and why it is ALWAYS accompanied by oppressive regulations and regimes.

Want to know what nationalized health care will mean?  Ask the Native Americans.

And while you're at it, if the communized health care system Obama and his Kronies in Kongress want is so great, why don't you ask Congress why they'll be exempt from participating in it?

Great article about GM here.  As I say whenever I speak to groups about entrepreneurship and public policy, a failed business model, taken larger, will still fail.  But the failure will be even more catastrophic.  We threw $50 billion at GM, and it still went into bankruptcy.  When the  "new" GM fails - and it will, because the people running it (translation: the Obama admistration) know nothing about running a company - it will not just be GM employees, bondholders and shareholders who lose.  The American public will then be the losers.

And so this will go for every single company and industry that Obama nationalizes, over-regulates, or otherwise controls.

Running a company is not "community organizing."  It is not running a campaign for election.  Or re-election.  Obama is incapable of running a company, much less an industry.  He deserves to lose his job in 2012.  If we cannot persuade our senators and congressmen to give him nothing more, then they must all lose their jobs as well.  Sooner, rather than later.

This is as good as it gets.  Effing brilliant.  David Kahane is often funny, but he really nails it in a sobering piece this time.

Here.  It doesn't get any clearer than this.