Public Enemy No. 1: Critics of ObamaCare

Connect the dots - what picture emerges?

Dot 1.

The ObamaCare Writedowns—II: Democrats blame a vast CEO conspiracy (Wall Street Journal, 3/31/2010).

"Presumably the White House is familiar with the Financial Standard Accounting Board's 1990 statement No. 106, which requires businesses to immediately restate their earnings in light of their expected future retiree health liabilities. AT&T, Deere & Co., AK Steel, Prudential and Caterpillar, among others, are simply reporting the corporate costs of the Democratic decision to raise taxes on retiree drug benefits to finance ObamaCare. . .

"Democrats have responded to these writedowns not by rethinking their policy blunder but by hauling the CEOs before Congress on April 21 for an intimidation session. The letter demanding their attendance from House barons Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak declared that 'The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs, so your assertions are a matter of concern.' . . .

"The Towers Watson consulting firm estimates that the total writeoffs will be as much as $14 billion, and the 3,500 businesses that offer retiree drug benefits are by law required to report and expense their losses this quarter or next."

Dot 2.

Chávez's Gag Orders: It's a crime to criticize El Jefe. (Wall Street Journal, 3/31/2010)

"On Thursday military intelligence briefly detained the president of Globovision, the country's final remaining independent media voice. According to Attorney General Luisa Ortega, Guillermo Zuloaga is under investigation for criticizing Mr. [Hugo] Chávez at the Inter-American Press Association meeting in Aruba earlier this month for closing down independent media outlets. Mr. Zuloaga said press freedom had been lost.

"Ms. Ortega said that Mr. Zuloaga is being investigated for spreading false information and making comments 'offensive' to the president. The media owner was released but can't leave the country until the investigation is completed. He faces from three to five years in prison if convicted of making false statements."

Dot 3.

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, by Mao Tse-tung

"In their political activities, how should our people judge whether a person's words and deeds are right or wrong? On the basis of the principles of our Constitution, the will of the overwhelming majority of our people and the common political positions which have been proclaimed on various occasions by our political parties, we consider that, broadly speaking, the criteria should be as follows:

1. Words and deeds should help to unite, and not divide, the people of all our nationalities.
2. They should be beneficial, and not harmful, to socialist transformation and socialist construction.
3. They should help to consolidate, and not undermine or weaken, the people's democratic dictatorship.
4. They should help to consolidate, and not undermine or weaken, democratic centralism.
5. They should help to strengthen, and not shake off or weaken, the leadership of the Communist Party.
6. They should be beneficial, and not harmful, to international socialist unity and the unity of the peace-loving people of the world.

"Of these six criteria, the most important are the two about the socialist path and the leadership of the Party. These criteria are put forward not to hinder but to foster the free discussion of questions among the people.

" . . . these six political criteria are applicable to all activities in the arts and sciences. In a socialist country like ours, can there possibly be any useful scientific or artistic activity which runs counter to these political criteria?"
[From the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Foreign Languages Press: Peking, 1977, First Edition 1977, Vol. V, p. 388.]

Picture that is beginning to emerge:

1.
"The Revolutionary Tribunal (French: Tribunal révolutionnaire) was a court which was instituted in Paris by the Convention during the French Revolution for the trial of political offenders, and eventually became one of the most powerful engines of the Reign of Terror."

"The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial. The term was first recorded in the 1930s. There is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant  and that the actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and as a warning. Show trials tend to be retributive rather than correctional justice."

"A struggle session (Chinese) was a unique method used by the Mao era Communist Party of China to shape public opinion and to humiliate, to persecute and/or execute political rivals, or so-called class enemies."

"The term perp walk is an American slang term which refers to the police practice of intentionally parading an arrested suspect (or "perp", short for "perpetrator") through a public place so that the media may observe and record the event. The suspect is typically handcuffed or otherwise restrained, and is often dressed in prison garb."

2.
"In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."
[from: The United States Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776]


Robespierre, The Fool as Revolutionary: Inside the French Revolution

The future of reform

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke puts American business on notice: Play along with the President or expect to be "invited" to a struggle session.

The ObamaCare Writedowns: The corporate damage rolls in, and Democrats are shocked! (Wall Street Journal, MARCH 27, 2010): "Commerce Secretary Gary Locke took to the White House blog to write that while ObamaCare is great for business, 'In the last few days, though, we have seen a couple of companies imply that reform will raise costs for them.'. . .

". . . Meanwhile, Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment 'appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs.'. . . Democrats don't like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet."

"A Struggle session [struggle meeting] was a unique method used by the Mao era Communist Party of China to shape public opinion and to humiliate, to persecute and/or execute political rivals, or so-called class enemies . . . The term refers to class struggle; ostensibly, the session is held ostensibly to benefit the target, by eliminating all traces of counterrevolutionary, reactionary thinking."

What is the future of reform?

Will it come as a surprise when the bad elements of society who will not "confess" (as Toyota executives did, February 2010) become the target of a government-media campaign demanding some form of Community Service or "Rehabilitation Through Labor"?

Rehabilitation through labor means: "To put it in plain language, this method calls for the state to provide bad elements with shelter, make arrangements for them, and provide them with appropriate conditions for labor . . . Thus, rehabilitation through labor involves their supporting themselves through their own labor while at the same time reforming themselves through labor. This indicates the concern and the spirit of responsibility of our socialist state for the live, labor, and future of these people. The state's handling of and arrangements for them are also designed to safeguard against damaging the free, happy, and prosperous lives of the great majority of the laboring people and the socialist order." [page 255, The criminal process in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1963: an introduction, by Jerome Alan Cohen (Harvard University Press, 1968)] 

" . . . But because of the thickness of their exploiting class ideological consciousness and their deeply rooted reactionary standpoint, we must also educate them [i.e., the bad elements] in political ideology. We must explain the truth to them and show them the future of reform. We must organize them to conduct self-examination, self-criticism, mutual analysis, and censure, to develop the two-road struggle in politics and ideology, to admit their guilt and their errors, and to wipe out their reactionary ideology. In the practice of productive labor they gradually establish the determination to reform themselves, to walk the socialist road [as opposed to the capitalist road], and to be laborers in socialist society." [page 256, The criminal process in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1963: an introduction, by Jerome Alan Cohen (Harvard University Press, 1968). From Meng Chao-liang, "Preliminary Accomplishments of the Work of Rehabilitation Through Labor," FCYC, 3:47, 48-49 (1959).]

Organized Crime and ObamaCare

Who is connecting the dots between Organized Crime and ObamaCare?

1. ". . . it is important to note that medical identity theft is an 'insider' crime more often than not, and frequently involves health professionals at some level. One Medicaire/Medicaid fraud investigator interviewed for this report went so far as to say that the crimes she saw always had a component of a medical professional being involved. Sometimes, even the doctors are victims of identity theft; one of the mechanisms of medical identity theft in organized crime is to use a legitimate and innocent doctors’ identity to steal patient identities. . . . Organized, complex schemes have been discovered in California, Florida, and New York. In the hands of organized crime, false claims are spread out across multiple patients, and the claim amounts are small . . .(to avoid arousing suspicion.). Organized patterns of this crime tend to involve what is called “clinic takeover.” This is where a group purchases a small clinic, operates the scam out it for a few months to a year, then shuts the operation down and disappears. The clinic may or may not be staffed with real doctors. Clinic takeover is particularly insidious because patients get taken into a slick scam and may have no idea that there was every a problem. Victims of clinic takeovers may in some cases be visiting clinics where each person they see there is involved in some way with the crime." [MEDICAL IDENTITY THEFT: The Information Crime that Can Kill You, by Pam Dixon, Executive Director, World Privacy Forum (Spring 2006)]

2.  "McAllen [Texas]is in Hidalgo County, which has the lowest household income in the country . . . McAllen has another distinction, too: it is one of the most expensive health-care markets in the country. Only Miami—which has much higher labor and living costs—spends more per person on health care. In 2006, Medicare spent fifteen thousand dollars per enrollee here, almost twice the national average. The income per capita is twelve thousand dollars. In other words, Medicare spends three thousand dollars more per person here than the average person earns. . . .The decision is whether we are going to reward the leaders who are trying to build a new generation of Mayos and Grand Junctions. If we don’t, McAllen won’t be an outlier. It will be our future." [The Cost Conundrum: What a Texas town can teach us about health care, by Atul Gawande (June 1, 2009)]

3. CALLER [Rob in Glen Cove, Long Island]: ". . . you can't offer these third-party system with these dollar-one benefits and expect any kind of crunching of the cost curve.  I spent the first eight years of my career inside a TPA where before they linked with networks where you paid copayments, you paid cash.  And as soon as they contracted with these networks where suddenly the employee could just say, well, you know, I'll just pay $15, we saw some of the stupidest claims that if you had to pay some money out of your pocket, you know they wouldn't have been done . . . when US health care and Oxford came to New York in 1993 the promise was we're going to give you physicals, we're going to keep the rates low and everyone's going to stay healthy because we're going to find the cancers ahead of time.  The total opposite happened.  Rates went up 600%."

RUSH:  "Why?"

CALLER:  "Because people had no invitation to want to be consumer oriented and the doctors realized, hey, my business has now morphed into a volume practice. . . ." 

RUSH:  ". . . . this is what's primarily wrong with our health care system and that is the patient and the provider and the service have no financial relationship to each other at all.  The patient's ability to pay is not a factor in the pricing . . ."

4. "President Obama's attempts to ram health-care reform through an increasingly reluctant Congress are starting to resemble a really eventful episode of 'The Sopranos' . . . the Obama administration and its congressional allies are willing to use every trick in the book to get this bill passed. [Dirty tricks include: buying votes with pork and special deals; re-writing Massachusetts election laws; attempting to hold up Scott Brown's Senate seating; and an "unprecedented willingness to ignore congressional rules."] . . . Those who support the president can expect favors. . . .Those who oppose the president can expect the political equivalent of a horse head between their sheets." [Final 'reform' push: twisting arms, by MICHAEL TANNER (March 10, 2010)]

Gangster government is turning our healthcare system into a monopolistic, fraudulent medical claims racket:
Organized crime has taken over the auto industry, via the unions and the US government. Competing automakers are now subject to nationally televised Congressional hearings. These hearings are struggle meetings*. What's next?

It is becoming clear that organized crime is taking over the US healthcare industry -- the temptation to own the third-party payer cash cow is overwhelming.

*  Struggle Meeting: "The most common way to kill during the [Communist Chinese] land reform was known as the  struggle meeting.  The CCP fabricated crimes and charged the landowners or rich farmers. The public was asked how they should be punished. Some CCP members or activists were already planted in the crowd to shout  'We should kill them!' and the landowners and rich peasants were then executed on the spot. At that time, whoever owned land in the villages was classified as a 'bully' [enemy of the people]." [Epoch Times Commentaries on the Communist Party - Part 7 (Dec 23, 2004)]

What if we ration school funds the way we will ration healthcare funds?

Government-funded anything creates economic inequities

1. Government-run healthcare creates economic inequities.

Taxpayer-funded healthcare creates a limited pool of money to spend. Under a government-run system, it doesn't make sense to divert a disproportionate amount of money to any one segment of the population. The elderly, especially in the last year of life, consume a disproportionate share of the government-provided healthcare dollars. Some people say this is justifies rationing.

Aged-Based Health Care Rationing:  "The projected demands from a growing elderly population on a health care system that is already taxed to the breaking point, together with continual advances and availability of expensive life-extending technology, have led to troubling questions about society's ability to meet future health care demands, and to the increased tolerance of proposals for rationing. . . .  In short, the costs that are incurred to prolong the life of one elderly person might be more productively directed toward the treatment of a far greater number of younger persons whose health can be ensured by less costly measures. . . . Furthermore, the advocates of rationing argue, society benefits from the increase in economic productivity that results when medical resources are diverted from an elderly, retired population to those younger members of society who are more likely to be working."

2. Government-run education creates economic inequities.

There is plenty of evidence of systemic economic inequities in the public education system.

High school sports spending grows as budgets get tighter in New Jersey, by DIANE D’AMICO, Education Writer (October 26, 2009): ". . . sports are an emotional issue for parents, who are very vocal if they believe their children's programs are threatened. But there is a larger public policy issue to address about what constitutes publicly-funded education. . . The annual athletic budgets do not include stadiums or other facilities, which are funded as capital projects."

Millions of dollars pour into high school football, by Steve Wieberg, USA TODAY (10/6/2004): [USA Today cited examples of high school districts pouring millions of dollars into new stadiums, sports facilities, and sports programs] ". . . two Texas high school districts [spent] . . . more than $20 million — apiece. . .
"Georgia power Valdosta High School just finished a $7.5 million face lift of its 10,300-seat stadium . . .
"Lafayette Jefferson High drew up a privately financed, $8 million building project that already has delivered a 6,000-seat football stadium, complete with a high-end video scoreboard . . . A 22,000-square-foot athletic complex will house locker, weight and training rooms . . ."

We cannot measure the inequity in terms of dollars, because school district budgets are not that transparent.

PRESS RELEASE: Slaughter Bill Will Force High Schools to Disclose Spending on Girls Sports: Promote Equal Athletic Opportunities for Girls [Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, Chairwoman, House Committee on Rules, Representing New York’s 28th District, Tuesday, June 16, 2009]: "The High School Athletics Accountability Act of 2009 will require that high schools report basic data on the number of female and male students in their athletic programs as well as the expenditures made for their sports teams. . . . Recent studies have shown that there is still great disparity in high school athletics programs between the opportunities given to boys and that given to girls.'"

Why not carry Rep. Slaughter's proposal to the next level?

Why not require reporting on exactly how much is spent per year on an average first grade girl, and compare that number with how much is spent per year on the high school football quarterback? On the high school basketball star? It just seems to make sense that [to paraphrase] society would benefit from the increase in economic productivity that results when education resources are diverted from an elite, athletic population to the larger population of non-athletic students who are more likely to one day be working.

State education budgets are being cut back. Few people seem to question where all that money is being spent in the first place. If we had a clear accounting, would the pragmatists who advocate age-based healthcare rationing apply the same logic to the way we divert public school funding?

I don't count my time because I'm the President

Comments on today's Healthcare Summit:
Human Events: "When our forefathers set forth to create a free and democratic republic, they wanted to make sure that they created checks and balances within our government to prevent one party or one body of government from having absolute power over the people. Our leaders would be wise to remember this."

Another Great Healthcare Charade by  Rep. Ted Poe (02/25/2010):  "As legislators are being summoned by the executive body this week, one cannot help but recognize the irony. The laws in our country originate in the legislative body, not the executive. While the president certainly has the authority to propose ideas for legislation, it is far beyond his constitutional power to create it."

The Blair House Witch Project, by George Neumayr (2.25.1): "Barack Obama . . . is the self-appointed custodian of "common ground" while not moving an inch towards it . . . Whenever Obama is forced to describe in detail what he is actually proposing, it becomes clear that his goal is not expanded coverage but expanded control."

CNN: "Jon Kyl, the Senate Republican Whip, pointed out that a major philosophical difference between the two sides is who should be in charge of the health care system -- the government or private industry."

CNN: Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl: 'There's so much in the bills you [President Obama] have supported that puts so much control in Washington."

CNN: House Republican Whip Eric Cantor(see video): "There is a reason we voted no. It does have to do with the philosophical differences you [President Obama] pointed out. It also has to do with our fear that Washington can define what are essential health benefits."

Sick of partisan bickering?

People who claim to be "sick of partisan bickering" have only a superficial understanding of the lines of thought that led our Founding Fathers to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Our Founding Fathers did not think in lock-step. As our nation took shape, it became clear that there were differing ideas about how our Constitutional framework should be applied to concrete situations. Two lines of thought, like Jacob and Esau, struggled in the womb.

Then and now, "partisan bickering" is an accompaniment to the necessary struggle between those who advocate limiting government and those who advocate expanding government. It is a struggle that is at the heart of American political life, for it is a struggle between the champions of the self-reliant individual and the advocates of command and control.

During President George Washington's first term, a number of legislative proposals were brought forward. There also arose situations requiring military action. As Congress began to function, factions formed along the lines of how to interpret the Constitution: either a strict interpretation or an acceptance of implied powers.

And was there "bickering?"

According to biographer James Flexner, when President Washington went to "the Senate chamber to be present at the debate concerning a proposed treaty . . . So much time was wasted . . . by what he considered inconsequential bickering that, as he left the chamber, he was overheard to say that he would 'be damned if he ever went there again!'" [Washington: The Indispensable Man, James Flexner (1969), page 221]

In addition to allowing for open conflict of ideas and all of the frailties of human emotion that go along with it, our system of government requires a continual effort to strike a balance of power between the executive, legislative, and judicial branch of government.

It is interesting to note [again I refer to Flexner's biography, page 221] that George Washington did not attempt to influence Congressional legislative debates. He did this out of respect for the separation of powers and because he did not want to establish a Monarch-Presidency [This brings to mind the actions of Charles I of England ,who dissolved Parlaiment and imprisoned his critics].

Contrast the respect George Washington had for the separation of powers with the overweening presumption Barak Obama has for command and control.*

This month, the partisan media organ CNN tells us: "Two-thirds of Americans think that the Republicans in Congress are not doing enough to cooperate with President Obama . . . According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the government in this country is broken, but the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what's broken can be fixed." [Tingle: the audacity of hope . . . .]

The partisan bickering is not America's problem.

America's problem is a President who would be King.

*see six snippets below from: "Obama calls for end to partisan bickering on jobs, health care"  (ASSOCIATED PRESS: February 9, 2010)

1. President Obama is: "Appealing for bipartisanship."
2. “'The people who sent us here expect a seriousness of purpose that transcends petty politics,' Obama said"
3. “'We can’t afford grandstanding at the expense of actually getting something done,' Obama said. 'What I won’t consider is doing nothing.'”[see snippet 6]
4. “'I won’t hesitate to embrace a good idea from my friends in the minority party, but I also won’t hesitate to condemn ... what I consider to be obstinacy,' Obama said."
5. "He also threatened to act unilaterally to install his choices for several government vacancies that normally would require Senate confirmation, if his nominees continue to be held up."[did President Bush do this when the Senate held up his confirmations?]
6. On the infamous health care bill: "Obama said he’s willing to start from scratch but that both sides must give ground. He also said that the final bill must meet his goals, such as ending abusive insurance industry practices, reducing costs and expanding the affordability of and access to coverage."

Abortion Clinic Tricks of the Trade: ground-breaking hidden-camera investigation

The media celebs love to dish it out . . .
TRICKS OF THE TRADE: TRANSCRIPT, By Chris Hansen, Correspondent, NBC News updated 11:03 a.m. ET, Wed., April 23, 2008  This story originally aired Dateline NBC on April 13, 2008.
Hansen: "Dateline is about to show how some insurance agents can take advantage of you. Join us in a ground-breaking hidden-camera investigation, as we go behind the scenes to uncover the techniques they use:
inside sales meetings -- where we catch the questionable pitches;
inside training sessions -- where we discover agents being taught to scare seniors; and, finally,
inside senior's homes to reveal the tricks some agents use to puff their credentials to make a sale.
You're about to see what happens when we catch them in the act."

But they can't take it. 
You're about to see what happens when WE catch THEM in the act . . .

See: Daily Media Bias Reports

See: NewsBusters