The American Spectator

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Who Elects the Brain Dead?

11.1.07 @ 12:01AM

THE LEAST AMONG US
Re: Jeffrey Lord's Night of the Brain-Dead Congressmen:

Jeffrey Lord's "Night of the Brain-Dead Congressmen" is an entertainingly written piece that unfortunately misleads on a key point.

Congressmen Stark and Waxman and CMS have no authority to "restrict the use" of ESA's. What they are doing is to restrict the grounds on which Medicare will pay for their use.

So what's at issue here is not whether ESA's can be prescribed, but whether taxpayers will be coerced into paying for them under the Medicare program.

Most conservatives at least give lip service to the idea of getting Medicare and Medicaid spending under control. Let's face the fact that this will require that some services, to some patients, will have to be curtailed.
-- Bob Danielson

Mr. Lord proposes that the two Congressmen in his article, Reps. Stark and Waxman, are brain dead. I can probably accept that characterization, but I have a serious query for Mr. Lord, or anyone else out there in the blogosphere. If these Congressmen are brain dead, what does that say for the majority of the voters in those districts that have been re-electing them over and over and over again? Are those voters brain dead, or are they even farther gone than that? And what about Pelosi, and young Kennedy, and Maxine Waters, and at least two dozen more just in the U. S. House of Representatives alone? And what about the voters in those districts that keep electing them? Now let us aggregate the U. S. Senators that suffer the same malady, along with their voters. Keep in mind that in each case the majority of voters in each of these jurisdictions, of their own free will, elected these people. Now what should we glean from this regarding a very significant plurality of the American electorate? I submit that that is a truly scary thought this All Hallows Eve.
-- Ken Shreve
Behind Enemy Lines in New England

Thoughtful article, but it leaves out one glaring question: At what point does our medical community come to grips with how they have educated their patients, or in this case, how they have allowed the patient to be used like a rubber doll, passed around while everyone feeds from the patient's medical problems?

And just what would an educated patient want to see changed? Perhaps that answer might be found in the notion of "competition" if my hunch is right.
-- RJP
Corrales, New Mexico

1. Remember Dr. Bill Frist and Terri Schiavo? Who can forget the current battle over reproductive health issues? And, the Aids epidemic and condom distribution? All are widely believed to be the proper concern of patients and their physicians only. Yet, the current administration, with the blessing of the GOP, has no problem with government bureaucracies intruding into these very private areas of our citizens' lives. I don't recall Mr. Lord expressing concern about any of these.

2. Mr. Lord writes: "THE FIRST ISSUE IS capitalism. They don't like it. The second issue is big government bureaucracies. They are crazy in love with those." While ostensibly talking about a handful of individuals in this article, anyone who reads Mr. Lord's articles knows he thinks the same of all liberals and Democrats. This statement is an example of the kind of hyperbolic nonsense that is all too common from both the right and the left. It is possible to be an enthusiastic supporter of capitalism and still recognize that problems exist, some of which can be addressed by government regulation (Security and Exchange Commission) and intervention (Federal Reserve). The health of my portfolio is tied to market forces and the actions of these two government bureaucracies.

3. As for bureaucracies, it is true that in too many instances, they have become too big and too inefficient. Also, once created, they never go away. But this does not negate the fact that (1) we need government, (2) we need to pay taxes to support government and (3) government should be efficient and transparent. The current administration has failed miserably on the last two counts. Since the GOP and conservatives hate government so much, they apparently feel no obligation to appoint competent, public minded people to office. Who can forget the most famous among the parade of incompetents in the Bush administration: Brownie?
-- Mike Roush
North Carolina

One thing this great article does not mention is that the Doctor and the Lawyer will never have to worry about the consequences of their actions because they are vested in the Federal Healthcare system and don't have to go on Medicare ever. Typical double standard from the Dems. One standard for the plebs and one for them.
-- Tom McGonnell
Alexandria Virginia

CLOVE, BUT NO CIGAR
Re: Elizabeth Nolan Brown's Clove Encounters:

"Clove Encounters" overlooks the complicity of one Indonesian tobacco giant in current efforts to ban Bad Things That Taste Good, from patisserie to cigarettes. Only Djarum has agreed to pay into the tobacco settlement state attorneys won a decade ago, despite the fact that their products did not figure in the case.

By joining the state's attorney's tax-milking cabal, Djarum has won a de facto monopoly in the U.S., which explains Elizabeth Nolan Brown's equation of their epoynmous product "With its dark wrapper and strong, peculiar -- and, to many, sickening -- smell, it."

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