The American Spectator

macdaddy| 2.25.09 @ 8:43AM

I can follow Mr. Ferrara's logic, but I think he leaves out one very important factor: how the elderly, the most active and largest voting bloc, will react to this proposal. I can't see how old people will allow their health care to get cut. I can't see how people will vote to cut the health care of their parents. It's only going to take a few news stories about how heartless this is before the RATS realize they have a full scale disaster on their hands. And this is something that doesn't need to be done by the MSM. Local media will be more than happy to jump all over this.

Jochen Goldensocks| 2.25.09 @ 8:49AM

I think all this government paid for healthcare nonsense should end. Social Security, Health Aid and other freebies not paid by the receipient are communist invention. Let's return to the old good pioneer days and simply elimintate taxes in our life. Let everyman care for himself...

Robert| 2.25.09 @ 9:28AM

I have news for you: the mainstream media is invested in the success of their Messiah. Not a discouraging word will be heard nor written about the upcoming debacle that government healthcare will be. Instead the media hue and cry will be "We are not spending enough. The fact that the elderly are dying for lack of care, and a bureaucrat has denied you the operation you desperately need is the fault of too little money being spent!"

Obama will NOT be allowed to fail. Human nature compels those in whom the Messiah is the be all and end all to deny failure of their ideal. It is the same emotional foible that drives investors to follow a dying stock down, in hopes of a future turn-around, rather than cut their losses and admit they were wrong.

Jeremiah| 2.25.09 @ 11:07AM

Mr Ferrara --

Is "fascism" really the right word here?

People on this site use this word (or it's cousin, "nazi") for absolutely ANYTHING they disagree with.

The danger is that the word will come to mean nothing, as it does above.

Gill O'Teen| 2.25.09 @ 11:18AM

I’m quite comfortable with Obumah making decisions about drug use based on his personal experience in this area. Besides government intrusion on health care decisions and our constitutional right to privacy will never be permitted by Planned Parenthood or NARAL. And Jeremiah, “Fascism” does fit. Let’s have a tea party!

David Thomas| 2.25.09 @ 11:57AM

See related comment of 2008

http://davids-home-now.blogspot.com/

Jane Orient| 2.25.09 @ 12:51PM

See News of the Day and other items about the "stimulus bill" and the Blitzkrieg on American medicine at www.aapsonline.org.

$1 billion for "comparative effectiveness research" is not going to answer clinical questions not answered by the billions of dollars of research already being done--it will just be a rationale for rationing.

Michele San Pietro| 2.25.09 @ 12:51PM

The so-called "liberals" have been repeating the same crap about healthcare for decades. People are really fed up with it! I think we should simply stop talking about healthcare. The American healthcare system is perfect the way it is.

Jeremiah| 2.25.09 @ 1:35PM

Gill --

It only fits for people ignorant of the actual history of fascism in the 20th century.

If you use the word "squirrel" in reference to, say, the nation debt, it doesn't mean that the actual meaning of "squirrel" has changed.

If you can give some reasons why you think this word is appropriate, I'd love to hear them. But you should tie your reasoning somehow to the word's meaning, and not just some fantasy you have about it.

Ironically, the great theorist of the politics of language, George Orwell, taught us that this kind of loose usage is precisely a practice upon which fascism depends.

Who really is the fascist here?

I recommend you, Gill, and Mr. Ferrara, reread your Orwell and then make a trip to your local publicly funded, tax payer supported, LIBRARY (it's a big building where they keep all kinds of books, and anyone has the right to use it) and read some actual history books about fascism and its historical realities.

What you are engaging in here is actually a pernicious form of historical revisionism.

Jeremy Jester| 2.25.09 @ 1:35PM

Tongue in cheek as the example may be; the Feds couldn't successfully operate the Mustang Ranch (a brothel) when they took over the business for some failure to pay taxes. Now why should those same bureaucrats be allowed to operate our heath care system?

Dustoff| 2.25.09 @ 1:49PM

Jeremiah

So does the word RACIST also seem a bit over used. It's the only word the left knows how to use over and over. It NO-longer has any meaning.

djc-illinois| 2.25.09 @ 1:49PM

The Beginning of the End

Obama’s scheme to bring Socialism to America has become apparent. It’s extremely simple and, even though he’s only been in office a month, what he’s accomplished to date probably makes him unstoppable in reaching his aim.

The first step is to spend as much as possible, creating huge deficits, so as to establish the case for tax increases. Be sure that as much as possible of that spending is directed toward what Saul Alinsky referred to as “Have Nots” and is of a nature that those “Have Nots” quickly come to feel entitled to that spending. Unfortunately this step has already been accomplished by way of the so- called “stimulus” bill which does not stimulate but does, in fact, fully accomplish the foregoing.

The second step, which will probably come shortly after the 2010 mid-term elections, is to drastically raise taxes on the “Haves” (Alinsky again) and, at the same time, relieve the largest possible majority of voters of any tax burden whatsoever.

I am sure many voters thought that, despite his Marxist-laden background, there would be no way Obama could enforce Socialism on an economy as large and complex as the US and that, furthermore, all our “checks and balances” would block any such effort anyway.

When the second step is done, by way of a filibuster proof Congress sometime in 2011, it’s over. At that point, Democrats are entrenched in power and America becomes a Marxist-Socialist country –it won’t even take Obama three years. Americans have made a catastrophic mistake in electing this man as our president. We now have to think about what, if anything, can be done to stop him.

Gill O’Teen| 2.25.09 @ 1:55PM

Jeremiah, I stand corrected. Merriam-Webster’s definition of Fascism follows:
“a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race and stands for a centralized autocratic often militaristic government”. obumah would never, ever exalt this country, and after he negotiates with our enemies, we’ll have no military.

Personally, I prefer the word “lemming”, but if you and your fellow obumahtized prefer I call you squirrels, so be it.

Reewa| 2.25.09 @ 1:57PM

I had the chance to live in France for 4 years before coming to the US. Nobody mentioned the French healthcare system that is funded by the government and still rewards innovation as an example of how government funded systems can work without jeoperdizing the quality of care. Even for Canada & the UK systems,there are millions of people who enjoy a decent quality healthcare in front of the odd cases mentioned. We need a change but it should be an informed one. It should be based on studying what worked well and what did not in other systems around the globe

Jeremiah| 2.25.09 @ 2:16PM

Gill --

I'm glad you see your error.

Jeremiah| 2.25.09 @ 2:18PM

Dustoff --

So by claiming that leftists supposedly use the word "racisim" too often you're claiming that the over use of the word "fascism" is OK?

Part of the weakness of your claim is related to the fact that the way people here are using the word "fascism" is both literally incorrect and metaphorically shallow.

Nick| 2.25.09 @ 3:40PM

Reewa,

Nobody mentions it because it doesn't "work".
Medical care is a service. Medicine is a product. They are not and never have been a "right". They should be traded in the Free Market system like any other product and service.

Despite all our gov. interference, our medical services and innovations are the best in the world. If B.O. forces HillayCare on us, it won't be for long.

Dustoff| 2.25.09 @ 3:44PM

No Jere
is both literally incorrect and metaphorically shallow.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sorry bud, but all I did was show you how the left uses it to death and when someone on the right say's anything YOU don't like. Well you complain.

Remember (Pot & Kettle)

Dustoff| 2.25.09 @ 3:48PM

Reewa
=====

Do you know that England has a limit on how many are allowed into their ER 's They have a set number and if they go over that number, medic units will sit outside with injured and cared for in the ambulance! Do you even think that would be allowed here?
Please.

Jeremiah| 2.25.09 @ 4:27PM

Dustoff --

Really all you did was change the subject. Generally the person losing a debate is the one who does that.

And you still haven't really responded to my original claim.

By the way, can you give me an example of a leftist using the word "racism" in a sentence incorrectly, as Ferrara does above?

Dustoff| 2.25.09 @ 4:45PM

Jere
Really all you did was change the subject
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Excuse me FOOL. You sir, used the word not me.
YOU should have left it alone, but you didn't , so guess what.

(pot & kettle again)

Richard| 2.25.09 @ 4:53PM

The Democrats proposal for "universal health care" is just population control, plain and simple for the party of death.

Jeremiah| 2.25.09 @ 5:34PM

Nick --

80% of all drugs introduced on the market were developed at publicly funded institutions, not by private companies.

Government "interference" seems to have some pay-off.

What created change| 2.25.09 @ 6:43PM

Many Americans buy Drugs cheaper from Canada, if that is true then it's also true that if you buy at whole sale prices it's cheaper. If America and Canada is to become one block with Mexico the three countries merging as one it forces down prices. American pharmacutical companies will have to ajust to market forces, or go out of business, thus reducing cost for everyone, Obama is 1000% smarter than any writer on this page.

Obama's objective is that all people have health care cover. Advertising drugs on TV cost lots of money, and that is where most people's health care insurance is going not on health care but on advertising.

If companies have to pay for healthcare cover for all it's staff, and it's a big chunk of their budget, then the Business community will support the idea of driving down cost to allow affordability, thus increase profits and promote jobs.

Obama wins again, Obama is too smart to be president. Obama would do best in a major company multi national with world wide interest, Obama is a genius.

Obama is a living proof of the value of a good education, regardless of how many insult Obama and write in about his policies there is none that can match his ability, and genius.

Obama is smart enough to know that if you keep shipping jobs over seas eventually you end up with nations across the world being used as slave labour, and nothing gets produced in America, thus creating huge numbers of unemployed people in America, with no healthcare insurance.

Obama also knows that if the American population becomes useless, under-educated there is no chance they will ever find gainfull employment anywhere, while China and Asia and the rest of the world promotes education and high tech jobs, which will leave America behind and they will have to import people as nurses and Doctors in the future, because the American population become too DUMB to think outside a hamberger bar, or a CoCa Cola factory, or have the ability to set up a company of their own. So it seems Obama is right again because part of a country's investment must be for the future.

Obama is about the smartest person I have ever heard speak in about 20 years, in politics. Instead of negative comments people in America should be glad for the opportunity to change their ways from just stupid racism, and choose progress. America is a country that foreigners can come to and make fortunes, because they come with an idea, that idea creates jobs for local communities, I had a friend that became a millionare in America by going there and setting up business.

But America is now bad news, due to calling people terrorist, being insulting to people of colour. People with money began to move out because Bush gave them tax breaks to leave America, leaving thousands of former workers out of work. Bush managed to force out Muslim investors from the Arab world by his insults, and many will perhaps never invest in America again, now they can go to China and other parts of Asia.

Bush has turned America into an has been, most of Europeans see America as a terrorist rouge state, that taint the rest of the world with sleeze, by association, and is damaging to their economy.

Hence why Obama was elected to create a new image, don't dismiss it. America is a consumer society they make nothing anyone wants, that they can't buy from china. Putting trade embargo on countries these days is like putting putting embargos on one's self.

Times have changed and America has to change with the times, America has few pockets of oil, which would last a day, to drill these pockets out is a wase of time for a day supply of oil which would cost more to drill than profits. McCain was not smart enough under drill baby drill, because the American mass media and audiance don't know the facts most of them don't read any thing, and the media is controled by crooks that control wall street and such like.

America is a forward country and a backward country at the same time, a nation divided, by race, north and south.

If the world could have voted in the 2nd term of Bush being elected, he would never have won, because people knew this guy had no ability to govern a state or a country the size of America.

The 2nd term is what destroyed America, and paved the way for Obama, because no one could do any worse.

armygirllt| 2.25.09 @ 6:57PM

All this aside, Obama, during his campaign clearly stated that if you like your healthcare provider, you can keep it. If not, then you would be eligible for National Healthcare. Is he now saying that everyone will be on National healthcare. I have travelled 11 countries in Europe and have been to their hospitals. This is a very frightening prospect. AG

Jim| 2.25.09 @ 7:14PM

What created change,
How much are you paid to post this nonsense. Obama does not support education,he supports teachers unions, why is he not demanding university lower tuition prices? China, Japan and Canada told Obama is forget about trade restrictions and Obama said, Yes sir. You are an idiot. As for Obam'a intelligence I'm still wait for him to publish his academic records papers.
Obama slipped through college as an equal opportunity hand-out protected class victim.

TJK| 2.25.09 @ 7:40PM

The idea of buying drugs cheaper from Canada is nonsensical, since the Canadian government regulates which drugs are manufactured and which ones are not. The fact (yes, fact, you libs!) is the reason medications are expensive here in the US is because this is where 90% of the R&D;is done. Government-regulated healthcare in other countries have reduced the R& D going on in those nations. The fact (sorry, here I go again, stating facts) is that we have greater access to a wider array of medications that reduce the encounters needed in hospital settings, and the cost of these drugs is FAR less than the cost of traditional medical treatments for the same conditions. It has been proven (oops, yes, PROVEN!) that medications have prolonged lives, improved the quality of living, and provided lower cost treatments that are FAR less invasive. But, yes, you mindless lemmings on the left, you're right. If it's effective, the government needs to step in and take control of it. God forbid the people of this nation actually find a way to live WITHOUT governmental interference.

TJK| 2.25.09 @ 7:47PM

Oh, and if Obama is 1000% smarter than anyone else, how come he doesn't know that the automobile was NOT invented in America, as he said last night, but was actually invented in Germany? And when was the trans-continental railroad project completed? It was 1869, FOUR YEARS after the Civil War ended, not during it, as he said last night. Speaking of which, wasn't it Obama during the campaign who said that he had visited 57 states in the US? HOW MANY STATES???? How many stars are on the flag, you dunce???? Please.... don't let facts get in the way of a speech.

frankg| 2.25.09 @ 8:28PM

What creates change-
More of what government controls gets run into the ground.
Social Security.
Medicare.
Housing, mortgage industry, banks.
Obama wants to run your health care, regulate your speech.
Big government has shown they can't run what they have responsibility for; I don't want them to run my life.
We continue to foot the bill for all this, while politicians go out and sloppily slap around some big company boss for flying a jet to the meeting. Someone they probably took money from a few years ago.
And then we have Burris, Blago, Richardson, Geithner, Rangel, Dodd, Frank, not paying taxes, taking money from people they were supposed to regulate, implicated in crooked dealings, and Obama himself with ties to acorn and its activism for lower lending standards in the housing sector that contributed to this financial meltdown.
Now these people have been allowed to maintain their positions and assume new ones to create even greater pyramid schemes may speak to their abilities. But we are in for a world of hurt if we accept their premises...
That we HAVE to have bigger government.
That we HAVE to spend more, more, more.
That we HAVE to pass laws without debate, consideration, or readings. Running MORE of our lives.
Big government has helped tso many of these crisis to flourish. Once upon a time I paid for my own health care insurance, costs were low, treatments straightforward, no problem.
What creates change, they are politicians.
They are working for change where they are never held accountable.
Where we aren't citizens anymore. We will be a population to be managed. And the regulations will never end. And we will always, always have to be give something up, another freedom, another right.
That is the change they are creating.

Ben| 2.25.09 @ 8:31PM

Bullfrog (Jeremiah)
Fascism is correct. Fascism in practice calls for private ownership but government control over those privately owned businesses.Whereas the government decides what products are necessary/unnecessecary, good/bad, who gets to buy and what price they pay etc. The practice of government controlling our health care by controlling what treatments are acceptable and the decisions of private doctors working at private hospitals is definitely and historically fascist. On the other hand if governmnet were to own the hospitals and produce the drugs then it would be a socialist health care system.
The problem with Bullfrogs is they give you warts.

Gill O’Teen| 2.25.09 @ 11:01PM

Jeremiah, I was not admitting error. I was mocking you and your Fuehrer.

David C. Telliho| 2.26.09 @ 10:55PM

I think Obama and Co. need to keep their nibs out of our health care.

YoYo| 3.1.09 @ 8:56AM

Praise you Frank G. I agree with you 100%. Our future does not look good with our current administration in power. We also have lost our checks and balances in goverment. They never discussed or read the stimuls bill, the majority just ruled. That is what it will be until 2010, when we can elect conservatives as Senators and Congressmen . There will be 52 vacant seats. We have a last hope of control of the congress and the Senate.

Electoral fraud| 3.1.09 @ 4:45PM

Obama is the best president in the last 20 years. Obama is the smartest America was likely to get take a good look at Palin she was even a bigger idiot than George Bush who brought his way into office, by getting Black people struck off the vote register, claiming they are criminals by his brother Jeb Bush in florida.

Frances Griffin| 3.10.09 @ 5:18PM

I was in an HMO. The geographical limits kept me from getting effective treatment even though I went to a well known clinic. When I got on Medicare and had some CHOICE as to my providers I could CHOSE my providers and traveled to the best people. The treatment I have gotten has been more effective and for that reason has actually SAVED money(Just one example: early diagnosis of thyroid cancer surely saved many thousands. Everyone in the HMO missed it.)
Get rid of that horrible part D, get rid of the pricey Advantage programs, beef up the fraud unit, provide care to everyone so that young and healthy people are included in the risk group. And then lets talk about the cost.
Note that the insurance companies are complaining now that they cannot compete with a national plan. If corporate, for profit insurance is better, what are they afraid of?
And don't tell me it is fascistic. I have lived the difference. The fascists are in the insurance companies. I call them the delay and denial committee.

dropshippngwatch| 8.31.09 @ 3:32AM

Replica Watches
Replica Watch
Fake Watches
Replica Watches
Replica Watches
Replica Watch
Fake Watches
Replica Watch
Replica Watches
Wholesale Replica Watches
Fake Watch
Replica Watches Collection
Replica Longines Watches
Replica Louis Vuitton Watches
Replica Maurice Lacroix Watches
Replica MontBlanc Watches
Replica Movado Watches
Replica Omega Watches
Replica Oris Watches
Replica Panerai Watches
Replica Parmigiani Watches
Replica Patek Philippe Watches
http://www.dropshippingwatch.com

Wedding Dresses| 9.10.09 @ 2:43AM

By seeing this article, I understandWedding Dresses
Designer Wedding Gowns
a lot, learned a lot of knowledge

fsdjk| 10.16.09 @ 2:22AM

shanghai massage
turntable bearings