The definition of insanity: California

What do you do when you are dead broke and can't afford to pay for what you've got?  If you are California you create a new program that will billions of dollars (emphasis added):

A key legislative committee in California revived a bill Thursday to create a government-run health care system in the nation's most populous state, two days after Massachusetts elected a senator who opposes the president's national health care plan.

The Senate Appropriations Committee released the bill for a vote by the full Senate next week. The legislation had been held over from last year because of the state's ongoing budget crisis.

Creating a single-payer system would cost California an estimated $210 billion in its first year. That's roughly double the size of the total state budget, but about what the state and federal government and residents cumulatively spend now on California health care, said Sen. Mark Leno.

Insert forehead slap here. 

If you believe that any government appointed committee has ever gotten any cost estimate right then we are talking about a cost of $5,700 for every man, woman and child legally living in California each year.  How much do you have to raise taxes on families and businesses to cover that?  California is already broke.  They can not pay for their schools, roads and existing programs yet the want to burden the taxpayers with a new program?

Insanity.

I did it

Right at the top of Prof. Jacobson's home page at Legal Insurrection is a link to volunteer to call from home on behalf of Scott Brown.  The "concern" trolls are out on behalf of Coakley in an effort to spread misinformation and supress the vote.  At this point, Scott Brown is our greatest hope for ending this health care debacle and it falls on each of us to do everything in our power to help him get elected.

I have volunteered to make calls from home on behalf of the Brown campaign.  Please consider doing the same.

We Fight

Via Memeorandum

Erick at RedState is calling on all Republican senators to stand up and fight to stop the health care bill from advancing. Stacy McCain asks, If Not Now, When? We know the answer, if not now, never. If we don't stand up when the government is poised to takeover one sixth of our economy we will never get another chance.

Each of us only has two senators. If you have a Republican senator email Erick's article to them. If you have a Democratic senator, email them and let them know where you stand. Follow up with a phone call.

Poll after poll has shown that we don't want this bill. It does no good to talk to pollsters. Talk to your neighbors. Talk to your family. Talk to anyone who will listen. But most of all, talk to your senator.

We fight!

Now That Dissent Is No Longer Patriotic...Update

what is?

Perhaps paying taxes is patriotic. No, that can't be, see: Obama-entire Cabinet. So how is patriotism defined these days?

Is it simply taking a pledge to be a better person? If patriotism is defined as the love for one's country it would be constant, and not dependent on the occupant of the Oval Office.

Patriotism "is something that almost everyone thinks is good," says Nolan McCarty, professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton. "So if you can attach your idea to something that is good — Mom, apple pie, patriotism — that's a particularly effective way of selling the idea.

Well there we have it. The Left has discovered patriotism and made it their own. They won and the definition belongs to them. They have defined health care as a human right and with it, support of health care as an act of patriotism.

It is what it is. For the remainder of Obama's term, those of us who believe in small government, free speech, self-determination should accept that we have inherited the titles and symbols the Left once gave to Pres. Bush. We will be associated with swastikas and we will be called stupid . This should not bother us and it should not deter us. The Left is only renting patriotism and the current situation is temporary.

Granted, there is a lot of harm that the Left can do before their lease is up. We must stand up to them and do everything in our power to ensure that we still have a country left when they've vacated. But we shouldn't expect them to pat us on the back, or their minions in the media to congratulate us, for pointing out that they are trashing a country that true patriots shed their blood to build and protect.

My advice to people on the Right, stay vigilant but find the humor in the Left and learn to laugh. Only forty-two months to go.

Update-Mark Steyn writing along these same lines:

Reporting dissent is the highest form of patriotism! Is your neighbor suspiciously "well-dressed"? Is he mouthing off about cancer survival rates under socialized medical systems while wearing a cravat? Give us his name, and we'll give you his spats! Just go to flag@whitehouse.gov, not to be confused with flagging@whitehouse.gov., which is the e-mail address for reporting President Obama's latest approval rating. Go to flay@whitehouse.gov if you'd like Speaker Pelosi to walk across your back as a whip-wielding SS dominatrix barking "Vee hoff vays of making you tokk less casually, dumbkopf!" Go to flange@whitehouse.gov if you need parts for your new government car, or your new government hip replacement. Go to flaunt@whitehouse.gov if you'd like a special preview of President Obama's latest bare-chested pictorial for Vanity Fair. Go to flatulent@whitehouse.gov if you'd like to report your neighbor's cow for excessive CO2 emissions.

Well I certainly didn't need the Pelosi image and I am over the Obama pictorials. Steyn makes the point that Conformity is now the new dissent. So, under Obama, there is not dissent, only compliance.

ObamaCare, Longevity and Beer

According to Master TrogloPundit it is predicted that by mid-century there will be six million centenarians running about. I am already half a century plus one but I suppose if I cut back on the tobacco and further increase my daily consumption of beer it is possible.

Still, should I fall and break my hip when I’m eighty, which is a given considering my penchant for breaking bones, under the new super duper ObamaCare I could be stuck living another twenty years without the soon to be rationed out of existence, entirely necessary, hip replacement.

I don’t see it happening. Longevity seems counter-intuitive under the Obama Doctrine. But, rather than being a pessimist, I'll mull it over while I have another beer.

What Am I Missing, Besides The Obvious?

From Stacy McCain:

Four unions representing the nation's postal workers are pleading for a meeting with the White House to address possible funding shortfalls for workers' payroll and retiree health benefits, according to a letter obtained by CongressDaily.The presidents of the American Postal Workers Union, National Rural Letter Carriers' Association, National Association of Letter Carriers and National Postal Mailhandlers Union co-signed the Tuesday letter to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, warning that the U.S. Postal Service is at risk of defaulting on a $5.4 billion payment to prefund retiree health benefits at the end of September.The letter alleges that USPS "may not be able to make payroll in October and will be forced to issue IOUs instead." . . .

Can anyone explain to me why a single entity, the post office, needs FOUR unions to represent its workers? Is this, perhaps, the reason why the post office is so God awful inefficient? And more importantly, why would anybody trust the government with anything as important as our health care?

Is The President Telling Us Everything We Need To Know About National Health Care?

If President Obama gets his way, nationalized health care will be rammed down the throats of the American people. Again today the President said, “If you like your doctor, if you like your health plan, you can keep them and the only difference is that you will pay less for that coverage.” I am not going to accuse the President of being a liar, but I will say that his statement seems nonsensical. Currently I pay $25 to see a doctor, $15 for my prescriptions and $500 if I am hospitalized. My employer pays my premiums and my deductible is $2,500; $1,000 of which my employer will reimburse. Also, my company employs less than twenty-five people. I am in good health and have not seen a doctor or taken any medications in the last eighteen months. In other words, for the last year and a half I have been covered by health care but I have paid exactly ZERO.

Now obviously, just because I haven’t paid anything doesn’t mean that nothing has been paid. My health insurance, like my vacation, is a benefit of my employment. Under the President’s plan it would no longer make sense for my employer to continue providing that benefit. So, under the President’s plan the cost of what I receive now would be much higher, not lower as the President stated. Further, the care I receive would not be between my doctor and I as it is now. National health care is rationed health care.

Peter Singer wrote an article that appeared in the NY Times today titled Why We Must Ration Health Care. Singer is simply stating a fact that everyone agrees on but our President and Congressman won’t admit to because the Devil is in the details and they don’t want anyone to know what those details are until national health care has been passed. Singer on the other hand, is neither a politician nor known for being ’politically correct.’ (Singer believes that sex with animals is okayas long as both parties enjoy it.) Singer has long advocated that some humans; the unborn, newly born, disabled, elderly, are worth less than others and therefore, it is only logical that health care be rationed according to a person’s worth to society as a whole. Looking at health care dispassionately, if society is paying for care then society should get as much ‘bang for its buck’ as possible.

The logic under this type of health plan is that treating a disabled child deprives society of resources that could be spent in a more productive manner. Accordingly, these types of decisions can be difficult for an individual or family to make, therefore, the decision should be made by a government body. The problem with this is that Americans believe in individuality, freedom and self-determination. We feel very passionately about our loved ones and do not want their fate to rest in the hands of a dispassionate government body. Singer and others may argue that our current system is inefficient and illogical but isn’t it also illogical that the same people who absolutely support a woman’s right to choose abortion would deny a woman has the right to have her disabled child receive medical treatment?

Ask yourself, if this plan is so good and so necessary, why is Congress exempting themselves from participating in it? It is because they know that they and their loved ones are receiving far better care now than they would under a public plan. If it is not good enough for them, it is not good enough for us either.

The Future Of Health Care, Part II

Yesterday I wrote about Ava Stinson, a baby born 14 weeks premature, in The Future of Health Care. Ava was born in Canada but is being treated in the USA because thanks to rationed health care in Canada, there are beds available for her at home. I concluded with this:

“Slow health care is no health care. It doesn’t cost the government anything if you die waiting in line.”

Today I read Ed Morrissey’s take on the same story at Hot Air:

Well, it’s impossible to look at this situation without seeing the relative merits of the American and Canadian systems. First, the child would have gotten care in the US, too, regardless of insurance status. People get emergency care regardless in this country. There is a difference between health insurance and access to care that some people elide for purposes of political argument. No one gets turned away from emergency care for lack of ability to pay.

But why wasn’t there a NICU bed for the child in the entire nation of Canada? The government of Canada won’t pay for more. They don’t exist to expand supply to meet demand; their single-payer system exists to ration care as a cost-saving mechanism. In a free-market system, supply expands to meet demand, which is why Canada could subcontract out to a US hospital for capacity. Michael writes that paragraph as if it was mere luck that an NICU bed happened to be open in the US, but that’s a function of the system, and not luck. These parents are separated from their child at the moment through the fault of Canada’s government and not the US.

It’s a good lesson for both Americans and Canadians as the administration and Congress attempt to push a systemic overhaul of the US health-care system that will cost trillions and push us towards the same kind of single-payer system that Canada has. When we handle our health-care system like Canada, where will Canadians send the next NICU case they can’t handle? And where will America send ours?

Well, I think Ed knows the answer. If we allow this administration to nationalize our health care we will have nowhere to turn when rationed health care determines who receives treatment and who does not.

UPDATE: A great question (and a great post) by The Daley Gator:

Rationing services? That is a key part of the Canadian model. Let me pose this question. The Left says health care is a right. Do they also accept that rights, can be rationed? That question, more than any other is one we should pose to them.

The Future of Health Care

Via Memeorandum:

Ava Stinson was born Thursday at St. Joseph's Hospital, 14 weeks premature. Unfortunately, this particular St. Joseph’s Hospital is located in Hamilton, Ontario. Canada. The country who’s health care is soooo much better than ours.

There wasn’t a single available neo-natal bed in the entire province so little Ava was transported to Buffalo, NY. Lets here it for National Health Care aka rationed health care.

I heard this earlier on Fox News (I believe it was Steve Forbes), “Slow health care is no health care. It doesn’t cost the government anything if you die waiting in line.”