Not Popular

I know this opinion of mine isn't going to be popular ... but ... from this Yahoo article:

Under both bills, insurers would be barred from rejecting anyone because of pre-existing conditions. Gone, too, would be the practice in many states of charging women more than men, and insurers would be limited in how much they could increase rates on older people.

I think women should be charged more than men.

You should pay for things as you use them.  If you want the coverage, you should have to pay for it.  If you want the yearly wellness exams, and the preventative screening, you should pay for it.  Men - typically - stopping going preventatively to the doctor at 18 and don't go back until after 40.  Why should they pay more for services they don't use?

Health Care Columns You Should Read

Clark Judge via Hugh Hewitt: "The March of the Senate Democrats"

If Senate Democrats do not know what this means, they should talk to the People’s Bank of China. ShanghaiDaily.com (http://tinyurl.com/ykmtv92 ) reports that on Friday the bank’s deputy governor “told an academic audience that… [t]he United States cannot force foreign governments to increase their holdings of Treasuries. Double the holdings? It is definitely impossible."


Senate Democrats clearly do not understand or perhaps even care about nation’s finances. They are under tremendous, even unprecedented, pressure from the White House and special interests like the thuggish Service Employees International Union. The only numbers left to move them come from the polls.

Also via Hugh Hewitt: Trial Lawyers Buy Democrats in Congress

Has the investment paid off? Besides preventing the inclusion of medical malpractice reform, the Democratic majority in Congress has included multiple trial lawyer earmarks in the House version of Obamacare. Section 257 authorizes state attorneys general to sue companies that violate any federal health care provision and to delegate the work of such suits to class-action plaintiffs' firms. Another trial lawyer earmark in the bill pays states not to enact caps on attorneys' fees or lawsuit settlements.

Powerline has a series on where a "mystery hospital" is that's set to receive $100M.  NYT is looking into it as well.  Pray they continue.


WallStreetJournal editorial: "A Reckless Health Care Bill That No One Believes In"

Mr. Obama promised a new era of transparent good government, yet on Saturday morning Mr. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the world's greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and replaced it with a new "manager's amendment" that was stapled together in covert partisan negotiations. Democrats are barely even bothering to pretend to care what's in it, not that any Senator had the chance to digest it in the 38 hours before the first cloture vote at 1 a.m. this morning. After procedural motions that allow for no amendments, the final vote could come at 9 p.m. on December 24.


Even in World War I there was a Christmas truce.

Read the whole thing, it outlines the hidden costs, the tax payer deception, the lowering of quality of care, and the political intimidation used to get us here.

Even if you think something had to pass, something had to be done because so many are suffering, you have to know that the way this was done as shady, underhanded, and unAmerican.  Something that affects so many should have had a thoughtful, serious debate that included the cooperation of both sides.  Should have had compromises that benefited both ideals.  THAT is the nature of the government that we live under.  THIS is willful partisanship in the name of lobbyists, unions, and those on the far left that think they know better than everyone else.

The reprocussions of this I can not fathom.  But I believe in the greatness that is this nation.  I also know, that even great nations fall.  When we start considering 26 year olds children who need to be wards of the state, we are on such a fall.

There's so much more out there to read.  The Hill said that Nelson's claim the NE's Gov "okayd" the payoff is a lie.  There's a lot out there.  Even the kids at Huff Po don't like it - or don't LOVE it.  Robert Kuttner.  Drew Westen.  Which you would think they would.  They are getting what they want.  Ridiculous legisation that legislates peoples rights away and raises taxes on an entire generation that hasn't even become a glimmer in anyone's eye.

Ugh.  I'm saddened.  What difference does it make if you melt the phones, the people think this is wrong, and everyone universally agrees this bill is trash (but some say "it's better than nothing") and the damn thing is still going to be on the President's desk in a week?  HOW does that work?

This is what we wanted?  This is the change that we wanted?  A Senate that has a bill that they cannot pass it on it's merits, they have to have hurried and dangerous backroom dealing, BRIBES to Senators that include the State of Nebraska being exempt from raises to Medicare taxes PERMANENTLY.  Permanently.  The people of Nebraska are furious with Ben Nelson.  Those that elected him (primarily Right to Life) are calling for his seat.  We'll see what happens.  Americans are notoriously fickle.

This bill, this bill that claims to be budget neutral, that raises taxes for 10 years to cover payments for only 6, passed a cloture vote in the dead of night, after hours of laborous dealing and bribing.  Cloture motion passed at 1:08AM Monday morning.  The vote on the actual bill will take place sometime today (?) I think, and it will go to conference were Nan will let the Senate have it's way so that Obama can sign it before he eats his Turkey dinner.

Really?  Is this what we wanted?  A bill no one has read, they stop debate on, to force a vote, on a 2,000 page document that will effect every citizen in this country for ever?  We wanted no one to read the bill?  We wanted Senators to take pay for play bribes?  $300M for Landrieu, $100M for Nelson, $10B for Sanders, $100M for Levin, other states (Virginia and Mass) eeked out deals along what Nelson got, their states will not have to pay for the expansion to Medicare that this bill forces.  Just us smucks who didn't want it in the first place will be forced to pay for it.

Is this what we wanted?

I know what the victors will say, "We needed something."

Maybe, but we did not need this.  This bill is trash.  This bill does nothing to lower the cost of health care and everything to raise it.  We are in the same position we were in before, now only worse.  Because those that don't pay will need to be covered by those that do.

26 year olds were hailed on the Senate floor as children.  If this is the case, we need to readjust all of our laws.  20 for a driver's license, 25 for alcohol, 25 to enlist.

26 year's old and still on government health care as a child.  Way to go.

This bill is sad.  And the way it was passed is even sadder.  The bill was so awful, the American people so against it, that the Senate passed it the weekend before Christmas at 1:00AM.

We'll see what the American people say about that come November.  Maybe nothing.  But if polls are to be believed even as temperature gauges of popular opinion ... many of those voting for this atrocity will not have jobs in D.C. come Janaury next year.

At least, Ben Nelson's in big, big, big trouble.

Health Care Update

I haven't been writing about it, but I am keeping up.

Last night the Dems rushed through the Defense Authorization Bill at 1:00AM.  This bill, if I'm reading things correctly, was supposed to be thrown into an omnibus package with the healthcare bill - making those who vote against the health care bill also evil anti-military meanies.  Apparently they couldn't get that worked out.  But they've waited a long time to vote on this Pentagon bill, so much so Def. Sec. Gates was afraid the military would be fighting two wars on  continued stop gap spending.  This bill was supposed to be passed before the October 1st, new budget year began.

Great way to support to surge in Afghanistan.

Anyway.  So cloture was voted on that and the bill passed at 1:00AM.  I have issue with these late night / early morning votes.  I know people in China, should they be interested, could pay attention, but the tax paying citizens that these knuckleheads represent are all sleeping so they can get up and go to work the next day.

In Healthcare news, we still do not have a Senate bill to read.  Which is most irksome, to put it mildly.  We don't have a bill to read, or a CBO report to comment on.  As recently as last Sunday on 60 Minutes the President said that the bill was budget neutral.  I want to see the Congressional Budget Offices take on that.  And I want to see the actual language that Reid and others have been working on behind closed doors in closed door sessions with only Democrats.

To make matters worse, in order to say that they met the President's deadline of having healthcare in the can by Christmas, Reid has scheduled a vote on the legislation on Christmas Eve.  In order to make THAT deadline, he would have to have a cloture vote at midnight on Monday.

So it's Friday now, a cloture vote on Monday, on a bill. no. one. has. read.  This isn't a small thing.  This isn't minor.  This is the biggest piece of legislation that this body has ever deliberated.  The single biggest bill that will affect every single American for the rest of time.  And no one has read the bill.  Even the 60 Minutes guy said last week that it was incomprehensible.  1/6th the Nations economy and these clowns don't think reading the bill or allowing the American people - whom they supposedly represent - time to look at it themselves.

The vast majority of Americans are opposed to this legislation.  THIS legislation, not health care reform, just THIS TYPE of health care reform.  And most Americans, when asked, think that Congress should be focusing on budget concerns and jobs, and not adding to the increasing deficit.

And seriously, no one can believe that this plan, of adding people to the government dole, is going to save money.  No one believes that.  In Washington, they might believe the lies they are spinning, but no honest person believes that you can cover more people for less money.  None of us voters were born yesterday.

They shouldn't treat us like we were.

But watch for the Friday night dump of the bill.  If it's even ready.  If he doesn't have it - which is also a possibility, well he can try and bring a bill to the floor that hasn't been released to the public at his own peril.  Reid is poised to lose his seat in Nevada, he better be careful.  Santa has him on the naughty list so I'm pretty sure he's only getting coal in his stocking ... not passed health care legislation.