An example

On how and why the government makes health care more expensive.

"I'm not doing an insurance business," he said. "I'm just providing my services at my place during certain hours."

He says he can afford to charge such a small amount because he doesn't have to process mountains of paperwork and spend hours on billing.

"If they leave me alone, I can serve thousands of patients," he said.

The state believes his plan runs afoul of the law because it promises to cover unplanned procedures - like treating a sudden ear infection - under a fixed rate. That's something only a licensed insurance company can do.

"The law is strict on how insurance is defined," said an Insurance Department spokesman.

A possible solution that Muney's lawyer crafted would force patients to pay more than $10 for unplanned procedures.

They are waiting to see if the state will accept the compromise. Still, Muney is unhappy because, he said, "I really don't want to charge more. They're forcing me."

One of his patients, Matthew Robinson, 52, was furious to learn the state was interfering with the plan.

"The whole point is, he [Muney] found a way of paying his rent, paying his workers, and getting to see patients for the price," said Robinson.

"How can the state dictate you've got to charge more?"

I found the article in the comments to this piece, where Kevin Baker drives yet another point home:

I'd love the opportunity to pay only $225/mo. for the whole thing, myself, and carry it with me no matter where I live or who I work for. But the current insurance laws prohibit that.

The problem we have isn't just with the insurance companies (although I'm willing to bet that they're in bed with the government who wrote the laws), but with the government who's writing laws that make it more difficult to get health care!

This is what happens when you elect Lords and Masters instead of Representatives. The Lords and Masters tell you what to do instead of the opposite. And by the time it's codified into law, what are you going to do about it, you stupid peasant? Pay your tithes like a good serf and go back to work!

Are you happy yet? Have you had enough yet?

I've seen it everywhere

And you probably have as well, but here's Charles Krauthammer's piece on "Decline is a Choice".

There is no free lunch. Social democracy and its attendant goods may be highly desirable, but they have their price--a price that will be exacted on the dollar, on our primacy in space, on missile defense, on energy security, and on our military capacities and future power projection.

But, of course, if one's foreign policy is to reject the very notion of international primacy in the first place, a domestic agenda that takes away the resources to maintain such primacy is perfectly complementary. Indeed, the two are synergistic. Renunciation of primacy abroad provides the added resources for more social goods at home. To put it in the language of the 1990s, the expanded domestic agenda is fed by a peace dividend--except that in the absence of peace, it is a retreat dividend.

And there's the rub. For the Europeans there really is a peace dividend, because we provide the peace. They can afford social democracy without the capacity to defend themselves because they can always depend on the United States.

So why not us as well? Because what for Europe is decadence--decline, in both comfort and relative safety--is for us mere denial. Europe can eat, drink, and be merry for America protects her. But for America it's different. If we choose the life of ease, who stands guard for us?

This is one of the things that turns my crank every time some idiot blathers on and on about how "Well, European Country X did this, so we should too!" Europe, with the exception of Great Britain, has reduced her military to nothing but a few foot brigades and some fancy flags. France was renting a tourist ferry to get troops to Bosnia in 1995. It takes an entire coalition of troops from multiple countries to equal the US troops in Afghanistan! Europe has been living under US protection for so long that they've taken their military apart and spent the money on their social programs, and they've been doing it for decades! So exactly WHO is going to do that for us? Hmmmmm? Every time there's some massive disaster, the USA is sending it's military to help recover and rebuild. America does more for the world than the world does for us, and I'm wondering just what's going to happen when we can no longer do anything due to our crippling debt and weak leadership.

Well, I guess we're going to find out rather soon, aren't we?

A Point I Hammer Home

Every time I get a chance, and I've been getting that chance quite often as of late: HEALTH CARE IS NOT A RIGHT.

In order for something to be a human right, it cannot and must not be something that requires a good or a service from someone else. If you make it so, then the person providing that good or service will become a slave to the community, because they no longer have the option to refuse. That’s why health care cannot ever be a human right: because health care is a commodity, just like flat-screen TVs and sliced bread at the grocery store. You can’t claim the right to force J.J. Nissen to make bread for you, whether it’s for compensation or for free, and you can’t force Best Buy to keep stocking flat-screen TVs, either. If you run out of people to provide that commodity, you have no way to claim that so-called human right.

A human right only requires that people leave you alone to exercise it, not that they work for you, whether you give them money for their work or not. Freedom of speech is a human right. Freedom of association is a human right. Free exercise of religion is a human right. Free band-aids and vaccinations aren’t.

That, friends and neighbors, is why health care, while very desirable and a good thing to have, cannot and will not ever be a human right…and that’s why I have a capillary or two bursting every time I see that bumper sticker.

What makes me weep is that I have supposedly educated people blabbing on and on about how health care is a right, and refusing to even consider that there's a COST to that. The publik skool indoctrination sistim is successful. People are now so uneducated after 12 years of school, so rigid in their thinking, that rational thought continues to elude them, and 2+2 now equals 5.

I'm wondering just when the shooting will start, because as Marko points out, when you make health care a "right", people start demanding it. It doesn't matter what the fact are or what reality is, people will demand that you give them health care, and when it's not there, things start to break down. So long, America. It was nice knowing you. Maybe one day there will be another country that has allowed the freedoms we once held dear to flourish again. But I don't know when or where that will be.

Health Care Reform?

You know how the current health care reform bill is being praised for actually helping the deficit. Well it is really just expanding the Medicaid system that is pushing the cost onto the States, instead of the Federal Government. The repayment to the doctors would still be only at 40% and doctors are not required to accept the plan. You can hear it explained by LA Congress Critter Bill Cassidy who has been a doctor for many years, here. If you want to know how the finances of this works in concern to the deficit you can listen to that here.

Oh. My. God.

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Keeping my powder dry

Several months ago, I was having a discussion with a gentleman who was rather more liberal that I was. He was gabbing about the Republican Stupid Party, and I told him in no uncertain terms that the Stupid Party was in it's death spiral, going the way of the Whig party. Said that unless the Stupid Party found it's backbone and returned to it's conservative roots, they would be nothing but RINOs and hanger-ons within a decade, and their voting base would have fled for independents and the Libertarian Party.

I read this last night, and thought to myself, "Yep." If the GOP folds on health care, they're done. Finished, stick a fork in 'em, wrap 'em up and toss them away done. And not within a decade, they'll be finished before the 2010 election campaigns even start. And rightfully so. If the GOP can't stop this monstrosity from being passed, they don't deserve to exist any more. Actually, there's some debate as to whether or not they deserve to exist at all today, given the way that they've become nothing more than the Democrat Lite Party. If the GOP doesn't stand firm against government health care, they then deserve to have the Communist Jackass label slapped on them, so that they can at least be honest about their intentions.

As an aside, if the Libertarian Party had a robust, pro-USA foreign policy, rather than the "EEEEEEEEEK! RUN AWAY! STAY HOME!" policy that it has now, it would have already crushed the GOP. Just sayin'.

Hmmmmm. That oughta get me a few comments.

Print it and pass it around

So, how's that government health care scam going to be paid for? Well, part of the funds will come from taxes on Class II and Class III medical devices.

Go look at the .pdf he's linked at the bottom of the page. 49 pages, single spaced, of medical devices that you'll be paying more for under Obamacare.

Electrode cables.

Catheters.

Clamps and containers.

Scissors, screws, rings, everything you need for, oh, I dunno, SURGERY. Hope you enjoy those expensive hospital bills! Not only is Obamacare going to trash our health care system, it'll make it more expensive! And this time EVERYONE will be paying, right? Well, except for the half of America that doesn't pay taxes. They won't be paying for any of it. So it looks like the other half of America will be paying those bills.

Gah. God help us if this passes.

Busted again!!!

White House Accused Of Staging Doctor Photo-Op NBC Nightly News reported, "You might have seen the picture yesterday: President Obama at the White House surrounded by a sea of doctors in their lab coats rallying support for health care reform. But then, some folks figured: Would doctors really all show up wearing lab coats at a public event with the President? Really?" And "then...the New York Post took issue with a photo from yesterday of a White House staffer passing out lab coats. The White House was accused of staging the photo-op. Turns out the doctors group provided the extra lab coats for anyone who forgot to bring one along."
On Fox News' Beck, host Glenn Beck said, "Just in case you're too dumb to understand the word doctor, the president handed out white lab coats for the doctors, because that, I guess makes them more credible, you know. If you're a doctor of any caliber, are you kind of insulted by this? I mean, it insults me just looking at the doctors standing there in white lab coats like we couldn't figure out what is going on."

I do not believe that a single person who wears a lab coat to work all day wants to wear it at any time they don't have to. Heck, they don't even wear their lab coats to medical conventions. The the doctors group provided extra lab coats for those that forgot them is a sham. I know a number of health care providers that will permanently leave the work they love if this health care reform passes.

I think this Neurosurgeon hit the nail on the head with this controversial rendition.

Image from Talking Points Memo

Quote of the Day

From Eternity Road:

The question remains: “if environmentalist policies are so wonderful, why can they only be implemented at the point of the state’s bayonet?”

And for the follow up question(s):

Why does not the refusal to provide data for the reproduction of results not immediately and dispositively invalidate the claimed results? Why is the controversy between McIntyre and Briffa a controversy at all? Why is not Briffa slinking away in hot-faced embarrassment? Why is not his refusal to provide his data taken as prima facie evidence of intent to defraud?

Why can I not beat all the Warmistas about the head and shoulders with an axe handle for the good of all mankind?

But remember...

According to the Democrat American Communist Party, it's the Tea Party Protesters who are astro-turf. But all those people dressed alike? PAY THEM NO MIND, PEASANT!

I'm really, REALLY tired of this bullshit.

Found here.

Say what?

Have you seen this?

Yet more proof that the Obama administration doesn't give a damn about democracy or opposing tyrants.

Devotion

Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends network fact-check a comedy show for insulting their Liberal Lord and Messiah, the Teleprompter Jesus.

Oh. My. God.

Can there be any doubt that the Democrat American Communist Party Propaganda Machine is so in the tank for Obama that they'll do anything, and I do mean anything to protect him? Up to and including trying to fact-check SATURDAY NIGHT FRIGGIN' LIVE!!!!!!

Bias? What bias?

Say what?

The FTC is trying to regulate blogging?

The Federal Trade Commission will try to regulate blogging for the first time, requiring writers on the Web to clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products.

The FTC said Monday its commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the final Web guidelines, which had been expected. Violating the rules, which take effect Dec. 1, could bring fines up to $11,000 per violation. Bloggers or advertisers also could face injunctions and be ordered to reimburse consumers for financial losses stemming from inappropriate product reviews.

Fuck you, you damned nanny-state fucks! It's early, I'm fucking tired, and my brain isn't fully functioning yet without coffee, but the FTC can go outside and play hide and go fuck themselves. Go fucking play in traffic. Go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Go take a long walk off a short pier. Gah. What's next to be "regulated"? If someone wants to sing the praises of a piece of crap just because the makers of said crap give them money, then fine! Let the stain be on that person. We don't need the government to step in and say "BOO" to anything!

At what point will America finally wake the fuck up and start beating these nanny-statists with steel pipes the way they so deserve to be beaten?

Found here.

Quote of the day

From commenter pdb, on this thread at The Smallest Minority.

Speaking as a former small business owner, I can tell you authoritatively that on the list of reasons why I am no longer a small business owner, the cost of health care doesn't even crack the top ten. See, even if my store offered health care as part of its compensation package, and it didn't, fluctuations in that cost would not bother me because I can plan for it. Same as the cost of inventory, electricity, insurance, and all the other little bills.

However, what I could not plan for, and kept me awake nights, was the costs of complying with the bullshit rules and regulations constantly piled onto my business. License for this, permit for that, a fee here, a tax there, line forms on the left, sign here, use the correct forms, etc etc. Apart from the ever moving goalposts (a concept you should be eminently familiar with), being out of compliance with my free market suppliers means lost money. Cross the wrong arbitrary government agency and I lose everything. Business, money, credit, house, cars, everything. This is the essential difference between freedom and fascism and it saddens me you do not comprehend this.

But you've never run a business, or you would understand Hell, like your hero Obama, I doubt you've ever held a real fucking job in your entire life. You've never had to balance books, bend over backwards for capricious bureaucrats, find payroll somewhere, make tough decisions (I've literally had to choose between groceries or payroll) or hire and fire employees. You sure as hell haven't had to hold your sobbing wife in your arms and explain how, again, you had to pay your employees this week and not yourself, so don't you fucking DARE to presume what it's like to be a producer!

The biggest threat to small business isn't the rising cost of health care you ignorant shit stain, it's the constant assault of useless, know-it-all leeches like yourself trying to shape society to match their Marxist ideal no matter how many broken lives it costs. You have no fucking clue how millions of people turn time into money every day and yet you presume to tell them what to do! What in the fucking hell is wrong with you?

There's a whole 'nother rant about trying to open a business here in Wisconsin, and what you can or can't sell. But I need to jet, so it'll have to happen later.

Blog-surfing

I was hopping from comment thread to comment thread when I found a link to Donald Sensing's blog, and this post.

I don't think that people in America, as a rule, understand just how truly and totally we're fucked. And what really scares me is that without understanding just how totally we're fucked, people can't being to FIX it.

OK, you gunnies out there

I have a Yugo SKS, which currently is inoperable. It has about a 50% fire rate; that is it'll fire every other round when I pull the trigger. I have cleaned and cleaned and cleaned the bolt until the damn thing squeaks when I move it around. I have boiled it to get any crap out of it. I have blasted it with brake cleaner. I have worked oil into it to lubricate it, and when that didn't work I cleaned the everloving piss out of it until there was no oil left.

As of right now, I'm thinking that it's not the bolt that's the problem.

I'm about to pull the trigger group apart and replace all the springs in it and see if that'll fix the problem. Does anyone out there have any suggestions?

The Pledge of Allegiance upheld

"The court reached the only decision that it could – the lawsuit was dismissed and the court concluded that the New Hampshire statute giving students an opportunity to voluntarily recite the Pledge in school is constitutional and consistent with the First Amendment. We're pleased the court’s decision underscores the arguments made in our amicus brief: the Pledge is a time-honored exercise that embraces patriotism, not religion."

You can read more about it here.

more on the "Safe School Czar's" admirations

So, we know that Kevin Jennings made a serious mis-step when he was a teacher. Lets talk about who he admires, Harry Hay.

Harry Hay started the Mattachine Society in 1948, the Radical Faeries and advocated for NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association. He had to leave the Communist party because they do not allow homosexuals.

The Mattachine Society is not a big issue. It is a gay rights activist groups which is no longer in existence.

The Radical Faeries, where do I start. Here is a quote from a member

"Being radically (at the root) decentralist and anti-authoritarian, we have no leaders. Each Faerie is divine and speaks for himself. We join together with each other in mutual aid and love for play, work, self-discovery and nurturing. To be a Faerie is an act of self-definition."

Wikipedia says:

Originally consisting of gay men, the movement has spread throughout the world over the past decades since, in tandem with the larger gay rights movement, challenging commercialization and patriarchal aspects of modern LGBT life while celebrating pagan constructs and rituals.[2] Radical Faeries today also embody a wide range of genders and sexual orientations, and most sanctuaries are open to all.[3] They adapt rural living and environmentally sustainable concepts to modern technologies as part of creative expression.[2] Radical Faerie communities are generally inspired by aboriginal, native or traditional spiritualities, especially those that incorporate genderqueer sensibilities.[4]

Faeries tend to be fiercely independent, anti-establishment and community-focused.[2]

The Faeries were a contributing influence to John Cameron Mitchell's film Shortbus.[5]

I did not see any picture that show minors, nor did their site show any parades of them half naked. Though with the issues with authority and the over willingness to accept and be non-judgmental I have to question what all they do accept.

The third group that garnered Mr. Hay's attention was NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association). Once you get away from the acronym and read the full name, I think that says it all.

Now let's go back to Obama who says

"Judge me by the people with whom I surround myself."

Now apply it to Kevin Jennings

more states are telling feds to stay out of their firearms and ammuntion

I am certain everyone remembers how Montana told the Feds to stay out of their firearms business. Well it seems to be spreading to a number of states. You can read more about it here.