Term Limits for Seniors or Politicians?

It’s clear that the healthcare bill that is currently before the House will require considerable savings in order to achieve the deficit neutral goal that President Obama promised when this process began. Even then, it now appears that a middle class tax increase will be required in order to supplement the significant tax revenue shortfall that is now apparent as a result of this severe recession. So the question is why do we need to junk our current healthcare system at a time when we clearly can’t afford it and there are also bi-partisan proposals presented which will reduce costs in the current system and maintain the quality of care we now have, cover those uninsured who want coverage and are qualified to receive it, without bankrupting the country. I guess Nancy Pelosi will have to answer that question.

The Real Objective Behind Healthcare
The real answer is that the Democratic Party is hell bent on single payer universal healthcare and eventually junking the Medicare system and this is Phase One of that effort. The initial focus is on seniors who represent one-fourth of Medicare costs in the final years of their life. Therefore, eliminating tests, procedures, and medications for seniors because they are no longer in their “productive” years will result in considerable savings according to some of Obama’s czars, who believe that an early exit for “non-productive” citizens will be beneficial for the economy. This philosophy has been discussed in the stimulus bill and further expanded upon in the healthcare bill and exposed in the Wall Street Journal article: http://www.defendyourhealthcare.us/assaultonseniors.html

Seniors Are Assets Not Liabilities
Well, maybe someone should inform the current administration that these seniors are mostly responsible for the economic growth and accomplishments of this country to date and have already paid into the Medicare and Social Security system for all of those who have preceded them because the government has run a giant Ponzi scheme on the funds that have gone into these programs for the last 40-75 years.

Since all legislators have their own very generous government pension and healthcare benefits for life and can continue to work their 1-2 months/year in wheelchairs and walkers, since they have no term limits and people keep voting them in because their seniority provides earmarks and pork barrel legislation for their communities, I guess they don’t care about those of us who have mandatory retirement or get “terminated” because we’re “too old”.

Perhaps they should ask how much the currently “productive” people have learned from their predecessors, how much the youth of this country relies on and seeks the wisdom of their grandparents, and how many of the world’s population want to keep their mothers and fathers with them for as long as they can?

Doctors Not Government Should Decide
Sure, we know that many people have living wills and don’t want to be kept alive artificially, but most of us want to hold on as long as our quality of life is good and our families want us around. However, we’re not talking about terminal illness here; we are talking about government making Orwellian decisions about your right to available healthcare relative to someone who they conclude has more “productive” potential.

I think we should have term limits on politicians, not on seniors, and I think it is absolutely preposterous to have to write a column about this as a citizen of the wealthiest country that ever existed on this planet.

The Israel Policy - Naive or Just Plain Dumb

The good cop/bad cop policy that Biden and Obama are playing with regard to Israel appears to be a cynical attempt by Obama to placate the growing fears within the American Jewish community over his increasingly extreme pro-Arab bias in Middle East policy. How he commanded so much of the Jewish vote has always been an enigma, since his bias has always been apparent to me. I realize the liberal tendency of Jewish voters, but Obama’s stance on Israel will eventually cause him to lose that voting block in 2012 if he continues on this path.

Back in early July, Biden proclaimed on national TV that “Israel can determine for itself – it’s a sovereign nation – what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran or anybody else…..Whether we agree or not. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that is going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.”

This is a reversal from his statement in January 2008 that “Israel will have to reconcile itself to a nuclear Iran.” Then Obama jumps in and says that he had not given Israel a “green light” to attack Iran. His language was stunning in that he implied that Israel needs his permission to ensure its survival as a nation. This is bizarre to say the least. It sends the impression to Arab states that we dictate Israeli foreign policy and that they are a stooge of the U.S. and do not control their own sovereignty. This damages our credibility worldwide.

It seems that Obama’s remark is an attempt to placate our enemies in the Mid-East and attempt to change our “image” and show our willingness to negotiate our differences. Most of us realize that this approach has been tried by other administrations since Carter. We have found that strength is the only thing that resonates with our Mid-East adversaries. Our experience with Libya, Iraq, and Afganistan illustrate this. It certainly is Obama’s option to revert to this approach again; however, he must show progress. Thus far, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, have spit in his face. Things appear to be better in Syria now but they, like Libya, don’t have many options and we look like the best one at this point.

I hope that this is not the ignorance of a “community organizer” playing on the world stage. Where is our Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton? Maybe we will soon see a Mid-East Czar, or is that George Mitchell or Richard Holbrook? At least they have a track record, compared with the bevy of czars we have now.

ObamaCare - A Travesty

We have been led to believe by the Obama administration that everybody wins with ObamaCare. We all will have equal right to quality healthcare, those who prefer their current plan will get to keep it, and all the currently uninsured will be covered, etc, etc., as the King says in “The King and I. Well, we have now learned that this is mostly, poppy-cock. The current plan on the table will have winners and losers and the only way to provide more care to more people and be deficit neutral is to have more losers.

Those of us with Medicare know about the shortfalls of government controlled healthcare. The government – not the doctors – determines the cost value for a particular procedure and they dictate the treatment protocols and how much the doctor can charge (or what they (Medicare) will pay), and how long a patient should remain in the hospital. Under ObamaCare, we will also have end-of-life counseling in case the government feels you’re too old to have open heart surgery, chemotherapy, or a hip replacement. “We think you should spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair because we’re trying to reduce medical costs and I have to meet my budget target on cost reduction this year”. Let’s be realistic that’s what you’re going to get with the current proposal.

In a recent New York Times/CBS poll (already, I’m sure your getting a little dubious), the pollsters concluded that most Americans are willing to pay higher taxes so that all can have health insurance and that the government could do a better job of holding down healthcare costs than the private sector. Since 10 percent of the population pays 55% of the taxes, I wonder how many of those polled actually pay taxes? It’s easy to be in favor of higher taxes when you don’t pay any.

The reality is that there will always be some people who receive less care than others under any healthcare system, depending on where you live, your social or income status, and how smart you are. Even under a free market, those who take from the system will get less care than those who pay for the system. Under Obama’s plan or that from the Democratic Congress, the government sets the standards that determines who gets care. Since most of the Obama’s czars are not accountable to anyone but him and not elected but appointed, do you want life and death decisions to be made by cronies, radicals, former criminals, and admitted communists? Do you want them making judgments on your health outcomes?

The administration and the Democrat controlled Congress have done their best to ram this legislation through before you have a chance to understand its ramifications. Their effort has failed, and now the summer recess provides the time for those legislators to get feedback from their constituency. The more we analyze this proposal the more their poll numbers will drop and the more we will realize that this is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever introduced in Congress. It is critical that we the people stop this travesty and run those legislators who support it, out of town.

The Louis Gates Affair - Black Paranoia or Discrimination?

By now we all know about the circumstances surrounding the incident between Louis Gates, Jr., a Harvard scholar and professor on race relations and the Cambridge, Mass. police department. The shocking part of this is our own President, acting with typical black paranoia before he has the facts, says that the police “acted stupidly in this incident by arresting a black middle-age man with a cane in his own house”. Now that the facts are in, we see that Professor Gates and even our President have acted like black stereotypes in an incident that had nothing to do with race.

It just appears that we have the case of a liberal, intellectual, and elitist African-American (the liberal label is an assumption- but given the geographical location we’d be hard pressed to find a conservative) who thought that he was being treated like a “common” black man by the police and because of his “status” became enraged as soon as the police arrived and immediately call the policeman a racist.

There is no doubt from the police reports and witnesses that Mr. Gates exacerbated the situation and became uncontrollable, shouting insults at the police officer and causing a significant disturbance and was arrested for that reason. I realize that the persecution and abuse of blacks by the police has been a blot on our society and causes great resentment by blacks. No doubt that racial profiling is a reality, but given the fact that 70-80% of our prisons are inhabited by minorities it is obvious that the police may act aggressively in certain situations and that law abiding or educated and professional blacks would be sensitive to the race issue, in situations involving a white policeman. However, most educated people, white or black, would normally act respectful to an officer who was doing his job in a situation where he thought a break-in was involved. Apparently, Mr. Gates thought he was intellectually “superior” to this white cop and instantly proceeded with an attitude.

Massachusetts is a state with a black Governor, Cambridge has a black mayor, officer Crowley had Hispanic and African-American partners, and we have a black President. It’s time for us to get beyond this issue, however, if educated blacks continue to use the race card in a situation where racial profiling was clearly not the case, this will never happen. Also, if our President shows his own racial bias before he even knows the facts, we surely won’t get beyond this and he will antagonize his white constituency. The incident now threatens to de-rail his popularity and even his legislative agenda.

Rushing to judgment ridicules his sincerity about changing this country with respect to race relations. It also makes one wonder about his credibility as he tries to push universal healthcare down the throat of a reluctant populace without even reading the legislation. This event adds credulence to the argument about his executive inexperience in running anything except for elective office.

Like the Cambridge Police Department spokesman said yesterday “the President called the wrong party stupid”.

Hillary Joins The Apology Tour

It looks like Hillary Clinton, who I thought was the only sensible one left in the Obama administration (along with Robert Gates of Defense), has succumbed to the 28 year-old social engineers who are the chief advisors to this President and write his glowing speeches. Ms. Clinton actually apologized to India yesterday for our ecological “mistakes” in growing this nation into the wealthiest and greatest nation on this planet. She then proceeded to plead for them to avoid these “mistakes” and slow down their efforts to improve the lot of their vast population for the sake of “global warming”.

She was basically apologizing for our Industrial Revolution and the economic boom during and after World War II which allowed us to defeat the Nazi and Nippon hoards and brought us out of the Great Depression. As a result we rebuilt Western Europe and Japan, won the Cold War and liberated Eastern Europe, and became the greatest economic machine in history. We may have made mistakes in the process, some related to ignorance, and some related to risk/reward decisions, but once we realized our mistakes we took actions to rectify them and pass legislation to protect our citizens and the environment. That’s more than you can say about the rest of the world.

India is one of our greatest Allies in that part of the world. A country with a strong and growing economy, a formidable army, a stable and democratic government, and a civil culture based on values built from a century of influence as a member of the former British Empire.

Is Ms. Clinton now asking them to slow down and start to evaluate the use of alternative energy sources? Wow! Does she expect them to look at wind and solar power and green gas emissions, when 2/3 of the country live in slum conditions and have no electricity? This logic is embarrassing and makes the U.S. look selfish and elitist. I don’t blame India for their retort saying that their carbon footprint is significantly less than the U.S. on a per capita basis. Well that’s right, given their GDP, poverty level, and vast population compared with the U.S. However, are we now expected to say that we will lower our carbon footprint to the average of the rest of the world? Well, that’s about what we are doing with the Waxman-Marley climate control bill.

This is just another example of the wrong tactic at the wrong time. The Democrats seem to have a propensity for this in their foreign policy decisions in recent administrations. Ms. Clinton follows in the footsteps of Brzezinski (under Carter), Warren Christopher and Madelyn Albright (under Clinton) as previous Secretary of States that weakened our status in the world and made policy that continues to plague us today.

China and India are not going to slow down their efforts to be among the major economies of the world and improve living standards for the bulk of their population and I don’t blame them. The idea of going around the world asking for forgiveness for polluting the planet, when we have dispensed much of our wealth to the rest of the world, contributed so much technology for the betterment of mankind, and are the most generous nation in recordable history, is an embarrassment to every hard working citizen in our nation.

I am shocked and dismayed that someone as intelligent as Ms. Clinton would think it appropriate to engage in such flawed logic. Portraying ourselves as a regretful, humbled, apologetic nation empowers our enemies and disappoints our allies. Needless to say, it demoralizes our citizens who are rightfully proud of our heritage and our accomplishments. President Reagan, where is that “shining city on the hill”?

The Duping of America - A National Disgrace

Our history is replete with Presidents who caught the imagination of America’s voting public and were swept into office promising change and reform. Sometimes this change was driven by world events and sometimes by the fact it was time for the other party to have its chance with a new approach. Some of these elections resulted in positive change, some negative. In most cases, they caused a discernable alteration in the course of history.

The election of Andrew Jackson was a move away from legislative dominance to a stronger executive role, James Polk, the expansion of our manifest destiny, Lincoln, a test of our values as a nation, T. Roosevelt and W. Wilson, the move towards modern progressivism and away from individual rights, FDR, a move to the welfare state and big government, Kennedy, a promising change to a new generation, Carter, a reform of Washington politics, Reagan, a return to our principles and strength as a world power, and Obama, a new approach to transparency in government, “fairness” in the distribution of wealth, and a less arrogant America.

Although I sometimes voted for the “losers”, I was always assured that the American public would choose the right man at the right time because our collective wisdom as a nation had always been infallible. I must say that for the first time, I am very worried.

We have elected a man with no track record or notable achievements, one who was elected on the shear “cult of personality” sale and the fact that we were enamored that he is an African-American and illustrates the classic story of what is possible in America. In a short six months we have found that the weakness the main street media says is apparent in Sarah Palin as a presidential candidate is clearly present in Barack Obama, except unlike Palin, he is able to create an image of authority, confidence, and swagger because of his gender and his appeal to liberal women, the youth, and minorities.

Without a teleprompter, he stutters and stammers his way through interviews often with incorrect and uniformed views, he doesn’t listen to the opposition nor care what they say because he is steeped in the tradition of the liberal establishment who are his friends and associates throughout his rather narrow career experience. His grasp of international relations is appalling and naïve, at best. His socialistic view of the role of government is creating severe problems for future generations and world confidence in our currency and our economy.

With voter overreaction sweeping Democrats into Congress with one-party super majority control, we are now witnessing a reckless legislative agenda threatening to impose a European-style welfare state, in a matter of weeks, against an arbitrary deadline, and with little analysis. This agenda will result in a huge tax burden that will trickle down to the middle class and rival the taxes that currently exist in Denmark and Sweden, the standard bearers of the welfare state, and will be higher than even Canada and France. Current estimates from credible independent economic authorities and overseers of government spending, show that the U.S. average income tax will reach 52% of your income and as high as 57% for residents of NY, NJ, California, Oregon, and Hawaii if this legislation is enacted.

This is a man who campaigned as a centrist, than proceeded to break most of his promises, and is now governing as an extreme or even radical liberal. It looks like “Joe the Plumber” was one of the few who didn’t get duped. The only question is will we be duped again in 2012?

Healthcare - A Birthright?

When you survey the American public, some 80% say they are happy with their health insurance. Yet our President says the system is broke and needs to be fixed and the best way to do this is for the government to run it and for everyone to have health insurance whether they want it or not. This will cost you and me trillions of dollars and most likely significantly reduce the quality of care we currently get, be fraught with fraud and bureaucratic inefficiency, and eventually be bankrupt in a few decades just like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other government run programs since President Roosevelt set us on this idiotic path toward big government.

The premise for this move to government controlled healthcare is the fact that there are some 30-40 million uninsured people in the U.S. However, we never break it down into what makes up this number. How many are illegal immigrants, how many can’t afford it or are chronically unemployed, how many just don’t want it because they are rich, or just think they are young and very healthy, how many are children and why won’t their parents get them covered? Is health insurance a birthright, like equality and freedom, and the pursuit of happiness which is guaranteed in our Constitution?

No one cares if you don’t buy life insurance or auto insurance or home insurance (only your lender). Also, I can’t figure out why everyone must have the same quality of healthcare. Don’t wealthier people have higher quality cars and houses, better food, better education, take better care of themselves?” As a matter of fact, in Socialist and Communist countries, the people in the government are usually the wealthiest and have better services, even though they tout equality for the masses.

What really is healthcare? The statistics say that 80% of the health costs are due to lifestyle choices which can result in obesity, diabetes, heart and cardiovascular disease, and some cancers. Why should those of us who choose to make healthier choices, pay for the health insurance of those who don’t? Obviously, most Americans are willing to pay for health insurance to protect themselves from involuntary or unwanted occurrences, but should we be required to protect others from health risks due to alcoholism, smoking, depression, or even erectile dysfunction? Why can’t we have a system of choice and have the option to select the health coverage we want in order to have premiums we can afford and forgo coverage for trivial or unnecessary procedures? Wouldn’t this be better and cheaper than guaranteeing the same healthcare for everyone?

Let’s face it people, everyone in this country can get professional healthcare whether they have insurance or not. Sure the system should be improved but we don’t have to throw it away and start all over because some people don’t have insurance. Maybe if we thought about things for awhile and studied the problem with qualified and non-political experts, we would come up with something that’s viable and less costly.

We have already seen what rushing into TARP, a new budget, and the stimulus package has done to this economy.