Monthly Archives: August 2013

Republican Non-Ideas for Health Insurance

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Here are some of those ideas put forward by Evil Republicans that President Barack Obama insists don’t exist.

  • Senators Tom Coburn (R, OK) and Mike Enzi (R, WY) have long advocated making health insurance completely portable so workers can take their plans with them from job to job.  Enzi first introduced a comprehensive bill including GOP reform proposals in 2007 and has updated it regularly.
  • Congressmen Sam Johnson (R, TX) and Charles Boustany (R, LA, and a cardiovascular surgeon) want to allow smaller companies to pool their risk to get the same discounts from insurance carriers that bigger companies do.
  • Congressmen Marsha Blackburn (R, TN) and Paul Ryan (R, WI) want to spark increased competition by allowing health-insurance policies to be sold across state lines, as are auto insurance policies.
  • Congressman Lamar Smith (R, TX) has championed medical liability reform at the federal level to rein in junk lawsuits, despite qualms that the issue should be left to the states.
  • Congressmen Mike Burgess (who practiced obstetrics and gynecology) and Joe Barton (both R, TX) have introduced bills to establish transparency in pricing and medical outcomes so patients can compare the costs for procedures at area hospitals and their relative success in performing them.
  • Congressman Bill Cassidy (R, LA), also a physician, has introduced a bill that would allow Medicaid patients to convert the value of their government benefit to pay for private coverage.
  • Congressman Tom Price (R, GA), an orthopedic surgeon, has introduced a comprehensive alternative to ObamaCare that includes many of the GOP’s reforms.
  • Congressman Phil Roe, (R, TN), a retired OB/GYN, will introduce a new ObamaCare replacement package next month when Congress returns.
  • The House Republican Study Committee wants to restore (even increase) amount families can save tax free for medical expenses; ObamaCare reduces that amount. Paired with health-savings accounts, such a move can put quality health care within the reach of many more families.  At competitive (read: lower) rates.

Notice all the actual doctors in that mix.  Possibly, they’re more worth listening to than a bunch of politicians whose only imperative is their personal political gain.

What are Republicans doing about these ideas?  Introducing, as noted above—and when they’ve controlled the House, passing—legislation.  But the obstructionist, Democrat “Just say no” Senate won’t even allow debate, much less voting on the bills.

Instead, these worthies, and President Barack Obama, oppose any reform that’s patient/doctor-centric, that omits government involvement, and that has actual competitive market forces—competition that strengthens the markets for health insurance and for health services—in play.  Indeed,

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) recently called ObamaCare “a step in the right direction,” but noted that his goal is “absolutely” a single-payer system in which government delivers all health care.  When he was running for president in 2008, Mr. Obama admitted he “would probably go ahead with a single-payer system” if he was “designing a system from scratch.”

Truly, a paucity of ideas.  However, it’s the Democrats who are lacking.  All they’ve got is the crashing train of Obamacare—as Obama himself has admitted with his extra-constitutional decision not to enforce critical components of that law, and thereby cutting those cars loose, only to crash into the wreckage after a short delay.

A White Line

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…with just a tinge of pink.

Since Obama declared last August that chemical weapons would constitute a “red line,” the administration this past June did conclude that the government used chemical weapons.

Now, a year later, and after additional CW attacks (which our allies have tended to confirm, even though our government will not admit of this), comes this:

…Syrian activists are accusing Bashar Assad’s forces of killing hundreds in a gas attack—in what would be the worst and deadliest chemical attack to date.

The attack raises new concerns that the so-called “red line” in Syria has been crossed, violated and effectively ignored.

That a major gas attack, with hundreds of casualties, occurred has been confirmed by video, symptom suites, and eye witness accounts.  Intelligence sources confirm that the Syrian rebels are very unlikely to be capable of mounting a chemical attack of this magnitude.  Beyond that, the political consequences, even in Syria, of being found out render a rebel CW attack of this size even more unlikely.

President Barack Obama, though, had this to say, through his secondary spokesman, Josh Earnest:

The United States strongly condemns any and all use of chemical weapons.  Those responsible for the use of chemical weapons must be held accountable.  Today, we are formally requesting that the United Nations urgently investigate this new allegation.  The UN investigative team, which is currently in Syria, is prepared to do so, and that is consistent with its purpose and mandate.

Yeah, that’ll show ’em.  Assad is shaking in his loafers.

What do “held accountable” or “unacceptable” (another favorite Obamatalk word) mean when there are no consequences?

Another Take

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…on the relationship between Progressives and their plantation hands of a certain group.  Here‘s Louisiana State Senator Elbert Lee Guillory (erstwhile Democrat, now Republican):

It’s no longer the American Dream, it’s the American nightmare of relying on a monthly government check.

And

Only capitalism can provide the upward mobility for the meekest among us to break the shackles of poverty and rise into the middle class. This is what we call “The American Dream.”

Guillory has more here.

The Free at Last PAC also looks like a group worth serious consideration.

He Doesn’t Get It

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Baptist Minister Bruce Prescott, with the aid of the ACLU, is suing Oklahoma (specifically, the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission) in a state court over the presence of a monument representing the Ten Commandments on the state’s Capitol grounds.

Prescott told Oklahoma City’s News9

It’s inappropriate, it’s not the right place.  Put it on the doorpost, that’s what the Bible says; it doesn’t say to put it at the State Capitol.

Here’s what he doesn’t get: the State Capital is the doorpost for all the citizens of Oklahoma.

Too, his ACLU representatives are ignoring the facts that this is a privately funded and erected monument and that the Supreme Court already has ruled that such monuments in the public square—or on government grounds—are entirely appropriate so long as displays representing other religions or atheism are not barred.  Of course, the ACLU is not alleging such a barring.

Special Treatment

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It’s been a few days since the “for the fun of it” murder of a white man by black teenagers, so it’s appropriate to ask.

Where’s the hue and cry?

Who would President Barack Obama’s notional son resemble in this case?

Where is Eric Holder organizing protests against this racist murder?

Where are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson—both men of the cloth by their nominal education—protesting against the injustice of this race-oriented murder?

Where is the NLMSM’s coverage of this black-on-white murder?

Hmm….