Tag Archives: Politics

Media, Pensacola, Politics

Bayou Texar Closed Again

Did you ever think that sometimes when trying to make a point that you may as well bang your head against the wall? That’s the way I feel about what continues to happen to Bayou Texar specifically, but Bayou Texar isn’t the only waterway in Escambia County that has similar problems.

Last week, I found out that efforts to finally locate the sources of bacterial contamination in Bayou Texar were scrapped by some yet unknown city officials. And yesterday what do we see in the PNJ? Another closure. A mere two weeks since Bayou Texar was again closed.

Unfortunately for the environment and people that want to use the waterways, and people living in the pricey homes surrounding Bayou Texar, the Health Alerts in the newspaper are generating as much attention as, oh I don’t know, how about as much attention as H.R. 3400, the Empowering Patients (not government) First Act. Bayou Texar’s water quality is being ignored just as much as the health care initiative that was introduced by Republicans in Congress over a month ago. What’s wrong with this picture?

Yes Virginia, conservatives like clean water too! What is the city’s excuse? And, why would the canceling of the needed research to clean up the Bayou not be newsworthy?

Media, Politics

Dems Lost The Debate On Obamacare

Without question, Democrats and Republicans agree that ‘health care’ and ‘health insurance’ could be improved upon, made more available, and at a lesser cost than what we have today. What is becoming more apparent is that the majority of the folks do not want Obama’s brand of socialized medicine and insurance.

Where this administration is concerned, the will of the people is irrelevant. Citizen’s reaction at Tea Parties and town hall meetings with congressmen all over the country are written off as phony opposition. Those politicians are out of touch, and apparently, they intend to stay that way. They’re not listening to the folks. Instead, they’re out there trying to sell Obamacare like selling cars. And they are selling cars, literally. Cash for Clunkers. No offense to car salesmen intended.

Rather than taking a step back and doing things that could garner bi-partisan support, like doing one thing at a time, starting with getting the economy back in shape first, Democrats in the Senate are considering passing the bill via a maneuver called reconciliation, where only a slim majority of votes are needed, 51. They are reacting to the fact that there probably isn’t enough support for his plan to overcome a filibuster, 60. To go that route just shows that they’ve lost the debate on Obamacare and will just try shoving it down America’s collective throat by any means possible.

If they succeed, it will be an unprecedented maneuver to usurp nearly 20% of the private sector economy, placing it under government control.

Even the New York Times doesn’t think it is a good idea. Considering they’re about as far left as any opinion-shaper out there, that’s saying something. What they’re really worried about is 2010.

If the Democrats want to enact health care reform this year, they appear to have little choice but to adopt a high-risk, go-it-alone, majority-rules strategy.

We say this with considerable regret because a bipartisan compromise would be the surest way to achieve comprehensive reforms with broad public support. But the ideological split between the parties is too wide — and the animosities too deep — for that to be possible.

It’s also fair to say that they’ve lost the debate that we’ve never had. There was zero input allowed from Republicans in drafting H.R.3200. The only ‘debate’ Obama expects is for Republicans to sign on to it. That’s his definition of bi-partisanship.

Speaking of Obama, he is still out there accusing Republicans as the party of NO. That they don’t have a plan. Guess what? There is a plan and it is called H.R. 3400, and was introduced in Congress over a month ago, July 30, 2009 into the 111th Congress. But the Obama media never told you about it, did they? Regarding President Obama, you have a decision to make. Is he lying about there not being a Republican alternative, or is he that far out of touch that he doesn’t even know it exists? Which one works for you?

At some point you have to ask yourself what is motivating the President to lie to the American people? Did we elect a President to put America on the fast track to Socialism? Do you think he would have beat Hillary Clinton if he ran on what he is attempting to do today?

Politics

U.K. Today

News from across the pond ought to at least be a heads up on what to expect from our social engineers in The White House. Folks in the UK are much further along in this sort of thing. I guess you can say they are more ‘progressive?’

First, in a blow to men, women in the UK have been given what they are calling ‘equal birth rights.’ What?

Women in same-sex relationships can now register both their names on the birth certificate of a child conceived as a result of fertility treatment.

Female couples not in a civil partnership but receiving fertility treatment may also both be registered.

Birth certificates won’t be showing a Mother and Mother, but a Parent and Parent. Well isn’t that special? How long before gay men who use a surrogate breeder file a discrimination suit? ? I’m just saying.

Second and Third are about Health Care in the UK, where it is under government control. Ahem.

Second . . .

Researchers have claimed the food provided in prisons is better than in NHS hospitals.

Third . . . Cancer drugs in the UK are now free. But they can’t seem to give them away.

Nearly two thirds of the 150,000 cancer patients in England have not applied for free prescriptions – five months after they became available. The £7.20 prescription charge was abolished for cancer patients after decisions in the rest of the UK to scrap all fees.

Doctors’ groups responded by saying bureaucracy was putting patients off. Dr Richard Vautrey, of the BMA, said “Patients just cannot face filling out papers when they have cancer.”

Macmillian Cancer Support, a British charity said . . .

Mike Hobday, head of campaigns and policy at the charity, said: “More than four months after the introduction of free prescriptions, it’s worrying that the overwhelming majority of cancer patients are still scrimping and saving to pay for their medication.

Scrimping? At less than $12.00 USD per prescription, they are scrimping? How’s that socialist stuff working again? Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had it right when she said ‘the problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.’

Media, Politics

Kennedy Sought To Overturn Himself

Last week, Sen. Edward Kennedy made a real heart-tugging appeal to the State of Massachusetts to change the law so that the Governor can appoint a successor for his senate seat.

Obviously his concern was in keeping a 60 seat (filibuster-proof) majority in the Senate, which could play a role in whether or not the President’s imaginary health care/insurance bill gets passed. Already, the Democrats are considering ramming ‘the bill’ down America’s collective throat by a procedural measure that is not meant to be used for a massive piece of legislation that takes control of nearly 20% of our economy. Watch for those fireworks next month.

The Reuters branch of the Obama media describes Kennedy’s appeal in their ‘Factbox‘ like this . . .

Under state law, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick may not select a successor but must call a special election between 145 and 160 days after the seat becomes vacant.

Before his death, Kennedy asked that the law be changed so an interim senator could be appointed. The ailing statesman said in a letter to Patrick, a Democrat, that the state could not afford to be without a senator for five months.

Reuters must be so busy helping Obama push his plan, that they don’t bother to tell you why the Massachusetts law is the way it is. As a matter of ‘fact,’ the Governor used to be the one to pick a successor in the event of a vacancy until the year 2004. So what happened in 2004?

In 2004 Sen. John Kerry was making plans to be the next president. And in 2004 the Mass. governor was Mitt Romney (R). If Kerry was to win the election, Romney would in all likelihood have replaced a democratic senator with a republican one. And Sen. Kennedy would not have that. He appealed to the legislature to change the law to require an election, with plenty of time for campaigning, instead. Taking that responsibility away from the governor and putting it into the hands of the most liberal state in the country seemed like a guarantee that Kennedy could live with. No pun intended. And that’s what happened.

Fast forward to the present and the governor in the state house is a Democrat. Oh how easy it would be to just let him pick Kennedy’s successor. Darn. It’s that law getting in the way again. No problem, change the rules. The Lion in the Senate will just have his own law overturned and replaced with his latest version,  Gubernatorial Succession version 2.0.

The headline should be, Kennedy Wants To Overturn Himself, if Reuters had all their facts straight.

link: Factbox: Kennedy’s death raises successor speculation

Economy, Pensacola, Politics

Liberal Lies About National Health Care

If  that headline evokes a reflex to hit the delete button, then you’re the one that needs to read this piece. It represents a fair analysis with a dash of humor, as opposed to White House talking points with no analysis whatsoever, into the current health care turned health insurance crisis as manufactured by the Obama administration and its anti-capitalist advisers.

Put in an easily understandable way, Ann Coulter (Mike Papantonio’s favorite punching bag, next to Rush Limbaugh of course) dissects five lies, or misconceptions if you prefer, that President Obama and proponents of government-run health care/health insurance use to get you to accept their prescription for this country.

(1) National health care will punish the insurance companies.

You want to punish insurance companies? Make them compete.

As Adam Smith observed, whenever two businessmen meet, “the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” That’s why we need a third, fourth and 45th competing insurance company that will undercut them by offering better service at a lower price.

Tiny little France and Germany have more competition among health insurers than the U.S. does right now. Amazingly, both of these socialist countries have less state regulation of health insurance than we do, and you can buy health insurance across regional lines — unlike in the U.S., where a federal law allows states to ban interstate commerce in health insurance.

U.S. health insurance companies are often imperious, unresponsive consumer hellholes because they’re a partial monopoly, protected from competition by government regulation. In some states, one big insurer will control 80 percent of the market. (Guess which party these big insurance companies favor? Big companies love big government.)

Liberals think they can improve the problem of a partial monopoly by turning it into a total monopoly. That’s what single-payer health care is: “Single payer” means “single provider.”

It’s the famous liberal two-step: First screw something up, then claim that it’s screwed up because there’s not enough government oversight (it’s the free market run wild!), and then step in and really screw it up in the name of “reform.”

You could fix 90 percent of the problems with health insurance by ending the federal law allowing states to ban health insurance sales across state lines. But when John McCain called for ending the ban during the 2008 presidential campaign, he was attacked by Joe Biden — another illustration of the ironclad Ann Coulter rule that the worst Republicans are still better than allegedly “conservative” Democrats.

(2) National health care will “increase competition and keep insurance companies honest” — as President Barack Obama has said.

Government-provided health care isn’t a competitor; it’s a monopoly product paid for by the taxpayer. Consumers may be able to “choose” whether they take the service — at least at first — but every single one of us will be forced to buy it, under penalty of prison for tax evasion. It’s like a new cable plan with a “yes” box, but no “no” box.

Obama himself compared national health care to the post office — immediately conjuring images of a highly efficient and consumer-friendly work force — which, like so many consumer-friendly shops, is closed by 2 p.m. on Saturdays, all Sundays and every conceivable holiday.

But what most people don’t know — including the president, apparently — with certain narrow exceptions, competing with the post office is prohibited by law.

Expect the same with national health care. Liberals won’t stop until they have total control. How else will they get you to pay for their sex-change operations?

(3) Insurance companies are denying legitimate claims because they are “villains.”

Obama denounced the insurance companies in last Sunday’s New York Times, saying: “A man lost his health coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because the insurance company discovered that he had gallstones, which he hadn’t known about when he applied for his policy. Because his treatment was delayed, he died.”

Well, yeah. That and the cancer.

Assuming this is true — which would distinguish it from every other story told by Democrats pushing national health care — in a free market, such an insurance company couldn’t stay in business. Other insurance companies would scream from the rooftops about their competitor’s shoddy business practices, and customers would leave in droves.

If only customers had a choice! But we don’t because of government regulation of health insurance.

Speaking of which, maybe if Mr. Gallstone’s insurance company weren’t required by law to cover early childhood development programs and sex-change operations, it wouldn’t be forced to cut corners in the few areas not regulated by the government, such as cancer treatments for patients with gallstones.

(4) National health care will give Americans “basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable” — as Barack Obama claimed in his op/ed in the Times.

You want to protect consumers? Do it the same way we protect consumers of dry cleaning, hamburgers and electricians: Give them the power to tell their insurance companies, “I’m taking my business elsewhere.”

(5) Government intervention is the only way to provide coverage for pre-existing conditions.

The only reason most “pre-existing” conditions aren’t already covered is because of government regulations that shrink the insurance market to a microscopic size, which leads to fewer options in health insurance and a lot more uninsured people than would exist in a free market.

The free market has produced a dizzying array of insurance products in areas other than health. (Ironically, array-associated dizziness is not covered by most health plans.) Even insurance companies have “reinsurance” policies to cover catastrophic events occurring on the properties they insure, such as nuclear accidents, earthquakes and Michael Moore dropping in for a visit and breaking the couch.

If we had a free market in health insurance, it would be inexpensive and easy to buy insurance for “pre-existing” conditions before they exist, for example, insurance on unborn — unconceived — children and health insurance even when you don’t have a job. The vast majority of “pre-existing” conditions that currently exist in a cramped, limited, heavily regulated insurance market would be “covered” conditions under a free market in health insurance.

I’ve hit my word limit on liberal lies about national health care without breaking a sweat. See this space next week for more lies in our continuing series.

link: Liberal Lies About National Health Care: First in a Series

Media, Politics, War On Terror

Can You Trust President Obama?

If you believe what our President says, then you must be wondering now if you can trust what he says from now on. Never mind for now that all that he has said so far about the economy has not come to fruition. Things of that nature have lots of variables and, therefore, wiggle room to leave any discrepancies to chance and judgment, rather than trust.

But when it comes to turning loose Eric Holder, his Attorney General, to fire up a special prosecutor to investigate harsh interrogation techniques, after telling the CIA and its director Leon Panetta that that will not happen, goes completely and directly to his personal integrity, honesty, and trust.

I hate to say this about my president, but he is not the leader he professed to be and that the media has built him up to be. Nor can he be trusted. He is being led by the political base (the far left) of his party, and his teleprompter. And, unfortunately for us, they take priority over our enemy, al-Qaeda.

What we witnessed in April, when he visited the CIA to put out the fires started by the far left demanding he fulfill his campaign promise, and to answer the concerns of former Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA chief Leon Panetta, he said he wouldn’t go there. That was not only his ‘words, just words,’ but that of his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanual too!

“Don’t be discouraged by what’s happened in the last few weeks,” he told employees. “Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes. That’s how we learn. But the fact that we are willing to acknowledge them and then move forward, that is precisely why I am proud to be president of the United States and that’s why you should be proud to be members of the CIA.”

As the debate escalated, Cheney weighed in, saying if the country is to judge the methods used in the interrogations, it should have information about what was obtained from the tough tactics. “I find it a little bit disturbing” that “they didn’t put out the memos that showed the success of the effort,” Cheney said on Fox News. He said, “There are reports that show specifically what we gained as a result of this activity.”

On Sunday, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said on the ABC program “This Week” that “those who devised policy” also “should not be prosecuted.”

Since the AG is under the purview of the executive branch, ie. the President, he could keep his word and maybe even keep his CIA director Leon Panetta. To let this spectacle continue will only be to assuage the far left base while giving aide and comfort to the enemy. One could argue that it also serves as a distraction to the insurmountable and unsustainable debt that his policies are heaping upon this country as well as his imaginary health care plan that the folks do not want.

related links:

Energy, Media, Politics

Obama To Fund Offshore Drilling

In Brazil. What?  After closing down ANWR’s coastal plain, which was set aside specifically for oil and gas exploration, President Obama is giving $2 billion in loan guarantees to Petrobras, one of the largest corporations in the Americas. Petrobras is Brazil’s state owned oil company.

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

And you’ll never guess who has a 20% share in that company.  Billionaire George Soros, major Democratic contributor who spent $27 million to defeat George Bush in 2004, and then some. In fact, that share is the largest share of any of Soros’ single investments. But that was not always the case. He invested in it just before this corporate welfare plan took place.

Billionaire investor George Soros bought an $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro SA in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund’s largest holding.

Just how this squares with the campaign rhetoric from Barack Obama about corporate welfare, and reducing the use of fossil fuels and separating himself from special interests is simple. It doesn’t.

As to why Obama would sanction such a thing is also simple.  Everybody gets their payback in Obama’s administration. Especially the  lobbyists he said he would distance himself from when he was a candidate. You simply have to wait your turn. AIG, Freddie and Fannie, Wall Street, the UAW, trial lawyers, and now major contributor George Soros.

Here’s an idea: Let American companies do what Obama is paying Brazilian companies to do — drill offshore. We won’t have to pay them money or float them any loans to do it, either. In fact, we will make money off of the leases, while the effort creates hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs in the US, creating more tax revenue rather than emptying out the Treasury.

You would think that, at a time when this administration is spending our grandchildren’s future in order to remake America (his words) and ‘rescue’ our economy, that making a deal like this to a foreign company that has the resources to go it alone would find its way into the mainstream media. Apparently, only when a Republican is in The White House.

Media, Politics, Race Relations

MSNBC, Propaganda Wing Of The West Wing

3 Comments

It’s really a shame that there are viewers of MSNBC that think it is a reputable news outlet. It is an outlet, but a circular muscle comes to mind when you consider what comes out of it.

Yesterday in Phoenix Arizona, there was a rally outside a place where President Obama was speaking. And Arizona happens to be an ‘open-carry’ state, which means anyone legally allowed to have a firearm can carry it in public as long as it’s visible. A permit is required if the weapon is carried concealed.

Watch how the man carrying handguns at his side and an AR-15 over his shoulder is edited so tightly that you can’t tell that the guy is black. Then listen to reporterette, Contessa Brewer, suggesting that the people carrying guns are white racists.

there are questions about whether this has a racial overtones [sic] I mean here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists, or to their legs.


In true David Axlerod style, make up whatever you can, including the race card, to discredit anyone that disagrees with Obama’s policies. GE, through all its so-called news subsidiaries is nothing more than the propaganda wing of the West Wing.

Below are pictures of the man shown in the video, who is clearly a white man, with guns strapped to him.

Guy with Assault Rifle 1

Guy with Assault Rifle 2

h/t Patterico’s Pontifications | Newsbusters

Florida, Pensacola, Politics

Trial Lawyers' Quid Pro Quo

Here comes the payback for the trial lawyers. When I say that taking away the tax hammer from the politicians in Washington, which is exactly what would happen if the FairTax were to become law, there is one other change for the better that the FairTax would do. It would end the manipulation of the tax code to favor special interests, like what Democrats in Washington are trying to do today for their most favored group of lobbyists, trial lawyers.

It’s about senate bill  S.437. Its purpose is to amend the Internal Revenue Code to allow attorneys a tax deduction in the current taxable year for reimbursable expenses and court costs which they pay or incur in connection with contingency fee cases.

It is not a coincidence that tort reform is not mentioned in Washington by Democrats when it comes to reducing costs of health care. Its absence in the health care bills, both real and imagined, is no accident. S.437 demonstrates just how much the administration is in bed with the slip-and-fall lobby.  And look who they get to sponsor it, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA).  Also note that Mel Martinez (R-FL) is one of eight primary sponsors.

Tough economic times are usually no problem for trial lawyers. Pain, suffering and liability abound even in a bad economy. Vioxx, defective products, bad hip replacement joints, video games that “cause” violence, perhaps even foods that “make” people fat — you name it.

Even so, the trial lawyer lobby is looking for a bailout of sorts. In exchange for the billion dollars that the legal profession has contributed to lawmakers since 1990 — the vast majority of it to Democrats — trial lawyers are gunning for a tax break that applies only to them, worth some $1.6 billion.

Their top lobbyist, Linda Lipsen of the American Association for Justice, remarked at a recent conference in San Francisco that the provision would have to be attached to another bill.

“You cannot have a stand-alone bill to help lawyers,” she explained, “so we have to tuck it into something.”{emphasis added}

So watch for the bill that they try to hide it in. It will most likely be a bill, like all others we’ve witnessed since January 20th of this year, that will be touted as an emergency. Another of those that won’t be read and shoved down America’s collective throat.

Everybody gets their payback in Obama’s administration. Especially the  lobbyists he said he would distance himself from when he was a candidate. You simply have to wait your turn. AIG, Freddie and Fannie, Wall Street, the UAW, and now the trial lawyers.

Where is the quid? Well, aside from the billion dollars of donations since 1990, there is this . . .

An Examiner analysis of National Law Journal’s “2008 Plaintiff’s Hot List ” shows that in the first six months of 2009, employees of the top 15 trial firms contributed $636,305 to federal politicians and political action committees.

Only $4,875 of that went to Republicans, meaning that trial lawyers at the nation’s top firms are giving more than 99 percent Democratic this year. Similarly, AAJ’s PAC gave Democrats 96 percent of its $627,000 in contributions in the first half of this year.

Trial lawyers are concentrating on the Senate, with the top 15 firms giving $236,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $54,000 to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., a former trial lawyer who faces a potentially difficult re-election. Reid collected $978,000 from the legal industry as a whole between January and June.

You may have heard a lawyer joke or two. Like 99% of lawyers give the rest of them a bad name. It’s hard to engender any sympathy for the slip-and-fall, mass tort class of attorneys when . . .

Their political standard-bearer, former Sen. John Edwards, admitted to cheating on his cancer-stricken wife, and is being investigated for his presidential campaign’s $100,000 payment to his mistress.

Last spring, four senior partners of Milberg Weiss, formerly New York’s pre-eminent class action securities firm, were fined and imprisoned for bribing plaintiffs in cases that had netted them $250 million in fees. (The firm since reorganized, and its remaining partners and employees have made $36,537 in political contributions this year, all to Democrats.)

And Dickie Scruggs of Mississippi, a master trial lawyer and architect of the billion-dollar tobacco settlement in 1998, received a seven-year prison sentence earlier this year for bribing a judge.

related link:  Trial lawyers’ gun for their own loophole

Economy, Politics

Obama's Vaporous Health Care Plan

President Obama has a health care plan that he wants us to accept. It’s called single-payer. Single payer as in the government does all the paying, to doctors, hospitals, clinics, etc.

If the government controls the money, they control the health care industry. If they control the health care industry, they control you.

But try to find out what his plan for your health care is and you will hit a dead end. No pun intended. Apparently, it isn’t written. President Obama was interviewed on national TV last month and questions of cost came up.

MORAN: One of the concerns is cost. People are looking at the cost of this plan, the Congressional Budget Office. By the way, you invited the director of the Congressional Budget Office to the White House.

OBAMA: Right.

MORAN: He had given this report, which was very damaging to your plan. A lot of people thought that was improper, that you were trying to muscle an independent arbiter of this debate
OBAMA: Terry, first of all, he was remarking on the House bill, not my plan, right? So, I think it’s important to get that clear. Number two, I invited him to come alongside a whole range of other health care experts to tell me exactly what they thought the most effective ways to bend the cost curve would be. And in fact, there was a pretty broad consensus that the plans that we had put forward around the MedPAC proposal, for example, which is essentially a commission to deal with doctors and health experts finding the best ways to improve quality while lowering costs. That that, in fact, was one of the most important levers to drive health costs savings in the system.

So his ‘plan’ is to use a committee of bureaucrats to suggest how to cut costs. That way you don’t need anything in writing. Exactly where socialized medicine enters the picture is unclear. Just vote for a pig in a poke, and if you don’t like it, just shut up and let him ‘fix’ it. Coincidentally, after his meeting with the director of the CBO, the director made a statement that was opposite of his first statement. Saying that it would not add to the deficit. Remarkable.

MORAN: So you weren’t leaning on him?

OBAMA: Terry, we don’t lean.

He doesn’t lean. He threatens. It’s the Chicago way. Like when he told auto industry creditors that he was the only thing between them and people with machetes. During that meeting, they agreed to give up a significant portion of their ownership shares (30 cents on the dollar), and Obama then gave majority ownership to the UAW.

MORAN: Do you think one of them problems is that Americans use too much health care?

He does, and explains it by saying too many people abuse emergency rooms for visits that should be in doctor’s offices or clinics. And . . .

OBAMA: We’ll have a situation in which we take five tests when we know one test would be sufficient, as long as that one test would have been forwarded to the other doctors, and specialists, and nurses who needed it to help treat the patient. That doesn’t happen right now. But, we’re paying for five tests. So if we could get a system where that one test is properly distributed, we all save money.

I get it. Aside from cutting payments to doctors and hospitals even more, where he expects to save, er I mean steal, a half billion dollars from Medicare and Medicaid, he will also save by telling doctors to do less tests. He didn’t call it defensive medicine, but that’s what he meant. You can not mention defensive medicine without also mentioning tort reform. And he is not going there. Sharing tests would be a good idea of course, but you have to believe it is defensive medicine, a practice necessitated because of trial lawyers, that Obama was really talking about.

And by doing all the above, Obama will have a socialized medical system that not only provides better care, to more people, but is cheaper and, will not add to the deficit. Must be the pixie dust.

I get the picture now. Lets tie doctors to the whipping post and give trial lawyers the whip. There is no mention about tort reform in his plan (whatever it is) or the House plan. Yet, Obama’s stated goal is to reduce the cost of health care. And while you’re going to pay them less,  and pay them by the ‘quality’ of service, as determined by bureaucrats, instead of by services rendered, then you can expect a shortage of doctors and people going into the medical profession. It all sounds like a recipe for disaster with a history for it in Canada and Great Britain.

Bottom line is this. Obama says that his plan will not cause private sector health care to go away. When the truth is it will cause private sector health care to rot on the vine.

Obama also says that his plan will not increase the deficit. Can’t say that with the House plan.

Here’s my question for President Obama when he comes to Pensacola (more pixie dust).

Mr. President, the American people have seen politicians enact legislation that ended up exacerbating the problems they were supposed to fix. For most Americans, results matter more than good intentions. If it turns out that your health care plan does not fulfill what you promise, will you provide in the plan an exit strategy to terminate the plan and pursue a private sector solution before the end of your first term?

related link: Nightline’s Interview with President Obama