Fact & Fiction in the Health Care Debate

The following is from AP wire reports and appeared in the Monday, August 3 edition of the Kinston (N.C.) Daily Free Press. The "claims" are excerpted objections to the Obama/Democratic health care proposals as they currently stand, while the "Facts" are excerpts showing that Democratic denials are simply not true.

Let it be said, by way of definition, that as of right now, there is no "Obama" plan for health care. While he has outlined certain goals that he would like to have reached, he has not yet put forth a plan. The plans that are currently wending their way through the Congress are all Democratic plans, however. The Senate has two bills it is considering, while the House is waiting for its plan to make its way out of committee.

But the intent of the plan is discernible from the structure of these currently-known plans, and a close examination of the objections to the various plans and the Obama administration's denials show that Obama and the Democrats are simply lying about key provisions.

"CLAIM: Americans won't have to change doctors or insurance companies.

'If you like your plan and you like your doctor, you won't have to do a thing,' Obama said on June 23. 'You keep your plan; you keep your doctor.'

THE FACTS: The proposed legislation would not require people to drop their doctor or insurer. But some tax provisions, depending on how they are written, might make it cheaper for some employers to pay a fee to end their health coverage. Their workers presumably would move to a public insurance plan that might not include their current doctors.


CLAIM: The Democrats' plans will lead to rationing, or the government determining which medical procedures a patient can have....

THE FACTS: ... Denying coverage for certain procedures might increase under proposals to have a government-appointed agency identify medicines and procedures best suited for various conditions....


CLAIM: Overhauling health care will not expand the federal deficit over the long term.

THE FACTS: ... the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the House bill lacks mechanisms to bring health care costs under control."

Again, these are direct quotations from an Associated Press wire story - not Sean Hannity or The American Spectator.

Honesty, From An Unlikely Source

The February 23 double issue of Time magazine contained an article by Nancy Gibbs titled "25 People to Blame: The good intentions, bad managers and greed behind the meltdown." In it, a "murderer's row" of 25 people (not surprisingly heavy on placing corporate blame, sometimes in the most ludicrous manner; Angelo Mozilo is listed for merely co-founding Countrywide in 1969!) whom the masses may sharpen their pitchforks and skewer in their rage over the recent housing meltdown.

But buried within the usual journalistic [sic] pablum is a heaping big admission - one of the primary souls responsible for the meltdown was Bill Clinton.

"[Bill Clinton] loosened housing rules, putting added pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods."

It has been repeatedly alleged on the sanctified pages of Obama Watch that Clinton and the Congressional Black Caucus (and their social-engineering fellowtravelers, like Barney Frank) are in fact primarily responsible for the housing meltdown.

Journalists are now officially catching up to the vaunted knowledge available on the blogosphere from conservative bloggers.

What I Find Enchanting: 100-Day Surprises!

This morning I received a call from a New York Times reporter asking me what I found most enchanting about Obama's first 100 Days in office. But, enchantment aside, I will at least list a few things that I found most surprising about his initial three months or so....

1) Most surprisingly, I learned that for all of the Messianic worship cast his way, Barack Hussein Muhammad bin Obama is actually NOT the Messiah. Now, I did not learn this from his followers (who still seem to believe he is The Second Coming) or the press (who don't believe he is the Second Anything, but rather that he is The One), but Obama himself confessed it during his 100-Day snoozefest press conference.

Recall, if you will, that the Biblical record of the coming of The First Messiah contains this claim:

"10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.... 13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour. 14 And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever. 15 And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them. 16 When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: 17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." (Matthew 8:10-17)

When The First Messiah came, he performed miracles in fulfillment of Messianic prophecies, to demonstrate that he was, indeed, the Messiah.

But while confessing that he is engaged in the process of "remaking America," The One also noted that what he has done to this point "is only the beginning of another long journey.... We've got a lot of hard decisions and tough choices and hard work ahead of us."

Then he said, to an audible gasp and the sound of a thousand rosaries being retrieved and violently clutched close to hearts, "I am not a miracle worker."

Officially, I suppose that removes The One from the Messianic sweepstakes.

Other surprises?

2) While it is not surprising that Obama blames his predecessor, George W. Bush, for every problem known to man, including the presence of mold on sliced bread, it is surprising that he is sticking with the whole "fiscal responsibility" charade.

In a meeting with citizens at a public high school in Arnold, Mo., preceding his orgy... ummmm... "enchanting" press conference with lustily-drooling reporters on Wednesday night, Obama responded to a question about the budget deficit that he inherited by saying, "That [deficit spending] wasn't me."

Really? The most liberal member of the Senate didn't spend any money during his time in office, huh? Who'da thunk it?

In an AP story on Obama's response, Calvin Woodward wrote:

"Congress [controlled] the purse strings, not [George W. Bush], and [Congress] was under Democratic control for Obama's last two years as Illinois senator. Obama supported the emergency bailout package in President George W. Bush's final months - a package Democratic leaders wanted to make bigger.

To be sure, Obama opposed the Iraq war, a drain on federal coffers for six years before he became president. But with one major exception, he voted in support of Iraq war spending."

Hmmmm. Is there something about the water fountain at the DNC that makes people liars? First Bill Clinton, now this....

So then The One keeps repeating that his spending is actually going to decrease the deficit? He says that his budget "will cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term", which even the AP calls an "eye-roller." Apparently his solution for inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit, a criticism that he repeats frequently and with zeal, is to add $4 trillion of his own in deficit spending.

Obama's expansion of health, education, and other spending will nearly quadruple the deficit, according to the AP. Only in Obamanomics is this known as "fiscal responsibility."

3) I find enchanting that the need for photo-ops showing off Der Feuhrer, I mean, The One, and his new toys are worth $329,000 and the fear of the people of New York.




4) What I find most enchanting about Muhammad's... errrrr, Obama's first 100 days is the abject worship rendered to him by the media. "What do you find most enchanting?" Was that a serious question? And all night long not one of these lap-dogs in the White House Press Corps asks a question on the economy?

And he says he is engaged in "remaking America" and there are no questions as to whose image the country is to be remade into? Maybe it is because they already know which direction "hope and change" is taking us....

The 100 Day Verdict: Obama Sucks!

If one listens to MSNBC or CBS, one gets the impression that, not only is Barack Hussein Muhammad bin Obama the greatest president in American history (and perhaps the most wonderful divine gift to mankind since fire), but that the American public is squarely behind his socialist machinations - given the exception of a few fringe lunatics and the KKK.

The evidence, as always, is completely different from what the media is telling us.

There are a half dozen ways to measure the "verdict" on Obama prior to the 100-day mark of his administration, and all of them agree: Obama Sucks!

First, Obama, we think, was largely elected on a two-pronged theory, partly subjective and partly objective. Of course, most of the votes that flew Obama's way were from those who were grossly misinformed; people who are so utterly ignorant that they ought not only be allowed to vote, but they ought not be allowed to drive! Typical of this group (certainly 70% of Obama voters) are those who voted for him because he would be the nation's first black president, those who voted for him because of Oprah's endorsement, and those, like the now-famous YouTube video of the young black lady who supported The One because now she would never have to worry about paying her mortgage or for gas again.





These people are too ignorant and morally perverted to ever come to know the truth. They won't be convinced that their subjective fantasies have the reality quotient of "Once upon a time in a land far away...." even if they someday receive orders from Obama to come to the county square for a free Kool-Aid treat.

For those few who actually had an objective reason for supporting Obama, it was likely because of the sorry shape of the economy at election time. A strange congruence of forces which came together merely months before the election coupled with the simplistic thinking of Americans (i.e., "if it happened under Bush, Bush caused it" when in fact the forces that caused the economic meltdown were entirely the brainchild of Bill Clinton and the Congressional Black Caucus) basically ensured Obama's election as Americans searched for someone to fix the economy. In a strange twist of fate, the candidate representing the Democratic party (who caused the economic meltdown) was viewed as being more capable of repairing the crashing economy than the candidate of the Republican party (who had personally warned that Democratic policies would bring this meltdown to pass).

So, what has Obama done for the economy? This will be our first objective measure of the Obama administration.

On the morning of the 2008 election the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened at 9326. On the evening of the next day, the first full day of trading with the certainty that Barack Obama would be president, the market had taken a nearly-200 point nose dive to 9139. Not bad... (sic). Between the election and the inauguration, the market continued to decline to the tune of 1100+ points.

On February 17, Obama signed his first major piece of legislation into law - the multi-trillion dollar stimulus package. The stock market on that day dropped from 7845 to 7502. On February 27, Obama announed his budget proposal. The Dow Jones responded by dropping from 7181 to 6763.

Between January 2009 and March 2009, the DJIA lost 28%, nearly a third of its value, its worst performance for the same time period for any U.S. president in history.

While it is true that capital markets are forward-looking, the Dow Jones largely reflects the so-called "Large Cap" stocks which tend to reflect the current condition of the market, especially in difficult times. It is the NASDAQ that tends to reflect stocks that are growth-oriented, and therefore that index tends to be more forward looking. Surely, if the capital markets believed that the future looked rosy with Obama, the NASDAQ would reflect that hope for growth?

Between November 3, 2008, and April 28, 2009, the NASDAQ has declined from 1726 to 1694.

Not as precipitous a drop, but the NASDAQ has been down as much as 450 points during the Obama tenure. The objective economic results thus far are decidedly mixed to negative.

Secondly, Obama has proposed spending at a level, during his first 100 days, to send the U.S. careening into bankruptcy, proposing almost $10 trillion in spending in 100 days for a country that had already amassed $11 trillion in debt in its 200+-year history! Doesn't "fiscal responsiblity" feel good?

Thirdly, the tea-parties which have met the Obama administrations proposals and performance are nearly unprecedented in America's history. Outside of the Civil War, is is hard to imagine a more negative greeting to any president upon his election. While there is a lobotomized and ignorant plurality of the nation that is easily led by Oprah's pallid imitations of papal bulls, those who are most informed and most engaged in the political process are horrified by Obama, his incompetence, and his proposals.

Finally, the polls themselves present a decidedly mixed picture of the nation's "approval" of Obama and his administration. Despite the natural tendency of Americans to support the nation's leadership and the understandable desire to give each new president a chance to enact his own agenda, Obama's strident socialism and evident incompetence has already placed him in a highly unusual position - he is one of the few presidents to have lost significant support during his first 100 days.

Obama's current "approval ratings" stand at 56%. This is a paltry figure, given that he was elected with 53% of the vote and that his approval rating in February was 65%. Even so, his 56% approval rating places him SEVENTH out of the last nine presidents for approval ratings at the 100-day mark. George W. Bush actually had a higher approval rating at the 100-day mark, exceeding Obama's by six points.

Further, as I have previously noted, a non-scientific poll conducted by MSNBC in fact had nearly forty percent of all respondents giving Obama an "F" for his performance for his first 100 days.

The orgiastic writhings (and writings) of the mainstream media notwithstanding, the objective measures of Obama's competence to this point are unencouraging to say the least. To say the most? Obama sucks!

Press Conference for Poochie

So the Obama family is trooped out to hold a press conference...?

To present a united front in the face of a plague of worldwide piracy? No.

To assure the American people that families can persevere through the downward spiral of Obama's economic policies? No.

To argue that Iran and North Korea should lay off the nukes, "for the children?" Nothing so mundane as all that.

No, this family press conference is about something REALLY important. This press conference is to introduce the dog. A Portuguese Water Buffalo (did I get that wrong?) named "Bo."

Ewwwwwwww. Look at all that slobbering.

Not from Bo. From the press.

He is such an attention whore.

Not the dog, I mean President Obama.