The Ides of March

This year the Ides of March bring the new "final" push by the Democrats to impose Obamacare on a very reluctant nation.

Rasmussen says that the current bill (to the extent anyone knows what is in it) is supported by 43% of the country, while 53% are opposed.

They do not appear to have the votes to pass the bill by ordinary means, so we are seeing all kinds of manipulations in the House to try to force it through.

We will see how many House Democrats are willing to walk the plank for Obama and Nancy Pelosi.

Meanwhile, Paul Ryan, a Republican Congressman, has an excellent article up in the Washington Post today. Read the whole thing. Its good.

His analysis, in part, includes the following:

"...Through any analytical lens, the legislation will not address the central problem of skyrocketing health-care costs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that families' premiums could rise 10 to 13 percent; private-sector actuarial estimates top these already high numbers. The higher costs are driven by federalizing the regulation of insurance, narrowing consumers' options and reducing competition among providers. The health-care market would be dominated by government programs and the largest insurance companies, operating as de facto government utilities........"

"This legislation includes a range of job-killing tax hikes and controls on all Americans -- to fund this new entitlement and to penalize employers and individuals who don't play by Washington's new rules........"

The bill is a bad one that really does not address the real concerns that the public has about health care. Rising costs are not solved.

So what are the real purposes of the bill? Ryan explains:

"....If this debate had actually been about health care, we could have worked together to get a grip on costs, make quality care more accessible, address exclusions for preexisting conditions and realign the incentives of insurance companies with those of patients and doctors. Yet this process -- including its embarrassing conclusion -- demonstrates that the debate has never been about health-care policy but, instead, paternalistic ideology....."(emphasis mine)

His conclusion:

"...Should the Democrats' health-care train wreck make it to the president's desk, it will be a pyrrhic victory, and its devastating consequences will take their toll on our health-care system, our budget and our economy."

I emphatically agree. But a bright side of all of this is that the legislation, the way it has been forced on Congress by the Democratic leadership, and all of the shenanigans involved in its passage, will likely doom the Democratic Party to minority status for some time to come.

Now what we need to see is a Republican Party that will step up. So far, when given the chance, they have failed to do so.

Maybe some of the young leaders like Paul Ryan will be the Republican Party of the future.

The leaders of the past have largely failed.

The State of the United States

No, not the speech, although I will get to it later, perhaps.

The state of our country is not good. We are mired in a deep recession with high and growing unemployent, and only the huge institutions that were bailed out by the government are showing profits. Main Street still suffers.

We are in a situation caused by a huge expansion of credit wherein large financial institutions, both private and semi-public engaged in wild speculation, creating a bubble in real estate, and then the bubble popped.

This had the effect of destroying much of the capital of the financial institutions, but also the capital of the general public.

With the bubble gone, the US Government under George W. Bush stepped in to socialize the huge losses of the financial institutions, but not, of course, the huge losses that had been imposed upon the general public. (I call this the Golden Rule) In fact, the general public will end up paying for the financial institutions' losses as well as their own.

Hope and Change gets elected and promptly nationalizes General Motors and to some extent, Chrysler.

Relief for the general public? Hardly.

Next is a huge "stimulous" bill that goes primarily to large Democratic political constituencies, adds nearly a trillion to the deficit, and accomplishes nothing but add further burdens on the general public.

We then get a Cap and Trade Bill that is rushed through the House without being read. This bill would add hundreds of billions to the costs of energy....to be ultimately paid by whom? You got it. The general public.

With the first of these matters a movement began to form: The Tea Parties. The public was awakening. But the politicians ignored them or put them down as extremists. Who were the partiers? The general public.

After Cap and Trade passed the House, the Pelosi crowd began to attempt to socialize our country's medical care. Behind closed doors.

It was if the Iron Curtain was rebuilt right there in Washington, D.C. Everything was done behind closed doors. In secrecy. Few know what kind of deals were made to buy "support" for the bill, but what is known is that it was terribly unfair to.........the general public.

A similar bill is now pending in the Senate, where the majority party is still trying to push it through, in spite of the opposition of....the general public.

So here we are after one year of Hope and Change. We have no hope, and only a change for the worse.

Elections in Virginia and Massachusetts have given the general public a chance to be heard, but from the State of the Union speech last night, it is clear that the lessons have been lost by the politicians in our government.

Maybe they should all watch and listen to the ad that newly elected Senator Scott Brown ran during the campaign in Massachusetts. It is one of the very best I have heard in my over fifty years in politics.

You can find it here. If you do nothing else, go to this ad.

The public will get little, if any, relief from the policies spoken of by the President last night.

But we can get relief in November when we have the opportunity to throw all the rascals out. There is Hope, after all.

Who will lead the revolution?

Will ObamaCare Ration Health Care to Seniors?

Absolutely YES.

Senator Brownback, in a post on NRO lays it on the line:

"This became abundantly clear when Senator Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.) introduced an amendment designed to ensure that the new center could not put a value on life-saving treatment by using “quality of life” and “cost-effectiveness” measures “for the denial of Medicare benefits to patients against their wishes.” Because Democrats rejected the amendment in a party-line vote, the proposed new entity would be able to impose restrictions on access to treatment, as is common in European countries with socialized medicine. Elderly, disabled, and medically dependent patients would be at greatest risk of being denied necessary care."

Medicare certainly needs fixing, but there are many ways to do it that do not include denial of health care to the elderly and infirm.

The fact that we are being lied to about it, makes it even worse.

I am working and then out of town most of this week, but I do have some thoughts about how to help fix the Medicare problem that I will try to post at some point.

The conduct of the majority party in Washington is shameless.