By Ann Coulter
© 2009
9) If you like Medicare, you'll love national health care, which will just extend Medicare's benefits to everyone.
Hey – I have an idea: How about we make everyone in America a multimillionaire by pulling Bernie Madoff out of prison and asking him to invest all our money! Both Medicare and Bernie Madoff's investment portfolio are bankrupt because they operate on a similar financial model known as a "Ponzi scheme." These always seem to run fabulously well – until the money runs out.
Not only is Medicare bankrupt, but it is extremely limited in whom and what it covers. If Medicare were a private insurer, it would be illegal in many states for failing to cover hearing aids, podiatry, acupuncture, chiropractic care, marriage counseling, aromatherapy and gender reassignment surgery.
Moreover, Medicare payments aren't enough to pay the true cost of those medical services it does cover. With Medicare undercutting payments to hospitals and doctors for patients 65 and older, what keeps the American medical system afloat are private individuals who are not covered by Medicare paying full freight (and then some). That's why you end up with a $10 aspirin on your hospital bill.
National health care will eliminate everything outside of Medicare, which is the only thing that allows Medicare to exist.
Obviously, therefore, it's preposterous for Democrats to say national health care will merely extend Medicare to the entire population. This would be like claiming you're designing an apartment building in which every apartment will be a penthouse. Everyone likes the penthouses, so why not have a building in which every apartment is a penthouse?
It doesn't work: What makes the penthouse the penthouse is all the other floors below. An "all-penthouse" building is a blueprint that could make sense only to someone who has never run a business and has zero common sense, i.e., a Democrat.
10) National health care won't cover illegal aliens – as the president has twice claimed in recent radio appearances.
Technically, what Obama said is that the bill isn't "designed" to give health insurance to illegal aliens. (That bill, the "Health Insurance for Illegal Aliens Act of 2009," was still being drafted by Ted Kennedy at the time of his death, may he rest in peace.)
But unless the various government bureaucracies dispensing health care are specifically required by law to ask about citizenship status, illegals will be covered. We can't even get employers and police to inquire about citizenship status, but liberals assure us that doctors will?
And by the way – as with the abortion exclusion – the Democrats expressly rejected amendments that would have required proof of residency status to receive national health care.
Still not convinced? Day after day, the New York Times has been neurotically asserting that national health care won't cover illegal aliens (without ever explaining how precisely it will exclude illegal aliens).
So far, just this week, these Kim Jong-il-style pronouncements have appeared in the Treason Times:
"Illegal immigrants will be covered. (Myth)" – Katharine Q. Seelye, "Myth vs. Fact vs. Other," The New York Times, Sept. 2, 2009
"(Sen. Jim DeMint) fueled speculation that a health care overhaul would cover illegal immigrants, although specific language says it would not." – Katharine Q. Seelye, "Fighting Health Care Overhaul, and Proud of It," the New York Times, Aug. 31, 2009
"'Page 50: All non-U.S. citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free health care services.' ... The falsehoods include (that italic statement)." – Michael Mason, "Vetting Claims in a Memo," the New York Times, Aug. 30, 2009
"But that would not help illegal immigrants. Contrary to some reports, they would not be eligible for any new health coverage under any of the health overhaul plans circulating in Congress." – Duff Wilson, "Race, Ethnicity and Care," the New York Times, Aug. 30, 2009
The last time the Times engaged in such frantic perseveration about a subject was when the paper was repeatedly insisting that Durham prosecutor Mike Nifong had a solid case against the Duke lacrosse players.
By August 2006, every single person in the United States, including the stripper, knew the stripper's claim of "gang rape" was a lie. That was when Duff Wilson – quoted above – co-wrote the Times' infamous cover story on the Duke case, titled: "Files From Duke Rape Case Give Details but No Answers." No answers!
11) Obama has dropped his demand for the ironically titled "public option" (i.e., government-run health care), which taxpayers will not have an "option" to pay for or not.
Liberals never, ever drop a heinous idea; they just change the name. "Abortion" becomes "choice," "communist" becomes "progressive," "communist dictatorship" becomes "people's democratic republic" and "Nikita Khrushchev" becomes "Barack Obama."
It doesn't matter if liberals start calling national health care a "chocolate chip puppy" or "ice cream sunset" – if the government is subsidizing it, then the government calls the shots. And the moment the government gets its hands on the controls, it will be establishing death panels, forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions and illegal aliens, rationing care and then demanding yet more government control when partial government control creates a mess.
Which happens to be exactly what liberals are doing right now.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Liberal lies about national health care, Part 2
By Ann Coulter
© 2009
With the Democrats getting slaughtered – or should I say, "receiving mandatory end-of-life counseling" – in the debate over national health care, the Obama administration has decided to change the subject by indicting CIA interrogators for talking tough to three of the world's leading Muslim terrorists.
Had I been asked, I would have advised them against reinforcing the idea that Democrats are hysterical bed-wetters who can't be trusted with national defense while also reminding people of the one thing everyone still admires about President George W. Bush.
But I guess the Democrats really want to change the subject. Thus, here is Part 2 in our series of liberal lies about national health care.
6) There will be no rationing under national health care.
Anyone who says that is a liar. And all Democrats are saying it. (Hey, look – I have two-thirds of a syllogism!)
Don't miss the most recent edition of Whistleblower magazine: "Medical Murder: Why Obamacare could result in the early deaths of millions of baby boomers"
Apparently, promising to cut costs by having a panel of Washington bureaucrats (for short, "The Death Panel") deny medical treatment wasn't a popular idea with most Americans. So liberals started claiming that they are going to cover an additional 47 million uninsured Americans and cut costs ... without ever denying a single medical treatment!
Also on the agenda is a delicious all-you-can-eat chocolate cake that will actually help you lose weight! But first, let's go over the specs for my perpetual motion machine – and it uses no energy, so it's totally green!
For you newcomers to planet Earth, everything that does not exist in infinite supply is rationed. In a free society, people are allowed to make their own rationing choices.
Some people get new computers every year; some every five years. Some White House employees get new computers and then vandalize them on the way out the door when their candidate loses. (These are the same people who will be making decisions about your health care.)
Similarly, one person might say, "I want to live it up and spend freely now! No one lives forever." (That person is a Democrat.) And another might say, "I don't go to restaurants, I don't go to the theater, and I don't buy expensive designer clothes because I've decided to pour all my money into my health."
Under national health care, you'll have no choice about how to ration your own health care. If your neighbor isn't entitled to a hip replacement, then neither are you. At least that's how the plan was explained to me by our next surgeon general, Dr. Conrad Murray.
7) National health care will reduce costs.
This claim comes from the same government that gave us the $500 hammer, the $1,200 toilet seat and postage stamps that increase in price every three weeks.
The last time liberals decided an industry was so important that the government needed to step in and contain costs was when they set their sights on the oil industry. Liberals in both the U.S. and Canada – presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter and Canadian P.M. Pierre Trudeau – imposed price controls on oil.
As night leads to day, price controls led to reduced oil production, which led to oil shortages, skyrocketing prices for gasoline, rationing schemes and long angry lines at gas stations.
You may recall this era as "the Carter years."
Then, the white knight Ronald Reagan became president and immediately deregulated oil prices. The magic of the free market – aka the "profit motive" – produced surges in oil exploration and development, causing prices to plummet. Prices collapsed and remained low for the next 20 years, helping to fuel the greatest economic expansion in our nation's history.
You may recall this era as "the Reagan years."
Freedom not only allows you to make your own rationing choices, but also produces vastly more products and services at cheap prices, so less rationing is necessary.
8) National health care won't cover abortions.
There are three certainties in life: a) death, b) taxes, and c) no health-care bill supported by Nita Lowey and Rosa DeLauro and signed by Barack Obama could possibly fail to cover abortions.
I don't think that requires elaboration, but here it is:
Despite being a thousand pages long, the health-care bills passing through Congress are strikingly nonspecific. (Also, in a thousand pages, Democrats weren't able to squeeze in one paragraph on tort reform. Perhaps they were trying to save paper.)
These are Trojan Horse bills. Of course, they don't include the words "abortion," "death panels" or "three-year waits for hip-replacement surgery."
That proves nothing – the bills set up unaccountable, unelected federal commissions to fill in the horrible details. Notably, the Democrats rejected an amendment to the bill that would specifically deny coverage for abortions.
After the bill is passed, the Federal Health Commission will find that abortion is covered, pro-lifers will sue, and a court will say it's within the regulatory authority of the health commission to require coverage for abortions.
Then we'll watch a parade of senators and congressmen indignantly announcing, "Well, I'm pro-life, and if I had had any idea this bill would cover abortions, I never would have voted for it!"
No wonder Democrats want to remind us that they can't be trusted with foreign policy. They want us to forget that they can't be trusted with domestic policy.
© 2009
With the Democrats getting slaughtered – or should I say, "receiving mandatory end-of-life counseling" – in the debate over national health care, the Obama administration has decided to change the subject by indicting CIA interrogators for talking tough to three of the world's leading Muslim terrorists.
Had I been asked, I would have advised them against reinforcing the idea that Democrats are hysterical bed-wetters who can't be trusted with national defense while also reminding people of the one thing everyone still admires about President George W. Bush.
But I guess the Democrats really want to change the subject. Thus, here is Part 2 in our series of liberal lies about national health care.
6) There will be no rationing under national health care.
Anyone who says that is a liar. And all Democrats are saying it. (Hey, look – I have two-thirds of a syllogism!)
Don't miss the most recent edition of Whistleblower magazine: "Medical Murder: Why Obamacare could result in the early deaths of millions of baby boomers"
Apparently, promising to cut costs by having a panel of Washington bureaucrats (for short, "The Death Panel") deny medical treatment wasn't a popular idea with most Americans. So liberals started claiming that they are going to cover an additional 47 million uninsured Americans and cut costs ... without ever denying a single medical treatment!
Also on the agenda is a delicious all-you-can-eat chocolate cake that will actually help you lose weight! But first, let's go over the specs for my perpetual motion machine – and it uses no energy, so it's totally green!
For you newcomers to planet Earth, everything that does not exist in infinite supply is rationed. In a free society, people are allowed to make their own rationing choices.
Some people get new computers every year; some every five years. Some White House employees get new computers and then vandalize them on the way out the door when their candidate loses. (These are the same people who will be making decisions about your health care.)
Similarly, one person might say, "I want to live it up and spend freely now! No one lives forever." (That person is a Democrat.) And another might say, "I don't go to restaurants, I don't go to the theater, and I don't buy expensive designer clothes because I've decided to pour all my money into my health."
Under national health care, you'll have no choice about how to ration your own health care. If your neighbor isn't entitled to a hip replacement, then neither are you. At least that's how the plan was explained to me by our next surgeon general, Dr. Conrad Murray.
7) National health care will reduce costs.
This claim comes from the same government that gave us the $500 hammer, the $1,200 toilet seat and postage stamps that increase in price every three weeks.
The last time liberals decided an industry was so important that the government needed to step in and contain costs was when they set their sights on the oil industry. Liberals in both the U.S. and Canada – presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter and Canadian P.M. Pierre Trudeau – imposed price controls on oil.
As night leads to day, price controls led to reduced oil production, which led to oil shortages, skyrocketing prices for gasoline, rationing schemes and long angry lines at gas stations.
You may recall this era as "the Carter years."
Then, the white knight Ronald Reagan became president and immediately deregulated oil prices. The magic of the free market – aka the "profit motive" – produced surges in oil exploration and development, causing prices to plummet. Prices collapsed and remained low for the next 20 years, helping to fuel the greatest economic expansion in our nation's history.
You may recall this era as "the Reagan years."
Freedom not only allows you to make your own rationing choices, but also produces vastly more products and services at cheap prices, so less rationing is necessary.
8) National health care won't cover abortions.
There are three certainties in life: a) death, b) taxes, and c) no health-care bill supported by Nita Lowey and Rosa DeLauro and signed by Barack Obama could possibly fail to cover abortions.
I don't think that requires elaboration, but here it is:
Despite being a thousand pages long, the health-care bills passing through Congress are strikingly nonspecific. (Also, in a thousand pages, Democrats weren't able to squeeze in one paragraph on tort reform. Perhaps they were trying to save paper.)
These are Trojan Horse bills. Of course, they don't include the words "abortion," "death panels" or "three-year waits for hip-replacement surgery."
That proves nothing – the bills set up unaccountable, unelected federal commissions to fill in the horrible details. Notably, the Democrats rejected an amendment to the bill that would specifically deny coverage for abortions.
After the bill is passed, the Federal Health Commission will find that abortion is covered, pro-lifers will sue, and a court will say it's within the regulatory authority of the health commission to require coverage for abortions.
Then we'll watch a parade of senators and congressmen indignantly announcing, "Well, I'm pro-life, and if I had had any idea this bill would cover abortions, I never would have voted for it!"
No wonder Democrats want to remind us that they can't be trusted with foreign policy. They want us to forget that they can't be trusted with domestic policy.
Liberal lies about national health care, Part 1
By Ann Coulter
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
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."
Don't miss the most recent edition of Whistleblower magazine: "Medical Murder: Why Obamacare could result in the early deaths of millions of baby boomers"
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.
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
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."
Don't miss the most recent edition of Whistleblower magazine: "Medical Murder: Why Obamacare could result in the early deaths of millions of baby boomers"
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.
WHO Says Our Healthcare System is 37th?
THE FREEDOM MEDIUM
...Transmitting the Individualist Frequency
By Salvaterra
The World Health Organization (WHO), that’s who. A report released in 2000 by the WHO that ranks the United States healthcare system at 37th in the world is responsible for the current misinformation being spread by the President and congressional Democrats.
In the World Health Report 2000 the WHO set out to rank the healthcare systems of 191 countries from best to worst. For many, myself excluded, the first time the results of the WHO report gained their attention was during Michael Moore’s propaganda film SiCKO. Moore used the US’s ranking of 37th on the WHO index to try and convince viewers that Cuba has a far superior healthcare system to the United States. Some people actually believed it.
What Michael Moore, President Obama, and congressional Democrats fail to provide along with the rank number when promoting government-run healthcare is what the WHO used to arrive at these numbers. In 2008 Glen Whitman of the Cato Institute released a paper that explains the WHO’s methodology in terms that average Americans can understand found here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp101.pdf.
The explanation of the WHO’s report is not very difficult to understand. Think “redistribution of health”. The index uses five factors to come up with an “Overall Attainment” rank for the countries: Health Level, Responsiveness, Health Distribution, Responsiveness Distribution, and Financial Fairness. The first two factors are legitimate, but the last three make no sense in measuring quality of healthcare.
Notice that I highlighted the word Distribution in two of the above factors. These two factors are included to measure how healthcare is distributed to the population of a given country. That’s right, they don’t measure the quality of the healthcare, they measure if poor people have the same health level and responsiveness as the rich.
The example used in the Cato paper is as follows:
Suppose, for instance, that Country A has health responsiveness that is “excellent” for most citizens but merely “good” for some disadvantaged groups, while Country B has responsiveness that is uniformly “poor” for everyone. Country B would score higher than Country A in terms of responsiveness distribution, despite Country A having better responsiveness than Country B for even its worst-off citizens. The same point applies to the distribution of health level.
So how exactly does measuring a country’s distribution of healthcare help when measuring healthcare quality? And how does this show that the United States has inferior healthcare to Costa Rica? Your guess is as good as anyone’s.
The next factor is Financial Fairness which attempts to determine what a “fair” level of healthcare expenditures is for households based on their income. This factor is also tied to distribution because if there is a wide diversity of income levels and healthcare expense levels distributed throughout a country (as is the case in the United States) then the Financial Fairness grade is worse. The Financial Fairness grade (25% of the overall grade) of the ideal country would be one where the percentage of household income spent on healthcare would be the same for all income levels. This can only happen when “the rich” pay more for healthcare even when they use the same amount or less than the poor. An outcome like this is more easily attained when a country’s government distributes payments for healthcare using tax dollars. Tax dollars which come from the country’s rich citizens, not the poor. The global bureaucrats behind the WHO have essentially tipped the scales of their index to favor countries with a single-payer healthcare system because of their definition of what “fairness” is. Again there is no measurement of the quality of healthcare received, just the equality or inequality of healthcare distribution. So much for shifting “from an ideological discourse on health policy to a more [scientific] one,” as the WHO has claimed to have done with this index.
The final aspect of the WHO ranking that gets the US to 37th is the performance of our healthcare system based on how much money is spent. One more time here, the quality of healthcare is not measured, the performance of the healthcare system based on the amount spent is what is measured. Glen Whitman uses the following example:
When Costa Rica ranks higher than the United States in the OP ranking (36 versus 37), that does not mean Costa Ricans get better health care than Americans. Americans most likely get better health care—just not as much better as could be expected given how much more America spends.
Anyone paying attention has heard President Obama or some other Democrat say that we pay more in this country for healthcare than any other country and yet we are still ranked 37th in the world. However, when looking at how the rankings were determined, it becomes clear that the global bureaucrats at the WHO are telling the United States our ranking did not suffer in spite of the amount spent on healthcare expenses, rather it suffered because we spend so much and they think our system should still be better. This is Obama’s basis for pushing to overhaul our entire healthcare system?
It is pretty bad when the Democrat party and the President of the United States start using the same points as an America-hating propagandist to try and move their agenda forward. The World Health Organization’s rankings are clearly ideologically based and were intended to be embarrassing to the United States, yet the WHO index is cited by leading Democrats and the President all the time. Still Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer have the nerve to call people questioning them unamerican!
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Other Posts On This Topic
* September 1, 2009 -- Breaking News!! NEW Lies From The Obama Administration On Health Care Reform
* August 25, 2009 -- Obama Explains How He Wants To Eliminate Private Insurance
* August 17, 2009 -- The Health Care Video Obama Doesn’t Want You To See
* August 13, 2009 -- MSNBC Host: Word “Socialist” Code For The “N-Word”
...Transmitting the Individualist Frequency
By Salvaterra
The World Health Organization (WHO), that’s who. A report released in 2000 by the WHO that ranks the United States healthcare system at 37th in the world is responsible for the current misinformation being spread by the President and congressional Democrats.
In the World Health Report 2000 the WHO set out to rank the healthcare systems of 191 countries from best to worst. For many, myself excluded, the first time the results of the WHO report gained their attention was during Michael Moore’s propaganda film SiCKO. Moore used the US’s ranking of 37th on the WHO index to try and convince viewers that Cuba has a far superior healthcare system to the United States. Some people actually believed it.
What Michael Moore, President Obama, and congressional Democrats fail to provide along with the rank number when promoting government-run healthcare is what the WHO used to arrive at these numbers. In 2008 Glen Whitman of the Cato Institute released a paper that explains the WHO’s methodology in terms that average Americans can understand found here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp101.pdf.
The explanation of the WHO’s report is not very difficult to understand. Think “redistribution of health”. The index uses five factors to come up with an “Overall Attainment” rank for the countries: Health Level, Responsiveness, Health Distribution, Responsiveness Distribution, and Financial Fairness. The first two factors are legitimate, but the last three make no sense in measuring quality of healthcare.
Notice that I highlighted the word Distribution in two of the above factors. These two factors are included to measure how healthcare is distributed to the population of a given country. That’s right, they don’t measure the quality of the healthcare, they measure if poor people have the same health level and responsiveness as the rich.
The example used in the Cato paper is as follows:
Suppose, for instance, that Country A has health responsiveness that is “excellent” for most citizens but merely “good” for some disadvantaged groups, while Country B has responsiveness that is uniformly “poor” for everyone. Country B would score higher than Country A in terms of responsiveness distribution, despite Country A having better responsiveness than Country B for even its worst-off citizens. The same point applies to the distribution of health level.
So how exactly does measuring a country’s distribution of healthcare help when measuring healthcare quality? And how does this show that the United States has inferior healthcare to Costa Rica? Your guess is as good as anyone’s.
The next factor is Financial Fairness which attempts to determine what a “fair” level of healthcare expenditures is for households based on their income. This factor is also tied to distribution because if there is a wide diversity of income levels and healthcare expense levels distributed throughout a country (as is the case in the United States) then the Financial Fairness grade is worse. The Financial Fairness grade (25% of the overall grade) of the ideal country would be one where the percentage of household income spent on healthcare would be the same for all income levels. This can only happen when “the rich” pay more for healthcare even when they use the same amount or less than the poor. An outcome like this is more easily attained when a country’s government distributes payments for healthcare using tax dollars. Tax dollars which come from the country’s rich citizens, not the poor. The global bureaucrats behind the WHO have essentially tipped the scales of their index to favor countries with a single-payer healthcare system because of their definition of what “fairness” is. Again there is no measurement of the quality of healthcare received, just the equality or inequality of healthcare distribution. So much for shifting “from an ideological discourse on health policy to a more [scientific] one,” as the WHO has claimed to have done with this index.
The final aspect of the WHO ranking that gets the US to 37th is the performance of our healthcare system based on how much money is spent. One more time here, the quality of healthcare is not measured, the performance of the healthcare system based on the amount spent is what is measured. Glen Whitman uses the following example:
When Costa Rica ranks higher than the United States in the OP ranking (36 versus 37), that does not mean Costa Ricans get better health care than Americans. Americans most likely get better health care—just not as much better as could be expected given how much more America spends.
Anyone paying attention has heard President Obama or some other Democrat say that we pay more in this country for healthcare than any other country and yet we are still ranked 37th in the world. However, when looking at how the rankings were determined, it becomes clear that the global bureaucrats at the WHO are telling the United States our ranking did not suffer in spite of the amount spent on healthcare expenses, rather it suffered because we spend so much and they think our system should still be better. This is Obama’s basis for pushing to overhaul our entire healthcare system?
It is pretty bad when the Democrat party and the President of the United States start using the same points as an America-hating propagandist to try and move their agenda forward. The World Health Organization’s rankings are clearly ideologically based and were intended to be embarrassing to the United States, yet the WHO index is cited by leading Democrats and the President all the time. Still Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer have the nerve to call people questioning them unamerican!
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Other Posts On This Topic
* September 1, 2009 -- Breaking News!! NEW Lies From The Obama Administration On Health Care Reform
* August 25, 2009 -- Obama Explains How He Wants To Eliminate Private Insurance
* August 17, 2009 -- The Health Care Video Obama Doesn’t Want You To See
* August 13, 2009 -- MSNBC Host: Word “Socialist” Code For The “N-Word”
Parents rebel against Obama TV speech to schools
'President doesn't get to speak to my children unchallenged'
By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Parents across the country are rebelling against plans by President Barack Obama to speak directly to their children through the classrooms of the nation's public schools without their presence, participation and approval.
The plans announced by Obama also have been cited as raising the specter of the Civilian National Security Force, to which he's referred several times since his election campaign began, but never fully explained.
"He's recruiting his civilian army. His 'Hitler' youth brigade," wrote one participant in a forum at Free Republic.
"I am not going to compare President Obama to Hitler. We'll leave that to others and you can form your own opinions about them and their analogies. … However, we can learn a lot from the spread of propaganda in Europe that led to Hitler's power. A key ingredient in that spread of propaganda was through the youth," wrote a blogger at the AmericanElephant.com blog, where the subject of the day was a national "Keep-Your-Child-at-Home-Day."
"Totalitarian regimes around the world have sought to spread their propaganda and entrench their power by brainwashing the children. I guess it's easier to indoctrinate a six-year-old instead of fighting a 26-year-old or being challenged by a 46-year-old in the voting booth," the blogger wrote.
At issue was an announcement that Obama plans to deliver a message directly to students via the Internet into public school classrooms across the nation on Sept.8.
According to announcement posted on ServiceWire.org, Obama will address students "about the importance of persisting and succeeding in school" at 1 p.m. Eastern at the WhiteHouse.gov website.
The announcement said the federal Department of Education "is encouraging educators, students and parents to use this opportunity to help students get focused and begin the school year strong."
The government also is publicizing a list of suggestions for students and teachers to do in preparation for the speech, including studying Barack Obama's writings and presidency.
Obama had announced the speech during a child reporter's visiting the White House.
During the interview, Obama said, "On September 8, when young people around the country are … will have just started or are about to go back to school, I'm going to be making a big speech to young people all across the country…"
But opposition is assembling quickly, similar to the concerns expressed on the AmericanElephant blog:
"Now the former community organizer and current president of the United States is making an unprecedented speech to the school children of our nation. I'd like to believe his motives were pure and politics didn't play into this. But viewing this administration's track record doesn’t afford such benefit of the doubt.
"When the president browbeats property owners who want to protect their legal rights… when the president admits he doesn't know the facts but impugns the integrity of a police force… when the president calls me a liar for reporting what is actually in the health care bills and encourages my neighbors to report me to some enemies list… when the president apologizes to nations around the world and bows to a Saudi king… he loses the benefit of the doubt," the blogger wrote.
"Without benefit of the doubt, the president doesn't get to speak to my children unchallenged," the writer said.
The education department's suggestions include building background knowledge for students about Obama, and then asking, "What do you think he'll say to you?"
During the speech, students should be instructed to "think about the following: What is the president trying to tell me? What is the president asking me to do?"
Another exercise would be to have students write letters to themselves about "what they can do to help the president."
"These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals," the recommendations suggest.
At the Docstoc website where the announcement about the speech was drawing negative reaction, one forum participant confirmed that his grandchildren would not be in school that day.
"What's he going to do, tell the kids to report their parents to the Thought Police if they don't support Obamacare?" added another.
"I don't care what the heck he's going to talk about, unless he holds a teaching degree for every state, and he plans on actually TEACHING a lesson, this SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED!!!" added another.
Obama earned some support for his plan, though.
"First of all, there is no reason to believe that Obama is going to try and brainwash your kid (I think you've done that just fine on your own), he'll talk about how important it is to do well in school and work hard and whatnot... Kids are smarter than you think and are plenty capable of critical thinking," wrote one supporter of the president.
But it was a lone voice.
"Let the brain washing begin. Yes, it is a bit of a stretch. But I remember from history class that some other very prominent figures in history started out like this, all about education and change for the better. Capture the hearts and minds and all that. You can call it what you will but Obama Youth or Hitler Youth … This is much too slippery a slope, this day and age with the role of government becoming more invasive the last thing I want is for 'them' to get a tooth into my kids," wrote a contributor.
On columnist Michelle Malkin's forum page, one person wrote simply, "The Obama Youth Corps has to start somewhere."
On the DailyPaul website publicizing U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, another parent wrote, "Perhaps its harmless, but Obama's past behavior and his push for 'service' and community over individuals make me very uncomfortable…
"My kids will be forced to listen to the views of a president that is perhaps the most anti-American in history, not to mention one who believes we need a 'civilian national security force just as strong, powerful and well-funded as our military.'"
WND has reported on Obama's civilian force plans several times, including when he signed into law the "Give Act," H.R. 1388, which massively expanded the National Service Corporation and allocated to it billions of dollars.
Obama had told a campaign stop in Colorado Springs last year he wants a "Civilian National Security Force" as big and as well-funded as the U.S. military.
As the presidential campaign advanced last year, another video appeared that for many crystallized their concerns over such a "corps." It shows a squad of young men marching and shouting praises to Obama.
Joseph Farah, founder and editor of WND, used his daily column first to raise the issue of a "national civilian force" and then to elevate it with a call to all reporters to start asking questions.
"If we're going to create some kind of national police force as big, powerful and well-funded as our combined U.S. military forces, isn't this rather a big deal?" Farah wrote. "I thought Democrats generally believed the U.S. spent too much on the military. How is it possible their candidate is seeking to create some kind of massive but secret national police force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force put together?
"Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force bigger and more expensive than that? If not, why did he say it? What did he mean?" Farah wrote.
Duane Lester, writing at All American Blogger, has verbalized opponents' worst fears.
"Hitler knew that if you control the youth, you control the future. I wrote about him in 'The Threats to Homeschooling: From Hitler to the NEA.' As I noted in that article, Hitler said: 'The Youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of innoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled,'" he wrote.
By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Parents across the country are rebelling against plans by President Barack Obama to speak directly to their children through the classrooms of the nation's public schools without their presence, participation and approval.
The plans announced by Obama also have been cited as raising the specter of the Civilian National Security Force, to which he's referred several times since his election campaign began, but never fully explained.
"He's recruiting his civilian army. His 'Hitler' youth brigade," wrote one participant in a forum at Free Republic.
"I am not going to compare President Obama to Hitler. We'll leave that to others and you can form your own opinions about them and their analogies. … However, we can learn a lot from the spread of propaganda in Europe that led to Hitler's power. A key ingredient in that spread of propaganda was through the youth," wrote a blogger at the AmericanElephant.com blog, where the subject of the day was a national "Keep-Your-Child-at-Home-Day."
"Totalitarian regimes around the world have sought to spread their propaganda and entrench their power by brainwashing the children. I guess it's easier to indoctrinate a six-year-old instead of fighting a 26-year-old or being challenged by a 46-year-old in the voting booth," the blogger wrote.
At issue was an announcement that Obama plans to deliver a message directly to students via the Internet into public school classrooms across the nation on Sept.8.
According to announcement posted on ServiceWire.org, Obama will address students "about the importance of persisting and succeeding in school" at 1 p.m. Eastern at the WhiteHouse.gov website.
The announcement said the federal Department of Education "is encouraging educators, students and parents to use this opportunity to help students get focused and begin the school year strong."
The government also is publicizing a list of suggestions for students and teachers to do in preparation for the speech, including studying Barack Obama's writings and presidency.
Obama had announced the speech during a child reporter's visiting the White House.
During the interview, Obama said, "On September 8, when young people around the country are … will have just started or are about to go back to school, I'm going to be making a big speech to young people all across the country…"
But opposition is assembling quickly, similar to the concerns expressed on the AmericanElephant blog:
"Now the former community organizer and current president of the United States is making an unprecedented speech to the school children of our nation. I'd like to believe his motives were pure and politics didn't play into this. But viewing this administration's track record doesn’t afford such benefit of the doubt.
"When the president browbeats property owners who want to protect their legal rights… when the president admits he doesn't know the facts but impugns the integrity of a police force… when the president calls me a liar for reporting what is actually in the health care bills and encourages my neighbors to report me to some enemies list… when the president apologizes to nations around the world and bows to a Saudi king… he loses the benefit of the doubt," the blogger wrote.
"Without benefit of the doubt, the president doesn't get to speak to my children unchallenged," the writer said.
The education department's suggestions include building background knowledge for students about Obama, and then asking, "What do you think he'll say to you?"
During the speech, students should be instructed to "think about the following: What is the president trying to tell me? What is the president asking me to do?"
Another exercise would be to have students write letters to themselves about "what they can do to help the president."
"These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals," the recommendations suggest.
At the Docstoc website where the announcement about the speech was drawing negative reaction, one forum participant confirmed that his grandchildren would not be in school that day.
"What's he going to do, tell the kids to report their parents to the Thought Police if they don't support Obamacare?" added another.
"I don't care what the heck he's going to talk about, unless he holds a teaching degree for every state, and he plans on actually TEACHING a lesson, this SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED!!!" added another.
Obama earned some support for his plan, though.
"First of all, there is no reason to believe that Obama is going to try and brainwash your kid (I think you've done that just fine on your own), he'll talk about how important it is to do well in school and work hard and whatnot... Kids are smarter than you think and are plenty capable of critical thinking," wrote one supporter of the president.
But it was a lone voice.
"Let the brain washing begin. Yes, it is a bit of a stretch. But I remember from history class that some other very prominent figures in history started out like this, all about education and change for the better. Capture the hearts and minds and all that. You can call it what you will but Obama Youth or Hitler Youth … This is much too slippery a slope, this day and age with the role of government becoming more invasive the last thing I want is for 'them' to get a tooth into my kids," wrote a contributor.
On columnist Michelle Malkin's forum page, one person wrote simply, "The Obama Youth Corps has to start somewhere."
On the DailyPaul website publicizing U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, another parent wrote, "Perhaps its harmless, but Obama's past behavior and his push for 'service' and community over individuals make me very uncomfortable…
"My kids will be forced to listen to the views of a president that is perhaps the most anti-American in history, not to mention one who believes we need a 'civilian national security force just as strong, powerful and well-funded as our military.'"
WND has reported on Obama's civilian force plans several times, including when he signed into law the "Give Act," H.R. 1388, which massively expanded the National Service Corporation and allocated to it billions of dollars.
Obama had told a campaign stop in Colorado Springs last year he wants a "Civilian National Security Force" as big and as well-funded as the U.S. military.
As the presidential campaign advanced last year, another video appeared that for many crystallized their concerns over such a "corps." It shows a squad of young men marching and shouting praises to Obama.
Joseph Farah, founder and editor of WND, used his daily column first to raise the issue of a "national civilian force" and then to elevate it with a call to all reporters to start asking questions.
"If we're going to create some kind of national police force as big, powerful and well-funded as our combined U.S. military forces, isn't this rather a big deal?" Farah wrote. "I thought Democrats generally believed the U.S. spent too much on the military. How is it possible their candidate is seeking to create some kind of massive but secret national police force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force put together?
"Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force bigger and more expensive than that? If not, why did he say it? What did he mean?" Farah wrote.
Duane Lester, writing at All American Blogger, has verbalized opponents' worst fears.
"Hitler knew that if you control the youth, you control the future. I wrote about him in 'The Threats to Homeschooling: From Hitler to the NEA.' As I noted in that article, Hitler said: 'The Youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of innoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled,'" he wrote.
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