Okay, I’ve decided that Nancy Pelosi (whose Native American name might be “Stands With An Angry Little Fist” ala “Dancing With Wolves”) is beginning to sound like a paranoid lunatic who can find a convenient villain any time she needs one, as Tom Elia points out here.
“They are the villains in this,” Pelosi said of private insurers. “They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening. And the public has to know that. They can disguise their arguments any way they want, but the fact is that they don’t want the competition.”
Well, and why should they, considering Barney Frank -in an unscripted moment- has admitted that the public option will mean a government take-over of health care. And that will be true, even if the “public plan” starts to be called “the co-ops” instead.
But I digress. More Pelosi:
“… It’s almost immoral what they are doing,” added Pelosi, who stood outside her office long after her press conference ended to continue speaking to reporters, even as aides tried in vain to usher her inside. “Of course they’ve been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure with pre-existing conditions, you know, the litany of it all.”
“They’ve been immoral all along.” Gosh, it wasn’t so long ago we were being told that people in power had no business dictating morality to the rest of us. How quickly things change. By the way, please note, Pelosi doesn’t mind keeping campaign donations made by these immoral companies.
You know what might REALLY be immoral? Putting the health care of the nation in the hands of people who can’t manage a car buy-back program for ten days without going broke.
The Obama administration is telling lawmakers that its much-touted “cash-for-clunkers” program is already running out of money, according to three Senate aides familiar with the discussions. . .in the one week since it took effect, it appears to have run dry of the $1 billion allocated to it, aides said Thursday.
In simple English:
“Note that the program started on July 1, they only published the actual rules Friday and they’re still working out how to get the dealers their money. . .what’s essentially happening here is that car dealerships are giving $4,500 interest-free, unguaranteed loans to the federal government… and the determination of whether or not those loans get paid off is more or less going to be at the discretion of mid-level bureaucrats at the NHTSA.”
MMMhhmmmm, that’s just the sort of incompetent, inefficient nightmare bureaucracy I want managing my health care! The billion-dollar program is already broke, even though the dealers haven’t been paid. And the White House is considering asking for “more money”?
Let’s take another look at that handy budget chart, and pity these poor dealers who are just trying to stay in business and keep people employed and have no idea when they’ll ever see a dime of their $4,500 advances paid back.
Please note: Pelosi is not the only one running around pointing the finger and shrieking “villain!” The Democrats are scolding their obedient-monkey-press. Bad, bad mediamonkies!
Senate Democratic leaders on Thursday blamed Capitol Hill media for setting an August deadline for health reform and Republicans for blocking the bill’s progress. . . . [Sen Harry] Reid said reporters created a fictitious deadline of a successful vote by the August recess, and downplayed the fact that the chamber won’t meet that mark.
“That is a deadline that you created,” Reid told a group of about 75 reporters. “It’s not like we don’t have a product. Significant progress has been made …
The White House, meanwhile, is pointing at poor Jake Tapper -one of the few newsmen willing to do more than drool in the presence of Obama- and crying “villain, damned scaring villain” for bringing up the possible unintended consequences of government-run health care. Never mind that the White House has used the rhetoric of panic, emergency, crisis and dire-circumstances for pretty much every new policy they’ve rammed on us for the past seven months.
Ah, well, we’re told that America likes the political theater of healing, and maybe cynics are cynics because they’ve been proven right so often.
After all, Senator Dianne Feinstein can have some annoyingly determined senior citizens arrested without much notice.
Senator Barbara Boxer can haughtily tell a Brigadier General to “call me Senator”, like an insecure kid playing dress-up, and then she can advise an accomplished African American businessman and veteran that another African American “would be proud,” to be testifying at her tea party, and still be called “senator.”
President Obama can spend years denouncing his predecessor for pushing legislation through without adequate review and then do a much more dramatic job of it, himself, with nary a raised eyebrow from the press.
President Obama can also win an election by saying noble stuff like this:
“The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m president of the United States.” — Sen. Barack Obama, March 31, 2008
…and then spend his first 6 months in office maintaining every one of Bush’s extensions of executive power while bringing over 30 Czars (with more on the way) who are unaccountable-to-Congress (or to you and me) into his inner circle -one of whom is quite a creepy ghoul- and there is no carrying on about the immorality of it all, not in the press and -to their shame- not by many of the loyal opposition, either.
The president and his Secretary of State can put the weight of America behind their support of a power-grabbing socialist despot, over the constitution of a sovereign nation like Honduras, very few people are asking about it.
And the President’s Right-Hand Man? Aw, he’s got a doctor-brother, named Ezekiel, who is also an Obama adviser and Ezekiel says:
“communitarianism” should guide decisions on who gets care. . . medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia” (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. ’96).
Translation: Don’t give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson’s or a child with cerebral palsy.
He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: “Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years” (Lancet, Jan. 31).
Remember when the people who thought such things were, like, nazis, and stuff? Big inhale here: I love the smell of re-worked morality in the morning papers!
But that does raise a really good question, though: Who is going to tell ill-but-beloved celebrities that they should go ahead and die, before anyone notices that some patients are more valuable than others in this “carefully crafted piece of legislation” – one that the legislators can’t even be bothered to read before they cast their “ayes”.
Oh, morality. Redefined, just like the ethics of the most ethical congress, evah.
Oh, villains, everywhere you look.
Oh, poor, paranoid Pelosi, just trying to protect us from the villains, the damned smiling villains! Frankly, I don’t think we need her help finding villains.
Quick question: Can Congress declare a mutiny? If so, could someone please impinge on some of Pelosi’s protective strawberry-scented air and expose her, once and for all?
UPDATE: Look! More Villains, damned filthy profiteer capitalist villains, wondering if their “friends in the White House” can’t help them out with a little price fixing.
Related:
Catholic Key: 1 Paraplegic Equals Half a Human…
Jimmie Bise: What if Obamacare is like Cash-for-clunkers?
Obamacare; we’ve only just begun
Obama’s selective memory
Stephen Carter: When Did Profits Become Evil?
Victor Davis Hanson: Our Angry Aristocracy
Dissent: No longer the “highest form of patriotism”, it’s now “unAmerican.”
Have any Catholic bishops in America publicly asked Catholic hospitals and clinics to draw up contingency plans for closing down if the Obama Democrats get their abortion mandate passed?
That damned George W. Bush!! Still ruining the country! It’s all HIS fault. It’s always his fault. He’s to blame for Barack Obama (who is “above the world, he’s sort of God”) being unable to create the paradise that we annointed him to create.
[Heh. Obama even has his own Ezekiel! -admin]
What a fascinating world we live in, where multi-millionaire plutocrats who got rich off non-union farm labor (and seem to be fans of elective surgery) can lecture the medical community on greed. And where sane, educated Jews can draw up plans for the culling of the “untermenschen”.
The earlier comments the Anchoress made on gratitude echo all the louder. Ingratitude is the root of all sin. It leads us to all manner of horrors: envy, coveting of another’s property, disrespect for life. It also leads us to devalue God’s gifts to us. Ingratitude opens the door to our deepest, most savage, sinful nature, and it ain’t pretty.
I actually tend to agree with Pelosi on this one. Insurance companies routinely deny valid claims with the full knowledge that 85% of policyholders do not have the money or inclination to hire an attorney (and then get called “litigious” if they sue). Their entire goal is to collect premiums and avoid paying claims, no matter how legitimate. The history of bad faith by insurance companies is long and distinguished. Let’s not delude ourselves that they are looking out for our benefit or will be any more compassionate on end of life decisions than the government would be.
Forgive them for they know not what they do!
What do you want me to do about “IT” Victor? There’s just as much problem in Canada cause they respect your god a lot less so I’m damned is I do and I’m damned if I don’t!
I hear ya Victor! Mind your own business and let God and His Angels correct “IT” all.
Peace
Two things have come up in the last couple days that reinforce the point that the government has no business running healthcare. (And I suppose the Cash for Clunkers is another – Travel Man just saw a Chevy ad that touts the rebate, the poor guys.)
One, and I credit the liberatarian I saw on Fox and Friends for bringing this up: Remember the Mustang Ranch? Most successful brothel in Nevada. (Not that I think it’s okay to legalize prostitution!) They made more than $100 million the year they were caught for tax evasion. Apparently, the government took them over, and within a year they were bankrupt. (I actually had wondered what happened to that place – you used to hear about it, but I credited it to my faith deepening that I didn’t pay attention to that stuff much any more.)
Two: Remember the uproar on the condition on VA hospitals when President Bush was in charge? Who runs the VA system?
Thanks, Anchoress, for the great insights and links, as usual. I enjoy them over my Liquid Crack every day.
Christine the soccer mom has actually been paying attention. While George W. Bush wasn’t perfect (the only perfect man ever born died on a cross thousands of years ago). That is Barack the Magnificent’s worst nightmare – people who are actually paying attention. And despite the egregious failures of the mainstream media to illuminate the new president’s inconsistencies and downright horrendous plans for us, someone the news gets out. I have a lot of faith in the ordinary people of this country. It takes a lot to get them peeved and paying attention, but once that happens, things are put right pretty effectively. Keep up the great work Anchoress. You are making an invaluable contribution to a necessary dialogue. God bless.
Ann Coulter said it best when she described Nancy Pelosi as the first mentally retarded Speaker of the House in history. The woman has shot so much bee venom into her face that her mental processes have to be impaired. She is shrill, she is petty and shallow and both Feinstein and Boxer are just like her. Shame on California for foisting these worthless dames on our nation!
With abortion and the movement of culture toward euthanasia, we are literally killing our future(the innocent babies) and past( the elderly). What remains is a culture of death with no reliance on God.
Interesting, Literature is indeed a mirror of sociey ; During the nineteenth century, if there was a problem the characters relied on GOD for help and solace; during the last cetury, Freud and the couch replaced GOD for providing solace and in our present society, Sex and immediate pleasure is the solution.
this is getting pretty uncharitable. i’m actually mildly attracted to Pelosi. she has a great figure for her age.
A word to the wise about the Prophet Barack –
1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who are now prophesying. Say to those who prophesy out of their own imagination: ‘Hear the word of the LORD! 3 This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the foolish [a] prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing! 4 Your prophets, O Israel, are like jackals among ruins. 5 You have not gone up to the breaks in the wall to repair it for the house of Israel so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the LORD. 6 Their visions are false and their divinations a lie. They say, “The LORD declares,” when the LORD has not sent them; yet they expect their words to be fulfilled. . . . 8 ” ‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because of your false words and lying visions, I am against you, declares the Sovereign LORD. 9 My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. . . . 10 ” ‘Because they lead my people astray, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash, 11 therefore tell those who cover it with whitewash that it is going to fall. Rain will come in torrents, and I will send hailstones hurtling down, and violent winds will burst forth. 12 When the wall collapses, will people not ask you, “Where is the whitewash you covered it with?”
– Ez 13:1-12
An actual leader, unlike Ms. Pelosi, would not be presenting an issue by focusing on divisions within the body politic. We need to work together in mutual support; ways to do that should be the focus.
Liberals have always held that personal affairs should remain personal affairs. I don’t agree in all cases, but they’re not inconsistent in attacking big corporations for greed. And the Bible, you’ll remember, tells us to care for the poor. And the cash for clunkers program is going broke not because of governmental mismanagement, but because the funds set aside for it have been exhausted — it has helped X number of people and can’t afford to help more, but it has also helped the car industry, which is hardly complaining. And golly, a hastily enacted emergency program is having startup logjams — what an indictment! And the while you point out that Obama has appointed a slew of “czars,” you don’t point out that czars don’t pass laws, Congress does. What Bush did, and what I hope you protested against, was keep policy hidden from Congress. Obama’s moves are tactical; Bush’s were sometimes flat out unconstitutional.
["Liberals have always held that personal affairs should remain personal affairs." - well, that's nonsense. Did you forget John Kerry and John Edwards outting Dick Cheney's daughter as a lesbian (as though that was a bad thing) or the whole movement to "out" gay republicans? Liberals have disallowed pub owners from deciding whether or not they may cater to a smoking clientele. Next, since we're all going to be owned by the government, they'll start telling us what private indulgences we may and may not partake of. And as for Bush's "flat out unconstitutional" moves, which ones of those, exactly, has Obama rescinded and saved us from? -admin}
“Who runs the VA system?”
The VA hospitals weren’t mismanaged, they were underfunded, which of course _was_ Bush’s fault. He’s the same guy who sent troops into battle without proper protection.
From what I hear, military healthcare in general is quite good.
Ken – In all fairness everyone I know who has had to deal with the VA outside of critical care has disagreed vehemently.
“the egregious failures of the mainstream media to illuminate the new president’s inconsistencies”
That’s not true. I don’t read anything here or on conservative sites I don’t find out from NPR or the NY Times or Rachel Maddow.
In 2002 Lester Thurow (economist and former dean of MIT’s Sloane School of Business) was discussing the left’s objection to globalization:
“The left objects, basically, because they would like to object to capitalism but they can’t, because socialism and communism have been proven not to work. And you can’t get rid of capitalism unless you say what the replacement is; and since they can’t say what the replacement is, globalization has become, basically, their new enemy.”
In 2009 the wisdom of this statement has become painfully apparent, because now corporate profits and corporate salaries are being attacked directly. Likewise, this is a direct attack on capitalism, without any realization (or at least without any admission) that these corporations which earn profits are the same institutions which provide the jobs and employs the workersw that the left so covets and claims to represent.
The left bases its objections on the idea that corporations pay the smallest possible wage to obtain employees, but that is only true in theory. This is why we can’t hire the “best and the brightest” in government positions because corporations can always hire the brightest away by paying the more money and providing better perks and working conditions. If a corporation wants $10/hr worth of work but only wants to pay $5/hr, there is always some enterprising business out there that is willing to pay $6/hr, and then $7/hr, and so on, until a market balance is struck.
Finally, the hypocrisy of the left is absolutely without measure. Have you ever seen a Hollywood liberal complain that s/he was paid too much to make a film? If profits are such a bad thing why does Nancy Pelosi have no problem when she and her husband “rakie in the dough” and become millionaires many times over? Likewise Chris Dodd, Ted Kennedy and Al Gore to name just a few. Ahh! Profits for me but not for thee!
the Bible, you’ll remember, tells us to care for the poor
Yes, the Bible tells US to care for the poor. It does not tell government to take money from people so that government provides for the poor in the way that the government decides, including caring for the poor by paying to abort their children.
And the Bible tells us to care for the POOR. It does not tell us to hand over our money so that government can use it to subsidize the rich in their purchase of new cars. Make no mistake — the “cash for clunkers” program is a welfare program to benefit the rich, not the poor, not the middle class. The only vehicles that qualify for the program are low mileage vehicles. Nearly all of the low mileage vehicles are big cars and SUVs, that is, expensive vehicles. The cheap cars, the cars that poor and middle class people can afford to buy, are the small cars, which by and large get mileage that exceeds the requirements for the cash for clunkers program.
So the program does not benefit the poor or middle class, but, like TARP and all the other bailouts, benefits mostly the well-to-do and other pals of the Democrat Party.
sorry, that should be “rake in the dough”
“In all fairness everyone I know who has had to deal with the VA outside of critical care has disagreed vehemently.”
Elizabeth Anne, thanks for mentioning that. I haven’t had much luck searching for polls, but I did find this from a CBO report:
“VA officials have often cited studies that have given the department high ratings for the quality of its medical care. For example, then-Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Nicholson stated in a speech in July 2007, “We lead private and Government health care providers in almost every measure and our state-of-the-art quality care arcs from the research lab to a patient’s bedside.”7 Michael Kussman, then-Acting (now confirmed) Under Secretary for Health, gave testimony before the Congress in March 2007 in which he called VA “the Nation’s leader in providing high-quality health care” and cited a number of external research studies to support that claim.”
So you’re back, then?
Deal with Blue Dogs sets up health care vote
Review of Does God Hate Women? (excellent book that I’ve got on my own shelves- even handed criticism of all religions, with Islam getting the worst of it because that’s how it happens in reality, but the Catholic Church hardly being spared).
On about liars- Richard Dawkins writes in to set the record straight about the atheist camps that he actually has nothing to do with… it’s just that his detractors think he does because they’re obsessed with him!
Nice try Ken, but no dice. Let me give you just one example. You think the Cash for Clunkers is doing great things? Now for the Law of Unintended Consequences…
Those “clunkers” are being cut up. That means that the parts will not available for parts dealers and for those who keep their cars running by fixing them up. Who will suffer? The poor, of course, since they tend to use those parts to keep their cars running just a bit longer.
And now you know why no one with any sense trusts glib arguments such as yours.
“has nothing to do with”- I mean has little to do with. He supports them but didn’t mastermind them in his lair- whatever some may think.
Going to have some tea now- don’t think I’ll give myself much as, despite having done 40 miles on my bike, I still have a load of belly fat that hasn’t been shifted
Hope to get some more discussion on my return
“Have you ever seen a Hollywood liberal complain that s/he was paid too much to make a film? If profits are such a bad thing why does Nancy Pelosi have no problem when she and her husband “rakie in the dough” and become millionaires many times over?”
I did hear an interview recently in which a star Hollywood actor had taken a lower fee than offered so that his fellow actors could get more, and you could argue that most stars are hypocritical for not doing the same. But I’m not sure how much any Hollywood actor struggles financially. On the other hand, insurance execs makes huge salaries off the backs of a lot of people who struggle financially. And while low-to-medium income people need health care whether they can afford it or not, no one needs to see a movie.
Pelosi is supposedly a “resort, dining and winery baroness” — which of those industries makes money off the poor?
[Yeah, cause heaven knows middle class people don't take vacations, dine out, drink wine (or, maybe pick grapes as grad students) or eat Tuna, for that matter (I do recall that Pelosi's interest in something regarding fish affected some sort of fishing law a few years back.)
You know, you came in here wagging the finger at how we were all bad Christians (and you still pull that out, from time to time) then you started telling us all that we hated the poor and didn't care about them as much as you do, because we didn't think it was the government's job care about them for us (and subject our own taxmonies to the performance of abortions, etc) and now, "you people are mean picking on the rich who don't profit from the poor." Ben Franklin spoke the truth when he said. “The rich do not work for one another. . . Everything that they or their families use and consume is the produce of the laboring poor.”
You seem to have that exactly backwards.
There is no such thing as a rich person who does not make some profit from some poor, somewhere. I'm thinking of the backbreaking work of keeping those resorts running, clean and habitable and how many of the people who do that are working poor. How many of those food service people and winery people are working poor? More, I think, than you are willing to admit.
You spend a lot of time here either crying for "the poor" and telling us how awful we are, or defending the rich and telling us how awful we are. You love everyone, it seems, but the struggling middle class which is being squeezed by a government spending TRILLIONS of dollars it can't even keep track of. What is supposed to happen to middle class people who work for those greedy profiteering "immoral" capitalists that the wealthy coastal democrats so despise, when the greedy, immoral capitalist businesses close their doors because they cannot function in the midst of high taxes and overregulation? Without the middle class, what you end up with is precisely what you see in Cuba, and what you used to see in the Soviet Union. A HUGE lower class, an elite and privileged upper class and a non-existent middle class. You see people poverty-stricken and silenced while the fatcats in power drive by them and exhort them to "keep it real."
It's the middle class - and the middle class values - that build houses for Habitats for Humanity, that took in so many of the Katrina refugees after the flood, that rebuilds what is lost. Government will take care of everything? Government still cannot fill the gaping hole in NYC, it still cannot bring New Orleans under control, and that has been true whether we're talking about Democrat or Republican mayors or governors. Government is now so loaded down with self-interested and corrupt officials serving either themselves or ruinous ideology that they have long-ceased to serve us.
You're fond of thowing the bible around. Maybe you remember that Jesus said we would always have the poor with us - and that is true. It is the job of all of us to help them, in so far as we can - it is NOT the job of governments. I know in my church and countless others, we feed people with our food pantries, help find housing for them, help them with writing resumes, with learning to read, with affordable day care, with free - yes free - care for the low-income elderly and the poor dying of cancer and other illnesses. We do all of that with the help of donations of time, talent and treasure from people of all walks, rich and middle class, but the bulk of the donations come from the middle class - there is no more generous group on earth than the American middle class, but they don't want to be told they MUST do something; they do not wish to be compelled or forced into doing what their own instincts would tend them toward on an individual basis. Tell them there is a need, the American middle class rushes to help. Tell them to just fork over their money and YOU'LL take care of it for them...well why should they trust you to do it right, well, fairly or (and this is important) honestly?
And do not even try to talk to me about what "you've heard" about government health care and the VA. What "you've heard" is no match for my 30 years of actual experience with it via my brother. There is no more wasteful entity on earth the a government, and the answer to their wastefulness is never to "cut spending," at the bureaucratic level; it's to increase taxes or decrease the surplus population. THAT is immoral.
I am still wondering why the whole nation has to be upended into government health care. IF there are "40 million uninsured" people in the nation (and that number is dubious because many choose not to participate) why can't this brilliant government simply offer them some sort of buy-in to an insurance plan, commensurate with their ability to pay? Why do all of us have to be in? Because this isn't about taking care of Americans...it's about taking CONTROL of AMericans.
Oh, and you "did hear" about one Hollywood type who took a lower salary. How inspiring that is! When they (or people like Thomas Friedman) lecture us about the environment while they fly around in their private planes and go live in their enormous houses with air-conditioned garages, I just get so inspired I could plotz!
I'm solidly middle class; my husband and I are both the product of blue-collar working class families, but I'm no class warrior. I believe we all have our place in the world, and I have no hate for the rich. After all, it was a rich and connected man who got Christ down from the cross and into a tomb before sundown on Good Friday. But I am beginning to weary of your daily and tireless (and humorless) fight-picking with everyone on this blog. I do not understand a mind that wants to do nothing but fight and seems incapable of putting down the gloves between rounds for a bit of friendly banter. It wearies, and gets boring, actually, "Democrats good and benevolent, Republicans evil and stingy, and remember your bible, folks." I'm not even a Republican, and I begin to take offense. -admin]
Jim (above, 7/31/09)),
You list the ills of the insurance company withou any evidence. While it is true that insurance companies would collect premiums and pay no claims if they couls get away with it, the truth is that they can’t get away with that. The market interferes. Again your point is only valid in theory, but not in fact.
The fewer valid claims that insurance companies pay, the more pressure there is in the market for premiums to stop. Why pay premiums for something that you know you can never collect on? There must be some kind of balance for the premium income to continue.
Do you know a particular situation in which a valid claim was denied? Do you know if the claim was valid? Cite some examples. I have had numerous medical problems in my life, and I have never had my health insurance deny me a valid claim. Social Security Disability, however, (a government provider) routinely denies 50% of all disability claims, valid or not, because the bureaucrats know that a large percentage of those denials will never be challenged.
Social Security Disability claims are the prelude to Obamacare. If you think insurance companies are in the business to deny valid claims, just wait until your government gets in to game. You can stop paying insurance premiums if you really believe that you’re not getting you’re money’s worth; let’s just see you stop paying taxes for the same reason–or any reason at all.
Ezekiel, do we as individual citizens adequately provide for the poor? Then why is it wrong for us, through the democratic process, to decide to use tax money to help them? And an awful lot of lower and middle income people drive SUVs (I know people making $12 an hour driving them) and the like because they’re status symbols. A lot of these folks who could barely afford them before can’t well afford them in this economy. A lot of the poor also drive clunkers, which don’t get the mileage gthey did originally.
Popcorn, can you cite a cost-benefit analysis?
Have any Catholic bishops in America publicly asked Catholic hospitals and clinics to draw up contingency plans for closing down if the Obama Democrats get their abortion mandate passed?
Don’t for a moment think that would happen. Catholic hospitals and clinics and hospices would be taken over by the government – forcibly – for “compelling public interest.” The prevailing attitude would then be “Screw Catholic teaching. Abort those babies and euthanize those old folks.” Doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other medical personnel who object to immoral behavior like abortion or euthanasia will be forced to choose between their jobs or their conscience. It will not be a pretty situation.
As for insurance companies, they are not 100% pure by any means, but profits are not evil. That is a dangerous argument because profits are essentially income – expenses. If, say, at the end of the month you (who make $50,000/year) have more expendable income (“profit”) than your neighbor who also makes $50,000/year – is it justified to go after you for being “greedy?” Is it “unfair” for you to have more money left at the end of the month than your neighbor?
Profits are not contradictory to Catholic teaching. And insurance companies employ hundreds and thousands of people who don’t make gazillions, who work just as hard as you or I, who would suffer undue financial hardship if insurance companies were forced to close and/or are punished for “excessive profits.” What about the right to a just wage and employment? Where do you think the wealthy businesses who often donate time or money to Catholic causes get that capital from? Those “evil” profits people seem so quick to demonize.
And nobody seems to think there’s alternative solutions – like tort reform – to this debate that would help lower costs and make health care more accessible to people. It’s either the government runs the show (and you’re a bad, evil, hell-bound Catholic if you disagree) or nothing changes at all (and you’re still a bad, evil, hell-bound Catholic). I don’t understand where in the Catechism, or the Bible, we’re compelled or commanded to trust the government with these decisions, or when personal responsibility was removed from Catholic teaching in favor of blindly following the government (and at the sake of other Catholic teaching, such as on issues of life, human dignity, and freedom of conscience).
As I’ve said elsewhere, my mother-in-law (in her 60s) was diagnosed with ALS last fall and has been in assisted living and/or the hospital since New Year’s Eve. She will not go home again, but needs extensive medical care while this disease runs its course (which could go anywhere from weeks or months to years). She is not in a coma, her heart beats on its own, and she only needs mild assistance with breathing. She has a DNR order on file if she takes a turn for the worse. But she no longer works and relies on 24/7 care to make her life as comfortable and dignified as possible. Now, the yardstick by which I measure this legislation is the kind of care someone like her would receive.
And my research shows me she would be considered basically a “useless eater” and asked, compelled, or forced to die for the sake of budgets and bean counters. That is not justified, nor is it moral.
Then why is it wrong for us, through the democratic process, to decide to use tax money to help them?
I’d argue there’s nothing wrong with that necessarily. The problem is not providing tax money to help people – I’m a big proponent of tax dollars going to help single mothers have their children rather than abort them.
But here’s the problem. Most, if not all, of the representatives we have now (both Democrat AND Republican) can’t seem to understand the meaning of the word “priority.”
Was it a priority to put $1 billion into “Cash for Clunkers”? Probably not. There are countless earmarks and pork-laden bills out there where the money being spent is being spent unwisely, and at the sake of funding things – like insurance for the poor – that WOULD be of actual benefit.
If Pelosi and others are going to demonize insurance companies for making a profit, it is legitimate to criticize government officials for seeing taxpayers as an endless source of revenue to whom they have little accountability, and who are wholly incapable of fiscal restraint.
Nice try Ken,
You can’t try to deflect the the issue by the socialistic “making money off [of] the poor” ploy. The money is made in the market, and Pelosi condemns market profits. Period!
By your logic, all physicians are grifters because they earn their income by treating patients, the great proportion of whom are middle or lower (economic) class.
As for your implication that health care is somehow mandatory, (“low to medium income people need health care”) you are absolutely wrong. Everybody WANTS health care. We can all choose not to have it, but we fear (rightly so) that the consequences COULD BE dire. Human society has been around for some 10,000 to 12,000 years and we have only had high quality health care for a very small percentage of that time.
It is no accident that such high quality health care coincides in the largest part with the industrial revolution which allowed care to be available to all, rather than just the privileged few. The very companies that you would denegrate for exploiting workers, the middle class and the poor, are the very companies that have allowed both the development of and access to the health care system which, you imply, is some kind of inalienable right.
Thus the danger of allowing the government to impose a health care system. It would propel us BACKWARD into the pre-industrial age; if congressmen were not required to participate in the same system thay want to force on you and I, then we would have health care for the privileged few and government care for the rest of us.
If this doesn’t conjure up images of Societ Communist party members shopping for luxuries at the GUM department store, while the average Soviet citizen stood in line for bread and meat and other staples, then I don’t know what will.
Amy P, the Cash for Clunkers program benefits the car industry, which can obviuosly use all the help it can get right now. Of course it also helps a lot of people with their transportation needs, which in turn helps with their need for
employment.
T, please quote Pelosi as condemning market profits period. Physicians of course provide services the poor need as much as the rich, and many physicians have sliding scales, while only a very few specialists make as much money as the top guys on Wall Street.
You’re right that big corporations have historically provided good health care. Nowadays of course, many of those companies have gone under or have had to slash benefits, while their top people make many times more than their predecessors did; meanwhile, real income has dipped for the rest of us.
I don’t entirely trust any predictions re: healtch care reform, liberal or conservative. I don think Obama’s right that without reform, we will see more and more defacto rationing.
If the current pack of hyenas had been in power at the time of 9/11, we’d probably be enduring strip-searches in our own homes. Bush may have acted too rashly when he enacted programs without congressional approval. However, the very nature of some of those programs, such as those enabling surreptitious surveillance in light of 9/11, was such that the more light shed upon them, the less successful they would be, even BEFORE the NY Times did its “patriotic” duty and compromised our efforts to prevent future terrorist attacks.
Just what, by the way, is constitutional about telling industries how much they may pay their employees, telling secured investors that they must move to the back of the line, or threatening to “nationalize” industries that don’t bow and scrape when called up before a panel of overpaid and under-informed House members?
Amy P, the Cash for Clunkers program benefits the car industry, which can obviuosly use all the help it can get right now.
But the government STILL can’t manage the program and – mark my words – some dealerships will receive reduced or be denied funds because in less than 10 days this program was bankrupt. There are lots of reasons the car industry was in trouble; government intervention (fuel mandates) is one of them. And it isn’t the solution.
Jim, I find your comments on the greed of the Insurance companies a bit disingenuous. Companies who constantly refuse to pay claim end up with fewer and fewer contracts The profit margins are are low enough today to preclude such action. Insurance companies are not charitable organizations.
Some reasonable solutions to the so called health care crisis are not even being considered by our elite betters. Tort reform which could save up to $ 1/2 trillion. No, the Congress will soon vote on a bill granting their favorite, protected cash cow $1.6 Billion sweet tax deal. Allowing trial lawyers to take deductions the year expenses are incurred rather than after a case has been adjudicated. Allowing for even more frivolous malpractice claims. Forcing Doctors to continue to practice self defensive medicine.
The congress could,also make simple changes to some of the regulations and laws that limit the types of medical insurance policies for sale (Like Major Medical), and to offer national plans to small business. There are many others.
But not our Congress. Which proves to me that they are disinterested in the people or our needs, but in accumulating power for themselves and the varied protected classes.
Sorry A, As you can tell, I’m an more than a little fed up with Washington and those ruling.
I need to pray a little more today.
[Tort reform is absolutely necessary, but will never happen. They don't know reform or spend less. They know tax and control -admin]
Ken,
Fair enough about market profits. Perhaps I was being too general. Pelosi condemns insurance company profits, I consider that a prima facie case of condemning market profits because all profits in this country come from the market.
Remember, we make the distinction of “For Profit” companies (meaning whose with shareholders or stakeholders) and “Non-Profit” companies (meaning those without stockholders. It’s really a misnomer, because non-profit companies do, indeed make a profit. It’s just not a profit passed on to stakeholders, but kept and used within the non-profit corporation (Oftentimes this use is to pay very large salaries to the directors of those corporations).
Those profits, too, come from the marketplace, whether it’s marketing for donations, or like the Red Cross, selling blood to hospitals at a profit over and above the cost of obtaining and processing the blood.
If you don’t think that this concept is accurate, carry the idea one step further, where do tax revenues come? They come from the profit of the market place. Wages are taxed (Income tax), profits are taxed (capital gains tax) and goods are oftentimes taxed (excise taxes).
Imagine if there was no market; a society in which everyone worked for the government. Where would the tax revenues come from? The government would have to tax your government salary 100% just break even.
Ezekiel, do we as individual citizens adequately provide for the poor? Then why is it wrong for us, through the democratic process, to decide to use tax money to help them? And an awful lot of lower and middle income people drive SUVs (I know people making $12 an hour driving them) and the like because they’re status symbols. A lot of these folks who could barely afford them before can’t well afford them in this economy. A lot of the poor also drive clunkers, which don’t get the mileage gthey did originally.
It’s Bender, actually. No need for channeling Ezekiel here.
And individuals would be able to better provide for the poor themselves, either directly or through the Church, if government didn’t shove it’s grubby hands into their pockets and forcibly take their money.
As for those poor and middle class who might have some old, big, low-mileage vehicle, if they could barely afford in the first place, how can they afford the extra several tens of thousands of dollars to buy a new car even with the clunker subsidy? THEY CAN’T. On either end, whether it is the trade-in or the new car, both are slanted toward subsidizing the rich.
Tort reform is absolutely necessary, but will never happen.
Yes and no. If government succeeds in taking over, then it most certainly will assert sovereign immunity to preclude people from suing the government or government-run facilities for medical malpractice claims. And if doctors become de facto agents of the government, they too will claim qualified immunity from suit.
Obama destroyed existing product liability tort claims against Chrysler and Government Motors when they were in bankruptcy, so we could expect him to preclude medical malpractice tort claims when Dr. Obama takes over.
Fair enough about market profits. Perhaps I was being too general. Pelosi condemns insurance company profits, I consider that a prima facie case of condemning market profits because all profits in this country come from the market.
She’ll be against any company that makes a profit if it will give her a convenient target and the rhetoric to shove through some agenda. So your comment, while not perhaps correct in this context, will certainly come to fruition during Pelosi’s career.
Bender, Obama will use malpractice tort claims and higher malpractice insurance premiums to force the Physicians, who do not retire, into the government system.
Anchoress, I don’t hear a lot of friendly banter in your sarcastic criticism of everything Obama does, but you forget my thanking someone for posting something I hadn’t heard, and my agreeing with someone else’s point against my larger point and telling you I see your point. We’re discussing issues here; sometimes I’m cordial, sometimes I’m irritated like others here, but I don’t see a place for friendliness. What do you want, “I think you’re wrong and here’s why, but how’s your mother-in-law?”
And what you calling wagging the finger I call expressing disgust at how and snidely and pettily and uncharitably partisan you often are. Reading a lot of what you and others here say, I might as well be listening to Rush Limbaugh. Oh, and I never accused anyone of hating the poor or being mean to them, for pete’s sake. I respect economic conservatism — I don’t assume it springs from a hard heart. You might extend that same openmindedness to Pelosi. I’ve seen your if-you’re-not-entirely-with-us, you’re-entirely-against-us” mentality so often in political discussions: it makes imaginations run wild. And I have no problem with the rich benefitting from the poor; I have a problem with the poor staying poor because of the rich. But ggain, I think there are legitimate differences in economic philosophy. I’m familiar with your economic arguments, I agree with some of them and respect the others, and I’m not knocking or mocking anyone for their economic views — you are. Yes, right-wingers do a lot as individuals, a point I’ve often made to liberals. I’ve also noted that religious conservatives give more than liberals. But I don’t make the grand distinction the right does between individuals and the government, not in a democracy.
” Tell them there is a need, the American middle class rushes to help. Tell them to just fork over their money and YOU’LL take care of it for them…well why should they trust you to do it right, well, fairly or (and this is important) honestly?”
No one argues that the government isn’t often inefficient and corrupt, but I’ve never understood why people speak of government bureaucrats as if they’re some seperate species. Their faults are just human faults. Again, I respect the argument that the private sector does a better job, but I see government as able to do what the private sector sometimes won’t. I don’t see liberal or conservative solutions as moral or immoral in and of themselves; what I find fault with is kneejerk cynicism towards one side or the other.
“You’re fond of thowing the bible around.”
Like that.
[I have never said you weren't civil. You are, of course, or you wouldn't be here. But we have others on the left here who manage to joke around from time to time, in yes, a "friendly" fashion, and I am surprised that you don't find this a friendly place...I can only assume it's because you are always looking for confrontation that is never allowed to end with a friendly "we'll agree to disagree," and move on. As to the rest, I am cynical, on and off, and I've admitted it and rued it - (and I've admitted it plenty of times and admitted further that cynicism is the easiest thing in the world to grow). I don't understand thinking that suggests a democracy should preclude championing the individual. If anything that is precisely what a democracy that is also a republic should do. I for one am not interested in becoming part of a collective. I have no interest in being a borg!
I understand that bureaucrats are individuals and humans. I even understand that they are loved into creation by God, all of them -including Obama and Pelosi (and yes, I pray for his good every single day, as I did for Bush) but my time of "open-mindedness" for Pelosi has ended, largely because of her announcement that she would "Drain the swamp" of corruption while doing nothing about Charlie Rangel, nothing about Chris Dodd...her "most ethical congress ever" is a musclebound machine that doubles down to protect its own. She's a child of God, and I wish her no ill, but that doesn't mean I have to believe the garbage coming out of her mouth, or ignore her double-standards. I think she is incompetent to her task and as closed-minded and partisan a legislator as I have ever seen. You will, undoubtedly, tell me I am closed-minded and partisan, too. I am not really partisan. I differ plenty with the right on many issues, most emphatically on the issue of illegal immigration. But if I do seem closed minded and partisan to you, then perhaps you'll simply thank God I'm not pretending otherwise and running for public office. 
And btw, that was a neat trick - you never did respond to my response to your assertion that Pelosi makes no money off the poor.-admin]
Now I normally don’t feel sympathy for car dealerships but I have been thinking along the same lines as you. However i may personally feel about car salesmen and dealership sales managers, there are regular people employed by car dealerships from mechanics to secretaries. Heck even the salesmen have a right to earn a living (and the person who buys from one without a smart game plan has only themselves to blame)
The owners of these businesses should not only not have to worry about government interference in their operations, they should also not have to worry about government actually harming their businesses. This is what has happened again so soon on the tails of having numerous dealerships summarily shut down by Washington bureaucrats.
Its not only that they have advanced the government gobs of money which may never be paid back. But they have also sunk money into advertising as well. Who know what else they have done or spent in preparation for the big event? How many dealerships have looked to this opportunity to jump start their sales again? Surely they have been preparing for it in many ways.
And when they are left holding the bag? Who knows how many jobs will be lost.
I never thought I would see the day when I felt sympathy for these folks but I do now.
And, yeah you are also right another thing. If the government can’t run Medicare, the VA or a car buy back program, how in the hell can we trust them to run universal health care? Government is the problem as usual. Its never the solution.
T, maybe I’m wrong, but I just hear Pelosi condemning huge salaries for insurance executives while, for example, their companies deny people coverage for pre-existing conditions. Thanks for pointing out that even non-profit corps make money from the market.
Bender (and Ezekiel), sorry to confuse your names. I don’t have socio-economic stats, but the Cash for Clunkers program has moved a lot of cars, and I don’t think they’re mostly luxury cars. The rich don’t drive clunkers anyhow, do they? (Well, except old Volvos!)
Ken,
I believe that you are wrong in this sense:
The large corporate profits and salaries are a strawman for Pelosi. Go back to my quote of Thurow regarding condemning globalization. They really condemn capitalism, albeit indirectly. So Pelosi condemns unusually large profits. Who is to determine what an unusually large profit is? Her? Has she condemned George Soros who did tremendous damage to the British pound for the wealth he amassed? Does she condemn Hollywood stars and sports figures for large incomes for the work they do, much of which could easily be deemed unnecessary or tangential? Curiously enough her condemnation is reserved for those CORPORATE types; Ben Roethlisberger, Eddie Murphy and Jessica Simpson aren’t raping the country or the “poor,” but corporate executives who are are responsible for thousands of jobs and the health of the corporations are the targets reserved for her ire.
And even that is selective. How about Jeffrey Immelt who is paid $25 million dollars a year, who sits elbow to elbow with Obama and who has run GE corporation into the ground? Not a peep from our socialist congressional democrats. On the contrary, remember the furor over the retirement package for Jack Welch, the FORMER chairman of GE. He was the CEO who built GE into a strong, well run corporation on which thousands of employees depended for their livelihood and many stockholders depended for their future retirement. He was villified by the ruling class and the press for being rewarded for his successful tenure.
This is all selective Democratic rage, and it’s diverted away from those who fit the Democratic-socialist narrative, but directed toward those who are useful in feuling the fire of the Democratic class-struggle facade.
It’s no wonder that socialism has been referred to as “shared poverty.” But remember, from the point of view of the ruling class, it’s shared poverty for thee, not for me.
On about Gatesgate again- this really is just light relief from a blogger that always makes me laugh.
I don’t normally think much of libertarians but this one is great.
Just stuck it in to try & stop people getting too angry.
Though I myself probably go the other way & never really speak my mind because I’m too obsessed with being polite & leave everyone thinking I go round blandly agreeing with everyone when I don’t, in fact, but half the time I haven’t got the stamina for a long fight.
But you might like a click on the above anyway.
Ken,
A response to your comment on the denial of pre-existing conditions. Now, admittedly, there may be some way this can be revised, but the concept is, unfortunately sound.
The idea behind insurance is to collect premiums from those who don’t need it and to distribute them to those who do, when they do. Think of the fire insurance on your home.
The problem with NOT denying pre-existing conditions is that people would only register for health insurance when they needed it, thus guaranteeing that the company would be paying out way more in benefits than it collected in premiums. (Imagine buying life insurance only AFTER one has been diagnosed with a terminal illness).
Can’t stay in business that way, and as a result, the company fails and NO ONE gets health care coverage.
The idea is to pool resources from those who don’t need it for those who do. To do that you need both a carrot (this is what we will pay for, and this is what it will cost) and a stick (if you don’t get it when you don’t need it, you can’t get it if you do). And you needf to guard against those who would game the system.
Even the Aflac duck wouldn’t sign someone up for disability insurance if they were only applying for it after they were disabled.
I am heartsick, yes. Surprised, no. How can anyone NOT be surprised at the direction of the governement health care plan? The Catholic Church and other folks warned that Roe v. Wade would inevitably lead to further denigration of human life. Many Americans, convinced that our unborn children were just “blobs” and “potential” humans, felt safe that born-real people would not be discarded like unnecessary trash. The right-to-life predictions of 1973 seemed so far fetched. The elderly denied care for their ailments? The value of handicapped citizens questioned? Terminal patients encouraged to end it all as soon as possible? Well, here we are.
The milage of the clunker for the CFC program is it’s original average estimate. So I have a 10 year old Mitsubishi that’s lost about 10% of its MPG, but CFC doesn’t seem to take age into account. So my old decrepit care won’t be eligible (now that they’ve alloted another $2Billion(!!) for the program.
Can’t afford the repairs, can’t afford to replace it.
My husband is retired Navy. I had to deal with Tricare as my primary during the Clinton years, and it was horrid. One of the reasons I’ve worked hard to get a good job so I can afford better. Anyone wanting to take that choice away from me better watch out.
Preach it, Anchoress!
Anchoress, I apologize for never joking around. Sheesh. I can’t remember anyone else here taking the same tone in a debate, but I’ll take your word for it they do. And as to my not finding this a friendly place, I don’t find an unfriendly place either. I find it, as you indicated, a place for civil, i.e. respectful, if sometimes contentious, debate.
“As to the rest, I am cynical, on and off, and I’ve admitted it and rued it”
OK, I haven’t been reading you for long, so I just hadn’t seen that. And, OK, you’re completely cynical about Nancy Pelosi (I don’t entirely blame you). I’m completely cynical, as you know, about Sarah Palin. I’ll trade you Palin for Pelosi for 24 hours, and the most cynical person wins the fair-minded prize. I will admit not to praying for Palin’s good, but then I figure you guys have that covered.
“And btw, that was a neat trick – you never did respond to my response to your assertion that Pelosi makes no money off the poor.-admin]”
I respond to every argument I see in good faith, at least is I have something new to say. (I noticed today I missed one from Alia on the birther thread, but no one’s writing there anymore). Are you referring to this?: “[Yeah, cause heaven knows middle class people don't take vacations, dine out, drink wine (or, maybe pick grapes as grad students) or eat Tuna, for that matter (I do recall that Pelosi's interest in something regarding fish affected some sort of fishing law a few years back.)" Something about a fishing law? I don't know what I'm supposed to say to that.
[No, I was talking about my point that the resorts, the dining establishments and the wineries all exist by the sweat of the working class who are often the poorest of the working class. And it might be noted that these folks (particularly the resort employees, from housekeeping to room service to bartenders and so forth) and the food service folks have been hugely hit by the recession and the double-whammy of President Obama, Maxine Waters and the rest demonizing the very sound business practice of taking good clients out to dinner, and on jaunts, or of taking their own business training "off site" as a reward for productive members. These participants are not all fatcats, you know. My very middle class husband occasionally enjoyed a three day trip somewhere, as a little perk for his excellent and hard work at his often-60 hours a week job, and the trip usually included training and the chance to relax and be entertained. Good for business, good for the hotel/resort/dining industries. These things helped provide jobs and stimulate the economy all around. Obama and the Dems in congress did a swift and early job crashing that industry and it is still not recovered, but didn't I read something about one of the gov't agencies just spending $700,000 at the Arizona Biltmore for a three-day jaunt to soothe the nerves of these executives? Ah, yes, I did. Thank God for the government - since they won't let private industry spend such monies without the threat of demonization, it's a good thing they have our tax money for the purpose. Am I cynical? Yeah, sadly. Hard to keep up!
See? That's a joke. Sometimes, we kid around, around here...friendly-like. And btw, no, I do not pray for Palin. I pray for Presidents. The rest of the politicians are on their own, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not particularly a Palin-ite. Like Camille Paglia, I think she's a woman with a lot of political talent, but she also made some mistakes and needs to do some work before she's ready to even consider a run for the WH. (Obama wasn't ready for the WH, either, and it shows.) I also believe that if Palin had a D after her name and hadn't given birth to Trig, she'd be a goddess to the Democrats, because she is everything the feminist narrative says a woman can be. But since she has that R after he name, and that "burden" of a kid, why...she must be destroyed. I do bristle at how she has been treated - the viciousness we saw from the left and the press last autumn was like nothing I'd seen in 40 years of politics-watching- and frankly if I ever DID see someone on the left treated as harshly as she is (besides Presidents who are in a different league all-together) I would defend them. In fact, I have done that in the past, even defending Hillary Clinton's cleavage from some right-wing prunes. There are lines that should not be crossed, and there should be some consistent standards as to how pols and their families should be treated. All of them got crossed or broken where Palin was concerned, and someday people on the left will be honest about that. But I think you have also been here long enough to see me suggest that there is the danger of a Cult of Personality forming around Palin that could rival the sick Cult we've seen around Obama. I am wary of all of them. -admin]