Town Halls Become Town Hells

Well it seems that the ObamaCare boosters are starting to sweat when they are taking their concerns to the people.

For Democrats, that�s precisely the problem: Their ability to make their case on health care at public events during the August recess is mostly in the hands of the people who turn out for the events. And if those people want to be disruptive � especially en masse � there�s not much the Democrats can do about it.

�Town halls have become town hells,� said Mark McKinnon, a former adviser to President George W. Bush. �Special interests and opponents have figured out how easy it is to disrupt town halls and get their own message out. The days of the truly free-form town halls may be over.�

The problem also is that embarrassing public officials is great fodder for the news media and YouTube. The idea that "people power" is trumping the "powerful" is always pretty potent. If the Dems are so concerned with what Gibbs calls AstroTurfing Brooks Brothers Brigade then bring in the tax-payer sponsored ACORN goons to shout back. Then the so-called health care debate can really get surreal.

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Prediction of What Will Happen if Public Option Passes

Unless the public option outlaws private health insurers I will be willing to bet that there will be a two tier system in place like this IBD article suggests.

Under ObamaCare, the rich would continue to get the care they want � whether here or abroad � by paying for it out of their own pockets. The rest of us would stand in line and wait for rationed care.

What I envision is that private insurers will consolidate and then turn into Medicare Advantage style value added companies. What I think will happen is that these plans will be priced mostly for the rich and cover anything that ObamaCare does not and will jump the line when it comes to certain care. They will probably reimburse doctors and hospitals at a higher rate then ObamaCare and thus entice them into the plan.

What this will create is a two tier system where the rich will pay for added care while the middle class and poor will be stuck with long wait times and the AmTrack level conditions created by ObamaCare.

These insurance companies are not dumb and they will be able to compete with the public plan but only for the highest premium payers. Taxpayers will instead be stuck paying for everyone elses health insurance including the rich. Such are the laws of unintended consequences.

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Bill Clinton Frees Out Hostages

As Obama dawdles with ObamaCare and Hillary tours Africa we have to send in Slick Willie in there to do the diplomatic heavy lifting.

Following Bill Clinton�s meeting with Kim Jong-Il, news is just coming over the wires that the two US journalists arrested by North Korea, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, are being freed.

Li�l Kim is giving them a �special pardon,� and they�ll be returning to the United States on Clinton�s private plane.

It seems that Bill Clinton has a knack for showing up his wife and Obama. Now he can head over to Iran and get those people released as well.

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Obama Spouts the Single Payer Health Plan in 2003

It seems that all of Obama's talk about "you like your health care you will keep it" and "if you like your doctor you will keep them" is just rhetoric because it seems his own words are contradicting it.

�I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that�s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that�s what I�d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.�

In other words the "public plan" that competes with private insurance is simply a smoke screen to get to a fully socialized plan. It seems that Obama 2009 and Obama 2003 seem to totally disagree on this issue. I would love to see the real Obama stand up.

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Interesting Take on the Liberal News Media

This should come as no surprise but many journalists are liberal but this is a very interesting article asking why that is so.

Most journalists take a number of psychology, sociology, political science, and humanities courses during their early years in college. Unfortunately, these courses have long served as ideological training programs�ignoring biological sources of self-serving, corrupt, and criminal behavior for a number of reasons, including lack of scientific training; postmodern, antiscience bias; and well-intentioned, facts-be-damned desire to have their students view the world from an egalitarian perspective.

In other words they are indoctrinated as soon as they enter college. So they either become true believers or "get along to get along" in order to pass their classes. That is why I am taken aback by reading some liberal blog comments that say that the press is not liberal at all because they are corporate controlled. The evidence is right there in black and white but they are so indoctrinated into the idea that the corporation is evil that they can't see past that.

The press has been liberal for decades just like the majority of academia in the non-hard sciences or business school. So this article basically proves the point that a liberal journalism curriculum creates more liberal journalists. In other words the idea of the press with no biases should be scrapped and we should just go back to the yellow journalism days of the 20s.

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Government Revenue the Lowest Since 1932

I think these should be some sobering numbers.

The numbers could hardly be more stark: Tax receipts are on pace to drop 18 percent this year, the biggest single-year decline since the Great Depression, while the federal deficit balloons to a record $1.8 trillion.

The problem is that Obama and Pelosi what to dump even more taxes on people even though they aren't getting too many revenues in the first place. The more I look at it the more I think Obama might just put us into a double dip recession.

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ObamaCare Should Give up this Savings Fallacy

I think the ObamaCare supporters should give up this line of defense because it makes no sense.

The White House stands by its claims. Its allies claim that CBO forecasts, for instance, don't reflect potential future cost savings that might be expected from the prevention of illness achieved from wider health care coverage.

I think they need to understand that health insurance and health care are two totally different things. When more people sign up for a service that didn't have it before it consumes more of that service. You are increasing the demand side without decreasing the supply side.

Also I'm not convinced that if everyone had health insurance they will all rush out to the doctor. The only way they could get these savings is by the government forcing mandatory checkups. If this money instead went to free or tax subsidized mini clinics then I can see it making a dent. However, obesity will still be rampant and no amount of health insurance will magically cure that.

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The Top 1% Now Pays more then 95% of All Tax Payers

Now is the time to bury all of the talk about the "rich" not paying their fair share.

Indeed, the IRS data shows that in 2007�the most recent data available�the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act.

Remarkably, the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. In 2007, the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is down from the 58 percent of the total income tax burden they paid twenty years ago.

And people wonder why there will be a jobless recovery.

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GDP Drop Starting to Ease

Well, we are coming close to the end of the recession and we might eventually see growth in the later part of this year.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that GDP, or the total output of goods and services produced in the U.S., dipped by an annual rate of 1% in the spring. The advance estimate bettered most forecasts, as many economists expected a 1.5% slide.

The only problem is that consumer spending is still in the doldrums

However, consumer spending, or the lack there of, remains a nagging weight on the economy. The report noted that consumer spending slid 1.2% during the quarter, as compared to a 0.6% upswing during the first quarter. Consumers are likely to keep their wallets tucked in tight as unemployment figures continue to falter.

Too bad the failed stimulus did not have some more things in it similar to "cash for clunkers" that gave people financial incentives to buy things. If the Dems are serious about Stimulus 2 they should call it the "tax cut for everyone" and cut payroll taxes for 1 year or something like that. I think Americans will sign on for substantially more money in their paychecks.

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Beer Summit Goes Off Fairly Well: Now Fix the Economy!

I think Obama has had enough distractions it should be time to start thinking about getting Americans back to work. I think the silly season in Washington should be winding down right about now. In fact I hope this doesn't have to happen again:

The White House meeting drew such media interest that press secretary Robert Gibbs said he looked forward to facing no more questions about what beers each man would drink. For the record, it was Bud Light for Obama, Sam Adams Light for Gates, Blue Moon for Crowley and nonalcoholic Buckler for Biden.

Yes Gibbs is fielding questions about beer choices instead of on what the White House has to say about them beating people in the streets of Tehran yet again. Or how they will solve double digit unemployment or what are they going to do now that the stimulus failed. In other words the actual work of the country not some silly racial crap.

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Congress Suspends Cash for Clunkers

Yup, the government underestimated the demand and thus didn't have enough money set aside to cover the plan.

The Transportation Department called congressional offices late Thursday to alert them to the decision to halt the program, which offered owners of old cars and trucks $3,500 or $4,500 toward a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle.

And they want to run everyone's health insurance? Anyone that believes that the government run plan can actually reduce costs should just look at Cash for Clunkers. A good idea but poorly executed and then ultimately suspended when costs ran up too quickly.

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Senate ObamaCare Bill May be Pushed Back to December?

Wow, anyone who thought they could get this done by August was absolutely nuts.

"The president wanted to have it on his desk in October," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. "He'll probably have it in November now. But I'm very hopeful we'll get it done at least by that time."

Senior aides and lawmakers said privately they thought Harkin was being overly optimistic, and warned of work spreading late into December on the highly controversial issue.

Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., one of six lawmakers involved in bipartisan talks, said the legislation wasn't "ready for prime time."

What is funny is that some far-left liberals say they should just shove it through with 50 Democrat votes and damn the torpedoes. I think that would be political suicide because that bill will be hung on Democrats forever. If it fails (and it probably will) the GOP can use it as a big club to hit them with for perpetuity.

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Poll Shows Obama Misahandled Race Debate

It seems that Obama should have simply said "I do not have enough information to comment on this story at this time. Next question." and it will have all been behind him. Instead this screw up may have cost him in the short term.

The poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 41 percent disapproved of Obama's handling of the Gates arrest, compared with 29 percent who approved. The poll also found the incident and Obama's reaction saturated the public consciousness. As many as 80 percent of Americans said they are now aware of Obama's comments on the matter.

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The Market Rallies as the Obama Agenda Fails?

In other words go short anything that Obama pushes then wait until Congress screws things up and then you can go back long again. I did this with the Health Insurers by going short them when Health Care nationalization talk heated up. Then I covered and went back long as the debate wore on and took profits on the news that the Senate might strip the public plan out of the bill. Trading off Obama is sometimes quite lucrative.

Since then, the bankruptcy bill has fizzled and nationalization talk has died out. President Barack Obama did sign a credit card bill into law, but its provisions were much weaker than the industry feared.

Separately, healthcare reform has slowed while a climate change bill imposing taxes on businesses that emit pollutants has stalled in the Senate.

Stock markets, meanwhile, have rallied to their highest levels of the year. The Standard & Poor�s 500 Index began this week within striking distance of 1,000 points.

�It�s very much a factor in what�s driving the market over the last couple weeks,� Gardner said of the slowed agenda in Washington.

I think it has more to do with certainty going back into some sectors of the market that came from paying back the TARP money so quickly. Now traders can trade in peace without the government telling them what they should be paid or some uninformed person telling them about the Profit and Earnings Ratios of the market.

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ObamaCare Gets Stranger and Stranger: Now there is an Unelected Health Commissar?

You have to be kidding me. Mining these bills is like turning over rocks to see what sort of bugs are under them. This part should make every American shudder.

Republicans want voters to know as much as possible. "If I went to most people and said there was an unelected health choices commissioner, with the power to override state law on what should or should not be included in an acceptable insurance plan -- most people would not know that," says Camp. They wouldn't like it, either.

Yup, this Health Choices Commissar could pretty much have the power of life and death over vast swaths of the American public. In other words if you have end stage Prostate Cancer and Provenge can extend your life by 6 months then this unelected official gets to nix whether any insurance plan in the country will cover it or not. The doctor doesn't decide, the patient doesn't decide, Dendreon sure doesn't decide, but this Health Choices Commissar gets to decide.

I wonder if he gets the power to punish the Secretary of Health and Human Services if she goes against his iron commands as well? Lord Commissar "we wish to put Avastin upon the Master List of Approved Remedies." The Commissar replies in a cold, tone devoid of all emotion "it is not cost effective Ms. Sebelius. You are a fool to ask. Seize Her!"

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