John Thune & The Senate Health Care Bill – New Compromise is Public Option on Steroids - Updated

I am watching the Senate Healthcare Debate. Senators Wyden, Bayh and Collins are offering a bipartisan amendment to allow people who are not getting subsidies from the government to purchase insurance with a high deductible in order to keep costs down. They actually admitted during the debate that premiums would increase for these people without this amendment. We keep saying WE DON"T WANT THIS BILL and they are saying to us, "this will make it better". They are treating us like children who don't want to take our medicine.

This morning on the Senate floor Senator Mitch McConnell said the recent CNN poll showed that 61% of Americans oppose this bill. I wonder if any of the Democratic Senators care?

It was announced on the Senate floor by Senator Enzi this morning that the CMS (Center for Medicare Services) announced that the Reid bill bends the cost curve up and is unsustainable. I hope the Democrats hear this.

I also just heard Senators McConnell and Johannis on Fox News state that this bill will definitely cost everyone more... as we know the entire premise of reform and cutting costs was a big fat lie. The GOP had the CMS go over the bill and the actuary verified that cost would be much higher than the CBO and Congress are saying and that the cost will continue on an upward curve.

Cavuto (FNC) had a surgeon that said there is also a provision in the new Medicare provision of the HC bill that will only someone 90-days in the hospital in one year. So if you have been in perfect health all your life and never collect a dime from insurance, but all of a sudden come down with a major illness, accident or condition, you will have to pay out of pocket for your hospital stay beyond 90-days, if it all falls into one year.

And the bad news just keeps on coming....

At one point the GOP explored the option of expanding Medicare and they were told that it would cause an immediate death spiral to this already ailing program… yet now the Dems are selling this as their Public Option.

Add the above to:

There is a crisis, and it appears to be located in the U.S. Senate. My esteemed Keloland colleague and colleague Emeritus, David Newquist, has this:

John Thune has become the voice of the GOP–Groundless Obstinence and Petulance–according to the Huffington Post. He says his party will unanimously oppose any health care reform, no matter what is proposed.

For someone who complains a lot when he thinks that others have distorted his words, he seems very careless in describing what Senator Thune said or what the Huffington Post said he said. The Huffington Post article he links to makes it clear in the title that Thune was only speaking about "the Newest Heath Care Compromise," and hardly ruling out GOP support for any bill.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) told the Huffington Post that he did not think the dropping of a public option for insurance coverage from the bill would be enough for Democrats to win even the support of moderate Republican Senators Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, both of Maine.

"I just think that our side believes that it is a really bad idea to take a program that is already sinking and put more people into it."

Here is how the Washington Post describes the "newest" idea that Reid is floating:

The 11th-hour "compromise" on health-care reform and the public option supposedly includes an expansion of Medicare to let people ages 55 to 64 buy into the program.

This deal, which the WaPo dates back to the Clinton Administration, seems designed to get something like a "public option" into the bill without calling it a public option. Republican opposition may be obstinate and petulant, or maybe not; however, it is hardly groundless. The WaPo points out that it is difficult to tell what effect this "buy in" would have on the reform scheme.

Presumably, the expanded Medicare program would pay Medicare rates to providers, raising the question of the spillover effects on a health-care system already stressed by a dramatic expansion of Medicaid. Will providers cut costs -- or will they shift them to private insurers, driving up premiums? Will they stop taking Medicare patients or go to Congress demanding higher rates? Once 55-year-olds are in, they are not likely to be kicked out, and the pressure will be on to expand the program to make more people eligible. The irony of this late-breaking Medicare proposal is that it could be a bigger step toward a single-payer system than the milquetoast public option plans rejected by Senate moderates as too disruptive of the private market.

As the perhaps obstinate and petulant, but hardly Republican WaPo presents it, there is no way to predict what unintended consequences may follow.

But Republican opposition is based on broader considerations. Expanding Medicare would be a step towards a single payer plan. But it was also mean expanding a program that is on schedule to go broke in only a few years. It also looks like more sleight of hand on the Democrat's part. They are already counting on dramatic cuts in Medicare to make other parts of the bill look more affordable. As the WaPo points out, Medicare reimbursement rates are already too low to sustain hospital and doctor care, which results in a shift of costs to private insurance. The medical establishment is vehemently criticizing the idea.

This looks like a big mess. Rumors that a deal has been reached appear to be greatly exaggerated. I am not even certain that there is a coherent idea here. Meanwhile the petulant and obstinate public continues to oppose the bill by wide margins. Quinnipiac and Rasmussen put the 52% opposed/38% in favor, and 51/41 respectively. Worse news for reform is the CNN poll, which has 61% opposed and only 36% in favor. That's the first time to my knowledge that opposition has risen above 60%. If it's on track, the CNN poll is disastrous news for Harry Reid.

In opposing the Senate reform bill, Senator Thune is not only exercising common sense. He is standing on behalf of the majority of the American people.

Posted by Ken Blanchard

New Compromise… Bet That Makes You Feel Better?!? - Video

Democrats: Medicare Expansion the Ultimate Public Option - Video

WASHINGTON - -- The unexpected new proposal for breaking the impasse over the so-called public option won President Barack Obama's endorsement Wednesday and sent hopes surging among a wide array of Democrats that the way may be clearing to pass their massive Senate health care bill by Christmas.
The deal, which emerged late Tuesday night after days of secret negotiations, would eliminate the new government-run insurance plan that many liberals had seen as the linchpin of meaningful reform.

But paradoxically, what lies at the heart of the compromise may be a more durable, if initially smaller, form of the public option: an expansion of Medicare, the huge federal health insurance program for seniors, to include millions of Americans ages 55 through 64.

And by enlarging Medicare eligibility, the compromise could sharply expand the base of political support, giving ordinary Americans a concrete stake in what many may have seen as a distant battle among drug companies, doctors and other interests.
Under the deal hammered out by 10 Democratic negotiators, potentially millions of Americans 55 to 64 could sign up for a program that has become a vital safety net for the country's retirees since it was created more than four decades ago.
That prospect has excited some proponents of creating a single-payer system, who saw even the weak government program in the original bill as a "camel's nose under the tent" in their drive to ensure that all Americans get a government-provided insurance plan.

"Expanding Medicare is an unvarnished, complete victory for people like me," said Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y. "It's the mother of all public options. We've taken something people know and expanded it. ... Never mind the camel's nose, we've got his head and neck under the tent."

Todd Swim, a partner with the health benefits consulting firm Mercer, said a Medicare expansion could also have profound effects on employers and their workers.

"Access to medical care is one of the biggest inhibitors to retiring early, and a lot of people are going to be looking at that as an option," he said.

Although Americans in this age group are more likely to have insurance than those in their 20s or 30s, they often have a very difficult time getting coverage because many have pre-existing medical conditions.

Next year, most Medicare beneficiaries will pay a monthly premium of $110.50.

"The price point will be much more affordable than any option they have," Swim said.

Chicago Tribune

**Everyone I have heard talk about this today has said that this new Medicare enlargement will absolutely bring us to a single payer system much much sooner than any of the other options in any of the other bills. They took out the "Public Option" wording and intend to roll over us and pass this regardless of what we want. The GOP has been standing up but the Dems are not listening to anything they say. We absolutely need to keep up the pressure and hammer the possible fence sitters letting them know that if they vote for this this are out, even if they are not up for election in 2010.

I heard Lieberman earlier today blabbering on about he didn't know what was in this new version/compromise. Who cares what is in it.... We don't want the whole thing and we know whatever is in it, it is full of lies and bad things. Lieberman needs to vote no and we really need to pressure him!!!!!!!!!!!

A True Tale of Canadian (Socialized) Healthcare - Video

ALSO:

Gleeful Begala: Expanding Medicare is the 'Ultimate Public Option'

Medicare Sausage?

House Democrat: Senate Public Option 'Compromise' Is a Total Victory for Fans of ... Single-Payer

ObamaCare and me – Doctor Zane F. Pollard, MD – For Anyone Who Still Doesn’t Believe in Rationing and Death Panels if ObamaCare Passes

I have been sitting quietly on the sidelines watching all of this national debate on healthcare. It is time for me to bring some clarity to the table by explaining many of the problems from the perspective of a doctor.

First off, the government has involved very few of us physicians in the healthcare debate. While the American Medical Association has come out in favor of the plan, it is vital to remember that the AMA only represents 17% of the American physician workforce.

I have taken care of Medicaid patients for 35 years while representing the only pediatric ophthalmology group left in Atlanta, Georgia that accepts Medicaid. For example, in the past 6 months I have cared for three young children on Medicaid who had corneal ulcers. This is a potentially blinding situation because if the cornea perforates from the infection, almost surely blindness will occur. In all three cases the antibiotic needed for the eradication of the infection was not on the approved Medicaid list.

Each time I was told to fax Medicaid for the approval forms, which I did. Within 48 hours the form came back to me which was sent in immediately via fax, and I was told that I would have my answer in 10 days. Of course by then each child would have been blind in the eye.

Each time the request came back denied. All three times I personally provided the antibiotic for each patient which was not on the Medicaid approved list. Get the point -- rationing of care.

Over the past 35 years I have cared for over 1000 children born with congenital cataracts. In older children and in adults the vision is rehabilitated with an intraocular lens. In newborns we use contact lenses which are very expensive. It takes Medicaid over one year to approve a contact lens post cataract surgery. By that time a successful anatomical operation is wasted as the child will be close to blind from a lack of focusing for so long a period of time.

Again, extreme rationing. Solution: I have a foundation here in Atlanta supported 100% by private funds which supplies all of these contact lenses for my Medicaid and illegal immigrants children for free. Again, waiting for the government would be disastrous.

Last week I had a lady bring her child to me. They are Americans but live in Sweden, as the father has a job with a big corporation. The child had the onset of double vision 3 months ago and has been unable to function normally because of this. They are people of means but are waiting 8 months to see the ophthalmologist in Sweden. Then if the child needed surgery they would be put on a 6 month waiting list. She called me and I saw her that day. It turned out that the child had accommodative esotropia (crossing of the eyes treated with glasses that correct for farsightedness) and responded to glasses within 4 days, so no surgery was needed. Again, rationing of care.

Last month I operated on a 70 year old lady with double vision present for 3 years. She responded quite nicely to her surgery and now is symptom free. I also operated on a 69 year old judge with vertical double vision. His surgery went very well and now he is happy as a lark. I have been told -- but of course there is no healthcare bill that has been passed yet -- that these 2 people because of their age would have been denied surgery and just told to wear a patch over one eye to alleviate the symptoms of double vision. Obviously cheaper than surgery.

I spent two years in the US Navy during the Viet Nam war and was well treated by the military. There was tremendous rationing of care and we were told specifically what things the military personnel and their dependents could have and which things they could not have. While I was in Viet Nam, my wife Nancy got sick and got essentially no care at the Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. She went home and went to her family's private internist in Beverly Hills. While it was expensive, she received an immediate work up. Again rationing of care.

For those of you who are over 65, this bill in its present form might be lethal for you. People in Britain face rationing of care in that there is an eight month wait for cataract surgery, 11 for hernia and the same for disc and total hip The government wants to mimic the British plan. For those of you younger, it will still mean restriction of the care that you and your children receive.

While 99% of physicians went into medicine because of the love of medicine and the challenge of helping our fellow man, economics are still important. My rent goes up 2% each year and the salaries of my employees go up 2% each year. Twenty years ago, ophthalmologists were paid $1800 for a cataract surgery and today $500. This is a 73% decrease in our fees. I do not know of many jobs in America that have seen this sort of lowering of fees.

But there is more to the story than just the lower fees. When I came to Atlanta, there was a well known ophthalmologist that charged $2500 for a cataract surgery as he felt the was the best. He had a terrific reputation and in fact I had my mother's bilateral cataracts operated on by him with a wonderful result. She is now 94 and has 20/20 vision in both eyes. People would pay his $2500 fee.

However, then the government came in and said that any doctor that does Medicare work cannot accept more than the going rate ( now $500) or he or she would be severely fined. This put an end to his charging $2500. The government said it was illegal to accept more than the government-allowed rate. What I am driving at is that those of you well off will not be able to go to the head of the line under this new healthcare plan, just because you have money, as no physician will be willing to go against the law to treat you.

I am a pediatric ophthalmologist and trained for 10 years post-college to become a pediatric ophthalmologist (add two years of my service in the Navy and that comes to 12 years). A neurosurgeon spends 14 years post-college, and if he or she has to do the military that would be 16 years. I am not entitled to make what a neurosurgeon makes, but the new plan calls for all physicians to make the same amount of payment. I assure you that medical students will not go into neurosurgery and we will have a tremendous shortage of neurosurgeons. Already, the top neurosurgeon at my hospital who is in good health and only 52 years old has just quit because he can't stand working with the government anymore. Forty-nine percent of children under the age of 16 in the state of Georgia are on Medicaid, so he felt he just could not stand working with the bureaucracy anymore.

We are being lied to about the uninsured. They are getting care. I operate at least 2 illegal immigrants each month who pay me nothing, and the children's hospital at which I operate charges them nothing also. This is true not only on Atlanta, but of every community in America.

The bottom line is that I urge all of you to contact your congresswomen and congressmen and senators to defeat this bill. I promise you that you will not like rationing of your own health.

Furthermore, how can you trust a physician that works under these conditions knowing that he is controlled by the state. I certainly could not trust any doctor that would work under these draconian conditions.

One last thing: with this new healthcare plan there will be a tremendous shortage of physicians. It has been estimated that approximately 5% of the current physician work force will quit under this new system. Also it is estimated that another 5% shortage will occur because of the decreased number of men and women wanting to go into medicine. At the present time the US government has mandated gender equity in admissions to medical schools .That means that for the past 15 years that somewhere between 49 and 51% of each entering class are females. This is true of private schools also, because all private schools receive federal funding.

The average career of a woman in medicine now is only 8-10 years and the average work week for a female in medicine is only 3-4 days. I have now trained 35 fellows in pediatric ophthalmology. Hands down the best was a female that I trained 4 years ago -- she was head and heels above all others I have trained. She now practices only 3 days a week.

(Now there will also be mandated racial equity in admissions… rather than admissions based on ability).

By Zane F Pollard, MD – American Thinker

Background: Dr. Zane F. Pollard
I did my undergraduate work at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. I graduated Tulane University medical School Alpha Omega Alpha ( medical school's top 10% of graduating class). Internship at the Univ. of Southern California in Los Angeles, one year of General surgery residency at the U. of California in San Francisco. Two years in the US Navy. Residency in Ophthalmology at the U.of S. California in Los Angeles, fellowship in pediatric Ophthalmology at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. In practice with Eye Consultants of Atlanta for the past 35 years. Published 90 papers in peer reviewed Scientific Ophthalmology Journals. Member of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Ophthalmological Society. Board certified in Ophthalmology.

-----------------

Barbara Wagner wanted to live, but Oregon Government-Run Healthcare would not pay for her cancer treatments. What they would do, was give her the meds for assisted suicide.

Video: Oregon says no to chemotherapy, offers assisted suicide instead

Read Full Story: Woman in Oregon Told Healthcare Would Not Pay for Cancer Treatment But Would Pay for Assisted Suicide… Welcome to Government Controlled Healthcare

---------------

Over the weekend the Veteran’s Manual was exposed

Full Article: Outcry Over Vets’ ‘End of Life Care’

Click here to read the "Your Life, Your Choices" guide.

------------------

IT'S ALL A DEATH PANEL: THE TRUTH ABOUT OBAMACARE

Washington is all atwitter about "death panels": President Obama derides the idea that his health-care reform calls for them; the Senate is stripping "end of life" counseling language from its bill -- and last Friday the voice of the liberal establishment, The New York Times, ran a Page One story "rebutting" the rumor that ObamaCare would create such boards to decide when to pull the plug on elderly patients.

But all those protests miss the fundamental truth of the "death panel" charge.

Even without a federal board voting on whom to kill, ObamaCare will ration care extensively, leading to the same result. This follows inevitably from central features of the president's plan.
Specifically, his decisions to (1) pay for reform with vast cuts in the Medicare budget and (2) grant insurance coverage to 50 million new people, vastly boosting demand without increasing the supply of doctors, nurses or other care providers.

Whether or not he admits it even to himself, Obama's talk of cutting "inefficiencies" and reducing costs translates to less care, of lower quality, for the elderly. Every existing national health system finds ways to deny state-of-the-art medications and necessary surgical procedures to countless patients, and ObamaCare has the nascent mechanisms to do the same. With the limited options that Obama's vision would leave them, many will find that "end of life counseling" necessary and even welcome.

"Reform" would cut care to the elderly in several ways:
* Slash hundreds of billions from Medicare spending, largely by lowering reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals for patient care.

If a hospital gets less money for each MRI, it will do fewer of them. If a surgeon gets paid less for a heart bypass on a Medicare patient, he'll perform them more rarely. These facts of the marketplace are not only inevitable consequences of Obama's cuts but are also its intended consequence. Without them, his savings will prove illusory.
* Expanding the patient load by extending full coverage to 50 million Americans (including such "Americans" as illegal immigrants) without boosting the supply of care will force rationing decisions on harried and overworked doctors and hospitals.

People with insurance use a lot more health-care resources -- so today's facilities and personnel will have to cope with the increased workload. Busy surgeons will have to decide who would benefit most from their treatment -- de facto rationing. The elderly will, inevitably, be the losers.

* The Federal Health Board, established by this legislation, will be charged with collecting data on various forms of treatment for different conditions to assess which are the most effective and efficient. While the bills don't force providers to obey the board's "guidance," its recommendations will still wind up setting the standards and protocols for care system-wide.

We've already seen Medicare and Medicaid lead a similar race to the bottom with their formularies and other regulations. With Washington dictating what every policy must cover and regulating all rates, insurers and providers will all have to follow the FHB's advice on limiting care to the elderly -- a de facto rationing system.
* In assessing whether to allow certain treatments to a given patient, medical professionals will be encouraged to apply the Quality-Adjusted Remaining Years system. Under QARY, decision-makers seek to "amortize" the cost of treatment over the remaining "quality years of life" likely for that patient.
Imagine a hip replacement costing $100,000 and the 75-year-old who needs it, a diabetic with a heart condition deemed to have just three "quality" years left. That works out to $33,333 a year -- too steep! Surgery disallowed! (Unless of course, the patient has political connections . . . )

Younger, healthier patients would still get the surgery, of course. The QARY system simply aims to deny health care to the oldest and most infirm, "scientifically" condemning them to infirmity, pain and earlier death than would otherwise be their fate.

In short, ObamaCare doesn't need to set up "death panels" to make retail decisions about ending the lives of individual patients. The whole "reform" scheme is one giant death panel in its own right.

Order a copy of Catastrophe

In Britain, there is a total dollar amount that government will pay for each person.

• Prescription for Truth – Daniel Hannan From England: HealthCare Worse for Elderly
• Unease in Britain Following Assisted Suicides

Canadian Healthcare is going Bust…

The new president of the Canadian Medical Association, Dr. Anne Doig, has made comments that indicate that Canada's public run healthcare system is running on empty.

We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize...We know that there must be change...We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.

These comments come as the outgoing CMA President Dr. Robert Ouellet, is expected to report that Canada's government-run system needs to become more patient-centered.

Related Resources:

• Canadian Health Officials: Our Universal Health Care Is 'Sick,' Private Insurance Should Be Welcomed

• Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors
• Healthcare: Does Canada Do It Better?

• And the list goes on… The more time we have to study ObamaCare and other government run healthcare systems, the more negative and scary information keeps surfacing.

Posted: TrueHealthIsTrueWealth

Sign The: 'STOP OBAMACARE' PETITION

Support Whole Foods Markets and Free Speech

AUG 15 2009 POSTED BY GARYFOUSE - Cross-posted by Gary Fouse fousesquawk

My fellow blogger, Hamilton Roberts, has alerted me to a boycott that is being formed by left-wing ObamaCare proponents against Whole Foods Markets. Why would they boycott a market? Because their CEO, John Mackey, has just written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal opposing government health care. Here is the article dated August 12 below:
———————————————————————————

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

By JOHN MACKEY

“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” —Margaret Thatcher

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people’s money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan’s costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.

• Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.

• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America~

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor’s Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.

At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an “intrinsic right to health care”? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.

Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.

Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.

—Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc. Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A15.
——————————————————————————-
In response, some left-wing group called Meetup.com is organizing boycotts and pickets at Whole Foods locations. There is one scheduled August 16 in Austin, Texas.

Here is their blurb:
——————————————————————————–

“Whole Foods is NOT a company that cares for communities and they have built their brand with the dollars of deceived progressives. No more. My $ will no longer go to support Whole Foods’ anti-union, anti-health insurance reform, right-wing activities.

John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on 8/12/2009 quoting Margaret Thatcher and suggesting that healthcare is a commodity that only the rich, like him, deserve.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html

Whole Foods has the right to cheat and lie and be as hateful and selfish as they wanna be.
We also have the right to starve them of our $.”

Austin Boycott Meetup Sunday, Aug 16
http://www.meetup.com/Boycott-Whole-Foods/
——————————————————————————

Here is Whole Food’s response:

Whole Foods Market: Response Statement: John Mackey’s Op/Ed in the Wall Street Journal

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=120455171970

“We would like to thank our customers and shareholders who have let us know their thoughts regarding John Mackey’s op/ed in the Wall Street Journal. Many people, including John, feel passionately about this important issue.

First off, whether you agree with John or not, our 50,000+ Team Members who live and work in your communities will continue to work hard every day to bring you the best natural and organic products available. We hope you will continue to give us the opportunity to serve you.

While there are differing points of view on this issue, John believes certain aspects of the current proposals before Congress would jeopardize our company’s ability to continue providing our sustainable health insurance plan. Whole Foods Market pays 100 percent of the premiums for our full-time (over 30-hours) Team Members, about 89% of our workforce. Additionally, those Team Members get to vote for their new plan options every three years. John does not want to see that changed.

Finally, John absolutely does care about his fellow citizens who do not have health insurance, and he is in favor of health care reform. He believes that the proposals he put forth will provide access to sustainable health insurance for more people.

We recognize that there are many opinions on this issue, including inside our own company. As we all sort through this together, we thank you for sharing your opinions with us.”
—————————————————————————

To tell you the truth, I had never heard of this chain nor of Mr Mackey. But I think it would be a great idea to show our support of free speech under the assault of these “progressives” (far-leftists), who want to punish Mackey and his company for expressing his opinion. If you have one of these stores in your area, drop by and buy a few items. We should do the same thing here we did with Trader Joe’s when they were under attack by pro-Palestinian loons for selling Israeli products. We made their sales skyrocket and Israeli goods were flying off the shelves.

Let’s publicize this issue and help out Whole Foods.

*You can send a message to Whole Foods main office telling them you support the free market and free speech: <a href=”http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/company/service.php'>http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/company/service.php'>http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/company/service.php'>http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/comapny/service.php”>http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/company/service.php</a>

Greta Van Susteran says she would frequent Whole Foods for the principle of Freedom of Speech alone. I don’t know MacKey, but he sounds like kind of a nice guy – I would have -- to go to his grocery store."

Support Whole Foods and Freedom of Speech and shop at Whole Foods to save 50,000 people’s jobs. MacKey pays for medical insurance for all his employees and families including same sex partners. He is not some right-wing zealot and he supports medical reform… Just Not the President’s Program, since when is that a crime?

On Greta Wire: Automatically Generated Transcript (may not be 100% accurate)

"Going to hear this it's on FaceBook. 18000 People on FaceBook are calling for a boycott of the nationwide grocery store chain whole foods. It has to do -- the debate over health care. Now apparently the CEO of Whole Foods who says we do need health care reform, but is not as liberal as some of their progressive clientele. They are just spreading lies. Anchor Brian on Fox Business Network joins Greta. Brian wrote a piece of the Fox Blog entitled: Freedom of Speech is Not So Free for Whole Foods.

"Well you know. The irony of this story Greta is that if John MacKey who's the CEO of Whole Foods who started the company in Austin Texas and has been running it for about thirty years ago had stated his position in the journal at a previous time when we were talking about health -- this would've been considered radical reform. MacKey said we don’t need the president's plan, a government involved plan, but here eight ideas, as a successful CEO that I have. Tort reform, allowing insurers across state lines, self directed ideas, etc, and yet he is being vilified by some of the more liberal followers out there of the president's plan. They are, as you said, waging war against Whole Foods 18000 bullies on FaceBook -- a boycott. FaceBook there's a web page set up. And they're calling him, get this: “a right wing zealot."

"In 2007 MacKey said he had enough money to live comfortably so in 2007 he cut his salary down to one dollar a year. And gives any -- all proceeds from the stock options to charity. That does not sound like a guy who wants to try to stick it to the people when it comes to health -- he said he had a different idea and that was what was in The Wall Street Journal."

"MacKey a self described libertarian, I don't know maybe that is what angered some people not only is really only taking a dollar a year but the company has a 100,000 Dollars -- need based fund for Whole Woods workers that they offer. Domestic partner same sex benefits. Overall this had been considered a relatively progressive company. Now he comes out and says -- The government run plan is not the way to go here are some ideas I have and he is just absolutely -- being slaughtered. On the left side of the Blogosphere. Actually I imagine his reaction is probably confused as confused as yours and minus."

"I don’t even know this guy – or if his ideas are good but -- something to be admired about someone who -- who sees a problem. And says here are a few really good ideas and -- says he thinks are really good ideas. And then for have a few-- having to dare to differ, with a particular segment,they come on to try to kill -- kill a business that hasn't done anything wrong -- employs lots of people. And says, from from what I can read, you know he seems to be a pretty generous guy."

"You know Ira wrote a blog on the Fox Business web site called free speech may not be so free for whole foods they hired 8200 people last year they have 50000 employees. Let's say Greta that this boycott all right gain some traction right; let's say that it does and let's say that it is successful by the protestor’s Definition. And it hurts Whole Foods; who's gonna get hurt? Is John MacKey gonna get hurt? He's got enough money; it’s the workers. The rank and file working at Whole Foods are the ones who are going to get hurt. You made an excellent point in your…

-- Rick Santorum moments ago listening in that. It's not as if you don't want health care reform. It's if you don't necessarily agree with the president's plan. You might be labeled wrong or a bad person.

Source: Knowledge Creates Power – Cross Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Posted: True Health Is True Wealth

No turning back from Obamacare

Even a watered-down version of Obama's plan would shift the country permanently to the left.

My conservative friends – and even a few media liberals – are agreed: The bloom is off the Obama rose. He's not the Obamessiah, just another 50 percent president. He tried to do too much too fast, and his numbers are sinking. The Europeanization of health care is dead. Fuhgeddabouddit.

I wouldn't be so sure. President Barack Obama has no choice but to move fast, in part because the image he presented during the campaign – a post-partisan, post-racial, post-anything-unpleasant-and-controversial pragmatic centrist – was a total crock. He has a vast transformative domestic agenda and, because most of its elements are not terribly popular, he has to accomplish it at speed or he won't get it done at all.

Health care "reform"? As we've seen this past week in the House of Representatives, put not your trust in "Blue Dog Democrats." And, as we'll no doubt see in the weeks ahead in the Senate, put not your trust in "moderate Republicans" whose urge to "reach across the aisle" is so reflexive it ought to be covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The president needs to get something passed. Anything. The details don't matter. Once it's in place, health care "reform" can be re-reformed endlessly. Indeed, you'll be surprised how little else we talk about. So, for example, public funding for abortions can be discarded now, and written in – as it surely will be by some judge – down the road. What matters is to ram it through, get it done, pass it now – in whatever form.

If this seems a perverse obsession for a nation with a weak economy, rising unemployment and a war on two fronts, it has a very sound strategic logic behind it. As I wrote in National Review a week or two back, health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. That's its attraction for an ambitious president: It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in a way that hands all the advantages to statists – to those who believe government has a legitimate right to regulate human affairs in every particular.

That's not why it's tanking in the polls, of course. It's floundering because Obama sold it initially on the basis of "controlling costs," and then the Congressional Budget Office let the cat out of the bag and pointed out that, au contraire, it would cost $1.6 trillion, and therefore either add to an unsustainable deficit, or require massive tax increases, or (more likely) both.

All of which is true. But to object to the governmentalization of health care on that basis implicitly concedes the argument that, if we could figure out a way to bring the price down, it would be fine and dandy. Right now, there are a lot of wonkish and utilitarian objections to what the Democrats want to do, and they're gaining traction. In The American Spectator, Brandon Crocker points out that this is exactly the way things went over Hillarycare in 1993: Americans took against the plan on practical grounds but not against the underlying principle. "Since we did not win that philosophical argument in 1993," Mr. Crocker writes, "we now have to fight the same battle today." And, if we win on utilitarian grounds today, we'll have to fight it again in 10 years, five years, maybe less – until something passes, and then everything changes, forever: As the IRA famously taunted Margaret Thatcher, we only have to get lucky once; you have to be lucky every day.

On the price tag: It's often argued that, as a proportion of GDP, America spends more on health care than countries with government medical systems. But, as a point of fact, "America" doesn't spend anything on health care: Hundreds of millions of people make hundreds of millions of individual decisions about what they're going to spend on health care. Whereas up north a handful of bureaucrats determine what Canada will spend on health care – and that's that: Health care is a government budget item. If Joe Hoser in Moose Jaw wants to increase Canada's health care spending by $500 drawn from his savings account, he can't: The law prevents it. Unless, as many Canadians do, he drives south and spends it in a U.S. hospital for treatment he can't get in a timely manner in his own country.

You can make the "controlling costs" argument about anything: After all, it's no surprise that millions of free people freely choosing how they spend their own money will spend it in different ways than government bureaucrats would be willing to license on their behalf. America spends more per capita on food than Zimbabwe. America spends more on vacations than North Korea. America spends more on lap-dancing than Saudi Arabia (well, officially). Canada spends more per capita on doughnuts than America, and, given comparative girths, Canucks are clearly not getting as much bang for the buck. Why doesn't Ottawa introduce a National Doughnut Licensing Agency? You'd still see your general dispenser for simple procedures like a lightly sugared cruller but he'd refer you to a specialist if you needed, say, a maple-frosted custard, and it would only be a six-month wait, at the end of which you'd receive a stale cinnamon roll. Under government regulation, eventually every doughnut would be all hole and no doughnut, and the problem would be solved. Even if the hole costs $1.6 trillion.

How did the health-care debate decay to the point where we think it entirely natural for the central government to fix a collective figure for what 300 million freeborn citizens ought to be spending on something as basic to individual liberty as their own bodies?

That's the argument that needs to be won. And, if you think I'm being frivolous in positing bureaucratic regulation of doughnuts and vacations, consider that under the all-purpose umbrellas of "health" and "the environment," governments of supposedly free nations are increasingly comfortable straying into areas of diet and leisure. Last year, a British bill attempted to ban Tony the Tiger, longtime pitchman for Frosties, from children's TV because of his malign influence on young persons. Why not just ban Frosties? Or permit it by prescription only? Or make kids stand outside on the sidewalk to eat it? It was also proposed – by the Conservative Party, alas – that, in the interests of saving the planet, each citizen should be permitted to fly a certain number of miles a year, after which he would be subject to punitive eco-surtaxes. Isn't restricting freedom of movement kind of, you know … totalitarian?

Freedom is messy. In free societies, people will fall through the cracks – drink too much, eat too much, buy unaffordable homes, fail to make prudent provision for health care and much else. But the price of being relieved of all those tiresome choices by a benign paternal government is far too high.

Government health care would be wrong even if it "controlled costs." It's a liberty issue. I'd rather be free to choose, even if I make the wrong choices.

By: Mark Steyn - Syndicated columnist
©MARK STEYN

Posted: True Health Is True Wealth

Related Posts:

• Obamacare: Beware the Rhetoric
• Prescription for Truth – Daniel Hannan From England: HealthCare Worse for Elderly

Senator Grassley (and Others): Democrats' Want to Nationalize Healthcare

Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley told Newsmax that the healthcare reform plans Democrats are proposing would be a "backdoor" to a Canadian-style, single-payer plan and the nationalization of healthcare.

(Senator Rick Santorum (PA) was on Greta Wire yesterday and said exactly the same thing as Senator Grassley in this article; Obama and Democrats wants Nationalized Healthcare.)

In an interview with Newsmax, TV's Kathleen Walter, Grassley indicated he would strenuously oppose Democratic plans advanced in the House and the Senate. The ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, he is one of three Republicans from the Committee involved in talks with Democrats on plans to overhaul the healthcare system.

Though a Republican, Grassley is considered a moderate on the healthcare issue and his view may hold sway over Democratic conservatives or “Blue Dogs” who have been on the fence over whether they’ll embrace health plans that President Obama has backed.

Grassley slammed a key element of Democratic plans – the so-called “public option.” Under these plans, individuals and businesses would be allowed to join the public healthcare insurance system.

But critics contend such a system, offering cheaper health care, would eventually bankrupt private insurers.

About the public option, Grassley said his biggest worry is "the extent to which the federal government runs everything — and that would be the case with the public option."

"And I want to say how that happens. It doesn't happen just because you pass a public option. It's a backdoor to a Canadian-style, single-payer plan. And don't forget, seven out of the 13 Democrats on Senator Kennedy's [Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions] did vote for a Canadian single-payer plan."

Grassley warned that such a system would increase costs and lead to massive new taxes.

President Obama has pledged not to raise taxes on middle-class Americans.

"First of all, a very very important consideration for any tax issue that's coming up right now is, when we're in the middle of a recession, why would you want to raise any taxes?" Grassley asked. He is also a member of the Joint Committee on Taxation.

"[Democrats have] got the feeling you can raise taxes on the top one percent and solve all the problems of government. That's not real. You could confiscate, let alone tax, all the income over $250,000 that people make each year, and you couldn't run the federal government for more than three or four months. So it's idiotic to think that's a solution...

"You get the feeling that [Democrats] not only want to tax at 39.6 percent, but also add 5 percent to it for healthcare, and add on the average of 5 1/2 percent for state income tax. Pretty soon you're above 50 percent, and pretty soon you have a higher level of taxation than Sweden has."

He also rejected demands by the president and some Democrats that Congress should pass healthcare legislation quickly.

"We're not focused on getting done by a certain time. There might be other people that have that in mind. But our goal is, quite frankly, to do it right.

"And when I say do it right, it involves two things that are very essential that we always have to keep in the back of our mind.

"Number one, we're talking about some restructuring of one-sixth of the economy. That's a big thing in and of itself that Congress has never done before.

"And the other one is that when you deal with something called healthcare, you're talking about the life and death of every American. And so for those two reasons, the prime consideration has to be to get it right, as opposed to get it done by a certain time."

Grassley noted that Democrats originally stated that they wanted to pass healthcare reform before the upcoming summer recess. But he said the 4-week recess will provide an opportunity for people to discuss the healthcare proposals and tell their representatives what they think of them.

"Much of this legislation doesn't go into effect until the year 2013 because it takes a long phase-in period, so what's one more week or one more month when our goal is to get it right?" Grassley said.

"Instead, we will work to develop a nonpartisan bill that will not lead to the nationalization of health insurance, which you do through a public option."

Grassley also said he opposes Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court because she is a "judicial activist" who "believes you ought to be able to legislate from the bench," and warned that the cap-and-trade plan being pushed by Democrats would lead to the export of all manufacturing in the U.S. to China.

See Video: Sen. Charles Grassley reveals how much damage the Democrat’s ‘public option’ could do to American medical care - Click Here Now

By: Jim Meyers

Source: NewsMax

Related Resources:

• Socialized Medicine Update – From Congressman John Campbell’s Laptop to Yours
• Government Insurance Would Allow Coverage For Abortions
• Skyrocketing Health Costs Inevitable With ‘Reform’ – John Stossel
  • Reinventing Health Care System Pure Arrogance
  • Free Competition Best Healthcare Solution
  • Healthcare Reformers Defeat the Purpose
• WSJ: Health Reform and the tax Pledge
• Dick Morris Says Obamacare Will Replace Medicare – And What to do to Save Health Care
• The Ultimate Resting Place of Socialized Medicine
  • Useless Eaters
  • GovernmentCare’s Assault on Seniors
  • ObamaCare For Seniors: Sorry, You’re Just Not Worth It
  • Obamacare for Illegal Aliens – While Granny Gets Duty to Die Lecture
  • Who Will Tell Michael J. Fox He Needs to Die?
• Kristol: Kill It, And Start Over
• Kennedy: Let’s Ration Healthcare

When you start losing political swing state ACORN proponents like Claire McCaskill, you know things are bad!  This is not a good sign for TEAM OBAMA and this why you are starting to see acts of desperation from both the White House and Pelosiphiles in Reid Loyalists in both houses of Congress and it will get worse.

The White House is in essence asking Americans to ‘snitch’ on other Americans by emailing them any information about the Obamacare that is misleading… Hello??  Sounds like…?!? 

Mind you, the White House (on their site) is asking Americans to report to them any emails, websites and the content of ‘casual conversations’ about ObamaCare that contains mis (or dis) information…  Judge Andrew Napolitano says this is absolutely unconstitutional!!!  It is 100% against the 1st Amendment and has been tested at the Supreme Court level.  Also, the White House has a staff of people capable of picking up pretty much anything on the Internet… so?!?  When Robert Gibbs was question about this, he tapped danced, as usual.  When asked about the White House collecting the names and emails of people reporting the information (which is also required by law) he first said they weren’t going to keep them and then when pushed on the point, said they wouldn’t share them?!?

Civil Rights Attorney, Tamara Holden, said today… The White House asking for this type of information is illegal and questionable.  And the biggest question is:  “What is the Obama White House going to do with this information???  Watch and track the people who have been reported?  Track them indirectly through the back door online? Compile and enemies list?  Keep files on citizens? And then are they going to put the names and emails of the people who reported them, who they think agree with them, on other lists and give them to friendly groups to recruit or minimally use for the Obama re-election campaign?

• Obama Goes Into Chicago-style Community Organizer Mode
• White House Initiates “Snitch” Program On What They Call Misinformation Being Disbursed on Healthcare Reform

Nancy Pelosi (and her followers) is accusing concerned Americans who are afraid of losing their healthcare, being asked to listen to duty to die lectures and then told they aren’t worthy or are too old to receive needed treatments and are exercising their 1st Amendment rights of being organized by the RNC or rich people against her/their plan and accusing them of being mobs and carrying swastikas. None of that is true. (And if perhaps one or two have gotten over-zealous and painted a swastika on their homemade picket sign… do you think the White House’s Hitler Youth inspired snitching program might have given them the wrong idea?)  Besides, if that were true, Pelosi would have photos!?!  Grassroots movements and worried individuals (some of whom have never stood up for themselves or protested and picketed for anything before) are just fed up and scared and finally exercising their rights as Americans! 

Grass-roots Opposers to ObamaCare In Texas and Penn – Do These People Really Sound Like Uninformed Organized Mobs?

The experts, the people who have actually read HR 3200, responsible elected officials (Governors, Congress People, Senators and ex-Politicians), and average Americans are realizing that Obamacare (and of the 5 bills now being considered) is a power grab not healthcare reform; will ultimately end up in full-blown socialized medicine; will ration care especially for the elderly… which in Britain begins at 59 for some procedures and the lack of certain life-saving medications for everyone, high costs for worse healthcare, long waits for treatment, and more government in your life.

• HR-3200 - full report
• *Letter to Your Congress Person on Health Care (Obamacare) HR3200
• *A Look at What is Really in the Health Care Bill (HR 3200): Chilling!

There are many out there: Pawlenty, DeMint, Kyl, Romney, McCain, to name just a few ,who have ideas for real healthcare reform and have experience in what works and doesn’t work… but nobody is listening. And many financial experts feel that we could save enough to cover the bulk of the uninsured and actually improve services by just overhauling the system we have by enacting tort reform (limiting or doing away with frivolous lawsuits and the size of awards in warranted suits) and serious fraud control in Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Benefits and Reservation Healthcare for Native Americans (all of which are inadequate and riddled with fraud now) plus changes in insurance laws and better regulation of the insurance companies, the AMA, and Big Pharma.

Another option is excluding or limiting care for Illigals. There is something wrong with a system that is talking about rationing to seniors but covering people who are here illegally!

There are also several systems (the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic) and improvements that are working or have usable components that were presented at the Senate hearings:

• Safeway’s Health Care Program Gets Attention

This fight over American Healthcare (like the fight over Cap and Tax… ah Trade) is one of those that could change the very fiber of our Country and concerns every American… even if you are so wealthy that you do not need coverage, because the system that is being promoted will not necessarily allow you to pay for procedures that aren’t approved by the government representative or doesn’t fall into the guidelines.  Mind you the well connected in other countries with socialized medicine often receive “exceptions” and the others with money come here to the U.S.  Wonder what they plan to do?

~~  If you believe that Grandpa’s life is worth no less that little Sally’s… you need to stand-up!  ~~

What We (You) Can and Need To Do…

1.  Inform yourself!!

2.  Donate to groups and organizations launching and effective campaign

3.  Talk to and email your friends, family and associates

4.  Call, Write and Email your Senators and Congressman

5.  Become Proactive

6.  Don’t be intimidated!!

7.  Demand answers

8.  Follow your gut!!!!!!!!!!!

Information Resources:

• Catastrophe
• American Progressivism
• Liberal Fascism
• Saving Freedom
• Liberty and Tyranny
• Glenn Beck's Common Sense
• Culture of Corruption

Source:  Knowledge Creates Power

Dick Morris Says Obamacare Will Replace Medicare

Dick Morris is worried that complacency among citizens could result in a disastrous healthcare overhaul costing Americans for generations to come.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, Morris was asked if he thinks Democrats will do what Senator Chuck Schumer has alluded to: ram health reform through without any Republican support using a process called “reconciliation.” That requires only a simple majority instead of 60 votes.

“Yeah, I think they’re going to try it. I think there’s no chance that they’ll get 60 votes, there’s no chance of any real Republican support,” Morris said. “They’re going try and jam this thing through, and of course, it will pass the House because they march in lockstep.”

See Video: Dick Morris warns that complacency could destroy America’s healthcare system - Click Here Now

“So it is absolutely crucial for us to be aggressive and active in taking the steps to fight it,” he said.

The key is spreading information about the mammoth healthcare bills, Morris said, and mobilizing the conservative grassroots.

“Newsmax.com has a lot of the information; my website DickMorris.com does as well. We need to run ads in all of the states that swing-state senators live in, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Indiana, Connecticut, whole bunch of those states, and really force those senators to vote as their constituents want.”

“The fact that public opinion is moving against this legislation does not guarantee its defeat, because he (Obama) can still ram this thing through.”

Morris notes that senior citizens will pay the biggest price under the overhaul.

“This healthcare reform proposal really is the repeal of Medicare,” Morris said. “That’s really what it comes down to, because they’re going to provide medical care to 50 million new people without expanding the number of doctors or nurses,” he says.

“You can’t do that; you can’t just write a check for more healthcare, got to have more doctors or more nurses to administer it,” he added. “That means there’s going to be less health care for each person and that will force rationing.”

What will endanger the elderly most, Morris said, is the rationing of heart and hip operations – which comprise the bulk of elder care.

“Rationing involves a decision that is supposedly rational as to who should get care and who doesn’t get it,” Morris explained. “And inevitably that’s going to mean saying no to the elderly, no to people that want hip transplants, no to people that need new knee surgery, or no even to people who have bypass surgery.”

Morris cites the medical care system in Canada as an example of why socialized medicine doesn’t work.

“In Canada, where they have a system like this . . . there is an eight-week wait for cancer radiation: you have cancer, you have to wait eight weeks. There’s an eight month wait for colonoscopies and as a result the incidences of colon cancer in Canada is 25 percent higher than in the United States,” he said. “The top drug we use to treat colon cancer, Avastin, is not permitted in Canada and the result is 41 percent of Canadians who get colon cancer die of it as against only 32 percent in the United States. Sounds horrific, but those are the stakes,” Morris said.

And remember the Dems are set on covering the illegal aliens, meaning a younger illegal will get the treatment before a senior who has paid into the system all their life, if rationing goes into affect.

Since Democrats have enough votes to pass the overhaul without any Republican support, why are they trying to win some GOP votes?

“They’re worried about needing Republican support because they know how unpopular this thing is going to be when it’s adopted and after it’s taken effect, and we’re not just talking about the medical portion, we’re talking about the tax hikes, too,” Morris said. (Probably big tax hikes).

“So they want to be able to say this was a bipartisan bill, don’t blame the Democrats, Republicans put it over the top, too, just like they do with the stimulus package now where they got three Republicans to come on board. But I don’t think the Republicans are going to bite on this one.”

See Video: Dick Morris warns that complacency could destroy America’s healthcare system - Click Here Now

FOUR STEPS TO SAVE HEALTH CARE

SEE THE NEW TV AD DICK SAYS CAN DEFEAT OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE TAKEOVER -- CLICK HERE!

August is THE crucial month! While the Senators and Congressmen are home in their districts, let's give them a barrage of attacks on Obama's proposals to deform our health system! Even as public opinion has turned against the plan, he still has sixty votes in the Senate and an ample margin in the House to pass it. Unless we unleash a FIRESTORM of public outrage, the bill will pass! And your own personal health care will never be the same.

Here's how to fight it:

1. Arm yourself with the facts: Read Chapter 4 in Catastrophe, "Obama's Health Care Catastrophe", which details how Obamacare will destroy American health care and explains what has happened in Canada!

2. Donate Money: The League of American Voters is running an advertisement Dick wrote in the swing states with key Senators. Give them as much as you can to run these ads.

Click here to see the ad and donate online!

To send checks by mail:

The League of American Voters
4152 West Blue Heron Blvd, Suite 1114
Riviera Beach, FL 33404
FedEx if possible! Time is of the essence.
We need to run these ads this month!

3. Email your friends, family and associates: We need a massive outpouring of public opinion. Email your Christmas card list, your colleagues from the office, your friends, and your family. Bring them the facts about health care and Obama's dangerous proposals. Think particularly of anyone you know in the following states

(where the key Senators live):

a. Maine (Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snow)
b. New York (Senator Kirsten Gillibrand)
c. Virginia (Senator Mark Warner and Jim Webb)
d. Indiana (Senator Evan Bayh)
e. Ohio (Senator John Voinovich)
f. North Carolina (Senator Kay Hagan)
g. Florida (Senator Mel Martinez)
h. Louisiana (Senator Mary Landrieu)
i. Arkansas (Senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln)
j. Nebraska (Senator Ben Nelson)
k. South Dakota (Senator Tim Johnson)
l. Iowa (Senator Chuck Grassley)
m. North Dakota (Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan)
n. Montana (Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester)
o. Wyoming (Senator Michael Enzi)

4. Write or call your Senators and Congressman: Then sit down and write (by hand if possible) a letter to each of your Senators and your member of Congress. If you are not sure who your Congressman or Senators are, go to these links to find out:

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Simply address the letter to:

Your Senator or Congressman:
US Senate or US House of Representatives, Washington DC 20510 (Senate) or 20515 (House)

Sending a letter by snail mail is much more effective than by email.

They haven't really caught up with the 21st Century in Washington. So buy a real live postage stamp and mail your letters directly. Use the info from Catastrophe in your letter. Explain how your personal health care and that of our family will be adversely affected.

Even if your Senator or Congressman is a liberal Democrat or a Republican, write then anyway. It can influence the atmosphere in Washington. Senators and Congressmen talk and the more mail they get, the more public opinion weighs on them all. Even the ultra-liberals.

You can call Congress at (202) 224-3121.

Believe us. It works. Write today!

Stand-up… Speak-up, America!!

(Gibbs says Obama Will Not Read HC Bill)

After President Obama promised last week that he would sit down with any and all Republicans and any other Congresspeople and Senators that wanted to and review the Healthcare Bill line by line, Robert Gibbs said today that President Obama would not read the Healthcare Bill.

Let us hope that he will have to read it multiple times as congressional leaders to to the White House and hold Obama to his word that her would review any of the present bills and final bills with them!!

It is a disgrace and an insult to the American People that anyone would pass sign bills like Cap and Tax, Healthcare Reform and multi billion and trillion dollar Stimulus and Budget Bills without reading them!!!!

Related Resources:

• Grass-roots revolts in Texas and Pennsylvania Against Obamacare
• Obama in 2007 Said He Wanted to Eliminate Private Health Insurance
• Catastrophe

Posted:  True Health Is True Wealth

Obama in 2007 Said He Wanted to Eliminate Private Health Insurance

As President Obama repeatedly tells America that his plan for healthcare reform will not lead to the elimination of private health insurance, statements he made in 2007 and 2003 tell a different story altogether.

In shocking video uncovered by our good friends at Naked Emperor News, Obama, speaking at SEIU's New Leadership Health Care Forum on March 24, 2007, said, "My commitment is to make sure that we have universal healthcare for all Americans by the end of my first term as President."

Later in the discussion, he elaborated (video embedded below the fold):

I would hope that we could set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a federal system or a state pool of some sort. But I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's going to be potentially some transition process.

In 2003, Obama stated at an AFL-CIO Civil, Human and Women's Rights Conference:

I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal healthcare plan...That's what I'd like to see.

Later in the video, viewers are treated to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) saying on July 27 of this year:

I think that if we get a good public option, it could lead to single payer, and that's the best way to reach single payer.

Yet, the way media are reporting this issue, those who want to stay with private insurance -- which is the vast majority of Americans -- will be able to do so.

Will these new revelations about what Obama really wants make it to a news outlet near you?

Stay tuned.

*****Update: Here's a more complete transcript of Obama's relevant statement at SEIU's New Leadership Health Care Forum on March 24, 2007 --

As I indicated before, I think that we're going to have to have some system where people can buy into a larger pool. Right now their pool typically is the employer, but there are other ways of doing it. I would like to -- I would hope that we could set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a federal system or a state pool of some sort. But I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out where we've got a much more portable system. Employers still have the option of providing coverage, but many people may find that they get better coverage, or at least coverage that gives them more for health care dollars than they spend outside of their employer. And I think we've got to facilitate that and let individuals make that choice to transition out of employer coverage. 

Those interested can find a complete transcript of Obama at this event here and a video here.

For more videos like this, please visit Naked Emperor News.

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.

By Noel Sheppard
August 2, 2009 - 19:48 ET

Related Resources:

• Catastrophe
• Culture of Corruption

Posted:  True Health Is True Wealth

Healthcare: Does Canada Do It Better?

John Stossel:  “Government-run health care may mean waiting in line for care!”

Link to Report (7.31.09):  http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerindex?id=8227482 

Go to this link and you can contact your representative directly; that way you can tell them to stop this MADNESS! Make sure they know YOU vote!

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/officials/congress/

There will be a place to enter your zip code, then a place to click to write your representatives directly; it is all free...

On June 26th, John Stossel said:  “Government Controlled Health Care Means Waiting in Lines, Serious Drawbacks (in his previous special):

Canadian Health Care:  A Viable Model? - http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7903062

President Obama said that the government is going to "fix what is broken about health care in America." It sounds like a great idea, but often what sounds good has unintended consequences.

John Stossel discovers some dead-serious drawbacks to socialized medicine.

When the government takes over, many critics say that you may not get the care and breakthroughs you need to save your life.

"The only way they can get costs down under a government-run system is to control the amount of money that is spent on health care," says Sally Pipes of thePacific Research Institute, who was born in Canada, and is wary about government taking the reins of health care in the U.S.

"We are going to have denied care, lack of access to the latest technology, and long waiting lists, just like people do in Canada and Great Britain," she warns.

In those countries, the government pays for all health care, and bureaucrats put limits on spending in order to control costs. They determine how much doctors can be reimbursed and put caps on the amount of money that can be spent on treatments.

The result of all this cost-cutting? People wait for care.

In England, shortages of dentists have caused hundreds of people to wait in line just for an appointment. The queues can be so long that some people have resorted to pulling out their own rotting teeth, using vodka and pliers as tools. One British hospital even tried to save money by not changing bed sheets. Instead of washing them, a British newspaper reported that the staff was encouraged to simply turn the sheets over. At any given time in Great Britain, there are over half a million people waiting to get into a hospital for treatments.

But Obama has said he doesn't want a government takeover of health care.

"When you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care," he told the American Medical Association last week, "know this -- they're not telling the truth."

A national shortage of general practitioners means that 1.7 million Canadians don't have access to a regular doctor to go to for routine care. (ABC News Photo Illustration)

Public vs. Private Plans: Cost, Care, Competition

Canada and Great Britain have what's called a "single-payer" health care system: the government pays for everyone's health care using tax revenue. It's true that Obama says he doesn't want a health care system exactly like that.

Instead, he says he wants to set up a public insurance program run by the government that will compete alongside private insurance plans. However, critics warn that a plan like this won't allow private insurers to compete on a level playing field. They say the government will keep costs down for their public plan by setting payment rates for doctors below the market level, the same way that Medicare does now.

"What will happen in the long run is that private insurers will not be able to compete with the government on price," Pipes predicts, "so they will leave the market."

Critics like Pipes say that when the size and power of a government plan grow large enough, public insurers will crowd private insurers out of the health care market and American health care will become a de facto government-run system, like Canada or Great Britain.

"People line up for care. Some of them die. That's what happens," Dr. David Gratzer says of Canada's health care system.

Gratzer, a Canadian doctor, thought Canada's government health care system was great -- until he started treating patients.

"The more time I spent in the Canadian system, the more I came across people waiting for radiation therapy. Waiting for the knee replacement so they could finally walk up to the second floor of their house," he explained.

"You want to see your neurologist because of your stress headache? No problem! You just have to wait six months," he continued. "You want an MRI? No problem! Free as the air. You've just got to wait six months."

Many ER doctors in Canada agree that the system is broken. They say hospitals face a consistent shortage of bed space, and patients often have to wait.

While people in America also wait in emergency rooms, the wait is different in Canada. When patients go to the ER for treatment and are found to be sick enough to enter the hospital, they have to wait in the emergency room for an average of 19 hours before they can be given a hospital bed.

"We can't send these patients to other hospitals that have capacity because there is no other hospital in the area that has capacity," said Dr. Eric Letovsky, an ER doctor from Ontario. "Every other emergency department in the country is just as packed as we are."

Serious Drawbacks to Canadian Model

A national shortage of general practitioners in Canada means that 1.7 million Canadians don't have access to a regular doctor to go to for routine care.

The town of Norwood, Ontario, has only one family doctor available to serve the entire community. To ration the patient list, the town clerk holds a lottery once a month, drawing a few names out of a box that contains all of the people hoping to get on the doctor's patient list. She calls the lucky winners, but everyone else must continue to wait.

Serious Drawbacks to Canadian Model

A national shortage of general practitioners in Canada means that 1.7 million Canadians don't have access to a regular doctor to go to for routine care.

The town of Norwood, Ontario, has only one family doctor available to serve the entire community. To ration the patient list, the town clerk holds a lottery once a month, drawing a few names out of a box that contains all of the people hoping to get on the doctor's patient list. She calls the lucky winners, but everyone else must continue to wait.

It's true that America's partly-private, profit-driven system is expensive and sometimes wasteful, but that pursuit of profit has allowed our health care system to offer rapid delivery, great doctors, and incredible lifesaving discoveries.

"This is the country of medical innovation. This is where people come when they need treatment," said Gratzer.

Thousands come from countries with government-run health care to take advantage of the advanced care in the United States. The famous Spanish tenor Jose Carreras didn't get treated for cancer in Spain -- he went to Seattle. King Hussein of Jordan came to America for treatment. So did Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

"Literally, we're surrounded by medical miracles. Death by cardiovascular disease has dropped by two-thirds in the last 50 years," said Gratzer. "You've got to pay a price for that type of advancement,"

The reality is that there are always trade-offs in life. Although government "universal coverage" promises great things like equal care and that no one need worry that an illness will bankrupt them, government control also means waiting in lines and sometimes going without care.

Innovations like birth control pills, cholesterol medication, robotic limbs, and many other things, would not have happened without the possibility of big profit, said Grace Marie Turner of the Galen Institute.

"I want companies to come up with cures for Parkinson's, cures for cancer, cures for Alzheimer's. Unless there is a reward for them to do that, we're not going to have those new medicines," she said.

Some of the best, most innovative treatments and most rapidly-delivered care happens through this pursuit of profit. Even in Canada, you'll find one area where they offer easy access to cutting edge technology.

CT scans and MRIs, hip and knee replacements: available 24 hours a day and without a wait.

"If I see a patient that's torn a cruciate ligament in that patient's knee, we can generally have the patient scheduled for within probably a week," said Canadian Dr. Terri Schiller.

But you have to bark or meow to get that kind of treatment. Schiller is a veterinarian and her practice makes a profit treating cats and dogs.

Want a CT scan in Canada? Private veterinary clinics said they can get a dog in the next day. For people, the waiting list is a month.

"Many clients will come here with their pets and as they're leaving, it's, 'Next time, I get sick, I want to come here. I don't want to go to the regular hospitals,'" said Schiller.

Posted:  True Health Is True Wealth