Obama and the Democrats in Congress will stop at nothing to nationalize medicine... AMERICA NEEDS YOUR HELP!
Sign The 'STOP OBAMACARE' PETITION Before It Is Too Late! This petition will be delivered to Congress after the August Recess...
Have you ever stood in a line at the Department of Motor Vehicles or the Post Office? Have you ever tried to read the IRS code? Whenever the government involves itself in areas it has no business, it becomes a big bureaucratic mess. Costs and taxes go up—service and quality goes down. The only thing the government does well is get out of the way.
Outgoing people are 50 percent less likely to develop dementia, according to a recent study of more than 500 men and women age 78 and older from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Participants also described themselves as not easily stressed. Researchers speculate that their more resilient brains may be due to lower levels of cortisol—studies show that oversecretion of this "stress hormone" can inhibit brain cells' communication. Science-backed ways to cut cortisol levels: Meditate, sip black tea, or take a nap.
Scientists in California found that middle-aged people who did just that—for a total of about five hours per week—lived longer and functioned better physically and cognitively as they got older; the researchers tracked runners and nonrunners for 21 years. "What surprised us is that the runners didn't just get less heart disease—they also developed fewer cases of cancer, neurologic diseases, and infections," says study author Eliza Chakravarty, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. "Aerobic exercise keeps the immune system young." If you don't like to run, even 20 minutes a day of any activity that leaves you breathless can boost your health, she says.
You like raspberries in your oatmeal. Most Americans eat 14 to 17 g of fiber per day; add just 10 g and reduce your risk of dying from heart disease by 17 percent, according to a Netherlands study. Dietary fiber helps reduce total and LDL ("bad") cholesterol, improve insulin sensitivity, and boost weight loss. One easy fix: Top your oatmeal (½ cup dry has 4 g fiber) with 1 cup of raspberries (8 g) and you get 12 g of fiber in just one meal.
Try some of these other potent fiber-rich foods: ½ cup of 100 percent bran cereal (8.8 g), ½ cup of cooked lentils (7.8 g), ½ cup of cooked black beans (7.5 g), one medium sweet potato (4.8 g), one small pear (4.3 g).
You feel 13 years younger than you are.
That's what older people in good health said in a recent survey of more than 500 men and women age 70 and older. "Feeling youthful is linked to better health and a longer life," says researcher Jacqui Smith, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. "It can improve optimism and motivation to overcome challenges, which helps reduce stress and boost your immune system and ultimately lowers your risk of disease."
Learn to Twitter or Skype to help keep brain cells young and healthy, says Sherri Snelling, senior director for Evercare (part of United-Healthcare), a group that sponsors an annual poll of U.S. centenarians. Many of the oldest Americans send e-mails, Google lost friends, and even date online. Researchers say using the latest technology helps keep us not only mentally spry but socially engaged: "Stay connected to friends, family, and current events, and you feel vital and relevant," says Snelling.
You started menopause after age 52. Studies show that naturally experiencing it later can mean an increased life span. One reason: "Women who go through menopause late have a much lower risk of heart disease," says Mary Jane Minkin, M.D., clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale University School of Medicine.
You make every calorie count.
Researchers in St. Louis reported that men and women who limited their daily calories to 1,400 to 2,000 (about 25 percent fewer calories than those who followed a typical 2,000-to 3,000-calorie Western diet) were literally young at heart—their hearts functioned like those of people 15 years younger. "It's about not just eating less but getting the most nutrition per calorie," says study author Luigi Fontana, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine. Study subjects stuck to vegetables, whole grains, fat-free milk, and lean meat and nixed white bread, soda, and candy. If you cut empty calories and eat more nutrient-rich foods, your health will improve, says Fontana. To find out how many calories you need to maintain a healthy weight, go toprevention.com/caloriecalculator.
If you got pregnant naturally after age 44, you're about 15 percent less likely to die during any year after age 50 than your friends who had their babies before age 40, reports a recent University of Utah study. "If your ovaries are healthy and you are capable of having children at that age, that's a marker that you have genes operating that will help you live longer," says lead researcher Ken R. Smith, Ph.D., professor of human development at the university.
Your pulse beats 15 times in 15 seconds.
That equates to 60 beats per minute—or how many times a healthy heart beats at rest. Most people have resting rates between 60 and 100 bpm, though the closer to the lower end of the spectrum, the healthier. A slower pulse means your heart doesn't have to work as hard and could last longer, says Leslie Cho, M.D., director of the Women's Cardiovascular Center at the Cleveland Clinic. To get the healthiest heart rate, see "From the Heart Doc".
You don't snore.
Snoring is a major sign of obstructive sleep apnea, a disorder that causes you to stop breathing briefly because throat tissue collapses and blocks your airway. In severe cases, this can happen 60 to 70 times per hour. Sleep apnea can cause high blood pressure, memory problems, weight gain, and depression. An 18-year study found that people without OSA were three times more likely to live longer than those with severe apnea. If you snore and have excessive daytime drowsiness or mood changes, talk with your doctor about a referral to a sleep center.
You have a (relatively) flat belly after menopause.
Women who are too round in the middle are 20 percent more likely to die sooner (even if their body mass index is normal), according to a National Institute on Aging study. At midlife, it takes more effort to keep waists trim because shifting hormones cause most extra weight to settle in the middle. If your waist measures 35 inches or more (for men, 40 inches or more), take these steps:
Work two or three 20-minute strength-training sessions into your weekly exercise regimen to preserve lean muscle mass and rev metabolism.
Eat a daily serving of omega-3s to help combat inflammation and seven daily servings of fruits and vegetables, loaded with disease-fighting antioxidants.
Get 25 percent of your daily calories from healthy fats—such as monounsaturated fatty acids—which protect your heart and may help you store less fat in your belly (for a 1,600-calorie diet, that's 44 g).
You get your blood tested for vitamin D levels.
For optimal disease protection, we need at least 30 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood, reports a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Nearly 80 percent of Americans have less than that. Vitamin D not only helps bones ward off osteoporosis but may also reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease, and infection, says lead researcher Adit A. Ginde, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine. If needed, you can take a daily supplement to get your numbers up. Doctors can measure your levels with a simple blood test, but periodic monitoring may be necessary—vitamin D turns toxic at 100 to 150 ng/mL.
When I was younger, I knew a woman who was 105 or so. She still lived by herself, on about 5 acres of property with a couple of dogs and an assortment of cats. She'd outlived 3 husbands and a couple of her own children. She was still vivacious and happy and could be found raking leaves, gardening, baking...etc. I asked her what her secret was...because most people who live that long are in a nursing home. She said her secret was: Walk 3 miles a day, 6 days a week...no matter the weather; she never smoked, drank rarely, never used drugs. She also said, visit friends (she had a weekly group she'd go with for lunch), do things for others (active in charities in neighborhood) and have a "drop" of whiskey or bourbon in her tea before bed time. She also said she was on a regular schedule, got up at 8, went to bed at 11.
2.If you snore, you either have sleep apnea or are likely to get it in the future. This does not necessarily make it impossible for you to reach 100, but it does deteriorate your health, making it less likely. I think the big picture of how you manage your body makes more of a difference than the individual things you do, though.
In the end… the greatest factor, I think, is you attitude toward life!!
Democrats, realizing the success of the President's "Cash For Clunkers" rebate program , at least from their perspective, have revamped a major portion of their National Health Care Plan.
President Obama , Speaker Pelosi , and Senator Reid are expected to make this major announcement at a joint news conference later this week. I have obtained an advanced copy of the proposal which is named.
" CASH FOR CODGERS " and it works like this. Couple
s wishing to access health care funds in order to pay for the delivery of a child will be required to turn in one old person. The amount the government grants them will be fixed according to a sliding scale. Older and more prescription dependent codgers will garner the highest amounts.
Special "Bonuses" will be paid for those submitting codgers in targeted groups, such as smokers, alcohol drinkers, persons 10 pounds over their government prescribed weight, and any member of the Republican Party.
Smaller bonuses will be given for codgers who consume beef, soda, fried foods, potato chips , lattes, whole milk, dairy products, bacon, Brussel sprouts, or Girl Scout Cookies.
All codgers will be rendered totally useless via toxic injection. This will insure that they are not secretly resold or their body parts harvested to keep other codgers in repair.
Remember you heard it here first.
How much is your old family member worth? Turn them in to the nearest Planned Grandparenthood Center and find out! Receive cash prizes and free healthcare entitlements!
As part of a new incentive tied to Obama's upcoming healthcare reform, the network of Planned Grandparenthood Centers are to begin running ads, themed "Double Cash for Your Old Coot." The push offers a cash incentive or zero-percent financing on top of free government plans for all families whose trade-in old-timers qualify for the government's program known as "Cash for Clunkers," up to a maximum of four grandparents over 70 years of age.
Latest opinion polls show that seniors steal billions of dollars out the federal budget each year just by staying alive. This new bold initiative is calculated to save us all money by gently recycling high-maintenance old coots, thus taking them off the list of potential beneficiaries of the impeccable government health coverage.
"Everyone who signs up for our plan will get a cash incentive even if they don't turn in a qualifying old fogey," says White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "But families who trade in their useless members will also get a free premium plan and - for a limited time only - a rationing coupon for an extra unaborted baby!"
At the opening of the first Planned Grandparenthood Center in Washington, DC last week, Barack Obama offered a brief, optimistic cheer:
"In the cold-hearted, uncaring capitalist society of the past, where every man was for himself, people often reached advanced age without any government help. It is a shame that in the richest country in the world, old people were abandoned by society and survived on their own, sometimes until they were 117 years old. No one knew or cared about how long they lived because everyone paid their own medical bills. But those dog-eat-dog days are over. In the caring, collectivist America, no one will be allowed to live without government care. And since we are paying for you, we decide how long you can be a drain on the collective wallet.
"From my meetings with community activists and focus groups I have learned one thing: once you're past seventy, you have outlived your usefulness. Progress requires sacrifice. Some don't buy a large flat-screen TV, some don't go on vacation, and some don't go on living. And since humans are nothing more than a random collection of chemical elements that can also be found in a flat-screen TV, human sacrifice is no different than material sacrifice. Do it for the children!"
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.
“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.
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.
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.
People like to think that men’s brains and women’s brains are fundamentally the same. But research indicates that men and women do in fact have different structures and wiring in the brain, and men and women may also use their brains differently.
Men do score better at tasks that involve orienting objects in space, while women do better at language tests.
Scientists have known for a while now that men and women have slightly different brains, but for many years they thought the changes were limited to the hypothalamus -- the part of your brain that controls sex drive and food intake.
In 2001, researchers found that certain parts of the brain were differently sized in males and females. The study found that parts of the frontal lobe, responsible for problem-solving and decision-making, and the limbic cortex, responsible for regulating emotions, were larger in women. In men, the parietal cortex, which is involved in space perception, and the amygdala, which regulates sexual and social behavior, were larger.
Men also have approximately 6.5 times more gray matter in the brain than women, and women have about 10 times more white matter than men do. This difference may account for differences in how men and women think -- gray matter is full of active neurons, while white matter consists more of connections between the neurons.
A woman's brain is a bit more complicated in setup, but those connections may allow a woman's brain to work faster than a man's.
However, average IQ scores are the same for both men and women.
Why Men Don't Live as Long as Women
Some believe that men are more likely than women to engage in risky behavior. While these photos are by no means proof, they certainly bear out the idea.
Why Men Don't Live as Long as Women
Some believe that men are more likely than women to engage in risky behavior. While these photos are by no means proof, they certainly bear out the idea.
Both syndicated columnist host Mark Steyn and author and former political advisor to Bill Clinton, Dick Morris, said today in separate interviews… “beware of the rhetoric on healthcare”!
“ObamaCare is not about healthcare reform, it is about a power grab and taking 40% of Medicare funds (from the elderly) and redirecting them to illegals. The key to this program is not the public option or end of life counseling, it is taking funding from the elderly, giving it to younger illegals and then rationing care. So the protestors’ victories in the past few days are not what they may seem” …Dick Morris
“Fraiser Care in British Columbia (their socialized medicine) just announced that they would again be cutting healthcare for seniors as well as 15 to 20% of elective surgeries for everyone. Obama and the Dems will do whatever they can to pass an embryonic healthcare program and then burn the bridge behind them, so that there is no going back, because their ultimate goal is to get to a single-payer government-run healthcare program as part of their re-making of America program. Their entire Healthcare Program (Obamacare) is a death system with them in charge. It is the nationalization of your body.” …Mark Steyn
They both say that the co-op plan that the Dems have now started talking about is the same thing as the public option plan… which will ultimately result in a single-payer plan and government running who is covered and who isn’t, price setting, and what procedures and drugs will be given to whom!! They will also cover abortions with government money, have full access to your medical records and your bank account, if this passes.
“One third of the uninsured are 18 to 25-year-olds categorized as ‘the invincibles’ who think they are just that and don’t have a lot of money, so choose not to purchase health insurance if not covered by their parents or their employer.
Another quarter of the uninsured are adults between the ages of 50 and 65, the pre-Medicare boomers, who have lost jobs or coverage through their employer and either can’t get coverage because of pre-existing conditions of themselves or someone in their family, or can’t afford the premiums, so they are waiting and praying they will be fine until Medicare kicks in.
And then there are another 12 to 19 million illegals depending on who is supplying the figures that are not covered but will be under Obamacare. Covering illegal aliens not specifically addressed because if something or someone is not specifically excluded… they are included, which is the goal of the left!
Medicaid (coverage for the poor) is broke, primarily because of fraud and waste caused largely by duplication and could be cleaned up.” …Ceci Connolly, Washington Post
The balance of people not insured is about 5 to 8 million people who could be covered and covered cheaper by:
Trashing all 5-bills that are presently being considered in the house and Senate
Clean up Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Affairs and Reservation Benefits… by controlling fraud and waste.
Invoke serious tort reform… stopping frivolous lawsuits and restricting the awards
Do not cover abortions with public funds
Do not cover people in the United State illegally
Allow individuals and small businesses to for groups and co-ops to get better rates
Allow the purchase of health insurance across state lines
Allow portable coverage (allowing you to take your insurance with you when you leave a job or move)
Pay on results not on number of procedures
No more exclusions because of pre-existing conditions by insurance companies
Crack-down on insurance fraud
Allow coverage of natural supplements, natural and holistic procedures like chiropractic care, acupuncture etc by insurance coverage
Force Big Pharma to honor price reduction they offered Team Obama
Allow generic medications to be covered by insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, etc.
Allow sharing of information and encourage the reduction of duplication of records… but not kept and managed by the government or in a central database by a company like GE, who is in bed with Team Obama. In today’s world if large companies and groups like Kaiser, Blue Cross, Medicaid, Cigna etc kept their own central databases, forwarding information electronically or giving a copy to the patient to hand carry to avoid the duplication of procedures or tests is and would be easy. Perhaps some the unspent stimulus money could go toward helping some of these companies updating their record systems, which would also create some permanent and temporary jobs. A central database of everyone’s information is just to tempting for future problems.
If the above measures were enacted, we could pay for the 5 to 8 million who are not insured and not are insurable, lower or at least maintain our costs without changing the quality of our medical care in the United States, keep additional government intrusion out of our lives and prevent rationing.
Add to this the ideas of dozens and dozens of present and ex-Governors, Senators and Congress people plus CEO’s of companies and experts in economics and medical care from the financial end, we could perhaps level the cost increase for a few years and improve our care for everyone.
Everyone agrees that we need some kind of reform. This kind of reform, not the ObamaCare versions (any of them)
HUGE PRO-OBAMA HEALTH CARE AD CAMPAIGN UNDER WAY
As you can see from the link below, the Obama people are launching a huge TV ad blitz to restore momentum behind their health care proposals. Funded by money from drug companies and other vendors who have been bought off to back the plan, it tries to refocus the campaign for his legislation on the supposed benefits of his plan for the average person.
Click here to watch the ad. We need to counter this offensive with all our resources.
The supposed benefits of the Obama package that are enumerated in the ad are all: 1. Easily available by federal or state regulatory legislation and need not be part of an overall change in the health care system; and
2. Have largely already been agreed to by the insurance companies at their White House meetings; and
3. Were, in many cases, solved by the Kennedy Kassenbaum bill, passed in 1996, that prohibited insurers from discriminating against patients whose pre-existing conditions were covered in their old jobs.
Yet, in a bid to drum up support for the bill and its inevitable rationing of care to the elderly, Obama is presenting these measures as integral to his legislation when, in fact, they are quite extraneous to it.
Strategically, he is trying to focus the debate on the needs of the younger population and avoid addressing the catastrophe that his plan would represent for the elderly. None of the people in the ad are old and the issues are those that concern the younger, working population.
The answer is to keep the debate focused on the elderly. If their opposition to these proposals grows and reaches a tipping point (as it is doing as we speak), the Democrats will not dare pass their legislation.
PLEASE... Go here and donate funds so we can run ads attacking Obama's plan and zeroing in on what it means for the elderly. We are now on the air in Montana, North Dakota, Arkansas, and Maine. We are about to go on in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Louisiana.
We need money to advertise in North Carolina, Wyoming, Indiana, and Connecticut. Please give generously so we can reach these Senators!
Thanks, Dick Morris
If you have the time and inclination to read the healthcare bill (HR-3200 - full report) yourself it would be great, most of the Congresspeople who are holding town halls have not.
Contact your Senator and Congressperson, any Blue Dogs or moderates in pivotal states and attend a local healthcare Townhall, healthcare Tea Party on 9/12 or the Big One in Washington. Read the Bill or at least some Reviews, Read Catastrophe, educate yourself on this and related issues And then please speak out America!!!
Call the switchboard for Congress in Washington today... your Senator, Congressperson and Nancy Pelosi and tell them “NO” on Government-Run Healthcare Takeover, "NO on Cap and Trade" & NO on the Carbon Tax… and to pay back the unspent stimulus money!!!
WASHINGTON -- In the 48 hours of June 15-16, President Obama lost the health care debate. First, a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Senator Edward Kennedy reported that his health committee's reform bill would add $1 trillion in debt over the next decade. Then the CBO reported that the other Senate bill, being written by the Finance Committee, would add $1.6 trillion. The central contradiction of Obamacare was fatally exposed: From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy -- yet the Democrats' plans would make the problem worse.
Accordingly, Democrats have trotted out various tax proposals to close the gap. Obama's idea of limits on charitable and mortgage-interest deductions went nowhere. As did the House's income tax surcharge on millionaires. And Obama dare not tax employer-provided health insurance because of his campaign pledge of no middle-class tax hikes.
Desperation time. What do you do? Sprinkle fairy dust on every health care plan, and present your deus ex machina: prevention.
Free mammograms and diabetes tests and checkups for all, promise Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, writing in USA Today. Prevention, they assure us, will not just make us healthier, it also "will save money."
Obama followed suit in his Tuesday New Hampshire town hall, touting prevention as amazingly dual-purpose: "It saves lives. It also saves money."
Reform proponents repeat this like a mantra. Because it seems so intuitive, it has become conventional wisdom. But like most conventional wisdom, it is wrong. Overall, preventive care increases medical costs.
This inconvenient truth comes, once again, from the CBO. In an Aug. 7 letter to Rep. Nathan Deal, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf writes: "Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness."
How can that be? If you prevent somebody from getting a heart attack, aren't you necessarily saving money? The fallacy here is confusing the individual with society. For the individual, catching something early generally reduces later spending for that condition. But, explains Elmendorf, we don't know in advance which patients are going to develop costly illnesses. To avert one case, "it is usually necessary to provide preventive care to many patients, most of whom would not have suffered that illness anyway." And this costs society money that would not have been spent otherwise.
Think of it this way. Assume that a screening test for disease X costs $500 and finding it early averts $10,000 of costly treatment at a later stage. Are you saving money? Well, if one in 10 of those who are screened tests positive, society is saving $5,000. But if only one in 100 would get that disease, society is shelling out $40,000 more than it would without the preventive care.
That's a hypothetical case. What's the real-life actuality in the United States today? A study in the journal Circulation found that for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, "if all the recommended prevention activities were applied with 100 percent success," the prevention would cost almost 10 times as much as the savings, increasing the country's total medical bill by 162 percent. Elmendorf additionally cites a definitive assessment in the New England Journal of Medicine that reviewed hundreds of studies on preventive care and found that more than 80 percent of preventive measures added to medical costs.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't be preventing illness. Of course we should. But in medicine, as in life, there is no free lunch. The idea that prevention is somehow intrinsically economically different from treatment -- that treatment increases costs and prevention lowers them -- is simply nonsense.
Prevention is a wondrous good, but in the aggregate it costs society money. Nothing wrong with that. That's the whole premise of medicine: Treating a heart attack or setting a broken leg also costs society. But we do it because it alleviates human suffering. Preventing a heart attack with statins or breast cancer with mammograms is costly. But we do it because it reduces human suffering.
However, prevention is not, as so widely advertised, healing on the cheap. It is not the magic bullet for health care costs.
You will hear some variation of that claim a hundred times in the coming health care debate. Whenever you do, remember: It's nonsense -- empirically demonstrable and CBO-certified.
by Charles Krauthammer
And Just like there is no way to cover an additional 20 to 47 million people, depending on whose numbers you use, without increasing the cost $1.6 Tillion+, it is naive to think that we can pay for that without increases in taxes and/or rationing healthcare… or both! Add to that a doctor shortage and rampant inflation because of immense government debt and you have a crisis. And when there is a crisis, the rationing will begin out of need… QULY. Ask anyone who lives in Britain, Canada or anywhere else with a socialistic or government-run healthcare system… there are shortages and rationing. And where do you start… with the elderly, the very very young and the handicapped. Just ask the people living in Oregon under a government-run state healthcare system… There is rationing!!!
By the way, there really are only about ‘5’ million uninsured Americans and Legal Aliens that do not qualify for other programs or who do not have the money for insurance but choose to use it for other things, not 47 million!! We could make some simple sensible changes to the system we have… the best medical coverage in the world, and absorb those 5 million without destroying our medical system and turning over our lives to the government. ObamaCare is like “throwing the baby out with the bath water”, a crazy unnecessary idea!
Two existing drugs used to treat osteoporosis may be effective in killing influenza viruses, including the new H1N1 swine flu and the H5N1 bird flu viruses, researchers in Hong Kong have found.
The two drugs are pamidronate and zoledronate, which are marketed by Novartis AG under the brand names Aredia and Reclast, respectively.
In their experiment, the researchers exposed human cells that had been infected with the influenza viruses to the two drugs.
They observed that the drugs triggered extra production of a type of white blood cell called yd-T cells, which went on to kill human cells that were infected with the flu viruses.
Flu viruses can only replicate in living human or animal cells and killing infected cells would stop the viruses from replicating, the researchers said.
Professor Lau Yu-lung at the University of Hong Kong's pediatrics and adolescent medicine department described the infected human cells as "factories that will produce viruses."
"These drugs attack the viruses specifically ... This approach kills the factories that are producing viruses."
Malik Peiris, also part of the research team, said the drugs could enhance immune responses of the human body.
That was especially important as flu viruses mutate constantly, which reduces the efficacy of vaccines, he added.
The researchers plan to move next into animal and then human clinical testing.
Often Fame and Success Does Not Come Until Later In Life
Some have struggled for years in jobs, others have followed a quiet creative life and many have tenaciously held on to their entrepreneurial spirit. Yet success found them later in life. When you have dreams of something beyond your present experience, patience is your biggest friend.
Here are some examples:
Colonel Sanders had tons of blue collar jobs. When yes Harland Sanders was turning 30 yes he was still yes switching from one yes career yes to yes another yes: Steamboat pilot (yes!), insurance salesman (yes!), farmer (yes!), railroad fireman (yes!). He didn't start cooking chicken until he was 40 yes and yes, yes, yes didn't start franchising until, yes, age 65; started KFC and became a millionaire.
Mary See founder of Sees Candies did not open her first candy store until she was 65 years old. She and her son ran the company until her death.
Anna Mary Robertson "Grandma" Moses was in her 70s when she began painting scenes of her rural life in upstate New York. This self-taught artist, mother and widow became one of the most famous American folk artists of the 20th century and continued painting in her 90s.
Louise Nevelson was in her 50s when she sold her work to three New York City museums and now her art can be seen internationally in over eighty public collections. Shortly before her 60th birthday, she became President of the Artist's Equity New York chapter which was the first of many art leadership positions she would attain.
When she was just months shy of her 50th birthday, Julia Child collaborated on her first French cooking book, a two-volume set titled Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Soon after, she promoted her book on television and that catapulted her overnight sensation in the culinary world.
Up until the age of 40, devoutly religious Anton Bruckner, composed music solely for the Catholic Church. Then a meeting with Wagner turned his life around and he began to compose symphonies of epic proportion. He was working on his great Symphony No. 9 when he died at 72.
Elliot Carter has received media attention at age 100. A review from The New York Times music critic was in praise of his latest, centenarian work, Interventions, describing it as "lucidly textured, wonderfully inventive, even impish. This was the work of a living master in full command."
Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about her family's life in the 1870s and 1880s in the acclaimed The Little House on the Prairie series of books for children. She published her first book at the age of 65.
Harry Bernstein was in his 90s when he decided to write his memoirs after his wife of 67 years died. His book titled The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers and continued writing with the recently published book The Dream.
Louis Kahn, a Russian immigrant, was an important architect of the 20th century. He created his first important piece of architecture, the Yale University Art Gallery, when he was in his 50s and continued to design notable academic buildings.
As jobless architect during the Depression, Alfred Mosher Butts invented Scrabble which became the most popular word game in the world. He did not realize success of the game until his early 50s when Macy’s Chairman placed a large order and promoted it.
Charles Darwin was 50 years old when he published his complete theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species which sold out the first day it was released and subsequently had six editions. He continued to write for at least 10 more years (eg The Descent of Man).
This is a short list of many people in a variety of creative venues who pursued their passion and realized success at age 50 and beyond. Their achievements took many paths, twists and turns, and surely moments of self doubt. Coming from a broad range of socioeconomic backgrounds, (for example, Charles Darwin never had to earn a living while Laura Ingalls Wilder grew up with few resources) their privileged status was not a common thread. But I believe that these late bloomers all share an exceptional ability to persevere, a brilliant talent that would not lay quiet, a set of good genes and a stable environment. They have enriched our lives as a result of their determination and unwavering spirit and they challenge those who believe that old age is simply a negative consequence of living.
Henry David Thoreau said “I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
Some have struggled for years in jobs, others have followed a quiet creative life and many have tenaciously held on to their entrepreneurial spirit. Yet success found them later in life. When you have dreams of something beyond your present experience, patience is your biggest friend.
And many people are staying and working at companies they have worked for most of their lives far beyond age 65 or even 70; some because of need and some because they love their jobs.
Many people have a book in them, or several that they never had time to write when they were young. Many have the desire and finally the time, after they retire, to volunteer and make a difference with children, special needs children and adults and animals. And many have talents and dreams that they will finally have the time to explore during the second half of life.
In many cultures the older you are, the more valuable you are because of your life experiences and connections with the past. Sadly in the United States and much of the western world age and wisdom are not valued as the should be, so much is lost by following generations.
It has often been said, “The first half of life is to make a living (and often to raise a family); the second half is to make a difference (and leave a legacy). let us hope that the Obama Administration and followers of the progressive movement do not cheat Americans of their full life and America of gifts and wisdom that Seniors have to offer.
Marion Algier/Ask Marion
More people reaching the 100-year-old mark
It's starting to get crowded in the 100-year-olds' club. Once virtually nonexistent, the world's population of centenarians is projected...
Ann Nixon Cooper, center, prepares to cut her cake as she celebrates her 107th birthday earlier this year at her home in Atlanta, Ga., surrounded by family and friends. 107 and she look great!
Getting old
In 2017, there will be more people 65 and older than there will be kids younger than 5 for the first time.
The population of people 80 and older is projected to increase 233 percent by 2040, compared with a 160 percent increase for people 65 and over and 33 percent for the total population of all ages.
Childlessness among European and U.S. women age 65 in 2005 ranged from less than 8 percent in the Czech Republic to 15 percent in Austria and Italy. About 20 percent of women 40 to 44 in the United States in 2006 were childless.
Due to low birthrates, Japan's median age will increase from 37 in 1990 to 55 by 2050. The median age for the world during that same period will rise from 24 to 37, slowed by younger populations in Latin America and Africa.
The median age in the U.S. will edge higher from 33 to 39 during that period, kept low by higher rates of immigration.
U.S. Census
WASHINGTON — It's starting to get crowded in the 100-year-olds' club.
Once virtually nonexistent, the world's population of centenarians is projected to reach nearly 6 million by midcentury. That's pushing the median age toward 50 in many developed nations and challenging views of what it means to be old and middle-age.
The number of centenarians already has jumped from an estimated few thousand in 1950 to more than 340,000 worldwide today, with the highest concentrations in the U.S. and Japan, according to the latest Census Bureau figures and a report being released today by the National Institute on Aging.
Their numbers are projected to grow at more than 20 times the rates of the total population by 2050, making them the fastest-growing age segment.
Demographers attribute booming long-livers to decades of medical advances and improved diets, which have reduced heart disease and stroke. Genetics and lifestyle also play a factor. So, too, do doctors who are more willing to aggressively treat the health problems of people once considered too old for such care.
"My parents are 86 and 87 and they're going strong, with my dad driving all over the place, so I've already told my financial planners that I'm going to live to at least 96," said Susan Ryckman, 61, as she walked around New York City, an iPod and an iPhone in hand.
Japan, known for its low-fat staple of fish and rice, will have the most centenarians in 2050 — 627,000, or nearly 1 percent of its total population, according to census estimates.
Japan pays special respect to the elderly and has created a thriving industry in robotics — from dogs and nurses to feeding machines — to cater to its rapidly aging population.
Italy, Greece, Monaco and Singapore, aided by their temperate climates, also will have sizable shares of centenarians, most notably among women.
In the U.S., centenarians are expected to increase from 75,000 to more than 600,000 by midcentury. Those primarily are baby boomers hitting the 100-year mark. Their population growth could add to rising government costs for the strained Medicare and Social Security programs.
"The implications are more than considerable, and it depends on whether you're healthy or sick," said Dr. Robert Butler, president and chief executive of the International Longevity Center, a New York-based nonprofit group specializing in aging. "Healthy centenarians are not a problem, and many are. But if you have a demented, frail centenarian, they can be very expensive."
Butler predicted a surge in demand in the U.S. for nursing homes, assisted-living centers and other special housing, given the wave of aging boomers who will be at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. He said federal and state governments may have to reevaluate retirement benefits, age limits on driving and Medicare coverage as they struggle to redefine what it means to be old.
Wan He, a Census Bureau demographer who co-wrote the aging report, said families also will face more pressure. She noted that because of declining birthrates, there will be fewer family members to provide support if an older parent gets sick.
These are and will be new challenges, but the value of a person, each and every person far outweighs any negative(s)! Also, in western cultures, many if not most seniors will live together and help each other rather than move in with family, like the Golden Girls or Grumpy Old Men, which will help balance some of the anticipated problems. Life and paradigms change and always have. Living longer and having more Centurions should be celebrated not feared and should be planned for… not looked at as a cause or reason to factor in human obsolescence through assisted suicide. That road is a path that leads to a place that nobody should want to go!! … Marion Algier~
The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday.The committee, which has worked on putting together a bipartisan healthcare reform bill, will drop the controversial provision after being derided as "death panels" to encourage euthanasia by conservatives.
Finance Committee drops end-of-life provision
The Senate Finance Committee will drop a controversial provision on consultations for end-of-life care from its proposed healthcare bill, its top Republican member said Thursday.
The committee, which has worked on putting together a bipartisan healthcare reform bill, will drop the controversial provision after being derided as "death panels" to encourage euthanasia by conservatives.
"On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement. "We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."
The Finance Committee is the only congressional committee to not report out a preliminary healthcare bill before the August congressional recess, but is expected to unveil its proposal shortly after Labor Day.
Grassley said that bill would hold up better compared to proposals crafted in the House, which he asserted were "poorly cobbled together."
"The bill passed by the House committees is so poorly cobbled together that it will have all kinds of unintended consequences, including making taxpayers fund health care subsidies for illegal immigrants," Grassley said. The veteran Iowa lawmaker said the end-of-life provision in those bills would pay physicians to "advise patients about end of life care and rate physician quality of care based on the creation of and adherence to orders for end-of-life care."
"Maybe others can defend a bill like the Pelosi bill that leaves major issues open to interpretation, but I can't," Grassley added.
Rep. Tom Price of Georgia admonishes the Democrat government-takeover of health care. Support a real reform for health care. Congressman Price was a 25-year practicing doctor before running for office.
There are former doctors in both the House and the Senate. There are present and former Congressman, Senators and Governors that have experience with healthcare reform and there are companies like SafeWay, whose CEO’s testified before Congress. There are also Senators, Congressmen and others with common sense. None of their ideas are being listened to were used as part of any of the Healthcare Reform Bills that I have seen.
Stand-up America and don’t let the present bills pass. As Daniel Hannan of Britain and representative to the EU parliament says, “Once we put socialized medicine into affect there is almost no going back.
Have you ever stood in a line at the Department of Motor Vehicles or the Post Office? Have you ever tried to read the IRS code? Whenever the government involves itself in areas it has no business, it becomes a big bureaucratic mess. Costs and taxes go up—service and quality goes down. The only thing the government does well is get out of the way.
"In the cold-hearted, uncaring capitalist society of the past, where every man was for himself, people often reached advanced age without any government help. It is a shame that in the richest country in the world, old people were abandoned by society and survived on their own, sometimes until they were 117 years old. No one knew or cared about how long they lived because everyone paid their own medical bills. But those dog-eat-dog days are over. In the caring, collectivist America, no one will be allowed to live without government care. And since we are paying for you, we decide how long you can be a drain on the collective wallet.
