I am absolutely sick at the Democrat’s evident intent to ram their healthcare takeover through without even having a proper vote.  They are now planning to just “deem” it passed. Sick with rage – how dare they?  Sick with fear – can they?  Sick with worry – will we, the people, tolerate this?  And if we won’t, what exactly would that look like?  It’s that thought that makes me sick with fear. But not, perhaps, as fearful as I will be if we will tolerate it.

This is a naked abuse of power – the likes of which the now-silent moonbats screeched about for eight years of the Bush administration, and he never even came close to this level of abuse of the Constitution.  If they rammed it through by virtue of winning a real vote – they have the majority in both houses, after all – that would be enraging since I so heartily disagree with it, but it would not be blatantly unconstitutional.  If it is “deemed passed”, the legislation itself ceases to be the main problem.  Not that it will not be bad, really bad – the entitlement state is already collapsing.  Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are unsustainable.  But if they ram through legislation federalizing one-sixth of our economy, allowing government to essentially make public utilities of formerly private companies, and to dig this deeply into each citizen’s daily life without having a real vote, then that means that Congress has entirely abdicated our current system of government.   We will have gone from a federal republic to a banana republic overnight.

It doesn’t help that I’m also sick in a more mundane way – physically ill. My head is splitting, I can hardly breathe and my throat is so sore it’s difficult to speak.  So doubtless that’s contributing to my discouragement level.  But apart from that, this is truly sickening.

President Obama is fond of announcing that “the time for talk is over.”  (Shut up, he explained.)  Just one question.  If the time for talk is over, why don’t they shut their yaps and vote already?  Oh, right… it’s because they don’t have the votes they need to ram this monstrosity down our collective throat.  Yet.  They know they’re going to be beaten like a rented mule in November, regardless of whether it passes.  They know it’s going to be a long, long time before voters welcome them back.  So for the foreseeable future, this is their only chance to expand government power, and they’re desperate to take it.  It would be funny, if it weren’t so pathetic and scary.

It’s working right now.  Some doctors in Colorado – sans FDA approval, because they don’t need it for what they’re doing – are helping people avoid surgery and drastically improving their lives right now.  And they don’t have to kill a single baby to do it.

They’ve treated 348+ patients with 800+ injections and show no signs of slowing down. According to RSI’s own surveys, 89% of their knee patients showed marked improvement, as did 75% of their hip patients! Within months some patients can walk or run in ways they haven’t been able to in years.

Simply amazing:

Faster, please.

Because price controls worked so well in the 1970s, let’s try them on health insurance!

Those of us who remember the 1970s recall the frolics sparked by America’s last great experiment with widespread price caps – namely, those on oil and natural gas. The resulting short supplies gave us the thrill of waiting in long lines – and sometimes even getting into fistfights – for the privilege of buying a few gallons of gasoline.

This is beyond stupid.  It’s criminal.  The rate hike that has Obama’s panties in a knot is not because Mean Evil Big Insurance hates its customers.  It’s because they are regulated to a fare-thee-well, and losing customers because of the near-doubling of unemployment since the Democrats took over Congress.

It’s basic economics and common sense, not a conspiracy theory: [Read more...]

In contrast to their editorials supporting the expansion of Medicaid, this NYT article unwittingly supports several key conservative arguments against government health care:

We’re already at the breaking point, and the nation cannot afford for the Democrats to add more people to the government health care rolls:

Facing relentless fiscal pressure and exploding demand for government health care, virtually every state is making or considering substantial cuts in Medicaid, even as Democrats push to add 15 million people to the rolls. [Read more...]

Via.

For insight into what’s going through your doctor’s mind when he orders all those “just in case” tests, here’s a must-read by Dr. Happy: Why Does Rule Out Testing Feel So Good? Follow him through the patient exam, consider the symptoms, and then throw common sense out the window because John Edwards (D-Ambulance Chaser) and his comrades may destroy you if you don’t:

Do you send the patient home with a diagnosis of panic attack and follow up with her doctor? Or do you pursue further testing for pulmonary embolism? That is the million dollar question. And let me answer it for you. Our current system is set up to pursue the diagnosis of exclusion without regards to cost. And here’s why. Doctors act out of fear. [Read more...]

Back when Senator Kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer, evidently my post noting the news was the harshest Slate could find on the conservative web. The right certainly displayed more decency than the left did upon hearing of Tony Snow’s diagnosis.  Slate said I was “on guard for hagiography.” And now that Kennedy has died, I have not been disappointed.

I have empathy for the Kennedy family. I spent all day Monday at a funeral and the following reception, and it’s not like I’ve forgotten what grief is. It’s a sad day and I will certainly pray for them.  But since the left is not hesitating to use his death to forward their political goals, I will match their level of respect by pointing out an inconvenient truth.

Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a form of cancer where patients typically live about a year after diagnosis.  In spite of the fact that he was old, obese, and a heavy drinker without any serious hope of recovery even with massive healthcare expenditures, he did not go home and take pain pills.  On the contrary, he quickly assembled a team of more than a dozen experts from all academic centers over the country, and decided to have a surgery that the experts were sharply divided on.   He utilized an option that will never be available to the rest of us if the left succeeds in providing “Medicare for all.”

So I’ll honor Senator Ted Kennedy by fighting for my right to emulate him in accessing health care to the extent that I want to and can afford.