Category Archives: Regulation

Update II: Warning: Postal Worker Coming to A Clinic Near You (The Race Rot)

Affirmative Action, Debt, Economy, Film, Political Correctness, Race, Regulation, Socialism, The State

This week’s column, “Warning: Postal Worker Coming to A Clinic Near You,” is too lyrical for my liking. Nevertheless, if I’ve learned anything as a writer, it is the power of a personal story.

So do read about the latest incident in “a seven-year saga” at my local branch of the United States Postal Service.

The incident “was no more than a sadistic display of power, honed in a state monopoly, where captive ‘customers’ are pinned down like butterflies by ‘service providers.’ The discretion left to such petty tyrants is wide—fear of being fired minimal, if non-existent.”

“Just you wait until a postal worker of this caliber, subject to the same disincentives, is in charge of determining whether to schedule your emergency CAT Scan (or maybe not). You don’t wish to set that cat among the poor pigeons. These will be the very beasts rising out of the sea of statism unleashed by a government-controlled healthcare system.”

To get a glimpse of President Camacho’s post office, read “Warning: Postal Worker Coming to A Clinic Near You,” now up on WND.COM, and on Taki’s Magazine every weekend.

Update I (Sept. 4): Presumably, everyone who reads this blog has watched “Idiocracy.” It’s compulsory. I mention in “Warning: Postal Worker Coming to A Clinic Near You,” that the dialogue with “sour-Asian-lady-who-speaks-in-tongues” and “rude-African-American-guy” was precisely the kind of dialogue Joe Bauers, the protagonist in Mike Judge’s superb satire “Idiocracy,” had conducted with the “‘tarded” doctor character. Here’s a snippet (make sure to click on the sound clips for full effect):

Doctor (Justin Long): “Hey, how’s it hang, ese?”
Doctor: “Well, don’t wanna sound like a d-ck or nothin’, but, uh, it says on your chart that you’re bleeped up. Uh, you talk like a fag, and your sh-t’s all retarded. What I do is just like, like, you know… like, you know what I mean? Like– (chuckles)”
Joe: “No, I’m serious here.”
Doctor: “Don’t worry, scrot. Now, there are plenty of ‘tards out there living really kick-ass lives. My first wife was ‘tarded.” She’s a pilot now.
Joe: “I need for you to be serious for a second here, okay? I need help.”
Doctor: “There’s that fag talk we talked about.”

Update II (Sept. 5): THE RACE ROT. Before I address Mr. Davis’ fabulous letter, hereunder, which also rejects the “bigot” epithet another reader attached to me, check the column on Taki’s Magazine, where Richard Spencer, the young, hip (and dashing) editor posted a picture of the “‘tard” doc, screaming when he discovers Joe is an “unscannable.” I can’t get enough of “Idiocracy.”

Back to the cast in the column. “Sour-Asian-lady-who-speaks-in-tongues”: Yes, too many native Americans speak bad English, but not all speak in tongues. Ignoring her “heritage” would have made the column forced, artificial and phony.

Next: “Who ya gonna call? Ghost Busters!” Indeed, who did I call on to rescue me from the Asian service clerk? The African-American gentleman. At least I thought he was one. I asked sourpuss to call him because he had struck me on a previous session in the “coven” as standing head-and-shoulders above the rest in his pleasant, professional demeanor (and he was certainly buff). He turned out to be a “‘tard.”

Had I been concerned with race—or even prone to thinking in such terms—I would have mentioned that the “feral female PO devotee” who accosted me on my way out was white. Or that the sweet young woman who took the initiative and rescued me was Hispanic.

I did neither. When you tell a story, some facts contribute to the narrative; others don’t. If anything, shying away from these descriptions rings false and racist. I wrote spontaneously. I was plotting neither a PC or an un-PC piece.

I’m an individualist. However, I have also said the following in this interview with Dr. David Yeagley:

“Broad statements about aggregate group characteristics, provided they are substantiated by hard evidence, not hunches, are not incorrect. Science relies on the ability to generalize to the larger population observations drawn from a representative sample. People make prudent decision in their daily lives as to where to invest scarce and precious resources—to wit, one’s life and property—based on probabilities and generalities.”

So while I treat each and every person on his merit, I do not shy away from speaking openly about demographic data.

I once lamented that, “We used to be able to joke about stereotypes without shrieking, ‘racism, Anti-Semitism,’ ‘Occidentalism,’ ‘Orientalism,’ ‘Eurocentrism,’ and that, “There is some truth to them.”

Life On The 'Swedish American Health-Plantation'

Healthcare, Liberty, Pop-Culture, Propaganda, Regulation, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Socialism, The Zeitgeist

Thomas Fleming administers a dose of reality about our “Swedish American health-plantation,” the lying conservatives and their standard-bearers, Palin and Gingrich, an infantile and retarded under-class that makes for a sizable clamoring class, and most enjoyable: the good doctor cocks a snook at a servile, stupid, unfree people afraid to live or die:

“I eat when I’m hungry, drink when I’m dry,

And if whiskey don’t kill me, I‘ll live till I die.”

Spoken like a free man.

Read “Just Say No — To Healthcare”:

“The American medical system, however, teaches us to live each day in bondage to death. Not dying—as opposed to living well–is the big objective, followed only by being healthy. This is exactly like our educational system that is not at all concerned with training minds to be intelligent and creative but is only interested in propaganda, basic literacy and job skills. Since they cannot really improve the performance of the stupid, they create equality by stultifying the intelligent. The result of the American Health Education and Welfare State is three generations of Americans who are stupid, timid, and servile, incapable of appreciating anything better than Michael Jackson and Desperate Housewives. They cannot even roll their own cigarettes; indeed, they don’t smoke, not because it is a stupid vice but because it will cut short their entirely pointless lives. There is truth in what we used to say in the good old days, ‘Anyone can quit smoking, but it takes a man to face cancer.'” …

Read the complete post.

Life On The ‘Swedish American Health-Plantation’

Healthcare, Liberty, Pop-Culture, Propaganda, Regulation, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Socialism, The Zeitgeist

Thomas Fleming administers a dose of reality about our “Swedish American health-plantation,” the lying conservatives and their standard-bearers, Palin and Gingrich, an infantile and retarded under-class that makes for a sizable clamoring class, and most enjoyable: the good doctor cocks a snook at a servile, stupid, unfree people afraid to live or die:

“I eat when I’m hungry, drink when I’m dry,

And if whiskey don’t kill me, I‘ll live till I die.”

Spoken like a free man.

Read “Just Say No — To Healthcare”:

“The American medical system, however, teaches us to live each day in bondage to death. Not dying—as opposed to living well–is the big objective, followed only by being healthy. This is exactly like our educational system that is not at all concerned with training minds to be intelligent and creative but is only interested in propaganda, basic literacy and job skills. Since they cannot really improve the performance of the stupid, they create equality by stultifying the intelligent. The result of the American Health Education and Welfare State is three generations of Americans who are stupid, timid, and servile, incapable of appreciating anything better than Michael Jackson and Desperate Housewives. They cannot even roll their own cigarettes; indeed, they don’t smoke, not because it is a stupid vice but because it will cut short their entirely pointless lives. There is truth in what we used to say in the good old days, ‘Anyone can quit smoking, but it takes a man to face cancer.'” …

Read the complete post.

Updated: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Obamacare …

Constitution, Democrats, Free Markets, Healthcare, Individual Rights, Political Economy, Regulation, Socialism

“Adding an 800-pound governmental gorilla into the healthcare marketplace, under any name, is still a net, enormous loss of your healthcare freedom and choice—not a gain,” avers Robert Bidinotto. “We need to stop this fraud in its tracks.”

Bidinotto is talking about the “Co-ops,” of which I have written: they “will offer a good deal of co-optation and not many options. Those who’re smitten by B.O.’s Svengali-style hypnotism will welcome the news that he and the secretary of Health and Human Services will be running their cozy ‘co-op.”

Writes Robert:

The Sunday papers are announcing that the White House is going to “retreat” on the so-called “public option” — i.e., a government healthcare option to compete with the private insurers. Instead, they are getting bipartisan support for establishing a publicly funded healthcare “co-op.”

See here: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aRqy6w7DFAB0

But this is no “retreat.” The co-op arrangement is simply the public option by another name, and by a more circuitous, stealthy route — with the same ultimate objective: nationalized healthcare.

Understand that the “co-op” would be funded by the government (i.e., the taxpayers). More importantly, to get admission into the co-op, insurers would have to abide by the new governmental regulations regarding coverage, treatments, premiums, etc.

Ah, but this still would be “private,” right? Not according to Health and Human Services Sec. Nancy Sebelius. See this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul

Here is her “money quote” from that article about the co-ops, which gives away the White House’s game:

“I think there will be a competitor to private insurers,” Sebelius said. “That’s really the essential part, is you don’t turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing.”

Make no mistake, then: This is no liberal “retreat” from governmental healthcare. The new “co-op” is explicitly intended to be “a competitor to private insurers.” While ObamaCare would inject this new government entity into the healthcare marketplace, it simultaneously would

* impose onerous, costly new mandates on private insurers,

* mandate participation by unwilling individuals and small businesses, under penalty of whopping fines,

* outlaw any private insurers that refused to adopt the new government-imposed rules, and

* compel taxpayers to fund the arrangement.

Eventually, inevitably, the only private insurers that could survive this arrangement would have to operate like branch offices of the Medicare program — simply administering government “mandated” coverage, services, treatments, medicines, etc.

Rather than “single payer” socialized medicine, then, this would be more like fascist medicine: a merely nominal “private” system, in which a handful of big healthcare insurers and providers took their marching orders from the federal government.

Robert has compiled a comprehensive list of links on the healthcare Obamination:

THE PENDING BILLS:

Text of HR 3200, the main House bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.3200
(Note that each section listed is a link to the text in that section)

Text of the initial Senate bill:
http://help.senate.go/BAI09A84_xml.pdf

COSTS OF OBAMACARE:

Here is Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) June 15 letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy analyzing his Senate committee version of the healthcare legislation, which proposes “health insurance exchanges.” It concludes that this would add one trillion dollars to existing federal deficits over a decade, with a net decrease in the number of uninsured of only 16 million out of the 47 million currently claimed to be uninsured:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/103xx/doc10310/06-15-HealthChoicesAct.pdf

Here is the CBO’s more recent letter, demolishing the argument that “preventive medicine” and “wellness” options will lower the overall costs of Obamacare. In fact, says the CBO, these measures will raise costs:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/104xx/doc10492/08-07-Prevention.pdf

Here is the CBO’s July 17 assessment of H.R. 3200, one of the House bills, projecting a net deficit increase of $239 billion over ten years, with far greater costs after 2019. This analysis, of course, is limited solely to financial cost considerations; it says nothing of the other onerous, coercive provisions of the bill, including skyrocketing taxes on “the rich,” and “employer mandates” on small businesses. Nor does it discuss the inevitable negative impact of the legislation on the supply of healthcare (e.g., doctors, hospitals, etc.):

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/104xx/doc10464/hr3200.pdf

Here is the CBO’s June 16 letter to two senators, which outlines more generally the budget impact of an expanding federal role in healthcare, after factoring in increased subsidies and universal coverage. Pages 2-3 of the supporting document say this would lead to a “permanent increase of roughly 10 percent in the federal budgetary commitment to healthcare,” and actually “cause national spending on healthcare to increase.” The CBO then assesses an array of potential cost-saving mechanisms. However, some of the most fruitful of these—i.e., changing the tax-exempt status of employer-provided health insurance, and tort reform—have already been taken off the table by congressional Democrats. Nor will the current rush to pass legislation give Congress enough time to properly weigh and assess these options and determine their likely unintended consequences. The potential for real long-term savings is thus bleak, and the CBO projections of budget-busting long-term cost increases remain:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/103xx/doc10311/06-16-HealthReformAndFederalBudget.pdf

OTHER CONCERNS ABOUT OBAMACARE:

A section-by-section analysis and critique of major provisions in House bill 3200:

http://www.classicalideals.com/HR3200.htm

“Five Freedoms You’d Lose Under ObamaCare,” from Fortune magazine

dex.htm”>http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/health_care_reform_obama.fortune/index.htm

A concise presentation, in Time magazine, of basic internal contradictions in ObamaCare claims:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1914973-1,00.html

Two important articles offering everything you need to know about government healthcare rationing:

1. “The Road to Rationing” — showing how the idea of “a right to healthcare” leads inexorably to socialized medicine. Outstanding!
http://atlassociety.org/cth-43-2217-road_to_rationing.aspx

2. “Rationing by Any Other Name” — showing the difference between market “rationing” of goods and services, and political rationing of goods and services.

http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/08/rationing_by_any_other_name.php

A systematic refutation of numerous claims made by President Obama during his New Hampshire “town meeting” on healthcare:

http://keithhennessey.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/hennessey-memo-debating-portsmouth.pdf

An article explaining that what Democrats are advocating is not insurance, but the elimination of the basic principles of insurance, as such — and the substitution of a new governmental welfare entitlement for insurance:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/05/obamas_war_on_health_insurance_97767.html

A brief compilation of comparative medical care statistics from the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain, demolishing many myths about the alleged superiority of nationalized healthcare:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/49525427.html

Links to statements by leading Democrats and prominent Obamacare supporters, all acknowledging that various “public option” proposals, including the “co-op” and “insurance exchanges,” are mere stepping stones toward the eventual implementation of “single-payer” nationalized healthcare, and the elimination of private healthcare insurance:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/08/you_want_context_drudge_will_g.asp> — President Obama

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/07/30/barney_frank_admits_public_option_would_lead_to_single-payer_system.html — Barney Frank

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bY92mcOdk> — Obama, Frank, and Cong. Jan Shakowsky

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheri-and-allan-rivlin/5-steps-to-major-health-c_b_249516.html — writers in the liberal Huffington Post

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=5cb3998e-3ee2-494a-ac7d-763a37a6643c – a senior editor of The New Republic

A top Atlanta eye doctor weighs in on government medicine, speaking from experience:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/obamacare_and_me.html

A Washington Post editorial staff member raises serious, non-exaggerated concerns about the “end-of-life counseling” provision in the House bill:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/07/AR2009080703043.html

20 Questions to Ask Your Congressman on Healthcare:

http://www.intellectualactivist.com/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=1126>

OBAMACARE vs. FREE-MARKET REFORMS AND PRIVATE ALTERNATIVES:

A Washington Post report quantifying the huge impact of “defensive medicine” in increasing healthcare costs, yet noting the refusal of Democrats and the lawyer lobby to any efforts at tort reform, which could dramatically reduce these unnecessary healthcare costs:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073002816.html

Links to comprehensive information about the various government proposals, and also to a host of free-market alternative plans that Obamacare proponents refuse to consider:

http://healthcare.cato.org/obama-congressional-plans

http://www.heartland.org/suites/health%20care/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203609204574316172512242220.html?mod=djemEditorialPage (what to do about people with pre-existing conditions)

FROM THE MERCER VAULT:

The Authentic Ass-troturfers
8/14/2009
Destroying Healthcare For The Few Uninsured
8/7/2009
Code Blue! How Canada Care Nearly Killed My Kid
7/31/2009
Obama’s Politburo Of Proctologists

Update (August 18): I’m indulging Robert Bidinotto and posting this: “How American Health Care Killed My Father.” Robert dubs this long, drawn-out essay the best he’s read in the topic. I completely disagree; it’s boring, discursive, takes ages to buildup to a point, and is full of linguistic redundancies (“cements in place”). I could read no more when the writer left off the dead grandpa and picked-up with the wisdom of his grandma, having still not made a material point.

In any case, you be the judge, and do distill any worthwhile, “new” insights for us. As someone who’s able to make crucial points in 850 words, I think prolixity ought to be punished, not lauded.