Ann's Health-Care Plan

Ann Coulter, Free Markets, Healthcare, Liberty

ANN COULTER has a 1-page health-care plan she is practically begging Republicans to steal. Sadly, they are too statist and chicken to stand by freedom. When she’s good Ms. Coulter is very very good (and funny as no other mainstream columnist is):

“We can’t have a free market in health insurance until Congress eliminates the antitrust exemption protecting health insurance companies from competition. If Democrats really wanted to punish insurance companies, which they manifestly do not, they’d make insurers compete.

The very next sentence of my bill provides that the exclusive regulator of insurance companies will be the state where the company’s home office is. Every insurance company in the country would incorporate in the state with the fewest government mandates, just as most corporations are based in Delaware today.

That’s the only way to bypass idiotic state mandates, requiring all insurance plans offered in the state to cover, for example, the Zone Diet, sex-change operations and whatever it is that poor Heidi Montag has done to herself this week.

President Obama says we need national health care because Natoma Canfield of Ohio had to drop her insurance when she couldn’t afford the $6,700 premiums, and now she’s got cancer.

Much as I admire Obama’s use of terminally ill human beings as political props, let me point out here that perhaps Natoma could have afforded insurance had she not been required by Ohio’s state insurance mandates to purchase a plan that covers infertility treatments and unlimited ob/gyn visits, among other things.

It sounds like Natoma could have used a plan that covered only the basics – you know, things like cancer.

The third sentence of my bill would prohibit the federal government from regulating insurance companies, except for normal laws and regulations that apply to all companies.

Freed from onerous state and federal mandates turning insurance companies into public utilities, insurers would be allowed to offer a whole smorgasbord of insurance plans, finally giving consumers a choice.

Instead of Harry Reid deciding whether your insurance plan covers Viagra, this decision would be made by you, the consumer. (I apologize for using the terms “Harry Reid” and “Viagra” in the same sentence. I promise that won’t happen again.)

My bill will solve nearly every problem allegedly addressed by Obamacare – and mine entails zero cost to the taxpayer. Indeed, a free market in health insurance would produce major tax savings as layers of government bureaucrats, unnecessary to medical service in America, get fired.

For example, in a free market, the government wouldn’t need to prohibit insurance companies from excluding “pre-existing conditions.”

Of course, an insurance company has to be able to refuse new customers with “pre-existing conditions.” Otherwise, everyone would just wait to get sick to buy insurance. It’s the same reason you can’t buy fire insurance on a house that’s already on fire.

That isn’t an “insurance company”; it’s what’s known as a “Christian charity.” …

The complete column is “My health-care plan.” Read it on WND.COM, where you can read my take tonight on the latest developments. Title: “Heeere’s Health-Scare.”

Ann’s Health-Care Plan

Ann Coulter, Free Markets, Healthcare, Liberty

ANN COULTER has a 1-page health-care plan she is practically begging Republicans to steal. Sadly, they are too statist and chicken to stand by freedom. When she’s good Ms. Coulter is very very good (and funny as no other mainstream columnist is):

“We can’t have a free market in health insurance until Congress eliminates the antitrust exemption protecting health insurance companies from competition. If Democrats really wanted to punish insurance companies, which they manifestly do not, they’d make insurers compete.

The very next sentence of my bill provides that the exclusive regulator of insurance companies will be the state where the company’s home office is. Every insurance company in the country would incorporate in the state with the fewest government mandates, just as most corporations are based in Delaware today.

That’s the only way to bypass idiotic state mandates, requiring all insurance plans offered in the state to cover, for example, the Zone Diet, sex-change operations and whatever it is that poor Heidi Montag has done to herself this week.

President Obama says we need national health care because Natoma Canfield of Ohio had to drop her insurance when she couldn’t afford the $6,700 premiums, and now she’s got cancer.

Much as I admire Obama’s use of terminally ill human beings as political props, let me point out here that perhaps Natoma could have afforded insurance had she not been required by Ohio’s state insurance mandates to purchase a plan that covers infertility treatments and unlimited ob/gyn visits, among other things.

It sounds like Natoma could have used a plan that covered only the basics – you know, things like cancer.

The third sentence of my bill would prohibit the federal government from regulating insurance companies, except for normal laws and regulations that apply to all companies.

Freed from onerous state and federal mandates turning insurance companies into public utilities, insurers would be allowed to offer a whole smorgasbord of insurance plans, finally giving consumers a choice.

Instead of Harry Reid deciding whether your insurance plan covers Viagra, this decision would be made by you, the consumer. (I apologize for using the terms “Harry Reid” and “Viagra” in the same sentence. I promise that won’t happen again.)

My bill will solve nearly every problem allegedly addressed by Obamacare – and mine entails zero cost to the taxpayer. Indeed, a free market in health insurance would produce major tax savings as layers of government bureaucrats, unnecessary to medical service in America, get fired.

For example, in a free market, the government wouldn’t need to prohibit insurance companies from excluding “pre-existing conditions.”

Of course, an insurance company has to be able to refuse new customers with “pre-existing conditions.” Otherwise, everyone would just wait to get sick to buy insurance. It’s the same reason you can’t buy fire insurance on a house that’s already on fire.

That isn’t an “insurance company”; it’s what’s known as a “Christian charity.” …

The complete column is “My health-care plan.” Read it on WND.COM, where you can read my take tonight on the latest developments. Title: “Heeere’s Health-Scare.”

Update III: East Jerusalem Or One Jerusalem? (Gunning For A Jewish Neighborhood)

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, History, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

“In a 45-minute telephone call Friday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton upbraided him and demanded that he take more steps to show his nation’s commitment to peace,” writes the LA Times. The confrontation between the shrewd and the shrew was the latest round in a “dispute this week between the Obama administration and Israel,” which “has ballooned into the biggest U.S.-Israeli clash in 20 years, adding to months of strain between Washington and one of its closest allies,” the LA Times again.

Israel’s decision to move ahead with 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, announced during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden, drew criticism from Washington in language rarely directed at even Iran or North Korea. …
Clinton’s criticism, authorized by President Obama, was aimed at trying to obtain concessions from the conservative Israeli government at a moment when Netanyahu may be politically vulnerable, officials said.
The U.S. goal is to win Israeli agreement to back off the housing project and to forgo announcements of additional Jewish construction in East Jerusalem, officials said. The administration also wants Israel to agree to discuss substantive issues in new peace talks that could begin in coming days, U.S. officials said.

Netanyahu responded today:

“With regard to commitments to peace, the government of Israel has proven over the last year that it is commitment to peace, both in words and actions,” said the statement.”
The statement cited as examples Netanyahu’s inaugural foreign policy speech made at Bar Ilan University, the removal of hundreds of roadblocks across the West Bank, and its decision to freeze temporarily construction in West Bank settlements. The latter, said the statement, was even called by Clinton an “unprecedented” move.
Netanyahu’s office added in its statement that the Palestinians were continuing to thwart the political process by demanding preconditions before the resumption of peace talks. “They are orchestrating a de-legitimization campaign against Israel in international institutions.”

East Jerusalem is the issue here. Netanyahu will have to stand strong on the unity of Jerusalem. The rest is a sideshow the Obama administration has chosen to amplify, or so I suspect.

“The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem” is political, not religious or historic, argues Daniel Pipes. It is also a recent project.

Centuries of neglect, as Pipes puts it, “came to an abrupt end after June 1967, when the Old City came under Israeli control. Palestinians again made Jerusalem the centerpiece of their political program. “Mecca, of course, is the eternal city of Islam, the place from which non-Muslims are strictly forbidden. Very roughly speaking, what Jerusalem is to Jews.”

[SNIP]
HISTORY NOTWITHSTANDING, What of Palestinian families who’ve resided in the city for generations? Sure, they will have soaked in the disingenuous, bogus political case for a Palestinian religious or historical claim on the Holy City. This, I would go further than Pipes and argue, is of a piece with the Palestinian historical identity theft project. That aside, the question of generational attachment to place and property is a simple one to solve if intentions are good. People remain on their properties and extend to their Israeli neighbors—residents of the 1,600 new housing units Biden protested included—-the courtesy their brethren receive in Israel proper.

Update I (March 17): Daniel Pipes provides an updated analysis of the Washington-Jerusalem spat:

“A recent poll of American voters shows an astonishing 8-to-1 sympathy for Israel over the Palestinians,” Pipes points out. So, “picking a fight with Israel harms Obama politically – precisely what a president sinking in the polls and attempting to transform one-sixth of the economy does not need”:

“On the surface, that the Obama administration decided one fine day to pick a fight with the government of Israel looks like an unmitigated disaster for the Jewish state. What could be worse than its most important ally provoking the worst crisis (according to the Israeli ambassador to Washington) since 1975?

A closer look, however, suggests that this gratuitous little spat might turn out better for Jerusalem than for the White House.

(1) It concerns not a life-and-death issue, such as the menace of Iran’s nuclear buildup or Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas predations, but the triviality of the timing of a decision to build new housing units in Israel’s capital city. Wiser heads will insist that White House amateurs end this tempest in a teapot and revert to normal relations.

(2) If Obama et al. hope to bring down Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government, they can’t count Knesset seats. Peeling away Labor will lead to its replacement by rightist parties.

(3) An Israeli consensus exists to maintain sovereignty over eastern Jerusalem, so provoking a crisis on this issue strengthens Netanyahu.

(4) Conversely, U.S. histrionics make the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas more reluctant to enter into Washington’s counterproductive negotiations.”

Update II (March 18): Petraeus’ Palestinian Protectorate. According to Debkafile:

“President Obama and secretary of state Hillary Clinton turned down their initial proposals for easing the upset and laid down three pre-conditions for restoring normal relations with Jerusalem:
1. The Netanyahu government must extend the 10-month freeze on West Bank settlement construction to include East Jerusalem;

2. When the moratorium runs out in September, it must be renewed for the duration of peace negotiations with the Palestinians;
3. Israeli must make more concessions to the Palestinian Authority and its chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
The Israeli government was informed that until those conditions were met, its ministers would not be received in Washington by high-level American officials …”

American officials are openly insinuating that, “Israel’s settlement policy is the root-cause of Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb and of the conflicts endangering American lives in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. … Vice President Joe Biden … reportedly attacked Netanyahu for the announcement of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem by saying: ‘What you are doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.’

It is rumored that, “A much-admired American military figure, CENTCOM chief, Gen. David Petraeus, wants the Palestinian Authority added to CENTCOM’s turf” so that the US can protect the PA from Israel.

Update III (March 19): Gunning For A Jewish Neighborhood. The American Thinker (via Larry Auster):

Ramat Shlomo, is a Jewish neighborhood and has been so for thirty years. It is surrounded by other Jewish neighborhoods, and no Israeli in his right mind would consider surrendering it in any final peace deal with the Palestinians. Giving up Ramat Shlomo would be the equivalent of giving up the world-famous Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, the tony Jerusalem suburb of French Hill, and even the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. All three are just as integrated into the Jewish identity of Jerusalem as Ramat Shlomo. Only by accepting the Palestinian narrative — that all of Jerusalem belongs to the Palestinians — could anyone possibly envision the suburb as future Palestinian territory.

AND:

There is absolutely no connection between the construction of apartment units in Ramat Shlomo (still two years distant) and the intent of Islamic martyrs to kill American soldiers thousands of miles away. The same number of American servicemen will be targeted and killed in the Middle East no matter what happens in northern Jerusalem.

So from what playbook are Barack Obama and his administration reading in breathing life into a crisis that should never have been? It is, I believe, simply this: Obama sees the world in terms of a rather protean struggle between the weak and the strong, the poor and the rich. The weak in his eyes are almost always innocent purveyors of righteousness while the powerful personify greed and oppression. The same worldview permeates his domestic policies…

Update II: Waiting For The Weasel Vote (Baier Badgers Barack)

Democracy, Democrats, Healthcare, Media, Regulation, Republicans

“A procedural sleight of hand,” the Washington Post calls Pelosi’s putative plan to pass her hulking healthcare bill without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers “deem” the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic — known as a “self-executing rule” or a “deem and pass” — has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

“It’s more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know,” the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. “But I like it,” she said, “because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill.”

This is not unusual; Republicans have resorted to “deem and pass” in the past, but will now make a big fuss, I hope. However, let this country not be lauded, as it often is, by the pundit peanut gallery for the great democracy it is. It is well-accepted that in a democracy the minority is thwarted. Less accepted is the fact that democracy bypasses the majority as well.

Update I: Via Glenn Beck a chart depicting the bypassing of democracy discussed in this post:

Update II (March 17): BAIER BADGERS BARACK. Bret has to be saluted for his valiant efforts to get this smooth operator of a president to answer a question instead of mouth agitprop, in this exclusive FoxNews interview. It’s worth watching Baier at work. He’s good. But, of course, the top propagandist had the upper hand in the end.