Destroying the Very Fabric of the American Healthcare System

I wish that the politicians in Washington weren't so busy building sound bites for the 5 o'clock news that they could actually get together and save America's Health Care System, but, alas, they are incapable of compromise or even intelligent analysis.

Group "A" are so determined to save the reputation of the President they will never admit they made a (gigantic) mistake or compromise to find a solution.

Group "B" is so determined to bring down the President a notch or two that they cannot offer intelligent or reasonable compromises that just might solve the problem at hand.

And the public is so caught up in the political rhetoric, many do not see the tsunami on the horizon about to drown us all.  

But make no mistake about it, the entire Health Care System in the United States, unarguably the finest health care infrastructure in the history of mankind, is months away, a year at most, from complete and utter destruction.

And it's all being caused by The Affordable Care Act, the single worst piece of legislation ever passed by the United States Congress.

About 200 million Americans will lose their current Insurance.  The replacements, if they can be found, will be significantly more expensive for most Americans (about 4/5th will pay several thousand dollars more annually) and they new insurance will have significantly higher deductibles and may well (or most certainly will) force Americans to change their doctors and hospitals.

The hospital infrastructure will collapse.  Some hospitals will be forced to close.  Others will greatly curtail services.  A few, perhaps fifty or less nationwide, will become hospitals for the super rich, those able to afford completely private care.

Sarah Palin's Death Panels of non-medical actuaries will decide on care and payments, effectively making the best care treatments unavailable except to the super rich.

The total economy is mere months away from a total collapse into recession or depression.  The ACA (or ObamaCare) is a nothing more than a hidden super-tax that will drain hundreds of millions of dollars out the middle class taxpayer's wallets, through increased (and unaffordable) premiums and deductibles. 

It's happening every day now.  Moments ago REUTERS reported that insurer UNITED HEALTH CARE is being forced to drop thousands of doctors form Medicare patients programs due to Barack Obama's ego driven theft of millions of dollars from Medicare to fund his ObamaCare albatross.

This was one hundred percent foreseeable and avoidable. Many Republicans and many pundits and analysts and blogger like me have been correctly forecasting this for three years.  But we are all branded by Democrats and media not willing to actually read the ACA bill, as anti-Obama haters.  Alas, that was never true, we were and are the lookouts, warning the people of the on-rushing waves of health care and economic destruction, begging you to save yourselves and get to higher ground.  

Every day a few more are swept away and a few more listen.  I fear it's too late.

Barack Obama's Small Business Initiative

I've been rather tough on Barack Obama's economic plans and programs and with good cause. Obama allowed Nancy Pelosi oversee the creation of Frankenstein's Stimulus Monster, an unworkable combination of hands and feet and legs and ears that can only slither off to die the death it so richly deserves. It's just a damned shame we had to pay eight hundred billion dollars for this monster.

But today Barack Obama announced an excellent group of programs and policies that stand a good chance of building a solid base for future economic growth. Obama's Small Business Initiatives will help provide much needed credit for small businesses and provide change the tax laws to help businesses survive the recession/depression. It's no substitute for the stimulus package we still need, but it will save a significant number of jobs and might actually create a few new ones.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama freed billions of dollars to help the nation's small businesses on Monday, hoping to get credit flowing again to Main Street, not just Wall Street. He heaped praise on the little guys of American industry, often overshadowed in the blitz of government bailouts. The centerpiece of Obama's latest plan will allow the government to spend up to $15 billion to buy the small-business loans that are now choking community banks and lenders. That, in turn, could allow those banks to start lending money again to small companies to invest, pay bills and stay afloat. "You deserve a chance. America needs you to have a chance," Obama said in an appeal to all those who run small businesses or hope to one day. Obama's effort was, at one level, fundamental to helping the economy rebound. Small businesses have created about 70 percent of the new jobs over the past decade, and as their credit lines have dried up, so has their ability to thrive or survive.

Barack Obama has really had a tough start to his presidency. Fortunately the press either hasn't noticed many of the real problems and issues or has purposely chosen to ignore them. And you've got to give credit to the highly coordinated Democrat Demolition Squad that has kept at least the Obama supporters clearly focused on nonsensical non-issues like Rush Limbaugh, James Cramer and Glenn Beck. What a joke. Any Democrat or liberal who has fallen for this misdirection ploy should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

But Barack Obama is genuinely a very smart guy. He is a quick study and he hasn't been "misdirected." While Carvell and company kept the adoring masses entertained, Obama has worked to strengthen his economic proposals and programs. His economic team is still woefully understaffed and Secretary Geithner is still in deep trouble, but each day shows signs of improvement.

The French Revolution

As I watch television this weekend and watch the protesters in New York DEMAND that the governor "tax the rich" instead of cutting services, I feel like I'm watching the French Revolution unfold before my very eyes.

Class warfare was at the very heart of the French Revolution! In 1789 and for ten horrific years, the country of France imploded. Millions of people died. The government was overthrown and virtually the entire upper class of French society was executed, including King Louis XVI and the legendary Marie-Antoinette. It's the stuff of legend, including many great (if highly romanticized) movies.

While I don't think for even one second our country runs the risk of revolution, many of the factors that led up to the French Revolution are identical to the situation in the United States today.

Economists tell us that recessions and depressions are cyclical. In the late 1780's France was in the midst of a major depression. But here is where the parallels get much more interesting. France was saddled with a massive National Debt. Fighting two wars had caused King Louis XV to borrow huge sums of money. Keep on mind one of those wars was the American Revolution. France had sided with and aided the colonists against England.

But the huge National Debt was way too much for the government to handle. Faced with this crushing debt, the government instituted massive tax increases on every part of society, including and especially the rich. The gigantic tax burden brought the French economy to a complete standstill. The very financial backbone of the country was broken in a manner not unlike today's banking crisis! The movement of goods and services came to a halt!

Unemployment exploded! People were unable to find work. The French monetary system stopped working and massive inflation robbed the poor from even the most basic necessities. People literally people could not afford bread.

Meanwhile King Louis and his advisers were unable to cope with the rapidly deterioration of the country's economy. Ultimately the entire country collapsed under the weight of an unrepayable National Debt.

The people of France blamed the rich! They felt, however incorrectly, that the rich were causing the problems as a ruse just to rob the poor and enslave them. This was, of course, untrue and the rich, the aristocracy, were also suffering from the complete breakdown of society. None-the less, massive protests occurred that deteriorated into riots and, ultimately, into revolution.

The goals of the revolution were noble, at least in theory. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity! The rich were forced to pay the ultimate price with the invention of the guillotine.

George Mason University has built a magnificent on-line library and resource center to study the French Revolution with hundreds of essays, text documents, images and even songs. I continue to be amazed with the sheer power of the Internet.

In another interesting parallel, it was King Louis XIV who began a centralization of power that led to the very downfall of France. Prior to that, France was a very model of decentralized capitalism. Only when Louis XIV centralized power to the Monarchy was it even possible to build the huge National debt that led the country to its downfall. But Louis XIV and Louis VX felt the government could run society better than the free market!

The sections of the George Mason University Website that discuss the monarchy are especially interesting.

Other eighteenth-century descriptions of monarchy advocated centralizing power in the hands of the King. When the Franks first decided to establish their own government to replace the fading Roman Empire, argued Jacob-Nicolas Moreau, they entrusted the King with all authority. To spread ideas such as Moreau's, French monarchs published newspapers supporting their actions. In one such periodical, the Gazette of France, the crown took a subtle rather than a propagandistic approach: it never mentioned its opponents and treated royalty with total reverence—even though the news being reported was not necessarily the most important events of the day.

Can anybody say "Rush Limbaugh?" But I digress.

The conflicts of 1787 to 1789 over the monarchy's financial problems led to a major shift in the way France was governed. In part because of the long drawn-out wars of the eighteenth century, the French government had for some time been spending much more than its annual revenue. Usually this money was borrowed. However, for reasons that historians still argue about, this source of funds dried up in the 1780s. Mounting debt and a continuing high level of expenses then forced the monarchy to seek fundamental financial change to put the state on a secure fiscal foundation.

Like Louis XVI, our President is failing to focus on the rapid deterioration of the economy or on the National debt. Instead, like the French monarchy, he is centralizing authority and control of society. We defend Obama because he wants to help the poor and improve their life. But, keep in mind, so did King Louis the XVI.

As the economy falters, President Obama is determined to implement a wide array of social programs and isn't letting the economic situation distract him from his predetermined agenda.

Don't think for even a minute that the United States can't fail under the weight of massive national debt. It can, and if the problem isn't addressed quickly, it will.

Again, revolution isn't going to happen, but a peaceful mini-revolt in Congress and on Wall Street is well underway. While Obama has failed to notice the revolt so far, it will soon slam him into with the force of a Hurricane. He will lose the support of his party and he will lose the support of the public.

We are in a full blown Depression. The stock market has crashed. People's entire life savings have been wiped out. President Obama is spending hundreds of billions of dollars completely without regard to the widespread damage the non-stop borrowing and spending is causing.

We are a peaceful and enlightened country. The lofty goals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity born in the French Revolution have taken root and grown here in the United States.

Revolution will not happen in the United States. The guillotine will not return. But the collapse of our modern day Camelot is not an impossibility. We are in a full blown Depression, just like France in the 1790's.

POST SCRIPT: Two very interesting things struck me as I read about the French Revolution. First, King Louis XVI was enormously popular throughout the revolution. He had very broad support of the people right up to, and even after, his execution!!

Second, the relative democracy of King Louis XVI's France (there was an elected Parliament with three houses of government (nobles, commoners and clergy) and an independent court system) was replaced with an absolute dictatorship of Napoleon.

Dim Sum

I'm afraid these three little dumplings I'm serving for a luncheon snack just might make you throw up........

The world is trying so very hard to awaken our partisan political leaders from their slumber. These aren't Republicans slamming the new President. These are real experts trying hard to get through the wall partisan rhetoric. Please turn off the politics long enough to listen.

1. The Wall Street Journal: The Obama Economy - "Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after five weeks in office, it's become clear that Mr. Obama's policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence -- and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth."

"What is new is the unveiling of Mr. Obama's agenda and his approach to governance. Every new President has a finite stock of capital -- financial and political -- to deploy, and amid recession Mr. Obama has more than most. But one negative revelation has been the way he has chosen to spend his scarce resources on income transfers rather than growth promotion. Most of his "stimulus" spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest."

The entire article is so very important. Click over and read it all.

2. James Cramer on CNBC: It’s Amateur Hour at Our Darkest Moment - “Until the Obama administration starts listening, until they start paying attention to what you’re watching – to the stock market, until they realize that their agenda is destroying the life savings of millions of Americans – then all I can give you is caution."



3. I spent the morning watching U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's testimony before the Senate broadcast live by both CNBC and FBN. It was riveting. Bernanke does support the Obama stimulus plan but simply couldn't warn Congress often enough that the deficit must be reigned in and quickly.

One very sad and telling moment was when a Democrat made a labored effort to place the deficit blame on President Bush. Bernanke was calm and patient and respectful, but made it very clear the Bush deficits were minor in terms of economics and in relationship to the GDP and income tax revenue. The Obama deficit is an entirely different matter.

But my point here is that after watching the testimony I switched back to MSNBC where the headline and virtually every story was the "Rush Limbaugh battles Michael Steele for the soul of the Republican Party" story worthy only of Entertainment Tonight and not a major news network. I watched for 30 minutes and the story was repeated SEVEN TIMES!!! No joke. Bernanke's testimony was never mentioned.

I couldn't believe me ears. To give some credit to MSNBC, Pat Buchanan tried to simply dismiss the "controversy" for the complete non-story it is and tried his best to spread the warning of the coming economic disaster.

But I then had to check the other two cable news networks. I dutifully watched FOX for 30 minutes and heard a great interview with Gov. Tim Kaine, the Chairman of the DNC. Kaine's honesty and candor were refreshing. The interview was intelligent and timely. And neither Michael Steele nor Rush Limbaugh were mentioned even once. And Rush was never mentioned during the entire 30 minute break.

Then I switched to CNN. CNN was covering the Bernanke testimony and the economic situation. They also covered several other news stories, most importantly a building collapse in Cologne with devastating images. But Rush Limbaugh never got a single mention.

I have often criticized FOX NEWS as being a Republican outlet. But, at its very worst, FOX has never come close to the complete journalistic sellout of MSNBC. They are doing a grave disservice to their viewers.

Picking Your Opponent

We are looking down the barrel at a ten year Depression. And that is the best case scenario. Best Case.

Barack Obama and a blind, deaf and dumb Democrat Congress have sown the seeds of the destruction of the United States and they are waiting for those seeds to germinate.

Lots and lots of folks are aware of this and they are all screaming at the top of their lungs. The Congressional Budget Office. Wall Street. The nation's leading and most respected economists. Historians. And a few politicians. And even a few in the media, mostly the financial media.



Make no mistake about it. The sky is falling. You are making the most important financial decisions of your entire life right now... whether you know it or not. The Dow dropped below 7,000 today and it will go much lower, possibly as low as 2,500. Unemployment will reach 15%. And the federal government will become technically insolvent, unable to meet its obligations or pay it's debt.

Three things will happen. First, taxes will rise on every single American, including those well below the poverty level to totally oppressive rates. Second, federal services will be cut to the bone, including medicare and social security. Finally, the government will forced to take extraordinary financial measures, either printing money without financial backing, reducing the dollar to a third world currency, or by simply defaulting on the debt, using our military power to demand restructure of debt from our creditors.

Can this be avoided? Only if the nation is totally committed to bringing our best minds and our unified political forces into solving this crisis. It will take the Democrats who control the government to actually take responsibility for their actions and bring back the fiscal responsibility they demanded, but never quite accomplished, during the Bush administration.

What is happening today is the equivalent of a thousand Hurricane Katrinas. The American people are trapped on the roves for their houses and the flood waters are rising. And the federal government's response is worse than anything during Katrina. Far from sending in troops or FEMA, the Obama/Reid/Pelosi team is pumping in more water and demanding no boats enter the rising flood. Help is not on the way.

First I believe President Obama wants to do the right things. He is not a bad man. He is naive and incompetent. He has no idea a crisis looms. He wants to reinvent America and wants to have a clear path to complete his social agenda. That would be all good, I would be the leader of his team, except there is a crisis. There are a hundred Hurricane Katrinas. The flood waters are rising. People are going to die.

So I watched MSNBC tonight and marvelled at Chris Matthews, Rachael Maddow and Keith Olbermann who decided in some sort of Machiavellian unison that the lead story on earth was Rush Limbaugh. Yep. Rush Limbaugh.

Aided by President Obama's Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, presumably with Barack Obama's approval, they made a radio talk show host the number one issue in America. The Dow has now robbed Americans of 60% of their life's savings and is crashing to deep depression levels and the most important thing on earth is Rush Limbaugh?

I feel like I'm watching Joseph Goebbels ramping up the crowds for Kristallnacht. And while Olbermann is deranged, he is no Geobbels, so a sort of an apology is in order. Demonizing Limbaugh is not the equivalent of demonizing the Jews. Olbermann isn't trying to start a race war or promote violence against conservative commentators. Well, except maybe Bill O'Reilly, but that's a whole 'nother story.

Still, you do have the leaders of the Democrat Party, many liberals (and progressives, what ever the hell they are), attempting, apparently successfully, to turn Limbaugh, rather than our failing economy, into the enemy. Since the Democrats are the ones actually destroying the economy, they really need this misdirection, this new enemy and the highly visible Limbaugh fits the bill. He's an easy target. And he is huge, in every sense of the word.

How long will this strategy work? Let's pray not long. Everyday that passes without real economic stimulus and every day that passes without real fiscal responsibility, the closer our nation moves toward the real Armageddon.

Rush Limbaugh? Are all Americans that stupid? I know for sure that Chris Matthews, Rachael Maddow and Keith Olbermann are. Robert Gibbs has played them like a fine violin. Otherwise they would cover the real news.

It's Not Morning In America, Part 2

It was good to hear former President Bill Clinton echo my earlier observation that President Obama is too terribly negative in his speeches and conversations with the American people. President Obama is very articulate, but he is not inspirational.

I believe our President is doing everything he can to help the economy and the country. He seems to be working at breakneck speed and with great organization and effort. But his efforts seem to lack optimism or, in the iconic single word symbol of his campaign, "Hope."

Bill Clinton makes exactly the same observation in his interview on ABC NEWS:

"I like [that President Obama is] trying to educate the American people about the dimensions and scope of this economic crisis," Clinton said. "I just would like him to end by saying that he is hopeful and completely convinced we're gonna come through this." "I think you will see some good economic news from the stimulus fairly soon," Clinton said. "I think you'll start to see people express gratitude for getting the unemployment benefits, the tax cuts and the food stamps. And you'll see the money flowing through the economy. Then I think you'll see every state be able to quantify how much better shape they're in, because of the education and health money."

I made the point earlier that a huge part of President Reagan's success in pulling America out of the economic mess at the end of the Carter era was Reagan's electric optimism. We all believed it was "Morning in America."

This doesn't mean you sugar coat the facts. But Obama is now slipping in the polls (down 9 percentage points in one month) and support for his stimulus package has now fallen below 50%. Now there are some very serious problems with the stimulus plan, as I've discussed in several recent posts and will discuss further in the future.

But President Obama can start to improve both his ratings and his efforts by following the advice offered by Clinton, one of the finest communicators in recent times.

It's Not Morning In America

Have you noticed how very pessimistic and negative Barack Obama has become? President Obama is forecasting a longer and longer recession and distant recovery. He is not upbeat. He is not optimistic. He is depressed.

Compare his slow, deliberate and leaden speeches with the buoyant optimism of Ronald Reagan in his first few days as President. It really was "morning in America" and the public found Reagan's optimism was contagious.

This was President Obama just yesterday, "This recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse."

Many in the retail sector (where most of my personal contacts work) are really complaining about Obama "talking down" the economy. They feel Obama is not just forecasting the coming depression, he is actually making it much worse.

I have to agree.

This afternoon the House passed the completely partisan Pelosi and Reid Stimulus Package. It is a real shame that President Obama failed to properly oversee and guide this bill. The package will do a lot of things, but it's not going to "stimulate" the economy. This mess of a pork laden goulash of a bill will not help us to recover from the current recession and, frankly, Barack Obama and his advisers know this all too well.

He dare not speak optimistically, because there is not hope on the horizon. Nor was there any change in the bills development.

Nancy Pelosi, the worst elected governmental officer in the entire history of the United States, effectively killed bi-partisanship by all herself. Not one single Republican voted for her rat (err, mouse) infested stimulus bill. And not one should have voted for it. First, it is morally and ethically wrong to vote for a bill that will damage and perhaps destroy the United States. Second, if Pelosi is bound and determined to exclude all Republican ideas and voices from the development of the bill, she deserves no support.

As a Democrat I am repulsed by Pelosi and her heavy handed and light headed power grab. With supporters like Pelosi, President Obama doesn't need enemies.

Barring a much needed miracle, the pseudo stimulus bill will now pass the Senate. But Republicans will put up a good fight.

But there will be no moral victory for the Republicans. When the country is in ruins and unemployment and inflation reach double digits, there will be no joy in saying ,"I told you so."

Barack Obama is our president and he deserves our support and loyalty. He will need to support of every American to cope and cure the damage this bill will do to our country.

Everybody Calm Down.

I am deeply concerned about the hyperventilating in Washington and among certain portions of the media over the Senate deliberations on the Economic Stimulus Package. And I'm worried most about President Barack Obama.

We are in way too big of a hurry to pass what could be a disastrous bill. Obama and a small but influential part of the media is applying massive pressure to pass the bill today. This simply must not happen. In fact, the entire bill should probably be scrapped.

Many, if not most, economists are really concerned that this massive spending package, the largest in the entire history of the nation, will doom our economy into hyper inflation and ultimate collapse. Even the bi-partisan Congressional Budget Office is screaming at the top of their collective lungs that we are about to make a serious mistake.

I'm afraid no one is listening.

What concerns me most is that Barack Obama seems to be panicking. His lack of experience and lack of knowledge is starting to show. Obama sees this crisis as his 9/11 and he his not handling it well. And it's not 9/11 either. It's a slow burn and everyone needs to calm down, study the extent and nature of the fire and then plan a coordinated effort to fight it.

Barack Obama is our President and he deserves all of our help and support. But part of that support and help is the necessity that we help our Senators and Representatives to slow down and really consider the impact of this massive spending bill.

This is not play money. We will borrow it in order to make these expenditures and it will add to our national debt.

The efforts of the bi-partisan groups of Senators now trying to forge a package is a good start. But even more analysis needs to be done before we mortgage our future.

"Desperate always reaps stupid." Dave Ramsey

I urge you to call your Senator today (the switchboards are very busy) and urge a delay, or at least a reduction, of the Stimulus Package. Every bit of contact information you might ever need to reach your Senator is here. I apologize for this "conservative" link, but it is the best and most comprehensive list I've ever seen.

More food for thought: Mitt Romney: Stimulate the economy, not government