Some Things Are More Random Than Others

On the one hand, we have the narrative, pushed by Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, John Dingell, Barack Obama, the media and countless left wing bloggers (I set a record here – six levels of redundancy) that protesters at town hall meetings are Nazis, fascists, un-American, screaming maniacs, members of the KKK and generally unfit for general society.

Then we have a perfectly randomly selected cross section of randomly chosen random Americans who showed up randomly and behaved with perfect manners at an Obama event where he vowed to take on tough questions. And a randomly chosen questioner of Obama was chosen randomly with no regard to her mother’s very, very, very active support of Obama during his campaign. At random.

And the majority of the media reports this complete randomness with a straight face.

Fox News has a few observations:

Kathleen Manning Hall, Julia Hall’s mother and a coordinator of Massachusetts Women for Obama during the campaign, was seated next to the girl as she asked the question — prompting some to question whether Obama recognized the girl or her mother.

But thousands of organizers worked for Obama during the campaign, White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said, dismissing suggestions that the president knew those who questioned him on Tuesday.

“The president selected questions at random, as he always does,” Cherlin told FOXNews.com.

The friendliness of the audience at Obama’s event was in stark contrast to the often rowdy and antagonistic crowds that attended similar events held around the country by members of Congress.

As an organizer and donor, Manning Hall had previously met first lady Michelle Obama, Obama daughters, Sasha and Malia, and Vice President Biden, according to a report published Wednesday in the Boston Globe. And her daughter also attended this year’s White House East egg hunt, according to WCVB-TV, the ABC affiliate in Boston.

So, who believes Obama’s audience – or questioners – were chosen at random? Raise your hands – then slap yourself.

The left whined and screeched that Bush hand selected his audiences and wouldn’t let them in to make scenes. But they accept with childlike wonder that Obama mystically selected – completely randomly – all friendly people and friendly questioners.

How much contempt does the White House have for the American people’s intelligence?

It Does Not Compute, It Does Not Compute

Spending more to save money:

One reason preventive measures can cost so much is because they often need to be applied to a big chunk of the population in order to avoid a few cases of a disease. Most of the people receiving the preventive care wouldn’t get sick anyway.

Of course, just because a preventive measure adds to overall costs doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. The Circulation study, for instance, estimated that more widespread use of preventive measures against heart disease would reduce heart attacks and strokes in the U.S. When preventive measures accomplish that at a reasonable cost they are said to be cost effective even when they add to overall health spending. It’s important not to confuse the two concepts when you hear health reform debated.

You won’t be surprised to learn that American doctors already tend to prescribe preventive measures more readily than doctors in other medically advanced countries. A recent peer-reviewed paper by Samuel H. Preston and Jessica Y. Ho at the University of Pennsylvania’s Population Studies Center finds, for instance, that U.S. doctors screen more vigorously for cancer than doctors in Europe and administer cholesterol-lowering drugs more commonly, too. About 88 percent of Americans with high cholesterol receive statins and similar drugs, compared to just 62 percent of Europeans, the study found. The more aggressive treatments account for better outcomes in the U.S. for everything from several types of cancer to cardiovascular disease, the authors estimate in their paper, entitled “Low Life Expectancy in the United States: Is the Health Care System at Fault?” (Their answer, by the way, is no.)

If you have followed the health care debate you can see the contradictions inherent in such data. On the one hand, critics of our medical system say that we spend so much more of our gross domestic product on health care than other advanced countries because our doctors overprescribe. But much of what they are overprescribing are tests and other preventive measures–like cholesterol-lowering drugs. Meanwhile, President Obama and others continue to advocate reform that includes even more preventive care, but to save money. It simply doesn’t compute.

Or, what he said.  

The extravagant claims of vast savings from ObamaCare have been shot down over and over again by the Congressional Budget Office. Yet the claims are simply repeated louder and louder while the speakers hold their fingers in their ears and refuse to listen to the fact-based criticism from the CBO. 

People – good, decent honest people – are worried about the cost of health care. And they are hoping that Obama’s “reform” can help contain the beast. Unfortunately, the hope is futile. These schemes will cost more and more, not less and less. They will raise insurance rates, they will raise taxes, they will cost jobs and economic growth.

You cannot save money by spending more. If, as the studies indicate, a lot of the high costs from the existing system is due to the prescribing of preventative tests and procedures, how will adding millions more consumers of that overprescribed preventative care save money?

Sort answer: It won’t. Instead, insurance prices will skyrocket, care will be rationed (with first crack at resources to politicians and Federal employees) and treatments will be denied. Pills instead of treatment will be the only thing some people get. That is Obama’s stated preference. That is the concept Obama’s budget director, Peter Orszag has been publicly pushing.

Unless you want to be Orszaged – declared “not cost effective” – and given pills rather than treatment, you might want to start paying attention to what is really going on here. It is not “reform”. The insurance companies and the drugmakers largely back these “reforms”.

That should worry you. A lot.

Finally Listening

David Harsanyi:

If the government-run health bill doesn’t pass, it won’t be the result of anyone’s voice being quashed. In fact, I would be curious to meet the herculean life-form that has the capability to “drown out” either President Barack Obama or Pelosi.

No television, radio or Web site is immune from the rhetorical maneuverings of our dear leader. Not even “American Idol” could stop Obama from appearing in five prime-time news conferences already. (George W. Bush had four his entire presidency. Don’t get me wrong, though; that was best for everyone involved.) If we had any more Obama, he’d require his own station. Oh, wait. …

Not long ago, ABC News aired a prime-time health care reform misinformercial directly from the White House. Not a single critic was allotted serious time to dispel this hourlong homage to munificent leadership. This, despite the fact that John Stossel, one of ABC News’ most popular personalities (and one of the most effective opponents of government-run health care), was, I assume, available to question the president.

If Obama desired a vigorous debate, as he claims, he would debate vigorously. Instead, the president has launched snitch e-mails and a “reality check” section on the White House Web site, which allows the administration to conflate over-the-top accusations (e.g., “death panels”; the only thing being euthanized, of course, would be quality health care) with completely legitimate concerns (the “public option” and how it would displace tens of millions from their current doctors and insurance).

Now a “drowned-out” Pelosi has headed to the pages of the newspaper with the largest circulation in the nation to accuse the growing number of involved citizens who feel the health care agenda threatens their livelihoods and the country’s future of acting “un-American.” How’s that for vigorous debate?

The left is prone to claiming that they are being silenced – on national television. This has been a very regular claim by them. And the national media cooperates, repeating the claims while providing lots and lots and lots of expensive air time for the left to make their claims. Harsanyi’s point here – that the fear of the White House, the left and the media (triple redundant) is not that they are being silenced, but that regular people are finally listening to what they have said.

Like Obama’s own words:

In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don’t unthinkingly approve “additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care.”

He added: “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.”

Or:

“My answer is that if the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining…then I think private insurers should be able to compete.  They do it all the time.  I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right?  No, they are.  It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.”

This is really what they are afraid of. Not of being silenced. Quite the opposite. They are afraid of being understood.

Maskirovka

Prior to Nancy Pelosi accusing protesters at congressional town hall meetings, I never saw a swastika in any of the photos I saw from these protests. Prior to John Dingell proclaiming that the protesters reminded him of the KKK, I don’t recall any incidents of any sort attributable to the protesters other than rude behavior when they were themselves treated rudely – or talked down to. Prior to the White House itself proclaiming that they would “punch back harder” did any violence occur. After that proclamation, the violence was supplied not by the protesters but by SEIU goon squads beating protesters.

But now the media is awash with report after report after report of all sorts of things. Many of those things do not appear quite right. Like this one:

Note the black man holding up the poster. This screenshot was used in reports by the MSM who painted the protesters as Nazis. Here’s the thing, though – that black man is a Dingell supporter! Last Friday, Frank Beckmann on his show broadcast on WJR 760 AM interviewed an eyewitness that said not only were union thugs let in through a side door before anyone else was let into the venue, but that he clearly saw from his vantage point that very Obama as Hitler poster in that back hallway after the union thugs took their seats. The interview was around 11:00am, but WJR chose not to post that audio (they only tend to select one or two clips a day to post). I thought it would have been bigger news, and needed more than just that to write a post, albeit an audio clip would have partially sufficed. In any case, I’ve been scouring YouTube and the web for more info, and have finally found some. Here is one account that was posted Monday over at FreeRepublic:

A couple that were at Dingals TH meeting said there was a black man outside with a sign comparing Obama the Adolf Hitler. After the meeting ended and when everyone was leaving this same man was handing out Dingal campaign flyers.

Please watch the videos, it explains a great deal. I think we are seeing false flag operations – but the Russian word maskirovka fits even better. The Obama besotted media reports these incidents as straight news without asking any questions of the perpetrators. 

I posted about something that just does not seem right yesterday. Why was that man wearing a pigtail earpiece that appears to be identical to the one the reporter for the story was wearing? Could this also be related? I do not know. 

But I do know, by the left’s own admissions, that they coordinate their actions. I know, from the White House’s own admissions that they coordinate the left wing elements.

And we suddenly have a barrage of things that “prove” the assertions of some of the most openly left wing Democrats?

Nothing suspicious here, right?

Lies, Damned Lies And Economic Recovery

A recovery only a statistician can love:

But the same data also explain why any recovery isn’t going to feel like one anytime soon for millions of Americans. Its existence will be confirmed by statistics, but, over at least the next year, the benefits are unlikely to materialize in the form of higher wages or tax receipts or more jobs.

“It’s going to be a recovery only a statistician can love,” Wells Fargo senior economist Mark Vitner said.

A few recent pieces of data offered reasons for both hope and trepidation.

The Labor Department reported Tuesday that business productivity jumped in the second quarter to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.3 percent, far higher than the annual average of 2.6 percent from 2000 to 2008.

Higher productivity helps raise living standards in the long run and is good for corporate profits because it allows companies to produce more without paying higher labor costs. But the boost in productivity was largely due to businesses slashing hours faster than output. Labor costs per unit fell, but so did the buying power of workers, further constraining already weak consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy.

This is stuff that I I have been posting about for quite a while now. Please read the whole thing. It is encouraging that the WaPo article points out the truth about the “drop” in unemployment announced last week. That is that the drop is largely accounted for in the large number of people who simply lost their unemployment benefits and are, therefore,  magically dropped from the official unemployment calculations.

In other words, they are now unpersons as far as the Federal government is concerned.

Factoring in the unpersons and the underemployed persons and the forced to work part time persons and this economy is a lot worse off than the official figures. Statisticians may see green shoots but the are a lot of people who are looking at those green shoots from the underside, because this recession has buried them.

But fear not! Into this disaster, the Obama administration intends to spend even more money it does not have and raise taxes to boot.

AllahPundit Ups The Pot

Obama raised some eyebrows – and more than a few gorges – with his claim yesterday that his ObamaCare would be a lot like the Post Office. You know, that money losing train wreck  – er, model of government efficiency – that has been much in the news lately as it flops about bleeding red ink. AllahPundit makes the best comment on it that I have read yet:

Obama: Government health care will be like, um, the post office

Well, now I’m sold. If only he’d sweetened the pot and promised us it’d be like the DMV, I’d be ready to don an SEIU shirt and beat some protesters myself.

How bad was Obama yesterday at his supporter-only-packed propaganda fest? Bad enough that USA Today ran a sidebar about a number of his false statements. 

Some of the assertions that President Obama made about his health plan at Tuesday’s town-hall meeting are open to argument:

• “Under the reform we’re proposing, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”

Not necessarily. In an analysis of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that 10 million workers could lose employer-provided benefits and would have to find other insurance.

• “Insurance companies basically get $177 billion of taxpayer money to provide services that Medicare already provides.”

About 10.2 million Medicare recipients are in Medicare Advantage. Under that program, the government pays insurers a set amount per Medicare beneficiary. Obama ridiculed it as costly and redundant, but the plan provides additional benefits, such as vision, dental and hearing, to seniors and helps coordinate health care for those with chronic conditions, says Robert Zirkelbach at the trade association, America’s Health Insurance Plans.

But wait! There’s more! Go over and read the whole thing. Obama was less than truthful, so much so that even the media is having to note the falsehoods.

The Gravy Planes

John Fund in The Wall Street Journal:

House leaders hope that dropping plans to spend $550 million on elite Gulfstream jets to fly members around the globe will dissipate public ire. I’m not so sure. Voters are strapped by the weak economy and angry about how health-care reform is being rushed through Congress. More revelations about congressional travel are coming.

Frequent flying by Congress is a growth industry. As the Journal’s Brody Mullins reported this month, House members last year spent some 3,000 days overseas on taxpayer-funded trips, up from about 550 in 1995. This month, 11 separate congressional delegations will visit Germany.

No one begrudges members visiting U.S. troops or conferring with key leaders in other countries. But with so many trips, boondoggles are inevitable.

The total cost for congressional overseas travel is never made public because the price tag for State Department advance teams and military planes used by lawmakers are folded into much larger budgets. Members of Congress must only report the total per diem reimbursements they receive in cash for hotels, meals and local transport.

Please read the whole thing. You are not going to like what you read. Up to $3,000 per day for every member of Congress and each of their staffers in per diem allowances. Lax reporting requirements for how those per diems are spent and scant evidence that unused per diem funds are ever returned to the treasury. Flying for free on military aircraft to places like London and Paris – well served by commercial airlines. There is just soooooo much to hate here. 

There are some 538 members of Congress. 3,000 days overseas on “fact finding” trips is about 5-1/2 days per member. Lord only knows how many staffers go along on each junket. We pay for all of this.

Air Pelosi is out of control. Time to end the gravy planes.

ObamaCare: Forcing Failed Policies Nationwide

The Wall Street Journal points out the truth about health insurance and what ObamaCare will do to it. The short answer is that this is going to cost you and I a lot more than the schemers are promising. Because the plans now being touted will introduce schemes that have been tried at the state level nationwide. Schemes that have driven insurance prices through the roof in those states.

That’s one reason that only five states-Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Vermont-have Mr. Obama’s proposal for “guaranteed issue” on the books today. New Hampshire and Kentucky repealed such laws after finding that they soon had an even smaller individual insurance market as companies fled the state.

Another proposed reform known as “community rating” imposes uniform premiums regardless of health condition. This also blows up the individual insurance market, by making it far more expensive for young, healthy or low-risk consumers to join pools-if they join at all. And if the healthy don’t join risk pools, then premiums go up for everyone and insurers have little choice but to reduce their risk by refusing to cover those who have a high chance of getting sick, such as people with a history of cancer. This is why 35 states today impose no limits whatsoever on how much insurers can vary premiums and six states allow wide variation among consumers.

New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts have both community rating and guaranteed issue. And, no surprise, they have the three most expensive individual insurance markets among all 50 states, with premiums roughly two to three times higher than the rest of the country. In 2007, the average annual premium in New Jersey was $5,326 for singles and in New York $12,254 for a family, versus the national average of $2,613 and $5,799, respectively. ObamaCare would impose New York-type rates nationwide.

That’s some bad “reform”.  Mind you, this is in addition to another trillion or more dollars it will cost in tax money to run the program. You’ll get higher insurance rates and higher taxes.

Younger people will especially get hit hard by this. They are going to get reamed with much higher premiums than should have to pay. How’s that hope and change?

The insurance companies and drug makers are largely supporting these changes. That should tell you that these “reforms” are not at all what the Democrats are claiming they are. As for those two powerful lobbies, they are focusing on the short term gain to their bottom lines of millions of new customers without considering how thoroughly these “reforms” will destroy them in the long run.