There are ways to improve health care in this country without socializing it more than it is. We should be strongly responding with solutions as well.

Couldn’t believe it when I went on individual coverage a few years ago. Can’t get medical savings accounts in my state. Can’t get catastrophic plans. All thanks to the government.

It stinks.

I think individual tax-exempt health spending accounts plus high deductible catastrophic are the way to go, but putting the spending decisions more in individual hands are inadequate for unleashing market forces.

The missing pieces need to jumpstart a market where one does not exists are to (at the same time the lawwyer-vultures are pushed back) the medical profession needs to be prodded to play ball too, in making pricing — at least for common things — transparent so consumers can comparison shop. Requiring more openness and and revealing success/complication rates for treatment hospital by hospital, doc by doc, would get a market going — however much that might go against the clubiness that docs share with lawyers (don’t badmouth your professional peers publicly).

Giving people the freedom (and responsibility) to choose providers is near useless if they have no data on which to form informed decisions.

IOW socialism in fascist garb.

BTW, I had a call from some RNC fund-raiser today and basically hung up on them.

Said I’d donate again when they come up with a coherent policy instead of just counting on Obama to screw up.

Newt Gingrich bought us 14 years respite from socialism that Bill Clinton “triangulated” through (despite any acutal convictions he might or might not have) and George W. Bush seemed not to have the vision or ability to act or communicate that government control of economic activity is the antithesis of freedom and limited government established under our Constitution.

Via YouTube, Ronald Reagan is doing a more effective job against socialism today than the most recent former President did even in office. Reagan left us writings and recorded audio and video speeches. From George W. Bush we see no more than the high tide leaves of a sand castle with respect to the fight for constitutionally limited government.

Now, rather than letting the socialists work on America incrementally, maybe it would help to read ahead a few pages in their playbook.

After socialized medicine, won’t socialized food be a control point?

The whole strategy is to eliminate traditional individual, family, local community and market choices in every aspect of your life and replace it with themselves as your government and decision maker.

Starting now to undermine their socialized food effort might aid in the current fight against socialized medicine.

In the long run, centralized decision making will always fail. We should be encouraged by that. Sadly we can also foresee the enormous human misery that will be the unnecessary cost of this new attempt at government control.

My favorite quote of the day comes from Patrick Carroll at http://www.professorbainbridge.com:

“Leftists are ahistorical because it makes it easier for them to construct their Sorelian myths.

Trying to make a leftist remember the crimes of the left is like wrestling a greased pig: you get nothing but dirty, and the pig enjoys it.”

NOT AN URBAN LEGEND – Congress Exempting Itself From Health Care Reform.

Start reading at pg 113, line 22 of SENATE version of the Health Care Reform Bill (http://help.senate.gov/BAI09A84_xml.pdf). It describes who will be and who will not be covered by health care reform.

If you are NOT eligible for Federal employee health benefits, as described in US Code Title 5 Chapter 89, then Health Care Reform WILL apply to you.

If you ARE eligible for Federal employee health benefits, as described in US Code Title 5 Chapter 89, then Health Care Reform will NOT apply to you.

Now who do you think is eligible for Federal employee health benefits, as described in US Code Title 5 Chapter 89, and thus exempt from health care reform?

Browse over US Code Title 5 Chapter 89 … http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/5/usc_sup_01_5_10_III_20_G_30_89.html

For purposes of US Code Title 5 Chapter 89, members of Congress, political appointees, federal employees (obviously), and many others are eligible for Federal employee health benefits.

CONCLUSION: The Senate is attempting to exempt itself from Health Care Reform. Congress, Federal Employees, and other ‘chosen’ ones will get a different plan from the one that will be inflicted upon the rest of us.

SIDE-NOTE: When critiquing/praising health care reform, please quote chapter & verse from the bill (House or Senate version, page #, line #)

That’s doable.