Free Republic

Friend -- Right now, Sarah Palin is on a highly publicized, nationwide book tour, attacking President Obama and his plan for health reform at every turn. It's dangerous. Remember, this is the person who coined the term "Death Panels" -- and opened the flood gates for months of false attacks by special interests and partisan extremists. Whatever lie comes next will be widely covered by the media, then constantly echoed by right-wing attack groups and others who are trying to defeat reform. As we approach the final sprint on health reform, we can't afford more deception and delay. We need...

While the Senate is now preparing to debate Democratic Leader Harry Reid's 2000-plus-page version of the health care reform plan, 47% of Americans still believe the private sector rather than the federal government has the best chance of keeping health care costs down and the quality of medical care up. But a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 33% of adults think the federal government would do a better job of reducing costs and maintaining quality of care. Twenty percent (20%) are undecided. Forty-nine percent (49%) of adults who already have insurance say the private sector would accomplish...

Thank you for contacting me to express your views on H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. I appreciate your taking the time to share your views on this important matter. There is widespread agreement that our health care system needs to be reformed - all of the major Republican and Democratic candidates for President in the 2008 election agreed that serious action needed to be taken immediately. So drawing on expert testimony received during 100 congressional hearings and scrutiny and feedback from the American people at more than 3,000 congressional events and town halls, H.R. 3962 seeks...

Reform: Only a Bernie Madoff could believe the Senate's health care bill will extend coverage to 31 million Americans while cutting deficits by $127 billion over 10 years. It would be the first profitable entitlement. But that's what Majority Leader Harry Reid, citing Congressional Budget Office estimates, tells us the 2,074-page bill — said to cost only $849 billion over a decade — would do. Like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he seems to be following Vice President Joe Biden's admonition at an AARP town hall meeting that "we've got to spend money to keep from going bankrupt." We suspect Reid's...

The Senate is headed for a rare Saturday vote to advance its major healthcare reform bill without a guarantee of success, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) indicated Thursday. At a rally with supporters of the healthcare reform bill, Reid would not say he had secured commitments from all 60 members of the Democratic Conference to vote for the legislation — an absolute necessity given unanimous opposition from the 40 Senate Republicans. "We'll find out when the votes are taken," Reid said. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), one of three Democratic holdouts, said Thursday that he would announce his intentions prior to...

I am "new" to the site. I think this is my first post. However I have been a reader for years and am a libertarian leaning Republican. I had a thought about healthcare reform that is scaring me. Although I don't think it can pass, consequences could be terrifying if it does. For purposes of sharing my nightmare, let’s assume it passes. Let’s also assume that the SCOTUS has the same five conservative members when compulsion to buy health insurance is enacted into law. It would be unprecedented for the government to mandate disposal of wealth in such a way....

Ever heard of "Doctors Without Pay?" Believe it or not, the liberal democrat politicians in the House and the Senate have forgotten about paying doctors in their health care takeover plans. By forgetting about paying doctors, these politicized health plans pretend to cost slightly less than a trillion dollars. And then you remember they've forgotten to pay the doctors!!! Do they really expect doctors to work for nothing? I've heard of lawyers doing an occasional pro bono case, and doctors might do the same on occasion. But, can you imagine case after case after case without pay? That isn't likely...

There are, in public policies, these inconvenient things called the “secondary effects.” These are the unintended consequences of even the best intended laws. Critics of Obama’s national health care program have questioned its intentions from day one. Few doubt the program will lead to a serious rationing of health care (adding 40 million on the system and allegedly lowering spending will have that impact) and will lead to increase taxes for millions of Americans. According to public opinion surveys, the number one issue of most voters is unemployment. This sentiment is backed up by the hard fact that unemployment recently...

In the Battle of the Health Bills, the Senate wins out, bulk-wise – weighing in at 2,074 pages. The House health reform bill was a mere 1,990 pages when introduced. That means the Senate bill -- like the one in the House -- runs more pages than War and Peace, and has nearly five times as many words as the Torah. The table of contents alone is 14 pages.

An unstamped letter from former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop caused a security scare when Capitol Police shut down Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s for 45 minutes office yesterday. Koop's letter, addressed to Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, protested federal funding of abortion in health care legislation. "More specifically, I am troubled about the possibility of federal dollars being used to pay for elective abortions and Americans being forced to subsidize them," Koop wrote. "I firmly believe that strong protections must be included in this legislation so that health care providers are not forced to participate in abortions against...

This is significant: Senate Democrats have abandoned plans to use a fast-track parliamentary strategy to avert a threatened Republican filibuster and pass a health care overhaul -- a signal that they are considering major policy concessions to moderates.The most significant of these could be restructuring or dropping altogether a proposed government-run insurance plan -- the so-called public option -- that many liberals consider a necessary part of the overhaul.One possible fallback is a proposal by Thomas R. Carper, D-Del., to create a government-sanctioned insurance plan that would be available only in states deemed to lack affordable private insurance plans. Under...

Strong words today from Mr. Hymie-town himself, the Reverend Jesse Jackson. The once powerful civil rights leader who is desperately trying to regain some relevancy had something to say to Black Members of Congress who would dare to vote against the Obamacare bill. 'You can't vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.'

AARP, which has given its full-throated support to Democratic health care legislation even though seniors remain largely opposed, received an $18 million grant in the economic stimulus package for a job training program that has not created any jobs, according to the Obama administration's Recovery.gov website. The Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), according to the website, is "a work training program for unemployed mature workers who are 55+ and are at or below 125% of the poverty guidelines." So far, $6.5 million has been spent on the program, and it has not reported creating any jobs. In February, the...

Does the Constitution allow Congress to force you to buy health insurance? Several Congressional leaders have been asked, by CNSNews.com in particular. Their responses ranged from ignorant, to arrogant, to contemptuous.

After weeks of waiting as a handful of Senate Democrats crafted legislation behind closed doors, the Democrats' health care plan has at last been unveiled. The bill was drafted in secret over seven weeks and then sent for scoring to the Congressional Budget Office, a process which went on for three and a half weeks and only produced a brief - but costly - estimate (which may be a testament to the size and convoluted nature of the final legislation). Now the question is, how long will the American people have to review the bill before it is voted on...

“Let’s be clear: Any senator who votes to proceed to this bill is voting for a government takeover of health care. Senators who hide behind procedure and claim they just want to allow for debate are not being honest, they are trying to deceive their voters while helping to pass this terrible bill that will make health care more expensive."

Health Care: A government task force has decided that women need fewer mammograms and later in life. Shouldn't that be between patient and physician? We have seen the future of health care, and it doesn't work. We have warned repeatedly that the net results of health care bills before Congress will be higher demand, fewer doctors, more cost control, all leading to rationing. New recommendations issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) regarding breast cancer and the necessity for early and frequent mammograms do not convince us otherwise. Just six months ago, the panel, which works under the...

With Democrats still grappling with the fallout of an abortion-rights deal that allowed the House to pass its health care bill last weekend, a key Democrat is predicting that abortion-rights supporters will have the votes to keep new abortion restrictions out of the final bill. On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, Rep. Diana DeGette, co-chairman of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, said opposition is growing to the House-approved amendment authored by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. She said the Senate is seeking out compromise language that won’t go as far as the House -- and said President Obama’s team is “absolutely” helping press...

Let's dispense with three fallacies swirling about the question of abortion coverage in health care reform. Two are being peddled by anti-abortion forces. One, perhaps the most relevant, is being pushed by the pro-choice side. To be clear about where I am: Firmly pro-choice. Firmly opposed to the amendment from Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., which would effectively prevent women who purchase insurance on the newly created exchanges from obtaining abortion coverage. But also: Respectful of the convictions of those who disagree. And, consequently, sympathetic to the notion that taxpayers should not have to pay for a procedure they believe is...

Breast Cancer Screening and “Soft” Death Panels Posted on November 17, 2009Filed Under General Rationing Issues, Guidelines, Abuse of, Healthcare Reform | ____________The term “death panel” was popularized this past summer by Sarah Palin, when she single-handedly crystallized the debate over healthcare reform. For many in the unwashed masses, “death panel” conjures up an image of some sort of tribunal, populated by mindless bureaucrats, before whom you will be brought when you are sick (and therefore not at your best), and which, after glancing your way with all the focus and compassion you get from the clerk at the DMV,...

Conservatives are lining up some fine arguments against the strange health care beast being shepherded through Congress this season. Oddly, however, as the public as a whole turns against the Obama Administration on health care and other issues, the critics have neglected the young adult constituency that voted 66 percent for Mr. Obama last fall and are the least engaged now in the health care debate. Move them and you will move the debate substantially. So far, the critics are not making the effort. They attack rationing, Medicate cuts that threaten seniors, lack of controls on tort excesses and much...

...In the past I have grown angry with Chris Matthews, who is a practicing Catholic, because he has failed to defend the fundamental human right to life. However, in this discussion he took the position that the Stupak amendment - named after the faithful Catholic Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak who co-authored the amendment in the House - would end up causing the defeat of the legislation because there would be no compromise possible over the issue of funding abortion. Interestingly, he compared the current situation to the period just preceding the Civil War in the United States. He drew the...

One of President Obama's primary justifications for pushing health care legislation has been that the status quo is "unsustainable" because of the skyrocketing cost of medical care in the United States. The way to rein in costs, he argues, is to do adopt the policies that he and his fellow Democrats are proposing. But a new report by the government actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a branch of the Obama administration's Department of Health and Human Services, has found that the exact opposite is true. CMS took a close look at the health care bill that...

Contrary to a popular fallacy that science and religion are at odds with each other, it's quite the opposite. Science and religion are the best of friends. And like good friends, they complement each other and produce beautiful music together. Take the recent incident of the young woman in Bryan, Texas -- the director of the Planned Parenthood abortion mill down there -- who had a change of heart and quit her job when she saw, for the first time, an unborn child on an ultrasound screen. As Abby Johnson related her story to Bill O'Reilly, "....what I saw on...

A friend emailed this to me. It is one of the most eloquently put descriptions of what small business is about that I have ever read. It describes the reality of the world in which we live and work today. It also describes the future we may have to deal with as it relates to taxes, healthcare, etc.

Abstract: This paper questions criminal law's strong presumption of free will. Part I assesses the ways in which environment, nurture, and society influence human action. Part II briefly surveys studies from the fields of genetics and neuroscience which call into question strong assumptions of free will and suggest explanations for propensities toward criminal activity. Part III discusses other "causes" of criminal activity including addiction, economic deprivation, gender, and culture. In light of Parts I through III, Part IV assesses criminal responsibility and the legitimacy of punishment. Part V considers the the possibility of determining propensity from criminal activity based on...

Ever since Barack Obama began his crusade for health care socialization, the meme in the media has been that “Americans want health care reform.”  Do a Google search for that phrase and you’ll find story after story that trumpets that line, usually with no evidence to support it.This past week, Gallup published a rather astonishing survey that blows holes in the theory that “because Americans want health care reform, the Government should provide it”.  The Gallup survey found that for the first time in almost ten years, Americans now say that health care is not the government’s responsibility.It’s tempting...

As usual, the most dangerous parts of ObamaCare aren't receiving the scrutiny they deserve—and one of the least examined is a new commission to tell Congress how to control health spending. Democrats are quietly attempting to impose a "global budget" on Medicare, with radical implications for U.S. medicine. Like most of Europe, the various health bills stipulate that Congress will arbitrarily decide how much to spend on health care for seniors every year—and then invest an unelected board with extraordinary powers to dictate what is covered and how it will be paid for. White House budget director Peter Orszag calls...

A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending -- one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama's proposed overhaul of the nation's health-care system -- would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.

Kudos to the Black&Right blog for finding this. You tell me we don't have political militants who are eerily vindictive. "In response to the Wall Street Journal piece, “Palin’s Book: The Overview”, a commenter added this example of liberal tolerance…"

On the Constitution Things get a little contentious here, and this is why I like to listen to Beckmann. He rightly points out that no where in the Constitution does it allow for the government to take over the health care industry. Bart insists it does say so in Article I, Section 8 with the words the left have been using to bring the country to point it is today with rampant socialism and welfare programs that have done nothing but create a dependent society-”The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to…provide for…..general...

Axelrod Signals Obama Will Try to Strip Abortion Language From Health Care Bill by FOXNews.com The amendment, authored by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., went beyond preventing the proposed government-run plan from covering abortion to restrict federal subsidies from going toward private plans that offer abortion coverage. David Axelrod says the amendment changes the 'status quo,' something the president cannot abide. White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod suggested Sunday that President Obama will intervene to make sure a controversial amendment restricting federal funding for abortion coverage is stripped from final health care reform legislation.

...The Founders did not give us a government like the one we have today. The government they gave us was strictly limited in its scope, guaranteed individual liberty, preserved the free market, and on matters that pertain to our private behavior was supposed to leave us alone. In the Constitution, the Founders built in checks and balances. If the Congress got out of hand, the states would restrain it. If the states stole liberty or property, the Congress would cure it. If the President tried to become a king, the courts would prevent it. In the next few weeks, I...

Axelrod Signals Obama Will Try to Strip Abortion Language From Health Care Bill by FOXNews.com The amendment, authored by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., went beyond preventing the proposed government-run plan from covering abortion to restrict federal subsidies from going toward private plans that offer abortion coverage. David Axelrod says the amendment changes the "status quo," something the president cannot abide. White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod suggested Sunday that President Obama will intervene to make sure a controversial amendment restricting federal funding for abortion coverage is stripped from final health care reform legislation. In doing so, the president would be...

Arguments that the individual mandate in healthcare reform is unconstitutional are "spurious," one centrist Democrat said this week. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) dismissed questions about the individual mandate's constitutionality, which conservatives activists have questioned. "The United States Congress passed laws regarding Medicare and Medicaid that became de facto mandatory programs," Warner told the conservative CNSNews.com in a video posted Friday. "I think that this is a bit of a spurious argument that’s being made by some folks."

Former President Bill Clinton visited Capitol Hill recently to deliver a pep talk to Senate Democrats. "It's not important to be perfect here. It's important to act, to move, to start the ball rolling," he reportedly told senators. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel sounded a similar theme in an interview with the New York Times. "I'm sure there are a lot of people sitting in the shade at the Aspen Institute ... who will tell you what the ideal plan is. Great, fascinating. You have the art of the possible measured against the ideal." So the strategy on...

Remember those free health care clinics MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow played up back in October after Olbermann's hour-long "Special Comment," about Republican opposition to ObamaCare and/or PelosiCare? Well, now it's time for their brand of AstroTurf to be put into action. On MSNBC's Nov. 13 "Countdown," fill-in host Lawrence O'Donnell raised the issue about the potential opposition Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., might have over the current health care legislation being debated in the U.S. Senate. And, Landrieu so happens to represent Louisiana, the site of one of Olbermann's politicized free health care clinics. "Republicans, in a new ad,...

Marks significant shift from the attitudes of the past decadePRINCETON, NJ -- More Americans now say it is not the federal government's responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage (50%) than say it is (47%). This is a first since Gallup began tracking this question, and a significant shift from as recently as three years ago, when two-thirds said ensuring healthcare coverage was the government's responsibility.Gallup has asked this question each November since 2001 as part of the Gallup Poll Social Series, and most recently in its Nov. 5-8 Health and Healthcare survey. There have been some fluctuations...

Given the recent announcement that the government's measure of unemployment has hit 10.2 percent, and given that the official House version of Obama's healthcare plan, HR 3962, has now passed, a close examination of the effects of "Obamacare" on the labor market is important. It will be no surprise to readers of this site to learn that the Democrats' bill will seriously harm precisely those poor and uninsured citizens it is ostensibly designed to help. The harm will come by compounding mass unemployment and depriving these citizens of consumption choices. Obamacare as Labor Tax According to pages 269–273 of the...

The Nevada senator advanced the House health care bill, which narrowly passed 220-215 on Saturday, to the Senate legislative calendar next week, allowing him to move the procedure along in the absence of an actual Senate bill. The move also permits him to have the Senate bill, once it has a price tag, to skip the committee process and go straight to debate. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/11/despite-uphill-climb-reid-poised-muscle-health-care-senate/

CNSNews is reporting that the Democratic leadership rejected 11 amendments to the healthcare bills that would have required Congress to suffer under the same onerous healthcare legislation the they would force upon the rest of the country. Republicans offered various schemes, some that would require only Congress to join Obamacare, some that would require even members of the Supreme Court, the president, the vice president and other federal employees to give up their generous Federal Employees Health Benefit Program. “If Congress forces our constituents into a public option plan over time, then members of Congress should be expected to do...

WASHINGTON — The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said Tuesday that he expected to bring major health care legislation to the floor next week and to complete work on the bill before Christmas. But other Democratic leaders said it was unlikely that a bill could reach President Obama’s desk by year’s end. The House approved its version of the health care legislation late Saturday by a vote of 220 to 215. In a first procedural step toward Senate debate, Mr. Reid on Tuesday night moved to put the House bill on the Senator calendar, from which he could...

Liberals are fond of calling Republicans “the stupid party.” That might need revision. It appears to me that Democrats have checkmated themselves. Here is the logic: If Obamacare makes it through the Senate, American small businesses will continue to shrink their payrolls to avoid the awful choice of paying higher health care insurance premiums or the 8% added payroll tax. Unemployment is sure to rise. The Dems will face the November 2010 elections with 12% unemployment ... closer to Depression levels of 20% by the so-called broader measures. If Obamacare fails to pass, the left-wing base will be so demoralized...

Did you get the sense that the House Democratic Leadership was frantic, even desperate, to nail down the vote for the 1,990-page healthcare reform bill? No, not the actual votes from members Democrats were worried might go south on them—though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer had good reason to be concerned about that; 39 Democrats opposed their party's bill—but scheduling the actual vote itself. It had to be before the Veterans' Day recess. What was the hurry? The vote was promised before Congress' August recess and didn't happen—what are a few more days to allow...

It's difficult to put a price tag on the deeply seated beliefs and emotions surrounding federal abortion policy. Meanwhile, ideological givers rank far behind the massive donations of drug companies, oil companies and other special interests. On Saturday night, whether motivated by their campaign coffers, their consciences or their reading of the political winds, Democrats who oppose abortion waged an 11th hour challenge to the Democratic health insurance reform proposal that narrowly passed the House. And from a campaign finance perspective, Democrats who supported this amendment that added restrictions to abortion-related health insurance benefits received considerably more campaign contributions from...

CNSNews.com) – Virginia’s Governor-elect Bob McDonnell (R) said that his administration would not participate in a government-run health insurance plan, if one is passed by Congress and signed into law. He also urged other governors to “stand up” against federal proposals if they are not good for their states. McDonnell, who won election on Nov. 3 with 59 percent of the vote, said on the Nov. 8 edition of CNN’s “State of the Union” that a government-run public option would be bad for his recently red state. McDonnell also said that during the campaign he heard concerns from Virginia voters...

Serrin Foster / Cecile Richards Washington D.C., Nov 10, 2009 / 06:47 am (CNA).- Planned Parenthood has condemned the addition of the Stupak/Pitts Amendment to the U.S. House’s proposed health care reform legislation, saying it would undermine private health plans that cover abortion. One pro-life leader said the criticism, which characterized pro-lifers as hijackers, was an ‘over the top’ attempt at self-promotion.Cecile Richards, President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, claimed in a Nov. 7 statement that the Stupak Amendment to Congress’ proposed health care bill has further reach than the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for...

At the last minute Representative Bart Stupak (D, Mich.) was successful in getting Speaker Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership to approve an amendment that would prohibit federal spending on abortion added to its nationalized healthcare bill passed and sent to the Senate over the weekend. But a senior Democrat says that the Stupak amendment will be stripped from the bill if the Senate returns the bill for approval. Of course, the only reason that the House healthcare bill was passed out of the House at all was because of the Stupak Amendment, still left-wingers in Congress are vowing to...

This really takes the cake: “What I think is appropriate is that in the same way that everybody has to get auto insurance and if you don't, you're subject to some penalty, that in this situation, if you have the ability to buy insurance, it's affordable and you choose not to do so, forcing you and me and everybody else to subsidize you, you know, there's a thousand dollar hidden tax that families all across America are -- are burdened by because of the fact that people don't have health insurance, you know, there's nothing wrong with a penalty.” -...

Failure to buy health insurance in the just-passed health care bill could get you five years in jail with a $250,000 fine. How can violating a law that's unconstitutional be a felony, asks Investor's Business Daily (IBD)? The passage last Saturday night of the House health care measure by a fragile 220-215 margin may well prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. In polls, townhall meetings and tea parties, Americans have shown they don't want a "reform" that costs a staggering $1.2 trillion yet fails to meet the left's desire of insuring all the uninsured. And they certainly don't want a...