The Team Obama Flop

During the recent World Cup the U.S. team inspired new interest in soccer, at least for a short while. They persevered through some questionable calls, giving up some early goals and the deafening noise from the vuvuzelas.
Because of the increased attention the U.S. soccer team generated, millions of Americans watched on TV a game they'd normally ignore completely. And much of what they saw caused them to rethink what might be called the world's pastime. They found that soccer can be an enthralling, exciting game. But they also saw things completely unfamiliar to fans of American sports, and wondered if soccer was enthralling and exciting enough to overcome the sheer nonsense that often took place on the pitch.
The nonsense I refer to is the seemingly incessant flopping of players at the slightest hint of what they consider to be a penalty. Supposedly adult men, falling to the ground and rolling around whining that they'd been harmed and that a penalty needs to be called on somebody. It happened so often, so consistently, that it became a real source of frustration for American watchers of the World Cup and probably convinced many never to watch the game again.
Perhaps you'll think this is a bit of a stretch, but I see a parallel between Americans' indifference to soccer and their decreasing belief in and support for Team Obama. And I believe it has to do with the flopping. Just as soccer players flopped to the ground at every perceived foul, whether real or not, Team Obama cries "racism" every time anyone disagrees with them on anything. They can't even conceive of the possibility that they missed their shot on goal because of something they did. Every failure, every disagreement with their policies, must be the result of some foul committed by some "racist".
Team Obama's constant cries of racism are every bit as infantile, stupid and infuriating to watch as the soccer players flopping on the ground crying like babies for a foul to be called. Americans don't care much for soccer - largely because of the flopping. And they seem to care much less for Team Obama now that it has become evident that they are every bit as immature as the floppers on the pitch.

The Single-payer / Multiple-liar System

Throughout the debate on health care "reform" Obama has publicly stated, multiple times, that he had no plan to create a single-payer system. To the shock of nobody who's actually paying attention - he's lying.
For many large hospital systems Medicare and Medicaid patients make up a significant percentage of their total volume - sometimes 40% or more. The problem for the hospitals is that Medicare reimburses them at 75% of their cost, not their retail price, and Medicaid reimburses at only 60% of cost. There's simply no way hospitals can survive that payment scale without sticking it to their other "customers". So they're forced to charge exorbitant rates to the other, privately insured patients - with the result that those who are privately insured are subsidizing the health care of those whose costs are paid by the government. That is not a model for the long-term survival of either the hospitals or the private insurance companies.
Knowing that this system is completely unsustainable two Senators met with the director of the White House Office of Health Reform, Nancy-Ann DeParle, before the final vote on the health care bill. They told her that unless the reimbursement issue was addressed the health care reform bill would eventually bankrupt private insurance in this country - leaving no option but a single-payer system. Ms. DeParle reportedly told them "that's our intention".
So we have the White House Office of Health Reform purposely pursuing the destruction of private health insurance to force a move to a single-payer system, while Obama, Reid and Pelosi are publicly claiming there is no such plan.
Is anyone surprised anymore at the magnitude of the lies being told by Obama and his minions?

Where's the $500 Billion?

When all the Obamatons were trumpeting the benefits of ObamaCare, they kept telling us that there was $500 billion of "waste, fraud and abuse" in Medicare. Obama told us that they would go after that waste, fraud and abuse; capture all the savings; and use the money to help pay for ObamaCare. Now that ObamaCare is (at least temporarily) dead, where's the talk about the need to eliminate the waste, fraud and abuse from Medicare? If that waste, fraud and abuse really exists - isn't it the responsibility of Obama and Congress to eliminate it and capture those savings regardless of whether ObamaCare survives?
Since they have completely dropped that subject, we're left with only two logical explanations regarding the waste, fraud and abuse:

1. It doesn't exist and Obama and Congress were making it up to help promote ObamaCare, or
2. It does exist, and Obama and Congress are being grossly irresponsible and ignoring their fiduciary duties to the American people by failing to eliminate it.

There really are no other logical explanations. Either Obama and Congress were lying, or they are grossly irresponsible (of course they could easily be both liars AND grossly irresponsible, but for this explanation of the ObamaCare charade we have to choose one or the other).

Making vs. Taking

The strength of a nation rises and ebbs over time. Strength - fiscal, moral, social, political - increases when a nation creates the opportunity for all of its citizens to pursue their hopes and dreams to the best of their own ability. People free to make their own way have invariably created more opportunity for those around them and given more freely to those less fortunate. A nation's strength ebbs away when its government takes freedom away from its people, no matter the professed motive of said government.

Our country became great by making more and more people more and more free over time. The process was not perfect and mistakes were made, but in the course of history no country made more such progress. And as freedom grew, so did creativity, productivity and the wealth of our nation. America led the world in manufacturing, agriculture and innovation and spread them around the globe. We made the planes, trains and automobiles, and the loans to export them to the world. In the process, America made all those willing to work, those who recognized that rights also bring responsibilities, more prosperous and free.

But sadly our strength now ebbs away because we are no longer a nation of makers. Ruled by a government bureaucracy run amok, we have become a nation of takers. Half of Americans pay no income tax. They take the benefits our great country provides but contribute nothing to producing them. We take the goods now produced overseas since we no longer make them, and pay for them with the loaned money we have taken from those same countries selling us what we no longer make.

This new economic model is clearly unsustainable. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher - eventually we're going to run out of people to take from. Only if we return to making - making people more free from government, making products here in the U.S., making people responsible for their own actions and free to reap their own rewards - will we once again thrive as a nation.

A Message to my Senator

Senator,

You must vote AGAINST Harry Reid’s attempt to bring his 2,000+ page health reform bill to the Senate floor (and why did the Senate bill grow from 1,500 pages to over 2,000 – did Harry just want to make sure his was bigger than Nancy’s?).

Exactly one month ago I sent you a message thanking you for voting against Harry Reid’s attempt to scam the American people by passing the “doctor fix” separately from the health reform bill. Now he’s trying the opposite trick – passing the health reform bill without the “doctor” fix. And he’s trying to do it in such a way that only 51 votes will be needed for final passage of the bill, rather than the usual 60.

Harry Reid’s health care bill is an outright scam and a shell game, and an economic disaster in the making. It’s easy to make a bill appear to reduce the deficit when you include 10 years of “revenue” and only 6 years of cost in the first decade. But of course after that the program will be upside down and a permanent drag on the economy.

If the real goal was improving health care (as opposed to the increased government control and social engineering that are clearly driving the Reid -Pelosi agenda), the legislation would be concise and targeted to the major issues needing improvement:

• portability of health insurance among employers and locations
• encouraging increased competition and reduced cost through the sale of health insurance policies across state lines
• equality of tax treatment of health insurance premiums regardless of where or from whom policies are purchased
• allowing the sale of policies customized to buyers' needs rather than mandating one-size fits all policies that make people pay for coverage they'll never need.

These are simple concepts and each could be documented clearly in just a few pages. Even if each took 20 pages to outline you'd have only an 80 page bill. But the House version is 2,000 and the Senate version is now even larger.

Congress has proven it doesn't read bills before passing them, and we know they didn't write this themselves. Bills this long simply create the impression that Obama and Congress have told their favorite special interest groups to load up the legislation with whatever they want. And they're hoping to rush it through before we catch on.

Senator, Reid’s bill is a bad bill. It will not achieve the goals that are supposedly the reasons behind this effort; it will increase taxes and reduce service. All it will accomplish is increased government intrusion into our lives – and we’ll get to pay for that privilege.

You must vote to defeat this bill NOW, not try to amend or defeat it later. Stop Harry Reid and then do health reform the right way.