Obama and Dems are Book Smart and World Dumb

There are Liberals that think they are fundamentally smarter than the average American and therefore entitled to make decisions for the rest of us whether they work or not. No where is this more evident than the statements on we still hear on health care bordering on the delusional (we’ll pay for 30 million to have great health care and won’t add a penny to the deficit) and the inability to adapt this plan and approach that has been judged flawed by the collective wisdom of the American people:

In short, as with Tiger Woods and his woman problem, Barack Obama and his liberal allies have a superiority problem. Liberals/progressives really do see themselves as “entitled” to make decisions for everyone else. They really do believe, as did Tiger, that the rules do not apply to them. Why? Because they are addicted to the idea they are smarter than everyone else.

This crowd belongs…nay, is passionately devoted, to what could appropriately be called a cult of cultural and intellectual superiority. Who cares if Obama is running the Democrats and the country into the ground? He’s just so damn smart! (Article Source)

Americans still oppose rather than favor Congress passing a government healthcare bill.

This ‘intellectual superiority’ condition includes the President. As an elected official however, he is entitled to make decisions for America. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean what ever he comes up with will be good decisions or ideas that will work.

But what is clearly evident with Obama and his mind set is the problem of intelligence vs. wisdom. They are two very different things. One deals with the ability to learn, remember, and apply abstract concepts. The other is to learn, remember, and apply experiences of the realities of human nature and what works in that sphere. This is human philosophy and its understanding is what we call wisdom (the same objective realities exist in the material world and what we call science today used to be called natural philosophy). A doctor, a rocket scientist, and yes, even a President can be smart as a whip and completely clueless on how to raise a family, act socially, or understand people like the majority of Americans do.

So what happens when we elect a leader with little or no practical experience of human nature and what works? We get theoretical solutions that don’t work in the real world. Collectivist theory hates the employer, but seeks the approval of the employee. Their issue is to create jobs but they are rigidly anti-business! The Collectivist theory hates individual choice of American’s over their bodies so they seek to supplant it with Government dicates by attempting to pay for it. Nobody and no government on earth can afford all of the health care that everyone would ultimately want to save their life! The Collectivist theory has cloaked itself in green environmentalism and hates the cheap, reliable energy that comes from fossil fuels and that constitutes the basis for our modern, energy-intensive society. Instead we get an attempt to create massive change to expensive, unreliable ‘green’ energy and society-destroying taxation (Cap and Trade energy tax) for an alarmist problem (‘global warming’) that does not even exist! None of the above ideological-theoretical approaches will work or ever could work. They just don’t create wealth or freedom for anyone except for political cronies and chosen grievance groups. 

The most rank-amateur of responses when this theory-reality disconnect persists is the projection of ones own failures onto others or external factors. After giving more interviews and speeches than any other President in recorded history on a topic, President Obama claims that he ‘just hasn’t explained his (collectivist) plan slowly and clearly enough to us (dumb) Americans.’ We get it, Mr. President. It’s just that we reject it as counter to American principles and objectively unworkable.

Today’s current drive to ram something through with health care by the President and the Dems despite the messages sent to these politicians is the worst example of moral cowardice and the inability to correct and adapt their worldview according to the ultimate court of appeals: reality.

Filed under: American Values, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Health Care, Philosophy, Politics, Barack Obama, Democrats, Government, Government-Run Health Care, Intelligence vs. Wisdom, Life, News, Obama, Politics

Common Sense Health Care Solutions

Here is an excellent YouTube articulation of my own postings on the simple solution for health care- the free market:

How to Fix Health Care: Lasik Surgery For The Medical Debate

Interestingly, Lasik eye surgery is not covered by insurance and is completely a free market offering. Over the last 18 years, it has gotten cheaper, the care around delivery is driven to be excellent to get customers, and the technology has gotten better.

Contrast this with the increasingly government-controlled or health ‘insurance’ distorted current health market. Prices are sprialing out of control and quality is falling.

Do we need to send one or more generations back to school to learn the basics of free market economics that drive the majority of the rest of our prosperity (food, clothing, shelter)?

At the base of it, there is a lack of understanding of human nature (read: lack of wisdom) and how the free market unleashes the most good for the most people by matching up with the reality of individual human nature.

Filed under: Economy, Health Care, Philosophy, Politics, Business, Economy, Family, Government, Health, Health Care, Healthcare, Life, News, Philosophy

Obamacare will not Add a Dime to our Budget Deficit?

Does anyone besides the President believe this? In my previous post, I addressed Obama’s outrageous claim that he would not sign a bill that added one dime to the budget deficit. Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell echo’s this same thought with the same incredulity:

To tell us, with a straight face, that he can insure millions more people without adding to the already skyrocketing deficit is world-class chutzpah and an insult to anyone’s intelligence. To do so after an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office has already showed this to be impossible reveals the depths of moral bankruptcy behind the glittering words.

Did we really need CBO experts to tell us that there is no free lunch? Some people probably did, and the true believers in the Obama cult may still believe the president, instead of believing either common sense or budget experts.

Again, either Obama is approaching a state of being delusional about what he believes or he thinks we are too dense not to see the falsehood and shout ‘Lie!’.

Filed under: Health Care, Politics, Barack Obama, Democrats, Economy, Health, Health Care, Healthcare, Obama, President Obama

Obama on Health Care: Pusher of Contradictions or Lies?

Building on my post the other night that Obama’s ‘high stakes’ health care speech was a broken record of collectivism and contradictions, I will high light again that he stated he would NOT sign any bill that would “…add a dime to the federal deficit.”

Amazingly, as far back as July of this year, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the (one of many) house bill on health care would add billions to our deficit:

WASHINGTON — House Democratic legislation overhauling the nation’s health care system would add more than $230 billion to the federal budget deficit over the next ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the official scorekeeper of legislation on Capitol Hill.

That assessment means the legislation violates one of main principles that President Barack Obama has set for any health-care legislation: that it do nothing to increase the deficit. The report is likely to increase doubts that centrist Democrats have expressed about the $1 trillion package, and could stall action in the House.

The $239 billion gap is identified in a report sent late Friday by CBO to House Democrats. CBO analyzed the House bill as it was brought before the Ways and Means Committee.

The article even states Obama’s same ‘promise’ back then in July on no new deficit spending (sounds like Bush41, doesn’t it? “read my lips: no. new. taxes.”)

If Obama knew this going into his speech last night, why does we keep saying it? Does he think he can say that because hebelieves in his own mind that the CBO’s report is false and he only lives in the subjective reality of his head? Or is it arrogance that he thinks we are all as uneducated and gullible as the inner city Chicago-ians that he spent years ‘organizing’?

As President of the United States, we expect that he would be aware and briefed on all major aspects of ‘his’ health care agenda and not be telling us what amounts to lies with some bogus concept of plausible deniability (The Democrats did it- not me!).

Maybe that congressman that called him a liar during his speech was channeling the American public and was more accurate than the President, pundits, and media want to admit.

Filed under: Health Care, Politics, Barack Obama, Health, Health Care, Healthcare, Obama, President Obama

Obama Speech: Same Old Tune

Obama’s speech to Congress changed nothing in the health care debate. I am constantly amazed at the untruths and disconnects that he clings to.

-He says he will not sign a bill that adds one dime to the deficit. Great! If he was serious, that would mean his approach is dead.

-He says that if you want to keep your current insurance or doctor, you can. Once they give a business a ‘free’ option to dump one of their fastest growing costs, they will in a heartbeat! Does he think we are stupid and don’t see the indirect outcome here?

-He says the ‘worst’ mis-information is around death panels. I have lived in Canada and my wife’s grandmother WAS DENIED TREATMENT DUE TO HER AGE. It’s an objective fact. When bureaucrats decide if you are ‘productive’ or worthwhile-enough to warrant government treatment or not, they have the power of life or DEATH over you.

Obama continues to be an ‘idea’ guy whose lack of real world experience and wisdom constantly shows his dis-jointed, collectivist and theoretical worldview and rookie mistakes. Then he leaves the heavy lifting of the policy to a highly leftist Democrat party and seems baffled when its socialism is rejected by the American public and contains horrific or anti-American provisions.

Here’s an informed citizen’s solution for workable health care reform: https://pracphilosblog.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/a-radical-solution-for-health-care-the-free-market-not-socialism/

Filed under: Health Care, Politics, Barack Obama, Government-Run Health Care, Health, Health Care, Healthcare, Life, Obama, Politics, President Obama

A Must See Primer on Our Future with Obama-Care

Check out this short video, filmed guerilla-style, on the real state of ‘Health Care’ in Canada, our good neighbor to the North. It is a must-see for a glimpse at our inglorious future of health care in this country if we lurch left toward a govt-run program:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2jijuj1ysw

This is exactly the same experience I had with my family when we lived in Canada from 2004-2006 (it’s worse now- see below).

IBD Article: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=299282509335931

If that’s too right-wing, try CBS or NYTimes going back as far as 2005-2006: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/20/health/main681801.shtml?cmp=EM8705

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/28/international/americas/28canada.html

Filed under: Health Care, Politics, Canadian Health Care, Government-Run Health Care, Health, Health Care, Healthcare, Life, Obama, Politics, Socialized Health Care, Universal Health Care

A Radical Solution for Health Care: The Free Market! (Not Socialism)

So much debate is going on pointing out how bad the collectivist approach of the Obama/Democrats will be for our health care, but where is the advocacy of a workable solution?

Here is a brief outline of where we need to go with US health care:

The Modern Health Care Solution

We need to reset our health care system back to a free-market, patient-driven system. Every other successful part of our society runs this way- why not our health care for goodness sake?! We need:

1. Market-based pricing of health care. We need medical Care/Service/Procedures priced up front like everything else in our society- not the price/cost black-boxes of today’s employer and government-subsidized health care.

2. Minute-clinics and similar no-appointment, transparently-priced clinics are going in the right direction of delivering this concept:
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2006/01/23_zdechlikm_coninfo/

3. Just like with the fair, portability of pre-tax 401k’s, we need fair, portable pre-tax health savings accounts for everyone to save their own money over time, make their own decisions on health care, and pay it with their own money.

4. Make health care ‘insurance’ back into actual insurance. Couple health savings accounts with high-deductible catastrophic health insurance policies that people buy like they do for life insurance or car insurance.

5. Reform the medical malpractice system and the laws driving it. In some cases, up to 25% of the cost of individual health care is extra tests and procedures run by doctors to ‘bullet proof’ themselves from malpractice lawsuits.

The above approach gives everyone the access, proper control, and choice over their health- not the opposite helplessness dictated by some far away, faceless bureaucrat.

Filed under: Health Care, Politics, Democrats, Free-Market, Government-Run Health Care, Health, Health Care, Healthcare, Obama, Politics, Socialized Health Care

Government Run Health Care is Always a Failure and more Expensive

The biggest lie of this whole Obama lurch toward Socialism/deconstructing America is that government run health care would be cheaper. A Democrat was recently heckled off the stage for trying to say this with a straight face in a public townhall meeting. Americans were not, and are not, buying it.

It doesn’t take anything but common sense to understand why a government run health care plan or any collectivist solution won’t work and won’t be cheaper. Take any good or service and make it a ‘right’. If your barrier to consuming a valuable good/service is taken away, demand will overwhelm the supply/system every time.

With other key goods and services like food, housing, and transportation, everyone has to decide how much they have to spend and then how much of that they want to spend.

If, for example, food were suddenly a make-believe government ‘right’, then we would all want steak and lobster and the best gourmet food all the time. The government would quickly run out of money and would start rationing expensive, good tasting food and give you what it decided it could afford for you, like Spam or hot dogs, etc.

In the past (even before employer health subsidies distorted the market), you weighed the cost of going to the doctor with how bad your medical issue was. Charge too much for health care and no one would buy it. Charge too little and demand overwhelmed supply. But this doesn’t happen because millons of individual health transactions created a natural market balance of quality to cost. This is how all the rest of our society works or used to work in a free market economy.

In the unsustainable pipe dream of government health care, the same supply will have to suffice for a doubling or up to a ten-fold increase in demand because someone else (the government) thinks they can pay for it. They can’t. Every country and US state that has tried this approach either goes bankrupt or else has to ration/restrict the care provided to meet the exploding demand. A government option has an objective history of creating long health service waiting lines where people die waiting for the care their tax dollars have paid for. Artificial, politically driven pricing will also drive talented people from the expense of becoming doctors or investing in developing new medical devices, pharmaceuticals, or other services. This further accelerates a mis-match of demand with supply.

It’s as if this government pretends the laws of economics don’t apply or they don’t understand them or the underlying human nature that drives them.

This week Obama will be on TV this week and attempt to mislead you again (post-failed auto market, mortgage market, and ‘stimulus’ schemes) that the laws of economics/human nature again don’t apply to health care. I urge you to reject his anti-health plan and his anti-American, collectivist world view.

The free market works! All of our prosperity has come from individuals working and producing what we need in this framework. Why in the world do we not AGAIN apply the free market to health care? It is the model and solution we need to tell our leaders to go back to for affordable, quality US health care!

Filed under: Health Care, Politics, Collectivised Health Care, Culture, Government, Government-Run Health Care, Health, Health Care, Healthcare, Life, Politics, Socialized Health Care, Society, Universal Health Care

How to Fight Government-Run Health Care

Below is the link to a 7 minute primer on how to fight government-run health care and the dangers we face from it as a society.

You may be surprised to find that this is not the first time that the US has fought to stop the flawed and unsustainable agenda of government control over your health care options and your control of your life.

You may also find it surprising as to the source of the timeless comments used in the video snippet.

Enjoy:  A Fight For Our Way of Life: Socialized Medicine vs. A Voice from Our Past

Filed under: Health Care, Collectivised Health Care, Culture, Government, Government-Run Health Care, Health, Health Care, Life, Politics, Socialized Health Care, Society, Universal Health Care

Government-Run Health Care Denies You the Freedom to Choose

Here is a great articulation of the train-wreck we are hurtling toward with the flawed concept of Government-run health care:

The truth is, government-run health insurance takes away citizens’ freedom, forcing them to accept a government decree about intensely personal health decisions. At a time when Medicare faces unfunded obligations of nearly $86 trillion, dumping more than half of all Americans with private coverage into a government program will dramatically jeopardize our fiscal future. To make matters worse, it will take away citizens’ freedom to choose their doctors—and the freedom to choose, with their doctors, the treatment option that best meets their health needs.

This snippet comes from an excellent article in the American Spectator called “Freedom Can’t Be Rationed”

The Solution? Reset our health care system back to a free-market, patient-driven system. Every other successful part of our society runs this way- why not our health care for goodness sake?! We need:

1. Market-based pricing of health care. We need medical Care/Service/Procedures priced up front like everything else in our society- not the price/cost black-boxes of today’s employer and government-subsidized health care.
2. Minute-clinics and similar no-appointment, transparently-priced clinics are going in the right direction of delivering this concept:

http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2006/01/23_zdechlikm_coninfo/

3. Just like with the fair, portability of pre-tax 401k’s, we need fair, portable pre-tax health savings accounts for everyone to save their own money over time, make their own decisions on health care, and pay it with their own money.
4. Make health care ‘insurance’ back into actual insurance. Couple health savings accounts with high-deductible catastrophic health insurance policies.

The above approach gives everyone the access, proper control, and choice over their health- not the opposite helplessness dictated by some far away, faceless bureaucrat.

Filed under: Health Care, Politics, Collectivised Health Care, Culture, Government, Government-Run Health Care, Health, Health Care, Life, Politics, Socialized Health Care, Society, Universal Health Care