John Stossel: ObamaCare Speech Decoded

John Stossel, commentator and news anchor with Fox Business News, gives us a point-by-point translation (decoding) of the President's hollow victory speech on Obamacare ruling by the US Supreme Court.  Obama-speak and the truth about ObamaCare continue to diverge.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/blog/2012/06/29/obamas-victory-speech-translated

President Obama as a Mere Mortal

President Obama as a Mere Mortal

The anointed one, the savior of the left in America, the first “post modern President” who actually “gets it” (according to his supporters), is actually crashing to earth as a mere mortal. Just another human politician in America.

The articulate columnist Charles Krauthammer, well known for his direct and insightful perspective, writes in his September 4^th (2009) column (see www.realclearpolitics.com )

What happened to President Obama? His wax wings having melted, he is the man who fell to earth….After a disastrous summer -- mistaking his mandate, believing his press, centralizing power, governing left, disdaining citizens for (of all things) organizing -- Obama is in trouble.

Things got worse still. With answers so slippery and implausible and, well, fishy, he began jeopardizing the most fundamental asset of any new president -- trust. You can't say that the system is totally broken and in need of radical reconstruction, but nothing will change for you; that Medicare is bankrupting the country, but $500 billion in cuts will have no effect on care; that you will expand coverage while reducing deficits -- and not inspire incredulity and mistrust. When ordinary citizens understand they are being played for fools, they bristle.

So what happened to the new President? What we are seeing is an excellent campaigner who can articulate his views in the public square, (with the full support of the Obama mesmerized media), but yet, the new President lacks the actual experience in governing and real leadership. So exactly what has Barack Obama managed or what was his executive experience prior to serving as the US President? Being a community organizer? Being a state Senator in the corrupt state of Illinois? Running an “anointed one” campaign complete with Roman like fiberglass columns in Denver? Clearly we are seeing a lack of executive experience, a lack of a moderate or balanced perspective and a lack of understanding of the American people. In addition, we are seeing an inexperienced President in an office that is beyond what he can personally handle. Simply put, Obama is in over his head. Political posturing and smooth talking will not substitute for actually leading as the President. Is it Obama’s lack of leadership and governing skills necessary to be the leader of the free world that are missing? In fact it may be worse than it appears. The President may really believe his press, his leftist worldview and his distain for the right of center American voter. And when this leads to mistrust by the American people, the President will lose his moral authority and the trust earned by action, not rhetoric. Now the only question is: Will President Obama continue his drift into ineffective leadership combined with an apparent disconnect with the American people? Or will he be able to reverse the years of influence by left wing ideology, radical friends and the adoring liberal press?

His next attempt to remake his image and follow his handlers’ teleprompter script will be before a joint session of Congress this week. However, talk is cheap when real leadership is needed. My prediction: More of the same smooth talking President Obama with the main stream media giving him the full benefit of the doubt, while the American people ask the fundamental question of their duly elected President, “Do we trust you?” And the voters answer, based on their observed behavior of the President and his Democrat allies in Congress and his administration: probably not.

© 2009, Four Corners Media, Jasper Welch www.jasperwelch.com

Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.

By JOHN MACKEY      Editorial from the Wall Street Journal

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out 
of other people's money."

—Margaret Thatcher

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people's money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.

Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.

• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.

• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.

At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.

Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.

Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.

Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.

www.wsj.com            © 2009, Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company

Public Option? No Way!

Public Option? No Way

US Senator Tom Colburn (R-Oklahoma) lays out 10 questions for taxpayers to ask their Congressmen and Congresswomen during this August recess. See National Review On-line http://www.nationalreview.com/

The fifth question by Senator Colburn, one of only 2 doctors in the US Senate, is particularly telling:

5. If the public option is so wonderful, will you (as member of Congress) lead by example and vote for a plan to enroll you and your family in the public option?

I offered an amendment in committee to force members of Congress to enroll in the public option. Nine out of eleven Democrats on the health committee who back the public option refused. If the politicians creating the public option don’t have confidence in it, neither should the American people.

Now that the members of Congress are back in their home states and districts, there are a number of questions that the voters and taxpayers are asking. The rest of the questions that Dr. Tom Colburn is asking are putting the Democrats on the defensive, to the point of that some Congress members are discounting the dissent and vocal questions at town halls as “un-American” (See USA Today editorial by Speaker Pelosi) at http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/08/unamerican-attacks-cant-derail-health-care-debate-.html

Hello! This is American (at least for now) and our Republic was founded on peaceful assembly and the ability to petition the government (see the Bill of Rights on individual freedoms and liberty enshrined in the Constitution). To characterize hard working, taxpaying Americans, who disagree with socialized medicine and government run health care as un-American, is simply ridiculous.

So here are 5 more questions for your Congressperson:

1) Please give us several examples of US Government run health care, such as the Indian Health Services, VA Hospitals or Medicare re-imbursement, that actually work better that my employer provided health coverage?

2) As a member of Congress, will you go on record and sign up for the Government option for your healthcare?

3) How do you propose the US pays for a government run system that is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to increase US government spending dramatically? What spending cuts will you make? What taxes are you proposing?

4) Do you believe that government bureaucrats can make better medical decisions than patients and their doctors?

5) Have you ever provided medical care and/or are you a licensed health care professional? If not, what are your qualifications to decide health care policy for your fellow Americans?

We have one month to simply say No! We don’t want ObamaCare! Clearly the Congress themselves (for their personal health care options) don’t want to sign up for the US Government option! Why should we?

© 2009, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media www.jasperwelch.org

ObamaCare Equals Healthcare Rationing

Obama Care Equals Healthcare Rationing

There is a great article on the www.americathinker.com  written Dr. Zane Pollard regarding the reality of ObamaCare:  it will lead to rationing, less quality of care and a shortage of doctors.    Not convinced?    Here is Dr. Pollard's article on American Thinker  

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/obamacare_and_me.html

If socialized medicine is not what you had in mind with Obama Care, contact your Congressman or US Senator.  They are back home for the August recess.    Attend a town hall meeting or show up at the local Congressional office, and let them know you concerns.

(c) 2009, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media    www.jasperwelch.org

A Doctor's View of the Healthcare Debate

A Doctor’s View of the Healthcare Debate

Health care as we know it today is over. Patients complain now about waiting 15 minutes to be seen in the office, wait till they can't get an appointment for weeks or months! Medicine has become a business, like any other free enterprise company. Without appropriate reimbursement, increasing overheads and burdensome government controls, the business fails. This is the direction we are heading.

As a local doctor seeing local patients, we can no longer invest in new state of the art technology, we have patients purchase their own supplies and drugs and bring them to the office, we function on skeleton staff, continue to pay exorbitant malpractice premiums, not to mention providing costly health insurance to our staff and families and our medical offices sees 25% more patients daily to keep our business afloat.

You tell me how adding 40 million new patients to the US health care pool with Medicaid like coverage, which actually cost us money to provide their care, is going to fix the system?
I agree health care spending is out of control. Yet, allow our free enterprise system to run itself. Healthcare is not a right in this country. It costs money like anything else. If you want to be healthy, take care of yourself and don't rely on your government to care for your self-inflicted obesity: Diabetes, arthritis, heart disease come from poor nutrition and sedentary life styles.

Allow a two tier system to flourish. Continue health care insurance, without allowing huge profits to the insurance companies and using that money to lower premiums, allow a state and federal Medicaid system for only those who cannot work, paid by increase taxes on junk food, cigarettes and alcohol. Let the American citizen decide on what their health is worth. They have no problem buying a new iPod, new 50 inch plasma TV or car, but when it comes to health care no one wants to pay!!!!

Enough said! Doc Rock (Williamsport, PA)

Editor Note: Dr. Steve Rockoff is a successful Urologist in Williamsport, PA and a close friend of my sister Carroll. According to my sister, Doc Rock is a great guy, great doctor, father of four, and a solid conservative.

© 2009, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org