The Trick is not to get sick

I'm busy with end of the semester papers. So naturally, doing anything other than those papers is appealing.

A few quick thoughts on the health care bill in the Senate.

While I am glad the public option is being removed, it is obvious this bill is crap. Even without the public option, the insurance industry will be so heavily regulated that they will be de facto agents of the government. It will then be only a matter of time until direct government control of the health industry become de jure.

Why is it that Obama and the Democrats are at a brake-neck pace to pass this thing? I've heard that Obama wants to tout it for his State of the Union address next month. But still, every day that goes by shows support dwindling for Obama and his allies. So why push it all the harder? In reality, the Democrats are looking at the Euro-Canadian example and their last attempt at socialized health care in 1993. Unlike then, the Democrats can ram anything they want through the Congress, if they ignore the polls and are unified. So they really don't need any Republicans.

Second, what did they learn from Europe and Canada? Simple: once it is in place, it will be nearly impossible to go back. Neither Winston Churchill, nor Margaret Thatcher ended Britain's National Health Service. In Canada, there is an effort at some privatization, but not a tremendous push. In both countries, their medical conditions are atrocious. Months or even years go by before simple operations and procedures can happen. A recent article linked on Drudge showed the deplorable conditions for women giving birth in England. And yet, with their medical systems crashing, the people still won't get rid of the system.

This is what Obama knows. Once the legislation passes, it will only get bigger in the years to come. I weep for this country.

For those anti-war liberals that love this, remember the army neglect scandal at Walter Reed? You know, where the army wasn't supplying wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with the proper care needed? The hospital was run down, dirty, infested with rats, roaches and mold. Wounded soldiers had to fill out 2 dozen forms that no one understood for basic care. Parents of the soldiers had to put them on their insurance plans and take them to private facilities. Remember this travesty? You all loved to criticize Bush for this. But let me get this straight: after all that, you want to turn over the health care of nearly 300 million people to the same system of bureaucrats because it will make it better? Are you kidding me?!?!

I recently rewatched on YouTube the documentary, Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism. It is excellent. It concludes by talking the end of socialism and communism at the turn of the century. Unfortunately it is wrong. America had been on of the few countries in the world that escaped socialism's full fury, but it seems that we were merely late to the party. The documentary says that the tide of history had turned. I guess Obama didn't get the memo.

This just goes to show how much power and sway the federal government has. With maybe 1000 people, they can completely alter the direction and fundamental principles of society (I include the president and his advisors, 60 senators, a little over 200 representatives, and various other advisors, judges, etc.)

Socialism has never produced the results it says it will. And yet, after over century of failures, we are going to go down the path of a great socialist experiment. Isn't it the definition of insanity to try the same thing over and over again and expect a different result?

But of course, the Obamunists are on a mission. I'm not sure if they even think it will work. They simply hate the current system so much that it must be altered. And if it won't work, at least everyone will be equally miserable. Plus, it will decrease the surplus popluation. Bah humbug!

I conclude with a quote from Samuel Gompers, the first president of the AFL and a staunch anti-socialist:
"I want to tell you, Socialists, that I have studied your philosophy; read your works upon economics, and not the meanest of them; studied your standard works, both in English and German -- have not only read, but studied them. I have heard your orators and watched the work of your movement the world over. I have kept close watch upon your doctrines for thirty years; have been closely associated with many of you, and know how you think and what you propose. I know, too, what you have up your sleeve. And I want to say that I am entirely at variance with your philosophy. I declare to you, I am not only at variance with your doctrines, but with your philosophy. Economically you are unsound; socially, you are wrong; industrially, you are an impossibility." (Vol. 6: SG to AFL Convention, Nov. 1903)