Is there a right to health care?

WSJ.com - Opinion: Is There a ‘Right’ to Health Care?*

Health Reform: More Socialism than American

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333671448808513

Reparations by way of health care reform

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333586760867927

History Of Gov't-Run Health Care Is A Study In Skyrocketing Costs

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333756899262999

The politcal class and Health Care Reform

Health Reform: If Democrats in Washington think their health care reform with a public option is a good thing, why have they exempted themselves from it? Why isn't what's good for their constituents good for them? Remember George Orwell's "1984" when Napoleon comments that "all pigs are equal, but some pigs are more equal than others".

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333327285894028

Obama Wants to Redistribute Health, Too

http://townhall.com/content/acecb27e-5ab0-4084-8c15-cd94d0bb4e2f

Take Two Aspirin and Call Me When Your Cancer is Stage 4
http://townhall.com/content/3915763c-3c4e-4c90-a460-ea8d4969459c

Health Care Reform and the American Character

While it's important to analyze the relative financial costs and benefits of health care proposals which Congress is considering, our greatest challenge cannot be limited to the economics of the issue. Our transcending concerns are moral and political. The American character itself and the principles of free market democracy which protect and preserve it may be lost beyond recovery if Congress chooses the wrong path to health care reform -- the path down which the Obama Administration seems determined to lead our country. Read on to appreciate the insights of Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan.

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/23/health-care-reform-and-the-ame

The Matter with Myths

This is a must read. Share it with your friends and family. The biggest obstacle conservatives face is that for decades we have allowed many myths and misleading facts about health care to permeate the national consciousness and rig the debate in the favor of those who want to expand the role of government. While there is a lot of misinformation to parse, The American Spectator has compiled a list of some of the most pernicious myths in need of debunking.

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/21/the-matter-with-myths

Obama and the Communist Party USA

Before you roll your eyes, take the time and read what Sam Webb, National Chair of the Communist Party USA has to say about the first 6 months of the Obama Administration. He made these remarks at the National Committee meeting on June 20, 2009. This is instructive. Go back and read the 10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848. Remember Santayana's Law of Repetitive Consequences:"Those that cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/07/obama_and_the_cpusa.html

The Freedom Index

"The Freedom Index: A Congressional Scorecard Based on the U.S. Constitution" rates congressmen based on their adherence to constitutional principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, national sovereignty, and a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements. To learn how any representative or senator voted on the key measures described herein, look him or her up in the vote charts. The scores are derived by dividing a congressman's constitutional votes (pluses) by the total number he cast (pluses and minuses) and multiplying by 100.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/congress/424

Some great miscellaneous editorials:

A 10-member Massachusetts state healthcare advisory board unanimously recommended that the state begin rationing healthcare to keep the state’s marquee universal health care program afloat financially.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/1445

Thoughts from the Wall Street Journal:

Senators prefer their own health care plan as opposed to the one they propose for everyone else

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB124786946165760369-lMyQjAxMDI5NDE3OTgxNjk5Wj.html

How to stop socialized medicine

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB124467554761003983-lMyQjAxMDI5NDE0OTYxNzk1Wj.html

Government Care Costs More

THE testimony by Congressional Budget Office chief Douglas Elmendorf that the health-care legislation in Congress "significantly expands" costs shocked Capitol Hill. Yet the evidence shows that government-run care has always been more costly than private-sector care.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07182009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/govt_care_costs_more_179841.htm

Runaway Train To Less Freedom, Higher Taxes And Rationed Care

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332725027738512

Does the Democratic health care plan ban private insurance?

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/07/024073.php

Organizational Chart of house democrats' health plan

YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS TO BELIEVE IT!

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8519595/Organizational-Chart-of-House-Democrats-Health-Plan

CBO extinguishes thought of cost savings with Obamacare

Here’s a blow to President Obama and Democrats pressing health care reform.

One of the main arguments made by the President and others for investing in health reform now is that it will save the federal government money in the long run by containing costs.

Turns out that may not be the case, according to Doug Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Answering questions from Democrat Kent Conrad of North Dakota at a hearing of the Senate Budget Committee today, Elmendorf said CBO does not see health care cost savings in either of the partisan Democratic bills currently in Congress.

Conrad: Dr. Elmendorf, I am going to really put you on the spot because we are in the middle of this health care debate, but it is critically important that we get this right. Everyone has said, virtually everyone, that bending the cost curve over time is critically...

http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/2009/07/17/cbo-pours-cold-water-on-obama-admins-claims-about-savings-from-obamacare/

Additional Thoughts on Health Care

The link below is an IBD editorial from representative Ed Royce from California. If you think government run health care is superior to the free market alternatives, look no further than the VA and Indian Health systems.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=3323757358

PROMISES, PROMISES: Indian Health Care's victims

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090615/ap_on_go_ot/us_health_care_s_forgotten

Novel Ideas

Honesty: Lawmakers voted on the stimulus and global warming bills without having read either. Eventually they'll vote on health care legislation that could fund unrelated items. Time to end this systemic fraud.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332121205046319

Ration Trial Lawyers, Not Services, To Lower The Cost Of Health Care

By GEORGE F. BALL | Posted Monday, July 06, 2009 4:20 PM PT

As a lawyer who has spent many years defending frivolous lawsuits, both as an in-house general counsel and outside counsel, and as a former member of the McCain-Palin civil justice reform advisory committee, it is clear to me that we do need rationing to contain health care costs — lawyer rationing.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=331769697378611

The Health Care Debate continues

The editorials in the Investor's Business Daily and the article in the most recent edition of the American Spectator help clarify some of the issues in the ongoing health care debate. There is also a great article in TAS entitled "The Matter with Myths". This article also provides great information on the myths and realities as they relate to health care and I will post it as soon as it becomes available on the web.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=331943783298135

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=331944894331657

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/06/08/downgrading-american-medical-c

Saving Freedom - commentary from US Senator Jim DeMint

Freedom is not a gift from government, but a right given to us by God. We believe that every human being is endowed with “certain unalienable Rights,” including “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” In 1787, our Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia to forge a new system of government, designed to “form a more perfect union” and guarantee Americans, in the words of Ronald Reagan, “the maximum of personal liberty consistent with order.”

Paramount among the reasons this system succeeded in America was our political and religious culture that accepted the inextricable connection between personal freedom and personal responsibility. It was understood that, for every question in life not answered by government, individuals, families, and neighborhoods must work out answers for themselves. The Founders knew that the natural order of things was for government to expand at the expense of personal liberty, so their Constitution was based on an implicit bargain – the less government does for you, the less government can do to you.

Today, our once-limited federal government has betrayed those founding principles. It tries to be all things to all people, yet despite its good intentions, government action usually does more harm than good. Look around: every system Washington touches – health care, education, energy, infrastructure, mortgage lending – quickly begins to break down. In some recent cases, including the automobile bankruptcies and the Wall Street bailouts, even the rule of law itself has been subordinated to the good intentions of politicians and bureaucrats. And yet government’s solution to the problems it causes is always … more government. To solve problems created by government’s role in our schools or health care, Congress now proposes a complete federal takeover of these systems!

What Washington refuses to understand is that government systems will always fail because they are not free. Private schools perform better than public schools. Private health insurance provides better care than government programs, and controls its own costs. Without the competitive pressures and transparency of a free market, government agencies have no motivation to improve their services. After 10 years in Washington, I have concluded that both parties are slow to recognize this one simple fact: freedom works, and government doesn’t.

Washington simply will not change on its own. To change our politics, we first have to change our culture. We need to remember that freedom demands responsibility. We need to reject politicians who promise us something for nothing, and instead take back both our freedoms and the responsibilities that go with them. We must not only end our growing dependence on government; we must become independent in our own right.

Given the space and choices to make our own decisions, whether in education, health care, civil society, or in business – the American people will thrive, as they always have. But the political class in Washington will not easily return the power it has taken from us – we must take it back, in two ways.

First, we must remake America’s culture of responsibility: in our family life, in our communities, and in our businesses. We must prepare our nation for its rebirth of freedom, so that when government finally does begin to change, our culture and economy can hit the ground running.

And second, this cultural renewal must assert itself in the political arena. Elected politicians are only as unresponsive as their constituents allow. They know that every letter and email and phone call represents hundreds more just like them. They know that Big Government’s worst enemy is an informed citizenry, ready at the next election to punish anyone who infringes on our God-given and constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms. Get involved, and I promise – we will see results.

Freedom can be saved, but it can’t free itself. Like the patriots of Bunker Hill and Philadelphia, of Gettysburg and Normandy, our generation must now take up that banner for ourselves. Saving Freedom is never easy, but it’s always worth it

Independence Day - July 4th, 1776

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Remembering What the Declaration of Independence was Not!

In celebration of July 4th, here's some food for thought to enjoy either before or after your festivities.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/remembering_what_the_declarati_1.html

The Socialization of America

This article provides some great historical perspective and discusses Karl Marx, the Fabian Socialist Society and John Maynard Keynes. I found it to be very interesting and a worthwhile read.

http://www.augustreview.com/news_commentary/general/the_socialization_of_america_20090701124/

Thomas Jefferson sure was prescient!

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe .

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:
'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered..'