The Damned Demcare Bill

Nothing has changed.

The Democrats in Congress say they want to reduce medical care costs, "bend the cost curve down", and cover those who don't have health insurance. They claim they will can do this in a way that will not increase the deficit, and will allow (!) those happy with their medical insurance to keep it.

To accomplish these noble goals, the Democrats have produced a "health care" bill. Their bill accomplishes none of these goals — and, in fact, makes every one of these problems worse.

You don't reduce costs by spending an extra $1 trillion. And that huge number is almost certainly a substantial understatement. Yes, the Congressional Budget Office has come out with their number for what they say this bill will cost, and their statement that the bill is basically deficit neutral. To get that deficit neutrality, the bill steals more than half a trillion dollars from Medicare and includes an additional half trillion dollars in new taxes. And even with that, the Democrats' Congressional leadership feels it necessary to lie and claim the CBO projects a large deficit reduction in the program's second decade, though the CBO report said no such thing.

Stop and think about that: The primary rationale for starting this process was that our expenditures on health care are too high and becoming unaffordable. What kind of sense does it make to pretend we are reducing health care expenditures by spending more than an additional trillion dollars?

And it's really worse than that. President Obama and Speaker Pelosi have both said in the past week that this bill will extend the viability of the Medicare program by more than ten years. That would be laughable if it weren't so ludicrous. They are actually claiming that stealing half a trillion dollars from this near-bankrupt program will make it healthier! Does anyone believe Obama and the Congress will willingly destroy Medicare? If not, and the assumptions the CBO was forced to use are false, then those "savings" are illusory (I would say fraudulent) and the deficit from the Demcare bill will be more than a half trillion dollars higher — at least. And that's assuming the cost estimates are accurate ten years out, as they never have been.

Part of that assumption is the claim repeated so often by President Obama that “If you like your current healthcare plan, you can keep it.” And it's true that, under this bill, the government will not order us to change our health insurance — it will just make it impossible for us to keep it. Another lie. Another deliberate lie.

In addition, the bill keeps costs down for the federal government by dumping them on the states. Much of the increased insurance coverage, for those not currently insured, is accomplished by adding them into the Medicaid program. That's a huge unfunded mandate — a huge additional cost for the states, who will have to raise their taxes to cover it. But that must be OK, 'cause it's not a federal cost.

This bill is just full of mandates. There are mandates on insurance companies, mandates on employers, and mandates on individuals. With this bill, the government arrogates to itself the right to tell every person in the country what they must buy. That is absolutely improper, and unconstitutional. Under our system of government, it is not allowed to interfere in individual choices to that degree. That kind of interference is only allowed under a tyranny — allowed by the tyrannical government to itself. Legitimate governments are not allowed to tell us what insurance we must buy, or how many cheeseburgers we are allowed to buy or must buy. But that's what they're doing. That's what this bill does. And it must be OK, 'cause it's for our own good.

Beyond that, there's one other huge lie behind this bill. The Democrats pretend that those without health insurance cannot get health care. This is a lie, and they know it. Everyone gets treated in the emergency room. No, it's not the best way to deliver health care. But everyone who needs health care gets it.

These are just a few of the reasons most Americans oppose this bill. Even the Rasmussen poll, which is considerably more favorable than other polls to the Democrat leadership's healthcare "reform" bill, reports a significant majority of the country opposes this bill. And Rasmussen reports that 45% of the population strongly opposes this bill. But the Democrats' leadership refuses to listen.

The process Obama and Pelosi are now trying to sell is for the House to pass the bill the Senate passed in December, before the election of Scott Brown from Massachusetts. They are telling House members they can vote for the abominable Senate bill on the promise that the Senate will accept the "fixes" produced by the House for the "reconciliation" bill. That seems to me a really dangerous game to play. Can they really trust that Senate Majority Leader Reid can deliver next week what he couldn't last year? And even if he does, .... Best bet — once the House passes the Senate bill, the whole game is over. Obama signs the Senate bill and it's done.

One final thing: If this bill is so great, as President Obama and Speaker Pelosi keep claiming, why are they completely unable to convince members of their own party to vote for it on its merits? Why are they having to rely on bribery and extortion to get the votes to pass it?

The Republicans have been right on this one. Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are ideologues intent on getting this bill passed no matter how bad it is. They're gambling the Republicans and the non-extremist Democrats won't have the balls to repeal it. And no matter how good the original plan may have been, Daryl Cagle is still right about this bill.

And they're going to vote on this abomination today.

What the Obama Summit Was Really About

Trever, political cartoonist for the Albuquerque Journal hits the nail on the head. Again. This is what the Obama White House health care summit was really about.It wasn't about getting the Republicans on-board with his Obamacare 2.0 — it wasn't about the Republicans at all, except in Obama's hopes he could use the publicity to make the Republicans look bad. This summit was really about trying to get the Democrats to agree to his "compromise" plan.

Obama Lies About His Healthcare Plan

President Barack Obama claimed earlier this week that his plan gives ordinary Americans the same health care choices as the members of Congress. Presumably that also means at the same cost Congressmen pay — $503 per year for full coverage, including drugs.

For Obama to make that claim means one of two things

1. Obama hasn't a clue what's really in "his" plan.
2. Obama is telling a deliberate lie.

Whichever option is true, it shouldn't surprise anyone.

New Mexico Voter ID Update

The same-day voter registration bill, supported by Governor Bill Richardson and the Democrats' leadership in the legislature, has failed for the current legislative session. This is the bill, included in the governor's call, that allowed registration and voting at the same time with no photo ID requirement. The bill failed when, as noted in the Albuquerque Journal (subscription required), it failed to get enought votes to advance in the Senate Judiciary Committee and was tabled in the House Voters and Elections Committee.

Not included in the governor's call (and therefore unable to be introduced in the 30-day session) was a bill for a photo ID requirement to register and to vote. A Silver City Representative described in a column why she had introduced this bill before:

I carried a bill requiring photo identification at the polls last year during the 60-day session. I was prompted to take action when I learned that New Mexico State University students, many voting for the first time, had been told at the polls that votes in their name already had been cast. They were then forced to vote on provisional ballots; after the election, these students received notices that their provisional ballots were deemed invalid. The students realized that the votes other people cast using their names and addresses were the votes that counted.

Can you imagine being told the first time you were old enough to vote that someone else had voted for you? Their stories are heartbreaking.

Last year my bill for photo ID was killed by the House Voters and Elections Committee. At the time, the Santa Fe New Mexican had published a poll conducted by the University of New Mexico that revealed 85 percent of New Mexicans want photo ID at the polls.

Her column also adds to what I said before, noting the Democrats' hypocrisy and shamelessness (my words, not hers):

Perhaps the greatest irony I have seen in Santa Fe is occurring during this session. As I sat in my office writing this op-ed, citizens were lined up in the hallway outside the governor's office, waiting their turn to talk with him during his office hours.

In order to speak with him, they had to present a photo ID.

As I have said before, anyone who opposes a serious voter identification requirement is objectively promoting vote fraud. That's why a large majority of New Mexico voters (apparently 85%) favor a voter ID law. And this time the legislature listened — a little.

Amazing!

Snow on the ground in all 50 states! All at the same time!

New Mexico Democrats Still Promote Vote Fraud

The New Mexico state legislature is in its 30 day session. (Legislative sessions in even-numbered years are only 30 days long here, and can only consider topics included in the "governor's call".) And the legislature is continuing its actions against New Mexico's voters.

As previously noted, the legislature last year killed a Republican-sponsored voter ID bill on a straight party-line vote. That left New Mexico law in the state described by the Albuquerque Journal last year (registration/subscription required):

Current New Mexico law, approved by the Democratic-controlled Legislature, allows voters to identify themselves in one of several ways that don't involve a photo ID, including a “verbal or written statement” by the voter giving their name, registration address and year of birth.

In other words, current state law says you can just walk in and claim to be someone, and you can vote in their place.

This year's legislative Democrats want to expand this open invitation to fraud. At the request of Governor Bill Richardson (and presumably included in his "call"), Representative Jim Trujillo (D-Santa Fe) has introduced House Bill 123 which, if passed, will allow same day registration and voting at early voting sites without the need for a photo ID. (Same day registration would apparently be available only during early voting, and not on election day. Presumably, this is because the election day voting sites do not have real-time update access to the state's voter rolls, thus limiting the fraudulent updates to the early voting sites.)

In other words, you would be able to walk in and give a fictitious name, fictitious birth year, and fictitious address — with no documentation whatever — and be immediately placed on the voter rolls and immediately allowed to vote. This wouldn't be just an open invitation to vote fraud. It would be an absolute iron-clad guarantee of it.

HB 123 is being referred to two House committees, the Voters and Elections Committee and the Consumer and Public Affairs Committee.

Oh, yes. Need I mention that Speaker Ben Lujan and Representative W. Ken Martinez (presumably still the majority leader) — who led the effort to kill voter ID last year — are members of the Voters and Elections Committee? Something tells me they will follow the wishes of the governor, and to hell with the wishes of New Mexico's citizens and voters.

As I have said before, anyone who opposes a serious voter identification requirement is objectively promoting vote fraud. That's why a large majority of New Mexico voters (apparently 80%) favor a voter ID law, but that doesn't matter since that 80% obviously doesn't include the Democrats in the legislature. I wonder why the Democrats are insisting on this. (Maybe I shouldn't wonder.)

Things like this tell me the Democrats have had control of the state legislature FAR too long.

Regulators Take Untroubled Bank From Its Owners

The federal Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) closed family-owned Charter Bank in New Mexico on Friday afternoon and handed it to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which gave it to Beal Financial Corporation of Plano, Texas. The FDIC said all bank branches would reopen on Monday under Beal's ownership.

The closure was a surprise because the bank was not having problems, except with its regulators.

Last fall, Office of Thrift Supervision examiners, responding to the national collapse of real estate development, ordered Charter to increase its allowance for loan losses from $10.8 million to $55.4 million, even though Charter had no delinquent commercial construction loans and only .34 percent of the loans in its commercial real estate portfolio were behind on their payments. That order reduced the level of capital Charter had on its books.

Then, last Wednesday, "OTS ordered Charter to find new capital as a buffer against insolvency or face closure." That order was followed by OTS' closing the bank just two days later.

Let's look at those figures again. This bank, which the regulators said was so troubled it had to be closed, had no delinquent commercial construction loans and just .34 percent — one third of one percent of its commercial real estate loans that were behind in their payments. That's a record I suspect very few banks in the country could match.

"This was not indicative of any instability on the part of the bank," New Mexico State Regulation and Licensing Secretary Kelly O'Donnell said Friday.

In an interview Saturday, Charter Bank President Glenn Wertheim said politics played a role in his bank's death. He noted that the AIG unit considered to have been the "linchpin" in the financial system collapse in September of 2008 was regulated by OTS, which ended up with much of the blame for the collapse. As a result, "OTS found itself fighting for its life as politicians called for its abolition or merger into other regulatory bodies." As a result, they "had a shift in examination standards", which subsequently resulted in Charter's untroubled loans being reclassified as toxic.

Charter's management, led since 2001 by bank President Glenn Wertheim, insisted that loans, mostly commercial real estate loans — which OTS said were troubled — were, in fact, being paid on time. OTS disagreed and ordered tens of millions of dollars of those loans to be classified as toxic.

That classification, recorded as an entry on the bank's balance sheet, on paper lowered Charter's capital (money regulators require banks to make sure their deposits are safe) to levels well below those regulators regard as sound, even though virtually all of Charter's commercial real estate borrowers continued to pay their bills on time.

Charter Bank specialized in mortgage loans designed to help first-time home buyers get affordable mortgages, even though they could have made more money offering other types of loans. Many of its loans were made in cooperation with Mortgage Finance Authority (MFA), established by the New Mexico legislature to help finance low-income home construction. According to MFA executive director Jay Czar, Charter Bank services "about 95 percent of the mortgages issued through the agency." It is unclear how the Charter Bank closure may affect MFA programs.

— Subscription to the Albuquerque Journal is apparently required for access to most of its news articles.

Dealergate & Quality Chrysler: Owners May Get Their Dealership Back

General Motors and Chrysler unceremoniously dumped a large number of dealerships last year as a part of their bankrupcy proceedings. Indications of political influence in the selection of which dealers were to be cut off earned the process the name of Dealergate.

I was aware at the time of the numbers of dealers being cut — General Motors cut 1,350 dealerships and Chrysler cut 789 (some accounts said 900). And I knew that Chrysler Corporation cut off the dealers it was dumping on June 9, 2009 — as soon as allowed by the bankruptcy court decision and its review by the US Supreme Court — and Chrysler specified that the auto inventories were to be taken from those dealerships (with Chrysler billing the closing dealership for the "service") to dealerships Chrysler was allowing to remain open. What I hadn't known was that the General Motors dealerships were allowed to remain open until October 2010 to sell their inventories.

Belatedly, at least some of the dealers may be able to have some recourse. Late last year, Congress passed and President Obama signed a law requiring mandatory arbitration for dealers challenging their termination. One dealership that has requested arbitration, according to an article (subscription required) in the Albuquerque Journal, is Albuquerque's Quality Jeep Chrysler — the dealer I wrote about previously.

The DiLorenzo family owned the Quality dealership for 22 years. They have no idea why they were targeted for closure. Annette DiLorenzo Thayer, the dealership's former Director of Operations, described this as "a chance at getting 'a little bit of justice' ".

"We are ecstatic for the opportunity to find out why they would take something from us, steal something from us, and give it to someone else for free," she told the Journal.

The DiLorenzo family wants to get its brand back, and hopes for reinstatement. Chrysler is still considering "whether to challenge the appeals process."

What Massachusetts' Voters Said

Once more, Trever (of the Albuquerque Journal) hits the nail squarely on the head.

What Massachusetts' Voters Want

There has been a lot of discussion since last Tuesday as to the meaning of Republican Scott Brown's election to the US Senate seat held for so long by Senator Edward M. (Teddy) Kennedy. The Washington Post did a poll to find out. Its results, as reported in an Associated Press story in the Boston Globe include:

Nearly two-thirds of those who supported Brown over Democrat Martha Coakley said their vote was intended partly to show opposition to the Democratic agenda in Washington, including the health care overhaul. Still, rather than just blocking proposals, three-quarters said they wanted to see Brown work with Democrats to get GOP proposals into legislation in general; nearly half said that specifically about the health care legislation.

In other words, Massachusetts' voters

1. really don't like the agenda of the Democrats' national leadership (elsewhere, it was said they also didn't like the dishonest way the leadership has been pursuing that agenda), and
2. they wanted a Senator who wouldn't be just an obstructionist, like this decade's Democrats when they were in the minority.

Even Before the Democrats' Medicare Cuts

The Democrats — or at least their Congressional leadership — pretend their "health care" bill won't damage Medicare, even though it takes half a trillion dollars from the program. But let's take a short look at some reality.

The Medicare "savings" are to be accomplished by cutting Medicare's payments for medical services rendered by more than 20%. The Congressional Democrats claim there is this level of fraud in the Medicare program. But they make no attempt to fix that problem, to attack the fraud they claim is there, instead taking out their legislative anger on all Medicare doctors and patients.

But, as everyone already knows, Medicare is in trouble even without these new cuts. Two ways.

1. It's about to go bankrupt. It soon won't have enough money to pay its commitments.
2. It only pays doctors about half what it should — half what patient treatment costs. That's why so many doctors won't take new Medicare patients.

Both aspects will be made substantially worse by stealing half a trillion dollars from the program.

And what brings this into focus now? The Mayo Clinic — cited by Barack Obama as a model of healthcare efficiency — has made a decision. Not only will its Arizona clinic not accept new Medicare patients, its existing Medicare patients will have to pay cash to stay with their Mayo doctors. That's because the Arizona clinics lost $120 million last year treating Medicare patients. Overall, the Mayo clinics lost $840 million on Medicare patients last year, which had to be made up from their non-Medicare patients.

Can you imagine how much worse it will be for Medicare doctors and Medicare patients if the Democrats' "health care" bill becomes law? And how many doctors will have to choose between bankruptcy and turning away Medicare patients needing medical care?

Turning Sunlight Into Oil

There was an interesting article in POPSCI last month about a new technology to make fuel/oil from carbon dioxide and sunlight — effectively making fuel out of thin air.

• Making fuel/oil
• Using sunlight
• Consuming CO₂
      This news is GREENER than GREEN.

This is HUGE, even as it stands. If it pans out at a larger scale, then it's HISTORIC.

UPDATE: A Technology Review article confirms the demonstration of a prototype device, the first step out of the laboratory and toward full-scale operation.

Warning Flags, Ignored

Let's see — Here are a few things we know (from the news reports) about the piece of sub-human garbage who tried to kill a large number of humans on Christmas:
    • He bought a one-way ticket
    • He paid cash
    • He apparently bought it pretty close to the last minute
    • He checked in with no checked baggage

All these are things we have been told ad infinitum would always produced detailed secondary screening. But it's pretty clear no secondary screening — detailed or otherwise — ever took place. If it had, that screening would probably have turned up the fact that
    • He had been reported as a dangerous extremist to US and foreign authorities by his father,
    • He had been denied a re-entry visa (to return to school) by the British,
    • He was associated with al Qaeda in Yemen, which has claimed the blame for this attack, and
    • He was on a warning list of dangerous, terror-connected individuals, even though
    • He hadn't (yet) been promoted to the no-fly list

These are just a few warning flags. I've no doubt there were more.

It looks to me like the bureaucrats of the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) really don't know what they're doing. As a result, they are mainly just hassling ordinary passengers without doing what's needed to make us safer.

One more thing: After Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber", tried to blow up a plane over the Atlantic 8 years ago, we all had to start taking off our shoes for screening. Since this guy had his PETN explosive in his underwear, will we have to start taking ours off for TSA?

UPDATE: Another missed warning flag — on his way to a frigid city, he had no coat.

Cash for Corruptocrats

This phase of the battle over the Democrat “health care” bill is over, and its finish was spectacular — and I mean that in the worst possible way. Harry Reid and his cronies demonstrated conclusively that they have no scruples whatever. Not only did Harry and his friends completely shut out the Republicans from having any input on the bill at all, but they also shut out most Democrats and even most of the Democrats’ leadership.

Even so, they only way Harry Reid could “win” was to buy off — bribe — a number of his colleagues. Actually it’s worse than ordinary, garden variety bribery. Harry Reid didn't bribe the other senators with his own money — he bribed them and purchased their votes with our money. Michelle Malkin calls Harry Reid’s vote buying program Cash for Corruptocrats.

I guess I wouldn’t mind so much if, like in the other Cash for Clunkers program, this meant they would first be disabled and then taken out to be dismantled.

Merry Christmas

Wishing you all a blessed Christmas

Image thanks to ZIP

Democrats' "Health Care" Bill

The Democrats in Congress say they want to reduce medical care costs, "bend the cost curve down", and cover those who don't have health insurance. They claim they will can do this in a way that will not increase the deficit, and will allow (!) those happy with their medical insurance to keep it.

To accomplish these noble goals, the Democrats have produced a "health care" bill. Their bill accomplishes none of these goals — and, in fact, makes every one of these problems worse.

Further, the Democrats pretend that those without health insurance cannot get health care. This is a lie, and they know it. They pretend that taking half a trillion dollars out of Medicare will improve it — another flagrant obvious lie. They pretend that dumping extra costs on the states is the same as reducing costs.

And that's before all the horse trading, diddling, extortion, and outright bribery conducted by Harry Reid (in back rooms excluding all Republicans and nearly all Democrats) to get the votes to pass this sack of (probably) unconstitutional crap. As a result, a small number of states will have their increased costs covered by the federal government. That means Harry Reid has arranged for the rest of us to pay all the increased costs for the states whose senators he needed to buy off as well as for our own. Among other things, that's a clear admission that the cost curve is about to be bent up, not down. And that they know it.

It also appears much of the bill is still in "conceptual language" rather than "legislative language". That means senators cannot actually determine what they are being asked to vote on. They're being asked to trust Dirty Harry Reid to fill that in later.

All of which says Daryl Cagle is right in his representation of the difference between the health plan and the health bill.
The whole thing is a fraud. And those pushing it know it is entirely fraudulent.

Democrats' Profligate Spending

The country is tightening its belt. There is 10% unemployment, and no inflation. Yet the Senate today joined the House — or perhaps I should say (more accurately) the Democrats in both bodies — in passing an omnibus spending bill that will cost us $1.1 trillion, and giving the agencies covered an average 10% budget increase.

The disconnect between the people of America and the leftist elites asserting their right to rule us is HUGE.

Harry Reid's Hate Speech

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made his statement on the floor of the Senate, so I suppose he has some degree of limited immunity. But if he says, or has said, similar things elsewhere, he should be arrested for hate speech.

What did he say? Reid Compares Opponents of Health Care Reform to Supporters of Slavery "Reid argued that Republicans are using the same stalling tactics employed in the pre-Civil War era." Reid is also quoted as saying "When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."

In other words, he condemned opponents of his bill as being like the kind of Democrats we should have left behind long ago — the kind of Democrats who maintained slavery, the Democrats who pushed secession in the face of the anti-slavery views of the first Republican president (the president who ended slavery), the Democrats who later thwarted desegregation efforts for decades, the Democrats who opposed anti-lynching laws, and the majority of Democrats who voted against the civil rights acts. The kind of Democrat like Harry Reid.

That really is offensive projection. Apparently Harry Reid thinks we should be as bigoted and ignorant as he is. And he is deploying his offensive rhetoric in support of a massive disaster of a bill (much of which he continues to hide, even from his second-in-command) that is opposed by more than 60% of the people Senators and Congressmen are supposed to represent.

I think the Democrats, and especially their current (mis-)leaders, would do better to accept the racist history of the party and learn from it — and clean up their own act — rather than continuing to lie about it and impugn others for the past actions of their own party.

The Official Response to Climategate

No comment is needed.

... if you show me yours

Barack and Michelle Obama held their first state dinner — and had their first state dinner gatecrashers. The next day's coverage said "It was not clear Wednesday night how close the Salahis [Michaele and Tareq Salahi] got to Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, or to the guests of honor, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, and his wife, Gursharan Kaur." But later the same day, pictures appeared (e.g., here & here) showing Michaele with Vice President Joe Biden. By Friday, the White House released a photo showing the couple with President Obama and Prime Minister Singh.

The White House released this photo of President Obama as he greets Michaele and Tareq Salahi in the Blue Room of the White House before the State Dinner with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, left, of India, on Tuesday.
By Samantha Appleton, AFP/Getty Images

All of which is really just to show my favorite version of that picture (below) isn't a photoshop invented out of nothing.
Only the conversation is invented. Maybe.