Category Archives: Politics

What, not even a kiss?

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by the Night Writer

Lipstick on a pig - smaller

Mitch made a reference to “this year’s model”, which reminded me of Elvis Costello’s “I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea”, which reminded me of how little I expect of a British-style health system.

Capital punishment, she’s this year model –
They call her Natasha when she looks like Elsie
I don’t want to go to Chelsea

Oh no it does not move me
Even though I’ve seen the movie
I don’t want to check your pulse
I don’t want nobody else
I don’t want to go to Chelsea

Everybody’s got new orders
Be a nice girl and kiss the warders
Now the teacher is away
All the kids begin to play

Men come screaming, dressed in white coats
Shake you very gently by the throat
One’s named Gus, one’s named Alfie
I don’t want to go to Chelsea

Oh no it does not move me
Even though I’ve seen the movie
I don’t want to check your pulse
I don’t want nobody else
I don’t want to go to Chelsea

Oh, yummy

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by the Night Writer

Debate Comes Down to Public Option

I know that people’s thoughts are beginning to turn toward the Thanksgiving table and that there is a temptation to refer to this healthcare bill as a “turkey.” Debating the public option is a stupefying misdirection. The idea that this reform can be made acceptable by simply eliminating the public option is disingenous and dangerous. This legislation is ptomaine with or without the public option.

Removing the public option from the healthcare “reform” bill is the equivalent of removing a fetid piece of lettuce from a crap sandwich.

And then telling us the crap sandwich is yams.

At least Mary Landrieu got some Cool Whip.

Dangerous folly

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offered by Night Writer

from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison:

“Folly is a more dangerous enemy to the good than evil. One can protest against evil; it can be unmasked and, if need be, prevented by force. Evil always carries the seeds of its own destruction, as it makes people, at the least, uncomfortable. Against folly we have no defence. Neither protests nor force can touch it; reasoning is no use; facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved — indeed, the fool can counter by criticizing them, and if they are undeniable, they can just be pushed aside as trivial exceptions. So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self-satisfied; in fact, he can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make him aggressive. A fool must therefore be treated much more cautiously than a scoundrel; we shall never again try to convince a fool by reason, for it is both useless and dangerous.

…we shall never again try to convince a fool by reason, for it is both useless and dangerous.

“If we are to deal adequately with folly, we must try to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is a moral rather than an intellectual defect. There are people who are mentally agile but foolish, and people who are mentally slow but very far from foolish — a discovery that we make to our surprise as a result of particular situations. We thus get the impression that folly is likely to be not a congenital defect, but one that is acquired in certain circumstances where people make fools of themselves or allow others to make fools of them. We notice further that this defect is less common in the unsociable and solitary than in individuals or groups that are inclined or condemned to sociability. It seems, then, that folly is a sociological rather than a psychological problem, and that it is a special form of the operation of historical circumstances on people, a psychological by-product of definite external factors. If we look more closely, we see that any violent display of power, whether political or religious, produces an outburst of folly in a large part of humanity; indeed this seems actually to be a psychological and sociological law: the power of some needs the folly of others.

One feels in fact, when talking to him, that one is dealing, not with the man himself, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like, which have taken hold of him.

“The upsurge of power makes such an overwhelming impression that people are deprived of their independent judgment, and — more or less unconsciously — give up trying to assess a new state of affairs for themselves. The fact that the fool is often stubborn must not mislead us into thinking that he is independent. One feels in fact, when talking to him, that one is dealing, not with the man himself, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like, which have taken hold of him. He is under the spell, he is blinded, his very nature is being misused and exploited. Having thus become a passive instrument, the fool will be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that is is evil. Here lies the danger of a diabolical exploitation that can do irreparable damage to human beings.”

*****

The above was written in late 1943 or early ’44 when Bonhoeffer was imprisoned by the Nazis, prior to his execution. There’s no real reason to run it again today. No reason at all. (HT to Mr. D for the last two links.)

Mrs. Worley, et al. Goes to Washington

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By Reverend Mother

Last night at approximately 10:30 Mall Diva, Tiger Lilly, Princess Flickerfeather and a good friend of the family, whom we will call Mrs. Lotti, left So. St. Paul headed for Washington. Monday evening Faith heard a radio interview in which Michele Bachmann urged citizens to gather a group and be at the National Mall Thursday noon for a rally to protest health care “reform” and then visit their congressmen to make their wishes known concerning the upcoming vote. Faith rose to the challenge by gathering her usual suspects, plus one, and driving off into the night. They will arrive in Waynesboro, PA tonight, crash at the house of a cousin and head for DC in the morning. Nightwriter has urged them to speak truth to indifference. They left their guns at home.

UPDATE:
Just received a text message from the (National) Mall Diva: “We’re going into the Capitol!” (Thursday, 1 p.m. CST).

I wonder if she got the pitchfork through the metal detector?

NW

UPDATE UPDATE
I texted the Mall Diva to see how things went at the Capitol and whether I needed to send “lawyers, guns and money.” Her text reply:

Send lawyers, guns, money and men in white coats! These politicians are crazy! But I got my pic taken with Michele Bachmann!

Story here.

Which headline is from The Onion?

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by the Night Writer

Obama: Health Care Plan Would Give Seniors Right To Choose How They Are Killed

Obama humbled to win Nobel

Ok, the second one is obviously the fake. “Humble” is never used in reference to our president.

We should have seen this coming; after all, he closed Gitmo, got us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, has suceeded in getting Iran and North Korea to play nice and his policies have led to unprecedented domestic peace and harmony. So yeah, give him the Nobel Peace Prize.

In a related development, it’s another big garage sale weekend in my neighborhood. I’m going to see if I can’t get one of those Nobel prizes for myself.

Doctor, Doctor, give me the news

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by the Night Writer

Congressional and other townhall defenders of the nationalized healthcare proposals — collectively lumped as “Obamacare” — are quick to deny that rationing of healthcare is intrinsic in the proposals, or that the old and the very young are at risk from a sliding scale prioritizing who receives care. While no politician is likely to put his or her name on such a specific plan, in practice the implementation of such a bill will be up to the political appointees and advisors who will create the regulations that set the directives and protocols. People such as Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget, member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research and brother of WH Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

In an opinion piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, Betsy McCaughey describes Dr. Emanuel as President Obama’s Health Rationer-in-Chief and, rather than putting words into the good doctor’s mouth, uses his own copious writings (with citations) to demonstrate his disdain for the bothersome Hippocratic Oath and his stated views on properly prioritizing care for those of most use to the “polity”:

True reform, he argues, must include redefining doctors’ ethical obligations. In the June 18, 2008, issue of JAMA, Dr. Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the “overuse” of medical care: “Medical school education and post graduate education emphasize thoroughness,” he writes. “This culture is further reinforced by a unique understanding of professional obligations, specifically the Hippocratic Oath’s admonition to ‘use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment’ as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of cost or effect on others.”

… the focus cannot be only on the worth of the individual. He proposes adding the communitarian perspective to ensure that medical resources will be allocated in a way that keeps society going: “Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity—those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations—are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Covering services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic, and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.” (Hastings Center Report, November-December, 1996)

So, “Citizen”, as long as you are lucid, or still have a chance to contribute, you’ve got a chance. Start drooling, however, and the tax dollars you’ve paid in over the years might get your sheets changed on a regular basis. (Say, I wonder if one’s active – but politically incorrect – participation in public deliberations could be judged by government experts as a form of dementia?) But never fear, Dr. Emanuel wants to save the maximum number of lives, as long as they’re the right lives…

In the Lancet, Jan. 31, 2009, Dr. Emanuel and co-authors presented a “complete lives system” for the allocation of very scarce resources, such as kidneys, vaccines, dialysis machines, intensive care beds, and others. “One maximizing strategy involves saving the most individual lives, and it has motivated policies on allocation of influenza vaccines and responses to bioterrorism. . . . Other things being equal, we should always save five lives rather than one.

“However, other things are rarely equal—whether to save one 20-year-old, who might live another 60 years, if saved, or three 70-year-olds, who could only live for another 10 years each—is unclear.” In fact, Dr. Emanuel makes a clear choice: “When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get changes that are attenuated …

Dr. Emanuel concedes that his plan appears to discriminate against older people, but he explains: “Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination. . . . Treating 65 year olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not.”

The youngest are also put at the back of the line: “Adolescents have received substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants, by contrast, have not yet received these investments. . . .

Oh those poor, under-capitalized infants. Actually, that reminds me of a case in Great Britain I once wrote about: Charlotte’s Web: When the State Decides if Your Baby Shall Live or Die.

Of course, the “20-year-old that might live another 60 years” would then be 80-years-old, assuming he didn’t lose his ability to participate in public discourse when he was 70 and the national health service didn’t decide to write-off it’s “investment” at that point. And let’s not overlook this contribution to the public discourse from Dr. Emanuel:

Dr. Emanuel’s assessment of American medical care is summed up in a Nov. 23, 2008, Washington Post op-ed he co-authored: “The United States is No. 1 in only one sense: the amount we shell out for health care. We have the most expensive system in the world per capita, but we lag behind many developed nations on virtually every health statistic you can name.”

This is untrue, though sadly it’s parroted at town-hall meetings across the country. Moreover, it’s an odd factual error coming from an oncologist. According to an August 2009 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research, patients diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. have a better chance of surviving the disease than anywhere else. The World Health Organization also rates the U.S. No. 1 out of 191 countries for responsiveness to the needs and choices of the individual patient. That attention to the individual is imperiled by Dr. Emanuel’s views.

There’s a lot more so read the whole thing, especially if you want to have the direct quotes and citations handy.

HT: Amy Ridenour’s National Center blog.

I wish we could all be “so Mayo”

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by the Night Writer

Tuesday I spent a chunk of the day down in Rochester at the Mayo Clinic (actually, St. Mary’s Hospital, part of the Mayo complex) while my father’s brother was undergoing an aortic-valve replacement, the same operation my father had in 2005.

It was my first visit to the Mayo campus and the time spent waiting with my aunt and cousins for word on the results of the operation allowed me to ruminate on being in one of the foremost medical centers in the world, the current debate on healthcare “reform” and, of course, on family ties.

One, I’ve never been in a hospital as pleasant as Mayo-St. Mary’s, at least in the parts where I went. The halls were quiet, the waiting room was comfortable, we even had free wi-fi … and nowhere did I encounter that institutional, disinfectant smell that had been such a part of my life a couple of years ago. Even parking was easy; I pulled into an underground lot in front of the hospital, took the elevator to the lobby and a second elevator to the fifth floor and walked to the family waiting room as easily as going to my office. Actually, it was even easier because I didn’t have to go through two security doors, nor did I dodge gurneys and masked orderlies in the halls, or have to work my way around the vortex of a nurses station as I commonly did when my father had his valve replacement or later when he was fighting lymphoma. He had had great care from one of the top guys in the business with his heart surgery at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, but we were never entirely confident that he was getting the best or most appropriate treatment with his cancer, first at the regional hospital and later in St. Louis. Now, however, I was at the Mayo and my uncle was getting first class care in a setting where we were being treated as customers, almost as if my uncle was someone rich and important like the sheiks that fly into Rochester and the Mayo for their care.

My uncle is important to us, but maybe not so much to the rest of the world, however. He’s a retired rural mail carrier and, hence, a retired federal employee so he has great insurance that apparently covers him traveling 550 miles to get his surgery at the Mayo. Even though he’s well into his 70s and had triple-bypass surgery several years ago after a heart-attack, he didn’t have to go in front of a review board to determine if his quality of life was justified.

To tell you the truth, I have strong but mixed emotions about the healthcare debate that is raging in the U.S. right now (as regular readers already know). I believe very strongly that our current system desperately needs reform, but I believe even more strongly that the plans that are being proposed – in one form of single-payer, nationalized health insurance or another – is the exact opposite way that we should be going. I feel that the chances are good that this will be turned away (this time, anyway) but I’m discouraged that the result will be status quo, which is still unacceptable, and that there will be no stomach left for the good fight to bring about real, market-based reform. Neither the current system or “Obamacare” would affect my uncle: his union and federal coverage would likely still be affect under “Obamacare”, just as it is now. Whether I and other non-federal, non-union folks should be so fortunate is another matter that’s part of the debate.

As I sat with this part of my extended family there was talk of the “Stewart Curse”: my grandfather had died after a series of heart attacks, my father’s oldest brother had died of a heart attack, both of his other brothers had had heart attacks, and there were now two valve replacements in the family history. In addition, my younger brother will need a similar operation, likely in the next two years, and one of my cousins has already had two stents put in. I’m not too concerned for myself, as the risk factors aren’t present in me: my blood pressure is low, my “bad” cholesterol is very low and my “good” cholesterol is, well, “good” and we know my valves are in fine shape, thanks to a little scare a few years back that turned out to be nothing (except a confirmation of market principles). I do have a bit of stress in my life, but I also have resources for dealing with this.

It should be noted that the Mayo is doing very well under the present system, but it is a credible (if so far largely ignored by the administration) voice for reforming this system. In fact, they have long-since used their experience to make a series of proposals on how to go about doing this, including bringing the market incentives back into the insurance equation — not as a way to increase profits, but to improve healthy outcomes. Right now the only way a health plan or a hospital can improve its bottom line is to “save” money by denying care; a nationalized program would further degrade the system into a lowest-common-denominator approach that rations care. In a fair system, such as the Mayo advocates, where insurers and providers compete for the public’s dollars and confidence (the real “public option” in my opinion) there are rewards for innovation, successful outcomes and a culture of excellence. I hope we all live to see it.

(P.S. My uncle came through his surgery in fine fashion, complete with a new aortic valve that is an advanced hybrid that wasn’t available just four years ago when my father had his surgery. Let’s hear it for progress and innovation — and great skill!)

Come, let us reason together

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by the Night Writer

A new commenter here claimed to be greatly amused by last week’s reprise of the “I don’t want to go on the cart” post I originally did a couple of years ago, where I used the classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail “I’m not dead” scene in juxtaposition with an actual case in Great Britain where an appeals court ruled that British doctors could starve and dehydrate an incapacitated patient to death even if it was expressly against his wishes.

At least, I think the commenter, Rick Claussen, was amused:

Rick Claussen
Aug 10th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
I simply LOVE it that the health care reform fear-mongers are resorting to using Monty-Python sketches to promote their anti-Obama agenda. Keep it coming, I haven’t laughed so hard in days!

Since Rick seemed to have missed a couple of important details in my original post, I helped him out:

The Night Writer
Aug 10th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Anti-Obama? I know, Rick, that you were laughing so hard that the tears in your eyes made it difficult to see that this post was originally written in 2005 … well before Pres. Obama came to office. This may also have affected your comprehension, since the news story at the heart of the post described an actual case in Great Britain where the appeals courts and the British General Medical Council held that British doctors could withhold food and water from a man losing his ability to communicate, despite his stated wishes that he not be allowed to starve to death.

Or perhaps you just assumed that this story was a myth or an outrageous lie? You see, we don’t have to make up scary scenarios about a proposed, untried healthcare concept; there’s plenty of evidence out there already that government rationing of early-life and end-of-life care is implicit in, and a natural outcome of, socialized medicine.

Well, let’s not let anything like, you know, facts get in the way of a good time:

Rick Claussen
Aug 10th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
You should read David Icke’s books, he and you would likely agree on a great many things.
Referring to something government based as a “natural outcome”, when in fact it would be a “man-made” outcome, is mixing metaphors well past the point of humor or absurdity.

Just because you know how to insert bold type into an article doesn’t make it any more believable that we will soon be living in a “Logan’s Run” society.

Tell the lizards in the parallel dimension of the matrix that I said “Hi!”

Well, obviously, I needed a bigger clue bat.

The Night Writer
Aug 11th, 2009 at 12:09 am
I’ve never heard of David Ickes but I have read Alfred Jay Nock, Adam Smith, George Orwell, Thomas Jefferson and, oh yeah, PJ O’Rourke who wrote, “If you think healthcare is expensive now, just wait until it is free.” Neither the current U.S. model, or the “universal/single-payer/socialized/unicorn-coalition/whatever-it’s-called-this-year” model is economically sustainable. This latest so-called reform does not solve anything, it will only pancake the whole system, including itself.

The core of the issue isn’t really healthcare, or economics, however. They are merely the latest front in the age-old struggle for individual liberty against the just-as-human desire for a few to control the many under the guise of “helping”. Jefferson often noted that liberty decreases as government increases, but I don’t need historical references to great men; simple folk wisdom is sufficient: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” When the government gets ultimate power to decide who gets what – whether healthcare or food or whatever – it gets the power to decide which individuals or groups will live and which will die. It happens all the time and is still happening all around the world today. You may be comfortable that the present, oh-so-transparent administration would never abuse it’s authority, but what about the next one (or the last one)? Does not the teensiest red flag start to wave somewhere in your mind as you ponder this?

You know, Thomas Jefferson also said, “Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.” The current national debate seems to be focused on rail-roading reason before it can even get out of bed. But for you and me, Rick, let us reason together. I’ve outlined what I believe to be a moral foundation for resisting this power-grab; now you tell me why you think it is such a good idea and why everyone should just fall in line. What are the principles dear to you, the truths you hold to be self-evident, or do you just have a pocketful of snark? If it’s only the latter I fear this conversation will merely be another classic Monty Python sketch: “The Argument Clinic.”

While we wait for Rick to respond I thought I would further illuminate the Jefferson quote — “Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it” — in terms of the current healthcare debate. A reasonable thing to do in any argument is to offer a counter-proposal. While I think our present system has distinct flaws, especially in the third-party payer area, there’s no denying the breakthroughs and creativity it has produced saves and improves lives. It even makes it possible to extend lives beyond what is comfortable for the patient, but at least in America it is up to the patient to decide how far to go. Here the patient is put in the position of saying to his or her doctor, “Please, I want to die”, not “Please, I want to live, don’t kill me.” If we leave that kind of decision with the patients, why can’t we also give them the authority to pick and choose their health insurance and healthcare and let the power of the marketplace, rather than the government or third-party payers, manage the cost?

What I’m talking about, of course, is going back (pre-World War 2) to a direct pay model where consumers pay for treatment and health insurance and the providers and insurers compete to win their business (something I’ve been saying for years). After all, in every other area of commerce — houses, cars, groceries, technology, what have you — we expect to shop around and find the value that makes the most sense for us, whether it’s by price, convenience or special features that best suit our needs. Why not with something as important as healthcare? What if employers, instead of paying thousands of dollars per employee for health insurance, gave each employee those thousands of dollars in higher wages and said “buy your own insurance.” Most would likely find their way to a high-deductible, major-medical plan coupled with a tax-deferred Health Savings Account (HSA) to save money for out-of-pocket expenses. If there’s any government layer of coverage at all, let it be only for wellness care such as physicals, health screenings and relatively minor trauma and care that encourages prevention, not for catastrophic care that encourages going without coverage and throwing yourself into the government’s hands in emergencies.

If you have to pay the first couple of thousand dollars yourself out of pocket do you think you might be more inclined to shop around for the best price for, say, cardiology? Do you think doctors and clinics might be anxious to offer pricing and services to attract you? (Especially if a health dose of tort reform is included in the healthcare reform, but that’s for another post). Similarly, if you had the freedom to pick and choose the insurance benefits you wanted, instead of what the government says you need, don’t you think the health insurance companies would compete for your business? Can you imagine watching television and having geckos, animated special agents and Flo saying “pick me!” instead of “take it or leave it”, just as they do in competing for your auto insurance business?

I think that sounds pretty reasonable.

I admit it, I’m a collaborator

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by the Night Writer

The recent thuggery and slapfests at townhall meetings across the country as union goons and Democrat party activists literally attack people speaking out against Obamacare put me in mind of a certain classic Norman Rockwell painting.  I contacted the Lumberjack, he of the mad PhotoShop skillz, with an idea. He delivered beautifully:

1slaprockwellwiththugs-sm

Go to Are We Lumberjacks for more details and to see a larger version of the image.

Too clever by half: Riches for Ramblers

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by the Night Writer

If you were to apply the same thinking to “stimulate” the housing market that the administration is using in the “Cash for Clunkers” program you’d have the government giving you a discount on a high-density urban condo in exchange for your suburban rambler — and then burning down the rambler.  (I know, I know…don’t give them any ideas!)

What would that do the housing stock, both the availability and cost of older homes that people could buy and on the rental market?

There are similar inefficiencies and hidden costs in the car version of this boondoggle. Aside from the fact that this government giveaway has all the lasting effect of revving the economic engine by squirting alcohol into the carburetor (or trying to heat your house by burning dollar bills in the fireplace), the program destroys the traded-in cars, taking perfectly good and serviceable vehicles out of circulation.  The kind of cars that, say, young seminary students and others of modest means can afford. It also takes “after-after” market parts out of the economy as well.

Whenever you lower the supply of something you drive up the cost of what is available, meaning that people who need cheap and affordable autos in order to get to work or the next ACORN rally are either shut out or pay a “tax” in the form of higher prices for what they buy.  Yet, somehow, only the wealthy are going to have to pay more in this latest edition of voodoo economics.

Hope and (short) Change, I guess.

Additionally, if you were to carry the “Riches for Ramblers” analogy further you might surmise that people would be trading in their ramblers for condos in Tokyo or Osaka. Looking at the list of the top 10 cars purchased so far in the CfC program we see the following:

  1. Ford Focus
  2. Toyota Corolla
  3. Honda Civic
  4. Toyota Prius
  5. Toyota Camry
  6. Ford Escape
  7. Hyundai Elantra
  8. Dodge Caliber
  9. Honda Fit
  10. Chevy Cobalt

Nice to see Ford (the only U.S. automaker that didn’t take bail-out money) number one and with two cars in the top 10, while Japanese cars (and one Korean model) dominate the list save for a lone representative each for Government Motors and Chiseler, I mean, Chrysler.